Post your best PC secrets!

[blargney the second]

I just wrote up a new PC for our Eberron gestalt game. He's a draconic changeling arms broker. Behind the scenes, he has an identity as a female elf agent of Thrane's Argentum. He's actually spying on them to further the Karrnathi agenda through the Order of Rekkenmark. Behind that, his family are all agents of the Chamber.

I'm looking forward to playing him!
-blarg

 

[Look_a_Unicorn]

Not a huge thing but as a part of her backstory my waiflike elven rogue/bard had aquired a crystal prism- the focus of an evil cult's magical ritual- with unknown powers and purpose.

She kept it hidden on herself for "years" of backstory and through the campaign thus far- and other sects of the cult she took it from keep coming after her. The DM has started implying that something very very nasty could happen if my character keeps killing humanoids with the crystal in her possession... but given the distrusting nature of the character she's not letting it out of her sight. It keeps bringing cultists after her, which means she gets to slay more cultists. Which is a good thing to her mind...

I wonder what the DM has in store

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

My tiefling rogue in Birthright had no idea that he wasn't human. He didn't have any of the obvious markings, like cloven hooves for feet or little horns, though his left-handedness, propensity for the violin, and inability to grow any useful facial hair but a goatee should've been a clue.

He kept wondering why he bounced off of Magic Circles vs. Good* and other similar effects, and the other PCs looked at him funny, until it became obvious that he wasn't entirely human after being banished from the plane in a big fight. Not a major RP event, but quite fun.

Brad

* - This was based on a misunderstanding we had, before the Native subtype of outsiders was clarified.

 

[Eltern]

I was dead.

A few months prior to the start of this campaign, my character's family had died in a house fire. My character recalled being hit on the head by a falling timber, being dazed, then dragging himself out of the house. In reality, he had just died from a broken neck, but was spontaneously raised as an undead. In this campaign the reason for undead existing was that a mortal sorceress had recently conquered the underworld and taken the God of Death's position. Not being sufficiently strong to actually do the job of Goddess of Death, some souls slip out of her grasp. I was one of them.

Anyway, I deduced I was undead when I no longer ate, slept, peed, and or bled, which really didn't help my self-esteem much. I got to be stark raving mad. My mind and brain were slowly becoming more disjoined, and I began to lose control of facial expressions, body movements, etc. Was really fun to physically act out. Nobody else in the party could figure out I was undead, for some reason. They just thought I was nuts. Scared the crap out of my cousin (another PC), who knew my character -before- I had died, when I was still sane.

The party went into a tomb for various reasons (it was the adventure that brought us all together). I was looking for a legendary robe that gave the wearer the effects of a permanent Gentle Repose, so I would stop rotting before other people noticed. Spent the whole time simultaneously pretending to run away from zombies (who had no interest in me, I was one of them) and -actually- running away from the party cleric's turn undead.

Still, nobody noticed. When I later admitted to them that I was, in fact, dead, they were all shocked. And now we're going to get my soul back!

 

[Eye Tyrant]

I have a player who runs a PC that has never stood a watch while camping in the wilderness. He's the PC that says "So guys, same watches as last night?"...

This has gone on since the beginning of the campaign (they are 5th Level now), until last night, when the party Cleric and Wizard both realized (ie. made an Int check) that the Rogue/Monk has been duping the party. They have not confronted him yet, but plan to make him pay for it by performing all the menial campsite chores...

Pretty lame, I know

 

[Napftor]

Two occasions stand out for me. In my 2e campaign, one player wanted to have his own solo campaign using an evil PC. While the normal group (including this player) fought against a certain organization, the evil PC in the solo game actually joined that same evil organization. Eventually, the leader of this group gave an item to the evil PC that would transfer his consciousness into another body. The BBEG gave him the time and place that the switch should be made. The result was that this player's evil PC now inhabited his good PC's body. The evil organization wanted to have an inside man within the good group so he could easily get close to the lord of the PCs' home city and assassinate him. Well, it didn't quite turn out that way. A phaerimm that owed the PCs a favor unveiled the evil within by separated the two bodies. The good group had a blast going after the player who had betrayed him since they knew nothing about the switch. Good stuff!

The more recent character secret happened with my brother's PC in the last campaign. He was playing a half-vampire (some template from an FFG book) and kept his undead taint a secret. He made some suspicious moves during the campaign that had some of the other PCs wondering about his true nature. There was no great revelation as in the above example but my brother had fun with the secret while it lasted.

 

[STARP_JVP]

The character from my story hour is really a girl, who fled from an arranged marriage from her noble family, and operates under the assumed name "Thomas".

None of the players in the game caught on, but the dwarven cleric figured out eventually, and so that player found out by virtue of that. I eventually had to let the rest know.

We had something similar happen in our group. Over time, most of the PCs and almost all the NPCs figured out the character was actually a woman, but nobody ever said anything. It became a running gag.

 

[Torm]

I once played a pilot character in a WEG Star Wars campaign who was an ex-Tie Fighter Pilot and was never seen outside of the Tie Fighter pilot uniform, albeit a repainted set of the outfit. The character went by the pilot's flight group callsign of "Two". Probably predictably enough just from this little bit of description , the pilot was female. It seemed to take the gaming group a little by surprise, though, when after quite a while playing, she made herself known when the group needed a female human to fill an undercover role for a mission.

 

[Herobizkit]

I was the first to go to university from my gaming group. I came home one weekend to find that the boys were still playing and they had just started the second part of some box set. They had recently purchased the (then new) Skills and Powers book. Well, they were so excited about their disadvantage choices, earning their characters lots of extra points to gimp themself to the teeth. All of them (but one) had taken "powerful enemy" as their choice. I whipped up a Fighter/Bard with the Blade kit and off I went.

We had gotten to a point where the hereos were starting to flag, until we discovered a magical +4 bastard sword. They gave it to me, as I was under-magicked compared to their characters. By doing so, I had suddenly become the best fighter on the team... I think the sword was lucky in-game, as I rolled all kinds of criticals with it and never seemed to miss anything.

At one point, we were suddenly faced with an onslaught of trolls. We were outnumbered, surrounded, and running low on magic. One character got so frustrated he tried to hide in a Daern's Instant Fortress... he jumped in and shrunk it. Crunch. Several others fell swiftly to the troll's claws, and there were two people left: myself, and the player who did not take a "powerful enemy" disadvantage. There were but three trolls left, and we knew we could take them together. Instead, I dropped a Obscuring Fog (or some such spell) and fled the scene, leaving the dwarf to his death.

While I was making my character, I asked the DM how I could be integrated for my one-time appearance. We talked, and agreed that I could be an agent of the popular "powerful enemy"; it was my goal to cripple the party at every opportunity (by taking magic items away, making them fight the hardest monsters, hanging back when I could be helping, etc.) so they would be too weak to face their collective "powerful enemy". When the others were finished off in the troll fight, the player was extremely confident we could beat the trolls, and so was I. The look on his face was priceless when I said, "I have come to ensure the deaths of they who oppose [whatever his name was]. My task is complete. Farewell, if you can."

TPK, minus me, who went back to university with the only surviving character from the slaughter.

 

[Trellian]

I just wrote up a new PC for our Eberron gestalt game.

Quick off-topic question.. what exactly is a gestalt game? I have seen references to it several times, but never really understood it.