Help With A Darklord's Curse

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Atma
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Help With A Darklord's Curse

Post by Atma »

I'm working on a darklord who is a former monster hunter turned monster (in his case, a wereSmilodon).

When the darklord, Aleister, was still a human, he studied the various monsters he and his best friend, Janos, tracked and slew, and eventually became envious of the power his prey wielded. This envy came to a head when he began to use the information from his studies and combined it with information about transformative rituals he parleyed for from various evil and monstrous spellcasters to devise a ritual that would hopefully transform himself into an all-powerful, immortal beast.

But, when Janos rejected Aleister's offer to share this power, Aleister murdered his friend in a fit of scorned rage, then became a Darklord when he finally went through with his ritual.

On the one hand, Aleister revels in his bestial nature, to the point of losing himself in it for months at a time, but, on the other paw, being immortal is lonely, and even cats crave companionship. Aleister constantly seeks a replacement for Janos, but with no success. He always searches for anyone who ideally reminds him of Janos, or, at the very least, demonstrates themself to be mentally or emotionally stimulating to him. I'm not sure whether he would ritually bond himself with a potential companion, or simply declare them a companion. Either way, once he's made someone a companion, he can then read his companion's thoughts and sense their emotions throughout his domain, and can, at times control them via suggestions.

With three exceptions, all of Aleister's companions have died, either because they commit suicide, or die from hazards beyond Aleister's control, or because Aleister euthanizes them because of pity, boredom and or mercy.
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Re: Help With A Darklord's Curse

Post by Atma »

Another problem I'm having is how to kill Aleister dead-dead, as, due to both his ritual, and the Dark Powers, he is immortal. As in, if his powerful regeneration somehow fails, i.e., if his corpse is burnt to ash, or he gets targeted by a disintegrate spell, his spirit can possess one of the many male cats or werecats in his domain, and cause the hapless beast to reshape itself into himself over the course of one lunar month.
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Re: Help With A Darklord's Curse

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Warning - this is 'thought-bubble-to-keyboard-while-bypassing-brain' rambling . :P
Caveat Emptor

At first glance his curse seems a bit 'Meh'. Another Darklord pining after a lost love/friend/pet/whatever - been there done that and opened a franchise. I want my Darklords to know what actual misery is - but reading on I grabbed onto the next bit of his story which has potential to fufill the 'DP's kick him below the belt and dance around laughing' factor - His Envy.

He apparently loves being a Were-Sabertooth, and was envious of the power it wielded. So hit him there. When he did the ritual he got the _form_ of a Smilodon but not it's spirit. That is, while he can take the shape of one, he's like a human trying to pretend to be a cat and is not the real thing. Plenty of practice permits him to mostly act like one but the raw skill and power he so admired is missing.

When every he sees a cat causally land on its feet, bat a mouse, or a big cat effortlessly take down prey he goes greener than a Martian in a rainforest. He knows deep down he is a pale imitation of the real thing. Add to this the 'spirit' of the Smilodon he stole his form from wants it's body back, and it delights in rubbing it in that he is a monkey playing at being a cat.

He thinks that if he can absorb the essence of the spirit he can become the real thing as it fills the missing part (wether true or not is up to you) but it is no easy prey as it knows its body better than the thief does and easily avoids him. Of course this is a double whammy as not only is he a cheap fake, there is something better than him out there and he can't beat it.
Atma wrote:As in, if his powerful regeneration somehow fails, i.e., if his corpse is burnt to ash, or he gets targeted by a disintegrate spell, his spirit can possess one of the many male cats or werecats in his domain, and cause the hapless beast to reshape itself into himself over the course of one lunar month.
This is easy. Since he is a Were-Sabre, he can be permanently killed by a were-sabre. He can't possess them on death and they have the ability to hurt him _badly_. Tie it into my previous rambling, and the reason a Sabre-T can hurt him is it is taking back the form he stole. It hates him and by proxy other Sabre's do as well, so he can never have 'friends' of what he most admired.

Of course Sabretooth's aren't exactly common which would make it interesting for people to get one. Unless of course he kept Sabre tooths around desperately trying to find a way to extract their 'true' essence so he is no longer a pale shadow of the real thing. He hates them for what they have, even as he tries to claim that same thing himself.

End of tired rambling for now...wheeee :mrgreen:
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Re: Help With A Darklord's Curse

Post by Dark Angel »

DustBunny wrote:Warning - this is 'thought-bubble-to-keyboard-while-bypassing-brain' rambling . :P
Caveat Emptor

At first glance his curse seems a bit 'Meh'. Another Darklord pining after a lost love/friend/pet/whatever - been there done that and opened a franchise. I want my Darklords to know what actual misery is - but reading on I grabbed onto the next bit of his story which has potential to fufill the 'DP's kick him below the belt and dance around laughing' factor - His Envy.

...

End of tired rambling for now...wheeee :mrgreen:
When I first saw this, I though of something like "he can't hunt or get satisfaction from said hunt" but that is a bit too similar to Sodo in Paridon. But I do like the 'imitation' darklord as it has a level uniqueness to it. On thing DustBunny did not factor in was the long lost friend that this guy actively pursues to replace. As this guy seems like the type to keep up forays into the wilds looking for creatures to kill/capture, he will find someone like Janos. To further the cursed nature of werebeast, when he 'realizes' this new found/long lost relationship the beast fully takes over and he becomes displaced as a geist-like being who has to either A) watch this poor bastard get ripped apart, B) watch this guy fight and defeat the werecreature, or C) the guy gets away somehow. This will be similar to Strahd's curse, yes, but it ties into the bestial nature and lack of control over this apex form he desperately wanted for so long.
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Re: Help With A Darklord's Curse

Post by Atma »

Aleister would sooner kill himself than admit as such, and trust me, he's tried repeatedly, but, another reason why he's euthanized his companions is because he was jealous of how much better they took to becoming beasts than he did, whether it was because they simply better adjusted to becoming monsters, or because their minds broke and they became bipedal animals.

And yes, yes, Aleister realizes he's incomplete because he has yet to consume that original Smilodon's spirit, despite having consumed its heart, liver, brains and other internal organs. And he knows it's out there, somewhere, trying to find a way to take its body back, so he hunts it. But the kicker is that that spirit is the last place he'd look for it: inside of him. Every time he assumes his bestial form, as opposed to assuming his hybrid form or partial transformations, the original sabertooth's spirit reasserts control in order to indulge in "normal cat behavior." Aleister is clueless about what's really happening, and merely assumes he's simply overwhelmed with instincts.
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