Small Acts of DM Cruelty

[Sarellion]

One of my PCs had a mentor for several (real) years via a palantir style artifact.

Later on I pitted her between her boyfriend and this mentor when she found out that he was the evil vampire mage, mothers on the continent use to frighten their children.

They found out later that he tried to redeem himself from his evil ways. Her char fell in love with him. That was a nice time for him to go out with a big bang taking the evil baddies with him in a final act of redemption.

I think she is still upset about it especially because another vampire got his life back....

 

[DrNilesCrane]

In my Falconmoor campaign, the party was searching for a particular kind of plant needed to create a cure for a disease. A helpful NPC pointed the party to an ogre village which had supplied the plant in the past, but was no longer willing to do so. The party went there to get it one way or another and ended up in a big melee with the ogre village. However, the ogres collected humanoid slaves (humans and elves primarily) and offered them to a local dragon for breeding purposes. It was overal not a nice place and the party was ready to take out the ogres and do some good.

After the initial fight outside the village, the surviving ogres withdrew from the fight, gathered the slaves (all very pregnant women), many of whom knew of no other life and viewed the ogres as their protectors. The ogres used the slaves as cover; the unarmored, essentailly "commoner" slaves charged the party with makeshift weapons, intent on grappling and taking them down with the remaining ogres (three witch-like spellcasters) hid among them (using the slaves as cover) and peppered the party with spells.

As the group approached from the village, the party was dumbfounded as to what to do: they didn't want to kill the slaves, but the slaves (and ogres) were an immediate threat, especially when a few of the characters got grappled and were getting dragged off. Eventually the party started attacking without holding back, slaughtering the slaves and ogres (about fifty slaves). It prompted some very interesting in game/in character talk as well as as post game discussion.