Devil’s Night
That excuse is weak sauce, Antipaladin! Everyone knows that hair washing is impossible for fire genasi. Of course, if the fate of the world is on the line, you’ve got to go with whatever justification springs to mind.
This year’s Halloween comic comes courtesy of our latest Patreon poll. When we asked our Quest Givers to choose the form of the destructor, Antipaladin’s Boss was a hands-down winner. Unfortunately for the being which lurks beyond Patches the Unkicked’s fragile doggy psyche, employee relations seem a bit strained.
You see, when you’re evil, you’ll every so often be called upon to do the VERY BAD THING. And when that VERY BAD THING involves bringing about the apocalypse, you’ve got some serious character choices to make. Whether you’re a death knight, an antipaladin, or a stark-raving Cthulhu cultist, chances are that you’re serving more than one master. And no, I’m not talking about the murderer’s row of dark deities clogging up the pantheon.
Like we discussed way back in “Puppy Kicking,” evil characters are allowed to have complex motivations. Perhaps you want the satisfaction of personal revenge before the world blows up. Maybe you’ve got loved ones. There might be promises of wealth and power and easy living on the Cayman Islands. But if you’ve got anything at all in your backstory beyond “I am a devoted servant of the dark powers,” then pulling the trigger on Armageddon should give you pause.
That is in part because the end of the world usually means the end of the campaign. Unless you’re down for some kind of wacky alternate reality reboot, following this particular it’s-what-my-character-would-do rabbit down its rabbit hole doesn’t lead to Wonderland. It’s leads to the awful, black abyss of an ended campaign.
So in honor of the day after Halloween, what do you say we talk about those moments of apocalypse narrowly-averted? When did your group almost destroy the world? How did you avert disaster? Tell us all about your latest brush with Devil’s Night down in the comments!
ADD SOME NSFW TO YOUR FANTASY! If you’ve ever been curious about that Handbook of Erotic Fantasy banner down at the bottom of the page, then you should check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. Twice a month you’ll get to see what the Handbook cast get up to when the lights go out. Adults only, 18+ years of age, etc. etc.
Well, there was the time that the players decided to ignore the nobles plotting to start a war between an army of chromatic dragons and… just about everybody else. This wasn’t world ending; however, a few months later, the players heard about the draconic war and decided to go do something about that, which lead to them abandoning the current adventure, which would have lead to them discovering the cult of destroy-the-world. Eventually, the players got wind of a villain in the last stages of his evil scheme, and stopped him with a few rounds to spare. (And with no knowledge of what he was actually trying to do, since they had spent the campaign fighting some other villain)
Thousdand Dooms? Sounds like Thousand Dooms issues.
https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/exalted-was-the-thousand-dooms-a-bad-idea.609824/
That really is the problem with running a world-ending plot. For maximum tension, you want to have the villain get defeated in the last stage of their plot; but of course, if you want the villain to come close to succeeding, they actually have a chance to, well, succeed. The party suffering a TPK is one things; sure, it sucks, but it happens. But when the party spends to much time focusing on the boss, and forgets about the ritual the minions are performing? That can of end, when you have most of your hit points but lose anyway, that can be hard.
Yeah… I think that might be EXACTLY the time when you go for alternate-reality shenanigans. That’s how Avengers did it, you know?
It’s always an odd thing. I’m running a campaign where the players are trying to end the world as they know it, but it’s not a good vs evil campaign, it’s more law / order vs chaos.
So far they players are enjoying themselves, and are out to destroy the world ‘because it’s the right thing to do, damn it’. Honestly I’m enjoying it because on the GM side there’s very few things you can do campaign wise for high level characters, and I don’t even have to pretend to be apprehensive about pulling out the weird, strange, or just wrong monsters from the bestiaries or DMG.
A groundhog day or time travel plot can fix this! The heroes fail, but are given another chance to fix or retcon the consequences completely. Think Avengers Infinity Wars, or The Aventure Zone’s “eleventh hour” arc.
The lady is of course Sorcerers dear beloved Grandmother
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/family-ties
Indeed! Glad at this point they said ‘Anyone’ who can identify her, and not just the first!
Whoa whoa whoa… Blatant case of RAW vs RAI. I mean, if it wasn’t just the first person, then anybody could comment an arbitrary number of times for arbitrary x 50 DKP. That’s obviously absurd.
…
*furiously scribbles errata*
+50 DKP!
Hold on, DKP? As in Dragon Killing Points? I haven’t heard that in forever. Now you’re making me feel old.
Hey man, classic has been out since August. The old ways are new again.
Only this time around you need to wear a porkpie hat, skinny jeans, and drink PBR with your game.
Not only Sorcerer’s grandmother, but Thief’s… Aunt? Of some description? I dunno, I’ve never been real clear on extended family vocabulary that gets much beyond “cousin”.
That’s how I remembered that relation too. So at least if you’re wrong, you’re not wrong alone. =P
And with this you have nailed the most important part of playing an Evil character. Why would your evil character want to destroy the world when he lives there? It makes no sense. I once built an Abyssal Exalted for a game who was Chosen by the Mask of Winters because she had semi-successfully ran a rebellion in Thorns under his nose for years and gotten within a hairs breath of actually hurting him as a mortal. If he hadn’t have made a deal with the fae who provided me the arrow, the plan would have worked. And so rather than let that talent go to waste, he recruited me. The catch, I had no Liege and almost zero support from him because I still very actively wanted to murder him. But as a Mad Ghost who is literally looking for something to keep him interested, this was right up his alley. The GM was really looking forward to it before he had to move.
And unfortunately, I have no tales of ALMOST destroying the world. I have plenty where a PC decided to do something, failed and it turned out with this spectacular blowback that I did not actually plan on and ended up ruining everything. My focus on more personal plots for villains and heroes means that the world is rarely on the hook on purpose.
As far as Antipaladin’s particular motivations, note that Patches the Unkicked lives there too.
And that’s super important until he transformed into his alternate, darker, edgier form. Patches the Kicked is a true sign of the apocalypse, the harbringer of doom, the gnawer of the Tapestry of Life, Nibbler of the Good’s Toes…
World Annihilation is usually why it’s hard for evil to team up with one another. Not just because of methodological differences like “wants to bath the world in hellfire” or “cause the hubris of man to wipe out civilization”, but basic goals conflicting with one another to the point that even if you consider their evil to be more akin to a competition, there will inevitable be sabotage in order to waylay each other’s success, which will create resentment.
More to the point there was only one time where my party was of morally dubious and in a position to shape the world, and it basically boiled down to whether or not we try to stave off Rangarok (it is going to happen, just not now, and it may happen again within our life time) or try and do some damage control during it. We choose the latter since it was hell just to get to this point, and knowing that it could happen again we did y want to risk allowing a worse apocalypse happening.
So essentially what occurred is that we managed to save like 1/3 of the world, most of it we knew, but the other 2/3 of the world was reduced to ruins. Our characters became something akin to gods as we scrambled to prepare how to deal with the aftermath of our actions and that’s where the campaign ended. Next campaign was us as adventurers now exploring these lands wiped down by the global catastrophe with our old characters as potential patrons and deities to guide us. Mainly for their own interests.
I’ve always dug the whole notion of, “What comes after Ragnarok?” What sliver of the world (or the gods?) survives? But now that I think about it, I don’t know that I’ve ever actually encountered a post-apocalyptic viking setting.
Unfortunately we didn’t figure out too much either due to scheduling conflicts ending the game, but honestly? Didn’t feel too different from your usual fantasy verse. It reminded me a lot of Skyrim.
Frankly the world has already gone through a global catastrophe before, some worse than others. That’s why adventuring is still legitimate work and why we can still discover these lost civilizations that once help technology once lost from our people. I feel that the real difference is meta: as players we KNOW what the old world was like, and living in a future that is hundreds of years later but not only still nearly the same, but arguably REGRESSED due to the destruction, certainly frustrated us. Helps that we were also gods who probably felt the same.
It certainly gave me a sort of insight into the “arrogant immortal who thought his old days were better” when you sorta get to live as said person. Now, my character was pretty mercenary, protected caravans and robbed them depending on who’s paying more, but he always looked ahead towards the future. He, and by extension me, was pretty annoyed that we’re stuck doing the same shit living the same lives hundreds of years after all of our hard work trying to save the world. And yeah, there are ways to make the world better, but it bothered me that it hasn’t already happened in the hundreds of years after my team tried to save the world.
Maybe that’s also why the gods aren’t too interested in mortal lives when they don’t choose to do anything with the blessings we give them.
What about God of War 3? Technically it’s Greece that had the apocalypse, but…
So apparently Sorcerer’s granny, Thief Rogue’s fiendish influence (Fun fact: Most Tieflings aren’t necessarily the result of xenophillic boning. Rather they’re spawned by the bloodline of someone who made a pact with a fiend. The conditions also need to be right. Humans many generations down the line can have Tiefling children, and Tieflings can have Human children. It can be something like “Every daughter born 7 generations from now”, or just be completely random.) and AP’s boss are all one and the same. Anyone else affiliated with “Not-Lolth”?
http://cdn-webimages.wimages.net/04fac5a6990cd73920879b2f8340e1dae4ba6a-wm.jpg?v=3
If bet money that it’s going to turn out Mr. Stabby is also Not-Lolth’s sword back in her “Hellknight” phase, having discarded it when she felt that being a demon warrior who wanted nothing but blood and violence was getting kind old and boring.
*takes notes*
All the plots and backstories of every handbook character eventually point to Antipaladin’s boss. All of them!
https://ih0.redbubble.net/image.323268563.7449/flat,750x,075,f-pad,750×1000,f8f8f8.u2.jpg
I get the feeling things will get awkward for Antialadin’s Boss (AB, or Abby to close friends) when Antipaladin and Sorcerer both end up invoking their ‘patron’ (matron?) in a mutual duel.
Especially if Antipaladin’s duties involve those fit for a different handbook.
Also, this comic (and the Family Ties one – gief DKP plz) reminds me of a certain crap guide.
https://youtu.be/9mvTgXPHlvo?t=132
Well then. I’ll just slide that into my “comics in need of writing” file.
So, what are the odds that Patches the Unkicked develops into a class like Vigilante did? Or develops powers? Channeling the infernal is probably bad for his status quo.
Heh. Patches would make a pretty good BBEG for Scabby and Skitters.
It’s a matter of perspective! Patches probably thinks he’s doing the equivalent of a ‘slay vermin/rodents in basement’ quest for his master. Or playing with new friends/toys! Because he’s a good boy. A Big Good Goodly Boy.
And the other side of the perspective coin, Scabby and Skitters are facing a Dark Souls boss.
This is kind of why I have difficulty understanding devil and demon worshipers. I feel like it should be pretty obvious pretty quickly that evil gods are not in your interest. Especially if the evil afterlife is definitely a thing. Especially if capital-letter Good and Evil are a thing. In Pathfinder, for example, the reward for being a good devil-worshiper is… you go to Hell? And get to be a tormented soul that maybe, MAYBE eventually becomes a regular devil? Not a great incentive structure. (Though, I guess if being Lawful Evil sends you to Hell anyways, it might be good to get some references… though trying to get up to Lawful Neutral feels easier and less likely to get you stabbed by roving adventurers.)
This applies to other media as well. Fire Emblem Awakening, for example (don’t know about the others) has followers of Grima, the dark dragon who wants to destroy the world and wipe out humanity. Why these geniuses think they are going to benefit from this is beyond me.
It seems like a more fitting system would be for the .1% most evil people to go straight to being fiends, with the handful of people evil enough to shake an entire setting getting to start out as greater fiends as soon as they die. This would result in those evil mortals who actually think about the afterlife being in a competition to do as much evil as possible in the time they have available.
The fiendish codex has a pretty great explanation for the afterlife part (the following is paraphrased). It first states that most people don’t have accurate information about the afterlife. While it is true that plane shifting, divination magic etc. would have revealed to sages the processes of the afterlife, it’s unlikely that such knowledge would be available to the layperson. While the concept of Hell and damnation would be widespread thanks to religion, many devil-worshippers believe that their relationship will exempt them from torturous treatment. Even if one is fully aware that they will become a devil after death, they are likely arrogant enough to believe that they will quickly zoom to pit fiend status.
Of course, even with afterlife aside, it still doesn’t really explain why people join cults. Having to worship in hiding, asking boons from purely selfish beings… it doesn’t make sense. The cult of elemental evil is especially confusing. For one, it actually has the word evil in the name, which seems like bad PR. And why anyone would choose to worship an evil rock trying to destroy the world you live on is beyond me.
Most cults are secretive or vicious enough that you don’t know they’re evil until you’re already stuck as a member and unable to escape it – or are high enough rank that by the time you learn the truth, you’re already part of the problem. Real life examples are the Aum Shinrikyo cult, Scientology and Jonestown.
Many even seem benign at first, luring the vulnerable and unknowledgeable with false promises and slowly indoctrinating them after separating them from friends and family. And nobody likes to admit they’re fooled or were plain wrong for potentially years of their life in the cult.
A fantasy fiendish cult can use the same RL tactics and be further aided by magic (disguises, geas spells, rituals, domination, charming, brainwashing…)
Most such worshippers hope to either escape damnation by gaining immortality/lichdom, turning into devils/fiends via rituals before they die (so that it’s an eternal promotion , or are in it for the short term life of endless luxury at no effort at the cost of a soul. Or to have their service rewarded by their patrons directly if they’re devout enough, possibly raising them from the dead if they’re particularly useful. Or they think themselves capable enough to avoid fiendish hands indefinitely – e.g. binding fiends, or finding your infernal contract and destroying it when you become powerful enough.
And I think this is why my one use of Evil Cult in something I actually wrote myself was lead by the Cult Leader Archetype of the Pathfinder Mesmerist. Lots of charm and Charisma, very little actual religious substance to the beliefs.
That is Sorcerer’s Hot-Granny:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/family-ties
And just the other day we got a goblin, the one on the left:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/inattentive-guards
Who is fairly similar to our favorite nipple-showing-face-shirt-goblin:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/spare-parts
Am i right? Say yes, please, i like continuity porn 😛
Don’t forget the masked goblins in the ‘transformation sequence’ comic featuring Vigilante.
The one on the left looks like the one on the left but i am not sure they are the same. To distinguish Goblins i use the same system than for Humans, i look if they got a similar hairstyle, if it is then probably are the same, if not i keep looking until i see a similar hair-cut. Still good catching i have forgotten that comic…
Is this one, right?
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/waiting-your-turn
I ask just to be sure 🙂
Yep, that’s the one.
I’ve never played an evil character whose motives were anything close to “destroy the world” and none of my very few evil campaigns ever got past a first session sadly.
I see you destroyed the world too quickly. That’s the thing: You need to go for the slow burn. 😛
It was cool meeting you at the con today. Hope you have plenty of ideas to draw comics in the future. 🙂
Cheers! Awesome to have a face with a (user)name. 😀
😀
So this is something I don’t get, and maybe it’s because I’ve been meta playing a Demon Lord for some years as a GM (which has forced me to think about what makes them “evil,” what their motivations are, etc). And I don’t get it on a couple levels, but I think the biggest one is what motivation do evil characters have to destroy the world?
Despoil it, sure. Pillage it? Absolutely. But destroy? Like, we live there too, or at least in an adjacent alternate dimension. If we destroy the world that generates all those souls we’re trying to tempt, twist, con, and steal, we have to find an entirely NEW source of souls, and really, that just sounds like too much work…
I’m no setting expert, but I suspect that hastening the end of all things also hastens the Final Battle, in which evil will triumph because good is dumb.
In other words, I think it’s setting-specific.