Cor's plot arc

This is how I am going to figure out something terrible that is going to happen to my main character Corydon Wildauer in the book that I have yet to outline at all. I know the series! I know where he's going to be by book three. I have the prequel that sets him up for where he starts. But I don't know what he's doing when he starts the book. So here's the tools I'm working with, and then the conflict it will engender.

His Fear

Cor is cautious. Thanks to the events of the prequel, he's lost a lot of his teenage recklessness. He's not willing to overtly challenge the rules anymore, less willing to cause problems for the sake of calling attention to bad situations because he suffered greatly the last time he did. (As in, he almost died.) He's not willing to push forward.
It's not entirely a bad thing, what he did, and it's not bad that he's learned to keep his head down, but this hasn't changed the righteous anger he feels at the situation he's in. As such, the conflict he faces should have something to do with facing that fear, of acting despite what he knows could happen.

His Past Mistake

Cor is an Equivalent, which means he's acting as a replacement for Traenas Wildauer, a teenager of similar age who died. This particular decision had very little to do with him, and happened shortly after the previously mentioned traumatic event. What Cor did decide to do was kind of be a jerk to the parents of the kid he was replacing. Understandable, but also not a good decision.
Now, they're not really his adoptive parents. They're not even his friends. If this conflict gets anywhere near creating difficulties for them, they will drop him like a hot potato. The only reason they tolerate him is because he has a lot of potential political clout. So this conflict should make it easy for them to disown him and remove whatever home he has left.

His Deal with the Devil

Cor has an Insignium. And not just any insignium, but one that's been lost for centuries. He automatically got a seat on the Insignia Council as soon as he received his, but no one knows what to do with him. He didn't have to accept it. He could have refused and the computer would have chosen another candidate.
So now he has this power, but he doesn't understand the full reaches of it any more than those around him do. This includes a lot of people who have much more practice dealing with the upper echelons of this society. So Cor has power. The danger is that in order to keep it, he's probably going to have to use it against old friends. Lots of conflict!

His Unavailable Tool

Cor's favorite tool has quickly become the various abilities that his insignium has granted. Ergo, the easiest way to ramp up the conflict at this point is to remove his access. Which is actually kind of tricky since the insignia are things that people in Tholaren Dome don't mess with. They're central principles to their entire system of government, and once the computer has chosen someone to hold one of them, that makes that person automatically very smart and powerful and important by assumption. (And no, the computer is not evil, it's a rather neutral force.)
Hmm. So I might have to flesh this point out a bit later, but the conflict will definitely remove him from the insignium.

The Lesser of Two Evils

Cor will want to protect his family (not his adoptive family, but the family-in-name he had before evocation), but he also wants to preserve the Dome that keeps them all from dying in the epic storms outside. So he'll do what people are telling him to do, so long as they protect his family.
But that won't be good enough for these people. (I already used a deal with the devil so that would just be retreading a point.) No, Cor is going to have to defend the people who despise him and manipulate him but are essential to the survival of all of them (in theory), or he can defend the people he cares about (and who care about him) at the cost of going right back to where he was in the prequel (about to die because he mouthed off, and society was going to let it happen because it was easier for them).

In Conclusion...

So, this is what I have so far.

• Just having to take any kind of political stand will be a challenge for him.
• He's guilty about what he took away from the Wildauers, and as such he can be manipulated into a more difficult position.
• The villain is another scion, and they're making him be the one to stop this guy.
• For some reason, he doesn't have access to the Arthenarian.
• Either lose any protection he has against people who hate him OR leave the people he cares about in serious trouble

And thus, my conflict. An Orphan Scion is causing problems with the Dome. Sabotage, most likely. And it appears that some of the people who Cor used to count as family are supporting this individual. Cor has alienated most of the people who might help him. The rest are secure in their positions, and ignorant of the upheaval that is lurking just beneath the surface of their society, so they're just going to wait and see what happens to Cor.
Aha! And since Cor isn't past Full Adulthood yet, he hasn't got the full legal pull of his insignium just yet so the Council can actually take it away from him if they think he's out of line. ("Oh, you need more training!" "Just take a few days to calm down and learn your lesson.")
And the secondary villain (who will almost certainly be the main villain in a second book) will present Cor with the choice: you either go after the saboteur and your own family, or you watch everything you've built burn to the ground.