A high-level murderhobo shows up out of nowhere and starts changing the world

[rigsmal]

I was thinking about a game I played a while back, where the DM required no background for our characters, we just started at level 20. And he played it straight. Nobody in the world knew who anyone in the party was, we were all strangers in the world. We had no attachments, no dependents, nothing.

Then bam, five days later we slew a great dragon who was threatening a kingdom. In another week, we wiped the continent clean of liches. By the end of the month, not a single aberration or despotic ruler dared set foot within the same country our characters were in, lest they get murderhobo'd within the hour.

Indeed, our murderhobos had run out of things to kill in the immediate vicinity, and were considering killing each other out of boredom.

Unfortunately (or fortunately!), our DM ended the campaign, but I find the idea of extending this concept pretty funny.

Imagine a living, breathing world. Golarion, Faerun, Eberron, whatever. Smack-dab in the middle of it, you drop in a level 40 epic or level 20 mythic murderhobo. Said murderhobo isn't interested in roleplaying at all, and just wanders the continent looking for powerful things to kill.

How should the people around the world actually react, if the world had any verisimilitude? Rulers? Gods? Other powers that be?

[Bavarian itP]

Isn't that basically the backstory of Warhammer 40k?

[rigsmal]

Isn't that basically the backstory of Warhammer 40k?

I guess if I ever get into the Warhammer, I won't have to worry about reading the backstory, then.

[Vizzerdrix]

Fear, confusion. Divinations are gonna fly fast and hard. Powerful people of all alignments are going to want intell on this threat. Poor people may consider them heros or uncontrolled murder machines.

Religions are gonna want to obtain them as followers. Kingdoms will offer them all sorts of gifts with strings attatched.

If they don't make their intentions known quickly you may even see good and evil, or enemy nations banding together for protection.

[Talverin]

That is definitely not the story of 40k.

Also, I can absolutely see nations banding together to defend themselves - after all, how long could it possibly be before an uncaring demigod of war starts with the collateral damage?

But I can also see the resident divines/gods/demigods/superpowered characters in the world stage gathering together to take him down - or doing so individually. At that level of power, it's a careful game of boundaries. A new factor with no respect for boundaries would be... troubling, in a 'must-be-ended' kind of way.

[Yahzi]

A new factor with no respect for boundaries would be... troubling, in a 'must-be-ended' kind of way.
This. A man with nothing left to lose is the most dangerous man of all; and your murderhobo has nothing. Also, the idea of a creature that powerful whose only idea of a good time is killing things is clearly a danger. As you noted, after it kills off all the real threats, it will start inventing threats to create an excuse to keep killing.

Basically you're asking, "What if a sociopath were god?" The answer is, "Everyone would live in Hell."

[Doorhandle]

This. A man with nothing left to lose is the most dangerous man of all; and your murderhobo has nothing. Also, the idea of a creature that powerful whose only idea of a good time is killing things is clearly a danger. As you noted, after it kills off all the real threats, it will start inventing threats to create an excuse to keep killing.

Basically you're asking, "What if a sociopath were god?" The answer is, "Everyone would live in Hell."

Building from that, some of the more...violence-adverse of the celestial host may take exception, but rather than attempting to smite the newcomers, they attempt to teach them ethics or at least give them a hobby outside murder.

This entire situation sounds like the Cadmus arc from JLA... if Cadmus were more justified in their behavior. and y'know, were not lead by Lex Luthor.

[TalonOfAnathrax]

SNIP
Your signature is incredibly appropriate for this thread :D

And there is an infinite, unending tide of demons. Some God or something would try to lure the murderhoboes there and then forget about them.

[Goaty14]

I'd agree with everybody else here: The people who would be vulnerable to these people (undead, evil outsiders, etc) would strongly want to kill him, or at least protect themselves. The people in the middle would eye them with unease, and probably fear. The God-Emperors of the realm (and other strong intellectuals) would probably seek to give them a reason not to obliterate their country or whatever (such as marrying one of them to their offspring, granting them a title and a village, etc).

[ATHATH]

And there is an infinite, unending tide of demons. Some God or something would try to lure the murderhoboes there and then forget about them.
These seems like a pretty good solution, at least until they get bored of killing the same types of demons over and over again.

You might want to make sure that the Blood War wouldn't be unbalanced by that, of course, and make sure that the murderhobos won't be turned to the cause of the Hells.

[Goaty14]

Give them items that automatically casts plane shift at noon each day, alternating between the Nine Hells and the Abyss, thus solving the boredom (variety of outsiders) and the unbalancing.

[Zanos]

This kind of sounds like the premise of Overlord. The characters have a background, but they get dropped into a much weaker world and are pretty much unassailably powerful compared to the natives.

[Mike Miller]

This premise reminds me of the Tarrasque, with the exception that legends of it's existence may be known. Otherwise, it just shows up out of nowhere, is fairly powerful and destructive, and people work together to stop it.

[Asgardian]

Imagine a living, breathing world. Golarion, Faerun, Eberron, whatever. Smack-dab in the middle of it, you drop in a level 40 epic or level 20 mythic murderhobo. Said murderhobo isn't interested in roleplaying at all, and just wanders the continent looking for powerful things to kill.

How should the people around the world actually react, if the world had any verisimilitude? Rulers? Gods? Other powers that be?

Check out Saitama (One Punch Man) for a reference

[sabernoir]

Fun concept. Once the word gets out that this "fallen god" is wandering the earth slaying the strong, I'd expect the weakest of every society to flock to them, creating almost a cult-like society worshiping this scale-tipper. I'd like to run a campaign where the party are level 2-3 adventurers sent to investigate this group and see if the legends surrounding this being are true.

[Mordaedil]

We're kind of doing this in a campaign I'm playing (there's just three of us there including the DM), where my character was basically a character from a PW I played on in NWN, suddenly transported into Forgotten Realms, entirely clueless as to the workings and politics of this world. He was a dual-wielding rogue at level 24, so as soon as he shows up, he just takes out a single stick and starts beating up some people attacking him with scimitars and daggers.

And then later he singlehandedly decimates a patrol of ogres, by taking out an ogre mage with a flurry of sneak attacks and then systematically defeating the rest while scoring critical hits 75% of his hits. It doesn't hurt that I got to keep some of the custom thigns I had from that server, which includes spells to jump long distances without effort, create strong wings by using specific blades, and double my movement speed by using a special mana-type system.

It's not a very serious game and there's very little that can challenge an epic rogue like that, especially when nobody really has any ties to him, which means he doesn't really have any enemies or allies. He's become a wild card in the truest sense of the word.

[Lord Raziere]

Check out Saitama (One Punch Man) for a reference

Either that or Kid Buu. Depends on how active they are about it.