“ In the Middle Ages, and even up to the early twentieth century, most of Europe's executioners were related: the Sansons and Deiblers in France, the Pierrepoints in England, etc. The reason for this was that, it generally not being socially acceptable to, well, kill people, executioners and their children could, generally, only marry other executioners or <i>their</i> children.
The parallels with massively inbred, Hapsburg-style dynasties are obvious- imagine a rather clever but politically inept satirist noting this, and being sentenced by the latter to a meeting with the former; even worse, imagine a dynasty of deranged and deformed executioners- think Texas Chaisaw Massacre with government funding.”
“ Ten powerful magic rings created by an Archmage have scattered to ten random people (suggest only one is PC). This happened when he died in battle. Whoever gets all ten rings inherites all the power the Archmage invested to them over his 200 year life.”
“ In a room the PCs find a decomposing body half in and half out of a mirror, the result of an attemp to create a [Mirror Golem] that went horribly wrong.”