Advice on problem in my game please!

[Soldarin]

Things that seem to work in stories/films:
have one of his friends try to get him angry enough to talk/cry about it.
working with children/animals.
seeing an innocent getting into trouble and you're the only one around to do something about it.
send him images that remind him of the night it happened (shadows looking like demons, screaming that turns out to be a children's prank, or even a story that has a somewhat similar strain).
shame the character into living again (visits by deceased relatives/teachers seems to work rather well).

On the game technical side, if he sticks to his guns about not using his magic anymore, you migth allow him to 'exchange' levels of wizard for his new vocation. When he reaches enough xp to gain a new level, reset his xp total and switch a level. That way the amount of power he gave up will lessen with time.

 

[Pielorinho]

One day, as he's playing his harp, alone, he realizes that someone is watching him. There's a small, beautiful man sitting on the garden wall, just watching. When he finishes his song, the man is gone.

But over the next several days, he catches a glimpse of the man at odd moments. And finally, one time when he's playing on the harp, he hears the man's voice, right behind him.

"I know what you're going through. And I can help."

The man disappears.

Next time he appears, he explains a little more: he knows how to heal the character, but it's a long process, and the healer will confront truths he doesn't like during the healing. Then everything goes red and fiery, and the character sees the shadowdrake stalking through the academy, killing. A brief flash, and then it's back to reality.

As the days go on, the beautiful man appears again and again, speaking mysteriously to the character, quietly. The character may realize that no one else can see or hear this man.

In truth, the beautiful man is a demon himself. He realizes how powerful the healer is and wants to corrupt him, wants to convince him that what he did was right, was justified. But in order to do that, he'll desensitize him to the violence of the drake's slaughter, show him scenes of the evil wizard murdering his friends, remind him of how he had no other choice.

Eventually, he'll show the healer a similar scene happening somewhere else, and offer him the ability to help. How will he help?

By answering the summons of another wizard. If he accepts, his transformation will be irreversible: he'll be well on the path to demonhood himself.

Something like this might ofer the character a couple of good ways out of depression:
1) He can choose to destroy his conscience (and guilt) by becoming a demon;
2) He can refute the demon and admit that what he did was terrible, but that life goes on (and maybe find some other way to save peopel when the demon shows him the similar situation); or
3) he can be driven completely mad by the demon's visions and constant whisperings and kill himself.

It sounds like a fun scene to me, if y'all both want to run with it. Good luck!
Daniel

 

[Wolfen Priest]

Pielorinho, I think that was the best suggestion yet!

Something I would probably do is have the character haunted by the souls of those his summoned demon has slain. Slowly, the character becomes trapped in the psychotic prison of his own mind as he slowly goes insane with grief and anguish.

Then, have him captured by some high-level friends of the establishment he helped destroy. The job of the rest of the party is now to save this guy, emprisoned both physically and mentally. Essentially, he will become an NPC, while still remaining the 'focal point' of the adventure (which I gather is what this guy wants most of all).

Have him roll up a new character (perhaps related by kinship to the original), and the party can go after him! Then you would have a cohesive and logical party, and it still keeps Mr. Sullen in the limelight.

 

[Hatchling Dragon]

My own 2 coppers

I'm also in favor of starwolf's Plauge idea. Have a Wizard or rogue demon be the cause. The only healer in the area that had a chance at curing the town was, of course, one of the very first to die.

Now you have a dilema for him, and he seems to like those Moral Issues. Does he save the innocents or take on an even greater burden to his soul and let them all perish through inaction?

He doesn't even have an excuse of not having his books of Healing magic, there's the collection of the former town healer going unused. I'm sure the towns-folk would be happy to let him copy, or mabye even keep outright, those books after he's saved the town.

You have an all-group adventure becuase the PC's wizard character stays in town to wrestle with his concience while he, in his 'borrowed character', and the rest of the party head out to deal with the source of all this suffering. They can come back and find the PC ready to rejoin them, perhaps not like 'the old days' but at least far better off than he was before they got there.

He's even got potential for another roleplaying challange to replace his anguish schtik. He's resolved to never kill again, yet he can't set aside his obligation to use his magic to help both his friends, and as a sort of repayment for the deaths that resulted from his actions. He can hide the group with Illusion, he can heal thier wounds, but he will never take another life with his own hands again.

Hatchling Dragon

 

[Number47]

You know, I really hate munchkins

 

[Pielorinho]

#XLVII, does this fellow sound like a munchkin to you?

Honestly, to me he sounds like the opposite. At worst, he's a drama queen -- but sense I'm a big stinkin drama queen myself, I approve .

(To define my terms: I figure a munchkin is someone who uses RP games to live out power fantasies, and then who corners me at a bar and bores me to tears with tales of his damn Ventrue Elder with a 12 fortitude who has business lunches, and tells me about this for hours, and -- why, no, I'm not speaking of any particular incident, what makes you think that?)

Daniel

 

[reapersaurus]

Daniel, I just gotta say that corruption storyline is just incredible...

I'd never think of that.

See, we thought you'd go the retribution-route, and you went the other way with it.

hong - I like that tough love phrase so much, it's in my sig now.

 

[tsadkiel]

I would just take the opportunity to shamelessly rip off "It's a Wonderful Life."

 

[Pielorinho]

Thanks, Reaper! The TV show Angel has been doing a very similar bit of corruption with one of its main characters recently, and it looks like a lot of fun.

I'm convinced that Joss Whedon (the show's producer) is the king of all rat bastard DMs.

Daniel

 

[Quickbeam]

Despite the problems this has caused you Tsyr, it's still an enviable position of sorts to be in as DM -- after all, your players care to make an effort, even if it's a bit melodramatic.

starwolf:
Nice use of Yiddish .

Pielorinho:
Lovely idea...that's Iron DM quality stuff there .

Final comment:
It's plague (sorry for the correction) and it's a good suggestion.