Fairy tale inspired NPC's and encounters

[moonfly7]

For my new campaign I'm taking heavy inspiration from well known, and not so well known, fairy tales. Obviously I'm twisting and changing them to make them fun and different, and I could use some suggestions. Here's what I have so far:
The Queen of a massive country that utilizes undead and dark magic, most people believe that she killed her step-son Winter Pale after her husband died so that she could rule the kingdom. The kingdom has actually done fairly well after she implemented her undead armies and labor forces, and those whose family members serve after death are very well compensated.
She maintains her rule through her masterful diplomacy and her liberal use of a personal assassin called "The Huntsman". After he kills one of her enemies, the queen has the Huntsman bring her there heart, which she uses to increase her powers.
Unbeknownst to my players, who might try to stage a coup to avenge and/or find the step son, The Huntsman IS Winter Pale(in a, in my humble opinion, awesome twist on the snow White story) and he is and always has been a loyal follower of his stepmother, who faked having him killed to put a strong monarch on the throne, and let him be trained into a warrior of exceptional talent.(the Huntsman will probably be sicked on the party at least once and might make for some awesome combats)
The other idea I have finished is this one:
Redmond Hood, a young knight(using the knight stat block in the monster manual) who is being stalked by a strange monster. Twice it invaded his families home, so his father sent him to his grandfather, a man well versed in monsters and magic, to get knowledge of the threat.
My plan is for him to run into the party and ask them to guide him to his grandfather for he fears his strength alone is no match for this beast. The creature will come at night, and sleep right outside of Redmonds tent. If they investigate they'll find that the creature is actually a werewolf, a longlived female one that's calling in am ancient promise of marriage, and has been following Redmond to scare away rivals, believing him to he aware of the arrangement. That one could end in them just killing her, killing her after hearing her story, convincing Redmond she's chill, or tying him up, handing him over, and saying goodbye.

[Matuka]

For my new campaign I'm taking heavy inspiration from well known, and not so well known, fairy tales. Obviously I'm twisting and changing them to make them fun and different, and I could use some suggestions. Here's what I have so far:
The Queen of a massive country that utilizes undead and dark magic, most people believe that she killed her step-son Winter Pale after her husband died so that she could rule the kingdom. The kingdom has actually done fairly well after she implemented her undead armies and labor forces, and those whose family members serve after death are very well compensated.
She maintains her rule through her masterful diplomacy and her liberal use of a personal assassin called "The Huntsman". After he kills one of her enemies, the queen has the Huntsman bring her there heart, which she uses to increase her powers.
Unbeknownst to my players, who might try to stage a coup to avenge and/or find the step son, The Huntsman IS Winter Pale(in a, in my humble opinion, awesome twist on the snow White story) and he is and always has been a loyal follower of his stepmother, who faked having him killed to put a strong monarch on the throne, and let him be trained into a warrior of exceptional talent.(the Huntsman will probably be sicked on the party at least once and might make for some awesome combats)
The other idea I have finished is this one:
Redmond Hood, a young knight(using the knight stat block in the monster manual) who is being stalked by a strange monster. Twice it invaded his families home, so his father sent him to his grandfather, a man well versed in monsters and magic, to get knowledge of the threat.
My plan is for him to run into the party and ask them to guide him to his grandfather for he fears his strength alone is no match for this beast. The creature will come at night, and sleep right outside of Redmonds tent. If they investigate they'll find that the creature is actually a werewolf, a longlived female one that's calling in am ancient promise of marriage, and has been following Redmond to scare away rivals, believing him to he aware of the arrangement. That one could end in them just killing her, killing her after hearing her story, convincing Redmond she's chill, or tying him up, handing him over, and saying goodbye.

Do they have to be old fairy tales or can they be more recent? Cause if the later, I think I have an idea.

[moonfly7]

Do they have to be old fairy tales or can they be more recent? Cause if the later, I think I have an idea.

recent is fine.

[Matuka]

recent is fine.

I was think something based off of Mark Twains book "The Mysterious stranger" it's about (#spoilers) three kids who encounter a fourth child. The child claims to be an angel with a name that I'm not sure if I can say it here. As they play together, the children are disturbed by the "child's" feelings toward humanity and his tiny and insignificant they are as he casually torments some living clay dolls that they made as an example. The angel explains that, "I can do no wrong, for I do not know what it is." I'm not sure what happens aftrr, since I only saw the short claymation adaptation and a brief summary of the story, but even with just that. That is great inspiration.

[Krowmeat]

Not exactly lore-heavy, but if you're looking for like a quick character to add in you could make throw in a fossegrim. I ran into it while I was trying to do a similar thing based off of Scandinavian folklore. Short of it is just that there's a benign river spirit you can occasionally run into fiddling by himself, if you offer him a gift or similar he'll teach you how to play or bestow a gift Good fit for a tabletop campaign, especially if the system has some sort of bard class it can interact with

That being said, there's a whole cluster of fairy tales having to do with rivers. Kelpies would probably be the most well known and best fit for a random encounter.

If you're planning to have the players interact with the undead, a church grim is more or less popular in the modern day. They're dogs tasked with protecting graveyards and churches and understandably would be very conflicted about the maintenance of an undead army.