Evil DM's, I need your help!

[Amaroq]

(Or ... "You do .. WHAT?!")

So. My players found a demon bound in a summoning circle. My intent in the set-up was, they needed its help to accomplish something else: destroy this necrotic engine which was powering a necromancer beyond belief (basically, nothing that died in his tower remained dead, including him). The demon was bound not to harm the necromancer directly, but would get his soul if he was ever killed for good.

I figured, the terms of the deal would be something like "We let you go, you don't harm us, you destroy the engine, and you voluntarily banish yourself back to your own plane of existance." Simply letting this demon go was a terrible thing; he's pretty darn powerful, wayy beyond their current realm, and somebody they'll be dealing with at Epic.

Okay. That's pretty close to what they agreed. Well, they didn't specify "destroy it", so the demon is just taking it with him, and they didn't specify what plane he has to take it to, so there's all sorts of trouble brewing in that direction.

But .. they added a rider of their own. He has to take the bard on a plane-hopping, "Dr. Who-like journey". And no harming or killing her, or taking her to a plane which would harm or kill her unless he protects her from it.

....

Uh. I think I need your help.

They didn't specify WHERE he takes her.

So....

Put on your EVIL hat.

You're a powerful demon. You're normally confined to a specific plane, but have spent the past 1,000 years bound in the Prime Material Plane. You've just gotten this necrotic perpetual-motion-machine, the soul of a paragon-level necromancer, and you've just been granted the ability, nay, been forced to by DEAL, to go anywhere you want to.

Where do you go?

What do you do?

What darkness do you show the bard who is in wayyy over her head, without killing her?

And, do you bring her back to the Prime Material, or do you leave her somewhere, unhurt of course?

....

Thanks in advance!

 

[Lord Xtheth]

My natural assumption is to say that the demon wants to go "home"... or maybe he doesn't. Revenge would also be a top priority on "my" demon's list of things to do.
If the Bard is a PC, I would turn the adventure into a "Lets take a trip through hell" adventure. The players would bear witness to horrors and atrocities not meant for man or beast to see. Their souls would become tainted and infected by the evils arround them, until they begin to see the "real world" slightly differently.
Enemies of the demon would seem "more evil" than they did before (especially if a paladin was arround) and Evil creatures that the demon liked... or otherwise didn't care about would seem unnoticable or like a small annoyance, like NPCs in a town, they'd just "be there".
The demon would grant rewards to the PCs personally. Magic items (that normally would be random treasure), gold, jewels, whatever, would be personally handed to the PCs by the demon to show them just how much he appreciates their help.

If the Bard is an NPC, well, the bard would vanish for some great length of in-game time. Then eventually come back posessed, have demonic grafts inplanted... maybe have a template attached like half-fiend (if its 3.x) and otherwise be WAY more powerful than before, and turn into an enemy of the PCs.

 

[renau1g]

The demon could go on a rampage in towns killing innocent creatures and forcing the bard to watch, unable to do anything, but bound to travel with the demon. You could have it travel from one campaign world to another, from Krynn to Faerun, causing death and destruction in its path.

A trip through the Abyss would be fun, although I'm not sure if "Their souls would become tainted and infected by the evils arround them" counts as harming them and something the demon is bound to avoid?

 

[the Jester]

So here's how I envision the demon thinking this through:

Well, gosh, I'd really like to DESTROY AND DEVOUR this frickin' bard, but I can't... and I can't take him to the plane of toxic atmosphere... and I can't just plunk him down in the Lake of Fire. I have to place nice... to him.

So since I can't go somewhere NASTY with him, I'll go somewhere REALLY NICE with him... and I'll ruin it. I'll take him to the plane of kittens and let loose a ton of hell hounds. I'll take him to the plane of candy making faries and I'll poison their supplies and kill as many as I can. I'll take him to the land of beautiful flowers and light the fields on fire.

And the whole time, he has to WATCH. And know it's because of HIM. And the journey doesn't end early, no sir! We go until the ride is over!

This is gonna be FUN! (Slavering evil hungry laugh)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'd add to that only that the bard gets to go on this ride while bound and gagged, Hannibal Lecter style.

In a sense, the Bard is placed in the reverse of the demon's situation.

 

[Whisper72]

Well, I'd put a slightly different twist on things. Not to have the bard be a passive or even captive audience, but make it appear as if the bard is actually ordering things or at least in league.

The Demon will go out of its way to ruin the reputation of the bard. When at higher level, several angelic beings will remember the havoc, assume that the bard is responsible, and come to collect... now the bard has to prove that her main fault was stupidity and not willful destruction...

 

[GandalfMithrandir]

going off the trip through hell idea: The demon "Tortures the bard by coming very close to actually touching him with torturing devices but not quite. this would be severe mental torture, but not physical, I'm also assuming that not-lasting injuries such as waterboarding (Just an example) or chinese water torture would count here as hurting the bard.

 

[Verdande]

First of all, shame on you for thinking that the players would just let a powerful demon go without trying to get anything from it! Don't put interesting and open-ended toys in your campaigns without seriously putting some thought into the crazy, crazy things that could happen.

Secondly, even though the demon doesn't have to harm or kill the bard, there's no real reason that he has to bring her back, or even be nice to her. If I were a grumpy demon, first I'd take her back to my house and show her off to my buddies, and try and scare her so I could get her soul, too. Something along the lines of, "Hey, I can't hurt you, but I can't protect you from this guy. If you give me your soul, though, I'll take you somewhere nice and safe." Which is probably true, if he finds somebody big and scary enough, then he's taken her to a place which, in and of itself, is perfectly safe, and the only thing there that can hurt her is this other demon... whom he conveniently cannot protect her from.

Of course, if I was really eager to get home, I'd probably just dump her at the Far Realms or something, where again, she's perfectly safe. Except that she'd not only go entirely insane, but be impossible to retrieve.

If I was feeling nice, I'd just dump her in the middle of a technically safe place, like a jungle island, and then call it a day. She'll probably die, but it'll be her fault. It's capable of supporting her life, if only she's smart enough to realize it.

 

[Pbartender]

Actually, since the players will all be expecting the demon to pull some semantic trick like thisand take her through a horror house of gruesome terrors, I'd just play it straight...

The demon takes the bard off on a really nice vacation... The French Riviera of the planes. He wines and dines her at the most exotic restaurants. He stays with her in the nicest hotels. He takes her to eloquent parties and dances with her at fabulous balls. They see operas and ballets on the planar equivalent of Broadway. She gets to meet and converse with all the movers and shakers of the Astral Plane and the Abyss that he introduces her to. And so on...

He (and all his friends) generally behaves like a charming gentleman, and after a week or two he lets her go with a fond farewell.

Turn him into a friendly, if somewhat shady, contact for the Bard in the future... After all, he's never had a chance to take a real vacation before -- his bosses wouldn't let him -- and during those couple of weeks with the bard, he was having the time of his (after)life.

 

[ajanders]

PBartender is right.
That's the least disruptive thing for the campaign...you don't have to waste the rest of the party's time listening to horrific Saw-style Abyssal horror. You can handwave the whole trip in a five-minute montage.

Then just let the party wait for the other shoe to drop. You can use the demon as a dodgy contact, but if it was so much more powerful than the party, it's probably not a good contact. Just wait.

Eventually, when you need a plot, send the Inquisition after the bard.
"We understand you are Grazz't's 'Snookie-Wookums'. You must be cleansed with fire now."