Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="s/LaSH" data-source="post: 660257" data-attributes="member: 6929">Here's how to divert the players' suspicions:First, make it explicitly obvious in town that the paladin's son has gone to rescue his father. Also, make it clear that he's not necessarily the great hero his father was - but he has great heart.(The son is a real person, who has entered the tree on his own - but the demon got him, and sent him back into the world contaminated by evil to lure adventurers into the tree who can set the demon free. This can be the 'mysterious instigator' of the quest, plus it allows the demon to be ressurected if you wish to continue later.)Second, drive home the fact that this guy isn't perfect. He's not as good at adventuring as the PCs, and sometimes he lets his emotions get the better of him. The PCs should be protecting him the whole way through.Third, the globes supposedly protect the inner sanctum where the paladin fought the demon. The paladin set them up to seal him in with the demon, using his own life energy to erect the spell. The son was told of this before his father left, but didn't count on the fact that his father's life-force would repel him (make up some mystic mumbo-jumbo here).(Secretly, the demon has sealed the center of the dungeon himself, and can drop the barriers at any time. He's set up a convincing-looking corpse and a big dead demon husk.)Fourth, when the PCs get to the paladin's final resting place, the son bursts into tears, goes emotional, etc etc. Basically, it looks like a bittersweet victory. It's even better if there's lots of lewt and an illusion of the paladin's ghost going, "At last I am free, thank you my son" etc. It's just one big fake-out, but it's certainly a good end to the adventure.(You might even want to put a live demon in there, pretending to be the withered Evil Demon himself - just a minion, but a tough one. It makes the PCs feel better about themselves.)As for the spheres/orbs, they're actually a barrier against evil creatures leaving the tree, and they block all extraplanar travel (so no 'porting, and no summons, and no demons skipping back to their home plane). The fifth orb could be something like thought, and be completely invisible (you need a unifying plinth to put them all on, however, to give PCs the clue that there is something in this room). To 'unthink' it, you need to give it a stone head (with no brain); it inhabits heads, given enough time, possessing someone it has seen constantly over the past minute. And then it does... something, maybe spout bad poetry, I don't know.Anyway, that should cover a few bases for ya. And I've been fooling players for years, sometimes in regards to themselves, with nary a glimmer of distrust. If you find a flaw in this grand scheme, I'll be very surprised.</blockquote>

Verification