Infernal contract woes (Or: how to discreetly murder NPCs for sacrificial altar?)

[JW86]

OK, so now I have your attention playgrounders.

I think I've gotten in a bit over my head.

My Lesser Tiefling Warblade (Level 3) just signed an infernal contract with an Imp.

He has received an awesome homebrew legendary sword of infernal fiery doom, which will level up and scale with him. It will grant a custom rage, fire resistance, some desert wind maneuvers, a couple of spells (Fireball, Pyrotechnics) and a couple of Psionic Energy powers fixed to Fire (Ray, and hopefully Cone, Bolt and Wave)...

Unfortunately, my character in a moment of excitement offered to "Further the imp's plans on the prime material" in exchange for the power necessary to fulfill his own goals (which involve creating a kind of 'save haven' for tieflings from all those racist other races)...

The devil is demanding that I kill, and place the bodies of, ten mortals, at a custom-made altar, lined with black onyx, every month.

Think my CN is down for an alignment shift. I never wanted this. :smallfrown:

The sword is badass. I made attempts to see if the Sword was autonomous to the Imp (i.e. if I could keep it whilst not living up to this contract), and the Sword simply communicated to me that it wishes to hear the anguish of dying celestials... :smalleek:

So, I'm considering my options here. The below are some I've thought of. They're not all exclusive, I could certainly combine approaches.

1 - Slay the imp.
Risks - Sword might disappear. Imp has mentioned that its working for bigger devils, and daddy might come looking for who has just spat in one of its underlings business contracts... Imp might even be a bigger, badder Devil disguising himself, who in the nine knows.

2 - Acquire the necessary ten bodies/month whilst trying to maintain some element of not being completely evil. This would involve only slaying those 'deemed impure' - bandits, murderers, criminals. Try to rationalise my ever-spiralling descent into Evil.

3 - Embrace the evil. Murderhobo.
Risk - Lose any hope of atonement. Become 'wanted' by governments and communities. Difficult to stay in-party as most of party are not evil. Far too much hassle. I do not want to go unrepentant evil.

4 - Go discreet. Using my brains (15 int, 15 wis), set up some kind of network which does the dirty work for me. How could this look?

5 - Get to know the sword better. How does it feel about this imp? Does it need to be bound to the imp? Is it autonomous? Can I strike a deal with the sword itself to avoid killing ten people every month? Will that deal involve waging war on celestial beings? Is that really worth the hassle?

6 - Get rid of the sword. Abandon the bargain entirely. If necessary, sacrifice ten souls as a one-off and get the hell out.

DM has mentioned to me that the sacrifice-per-month quota will increase as I level up.

Damn, all I wanted was a shiny sword, and a place on the material realm for the Fiendblooded to live free... whilst maintaining some kind of neutrality about stuff'n'junk.

Why did things get so complicated?

Any and all suggestions on approaching this and fulfilling various approaches are all welcome.!

[afroakuma]

Why did things get so complicated?

...because you made a deal with a devil. :smalltongue:

Just ask yourself, is the sword worth your soul? Because that's the price, in the end. You know, even if it hasn't been spelled out to you, that ten sacrifices per month isn't going to cut it for very long. I'd recommend not following through on your end and seeing what the results are. If you lose the sword, well, it was only a rental anyway. If you don't... well I'd imagine Fun Things will come to take it from you. Either way, I'd prioritize not being part of that bargain anymore.

[Greenish]

Discretely murdering a bunch of people is just as evil as wholesale slaughter, and probably won't fly with the party. If you have to kill people, I'd suggest doing it discreetly.

[atemu1234]

My suggestion? Sell the sword, kill the imp, leave before the sword vanishes.

[JW86]

But its such a sweet sword. I'm divided!

I'll just have to roleplay the conflict...!

Selling the sword is a hilarious idea my DM has probably not considered me doing. I love it.

However, I think simply not honouring my end of the bargain and seeing what happens would resolve things cleanly. But I so desperately want the benefits of the sword.

DM has just reminded me it is ten recently killed bodies per month..

Gah.

DM offered me nice things, because at the start of this campaign we had new players, and I underoptimised to keep things simple. Now these new players are rerolling Silverbrow Human Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian Totemists, and I am feeling a bit outclassed. This sword was meant as something to balance things out for me, but it is feeling like a bit of a heavy roleplay requirement. I spent like £65 on XPH, ToB, some Complete books, because he was running a "Own the book if you want to play the class" policy to keep things accessable to new players - and now we have Awakened Raven Druids spawning Yellowmusk Creepers all over the joint...

I mentioned "Hopefully this sword is intelligent and can be reasoned with" and DM answered "All things are possible ;)"

If I can't keep this sword on better terms, I'll have to make the decision to go Evil Warblade of Fiery Doom, or Repentant Warblade of Heroic Good...

Gah...

Might just try to reroll an Awakened Gelatinous Cube Wizard, Shapechange into a Succubus and demand hugs.

[Erik Vale]

Think my CN is down for an alignment shift. I never wanted this. :smallfrown:

You should be LE now simply because you signed said contract, and nothing is saying they have to be good people. Just pile in some dead orcs from your adventures.

So, go with 2, 4 may not work depending on wording and is still evil... And I think it's the only option that really works without breaking the pact.


And it became compilacted the moment you thought about the pact too loudly.

[JDL]

Check the wording of your contract very carefully.

Does the contract specifically say the souls must be intelligent creatures? For example, can you weasel out by sacrificing ten goats per month?

Does the contract specifically say the creatures must be sacrificed at the altar? Adventurers tend to generate a lot of dead bodies in their travels. A bag of holding should be good enough to scoop up any leftovers and drop them off when you get home.

Does the contract specifically say whether the creatures must be certain alignment? You could grab a dozen kobolds or goblins as intelligent sacrifices for example. Nobody would miss them.

Now, assuming you can put off defaulting on your contract for the immediate future, in order to nullify it permanently and legally, there's a few options.

First, you can kill the imp. Note this has the chance to have some bad thing happen, for example the sword is reclaimed by a big nasty fiendish repo-man.

Second, you can get a Wizard to cast Lesser Planar Binding and command the imp to release you from your contract while still letting you keep your sword. This is going to take awhile if your party is only level 3.

Third, you can try to renegotiate, but you'll probably run into worse trouble than you already have if you do.

[Twilightwyrm]

If you want to throw your DM for a loop, there is another way to entirely confound this bargain: sacrifice the sword (along with nine others, hopefully deserving). Nothing in the contract stated that the mortals had to be humanoids, the sword is intelligent, and can presumably die if the sword is destroyed/disenchanted. Depending on how your DM rules things, the bargain resulting in the first party sacrificing its bargained reward for the second party's bargained price may unbalance the scales in your favor, leaving the imp without a workable contract. (With the added bonus of being a fairly chaotic aligned action, just in case there was any chance of your character heading towards unwanted lawful tendencies) And, depending on how you play things, you now have the imp in your debt.

[Coidzor]

Now you see why outsiders hate open-ended contracts and assignments through things like Planar Binding.

I'm honestly not sure why you'd agree to terms before they were actually laid forth though, unless you wanted to be screwed with here. :smallconfused:

Presumably there's some kind of angle there to pursue in getting some other infernal bureaucrat/judge/wossname to look the other way and find against the devil you did the contract with without having to forfeit the sword, but that sort of thing generally requires going to the nine hells and hitting up the appropriate courts/offices.

Not a place that one necessarily wants to go, especially if one's soul is currently forfeit on death or, if the contract is worded in a certain way, upon entering the afterlife, regardless of whether one is living, dead, or undead.


DM offered me nice things, because at the start of this campaign we had new players, and I underoptimised to keep things simple. Now these new players are rerolling Silverbrow Human Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian Totemists, and I am feeling a bit outclassed.

This is the perfect opportunity to kill off or NPC>BBEG your current PC and reroll something more to your liking as well, then. :smallwink:

[JW86]

Hehe, thank you for the replies.

So many points to respond to and I am in a rush right now, unfortunately.

To be honest, I kind of wanted the contract, just as a means to having the sword. This was towards the end of the gaming session, and I had to ask the other players to leave the room for a minute whilst I snuck off to summon the imp from the Infernal Book of Doom I discovered in Ancient Library of Hidden Wonders. I made it a quick interaction with the DM so that the other players could rejoin ASAP, and I think that was my mistake. I should have negotiated the demands down.

Don't get me wrong, I love the character I have now, a Tiefling Warblade jumping and tumbling around the battlefield like a badass, working towards being both an Ubercharger, and AoO machine, with all the maneuvers and stuff. Also with the backstory and everything written, I feel quite excited about this character. Getting a sword that could shoot fire seemed like a hella good way to avoid needing to multiclass into Swordsage for Desert Wind, and the fact it will do things like fire off Energy Rays and Fireballs assuages my desires to roll a Psion or Sorcerer... so I would prefer not to reroll.

I would also prefer to keep the sword.

However, I do not especially respect the contract.

So, time to come up with some badass solutions.

I figure for now, I will continue to fight my normal enemies (and store the bodies), but will not go out of the way to murder folk just for the sake of this contract. So if I -don't- kill ten folk in a month, I'll just wait and see what happens. If a fiend comes to get it, I can picture weilding it and saying "If you want it.. come and claim it" and eating face (or having my face eaten).

Through the power of awesome, I will make the sword -mine-, and serve -me.

If it helps, I happen to be in one of the circles of hell at the moment, with my party...

[Namfuak]

"Further the imp's plans on the prime material" in exchange for the power necessary to fulfill his own goals

This is why you should hire a lawyer to write contracts :smallfrown: As it stands, you could delay fulfilling the request if you required that he explain why leaving mortal bodies at the altar would further his plans (obviously the black onyx says necromancy, but delay tactics aren't supposed to make you look smart), and send it by post so it takes some time for him to get the message, then feign ignorance if he comes back without having received it (make sure you get a receipt when you send it). As others have mentioned, his request only says mortals, so you could simply slay a few rats and leave them at the altar, which would work for a month until he clarified that he needs humanoids (or maybe he doesn't? Who knows).

That said, this contract being so open ended is pretty useful for you to. Keep making requests of him, tell him your goals include buying a stronghold with enough room around for a city, warding it against magic, populating it with servants, gaining enough charisma to convince other tieflings to join your city, etc. All on a plane far away from your racist adversaries, of course. The sword is nice, but you need a belt of magnificence + belt of battle if you really want to eliminate your adversaries. Your goal is a one night stand and you need him to be your wingman. Once he says "I can't do that," tell him he's broken the contract and you'll be taking your leave.

[Spore]

Figure out a way to get your human sacrifices from targets you where to kill anyway. Murder some bandits, thieves, rapists. Anyone who deems "worthy" of being sacrificed for the lesser evil/greater good of your safe haven.

Also keep in mind that the Imp will "level up" as well from the gained souls so in a few levels you might not have to deal with an Imp but rather with a Bearded Devil or even a Barbed Devil (two appropriate forms for your evolved Imp).

[JW86]

That said, this contract being so open ended is pretty useful for you to. Keep making requests of him, tell him your goals include buying a stronghold with enough room around for a city, warding it against magic, populating it with servants, gaining enough charisma to convince other tieflings to join your city, etc. All on a plane far away from your racist adversaries, of course. The sword is nice, but you need a belt of magnificence + belt of battle if you really want to eliminate your adversaries. Your goal is a one night stand and you need him to be your wingman. Once he says "I can't do that," tell him he's broken the contract and you'll be taking your leave.

The letter idea won't work as he is only a full-round action of chanting/summoning away as long as I keep my Fiend Folio book with me. This second paragraph has some great ideas, use the open-ended nature of the contract to my advantage. Give him unsatisfactory sacrifices for the first month to buy time whilst I get to know the Intelligent Sword's motivates and feelings towards the imp, etc some more, and demand more and more stuff from the imp to aid in our missions...


Figure out a way to get your human sacrifices from targets you where to kill anyway. Murder some bandits, thieves, rapists. Anyone who deems "worthy" of being sacrificed for the lesser evil/greater good of your safe haven.

Also keep in mind that the Imp will "level up" as well from the gained souls so in a few levels you might not have to deal with an Imp but rather with a Bearded Devil or even a Barbed Devil (two appropriate forms for your evolved Imp).

Yeah I am thinking I will be killing as you've mentioned here. I'm aware the Imp will be levelling up, which is why I'm thinking about taking him out sooner rather than later. I can Emerald Razor Power Attack the life out of him at the moment.. it's just a matter of working out the intentions of the sword, and whether there are bigger nasties up the devil hierarchy invested in this sword...

[Coidzor]

So many points to respond to and I am in a rush right now, unfortunately.

That's what got you into this mess! :smalltongue:


To be honest, I kind of wanted the contract, just as a means to having the sword. This was towards the end of the gaming session, and I had to ask the other players to leave the room for a minute whilst I snuck off to summon the imp from the Infernal Book of Doom I discovered in Ancient Library of Hidden Wonders. I made it a quick interaction with the DM so that the other players could rejoin ASAP, and I think that was my mistake. I should have negotiated the demands down.

That is one part of why you pass notes, exchange emails, and use text messaging and the like. :smalltongue:


If it helps, I happen to be in one of the circles of hell at the moment, with my party...

... You made an infernal contract while in hell? :smallconfused: That's just asking for even worse trouble than you already have.


The letter idea won't work as he is only a full-round action of chanting/summoning away as long as I keep my Fiend Folio book with me. This second paragraph has some great ideas, use the open-ended nature of the contract to my advantage. Give him unsatisfactory sacrifices for the first month to buy time whilst I get to know the Intelligent Sword's motivates and feelings towards the imp, etc some more, and demand more and more stuff from the imp to aid in our missions...

Sure it can. Make the Infernal Bureaucracy and proper procedure work for you. :smalltongue:

[malonkey1]

Have you considered seeking celestial legal aid? I wouldn't be surprised if turning in a powerful artifact might score you a few brownie points with a LG creature who might be able to help.

[JW86]

That's what got you into this mess! :smalltongue:


Haha, good one!


Have you considered seeking celestial legal aid? I wouldn't be surprised if turning in a powerful artifact might score you a few brownie points with a LG creature who might be able to help.

Now this is a unique idea. I like it. That would surprise the DM. However, I sure would like to keep this sword.

[malonkey1]

Haha, good one!



Now this is a unique idea. I like it. That would surprise the DM. However, I sure would like to keep this sword.

"If you aid me, I will give you the sword. If you grant me replacement, I swear I shall be a crusader for Good in the world."

[JW86]

"If you aid me, I will give you the sword. If you grant me replacement, I swear I shall be a crusader for Good in the world."

Haha sweet woo-weey :)

OK, this makes me feel happy. May well give it a whirl.

All I need to do is finish my mission in hell (we were plane shifted by some crazy dude who wants us to rescue a woman), then I could find some Good Temple and see what can be arranged.

[Spore]

Now this is a unique idea. I like it. That would surprise the DM. However, I sure would like to keep this sword.

Even if you got a fancy replacement for it?

"How am I to battle the hordes of well organised devils that come after me without even a magical weapon?" asks the Tiefling innocently.
"I got you covered." thunders the Solar while the thunder strikes exactly two feet next to you revealing a gleaming holy weapon.

[JW86]

Even if you got a fancy replacement for it?

"How am I to battle the hordes of well organised devils that come after me without even a magical weapon?" asks the Tiefling innocently.
"I got you covered." thunders the Solar while the thunder strikes exactly two feet next to you revealing a gleaming holy weapon.

I believe I would drop the Infernal Sword in an instant, :)

Thanks, think I'll go see about doing this..

[Inevitability]

Let's beat the imp at his own game. Exact words!

So what do you actually need to do? You need to kill, and place the bodies of, ten mortals, on a custom made altar lined with black onyx.

The altar part is easy. Have it made and put it in a nice place.

Next, you need to 'kill' ten mortals. But what is the definition of 'kill'? Let's list a few.

1. To deprive of life.
2. To make a markedly favorable impression on.
3. To cause extreme pain to.

3. is probably going to get you thrown into CE anyways. 1., however, could be interpreted as 'to turn into an undead creature'. How about setting up a necropolitian-making business? Just put your customers down for a moment on the 'fashionable black onyx bench' for a few moments after turning them and you fulfilled the deal!

2. is even easier. Put ranks in Perform (comedian), hire a room, impress people. Afterwards, promise to pay them 5 GP if they let you place them on a random stone slab for just a moment.