Leliel
2009-08-06, 06:03 PM
Well, a while back, you may remember me talking about a villainess idea of mine, a powerful sorceress who wants to destroy the world in order to save it-namely, by changing history, effectively causing everything from that point on to have never existed.
Of course Beatus (her first name-her full one is actually a self-made moniker) needed a hell of a lot of trauma in her past to justify her frankly insane plan, as well as a very effing good reason for others to help her (I already decided to have the fact that they'll still exist, but "outside of time", immortal and omniscient, but that still doesn't change the fact that they're trying to send the rest of the world into total oblivion). However, I then read The Handmaid's Tale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_handmaids_tale), and given my liking for other dystopian novels (namely, The Giver), I decided to have her be an immigrant from a future, where frankly, everything has gone wrong. Besides justifying the existence of accomplices (they're refugees too), it also creates a moral dilemma-if the PCs stop her, will they ultimately be causing infinitely more suffering then she could over a thousand years?
Of course, this inevitably lends to the story hook of the PCs actually going there (Beatus: "You say you know me? You dare say you know exactly who I am? Oh, you don't realize how wrong you are...WHY DON'T I SHOW YOU!?" *Big Shiny Portal*), and seeing exactly what it is that sent the woman off the deep end. I also am toying around with the idea of showing Beatus as a teen as she is subjected to the endless trauma conga line as she slowly loses her marbles and changes from an idealistic, in-denial slave of the elite into the bitter, lonely and sad witch she is today (tomorrow?).
So, what do you think?
Of course Beatus (her first name-her full one is actually a self-made moniker) needed a hell of a lot of trauma in her past to justify her frankly insane plan, as well as a very effing good reason for others to help her (I already decided to have the fact that they'll still exist, but "outside of time", immortal and omniscient, but that still doesn't change the fact that they're trying to send the rest of the world into total oblivion). However, I then read The Handmaid's Tale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_handmaids_tale), and given my liking for other dystopian novels (namely, The Giver), I decided to have her be an immigrant from a future, where frankly, everything has gone wrong. Besides justifying the existence of accomplices (they're refugees too), it also creates a moral dilemma-if the PCs stop her, will they ultimately be causing infinitely more suffering then she could over a thousand years?
Of course, this inevitably lends to the story hook of the PCs actually going there (Beatus: "You say you know me? You dare say you know exactly who I am? Oh, you don't realize how wrong you are...WHY DON'T I SHOW YOU!?" *Big Shiny Portal*), and seeing exactly what it is that sent the woman off the deep end. I also am toying around with the idea of showing Beatus as a teen as she is subjected to the endless trauma conga line as she slowly loses her marbles and changes from an idealistic, in-denial slave of the elite into the bitter, lonely and sad witch she is today (tomorrow?).
So, what do you think?