Manchurian Candidate

[cartejos]

Looking for a way that a leader could "brainwash" (Geas/Suggestion/etc) a subject, but not have the subject remember the brainwashing, and that the brainwashing takes effect at a later time, perhaps with a trigger.

Craft Contingent Spell might work, but I can only assume the subject receiving the contingency would have to be around during the crafting. One could achieve this by knocking the subject out and keeping them unconscious/unaware of the situation, but I'm sure people would notice that people keep going missing for the same amount of time.

I'm thinking something of
1: Knock Out Candidate
2: Keep them unconscious for One Week (contingent Geas would cost 6,600, I believe)
3: Set the Contingent Geas to be "When someone disrespects the king, cast Geas to Kill the Perpetrator" this might not work as I'm sure the decisions for the Geas must be made when the contingency is created


Are there other ways to do this?

[Bronk]

I'm thinking something of
1: Knock Out Candidate
2: Keep them unconscious for One Week (contingent Geas would cost 6,600, I believe)
3: Set the Contingent Geas to be "When someone disrespects the king, cast Geas to Kill the Perpetrator" this might not work as I'm sure the decisions for the Geas must be made when the contingency is created

Well, you could craft your spell in a fast time plane.

Otherwise, judicious use of the 'modify memory' spell could make up the difference. Suddenly this guy remembers some other perfectly understandable reason why he was gone. Maybe he got attacked by a monster and he thought he was with healers the whole time, just waking up recently. That sort of thing.

[pabelfly]

You could go the other route and go with a character with a seriously pumped "Bluff" and "Diplomacy" skills instead. Added bonus that Bluff and Diplomacy can't be detected like magic meddling can.

[redking]

Otherwise, judicious use of the 'modify memory' spell could make up the difference. Suddenly this guy remembers some other perfectly understandable reason why he was gone. Maybe he got attacked by a monster and he thought he was with healers the whole time, just waking up recently. That sort of thing.

Modify memory can be particularly nasty when used in the right way. You could implant a memory in the victim of having taken a bribe, committed a crime, or lost a winning lottery ticket (lotteries are perfectly compatible with a fantasy setting - lotteries were in place in the 15th century). Any of these things can cause anxiety or leave the victim vulnerable to blackmail of one type or another.

Gaslighting via modify memory could take another form. The victim could have an implanted memory of a prominent citizen committing a henious crime. The prominent citizen has an iron clad alibi, of course, and the victim of the henious crime does not exist. The victim of the memory implantation could very well end up in prison or an insane asylum.

[Metastachydium]

There is a greater warlock invocation called Devil's Whispers in Cityscape which is basically an at will Suggestion with the added bonus that once the duration runs out/the subject carries out the suggested course of action, they must succeed on a second save with a -5 penalty or believe that the whole thing was their own idea all along. Its great limiting factor is having the same duration as Suggestion with no way to extend it any further (since Extend Spell-like Ability is not a thing for some reason), so the Manchurian agent has to act within 11 to 20 hours after they receive the Suggestion.

[Psyren]

Programmed Amnesia (CArc) is specifically designed for this. See the "Programmed Trigger" function in that spell.

"Longing, rusted, seventeen, daybreak, furnace, nine, benign, homecoming, one, freight car."

[liquidformat]

Looking for a way that a leader could "brainwash" (Geas/Suggestion/etc) a subject, but not have the subject remember the brainwashing, and that the brainwashing takes effect at a later time, perhaps with a trigger.

Craft Contingent Spell might work, but I can only assume the subject receiving the contingency would have to be around during the crafting. One could achieve this by knocking the subject out and keeping them unconscious/unaware of the situation, but I'm sure people would notice that people keep going missing for the same amount of time.

I'm thinking something of
1: Knock Out Candidate
2: Keep them unconscious for One Week (contingent Geas would cost 6,600, I believe)
3: Set the Contingent Geas to be "When someone disrespects the king, cast Geas to Kill the Perpetrator" this might not work as I'm sure the decisions for the Geas must be made when the contingency is created


Are there other ways to do this?

You could also flip your thinking on its head and just perform all your continency crafting while the subject is asleep...

[Saintheart]

Look into the Mindr**e spell from Book of Vile Darkness, if you're playing at high levels.

[Emperor Tippy]

Mindrape is the best choice. Programmed Amnesia has the issue of being a Permanent spell and thus is much more detectable, suppressible (inside an AMF the Programmed Amnesia goes away), and removable.

At lower levels, Charm Person (or just getting them to Friendly via some other method) plus Hypnotism is the best choice. Hypnotism on a Friendly target lets you implant a command that they will forever after follow as if they are Fanatical and this is an Instantaneous effect. Grab the target and spend a few days with some Wands of Hypnotism and you can have the target being basically your puppet without anyone being the wiser.

[Krym]

If you're a bit paranoid and want multiple ways of doing things, a level 11 wizard can cast Geas/Quest and with the Extra Spell feat (Complete arcane p79), taken at level 9, you can pick up Modify Memory. I don't see anything in the spell description of Geas that would prevent you from giving a command like "Act normally until (Whatever event) happens, then (something else)", As long as it happens sooner than 1 day/level (or twice that if you pick up Sudden Extend. The once per day restriction doesn't seem to apply here because it doesn't seem like you're going to be using this too often.)
As for knocking someone unconscious, Hold Person would work well enough, or maybe Color Spray. I might be missing a few spells.

[Psyren]

Mindrape is the best choice. Programmed Amnesia has the issue of being a Permanent spell and thus is much more detectable, suppressible (inside an AMF the Programmed Amnesia goes away), and removable.

At lower levels, Charm Person (or just getting them to Friendly via some other method) plus Hypnotism is the best choice. Hypnotism on a Friendly target lets you implant a command that they will forever after follow as if they are Fanatical and this is an Instantaneous effect. Grab the target and spend a few days with some Wands of Hypnotism and you can have the target being basically your puppet without anyone being the wiser.

For the hypnotism one, the single request must be "brief and reasonable" which I definitely wouldn't extend to Manchurian Candidate levels. Even implanting something simple and straightforward like "murder this guy next time you're alone together" could potentially be subject to the reasonableness clause if they couldn't conceive of committing that murder otherwise. (But something like "leave the door unlocked that night so our assassin can get in" might be.)

For Mindrape - I definitely agree with your list of advantages over PA, but Mindrape has drawbacks too. You can't implant instructions that can be triggered to take effect later, rather you irrevocably change the subject's outlook/alignment/memories at that point in time and onward. It's therefore up to them to hide that they are now evil / a hidden agent / etc until the time they can do the most damage. Depending on your subject this could be achievable, but others may lack the social finesse to avoid tipping their hand. PA at least has the advantage of the subject being themselves the whole time until you need them to be whatever you need them to be. Note too that the trigger doesn't have to come from the caster at all - you can have it be them arriving in a secluded location, seeing a specific symbol or hearing a particular phrase, any of which you can reasonable engineer to occur at the most opportune time.

[Emperor Tippy]

For the hypnotism one, the single request must be "brief and reasonable" which I definitely wouldn't extend to Manchurian Candidate levels. Even implanting something simple and straightforward like "murder this guy next time you're alone together" could potentially be subject to the reasonableness clause if they couldn't conceive of committing that murder otherwise. (But something like "leave the door unlocked that night so our assassin can get in" might be.)

Reasonable for a Fanatic. And you also layer them a bunch.

For Mindrape - I definitely agree with your list of advantages over PA, but Mindrape has drawbacks too. You can't implant instructions that can be triggered to take effect later, rather you irrevocably change the subject's outlook/alignment/memories at that point in time and onward. It's therefore up to them to hide that they are now evil / a hidden agent / etc until the time they can do the most damage. Depending on your subject this could be achievable, but others may lack the social finesse to avoid tipping their hand. PA at least has the advantage of the subject being themselves the whole time until you need them to be whatever you need them to be. Note too that the trigger doesn't have to come from the caster at all - you can have it be them arriving in a secluded location, seeing a specific symbol or hearing a particular phrase, any of which you can reasonable engineer to occur at the most opportune time.

Theoretically, you could do the same with Mindrape. You just have to rebuild the targets mind to have those embedded triggers. I mean it is a total mental rebuild and reshape. Somewhat less reliable than PA for triggers but there is still a strong case for MR being able to do it.

[Psyren]

Reasonable for a Fanatic. And you also layer them a bunch.

I'd honestly say the reasonableness check happens before the attitude adjustment, otherwise everything would be reasonable (since they are wholly devoted to you), and including the clause would be meaningless. But YMMV.

Theoretically, you could do the same with Mindrape. You just have to rebuild the targets mind to have those embedded triggers. I mean it is a total mental rebuild and reshape. Somewhat less reliable than PA for triggers but there is still a strong case for MR being able to do it.

If there were explicit rules for conditioning mundane memory triggers into people I'd agree with Mindrape's ability to insert those. (But then, if there were, the OP would likely just be able to use that and skip magic entirely.)