D&D General Lore-related: What happens to a fallen Harper?

[J-H]

I'm running a Baldur's Gate II game. The Harper in the party is not working to steer the Bhaalspawn towards good; rather the opposite. He has been onboard with the group's decision to work for a vampire because she was more up-front and cheaper. They have attacked the living to destroy stakes and holy water, murdered a nobleman in his bed to frame the Shadow Thief guild, and now are about to kill a bunch more Shadow Thieves all to get help from a vampire whom they know practices mind control slavery and casual murder.

Thanks to a few bad social choices, the local group of Harpers is now at least somewhat aware of this, and is about to become much more aware thanks to a tip-off from the Guildmaster before his death.

What do the Harpers do when one of their own starts working for such evil? Assassin squads? Trials? At what point does a Harper Pin stop working?

 

[jasper]

they become a Larper?
Since they are generally good, I think they just take their membership card and protection away.

 

[Necropolitan]

Going by what happened to

Spoiler: Spoiler for Azure Bonds

Finder Wyvernspur

The Harpers are entirely willing to imprison or execute (if they can't imprison them) their own members if they become corrupt or otherwise evil.

A trial before a tribunal of Harpers will only happen if the character can be subdued or comes quietly, otherwise yeah assassin squads or even a high-level Harper (like Elminster) coming for their head unless they can find a way to get the heat off them.

 

[MarkB]

Revocation of membership is a given. But once that's done, if he's committed any specific crimes in their eyes, they'd want to arrange for him to be tried and punished for them.

There's also the matter of operational security. What does this person know that could compromise their organisation, personnel, operations or facilities, and what measures would they need to take to keep them uncompromised?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

They star in a D&D movie?

 

[bloodtide]

It does depend a lot. Harpers by there nature bend and break 'rules' often. So attacking and killing people is normal day to day stuff. As is manipulation.

Killing Shadow Thieves is no big deal...they are evil.

Was the nobleman a 100% pure and innocent saint? If not the Harpers won't care too much. And did the PC even do the killing blow or did they just "help"?

Assuming the Pc is still trying to do good, the Harpers would give them the benefit of the doubt.


Game wise....well....this can get tricky. You have a good PC with a good ability/group/whatever....and you have a group of other evil PCs. This won't end well. With the other players being pure evil....it leaves the poor player of the good PC out in the cold. When they other players say "evil", then all that player can do to keep their PC good is not play.

So you might want to step in and "fix" things so the game is not ruined. Maybe just have the Harpers ignore it or something. Maybe as the player if they want to switch to some evil group with no penalty?

 

[Staffan]

There's at least one case where a prominent Harper got confronted by other leaders within the organization, which resulted in him telling them to get WAY off his back and also quitting and starting his own organization. However, since that Harper was Khelben "I'm a 27th level wizard and my wife is also a 20th+ level wizard who also happens to be a Chosen of Mystra" Arunsun, I think that fell under the "YOU wanna go deal with him?" clause.

 

[Seramus]

You get a visit from Mirt the Moneylender.
You sit down and have a long hard chat.
Then you clean up your act, or you get the Finder Wyvernspur treatment.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The progression there is wild.

Was courteous and didn't evangelize to a coworker
Worked with someone based on their character
Destroyed weapons that could murder the person they were working with

and only then do we get to

'did like all the murders'.

Which I feel like is not only the larger issue, but also one with pretty predictable consequences. The harpers can boot him and just hand him over to whatever city he's in. 'Here you go. one mass murderer.'

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Depends on how you implement the general story of the video game in yours, but the local Harper organization is pretty evil too. They would not necessarily go out of their way to hunt a renegade member. Hell, they might even recruit them!