Loviatar toys with Epic characters

[Vrecknidj]

Help.

I've been running a campaign for a couple years now, and a subset of the characters (each player has several characters of different levels for different adventures) has been trodding through Gehenna for several months. They're in Loviatar's realm (just got there) and will be stuck for a while. They'll have to carry out some deeds for her, and since they're mostly Lawful Good, this will be a great chance for both morally dubious and morally reprehensible assignments.

Most of the characters are 19th-20th level and many will be epic by the time they leave this third layer of Gehenna (they're on to the 4th layer to challenge a mad god).

Any suggestions for "sidebar"-like adventures while they're in Mungoth, and any NPC ideas for challenging encounters (both in terms of combat and role playing) would be most appreciated.

I've been handling it all myself with no problem, but since August I've move up to 60+ hour weeks and I just don't have the time any more to come up with all the creative stuff I used to be able to.

Dave

 

[Siegfried Niemand]

Once you've had the PCs go through a couple of terrible ordeals for Loviatar, have her tell them that the time for the worst has come: they musy use the day watching over her niece. Offer them their choice of weapons, poisons, and cursed items from the goddess's armories and up to a dozen fiendish guards. Then, have them led to the brightly lit, comfortably furnished room wherein sits the beautiful, well-mannered, ten-year-old niece...

Who does absolutely nothing evil or dispicable or exciting at all.

As the niece of Loviatar, she radiates overwhelming evil if it is detect for, but have everything that happens for the party that afternoon be as if they were in the Seven Heavens, rather than Mungoth. If they're like most players, they'll spend forever trying to figure out what the catch is, whether the tea is poisoned, whether when Loviatar said to "take care of" her niece they were supposed to actually kill this seemingly innocent child, etc.

That should be an interesting asside, at least.

 

[kanithardm]

Once you've had the PCs go through a couple of terrible ordeals for Loviatar, have her tell them that the time for the worst has come: they musy use the day watching over her niece. Offer them their choice of weapons, poisons, and cursed items from the goddess's armories and up to a dozen fiendish guards. Then, have them led to the brightly lit, comfortably furnished room wherein sits the beautiful, well-mannered, ten-year-old niece...

Who does absolutely nothing evil or dispicable or exciting at all.

As the niece of Loviatar, she radiates overwhelming evil if it is detect for, but have everything that happens for the party that afternoon be as if they were in the Seven Heavens, rather than Mungoth. If they're like most players, they'll spend forever trying to figure out what the catch is, whether the tea is poisoned, whether when Loviatar said to "take care of" her niece they were supposed to actually kill this seemingly innocent child, etc.

I love evil ideas.

 

[Vrecknidj]

Nice. So far, so good. Thanks.

Dave

 

[Michael Tree]

When I saw the title of this thread, the phrase "Loviatar toys" gave me some rather uncomfortable images, until I realized that "toys" was being used as a verb, not a noun.

 

[Anabstercorian]

She needs the characters to host a party while she's away visiting a 'friend', and Pelor won't be there to help them if they ruin it. And this is one of Loviatar's parties, so if no one wants to take a bath in very hot water by the end of it you're doing it wrong.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Do you really wish for Loviatar to inflict serious psychological pain upon these good aligned characters? I mean, SERIOUS and character-threatening pain?

Then have Loviatar show them that her part of Gehenna is a Paradise, where her worshippers come to spend the Afterlife in bliss.
The idea that evil pays, that evil redeems itself, that you can be evil and get away with it, is anaethema to most ways of thinking. Even in books about evil races and evil characters, such things are not typically depicted, for such things are almost unthinkable.
To a good aligned character, the unthinkability factor is multiplied horrendously, for good people believe strongly in ethics and codes of conduct, and typically strongly believe in punishment for those who are unethical, amoral, and despicable (in other words, killers, plunderers, the bad guys)
Yet here these bad guys are, enjoying Paradise in the Afterlife, after spending a lifetime committing evil.

This is going to hurt. It will cause psychological pain. It will cause long lasting trauma. It could break some of the characters, causing alignment change, personality change, identity crisis, and even insanity.

Loviatar is the Goddess of Psychological Pain as well as physical pain. So, have her inflict this upon the characters.
And if the characters question what they see, make it extremely clear through various means (even direct Commune spells with the Deities of the Upper Planes, after the characters return to the Prime Material Plane!) that this IS the true reality, and Loviatar was merely showing them that truth.

It will hurt like crazy. (Don't be surprised if some of your players become annoyed at you, however.)

 

[Vrecknidj]

Nice twist on the "evil is good" thing there with the bliss stuff. I'm going to have to work this in.

Thanks.

Dave

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

np. Hope it works.

 

[Nightfall]

*shakes his head*

See this is why I never got behind a Pain god. Torture, sure but not pain.