Need Help Creating The BBEG's Estranged & Self-Loathing Daughter

[Leliel]

For my non-evil all-lycanthrope game (which I am sure you are tired about hearing about by now), one of the BBEG's head henchmen, Edena, is actually his genetic daughter..In a sense.

You see, Edena was not born, she was created. She was the result of an attempt by the BBEG to clone his dead wife. While Edena had her mother's body and memories, she had a completely different personality, so the BBEG deemed his attempt a failure...to her face. As you can imagine, this did not have a good effect on her mind.

Today, Edena is a wizard in the Dark Magical Girl mold, fighting to earn her father's respect, who for his part, regards her with a mixture of love and hate. She believes that she is nothing more than a failed copy of a person, resulting in an unstable personality that drives away potential friends, which causes her to become even more depressed, ad naseum. For her part, Edena has more or less withdrawn into herself, deciding she doesn't want any companions who might potentially hurt her. This has had a detrimental effect on her relationship with fellow henchman Jacob Bok, who loves her dearly, as Edena finds herself struggling not to return those feelings. She is not succeeding, but she is enough to the point where her passions are starting to tear her apart internally.

The problem is I don't know how to illustrate all this to the PCs while making her seem like a threat at the same time.

So how do I show the PCs how incredibly poor her life has been to her while she's trying to kill them?

[senrath]

Depending on Edena's power, her unstable mental state could possibly force the PCs to view glimpses of her past, as seen by her. Not enough to give them the full picture, but enough to reveal how much of a messed up person she is.

[Telonius]

According to Peter, she shouldn't exist:

19. I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero's rugged countenance and she'd betray her own father.

That aside, the mental state sounds similar enough to the character of Zuko on "Avatar: the Last Airbender." You might look there for some inspiration.

This sort of situation is made for gather information checks, Bardic Knowledge, and maybe even some divinations. Some people are going to know who this girl is, and what her story is.

Maybe have the heroes find a portrait of the wizard and his wife, then see the daughter. Spot check to recognize her from the picture. Confusion may ensue, but it will interest the players. They'll want to know more.

[CabbageTheif]

have her seem remorseful. say things like 'i have no choice' 'it must be done'. if the adventurers give her a chance, 'put down your weapons and we wont kill you' have her waver.

really it comes down to the type of players. the spot checks are good if your party picks up on small hints, roleplaying the above suggestion would be good for heavy roleplaying parties.

[Glyphic]

Timestop + soliloquy.

Either that, or have the PCs be doing some sneaky sneaky, and they overhear a loving Father and Clone fight.

Or maybe while they fight, he uses whispering wind/divination to verbally insult her as she fights with th PC's.

[Prometheus]

I say play off of the relation to her mother. I don't know how much about the mother character, but perhaps the PCs are already acquainted with her image when they investigate her tomb (And the supernatural disturbances thereof). Then they see the girl, and it strikes them. She appears to be attempting to emulate the mother character, and look very similar to, but definitely not the same person (maybe daddy gave her some disfiguring scar? Maybe you can make very obvious the difference between her and her mother's personality). She also does something that shows both her wrath and insanity.

[E_Samurai]

I actually ran a session very much like this, except with my major BBEG instead of a henchman. The trick is to build her up as a major threat, through combat etc., then fade her out for a little while in favor of another villain (not the BBEG). Then, reintroduce her in a situation where she's not the primary threat, and the other villain is causing trouble - preferably one where the players need to use stealth. The players will want to be sure to keep tabs on her, which will ensure that you can play out some significant personal event that gives the players some insight into the villain's life.

In my case, my BBEG had been harassing the group throughout the entire game, and had proven himself a tremendous threat at several different points. He had also mind-controlled a very dangerous and intelligent assassin, who kidnapped a prince that the group was protecting, and offered to trade him back to the group for their powerful artifact maguffin during an opera. The group snuck into the opera, determined to steal him back without alerting anyone, when they discovered that the BBEG was attending the show with a lady friend! During the show, the BBEG violently broke up with his lady friend, causing him to call in his fleet of airships to destroy the city.

This tactic has the neat effect of seeing the villain in a personal light and providing some depth to the character. A warning, though - it is important to find ways to restrict communication with your villain, lest they attempt to sway her to their side before (or if) you are ready to do so. In my case, it all worked out happily enough - the players got into a very cool Sherlock Holmes / Moriarty vibe.

[Fishy]

Steal the laboratory scene from Alien IV: the creepiest scene of the creepiest movie ever.

Edena lives in the laboratory where her father created her. It's a huge, sprawling complex that will take the PCs time to dungeon-crawl through- and every inch of it is filled with signs of her father's insane research. Heaps of paper, scribbled with necromantic symbols. Anatomical drawings, portraits of the wife looking young and beautiful, surgical instruments covered in dried blood, funeral masks, broken coffins, brains and body parts in jars, endless sketches of a woman's hand, wearing a ring, animal carcasses... And at the center of the complex, one long hallway lined with glass tubes, filled with misshapen approximations of a human being- and the girl herself, sitting all alone in a dark throne at the end of the hallway, hunched over a writing desk.

Why does she live in such a horribly insane and depressing place? "Where else would I go?"

Maybe she's picked up her father's research. A few rooms into the labs, anyone investigating the notes might notice that there are two distinct sets of handwriting: one of which tends to be on the less aged/torn/bloodstained papers. Maybe she's turned to necromancy, illusions, mind-manipulation- anything that might turn her into something more like her 'mother', anything that might get her father to accept her. Maybe some of her early experiments on herself... didn't go so well.

Of course, the PCs run into Jacob first. He's carrying some bread, cheese and wine in a small basket, and knocking on a locked door. "Come on, you've got to *eat* something today..." When the PCs interrupt, he drops what he's doing, literally, and growls at them that the Mistress isn't to be disturbed. Yes, he was just about to disturb her, and yes, that doesn't make sense, but Jacob isn't entirely a paragon of rationality. Because he's a villain and this is D&D, he's probably going to come to a sticky and gruesome end. Make sure it happens in front of Edena. She doesn't care.

... Okay, that came out rather gruesome, and I don't know how much of it is were-compatible, but have fun.


EDIT: Combat options: A mental stun/confusion spell that momentarily overwhelms the PC with memories of the day he married the BBEG. A necrotic Cyst/Baleful Polymorph style effect that makes a spirited attempt to turn a PC bodily into Mommy Dearest. The glass cases shatter, and the proto-Edenas shamble out as mindless zombies, or potential soul gem/mind switch targets. Edena opens the battle by using her Cyst spell on Jacob's corpse, growing a freakish zombie minion. And don't forget bonesaws!

[Yakk]

She goes independent, and investigates the people attacking her daddy. She helps them at some stage, then disappears...