1. We don't have any specific hot goss from Speaker Orlock! If you'd like to do something in Nevarra or with the Van Markhams then you're more than welcome to use him snitching about something to prompt a plot request.
2. The next in line after Gaelan would be a cousin with a more tenuous claim to the throne, but a few different people would be able to claim it was them. It would definitely make the Van Markhams' claim to all of Nevarra a little less plausible, but since they've already set up a government and claimed territory, it's unlikely they would just say never mind and fall back in line with the Pentaghasts at this point. Identifying the most likely candidates (and whether any of them would actually be an improvement) if something were to befall Gaelan would require a player plot!
3. Outside Nevarra, the general perception is that Corypheus and Tevinter were behind Nevarra City's collapse, but with a definite air of "what did they expect, keeping corpses like that" regarding the method of it. There are various conspiracy theories among those so inclined—that the Van Markhams were in league with the attackers in an attempt to unseat the Pentaghasts, that the Mortalitasi as a whole have joined Corypheus, etc.—but no general consensus of opinion behind any of them. Within Nevarra, a small minority blame the Mortalitasi for what happened, but there have been more widespread grumblings about how the order failed the people, let their dead be co-opted and misused, and didn't do enough to help stop the attack and protect the people or their ancestors.
4. Residing in Cumberland, Tylan Ostroff has fallen quiet about his own ambitions toward the throne in the wake of the attack on Nevarra City and put his support behind Aurelia Pentaghast. Some of his relatives—especially those abroad—still mumble about how he would do better, but his personal focus, given the circumstances, seems to have shifted to protecting his family and assets and, more broadly, his country from external threats.
2 million years later,
2. The next in line after Gaelan would be a cousin with a more tenuous claim to the throne, but a few different people would be able to claim it was them. It would definitely make the Van Markhams' claim to all of Nevarra a little less plausible, but since they've already set up a government and claimed territory, it's unlikely they would just say never mind and fall back in line with the Pentaghasts at this point. Identifying the most likely candidates (and whether any of them would actually be an improvement) if something were to befall Gaelan would require a player plot!
3. Outside Nevarra, the general perception is that Corypheus and Tevinter were behind Nevarra City's collapse, but with a definite air of "what did they expect, keeping corpses like that" regarding the method of it. There are various conspiracy theories among those so inclined—that the Van Markhams were in league with the attackers in an attempt to unseat the Pentaghasts, that the Mortalitasi as a whole have joined Corypheus, etc.—but no general consensus of opinion behind any of them. Within Nevarra, a small minority blame the Mortalitasi for what happened, but there have been more widespread grumblings about how the order failed the people, let their dead be co-opted and misused, and didn't do enough to help stop the attack and protect the people or their ancestors.
4. Residing in Cumberland, Tylan Ostroff has fallen quiet about his own ambitions toward the throne in the wake of the attack on Nevarra City and put his support behind Aurelia Pentaghast. Some of his relatives—especially those abroad—still mumble about how he would do better, but his personal focus, given the circumstances, seems to have shifted to protecting his family and assets and, more broadly, his country from external threats.