Classy Quests, Part 4/4
I dunno. I think Fem!Wizard looks rather fetching. Certainly better than the last time we caught him wearing lingerie.
Any dang way, I’d like to add a little caveat to the message in today’s Handbook. Deals with the devil may not be prudent, but they are exactly the sort of thing you want to pursue as a PC. Let me explain.
Remember how we talked about hindrances and disadvantages way back in the day? There is no easier way to add a little depth to a character than to give them a character flaw. A niche phobia or a well-placed code of honor can turn a dull PC into a memorable one, adding a little spice to the game while providing your GM with a fun story hook. I bring it up here because, even though grabbing a few extra build points in exchange for a campaign-long thorn in your side is rarely a wise decision, it is 100% an interesting one. It’s the same deal with Faustian bargains.
Here’s a case in point. I sat down for my first ever game of Blades in the Dark this week, and I came face to face with a mechanic that’s literally called “devil’s bargain.” The shtick is that you can get a free bonus die on your check, but there is a 100% chance that [insert consequence here] will happen. In my particular case, I was trying to create a distraction in a nightclub, so my alchemist decided to put on a “beer additives” demonstration for the club owners. Suffice it to say that I rolled poorly.
“No soliciting,” they said. And then they sicked their big mean bouncer on me.
“Please,” I said. “Just try it! One sip and you’ll change your mind!”
Here’s where the devil’s bargain came in. My GM said that sure, the bouncer would be a guinea pig for my weird alchemical hooch, but there would be an unexpected side effect. I could see him rubbing his little GM mitts together in glee, and I just knew that something awful would happen if I took him up on the offer.
“No,” said I.
Then I proceeded to roll poorly again. My alchemist was tossed out on his ear, and I had to struggle to figure out how to make my dude relevant for the rest of the heist. And if you’re disappointed with the anticlimax of that story, then I think you can imagine how my GM felt.
My point is that, even though bad things will probably happen to your character when that demon offers you a contract, or that mob boss asks for a favor, or that Cthulhu cultist asks you to come alone, they will be interesting bad things. I’m not sure whether that bouncer in my Blades in the Dark game would have grown tentacles, gone nuts, or started sneezing fire, but anything would have been better than standing out in a cold Doskvol alley feeling like a tool.
So here’s to you, Wizard! Sure you’re sex changed, cheated out of your promised reward, and feeling just a tad under-dressed, but at least you’ve got a good story to tell!
Question of the day then. Have you ever accepted a “deal with the devil” in one of your games? Was it worth it? Let’s hear all about your best Faustian bargains down in the comments!
EARN BONUS LOOT! Check out the The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. We’ve got a sketch feed full of Laurel’s original concept art. We’ve got early access to comics. There’s physical schwag, personalized art, and a monthly vote to see which class gets featured in the comic next. And perhaps my personal favorite, we’ve been hard at work bringing a bimonthly NSFW Handbook of Erotic Fantasy comic to the world! So come one come all. Hurry while supplies of hot elf chicks lasts!
In the culmination of a series of cat and mouse games, investigative tricks, research and a few high empathy rolls, it became obvious that one of the “privateers” working for my Keeper was looking to betray him, but couldn’t say as much. It was also obvious that they had a plan to poison the punch at the Freehold dance. I was almost certain that capturing me was a set-up to invoke my Keeper’s Bane, that his chosen prey could not be allowed to blow his hunting horn. But with no real communication between me and the “Privateer”, I couldn’t be sure.
Ended up signaling my character’s choice through footwear, since my boyfriend wanted me to wear heels but my character feared heels due to the inability to run. Choosing to wear heels became the signing of the contract, which I played up to the amusement of my GM.
Ended up good (Which in Changeling: the Lost means only one Clarity roll at a -4). Ended up tied to the ground in front of my Keeper with purposefully loose bonds. When the summer court and my boyfriend confronted him, I threw down the ropes and ran up, snatching the horn from his hip and blowing it, and thereby rendering him weakened and vulnerable. He was forced to flee in disgrace, but I gotta admit that it was a long shot to trust my enemy and could have easily gone bad for me.
But did it turn out awesome in the end? Hell yeah it did. Way to do the risky thing in the name of a cool story!
I’ve made plenty of deals with devils! Demons and Yugoloths too. In campaigns where we start with a magic item, I’ve often asked for it to have some sort of obvious curse. For example, in a 5e game we were told we could have one rare magic item. I asked the DM for an item that could absorb the soul of a dragon, which my character had a grudge against and was planning on murdering an ancient red dragon as his life goal. This object would have offered to him in a cults lair after he had murdered the lot of them, talking up my character’s prowess as a “mighty soul destinied for greatness”. It used blood magic and could steal dragon, kobold and dragonborn souls. It was so great when it bit my character in the ass, after he failed to use it on the Ancient Red Dragon in question, was knocked out, and the BBEG stole it and used it in a world ending ritual. Its nice to play the part of a character who thinks he’s got the good deal when you the player knows it will bite him in the ass. That character was a dick anyway so he deserved a bite in the ass. Also special shout out to Curse of Strahd and the “Amber Tomb of make a bad deal”. For those unfamiliar, these are “gifts” offered by individuals dwelling in sarcophagi calling themselves “Darklords”. And to think they just give you the ability to raise the dead or become a lich or a vampire,all for free! I mean yeah you become ruthlessly evil and thr implication they now own your soul, but hey, that’s a small price to pay for sweet evil powers.
My friend in the same group has also made many deals with devils, though he complains so much when it inevitably happens to him. Case in point, he once took a skull sword oozing necromantic energy for, “a favor”. We made so many jokes about the thing, and right in the middle of the final fight, the devil found him, and turned in his favor. They went on a single walk, causing him to miss the second half of the fight. And the walk never ended so hes still on a walk to this very day. He complained so much, but really, what were you expecting?
Ouch. Missing the final fight seems like a curse on the player rather than the character. Sure it’s “bad stuff,” but I’d be more pissed off about getting sidelined at the climax of the campaign than having “bad stuff” happen in that fight. In my mind, a major debuff or turning on the party or being compelled to get the maguffin in the name of the curse-devil would have been a better effect. They would all have had the same, “Oh no!” moment at the table without consigning the player to a passive role.
Like you say though: when you make these sorts of deals, you’ve got to be prepared for the consequences.
I agree there were plenty of better options, but our DM was also fairly new, and made plenty of mistakes along the course of the campaign. Example, the character I was playing ended up trapped in a soul devouring well until he agreed to serve it. Well, my character had made a promise to spend the rest of his life with a Fey princess in the Feywild, and unwilling to break his word, he told the well where to shove it. So the rest of the players had to fight a kraken without a good meat tank. I never had a save for the well, and was just kind of, dragged into it after the DM gave me a big hint that I should do the thing. He’s still in the well to this day. The DM has agreed he messed up a lot on the campaign and will try to do better in the future.
Well hey, good on you guys for talking it out. My heart goes out to the DM in this situation. There’s nothing worse than an oopsie in the final moments of the campaign, and I absolutely hate that feeling of walking away from the table thinking, “I ruined the moment and my players hate me.”
I try to make it clear with some of my “tales from the table,” but I’ve been known to screw up and make bad calls from time to time myself. The last thing I want to do on this comic is imply that I’m some infallible gaming genius. That’s why the blog posts end in questions. These games are complicated, and none of us are perfect.
My group’s current mini-arc involves us hunting down an anarchist/terrorist that’s been plaguing the city we teleported into, with the alternative being 5 days of complete regular, completely BORING community service for a minor infraction that totally wasn’t our fault and that the cops just really over-reacted to.
Half our team is under cover and so far I think we’ve done more damage to each other and the city in fake fights keeping the ruse up than we’ve actually done to our target.
Beats community service though!
Well, we ARE adventurers- for all we know 5 days of community service cleaning up rubble would have somehow morphed into fighting evil cultists, golems, and giant sewer monsters.
A sex change seems unnecessary. Wiz is an Elf, they’re androgynous and don’t have secondary sexual characteristics. (Secondary sexual characteristics are things tied to your sex that are not present at birth such as facial hair, breasts, or dem hips.) Wiz could just lie and nobody would have noticed.
I don’t know what kind of fantasy world you’re living in, but in Handbook-World: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/the-handbook-of-heroes-04
Here’s a helpful link to help you tell the differences
https://imgur.com/BznCGjM
Yup. Knew what that was before clicking.
Elves are supposed to be cartoonishly androgynous!
This is to deliberately contrast the high-sexual dimorphism of Dwarves who have absolutely splendid secondary sexual characteristics.
Methinks you’re projecting a bit:
http://1.media.dorkly.cvcdn.com/38/71/97397b7d419f26a4efc809df7c2bb4a3.jpg
Modern fantasy media has moved away from that. Unless you’re playing in a tolkien-verse, Elves are universally non-gendered twigs while male Dwarves are bulky and beardy, and female Dwarves curvy and stacked.
Dwarves are androgynous too. It’s just that instead of the guys looking like girls the girls look like guys instead. Like in eastern europe.
And the gnolls are even more androgynous. They’re based on spotted hyenas so theoretically the females would look like males even if they had their pants off
Gnoll society is a minefield of assumed pronouns.
My deal with a Devil was fairly benign as far as these things go; I got a demonic parasite attached to my missing arm that can turn into a magical +2 Longsword, but obviously I can’t utilize two-handed objects and whenever I go under zero the parasite takes over my body and could end up with me super dead. The parasite could then take over my corpse and wreck havoc between both my allies and enemies too. But it was one of those clauses where the worse thing that could happen could really only happen when things get really bad, so it was worth the gamble.
Mind you I lost my arm the first time because of a bad deal with a devil, though this one was a much more cut-and-dry “trade me something you need and I’ll give you something you want” sort of dealio. Traded my right arm for a scroll of raise dead since our party didn’t have a cleric, only a Paladin (Oathbreaker so he was cool with demon deals).
Hey, I know a guy with one of them!
https://66.media.tumblr.com/534425eb11706448af8ce5838629f76d/tumblr_inline_n9t8gdzC7p1qzjzhu.gif
Great curse, btw. It helps you to participate even when you’ve been KO’d . That’s good design right there.
Well, there is a mechanic I shamelessly stole from another GM’s star wars campaign. I use it a lot in my games when devils or other dark entities want to seduce the players.
The idea is simple, if it’s a d20 system give them an extra, black d20. If it’s a 3d6 system give them an extra black d6, or an extra one or two black dice in a dice pool system. It’s incredibly versitile.
Whenever they make a roll, they roll the black dice as well. These dice do nothing, but the player can see their result. At any time, after seeing both results, they player MAY exchange one of their normal results for that of the black die. Example, if your d20 roll for stealth was 8 and the black d20 was a 19, you could decide you REALLY don’t want to be seen and take the black die instead. However…
Every time you do this you accrue corruption or “dark side” points or chaos for 40k or whatever you wanna call them. If your game has built in mechanics for this, great, if not, add your own. Maybe after so many points accrue the GM gets a “just to spite you” card they can play, or after too many dark side points your jedi mind trick only has a 50% success rate now. Maybe a daemon smells your rotten soul and teleports in attempting to claim it?
This way, there is a mechanical “lure” to the darkness. It is also great for story, a demon possessing a character can whisper, after the GM sees thr black die is much higher, “I can help you… Just give in…”
It leads to a lot of fun. Plus, when there is such a clear and instant mechanical benefit, I find players much more willing to make deals without thinking of the consequences.
YODA VOICE: Quicker, easier, more seductive is the dark die….
Mechanically, that’s a rock solid way to represent the temptation of evil. Well bloody done!
I just started a Fate Core campaign. The system has one thing I find very interesting, that fits well with what you’re saying : succeed with a cost.
Basically, in Fate, the idea is that simply failing is boring. So if you fail to roll above the goal, you have the option of succeeding with a cost rather than just failing and nothing happens. Say that, for example, you’re jumping a wall, then you might sprain your ankle, or if you’re picking a door’s lock, it might creak loudly and alert someone, things like that. It’s the “failing forward” idea.
I think it’s very interesting, because yes, simply failing IS boring. With this mechanic, you get to not only succeed on your task, but also add some drama to the scene, which is Fate’s whole shtick.
I moved right as my group’s Fate Firefly game was getting off the ground this summer, so I’ve only got limited experience with the system. I’m not sure we were really playing by the rules, since we seemed to rely on our old “turn in bennies/fate points to make a narrative thing happen” system from the previous Savage Worlds Firefly game. I find myself appreciating the option though. GMs don’t have a monopoly on cool ideas, and it’s nice to negotiate a thing that happens to your character.
I don’t know if you’ve ever played Vampire: The Masquerade, but character flaws are pretty prominent there. You get something flavourful and hindering, for the exchange of more merit points! Well, gee, I would pick something flavourful and hindering even if it didn’t give me a reward in exchange. And, as far as I’m aware, there’s no real limit to how many you can choose. I’ve only really played the system for a little bit, so I can’t be sure.
So, naturally, when I made my first V:tM character, I picked 6 of them – aka as many of them as I could stack before the Storyteller warned me that I should slam the brakes.
Unfortunately that game only lasted a few sessions due to scheduling problems, so I never got to see how long that character would last. From the stories I’ve heard, the game can be pretty punishing, especially at the beginning.
I’m more of a Werewolf: the Apocalypse guy. I always dug the setting-specific stuff:
Laurel was the goth kid in high school, so she’s got all the good Vampire stories.
In previos chapters of The Handbook of Heroes…
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/wicked-moves concretely, i talked… well i fact i just write, nevermind, back there i write about one game of Urban Shadows where i played a Tainted, someone who have made a deal with a demon and now is his employ. One of the most best jobs one of my characters ever have. Now about concrete deals, well my group have played a mega-campaign of Blades in the Dark a while ago, so there were lots of deals. One of my friends made one deal with a demon N/PC, that was prowling the campaign. That character of my friend was a member of an assassins crew, he ended with a mark, the demon’s name and/or signature, in his left hand, some helpful supernatural powers, and his player with the feeling of missing some reference. Also my favorite pc of the campaign, the leader of the cult crew and a whisper, made lots of deals with demons, that one demon of the other deal and even some big, nasty things that lurk beneath the dark waters. The best part he managed to accomplish with that deals, no easy task, but even when the cult crew didn’t managed to take over the city it was one of the losers crew who survived more or less intact, healthy and with some cash in the pocket when the run away of the city. Lucky for me character they later returned and save my whisper and his evil plans.
Oh man, the perpetual feeling that you missed a reference is an awesome curse.
https://media1.tenor.com/images/7d29b58265add083d82c0f9a40c6af91/tenor.gif
I think the real key with literal demons is making the bad stuff sound not-so-bad. That’s why innocuous favors are the most interesting. If the PC doesn’t realize that fetching a maguffin or killing some minor monster will have massive repercussions, it’s much easier to do the whole, “Oh no, what have I done!” shtick than if you knew from the outset that you’re killing the innocent or selling your soul.
One i hear a story of a man who made a deal with The Demon. He need to choose how he will condemn his soul, he could pick rape, assassination or gluttony, that one last is what the man choose. After heavy drink he goes home and find a women in his bed, he slept with she and when a man tried to stop him, he kill him. Next day he discover his father killed and the woman was his own mother. Grimm story but one i like, something innocent and inocuos has heavy consequences, even when the man left singing like Homer Simpson believing he made a great deal. Yeah, that is the most insidious of the pacts, the one in which you actually believe you win. Um, now i remember another story. In that game Godbound there is something called the Night Roads, inside them there are nasty things, really nasty things, take my word, but some foolish mortals make pacts with this things. The point is this, nine out of ten pacts end bad for the mortal involved, and the tenth pact, well that one gets what he wants, free, without repercussions. That way some mortal creates the story of how great is to scam that eldritch forces and get away with it. Great publicity for that beings, and a trap for more stupid mortals. I tend to use that MO with my godbounds 🙂
I was GMing, and the 3rd level party were plundering the fortress of an evil demon cult (This is the cult to the demon lord the bard later oneshotted with a cantrip) when the following exchange happened:
“This room is dark, barely lit by your flickering torches. The walls are carved with various images, which dance strangely in the shadows. At the centre of the room is a large stone altar.”
“An altar!” yelled the barbarian. “It must need blood. I cut myself and drip the blood onto the altar”.
The entire party starts yelling at him, but his mind is set. He does the thing and I have a manifestation of the demon lord appear to chat to them. It does the usual villainous monologging, and then mentions a prophecy predicting the barbarian as the ender of worlds. And then I end in the only way I can. “For your soul, I can grant you power.”
“How much would her soul buy me?” He points to his pet NPC. See, the barbarian had a girlfriend. They rescued her from the cult, and then they’d been happily together ever since. Again, the entire party starts yelling at him. I cut this short by having the girlfriend sprint out of the room. NPCs gotta do what NPCs gotta do. The player eventually decided not to take the deal, threatened the demon lord, and then went to chase the girlfriend.
The same player has a habit of stupid decisions. Perhaps his greatest in game moment was during a Starfinder campaign, when the party was investigating an abandoned research centre. They discovered that the centre had found the corpse of an elder god the size of the planet and had taken a sample. Somebody got contaminated by the sample, developed godlike powers, and then went insane and tried to kill everyone. The first thing he does when the party gets their hands on a sample?
“I eat it”.
So next session I passed him a note, which had a list of powerups he gained along with, in underlined capital letters, “In the following scenarios, you roll a DC 20 will save or I get complete control of your character for 1d4 minutes. During this time I will use every ability you have at your disposal to murder the rest of the party.” The scenarios included stuff like taking too much damage at combat, being exposed to hard vacuum, and a couple others. The player, too pleased by his powerups, proceeds to ignore this text and start bragging about his new abilities to the party. Cue hilarity when he took too much damage next combat.
He eventually started trying to turn it into a suicide bomber, once he realized that his psychopath form was stronger than he was. I do give him credit, he was tenacious about trying to set it up so he gets his enemies. It also played a major role into the conclusion of the campaign, which was the most severely epic boss fight I’ve ever ran. It spanned a solar system and involved a demon lord, a Lovecraftian elder god the size of a planet, an entire fleet of enemy warships, a capital ship the party turned into a deathstar, no less than 3 gods, and several planet sized explosions. They were level 7.
Well now I’ve got to know. What would have happened if he’d taken the deal? No doubt you had some clever plot in mind.
Level 8 is gonna be a son of a bitch.
Honestly, the entire monologue was improvised. I wasn’t expecting him to be dumb enough to try to manifest the demon lord they were scheming against. I figured that it was typical to offer such a thing and (stupid, I know) didn’t think he’d go for it. And if he did, it’d give me some interesting plot material at some point in the future and that I at least had until next session to come up with something good. So I didn’t have a clever plot in mind.
I think what I would’ve done is some variation on his soul being forcefully removed and then given a body of it’s own, whereupon it would join the villain’s team. Few things are more annoying to the PCs than an identical version of themselves that’s better in every way. Or maybe I’d have the demon lord go for an unconditional favour of some sort. There’s a lot you can do with one of those, especially during climactic boss battles.
And as for the powers? It was a shadow demon. Probably some spell like abilities (invisibility, shadow conjuration, maybe some kind of shadow teleport), a minor strength bump, or a pet shadow. Actually, a pet shadow could’ve been cool.
Actually scratch all of the above. The obvious solution which just hit me now is to have the demon lord give him an artifact weapon. See, the plot centred around an artifact knife which the demon lord really wanted to be carried back to the material plane and then used to kill enough people to activate the ritual that would conjure him. If I’d just straight up given the player the knife instead of the sneaky way I actually did, it could’ve been interesting.
During the aforementioned Starfinder campaign, I did actually get this players soul at one point and didn’t even have to give him anything. He had the gall to waltz into the realm of a fey lord, and then freely eat the offered food. Even after the rest of the party warned him that I liked the whole ‘Eat the food, stay forever’ myth, and that he really really shouldn’t. Even after the appropriate knowledge checks were rolled and I confirmed that eating the food could be very problematic.
I’m so happy to hear you tried out Blades. I hope you had a good time of it.
As for devil’s bargains…. well in a 3.5 game a character of mine wound up learning about the Wall of Souls and their response to that was to immediately find a god to worship. But they weren’t a particularly worship inclined character. So they went with the only kind of choice that fit them…. Vecna. Oddly nothing really ever went wrong there, despite being a supposedly heroic side character who wound up as a Vecna worshiper with an evil minion and the powerful evil magical sword that wielded said minion (because the sword was so much stronger than the minion). Of course when they died there probably would have been consequences (though still better than Wall of Souls consequences)…. if they hadn’t managed to by hook/crook/adventuring Divine Rank 0 and place themselves on the path to godhood. Because really, given her options that was about the only way to get out of the whole “your afterlife is going to suuuuuuuuuuck” situation she’d gotten herself into.
As far as Devil’s Bargains in Blades…. the most alarming one I took was that in the middle of a score that was supposed to be “a milk run” (ie we knew it wasn’t going to be just because it was described that way and we were all genre savvy players) where we’d already encountered a larger group of smugglers trying to stop us, a gang they were allied with disguised as Blue Coats, and would almost certainly (and later did) encounter real Blue Coats…. I took a Devil’s Bargain that the bounty hunter trying to track down my ex-corsair character would notice them.
To my surprise nothing immediately came of that…. though I’m guessing it’s because they didn’t want to enter the gunfight that was occurring at the time and they assumed the Blue Coats were going to do exactly what they did and discover our secret compartments in our shipping crates and thus didn’t need to step in.
(Though there was an amusing twist here. We’d just been used as a distraction and our “crates of eels” with false bottoms….were in fact just filled with more eels. So we were just as surprised as the Blue Coats to not be arrested.)
Of course that’s probably pretty tame as far as Devil’s Bargains go. I just haven’t gotten to play as much of Blades as I’d like and my games keep dying early. =(
I’m playing with the other 4 people in my PhD cohort. It’s taken an entire semester to set up session 1. Fingers crossed we’ll get a bit of downtime next year for session 2. Also =(
Is there a reason that people don’t know theological consequences in-game? I mean, are the gods purposefully keeping lore about the Wall of Souls under wraps? Or do people on the prime material plane simply treat it as superstition?
I recall wondering that at the time too.
I guess the gods all decided that they wanted to punish evil people who didn’t worship a deity and built the Wall, but then realized nobody would wind up using it if they told people it existed? =P
I hope we get to keep FemWizard! Makes the party half and half, and LGBT groups are typically underrepresented in TTRPGs. As for Faustian bargains, I’ve yet to be offered one, but as a DM, I love giving them to my players. Oddly, every player has accepted every offer to them, even from the known BBEG. They have yet to face consequences for it, so that’s my fault- I like to have my villains hold aces until needed OoTS-style.
No promises. Suffice it to say that preliminary discussions are underway.
The REAL question is – would Rogue approve?
DRAMA AND STUFF!
I mean hey, hey. If the disguise wears off and Wizard is still in the same dress I’m totally down. I’m getting some strong Gerudo Link vives here.
I was in a Changleling: The Lost game where my character making a deal with aTrue Fae was both the initial problem of the first arc and said arc’s conclusion. Turns out my character’s love interest got trapped in a fae machine, and the only way to free her was to offer a replacement.
So he did. And it was a baby.
Said baby was then rapidly aged and transformed into a new True Fae, the four leaders od our changeling society and their seconds in command also became True Fae, and the base of operations that the town’s changelings relied on was lost.
Yeah. The final scene of the act was my character’s execution at the hands of the party. Overall pretty satisfying.
If you’re going to betray the party, I think this is a solid way to do it. Your evil schemes have already happened, their effects are irreversible, and the character dies with a Pyrrhic victory. It’s a nice alternative to, “I escape and become a recurring villain NPC.”
In general, I don’t get many of those deals anymore, because I’m too eager to take them. And they’re not always for me.
Got one friend at the table a set of legendary weapons — as well as a demonic shadow-cat that’s literally trying to kill him. Stopped an insane psychotic serial killer who’s now our bestest friend ever — and wouldn’t it be funny to see the look on your face if she killed this little girl right in front of you? In another world: Who feels like plugging their brain into this ancient computer that interfaces directly with the minds of 100-million-year-old cosmic entities? Me!
There was another time where I was an alchemist in a game of Lace and Steel. We were in the middle of a horrible fight, and were probably all going to die, over this set of arcane potions that were supposedly the key to immortality. So a friend just ups and says, “OK, I drink them.” What? “You. Alchemist. Tell me which ones I need to drink, in which order.” I made the knowledge check, and she had to basically roll 12 on 2d6 three times in a row (Constitution check per vial). And made it.
Then the less-than-bright player of the group jumped in and was all, “Let me do it too!” We managed to time-lock his body before it completed the transition to literal bomb, and was from then on used as a space heater in my lab.
When you say “demonic shadow cat,” I’m sure ou mean a giant death tiger. I’m imagining a passive aggressive house cat though, trying to trip him at the top of the stairs.
Just for the record, I’m literally writing a book (maybe 2 or 3, it isn’t a short story) about how…you know what, I’m just gonna post the prologue for you guys.
Time slowed perceptibly for me as I watched my chest get impaled on a great hooked tusk. The beast behind it looked me in the eye and shook its head, pulling ribs apart as it flung me against a rough granite wall. I attempted to catch myself on my hands as I collapsed to the floor, but only succeeded in breaking a wrist, adding insult to an already lethal injury. In the dim torchlight, I could see the creature turn away from me to charge down Savrah, who seemed to have attracted its attention away from me with a crossbow bolt. A kind gesture, I suppose. Useless, unfortunately, as it destroyed her chances of escaping herself. For all intents and purposes, I was already a corpse.
As Savrah ran for her life, an entity shimmered in the darkness just beyond the reach of the torch that sputtered on the floor. Of course it would appear here, at the moment of greatest leverage. Its timing was perfect, and I reached a hand out to beckon it. Though nothing but a silhouette, I could feel the smug amusement radiating off of it like an irritating odor.
“I see you have come to me this time. I can’t help but notice that you’re finding my terms more acceptable in your hour of peril.” The entity chuckled, heavy reverberations filling the cavern. The beast was caught up in its chase and did not seem to hear. Perhaps that, or I was the only one capable of hearing this voice in the first place. “Did you finally find something more worthwhile than denying me my path of ascension?”
“Spare me your mocking, Ghileade. You know I’m out of options besides you.” My voice was surprisingly clear for a man with so little lung remaining. I felt it was possible that I was talking spirit to spirit. At least, it wasn’t possible to tell whether I was still ‘alive’ in the strictest sense after so much damage to my chest, but just the same, I would grasp at what chances I had.
“Go and take what space you need, but I will not surrender my will to you, not a grain, not even a casual thought. You are a Rider, a passenger. NOT the driver.”
“I asked for nothing else in the first place. I look forward to our cooperation, little Adept.” Sharp laughter arose from the depths of its being as the creature known as Ghileade lunged forward and interred itself within my soul. Where its shadow passed, I felt my organs knit and my magics revive. I took a breath with my renewed lungs and stood, shakily, back pressed to the wall for support. My shirt was soaked in crimson and my hands left bloody prints on the granite, but those were all merely details.
I did rise in time to see the great beast slam its massive bulk into my friend, who dropped to the ground just as I had a moment ago. I was certain she had no life saving contingencies of her own. Ghileade, sensing my thoughts, laughed at me for my notion that he was ever ‘Plan B.’ I had no choice but to ignore it as I intoned my sepulchral syllables, trying to outpace the bared teeth of the corrupted creature. The animal was stooped to sink them into Savrah’s throat when the chant finished and my hands filled with the familiar astringent tang of arcane acid. I took another breath and shouted.
“Our fight is not yet finished, swine!”
The beast turned as a bead of sweat dripped into my eye. My virulent green acid bolts launched from outstretched hands.
This is followed by the consequences for at least a book’s worth of time. We’re getting there.
Well that’s some delicious genre fiction! I’m getting kind of a Venom vibe here.
Do boats generally eat meat though? You mentioned a bite in there…?
Well, you know how last week I mentioned my beloved Goddess of Paradoxes? I have a Warlock character that worships her in a 5E game, and came face-to-face with her while doing some dimensional travel. Said goddess was supposedly locked in the room for time-out by the rest of the gods (who, correctly, view her as something like an annoying little sister), and she asked to be let out.
My character immediately set about attempting this, but the rest of the party dragged my character out of the room to stop them from doing so. (Later, they left my character alone in the same place… and after trolling them for a bit, my character went and freed what was basically Fenrir to help fight a demon invasion in the local city. Fun times all around.)
Of note, the goddess’ hair (which can morph around and sprout eyes, mouths, etc.) has manifested in my Warlock’s Eldritch Blast throughout the campaign. It’s entirely possible that she’s not really trapped and is just going along with it because it’s funny. 8D Also, there are various copies of my character chilling out in the goddess’ room. No explanation has ever been provided, and even I’m not sure if the character I’m actually playing is the character I started with.
The GM admitted that if the goddess in question got to do things, a lot of people would go insane. So… helping them out isn’t the safe option, but it’s definitely the impactful one. XD
Goddess of paradoxes? Trapped in an enclosed space? She wouldn’t happen to be cat-themed, would she?
Only a little bit, in the sense of “easily distracted by shiny objects tossed over her head and laser pointers”. XD Being everything and nothing at the same time (while using it as an excuse to do whatever she wants) is sort of her thing. I’d say she’s more of a puppy than a cat, though, because she mostly just wants attention. She has no particular desire to do anything with that attention, she just wants it and will annoy you until she gets it.
Here’s the full profile if you want to read it: https://paizo.com/people/YidhraGoddessOfParadoxes
The closest thing I’ve done to a “Deal with the devil” was when I agreed to let a Lich telepork us because we were on a time-sensitive mission on which the fate of the world hangs, and the Lich severely outclassed us. Didn’t stop my Paladin from acting like a petulant child who flipped over as much furniture as possible beforehand.
Is “telepork” in the transmutation or conjuration school?