A PC in Peril... Living Vessel for CHAOS *Kingmaker Spoilers*


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In our latest session, my bard "priestess of Calistria" (previous story line basically lead her to believe that she was favored among Calistria's scions, including some pretty sweet stat bonuses) learned that the external influence on her appetite was not that of the wasp queen of harlots, but

Kingmaker spoiler:
Count Ranalc
. Being essentially a spoiled, willful child whose experience is investigative with a history of failure, her knowledge skills are weak, and her checks, while over twenty were not enough to come up with even a hint about the terrifying and alluring creature that sucked her and her employer into a den of shadows.

A little background, several weeks ago, the character was led to a theatre in Pitax and from there was brought over to the First World where she confronted a creature of unspeakable evil who ordered a dominated manservant to do some pretty bad things to her. She was saved by the intervention of a pixie (so far as she knows) and returned to find the city colored by Irovetti's ascension and herself an outlaw. After some weeks of fairly fruitless investigation with basically nothing to go on, it seemed as though someone had tampered with her memories, completely invalidating about six weeks worth of experiences, including some very important to her character development NPCs. She had just gotten passed the overwhelming hurdle of discarding what she could not trust and continuing with her journey. And she was doing remotely well, confident enough with her progress to test her boundaries by approaching a Chelish man flanked by Hellknights in full view of a River Kingdoms community devoted to Erastil.

Her ambitious and unfortunate potential employer gambled unwisely on his suspicions concerning her "divine patron" and despite his successful summons was frozen solid for his impertinence. The shadow creature embraced her and promised her even greater power, then forced an obsidian maul into her hand and told her to abandon her humanity and crush her companion, or embrace him and bring him back. Well, she crushed him, but for much different reasons, because over the course of their introduction she has learned that he was a sociopath who thought nothing of killing others at a whim, and not exactly the type of dude that she really wanted to work for. The creature mocked her and gathered the pieces to make them look like her favorite lover, and knowing from previous experience that his particular flavor could manipulate anything in their home plane she was stricken. Essentially, she was teetering on the edge of madness when he basically giggled and approved, assured her that he would be watching and it would benefit her to entertain him, and then disappeared into her chest, which he referred to as "his current residence." His parting gift to her was a single Miracle spell, which after some thought, she used to revive the man she killed, though she desperately wanted to free a particular NPC.

After informing the resurrected "ambiguous" NPC that she had killed him, and revived him, and receiving some vague promise of payment for services rendered, she returned to home to her lover. She found their corner of the brothel swathed in darkness and cold, and assumed it was her cohabitant's influence.

So my 16 year old, Wisdom 8 bard is aware that she is host to a completely alien sentience that has essentially ordered her to pull a prank on Calistria's faithful to get them to follow his creed so that he can gain more power and influence on "the prime," and he has told her that if she fails to entertain he will drive her to murder everyone she cares for. She knows that these manner of creatures care very little for mortals in general, only so much as they are scurrying for their amusement, but... She has very few allies she can trust, having driven one boy wizard to madness and the other seems a little too willing to help out, overcompensating for earlier transgressions. And, even then, there seems very little either can do to help her with a creature that claims to be creation. I am thinking that essentially, this is a death sentence either way, as Calistria and her faithful aren't likely to take kindly to an adolescent human girl's pranks. At the same time, noble sacrifice of self is completely out as a review of earlier sessions has given me the suspicion that her cohabitant can and has previously possessed others, as well.

I am absolutely stumped about what I am supposed to do with this character now. She was so relieved that it wasn't Calistria's favor she carried that she wept, but her current situation is infinitely worse than being forced to suppress her feelings for her lovers. Mechanically, she is tricked out till level 15, but... I am just at a loss to figure what is going to compel her to move foreword from this point on.

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Ooof, that's harsh.

It sounds like you want to continue playing the character, but it's always worth considering asking the DM to retire your character or just having her seek solace in death (not as a heroic sacrifice, but because she can't bear life.) It seems in character to either give up utterly or throw an epic tantrum.

Assuming giving up is off the table and you're looking for how to justify proceeding, I'd suggest a tantrum of epic quality leading into a personal quest for power. It's not savvy or wise, but a spoiled child will throw away everything to get their way.

Whether you tell the cohabitant that you're gearing up to erase creation itself if that's what you need to do to kill it, that's up to you. The laws of drama demand they laugh right up to the point where you slide the metaphorical knife in him either way.

But cast about for the fastest, most dangerous means of personal power you can find. Build a kingdom, research the songs the aboleths sang before the first footsteps of man, become a lich, test yourself against anyone and everyone in your path, whatever it takes.

The quest should keep the cohabitant amused until your character dies or has the chance to wipe the smile off his face. And, conveniently, both justifies basically any plotline the DM dreams up and presents a number of threads for you to follow on your own.

Hope that helps!

Cheers!
Landon

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