Plot help for one of my players' back story

[mark scully]

Hi there

so one of my players for our upcoming mummys mask gig came up with a great back story/theme for his undead lord.

I was so wowed that i thought i had to somehow put it into play in the game.

here is the back story/theme:

Comes from a noble or rich merchant family.he is the youngest son
of the family. he fell in love with a woman from another noble family, got engaged.

but a rival from another nobel family also wanted to marry her. When he couldnt have her , he made a pact with a demon/devil . in a single night they slaugtered his whole family and his fiances to. every last one was killed, only by some sort of"miracle" did the pc survive. his homestead was burnt to the ground and he lost all wealth with it.

he now wishes revenge over his rival... to kill him and the fiends that helped him.

one of the gods (cant really find any that suit with the death domain :( ) has given him signs/visions that if he "followed" the god he could achive his goals.

his goals are: get revenge over rival, kill the fiend, bring his love back to life.

he is not playing an evil character, but his persuit of knowledge to bring back his love, drives him into the "dark" knowlegde of necromancy. he uses his talents to fight evil.

so... none of the gods with the death domain really suit the story. well maybe the redmantis one.. but some og the revenge gods might work.. but they dont have the death domain... what to do?

i was thinking that maybe the "fiend" cheated his rival, and is perhaps now posseing her dead corpes. or that she is not dead but she as lost her soul and is basicly just a lobotomy case, with no memorys and know abilities to gain any.i got an visual ideer from reading about sylhps... pale skine and swirling blue tattoes with demonic texts. something were his rival his rival has undcovered a minor pyramid/burial chamber in the dessert, and has mummies carrying her around in there. perhaps trying to mummyfy her and be rid of her ..

wall of text... what is your input? all ideers are welcome

[blahpers]

LOUD NOISES

[GM Rednal]

Well, Norgorber seems like a good choice of Murder For Revenge. And that can still work pretty well with the rest of an adventuring party, since the "evil" there is focused very much away from them.

[Adjoint]

:He is not playing an evil character". I assume then that in your setting creating undead isn't evil? It's not quite the Standard Pathfinder Setting, in which creating undead is evil, and that's why only evil gods support creating undead.

You can of course make that change - you are the GM. But if you want to stay true to the Standard Setting, you and your player need to accept that to become an Undead Lord you need to use the power of an evil deity. That doesn't mean that the character has to be evil: he may be a Neutral cleric of an evil deity - but if he's using this power for selfish purposes, he's likely to become evil anyway. You need to figure out how you would treat alignment in your game, and what his character needs to do to avoid becoming evil.

I would also note that just necause he'd be fighting evil, it doesn't mean he can't be evil himself, or that he can't follow an evil being. There's a lot of infighting between evil beings. He may be a follower of a fiend that opposes the fiend supporting his rival. For example, goddess Urgathoa and demon lords Kabiri, Orcus and Zura, although all associated with undead, are rivals. So for example, if your player's character'\s rival would be a follower of orcurs, your PC could make a deal with Urgathoa that she will be granting him powers of Undead Lord just because he'll use them to fight her enemies.

[VoodistMonk]

It doesn't require the Death Domain, just one that promotes undeath. So there's some wiggle room.

And honestly, I would have his lover be a Lich. Just to really throw a spanner in the works.

Whatever demon/devil the PC's rival made the pact with has a sense of humor, and was responsible for keeping the PC alive in the fire, just so the PC would seek revenge against his rival, just so the PC could meet his love again, but she is a Lich. Insert evil laugh.

Plenty of demons are proud and confident enough to welcome the challenge of a mortal seeking revenge against them. So keeping the PC alive just to set up a gigantic cruel joke isn't out of the question.

Your PC would have had better luck saving or studying for a Wish spell, but he didn't, and this is way more fun.

[Meirril]

So, a slight bit of trickery. Don't tell the player otherwise but the wish wasn't to kill the player, but to torment him. The Rival wanted vengeance against the player so he wished "Bring me the woman I love, make her mine and torment the man who dared to come between us". The Rival believed he was dealing with a Genie, he was actually dealing with a glabrezu.

The glabrezu chose to snatch the woman, plucked her soul from her body and turned the corpse into stone. To throw the player into despair he plucked the soul from the woman in front of the player and slaughtered his family around him. He casually told the player "If it was not for the <insert heirloom given by bride> you wear I would kill you as well. Luckily for you her pure love protects you from me." just as a messed up excuse not to kill him.

After finishing his slaughter he returns with the statue that is now the woman's corpse. Laughs in the face of the Rival and returns with his prize, the souls of both the bride and the Player's family. They can not be resurrected because the souls are contained. The glabrezu plans on letting the souls 'ripen' for a century before he decides what to do with them and places them in his collection where he amuses himself by letting them live illusionary 'lives' and erasing their memories every time they realize they are in a trap created by him.

The Rival knows the glabrezu tricked him but is too afraid to take action against it. He keeps the statue as a treasure. He is doing research on how to return the bride to life, and how to steal her soul back from the glabrezu. I'd suggest making him a full fledged Diabolist (like level 9 or so) to represent his dedication to completing his goal.

[VoodistMonk]

Neat.

[mark scully]

sorry for the late response.

thx guys..

i actually dont see necromancy as being more evil than summoning.. i understand that golarion see's this differently. but im willing to fudge this for the right reason just this once :)

[Mark Hoover 330]

Meirril wrote:

After finishing his slaughter he returns with the statue that is now the woman's corpse. Laughs in the face of the Rival and returns with his prize, the souls of both the bride and the Player's family. They can not be resurrected because the souls are contained. The glabrezu plans on letting the souls 'ripen' for a century before he decides what to do with them and places them in his collection where he amuses himself by letting them live illusionary 'lives' and erasing their memories every time they realize they are in a trap created by him.

Elanor Shellstrop, you've died. However congratulations... you're in the Good Place.

[Dave Justus]

Loving a players backstory too much can be as much of a mistake as loving an NPC character too much. It isn't bad that you like it and it inspires you, but you have to remember that the story needs to be about the PCs as a whole and the adventures of them as a party, without too much focus on any one of them.

Particularly since you are playing the mummies mask, Set seems the ideal god.

Personally, I'd be looking at things in the adventure path that I would make hook into that backstory a bit, but wouldn't let it drive the campaign. I'd also make sure that the backstory provides the motivation to play in the adventure path, rather than the motivation to leave it, and I'm not sure that this backstory does that without a lot of rewriting and special focus on the one character.

[Mark Hoover 330]

@ the OP:

1. Right off the bat I thought Shelyn. She's the goddess of true love and what could be truer than tilting against demons to save your lady love? However there's no real Death portfolio that matches up mechanically.

On the other hand if you decide to focus on the mechanics of the Undead Lord cleric Archetype the PC has to select the Death domain, Undead subdomain. A quick search under Death Domain gods with the Undead Subdomain reveals all of these are N or E in alignment, with worshippers following suit.

What about this:

The rival contacted a demon, got his wish, and secured his place as the PC's enemy. Now with a heart filled with hate and sorrow the PC begs the universe for a sign, some way to have his vengeance.

What visited him instead was a humble dragonfly.

The insect spoke to him, informing the PC that it's divine scion could cast her angelic net into the river of souls and would capture his beloved. Once so held, as long as the PC continued to serve her faithfully their wish of being reunited would come to pass.

The PC now worships Mahathallah, a Devil Queen. Mahathallah's portfolio is death, fate and vanity; the domains avail are Death, Evil, Law and Trickery.

The idea here is that this powerful devil has read the fates and suspects the PC will be instrumental in great deeds. Moreover, the demon his rival contacted is somehow on her hit list in the war between the Hells and the Abyss. By allowing this mortal a small taste of her power Mahathallah guarantees her own status will grow, ever so slightly.

She promises her minion everything he desires and may even bind him with an infernal contract. His worship involves using a perception altering drug called Adyton. He venerates dragonflies, might wield a net (favored weapon) and may even learn to speak/read the Infernal language.

From the PC's side the deity fulfills the mechanical requirement and allows them to be LN in alignment. The vengeance and lost love aspects of the PC's background might not be shared by the deity's portfolio but they'll certainly be respected and encouraged.

[Thunderlord]

Just replace "generic npc miniboss" with "Rival." You're not running a homebrew revenge story but archs can be nice. Try asking other players about their backstories and see if this Rival or Fiend has wronged them too.
The Rival should be furious that the PC survived and could hunt the party down instead of the other way around.

Instead of fudging Necromancy to be non evil, this is golarion after all, make the "resurrected" campaign trait give this bonus: "Due to your experience with death, you may cast necromantic spells without compromising your alignment." This or something similar should be fair enough. You don't Paladins to smile on necromancy so there are still bad necromancers. Homebrewing a trait shouldn't be as bad just letting it happen and it is an opportunity cost for your PC.