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View Full Version : Wanted: Evil plot points



VirOath
2009-07-06, 09:30 AM
I need some help brainstorming. I have an evil character (Lawful Evil, smart about it too. Not having any urges to go out and mass slaughter innocents, just that sees people for value and resources. If you are worth more dead, and it's not more trouble than it's worth, then she wouldn't give it a second thought) that needs some plot points.

Now, this world is a bit closer to a Utopia than most worlds. Adventurers have been fighting "The Good Fight" for a long time now, much to the point that the balance of Good and Evil has tipped in Good's favor. I'm playing a Lesser Aasimar that has fallen far beyond belief due to a touch of insanity and corruption.

Okay, a little bit of backstory.(Note, this is a bit long) She was once a good little girl, living a bit of a sheltered life with her loving family. Something quite common in the world at the time. But this world is suddenly shattered. Cue scared traveler, cue story about his famr being burned in the night, cue Holier than Thou Paladin the next night. Both seem a bit... unstable. The traveler is glad for the refuge, but the Paladin demands that the traveler be handed over for execution. Normally in this world, the word of the Paladin would be taken at value, and followed.

This is where things turn different. Her parents ask for a reason why he is to be punished, the Paladin refuses to offer one, and in return the father refuses to hand a victim over to be killed without reason. Cue threats from the Paladin about being charged for his crimes as well, father retorts with then knowing why he is wanted to be executed, so they can defend themselves at the hearing. Paladin states that there is to be no hearing and starts to butcher the family.

Now, this counts as a breaking of the Code, so instantly the Paladin is revoked by the gods, losing his class features. Being that he is slaughtering commoners though, not really needed. Most of the family stands no chance, the children running and hiding from him. My character in particular is already wounded, a wooden splinter about an inch thick was in her leg, a by product of the Paladin cleaving into the chair after going through her father.

Now, between moaning in pain and watching her family being slaughtered, she prays out for help, from anyone that will listen. And she gets an answer as she is grabbed and hauled out from her hiding spot. The ex-Paladin cackled, clearly lost any trance of sanity, and brought his sword back as he held her up but her hair.

But she was seeing a man behind the Paladin, one that wasn't there before. He was bald, his flesh pale and covered with blood. But it was the eyes that had her gaze locked. They were more than just bloodshot, the iris and pupil was floating in the blood filled orbs. And he mouthed 'Touch Him'.

So she slammed her palms against the ex-paladin's arm, and he screamed in agony then toppled over, dead. Released from her seemingly certain doom, suffering from more trauma than a child could ever bear, she runs out into the night, ignoring the pain to follow the haunting, yet somehow oddly comforting to her, voice of her savior.

Cut into the future, and the now Cleric gets a vision through a divination spell. One of a group of adventurers being sent to 'remove her taint from the world' with some mac-guffen that would render her powerless. So with time to prepare, she builds an elaborate hidden lair, fills with with undead and turns it into a self sustaining undead factory, unleashing an undead plague on the world. She then leaves it and hides out where she is supposed to be, her 'secluded sanctuary' in time for the adventurers to arrive.

And before they could strip her of her power, in the point that all evil villains are giving the time to Monologue, she simply announces that she was expecting them, and surrenders. Now the party in perplexed, asks why, and she mentions that she has been too busy dealing with the undead plague to be concerned with her capture. After all, the world is a depository of knowledge, one that is lost if the world is destroyed. And the world is where she keeps her stuff.

She gets hauled back to the church, and barters. In exchange for not getting executed, she gives them the information they will need to deal with the source of the undead. So she gets locked away with the Mac-guffen in her cell, draining her power so long as she is in it's raduis, since they wisely don't trust her.

This gives her the stepping stones she needs. Once she get the chance to escape, she will have taken out the one item the church has that can do that to her.

Now despite any cliches in the above, I'm trying to flesh out a long term goal other than "Take Over the World!"

Bison: "OF COURSE!"

I got a few ideas already, but I'm wondering what some of the great (and sometimes twisted ^_^) minds on these forums can come up with.

Telonius
2009-07-06, 09:40 AM
A few questions for you. What's her primary motivation? Fear, gratitude to her "savior," revenge? Is she more of a zealot committed to the cause, or does she see her god as an agent in a deal she's made? What sort of backup does she have? Any minions, friends, allies? Are any allies, allies of their own free will, or were they provided by her god, hired, bullied, blackmailed, etc?

EDIT: Almost forgot - I'm assuming this is a Cleric we're talking about, correct?

kamikasei
2009-07-06, 09:48 AM
You've already taken her from "gains clerical power at a point of crisis" to "is a BBEG up to something". Who's that god who saved her? What's his MO? Why was the paladin being so unrighteous (any particular reason)? What was she actually doing that got this adventuring party on her case?

VirOath
2009-07-06, 12:21 PM
You've already taken her from "gains clerical power at a point of crisis" to "is a BBEG up to something". Who's that god who saved her? What's his MO? Why was the paladin being so unrighteous (any particular reason)? What was she actually doing that got this adventuring party on her case?

The God is Afflux, a lesser deity out of Libris Mortis. For those that don't have the book, he is a God of the secrets of the mind, body and blood. So it has an undeath flavor to Vectna. Again, this is a world where the power of evil is starting to wane.

The story behind the Paladin is about numerous factors and setups. It touches on that power corrupts, Good just as much as Evil, in this case turning a man into a self-righteous zealot. Though he still has control of his own actions, this sets the stage. Add in some of the Evil gods trading some harmless favors with some more neutral deities, tipping the balance on some pretty even choices.

One being that the stranger was illegally poaching a nearby forest (Lawful Good society beginning to dominate wholly and completely, permits starting to be needed for everything.). This is very minor, and would likely be passed by as justifiable because his crops had been thin for the past few seasons. But what he didn't know was that one of the few roving groups of highway men was using his farm as a graveyard. Partly why his crops weren't doing so well.

The bones of the animals he poached made his answer of not knowing anything about bodies buried on his farm a lie. Now add to it that these highway men had people trying to track them down, and you got the setting for a framing.

Now since he doesn't have as much crop, his storage is getting to be unused to the point he doesn't check it much anymore. And the robbers are getting more bold, needing a place to store their loot while they wait for the heat to die down. Now add a bit of bad luck, a robber accidentally breaks a lamp over a pile of rotten straw. The barn is set ablaze, and the wind carries it to his meager crops and his home. He escapes, but his family doesn't.

Now it appears that he was involved in the raids on the merchant caravans in the area, both by the bodies and the gold, and his lie under a Truth spell about not knowing about the bodies in his fields. So he runs from execution, and the Paladin is sent to bring him to justice (By finishing the sentence) and any others that are involved with his crimes. Someone willingly sheltering such an obvious criminal held his contempt, and his crimes best be concealed to not cause the common folk to panic.

Just a bunch of small choices being nudged in the right direction to produce the desired result. The Paladin was subtly being led by the nose, pushed and strained. He was set to unknowing kill an innocent and lose his gifts either way, and once the protection of the gods was gone from him, he was fair game to have his mind more overtly touched by some of the darker gods.

In the end, Afflux got what he hoped for, an almost broken little girl that can be molded, yet one that showed potential strength and wit.


The Cleric herself was later mistaken for a Cleric of Nerull due to her willingness to build altars to him when she was creating undead due to the bonus it provided. Add in a divination that she was going to trigger an undead plague that would sweep the world and threaten to crush all life, and you got people jumping up and down about something that they push her hand into doing.

Yes, self fulling prophecy. Might be a bit lame, but it's why relying so heavily on divination can mind-**** the world. Though the vision would have been more than correct if they didn't take her up on her offer, due to the time it would have taken to find the source on their own and get around the traps and spawn rules. Dead man's switch, she dies and the world dies with her.



A few questions for you. What's her primary motivation? Fear, gratitude to her "savior," revenge? Is she more of a zealot committed to the cause, or does she see her god as an agent in a deal she's made? What sort of backup does she have? Any minions, friends, allies? Are any allies, allies of their own free will, or were they provided by her god, hired, bullied, blackmailed, etc?

EDIT: Almost forgot - I'm assuming this is a Cleric we're talking about, correct?

Yes, this is the Cleric we are talking about, the one the little girl grows up to be in the story.

She does gain a fascination with death and the desire for knowledge of all sorts, her personality traits following along the same line as her God. She isn't a zealot per say, but sees her God as more than just an agent. A bit more intimate than that, likely more of a Father figure.

Revenge is surely on the list, and she does have a thick vindictive streak(With twisted methods of getting back, due to a sick sense of humor). But that isn't all of her motivation, or not the complete direction of it. It would fit that she holds contempt for the (As she sees it) Self-Righteous power base that seeks to completely dominate the world and every facet. She would desire power for herself, of course, and to topple the methods and designs that brought about her family's massacre. Return the world to a 'Darker Time' where things were more balanced, when one had more freedom of choice without being so constricted by the so called forces of Good.

Though she is lawful, and this may be a chaotic outlook, the means to which she would see it could be evil as an alternative. And she prefers allies that are from their free will, if they have any free will (Again, she does like the use of undead). Being that people can be manipulated by their own desires and seeming compassion more effectively than gold, fear and threats can in the long run. Also she is a schemer, and expects minions to eventually betray her.

But she places things on value. If she has a second hand man, she expects him to eventually betray her, will make sure she either has a plan to cancel it, or the means to do so on the fly, yet not hold hatred for him for doing so. Rather it would raise her opinion of him instead of killing him, he had the position in the first place because he had value alive rather than dead.

And knowledge has a value of it's own.

I hope some of this makes some sense and isn't just random ramblings :smallbiggrin:

Teln
2009-07-06, 12:52 PM
Sounds like discrediting and/or causing the dissolution of the order of paladins responsible for the massacre is a good goal. Reap what you sow, and all that.

Mando Knight
2009-07-06, 01:11 PM
Lawful Evil? Touch of insanity? Corruption?

Yessss (http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Megatron_(BW))...

Get a big chin.
Get a big gun (http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Megatron_(G1)) to strap on your (http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Megatron_(Animated)) arm.

Do what we do every night (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeOverTheWorld), Pinky!

Now stroke your chin.

VirOath
2009-07-06, 01:39 PM
Thanks for the replies! This has really helped in fleshing out the character.:smallbiggrin: