Character backstory for a Forsaker (3.0)

[carborundum]

One player in my party for the Savage Tide in the Forgotten Realms is playing a Forsaker. He's role-played an aversion to magic for the first four levels, skipped potions and healing etc and generally been a pain in the party's neck - though the players are all with him out-of-game.

I was flicking through his backstory, which was suitably vague yet full of hooks, and thought I'd ask for some ideas from you guys. It boils down to his enslavement by Yuan-Ti as a child. They experimented on him and when he eventually escaped and was helped by adventurers, their healing magic hurt him. He's avoided all forms of magic ever since.

My question is, let's say the Yuan-Ti put something inside him that doesn't like positive energy, or - in fact - magic in general. I'm not totally familiar with all the monsters in the game, but what could it possibly be?

 

[kigmatzomat]

Hmmm. I'd personally dealt with Forsakers more as thaumavores; those who learned to eat magic. Beneficial magics didn't work as well because their body tried to absorb the spell.

You could take that and have the Forsaker be implanted with some kind of parasite or symbiote. The pain could be either sympathetic (symbiote) or due to some surge of growth or spasm by the parasite. If they absorb too much magic they could die, probably when the parasite spawns. Alternately a symbiote could grow to some ultimate hybrid state, possibly becoming some new breed of Yuan-ti.

Alternately they are the carrier for a disease intended to render all humans non-magical. How hard would it be for the Yuan-ti to conquer a people who possess no magic? Sure, the Forsaker virus may make them stronger now, but cut off the supply of magic items and they can be defeated through strategic magics (e.g. those that target crops, structures, etc. instead of individuals). Maybe the disease isn't communicable yet but the Yuan-ti are working on it. It is immune to magical healing, at least below the Miracle/Wish level.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

My favorite background for a forsaker is a recovering magic addict. He was injured and healed so many times that he couldn't function except under the immediate aftereffects of healing magic. When he had finally recovered, he found that healing magic just brought back the memories of those agonizing months of withdrawl and he did his best to resist it.