Player Character background help.

[brunswick]

Hiya folks,

A player in my group has written a fantastic (and lengthy) character history/background and I have gotten great adventure ideas from a lot of what he has produced. The only part of the 'background' I am having trouble with is "the book"....

In his background, the character (a Priest of Ioun, in the generic 4th Edition world) accompanies a dwarven mercenary group to an old ruined fortress in the mountains, seeking "powerful magic" for the human Emperor (and the armies of the empire). The group find a magnificent 'golden' book in the heart of the fortress. When the group (the Cleric) open the book, there is a flash of light and a loud bang, and the room fills with poisonous gas - killing almost all the dwarven mercenaries but the cleric and a few dwarves survive.

The cleric regains consciousness back in the capital city, and he is told by the High Priest that he had to be subdued by the surviving mercenaries as he started swinging for them, screaming about "demons" and such...

The player who wrote all of the above further writes that his character believes that he did indeed help the Emperor and the armies of the Empire grow stronger, as they now seek to advance to other lands, but that there will be a "terrible price" that must be paid for what he has done....he (the cleric) also suffers from bad headaches and terrible pains in his left leg since the incident and has to take herbs for the pain...

So - I'm wondering, assuming he helped the Empire as much as he says/thinks he did, what should be the terrible price that must be paid (presumably by the Empire itself) for what he has done? Presumably, whoever the creator/author of the book was would have something to do with the "price" that must be paid? I think Ioun has "Fate" in her portfolio but I cant see her being involved in the scribing of such a book...but I cant think of an appropriate deity or powerful being that would be involved in something like this...

As background, I suspect that the group the cleric is a part of will, in their careers, be coming across the forces of Tiamat, Orcus, the Winter Fey and an "elder evil" who has been about for millenia....

Any ideas?

Thanks,


Bruns.

 

[Cor_Malek]

A couple of questions: what alignment is he + what other players/classes are there in the party?

Anyway - not everything is gold what sparkles. Using ignorant mortals to push further your agenda is always a nice thing, but using servants of good gods to do so? Priceless.
The warlock who ruled over that keep was a great asset until he allowed some filthy heroes to kill him off, as they catched him without his powerful tome.

The Golden Tome of Power, an artefact with mind of his own, allowed him once a day to curse all creatures in close blast 6, either as standard action, or immediate reaction when triggered by touch/melee attack by good aligned character (the cleric involuntarily triggered that effect along with several traps). The tome got somewhat "flunky", and leaks other effects as well, so the cursed soldiers gain other effects at random: Dark One's Own Luck, Armor of Agathys, Fiendish Resilence, Shroud of black steel. It shields soldiers from being cursed (You can’t place a Warlock’s Curse on a creature that is already affected by your oranother character’s Warlock’s Curse.) and is apparently triggered only by good characters, so everyone assumes that it's a good artefact. They "bless" emperor best troops each day during special ceremonies (and after a while the bonus effects wear off, but the curse stays).

Now, say hello to my little friend: Accursed Coordination. I don't have that particular book or DDI, so I'm unable to give exact description, but the gist is: you can both double-curse and use others curses. It wouldn't count for pact boons, but it would for additional damages and other effects. And guess what - whole elite of emperors army has been already cursed!

Your priest, a particularly good character, who sacrifices his life for his deity has some nasty psycho-somatic side-effects, namely perpetual pain (projected into his leg by pure chance, just because brain thinks it has to be somewhere. If he tries to find someone to heal his leg it will be fruitless, as there's nothing wrong with the limb).

I almost forgot - is the clerics name Gregory? Or Gregorious?

 

[brunswick]

Thanks for the reply.

From memory, the Cleric character is good (I dont have my notes to hand). The rest of the party are a mix of unaligned, good, and one Lawful Good.

I was actually thinking more of a "price to pay" for the Empire for their extra power rather than the character but you've just given me an even better idea. The Cleric believes (per his background) that he is receiving visions from Ioun - this was before he encountered the golden book. What if the cleric actually became possessed by something like the 'soul' of an ancient being, when he opened the book, who pretends to be the voice of "Ioun" giving him visions? The reason for his constant headaches and aching leg, is actually his body (and his faith) fighting against the corrupted spirit within the priest.


I think I could have some fun with this....

Edit: I almost forgot, the Clerics name isnt Gregory or Gregorius. Its Daffyd.

 

[TheClone]

Maybe the price to pay is about this spirit breaking free? It may use some magic or so to give the troops of the empire mot strength (like some moral bonuses). This might be done by the help of some "servants" or companions it had in his former life, who where also trapped with it in some extradimensional space (the boo kwas just a key), but now are partly free and able to infest some magic in the real world. Maybe they can also project to the shadowfell or something, just to allow that they can be noticed some way or the other. Now there is an ancient temple in a city that is about to be conquered by the empire. In this temple a steady ritual takes place and when the empire conquers it, all the ritualists are slain as they try to defend the temple. Thereby the ritual slowly fades out. The purpose of the ritual was to imprison the ancient spirit that now posses the cleric and its companions or even some greater spirit, maybe a evil good and the spirit and his companions are just demigods serving the evil god. Just decide on how epic you want it to be. And as the ritual fades out, the spirits (and the god) gain might until at some point they may walk the world again and spread death and destruction.

Might not be a totally new idea but with that much of personal involvement of the group, it should make up a fine plot.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Was thinking something along the lines of having the "golden book" be an illusion. It is really a book made with human skin and written in blood. It was in the fortress for safekeeping because it is actually written by Asmodeus (god of the 9 hells FR setting). It's an artifact which bestows upon the owner the ability to lead armies and boost their strength in combat (something like all minions get +2 damage when the general leading the army is in possession of the book). There is a side effect to this Artifact though, once opened/used it starts a countdown (however long you think is good, could be days, weeks or months) to a portal being opened to the 9 hells and Asmodeus' ability to come into the prime material plane with hordes of demons.

That'd be a pretty nice punishment to the kingdom being overrun by a god and his hordes of demons. Perhaps the cleric's reason for headaches are that because he's good and was the one who opened/touched the artifact first his body was a battleground between his god and Asmodeus. He suffers from mighty migraines due to his god pushing Asmodeus out of his mind, but he has lingering effects of being a bit mad and will temporarily lose his sanity at times most unfortunate to the party, but always wakes up with a blacked out memory and splitting headache. The leg could be an injury from when he was blasted back against a wall after touching the book.

My 2 cents,
Trav

 

[LostSoul]

The "book" = the Eye of Vecna
The price = the Emperor (who now has the Eye) changes society to match Vecna's ways

Vecna and Ioun are directly opposed, so that's why I went with Vecna.

This is how I see the scene playing out:

The PC and his flunkies find the "book". They open it, and it's not a book at all, just a cut-out pages holding the Eye. The Eye has power and it speaks to the PC, promising to make him Emperor. The PC refuses. The Eye shows the PC what will happen to the Empire (and all humans) if things go as they are - it knows the plots of Tiamat, Orcus, the Winter Fey, and the elder evil. The only way to stop them is to use this information!

The PC suspects the Eye is lying. The Eye reminds the PC that Vecna is the God of Secrets, not Lies. Being a Cleric of Ioun, the PC realizes that the Eye is telling the truth, but that one of Vecna's commands is to "find the seed of darkness in others and exploit it to your advantage." There must be a terrible price to pay.

The PC is faced with a terrible choice - have humanity devastated or open his heart to darkness. He decides to accept the gift, but he gives himself the chance to fix it. He says that he will present the Eye to the Emperor. This will give the PC the chance to act as a free agent and solve any problems the Emperor causes while still exploiting the Eye.

The Eye is pleased and agrees, but demands that the PC remembers none of this - God of Secrets, remember? The PC accepts, trusting his own inner goodness to overcome the Eye's plans.

Some of the dwarves can't believe what is going on. Their race has survived aeons of slavery; humanity can deal. Other dwarves make pacts with the Eye; it tells them where gold and mithral flow. There's a battle, and those who resist the Eye are slaughtered.

They take the "book" back to the Emperor. Perhaps the PC changes his mind during the trip and has to be subdued by the dwarves.

*

This set-up gives you a good reason to have the party go on missions - the Emperor trusts the PC like no other (since he was the one who gave him the Eye) and the Emperor has all this information that he can draw on to know exactly where to send the PCs.

I would think about what a society of secrets and tempting others to be their worst would look like. I'd probably do something like this: have the threats to the Empire be the justification for Orwellian laws; the state becomes totalitarian; everyone is expected to inform on any anti-state behaviour; etc. A plague of doppelgangers or something like that could be a good justification for such measures. Start slowly at first.

*

This is kind of a weird situation, since the player came up with the fact that his PC made some kind of terrible choice but the player isn't saying what that choice was. Does that give you as DM the right to determine what choice the PC made?

I'd make sure that you work that out. It seems like it would be okay - the player is saying, "Hey DM, put something really cool into my background!"