I'm starting up a play by post game in a setting where the Duke is near death and has no heir. An idea I had was for a prophecy to be uncovered by the church that would give a guide on choosing a new King, reinstating the full monarchy that has been gone for hundreds of years.

I haven't decided if the prophecy is real or not yet, but that doesn't affect the situation currently as there's a while to go before it happens, and even longer before the players get involved. But eventually at some point I'd like to have them hired to fulfill the prophecy. Their job will be to arrange things so that the head of one of the city's factions fulfills the prophecies.

I may have the prophecies fulfill themselves with one of the PCs, but haven't decided. What I need now is prophecies. They have to be vague enough to allow several interpretations, but clear enough that fulfilling them is both possible and identifiable. I'd like for one of them to involve returning from the dead somehow. It's a low power campaing setting, so returning from the dead is not something that happens every day, or even every century. I know how this one will be fulfilled for real, and will leave it up to the players to decide how to fake it.

The setting is low magic. There's no (well, almost no) arcane magic. The country is monotheistic with a typical God vs. Satan setup. Clerics are scholars, not warriors (that's what fighters and paladins are for). The country has been ruled by a stewardship for 3 centuries, and now the Duke is dying without an heir. Three factions are maneuvering for power: merchants, noblemen, and another group of merchants with less scruples and ties to the seedier sides of the city.

So far we've got an aristocrat bard (magicless at first but he'll have opportunities to gain spells via a magic item his father left him but died before he could explain). He doesn't realize his dagger is magical, nor that it can grant him power by feeding on souls. Eventually he'll kill someone with it and that subplot will start.

There's a female cleric. Her father is an admiral in the navy, but doesn't pay much attention to her or her sisters because he's chauvinistic. He even named her and her sisters with men's names that her mother just barely managed to convice him to twist into girls' names (Alexadria, Claudette, etc.). She's a member of the church, but not content to just while away the rest of her days in the library like many of her brethren.

Male fighter. Ex-bouncer. Ex-bodygaurd. Now he's on his own looking for a living.

The rest aren't made yet, but one is looking loike he might be an aristocrat as well. For the aristocrats, I'm making thme take an actual level in the NPC class if they want any of the benefits of bring a trueblood. The second one will likely be a fairly typical aristocratic rogue that likes to spend his time "slumming."

I'm not sure what the other two will be. Probably at least one more rogue.

If you happen to have the old adventure The Veiled Society it's got a little more info on the area. I'll be basing the first few scenes on it, and seeing where it goes from there. I've also got To Find a King, an old RPGA tournament module that I might swipe ideas from. I like the sound of the premise, but haven't read the actual adventure yet.

Here's something I made up.

With the death of the moon, the sun will come
With the death of the son, the blood wil run

you can pretty much replace any of those nouns with anything else and it'll still sound pretty good

With the honk of the clown, the car will come
With the honk of the car, the clown will run.

See how easy it is?