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---THIS WHOLE THREAD IS ONE BIG SPOILER----
...so I'm not going to bother using the "spoiler" tag.
IF YOU'RE ONE OF MY PLAYERS: STOP READING NOW!!!
Okay...
My party was victorious at the penultimate battle of Burnt Offerings, and has defeated Nualia, two Yeth hounds, and an NPC half-orc rogue I'd added to Nualia's band. They now have Nualia's Sihedron Medallion. Here's an interesting wrinkle that I hadn't anticipated, and I'm looking for other GM's thoughts...
The player of the party rogue recently told me that he intends to have his character take the next level as wizard (and will ultimately take the Arcane Trickster prestige class), and that he wanted to use a Thassilonian artifact as the character's bonded object: and that the Sihedron Medallion was an obvious choice!
Aside from the "MUAH-HA-HA!!" echoing in my own head, I told the player that his character knows that the 7-pointed star rune is an ancient Thassilonian symbol of great magical power, so she would probably consider it to be a perfect object to use.
So... now I'm thinking about what additional (if any) unintended consequence a character would face if a Sihedron Medallion was used as a wizard's bonded object.
I don't want to punish the player for doing something interesting in-game, but at the same time, it's totally appropriate in a horror game that some actions can have dire consequences, even when those consequences are not at all apparent...
--Hal
What? Having Karzoug know _everything_ the player does isn't bad enough?
But if you insist:
You could give him something like having -2 on saves against spells from Karzoug (and other adepts of Thassilonian magic). You could rule that he's already (in effect) marked with the Sihedron rune, so if he dies his soul instantly goes into the Runewell of Greed and can't be resurrected (and maybe Karzoug gets out earlier, depending on how powerful said soul is...)
There's a lot of potential for Karzoug telepathically contacting the player and "suggesting" various courses of action -- all of which ultimately result in Karzoug having complete control of the player's magic (or maybe just immunity to it) when they finally confront him.
Well there are the VERY obvious consequences of the sihedron medallion in that Karzoug sees everything the wearer does, so all encounters with his direct minions (Lamias, Giant leaders, the hole of Xin-Shalast) will know what's coming and always be prepared. Also if Karzoug would deem it necessary there's the whole speak through the wearer bit that screws with spells and stealth, all the stuff this guy is made for. You don't need to add anything it's inherently built to screw him. he thing here is two fold, on one hand thgey will eventually get in big trouble having everything transmitted to the villian, and on the otherhand you can learn of the one way communication via identification. Personally if I were the DM I think he would learn the basics of the power when he tried to bond it, since technically it's already bonded to Karzoug. That's just my two cents...
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This campaign is pretty short on foreshadowing, and you just got the ultimate way to fix that.
Let the PC have visions of what's going on in the Eye of Avarice. Let them see memories of Karzhoug ruling from on-high during his heyday. Let him see Karzhoug talking with his minions...
And then have the PC draw his own conclusions about whether or not this vision works both ways....
But don't screw him over. Don't give him penalties vs Karzhoug, etc. Getting spied on his bad enough.
Nice!
By RAW, I think it would actually be to the players advantage as it states magic items that are bonded objects only work for the wizard. So the functions that help Karzoug would actually be cut off.
On the other hand, it is tough to let such a plum opportunity pass you by, and cutting off Karzoug makes you lose out on a cool plot point.
So my recommendation would be to rule against RAW (good to know what it is before making your own call is all), and make it so it still functions for Karzoug but also now works a little the other way and use it exactly like Erik mentions as the power is tilted a little in the players favor too.
Should be a lot of fun!
Sean
Well there are the VERY obvious consequences of the sihedron medallion in that Karzoug sees everything the wearer does, so all encounters with his direct minions (Lamias, Giant leaders, the hole of Xin-Shalast) will know what's coming and always be prepared.
Huh... I did not actually think of this. Thanks. :P
This campaign is pretty short on foreshadowing, and you just got the ultimate way to fix that.
Let the PC have visions of what's going on in the Eye of Avarice. Let them see memories of Karzhoug ruling from on-high during his heyday. Let him see Karzhoug talking with his minions...
And then have the PC draw his own conclusions about whether or not this vision works both ways....
But don't screw him over. Don't give him penalties vs Karzhoug, etc. Getting spied on his bad enough.
That's a wonderful idea, Erik! Thanks!
I had been thinking of making the scry effect very slightly less harsh: instead of automatic, give the wearer a saving throw, as the spell, but as if the wearer was "familiar" to the scrier, and that the scrier had a lock of hair (for a whopping -15 save penalty).
I had been toying with giving a Runelord the ability to plant one suggestion per day on the wearer if the wearer was within 10 miles of an active runewell, but I'm now shying away from that.
You're all right-- the scrying is a bad enough penalty!
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Aside from the "MUAH-HA-HA!!" echoing in my own head, I told the player that his character knows that the 7-pointed star rune is an ancient Thassilonian symbol of great magical power, so she would probably consider it to be a perfect object to use.
It's great that your player was kind enough to give you a hook.
I firmly agree with the dreams thing. You (as GM) might want to steer the character's wizarding towards the transmutation school and away from enchantment and illusion. "No, trust me, take haste instead of suggestion." Make it seem all his idea of course, you're just helping.
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Of course, what I would do is, have him take it as his Arcane Bonded item.
Offer the player the Thassilonian Magic option from Inner Sea Magic. It will give him an extra school spell, but he will not be able to choose his prohibited schools. It would make the most sense for him to be a Transmuter, and probably will be the most beneficial to him as a multiclassed character as well. (Given the bonus to a physical ability score.)
The trick is that Karzoug is the master. It gives you all kinds of chances to give chills, especially when they hit Fortress of the Stone Giants and Karzoug speaks to them for the first time and the wizard/rogue/arcane trickster recognizes the voice!
Major MWAH-HA-HA moment sir!
Thread necromancy (was looking back at threads I'd started).
I wanted to mention that I ultimately used Aeshura's idea for the character.
Of course, three sessions into Skinsaw Murders the player resigned from my campaign, stating that he found the horror elements too disturbing.
I've brought the character back a couple of times as a recurring ally/foil-- she's now an agent for the Aspis Consortium, but she's being manipulated by her mysterious "tutor" to use Aspis resources to his own gain.
The player used Wisdom as the dump stat, so it's pretty easy for Special K to manipulate her. It also helped that the player was playing her to be a bit greedy, so Karzoug doesn't really need to push her too hard, as her desires (at this point) mostly align with his.
I'm considering having this character acquire the Sword of Avarice, and replace Vioran Dikanti as Karzoug's champion in Spires of Xin-Shalast. I think it might be very interesting for the PCs to encounter their former ally as the champion of their enemy-- and I'd also like to see if they would simply kill her or would try to redeem her.
I have to say I find it a shame that the player dropped from the campaign, the most reaction the horror elements drew from my characters has been "Oh my god!" and a hand to the mouth from one of our female players (Ironic in that she still seemed to have some idea that she could seduce back Aldern).
As for the bearer of the Sword, that seems like a grand idea! We had a bard (daredevil archetype) who dropped and I keep trying to incorporate the character back in, but haven't figured out how yet.
The player in question quit for a pretty good reason.
The player in real life is an archaeologist and former forensic anthropologist (yes, like Dr. Temperance Brennan in the TV show Bones.) He had worked in El Salvador in the late 1990/early 2000s with an NGO to try to help local authorities bring members of death squads to justice. While working there, he saw actual real-world cases of murder and corpse mutilation very similar to what the Skinsaw Man did to his victims-- and some other things that were worse. He explained to me that he quit the field of forensic anthropology because he had started to experience symptoms of PTSD after working in El Salvador, and still has nightmares about it.
While I had known that he'd done some work in Central America 15 years ago, I had no idea what it entailed-- mainly because he doesn't like to talk about it. When I deliberately tried to shock my players with the lurid description of the first victim of the Skinsaw Man, I had inadvertently stomped on his PTSD trigger.
He wanted assurances that there wouldn't be further similar horror elements in the game, but I wanted to play Skinsaw Murders and Hook Mountain Massacre as written, so we agreed that he should sit that out. He started GMing his own campaign with some other friends, and won't be re-joining my RotRL game. Fortunately, we're still friends.
Ooph, I can see why one would drop out then. It is a shame that something like a friendly pastime would end up triggering that. But I suppose as long as everything turned out right for him and between you two afterwards, all is well.
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I'm sorry to hear that. I am honored that you used my idea though! I had a similar thing go on in my campaign, where the ex-PC that I had became a sort of "double agent" where he had fallen into old habits, but was so intelligent that he actually felt he could take down Karzoug by bringing him back prematurely and destroying him while he was still groggy from the suspended animation.
In order to do so, he was harvesting the greedy souls necessary to fuel the runewell. The PCs felt he crossed the line, so he became diametrically opposed to them.