Need Ideas for a world destroying evil

[CorditeJimmy]

As the title says, I need ideas for an apocalyptic evil. But not just any apocalyptic evil, one the players can be causing without initially realising.

To give some background, I ran a two session game a while back in which the players played themselves, waking up in a locked room in the middle of the city, with a blank spot in their memory for the last few days. The last thing any of them recalled was going to the British Museum. Over the course of the session they get out of the room, discover that everyone else in the city seems to be dead and the city is cut off from the rest of the country, uncover signs of an apocalpytic prophecy, and hints that they're the only ones who can stop it. They do morally questionable things, telling themselves it's okay because they need to succeed to save the world, whatever the cost. Big reveal at the end of the session, they got the prophecy wrong, they're not saving the world they're damning it. Second session is spent dealing with the fallout of that, and ended with them killing themselves to save the world.

I now have a new group and want to use a similar set up whereby they do morally questionable things in the first session convinced that they're in the right, and then spend the second session coping with the fact they're not. I could reuse the same idea but would prefer something new.

So, how can the PCs be evil in a way that isn't immediately apparent to them?

 

[Gilladian]

I"m going to assume this is a fantasy-type setting.

They need to see the evil they're doing as absolutely necessary to achieve the good they believe they will do.

So perhaps they are young people who have just been taken into a powerful but secretive order which is reputed to be the only protection the world has against some legendary evil. The order is very reclusive and rarely seen in the common world, but they were selected, taken to a hidden camp, and initiated.

Now they're told they have a very short time to carry a message to a person in a particular place. Unfortunately, to do so they must act very hastily, and in secret, without revealing their mission for fear that enemies will stop them. They are also warned that not ALL the people in their order are aware of the mission, so they may be stopped and questioned by fellow members. It is important that they NOT reveal what they are doing, in order to prove their trustworthiness.

In the course of completing their mission on time, they must do such things as ride their mounts into exhaustion and death; ride through/over a group of innocents, possibly injuring or killing some of them; bribe or otherwise overcome the guards at the city gates/walls; lie to a fellow member of their order, kill servants or guards who try to stop them from reaching their destination, etc....

Of course, it turns out at the end that all they are doing is a lie. They have not been inducted into the secret order, but into the order of their worst enemies/rivals. The mission they are doing will permit a great evil to be completed (maybe a ceremony that summons some horrific monster?). If they ever stop to question what they're doing, the answer becomes fairly obvious, but will they?

 

[CorditeJimmy]

The setting is likely to be modern day with fantastical elements. The last one was modern London, in the wake of an intrusion by a gribbly Lovercraftian horror into normal reality.

They are also warned that not ALL the people in their order are aware of the mission, so they may be stopped and questioned by fellow members. It is important that they NOT reveal what they are doing, in order to prove their trustworthiness.

I like this idea, possibly have them believe they're being recruited into a covert cell of some intelligence organisation, and doing bad things in the name of national security, not realising they're actually Useful Idiots for someone working against the intelligence community.

 

[mwnrnc]

I like this idea, possibly have them believe they're being recruited into a covert cell of some intelligence organisation, and doing bad things in the name of national security, not realising they're actually Useful Idiots for someone working against the intelligence community.

Perhaps have them assassinate certain individuals believed to be linked to a "Cthulhu cult." There will be no proof of their involvement beyond circumstantial evidence of occult paraphernalia. Perhaps you could even interrupt one of their rituals, or prevent one of the targets from killing one of your employers. Only after the PCs have succeeded is it revealed that they just killed the heroes, the guardians of the anti-Cthulhu wards, or the people fated to stop the apocalypse. For extra moral ambiguity, maybe have those "heroes" willing to do whatever is necessary to succeed in their own quest.

 

[Sunking]

if you go by roughly the same setup as the first time: no ones alive but the players + the other group

Proffeci: in the place of death only the destroyers of the world awakes and the few who can stop them

Sit back a watch the players smack the pony out of the good cultist trying to save the world

behind the screen:
the PC's parents have made a pact with evil and now their children are the gateway for the Evil entities to enter this world...