An unusual encounter idea.

[Lord Zardoz]

At night, a man in shining white armour will stumble into the players camp. He is covered up to his elbows in blood. He is muttering "My lord, forgive me, what have I done?” He is a fallen paladin who was involved in a killing. He is having a crisis of faith.

So fill in these blanks:

- What exactly is he guilty of?
- Why exactly did he do it?
- How do you think your players would handle this?

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Oryan77]

- What exactly is he guilty of?

Killing a newborn baby.

- Why exactly did he do it?

He's an elven paladin who had an infatuation with his female elven cleric adventuring partner. Against his code, he slept with the cleric and she became pregnant. When the baby was born, and he held it up after delivery, he realized it was half-elven with the same eyes as the groups human bard. In a fit of range, he used the knife that he used to cut the umbilical cord and plunged it into the babies chest, then lunged at the bard.

- How do you think your players would handle this?

The male players would say, "Does that shining white armor look magical? What else do I see on this guy?" The female players would say, "Ah, that's so sad & gross...is he cute? Where's the bard...and is he cute?"

 

[Wraith Form]

So fill in these blanks:

- What exactly is he guilty of?

Killing his brother.

- Why exactly did he do it?

The brother is...er, was...a tyrannical warlord who took advantage of his position. (Kind of the reverse of the Strahd legend in Ravenloft.)

- How do you think your players would handle this?

Um....maybe shake the man's hand? Seriously, my group would hand-wave the situation away. "No big loss." If the paladin explains the situation, they might try to help him atone for his crime.

 

[Wik]

He'd been tracking down a ghost that possesses bodies. This ghost possesses bodies and uses them for it's own foul ends, causing all sorts of devastation (it possessed a politician and then urged the populace into a suicidal war, for example). The paladin has been tracking this ghost for years, and is wearing a suit of armour that protects him from possession.

Just a few hours ago, he tracked the ghost down to a secluded monastery that raised orphaned youths for a life in the clergy. Our paladin, driven towards killing this ghost once and for all, butchered every human being in the monastery as the ghost leaped from body to body, until everything was dead but the paladin. But the ghost had already fled (or maybe is being carried by the paladin?). Realizing what he has done, our paladin is in a daze, shocked at the brutality within him.

My players, by the way, would either try to get the guy hanged (the legal thing to do), or might even agree with his methods. We have a paladin in our group who is a firm believer of "shades of grey", even though he follows a black and white rules system that always seems to put him in a foul mood (our paladin rocks).