When PCs become villains.

[Goddess FallenAngel]

I tried to condense a really long story and wasn't very successful (about 6 months real time, playing 3-4 times a month):

High-Level Forgotten Realms game. We’d gotten sent back in time to the time of Netheriel (sp?). One of the NPCs was a priestess of Mystra, and another was a Shadovar. Neither liked one another, for obvious reasons, but most of the PCs were friends with each of them regardless.

So… back in time. The Shadovar heads off to see the city of Shade as it was before it spent a few millennia in the Plane of Shadow. We don’t, at this time, have the priestess of Mystra with us – she was off doing something else when we got sent back in time. We try to figure out why we got sent back, and end up heading over to Karsus’ city to ask if he could send us back. We’re told that if we retrieve a certain spell component for him, we’ll be allowed to see him – otherwise, he’s too busy working on his greatest spell to meet with us lowly adventurers. (There’s a 2nd edition module that comes into play here, and if you’ve ever seen it, or know FR history, you know who Karsus is and what spell he was ‘working on’.)

So, we go, have a night on the town. My CN half-fiend rogue, tired of dealing with the half-celestial paladin, and rather depressed at some back-story stuff that’s happened, heads off to drink by herself. She gets approached by a priestess of Shar (at least, she thinks the woman was just a priestess – at first). They talk, and the priestess suggests that there is a party member whom she wouldn’t mind seeing come to a… short end. My PC isn’t really interested in killing party members – not that she has much love for them, but she feels it would be more trouble than it’s worth to try. Ever heard the phrase ‘everyone has their price’? Yeah. The GM had mine. The ‘priestess’ of Shar offers my PC power – as the Seraph of Thieves (think sorta like Chosen crossed with Avatar).

So, my PC agrees. She’s told that she’ll know who when it is time. And the ‘priestess’ gives her a sword and an amulet, and vanishes into the shadows. My PC finishes her drink and thoughtfully heads back to the group.

The next day, the priestess of Mystra (by this time more than slightly obsessed with wiping the city of Shade and the Shadovar off the face of the multiverse) meets up with us. We go off, gets Karsus’ spell component after many game sessions, and head back. We each get to meet with Karsus individually to request a boon for helping him. Unfortunately, he says that he can’t send us back to the future at the moment, so we all take assorted boons.

We spend a few days trying to figure out what to do, doing some research to see who might be able to help, etc. Then, Karsus casts his spell (which stole the power from the goddess of magic at the time – Mystral – and caused all the floating cities that compose Netheriel to come crashing down). The priestess of Mystra’s request of Karsus – transport us to the city of Shade when the spell is cast. Her thought – make sure the city falls with the rest.

We suddenly find ourselves in the throne room of the city of Shade. Battle ensues between a few members of the party – some, shocked and feeling slightly betrayed by the priestess of Mystra, refuse to help – and the ruler of Shade and his peons. The Shadovar who had come back in time with us abstained from the battle as well – not wanting to hurt his friends, but feeling betrayed by the fact that half of them were trying to destroy his city, thus causing him to have never existed, and the other half were letting them do it.

During the battle, as the city started to fall, my PC feels compelled to attack the priestess of Mystra – sadly enough, the only individual in the party my PC actually liked rather than just tolerated. So, using stealth and innate abilities, she attacks and slits the throat of the priestess of Mystra, and her sword eats the soul.

The Shadovar NPC vanishes to save his city from falling, just as the PCs kill the leader and grand mage of Shade. Not wanting to be stuck in the Plane of Shadow, the PCs grab the priestess’ body and leave – sans my rogue, whom no one had seen since about 3 seconds after they’d been ‘ported to the throne room.

They land on the ground some distance away from the falling cities, and that’s when someone shows up to take them back to their own year (related plotline with Chronomancers too complex to explain here). When asked about my PC, the party is told “Everyone who should be here is here,” with a gesture encompassing the attending PCs.

They get sent back to their own time. Try to raise/resurrect the priestess of Mystra, with no luck (soul’s gone). Get told that the death wound is from a precise rapier thrust.

PC’s recall the only one who used a sword during the battle was the paladin. And it’s a longsword. Recall that my PC was missing during most, if not all, the battle. Realize they’d seen wounds almost exactly the same on my PC’s former kills. Return to their quarters in the city to find a note tagged on the door – with a dagger – in my PC’s handwriting – 3,000 years after the date they’d just departed without her.

They weren’t happy.

My PC became an NPC, of course, and I made a new, non-rogue, PC.

She’s become kind of a reoccurring irritant in the PC’s sides – not truly a villain, just someone who is very powerful that toys with them occasionally. For instance, the paladin had to go on a very dangerous quest to retrieve his Holy Avenger, only to find out that by doing so he released an ancient demon lord that had been imprisoned. And to find a mocking note on his Holy Avenger explaining how my old PC had arranged to have the Holy Avenger stolen from the church and interred in this dungeon (along with binding the demon lord) several hundred years before. Just so she could “see the look on your face when you realize that you released him.”

It was so in-character for how I played the PC – albeit more evil – that I had to applaud the DM. (So did the other players, all the while their PCs were fuming at their old ‘friend’.)

 

[Kryndal Levik]

A PC in my main campaign went mad (after being abandoned inadvertently by her lover, another PC) and "went evil." She immediately sought out another villain to side with him, and has become a thorn in the party's side ever since. It's been a great plot device, as she knows exactly where (and who) to hit in order to best get to the PCs. So far, she's murdered a PC's "girlfriend" (who was later raised), murdered the PC's main NPC benefactor, given birth to a child that may or may not be the harbinger of the apocalypse, and pretty much tormented the party at every turn. Good fun.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

I had a FR campaign going that didn't thrill me much anymore, so I decided to start an evil campaign, in FR again, a few years later. One of the players from the 1st campaign wanted to keep his character, so we advanced him a few levels, while the other players made new characters.

I'm still waiting to spring the old, good PCs on the new, evil PC and watch their new characters confront their old characters... It should be fun.

AR

 

[Schayde]

Mine was a character named Nacht. Nacht protrayed himself as a jovial wizard. His long black hair and beard were always flowing over his white and pale blue robes. He was fond of puns, "WWF = World Wizard Ferderation", "If you can smell-ll-lla what the Nacht, is casting." He made magic items for the party, for hardly any gold. The party began to look to Nacht as a leader many times.

That changed at about 10th level, when the party stopped a large city. Nacht told the party he needed to do some final training, and would be gone for a while. Nacht paid for the party’s rooms and their food. When he returned, Nacht had shaved off his beard and his hair to reveal the many tattoos that covered his scalp. He had abandoned the white and blue robes for the proper red robes, of Thayian nobility. The party begrudgenly accepted Nacht, but some were very uneasy that he had decieved them for so long.

About 15th level, the party was on an adventure were a hive of Formians were dominating a village, using them as slave-miners. The party had been harassed out of the village, so they retreated to the near by forest. There, Nacht summoned a cottage using Leomunds Secrure Shelter. The Formians still viewed the party as a threat, so sent the villagers to attack the party. They were mostly commoners, so were doing little to the cottage, but throught the window, the ranger saw that the village’s militia was coming.

Pretrebed that the party was still not doing anything, Nacht used Circle of Death, since the party was too high of level to be affected by it. The party was still in shock when Nacht then used Dimension Door to get to the roof. From the roof, he started killing the remaining villagers and militia with his Fireball Wand.

When the smoke cleared, it was obvious the party was about to break-up. Half still felt loyal to Nacht, and the Good characters wanted him to either brought to justice or they would leave the group.

To keep the campign going, I had to give up Nacht. He was replaced by another wizard, Fik Moley, who acted as Nacht had before he shaved his head. The party continued on with Nacht leaving the party, who vowed revenge on them.

Eventually that campaign ended, and I ran the next one.
The campaign that was run before the one with Nacht had a very sad ending; nearly all the party members sacrificed their lives in a climatic battle with the minions of Orcus.
At the climax of the campaign I was running, the party had been chasing after a wizard who had always just escaped at the end of the adventure. In the final adventure, the party discovered that the wizard they were chasing was Nacht.

Worse, Orcus had given the bodies of those that had fallen to his minions to Nacht to use as modified Skeletal Warriors. So at the climax, the party had to fight their old characters. In the end, those undead characters and Nacht were killed, but the party was never sure if Nacht, who was a necromancer, had made plans to become a lich.

So far, I haven’t decided either.

 

[DonTadow]

In the very first 3.x campaign I played, the party and I managed to travel to hell to end the plan of a major devil. The devil happened to be the father of one of the pcs. (A tiefling attempting to make ammends for his family). Four sessions after we first ventured into hell we encountered the devil whom was surprisingly dismissive of us. We realized how powerful he was.

The devil did not want to kill his son, she he offered us a choice, join him or die. He told us his entire plan and , from where we stood, it seemed we could not stop the apocolpyse he was about to bring on.

This was where the fun happened. The DM had no intention or plan for us really to join. This was suppose to be, in his words, the fighting words that started the major battle. HOwever, the pcs that we are we all huddled together and talked it over. In minutes our lawful good cleric was dead and we took the demon up on his offer.

The DM was as surprised as I'd ever seen anyone. He paused the campaign for 30 minutes, verbally telling us that we scrwed him up.

He then came back to the table. In return for our switch, the DM granted us ungodly powers. I, the bard, had an intelligence and wisdom of 40. Our psionisist now had the ability to bend the fabric of reality. The fighter chose living armor ala venom and our rogue could move to whereever he wanted to with a thought.

We played 4 more adventures of that campaign. By the end of the fourth campaign we had managed to destroy time and revamp space.

 

[warlord]

I LOVE turning PCs into villians. I did to my werewolf in a Buffy game. He went from valued ally to Faith's dog/bitch. Once that happpened he was diabolicly evil he even killed Riley by snapping his neck just because Buffy loved him. The best part was he wasn't made an NPC so I got to try and kill my friends in RPG form!