Tsyr
Explorer
Ok, I've got a slight problem on my hands... it involves my groups best roleplayer (this guy could win awards for acting...), and a somewhat... ill concieved plot twist that I pulled as DM a few sessions ago.
For the problem to make sense, I'll need to explain a few points about the campagin world I'm playing in, I suppose...
1)Magic is magic. There is no difference between divine and arcane, it just... is. There are different schools (Healing, Spiritualism, Illusion, Darkness, Elementalism, Creation, Enchanting, and Pure Magic), similar to the schools of magic in arcane magic now, but much broader in scope... and all magic users are specialized with one major and two minor schools they cast spells from.
2)Being brought back from the dead doesn't work very well in my world... a person has 4+level hours to be brought back after death, twice as long if slain by magic, after that, it's over... And a person slain in certain ways (Such as by demons) is normaly totally gone, no chance for return, even within that period of time. There are of course exceptions, rare as they may be, but for the moment this is enough.
3)I use Mongoose Publishing's "Demonology", modified for my campagin... It operates outside of the established schools, however... so any mage can be a demonologist. And it's semi-common in my world... It's not at all uncommon for a wizard to take a couple levels in it, at least, for minor "utility" summonings... It's the only real way to summon things in my world, beyond minor elementals.
4)In my world, wizards in general tend to be semi-outside the law... the law won't generaly get involved in wizard buisness unless they have VERY good reason to.
5)For reference, the party consists of two human magic users (A Healer/illusionist/enchanter(The roleplayer I mentioned) and a Pure Magic/darkness/creation mage), a human rogue, and two fighters, one elven and one human.
Ok, now we get to the problem. A few sessions ago, the party was betrayed by a lord they had been working for... the lord got his service, then tried to dispose of them by selling information on their location to a wizard who had reason to dislike the party (Notice divination was not amongst the extablished schools? In my world, to "divine" something, you summon a demon and ask it to find out for you... if your willing to risk it, that is... most aren't.
The party is ambushed when they were coming to the city to see the lord in question, by the wizard and some constructs of his. The party puts up a good fight, somewhat more than the wizard expected, and when all is said and done the wizard managed to open a gate and escape with both fighters and the pure magic wizard.
After spending a few days trying to rescue the characters, the enemy wizard confronts the healer wizard... telling the healer that his companions were being tortured (They weren't, but the wizard managed to bluff him), and that if the healer ever wanted to see them again, he had better be willing to perform some tasks for the wizard... the first of which was assassinate some minor person who had irritated him. He had three days to complete the task (Mind you, there was a plot already in place to avoid that in my notes... the character would never have had to assassinate the person).
Unfortunatly, when the wizard said he was torturing the healers companions, he sorta pushed a button in the characters mind... the character cannot STAND defenseless people being harmed. This was mistake number one on my part.
The wizard went that night to the forest outside the compound the enemy wizard was in. I should at this point note that the healer had a number of levels in demonologist, although he had never activly used them beyond summoning things like shadow servants and so forth. With him he took every focus item and aid he could get his hands on, pawning off every bit of wealth he had to assist him. And he tried to summon a shadow drake, a demon unique to my world but somewhat equvilant in power and in attitude to a balor. It should have been beyond him, even the summoning itself should have failed. It didn't, though. Nor did his control check. Two nat 20s in a row. And he gave the beast a very simple command.
"Rescue my friends"
Well it did, in a round-about fashion... it killed every living thing in the compound that didn't manage to flee, the enemey wizard included, except for his friends.
Unfortunatly, and this was my second possible mistake... the building wasn't just a wizard tower where the enemy wizard lived alone. It was a mage academy, granted one of ill repute, that the enemy wizard headed. In all, 13 people died... the enemy wizard, his two "aids" (who were also "evil"), and 10 students (seven of which were "evil", but the player had no way of, and still does not, know... and besides, evil as they were, they were "innocent").
Unfortunatly, the healer is now... worthless. Hes a vegetable, basicly. After he freed his friends he collapsed in a heap, and hasn't really done anything since... about two in-game months later, he eats, sleeps, looks at the sky, and when he is in a really good mood, plays a sad song on his harp half-heartedly. He won't use his magic, even his healing magic, no matter how much it might be needed. He burned all his spellbooks, both the demonology ones and the rest. He won't touch his sword, won't talk about that night... nothing.
Now I'm sort of at an impass. It's starting to become a problem for the rest of the party... I don't want to tell the character to retire that one and roll up a new one though, he is rather attached to him... And worse, this is my fault, at least in part. I couldn't control the characters actions, but I allowed it to happen... I set up a senario that would spark a reaction, but it wasn't the reaction I hoped for, not by a long shot... and I don't want to make this any worse than it already is.
Help!
/me goes off into a dark corner and stares at his campagin notes, trying to find some loophole, or get divine inspiration
For the problem to make sense, I'll need to explain a few points about the campagin world I'm playing in, I suppose...
1)Magic is magic. There is no difference between divine and arcane, it just... is. There are different schools (Healing, Spiritualism, Illusion, Darkness, Elementalism, Creation, Enchanting, and Pure Magic), similar to the schools of magic in arcane magic now, but much broader in scope... and all magic users are specialized with one major and two minor schools they cast spells from.
2)Being brought back from the dead doesn't work very well in my world... a person has 4+level hours to be brought back after death, twice as long if slain by magic, after that, it's over... And a person slain in certain ways (Such as by demons) is normaly totally gone, no chance for return, even within that period of time. There are of course exceptions, rare as they may be, but for the moment this is enough.
3)I use Mongoose Publishing's "Demonology", modified for my campagin... It operates outside of the established schools, however... so any mage can be a demonologist. And it's semi-common in my world... It's not at all uncommon for a wizard to take a couple levels in it, at least, for minor "utility" summonings... It's the only real way to summon things in my world, beyond minor elementals.
4)In my world, wizards in general tend to be semi-outside the law... the law won't generaly get involved in wizard buisness unless they have VERY good reason to.
5)For reference, the party consists of two human magic users (A Healer/illusionist/enchanter(The roleplayer I mentioned) and a Pure Magic/darkness/creation mage), a human rogue, and two fighters, one elven and one human.
Ok, now we get to the problem. A few sessions ago, the party was betrayed by a lord they had been working for... the lord got his service, then tried to dispose of them by selling information on their location to a wizard who had reason to dislike the party (Notice divination was not amongst the extablished schools? In my world, to "divine" something, you summon a demon and ask it to find out for you... if your willing to risk it, that is... most aren't.
The party is ambushed when they were coming to the city to see the lord in question, by the wizard and some constructs of his. The party puts up a good fight, somewhat more than the wizard expected, and when all is said and done the wizard managed to open a gate and escape with both fighters and the pure magic wizard.
After spending a few days trying to rescue the characters, the enemy wizard confronts the healer wizard... telling the healer that his companions were being tortured (They weren't, but the wizard managed to bluff him), and that if the healer ever wanted to see them again, he had better be willing to perform some tasks for the wizard... the first of which was assassinate some minor person who had irritated him. He had three days to complete the task (Mind you, there was a plot already in place to avoid that in my notes... the character would never have had to assassinate the person).
Unfortunatly, when the wizard said he was torturing the healers companions, he sorta pushed a button in the characters mind... the character cannot STAND defenseless people being harmed. This was mistake number one on my part.
The wizard went that night to the forest outside the compound the enemy wizard was in. I should at this point note that the healer had a number of levels in demonologist, although he had never activly used them beyond summoning things like shadow servants and so forth. With him he took every focus item and aid he could get his hands on, pawning off every bit of wealth he had to assist him. And he tried to summon a shadow drake, a demon unique to my world but somewhat equvilant in power and in attitude to a balor. It should have been beyond him, even the summoning itself should have failed. It didn't, though. Nor did his control check. Two nat 20s in a row. And he gave the beast a very simple command.
"Rescue my friends"
Well it did, in a round-about fashion... it killed every living thing in the compound that didn't manage to flee, the enemey wizard included, except for his friends.
Unfortunatly, and this was my second possible mistake... the building wasn't just a wizard tower where the enemy wizard lived alone. It was a mage academy, granted one of ill repute, that the enemy wizard headed. In all, 13 people died... the enemy wizard, his two "aids" (who were also "evil"), and 10 students (seven of which were "evil", but the player had no way of, and still does not, know... and besides, evil as they were, they were "innocent").
Unfortunatly, the healer is now... worthless. Hes a vegetable, basicly. After he freed his friends he collapsed in a heap, and hasn't really done anything since... about two in-game months later, he eats, sleeps, looks at the sky, and when he is in a really good mood, plays a sad song on his harp half-heartedly. He won't use his magic, even his healing magic, no matter how much it might be needed. He burned all his spellbooks, both the demonology ones and the rest. He won't touch his sword, won't talk about that night... nothing.
Now I'm sort of at an impass. It's starting to become a problem for the rest of the party... I don't want to tell the character to retire that one and roll up a new one though, he is rather attached to him... And worse, this is my fault, at least in part. I couldn't control the characters actions, but I allowed it to happen... I set up a senario that would spark a reaction, but it wasn't the reaction I hoped for, not by a long shot... and I don't want to make this any worse than it already is.
Help!
/me goes off into a dark corner and stares at his campagin notes, trying to find some loophole, or get divine inspiration
