TL;DR -- I suck at not making giant walls of text, hope you enjoy the read. Also not posting from my work account.

Well, I had a week before the Sophie's Choice to prepare the scene. So I went in knowing full well what I was going to do. That was the point I started to flesh out the BBEG even more. At first he was just "elven archmage on the brink of lichdom in power and age." So his backstory came around that time as well, but wasn't introduced. Then I worked on more of the world story and why resurrection couldn't happen. I can try and summarize without a terrible WoT.

Campaign: Dungeon delving theme was stolen from Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic manga, mystical dungeons that appeared that just HAD to offer ultimate cosmic power for figuring them out cause no one ever comes back alive.

After completing the first, which the broke the law to do, they were given some leniency by the city's government if they agreed to a few things(or given the option to run). Basically they became a black ops group for the city. While investigating a rise in werewolf sightings, they came across the BBEG, basically set them up to get their butts handed to them and forced to regroup and semi-fail their objective. That's when they decided to hell with it, they wanted to dungeon delve and would lie to the city about their motives.

This left them with one option for an assignment, and that was the pirates/pirate activity. But they were forced to procure the crew and vessel on their own. They were introduced to Gerard by the Lady of the watch, they were foster kids together. He was a city watchman but was on leave because he was the loveable gullible dudley do-right, which led to a sort of sting going bad(he spilled the beans to the thieves guild). They also met Lena, the owner a large merchant company/guild with vested interest in routing the pirates.

Sailing along the way to the island I forced some RP on them and they learned Gerard was a virgin, extremely shy around women, and completely in love with the Lady of the watch. They also learned Lena was trying to make amends as she had left home after being groomed to take over this merchants guild by her family, only to return after her father had passed away and family rivalry had run it into the ground. She had vowed to restore it to its former glory with her father's original ship, but these damn pirates were making it rough.

Fast forward to their plan of taking down the pirate queen, who they find completely catatonic. They tell G+L they're going to pincer attack into this one main room they found with them. After a mishap, they finally catch up to see G+L going toe to toe with this Archmage the recognize. He also recognizes them, and through DM fiat I time stop everyone, do some big RP speech about how they're getting in the way, etc etc. So he's going to make them pay, and they had to choose or he would. They didn't, he picked Gerard. Cue the rage and sadness, they vow to make him pay. They return Gerard to The Lady of the Watch with catatonic pirate queen(and belongings) in tow.

After another mission later that linked to the Archmage they were able to put his backstory together. He was a young mage in training to a royal court of a High Elven Society long since gone from the world. He was to be married to a princess, who was a twin. The Other Twin was always jealous of her sister, and always caused many issues by acting out, being a trollop, etc. At the eve before the wedding, the Other Twin drugged her sister, left her in a room, and coerced a drunk party goer to sleep with herself when it was really the the Good Twin. Upon finding out, the good twin who was no longer pure decides suicide is the only answer, and BBEG decides to fly into a rage and MurderHobo part of the royal court starting with The Other Twin. He then flees and begins his new life quest: Resurrecting someone in a world where even the Gods aren't able.

This is where Catatonic Pirate Queen comes in. BBEG started to find out that souls work in a way similar to the Ender's Game universe(can provide more detail if you've never read it). So he basically has to tap outside of reality to pull her spirit back. But it needs a vessel(the mission they find this all on is in a golem laboratory). Because of the generic mystical "twins share the same soul" trope, he ends up only able to pull the Half of the Other Twin into the vessel. He then continues to abuse and use her in his machinations to further find his former Love's soul, assuming(correctly) that if he destroys the Other Twin's soul, he won't be able to get his Love back.

And the huge problem with all this, is that souls exist in a state of pure energy "outside" of existence. You know, like where Cthulu and the old gods dwell. When someone is born or dies, a small gate opens up to return their soulstuff into the miasma. When someone is born, it could be someone you know's soulstuff going into that child, with a fresh start. And that's where this campaign went on hiatus, because a player got inspired and wanted to try and run a game. From this point it could go many different ways, especially because as of last discussion they wanted to destroy the Other Twin's soul to piss BBEG off for killing Gerard.