The paladin needs help with some bloody situation

[Sarellion]

I am DMing a recently assembled group with some fresh players. The group was hunting some marauders and managed to catch them in their lair. After a bloody fight the leader of the marauders was unconscious. The paladin was dragging her to a place to tend her wounds as the elven archer of the group took a knife to slit her belly and pulled her entrails out. Meanwhile, another party member was beheading the dead enemies to bring "proof" back to the village who had asked us to help. Later the archer wanted to bind the corpses together with their arms and legs.
The campaign will last only for a few sessions, so I don´t take drastic DM measures. I don´t approve of this behaviour in my gaming groups but I don´t want to start a fight about it. It was their decision, if they want to play bloody, the world will react


The paladin and another PC fled the scene. The problem is that the paladin has asked me what should he do as his character. His cousin (the char) was the beheader, so he would stay to help his cousin but what would his god think?

I am at a loss, because I don´t know. Shalaru, the god he is serving is the god of the sun, law and order. He is a stern judge and demands obedience, the destruction of evil beings (like undead and evil outsiders) and the protection of the weak and innocent. He is a little bit like Tyr in Forgotten Realms.

I don´t know how to judge the killing of the leader and the mutilation of the bodies. I thought about desecration of the dead
and killing in cold blood, but the marauders were quite guilty of several crimes and would be hanged.
Does somebody know what kind of punishment would be dealt in a situation like this in a fantasy world with medieval character?

 

[enrious]

Here are my opinions, based on your post.

1) The paladin shouldn't have fled the scene, leaving the marauders to the hands of his comerades, unless he was severely outnumbered.

2) I don't see anything wrong per se, with taking back proof of the dead maruders, but there is something wrong with a paladin allowing surrendered or incapacitated foes to be slaughtered. Far better to save them and bring them back to town for a fair trial and hanging. The PCs should have brought them back to submit to the ruling authority in the area.

3) Every paladin I've played has been different. I will say that if there's one universal that I've held to is that fallen foes deserve their day in court.

4) If I were playing that paladin I would not adventure further with the butchers. I wouldn't have a problem with taking trophys of the bodies (to me, desecration of the dead only applies after the dead have been consecrated/buried). I would have a problem with the elven archer and seek to bring him to whatever justice felt appropriate.

No doubt others will disagree. That's part of the fun of paladins.

 

[BBrendolfus]

Sounds familiar, essentially a party conflict. It seems to spring from the players making up their characters with no regard to the other characters and it all turning to custard.

If I had been the Paladin (or anything) and someone messed with my prisoner I would actively stop them. Or perhaps just a warning of much pain if they wreck my plans of justice.

As to actually dealing with the above party, put them up against something monstrous (stack the encounter majorly) that devours the fallen. Concentrate attacks on the offenders and describe it tearing apart their characters as they go into negatives. Improved grab is great for this.

As you may guess I personally dislike torture/evil and will fudge things to kill offensive pcs and warn players. I feel no desire to compromise and people know this.

Next lot of characters should share a unifying characteristic and everyone needs to agree on a style of adventure. Keeping alignments within 1 to 2 steps at most can help. Those who deviate get demoted to npcs and told to roll another pc.

I'm sorry to say that I think you are actually stuffed but hopefully someone else can offer better help.

 

[Sarellion]

Ah yes, the paladin was quite in a mess.

1) He was outnumbered. The archer killed off the leader and his cousin was messing around with heads. He was also wounded like the other people. He is some kind of holy roller, singing praises as they traveled. It seems that some people of the group didn´t like it at all. So he wasn´t sure he would get support at all. The only other chars who would help had fled or were absent from game, today. The player of the fled char later told us that the elven archer had some kind of childhood trauma that led to this behaviour.

2) He was surprised by this action. He was dragging the unconscious leader as the elf walked by from behind and put the sword into her.

3) Thanks for your opinion. As he is a paladin of the god of law, this will probably be a serious violation. he would have the archer to accept punishment, but I am not sure what would be appropriate, yet. As DM I am hesitant to punish his char for the crap other people see as some kind of bloody fun.

4) Part of the problem is that the group consists of relatives and friends. The archer is a friend of him, the trophytaker is his cousin. They are no foreign ppl to him.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

To keep Paladins special, they need to be difficult to play! The Paladan has had a crisis of faith - The Paladin knows what happened was wrong, and did not try and stop it. He needs to atone for this minor transgression before he can gain any further XP.

A Paladin's WORD is his proof, so he should have attempted to convince the party that the onus of proof was on him, and he would take responsibility for the party's pay if that was their motivation for the grisly trophies.

Even if hanging was to be the fate of the still living ( captured ) mauraders, a reasonable penalty for the other party members may be forfeiture of pay and exile from the area - this may be completely aside from any atonement the Paladin must enact, OR you could have the Paladin attempt to enforce this ruling as a major part of his attonement...

 

[Sarellion]

@BBrendolfus

Thanks for your help, I think you are right. I think you mean with stuffed that this party is screwed up (I am not a native speaker).

If this would be new members of my main group I would have thrown them out or the other chars would take care of them.

Normally I would talk with the offending players and/or dissassemble the group and gather new ones. Because of outside factors starting again is out of the question.

I thought about some punishment dealt out at them like you described. I think that I will take precaution to prevent such a massacre in the future.

Problem is what should the paladin do now? What would be the law in this earlier times if something like this would have happened? Should the paladin arrest them and what is the punishment for such crimes in the eyes of a god of law? It is something like taking the law in your own hands but how is it punishable in a time when local authority is sometimes far away?

 

[Bob Aberton]

Problem is, back in the day, their was no option like "bring 'em back and hang 'em."

Back in the day, such actions would be considered, if not cushy and happy, at least not brutal and/or repulsive.

Back in the day, if the paladin tried justifying his actions by saying, "well, they mutilated these bodies of these highwaymen..." The attitude of the law would be, "They're criminals. They got what was coming to them." The offending characters might even have been rewarded.

Have you heard about some of the punishments back then? Drawing and Quartering, Blood-Eagles, Burning at the Stake...these would be considered cruel and unusual to us - hell, we think that a sedated death by poison is cruel and unusual, but I won't get political here - but back in the day, these punishments were considered to be a carnival event, where people would show up to watch - with their children to boot.

Now, I personally think that the offending players seem to be problems, and maybe should be removed, if that is possible, but I'm just giving you the skinny the way it would be in a quasi-medieval DnD campaign.

 

[BBrendolfus]

Well Sarellion your interpretation is correct.

As to the issue, you have to ask yourself are you having fun? If no, stop.

If it is yes well...

A good game includes every player so no solo adventures (unless that is actually desirable) while everyone is present.

1) You could run the honourable or dishonourable threads with the idle players making up new characters to suit, perhaps met on the road. Perhaps alternate threads...

2) Play out the conflict (hardly fun I think). I actually have no idea about this because the Paladin sounds seriously out numbered, perhaps have some allies handily nearby to strengthen his cause. With a bit of successful diplomacy have them rally to his cause with an appropriate sense of outrage. Thus done he can deliver an ultimatum to clean up acts and back it up.

3) Get the Paladin player to make a new grubby pc whilst promising to use their Paladin in the upcoming real campaign. That done, feel free to ahnihilate the rogues.

Remember, stack the encounter, use late 'baddy' reinforcements, concentrate attacks, max the 'baddy' stats and hps (no CR change), intercept the path of retreat, give the 'baddies' a genius leader, counterspell their spells, cover of darkness and darkvision...........

Have fun

 

[Tonguez]

"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"
- this is the legal code of a very well known LG Diety and basically says that if a person has murdered and raped and plundered then that is exactly what they should recieve in return.
Ergo the Cousin et al were metting out Justice!

IMHO (and IMC) Paladins of Lawful Gods are ordained as Judges with the right to pass immediate sentence on Evil - and to thus seek Just Retribution for those who have suffered that Evil

The nonsense is the idea the criminals should be taken back to town to face trial by jury. They don't, they have been tried already and the PCs sent to seek Justice (not merely to arrest them)

 

[Khorod]

His relationships with these people must be deeply rooted for a paladin character not to be shocked and horrified at their behavior- they have done things like this to a lesser degree most likely.

At some point, I would expect this paladin to either feel betrayed by his friends and leave them, be corrupted by them, or even determine that they are evil and need to be brought to court, if only to set them back 'on the path'.

And while medieval justice was often brutal, the Paladin as a character type did not exist in the medieval world. At best, he existed in medieval romance. While real knights might have been virutous in all those ways, they probably found the matter of due process a means to protect the innocent, and only those who most believed in the process itself would object to known thieves and murderers being punnished vigilante style.

A paladin is a holy knight, a champion of justice. Often the interpretation there is the rule of law as tempered by the virtues of compassion and mercy, or the good of all, tempered by a respect for the laws and ways of a society.

If this were a long term campaign, I would have the paladin's detect, and maybe smite, evil powers overloaded for a couple of days.

As it stands, if the player is not uncomfortable with the situation, you might talk to him about roleplaying out the falling of a paladin. Maybe the adventure culminates with a new blackguard suddenly realizing how his life has gone, and saves the day with his less evil friends at the last minute...