Betrayal!!

VoiceOfReason?

First Post
Story time!
Anyone have a truly great story of betrayal? Who am I kidding, of course someone does. I'm not talking "After I got finished with the orc, I turned around, pulled our ranger's errant arrow from my back and pummeled his face in".
I'm talking about cold, calculated betrayal between PC's for RP reasons. Basically I want to know if the average gamer is as twisted and sadistic as I and some of my past gaming groups have been.

for example:

In a 4 person Ravenloft game (3 players and me the DM), 2 of the players decided that the 3rd player was going waay too far with his 2-headed numbercrunched cleric/wizard.
They devised a plan in which they waited for him to fall asleep in the inn (all 3 slept on different floors that night), then dressed up in black robes, covering their faces and using makeshift weapons (a hatchet and a shovel), then performed a coup-de-grace on the wizard head and began mercilessly hacking their companion apart as the clerical head screamed frantically for assistance from his allies (not realizing they were in the room with him). The unneccessary head was severed, smashed, dissolved in acid, and dumped in the town well. Moments after "Nightstalker One and Nightstalker G" made their escape through the window, the cleric's backup crashed through his locked door and proceeded in a mock chase through town searching for the hooded assailants.
The truly devious part of the plot is that the 2 attackers met with me 2 weeks beforehand and rolled out about 40 die rolls ahead of time (combination of d20's and d6's), had me roll dice as if I were making the attacks myself as I would for any other NPC, and came up with 3 contingency plans so that once the encounter began, their characters would remain 'asleep' until it all played out, decieving the third player for 3 months into thinking that he had been attacked, maimed, and crippled by NPC's for reasons he did not understand.



In another game (forgotten realms, the campaign centered around the tablets of fate during the time of troubles) I played a Succubus Mortal Hunter, and a servant of Murkyl (I think that was the name..god of death before the time of troubles that wanted the tablets of fate). The party (7 members 16-18, mostly good with 2 self-proclaimed demon hunters...ah the irony) was attempting to steal the tablets of fate (the catalysts that set off the time of troubles) back from myrkul and cyric. Alisin (one of my favorite characters to date) wormed her way into the party, had them all perfectly fooled for a good 10 sessions into believing she was so genuinely on their side that they trusted her with one of the 2 tablets (the completely undetectable alignment set several group members on edge). She posed as a human bounty hunter, with a very elaborate disguise including 24/7 Mind Blank and a tongue ring that cast nystul's magical aura 1/day with a 10 day duration that kept half a dozen rings, 2 masterwork bracers, a black velvet choker, and a handfull of other random items she kept on her person radiating magic-her excuse for the powers she chose to use in the presence of the party.
Anyway, the campaign boiled down to a fight on the top of a tower in waterdeep in which Alisin and the mortal Cyric(NPC) decimated the entire party, stole the tablets, and effectively rewrote the history of the forgotten realms.
As Demons (more of Myrkul's followers) flooded into the city, Cyric singled out the straggling ranger as he was on his way to the top of the tower before the fight started. Alisin proceeded to use charm monster on a few choice demons in the attacking army, then as Cyric popped on the scene, she tossed the cleric/wizard off the tower to the claws of her waiting pets below, then singled out the cleric demon hunter and blasted away with the scrolls and charged magic items she had been collecting specifically for this purpose for about a month in-game while Cyric kept the Paladin demon hunter-the most dangerous PC to Alisin 1on1-fighting for his life. Once the last 2 PCs with any substantial healing abilities had been finished off, the bard and monk tried to flee. Cyric leapt off the tower to chase down the monk (and he though his slow fall had saved him :] ) as Alisin teleported in front of the bard as he flew away and thrashed him.
Granted the bard wasn't much of an accomplishment (it was the player's first character, he was outclassed plain and simple), but otherwise the group consisted of seasoned (5 years+) players who made good, solid characters, and knew the DM liked to throw nasty suprises at them whenever he thought of a good one.
The moral of the story: By saying nothing but straight-faced lies-through-the-teeth to your friends for months on end and consorting with an evil god of the (un)dead and a future god of evil and suffering, one can accomplish anything.
 

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I pulled a really nasty betrayal on some friends and strangers duing a convention, once. The module was basically an escape from a Drow city during a House War. 3 of the characters at the table were slaves, 2 dwarves and a gnome. The other three were the House Matron, the House Wizard and the House Elite Bodyguard (or something like that).

I was playing the Wizard, who was a former Human slave who had fallen in love with the House Matron. Part of the reason of the coup was the illicit relationship between the 2 of them.

Throughout the game, I played the Wizard as a snobby, stuck up elitist who lorded it over the 3 slaves. The final room, we grab the McGuffin and set off an alarm, and drow warriors start pouring in like they were ants that had their hill knocked over. The 2 dwarves announce that they stand back to back to defend themselves, and the gnome squeezes in to make it a three way. They figure "What the hell, we're dead, may as well go down fighting!"

What they didn't realize was that the McGuffin gave me, the wizard, super duper powers, including Teleport Without Error. The looks on their faces as I turn to the DM and say "I grab the House Matron and teleport out!" was absolutely priceless! I even left the House Elite Bodyguard behind, as I didn't trust him (his character was played by a friend of mine, the 3 slave characters were played by 3 people who sat down at the table for the convention).

:D

I actually won the tournament based on my score from that module, as I was the only player out of 8 tables that actually played the wizard towards his alignment (NE). Apparently at ever other table, whoever played the wizard rescued everyone, including the slaves. :p
 

I've got a good one for you:

I had a grey elf wizard, who was evil. (name: Racanath Xiltyn) But he managed to pull off being good in front of the party. After a long time adventuring (up to about 15th lv or so) we ran into a room full of mirrors of opposition. Well, needless to say our good fighter stepped in front of one, creating an evil clone of himself, which we promptly killed. This tips my wizard off to the mirror's function. So he avoids these things like the plauge, because the last thing he needs is to have a good copy of himself start handing out gold to teh otehr PC's and having them go "uh...."

So, they all made evil copies of themselves to fight, in the insuing chaos multiple copies of both evil and good were made (evil copies stepped in fron tof a mirror creating agood...etc etc.)

Well we called off the battle in a temporary truce after some time (and lots of XP) My evil wizard (who was a lich by now) went into the evil camp and consipried with a single evil copy of each PC to kill off all the good and the rest of the evil copies. They agreed. After sliting alot of throats in the night (and alot more XP), we went off to try and conquer the world. I killed off all the oher PC's but left them an evil copy to play. (They erased their alignments wrote down CE/NE/LE and we went abot world conquering buisiness)
 
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Heh heh... I have... in fact, it was the last D&D full-length campaign in which I was a player (instead of a DM)... back in the days of 2e. I played a NE dwarven fighter-thief... (I consulted with the DM beforehand) and because the PCs were accustomed to looking over each others' character sheets, I prepared two character sheets; one was the one I had "in play" for others to look over (which showed a CG dwarven fighter) and the second was the one I gave to the DM (which showed my true stats as a NE dwarven fighter-thief).

The rest of the party was playing humans and I think there was a half-elf or two, but all "younglings" while I played the "grizzled veteran" dwarf. As such, I took the time to teach them tactics, work on the party's fighting style, and so forth. Two of the PCs were played by brothers and the PCs were of course brothers, and 2-on-1 tended to bully most of the other PCs... which engendered a little annoyance in the party, but nothing major.

By the time we made our way through the early campaign, I had (through my own "voice of reason") managed to get the quietest PC (and player) appointed as the party leader (he was also the easiest to manipulate - both in and out of character) and having set him up as the leader, I had a relatively easy time steering most of the party's decisions.

When we were about 4th level, we fought a mad wizard in his tower as the BBEG... and while the rest of the party puttered about trying to figure out how to assault him (mind you, AFTER we stormed into his chambers), my dwarven fighter (the grizzled veteran) threw caution to the wind and did a body-tackle on the wizard, going into a grapple to disrupt any potential spellcasting. I managed to ruin several of his spells, and finally he pulled an enchanted, poisoned dagger and tried to stab me... natural 20. Oh, did I mention he had girdle of storm giant strength on? I was toast.

Of course, the rest of the party, seeing the "brave little dwarf" die, roused themselves into a righteous furor, offed the wizard, and had me raised. I was given the girdle as a reward for my valor (and besides, I was the "fighter" in the group, so I needed it). I now had the perfect trust of all my comrades; after all, I had died fighting for them.

From that point on, I was a perfect little bastard behind the scenes... when nobody was looking, I quietly emptied loot into my bag of holding and didn't share with the rest of the party. In order to sow intra-party hatred (again, this was made easier thanks to the obnoxious brothers), I started swiping - and fencing, when we hit big cities - minor magic items (potions, scrolls, etc.) that belonged to these two. They were careless with their stuff and this wasn't even noted for quite some time... they figured the DM had run some pickpockets at them in the cities and they had just missed them.

As the party accumulated more magic items (including picking up some minor artifacts that were needed for the "save the world quest" story arc the DM was developing as we approached level 9), I got a little bolder and managed to pick off some of their more choice magic items. As their frustration with the unseen city pickpockets grew, I finally swiped an item when we were in the middle of the wilderness and planted it on the party's wizard (who had been involved in the most spats between the two). It was only through the intervention of the party leader (backed by the "fighter dwarf") that they didn't wind up at each other's throats. One of the brothers insulted me there, and I shrugged it off... at least, they thought I did.

Through agents and contacts I had made in the capital city, I let the wizard know that some of the brothers' items could be pilfered and he could get a share of the gold if he would create some magic items in return. Thus, I had him create a ring of spell storing for me that allowed me to use several first- and second-level spells (the one thing they wouldn't expect from a 2e dwarf) - without knowing that it was going to me.

Once all the "minor artifacts" we needed had been gathered for our quest, I struck. I retired early from carousing in the inn (as we gathered our courage for the quest) to pack and plan (as was my wont). Then I made myself invisible, quaffed a potion of fire-breathing, and sneaked to the room of one of the brothers (the one who had insulted me). I picked the lock, stepped inside, taking up a position just beyond the door, and waited. Eventually, he came up to bed. As he closed the door, I stepped forward and backstabbed him, winking into visibility. The look of shock on the player's face was priceless... he wasn't dead, but as he whirled to face me, he lost the initiative roll. I snarled, "that was for insulting me... never do it again" - then unleased the fire breathing potion and killed him.

The rest of the party came charging to the room due to the commotion. Since I had trained them, I knew what tactics they would use, and had told the DM of my counterplans weeks before. My traps and "pre-fight buff spells" (cast from the ring) allowed me to slay half the party and make off with much of their stuff - including several of the artifacts, as I cast a "jump" spell and leapt from the third story window before disappearing into the night (I made sure to display the ring to the wizard before I left though, to let him know it was his folly that led to this). The players were as much in shock as the characters. :) The look on their faces at the moment of betrayal - that I was the thief, and ESPECIALLY the horror on the wizard's face as he realized I was killing them with tools he had made out of greed - was priceless. I had made sure to "twist the knife" emotionally and psychologically and intellectually as well as physically... and they felt it.

Well, the players put off the "major story arc quest" trying to kill me - but never were able to do so... I stayed a step ahead of them and finally they gave up (after losing another half dozen characters to their quest for vengeance - they never did get the knack of long-term planning). They did manage to complete the quest at great cost, and cursed the character each time they realized that the problem they were facing would have been easily solved with one of the artifacts I had absconded with.

They still cringe at the mention of the name "Thormor" to this day. Stabbing someone in the back on a lark is one thing. Carefully plotting their demise - and laying the seeds for months - is another. :) All of them agreed afterward that I did a great job playing the character to the hilt... but boy do they hate the character. Never a more memorable character of mine, that's for sure.
 
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Oh, yeah, our group has one betrayal that we still talk about. The worst is that it came from a player who had moved away and then moved back, someone we had missed and welcomed back with open arms.

Officially, his character was a fallen paladin looking to redeem himself. That should have been our first warning, except that he likes to play complex characters with detailed backstories. In reality, he was an evil fighter (or blackguard? I wasn't sure) pretending to be a penitent paladin in order to befriend us. Conspiring with the DM, the character was hired by the vampire villain to mislead us and keep an eye on us. He was promised vampire-hood for services.

Our second clue: his name was "Saduj." That's "Judas" spelled backwards, in case you're as slow as we were. No, honestly, we didn't get that either.

Unfortunately, what made this player's job easier is that there was another player who was very disruptive to our group. The world was slightly low magic and the DM had mentioned that the common folk were superstitious and fearful of wizards. This player chose a wizard character named Matthew and then decided to be completely secretive and unhelpful in every way, in fact so completely paranoid that he never cast a single spell in front of the party.

Never mind that another player also chose to play a wizard and cast spells all the time. The common folk respected him, and no one came after him with pitchforks and torches.

So much of our energy and attention was focused on the other character, whom we saw as the "Dr. Smith" of our party. A great deal of time was spent convincing him to come along with us, to be helpful or just to explain what he was doing wandering off by himself.

Saduj revealed himself during a particularly bad battle. We were trying to sneak back into an occupied walled city to rescue the duke from the vampires. We thought Matthew was going to betray us to the vampires, because he wanted to sneak in by himself (in reality he didn't want us to see cast Invisibility). Saduj helpfully knocked him out and tied him up.

Once inside the city walls, we were ambushed. If I remember correctly, Saduj then claimed another character, Seamus the beefy fighter, was being controlled by the vampires and shouted for help. The party was confused and didn't know whether or not to subdue Seamus. He caused a great deal of mayhem before it sunk in that Saduj was not our friend.

As players, we were pretty stunned. To this day, we are suspicious of his characters, especially if they seem a little too good. :uhoh:
 


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