Advice PLZ · 2:50pm Jan 27th, 2021
Hello All,
So... I'm working on a personal writing project, a fantasy novel, and there's this evil object I made up that was sort of inspired by the Horcrux from JK Rowling's "Harry Potter" books
As some of you probably know, the Horcrux is among the darkest magicks in the Harry Potter Universe, created in a perverse obsession to achieve immortality by tearing a piece of your soul off and imbuing it into an object, so that even if you were to die the piece of your soul that still exists within the Horcrux will keep you from dying. The process of making a Horcrux was never revealed by JK Rowling and it probably never will be. The only known prerequisite to make a Horcrux is Murder, because committing murder damages the Soul, which is the necessary condition to tear a piece of the soul away to make the Horcrux.
The villain, Tom Riddle aka Lord Voldemort, was so pathologically afraid of death that he went so far as to make not just one Horcrux but seven, as well as an eighth he never intended to make when a piece of his soul latched onto Harry Potter. As a result, once all his Horcruxes were destroyed and he was finally killed, his mangled soul was left trapped in limbo for all eternity, subjecting him to a fate far worse than death.
Needless to say, he well and truly got what he deserved.
So... this evil object i made up - It's not the same as a Horcrux but its intended purpose is, in giving the maker of this object a rudimentary form of immortality. The maker requires an innocent soul in order to make this object and so will abduct an innocent person, remove their soul and place it within an object and connect this object to the maker's own soul.
The result makes it so that the maker will stop ageing, quickly heal, and in the event the maker were to die the soul within the evil object would perish instead. If that's not depraved, I don't know what is.
So my problem... is what sort of downside could this evil object have on the maker? It has its pros but it needs cons as well, so that a potential maker wouldn't make too many of these evil objects. There has to be some toll on the maker, a price that would discourage making this evil object.
Otherwise, a villain would make as many of these objects as he pleases and then no one would be able to kill him without killing all the innocent souls he's taken.
Can anyone give me suggestions, ideas, or such plz?
Maybe the villain becomes more monstrous in appearance the more they make? And their monster form is different for each person.
5442794
Too many ideas at once
I have heard of an object just like that, but for the life of me, l can't remember the name of it.... GAH.... l promise that as soon as l remember it, i will let you know
5442856
That's not what I'm asking; I need for this hypothetical object of dark magic to have a price, a downside to the benefits it gives to the maker
The more he makes the more knowledge he looses or he hears the voices of the souls in his head constantly.
5442943
Hmm, that sounds good - the more souls he takes, the more voices in his head haunt him until he can't hear himself think. So, perhaps using too many of these soul-powered objects could drive the villain to madness
Perhaps the object or the creation of it leaves a physical mark that identifies them easily to the good guys? So one would leave an mark that could easily be hidden but multiple would make it almost impossible to hide.
I have two ideas.
1. It's not really a negative effect but what if in order to create this object and get it's full power, the victim should give their soul up on their free will (mind control, or similar things wouldn't work). If this isn't the case then this object will have weaker effects or none at all. This would force the villain to somehow convince the victim.
2. The idea of the villain hearing the victims voice in their head is a great idea for the price to pay but what if we give it a little twist. Upon obtaining the persons soul, all those who were close to that person (family members, loved ones, close friends) would get the knowledge of what happened. The villain would hear all of them in their head as they mourn the victim and cursing the villain. The villain would have to face, that every time a soul is taken, just how much pain does they cause.
So this is just a thought, why not make it an addiction, for this villian, like an endless hunger that forces him to take more innocent souls.
Kinda like All For One in My Hero Academia, he can't help himself when he sees a unique Quirk and has to have it. So he steals it.
5445909
No, that would make the villain overpowered; too many souls practically making him unkillable
I came to the decision that the price is: Te villain is cursed to forever hear the screams and cries and agony of the souls that suffer in his place, even after they die instead of him. The villain finds it hard to hear himself think and eventually he becomes mentally unstable or even insane from listening to the screams for too long, especially if he's listneing to multiple souls' tortured screams
The only way to be free of the screams is to release the soul(s) while it's still alive and forfeit the advantages the soul gave the villain