capri0mni | Yup, Script Frenzy again... Reverse engineering a magic spell -- a little help brainstorming? (Reply)

(It may not seem like it, but I really am being selective, and holding back from posting all my thoughts about this)

Okay, so in my original idea for my story (outlined here), the story was kicked off when a king gives his daughter's hand in marriage to the person who returns his magic signet ring, and the main conflict being how the princess tricks her way out of the marriage by switching places with her serving maid.

Since then, I've decided that it would be a deeper character development if she finds herself falling in love with the prince after all, and going through with the marriage. But that leads to the $60,000 question: so what was the whole point? Thanks, btw, to

drox, for raising that question here and helping me refocus my story's orientation.

So I've decided to make the ultimate point breaking the magic bond between the king's life and the ring, so that he's no longer as vulnerable to attacks by thieves and scoundrels (and it's the princess's rebellion that sets that in motion).

So what I need is:

A spell that could bind a man's life to an object that is given to him (I'm thinking that the general will present the ring to the king as "a sign of loyalty") that could then weaken that life if the object is ever stolen.

That when the ring spell is foiled, there's a backup one against the king that somehow needs something from the princess (a lock of hair, or drop of blood) to be completed. (And because the two young women have switched identities, the witch takes the hair or blood from the wrong person).

Some little piece of evidence of the spell that Adalaide can take from the witch's hut as they escape, because there's something about it (a charm written in the general's handwriting, or something), that she doesn't fully understand the signifigance of at the moment, but that can be used to reveal the original spell as the moment of the climax draws near.

A way for the spell to be undone in a climatic revealing-the-truth banquet scene, with all the main characters each playing a different role to trick the villian into admitting his crime.

This is a bit like writing a murder mystery -- in order to figure out what clues to scatter through the story, you have to write the crime scene first... Any ideas (I figure, with all the witchy, Paganish types on my f'list, we can come up with some neat ones)?

And I have a poll!
[Poll #992939]