Being bastardly; help make it even worse!


Gamer Life General Discussion


On a long sea voyage, one of the PCs, the honorable paladinish sort, had extended daliance with one of the passengers. Unknown to him (well, he had an inkling that she wasn't a goody twoshoes, she was running from a failed assasination attempt of the Empress.

Needless to say, she is now being hunted by the Royal Inquisitors, pregnant, in hiding, and has decided to keep the baby- from the law can make one lonely :) So, how should she inform the father to be? or should she at all?

Sovereign Court

Coltaine wrote:

On a long sea voyage, one of the PCs, the honorable paladinish sort, had extended daliance with one of the passengers. Unknown to him (well, he had an inkling that she wasn't a goody twoshoes, she was running from a failed assasination attempt of the Empress.

Needless to say, she is now being hunted by the Royal Inquisitors, pregnant, in hiding, and has decided to keep the baby- from the law can make one lonely :) So, how should she inform the father to be? or should she at all?

If you really want to be bastardly, don't have her tell the father to be. After a year of two has gone by in game, have a stranger approach him with a young child in tow, inform him he is the father and that the mother has been captured by the Royal Inquisitors. It hits him with a double whammy; needing to take care of a child and feeling obliged to rescue the mother of his child (that is assuming the charges against her are not valid and/or the Empress and her government are evil).

The Exchange

zylphryx wrote:
Coltaine wrote:

On a long sea voyage, one of the PCs, the honorable paladinish sort, had extended daliance with one of the passengers. Unknown to him (well, he had an inkling that she wasn't a goody twoshoes, she was running from a failed assasination attempt of the Empress.

Needless to say, she is now being hunted by the Royal Inquisitors, pregnant, in hiding, and has decided to keep the baby- from the law can make one lonely :) So, how should she inform the father to be? or should she at all?

If you really want to be bastardly, don't have her tell the father to be. After a year of two has gone by in game, have a stranger approach him with a young child in tow, inform him he is the father and that the mother has been captured by the Royal Inquisitors. It hits him with a double whammy; needing to take care of a child and feeling obliged to rescue the mother of his child (that is assuming the charges against her are not valid and/or the Empress and her government are evil).

Or have her show up a few years later and tells him, 'our son/daughter has been taken'. Inspired by the plotline to the Harry Dresden novel, 'Changes'. Go look it up, the spoilers is on wikipedia for more information you can raid for your adventure.


And why was she running from an inquisitor? Because she's a succubus!


Count_Rugen wrote:
Because she's a succubus!

Hold on, I'll see if I've got three-fiddy!


zylphryx wrote:
Coltaine wrote:

On a long sea voyage, one of the PCs, the honorable paladinish sort, had extended daliance with one of the passengers. Unknown to him (well, he had an inkling that she wasn't a goody twoshoes, she was running from a failed assasination attempt of the Empress.

Needless to say, she is now being hunted by the Royal Inquisitors, pregnant, in hiding, and has decided to keep the baby- from the law can make one lonely :) So, how should she inform the father to be? or should she at all?

If you really want to be bastardly, don't have her tell the father to be. After a year of two has gone by in game, have a stranger approach him with a young child in tow, inform him he is the father and that the mother has been captured by the Royal Inquisitors. It hits him with a double whammy; needing to take care of a child and feeling obliged to rescue the mother of his child (that is assuming the charges against her are not valid and/or the Empress and her government are evil).

Or take it a step further and have the messenger killed before he/she can inform the paladin of the child's lineage. That way, you can have a "Lone Wolf & Cub" scenario going on for a while, and then in the later levels you can drop the bombshell on the Pally. "Concerning the matter of little 2 year old Andrea Stormhart....Sir Paladin.......you ARE the father!"


TheCarrionCrawler wrote:
zylphryx wrote:
Coltaine wrote:

On a long sea voyage, one of the PCs, the honorable paladinish sort, had extended daliance with one of the passengers. Unknown to him (well, he had an inkling that she wasn't a goody twoshoes, she was running from a failed assasination attempt of the Empress.

Needless to say, she is now being hunted by the Royal Inquisitors, pregnant, in hiding, and has decided to keep the baby- from the law can make one lonely :) So, how should she inform the father to be? or should she at all?

If you really want to be bastardly, don't have her tell the father to be. After a year of two has gone by in game, have a stranger approach him with a young child in tow, inform him he is the father and that the mother has been captured by the Royal Inquisitors. It hits him with a double whammy; needing to take care of a child and feeling obliged to rescue the mother of his child (that is assuming the charges against her are not valid and/or the Empress and her government are evil).
Or take it a step further and have the messenger killed before he/she can inform the paladin of the child's lineage. That way, you can have a "Lone Wolf & Cub" scenario going on for a while, and then in the later levels you can drop the bombshell on the Pally. "Concerning the matter of little 2 year old Andrea Stormhart....Sir Paladin.......you ARE the father!"

Just sort of introduced this scenario with the Royal Inqusitor questioning the PC about his daliance with a wanted fugitive. :) Thanks for the ideas, and keep them coming


Geistlinger wrote:
Count_Rugen wrote:
Because she's a succubus!
Hold on, I'll see if I've got three-fiddy!

AND turns out it was his daughter from the future all along, come back to stop (insert calamity here)... Time-traveling incest! Aww snap!

EDIT: and yes she gives birth to herself!

The Exchange

Facepalm:| Just lay down a series of plot points you might go with in the future...If he dumps the kid with foster parents have it so she becomes a young sorceress in trouble all the time just like mommy. Have villagers take her out into the woods to be abandoned for witchcraft when the PCs run across her at the troublesome age of 12.

Have her craft a cloth doll golem at the age of 8 and use it to do bad things.


Or you can turn it all on its head by having the child be the reason said lady decided to turn a new leaf, unfortunately by this time her paramour has learned of her shady life and has set out to bring her in to restore his misconceived (sorry player conceived) notions of honour.

Maybe set it enough years later that when he does come after her he encounters the child and being the sort of PCs who think nothing about it interrogate the youth and when she finds out she returns to her old ways to get revenge perhaps eventually revealing the parentage of their child in a suitably explosive encounter so even if the PC does defeat her he will almost inevitably fall once its revealed she had been trying to do the right thing!


She was a succubus and the child is a demon (or is it devil, can never keep them straight). Paladin gets the message that the kid has been kidnapped -- BY HIS OWN CHURCH. And since the kid is evil, they plan to kill him/her.

Or go the whole Xena/Gabriel/Hope plot. The kid's evil and does bad things that the paladin has to put a stop to. Paladin realizes the kid is bad and must be killed, but mom manages to sneak her off while the paladin thinks it's over. Years later, the BBEG in some new adventure turns out to be the kid.


Or worse this could have evolved from a prior relationship where we're led to believe she's the mother of the child but the child is swapped for that of another family so when the Pc goes after her she makes a big deal of leading said Pc and his allies into a fight where they kill said child and of course she takes pains to hide the fact he's killed the wrong child.

Years later the latest BBEG is found to be hunting someone in the hierarchy of the PCs faith, everything leads him to believe the BBEG is trying to kill some kind of chosen one of his faith but in reality the BBEG has discovered what the PCs nemesis has done and is tyring to prevent the coming cataclysm however the PCs nemesis who had escaped by faking her death set him up so the child will come into his own just as he gains the means to bring down the PCs faith at the crucial moment.

The child having grown up as the perfect infiltrator so perfect the PCs own faith cannot discern his true nature and he has by this time created his own splinter faith to rise into domination of the PCs' church and nation eventually leading to a coup unless the PC figures out whats really going on and that would also mean he'll be excommunicated and declared an enemy of his own faith by the time alarm bells will be ringing and thats if he has the sense to realise the BBEG was set up and listens to him before the REAL BBEG appears!


This brings to mind a possible interesting dilemma. I would assume that not acknowledging/taking responsibility for one's offspring would violate most paladin codes, even if the production of said offsping did not. But if the paladin is not aware that there is a child involved... the poor guy's deity still would.

Picture this: the pally's powers begin intermittently going out; not much at first, but getting gradually more serious as time goes on. As the paladin communes/quests/whatever to find the cause, information about the child can gradually be given, until he finally realizes what has happened.

Then, if enough time has passed, you could have the child raised by evil and our erstwhild paladin would have to deal with the various consequences for that!

(Mildly ninja'd by hopeless, but I still like the idea...)

The Exchange

Readerbreeder wrote:

This brings to mind a possible interesting dilemma. I would assume that not acknowledging/taking responsibility for one's offspring would violate most paladin codes, even if the production of said offsping did not. But if the paladin is not aware that there is a child involved... the poor guy's deity still would.

Picture this: the pally's powers begin intermittently going out; not much at first, but getting gradually more serious as time goes on. As the paladin communes/quests/whatever to find the cause, information about the child can gradually be given, until he finally realizes what has happened.

Then, if enough time has passed, you could have the child raised by evil and our erstwhild paladin would have to deal with the various consequences for that!

(Mildly ninja'd by hopeless, but I still like the idea...)

Unless your Paladin is of the Philosophical type...and has no God.


Readerbreeder wrote:
This brings to mind a possible interesting dilemma. I would assume that not acknowledging/taking responsibility for one's offspring would violate most paladin codes, even if the production of said offsping did not. But if the paladin is not aware that there is a child involved... the poor guy's deity still would.

If so, wouldn't said deity simply guide the paladin to the child, rather than act as a complete ********* to a trusted and honorable servant? The paladin is fully justified not acting on an information he doesn't have.

Anyway, back to the OP, I imagine the woman will at least try to inform the paladin. She's a in a pretty nasty situation, and needs help. A honorable, reliable warrior who just happened to get her pregnant would seem like a natural person to call, wouldn't he?


The Shaman wrote:
Readerbreeder wrote:
This brings to mind a possible interesting dilemma. I would assume that not acknowledging/taking responsibility for one's offspring would violate most paladin codes, even if the production of said offsping did not. But if the paladin is not aware that there is a child involved... the poor guy's deity still would.
If so, wouldn't said deity simply guide the paladin to the child, rather than act as a complete ********* to a trusted and honorable servant? The paladin is fully justified not acting on an information he doesn't have.

Who's to say the minor outage of the paladin's powers isn't the diety's way of doing exactly what you suggest (leading the character to the child)? This wouldn't be a complete withdrawl of paladinhood or fall from grace, just enough of a jolt to let the pally know that something's off... and the paladin needs to find out what it is.


The Shaman wrote:
Readerbreeder wrote:
This brings to mind a possible interesting dilemma. I would assume that not acknowledging/taking responsibility for one's offspring would violate most paladin codes, even if the production of said offsping did not. But if the paladin is not aware that there is a child involved... the poor guy's deity still would.

If so, wouldn't said deity simply guide the paladin to the child, rather than act as a complete ********* to a trusted and honorable servant? The paladin is fully justified not acting on an information he doesn't have.

Anyway, back to the OP, I imagine the woman will at least try to inform the paladin. She's a in a pretty nasty situation, and needs help. A honorable, reliable warrior who just happened to get her pregnant would seem like a natural person to call, wouldn't he?

I always think of this from the NPCs perspective. In this case, she is an independent, tough cookie, with a hard knock life and the last thing she would do is go running to. A one night stand...however, she is also astute enough to know that she might need help down the road and therefore set up a contingency...the only plausable twist i am thinking of is that she was pregnant before the voyage with the Prince's child and the assasination attempt of the empress somehow ties to it, and that she slept with the PC as the contingency...


Coltaine wrote:
I always think of this from the NPCs perspective. In this case, she is an independent, tough cookie, with a hard knock life and the last thing she would do is go running to.

I don't think there's any "running to" involved, as much as calling something owed to her. Being tough and independent doesn't mean you don't try to even the odds, especially when not doing so would be reckless.

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