On page 178 of the SCAP book, Kaurophon lies about what happened when he tried to take the first test of the Smoking Eye (if the party asks). He says he chose the bebilith and couldn't defeat the creature. In truth, he can't even get to the creature because he has lower planar blood and can't enter the chamber.
Kaurophon will admit to being a half-fiend is asked (What are you?, also page 178) and as soon as the party gets to the proctor's chamber, it's obvious that Kaurophon couldn't have faced the bebilith because he can't enter the chamber. So why the lie?
Kaurophon is reasonably intelligent (14) and he knows that in a couple days the party will discover his lie, so why bother? The only thing I can think of is that it makes the party more wary of his true intentions when they realize he wasn't truthful. But most groups at this point, I think, will be highly suspicious of him regardless of his help.
I also have a problem with it being an evil act to toss Kaurophon in the plasma once his true intentions are clear. I don't understand how it's OK to kill him in combat, but not toss him in the pillar of plasma.
Finally, I don't understand how he or the party can be considered allies once the battle starts. They were once allies, now they're enemies.
Any clarification would be sweet...
|
"Ally" as far as Adimarchus seemed to define it was a creature that was helpful to the person doing the sacrifice. Lower-plane creatures really don't have "friends" as most mortals define the term, but rather have people who are useful to them. The final test requires that the person doing the sacrifice must give up what they view as an ally. Kaurophon's twisted mind views the PCs as allies because of how much they have helped him thus far.
The party using him as a sacrifice is an evil act because its killing a person to gain greater power. If the party kills him in self-defense they killing him to stay alive, but "good" people should not simply kill him in cold blood. The more neutral PCs of the world may kill his unconcious form for the "greater-good" but its flat out evil to use his death to gain power.
On page 178 of the SCAP book, Kaurophon lies about what happened when he tried to take the first test of the Smoking Eye (if the party asks). He says he chose the bebilith and couldn't defeat the creature. In truth, he can't even get to the creature because he has lower planar blood and can't enter the chamber.Kaurophon will admit to being a half-fiend is asked (What are you?, also page 178) and as soon as the party gets to the proctor's chamber, it's obvious that Kaurophon couldn't have faced the bebilith because he can't enter the chamber. So why the lie?
Hmmm, it looks like an error that crept in during the revision of the hard cover. You can handle this in two ways:
K1: aurophon could in fact enter the lower room and attempted to take the test. He chose correctly (and helps the PC's by motivating his choice for the Bebilith). He failed to complete the first test and left the area to recover. Uppon returning to retake the test, he learns he is barred from entering the room. Adimarchus does not give second chances.2: The ban on evil outsiders prevents Kaurophon from entering the chamber. He did some research, and has figured out the gist of the test. He helps the PC's by speculating who they should challenge, and why.
It's hard to fool most players, especially veterans, with an act like Kaurophon's. For my group it was better for his lies to be at least a little closer to the truth. I had him explain that Adimarchus had set up the tests to get rid of the dual nature of Occipitus once and for all, one way or the other. Kaurophon then said that his own nature, supposedly a good being in an evil (half-fiend) form, was exactly the ambiguity that Adimarchus had come to hate, and so he could not enter the lower area of the first test.
At the risk of overcomplicating things, and without giving the long version of this, I had it so that evil Kaurophon actually had turned himself to good, mentally programming himself with certain beliefs and story elements. He included a post hypnotic suggestion that once the group reached the nexus of evil, he would touch it, thus reverting him to his true nasty self. It made things at least a little bit more interesting than a straight "oh the npc turns out to be a bad guy".
I had one player who was suspicious of Kaurophon from the start, but another who was so sympathetic that he put serious effort into trying to resurrect and help Kaurophon after the adventure was over. The other players were somewhere inbetween, and it played generally well.
I also have a problem with it being an evil act to toss Kaurophon in the plasma once his true intentions are clear. I don't understand how it's OK to kill him in combat, but not toss him in the pillar of plasma.
Any clarification would be sweet...
Human sacrifice is an evil act in the real world. I suspect you wouldn’t find very many people who would disagree.
Translated into DnD the sacrifice of any intelligent being is an evil act for the same reason it is in the Real World ™.
Human sacrifice is an evil act in the real world. I suspect you wouldn’t find very many people who would disagree.
Translated into DnD the sacrifice of any intelligent being is an evil act for the same reason it is in the Real World ™.
I agree that the sacrifice of an intelligent being is an evil act. What I think is open to debate is whether pushing Kaurophon into the pillar is a sacrifice. To my way of thinking, it depends on how it's accomplished.
If, in the heat of battle, Kaurophon is pushed or otherwise forced into the pillar to me it's no different than if he's critted with a scythe or if he's disintegrated. He's dead.
If, on the other hand, the party subdues him, says a few words of forgiveness, and then tosses his sorry hide into the pillar, there's a problem.
There's little difference between sacrifice and murder and little difference between murder and non-murder killing. It's all about the context, right? A sacrifice is always pre-meditated, usually accompanied by some sort of ritual. Murder is sometimes pre-meditated, sometimes not. If it's pre-meditated, the only real difference between murder and sacrifice is the intent of the killer. (In the game, there may be other differences as the act of the sacrifice may have other, tangible, effects.)
Even non-murder killing can be blurry. Take killing someone in self-defense, for example. People can, and have, debated whether a particular act of killing was justified or not.
*shrug* In the end, I guess it's all in how you want to run your game.
Well, there is really two ways to look at it.
the first, and the tact I will follow in my game most likely, is that if he is thrown in during battle (like being tripped or his charge avoided or something) it will count just fine. After all he died in the course of the PCs defending themselves. In this case, it is all intention that matters. If the PCs intend to sacrifice him for their own gain, then it is evil. If however he is killed in this manner as more of an accident it will still count for the test, but not be an evil act (though may haunt the PC involved in dreams or the like).
The other way of looking at it is that if he is killed in a normal fashion he may be able to enter an afterlife. On the otherhand if he is consumed by negative energies than his very soul is consumed, there for making it an evil act to submit someones very soul to death instead of just their mortal coif.
Sean Mahoney