Turning into a fiend as a dark gift/failed powers check.

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Lord Loren Soth
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Turning into a fiend as a dark gift/failed powers check.

Post by Lord Loren Soth »

So, my lovely party.

They have defended themselves against a number of enslaved-to-vampires-humans, kept them as prisoners for a few days, and when they saw that their systems have started to fail from the lack of vampiric blood, and desperate to get some info on their leader, they devised a plot: they took a chicken, bled it dry, saved its blood in a flask and pretended that it was their blood, so they fed the prisoners in order to get some information out of them. After it worked, they decided to take them out of their misery and mercy-killed them.

So, I decided to just plainly fail their Powers Checks and instead, slowly, interim them into the first stage of fiendhood. I have three (of the four) who participated in the deed: a cleric of Kelemvor, a paladin of Tempus and a gnomish mage/thief. I was thinking of giving them alignment appropriate powers/curses, derived from the fiends' alignments: Baatezu are Lawful (paladin), Ta'anari are chaotic (mage/thief) and Yugoloth are neutral (priest). Also, I have decided not to strip the paladin of his paladinhood, and just keep feeding him spells/powers/boons from the Dark Powers, and slowly turn him into a Demon-Knight.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you ever tried something similar?
"I can kill with a single word. I can hurl a ball of fire into the midst of my enemies. I rule a squadron of skeletal warriors, who can destroy by touch alone. I can raise a wall of ice to protect those I serve."
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Re: Turning into a fiend as a dark gift/failed powers check.

Post by ewancummins »

Hmm, I wouldn't call what they did an Act of Ultimate Darkness, but it's always up to you as the DM to decide what counts.

I do think some planning out of a 'terror track' is a good idea, but I like to retain flexibility. A player character might move toward redemption. Or he might fall further into corruption, but through acts the DM did not anticipate.
I like the curses and dark boons to fit the specific deeds committed.

As far as the paladin goes, I think some of his powers should change in a way the player (as well as the PC, in game) will notice. It doesn't have to be huge. But don't hide the alteration. And don't explain it, in or out of play. Innocent DM face. Or evil chuckles...
Also, give some visible but minor physical or behavioral sign of corruption.
If the player is smart, he'll realize something's not right.
In game, a knowledge: religion check might tip him off that he's in trouble.
If he ignores it all and plows ahead, unconcerned about the sign of taint that marks him, enjoying his cool new powers...

:twisted:
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.

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The Lesser Evil
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Re: Turning into a fiend as a dark gift/failed powers check.

Post by The Lesser Evil »

Lord Loren Soth wrote:
They have defended themselves against a number of enslaved-to-vampires-humans, kept them as prisoners for a few days, and when they saw that their systems have started to fail from the lack of vampiric blood, and desperate to get some info on their leader, they devised a plot: they took a chicken, bled it dry, saved its blood in a flask and pretended that it was their blood, so they fed the prisoners in order to get some information out of them. After it worked, they decided to take them out of their misery and mercy-killed them.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you ever tried something similar?
A couple of things remain unclear to me. Did the chicken blood actually ameliorate their suffering and keep them alive? Were there other observable ways the party knew of keeping the humans from dying?
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Re: Turning into a fiend as a dark gift/failed powers check.

Post by Lord Loren Soth »

The Lesser Evil wrote:
Lord Loren Soth wrote:
They have defended themselves against a number of enslaved-to-vampires-humans, kept them as prisoners for a few days, and when they saw that their systems have started to fail from the lack of vampiric blood, and desperate to get some info on their leader, they devised a plot: they took a chicken, bled it dry, saved its blood in a flask and pretended that it was their blood, so they fed the prisoners in order to get some information out of them. After it worked, they decided to take them out of their misery and mercy-killed them.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you ever tried something similar?
A couple of things remain unclear to me. Did the chicken blood actually ameliorate their suffering and keep them alive? Were there other observable ways the party knew of keeping the humans from dying?
Yes, I made it so the chicken blood sustained them, at least for a while, they didn't gave them the chance to see what will happen further on. Regarding the keeping them alive, they did try to feed them normal food, but they were either reluctant to eat or they wouldn't eat at all. Also, they did had started to deteriorate without their normal sustenance. The priest of Kelemvor is actually a speciality priest called Doomguide, who are pretty much the god's hand that sends the undead creatures back to their final fate. They do know a great deal about the undead and their final fate that awaits them after this world.
"I can kill with a single word. I can hurl a ball of fire into the midst of my enemies. I rule a squadron of skeletal warriors, who can destroy by touch alone. I can raise a wall of ice to protect those I serve."
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Re: Turning into a fiend as a dark gift/failed powers check.

Post by The Lesser Evil »

Lord Loren Soth wrote: Yes, I made it so the chicken blood sustained them, at least for a while, they didn't gave them the chance to see what will happen further on. Regarding the keeping them alive, they did try to feed them normal food, but they were either reluctant to eat or they wouldn't eat at all. Also, they did had started to deteriorate without their normal sustenance. The priest of Kelemvor is actually a speciality priest called Doomguide, who are pretty much the god's hand that sends the undead creatures back to their final fate. They do know a great deal about the undead and their final fate that awaits them after this world.
Okay so I guess a lot depends here on whether these undead thralls/cultists were normal people who have been enslaved or if they were willingly corrupt like the kargatane. (Off-hand the Kargat are the only ones who frequently use the vampire blood-thrall technique recently.) If they were vampire cultists or kargatane, then they're complicit evil-doers and at least likely accessories to murder. Therefore, I'd said their summary execution is (if there is any breach at all) more like a possible breach of legal authority/ethics (law/chaos) then moral alignment (good/evil) unless the PCs are violating some sort of oath, tenet, or vow of their faiths. The worlds of D&D and Ravenloft are very different from our modern world in relation to rights, authority, and punishment.

On the other hand, killing victims that were enslaved against their wills are a lot more dire. A lot of it depends upon how feasible continuing with the chicken blood ruse would seem and what the likelihood would be of curing them would be. Since you said they mercykilled them, it sounds like the PCs killed the cultists believing there was little hope for them or that it would be too hard to provide for them and still continue their quest.

If there is a sin here, the primary sin here seems to be sloth in the form of pragmatism, an "good ends justify bad means" sort of thing. As such, I'm not sure that turning them to fiends (the incarnation of evil) doesn't seem appropriate, with the possible exception of eriynes (corrupted angels). I might afflict them with a curse that gradually turns them into some sort of twisted angel/celestial, beauteous but also suitably cursed/flawed. An eventual day/night transformation similar to Diamabel (darklord of Pharazia) might be one (eventual) example.

Other ideas for curses could derive from their crime of sloth. Something that might tempt to pursue more evil for the sake of eliminating inconvenience, but load them with more burdens in the long run. One of them might begin to spawn small creepy crawly of some kind similar to Professor Pacali of Carnival, perhaps the spawn are first helpful but then begin to mutate into horrific forms and vile dispositions. (A first step on this track might be the manifestation of a blemish or witch mark that whispers beneficial advice once in a while but may cause pus leakage at inconvenient times).

Perhaps the most ironic punishment might make them into what they fight. They may start to feel a craving for the blood or flesh of the dead/undead and may derive some small benefit from its consumption. (This would be an especially ironic punishment for the Kelemvor priest, for in a twisted way it would reinforce his undead hunting.) With every step, the craving and the boon for dining upon flesh becomes worse/more frequent but also more powerful, until the craving becomes too frequent for the characters to satisfy by consuming the undead they hunt alone. Then they have to take to more drastic means, defiling dead bodies or perhaps even animating and then destroying the undead. At the final stages, they transform into ghouls or vampires as appropriate to those who have previously benefited from the bloodshed of others on a more figurative level.

Edit: To answer your question in a form that's more direct to what you initially asked, you may want to look into "transposition" (from Van Richten's Guide to Fiends or the Ravenloft 3e books), a similar phenomena to transforming them into fiends but involves shifting them into the Lower Planes, effectively switching places with fiends at the very end. A transformation/transposition process similar to the one inflicted by the Kyton Device or the guy who traded places with Credimori might work (see Children of the Night: Demons on www.kargatane.com for details.)
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Re: Turning into a fiend as a dark gift/failed powers check.

Post by Lord Loren Soth »

The Lesser Evil wrote:
Lord Loren Soth wrote: Yes, I made it so the chicken blood sustained them, at least for a while, they didn't gave them the chance to see what will happen further on. Regarding the keeping them alive, they did try to feed them normal food, but they were either reluctant to eat or they wouldn't eat at all. Also, they did had started to deteriorate without their normal sustenance. The priest of Kelemvor is actually a speciality priest called Doomguide, who are pretty much the god's hand that sends the undead creatures back to their final fate. They do know a great deal about the undead and their final fate that awaits them after this world.
Edit: To answer your question in a form that's more direct to what you initially asked, you may want to look into "transposition" (from Van Richten's Guide to Fiends or the Ravenloft 3e books), a similar phenomena to transforming them into fiends but involves shifting them into the Lower Planes, effectively switching places with fiends at the very end. A transformation/transposition process similar to the one inflicted by the Kyton Device or the guy who traded places with Credimori might work (see Children of the Night: Demons on http://www.kargatane.com for details.)
The Lesser Evil, yes, to be honest with you, this is what I had in mind, although I don't know how it will or if it will work out on the long run. Btw, this is a game that runs with 2nd edition rules, so everything from the 2nd ed. rulebooks applies.

Now that I look back on what I've written, I do believe that I don't want to turn them into abominations, (at least not yet) but rather to get them really really scared. After something like that happens, I start giving them whispers in their minds for alternate courses of action, more sinister than what their character would usually do. If they prefer to follow their own path, whatever that is, then I leave them to it, until the next time they stray from it. If they choose to follow the voice, then I will tempt them more often with unspeakable acts.
"I can kill with a single word. I can hurl a ball of fire into the midst of my enemies. I rule a squadron of skeletal warriors, who can destroy by touch alone. I can raise a wall of ice to protect those I serve."
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