Ooo yeah like a curse and at first you think it's the children's fault, but then at the halfway point you find out they're the victims. Would also provide some good tension since it's the only way for the protag to get more power after the pepper shot removed their ability to make more poffspring.

I mean I was joking in my original comment, but you could tweak it a bit and maybe obscure some of the details to make the story halfway evocative.