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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 7461402" data-attributes="member: 20323">There is a tabaxi PC & two tabaxi NPC guides, who the death knight Ras T'fima might see as belonging to the marginalized group. I'm contemplating him having a quest to give the PCs in exchange for letting them keep some treasure: rid the ruined city of loot-seeking mercenaries (Flaming Fist).Very interesting twist!Even though he has endured over 100 years of undead vigilance cut off from his people, the death knight is still driven by a spark of hope. He looks for anything or anyone that seems like it might offer him a chance of redemption.His original crime/sin was hubris, I think – overextending his political power (for ostensibly noble reasons) & concealing that he'd lost faith in Ubtao. But looking for opportunities to practice "humility" doesn't exactly drive a game session / encounter.Maybe part of my difficulty in "cracking" the death knight's personality is that I need to further develop the backstory of his crime/sin. Make it more compelling?Wow! Dekkion, that's a time warp. Basically, a forlorn knight who was tricked by an evil wizard & acts as a quest-giver? Hmm, well I can try borrowing Dekkion's voice if I'm up to the voice-acting challenge.Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with Malazan Book of the Fallen. Been meaning to read the first book, but don't have time before this Sunday's session.While I never played Keep on the Shadowfell, I did consider modeling the death knight after the Last Crusade Knight Templar, but ultimately decided he needed more "teeth" because the death knight serves as a deterrent to mercenaries (Flaming Fist) looting the ruins. There's a built-in conflict of mercenaries vs. death knight in the scenario. The PCs met the mercenaries first, and tentatively agreed to get rid of death knight haunting the ruins in exchange for the mercenary commander allowing them access to restricted sites in the ruined city. "Tentatively", because likelihood of PCs betraying mercenaries looks high.Besides his duty to "protect the ruins, treasures, and secrets" of the ruined city (Mezro), including the secret way to reach the actual living city in its own demiplane, the death knight longs to return home. He is slightly bitter that his king/brethren have, once again, sequestered the city from the rest of Chult...during Chult's hour of need. He *might* be swayed to take action that – indirectly – pressures his king/brethren in demiplane city to get more involved in defending Chult from undead, mercenaries, etc.Ah, the scenario does have a "gilded curse" which I'm linking to the death knight; basically, anyone spending too much time holding onto treasures found in the ruins has their mind twisted toward paranoid greed like Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit.</blockquote>

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