In my Council of Thieves campaign, I encouraged the paladin in my campaign to worship the Light Bringer aspect of Asmodeus. This made sense to me since everyone in Westcrown must at least pay token respect to Asmodeus. Now his character is beginning to realize that there is more to life than the Lawfulness of Asmodeus. He sees evil in the Church and his sworn Lord and wants to combat it. He has been learning of Iomadae from another player and is considering switching religions.
This character voluntarily took on the Runecurse from the Asmodean Knot. My plan is to have Asmodeus confront him when the Bone Devil appears to kill him and have Asmodeus prevent anyone from helping him as punishment for his infidelity. Asmodeus planned then to take his soul to Hell for torture. Iomadae will then intervene and temporarily turn his sword into a holy outsider bane, if the paladin turns to her. If the paladin survives, he has successfully made the conversion and suffers no further effects. If the bone devil defeats the paladin, I do not want to permanently kill the character; rather I want him to suffer some sort of affliction that does not ruin the character for the player.
First I thought I could have this character live with the knowledge that no matter how devoted he is to Iomadae, he is destined to be dragged to Hell as the lowest form of soul for torture. This does not appear to be damaging enough so I thought he could have some kind of visible runes written on his skin which all officials of the Asmodean church and devils would immediately recognize him as future slave of Asmodeus. It could give negative bonus on charisma-based skill checks.
I am looking for a curse that has some kind of game effect. Something he can play on, yet neither be too debilitating nor too harmless. Perhaps something that would get progressively worse, like sanity loss. Maybe he could slowly turn into a devil form, losing charisma as time goes on. Or any time he drops below 10 hit points he flies into a diabolical rage and attacks the nearest creature.
I need some good ideas!
Thanks!