“ With a huge number of sacrificial victims, another realm long ago secretly bound a Prince of the land spirits, Iorstonn by name, thus ensuring the fertility, and improving the magical defences, of their realm. But binding that Prince to one spot has disrupted the weather and magical patterns (ley lines?) over half the continent. Things have become bad enough that a coalition has been formed to rectify the situation, once divinations have established the cause.
Your party is one of the teams assembled to do the rectification: find the binding object and steal it ('so that we can destroy it here in our realm, of course'...*) or destroy it over there. Presumably the Prince will be grateful to his rescuers and angry at the binders, but with a greater spirit like Iorstonn one can never be sure: such beings are 'tricksy'.
* Of course, the rulers of our realm might want to control Iorstonn for their own ends...”
“ In ancient Rome, social appearance and respectability were everything. The most hated men were punished with <i>damnatio memoriae</i>, damnation of memory. Every trace that a person had ever lived was removed. Busts were shattered, freizes were marred, records were struck. Any sign of the hated figure was destroyed.”
“ The monarch used to have absolute powers until the disappearance of King Henry V. A 'temporary' replacement was put on the throne to hold it until King Henry returned, and he would have only one vote on the governing council of nobles and no other powers except persuasion. More then 50 years have passed since then and everyone knows King Henry is almost certainly dead-but the nobles don't want to go back under the rule of an absolute monarch, so the kingship is only 'temporary' until King Henry V returns to take back his throne.”