D&D 5E What would a demon do with a dead Paladin?

[trentonjoe]

Wants wants



Quick Background:

Party attacks a temple of Loviatar (Goddess of Torture, big time evil) in the middle of a ceremony. The group is kind of successful, they kill a bunch of priestesses but the head mistress finishes the ceremony and summons an unnamed demon. The demon then starts animating the corpses, including two of the fallen party members as zombies. The demon runs away with the party's dead paladin. I want her to do something especially wicked with his corpse.

I have a bunch of wights, ghouls, zombies and the such. I am looking for something super cool but not super powerful.

TL;DR What undead can a 2nd level paladin be turned into that's kinda neat?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Sunseeker]

A reanimated version of himself that is fully conscious of his actions but has no control over them. Heck, let the player he belonged to run him in the fight.

 

[CTurbo]

Was any anywhere close to level 3? He could come back as an "possessed" Oathbreaker.


I'm thinking about doing something similar with a Vengeance Pally that was played by a part time player that hasn't played in months and is not likely to come back anytime soon. We have gone up 3 levels since the Pally was with us and I thought it would be fun to bring him back as a villain.

 

[Dualazi]

Well first of all, is said paladin sentient? Like is there any vestige of his prior personality, or is just his material form?

Assuming that we're going with the latter, there are a couple ways you could go with it.

First is that the demon itself could possess the body. You could turn this into a major villain if it becomes permanent, for example if the demon has to do so to remain summoned in this world. It could also be a tool of convenience for operating under the radar in more civilized society, and something akin to a glove for the demon to slip in and out of. It might also be able to exploit loopholes to enter holy places/avoid detection while inside the paladin's body, which has all kinds of potential for plot hooks and gotchas.

Another way to use the above them is have the demon launch a campaign to frame the players as either villains themselves, or victims of demonic possession themselves using the status of the deceased paladin. This could lead the players to have to be on the lam for a bit while they figure out how to expose the fiend.

A much less involved but more grisly option is to fashion his corpse into items to protect the other minions he creates. Many religions consider remains of saints or influential holy people to be powerful wards or blessings in and of themselves, and corrupted versions of those items could be portrayed as doing the inverse, making undead harder to turn or dealing additional damage against the faithful. One upside to this is it's an easy and visceral way of showing the debased nature of your demon, but think about if it's appropriate for the game's tone accordingly.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[akr71]

Death Knight?

 

[WarpedAcorn]

I have a bunch of wights, ghouls, zombies and the such. I am looking for something super cool but not super powerful.

TL;DR What undead can a 2nd level paladin be turned into that's kinda neat?

Thanks in advance!

I can't recall if this is in the 5th Edition Monster Manual, but a Revenant. The only catch is that the Paladin-turned-Revenant blames the surviving PC's for letting his corpse be desecrated and begins to hunt them down.

If I recall, Revenants are around CR 4-5 so they are potent, but not incredibly powerful.

 

[Oofta]

Sung to the tune of "What do you do with a drunken sailor"

What shall we do with an undead paladin?
What shall we do with an undead paladin?
What shall we do with an undead paladin?
Early in the mourning.

Make him into an oath-breaker npc adver-sary
Make him into an oath-breaker npc adver-sary
Make him into an oath-breaker npc adver-sary
Early in the mourning.

Have him plague the group with their failure
Have him plague the group with their failure
Have him plague the group with their failure
Early in the mourning.

He blames the group for letting him die
He blames the group for letting him die
He blames the group for letting him die
Early in the mourning.

Introduce him slowly as a mysterious figure
Introduce him slowly as a mysterious figure
Introduce him slowly as a mysterious figure
Early in the mourning.

Someone in the background foiling plans
Someone in the background foiling plans
Someone in the background foiling plans
Early in the mourning.​

 

[psychophipps]

Many great ideas here. I'm a fan of the possession idea from Dualazi, if the player is amicable, followed by the great ditty above.

 

[Blue]

Just to start with a disclaimer - does the player understand (either through your social contract when the body wasn't recovered or through talking to them) that the paladin is irretrievable and they are going to make a new character?

If the player want his paladin back, do it in some way that the undead headless and desecrated body comes at them in the next attack, but after they kill it they can raise it. And of course over the course of the campaign have it slowly come out they have an evil twin that is actively trying to mess things up, which is the paladin's head stitched onto a similar-ish body and possessed by the demon, who is using the paladin's likeness to gain access to holy sites and the like as well as setting up people to dislike the paladin and get in his way.

On the other hand, in my campaign if they retreated without the body they'd know it's definitely gone. While a one-off foe can be horrifying, a new NPC who will level with them, knows their names and fears, and is a twisting of everything good the paladin stood for is a wonderful opportunity that many DMs would sell their eyeteeth for. And it can only be realized in it's full beauty^H^H^H^H^H^Hhorror in a case like this, with a fallen paladin taken off by a demon and/or evil priests.