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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 8211994" data-attributes="member: 63">Man, I remember the first 'high concept' D&D game I played back in the 90s, where our PCs were all Mission Impossible style agents from the surface infiltrating Menzoberranzan, slowly establishing a rep for ourselves and helping a House get into the top 8 circle of high houses. The whole point of our mission was to keep the drow so busy squabbling with each other that they couldn't afford to send forces to the surface.In hindsight, it was very much in keeping with the early-2000s US policy of keeping regional conflicts regional by helping weak groups be belligerents against the strong people in their region, so that no one gets strong enough to start a new world war.We only had two sessions, though, because we were teenagers and sucked at being discreet spies.---Then two years ago in a Pathfinder campaign, the party helped a drow friend liberate her home city. There was a necromancer queen who was able to keep order among the rival demon lord cults in the city because everyone was unified against the threat of an empire of ghouls across the Sightless Sea. But also there was a sort of nightmare dragon that had extruded tendrils of psychic fungus throughout the city to feed upon everyone's suffering. And in PF canon one demonlord - Nocticula, a succubus patron of sadism and assassins - had fallen out with her fellow demon lords and was in the process of shifting from Chaotic Evil to Chaotic Neutral, and shifting her portfolio from murder to art and exiles.The party - FOUR PALADINS, 15th level mean m-----f------ servants of their gods - ended up finding all the Chaotic Neutral elements in the city. They even found a few Chaotic Good priests of Nocticula. Together they disrupted the Necromancer Queen's various systems of control and gave her a metaphorical bloody nose to show the populace that they could resist her tyranny. She retaliated viciously, killing bystanders and friends of the party. Things got very brutal, to the point that one paladin broke his vows by shifting to true Neutral himself when he went on a vengeful killing spree against minions who were basically slaves of the Necromancer Queen and weren't really to blame. The city broke out into open rebellion.That's when the nightmare dragon (whom the party had gotten hints of the whole time) made its move, trying to mind control the whole city. The party fought off the madness, tracked the psychic energy to the dragon's lair, and engaged the beast.In a truly breathtaking bit of serendipity, the ex-paladin was getting mind-controlled by the dragon when his friend cast good hope to try to help him break free of the possession. They'd learned previously that the nightmare dragon's servants were harmed by effects that created positive emotions, and since the dragon's mind was linked with the ex-paladin, that good hope slew the psychic monster.And since the dragon was mind-controlling the whole city too, the good hope cascaded through the minds of tens of thousands of drow, giving them a moment of shared optimism and epiphany. And that's how my version of Pathfinder got a city of Neutral drow - hardly heroes, but not so filled with fear and loathing that they turn to demon lords for help.</blockquote>

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