A Paladin Shows Mercy to a Priestess of Orcus?

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Well, in a recent battle deep within the labyrinthine halls of a temple of Orcus, the group was fighting a phalanx of lead skeletons, a team of fanatical cult-assassins, crazed berzerker barbarians, led by plate-armoured clerics of Orcus. The encounter was great! Flamestrikes going off everywhere, invisible assassins stabbing the player-characters in the back, dumping sacks of poisonous snakes on them, walls of force dividing packs of enemies, and valiant charges made into the screaming horde!

In the final rounds of the struggle, the group is fighting some of the remaining clerics in desperate hand-to-hand combat, and one by one, the clerics are dying. One of the group's paladins, Bronwyn, is unpacking a can of whoop-ass on this priestess, Drusilla. Three criticals later, Drusilla is staggering, and as she looks about and sees that most of her companions are dead, with some others in retreat, and this 6'2" buffed paladin-chick with platinum-blonde hair just hammering her down, she falls to one knee, and cries out for mercy!

Bronwyn grants her mercy, and demands as part of the bargain, the beautiful priestess must serve her and her party with the utmost loyalty and devotion, until she says otherwise, as her life is otherwise forfeit for her defeat at her hands.

The cleric of Orcus agrees, reluctantly. Bronwyn makes her swear to serve her loyally. Any treachery will bring her swift death by her sword. Bronwyn used her Sense Motive, and Drusilla seemed quite sincere. Under the circumstances, it was either be sincere, or be sincerely dead by swift execution. Still, there are some issues I'm obviously pondering.

What now? What do you think? I was amazed that she granted her mercy! Just incredible! A priestess of Orcus no less!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Ravlek]

From the SRD;

Associates: While she may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment, a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters, nor will she continue an association with someone who consistently offends her moral code. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.


What is the alignment of the priestess?

 

[Khairn]

An amazing turn of events, and as a GM it is one that I personally (and it sounds like you too) would never have anticipated.

So whats next?

Regarding the question of "alignment" I feel that the willingness to accept the surrender of a fallen foe (especially if she is holding out the opportunity of conversion to the light) is a perfectly justified RP hook for the paladin's actions.

But the paladin's actual motivation needs to be understood. Is this but a clever plan to gain information from an enemy before the inevitable ending or does that paladin truly believe that there is a hope of redemption for this vile cleric?

What of the cleric herself? It appears on the surface that this is only a ploy to remain among the living until an opportunity for escape or betrayal is at hand. Is she willing to reveal critical or important information in return for her life?

And of course we have the paladins "comrades" in arms to think of. What is their reaction to this shocking event? Could the paladin be under the control of yet another enemy? Can they trust their new captive? Can they trust the paladin now that she has made a "deal with the devil"? How does this effect the ultimate goal of their assault into the heart of this vile temple?

IMO there are a lot of loose threads that need to be addressed by the players. But as a GM, I love moments like this where shifting motivations and shocking circumstances force the players to handle something far beyond what they had anticipated. My only advice would be to have fun and milk this for all its worth.

 

[Turanil]

Well, the paladin may hope to reform the evil priestess and have her renounce her odious faith. This is a paldin-worth thing. However, my opinion is that the priestess is a devious, tricky, nasty, totally evil of course, treacherous, lying at every opportunity, etc. So the priestess will bind her time until she can kill the paladin, or at least escape. By the way, if the priestess tries to get spells from Orcus, it's an act of overt treachery, and in any case, the paladin cannot accept that as her servant, the priestess casts spells lend by Orcus. On the other hand, if the paladin is ever able to convince the priestess (unlikely event) to betray Orcus and change alignment, Orcus will take a personnal and swift revenge against both the priestess and paladin. Since I believe your PCs were 40th level or so, you may easily use some avatar of Orcus.

 

[Ravlek]

Regarding the question of "alignment" I feel that the willingness to accept the surrender of a fallen foe (especially if she is holding out the opportunity of conversion to the light) is a perfectly justified RP hook for the paladin's actions.

Case 1
If the priestess is evil, and the paladin is knowingly associating with them, you have a fallen paladin.

Case 2
If the priestess is evil, and the paladin is knowingly associating with them, you have a paladin needing atonement.

Case 3
The priestess is turned over to a legitimate authority.

Case 4
The priestess changes alignment.

 

[Ravlek]

IMO there are a lot of loose threads that need to be addressed by the players. But as a GM, I love moments like this where shifting motivations and shocking circumstances force the players to handle something far beyond what they had anticipated. My only advice would be to have fun and milk this for all its worth.

Complete agreement with you on that.

 

[sword-dancer]

From the SRD;

Associates: While she may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment, a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters, nor will she continue an association with someone who consistently offends her moral code. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.


What is the alignment of the priestess?

I don`t consider giving mercy and try to redempt an evil character assiciating with evil.

@SHARK

I consider it one of the rights of the paladin to give the privilege of mercy whenever he sees it fit.

What will Drusilla do?
That depends on her personality, experience and how she`s treated by Bronwyn and the rest of the group.

 

[Ravlek]

From the original post:

Bronwyn grants her mercy, and demands as part of the bargain, the beautiful priestess must serve her and her party with the utmost loyalty and devotion, until she says otherwise, as her life is otherwise forfeit for her defeat at her hands.

The cleric of Orcus agrees, reluctantly. Bronwyn makes her swear to serve her loyally. Any treachery will bring her swift death by her sword. Bronwyn used her Sense Motive, and Drusilla seemed quite sincere. Under the circumstances, it was either be sincere, or be sincerely dead by swift execution. Still, there are some issues I'm obviously pondering.

Sounds like association to me.

If the priestess changes alignment, there is no problem. If the player of the paladin RP's trying to redeem the priestess, I wouldn't worry about the RAW. On the gripping hand (great books), if it isn't RP'd and is just a 'the party has another/a cleric', then the paladin has to pay the penalty, IMO.

If the entire thing is RP'd well, I think it's great, and in my campaign the paladin would get some RP awards, some serious awards.

 

[Yair]

I find insisting on the association angle just not interesting. Unless the player virtually forces me to do so, I won't say he has broken his vows.

It looks to me like the paladin is attempting to redeem the cleric. In this case I'll try to have the priestess attempt to orchestrate the paladin's fall in return.
The priestess should never directly disobey her promise. I'll try to arrange things so that she will carry out the orders in ways that are acceptable but not outright Good. And then I'll slowly make her ways slip towards Evil, and especially ones having unforseen (by her) Evil side-effects or crollaries. I'm thinking here of a kind of "innocense", she is so thoroughly evil that she doesn't comprehend what Good is. As she is carrying out the paladin's orders, the blame should fall on the paladin.
Additionally, I'll have her use truly Evil means towards good ends, particulaly of her own initiative and in dire straits. An ideal situation would be using her clerical powers to save the party from a TPK, and then still acting the servant despite temporarily being in a position of power.
If the player is comfortable with it I'll have her fall in love with the paladin without changing her alignment from Evil, especially if lesbian relationships are frowned upon by the paladin's faith. But that's tricky.
Should the paladin continue to associate with her once she starts really slipping into Evil (such as after that near TPK, for example), THEN I'll make him an ex-paladin, at least temporarily. Of course, that is just when the fun of turning him towards real evil begins.

All this assumes are Lawful priestess. If that is not consistent with Orcus worship in your campaign, then that won't work. The PC's cooperation is needed to some degree, although anything short of killing her could in time develop into an evil-side-effect. Killing her will be a fairly finite solution of this story-arc, unless you rule killing a prisoner by itself may be Evil.

 

[Ravlek]

I find insisting on the association angle just not interesting.

To me it is not about insisting:

From dictionary.com

association

1. The act of associating or the state of being associated.

associate
v. associated, associating, associates
1. To join as a partner, ally, or friend.

The paladin is associating with the priestess.

Some good idea's in the rest of your post.