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So I'm finally getting this Pathfinder Society character hammered out and I'd like some advice on setting the Alignment and general motivations of this character.
He's going to be a Human Druid with the Decay subdomain, specializing mostly in Necromancy and a minor in Conjuration. Patron deity is gonna be Urgathoa with paying homage to the Horseman of Pestilence (Not allowed to worship him under the PFS rules however), mostly because I don't think there's a deity that specializes in disease or decay.
His reason for turning to disease and plagues is pretty simple: Eventual genocide. When he was younger, he was present at a Society mission that uncovered an Aboleth pulling the strings of a politician. Cat got out of the bag and he learned that the Aboleths had manipulated humanity right from the get-go. Infuriated that they were little more than puppets to these alien monstrosities, he searched for ways to wipe them off the face of the planet, along with any other otherworldy monsters with ideas of machinations towards the mortal races. Then a thought occurred, somewhere between "massive war" and "Get a Deck of Many Things". A plague. A super plague. One engineered to wipe out the Aboleths, before consuming itself in an orgy of biological destruction and decay. And thus he set on his path, learning the way of viruses, plagues, disease and decay.
TL;DR: Learned Aboleths are puppetmasters, wants kill'em all via disease and viruses out of vengeance for millennia of enslavement and manipulation.
Personality-wise, he's grim, a little paranoid (due to the whole "Aboleths control everything from behind the scenes" thing), and for the most part, quiet. For him, most of the Society missions are tests for new strains of diseases and viruses or how decay and sickness affects differing creatures. He does it with a sort of medical curiosity. Latest virus causes the subject to cough up blood and their eyes to scab over? That goes in the notes, might come in handy some other time. He's essentially the typical amoral scientist, conducting horrible experiments with an ultimately "good" goal down the line. Very "The ends justify the means". Civilian casualties will hopefully be either few or non-existant (what's the point of destroying your enslavers if you end up killing yourself?), but any deaths that DO occur will likely be unintentional.
So, without going Evil, what would be the alignment ballpark for this guy? And if he's just screaming "I'm evil!", what ought I do to get him more in like with the "top" 6 alignments?
I know the terms "Plague" and "Genocide" are loaded words, but I can't think of better terms to describe eradicating a species with a biological agent of artificial origin specifically tailored to kill said species. At least to me, it's better than trying to spark an all out war or hoping to get ahold of a Wish spell. And when you consider they were responsible for Starfall, IMO, the scales begin to tip towards "justified".
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I'm generally a fan of non-intuitive concepts, but this, this is taking it to the raggedy edge. :)
Things that struck me from the concept;
He 'found out' that humanity used to be manipulated by Aboleths? I'm not really sure, but I always assumed that was 'setting info' that the even the more-illuminated-than-average person wouldn't know about.
I'd be more inclined to go with it, if he's just encountered information about *an* Aboleth manipulating some dude (or even a village full of 'some dudes' or whatever), and then leapt to the radical conspiracy theory that Aboleth's were secretly pulling the strings behind *everything.*
He might even keep a whacky conspiracy journal, and any time a nation or culture or individual acts 'out of character' or 'does something hinky' (by his overly picky standards) he might attribute it to 'secret Aboleth masters' manipulating events.
As for creating tailored plagues to commit genocide, that seems a bit over the top for a non-evil Druid.
Point in his favor;
Aboleths are aberrations, and aberrations are generally considered to be 'unnatural' in the same sense that undead are considered 'unnatural' (with a bit of telling evidence being that they are the two creature types that trained animals won't attack, without extra-special training, because they are just that disturbing and 'alien'). Therefore arranging for them to get the hell off of Golarion, by any means necessary, could be seen as a right and proper (if not necessarily morally 'good') thing to do.
Finding a way to use natural means (such as a plague, or an environmental effect) to repel at these unnatural invaders of the natural world, would just be poetic justice.
Point against;
An Aboleth-specific disease seems unlikely to be something that a fantasy medieval mind would even conceive of. And let's not even dip in the 'proteanic retrovirus' well, 'cause you might as well have him start talking about microwaves or polyester. *If* he's aware of a disease that targets amphibians and makes their skin dry out, or something that messes with a fishes ability to handle a high salt content in their drinking water, he could attempt to cultivate a variation on that affliction which would cause an Aboleth's mucus cloud to 'dry up' and leave it unable to breath, or possibly even somehow render it salt-sensitive enough to require it to move into fresh water to avoid constant discomfort and possibly even a wasting death. But that's pretty 'out there' for him to even conceive of, and, from a practical standpoint, probably going to kill every fish and amphibian in the area during the testing phase. Sounds both a bit 'un-Druid-y' and definitely problematic for a non-evil Druid, even for a Druid of Urgathoa or the Horseman of Pestilence.
You've bitten off a large and chewy concept, here, and I'm struggling to find a way to 'make it work' (or at least, 'make it make sense') but coming up with a glass half-empty.
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Well the plague genocide is one of those lvl 20 things that I'm never ever going to get to, seeing as most Society characters retire around lvl 12 or so.
As for the disease itself, after a bit of thinking, it could very well be a magic item/minor artifact McGuffin down the line. Something like....Greater Contagion + Bane (Aberration) + some spell that affects large bodies of water. I dunno.
Regardless of how he does it, is the act of using an engineered disease to eradicate a species as evil and as alien as the Aboleth considered an "evil" goal, or just a morally questionable one?
The other idea regarding this character is that I can scrap the Aboleth concept (and the Tian trait that spawned this whole mess) and just make him a sort of diseased balance Druid, spreading disease so things go about their natural course. Was thinking that if I did go this route, I take that Tian Stabilizing Touch trait instead and maybe pick up Cure Disease instead.
On the other hand, I could totally play him like The Question from DC Comics, but with a Plague Doctor mask instead of the faceless mask.
"No, not 'conspiracies'. 'Conspiracy'."
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Random thoughts on an 'Aboleth-specific disease.'
Some fishy/amphibian critters have either protective mucus coatings or perpetually moist skin, and, as a result, tend to be overly susceptible to environmental toxins (which get absorbed right through their skin).
Aboleth, lacking any sort of specific vulnerability to poisons, must have adapted some way around this. A disease that exacerbated the condition might prove more than their adaptation can handle, and result in the Aboleth suffering a bit of Con damage (in this case, less from the disease organisms, and more from a constant nagging case of weak poisoning from various environmental elements that normally wouldn't affect it, although it would be mechanically 'disease damage'), and a -4 penalty to all poison saves as long as the disease lasts.
The initial version would probably be even deadlier to susceptible creatures already lacking the Aboleth adaptation, such as normal fish and amphibians, but tailoring the disease (perhaps involving spell research rules, as if creating a variant on contagion) might allow the Druid to create a custom disease that had DC 15 vs. normal fish and amphibians (1 save to cure), and DC 25 vs. Aboleth (2 consecutive saves to cure) with the effect of 1d2 Con damage / day and -4 to poison saves as long as it lasts. (The saves would be the same, if delivered via contagion, obviously, but non-Aboleth would still shake it easier.)
The disease wouldn't kill the Aboleth, except in rare cases, but would certainly make them easier to kill with poisoned weapons (and might prove useful when dealing with boggards, slurks, sahuagin, etc.).
I think you're looking for the harbinger Diceid for your character. The renewal of a system is inevitable, you're just here to help it along. For every life there is death and where there is death there is rebirth.
You could also take some material from WH40K and make something like a disciple of Nurgle.
What the concept sounds like is the Plague Bringer alchemist archetype, but since it's PFS, you can't play a ratfolk and you can't just refluff the archetype, right...?
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What the concept sounds like is the Plague Bringer alchemist archetype, but since it's PFS, you can't play a ratfolk and you can't just refluff the archetype, right...?
Preeeeeetty much. Not gonna lie, it was the inspiration for this character.
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Aberration-specific might be more fitting.
The character might see himself as the pioneer in finding a decisive weapon for Nature to use against its only living enemies.
Against the undead, there is the Positive Energy, but nothing against the Aberrations that would not also affect natural living beings. Hence his idea of using the natural banes of living creatures (ie, diseases) and turn them into tools for Nature to defend itself against the unnatural contamination of Aberrations.
This seems a pretty educated/civilized idea though. Lawful Neutral Druid maybe. Definitly read too much Lovecraft while young. Always suspicious of bloodlines tainted with the Aberrations' seed. From a highly civilized culture wary of "primitives" and mixing of blood could be fitting. Or the exact opposite : from an insulated and "primitive" tribe distrustful of outsiders.