Character betraying party... thoughts?

[Goddess FallenAngel]

I'd like to know the thief's previous feelings towards the surviving party members. It's somewhat of a moot point because 3000 years have passed since then, but it's something to base a response upon.

She was less friendly with the other party members than she was with the cleric. In other words, she did act friendly towards them, most of the time, but quite obviously didn't trust them as far as she could throw them. The thief (whose name was T'aria, so I can stop just saying "the thief") was a bit more trusting of the cleric and 1 other character (who is no longer with the party for a different reason, although he is still alive) than the rest of the party. In fact, on at least 1 occasion, T'aria had threatened the paladin's life.

The main thing I would be worried about was that the thief sold out one party member already; the other members have no guarantee that their enemies (they must have some powerful enemies by 17th-20th levels) would hire the same thief to take them out one at a time as well.

Were I the DM, I would also consider this one individual's impact on the timeline of the campaign world. A high level half-fiend who has had 3000 years to execute her plans could really get somewhere in the world. Can this thief change the timeline of the campaign by being stuck in the past? I guess that's another discussion entirely...

That's the thing... there's only 1 PC who seems worried about it. The rest are like "Oh well, there's nothing we can do about her" and "Well, more power to her!" (from the PC who thought the cleric was a fanatic). The only PC worried about it is the druid (who happens to be a half-celestial). She closeted herself in her Grove, surrounded herself with even more defenses than normal, and is planning on gathering resources to go after T'aria... in about a thousand years. (Her player ended up making a new character).

I would have thought at least the Paladin of the God of Justice (who happens to be half-celestial) would take care.

The fact that the thief did, or had, something possible of destroying a person's soul beyond the recovery of Wish or Miracle spells doesn't seem to bother them.

As for timeline changes, which several people have asked about... DocMoriartty was right... the thief was around the first time. She can't, or won't....

I didn't mention this before, 'cause it didn't seem important at the time... but the reason the group was popped back into the past was to "make sure things happened as they should". Although it was not explained to the group until they got yanked back to to the present day, there is a organization of mages, priests, and various others who make sure that that history happens as it should. We were told that "Everyone who was supposed to make it back, made it back" and that "everything happened as it should."

This is a player running a DM controlled character right?

Don't worry about it out of character at all. This was probably an intentional setup by the DM.

In character though I would be quite concerned and depending on the relationship with the cleric I would act. At the very least the Paladin should be very interested in seeing justice be served.

Of course if the character has been out there for 3000 years then who really wants to mess with him.

She was a player character who became an NPC because of her actions. Now she's DM-controlled.

 

[Goddess FallenAngel]

To be fair, I should mention that the player running the paladin is 14 years old, and has only been gaming for a year or two... and this is his first paladin (and first Lawful-aligned) character.

 

[Dimwhit]

No, the thief's player made a new character who joined the group - this one a CG cleric of Sune. The player described the notes and what happened to them, then that was the end of it. She introduced her new character next game (as that was the end of that session).

The DM did explain to us that everything that happened was with his full knowledge and consent... and he still has a use for the thief.

The thief was that player's favorite character, and she did say that she didn't want to do it, because she knew her character would become un-playable (for many reasons, one of which being that the DM doesn't allow evil characters). But, "I had to roleplay my character, and she would never turn it down... everyone has their price, and the DM knew mine."

Based on all that, I'd say run with it. Go after that thief and seek revenge! Sounds like it was all part of the plot device. The DM had the good sense to have it be his character who was murdered. The rest will come in your roleplay to go after the thief. The only thing I would question is that the DM basically killed the players character, for all intents and purposes. But kudos to that player for roleplaying how the character would act and just bringing in a new one.

That part aside, it sounds like a good plot device for a nice high-level campaign.

 

[Stalker0]

Personally, I love it!!! What's better than a villian that the whole party knows and has spent a great deal of time with. And the way it got introduced was very cool too. Most likely the thief could be epic by now, which paves the way for epic games (which is the only place your party has left to advance looks like).

The one thing I would have done differently, is once the thief agreed to the hit and intended to go through with it, that should have changed her/his alignment to evil. That would have given the paladin, and the party, perhaps a little warning. I mean, willing to kill your friend for money is about as evil as it gets.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Well, assuming that everyone enjoys the possibility of party conflict, track the thief down, permanently dimensional anchor him or her, soveriegn glue a ring of regeneration to the thief's finger, and stake him to the floor in a magical demiplane perpetually filled with flesh eating ants. Take advantage of the fact that the thief will never grow old. There's no reason to settle for half-measures in party revenge.

Of course you wouldn't plan on doing that initially, it would only come to seem the right course of action after several more party members are killed or injured in the quest for revenge and it becomes apparent that a 3k year old half fiend can't be taken down without allies. And half fiends always have reliable fiendish enemies. So, the paladin can become a blackguard and the rest of the party can find something similar and appropriate and then, with the aid of your fiendish allies, defeat your enemy and sentence the thief to eternal torment of your own design. And if you get tired of it after 1000 years or so, I'm sure your characters will be able to come up with new, entertaining, and satisfying methods of torture to relieve the boredom.

 

[Goddess FallenAngel]

Personally, I love it!!! What's better than a villian that the whole party knows and has spent a great deal of time with. And the way it got introduced was very cool too. Most likely the thief could be epic by now, which paves the way for epic games (which is the only place your party has left to advance looks like).

The one thing I would have done differently, is once the thief agreed to the hit and intended to go through with it, that should have changed her/his alignment to evil. That would have given the paladin, and the party, perhaps a little warning. I mean, willing to kill your friend for money is about as evil as it gets.

She was CE after that... but detect evil has a range of sight, and you have to detect for 3 rnds before you can tell what, exactly, in that range is evil, and no one had any reason to suspect her.

Also, like most thieves traveling with paladins, she stayed as far from him in the normal course of things that it didn't seem at all unusal.

 

[Goddess FallenAngel]

Well, assuming that everyone enjoys the possibility of party conflict, track the thief down, permanently dimensional anchor him or her, soveriegn glue a ring of regeneration to the thief's finger, and stake him to the floor in a magical demiplane perpetually filled with flesh eating ants. Take advantage of the fact that the thief will never grow old. There's no reason to settle for half-measures in party revenge.

Of course you wouldn't plan on doing that initially, it would only come to seem the right course of action after several more party members are killed or injured in the quest for revenge and it becomes apparent that a 3k year old half fiend can't be taken down without allies. And half fiends always have reliable fiendish enemies. So, the paladin can become a blackguard and the rest of the party can find something similar and appropriate and then, with the aid of your fiendish allies, defeat your enemy and sentence the thief to eternal torment of your own design. And if you get tired of it after 1000 years or so, I'm sure your characters will be able to come up with new, entertaining, and satisfying methods of torture to relieve the boredom.

I love it! I'm sure that all the players would go for it... Especially the paladin, his player's been wanting to go Blackguard anyway....

 

[bret]

My first question is "Is the person we knew as T'aria now a god?"

You said the character used to be a cleric of Mask, but had their clerical abilities stripped. Then they killed the avatar of a god. Seems to me, someone was offered a way to grab some divine abilites and took it.

After you get some sort of idea of what happened, you might be able to decide what the correct coarse of action is.

The theif didn't just want to kill you, you would have found the note tacked to a victim if that was the intent. Time to figure out if it was meant as a warning (leave me alone), an invitation, or something else.

 

[Goddess FallenAngel]

My first question is "Is the person we knew as T'aria now a god?"

You said the character used to be a cleric of Mask, but had their clerical abilities stripped. Then they killed the avatar of a god. Seems to me, someone was offered a way to grab some divine abilites and took it.

Uh-oh... she didn't kill the avatar of a god, at least as far as I know... Sorry if I gave that impression.

However, you still bring up a good point with the god question, however. There have been many gods that have come and gone in the Forgotten Realms since the time of Netheril until the present time (the date in the 3e FR campaign book).

After you get some sort of idea of what happened, you might be able to decide what the correct coarse of action is.

The theif didn't just want to kill you, you would have found the note tacked to a victim if that was the intent. Time to figure out if it was meant as a warning (leave me alone), an invitation, or something else.

The PCs are pretty well split between an invitation and "something else". Warning has been pretty much ruled out, simply because if she wanted to be left alone, all she had to do was not leave a message.... the group as a whole would have most likely assumed that she died in the 3 milennia since we saw her last. And as you stated, she would have killed us if that were her intent.

At least one player has suggested that she was given her clerical powers back... however, Mask did not exist in the time of Netheril.

 

[Solana]

a word in your ear

who said her intent was killing your characters as a dm i would make the task of killing you all a slow and arduous project that would be time consuming and very delicate, when you want it lease puff a lovly backstab, teleport and one dead character and one safe thief. now all you need is the thief to be a god thats no one knows about........