Adventuring Tropes and PCs (part II)

Here is an example of a trope (storytelling devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations.) that I used in my own game. 

 One of my players Chirs is playing an mojh magister named who is missing 2 days from his life after a undersea race decimated the eastern naval fleet of the diamond throne, when he came to the undersea race had stopped attacking and were asking to meet with reprentatives of the throne including Chis's character at a newly discovered city called Io-Delethon (a city that may have been part of the old giantish empire. In my current game each of the player characters has a secret event he player does not know about, that has been added to the Jigsaw Puzzle Plot of the campaign Myth Arc.

 One bit of Myth Arc you will need to know is that every PC is unstuck in time, this explains where a PC goes when the player is not there, and why PCs suddenly appear when  a PC arrives at a game late.  He is moving forward in time to an unknown destination, but always returns near other PCs.

In the case of Chis's character I have set up an Either Or Prophecy that sets him up as either The Chosen One or The Anti Messiah

the PCs choices will be what decides the outcome, as I have added a number of destiny specials that go along with the chosen one, marking him in a number of special ways as the messiah-like character.   The Name he goes by in the game is "The Scion of Dusk and Dawn"  with a nice little rune of either a rising or setting sun, with what is either the morning or the evening star.  With a number of intelligent sea chreatures recognizing him by this name, and passiing on a special talisman of Dusk. 

I set up a vague prophecy that has outcomes that are both vague as to weather they are good or bad based on your point of view.   If you read it from the charaters point of view or the undersea races point of view it makes a vast differance on which outcome is prefered.

In this way it becomes an outline for the future without being a railroading script, he can still go far afield from the outline but its alot easier to put something that is part of the outline out in front of him and still maintain the illusion of choice.   

I have taken a bit of this idea from the second chronicles of Thomas Covenant, where you hand somone emmense power but with an immense lack of control

which reminds me I need to start adding in the Wild magic stuff I wanted :0