Sort of on the fly during our last session I added a sub-plot where someone wanted the Barbarian in our group dead.
There was a cryptic message alluding to him being doomed on the wall of a dungeon they were exploring. Then I had them find a corpse with orders to kill him and after the adventure was over an assassin tried to slay him in his sleep. He barely survived, the mage woke in time to distract and defend him.
So the party is really intrigued by this little sub-plot and now I need for it to go somewhere!!!
They are 2nd level PCs so they have little back-story, the Barbarian player has very little details in his past so the script is pretty much wide open. So I am interested in hearing some ideas. Who did he piss off and how?
Honestly there's not a lot more to add. The player didn't put a lot of thought into a back-story. He plays him as a typical Barbarian, brutish, quick to fight before thinking, collects trophies of his slain enemies. I was actually hoping to use this sub-plot to develop a little more of a story for him.
It's a new group and many of them are entirely new to RPGs. They pretty much just quickly created PCs so they could play and didn't spend a lot of time creating an origin.
So really, anything is fair game.
Several possibilities...
His father slew a wizard whose apprentice is out for revenge.
He punched some civilized weakling in the face. The civilized weakling ran home to Mommy, who happens to be a secret cleric of Urgathoa and is out for revenge.
His entire tribe has been cursed by an ancient lich, and this is the way the curse is manifesting here. (The lich hasn't done anything for a while because he was otherwise occupied, but after he finished classifying the 3771 ways human bones can break, he got bored and decided to finish up an old project.)
The idol they stole in a previous adventure belonged to someone who doesn't like his shrine being desecrated. (If that fits.)
A dragon has decided to toy with him to see if the barbarian is strong enough to be shaped into a tool to kill one of the dragon's other foes.
A rogue is trying to make some money -- he's setting up the PC for a con game wherein the PC will eventually be told "I know the secret, it's insert random name at insert dangerous location, and I can sell you a map to it." The payment for the map is the only thing the rogue is actually interested in.
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"You look down at your right hand, and though you've never noticed it before, you have 6 fingers."
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He's secretly adopted, his parents never told him. He's actually the last of a line of powerful warriors who were nearly wiped out in the last war. The last two of these warriors turned evil and wiped out all of the other warriors except for this barbarian and this pretty hot girl he meets, briefly has an interlude with but later finds her to be his sister and also a warrior.
Barb' Wars.
He killed a warrior from a rival tribe, for whatever reason; that's what rival tribes do in the cold, cold north when there isn't much to do;.....they go to feuding.
And, he took a trophy.
The rival tribe, however, thinks his spirit is restless because they are prone to cremation. If the whole body isn't cremated, spirits hang out and mess with crops, or make horses be born with two heads and whatnot.
So, the guy he killed; he was a Prince; although fifth in line for tribal leader, he was his mother's favorite, and she's a tough cookie, maybe a witch, sorcerer, whatever you want, and she can call some hits.
So she's going to put the whack on this guy.
She won't settle for the return of the trophy either. She wants to take her own trophy outta this guy.
She gives the guys she sends to whack him gentle repose scrolls, because she really wants to feed his fresh doodads to her pet wolf.
In the frigid northlands (or whereever), a dying shaman makes a prophecy - a powerful artifact sacred to many of the tribes there, once thought lost forever, will reappear soon, and when it does it will seek out someone with a particular set of characteristics - perhaps a specific birth day and month, certain physical traits, descendant of a particular ancestor, whatever - to be its wielder. One of the few people who hear the shaman's prophecy is his young ward, who happens to fit all of the criteria, but who fears competition. Since that day several years ago, he (or she) has methodically hunted down anyone else he can find who might qualify to wield the artifact, hoping that when it reemerges he'll be the only worthy heir. One of his few remaining targets is the barbarian PC.
Aha, you guys are great! Got a lot to work with here.
Blackbloodtroll, he's Chaotic Neutral, Human, Varisia.
This is can be an excellent opportunity to develop a more personal back story. Maybe his father or brother owed someone money / insulted someone. This way you get to develop his back-story.
Also, depending on how much moral complexity you want, you can make it so that his relative was in the wrong, but that the wronged party took vengeance all out of proportion. Or maybe they were tricked into the agreement.
Random fleshed out idea:
Three years ago, after <PC Barbarian> left home, his brother, Nigel, wanted to impress a pretty village girl. However, Nigel lacked <PC Barbarian>'s martial prowess and the girl is very much a martial-prowess kind of girl. So he prayed to some outer power to give him strength. He won acclaim and the girl's heart. Soon, the time came to pay up but Nigel refused to commit the atrocities that the power now demanded of him. Now, as punishment, the power is eradicating Nigel's family line while he watches! <PC Barbarian> is the last one left!
The outer power can be anything that fits into your story. Maybe demons or fey. Or maybe just a mighty wizard.
Thanks for all the great ideas guys! I'm going to meet with the player and present some of these ideas and work on a back story with him to fit into the plot.
His father used to be a powerful nobel/king/leader. He was attacked by a rival trying to take over the throne/title/lands. As his family was slaughtered his father sent his heir and only son off with his wet nurse to her homeland up north (or where ever the barbarian tribe was from) thinking his son would be safe with the savage tribes.
However since he has been adventuring unkown to him a past servant of the rival noticed the barbarian and his unique birthmark/weapon/amulet he carried with him from birth. Now the rival... a powerful nobel/king/leader fears the barbarian's return and is secretly funding assassination attempts.
Another twist on prophecy:
This one wasn't made out in the wastelands by some tribal shaman; it was made to (insert recurring villain here) in the civilized lands. Your barbarian, for whatever reason, has been pointed out as a threat to the long-range plans of said villain.
Once he starts adventuring -- and going into town to spend loot money with his buddies -- he is spotted by agents of (x), who has been waiting for the barbarian to show himself, with an eye to eliminating this problem.
I personally like a Summoner for the BBEG, with an Oracle of Time cohort (for the prophecy). With the various Planar Binding spells, the Summoner has all sorts of nasty things to start throwing at the barbarian (and his friends) when the assassins fail to get the job done...
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Here's a thought. Maybe he's being hunted by a secret society of good guys?
His soul has been promised to a Demon Lord or Archduke of Hell in a pact his mother and father made. Now a secret cult of Diabolists is keeping an eye on him until the appointed time when his soul is taken. If that happens it will be powerful enough to allow the evil bad guy to rise. On the other hand If he is killed before the appointed time (and stays dead) then the soul will not be claimed and said Demon Lord/Archduke of Hell will not rise to wreak havoc.
Hence the bad guys in this case are a group of battle hardened crusaders and paladins intent on stopping the rise of the evil one. The warning was actually given by the diabolists to put said Barbarian on his guard.