Topic Research: The Stolen Child's Perspective

(Ink drawing of a merman by Lady Orlando. Source: Flickr)

One of the sources that I am using is the idea of the "stolen child's perspective," number twelve in Dan L. Ashliman's essay on the topic of Changelings. My story's setting is placed in various locations across the ocean. In my story, I will be using a sea monster, i.e., the Kraken, as the kidnapper. In traditional Changeling stories, the parent(s) realized the child is not theirs and is given information on how to get their infant back; However, I am spinning the story around where the parents are unaware of the exchange and their infant is raised by the sea monster. In my story, it is up to the abducted child to realize he is being imprisoned and to figure out how he is going to escape.

Somehow I would like to incorporate the Name of the Helper, which D. L. Ashliman gives many different versions of this story on his website. The name of the helper character could go many ways: it could be the Kraken;  I would like to make it a new character, maybe a sea monkey that holds the key to the dungeon; or, my main character runs into the sea monkey later on in his adventures. Implementing this "name of the helper" character would create a way the main character, Octopian, who is a merman, can be released from the Kraken or find out new information about his birthplace/parents. 

Finally, I would like the layout of my storybook to be like the board game, Trivial Pursuit. In this game, you roll a dice, move 'x' amount of spaces, and you must answer a question based on the topic/color you land on. If you get the answer right, you can roll again; wrong, and your turn is over. The object of the game is to get all eight of the different colored 'pies'. To get these 'pie' pieces, you must land on the spaces that have the 'pie' symbol AND give the correct answer to the corresponding topic question. The first one to get all eight, or whoever has the most, 'pies' is the winner. 

(Picture of a Trivial Pursuit board taken by Caitlin Childs. Source: Flickr)

I think I would like Octopian, my main-merman, to collect eight different objects. To do so, he must answer questions, riddles, etc. This might be where I can incorporate my sea monkey or Octopian might run into many different characters, the sea monkey being one,... I am not sure yet.