npc's ARE pc's so its pretty possible. npcs can move between region to region just like monsters, so it'd be cool becomming a super powerful lord, hiring a party of mercs to do take down chaos for you and letting them bring you back those chaos orbs for a hefty price. ooh then even more possibilities can be thrown in, maybe the merc that was carrying the orb was tainted by chaos and he ended up killing his companions and taking the orb to himself, fleeing to some ancient ruins 5 days travel away. then you gotta ask yourself, damnit, do I go track this bastard down myself and take his money, gear, loot and the orb? do I hire ANOTHER group aand hope they do it right this time, or do I take an alternative route such as summoning of beasts and elementals to go crush him. I really think an evolving, dynamic storyline is the way to go. a worlds "main quest" story could start out as

:Rid the world of chaos and corruption!:

and along the way the story could actually unfold

step 1: save the small puppy
step 2: investigate this old tower with hidden secrets
step 3: turns out chaos has not yet begun to come back, perhaps you could prevent it?
step 4: an NPC nemesis is generated bent on unleasing chaos, and you hear whispers of a dark savant pillaging the land
step 5: its a race between you and this mysterious adversary!!

and it can keep going from there. or it could evolve totally differently, maybe you enter a world thats already overwhelmed by corruption and you're hard pressed to find even a natural tree let alone friendly people. everyones out for themselves and its likely your humble piece of land will be under constant attack. better get buffed up or hire some goons. i know evolving storys would be possible with java, just drop in a presest list of steps in the story, a huge list btw, and break them down into beginning, middle, end. some could be major like chaos finally broke through the chaos gate to very minor changes such as the lord of a huge city was assassinated, throwing it into dissaray. ok that last ones not minor really, but it probably wouldnt affect the whole stop chaos thing.