Travelling to Runeforge as a crucible of sins *spoilers*

[mousmous]

I want to run a roleplay idea through the crucible of the other gms. Like many, I have neglected tracking sin points. Part of the reason is that I play alignment behind the scenes. Part of me also knew that, when the time came, they would not be the same characters. Where that leaves me is with a party that I could label with a few sins here and there based on how I feel they've played their characters, but that seems more fun for me and less fun for my players. So I thought that I would create a trial for their characters to undergo as part of passing through the portal to runeforge. Sort of a personality test, designed when Runeforge was built, for whatever alien notions people had 10K years ago on why it was necessary. I looked for similar threads here and found one piece of inspiration here. For additional inspiration, I am also thinking about The Cube personality test and that issue of Knights of the Dinner Table where Sara gets a chance to gm and runs them through a personality test(epic, btw).

Closer to the test from the link, I want it to reflect the seven sins, and be designed to look for the associated virtues as well. i.e. the Envy test is _meant_ to be the Charity test... because in my version of history, Runeforge was built before the corruption of magic from the seven virtues of rule into sin magic was complete(and wouldn't they have insisted that they were being true to the virtues anyway?! but that's a different thread) Here's what I have so far:

For Reference:

generosity / greed
love / lust
humility / pride
temperance / gluttony
charity / envy
kindness / wrath
zeal / sloth

Begin by describing their experience as they step into the portal, both for the person and for the rest of the party watching them. These are both individual journeys and a group journey for anyone who steps through in the hour the portal is open.

Lissala:

Describe them floating through the ether between worlds, when a being appears. It's a duality. It appears as both a stern-faced woman without a mouth, and as a god-like figure with a snake's tail, a woman's torso, six wings, and a sihedron for a head. Both versions appear simultaneously and superimposed on one another. She introduces herself as Lissala and let's the character know that in order to enter Runeforge, they must undergo a series of trials. The trails will have permanent effects, she lies.

Sloth:

Lissala begins by asking the character if they wish to proceded with the test. It's a trick question, as they will procede whether they want to or not, but the desire to face the trails shows zeal, while attempting to back out shows sloth.

Greed:

Lissala disappears, and the character is faced with a female lamia harridan who offers the PC a material boon that will help them both through the trial and during their time in Runeforge. They have only to name it. Once they name their boon, the Lamia Harridan produces it; but warns them that in order to possess the boon, another must be deprived of it. They then get that boon, if they want it, and the Lamia Harridan fades away.

Pride & Gluttony:

The group see each other for the first time, though far enough away as to be out of earshot of each other. An imperious-looking and wizened male cloud giant appears. He demands to know "that which you do better than anyone among you" from each PC. In a booming voice heard by all. He promises to make the PC greater at that thing if only they should declare to all that the PC is best at it. If the PC declares it, I let them know that they notice some insight about whatever it is that translates into a mechanical boost of some kind +1BAB or +2STR or something like that. The giant smiles and asks if the PC is pleased with his gift in a rhetorical way. If they like it, he can grant it to them again- they only have to declare louder than before that they are the best. He will continue doing this, well, forever at this point. I haven't worked out what the cap would be. He then fades away.

Envy:

Lissala reappears and brings the PCs close together. They seem to be facing all of each other at the same time. Just by looking at one person, another knows all abilities, feats, spellcasting, and (probably)possesions of that person. Anytime a player states that they are looking at another PC, I'll instruct them to hand over their character sheet to the other player: "You look at him and it is as if his person is laid bare before you." However, they wont' know motivations, thoughts, emotions, desires not listed on the character sheet. Lissala offers them a chance to either gift an ability of their own to one other member of the group, or to take an ability form one other person. She tells them it will be a permanent change. I'll have them write down what they decide on and reveal them at the same time, as Lissala fades again.

Wrath:

They are again alone and a male Rune Giant (which my PCs have not yet seen or even heard of, I think) appears towering over them. He crouches low to speak with conspiratorially with them. I may research Death Note to get an idea of what to say for this. He will tell them to name their most hated foe. He will promise to strike that foe down and show them their demise... if they have already been killed, he will offer to banish them from the afterlife and into a torturous undeath. He also promises that the PC will gain knowledge and experience for the death as if they had smote the victim themselves. He fades after they have chosen or refused.

Lust:

I'm not 100% sure what to do with this one. I have Lissala appearing again and instructing the PC to "Love her" in order to pass into Runeforge. What loving her means is left up to the character to describe. The dodge would be describing something that fits neither love or lust in what they do, since it is left up to them.

Once done, I'll know which of the wings of Runeforge welcome them. The party finds that everything which happened during the journey goes away: no new possessions are held, they can't kill with one blow, nothing.
We play in three days. It's intended to be a session where dice are not rolled. However, I'm not opposed to changing that. Or any part, really. I'm looking for feedback, and the only thing I'm truly married to is the idea of it being an existential journey. So what can I do to improve the parts or the whole?

[mousmous]

Update: I'm thinking I'll swap someone from Leng into the Envy trial instead of Lissala. The point of the lamia harridan, cloud giant, and rune giant or for foreshadowing. Leng sort of demands an introduction before the come across the Leng Device later, or else it might seem tacked on and out of place.

[mousmous]

Well, I ran them through it. I gave each player a pad of paper so that they could write down their answers and not influence each other. Reactions to the experience were positive- they mentioned that they really felt like they were travelling between planes and they thought it would be great if the trials built on each other even more (in the sense that the stakes get raised each time). The highlight for me was the warpriest renouncing Shelyn when faced with either "loving" Lissala or being denied entrance to Runeforge. Not what I expected in the trial of Lust, so... still figuring out what I want to do with that. Good stuff, though. In his defense, he first attempted to bluff his way past the trial with a half-hearted answer- "I love you as the stars love the sea" or something very similar. I had to call him on it because it made no sense, and he broke down when he figured out that he wasn't going to B.S. his way past what he thought was a god.

[Tinalles]

I'm sorry I didn't see this earlier. It's very cool. Thanks for sharing!

I've gotta ask -- did anyone name Karzoug as the person for the Rune Giant to kill in the Wrath test?

[mousmous]

Surprisingly, no. Most of them had a feeling that the questions were going to have unforeseen consequences by then. Only one named anyone, and they named Freezemaw, because they puzzled out that Freezemaw had followed them through the portal.

[Aaron Gillespie]

This is great. Really cool and interesting and unique. I may try to do something like this.

My only concern is, there is little (and in some cases no) "catch" to them accepting these boons or accepting the Rune Giants offer.

But kudos on this. It's a really cool idea.

[Kren420]

I will most likely be stealing this on Saturday. Thank you very much.

[Kren420]

The only change I made to this was I had Lissala Introduce herself and the concept of the trials, but first they had to attend a feast. They were then magically whisked away to a fancy banquet hall with all manner of denizens of Leng at the dinner table eating strange foods. They were all invited to join in.
The purpose of this was for gluttony. I figured PC's are pretty paranoid so anyone willing and eager to eat and drink is straying down the path towards gluttony. To my surprise only the Barbarian refused to eat anything.
Other than that I kept it the same and was a huge success. Thank you very much for this.

[mousmous]

Kren420 wrote:

Other than that I kept it the same and was a huge success. Thank you very much for this.

Thank you! I take theft as a high compliment around here. Glad to be able to contribute to someone else's game.

Aaron Gillespie wrote:

I may try to do something like this.

If you do, please let me know what catch you settle on. I may get to run this campaign again some day, and I'd love to improve this encounter.

[Aaron Gillespie]

I'm about to run this on Sunday. I'm going to alter some of it, but I was wondering if anyone else had tried this (I think it's a fantastic idea) and, if so, what changes did you make?

[Tinalles]

Bump. I ran the entry to Runeforge today, and I used this. However, I made some changes.

First, I wanted to use the "pad of paper" approach so no one would know what everyone else's answers were. But rather than just have them write down on a piece of paper, I took the time to write up handouts, which I gave to my players one at a time. Here they are:

Crucible of Sins Handouts (PDF)
Crucible of Sins Handouts (Open Document Format)

Note that these documents do NOT include a handout for Lust. I customized that to each of my players depending on their past romantic entanglements. For example, here's the text of the Lust challenge for Micah, the ranger in the group:

Lust challenge wrote:

You find yourself alone with Eri Valion. "Micah," she says. "I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to risk losing my chance to love you. You do such dangerous things. It would torture me if ... if you were to die and I never had a chance to hold you in my arms. Please …"

What do you do?

Eri is his NPC sweetheart, who previously refused him on the grounds that she is afraid to wind up raising a kid alone if he were to go off and get killed in some dungeon someplace. The other PCs had similar things based on their past romantic entanglements, with the exception of one PC who has not been with the group long enough to have developed any kind of history to work with. She got a generic "You find yourself alone with a former lover, who makes a pass, what do you do".

Because I wanted the PCs to be sincerely tempted by the offers, I did not use obvious enemies for most of them. So, no lamia matriarch, for example, and only one giant (my party dislikes giants). But Khalib puts in an appearance. Mostly I used important NPCs from earlier in the adventure.

I presented them in this order:

Entering Runeforge (Sloth)
The Feast (Gluttony)
The Offer (Greed)
The Target (Wrath)
The Bar (Pride)
The Lover (Lust)
The Exchange (Envy)

Finally, when they arrived in Runeforge, I placed down a Sihedron rune on the table with each flange labeled by sin, and set them on the map according to how things went. For my own notes here: Micah got Pride, Zoey got Sloth; Wren got Love (meaning she appeared beside the flange, not on it); Skrag got Wrath.

And Dova ... err, Dova refused to participate in any of the tests, and has so far done very, very little in the campaign. The player is inexperienced and apparently afraid of "making mistakes," so it has been very difficult to get her to engage in any RP at all. As a result the PC is largely a non-entity. I had her appear standing up to her knees in the center of the Runeforge pool.

Having them do it separately made for interesting choices, and good RP afterwards as they compared notes.