The Brutal Inquisitor (campaign brainstorming help needed)

[Piratecat]

My players stay out, please!

Fast version: 1000 years ago in my game, an epic-level wizard was a dreaded inquisitor, a model of thoroughness and brutality who pacified conquered lands. I need suggestions for his memorable atrocities and triumphs; while he doesn't remember his past nowadays, he's actually one of the PCs.

[sblock=Too Long, Did Not Read version]
My game takes place in the vast and decadent empire known as Capria. Think Rome in decline. Over millenia it has grown by conquering and assimilating every other race and civilization they're run across. Invaded countries are overrun, people enslaved, and local Gods minimized as the Imperial Inquisitors ensure the worship of Caprian Gods.

One of the PCs in my game is a warforged wizard of immeasurable age. He was fished out of a swamp by a couple of halfling fishermen, with no memory of past events and no real power (1st level). He's found clues that he used to be someone much more important, though. And yes, he's actually Inquisitor Zacris, a former 26th lvl wizard who disappeared on campaign a thousand years ago. Zacris was a Caprian cross between Napoleon and Darth Vader.

Now, of course, the player wants details on what he'd done in the past! So I need help. What wonderful atrocities, achievements and accolades might Zacris have won a millenia ago? Awful blood-thirsty triumphs against non-humans using massive magic are good; things that would have earned him monuments are good. Invasions of other planes are good, as is the construction of fabulous monuments to the emperor. Fanatically loyal, everything he did was in blind obedience for the good of the empire. I think it'll make a good story as my players find out about their heritage.[/sblock]

Go!

 

[Piratecat]

The only thing I've laid out is that Zacris disappeared while hunting down and pacifying the halflings. After a rebellion, part of the race fled north up the River Isken, into a province that's mostly characterized by swamp. The inquisitor and his troops followed them north, crushing every town he passed. The halflings created impromptu villages out of lashed-together boars on Rusted Lake (so named because supposedly the water ran red with the blood of halflings, and has stayed that color to this day.) Zacris's ship was sunk, he settled in the muck and was unable to escape, and he basically stayed that way for about a millenia. The wait gradually erased his class levels and memory.

With the player reading about Zacris's life now, though, I need to come up with more details. Thoughts:

- it was Zacris who led the inquisition into the Great Northern Forest, where he came to an agreement with the King of the Elves that gave elves relative freedom.

- He rooted out heresy in the dwarven kingdom of Thurud Zar. To this day he is reviled for the dwarven priests who were tortured and put to death, and (although they don't remember why) Zacris's head-sigil is the dwarven word for tyranny.

- The most beautiful people in the world lived on the island of Connabar. Zacris led the troops who invaded, claimed the island for the empire, and dragged home the princess - the most beautiful of the Conna people - to become a bride of the Emperor.

- He declared half-orcs to be inherently heretical and of no use to the empire whatsoever. That made them property instead of people, and during the reign of one particularly cruel emperor their torture and gladitorial battles became the most popular sport in the empire.

 

[jydog1]

Zacriis was known for his particular hatred for elves, and even created certain spells that were especially vicious to deal with them. One nation had tried to stand against him, and in what was referred to as 'The Cleansing of (insert name) Woods,' he eradicated almost an entire Elven population with a hideous curse that killed in a specific manner - agonizing pain as internal organs dissolved slowly, and it started with the youngest elves first.

Nothing could halt it, but there were a few who were somehow immune and smart enough to hide from Zacris. Over the past 1000 years or so they've grieved their loss and continued to stoke their hatred and thirst for revenge. Never truly believing Zacris was dead, they've grown in personal power cultivated a secret society dedicated not just to taking Zacris down but making him pay dearly for his transgressions - Zacris and any being putrid enough to ally themselves with the bastard.

Spellbreakers. Definitely spellbreakers, bred to counter powerful magics. Also perhaps having alchemists working for centuries on diseases and infirmaries that can affect warforged.

edit: ah, crap, I wrote this before you posted part 2. Change elves to some other love-lived race that's pissed off

 

[Seule]

Could be interesting if he led an attempt at pacifying the Shadowfell, but his troops lost morale while there (being mortal and all) and he instead levelled it entirely, as he couldn't control it
Thus, essentially, no structure (or person) in the Shadowfell is older than him, and most are much younger.
This could also work in the Feywild, if you prefer, for different reasons. Depends which alternate planes you use.
This will mean that whoever controls those alternate planes may well owe their rule to him, indirectly. They may or may not appreciate this.

--Penn

 

[carborundum]

Hmmm... one of his favuorite tactics after a good slaughter was to ensure that one or two wounded people escaped to put the wind up the next city in line...



[sblock]... and the runes tattoed on their livers before they were sewn back up again? Scry-and-teleport beacons for the doppelganger assasins and poisoners, of course! [/sblock]

 

[Piratecat]

edit: ah, crap, I wrote this before you posted part 2. Change elves to some other love-lived race that's pissed off

All that post 2 stuff is pulled out of my butt as an example; none is known to players, so it's all mutable. Proceed accordingly.

 

[howandwhy99]

With the empire's army on the march to war, Zacris diverted all of the food supplies from the nearby city of Cardoul to the warriors. This powerful spell cost the holy sequestrians three perfect eunechs, but resulted in a well fed fighting force and several days of murderous food riots in Cardoul.

Only dust and ruins. No one remembers the name of this place now. It was once a shining city upon the shore, but the emperor grew up here as a child. To be the god-king descended from heavenly planes, no knowledge of a former life could be found anywhere, or from anyone, to contradict this. Zacris made this so, for the town and any who knew the emperor prior to ascension.

Once, a cat swallowed the divine princess's favorite bird. Having over four dozen she did not know which one ate it. Zacris was summoned to determine the correct cat for punishment. He killed them all. Only he did not find the remains of the bird. So, in order to be thorough, he killed over thirteen thousand cats in the capital over the next four days.

The ballad of Poro and Dazeen retells the story of two shy, young lovers each believing their love to be unrequited by the other. As Poro at last rushes through the streets to sell himself to the slaver ship sailing out of port, Dazeen chasing after with the rediscovered locket in hand, the song reaches its epic concluson with Zacris incinerating the two to clear the way for ambassador Sharbrel's nephew en route to the capitol museum.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

Zacris performed a ritual to rip an eladrin feyspire from the Feywild to anchor it in both the Feywild and the Material Plane. Without support from their home, they were quickly vanquished. Zacris held the Stranded Spire hostage and forced its warriors to wage war on their kin in his name until the eladrin people were fully conquered.

Maybe each feyspire that is conquered becomes anchored in both planes, held hostage, and forced to fight their kin. Slowly the eladrin have been more and more torn from their homeplane and being separated from it is slowly killing them.

He also performed an arcane ritual on all of the citizens of Bael Turath to bind them to devils who he had a pact with--thus creating the tiefling race.

 

[The_Warlock]

The halflings created impromptu villages out of lashed-together boars

Lashed together BOARS? Those are some vicious and pragmatic halflings. No wonder Zacris believed they needed to be exterminated.

Anyway...

A khannate of gnollish raiders from a nearby savannah had taking to raiding the newest frontier agricultural province, which had willingly joined, seeking the safety against monsters rumored to be provided by aligning with Empire. Lacking effective natural defenses against the gnolls, it was hoped that the Empire's army could prevent the assaults, perhaps adding fortifications.

Inquisitor Zacris was sent to put an end to the gnollish blight on the newly acquired province. Arriving in the dry season, Zacris utilized the portals in his walking tower to summon the 31st Phoenix Brigade, the Emperor's Elite Fire Sorcerers.

In a night known as Zacris' Pyre, he used a ritual to set a raging wildfire across not only the savannah, but the newly acquired province, and it's pathetically indefensible populace.

The province was thereafter renamed Grainburn, and loyal settlers from all over Capria flocked to it under a cheap land grant program, to take advantage of it's rich black soil. To this day, Grainburn Province is the breadbasket of the Western Extents, and it's people build only with expensive imported stone (alchemically treated against fire, heat, and the angry souls of the dead).

 

[Iron Sky]

The Encantor Archipelago was once united as a small empire with the finest navy in the world, their shipbuilding so advanced and their sailors so highly trained that they even defeated the imperial navy in several battles.

Zacris went to the main island of Karus ostensibly as an imperial diplomat wishing to cease the costly and failing imperial venture to take the Archipelago. Being an honorable people, the Karus Queen and her family invited him to peace negotiations aboard their private royal vessel for dinner to conclude the negotiations.

The next day, the people of Karus awoke to find every member of the royal family impaled on the ends of the spars and masts with healing rituals keeping them just barely alive. As the most loyal of Karus' subjects rushed onto the ship to save them from their horrible fate, a latent spell Zacris had planted on the ship activated, lighting everyone onboard in writhefire - a fire that burns slowly and burns even underwater.

All aboard the ship drowned while burning to death and Zacris led the imperial navy in an assault that caught the Encantor navy by surprise, smashed them, had everyone on the island crucified on their beloved ships, then had the whole island of Karus defoliated and carved into the face of the emperor so all in the Archipelago would never forget.

Even today, someone who is punished for defying an emperor or who dies in a particularly horrible fashion is referred to as a "Karus Queen".