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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8504643" data-attributes="member: 508">In my last 3.5 campaign, it would be the incubus Malaterminus.  He was imprisoned in the form of a longsword and tucked away in a dungeon, with multiple traps intended to make him inaccessible.  But the PCs fought their way to the magic sword - and one PC in particular, a ranger named Finoula Cloudshadow, was overjoyed when it started telepathically communicating with her and letting her know he had been crafted at the behest of a diviner who had foreseen a time when the fate of the entire world would one day rest on her shoulders.Over the next half-dozen adventures, Malaterminus ("Slayer of Evil," or so he claimed) bided his time until he could strike, for although he had been cursed into sword form there was one way he could break the enchantment: by getting a good-hearted wielder to willingly slay an innocent.  The opportunity arose one night when Finoula had been awakened by her good friend Ingebold, a dwarven cleric of Moradin, for her turn on watch.  Malaterminus waited until Ingebold was asleep then telepathically "warned" Finoula that at some point during the previous watch shift a doppelganger must have slain the real Ingebold and taken her form, for he had been telepathically scanning its thoughts as it fell asleep and it was recalling slaying the dwarf and hiding her body in the forest, with plans to pick off the rest of the group one at a time as opportunities arose.  The only way to stop the doppelganger, Malaterminus insisted, was to slay it now while it slept; trying to wake the other PCs was too dangerous, for if it woke up it would know they were aware of its impersonation of Ingebold.Finoula, unfortunately, was convinced (due her unwavering belief that this was actually an intelligent sword and not a demon in disguise) and crept up on her sleeping friend, only to plunge the blade of Malaterminus ("Evil Slayer" it turns out, not "Slayer of Evil") through her chest.  Finoula killed her best friend, only to have her sword suddenly turn into an incubus that then did its level best to kill her and the rest of her adventuring group.  Worst of all, while the PCs managed to overcome the other demons Malaterminus summoned to aid him, he ended up getting away to taunt Finoula a few other times.Finoula's player said she actually had real-life nightmares about the incident.  Fortunately, she eventually got her revenge, when they managed to track the incubus down to a truly horrid lair on a plane of the Abyss and Finoula and a resurrected Ingebold jointly slew Malaterminus.  He was probably that campaign's most hated villain out of everyone they fought over the course of the 80 adventures played over a span of about five years.Johnathan</blockquote>

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