Help! My players have all turned into Worshippers of Set!

[Essence_of_War]

I need help resolving a situation that arose at our weekly game. I'm DMing the party through Gygax's "Necropolis". For anyone who is familiar with it, the PCs have just arrived at the Temple of Osiris. They are on a quest to hunt down and foil the plans of Rahotep, a crazed servant of Set who is making a bid for demigodhood.

The Party:

Druid 9
Wizard 9
Fighter 6/Homebrew Dragon disciple-Dragon Samurai hybrid 3
Swash3/Rogue4/Assassin2
Fighter1/Wilder8
Bard 9


The detailed version of the story:

The PCs arrived at the Temple of Osiris that guards the Gorge of Osiris. They enter through the front gate, but don't see any guards. They poke around a little bit, and finally encounter some guards who direct them to the main entrance of the temple.

The temple, I should point out, has been utterly corrupted. All of the priests of Osiris have been killed and replaced with priests of Set, but the temple is still trying to keep up appearances. There are some subtle clues that I had the PCs with Knowledge(religion), Knowledge(khemiti), and high spot checks notice like:
1) Priests garb was not the usual white, it was a mix of colors
2) The carvings and hieroglyphs detailing Osiris and the Pharoh's exploits appeared poorly maintained
3) The room where they met with the temple's high priest was lit by glowing red (color of Set, as opposed to Osiris' color, green) statues.

So after coming into the main temple, the PCs meet with the high priest, who explains that the Osirium (the underworld beneath the temple) has been corrupted by a demoncroc the likes of which the PCs have encountered along their journey to the temple. They PCs agree to go down and rid the temple of this corrupting element. Of course, this is really a ploy by the temple to send the PCs to their death or conversion to Set.

They are sent to the Osirium on a weird reed boat. The Osirium is structured like an underground lake fed from a river. It is lit by a dull red glow coming from the walls and they encounter a group of demon-hippos which they defeat to land at a shrine in the middle of the weird lake. At this point, they really wanted to gain access to the shrine, but it had 4 doors, each guarded by a sphinx of one of Set's 4 totem animals. The sphinx's made an offer to the PCs, to give them more powerful magical gear in exchange for their service to the Sphinx's master. And here is where the wheels came off the wagon. Instead of continuing on their quest to oppose Set, everyone except for the fighter/dragonthing took the offer!

In the adventure guide, Gygax anticipated 1 or 2 of them to do so, and to use these characters as sleeper agents to turn on the party when they later gain access to the tomb of Rahotep. But now I have an entire party of CE, servants of Set. I have no idea what to do. I gave them multiple opportunities during the conversation with the Sphinx's to decide to NOT take the offer, and I thought I provided enough clues that this place was corrupted before they even got to the shrine, but they just decided to run with it. I don't want to just retcon it all away, because if I just change the player's actions I feel like I'm sort of violating the player-DM contract here. But at the same time, I don't see how they can possibly continue on with this adventure if Set is able to control them to prevent them from stopping his servant.

What the heck do I do?



tl;dr version

All but one of my party members has, despite numerous hints/clue/opportunities to walk back from the edge, taken a deal from Set to trade their soul for a handful of magic weapons.

I think this forces their adventure to come to an end since they can't possibly stop Rahotep now. I'm not sure how I should handle this.

[Urpriest]

The most straightforward solution would be to make it an adventure about helping Set carry out his plans, making some good-aligned villains that the PCs need to defeat to do so.

[Fouredged Sword]

It is clear that Rahotep now secretly works for Osiris is a conveluted plan to stop all evil and acend to demigodhood.

[Caliphbubba]

The most straightforward solution would be to make it an adventure about helping Set carry out his plans, making some good-aligned villains that the PCs need to defeat to do so.


this is how I'd handle it probably. You can even re-use the final leg of the adventure, alignment swapped...with a rival power holding some MacGuffin that Rahotep needs your players to recover to finish his plans of acsention or soemthing. You can even use the "Sleeper Agent" angle for PC that didn't take the deal...he gets contacted by the rival telepathically or in a dream or some such.

also sounds like a fun oppertunity to use all sorts of Always Good or Usually Good monsters that don't get used a lot in normal play.

Roll with the punches my good man.

[Person_Man]

I basically agree with Urpriest. Thanks to the PC's help, Set wins. The temple continues to act as a quest giver, asking the PCs to do increasingly vile and difficult tasks again Good forces. Good figures this out and starts hounding the PCs, by sending Good aligned creatures and adventuring groups against them. If they build up a big enough reputation they should be publicly branded as Evil, and everywhere they go they are treated as such. Then the consequences depend on how much of the world is Good (or Neutral but averse to Evil), which the PCs should have known in the first place.

[raxies94]

I agree with the above posters. It's probably pretty frustrating for you, but rolling with the punches seems like the best option here. Also, at the end of the adventure, I would probably have Set collect their souls, so that can understand that they really did give up their souls, and that is not without consequence.

[Archwizard]

I agree with the above posters. It's probably pretty frustrating for you, but rolling with the punches seems like the best option here. Also, at the end of the adventure, I would probably have Set collect their souls, so that can understand that they really did give up their souls, and that is not without consequence.

I agree with everyone about adjusting the adventure to be alignment-inverted, and I like this touch for the ending.

[Person_Man]

Also, at the end of the adventure, I would probably have Set collect their souls, so that can understand that they really did give up their souls, and that is not without consequence.

There's actually a specific mechanic for this to happen before the end of the adventure - Resurrection. Eventually a PC will die and his allies will try and bring him back. The Cleric who tries to do so will simply get an error message from the underworld - "Sorry, this soul belongs to Set. Sucker."

[HappyBlanket]

There's actually a specific mechanic for this to happen before the end of the adventure - Resurrection. Eventually a PC will die and his allies will try and bring him back. The Cleric who tries to do so will simply get an error message from the underworld - "Sorry, this soul belongs to Set. Sucker."

This. If you really want to get them back to Good, do this as soon as Resurrection is an option (after a bunch of quest giving, obviously). Which might not even be too far away, depending on how helpful the Set Clerics are... And how competent the aforementioned antagonist Good party is. edit: Then again, I suppose it doesn't make any sense for a Set cleric to try a Res.

Nice way to show that selling your soul actually means something too.

[Killer Angel]

Urpriest gave one of the best solutions available.
That said, I envy a little your players: we ended TPKed anyway, but it took two additional months, in one of the most awful dungeon I have memories of.

[Essence_of_War]

Thanks for the input so far everyone.

I've been thinking about it and I think I'm going to take the inversion route. I can work up some missions where the PCs have to retrieve some of the evil objects from protected locations, or good NPCs. Perhaps 3-4 quests to somewhat exotic locations where the evil objects are well defended. Give everyone a chance to gain some experience, slay some Usually Good/Always Good monsters, and then, after retrieving the last of the evil objects, I can send the party into Rahotep's tomb to reunite him with the objects. Perhaps at this point they can discover that much of the tomb has been invaded by celestial forces or a bands of good NPC adventurers.


In the meantime, the non-servant of Set PC is going to act as a sleeper agent to try to thwart their plan at the very end (with a divinely granted contingency for evacuation in case he can't)

Sound like a good outline?

Aside,
Killer_Angel,
When I read through the Tomb of Rahotep, I burst out laughing at various places. The resemblance between it and the Tomb of Horrors in terms of arbitrary lethality is poignant.

[MarkusWolfe]

Is this 'Necropolis' anything like Stygia and is Set anything serpentine (ie; major snake theme)? If so, just send in a certain Cimmerian Barbarian 20/Fighter10 to cause, apart from the one who didn't convert, a total TPK...

Otherwise, follow Urpriests advice.

[Urpriest]

Is this 'Necropolis' anything like Stygia and is Set anything serpentine (ie; major snake theme)? If so, just send in a certain Cimmerian Barbarian 20/Fighter10 to cause, apart from the one who didn't convert, a total TPK...

Otherwise, follow Urpriests advice.

In b4 Conan has Warblade levels

[Gnaeus]

In b4 Conan has Warblade levels

I hope so, because otherwise he is going to get his backside handed to him by a high level party. A level 30 fighter/barbarian is not a good epic challenge.

[MarkusWolfe]

I hope so, because otherwise he is going to get his backside handed to him by a high level party. A level 30 fighter/barbarian is not a good epic challenge.

And this is why I was so easily seduced by Mutants and Masterminds...

[Honest Tiefling]

Since running the adventure as an evil campaign has already been stated, I'm going to post a weird idea. In Egyptian Mythology, Set was often depicted as killing Orsis, but Pharaohs balanced Horus (Osiris' son, by the way) and Set. Set is still chaotic and very often associated with unpleasant things, but the Pharaoh was not there to face punch him but to maintain balance between the two.

Sure your party is CE, except the one dude. Doesn't mean that Set is going to let some demon run around and mess up the balance of things, or at least, a demon not under his control. If the Dragonthing PC did not convert, you can have both temples want to get rid of the demon in the Osirium and retcon it to be an actual threat to the entire pantheon, not Set being up to his ol' antics. That, or the thing under the Osirium was a test to see how strong the PCs were, (And converting them was a bonus!) and now Set/Horus needs them to be a bad enough dude to rescue the president.

I have never read the module, but I assume this is not covered in it in the slightest.

[Essence_of_War]

That seems like a pretty neat idea too Honest Tiefling.

The module gives some advice on what to do if 1 or 2 people convert, but a mass conversion seems...somewhat unanticipated.

I'm going to weigh these options very carefully, thanks for pointing that out.

Edit: 1 more question.

What should I do with the now CE druid? I'm tempted to handwave the druid alignment restriction, and I can't think of any mechanical reason why this would be unfair. Any thoughts on this?

[DrDeth]

How mature are your players?:smallconfused:

[Essence_of_War]

Honestly?

They vary across about an order of magnitude. Biologically, they're in their mid-twenties, but for about half of them this is their first table top rpg experience having only done comp based ones (bioware, the elder scrolls, etc) before. Sometimes the freedom of "you mean I can just try to kill that?" gets to them.

[Maho-Tsukai]

Your chaotic evil druid could always become a Blighter. Yeah, the blighter list kinda sucks without additions, but with a PC having levels in fighter it seems your party is not too concerned with optimization so the Blighter would not suck, in this case.

As for what to do, just roll with the evil-aligned game and if you want to make them realize "hey, turning evil is a mistake" then just have them all be sacrificed in the ritual at the end, or do what was said earlier and have set claim their souls at the end of the game.

[Person_Man]

Aside,
Killer_Angel,
When I read through the Tomb of Rahotep, I burst out laughing at various places. The resemblance between it and the Tomb of Horrors in terms of arbitrary lethality is poignant.

You might also want to consider reading The Anubis Murders (http://www.amazon.com/Anubis-Murders-Planet-Stories-Library/dp/1601250428/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1307991245&sr=8-12). It's set in the same campaign world, and the plot is about a high level dual class Wizard/Cleric of Thoth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoth) (who is clearly functioning under 1st edition rules) who is also a detective for some reason, who unravels a plot about how clerics of Seth are trying to take over the world by pretending to be clerics of Osiris and using a vaguely defined super artifact.

[JonestheSpy]

Well, if you don't want to got to the trouble of inverting everything, you can just tweak it a bit so that the wannabe-demigod wants to betray Set and eclipse him in power - that's a pretty common plot element in such stories, especially the old pulps. So they have to defeat the same villain, now they're just doing it for Set instead of Osiris.

I also agree that they might find some unpleasant side effects from aligning with an evil god. Such deals tend to not work out well for the fools who give in to temptation, y'know...

[Essence_of_War]

@ Person_Man,

That looks incredible. Incredibly silly, but incredible nonetheless :smallbiggrin:

[erikun]

Perhaps the PCs are just accepting the weapons for now, planning on killing Set anyways, and trying to win back their souls afterwards? There are a large number of players who aren't concerned about what two letters appear on the Alignment line of their character sheet, after all, and may figure that what happens after death won't matter until they run out of resurrections.

I do like the reincarnation idea, though. Even if they do ignore Set's final offer and try to kill him at the end, the party members find themselves transformed into appropriate minions (Yuan-Ti, perhaps?) for bidding away their souls.

[Callista]

Honestly?

They vary across about an order of magnitude. Biologically, they're in their mid-twenties, but for about half of them this is their first table top rpg experience having only done comp based ones (bioware, the elder scrolls, etc) before. Sometimes the freedom of "you mean I can just try to kill that?" gets to them.Hmm... I think maybe it's important with newbies in the group to also make sure they know, "I don't HAVE to try to kill that." People playing CE often forget that their characters are out for their own benefit, rather than simply out to kill/torture/murder/etc. CE of course has no limits on what they will do to advance their own status, but they do not have to be mindless killers, and those who survive any length of time are generally not. Killing something isn't always the most beneficial course of action. (Sometimes, it's better to mindrape it and use it as an unwilling double-agent.)

Of course, you should also make the drawbacks of Evil very plain. When your players are playing Good-aligned characters, you will occasionally put them in situations where they have to make sacrifices, right? Well, Evil has drawbacks too. Think of how Evil organizations usually survive--intimidation, balance-of-power, lots of politics. Smile at someone's face, then figure out if they're weak enough to stab in the back. Diplomacy, manipulation, mutually assured destruction....

I have often seen newbies thinking that if you play Evil, you're more free to act than if you play Good. That's not true--you're limited because you can't trust anybody, and your character's personality just doesn't allow for some things. In the famous Evil societies--drow, orcs, demons and devils--they keep it in balance, but nobody ever knows whether their "best friend" will kill them today.

Another issue I have seen with CRPG players is that they expect there to be rails. A computer game will necessarily have some kind of railroad, because a computer can't be programmed to think of everything the player might do. In a tabletop game, those rails won't exist (if you're a halfway decent DM), but they may look for them anyway, and try to go along with whatever they think you're suggesting they do. Getting them to start taking the initiative can be somewhat tricky.

[Essence_of_War]

I have often seen newbies thinking that if you play Evil, you're more free to act than if you play Good. That's not true--you're limited because you can't trust anybody, and your character's personality just doesn't allow for some things.

This. I've tried hard to drive this point home to VERY limited success.


Another issue I have seen with CRPG players is that they expect there to be rails. A computer game will necessarily have some kind of railroad, because a computer can't be programmed to think of everything the player might do. In a tabletop game, those rails won't exist (if you're a halfway decent DM), but they may look for them anyway, and try to go along with whatever they think you're suggesting they do.

I think this may have been part of the instigation for my problem. The way the encounter with the offer-bearing sphinxes was set up, the sphinxes made it sound like you had to agree to their offer to proceed to the center of the shrine. You didn't. You could have killed the sphinxes and broken in. Or they actually could have bypassed the shrine entirely. It is non-essential.

[NecroRick]

The problem is that players choose to believe who they choose to believe.

I've had entire campaigns derailed because an enemy of the party lied to them about something, and they treated it as gospel truth no matter how many hints I threw at them.

[crazyhedgewizrd]

do the players know, who is the master? if not just keep them going along with the main storyline. If they do know, how do they feel about Rahotep? will they help him become a god, or step in at the last minute and say "hey i want to be the god instead".

[Wyntonian]

There's been a lot of responses, so mine might be a little redundant, but here goes.

In this situation, I would look at the BBEG they're supposed to try to kill. you described him as crazed, evil, and attempting to ascend to demigodhood. Do you think a crazed god-complex dude would be ok with a bunch of random PC's just showing up in the middle of his ascendance? or some lowly scum like them offering him/her their ASSISTANCE! He has no need to accept offers of men's souls, he just takes them! Like Honey Badger!

Short version: Just because they're both evil doesn't have to mean they get along. The BBEG can still be the BBEG.

[Leon]

Ready, Set, Go

[Honest Tiefling]

Now that I think about it, I wonder how many of the PCs would convert back if given shinies. Never underestimate a PC's greed.

[Person_Man]

Honestly?

They vary across about an order of magnitude. Biologically, they're in their mid-twenties, but for about half of them this is their first table top rpg experience having only done comp based ones (bioware, the elder scrolls, etc) before. Sometimes the freedom of "you mean I can just try to kill that?" gets to them.

Yeah, gamers who are "trained" on video roleplaying games often act like sociopathic killers and thieves (ie, the only activities in 99% of such video games) when they play tabletop games. It reminds me of the Standford Prison Experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment). People are very prone to situational attribution of behavior (ie, doing things based on their current role and circumstances, rather then their personality or rules of society in general). It takes video gamers a long time to develop the "professionalism" needed to play a non hack and slash tabletop game. (And more broadly, this is true for anyone given social autonomy and/or power).

You might want to try a few gaming sessions with little to no combat or opportunities for treasure. A murder mystery, a royal court intrigue, helping NPCs with morality decisions, puzzles, riddles, whatever. I even explicitly sit new players down and explain to them that every situation in my game can be resolved in multiple different ways, and that combat is usually the most difficult way to do so. Anything to get them thinking like people and less like Diablo players.

[Essence_of_War]

Now that I think about it, I wonder how many of the PCs would convert back if given shinies. Never underestimate a PC's greed.

My observational evidence is that PCs are more attracted to shiny things than my cat is to the laser pointer.

I'm pretty sure I don't want to offer that "way out", at least not in the given context :smallamused:.

[SITB]

Maybe I am missing something, but punishing the PC that took a course of action that was offered to them, that will screw them later on in the campaign, rendering it 'unwinnable' (ALA the old adventure game issue "You choose a different option at the start of the game? Hah! You die.") seems un-fun.

Yeah, the PCs should work harder to match their new power, but ending the campaign with Set killing them or something seems to give the message 'Screw any PC that doesn't take the high and narrow, even though I gave you the option to do so in the first place'.

[Master_Rahl22]

The problem is that players choose to believe who they choose to believe.

I've had entire campaigns derailed because an enemy of the party lied to them about something, and they treated it as gospel truth no matter how many hints I threw at them.

This. We had a campaign where we came upon a mysterious dude who was simply known as The Man Who Would Be King who had started a revolution to overthrow the current king. We fought and he kicked our butts, and he became the main antagonist for quite a few sessions. It was like 10 sessions later when somebody figured out that we had all our info about the king directly from the king or one of his advisors, and the same about TMWWBK. Yeah, turns out the DM had meant for us to join him after he explained why he was staging his coup, and he had to scramble to rework things when we didn't even listen to him. We had several months worth of campaign because we failed a few Sense Motive checks.

[Flame of Anor]

This. We had a campaign where we came upon a mysterious dude who was simply known as The Man Who Would Be King who had started a revolution to overthrow the current king. We fought and he kicked our butts, and he became the main antagonist for quite a few sessions. It was like 10 sessions later when somebody figured out that we had all our info about the king directly from the king or one of his advisors, and the same about TMWWBK. Yeah, turns out the DM had meant for us to join him after he explained why he was staging his coup, and he had to scramble to rework things when we didn't even listen to him. We had several months worth of campaign because we failed a few Sense Motive checks.

That's hilarious. :smallbiggrin:

[Analytica]

Also, at the end of the adventure, I would probably have Set collect their souls, so that can understand that they really did give up their souls, and that is not without consequence.

I disagree on this part. There are NPCs who are clerics of Set already. Unless they also face this fate, I see no in-world reason that it should happen to the PCs. I would probably give them Vile bonus feats instead, whether they want them or not, to reflect how they are tainted.


What should I do with the now CE druid? I'm tempted to handwave the druid alignment restriction, and I can't think of any mechanical reason why this would be unfair. Any thoughts on this?

Either Set does grant spells and class abilities to CE druids (maybe with some spell list and wild shape option changes), or else Set instead made this particular minion NE so they could continue to serve well.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Actually, Set could well be concerned that one of his minions is getting a bit 'uppidy' and needs a come-uppance. After all, he's top dawg on this here totem pole, and doesn't much care for minions attempting to ascend to anything that might deny him their soul...

[TriForce]

if you dislike the fact that they are being evil just becouse its the "easy" choice, make them do some truly horrific things. killing babies in from of their mother and that sorta stuff. make it so that its really easy to do, no encounter or anything, discribe it in gruesome details and watch their reaction. there is a good chance they might back down, considering this sorta thing too much even for them. if they dont, let the next victim be a family member of a party member (one of the evil ones) see if that brings them to their senses. if still not, give them hints about a "special component" in the final ritual, namely, some of the most wicked souls on the world. their questgiver just wants to make them as evil as possible in order to sacrifise their souls. give small hints about that, and make them clearer every mission :) it will mean this entire campaign the players will be evil, but it might teach them about the cost

[Rodimal]

Characters "We go completely against everything we have done so far and choose power, giving up our dogooder ways!"

DM : 'Welp, that's great, you're all now NPCs in service of Set. Time to roll up new characters."


Sorry. Not happening in any game I run or will ever run. No Evil characters. Period, end of story. Anyone who turns their character Evil rolls up a new character because their old one us now an NPC under my control.


Out

[crazyhedgewizrd]

if you dislike the fact that they are being evil just becouse its the "easy" choice, make them do some truly horrific things. killing babies in from of their mother and that sorta stuff. make it so that its really easy to do, no encounter or anything, discribe it in gruesome details and watch their reaction. there is a good chance they might back down, considering this sorta thing too much even for them. if they dont, let the next victim be a family member of a party member (one of the evil ones) see if that brings them to their senses. if still not, give them hints about a "special component" in the final ritual, namely, some of the most wicked souls on the world. their questgiver just wants to make them as evil as possible in order to sacrifise their souls. give small hints about that, and make them clearer every mission :) it will mean this entire campaign the players will be evil, but it might teach them about the cost

Ive been in a game were a player has killed about 30 people so he can roll around in the guts, other games were others have hanged up people and turned their insides into wings. Going by this killing a child in front of their mother is not as evil.


Characters "We go completely against everything we have done so far and choose power, giving up our dogooder ways!"

DM : 'Welp, that's great, you're all now NPCs in service of Set. Time to roll up new characters."


Sorry. Not happening in any game I run or will ever run. No Evil characters. Period, end of story. Anyone who turns their character Evil rolls up a new character because their old one us now an NPC under my control.


Out

you can still be evil and do the right thing, mainly for selfish reasons. most offers to change or set allignment is at the start or end of the campagin, and generally sets the tone. Your anti evil bias seems very strong and can seem to ruin games.

[Killer Angel]

Killer_Angel,
When I read through the Tomb of Rahotep, I burst out laughing at various places. The resemblance between it and the Tomb of Horrors in terms of arbitrary lethality is poignant.

Sorry for the late answer.
Yes, there is a resemblance, and some "boring" parts without fighting. What was really annoying (and one of the causes of our death) was that we were severely under WBL and, once in the Tomb, we find plenty of treasures, but we were unable to get out. No dimensional spells and 4 levels under WBL... we practically committed suicide for frustration.


Ive been in a game were a player has killed about 30 people so he can roll around in the guts, other games were others have hanged up people and turned their insides into wings.

:smalleek: I never imagined getting to this, but... those players should play F.A.T.A.L.

[RCgothic]

if you dislike the fact that they are being evil just becouse its the "easy" choice, make them do some truly horrific things. killing babies in from of their mother and that sorta stuff. make it so that its really easy to do, no encounter or anything, discribe it in gruesome details and watch their reaction. there is a good chance they might back down, considering this sorta thing too much even for them. if they dont, let the next victim be a family member of a party member (one of the evil ones) see if that brings them to their senses. if still not, give them hints about a "special component" in the final ritual, namely, some of the most wicked souls on the world. their questgiver just wants to make them as evil as possible in order to sacrifise their souls. give small hints about that, and make them clearer every mission :) it will mean this entire campaign the players will be evil, but it might teach them about the cost

Make the final act of evil that they have to sacrifice each other to the glory of Set and only the last one standing gains the ultimate power! ;)

[Rodimal]

Ive been in a game were a player has killed about 30 people so he can roll around in the guts, other games were others have hanged up people and turned their insides into wings. Going by this killing a child in front of their mother is not as evil.



you can still be evil and do the right thing, mainly for selfish reasons. most offers to change or set allignment is at the start or end of the campagin, and generally sets the tone. Your anti evil bias seems very strong and can seem to ruin games.

Maybe, but I am very up front about it. IMO, D&D is a game about Heroes, flat out Good guys doing the right thing for the right reasons, not evil characters doing the right thing because it benefit them in the end. *shrugs* At least I make no bones about it.

out

[crazyhedgewizrd]

Maybe, but I am very up front about it. IMO, D&D is a game about Heroes, flat out Good guys doing the right thing for the right reasons, not evil characters doing the right thing because it benefit them in the end. *shrugs* At least I make no bones about it.

out

do u allow players to get corrupted during their course of play.
We strated with noble goals, then ehhh, then you people follow my ideals.

[Flame of Anor]

Make the final act of evil that they have to sacrifice each other to the glory of Set and only the last one standing gains the ultimate power! ;)

Ooh, yes, do this! But then instead of getting ultimate power, his soul is devoured by Set! :biggrin:

[Callista]

It's quite common for Evil deities to devour the souls of those who serve them. (I think Complete Divine has some stuff on the afterlife.) But they don't do this to ALL souls. Some will become devils/demons or in some other way retain their sentience in the afterlife. So, the evil character who makes this choice is gambling that he is powerful and worthy enough to escape this. Evil characters are out for themselves, and many of them have enough hubris to believe that they are part of that elite group who will be on top in the end--they don't care about all those lesser minions of their god.

I think it is quite appropriate to have Set eat the souls of everyone but the winner of that last fight. Said winner gets to start at the bottom of the totem pole in the afterlife. Sure, he's just killed all his friends; but now he has no allies and he can't trust anybody--whether he's ruthless enough to survive is anybody's guess... *fade-to-black*

[Rodimal]

do u allow players to get corrupted during their course of play.
We strated with noble goals, then ehhh, then you people follow my ideals.

*shrugs* never had it happen yet. If a Paladin falls and wants redemption then that sort of corruption can make for a fun few adventures. If that same paladin becomes a blackguard because the person playing them thinks its 'cool' or just wants to ruin the game by slaughtering things, then it's bad.

I have no problem with Neutral characters as long as they are played well. Selfish is not necessarily evil. Keeping a bit of extra gold for yourself as the party thief, not a problem, Not helping the party or actually hindering them or killing random things because you can, not happening.

Hhmmm, maybe my problem isn't as much with Evil characters as I thought. It's seems I have a problem with Stupidly played evil characters.

out

[Flame of Anor]

I think it is quite appropriate to have Set eat the souls of everyone but the winner of that last fight. Said winner gets to start at the bottom of the totem pole in the afterlife.

What? No, that would defeat the point. In your scenario, the DM is just rewarding the character who can be most evil. That doesn't feel right. It's much better to Tomato Surprise (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TomatoSurprise) the last guy with some Laser Guided Karma (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LaserGuidedKarma).

[Callista]

What? No, that would defeat the point. In your scenario, the DM is just rewarding the character who can be most evil. That doesn't feel right. It's much better to Tomato Surprise (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TomatoSurprise) the last guy with some Laser Guided Karma (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LaserGuidedKarma).The DM's playing Set, though. And that's the kind of thing Set would do.

Also, think about the situation this last surviving party member finds them in. They've just killed all their friends. They get ripped out of their bodies, their power level goes down to a CR 2 creature (most likely a dretch--slow, stupid, and weak)... They're now in an environment where they're the least powerful thing around and they cannot count on anyone or anything in their newly CE environment; they can no longer take advantage of anyone's good nature because nobody has a good nature anymore. There's a chance they may survive, but it's actually a pretty slim chance. And even if they do survive, they'll probably never know friendship, love, or safety ever again.

I think that satisfies karma perfectly well.

[Flame of Anor]

The DM's playing Set, though. And that's the kind of thing Set would do.

Also, think about the situation this last surviving party member finds them in. They've just killed all their friends. They get ripped out of their bodies, their power level goes down to a CR 2 creature (most likely a dretch--slow, stupid, and weak)... They're now in an environment where they're the least powerful thing around and they cannot count on anyone or anything in their newly CE environment; they can no longer take advantage of anyone's good nature because nobody has a good nature anymore. There's a chance they may survive, but it's actually a pretty slim chance. And even if they do survive, they'll probably never know friendship, love, or safety ever again.

I think that satisfies karma perfectly well.

Well, a normal person would hate it, but this is someone who just battled all his friends to the death. He'd probably think it was awesome that he got this chance to be a demon.

[Slipperychicken]

I think that satisfies karma perfectly well.

The problem with this is that survivor-player would probably end up begging the DM to start the next campaign with them all being low-level demons, because the campaign wouldn't be "over" to him/her, because he's still alive and well. That would give the exact opposite message as intended.

Also, Set eating their souls after their "service" gives the two things the DM will want: the moral of the story (Don't sell your soul for ultimate power). As others have stated before, it gives a sense that the players actions have serious consequences beyond shelling out 10k in diamond dust. And it's pretty gosh-darned thematic too.

[Essence_of_War]

Thanks again for your input everyone.

I talked a little bit with the players individually, and asked them where they'd like the campaign to go. I told them I had two obvious options and outlined them in extremely broad strokes, basically option 1) will result in Set ordering them to proceed into the Necropolis and option 2) will result in going in a different direction. The general consensus was that they liked option 1 as long as they wouldn't have to in-fight with each other immediately. I bit my tongue as the "well maybe you should have thought of that before you decided to sell your soul for shinies!" tried to get out :smalltongue:

In more detail, I really like the idea some people have suggested of Rahotep as an uppity servant of Set who has outlived his usefulness to the master. I was going to a play this as a chill in the normally hot war between Set/Apep and Osiris/Ra-Horakhty who would like the threat to their divine power squelched. This way, I could give a reasonable fluff reason for the Servants of Set and the good-dragon warrior to stick together in their quest. The threat of having their souls consumed by Set still hangs in the air, but to motivate them, Set is going to offer to free them from their obligations to him for the remainder of their mortal lives if they succeed. I like this because it gives them motivation, and gives those who ended up not so happy with this option to have an escape valve. Perhaps they could spend the rest of their life trying to find a way out of the curse, while the ones who are happy being evil may even avoid devouring and be placed as dretches in the most ordinary layers of the abyss to have to claw their way tooth and nail into power.

Maybe they succeed and dodge a metaphorical bullet, maybe they don't and end up having their soul consumed, maybe Set is so amused with them that he is curious to see if they can cut it as a demon and re-form them as a dretch. No matter what happens, the needs of an obscenely evil and chaotic deity could be met here.

On a more practical note, it seems that the head priest of Set is in possession of one of the evil objects necessary to crush Rahotep. I like the idea of a directive from Set to retrieve the object before proceeding to the Necropolis combined with a Cleric who isn't pleased with playing 2nd fiddle to these newcomers...:smallamused: