Unhallowed Rites, Part 5: For Love of Evil
Well I mean, Paladin came on this adventure to save someone. I’d say he’s fulfilling that mission admirably! Of course, his goddess may have other thoughts on the matter.
It certainly has been a whirlwind romance for the gold-plated aasimar and the lady in black. From their unfortunate first date to their bitter enmity to their many romcom shenanigans, Handbook-World’s most star-crossed lovers have put serious energy into making one another’s lives miserable. And yet, their frequent attempts at making up always hinted that something more lay beneath the avowed dislike. Unfortunately, when you’re trying to bridge class divides, a Hollywood ending can seem impossible. Whether or not you can cut that Gordian knot is the stuff campaigns are made of.
For example, do you guys remember that gruff old bear lunar who fell in love with an abyssal? A few details from their romance. Part of the storyline from that Exalted campaign was the source of the bear’s magic. If you want to learn sorcery in Creation, you have to make some kind of sacrifice. That sacrifice might be a monk-like vow of poverty, some literal biblical malarkey, or your own right hand. In the bear’s case, it was his heart. He cast aside his lady love, and spent most of the campaign regretting that decision, falling back in love with the spurned PC session by session.
By the time the campaign was approaching its climax, the poor bear found himself in a serious pickle. He had invested heavily in magic. The character needed all the power he could get since (appropriately enough for this Handbook-arc) he needed to stem the tide of a demon invasion. The surest way to gain that power was entry into the second circle of sorcery, but that required yet another sacrifice.
“F that noise,” said the bear. “I traded love for magic once. I won’t make the same mistake again.”
And so he kissed the girl, lost access to all his sorcery, and sacrificed his most powerful abilities in the party’s hour of direst need.
“I’m pretty much useless mechanically now,” said the player. “It might cost us the campaign, but I can’t justify any other course of… Why are you handing me a sheet of paper? Why does it have the rules for second circle sorcery on it? Why are all the spells the leveled-up versions of the first circle spells that I just lost? I’m not supposed to be able to cast these if I don’t sacrifice something of great…importance… HOLY SHIT!”
I believe he finished the final fight by punching a demon into the sun with his newly summoned warstrider. And so, in honor of all those noble souls who have done the wrong thing for the right reason, tell us about your own sacrifice plays! What has your character given up in the name of honor, love, or duty? Tell us your tales of selflessness and sacrifice down in the comments!
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I love this page, and I love the tale of the bear.
That is all. 🙂
Well, that and: it looks like Antipaladin isn’t the only one who needs to decide where their true loyalties lie. I’m really looking forward to seeing how this arc continues!
Addenda:
Good and Evil aren’t as cut and dry as Paladin and Antipaladin might sometimes wish it were. The goddess did say it was a really subjective – and thus interpretable – thing.
I also can’t help but notice the Party and Anti-Party got into the ceremony in spite of Antipaladin being on watch… Funny, that.
In closing: it’s nice to see the things that made the Anti-Party opposite to the main Party still hold true. Paladin is still a better, more emotionally complete person than Fighter.
Longsleep was a good ol’ bear. 🙂
Now if only I can figure out how to make Fighter do a face turn….
1) You could have someone or something whack him in the face until he does an involuntary pirouette?
2) Bugbears could start greeting him as a kinsman, leading him to realize the golden razor only changed his appearance, but not the fact that he himself is what he considers to be a monster.
3) Or the spirits of his parents could haunt him every year on the anniversary of their murder and … show him unconditional love and forgiveness. They could tell him they know he can be better than he is, and they believe in him. Cleric could refuse to Turn them, and the realization and horror of what he did could slowly start eating away at him.
#1 is obviously the best solution, but #3 feels the most…dramatically satisfying, I guess.
Step #1: have him adopt a kitty.
Step #2: make him sick so he has a long illness-induced dream about his past and his future.
I mean, it worked for Belkar…
Drag! If only the adorable animal companion slot has already been taken!
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/tournament-arc-part-7-8
Every time I’m about to make a sacrifice play, the dice seem to bail me out right when it’s about to happen.
Agents of Edgewatch, our party’s first outing- to calm a trio of escaped dangerous animals- an owlbear, a cockatrice (actually just a VERY angry chicken) and a pair of hyenas. The owlbear was the most dangerous of the lot- our paladin went down first, getting a critical claw across the chest followed by a bite to the neck that put him on the ground. The pair of investigators stepped into flanking, only to get taken down just as quickly. The paladin was stabilized, but we had to drag the investigators clear before the bear finished them off. This left me, the 8 strength, 12 con wizard, and the ranger, who didn’t have a melee weapon, in a 20×20 room with a pissed off owlbear. I sighed, picked up the investigator’s nightstick, and stepped into melee, just barely surviving the owlbear’s attacks long enough for the ranger to weaken it enough to safely knock out.
We’ve had some party changes since then- the ranger and paladin left due to work, and we have a barbarian instead, and a fighter for a while, but school is taking them from us as well. The five of us (The barbarian, the pair of investigators, me, and the fighter) ended up cornered by an Ankou- and things were looking dire. The barbarian was down, the investigators were low, I was under 30 hp, the fighter was doing his best but he was harried by shadow clones and couldn’t hit the ankou, which was flying at the top of the room.
Now would be a pertinent time to mention- I don’t prepare damage spells. At all. I have none on my sheet. But with our only way to harm the ankou (The barbarian who had popped boots of fly to meet it in the air) on the ground, and the investigators doing their best to keep him alive… well, I had no choice. I pulled out a scroll, and Disintegrated the creature. This was… a very difficult thing to do. Until this point in the campaign, we had only dealt nonlethal damage, except to undead and constructs- hell, I’d even fixed some of the constructs we’d had to break. My wizard is a 19 year old bright-eyed cadet who thinks the world can be a better place if we just try… and she had to kill something. Not disable it, not knock it out to wake up in lockup later- that Ankou is dead and gone. Reduced to dust by the disintegrate scroll. Granted, it was Lawful Evil and planning to kill us all, but still- it shook her up to have actually killed something. So while I didn’t sacrifice my life, or lose anything major… a bit of innocence died with it.
Man, what did Pathfinder do with the Ankou?
https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Ankou
Uh. Why even call it “ankou” if it’s not gonna be in any way even remotely similar to what the mythological Ankou is?
What’s next? “You encounter a Godzilla! It’s kind of like a little bunny, with golden fur. Patting its head brings good luck.”
“The past is a foreign country.”
— L.P. Hartley
“Mythology isn’t subject to copyright.”
— Paizo
That’s a tale as old as the hobby. Look at Gygax’s tarrasque, look at the folkloric tarasque, and know truth.
Well, okay, it’s actually much older—dating back at least to the 19th century, and possibly older depending on where you draw the line between folklore and pop culture.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CallAPegasusAHippogriff
Heh. Gygax found out real quick that Lord of the Rings doesn’t count as mythology.
I hope you guys played a hurried game of rock paper scissors before deciding which one would try clubbing an owlbear to death.
Good on ya for challenging yourself. Casters can get out o fhand when they cover literally every vector of attack. By denying one to yourself, you wind up making a more interesting character.
Doubly good on ya for not being a super-strict pacifist. That trope can be just as problematic as the lawful stupid paladin if you let it, deflating all the fun of a fantasy combat game with a constant drum beat of moralizing. Figuring out when and how to break from that role is where the interesting drama comes in.
It ended up being me on the fact that I was out of spells and the ranger was more useful with his bow than I was standing back and doing nothing.
As for the pacifism- it’s not strict pacifism because I prepare indirect damage like buffs to the party, debuffs for the enemy, and summons- but I intentionally avoid blaster spells because, well, I’m a city guard. I really shouldn’t be throwing around explosions and lightning bolts, that’s a lot of collateral damage. If it can’t be single-target, I’m not casting it.
Back when I was writing my own you-guys-are-watchmen adventure….
https://adventureaweek.com/shop/pathfinder/b17-death-taxes/
…I made sure to give my players a “merciful” amulet. It bascially gave the merciful property to all of their attack forms, spells included:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons/magic-weapon-special-abilities/merciful/
But being an evil GM, I made sure to point out that it wouldn’t harm undead, potentially wasting valuable time in a climactic necromancy encounter.
The GM for the game is running with the optional rule included for it of ‘all damage dealt by PCs is assumed to be nonlethal unless the target is immune to nonlethal or the player specifies otherwise’ which, luckily for us, means that we don’t have to do nonlethal to undead and constructs. Even so I’ve taken to repairing constructs we destroy, if I can. So far I have a dig-widget (a little clockwork drone meant to open locks) and an alchemical golem.
“Good on ya for challenging yourself.”
I thought caster without (many) damage spells was the optimal way to do it? Like, I played a caster who almost never did damage, easily contributed a lot to the party. (long-lasting resistances to elemental damages the AP loved… long-lasting immunity to a save-or-die it loved to spam… long-lasting buffs to the martials to let them hit a lot more often and a lot harder…)
A disciple of Treanmonk? Me too. I think you listened too closely though.
Blasting is a secondary role, but not one you should ignore. Dropping a fireball onto 16 ghouls is better than most other options. Not all encounters require it, but sometimes it is the optimal play. And if you are a wizard, the opportunity cost of keeping a blast or two on standby is relatively low.
Oh, I did have a couple damage spells. I should probably explain, we had a sorcerer who specialized in blasting, and a Kineticist, so it would have been redundant of me to blast
My biggest direct-result-of-my-spells damage contributions were disintegrating an enemy wizard (I meant that for a dungeon bypass) and Gating in a high-level Angel with Cleric Spells (we didn’t have a Cleric)
Oh sure. Dealing HP damage is not what you want to be doing especially with that party composition. I just think that having a bid dumb AoE on standby helps.
Remember the hapless wizard from this one?
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/fire-guy
Gaining next-level magic power by sacrificing current-level magic power is so deliciously janky, especially that it only works if you don’t know that it’s going to work
I was super nervous that it would feel like a an imposition when I did it.
“You know all those spells your carefully selected over the course of the campaign? You lose them and get these new ones instead.”
Since it was the penultimate session though, I think it worked out OK. Just enough time to try out the new toys without feeling like it was a different character.
Not something I’d likely do in a campaign, but yes – my characters rarely seem to survive one-shot games, often because they’ve sacrificed themselves to save another party member… or in at least one chaotic case, to exact bloody revenge against another party member.
On that note, Dread (the one with the Jenga tower) is a hugely fun game for one-shots… on at least two occasions, I’ve bowed out of a Dread game by deliberately tipping the tower, sacrificing to give others a better chance.
I always feel like a bit of a jerk when I fail to die in Dread. I think that’s called survivor’s guilt.
I wouldn’t call it survivors guilt… I’d call it a missed opportunity. How often do you get a good chance to go out with a bang (literally or not) without the hangups of losing a long-term character?
OK, I’m actually starting to like Paladin.
No! My carefully cultivated sense of lawful stupid!
Acting out of kindness and compassion in order to help others is a Good act by most reasonable metrics. Effective Paladins tend to Captain Kirk their way through any false-binary choice.
Devotion Paladin might switch Oaths to Redemption.
What’s the neon-teal schmutz on DevoPal’s nose and lower-lip?
I think it’s a reflection of the ritual emitting light, on the left of the frame.
Ah yes, the reverse Farmer Thanos. “I destroyed the stones to use the stones.”
I always have a problem pulling off meaningful sacrifices in-game. I’m too used to Magic: the Gathering, which outright encourages and rewards cheesing the sacrifice as much as possible. It’s the magical equivalent of the old “tie a string to a quarter before putting it in the vending machine” gag.
I find that it’s all about conveying your intent to the GM. If you do this stuff in a vacuum or without foreshadowing, it can come off as arbitrary.
That said, my players certainly didn’t see it coming the last time they pulled this mess:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/phoenix-downs
That was some nice work on the sorcery char’s story. Sometimes things do work out.
Paladin making the call he did here really did surprise me. I feel a little bad that Necromancer internalized the best ‘professional’ ending for Paladin with her is her getting Smote (Smited?) though.
Not that Paladin’s initial redemption attempt back when they started dating was exactly a shining example for the ages.
He’s become a better person, asked himself important questions, and found out what his answer is.
“He’s become a better person”
I feel I must dispute this claim. Objectively speaking, Paladin is choosing here to aid in the ruining of gods alone know how many lives, and incidentally in the destruction of Thief and Wizard’s marriage and very arguably the rape of Thief, in order to satisfy his own feelings. It’s a fascinating character arc and something I’d approve of a player doing, but I really don’t see how it can be called “becoming a better person”.
He’s no longer trying to change Necromancer to fit his personal idea of what she should be, and is no longer hesitating to step up and protect the woman he loves because of the Paladin code.
I call that individual improvement.
Actual footage of me writing Handbook plots:
https://c.tenor.com/ov_A6LpzssAAAAAC/wallace-and-gromit-wallace.gif
Grommit is cool. ^_^
I believe that in this case the past tense of “smite” would be “smitten”!
I just remembered, Thief is already married to Wizard. You’d think that might screw up this ritual wouldn’t it?
And let’s not forget that Sorcerer is her cousin. This is a blasphemous demonic ritual after all.
I bet they’d still fork over thousands of gold for a diamond ring though. As a ‘material component’.
Hmm, I think I know how team BH is paying their Rez bill (because somehow I doubt BBEG or Gestalt would bother actually paying them).
I know when it comes to that kind of big dramatic reveal, I’m a stickler for the dramatic. Being an online GM let’s you better get away with a few things… Coordinating between GM and players has none of those silly notes being passed around. I don’t have to start the session with secret notes planted in each player’s bowl of chocolate rice krispies.
Instead, I get to send people texts that only they see and then get to uncork the contents of by themselves with only the player and myself the wiser that anything at all is different than it was mere moments before.
This has been somewhat controversial with my players. Sometimes I’m holding out a little too long and they start wondering if I’ve forgotten or what have you. But waiting until just the right moment has created some big memorable moments.
Same player as the bear, different campaign. The new PC was a half-orc urban barbarian in a top hat. He worked as a bouncer in Korvosa.
I thought it would be a fun bit of character fluff to give my players some characterful props. I made sure they sat in the correct seats. I did the full Oprah.
https://media.makeameme.org/created/look-under-your-dcd4e146f4.jpg
Player’s response: “A cigar? He doesn’t smoke cigars! He’s a good boy!”
Sometimes the genius plan just doesn’t work out.
My money is on Anti-Paladin disrupting the ritual to save the dog, and then the Paladin and AntiPaladin will class swap (if only temporarally). A twist with a twist.
<_<
Huh, guess I’m not the only person thinking this. It would be convenient though – arguably, they’d be happier with swapped alignments.
So no shit there we were. At our backs was some sort of goo wolf that didn’t seem like such a big deal… the first time we fought it. Now it was about 10x as large, still growing at what seemed like an accelerating rate, and very (maybe even apocalyptically) ravenous. At our front, the magical equivalent of a grey goo scenario: a slowly expanding mass of fog that had turned the lake where we had our first big victory (and the two gods that inhabited it) into a featureless and smooth plain, and started to do the same to me when I stuck a (plate mail encased) foot in.
So we split the party. All but one of us plunged into the catacombs that birthed the goo abomination in hopes of finding something solution to that threat. That one was my character, Jaun “Aegis”, who had already been established as willing to risk any threat to save a life. But as he jogged into the acidic waste, slipping on the treacherously smooth grey surface that used to be a living land, feeling the mist dissolve his armor on the way to his flesh, he suspected that this sacrifice would be his last.
His armor was entirely gone by the time he reached the center of the mist, and a significant amount of his flesh with it. There, in the eye of the storm, he found a domed area free of the killing mist, with a solitary tent inside. Upon entering to search for the artifact that was the source of it, he was attacked and stabbed by the solitary conscript(?) left to guard it. His HP now in the single digits, he was forced to use his sword on the scrawny cultist, slicing his wrist to disarm him, but pausing afterwards to patch him up so the conscript wouldn’t bleed out.
It was here that Jaun’s lack of arcane knowledge caught up with him. Faced with an artifact at the center of the tent (and by extension, the domed safe-zone), he had no idea what it did, or how to safely disarm it. So he took a chance, and smashed it… destroying the safe-zone, and allowing the killing fog to rush in. The hapless conscript began to dissolve immediately, but with his Second Wind, Jaun was able to endure just long enough to realize that the real artifact had been embedded inside the ‘guard’, feeding off his life force to power the mist. He brought his sword down on it once, but the acidic mist had done its work, and the artifact survived while the sword did not. And so with Jaun called upon the last of his reserves (Action Surge), and smashed the weakened artifact beneath his heel, before collapsing to the ground unconscious, the mist continuing to devour him even as it dissipated.
One successful death saving throw and three unsuccessful ones later, Jaun was dead, having done his part to save the day.
This wasn’t actually the end to Jaun’s story, though. See, the rest of the party also succeeded in their task… more or less. They successfully traded oblivion for tyranny, reuniting the apocalyptic wolf with its still imprisoned mind to rebirth an ancient God-King. Pleased at finally being resurrected, and with power to spare even after effortlessly mastering the great spirit of that place, he offered the party three wishes. One of those wishes was for the return to life of their fallen comrade, and so Jaun was reborn, the gaps in his body and mind being filled in with black goo and his friends’ memories of him. Lacking most of his memories, quite literally Fallen from grace (from Scourge Aasimar to Fallen Aasimar) as the holy light he once wielded would no longer tolerate his body, Jaun “Aegis” was nonetheless once more ready to put himself where he belonged: between innocents and the horrors of the world.
Proper evil GMing on that one, forcing a PC with a savior complex to kill a dude.
Do you ever worry that the prevalence of resurrection in this genre cheapens sacrifice moments though?
Actually, all my campaigns tend to be low- to mid-level, so that’s the only proper resurrection I’ve actually been party to. I did cast revivify a couple of times as a cleric in a different campaign, but that’s only one step removed from yoyo healing.
Going into a death knowing you’ll come back would make it not as much of a sacrifice, though. At that point, it’s more the suffering and potentially loss of your stuff (be that gear or negative levels) that are the real cost.
This one has been on my mind lately, so serious question: Is there something special about “permadeath” that makes it more significant than other narrative costs (e.g. negative levels, permanent scars, curses, etc.)?
Well… seems kind of obvious to me. With anything else (scars, permanent dismemberment, negative levels, curses, loss of gear, anything), you can still play that character. The play experience may be much harder or completely different, maybe even enough that you no longer want to continue playing that character, but you at least have the option. And even if you decide to retire the character, he still exists off-screen and could make a cameo again.
With permadeath, though? By definition, permadeath means that that guy is gone. You can’t play him anymore, not in any fashion, and the only impact he can have on the story from that point on is through whatever legacy he may have created.
Is it important that the player feel that sense of permanent loss, or is it more about the narrative tension that arises from a character’s sudden irrevocable absence?
You know shit like this are why I’ve switched to other games. Alingment should just be a guide line, loose and subjective one. I had to argue with my very liberal DM why my Paladin not cracking the slavery ring wasn’t alingment violation, sure it’s not ethical under modern standards but this was a medieval fantasy setting where it was normal and legal. His and my opinion on that are irrelevant. And so after a glorious last stand where many foe fell… don’t listen to that bards alternative view… the reins were taken by a chaotic normal Barbarian who’s first business was to capture humanoid enemies and sell them to the slavers. Moral of the story, good and evilnare subjective even within your narrative, lawful and chaotic depend on the worlds moral standing, and even that can change from kingdom to kingdom.
There’s an argument to be made here. It concerns Roman style slavery, cultural context, and the obligations of paladins to “right all wrongs” or just the ones within their power.
I don’t know if I’d argue that a GM’s opinion about morality in his own fantasy setting is irrelevant though. And I certainly wouldn’t choose to die on the hill of “slavery isn’t evil.”
That’s the thing he used a setting book, sure things can be negotiated but he himself portrayed it as “it is sanctioned by kingdom.”, that’s why I said it’s nornal and leagal. Corect me if I’m wrong but isn’t breaking the law for good a chaotic good thing, not lawful good? The lawful is there for a reason, you want goodie two shoe, look at neutral good, lawful good still has order to maintain and just setting shit ton of slaves free far from their homes is not going to end well for anyone near the event.
Ok, I juat wrote a long ass rant and when reading through I realized I keep explaining the same shit over and over again. so quick note: yes slavery is immoral, now start screaming also at those who kept doing it and/or did not send men and ships to stop it after West Africa squadrons work starting.
You came to the internet to argue about alignment. Here’s your prize. *shrug*
We talked way back when about alignment-as-a-two-way-street:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/mean-girls-part-1-3
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/mean-girls-part-2-3
If two people can’t reconcile creative differences (much less moral outlooks) then it likely is a better option to ‘switch to other games.’
Oh boy, I’m seeing some shaking of the status quo coming up! Is Paladin going to fall from grace for good, to stay with his dubious love? Will Antipaladin save the day and stop the ritual, betraying Demon Queen and taking the first step on the road to a redemption arcs? Will Magus grace the cover of Playsquire to pay her ressurrection bills?
Magus? I mean, what? She’s dead! How could she possibly be a part of this arc? >_>
Man, disguising Magus as Thief with Disguise Person (after secretly rezzing her) would be a pretty cool way for team BH to give BBEG a special ‘screw you’. Prevents the ritual and gives Magus a reason to be tied up!
But how would they afford such expensive restorative magic?
Maybe they found someone with ranks in Perform (ventriloquism)?
Maybe Gunslinger?
At the climax of our Return of the Runelords game, our Cursed bloodline Sorceress intentionally absorbed the Sin Magic of the various Runelords (done via DM cooperation) and then destroyed it, losing all magic and effectively turning into a lvl20 commoner permanently.
She did this mostly so she could rid herself of her bloodline nightmares (shadow plane stuff) and to live a blissful married life with our Witch PC.
Can a lvl 20 commoner still Use Magic Device?
The world. It got destroyed by love. Love is a powerful force and makes people stupid, it makes people do great things. Love is the savior, the destroyer. Love is on the begin of all things and on the end of them 🙂
Za warudo!?
https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AntiqueLastingEstuarinecrocodile-max-1mb.gif
Naw, man. Dude’s name is Dio.
Never saw that and i would prefer to see firefly before lowering myself to do that 😀
I’ve tried to get my players to do that kind of sacrifice a few times; none have really landed.
The only one I remember comes from that time I ran (the middle half of) Rise of the Runelords. The adventure has a devil bound in an ancient dam (long story), who tries to bargain with the PCs for freedom. It managed to convince the PCs to free it in exchange for granting each of them a small wish.
One PC asked to see how his sister (the only relative he didn’t hate) was doing, and I thought, great! He found out she was in danger, the devil offered another contract to save her, and I expected the PC to have some inner conflict about whether or not to make another deal with the devil. But no; the PC was too fatalistic. If she dies, she dies.
Really disappointing, that was.
Ouch. It’s a special kind of pain when a perfect quest hook falls in your lap and the player talks themselves out of it.
This is beautiful, man. sniff
🙂
WTF I’m tearing up reading this comic.
Wait… what’s this warm and fuzzy feeling in my chest? Is that happiness?!?
That must be your alignment shifting. I recommend Tums.
Now, on the one hand, saving Necromancer and protecting the ritual is probably an Evil act.
But on the other hand, attacking Fighter is definitely a good act.
Paladin may not be in as much trouble as he thinks…
XD
Consider that Paladin’s actions might result in the death of Patches the Unkicked.
Nah, there’s no way in Hell that Anti-Paladin will allow that to happen.
FANON ALERT!
All we need is a little time travel, and we’ll know why Antipaladin was always so awful at being evil…
But I mean… We’d have to do some kind of origin story comic for him. That would be wildly out of character. WILDLY, I say!
Me reading the comic:
https://thumbs.gfycat.com/IncredibleSevereFiddlercrab-size_restricted.gif
Me reading the prompt:
I haven’t gotten the chance just yet in our civil war focused campaign. Suffice that my fighter is much more self-aware than Fighter is, and it’s only a matter of time before all that inner turmoil reaches the breaking point and Mr. Prince McBadass here does something drastic involving his former peers in the loyalist nobility.
Well, there’s our Python reference for the session. Now all we need is a LotR quote and we can wrap this one up. 😛
God I want that to actually be his name.
My freedom-fighting, revolutionary rogue was an Odysseus-like character, washing on the shores of the campaign setting from his original setting, separated from his small sect of freedom fighters and his arresting officer (whom was his childhood friend he was in love with). He was a high-spirited, swashbuckling hero in a setting where hope was on the downturn, and his consistent high rolling meant he fit in just fine with his mostly demigodly party despite his plain mortality.
However, his eventual sacrifice would come to help a party member. The party’s druid, who had been forgotten by the world – stolen from memory by one of the campaign’s villains. While sailing around the setting’s archipelago to various islands of adventure, the party came across the dreaded home of the Fates, a coven of extremely powerful hags who saw and manipulated the future. The Fates, who had been unaffected by the worldwide memory loss about the druid’s family, knew exactly how to find them and bring them back – but all the prices they asked for in return were absolutely evil acts to the highest degree.
My rogue wouldn’t stand for this – but the information was important to his party member, and the Fates were too powerful for them to combat anyway. So he volunteered his eyes as a sacrifice instead: the eyes of a peerless archer. He had taken note that the Fates’ asked deeds were all about pain and harming people, and losing his eyes were apparently enough to get their attention. Although he had a chance to trick them, my rogue valued his word and willingly gave his eyes, wearing a blindfold for the rest of the campaign – and suffering penalties on his ranged attacks.
The Fates told the druid about where his family were, and we have since rescued them – as well as my rogue reuniting with his freedom fighters and missing beloved. DM’s given me permission to have a three-session side campaign with said freedom fighters going on a Heist to retrieve their boss’ eyes.
Do noble deeds, get rewarded with solo sessions. This pleases my sense of justice.