Motivating Evil to Neutral Party [Any]

[Lapak]

The Plot in a Nutshell: Profiteering Racket / Conquest on the Wild Frontier!

Give them a reason to move to the edges of civilization if they are not there already. Once they're there, present them with the following situation:

A major push has been made to settle the wild lands on the edge of [Political Territory X.] A number of semi-autonomous colonies have been forged on the edge of the wilderness, and gotten busy doing the stuff new colonies do: logging, mining, hunting, kicking out the hostile locals.

- The Druid has an obvious motivation: kick the colonies' collective tail and make them stop abusing the wilderness.
- The Rogue has a motivation that can be uncovered: the hostile locals (read: typically-evil humanoids) worship a shadowy set of gods represented by snake-people. Initially, they might find colonists selling local religious gear as curiosities, and this can lead to follow-up missions in the wild to find out more.
- The Blackguard is the trigger to get them out there to begin with, because the bandits have moved to the easier pickings on the frontier, and gets his Evil on by backing up the other two: see below.

The Druid is probably going to go down one of two paths: kick the colonies in the teeth or attempt to negotiate. If 'kick in teeth', well, she gets accepted by beating them until they accept the more nature-friendly ways she's trying to share, at which point she's part of society by leading it. If she decides to go subtle, she could present herself as the representative of Nature that can make things nice for the colonists if they play along. Either way, the Blackguard gets to play the heavy for her, slaying and torturing and killing the people who don't play nice and being the Scary Spooky Avenger From the Woods. Who Especially Hates Bandits.

The more time they spend in the area, the more indications of the uprooted local religion they should come into contact with, which will keep the rogue interested in the short term and lead to the next long-term adventure. In the medium term, cleaning up the colonies' act can include dealing with abuses they inflict on the locals AND on each other; frontiers tend to be rough on the weak. Again, while he could do much of this himself, letting the Blackguard play the Avenging Bad Man get the work done for both of them.