What guards the purity of melting maids,
In courtly balls, and midnight masquerades,
Safe from the treach'rous friend, the daring spark,
The glance by day, the whisper in the dark,
When kind occasion prompts their warm desires,
When music softens, and when dancing fires?
- Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock
The ritual is a boon to concerned parents and a curse to amorous-minded young men (to say nothing of the feelings of the frustrated young women who may be just as amorous as their prospective lovers), but it functions like this: it is a spell cast upon a young woman; it is unbreakable by normal means, but dispels itself on the maid's wedding night; any time her honor is at stake while the spell is active, a stern celestial guardian (stats as a planetar) appears to check any errant desires--with force, if it comes to it.
A few encounter ideas:
- A stymied young Don Juan hires the party to break the ritual so that he may tryst with a beautiful young woman protected by it without having an angry angel showing up and thumping him about the body and head for his troubles.
- An adventurous coquette hires the party to break the ritual's interference in her love life as she is tired of it interrupting her intrigues.
- The party is hired by parents who wish to marry off their daughter into an aristocratic family, but the ritual has been cast upon the daughter by a rival family trying to establish matrimonial ties with the same bachelor's house.
- The ritual has been cast upon the party's rogue, whose usual modus operendi is seduction. This, of course, cramps her style greatly, so a cure must be found.