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Chimera245
2009-07-15, 09:47 PM
In the Book of Vile Darkness, (the D&D supplement book) in a sidebar, describing the Book of Vile Darkness, (the Minor Artifact book), it says the following:

"The book is a fantastic reference work of evil dieties, black magic, sacrifice, and forbidden secrets. Its lore is so potent and so dark that nonevil creatures that read its contents are often corrupted to evil through defilement rather than temptation. Once a mind has absorbed the knowledge in this book, the attatched soul is so polluted that there is no recourse other than to turn to evil."

This passage has inspired a character for me. I'm making up a character who, by some chance, happened upon the BoVD, and read it. A character who is Evil for no other reason than that.

I need help thinking up exactly what she was like before she read it, because she's exactly the same person except for being evil. I want to play her as such. I want to put as much of her old personality into her now that she's an unholy avatar of doom.

So far all I've come up with is that she likes to sing, is a good cook, and is very bookish and curious.

If she never happened upon the BoVD, she probably would have become a bard or something.

But instead she's a gestalt Paladin of Slaughter/Favored Soul. (With some levels of Soul Eater, modified, so that a humanoid can qualify.)

I also need ideas for other evil things she might have done in her backstory as she worked her way up to 10th level. (because she's 10th level.)

My DM devours backstory with wild glee, so I want to give her as detailed a backstory as possible.

Mindleshank
2009-07-15, 11:26 PM
Well you already have somewhat of a basis with the singing and stuff as far as backstory if she is a good character now have her commit and act so vile, like carving some one up then using there internal organs disguised as a shawl while she attended the funeral which ended up with her murdering the one closest to the victim, that she was repulsed by it and turned good but there still lingers the ever waking thought to be evil so give her dissociative identity disorder. If she was good that is.

Anxe
2009-07-15, 11:39 PM
She was a traveling midwife too. She purposely lent insufficient help to birthing mothers, so that they died on during the process. Then she impaled the babies on sticks outside their homes before quickly riding out of town.

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-07-15, 11:40 PM
For teh Evulz! (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ForTheEvulz)

Zaq
2009-07-15, 11:45 PM
This is one of those questions that basically begs for weird mixes of mechanical and non-mechanical morality and/or definitions of capital-E Evil.

"Corrupted to evil through defilement rather than temptation..."

See, that just doesn't sit well with me in terms of roleplaying a character, and you know why? Because, like it or not (and I'll be frank that I'm in the "not" camp when dealing with non-Outsiders), D&D has objective morality, and if something's Evil by definition, well, it's Evil, no matter what. (Which is stupid, but is still the case.) A character who has read the BoVD, it seems to me, is definitely Evil, but doesn't want to be (or even necessarily care about being) evil. So, what does this mean? It means that the character pings on Detect Evil, it means that they're affected by Holy Smite but not by Unholy Blight, and it hurts more than usual when a Paladin smites them. That's about it, though. It doesn't mean that they feel differently about people, it doesn't mean that they act differently, it doesn't mean that their motivations have changed. It just means that they have the "Evil" tag now.

Which is, frankly, dumb. Evil should mean something. But in D&D, it doesn't have to. This is the flip side to the argument that some things really Just Are Good or Just Are Evil, circumstances be damned. A character who has read the BoVD Just Is Evil, but doesn't have to earn that label by actually, you know, being evil. But apparently the BoVD doesn't care about that. It just slaps an Evil sticker to your forehead and calls it a day. Your character can still worship <god of Goodness>, fight in the name of righteousness, defend the innocent, work to convert the wicked, make countless personal sacrifices with no expectation of reward, and never cause harm (physical or otherwise) to another soul, and they'll still be Evil because they read a book.

That's really what this boils down to. There's no reason for this character to be Evil (it explicitly says they weren't tempted to it! They haven't been seduced by evil, they haven't been tricked, they haven't sold out their beliefs, none of it!), but now they ping when Mr. Paladin uses his Holy Radar.

I don't like it one bit. I'm not defending anything I've said here as being a good idea or a reasonable way to roleplay. I think it's stupid, and (like most of the alignment nonsense) should be ignored. But that's what it says happens, and there are some implicit consequences if you get rid of the objective morality. (Consequences that I tend to appreciate, yes, but they're nonetheless consequences that must be accepted and dealt with.)

I hope that you and your GM don't take it this way, but that's basically what the book says happens. Stupid, huh?

Lamech
2009-07-16, 12:10 AM
That's about it, though. It doesn't mean that they feel differently about people, it doesn't mean that they act differently, it doesn't mean that their motivations have changed. It just means that they have the "Evil" tag now.
I think when it say become evil your thoughts are turned to evil. You become a bad person. You no longer fight to help random people, or give your money to help the sick. Its like a helm of opposite alignment. A good character would no longer protect the innocent for the sake of protecting the innocent, and they would not consider harming innocent people something to be avoided.

Quietus
2009-07-16, 12:33 AM
I'd say.. determine what her goals and motivations were before. Now, she still has those same ideals, but she's willing to go to much darker lengths to meet them.


For example : She likes to sing, is a good cook, and is very bookish and curious. Alright. Of those, the only one that suggests motivations is the "bookish and curious" bit. Put an Evil spin on that; maybe she becomes a follower of Nerull, and actively hunts down fell secrets, to keep them from falling into what she considers "the wrong hands"? She's learned some rumor of a greater tome (perhaps even read about in the BoVD itself, and it's up to the DM whether it even exists or not), and she's out to find it? Nerull's personal diary from before he became a God, for instance, would have all sorts of interesting tidbits of information, and little bits that could be used to further one's own personal power. She could fixate on finding that, and be willing to do even some very extreme, heinous things in the search of information about it - torturing people who may have information about it, for instance, and then killing them after she has the information she wants to make sure no one else can get the same.

Ganurath
2009-07-16, 12:38 AM
Before: Responsibly ambitious scholar.
After: Recklessly ambitious experimenter.

HamsterOfTheGod
2009-07-16, 12:38 AM
This passage has inspired a character for me. I'm making up a character who, by some chance, happened upon the BoVD, and read it. A character who is Evil for no other reason than that.

I need help thinking up exactly what she was like before she read it, because she's exactly the same person except for being evil. I want to play her as such. I want to put as much of her old personality into her now that she's an unholy avatar of doom.

So far all I've come up with is that she likes to sing, is a good cook, and is very bookish and curious.

If she never happened upon the BoVD, she probably would have become a bard or something.


How about this....

Imagine a young lovely girl. She liked to sing and cook. She was studious and liked to read books. Her well off parents were proud of her. They were looking forward to her marriage in the not too distant future.

They hired a tutor. He was a handsome, mature man. He gave her a book to read. The book put ideas in her head. She would stay in her room reading all day long. She would burn incense in her room and chant.

Her parents noticed a change in her but thought it was only a passing phase.

Then one day, shortly before her 18th birthday, she woke up and brutally killed her parents in their sleep. She took a long bath, dressed, and then she sang as she went down the stairs to make herself a feast for breakfast.

A little later the tutor came by the house. She let him in, closed the door and handed him the book. He transformed into a demonic but handsome and powerful figure. He loomed over her and sensually caressed her face with a wickedly hooked claw. "My dear, I am proud of you. What do you want now?"

She jerked his hand off her face and faced him with a stern look and said, "I want more blood."

The cambion was a an agent of Graz'zt [or whichever evil power you want] who used the artifact to corrupt mortals but even he was surprised at the evil that was unleashed in the girl.

In the 10 years since that day, she has grown into a beautiful, charming, and graceful woman. Now in her late 20s, she is thought to be a tragic figure by most people. They pity her for the terrible loss of her parents and the fact that their killer was never caught. And though many have courted her, she has chosen to remain alone.

But, behind closed doors, the woman leads a double life. The girl has become a sadistic paladin of slaughter and favored soul worshipping her demon lord. Her dedication to chaos, evil, death and slaughter is almost as pure as that of a true demon. And her desire for blood has become a desire to consume the life energy of those she kills...



I also need ideas for other evil things she might have done in her backstory as she worked her way up to 10th level. (because she's 10th level.)

If you have some more backstory and setting to the world, you could work those in to what happened up to 10th level with your character...for ex, she could be responsible for a series of "disappearances"...

Audious
2009-07-16, 12:47 AM
I like to think that it happens over time. You read the book, dismissing the ideas as disgusting, but over time you find it hard to get what you read out of your mind. After awhile, the stuff you read begins to make sense and you start believing in it.

warrl
2009-07-16, 12:48 AM
A little later the tutor came by the house. She let him in, closed the door and handed him the book. He transformed into a demonic but handsome and powerful figure. He loomed over her and sensually caressed her face with a wickedly hooked claw. "My dear, I am proud of you. What do you want now?"

She jerked his hand off her face and faced him with a stern look and said, "I want more blood."

Then she plunged a demonbane dagger into his stomach and up into his heart, killing him. Quickly before the body could dissipate she cut out his heart and ate it.

Quietus
2009-07-16, 01:01 AM
Then she plunged a demonbane dagger into his stomach and up into his heart, killing him. Quickly before the body could dissipate she cut out his heart and ate it.

That's not nearly as much fun as leaving a demon/devil out there as a massive plot hook, though. And unnecessarily over the top brand of Evil.

::Edit:: Nevermind that it would, technically, be a Good act..

HamsterOfTheGod
2009-07-16, 01:08 AM
That's not nearly as much fun as leaving a demon/devil out there as a massive plot hook, though. And unnecessarily over the top brand of Evil.

Exactly. Plus someone has to take the book back to the demonic library. You DO NOT want to pay the late fee on that.

Zergrusheddie
2009-07-16, 01:08 AM
It is EXTREMELY difficult to have a character be completely and totally evil without coming off as just "Chaotic Stupid" or "Dumb-ass Evil." Without having a motive, it is difficult to be evil as you just come off as a "Come on, are you kidding me?" type of Evildoer. Think of some of the really evil characters from movies:

Darth Vader: Obviously evil, but he is Lawful Evil and is trying to bring Order to the Universe.

Doctor Hannibal Lector: A real gem as he is completely evil without being just silly. The Silence of the Lambs scared the living hell out of me when I saw it. Of course, Doctor Lector is not silly because he has a set of morals ("He won't come after me because it would be rude.") and is highly intelligent.

The Dark Knight's Joker: I know, I know. The Joker is over played as being evil but can you think of a villain that is just completely evil without having a true motive and without being silly?

Evil is basically "Reaching your goals, no matter who you end up crushing in the end." It's hard to take the midwife who purposely kills the mother and baby seriously when they say "It was fun!" Think of people that we would call evil: Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacey, or Ted Bundy. These men didn't do the terrible things they did "for teh lulz"; they did them for a single reason that is far more terrifying, compulsion.

HamsterOfTheGod
2009-07-16, 01:34 AM
It is EXTREMELY difficult to have a character be completely and totally evil without coming off as just "Chaotic Stupid" or "Dumb-ass Evil."

No. "Chaotic Stupid" or "Dumb-ass Evil" has nothing to do with playing a dedicated evil character but everything to do with being a bad role player.



Without having a motive, it is difficult to be evil as you just come off as a "Come on, are you kidding me?" type of Evildoer. Think of some of the really evil characters from movies:

Darth Vader: Obviously evil, but he is Lawful Evil and is trying to bring Order to the Universe.

No. Think Darth Sideous. Evil. Just evil. Very little backstory. Or Darth Vader, before the FULL backstory. Evil. Just evil. Wicked evil suit and breath. Now look at Anakin/Darth Vader, after the FULL backstory is revealed. Awful. Comical even. The less backstory the better for George Lucas it seems.



Doctor Hannibal Lector: A real gem as he is completely evil without being just silly. The Silence of the Lambs scared the living hell out of me when I saw it. Of course, Doctor Lector is not silly because he has a set of morals ("He won't come after me because it would be rude.") and is highly intelligent.

Yes. Deliciously evil in Silence of the Lambs. Little backstory. Just sociopathically evil. Still tasty left overs in Red Dragon. No backstory. Hannibal Rising. Awful backstory. Hannibal is a Nazi creation?



The Dark Knight's Joker: I know, I know. The Joker is over played as being evil but can you think of a villain that is just completely evil without having a true motive and without being silly?

Overplayed = Acadamy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The best evil joker was Heath Ledger. Oh and you want a backstory, well you got three to pick from, "WHY SO SERIOUS?"

The point? Backstory is overrated. Character is what is important and you can make a great character who is dedicated to evil. And you can make the character scary, creepy, fun or comical, or all at the same time. And you can even fill out the a back story later.



Evil is basically "Reaching your goals, no matter who you end up crushing in the end."

No. That's one type of evil.



It's hard to take the midwife who purposely kills the mother and baby seriously when they say "It was fun!" Think of people that we would call evil: Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacey, or Ted Bundy. These men didn't do the terrible things they did "for teh lulz"; they did them for a single reason that is far more terrifying, compulsion.
Oh but there have been serial killers that did it just for the lulz or that's the way they themselves would describe it. Richard Ramirez was one and John Wayne Gacey was another. At his trial Gacy joked that the he was guilty of "running a cemetery without a license", he never expressed remorse, he never gave intervies and his last words were "kiss my a**".

But so what. It's one thing to analyze the motives of real life serial killers and another to create the motive of a fictional character.

warrl
2009-07-16, 02:05 AM
The point? Backstory is overrated. Character is what is important and you can make a great character who is dedicated to evil. And you can make the character scary, creepy, fun or comical, or all at the same time. And you can even fill out the a back story later.

Backstory makes the character what he is. The character almost always knows his own backstory, or at least some of it. The part he knows WILL help determine what events he faces and WILL color his responses to those events. The part he doesn't know (if any relevant) WILL ALSO help determine what events he faces and MAY color his responses to those events.

However...

that doesn't mean THE AUDIENCE needs to know the backstory.

HamsterOfTheGod
2009-07-16, 02:33 AM
Backstory makes the character what he is.

No. The writer/actor makes the character what he is. Lucas the screenplay writers, who knew the whole backstory supposedly, wrote "I love you, too" for Han. The directors and actor changed it on set for the better, and I doubt they knew much more of the backstory than the audience. But they knew the "I know" fit the character.



The character almost always knows his own backstory, or at least some of it.

The character also knows what he had for lunch. The actor doesn't necessarily know what the character had for lunch. So what? Do you have to know what the character had for lunch in order to order dinner in-character?



The part he knows WILL help determine what events he faces and WILL color his responses to those events.

The part he doesn't know (if any relevant) WILL ALSO help determine what events he faces and MAY color his responses to those events.

I assume the first he here means player/actor and the second means character. The backstory known a player/actor MAY be used to determine future action or it MAY NOT. And you CAN play a role without knowing much backstory. But you CAN'T play a role well without having a good character concept.



However...

that doesn't mean THE AUDIENCE needs to know the backstory.
The audience shouldn't know the backstory normally unless the reveal has a story purpose. That's why it's a backstory.

In an RPG the DM and players are both audience and actors. So any backstory you write for yourself as a player is also one you write for yourself as an audience member.

And a backstory for an RPG character is what, a paragraph, a half a page, 10 pages long? That length will depend on how much you as a player like writing/reading your own backstory/description. Regardless of how long it is, most of it is not actually used by to help determine what events a PC faces or how the PC reacts. Does it really matter if your character was born on a farm or has surviving parents? Yes if you like writing that or reading that or if you want to use that in your role play. But does it really give you insight as to why your character agreed to go on a quest is now fighting a Githyanki warrior on the Astral plane while cracking wisecracks with his buddy the half-dragon cleric?

Tackyhillbillu
2009-07-16, 03:33 AM
Plenty of people are nasty just for the hell of it. Frankly, what constrains most people from doing bad things isn't any notion of goodness or restraint, but because they know there are consequences for acting that way. Take away that, and people very quickly indulge in what are called 'evil acts.'

The Milgram Experiments, the Stanford Prison Experiment, and others show people are very ready to do things that they believe are evil, just because they believe there are no consequences for them.

---

Continuing, OP, I'd say make your character exactly the same, except she just figures as long as she is branded as evil, she might as well indulge in Evil acts. She will be 'Evil' either way, so she might as well indulge herself. Have her do things that are evil in order to overcome minor annoyances. She forgets her keys to the Library? She kills a colleague and offers his soul to some nasty creature so she can avoid walking back home. As long as she is content, she is a perfectly courteous member of society. But even the minorest annoyance causes her to resort to depravity in order to overcome it. Why? Why not. She's evil either way. She might as well get some benefit from it.

---

Or just act like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN3hVL6vzxM

kamikasei
2009-07-16, 03:45 AM
I'm making up a character who, by some chance, happened upon the BoVD, and read it. A character who is Evil for no other reason than that.

I need help thinking up exactly what she was like before she read it, because she's exactly the same person except for being evil.

Honestly, I don't think it'd work all that well. The way I read the description is that the book works somewhat like reading the Necronomicon, or hearing the Devil's confession. It shows you truths about the universe that the mortal mind can't deal with, so that being and doing evil seem the only sensible response. This isn't totally incompatible with what you want, but I think it's important to emphasize the difference between "she read the book, which means she has the Evil tag, so she's the same person but Evil" and "she read the book, causing a mental break and leaving her with basically the same personality but twisted and corrupted by Evil".

Kami2awa
2009-07-16, 06:28 AM
That's not nearly as much fun as leaving a demon/devil out there as a massive plot hook, though. And unnecessarily over the top brand of Evil.

::Edit:: Nevermind that it would, technically, be a Good act..

Of course, the GM could go with the idea that killing a demon in the Prime Material plane merely destroys its material form and banishes it to the Outer Planes until it can recover and create a new vessel. So said demon could return in... unexpected ways (perhaps even as an Imp or Quasit familiar that the girl has trusted for many years).

JellyPooga
2009-07-16, 08:34 AM
It just means that they have the "Evil" tag now.

I think that it could work very well the way you describe it, but with the slight adjustment of adding a time period...

Mr.Holy the Righteous gets his hands on the BoVD (wittingly or otherwise) and has himself a read. The utter evil of the book corrupts him so that he now "pings" as Evil, but he seems to be otherwise unaffected; he still fights for just causes, he still helps old ladies across the road and gives money to charity. But deep inside, he has...thoughts...unfamiliar and repulsive thoughts...thoughts that almost make him retch every time they occur to him. As time goes by, the thoughts become so frequent that he starts struggling to differentiate between those that are his and those that come from whatever outside influence (as he sees it) is having this effect on him. Acting, almost at random, on these thoughts he ends up doing things that previously he would never have done but (and this is the crucial part) doesn't realise that what he's doing is wrong. It would start with little things and slowly grow. The character would become a living contradiction as he battles with his own morality to know what to do and whether it's "right". From this point he could go one of two ways; he could try to redeem himself and slowly purge the corruption that he picked up from the book (and work his way back to 'pinging' as Good). Either that or he could come to embrace his new life and become the monster that he once would have fought (and stay 'pinging' Evil).

woodenbandman
2009-07-16, 11:13 AM
^Similar to my idea.

She has to atone for her evil. Constantly. And when she does it again, it means she didn't atone hard enough. So she does it again. She is an unwilling paladin of tyranny/slaughter. It does say that nobody chooses to be a paladin: it chooses them.

Every time that she commits an evil act, she should have a compulsive prayer that she has to do, until she feels that she has atoned. For instance, if she thinks bad thoughts about her god, she might have to pray for an hour. Every waking second she bashes her mentality into thinking good thoughts, and she often succeeds, but she has nagging doubts in her mind, and she wants to act on them.

So she strives to be good, in thought and deed, but she can't keep it up because she is compulsively evil and no matter how hard she prays, she can't purge the evil from herself. THAT is scary.

Eventually you'd probably want to go for a paladin-style fall.

Fiendish_Dire_Moose
2009-07-16, 11:38 AM
The best idea I can come up with would be as such:
Mother Theresa, paladin style. Your holier-than-thou-and-have-sword-to-prove-it type whom can do no wrong.
Now, let's say, she loses someone, someone close to her. So, she goes into a bit of a depressive slump, looks for an easy way to get sad someone back, "accidentally" reads BoVD, becomes female Vlad Tapisch.
Badda-bing, badda-boom. Throw in Christopher Walken as her cohort and your DM won't know what hit him/her.
This helps avoiding just having the evil tag, and creates a functioning line. Event was powder keg, BoVD is a match.

@Zaq:
Evil can mean something. We call it Lawful Evil. Evil without commitment is Chaotic Evil. Evil that just got out of a relationship and feels it's not quite ready to love again is Neutral Evil. That ditzy step sister of evil that thinks that chocolate comes from the moon is Chaotic Neutral. :smalltongue:




Another angle you could try would be Celestine from Witchblade. So effed up that she tries to balance every evil act with a good act and vice/versa (sp?). However she has trouble committing acts that equal out and has a tendency to hold the door for an old lady, and equal it out by shooting up a bank, then burning down an orphanage, then pushing an old lady in front of a bus, then saving sixty cats from a burning tree, then crucifying Christ etc....

jguy
2009-07-16, 03:44 PM
This reminded me of a character I wrote down for a story I was planning. After I had found the Favored Soul class and the little tidbit of they are born with the innate connection to a god I got an evil idea.

It was a nice farm boy who grew up in a quaint little town. He sucked when it came to planting the crops but he could harvest them like no one else with the family scythe. Nice kid, if a little off-putting but he got along with everyone.

One day he was helping deliver a new calf when it suddenly died in his hands. It was alive one minute, mooing, then dead the next. It was shocking but no one thought it was anything more than a freak occurrence.

He didn't think anything of it until he was in the woods and stumbled upon a a small family of rabbits. He bent down to touch one of the babies when it flopped over dead. Soon, nearly everything that was young and new was dieing at his touch to the point where he wasn't allowed near his newborn brother.

Eventually he would discover in a dream, a roaming fortune teller, or some other way that he was a Favored Soul of Nerull and that Nerull had taken a special interest in him. I don't know how the character was going to turn out, either a stricken hero Blessed with Suck or someone who is eventually driven evil by the constant whisperings of a murderous god

Chimera245
2009-07-16, 08:55 PM
Um, okay, thanks for the help, but I think I worded my original post badly. When I said "She's exactly the same except for being evil" I didn't mean "She now has the Evil tag and otherwise acts normally." I meant "She is now evil. To the core. And she likes it. But other than that, she's the same as before."

Meaning, before, she liked to sing. She still sings, but now she's fond of singing in Dark Speech.
She was a good cook, but instead of biscuits and gravy she makes deep-fried elf with a side of dwarf nuggets.
She loved her parents. She still loves them, but now the best way she can think of to express her love is to splatter their entrails on the walls.

And I'm looking for other "sweet, innocent little commoner girl" things that she can put an evil twist on.

Sorry if I didn't explain myself properly.

Lamech
2009-07-16, 09:01 PM
I think a better way of expessing evil love to her parents would be to say, kill everyone who has slighted them or is in their way, or whose death would help them. Ex: Parents are potato farmers, John is a potato farmer. If John were to die her parents would face reduced competition and would have get to bring in John's crop. John dies. Depending on her wisdom score she may bring her parents John's head.

HamsterOfTheGod
2009-07-17, 03:34 AM
Meaning, before, she liked to sing. She still sings, but now she's fond of singing in Dark Speech.
She was a good cook, but instead of biscuits and gravy she makes deep-fried elf with a side of dwarf nuggets.
She loved her parents. She still loves them, but now the best way she can think of to express her love is to splatter their entrails on the walls.

And I'm looking for other "sweet, innocent little commoner girl" things that she can put an evil twist on.


That's easy enough. Just follow what you've already done...

She likes to sew...using the skin of her victims.

She has a garden...with an assassin vine...who she fertilizes with victims.

She has a lover...the lover is a demon.

She has a pet...but her pet is a howler.

Basically add "with her victims" or "and it's an outsider" to anything she does or likes.