neg
Explorer
I just finished a long gaming session that has left me drained and in a moral quandary with my relatively new character. I thought I might post the goings ons to get some opinions and feedback as I need to come up with a resolution/solution that works, and yet stays true to my character and alignment. This is long so bear with me:
Campaign Background: Outlaw Campaign (homebrew). Characters must all be wanted for crimes of whatever nature. They can be falsely accused or actual criminals, it matters not, but they all must have been captured at the conclusion of their background so the campaign can begin. Any alignment is on the table. This is new for us as we usually play non-evil characters. No one discussed alignments ahead of time. We all agreed to play the characters and hold no personal vendetta against other players. “Play your character, don’t hate the player”.
Character Background: After too many thief characters I decide to play a front line fighter but with the Exoticist class from Dragon 310. Basically you sacrifice all martial proficiencies for 4 Exotic Weapon proficiencies. I took large one handed damaging weapons. Anyway, my character is ex-military. I was a member of a trained troupe called the Siege Breakers and we were trained to handle arcane spell casters and kill them. In this campaign arcane spell casters are outlawed and hunted and killed on sight. I was posted at a town our country had seized in war and was under martial law. We were a police force and not a combat force and I grew distasteful of the raping, pillaging, and abuse that was forced upon the occupied populace by the soldiers in general and my troupe in particular. Troubles escalated and I knew I would have an “accident” if I remained. So I fled, escaped for a week before I was eventually captured and was on my way to the capitol where I was to be tried for treason, and surely killed.
Campaign begins.
My alignment is Chaotic Good.
Campaign to date: We are being transported to the capitol when our criminal caravan is attacked and we managed to escape. The attack is for political reasons and to free specific prisoners. Details are vague as we flee. Over the course of a week we are pursed by various forces and manage to become equipped enough to survive. We enter a town that is a safe haven for criminals and has no established rule of law. Practically a frontier town where the strongest survive. Needing further equipment and some spare change we agree (mistake #1) to work for an illithid. He hires us to dispose of some duregar that are causing some problems for him and his buddies. We journey to the Underdark below the city and manage to find (after a few weeks) where the duregar are located. At the end of last session we have entered the burial chambers of the dark dwarves and we just killed a wight like creature that succeeded in giving me one negative level.
The cast: Monk (good aligned for sure, Lawful? Chaotic?) Fighter/Priest (Neutral?) Necromancer (not evil enough yet), Priest of a god of trickery and thieves (evil and subtle), rogue (evil and worships the same god of trickery and thieves). Plus my fighter, we are all second level.
Today’s Session: After we do some traveling to find more of the duregar we break for lunch as players and eat. Out of the game we agree to cast secret ballots and vote for a party leader. Somehow I get 50% of the vote. Basically this was to help the DM talked to one player for party decisions and the leader has no decisive role, but I am it whatever “it” is. Anyway we get in way over our heads, and we get either killed or captured by the drow and duregar they we encounter. Those killed (monk and myself) are resurrected. We as a group are stripped of all gear and are sold into slavery. We spend 7 months working hard labor for various owners in the Underdark until we are sold to humans who take us to the surface. They take to sea and move us to the Southern Continent. Before landfall the ship encounters a storm that snaps it in half, killing many, but somehow some of the crew and our party get washed ashore (yes poetic licence, but why stop a campaign that has yet to really start, this was just our 3rd session).
We again purchase some minor goods and get employed by a caravan trader who wants us to negotiate passage from some bee creatures. Either negotiate safe passage for all caravans, or eliminate them. He agrees to supply us with some arms and armor, but will only pay a small sum on completion of the task. These bee creatures have attacked and killed many caravans and their guards.
Now before I go on, just a quick party note. No conflicts, everyone is passing cures and heals around fairly freely. Most everyone has been dropped unconscious at some point and been revived by someone, so we are all pretty buddy buddy. The evil priest of the trickery god makes some evil asides but we are not really conflicting alignment wise or action wise at all. Nothing untoward has occured to date.
We set out and do find the bee creatures. They are winged elves with stingers of some kind and
were hesitant to approach us. The necromancer and I enter into some negotiations with 3 of these creatures. As the parley continues, the remainder of the party steps forward to hear the talks and the goings on. Weapons are drawn and cocked, but no one is hostile.
Turns out the bee creatures have been driven from their homelands two weeks south of this canyon where they now reside. There are not many left, how many we don’t know. But they have claimed the area as theirs and are defending it as such. They have been attacked by caravans and have decimated enough to warrant our investigation. They appear to just want to be left alone and we are finding it difficult to negotiate a peace even though the elf-bees are non-violent by nature, or so they claim. The man who hired us said he might pay a tithe of 2 or 3 sp per wagon for safe passage. The elf-bees have no real concept of money nor any real needs, but they do ask for a bolt of silk per caravan. There is a vast difference between a single wagon and a whole caravan. This silk bolt is approximately 100 gp. We are far away from a resolution but we have some numbers on the table.
That is when the evil priest whispers to the thief to shoot his crossbow at a elf-bee. Now granted, the thief said during our lunch time that as a follower of the god of thieves, he would do whatever the priest ask of him, but we seemed to be making headway into a situation that was being roleplayed well in a session that saw lots of combat already.
So, he shoots, and kills an elf-bee quickly. It is on. Reinforcements come to back up the drones that we were negotiating with and the have crappy AC but lots of hit points. Oh and they hit for a ton of damage. The DM was rolling so well this day he rolled in front of us to prove he wasn’t making this stuff up. For the whole day, we rolled 12 natural 20's, but confirmed only 2. Still he was AMAZING. The thief and evil cleric go down in round 2, unconscious and bleeding out. Monk goes down next round, we kill a few, the necromancer stabilizes the thief and evil cleric. Necromancer goes down, only a few enemies left, Fighter/priest go down. One on one, me and a soldier bee-elf. He has 1 hp, I have 9 but he has been dishing out incredible damage. One hit decides the fight. I get lucky and beat him to the punch. I stabilize the remaining characters and drag them into a cave. End of session.
My character is furious at the thief and cleric for this. The necromancer is unhappy, but had been saved by both and felt he needed to stabilize them. The fighter/priest hesitated in combat and waited to be attacked first so he had misgivings. The monk was equally angered by the loss of the negotiating opportunity. He used subdual damage in the combat.
Still everyone is unconscious. I am Chaotic Good, the party leader, and I have 100 feet of rope and opportunity. Two characters are probably Lawful Evil and diametrically opposed in alignment to me. I am trying to figure out something that fleshes out my character, fits with his repulsion to the atrocities that he has seen as a soldier. However I have survived to this point with this group, I have fought, bleed, been level drained (yes it became permanent), died, resurrected (loss of 1 con point, lousy day for the fighter), and sold into slavery for over 7 months with these people. Now a morale quandary is present.
We still think elf-bees are in the area, they talked about a queen, so furthering splintering the party could doom us all.
I have come down from the emotions and am trying to be logical and trying to keep the party together. However I am finding it difficult. I am thinking of tying up the thief and evil cleric with rope. Then I will wait until all are awake and asked that a party vote be made. Vote me out, and I will conclude this mission with you, for the benefit of the group, if you so choose, and then leave the group, or I will immediately leave the group. Or vote them out and we leave them tied up with a dagger in one of their hands so they can get free.
What would you do? I am looking to get feedback, ideas, and thoughts. Ask questions if you want, I will reply.
Hope you have some fun turning this one over. See if you can come up with something that keeps us together but stays true to alignment and background.
-neg
Campaign Background: Outlaw Campaign (homebrew). Characters must all be wanted for crimes of whatever nature. They can be falsely accused or actual criminals, it matters not, but they all must have been captured at the conclusion of their background so the campaign can begin. Any alignment is on the table. This is new for us as we usually play non-evil characters. No one discussed alignments ahead of time. We all agreed to play the characters and hold no personal vendetta against other players. “Play your character, don’t hate the player”.
Character Background: After too many thief characters I decide to play a front line fighter but with the Exoticist class from Dragon 310. Basically you sacrifice all martial proficiencies for 4 Exotic Weapon proficiencies. I took large one handed damaging weapons. Anyway, my character is ex-military. I was a member of a trained troupe called the Siege Breakers and we were trained to handle arcane spell casters and kill them. In this campaign arcane spell casters are outlawed and hunted and killed on sight. I was posted at a town our country had seized in war and was under martial law. We were a police force and not a combat force and I grew distasteful of the raping, pillaging, and abuse that was forced upon the occupied populace by the soldiers in general and my troupe in particular. Troubles escalated and I knew I would have an “accident” if I remained. So I fled, escaped for a week before I was eventually captured and was on my way to the capitol where I was to be tried for treason, and surely killed.
Campaign begins.
My alignment is Chaotic Good.
Campaign to date: We are being transported to the capitol when our criminal caravan is attacked and we managed to escape. The attack is for political reasons and to free specific prisoners. Details are vague as we flee. Over the course of a week we are pursed by various forces and manage to become equipped enough to survive. We enter a town that is a safe haven for criminals and has no established rule of law. Practically a frontier town where the strongest survive. Needing further equipment and some spare change we agree (mistake #1) to work for an illithid. He hires us to dispose of some duregar that are causing some problems for him and his buddies. We journey to the Underdark below the city and manage to find (after a few weeks) where the duregar are located. At the end of last session we have entered the burial chambers of the dark dwarves and we just killed a wight like creature that succeeded in giving me one negative level.
The cast: Monk (good aligned for sure, Lawful? Chaotic?) Fighter/Priest (Neutral?) Necromancer (not evil enough yet), Priest of a god of trickery and thieves (evil and subtle), rogue (evil and worships the same god of trickery and thieves). Plus my fighter, we are all second level.
Today’s Session: After we do some traveling to find more of the duregar we break for lunch as players and eat. Out of the game we agree to cast secret ballots and vote for a party leader. Somehow I get 50% of the vote. Basically this was to help the DM talked to one player for party decisions and the leader has no decisive role, but I am it whatever “it” is. Anyway we get in way over our heads, and we get either killed or captured by the drow and duregar they we encounter. Those killed (monk and myself) are resurrected. We as a group are stripped of all gear and are sold into slavery. We spend 7 months working hard labor for various owners in the Underdark until we are sold to humans who take us to the surface. They take to sea and move us to the Southern Continent. Before landfall the ship encounters a storm that snaps it in half, killing many, but somehow some of the crew and our party get washed ashore (yes poetic licence, but why stop a campaign that has yet to really start, this was just our 3rd session).
We again purchase some minor goods and get employed by a caravan trader who wants us to negotiate passage from some bee creatures. Either negotiate safe passage for all caravans, or eliminate them. He agrees to supply us with some arms and armor, but will only pay a small sum on completion of the task. These bee creatures have attacked and killed many caravans and their guards.
Now before I go on, just a quick party note. No conflicts, everyone is passing cures and heals around fairly freely. Most everyone has been dropped unconscious at some point and been revived by someone, so we are all pretty buddy buddy. The evil priest of the trickery god makes some evil asides but we are not really conflicting alignment wise or action wise at all. Nothing untoward has occured to date.
We set out and do find the bee creatures. They are winged elves with stingers of some kind and
were hesitant to approach us. The necromancer and I enter into some negotiations with 3 of these creatures. As the parley continues, the remainder of the party steps forward to hear the talks and the goings on. Weapons are drawn and cocked, but no one is hostile.
Turns out the bee creatures have been driven from their homelands two weeks south of this canyon where they now reside. There are not many left, how many we don’t know. But they have claimed the area as theirs and are defending it as such. They have been attacked by caravans and have decimated enough to warrant our investigation. They appear to just want to be left alone and we are finding it difficult to negotiate a peace even though the elf-bees are non-violent by nature, or so they claim. The man who hired us said he might pay a tithe of 2 or 3 sp per wagon for safe passage. The elf-bees have no real concept of money nor any real needs, but they do ask for a bolt of silk per caravan. There is a vast difference between a single wagon and a whole caravan. This silk bolt is approximately 100 gp. We are far away from a resolution but we have some numbers on the table.
That is when the evil priest whispers to the thief to shoot his crossbow at a elf-bee. Now granted, the thief said during our lunch time that as a follower of the god of thieves, he would do whatever the priest ask of him, but we seemed to be making headway into a situation that was being roleplayed well in a session that saw lots of combat already.
So, he shoots, and kills an elf-bee quickly. It is on. Reinforcements come to back up the drones that we were negotiating with and the have crappy AC but lots of hit points. Oh and they hit for a ton of damage. The DM was rolling so well this day he rolled in front of us to prove he wasn’t making this stuff up. For the whole day, we rolled 12 natural 20's, but confirmed only 2. Still he was AMAZING. The thief and evil cleric go down in round 2, unconscious and bleeding out. Monk goes down next round, we kill a few, the necromancer stabilizes the thief and evil cleric. Necromancer goes down, only a few enemies left, Fighter/priest go down. One on one, me and a soldier bee-elf. He has 1 hp, I have 9 but he has been dishing out incredible damage. One hit decides the fight. I get lucky and beat him to the punch. I stabilize the remaining characters and drag them into a cave. End of session.
My character is furious at the thief and cleric for this. The necromancer is unhappy, but had been saved by both and felt he needed to stabilize them. The fighter/priest hesitated in combat and waited to be attacked first so he had misgivings. The monk was equally angered by the loss of the negotiating opportunity. He used subdual damage in the combat.
Still everyone is unconscious. I am Chaotic Good, the party leader, and I have 100 feet of rope and opportunity. Two characters are probably Lawful Evil and diametrically opposed in alignment to me. I am trying to figure out something that fleshes out my character, fits with his repulsion to the atrocities that he has seen as a soldier. However I have survived to this point with this group, I have fought, bleed, been level drained (yes it became permanent), died, resurrected (loss of 1 con point, lousy day for the fighter), and sold into slavery for over 7 months with these people. Now a morale quandary is present.
We still think elf-bees are in the area, they talked about a queen, so furthering splintering the party could doom us all.
I have come down from the emotions and am trying to be logical and trying to keep the party together. However I am finding it difficult. I am thinking of tying up the thief and evil cleric with rope. Then I will wait until all are awake and asked that a party vote be made. Vote me out, and I will conclude this mission with you, for the benefit of the group, if you so choose, and then leave the group, or I will immediately leave the group. Or vote them out and we leave them tied up with a dagger in one of their hands so they can get free.
What would you do? I am looking to get feedback, ideas, and thoughts. Ask questions if you want, I will reply.
Hope you have some fun turning this one over. See if you can come up with something that keeps us together but stays true to alignment and background.
-neg
