D&D 5E 5E - Curse of Strahd - PC gone darkside

[TheYeti1775]

So DMing our usual Wednesday night game for one of the few times ever a PC has gone over to the evil side of things and didn't start that way.

Character background:
PC is a Elven Sorcerer and Daughter of Arms Major of Myth Drannor (Father was a PC in a past game, so was the Aunt) so had a great family backstory. And family is everything to her.

Enter Ravenloft.
Another PC was playing a Warlock with a Pact with Dendar the Night Serpent. They got their grimoire (trinket), well then they died. The book was bound in human skin.

Well the PC is inventorying the stuff, and I say the book speaks to your mind saying it knows how to escape this dark land. And it would teach her. Now this was purely for roleplay purposes and the character decided to study this book with crazy glyphs within that seemed to crawl around. This was all well and good we roll on with it. Little did we know the chain of events to follow.

Now next session, random encounter rolled while the elf is on watch.
PC finds a trinket. "An unopened letter from character's dying father."
What made this better is some of the characters have found with new replacement PC's time seems off (year wise) for some of them.

So I begin roleplaying the books whispers more to him. Telling him it has the power to save her father and escape the land. The temptation building. It continued to feed the PC's fears of her father dying when she has the power to save him, etc.

Well tonight's session saw the temptation finally come to a head. He (Player) finally asked what it would take. And I simply responded with "A Sacrifice". PC asks "What kind?" Now at our table the player is looking around at the other players trying to figure out if I was asking for a PC sacrifice. Answer, "A child the younger the better."

Elf sneaks out of the inn and makes the sacrifice. A human child. Up till the act, I had already warned the player that the act as soon as committed changes the alignment to evil. Well they bit the cookie alright. To quote a popular phrase of her's, "Its only a human."
Now this elf had two items that factored into this. 1. Bag of Holding / 2. Silvered Shortsword.
In preparation for this, the Elf had to draw runes in their own blood on the shortsword.
Lot of stealth checks with a bunch of good rolls.
Well they succeed in pulling it off.
They took the body and put it in the bag of holding it was every small so yes it fit. Plan is to dump it when on watch later on out of town, they are in town now.

So now PC is evil. And well like a good RBDM, I gave some cookies for the next temptation to seed further preventing the path of redemption.
The sword is now magical (+1) but will radiate that it is desecrated per the Paladin's Detect ability. (Yes there is a Paladin in the party) And their is a drawback of the Elf having a jealous attachment to the sword now. I went with this as the 'boon' received as it isn't that game breaking and could lead to the elf being caught.
This sword was given to the party fighter many times for fights against possible were-creatures. So the change in attitude towards it will give the others some clues. Right now they are fairly clueless as characters on it all. All the players and I are laughing and joking about it.

So the book will try to get more sacrifices out of him, as the game progresses.
But I think using Strahd as the final betrayal to the party would be best, since it is through Strahd the PC's can escape Ravenloft. <evil laugh>
This PC was at the Tarokka reading that Madam Eva preformed for where the items (Holy Symbol / Sunsword / Tome / Enemy) and the clues for them.

So put your evil hats on, and tell the things to have the book whisper. The PC bit the cookie willingly, so subtle is good. Doesn't need any specific Curse of Strahd spoilers in it.
And in our game, good story can trump mechanics if its not game breaking.

 

[Negflar2099]

This is very awesome. Good job tying in the character's motivation and backstory.

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

I had something two similar things occur in my group with the same player. The first was with a Tiefling Warlock, whom started as pact of the old ones and very quickly descended into madness/power hungry with the hags of old Bone grinder. She met the mother hag first in Barovia and ended up trying to become a night hag to join their coven after one of the daughters was slain by the party by murdering a Valaki family and kidnapping their child to perform a ritual sacrifice at the megaliths near the windmill. The whole party found out next morning when they got in trouble with the burgomaster/izek and ended up being forced to hunt her down /stop the ritual or be banished. I also took a page from Dice, Camera, Action and made her character Izek's sister, so it was in interesting suprise for the party and him. At present she and Izek have obsconded in search of more power and revenge.

The latter character was more unexpected. He's now playing a young (like 12) child cleric of Amaunator and asked me if the Vistani had any glass eyes for spell components. He was given some as a reward for helping save the girl from the lake and I told him inside the jar was an eye. I had it work as a gem of trueseeing at first, but gave him dark whispers that he could attune to the eye further in a dark ritual...which he contemplated and opted to do. I now have a 12 year old with the Eye of Vecna in my game, and Strahd may or may not have a certain new magic sword in his armory. &#55357;&#56834;