How to roleplay Erythnul being terrified

[flappeercraft]

So right now on the campaign I'm currently running a part of the plot is that Erythnul (A god of Greyhawk campaign setting) is under imminent danger along with Bahamut and Ehlonna and Erythnul has taken upon himself to gather a team of the most powerful adventurers he was able to find and is preparing them to fight the threat. So right now I'm struggling on how I should roleplay him as to me it seems I'm not focusing enough on his Chaos part of his alignment. How exactly would you people of the playground roleplay this. As a small resume he is completely terrified of this threat as all he has done to the moment has only delayed the inevitability of him and the other 2 gods dying.

TL;DR: Help roleplaying Erythnul, he is under serious threat and terrified. Need help to know how to roleplay Chaos axis of the alignment.

[atemu1234]

He isn't going to be direct with his fears; if he wants the PCs to do what he wants, he'll probably try threatening them. Make it a reasonably high sense motive check (DC 25-35ish) to figure out that he's scared.

[flappeercraft]

Maybe I should've said this on the OP but, the players have already been gathered through direct threats on what would happen were he and the other gods to die from the menace he is afraid of and the players already know he is afraid because they got ambushed by the BBEG who is the menace of the campaign and the first thing Erythnul did was get ready to flee ASAP and that was with 8 Balors protecting him along with hundreds Inevitables (They got involved due to what the BBEG is doing with messing with lost of Natural laws and with attempting to kill gods) and just bailed instantly with the party.

[Particle_Man]

That is an oddly specific enemies list for your BBEG. Why those three gods and no others?

[flappeercraft]

Because they're pretty weak gods, and because they can represent all 9 alignments. Erythnul is CE, Bahamut is LG and Ehlonna is TN meaning that all alignment components are there, not really anything due to game mechanics but just for the purpose of symbolism. Also because they all would oppose him regardless of what gods he goes after and he wants to avoid that.

[Gildedragon]

Why is he being attacked by the other guys though?
I could see C and E gods banding together to help him, esp the latter. Esp CE and NE deities. Depending on why they are teaming up against him I could even see Kord throwing in with Ryry.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Because they're pretty weak gods, and because they can represent all 9 alignments. Erythnul is CE, Bahamut is LG and Ehlonna is TN meaning that all alignment components are there, not really anything due to game mechanics but just for the purpose of symbolism. Also because they all would oppose him regardless of what gods he goes after and he wants to avoid that.

Ehlonna is NG. Obad-Hai is the TN god of nature (Karaan is the CE god of nature).

[Piedmon_Sama]

How intense does your table get? I mean, in terms of talking in-character, are you cool to do sorta long-winded monologues, trying to alter your voice, that kind of thing?

I mean, here's how I'd play Erythnuel: he's called THE MANY, because he basically represents the basest, worst aggressive impulses of every humanoid species. So one moment he's an enraged human, the next a snarling orc, etc.... this may sound unintentionally hilarious but think of altering the range of your voice widely as you speak. One moment you're a man, the next you're a dwarf, the next you're an ogre, the next you're an orc, etc. etc.

Consider his position. He needs these guys, he doesn't want them to think he NEEDS them, he wants them to think he's doing them a huge favor. Talk up the rewards, do NOT talk up how/why Erythnuel benefits. I understand that your players are basically already apprised of the situation. That's okay. If they try some "well, seems like you NEED us" stuff, just downplay: have Erythnuel act like really, he could pick any band of murderously skilled mortals.....

However, at the end of the day he NEEDS them. If they act like they just might not do what he needs, have him start spitting out offers--wild things, things no mortal could dream of. "Ever wanted a demiplane to call your own?" "I could give you a grand castle..." "Want to know where a sword that can kill anything is?" etc. etc. have him dig into his deep knowledge even of things that are beyond his provenance, offering them hints and clues to cosmic treasures (I'm assuming your PCs are fairly high level to be treating with a god in person!) Basically, haggle, but remember that at the end of the day this is a deal YOU NEED so Erythnuel might offer them anything----up to, say, his own precious mace---to get them to do it.

e: More points on RPing Erythnuel, IMO

+You are aggression, you are anger; the worst violent fantasies people indulge in every day to deal with their frustrations are the essence of your being. In other words, Erythnuel probably has a short temper, and he probably lapses into ruminating on "skulls so SWEET bursting like melons the RED JUICE stains everything why wash it out want THE SMELL kill kill kill..." or whatever kind of Hannibal Lector-ish murmur you want to do.

+Practice this: "I'm not mad! I'M NOT MAD!" whenever someone contradicts you even slightly, puts up the slightest resistance to your whims (it might not even be a someone, it could be a something, like gravity)---you don't get mad! YOU DON'T GET MAD! it may look like you're walking in a circle flexing your neck and screaming but GETTING MAD WOULD MEAN THE SITUATION HAS POWER OVER YOU, AND IT IS NOT THE SITUATION THAT HAS POWER OH NO

[Nettlekid]

I think canonically Vecna is the weakest god, though he makes up for it with intelligent manipulation which occasionally causes power spikes. I'm going to echo other posters by asking why single out Erythnul, Bahamut, and Ehlonna? Those just seem like such a weird group, especially for Bahamut to do anything not involving Tiamat in some way. I disagree with Gildedragon that other CE gods would band together for Erythnul's sake, since him being out of power means a big chunk of divinity would be up for grabs. Strangely, I think it's the Lawful deities who would want to step in. The Varakhut Inevitable exists because the presence of the gods is a protected necessity in the cosmos, and Lawful entities would respect that Chaos and Evil has its place on the Great Wheel even if they don't like the actions taken by those forces. Especially if the same force that takes out Erythnul also threatens to take out Good deities like Bahamut and Ehlonna, Lawful and Good deities would want to step in and begrudgingly save Erythnul if it means protecting the balance on the Wheel as a whole. What IS the threat, anyway?

Anyway, to actually answer your question, Erythnul is the god of slaughter. He revels in hatred and bloodlust. So play his fear as one of a caged feral animal, masking its fear with anger and lashing out at everything indiscriminately. He would be used to a might-makes-right approach of tearing down all problems he has and killing whatever troubles him, so he would be trying to murder the threat even if it's beyond his power to kill. Frenzied and undisciplined, he should be freaking out in a furious tantrum without concern for decorum or how petulant he looks, because there's the much bigger issue of this threat looming.

[Piedmon_Sama]

I'm still mulling over this. This is a very Red Fel question, and I'm not Red Fel so I can't write like he do, but it sort of does come back to how you want to play an archetypal villain. Of course, Erythnuel* is the very archetype of the slavering berzerk, wholly divorced from reality, from notions of allegiance or cause, simply reveling in his own power and reveling in the slaughter....

That doesn't mean he's stupid. I mean like, it's been more than a decade since I checked the 3rd edition Deities & Demigods but I'm pretty sure Erythnuel's INT isn't low.

However, chaos is a little bit about letting go of this notion of being the cool boss guy. Lemme explain---and again, I'll point at forums poster Red Fel as kind of my example here. He likes the Lawful Evil alignment and likes it a lot because in large part, Lawful Evil is about style. Lawful Evil is Lelouche Britannia, or Moriarty, or the Mean Girl at your High School---it's as much about doing bad things in a very circumspect, mature, cool way as it is about your grand cause or whatever. People like that. That's sexy, that's seductive.

So, basically, Chaotic Evil is none of those things. But that's cool because that's basically a charm unto itself. Erythnuel does not have to conform to that old list about what Evil Overlords are "supposed" to do. He doesn't have to follow the common idea of propriety, dignity or coolness. He does not have to stroke a cat and sit in his chair like "Sew, Meestair Bond..." he does exactly what interests him and exactly what he wants to, when he wants to do it, and he has a vast network of underlings to see that this gets done, and if he goes and forgets about that and does something else too ****ing bad.

Generally what Erythnuel is interested in is killshots. Like, really specifically, he's that Mortal Kombat player who works extra-hard to get the super cool rare fatality where you pull out the guy's kidneys or whatever. He's mega into wounds, specifically. To him bodies are like lincoln logs: objects that are fun to scatter with a backhand and then observe the shapes that creates. I can absolutely see Erythnuel having just a gallery of pictures of the human form as wounded by different weapons--blunt, slashing, perforating, scattershot, burns....

So Erythnuel is super into the drama and color of that moment when you hit the guy in the ribs really hard with your mace and some of his guts come out of his mouth. He tries generally, to make that happen, a lot. He's not about martial glory, or the glorification of mere physical might and skill---those are essentially good things, y'know. Erythnuel is as pleased by one peasant murdering another with a mace to the forehead as he is by two grand sword masters duking it out over a giant pit of lava. He really specifically just wants a gory money-shot in there.

No God is a bad guy. Every God has something you want, and every God can make himself seem like the most reasonable person in the cosmos if he needs to. Erythnuel just wants you to put that little extra zazz in your finisher blow as a part of your totally ordinary adventuring career----honestly, they're just as dead and it amuses heaven so, hey, what's the difference? Yeah, get all his teeth, hit them real specifically in the mouth with that mace of yours...




*Yes I know "properly" his name doesn't have that second e. I spell it how I want to.

e:

Like, look: there is no rationalizing Chaotic Evil because it's not rational. On a purely, like, philosophical-higher reasoning kinda plane, it's always the worst choice. So say you were in an argument with someone---a real sophist, someone who essentially just kept disingenuously throwing your points back in your face. Not a real debate, you just find yourself trapped against this *******'s unwillingness to acknowledge your reason. Now say you got that guy's neck in your hands and he's looking up at you with absolute terror plastered on his face----whatever he was thinking before, his only thought now is oh no, oh no, oh no. That's basically Chaotic Evil, all the time. People mess with you so you make them hurt---you make them aware, so that at the absolute most stark philosophical remove, even if they oppose everything you stand for, they must acknowledge it would have been better for them not to go against you, then they'd still have their guts.

So that's Erythnuel, all the time.

But now he needs your PCs, so he can't do his usual "free spleen relocation" response the first time they contradict them. You can have fun with this. Be sure to have him stomp and fume the first time one of them questions or contradicts anything he says; flex your hands like claws, work your jaw, describe in detail how this burning godling stomps like a child just dismissed by his parents and then snaps an arm out and wreaks a split in the floorstones every time the PCs sass him, yet he seems unable to flay them as he so clearly dearly wants to.

[Gildedragon]

I think canonically Vecna is the weakest god, though he makes up for it with intelligent manipulation which occasionally causes power spikes. I'm going to echo other posters by asking why single out Erythnul, Bahamut, and Ehlonna? Those just seem like such a weird group, especially for Bahamut to do anything not involving Tiamat in some way. I disagree with Gildedragon that other CE gods would band together for Erythnul's sake, since him being out of power means a big chunk of divinity would be up for grabs. the reason the C gods might go into an alliance is because they know if Ryry goes, they're next...
And while teamwork is anathema to CE, they are not incapable of it, especially in fighting a common problem (in this case gods targeting them based on alignment)

The nature of the actions that have Eri on the run would affect how he acts.
Bravado and preening are probably to be expected, as well as threats of violence against the party and their loved ones.

[flappeercraft]

So basically what you guys are suggesting is for me to roleplay, not as someone with rage, with anger, with despise butas close to the personal incarnation of those feelings while attempting to mask fear with the prescence of those and bringing a light the fear of the players as means of cooperation If I understood correctly. Also possibly try get him to pull over some alliances of other gods who might get involved in this cluster**** of a mess that could end up killing them all (no exageration, against the BBEG the most powerful of deities look like 5 year olds with good aim). Also on how powerful the characters are, they are 10th level in a 4 man party but 2 of then are optimized as crap and the ither 2 somewhat and they have quite a good amount of resources, enough to screw over your typical 16th level party likely.

Edit: Also from what it seems, adding sadistic could be something else that I should try portray to get more into character or am I wrong?

[Piedmon_Sama]

I don't know what you mean by "adding sadistic." You don't have to show Erythnuel torturing anybody or hurting anybody. The players know who he is. He does not have to establish credibility as the Deity of Slaughter to them or anything like that. Just have him obviously be constrained, forced by the circumstances to put up with the players' annoying questions and work with them. I don't see Erythnuel as a pretentious guy; I don't see him beating around the bush or trying to sound smart. I would see him, speaking in a multitude of voices, obviously constraining his temper. Just really emphasize the rewards/unique opportunity presented to the players---don't even mention the fact he's in danger unless it absolutely HAS to come up and try to downplay that at all costs. Taking any kind of deal from Erythnuel should obviously be shady but NOT obviously be outright dumb.

[Nettlekid]

So basically what you guys are suggesting is for me to roleplay, not as someone with rage, with anger, with despise butas close to the personal incarnation of those feelings while attempting to mask fear with the prescence of those and bringing a light the fear of the players as means of cooperation If I understood correctly. Also possibly try get him to pull over some alliances of other gods who might get involved in this cluster**** of a mess that could end up killing them all (no exageration, against the BBEG the most powerful of deities look like 5 year olds with good aim). Also on how powerful the characters are, they are 10th level in a 4 man party but 2 of then are optimized as crap and the ither 2 somewhat and they have quite a good amount of resources, enough to screw over your typical 16th level party likely.

Edit: Also from what it seems, adding sadistic could be something else that I should try portray to get more into character or am I wrong?

Again, what the heck is this ultra-threat of a BBEG you have planned? The Altar Reality Salient Divine Ability is Wish at will. Most broken PCs who aren't Pun Pun are broken because they use free Wishes to get everything they could ever want and more, and the strongest deities have that as they please. So this BBEG is someone who doesn't care about at-will Wish, and yet is someone that four 10th level characters can affect in ANY way? That just doesn't add up. The only thing that makes sense is something like Pandorym, which canonically had god-slaying powers and is undetectable by the deities by virtue of its Anathemic Secrecy, so a god would need average PCs to do its bidding because it's outright unable to do so itself, even though under normal circumstances it should be more than capable.

[flappeercraft]

Well he can get Wish at will and multiple wish spells per round so on that aspect he is like a deity but also the 10th level characters are nowhere near being able to challenge the BBEG. the players are artifact hunting to gather power to be able to stop the BBEG in the way of artifacts, GP and more levels.

[Nettlekid]

What is the BBEG? And if the powers of the gods can't stop him, what possible artifact (created by the gods) could? Don't just send your players on a meaningless McGuffin hunt, make sure there's purpose to what they're doing. What kind of artifact-hunting can no-name adventurers do that the god of slaughter himself cannot? Come to think of it, Erythnul actually has a special advantage over most of the other gods in this scenario. The other gods are being taken out of their element - Ehlonna isn't going to have to out-nature the BBEG after all. But the BBEG is planning a slaughter. So Erythnul should be right at home for what's about to happen.

[flappeercraft]

Well the BBEG is a manipulative 21st level caster that can cast as a Wizard, Cleric (of Hextor) and Sorcerer and just abused optimization. Also can fight as a Gish and has Wish as an SLA which due to some cheese he can use it unlimitedly. Oh and to stop it from happening, I just ruled as DM that Ice Assassin/Simulacrum can't replicate Divine Ranks because if not then there would be no purpose to the campaign and having the BBEG even going after the gods, instead he could just then make simulacrums of them and become an Overdeity in like 3 rounds so that option is out.

Edit: Btw its not A macguffin but multiple of them. The players already possess 2 of these and these are just customly made to make them at least on Major artifact range. Also I do know that Erythnul has the "advantage" because of the slaughter but that can be an advantage on either side to for example lure him out as an advantage for the BBEG since he would not hide for long or advantage to Erythnul because he knows a bit on what might happen.

Edit 2: I don't want to post much of the BBEG since it could bring spoilers to my campaign in case my players are reading this, what I have given is stuff they already know.

[The_Iron_Lord]

Well...I'll second all the previous suggestions, and also add my favorite interpretation of Erythnul (even if you don't use him/her/it, it is still good for ideas)...Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?445290-Erythnul-the-Many)

[Stealth Marmot]

Think about the most macho guy you ever remember turning into a whiny scared toddler when a scary movie is on, and then trying to play it off that he was never scared.

[Deophaun]

and the first thing Erythnul did was get ready to flee ASAP and that was with 8 Balors protecting him...
Well, that's where you went wrong. Balors respect strength. Erythnul acting like that would have them smelling blood in the water. Those 8 Balors are no longer bodyguards: they are closely placed assassins for anyone who wants to hire them.

Also, if three gods are in danger, I don't care how weak you think those gods are, those 100 Inevitables and 8 Balors wouldn't even be a speedbump.

[flappeercraft]

Yeah, here is the thing, the BBEG killled all the balors nearly instantly and the inevitables were slayed in the dozens on the first round. In that round Erythnul escaped so no aluve balors were left to tell the tale anyways.

Also I am aware of that, they are just there to create an instant to allow Erythnul to escape as a single standard action is enough for him to escape.