GENERICA - [RMVX..?]

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I appreciate you thinking up this whole sypnosis here, but I'm frankly just jarred that this is so completely different than everything we've already established about the game. What REALLY bothers me, honestly, is how derivative the whole thing is. No offense, but this seems to rob the plot premise of most of what made it unique and compelling. This feels more like generic fantasy stock. Which is appropriate for the title, but this touches on way too many of my pet peeves about most RPGs.

I'll welcome a second opinion on this, though.

I could be considered biased because I was REALLY attached to what we had going before this. I liked the blank slate characters. I liked the idea of developing them your own way and having them be an avatar for your decisions as opposed to being character based.

I don't mind if the villain is Human, infact I was leaning toward that already, but I REALLY don't want to have a bigger villain in the background. I don't want their to be a focus on defeating or challenging the ultimate evil with the leader of this game being merely a stepping stone. What I really wanted addressed was the MOTIVE of the villain. He could maybe have tried to exploit demonic forces in order to gain super-human abilities, but I'd like to focus to be on HIM and what he is trying to accomplish as a villain.

What I have been imagining at this point, is that the villain has control issues.

Most of what appealed to me about the bleak setting was this was after the fact of the apocalypse, as opposed to having a focus on preventing it. Having the bleakness be on account of the incidental wars and famine seems much less powerful. "The End is Coming" doesn't strike me as interesting as "The End is already here. Why should we go on?"

The plot here suggests a much more lenier game. Which is conceivable,

The cast you've suggested, while not bad, strike me as entirely derivative. I've seen these kinds of characters used in various fantasy media and thus they really don't stand out for me. They could be switched out with any other archetype and I wouldn't feel any more or less attached. I'll cite some equivilants.


Pellehan sounds EXACTLY Ike from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, but with Breath of Fire style 'Freakout' dragon sequences. I'm also reminded of McDohl from Suikoden. If the character were more self-confident and capable, I would compare him to Magnus from Ogre Battle 64.

Gwaelin Sounds EXACTLY like Kid from Chrono Cross, only with a father involved. I'm also reminded of Aika from Skies of Arcadia, and while I haven't played more than the demon of DQVIII, I'm getting a strong Jessica Albert vibe here.

Verin sounds EXACTLY like Aloutte from La Pucelle Tactics. I'll admit that this archetype is less typical in the games I've played, but feels very common in school-themed anime.

Hunt sounds EXACTLY like Khimari from FFX. Also typical of many tribal and noble beast characters.


I don't care for having visions as a driving force in the game, mainly because it's been done to death.

Having the villain be a former faerie deity is interesting, but going with that train of thought will have massive influence on his character motives. The main one appearing to be the theme of religion here.

I don't know if Religion is a theme we want to explore, as I have the sensation that the two of us have conflicting views on the topic. Ideally, that would allow us to come up with balanced observations in-game, but more likely would just result in some unhelpful arguments. I get the impression that you'd like to take a stab at the misteps and misdeeds of Christianity. Which is fair criticism, but if I were to include a theme of religion in a game, I'd want to really address the significance of belief and the difference between being religious and actually being spiritual. Which you may or may not be comfortable with.

The main theme I wanted to really get in this game was about hope: Being able to pick yourself up in spite of whatever life throws at you and pushing forward. This is part of why such a bleak setting appeals to me. I've met a lot of people in life who give up on life completely even when they still have a chance of pressing forward.

Trechery seems like a really minor theme in this outline, since it appears entirely centered on Pellehan and Gwaelen's relationships with their parents.

WIP
I'm not comfortable with any idea that can't be expressed in the form of men's jewelry
11363
I kinda share Mewd's view as well. I really liked the premise of it being after the apocalypse.

However, the Fisher King is a fairly neat name.
Idea for a plot point:

The visions are left in. The main character constantly receives dreams from some sort of anonymous entity, which apparently knows more than it's saying and also apparently knows how to defeat the villain, who has by now, using some dark force, transformed the world into a wasteland. These dreams give he/she and his party various clues about where to go next, where help might be found, where mystical treasure lies, etc.

Later on in the game, however, there can be an optional sidequest that only becomes available if almost everything else is completed--all the secret items found, all the tools obtained, etc. Completing this sidequest nets you the Big Reveal--the being sending you these messages the entire time was actually the villain himself, who has by now lost control over the dark powers he was wielding previously. Now that he's single-handedly corrupted the entire world, there is nothing left to rule, and the demonic entity that he summoned is slowly encroaching on his soul day after day, making his life a living hell. His only chance of salvation is to die at the hands of someone with a righteous spirit, freeing his soul and banishing the Dark Force from the world forever (or at least until it is summoned again). So he has been spending whatever power he has left on communicating with the main character in secret, giving him advice and making him ready so that when the party reaches him, they will be able to kill him successfully. When the party fights against him at the end of the game, the Dark Force possesses his body completely, accusing him of "not handling things properly"; unless you complete this sidequest, you don't actually realize what the Dark Force is actually referring to.

This idea is a bit convoluted, but I think it's interesting, at least. Also, would the Lord of the Vipers be a good idea for the main villain? That's all for now, really.

One more thing--if the characters are primarily blank slate, how can the game be about "hope", as Mewd calls it? How can you show the effects of hope and despair on characters that are only vaguely defined throughout the storyline? Just a thought.
I know I've never posted in this topic or in any Generica topic ever, but hey, whatever!

Anyway, in defense of the characters kentona has made, if you look hard enough you will always find a character that is at the very least similar to one you've made.

Now I'm not saying that's an excuse for using typical character personalities or for sloppy character design in general, but kentona's characters, while a fairly common bunch, would work fine in a standard RPG. All four are certainly different enough and would synergize well together. Having said that, I don't know all that much about Generica, so I don't really know what your expectations are.
WIP
I'm not comfortable with any idea that can't be expressed in the form of men's jewelry
11363
I don't care so much about having predefined characters. I'm okay with them.
Having the main cast as blank slates was mainly to put the player in charge of their situation. When the project started there was a push more for an open ended game world, and when you have characters that are driven by their own motives than you wind up with a more leniar game structure. I'm really surprised by this change of heart about pre-defined characters.

I feel that the game can still manage to be about hope, although that can be overshadowed if you're playing as a selfish character. What I was insisting before was that we'd really need an excellent supporting cast to bring character and personality to the game. Your interactions in the game world would effect the lives of those suffering and inspire hope in a world ruled by a defeatism.

The game, as I saw it, wasn't really about the heroes. It was about everyone. The party just represented you, and you were just part of this world along with all its problems.

Karusaman: You're right in calling me about the fact that there will ALWAYS be similar characters out there. Mind that I made of point of saying they weren't BAD, but this is just really hard for me to swallow when I had such a dramatically different understanding of where we were going with this project. These characters can work well enough, but I'm just not feeling grabbed by them. But that is probably at least partially because my expectations were completely different.

Yamata no Orochi: I like the idea of having the villain goading the heroes along. That's an interesting twist to have, though I'm still not really favoring the ideas of visions as plot momentum or the concept of a third party greater evil. I'm really tired of those devices and would like to see if we can come up with something more inventive.
In my defense, I've never played Fire Emblem, Breath of Fire, Suidoken, Ogre Battle 64, Chrono Cross, DQVIII, La Pucelle Tactics, or FFX. I really have no idea who you are refering to (well, except for Jessica - her tits were all over the place).

The Fisher King is the entity that guides the Knights of the Round Table to the Holy Grail, or at least rumored to be the last one to have it. From wikipedia:

The Fisher King or the Wounded King figures in Arthurian legend as the latest in a line charged with keeping the Holy Grail. Versions of his story vary widely, but he is always wounded in the legs or groin, and incapable of moving on his own. When he is injured, his kingdom suffers as he does, his impotence affecting the fertility of the land and reducing it to a barren Wasteland. Little is left for him to do but fish in the river near his castle Corbenic. Knights travel from many lands to heal the Fisher King but only the chosen can accomplish the feat. This is Percival in the earlier stories; in the later versions Percival is joined by Galahad and Bors.

It was the wasteland part and the whole Holy Grail mystique that made me think of him while I was driving back from the Rob Zombie and Ozzy concert at 1 in the morning.

I quite like yam's twist. And about Greater Evil - there is always a Greater Evil, even if it is just symbolic of some undesirable human trait, like selfishness or apathy. The thing with video games, there has to be something to fight. A villain infused with selfishness is okay, but a villain infused with the Dark Side of the Force makes for better endgame battles.

I also thought the bleak hopelessness, famine, wasteland overrun with sinister beings was pretty apocalyptic - maybe not in the grand FFVI style, but much more human.

But, blank slate it is. Player creates hero at start. But Mewd, I'm needing you to come up with something that really spurs our heroes into action. So far you've offered nothing.

At least I spurred some discussion on this. It was quite stagnant in here...

EDIT:
yam
One more thing--if the characters are primarily blank slate, how can the game be about "hope", as Mewd calls it? How can you show the effects of hope and despair on characters that are only vaguely defined throughout the storyline? Just a thought.
This question occured to me as well, and I tried to address it by making the characters less blank-slate. They have personalities and relationships, but their skillsets and abilities were left pretty much generic.

In games like Dragon Warrior III, blank slate works because there is a classic Save the World Before Destruction hits theme, which people inherently relate to. Impending doom is a good motivator. I have been unsuccessful in coming up with something to replace that, since Impending Doom is off the table.

Still, blank slate is a good draw, and I like that idea. We need something story-related to make it work...
Alright, fair enough. I know I haven't exactly been putting forth any grand ideas to move forward, and this has spurred activity, though I'm still pretty attached to what we had before. But sparking controversy did get me and it looks like the others to actually wake up.

My main concern about the villain is taking the spotlight away from the villain as a character. I don't want the focus to be on releasing some work wrecking terror, because that's been done to death. I am more open to a third party evil being an influence, manipulator or negative human trait that has spun out of control. Mainly I'd just like to make the villain a character with real motives.

The perception of the villain I have been building is sort of like this: He has control issues, while having misguided good intentions he wants to build a Utopia. He uses manipulation, guile, cruelty and excessive force to bring a fascist domination to reality. Psychologically spurred to do this because he does not, or cannot change some problem within himself, he projects that problem onto the world at large and thus puts all his energy into changing the world rather than himself. He succeeds in taking over the world, but that doesn't change his emotional problems and he is not capable of making the world the Utopia he wanted. The world falls into decay and corruption on account of his methods of ruling, but he is not able to bring himself to begin to reverse what he's done. He is emotionally stuck and cannot let go.

Now, my perception of the villain is debatable, and I can definitely see him being a position where he WANTS the hero to defeat him and would goad him forward. A third party villain is capable of being in the background, preferably abstract (such as a negative human trait personified.) Such a third party could give him inhuman powers and have your typical epic final battle. Essentially saying that he has lost himself to these traits/forces even though he wants desperately to undo what he's done.

I just don't want a bigger villain introduced to be unleashed because, typically, demonic forces don't have much in way of personality. They are destroying because that is what they DO. They're innately evil, and I don't find that as interesting as a character who is driven to do something evil for particular reasons. I'm probably just having a knee-jerk reaction to the insistence on a greater evil, because I'm fine with subtle use of them. I just don't want the third party to be the objective of the villain.

I can see your point about motivation for blank slate characters being a problem. I think one issue is that 'survival' is hard to make a selfish act in an RPG. We could add a food-eating system to maintain stamina, but that sort of thing is always frustrating for the player. We can do something like Fallout, where initially the odds are drastically stacked against you to give you a sense of fragility. Ultimately the player WILL feel like

Okay, about actually making a blank slate story VIABLE. I'd like some feedback on some of our options.

Free Roaming Method: We give the player total freedom at the expense of story telling. We can still have very interesting side characters, but no real story momentum. It would mostly be wandering around, taking quests and such with vague long term goals guiding you.

Story Thread Method: There are quest chains that tell stories, and enable you to move forward with the game. You are given a few branching paths to overcome obstacles, lots of optional stuff. The plot momentum offered by the chain-quests doesn't impede your ability to wander off and do random irrelevant stuff. This will take the most work to realize, but also seems the most promising.

Lenier Method: The plot dictates where you're going from one situation to the next. With this, the characters might as well be pre-defined. You get lots of forward plot momentum but little freedom outside of character customization and side quests. This is the easiest way for me to write for a game, but it probably isn't what we want.


Okay, here's a compromise idea I will just throw out here:

We maintain the original introduction of the game, with the massive war being lost, the fake party being defeated and the concentration camp et cetera. (Wow, that sounds really uncompromising on my part)

Okay, instead of the party just escaping, we have the villain be the one who let them out.

Let's say that the villain has managed to magically/psychically produce a projection of himself that is physically frail. This second self represents what little free will he has left after his inner-demons have pretty much taken control of him. He is disguised, but still uses his place of authority to enter the concentration camp and command the guards to let him have run of the place.

He finds out which inmates have shown the strongest resistance to having their wills broken. He commands the guards to go off duty (This isn't shown, it could be assumed by the heroes that he beat the guards or somehow incapacitated them.)

He releases the chosen character(s), whether they be blank slates or pre-defined. He entreats them to help save the world from dying completely, as it is well on its way to oblivion with the scarcity of food, the horrible living conditions and the general decay of the land. He might give them a quest, that seems like a wild goose chase at first, to find the Fisher King or some other object or figure capable of returning life to the world. This becomes a long term goal, but the player is capable of ignoring it if we aren't using a leniar game method.

The villain equips the heroes with weapons and armor appropriate for their archetype classes. There could still be an escape sequence where they fight their way out, assuming the situation gets out of the villain's control.

Okay, the villain can show up again in other areas of the game to lend a hand of guidance to goad them on. Finding the Fisher King is an arduous ordeal, but they do eventually manage to find him.

What follows could be an anti-climax, as the Fisher King would be fiddling his time away like in the Arthurian tale by fishing. The Fisher King cannot do anything to restore life to the world while there is such rampant death and despair in the world. The goal then becomes to kill the villain so that they can halt the suffering enough that the Fisher King can actually do anything to restore life to the world. At this point though, sieging the castle would not seem so much an impossibility. You'll also have helped enough people that a great many of them will be willing to assist you in some way.

Assuming we still have an evil path option, you may have blown off the Fisher King quest entirely and ultimately just decide to attack the castle to take control. But I'm not sure how that change of direction would be led into.

You siege the evil castle, and have the dramatic reveal that the villain is the same person who released you. He is entreating you to wallop him good but can't keep himself from attacking with devastating force.
You overcome him, and we maybe gets some deathbed plot exposition and his gratitude. Life is slowly able to return to normal thanks to you, or the evil simply finds a new host in your characters and you go on ruling in his stead in a like manner.

How does that sound? This is all up for debate.

About blank slate characters: I still sort of feel that we can have a supporting cast that demonstrates all of the themes we want in-game, it will just take lots of world building. Right now I am trying to brainstorm by writing little short stories in the universe of this game world about the inhabitants.

Still, if I can't demonstrate plausibly that I can come up with meaningful side characters, we may be better off going with pre-defined characters. I shouldn't be all talk.

If you like, you could challenge me to come up with a set number of characters to use as supporting cast. If I can't come up with enough characters you deem interesting enough to warrant making up for blank slate protagonists, than I'll concede and we can go with a pre-defined cast. How about that?
I'd like to have a much more fleshed out back history to the villain, the events leading up to his ruling the world, and how he mananaged to do it.

I'm not sure about the actual concentration camp stuff or the metaphysical projection of the villain (if I understood it correctly), but I like everything else about it (the escaping, the quest for the Fisher King or somesuch, the turning-it-around-to-kill-the-king thing, the villain orchatrating it all - very cool).

Maybe our heroes are the offspring of resisters that the villain willing let live in hopes that they would one day rise up and defeat him? I imagine that the villain would have a retinue of powerhungry and ruthless yesmen and nobles that rode his coattails to power, and wouldn't let something like a true resistance group exist (even if the villain wanted that) but the villain may have allowed some small group fester somewhere remote/non-threatening. or something. This is all from the top of my head.

Free roaming is too directionless for me. We aren't making an MMO nor do we have that kind of clout or draw to pull off a successful freeroamer. Story Thread Method is our only real option, even if it is the most time consuming.
Well, what I like about having a concentration camp is that the villain is essentially the turning point in the life of the protagonist. If they are born into the homes of rebels, he really doesn't have much of a direct impact on their lives even if he deliberately allows them to fester. Also having the heroes be remnants from the war give them an excuse to be so well trained and capable. The concentration camp is a hopeless situation, so I find it really appealing as they are given hope because they were the ones who persisted in spite of how futile their situation appeared. That demonstrates the hope theme that I want.

I'm not sure how else we can have the villain orchestrate the path of the heroes. I mean, we can have him pulling the strings afar off in his castle, but that doesn't have a lot of narrative punch. I'd like it if the villain personally interacted with the protagonists. It gives him a chance to be exhibited as a character without distracting cut-aways and also make him ever so slightly sympathetic.

I just find a meta-physical projection more interesting than visions or the use of agents. What are our other options?

I can try to drum up a backstory for the villain here, but I'd really like it first if we could decide on his title. If we are going to make him parallel the Fisher King, it's also possible that we could make them brothers. Perhaps the Fisher King was selected by a father to inherit the powers of life and the villain felt so rejected and jealous that it sent him down the path of his neurosis where he winds up lashing out against the world. Since he can't really lash out against his brother if he is imbued with the powers of life. Making him invulnerable perhaps.

For titles, I'm not certain. The Beast King has a nice ring to it, but 'Beast' might be too general a word.

I considered Hunter King, since that seems more akin to Fisher as a task, but I don't care for the sound of it.

What I am having trouble with is, why is there a concentration camp? This is a medival culture - why aren't they just beheaded or run through? Should they just be in some jail awaiting public execution instead of a camp?

I remember reading a story that included an impenetrable tower where people with a certain spark were imprisoned to be used, drained and experimented upon. Also, magic developed a taint and twisted/mutated those with an inborn spark into ..well... monsters. But much more sinister. It was actually a pretty good twist to learn that these demonic and feral creatures the protaganists faced were actually just regular people with the same inborn spark as the hero (the hero was in the process of devolving into an uncontrolable creature throughout the book and he was terrified but the connection between that and the feral creatures wasn't obvious).

Anywho, maybe our heroes are in some sort of tower waiting death and torture?

EDIT:
Slayer King?
As I've stated before, the idea of the concentration camp existing at all was to break the wills of warriors and turn them to use in the villain's military force. Since this is a fantasy, I think we can get away with this as a anachronism. It's, in essence, the same idea as the one you just put forward. Turning people with a potential (Or 'Spark') to the villain's use. This could include physically mutating them easily. The warriors imprisoned here are just talented enough to warrant using as opposed to killing outright. Those who don't eventually break would be killed anyway.

The protagonists devolving is an interesting device. (Though that might be plagiarism if we lifted that, and it would be really hard to use unless our characters were pre-defined)

It doesn't have to be a 'camp' so much either, I just find that the term Concentration Camp illustrates the atmosphere I wanted.

Slayer King is nice. Though it seems to invite shortening to just 'The Slayer.'

Anyone else have an opinion on this?
I think of Jews.

And it's hardly plagiarism - devolving protaganists is a pretty loose term. I agree that it'll be hard to pull off without predefined characters, though. ...Unless this devolution was some sort of exploitable ability useful in battle. Like a limit break of sorts.

I completely missed the "breaking of wills" thing last time. Makes more sense now. Even so, ruling an empire like he is, he would have a lot of expendable people. Maybe they can also be kept alive for "sport"? (or food?) creepy.
I wouldn't rule out sport and food on account of both cruelty and for the purposes of training other recruits.

The big thing however is that he if rules the world, than he needs a LOT of people to command. There would be volunteers obviously, and people trying to gain ranks for political power, but I don't think many people would really want to become the grunt warriors and law enforcement, especially if a condition is to have their minds broken and enslaved. Thus we can add an element of people going missing because they have been abducted for the purpose of making new recruits.

I also don't think there to be nearly as many people with all the death and decay going around.

Also, there can be an element of the mutation breaking down after the fact. There could be an underclass of humans who had their mutation run out of control and have some of their mind freed as a result. They would be hideous and despised by the common man for their acts as enforcers for the villain, even if they weren't in control of themselves at the time.
Well, you're the expert 'round these parts, bubbaloouie. Draw up something cool and coherent. I think we have a pretty good start, myself.
Here's the back story I have thought up for the villain:

The powers of life in this world are personfied by individuals imbued with their power.

Everyone one-hundred(?) years, this power must be passed on to another generation so that the previous incarnations may die.

During the last generation, the personifications of life and death, a man and a woman lived in harmony and gave birth to two sons. These two sons would later be known as the Slayer King and the Fisher King.

When it came time for the power to be passed on some years there after, the Fisher King was given the power over life, and the Slayer King was given power over death. The Slayer King became jealous, however, because while the ruler over life would be beloved and adored, he would be hated and despised. He felt his brother was ill-deserving of the power of life as he was not nearly as diligent and hard working as himself.

His parents are unable to tell them before their death that they had chosen him to be the personification of death BECAUSE he was the more responsible of the two. It was the greater burden to bear and they saw him as the most able to bear it. His jealousy and indignation at his parents stewed for years and eventually he was driven to act. He could not kill his brother, just as he was immortal, but he decided that the only way that he would obtain the adoration and respect he wanted was to force the world to appreciate him as their king.

Thus he became the Slayer King, using the power of death, he persauded great armies and beasts to stand under his banner. He was unstoppable force, and used guile and manipulation to force kingdoms to swear fealty to him. One last great effort was made to oppose him, a meeting of the joined forces of all the remaining rebel forces along with the legendary heroes of the era. Their forces were demolished, and the heroes slain, and at last the Slayer King had absolute control of the world.

Yet, he could not force anyone to love him the way he wanted. In time, he began to see the error in what he had done as the world decayed and his brother was powerless to oppose the death. Yet he could not quench his hatred, as it goaded him ever onward to bind the world to his will. The empty devotion of his broken willed servants was meaningless to him, though.

His will was split in two. He knew he must stop this but he could no longer control his own actions. His hatred had grown far too powerful. Using what power remained to his sensible half, he needed to seek out a group capable of stopping himself. His only hope was that his brother could guide his heroes to stop him.


The big issue here is whether the two ought to be immortal or not. Conceivably the Fisher King could find some way to transfer the power of Death to someone else, but there'd be an issue of why the Slayer King wouldn't just try to use that to take the power of Life from his brother.
Here's a general concept I have for the game world and social structure. This is all open for discussion and tinkering.

Since survival is a major theme here, there is a large pressure on farming communities to produce enough food to sustrain everyone. Those who do not produce enough, regardless of whether they make enough to feed themselves, are killed or taken to be 'rehabilitated' into soldiers. Thieves and beasts stealing the food is a common problem. The law is relevatively lax here, except when caravans come to claim crops from the farmers. They are not supported enough to prevent thieves from taking advantage of their crops, but still punished if their crops are insufficent. You would probably start out in areas such as this.

Most of those working under the Slayer King have been rehabilitated, with the exclusion of a select handful who require off of their mental capabilities to administrate. They live in luxury over the common man, most of whom acquired their position by swearing fealty to the king durring his conquest. Administrators who do not follow proper conduct by the methods of the Slayer King are killed. This upper class looks down upon the rest of the world for not having enough guile to be in as cushy a position in this dog eat dog world. The fortress of the Slayer King has all the beneifts of this despot society at the expense of everyone else. It is perhaps dead center of the overworld where it is accessible from all other cities.

A former capitol city of Laien (Working title if you don't like it, I have a tendancy to name at least one city/country Laien in my projects) acts as a police-state area of commerce. The law is most oppressive here, and those who manage to live here are most likely to have 'sold out' to the way of life of the Slayer King. Resources gathered from other communities is made into more useful material such as weaponry and other tools. There is an underbelly of debauchery in the city to try and cope with the living conditions.

Elsewhere, there is liable to be a fringe city where there is no organization and limited resources, leaving people to become cut-throat in their effort to stay alive. Such cities may not be monitored, but if they attract the attention of the Slayer King they will be expected to relinquish control of all resources under penalty of death.

Monsters who are not under the employ of the Slayer King, along with mutants who have had their brainwashing wear off and their mutations swing out of control, are a despised lower-class that struggle to survive. They are seen are a burden on society with some people pressing for genocide of them, even though the mutants are far more human than the grunt enforcers that make up the enforcers of the Slayer King's Forces. They mutants and monsters live in clusters but are very disorganized. They would be happy to rally behind the heroes if they were to be treated with respect and spared from being killed off.

There are some hermits, such as the Fisher King and perhaps an eccentric inventor elsewhere, that are seperate from this society. Some may be trying to grow food in places where the death and decay of the Slayer King's power has not yet spread.

Woah. A lot of progress, all of a sudden.

Here's something I found on Wikipedia, that I find kind of ironic considering the way the story is going. It involves the Fisher King:

the French words for "fisher" and "sinner" are almost identical (pêcheur and pécheur respectively).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_King

Ideas:
So, Mewd is saying that the Fisher King and Slayer King are archetypes reincarnated every couple of years, or something? I'm for that, but 100 years is too short a time, I think. Maybe five hundred, or maybe even a thousand? At any rate, it will have to be enough so that the relationship between the Fisher King, Slayer King and whatever other archetypes exist aren't common knowledge.
What should the mutant/lower caste creatures be called? Should they even be named, or should they go vaguely undefined through much of the story (referred to as "beasts" or "monsters" or something)?
I figure that the Fisher King harbors some guilt about how things have turned out with his brother. I also don't think he's too keen on helping you kill his brother, but it's something that must be done. There may even be some crime in the past the Fisher King may have committed but I wouldn't be too certain what that would contribute to the story just yet.

I don't mind increasing the lifespan of the archetype. It's an uncertain variable. They should definitely live longer than a normal human, but how long they live really depends on how long it takes the Slayer King to finally act upon his hatred and jealousy.

I haven't settled on a slur for the mutants yet. We can maybe keep it ambiguous for more of a dramatic reveal, but I also think that the villagers would be quick to label the mutants as SOMETHING to dehumanize them. Even if it's something generic like 'Freaks'

Considering these individuals are failed mutations, they may be something akin to 'The Broken' but that sounds more like a self imposed title.