What do I do now?

[Evilhalfling]

Stick to your guns - I love that the good personality is the Fake one - And the one that the PCs get along with better.

He should definatly try and become seaperate, or 'real' if possible and fight to maintain his existance if its not.

to much for a bestow curse, but a limited or full wish could have done it.
prot evil is too easy - but perhaps dispel magic could suppress it for 1d4 rounds.

The Clerics would definatelly investigate further, and would want to talk to Vargus -
an antimagic shell would be a calm way to discuss things if the dispel magic fails.

 

[diaglo]

another possibility is Cornealius is a sentient tattoo.

the mad wizard placed a highly cursed tattoo on Vargus and cast a spell that made him forget about it.

it is an artifact so is highly resistant to attempts to break enchantment or greater dispel... only a spell like wish or miracle can remove it.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

This will contradict the original backstory, but I had a thought. What if Cornelius and Vargus were both real people growing up and lived in two separate villages and not knowing each other. The curse was an experiment by the wizard merging the two with Vargus being suppressed until Cornelius was stessed or angered.

Just a thought.

I love the concept! Kudos to your player.

I thought of that too. I pictured Vargus' body (the barbarian/rogue character) to be somewhere in a coma-like state that his family have been unable to bring him out of. I then pictured the 2 people getting back into their separate bodies and joining forces to get revenge on the guy who did it to them.

My player said he liked his idea better personally so I just went with that. I would rather that he was really "in" to his character rather than playing out something that I though was cool and he thought was ok.

Olaf the Stout

 

[greywulf]

Great backstory. One resolution would be for Vargus/Cornelius to return to the evil Mage after working out exactly what happened. Then they force HIS soul out of his body (a little Magic Jar trickery?), and Cornelius' consciousness takes over the body. Balance is restored.

Maybe the Vargus and Cornelius would be half-souled, each possessing half an immortal spirit. Neither could be killed while the other lives, cursed to live forever until they are both destroyed. Or something.

 

[Musrum]

The big reveal should send Cornelius off into the phases of grief. It would be even worse than knowing you are goining to die: knowing you never really lived.

The interesting thing with the character setup is that Vargus sounds like a borderline psycopath that has been hardwired to empathize with Cornelius.

A failed suicide attempt from Cornelius (foiled by Vargus taking over) might be the start of Vargus actually turning his curse into a blessing.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Cleric/wizard 1 spell, protection from evil. Prevents possession control. That is the first strategy for a spellcaster dealing with a suspected possessing demon. When this doesn't work that could be the tip off. Detect evil would detect the evil presence of a demon and could be the tip off as well.

Cornelius finding out he's not real sounds like the climax to a short story, good plot element.

This knowledge won't end Cornelius as his existence does not seem tied to ignorance but a full creation of the curse. So Cornelius will be like a good character with lycanthropy who knows the condition and can possibly take appropriate precautions.

Break enchantment might free Vargus and remove Cornelius though.

I tried going down the protection from evil route to show that it was Cornealius and not Vargus that was in fact the "invader" however the player didn't like the idea of a 1st level spell over-ruling the "curse". He does have a point. Whatever has happened was done by a high level mage. I don't think a 1st level spell, able to be cast by almost anyone, should be able to cancel it out.

Last session we had an attempted exorcism attempt performed by the High Priest of the God of Knowledge and Magic. He was attempting an exorcism based on what he had read in an ancient tome (apart from that tome he had no knowledge or experience in performing exorcisms). Unsurprisingly (since Vargus is not a demon or evil spirit) it failed.

Realistically I think that even if there was a devil or evil spirit inside Cornealius I think the exorcism would have failed. The High Priest was following vague directions from a tome written over 100 years ago and had no actual experience with exorcisms. The "exorcism" consisted mostly of him burning candles and incense, chanting strange words while splashing Cornealius with holy water. Eventually he started slapping Cornealius to "draw out" the evil spirit. Eventually Vargus was brought out. Luckily he couldn't break out of his bindings or the situation would have been really interesting! After about 4 hours of chanting, splashing and other failed attempts, the High Priest, exhausted, gave up.

Something else has now come up in the campaign so it will be a few weeks (in real time, only a few days in game time) until the PC's will be able to get back to this issue. Does anyone have any ideas for what I can try next?

There has been a mage at the Wizard's Guild, hired by Cornealius, that has been researching the problem too for about the past week. Does anyone have any ideas as to what he might have found?

Olaf the Stout

 

[Olaf the Stout]

possible solutions: 1) the taint mechanic from several books most recently Heroes of Horror.
2) one of the personalities is shunted into a weapon of legacy or extracted and added to a magic item with a creation feat 3) take the leadership feat. and the weaker guy becomes a cohort. 4) a magic item quest to find a mirror that shows your true self. the false self is trapped in the mirror. 5) the PC dies and is brought back. the stronger spirit returns and the weaker goes on to its "heaven"

I had thought of Cornealius being put into a Weapon of Legacy. That could make for some interesting situations, especially as Vargus loves combat but Cornealius is a coward in general. The only thing I have to get around is Vargus' distrust and in some circumstances of hatred of arcane magic. I had thought of making the WoL not "magical" in D&D terms but somehow drawing on the power of Cornealius' spirit (or whatever he may have that is similar since he technically isn't real).

Olaf the Stout

 

[Kalshane]

Very interesting character concept and storyline.

I like the find a way to put them in separate bodies idea. I think, even once Cornelius discovers he's not the original, he's still going to want to exist and I could easily see him forcing Vargus to a path that lets them both live their own lives. Maybe there could be rumors of a cult whose high priests are actually a merging of two people into one, via some form of ritual. Cornelius thinks finding out more about the cult could 1) give insight to what the powerful mage did and 2) give clues into how to perform a sort of reverse ritual, splitting the two into seperate bodies.

 

[Timeboxer]

There has been a mage at the Wizard's Guild, hired by Cornealius, that has been researching the problem too for about the past week. Does anyone have any ideas as to what he might have found?

I'm tempted to suggest that the mage perform a few experiments on Cornelius and see if he can whittle down the possibilities. For example:

What happens with a Protection from Evil spell?
Any reaction to holy symbols or silver or cold iron?
How about reactions to enchantment spells?
Any ambient magical auras come up on Detect Magic?

That sort of thing. In the long run if the character continues having two personalities in one body I can very much see something like the Agnes/Perdita dynamic from the Discworld -- if one personality goes down, from some enchantment or domination spell or unconsciousness, the other one comes up like a seesaw. Definitely throws vampires for a loop.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I'm tempted to suggest that the mage perform a few experiments on Cornelius and see if he can whittle down the possibilities. For example:

What happens with a Protection from Evil spell?
Any reaction to holy symbols or silver or cold iron?
How about reactions to enchantment spells?
Any ambient magical auras come up on Detect Magic?

That sort of thing. In the long run if the character continues having two personalities in one body I can very much see something like the Agnes/Perdita dynamic from the Discworld -- if one personality goes down, from some enchantment or domination spell or unconsciousness, the other one comes up like a seesaw. Definitely throws vampires for a loop.

Thanks for that Amy. That sounds like a pretty good idea. Now I just have to come up with some results to those "tests".

Olaf the Stout