I was reading the most recent module about the slavering and the cult of Lamashtu. In it one of the people is brainwashed by the cult. There is little discussion on how that happened. How would you emulate that in game terms? How would you emulate deprogramming?
I was reading the most recent module about the slavering and the cult of Lamashtu. In it one of the people is brainwashed by the cult. There is little discussion on how that happened. How would you emulate that in game terms? How would you emulate deprogramming?
Lots of Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate rolls, over an extended period of time. You'd be using Diplomacy to gain the victim's trust, Bluff to get the victim to believe in any falsehoods you want to instill, and Intimidate to make the victim afraid to try to escape your conditioning.
That is really good. Magical cohercion is not necessarily the same thing is it?
Copious use of the hypnotism spell with environmental bonuses added in to heavily increase the chance of success.
The Hypnotism spell has many limits, but an unlimited duration of its effect. So that might be useful too.
edit: Ninja'd. By ten seconds!
Great minds think alike! ^_^
That is interesting. I like these ideas. Would charms help?
Bestow Curse with the curse being amnesia. Then just fill in the blanks with some good bluff and diplomacy.
These are all great ideas!
Using magical coercion to run a cult is the lazy and foolish way to do it. For starters, as your cult grows you'd have to spend more and more time maintaining your spells, which gets taxing. Furthermore, spells can be dispelled, leaving your efforts undone and more importantly someone who not only will renounce your cult but likely even turn around to oppose it.
It's much better to use mundane methods, which can't be undone with dispel magic, break enchantment, and the like. Furthermore, if you build your cult using mundane methods it's much easier to grow your cult because such methods can much more easily be put to use by the cult members themselves - you don't want to have to do all the recruiting yourself once your cult grows beyond a handful of members.
Magic is best used as an occasional aid once you already have your cult firmly established by traditional means.
Alot of the magical methords mentioned could not be dispelled they aren't mind control like dominate person or suggestion. They are mental manipulation. Modify memory is a good example of a spell I am glad does not exist in the real world or at least I don't recall it.
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Great minds think alike! ^_^
So do brainwashed minds… *dun dun DUN*
Using magical coercion to run a cult is the lazy and foolish way to do it. For starters, as your cult grows you'd have to spend more and more time maintaining your spells, which gets taxing. Furthermore, spells can be dispelled, leaving your efforts undone and more importantly someone who not only will renounce your cult but likely even turn around to oppose it.
Well in the case of hypnosis, I'm not sure what magic would counter it. The real changes would be made in the subconscious. The hypnosis spell would just be a gateway.
And as to having to use spells to maintain it, I think a refresher every 6 months would suffice. Brainwash yourself a couple of mages and have them do it. ;)
I think that an effective use of illusion magic might also help.
Sow Thought is also a good spell :
You plant an idea, concept, or suspicion in the mind of the subject. The target genuinely believes that the idea is his own, but is not required to act upon it. If the idea is contrary to the target's normal thoughts (such as making a paladin think, "I should murder my friends") the target may suspect mind-altering magic is at play. The idea must be fairly clear, enough so that it can be conveyed in one or two sentences. You do not need to share a common language for the spell to succeed, but without a common language you can only sow the most basic rudimentary ideas.
Alot of the magical methords mentioned could not be dispelled they aren't mind control like dominate person or suggestion. They are mental manipulation. Modify memory is a good example of a spell I am glad does not exist in the real world or at least I don't recall it.
That's inaccurate.
The duration of Modify memory and Sow Thought is PERMANENT not instantaneous, which means it is an ongoing magical effect. You can use Dispel Magic, Anti Magic Field, Break Enchantment, etc on them. They will also cause the person under the effect to detect as Enchantment magic if you cast detect magic on them.
I was talking about bestow curse to give aminsa or modify memory.
I was talking about bestow curse to give aminsa or modify memory.
I also was talking about Modify Memory. It has a duration of permanent and can be dispelled.
Bestow Curse, same thing applies except Dispel Magic doesn't cancel it.
It's fair to note that there is an NPC in this adventure who is actually mixing spells and brain surgery. This seems to be the angle we would want to investigate to keep on theme.
(Side note: the detail of what he does is relevant background that should be less hidden than the module makes it by default.)
In a purely real-world situation I would think that a mix of drugs, hypnosis / similar, and, generally, maximum control of the victim's surroundings, plus a lot of time. Drugs are used to make the person more susceptible to the various suggestions that you're trying to worm into their head.
I think the root method is to break them, and then rebuild them in the new mentality.
Really, the Enchantment school is not your primary tool for getting long-term, non-magical brainwashing in place. It's a helping tool. You could, however, use powerful Enchantment effects to get the person to do things they'll regret, and use this in a tool towards breaking them.
Magic is going to help the drugs in this; anything from charm person to suggestion to charm person is going to help make the victim be more willing to listen to your suggestions. Illusion spells will help with that total environmental control; you want everything the victim experiences to be chosen by you. Detect thoughts will help with monitoring what the victim is thinking, and the illusions also allow you to counteract those thoughts, provide sympathetic ears, and so on. At high level, slap them with insanity for the duration of the brainwashing (heal it later). Or just show them illusions until their mind breaks under the strain (horror, or reconciling the illusions with their actual memories).
Now what would the brain surgery be? It's not implanting a magic item that controls the subject. It could be that, with magical assistance, it permits eliminating or suppressing certain memories or personality traits. Maybe putting pressure in the right spot makes the victim unable to distinguish between his/her own thoughts and words being spoken to him/her. Maybe detect thoughts or a similar spell allows you to pinpoint where in the brain specific memories are, so you can snip those memories out without causing major trauma.
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This is about to come up in a campaign I'm helping to run, one of the characters ended up gaining a white dragon egg, and they want to keep it, how would they do this to the dragon?
One of them has charm person as a spell like once a day, and has been useing it every day he doesn't use it on something else but I tell him he spell is charm person not dragon and my co DM insists that it wouldn't work
I want them to have a chance of sucess, how would I go about letting them do this?
Phen, as I was looking through the module there was little information on the topic. IIRC it just said that the lady had been brainwashed.
One of my favorite quotes about brainwashing goes, "They would brainwash you but what a small load of laundry it would be."
Also, just because a caster (let's say wizard) is too low level to cast a level 4 spell, that doesn't mean that you can't give them a wand/scroll/whatever of it. It's happened more than once in my Carrion Crown game.
Well the saving throws on Scrolls suck.
What happened MI?
Getting a wand of a higher spell than we could cast.
That is an option. I think it would have to be multi-dimensional to break down the mental defenses. Would skill checks need to be high? How would you roleplay it?
Role play getting brainwashed? Carefully. Make sure your group is okay with it before you start. It can get uncomfortable quick for the wrong person. With that said, decide if you are trying to soothe and suggest or break their minds and dominate, then find background music to fit the mood. You can get descriptive with illusions detailing figments or horrific scenes. You'll want their cooperation with stuff like repeating everything you say ("I must obey...") or struggling to resist ("no... Stop... What?") depending on will saves. It depends on how enthusiastic they are about role playing it. I would talk to them before session about what you have in mind.
That is a good point.
What would the DCs be?
Whatever they need to be to be challenging but doable for your party. Tilted one way or the other depending on if you want them brainwashed for story purposes or not. Though I would prepare a story for both outcomes.
That might not be possible at that level Lord Foul.
Charm person. Used repeatedly over a period of time. Very possible at a low level.
Doesn't matter what the caster level is. They can use wands or scrolls if the spell is on their spell list. Even if its above their level. For magus though, I am not sure it would be...
Someone could try a bunch of times with use magic device. Spell uses are not lost if the attempt fails.
https://fc.deltasd.bc.ca/~dmatthews/FOV2-00074762/S02DB0598.7/Jonestown.pdf
Learn from the best. This guy got hundreds and hundreds of people to kill themselves and their children willingly.
Charm person won't work on a dragon.