The Picture of Nathan Cromwell

[Fevil]

After watching The Picture of Dorian Gray I had an idea for a scenario. A wandering paladin foils the plot of an evil Cleric and is then cursed (either by the Clerics God or the Cleric him/herself).
The curse takes the form of a portrait which is drawn for him (the Paladin is young, brash and quite vain) by a "travelling stranger" and coerces him into witchhunts and the persecution of innocent victims he thinks are guilty, the more he kills innocent people in the name of his faith, the more the portrait echoes his own crimes by becoming covered in blood and gaining deformities and disfigurements.

The only problem I have is how to go about fooling the PCs long enough to actually make it work, and hopefully this is where you guys come in.

How can I stop the PCs from realising the Paladins victims are anything other than what the Paladin thinks they are?

The setting btw is The Scarred Lands, and the Goddess in question is Belsameth

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[arwink]

when picking victims, make sure they're always among the poor. While the poor and helpless are the people the paladin's meant to be helping, it's always easier to believe that they've been corrupted. Rogues Guild Affiliaition, the general struggle to stay alive and general plague infestations can all give the poor the impression of being 'unclean' even if they're not actually evil.

Make sure the Pc's hear about it from the Paladin's point of view. Rumor may say that the people were innocents, but this is a paladin and his word is his bond. According to the official reports, they were evil and the paladin did his duty - there's no other way it can go.

A smart evil priest is going to make sure that there's just enough actually guilty targets for the non-guilty wants to not be noticed. 100 innocent peasants is noticable, but if the same guy is the one who brought down Vile Lord the Evil then people are less likely to noticed. Heads of theives guilds, the preists of rival evil churches (or that pesky superior in his own church who's job the cleric wants) and brutal murders should be sprinkled among the victims - just enough that news of their deaths at the Paladin's hands overshadows his evil deeds.