So i need some suggestions on what one might have to offer divine/infernal beings, in order to remember (or NOT remember) how you died. I thinking a super traumatic/ grandiose death, that either wiped your memory... or a traumatic death, so bad, that you offered something to NOT remember the specifics. Like all you know is that you died, and that this entity brought you back.
It would depend a lot on the being, but serving it would probably be a good start. Sounds like the making of a warlock pact, actually. If not that, then maybe just something open-ended. You owe the being a favor, who knows when they will call it in. Like The Godfather. Leaving yourself some wiggle room in the story is always nice.
I agree that it would depend on the being but if you want to take throw in an interesting stake, have the player petition an abberation instead of the divine entity that brought it back. Perhaps the death of the PC was so traumatic that the player seeks out, or is approached by, an abberant entity like a Mind Flayer or an Aboleth, who covets those visceral memories. In exchange to have their memory wiped, or even altered to remove trauma, the PC might need to trade the brain of another humanoid. A situation like this could spice things up in the game and then open the gateway to potential madness as a result of failing the exchange or trying to cheat the bargain.
The cost depends on the entity and their goals but I can give some rough examples
Angel of healing - may off help freely but not in a way that completely resolves the problem for you ( that would be too easy)
You must prove yourself worthy of seeing the angel or getting their assistance by completing a quest
Confronting your own trauma or learning to live with it
Offering temporary relief
Offering relief but you must follow certain rules like an oath or avoiding certain triggers
Fiend of corruption - will off help in return for creating evil
Putting the painful memory on to some one else
Manifesting the pain as a monster
Committing an evil act like stealing magical power from a good creature or killing some one and giving the fiend it's soul
Possession
the neutral witch - Magic often operate by principles like sympathy and equivalent exchange. A practitioner for the cost of gold, information or a magic item might perform magic on your behalf but it comes with an additional cost tied to the broader rules of magic.
Completely erasing something associated with the pain like the memories of a friend
Over doing it like losing the ability to feel pain at all or losing too many memories
Manifesting the pain as a monster
putting the pain on some one else
Having to follow some oath, ritual or rule to prevent it coming back
temporary relief like constantly having to come back for a potion, maybe an addictive one.
The unknowable - sometimes we meddle with forces beyond our comprehension
Unleashing some kind of monster, curse or disease
madness like instead enjoying the pain
Losing your humanity for example by becoming a being the feeds off others or mutating
The costs may not necessarily be apparent when they are requested. For example you may be asked to sacrifice something vague like " what you love most" or be asked for a trinket like a child hood toy that then becomes cursed. These are also just rough categories of entities that might grant wishes, an unknowable, fiend or witch could all be demonic for example but a witch could also be a fey, human spell caster or some kind of mad scientist. Similarly you could mix and match ideas like maybe the addictive potion requires feeding off others because it contains human blood or flesh.
The cost depends on the entity and their goals but I can give some rough examples
Angel of healing - may off help freely but not in a way that completely resolves the problem for you ( that would be too easy)
You must prove yourself worthy of seeing the angel or getting their assistance by completing a quest
Confronting your own trauma or learning to live with it
Offering temporary relief
Offering relief but you must follow certain rules like an oath or avoiding certain triggers
Fiend of corruption - will off help in return for creating evil
Putting the painful memory on to some one else
Manifesting the pain as a monster
Committing an evil act like stealing magical power from a good creature or killing some one and giving the fiend it's soul
Possession
the neutral witch - Magic often operate by principles like sympathy and equivalent exchange. A practitioner for the cost of gold, information or a magic item might perform magic on your behalf but it comes with an additional cost tied to the broader rules of magic.
Completely erasing something associated with the pain like the memories of a friend
Over doing it like losing the ability to feel pain at all or losing too many memories
Manifesting the pain as a monster
putting the pain on some one else
Having to follow some oath, ritual or rule to prevent it coming back
temporary relief like constantly having to come back for a potion, maybe an addictive one.
The unknowable - sometimes we meddle with forces beyond our comprehension
Unleashing some kind of monster, curse or disease
madness like instead enjoying the pain
Losing your humanity for example by becoming a being the feeds off others or mutating
The costs may not necessarily be apparent when they are requested. For example you may be asked to sacrifice something vague like " what you love most" or be asked for a trinket like a child hood toy that then becomes cursed. These are also just rough categories of entities that might grant wishes, an unknowable, fiend or witch could all be demonic for example but a witch could also be a fey, human spell caster or some kind of mad scientist. Similarly you could mix and match ideas like maybe the addictive potion requires feeding off others because it contains human blood or flesh.
My current idea is that the person has to give up a bit of their soul/mind each time they are brought back. The person can recover from the trauma, but repeated instances of dying and then being brought back (especially if they happen in short succession) causes the person to become more and more unstable. couple that with the trope of "absolute power, corrupts absolutely" and you end up with a character who deep down wants to do good, but goes about it in the more depraved and evil way possible.
If you're looking for a justification for someone who's at heart good and thinks they are doing good to become evil, then you need to think of the things that perhaps a Fey creature might take from them to bend them to their desired result of an evil, powerful minion.
First they take away the characters fear of death. To them, death is nothing any more, and they carry this thinking over to the death of other creatures as well, not understanding why anyone would fear dying or seek to survive. This also keeps them returning for resurrection, to allow the Fey to keep taking parts of them.
Second, they take their pride. They no longer feel like upholding their morality - the pride of being a good person no longer seems comparable to gold, or power.
Third, they take their Empathy, removing their ability to see the world from the viewpoints of others. They are no longer moved by tales from worried citizens, or lost dragons stolen by evil princesses. They cannot relate to everyone else, pushing them apart from the rest of the world.
Fouth, they take their passions, one by one. They lose interest in anything which does not further the Fey's ambitions.
Fifth, they lose their conscience. Living a passionless, unempathetic and prideless life, they don't even notice their inability to tell good from evil any more.
The cost depends on the entity and their goals but I can give some rough examples
Angel of healing - may off help freely but not in a way that completely resolves the problem for you ( that would be too easy)
You must prove yourself worthy of seeing the angel or getting their assistance by completing a quest
Confronting your own trauma or learning to live with it
Offering temporary relief
Offering relief but you must follow certain rules like an oath or avoiding certain triggers
Fiend of corruption - will off help in return for creating evil
Putting the painful memory on to some one else
Manifesting the pain as a monster
Committing an evil act like stealing magical power from a good creature or killing some one and giving the fiend it's soul
Possession
the neutral witch - Magic often operate by principles like sympathy and equivalent exchange. A practitioner for the cost of gold, information or a magic item might perform magic on your behalf but it comes with an additional cost tied to the broader rules of magic.
Completely erasing something associated with the pain like the memories of a friend
Over doing it like losing the ability to feel pain at all or losing too many memories
Manifesting the pain as a monster
putting the pain on some one else
Having to follow some oath, ritual or rule to prevent it coming back
temporary relief like constantly having to come back for a potion, maybe an addictive one.
The unknowable - sometimes we meddle with forces beyond our comprehension
Unleashing some kind of monster, curse or disease
madness like instead enjoying the pain
Losing your humanity for example by becoming a being the feeds off others or mutating
The costs may not necessarily be apparent when they are requested. For example you may be asked to sacrifice something vague like " what you love most" or be asked for a trinket like a child hood toy that then becomes cursed. These are also just rough categories of entities that might grant wishes, an unknowable, fiend or witch could all be demonic for example but a witch could also be a fey, human spell caster or some kind of mad scientist. Similarly you could mix and match ideas like maybe the addictive potion requires feeding off others because it contains human blood or flesh.
My current idea is that the person has to give up a bit of their soul/mind each time they are brought back. The person can recover from the trauma, but repeated instances of dying and then being brought back (especially if they happen in short succession) causes the person to become more and more unstable. couple that with the trope of "absolute power, corrupts absolutely" and you end up with a character who deep down wants to do good, but goes about it in the more depraved and evil way possible.
Is this for a PC or an NPC?
I ask because while it sounds cool conceptually, and it would be fairly easy for you to pull off with an NPC, I’m not sure how you would encourage/force a PC to do it. Are they making a wisdom save or some other kind of check every time they want to do something? And if they fail, what do they do instead? I’d think that would get both cumbersome and frustrating pretty quickly. Although, you could already have a nice, elegant solution to it, in which case I’m very curious to hear.
My current idea is that the person has to give up a bit of their soul/mind each time they are brought back. The person can recover from the trauma, but repeated instances of dying and then being brought back (especially if they happen in short succession) causes the person to become more and more unstable. couple that with the trope of "absolute power, corrupts absolutely" and you end up with a character who deep down wants to do good, but goes about it in the more depraved and evil way possible.
Is this for a PC or an NPC?
I ask because while it sounds cool conceptually, and it would be fairly easy for you to pull off with an NPC, I’m not sure how you would encourage/force a PC to do it. Are they making a wisdom save or some other kind of check every time they want to do something? And if they fail, what do they do instead? I’d think that would get both cumbersome and frustrating pretty quickly. Although, you could already have a nice, elegant solution to it, in which case I’m very curious to hear.
NPC. It's going to be for one of the Big Bads. Basic idea, is sort of Isekai like; character dies in such a way that the powers that be decide to give him another shot. But this guys luck is BAD, like legendary levels of bad. He keeps dying, and being brought back to life, so often that the mental toll of it has basically broken him. While he still seeks to do good, the methods through which he tries to achieve this; have become so dark that even those he's trying to save/help, want him died and his ashes scattered to the winds.
My current idea is that the person has to give up a bit of their soul/mind each time they are brought back. The person can recover from the trauma, but repeated instances of dying and then being brought back (especially if they happen in short succession) causes the person to become more and more unstable. couple that with the trope of "absolute power, corrupts absolutely" and you end up with a character who deep down wants to do good, but goes about it in the more depraved and evil way possible.
Is this for a PC or an NPC?
I ask because while it sounds cool conceptually, and it would be fairly easy for you to pull off with an NPC, I’m not sure how you would encourage/force a PC to do it. Are they making a wisdom save or some other kind of check every time they want to do something? And if they fail, what do they do instead? I’d think that would get both cumbersome and frustrating pretty quickly. Although, you could already have a nice, elegant solution to it, in which case I’m very curious to hear.
NPC. It's going to be for one of the Big Bads. Basic idea, is sort of Isekai like; character dies in such a way that the powers that be decide to give him another shot. But this guys luck is BAD, like legendary levels of bad. He keeps dying, and being brought back to life, so often that the mental toll of it has basically broken him. While he still seeks to do good, the methods through which he tries to achieve this; have become so dark that even those he's trying to save/help, want him died and his ashes scattered to the winds.
Oh, I see. Yeah, that seems like an interesting backstory for the bad guy. I like how it makes it so the PCs probably wouldn't actually want to kill him, since he'll just come back even further around the bend. So, they probably want to find a way to break the curse, sort of thing.
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So i need some suggestions on what one might have to offer divine/infernal beings, in order to remember (or NOT remember) how you died. I thinking a super traumatic/ grandiose death, that either wiped your memory... or a traumatic death, so bad, that you offered something to NOT remember the specifics. Like all you know is that you died, and that this entity brought you back.
It would depend a lot on the being, but serving it would probably be a good start. Sounds like the making of a warlock pact, actually.
If not that, then maybe just something open-ended. You owe the being a favor, who knows when they will call it in. Like The Godfather. Leaving yourself some wiggle room in the story is always nice.
I agree that it would depend on the being but if you want to take throw in an interesting stake, have the player petition an abberation instead of the divine entity that brought it back. Perhaps the death of the PC was so traumatic that the player seeks out, or is approached by, an abberant entity like a Mind Flayer or an Aboleth, who covets those visceral memories. In exchange to have their memory wiped, or even altered to remove trauma, the PC might need to trade the brain of another humanoid. A situation like this could spice things up in the game and then open the gateway to potential madness as a result of failing the exchange or trying to cheat the bargain.
The cost depends on the entity and their goals but I can give some rough examples
The costs may not necessarily be apparent when they are requested. For example you may be asked to sacrifice something vague like " what you love most" or be asked for a trinket like a child hood toy that then becomes cursed. These are also just rough categories of entities that might grant wishes, an unknowable, fiend or witch could all be demonic for example but a witch could also be a fey, human spell caster or some kind of mad scientist. Similarly you could mix and match ideas like maybe the addictive potion requires feeding off others because it contains human blood or flesh.
My current idea is that the person has to give up a bit of their soul/mind each time they are brought back. The person can recover from the trauma, but repeated instances of dying and then being brought back (especially if they happen in short succession) causes the person to become more and more unstable. couple that with the trope of "absolute power, corrupts absolutely" and you end up with a character who deep down wants to do good, but goes about it in the more depraved and evil way possible.
If you're looking for a justification for someone who's at heart good and thinks they are doing good to become evil, then you need to think of the things that perhaps a Fey creature might take from them to bend them to their desired result of an evil, powerful minion.
First they take away the characters fear of death. To them, death is nothing any more, and they carry this thinking over to the death of other creatures as well, not understanding why anyone would fear dying or seek to survive. This also keeps them returning for resurrection, to allow the Fey to keep taking parts of them.
Second, they take their pride. They no longer feel like upholding their morality - the pride of being a good person no longer seems comparable to gold, or power.
Third, they take their Empathy, removing their ability to see the world from the viewpoints of others. They are no longer moved by tales from worried citizens, or lost dragons stolen by evil princesses. They cannot relate to everyone else, pushing them apart from the rest of the world.
Fouth, they take their passions, one by one. They lose interest in anything which does not further the Fey's ambitions.
Fifth, they lose their conscience. Living a passionless, unempathetic and prideless life, they don't even notice their inability to tell good from evil any more.
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Is this for a PC or an NPC?
I ask because while it sounds cool conceptually, and it would be fairly easy for you to pull off with an NPC, I’m not sure how you would encourage/force a PC to do it. Are they making a wisdom save or some other kind of check every time they want to do something? And if they fail, what do they do instead? I’d think that would get both cumbersome and frustrating pretty quickly. Although, you could already have a nice, elegant solution to it, in which case I’m very curious to hear.
NPC. It's going to be for one of the Big Bads. Basic idea, is sort of Isekai like; character dies in such a way that the powers that be decide to give him another shot. But this guys luck is BAD, like legendary levels of bad. He keeps dying, and being brought back to life, so often that the mental toll of it has basically broken him. While he still seeks to do good, the methods through which he tries to achieve this; have become so dark that even those he's trying to save/help, want him died and his ashes scattered to the winds.
Oh, I see. Yeah, that seems like an interesting backstory for the bad guy. I like how it makes it so the PCs probably wouldn't actually want to kill him, since he'll just come back even further around the bend. So, they probably want to find a way to break the curse, sort of thing.