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Message: <blockquote data-quote="StupidSmurf" data-source="post: 2643100" data-attributes="member: 35893">Here's my version of being a rat bastard DM. And the players don't know it's happened yet.My campaign's set in the Forgotten Realms, Silver Marches. I've placed a sleepy little town called Fellwood along Evermoor Way. Nice little town, inhabited by around 200 farmers, shepherds, a few artisans, shopkeepers. Got the usual requisite inn, a tavern, curio shop, and in this case, a small church of Lathander. The church has a graveyard and there's a few town heroes interred there, heroes who defeated an evil family decades before.The campaign plot revolves around a ghost, a the descendant of the evil family, who himself perished before he could complete his life's work: performing certain rituals that would restore the most powerful member of his family. Since he failed to do so in life, he's now a ghost, still charged with the same mission. He gets one shot every 24 years, which is how old he was when he was killed.The ghost was the plot hook that got the party involved. He manipulated them into going to his family's abandoned ancestral keep and retrieve the items for him. He himself cannot enter because the place was warded against undead by the victorious heroes of Lathander. Of course, the party had no idea that the man sending them on the quest was a ghost.Well, eventually, all the salient points were brought to light. The party has the goods, but they won't hand them over. So, the ghost has been attacking them in Fellwood, and hinted that if they didn't co-operate, he'd start attacking the villagers as well.One PC (played by my wife, no less) came up with the idea: "Let's evacuate the town; it's small enough, and bring them over to the old keep, which we've cleaned out, and is warded against undead." All bias aside, it was a brilliant plan. Everyone else thought so too, and they put their plan into action. Lord knows, I hadn't expected this turn of events.Now, during this campaign, the party also managed to antagonize the local Cyricist faction in nearby Everlund. They did so to the point that the Cyricists sent one of their best agents, a Ranger/Assassin, to pose as a paladin and lure them into an ambush in the sewers of Everlund. The party caught on at literally the last opportune moment, and took him down. When they killed him, they burned the body at least to the point where a Raise Dead couldn't work, then dumped the remains in the river.All done, right? Wrong.The Cyricists wondered what happened to their agent, especially since they had a good idea that he had at least brought the party into Everlund. A search revealed the dead body washed up on a river embankment (the party took no measures to sink it). They cast Speak With Dead, and find the story. They go to one of the merchants in Everlund (who's secretly a Cyricist follower), and demand that he put up the money for a Resurrection, and present the cleric with a B.S. story about how the victim is a relative of the merchants, who got attacked and burned to death by thieves. The merchant, not wanting his secret worship revealed, complies.One Ranger/Assassin, really pissed, back online! He tells the whole story (since Speak with Dead IS limited), and the Cyricists, being a sane, rational, level-headed lot (haha), mobilize a large party and make a beeline to Fellwood, with intent of taking out the party (and anyone else in their way).Naturally, they get there and the town's empty, thanks to the  party's bright idea. So....the Cyricists burn the place down. They defile and loot the temple of Lathander. And...the crowning turd on the pile, they've animated all of the dead in the cemetery. Ok, so no citizens died, since they're all at the Keep. But...these people's homes and livelihood are gone....and it's because of the party.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> Now, you have to bear in mind, my players are the kind who get involved with NPCs, interact with them, befriend them, help them with their problems. They have a big conscience. Heck, they even served as a funeral escort for one old lady from Everlund (an extremely old woman who used to be a Paladin), to have her interred at the Fellwood cemetery. And yes, the old woman's corpse is animated as well..This is gonna hurt them....bum them out big time.Yeah, I'm a stinker...so?  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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