Best "I am your father" to spring on a PC?

[Nettlekid]

I'm starting a newbie campaign, and one player in particular is a backstory gold mine. He just keeps saying small things that he wants to incorporate into his backstory (like the mafia organization I mentioned in another thread) and I like the sound of it so much that I flesh it out and make it a part of the world.

He's a Half-Elf, and I asked about his parents, at least one of whom I knew he wanted to be in the mafia organization. He's going with his mother was an Elf prostitute at a mafia-run brothel, and his father was an unknown Human who vanished into the night. So obviously this opens up a few potential plot hooks down the road. I could give him any of the Bloodline feats from the Dragon Magazine Compendium (or maybe one of the feats that requires one of those as a prereq, since he isn't a spellcaster) and have those powers awaken some point later in the campaign, or maybe spring some subtle Half-X or X-Touched template on him when the "totally not DM fiat illusion magic" wears off.

Of course, the other possibility (not mutually exclusive) is to have the Human father turn up later in the campaign, though in what capacity I'm not sure. Sub-boss like OotS's Tarquin? Old hermit with a secret wealth of knowledge, who knows the PC is his son but the PC doesn't know it's his father? Something else that I can't think of now?

Anyway, just looking for possible ideas that could result from having a "stranger in the dark" as a father. Only requirement is that whatever it is, it must stem from a human-blooded creature.

EDIT: Oh, bonus points if in some way it relates to Saint Cuthbert.

[HaikenEdge]

Could be interesting if the father was the BBEG, and the whole thing turned into, "Luke, I am your father... and I did this all for you. When you were a child, I did this so I could provide for your mother and yourself. When you were grown, I did this so you could become stronger. Now you're here to kill me, I do this so you can gain the satisfaction of finally having become a hero."

[Falcon X]

Of course, my immediate answer is that he is the result of the local High Priest of St. Cuthbert's dirty little secret hobby. It's surprising, causes local politics to go crazy, and other fun plot hooks.
Any chance he was an orphan raised in a temple of St. Cuthbert?

A few other ideas:
- The father is a human, stuck in the Mafia's deepest, darkest dungeon. For some reason, the party winds up going into the dungeon and, in an incredibly passive way sees this prisoner killed, possibly alongside other prisoners. But the guy leaves behind a secret item, which obviously one of the PCs loot. The plot twist will come when that item both turns out to be a quest item, and when you learn who the prisoner was.
- Something tied to the plot. For example, one of my players played a half-air elemental that looked pretty human. She was a sky pirate. She was also the heir to the Air Temple of Elemental Evil. Long ago, her father was the one who activated the dark air ritual that nearly destroyed the world. But, he was killed first. Or was he....
- I once had a ghost stuck inside a guy's familiar without knowing it....

[Lord Vukodlak]

Rather then have him be the BBEG or something similar this is what I suggest.

The PC's father was someone who opposed the Mafia Don or similar villain, say a knight or a cleric in service to Saint Cuthbert who was determined to bring down the organization and make the world a better place. While they were enemies the villain came to respect the man after he died(at the villains hands) out of respect for his foe he made sure his child would be taken care of.

The trick here is you can lay all kinds of clues to make the PC think the Mafia Don was his father. Its kinda a I reverse of "I am your father"

[Crake]

One of the PCs in my game had an abusive father as a child, and he ran away from home when his father turned his mother into the city guard for witchcraft (magic was outlawed in the campaign setting). He later learned that they were both actually cultists of Graz'zt, but when his mother learned that her child would be going to hell for her own sins, she instead bound his soul to a different demon lord, a homebrew one, who was hated by Graz'zt. He found this out AFTER he murdered his father, which completed the summoning ritual to bring an aspect of Graz'zt onto the material plane. That also happened after he died, went to hell, met this other demon lord, who slowly turned him into a demon himself.


That character is now the most powerful lord of evil in my campaign setting, so it goes to show, not all bad things have a bad end.

[TuggyNE]

That character is now the most powerful lord of evil in my campaign setting, so it goes to show, not all bad things have a bad end.

I think the moral of the story is almost exactly the reverse, actually. :smallconfused:

[AuraTwilight]

I've had a PC learn they're the free-willed simulacrum of the BBEG of the entire campaign, who blames him for his brother's death (Plot magic keeping said brother from returning to life).

It was pretty well-received at the table.

[LOTRfan]

This probably doesn't count, but I had a player who was playing a dwarf whose backstory involved siring a lot of illegitimate children. The character didn't actually survive the first session, but every once in a while the current party will encounter some of his offspring.

[BeerMug Paladin]

One of my players in a game I'm running said their character's backstory was that their parents were adventurers when she was born, and she remembers being around them when she was very young. Then when she was just 4 or 5 years old, her parents left her in some small town's inn and carried on their way.

Sometime later in the campaign, the player party heard of a group of insane, dangerous people that were sealed in a special dungeon and being experimented on with all sorts of gruesome experiments by an evil cult. When the player party broke into the dungeon to free them, they discovered the one PC's parents, who were down there, and not altogether bothered by the fact that they were being tortured and experimented on. They viewed it as a rare opportunity to gain special templates by enduring said torture.

Her mother didn't remember her name, and mostly the PC's mother talked down to her and was also generally dismissive about her. Her father communicated by shrugging and didn't care about her. The group used the flimsiest excuses to go around committing mass-murder. They said doing so was the best way to gain power and 'life lessons' (they are parodies of min-maxers, essentially). The PCs quickly dubbed the group 'murder-hobos'. The PC's mother was their leader.

At one point, it was revealed that the mother tried to give the daughter increased base stats, like intelligence by spellcasting on her when she was pregnant with her daughter, and other various boosts. When the PC said she wasn't a spellcaster, the mother acted all disappointed, as spellcasting is the obvious best thing to do, and people who don't go into it are just useless idiots. When this upset her daughter, the mother helpfully suggested that she can start doing things right and should start studying magic immediately.

Almost as an afterthought, the mother revealed that the PC has three siblings and one half-sibling, spread in various towns throughout the kingdom, also all abandoned, since adventuring is no place for a baby. One of those siblings is a half-demon, because her mother thought it would be 'cool' to have a child that was half-demon. She summoned a demon specifically for that purpose. (The PCs never asked, but that demon is still locked in a basement somewhere, still bound to the circle to which they were summoned for the task.)

The cleric of the murder-hobo group didn't have a holy symbol for a god to worship, and so on-the-spot converted to worshipping the setting's version of Azathoth. (Who is also the god the cultists worship, so he could use that holy symbol for spells)

The murder-hobos had planned to destroy the cult (and the town they were building) with an earthquake spell scroll that would likely collapse the whole area in a giant sinkhole, killing everyone within a few miles of the center. When the party wondered if that might kill a lot of innocent people and ultimately be an evil act, the murder hobos said it would be okay because of an 'apology spell' that you can cast to make things okay, in case you do something bad.

At one point, the murder-hobos suggested that they could help solve the problem of the cultists in a town by casting a detection spell and murdering anyone who the spell would identify as a problem. The player party didn't accept their offer. Which is good, because they were going to cast 'detect good' spell and kill everyone who didn't register as good. (Filthy neutrals!) The player party didn't actually find out this was their plan, but was going to tell this to them if they asked.

The murder-hobos parted ways from the party when they discovered a subterranean race that practiced slavery and descended into the depths to rescue a few slaves that were captured. After several days, a DMPC that descended into the caves with them returned with the rescued slaves and told the PCs that the murder-hobos wanted to stay down in the caves because they weren't done killing all the subterranean slavers. The DMPC decided to seal them down there with a few stone shape spells, and apologized to the PC whose parents were now probably going to be trapped down there.

I think everyone had a lot of fun interacting with those characters.

[Grayson01]

Oh Oh Oh He should be a Kobald Wizard who was Polymorphed! I know that has now really bases in RAW or Logic at but it would be a the biggest WTF moment! Then make him have lots of brother and sisters of other races that his Father had polymorphed into!

[Ansem]

Have them find out that an NPC they killed is his father (would be great if they killed an innocent good NPC for the ****s of it and then push this as punishment in their face :P )

[BowStreetRunner]

His father is actually a paladin and member of St Cuthbert's Gray Guard (Complete Scoundrel, page 40) who has infiltrated the highest ranks of the aforementioned mafia organization. He is still believed to be a high-ranking member of the mafia organization, but has actually been working from the inside for many years to destabilize and undermine the organization. His decades of work are nearing an end, in fact, as the church of St Cuthbert believes they now have sufficient information to finally root out the entire organization from top to bottom and are gathering Paladins, Clerics, Gray Guard, Inquisitors (Complete Divine, page 26), and others to prepare for a big sweep to destroy them all.

Edit: bonus points if you name his father Crockett and make his father's undercover identity Burnett. Seriously though, Hulu has a couple of seasons' worth of Miami Vice (http://www.hulu.com/miami-vice) episodes available for free (and the rest if you are a plus member) that you should watch if you are going to do this - makes for a great source of inspiration. Or rent Donnie Brasco and watch it, that's another great one.

[Red Fel]

I've always tired of the big villain reveal of "No, I am your father." It's sudden, it feels forced, it's cliched, and it forces so many Sense Motive rolls that my die winds up perfectly spherical. I usually prefer the angst of a friend or loved one becoming evil over time, not suddenly discovering that the evil is the friend or loved one.

My advice? Make the father someone the party has known all along, who has actually worked with them and alongside them. The reveal is thus a redefinition, not an establishment, of identity. Two examples in media:

In Into the Woods, Stephen Sondheim's dark fairytale masterpiece, the Baker is on a quest to retrieve several special ingredients for the local Witch, who will in return allow him to conceive children. (Family curse, long story.) Along the way, he is met and harried by an enigmatic Old Man, who provides him with riddles and clues, and bickers incessantly with the Witch.

At a pivotal point, the Witch reveals that the Old Man (who is played by the same actor as the narrator, because details matter, people) is the Baker's father. Suddenly, his knowledge of the curse and his peculiar behavior is explained - he was acting out of guilt for abandoning the Baker.

Oh, and then he dies.
That example illustrates a way to introduce the father, through hints and actions, via an existing character. There's no need to turn it into a sudden reveal; little clues can be just as profound.

In this Simon Pegg/Nick Frost comedy action film, the super-serious police officer, played by Pegg, comes to a quiet town full of charming but eccentric people. Eventually, Pegg disabuses himself of the notion that crime is around every corner - only to discover a vast, murderous conspiracy underpinning the entire town. At the heart of it is the town council - a group of ultra-friendly, cheery, pleasant folk who just want their town to be absolutely perfect.

The reveal is jarring - not that these people are the same people he knew, but that these delightful individuals are the villains. And even as complete monsters, they smile and act pleasant.
Reverse the expectation. Not, "Luke, I am your father," but "Luke, I am your villain."

Just some ideas.

[Nettlekid]

Hmm, so I'm getting a few suggestions. I won't quote-answer all of them, but I'll address a few of the more general ones.

I don't think I can make the father the BBEG of the campaign, because I already have a BBEG that I like quite a lot. The BBEG is a Vampire Lord, and although not all the monsters they fight will be Vampires or some derivative, most of the mid-bosses will be, especially three Half-Vampires who will be recurring antagonists. I guess it might be interesting for this PC to also be a Half-Vampire unknowingly and it would cause a sense of "Where do my loyalties lie?" when he finds out.

I thought about making the Mafia boss his father or grandfather, but the Mafia boss is a Half-Elf and the player said the father was a human, so I can't really do that. Also I just don't really like the angle so much.

One suggestion about the father being the local High Priest of Saint Cuthbert (and also an NPC they killed) is probably the best thing to go with, because the character is in trouble for accidentally killing said priest on a heist-gone-wrong. He acquired a Cudgel That Never Forgets (though neither the character nor player knows what it is, and his alignment doesn't match it so it's working just like a regular heavy mace for the time being) and so maybe if either the Cudgel remembers the father (and hey, maybe even remembers the night the father met the mother) then the Cudgel can act as a father figure once the PC learns of its sentience. The PC is saying that St. Cuthbert sort of cursed him so that he cannot do any criminal activity (sort of forcing a more lax Paladin code on himself) and that if he does, St. Cuthbert stops his Crusader from receiving any maneuvers in the "divine inspiration" way that Crusaders do that. The Cudgel could simultaneously speak as though it was communicating St. Cuthbert's will, but also as a disappointed father.

Alternatively (or in addition to the above) I can have the priest come back as some kind of Deathless or Undead. It might be fun to use a Deathless creature like a Sacred Watcher to spice things up next to all the Undead they'll be fighting, but I feel (although I can't remember any just now) that there are some very flavorful Undead that hate the gods for abandoning them or something, and it would be interesting to have the father/priest reanimate as one of those in hatred of the god he once served. Perhaps then the PC would have to make peace with St. Cuthbert and destroy the Undead in his name.

Unrelated to all of the above, but there's also going to be an Amethyst Dragon disguised as an old man aiding the PCs at points through the adventure. I was thinking about making him the father, and the PC in question doesn't realize that he's been wearing Softhands Gloves (RotD) basically since he was born. It could be a cool revelation to find out you're a Half-Dragon.

I also like the idea of the father potentially having more illegitimate children. I could definitely use those as plot hooks in other parts of the continent.