Input wanted: what would a good or Evil outsider geas/quest someone to do?

[Uber Dungeon]

I have given a player a Flute the summons a random outsider Good or Evil... Neutral will be randomly one or the other.

I need to create a random roller of about 20+ Good Acts and/or Evil Acts.

Here is what I got so far.

Evil Deeds/Acts (As deemed by the book of vile darkness and book of exalted deeds)
-Lying
-Cheating
-Theft
-Betrayal
-Murder
-Vengeance
-Worshipping Evil Gods and Demons
-Animating or Creating Undead
-Casting Evil Spells
-Damning or Harming Souls
-Selling one's soul to Fiends
-Helping Fiends
-Using others for Personal Gain
-Greed
-Bullying or Cowing Innocents
-Bringing Despair
-Tempting Others to do Wrong
-Tapping into Evil Power
-Forcing Anyone to Commit an Evil Act
-Committing Murder for Money

Good Deeds/Acts (Since I am lacking source materiel, Good deeds/acts is lacking)
-Donate 100g to Temple
-Donate 500g to Temple
-Donate 1000g to Temple
-Donate 5000g to Temple
-Give all possessions to a random stranger.
-Fast for a week.
-Defend the weak
-Worship a Good Deity

 

[Geoarrge]

Good deeds:
- Relieve a disaster-stricken community.
- Teach a child to read.
- Help a stranded traveler.
- Buy tools for a poor village.

Evil deeds:
- can't forget old-fashioned cannibalism.

Good or evil:
- Leave a certain item, or collection of items, in a certain place to be discovered by the next passerby.

I like to think that these kinds of quests don't involve some kind of generic good/evil deed. Rather, these beings with their supernatural knowledge have specific tasks in mind that have escaped the attention of normal clergy and laypeople. So, whatever the table says, try to turn it into something more specific each time you roll on it.

For example, "Donate 1000 gp to a temple" would translate to: "Travel out to the village of Hamstead where they have just come out of a hard winter, and donate 1000 gold to the chapel there," or maybe "buy five elephants for the workers at the Burgshire Cathedral construction site."

"Tell a lie" might become "Tell a frightening story about Dwarves to the children in the market square" or "Give false directions to the town guards the next time you see them chasing a thief."

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

If you can, keep the players on their toes by getting the outsiders this summoned to ask for contradictory things. Eg, an evil request for a child to be taught to read; a good request for a lie to be told to the authorities.
Why?
Good and evil are playing a chess game of immense complexity and long duration.
The child the PCs teach to read? He/she is destined to become a terrible wizard of evil, but needs to be taught to read in order for this destiny to play out. The lie told to the Authorities allows a guilty man to go free, who will subsequently (for example) kill a family and thus give rise, Batman style, to a great holy avenger paladin ten years from now.
The who of it all in-game doesn't matter, build it as you go.

 

[Arvok]

Evil deeds:
- can't forget old-fashioned cannibalism.

Is cannibalism inherently evil? I'm speaking purely in a fantasy RPG setting--not trying in any way to justify it in the real world.

In the real world, cannibalism is almost universally taboo. Also, killing a sentient being to eat him is certainly evil. But, eating the flesh of a sentient being--even one's own race--might not be necessarily evil in a FRPG. Take lizardfolk, for instance. It's entirely possible that they might see nothing wrong with eating one of their own that had fallen in battle. It might even be a command from their deity. On the flip side, an elf might refuse to eat a fallen comrade--even in a survival situation--because of social taboos or rules from the gods. This is the point I'm swerving into. If a worshiper fails to follow the commands of his god, that might be considered evil (or at least chaotic). An evil outsider might first try to get a PC to disobey the teachings of his religion with acts that aren't inherently evil, but move the character away from his deity. I believe this would apply to chaotic as well as lawful gods. Chaotic gods expect their followers to follow the rules, they just have fewer of them.

An interesting and fairly short read that might give you some ideas along this line is 'The Screwtape Letters' by C. S. Lewis. If you're not familiar with it, the story is a series of letters written by one demon to another about how to tempt a man away from Christianity and into Hell.

 

[Arvok]

Good acts in D&D are pretty much what players do most the time: defend the village from orc raids, stop the evil necromancer from killing people to create an undead army, etc.

If you want to put in the time, you could have relatively simple acts that require a great deal of effort on the PCs' parts. e.g.:

Save a member of an evil race (orc, goblin, etc.). This would involve the PCs capturing one such creature (or more than one), and imprisoning it in a penitentiary (in the original sense of the world). It's likely the party would have to create such a place on their own, and find someone willing to oversee and run it. Building the place would only require time and money, but the PCs would need to locate someplace suitable. It would need to be on land a ruler would permit to be used for such a dangerous experiment, or on the borderlands which then opens it up to raids and possible rescue missions. The PCs might also have to overcome local bigotry and hatred of said races (in this case understandable since they are inherently evil beings that have probably killed locals) even from clerics and the like (who would be the most likely candidates to run the place).

Save a young woman from a life of prostitution. This would work well for lower-level players who have to deal with her pimp and/or the local thieves' guild that runs prostitution rings. It could even be that the woman is question is being groomed by a powerful noble to eventually be a spy/honeypot to help him in his quest for greater power. In either case, the PCs might have to try more than once to keep her rescued.

Negotiate a peace. This could be between a powerful druid and encroaching settlers/lumberjacks, 2 rival nations/city-states, 2 rival thieves' guilds (who, if they go to war, could cause numerous innocent bystanders to die), a tribe of non-evil werwolves that wants to be left alone and a group of rangers that hunts lycanthropes, et al.

Any one of these could be a full session's worth of effort on the players' parts; maybe much more.

 

[aco175]

Save a member of an evil race (orc, goblin, etc.).

Be careful to player interpretation. Saving a goblin could mean several things such as; stopping him from falling off a bridge, or spending years showing him the evil of his ways and convert him. Some may even argue that killing them is a way of saving him. You should see what players come up with and leave your geas vague.

You could also base the intent on the alignment of the outsider. I was just reading the FR deities book about Amaunator the god of sun and bureaucracy took over time as a portfolio when one of his contracts was worded wrong and said that "he was responsible for all time..." He is LN in alignment but a demon could see things differently. You as the DM must figure out if you want the intent or allow clever players to get one by on the outsider.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

 

[Eltab]

Quests (in no particular order)

- Go to a certain bridge and prevent all passage. (Or allow only commoners passage - be Launcelot)
- Go to a certain river ford and build a bridge.
- Persuade (or "persuade") a particular child's parents to move their family to the next province.
- Track down and slay the previous quest-giving outsider. He 'cheated the game' and bent the rules!
- Bonus points: track down and slay the previous quest-giving outsider in his home plane, so he dies a true death and stays dead.
- Destroy, plunder, and desecrate a temple to another god.
- Find and deliver a copy of the ritual to create a Weapon of -Outsider- Slaying. They want to reverse-engineer the process and make the weapons impotent.
- Locate a legendary magic item. Do this secretly, and inform the outsider what you learn.
- Here is a prophecy. Fulfill it.
- Here is a prophecy. Prevent it from coming true this generation.
- Deploy a "mana sponge" that creates dead-magic zones where it will most-bother arcane casters.
- Travel to a far land and bring back a rare plant (think: frankincense or spices). Cultivate them in/near your homeland.
- Assassinate a prominent leader of an opposing alignment. "Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter".
- Spread tales favoring my cause everywhere you go.

 

[Eltab]

Is cannibalism inherently evil? I'm speaking purely in a fantasy RPG setting--not trying in any way to justify it in the real world.

Suppose you fight an enemy and defeat him/them. If one enemy warrior fought especially bravely, cut out and eat his heart. The heart is where courage resides, and warriors want extra so they can be braver the next time they get into a fight.

This idea is from an old WotC board thread about "What Could a Barbarian Culture Be Like?"

Cannibalism gives people the IRL willies, so use very sparingly. The tribe in question might have a reputation of being especially fierce, or especially uncivilized / dangerous, based on how you want to portray them.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Thread is from 2015, pretty sure it's moot by now.