Need help with crazed, fanatical halfling rants

[Monstrrr]

A crazed halfling who thinks he's preparing an army for "the saviors". He's a fanatic, and doesn't actually know who the saviors are. He was given texts from other fanatics about them. Those he thinks will be saviors will actually be the doom of the planet.

Ideas for what he thinks they will save people from? There's no major wars in my world.

Ideas for crazed rants or one liners?

[Bohandas]

What kind of halfling, the hobbit-like kind or the kind that's just short and otherwise lacking in traits.

If the former he's trying to save everyone from shoes

[Jay R]

I strongly recommend that you not introduce a character that you can't come up with dialog for yourself. No matter how much advice you get, and how many one-liners and rants you store up, within five minutes of play you will be in a situation in which you need to improvise.

[Monstrrr]

I strongly recommend that you not introduce a character that you can't come up with dialog for yourself. No matter how much advice you get, and how many one-liners and rants you store up, within five minutes of play you will be in a situation in which you need to improvise.

In which case i will improvise. I only need some things to get my brain wheels turning.

Thanks for your input.

[Spore]

Please don't go full ham on the "little person goes nuts" angle, it is incredibly predictable and boring. But do incorporate their height impaired point of view. I am thinking the following.

The saviors will start purging the small. The children, our kinds, then they will continue to small women and then you!

They are tall, but their form needs energy. You know what has energy? Yes, children.

They will purge the weak, for only the strong can be saved.

Have you seem Majorie's hands? They are not natural. She is one of them I say.

They have agents everywhere but their base is in the underdark. Nothin' good ever comes out of there.

You could be their agent, and you wouldn't even know.

Bonus points for him being cursed and/or crippled but refusing to see a wizard or cleric about it, because they'll "put a spell on ya to control ya mind."

[NRSASD]

We need a bit more info about this halfling before we can help. What’s his place in society? The reason he thinks the bad guys are here to help? His personality? Is he a greedy mayor of a small hamlet or a deranged bartender, etc.?

[Monstrrr]

We need a bit more info about this halfling before we can help. What’s his place in society? The reason he thinks the bad guys are here to help? His personality? Is he a greedy mayor of a small hamlet or a deranged bartender, etc.?

The halflings in my world are a nomadic people who herd alpaca and llamas. I'm thinking this halfling is largely just a guy who the BBEG came across, and brought him in with lies and deceit to help him bring these saviors to this world.

The "saviors" are actually an old alien race who almost took over this world once before, in their search for the magic and technology needed to create warforged - the perfect soldier for then to take over any planet they want. This world was only saved by a huge last ditch effort by the leaders of the time, but the act also plunged the world back into dark ages of technology. They lost all records of tech, and it is kept that way so they continue to be safe from the Invaders.

The halfling i think believes the "saviors" are looking for need the knowledge that has been hidden from them. With this knowledge, they will free us from our chains, from our painful existence.

[Lacco]

Spoiler: My idea of fun

Show

You're not going to cut me! They're coming in hordes! I see them on chariots with spiked wheels, waving insolent banners of inflation! Oh! They're pelting me with worthless coins!

Do you want to pay two gold pieces for a pound for butter? Fifty coppers for shoestrings? A silver for a pitcher of beer? Hmph. Well? Confound it, answer me! Just because I ask you to lend me five copper until the beginning of the next war, does not mean that I'm a frugal person.

Bah! They'll take your clothes off too! Oh, yes, they'll examine every inch of your skin, and they'll find the mark. The one that entitles you to a discount.

Yeah. I'm the fly in the soup. I don't like it any better than you do. Flies don't like being swamped in soup, especially when it's hot.

Okay, he's more likely a hobbit than a halfling, but still...

[Nifft]

What kind of halfling, the hobbit-like kind or the kind that's just short and otherwise lacking in traits.

If the former he's trying to save everyone from shoes

"No, no, that's terrible advice If you walk a mile in anyone's shoes, THE ENEMY WINS."

"First they took away Elevensies, then they took away Second Breakfast. Don't you see? They're trying to starve the world to death! If you don't have buttered scones with tea every single day, THE ENEMY WINS."

[Anymage]

What level of antagonist is he meant to be? Giggling-mad cultists who gibber nonsense are something you'll need to learn how to ad lib yourself, but they also tend to be disposable because their unreason means they're hard pressed to make functional plans and they often do suicidal things like attack PCs.

If the halfling is expected to last for any amount of time, take your inspiration from conspiracy theorists and other people prone to using the word "sheeple". Maybe you have some group of people who just coincidentally get attached to random conspiracy theories in your world and toss them in, maybe you have some group that would have some reason to be tangentially connected and then free associate why they'd be threatened by these "saviors". The real world unfortunately has tons of conspiracy theorists if you want to reasearch their basic outlooks and mannerisms.

[aglondier]

Look up the Goodies episode about Apartheid...or Apart-Height as they did it, since Bill was shorter than Graham and Tim...

[Wizard_Lizard]

"There will be a reckoning! A reckoning I say! You hear it from the birds! And the trees! The druids know it! The wizards deny it! But surely even in denial there is acknowledgement of truth! They spy! SPY! You must repent! REPENT I SAY!!! THe saviours will save those who are worthy, and cast aside those who are not! REPENT and your soul may be spared!"

[Nifft]

"There are only two things in this world, when you get right down to it. There are people, and there are pies. You eat the pie, or you are the pie. That's why I eat a whole pie every single day. You shouldn't stand around waiting for the piepocalypse, you should dig in to a pie of your own today, and every day."

[Dravda]

Borderlands 2 comes to mind...specifically, Krieg's monologues when you took the "Raving Retribution" skill.

Spoiler: Raving Retribution

Show

"Over here, my sweet meats, your prince of justice and genocide has something to say: Gone are the days of the tentacle and the age of the gods and mercy is far away... We are fighters of the middle, the second act in the three-part MEAT play, AND I WILL WIN BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR!"

"I know what I have become... I am the inside of this world... I taste the gore, and I smell the crying... AND I WANT MORE! I want to bathe in your flesh, I want to savor your fear. I wanna live inside a castle built of your agony, AND I WANT TO CRUMBLE IT WITH AN AXE TO YOUR CAROTID ARTERY!"

"Keep your chin up, SO I CAN SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER!! Oh, there's no time to cry... We have to squeeze the whimpers out of you like a smothered baby in the night... You won't make a noise now, will you, WILL YOU!! Stay quiet, OR YOU'RE DEAD! NOW AND FOREVER!!"

"Pitiful people prepare, plead plentifully plentiful platitude phenomenal patriot pounds, poundingly perverse puppets pulping, pleasantly, putrid pasties."

"Look at me when I scream at your soul! You loud sacks of filth and sour cream can hit me with your pain pinatas all day, but you'll never take the jellied fantasies of my wasted youth! My stomach is clear and my mind is full of bacon!"

"I can't see her anymore... She was so clear and bright... but the blood is in my eyes, and now I can only watch the ocean of blood... Its waves crash against my forehead again and again, AND I JUST NEED TO LEARN HOW TO SURF!!"

"You're gonna scream, just like she did; open mouth, open heart, blood and noise forever piercing my skull, poisoning me with its psychopathic purple liquid. We watched it all, and felt the knife edge split down the middle... CAN YOU HEAR ME?!"

"I'll never forget the way her holes cried... The way she screamed in agony as she pushed the knife slowly into my sternum... Such a beautiful symphony of feelings, and at the end of it, she was so much greater! My operatic diva of flesh and steel!!"

"I'm gonna kill you all, I'm gonna kill your friends and your family, I'm gonna track down your grandparents and turn them inside-out, nobody can stop the blood train that will turn your loved ones into a red splatter across the tracks of humanity!"

"Box cover, box cover! I'm the one who eats the stardom! I'm the hero of all the villains! You can't swallow my morality like a lollipop pill! I'll run around your mind and set the world record with my meat sleeves!"

"This is my favorite song! Dance to the drum beat of the ballistic, fetishistic, sadistic piss-stick! Let the bullets scrape me clean and never, ever, ever flash a sassy eye at the good doctor!"

"There is no me, there is no you! There is only the never ending spit and bile of combat! The twenty-four hour murder spree of shining metal! I drink the blood and eat the loot and breathe the numbers, because I! AM! A MONSTER! NOW AND FOREVER!"

"(The voices said 'empty, hollow and thud'. The voices said 'empty, hollow and thud'.) THE VOICES SAID 'EMPTY, HOLLOW AND THUD'!!"

[Wizard_Lizard]

"There are only two things in this world, when you get right down to it. There are people, and there are pies. You eat the pie, or you are the pie. That's why I eat a whole pie every single day. You shouldn't stand around waiting for the piepocalypse, you should dig in to a pie of your own today, and every day."

Even better if they sell pies.

[Nifft]

Even better if they sell pies.

Meat pies in specific, and the source of the meat is unknown.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Meat pies in specific, and the source of the meat is unknown.

Halfing Dibbler.

[Slipjig]

You should probably figure out what he actually thinks is going on. Conspiracy wackos don't just say crazy things, they BELIEVE something crazy (e.g. NASA can control the weather), and everything else flows from that.
If he has a coherent worldview (even one that differs significantly from reality), it'll make the job of RP'ing him much easier.
If you just need some crazy dialog, you might want to check out Cultist Simulator. Reading the flavor text in that game will have you riffing on "Tricuspid Gates" and "Cyclopean Horrors" pretty quickly.

[Jay R]

I have three suggestions to incorporate into his speech.

1. "Normal" means halfling size, not human size. "Large" means human or elf size.

2. He doesn't think of halflings as "humanoids". Humans, elves, goblins, etc. are "halflingoids".

3. Does he even use the word "halfling"? Maybe his race has a specific name, and he calls humans "doublings".

And of course, anybody who talks differently is an enemy, trying to insult him.

My gnome PC has been using the term gnomoid for some time now, just to make clear that he' sees gnomes as the standard, not humans.