My player wants his paladin to fall

[pocsaclypse]

I'm running a Carrion Crown game with a group of almost all first timers including one player playing a paladin.
The other day, this player tells me he's been reading up on paladins and thinks it would be interesting to explore in game the gray area around which a paladin could fall. I agree with him that it could lead to some compelling story creation but here's the problem... I'm not the best story teller.
I've been playing for years and have run the occasional one shot where we just dick around, but this is the first time I've run a real campaign. I could use some advice on how I could start weaving this story into the larger campaign.
The player is a paladin of sarenrae and the party is currently investigating the beast of lepidstadt which seems to be a pretty good place to start introducing a plot line to lead a paladin to the edge of acceptable behavior.
Also he's a lit major so I'm probably gonna need a lot of help to keep up with him :)

[PossibleCabbage]

I mean, if it's the story of his character he can tell a significant portion of it. Just ask him what he needs from you in order to tell the story he wants. If it's just a matter of "increasing desperation leads to taking extreme measures, which draw the character in conflict with their code" it shouldn't be a lot.

Most likely ways for a Paladin of Sarenrae to fall are probably "Abandoning their allies" and "resorting to violence against somebody who they legitimately could have persuaded to change their ways". Although, the provision in Sarenrae's code about "no backsliding" is interesting- do you know what his character plans to do after he falls? Seek Atonement, retrain as a different class, become a vindictive bastard?

[pocsaclypse]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

do you know what his character plans to do after he falls? Seek Atonement, retrain as a different class, become a vindictive bastard?

Haven't got that far in the discussion yet, though I now realize that's a very important thing to consider

[PossibleCabbage]

My first instinct for "when the fall should take place" is probably something like "the Paladin, once they realize what's going on, decides to slaughter everybody in Illmarsh and burn the town to the ground." Or something like that. Seems like a natural point for a righteous person to go "too far."

I figure this works because it parallels what Sarenrae did with the city of Gormuz. Which would make for an interesting complication of whatever redemption story follows thereafter.

Also there is another fallen Paladin in a later book (4 or 5) that you might want to have to rewrite because the intended solution of "you kill them" might not be as satisfying for that player as it could be.

[VoodistMonk]

Getting a Paladin of the Dawnflower to fall is kind of difficult. She is a fairly easy Deity to follow her Paladin code.

The Paladin pretty much has to allow his teammates to die through his own inaction.

Sarenrae is forgiving and will allow him not to fall.

She will not allow or forgive cowardice/failure against any of Rovagug's minions.

Otherwise, so long as you fight the bad guys in order to protect the good guys, you probably will not fall from Sarenrae's graces.

I am not familiar with Carrion Crown, but I doubt it has room for any spawn of Rovagug, but his gross Thognorok Qlippoths are easy enough to get in there as random monsters. They are only CR 4, but you can template them or introduce them en masse.

Obviously you are looking to entangle the Paladin whilst they kill someone else in the party, or a bunch of innocent NPC's.

His inability to properly defend people against Rovagug's Thognorok Qlippoths will not be forgotten or forgiven by Sarenrae.

[Cheburn]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

My first instinct for "when the fall should take place" is probably something like "the Paladin, once they realize what's going on, decides to slaughter everybody in Illmarsh and burn the town to the ground." Or something like that. Seems like a natural point for a righteous person to go "too far."

"This entire city just be purged! Those of you who have the will to save this land, follow me! The rest of you ... get out of my sight!"

[PossibleCabbage]

It's probably best to restrict one's culling of Illmarsh to "everyone who was old enough to be complicit". Wholesale slaughter would complicate a redemption narrative.

[pocsaclypse]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

My first instinct for "when the fall should take place" is probably something like "the Paladin, once they realize what's going on, decides to slaughter everybody in Illmarsh and burn the town to the ground." Or something like that. Seems like a natural point for a righteous person to go "too far."

Just reread that bit and yeah, that seems like a good climax to the arc and give me a good place to work backwards from and figure out some good threads to start laying out now.

VoodistMonk wrote:

Getting a Paladin of the Dawnflower to fall is kind of difficult. She is a fairly easy Deity to follow her Paladin code.

Thats one of the reasons I recommended Sarenrae in the first place. I figure since the player wants to explore this and we're both going in with our eyes open I can be a little more lenient with making Sarenrae a little less lenient.

And I think I can work in some Rova-spawn, Carrion Crown has each volume themed after different horror sub-genres so they should fit in nicely.

[marcryser]

Since the entire AP is about saving the world from the Whispering Tyrant, I would think it would be pretty easy to start letting the ends justify the means.

I started the AP with a NG sorcerer and ended it with a sorcerer who was willing to become a vampire to secure te help of other vampires. Since they need the living as a source of food, they should have been reliable allies in the effort to prevent the whispering way from being successful.

[Dragonborn3]

Deity Codes must be followed alongside the normal code(according to Paizo ) so it actually shouldn't be too difficult.

[The Shifty Mongoose]

It's amusing and refreshing to read a thread entitled "My player wants his paladin to fall," and a bunch of people show up to tell the original poster that the paladin should not fall and how hard it would be.

Another possible option the paladin could take would be conversion. If there's too much violence and not enough willingness to admit error, he could always turn his back on Sarenrae and turn toward Iomedae. Or maybe Torag, to destroy the Whispering Way and build something better in its place. How would that sound?

[PossibleCabbage]

I mean the story I kind of like is that Sarenrae wants Illmarsh razed to the ground, but realizes that it'd be a bad idea if she gets a reputation for that sort of thing (Gormuz kind of reflected poorly on her), so she subtly encourages the Paladin to "kill it with fire" as it were, and then has him fall for plausible deniability reasons.

Possible complication, Sarenra, being a goddess of *redemption* really wants to redeem Idriss in book 5, who fell on account of being turned into a vampire and the subsequent alignment change. Carrion Crown assumes "the only way to fix this is to kill him", but what if it's not? What if the only way to save the fallen Paladin is with another fallen Paladin who has an easier road back?

I mean, Carrion Crown was written back when "the undead are always evil" was more of a hard and fast rule- Wrath of the Righteous has a lich you can possibly redeem, so how comparatively hard could it be to redeem a vampire?

[I am Nemesis]

One night, someone made me fall in love with Paladins and I don't think I will be swayed back any time soon. Here is the story;

Powder Keg of Justice:

Background
We've been running our D&D group for quite some time (D&D 3.5), and we were around the 11-13 level range. The game had reached the point where the characters were now 'players' in a kingdom's politics and were national heroes. One of the characters, a paladin, was the youngest son of the now-deposed king. In his youth, he had disappeared for 10 years without a trace and broke his father's heart, the king went into decline and dragged his kingdom with him. Eventually, knowing of the weakness, a coup was launched by a tyrant and now the tyrannical betrayer rules the land with an iron fist.

6 years after the coup, the youngest son returns, now a paladin. What happened to him for all that time has yet to be revealed, but the player and DM had it all worked out.

So anyway, even though the game had revolved pretty much around us trying to get our paladin buddy to reclaim his rightful throne, and most of the plot was centered around it, the player in question decided he was bored with the character and wanted to roll something new.

The DM was a little pissed at this, but he could hardly force the guy to play the character. So, he let him roll up a new guy and drafted in his buddy Chris, who was staying with him for a few weeks to play the paladin "Sir Peter Fairgrave."

I hadn't gamed with Chris before but he seemed like a pretty cool guy -- no complaints -- and he really wanted to know all the details of the plot and everything about our characters citing that he actually wanted to do a proper job of playing the character and to "not let us down."

I didn't know what to expect, but hey, he seemed really into it. So we played.

Anyway, in terms of the current plot: we were forced to waylay our plans to overthrow the tyrant, as a more serious threat had emerged, that of some form of sinister cult.

We had been dealing with this cult for years, but we had never taken them overly seriously. They were just some messed up guys who occasionally got in over their heads, you know. Often they'd make a bid for power, f+*! it up, and we'd have to clean up the deadly deadly mess.

The cult had clearly been playing their Warcraft 3, as they had gotten it into their heads to infect the kingdom's food stores (on a mass scale) with some form of virus that would make the population subservient to some demon the cult venerated.

In game
It was our 11th hour, we'd hounded the streets for days trying to round up cult agents and get information out of them.

We found out the plague was already in most of the food and water, as they had been at it for months, but a ritual needed to be completed for it to become active.

The cultists were hard to break, and our group (generally not the nicest folks) wanted to torture it out of them. Naturally, Sir Peter was opposed.

"We can't preserve freedom while denying it to others. It's not right, we can't do it, and I won't allow it."
Chris wasn't being a dick, he was just playing the character. As much as our characters might not have liked it, we as players were having lots of fun. The added drama really worked.

We managed to capture a high priest of the cult, someone responsible for conducting the ritual in this part of the land. It turns out the ritual needed to be conducted at the same time in several parts of the kingdom at once, in order to deliver the maximum effect.

We need to know the other locations, or else all our efforts would have just saved one northern barony and not the whole land. He gave us no choice but to beat it out of him.

Sir Peter wanted no part of this: "If you're going to treat a man like some animal for the slaughter, then don't expect me to sit by and watch." He then stormed out, and let us carry on in our work.

We'd been at it hours, and we couldn't get the guy to crack. He just wouldn't tell us anything. He was covered in cuts, had lost a toe at our hands, was dripping in his own blood, but still won't give us want we needed. We were going to give up and try another method, when all of a sudden, our doorway darkens and in walks Sir Peter. He's wearing nothing but his tunic and pants, unarmed, bar for a half drank jug of some form of strong booze in hand.

In steps into the room and announces:

"If you're going to do this, do it right..."
He walks over to the bound cultist, tosses aside his bottle, lifts the chair and sits in front of the beaten man.

Sir Peter:

"I don't want to hurt you, I just need to know the locations of your brethren, then this can be all over for you, I will make sure you are safe and cared for."
Cultist:

"Ha! I know who you are, Sir Peter Fairgrave; kingdom breaker, runaway child, father slayer. You can't threaten me: I know what you are. Your order, your God won't allow you to lay your hands on me, otherwise you'll fall, and you won't be able to help a soul."
Sir Peter:

*sighs* "You seem to be under the misconception about what I am, what I do. I am a paladin, that is true; but as a paladin I don't fear falling... I look forward to it."
The cultist shot a nervous look at the rest of the party, we were all looking at each other, not sure what was about to happen. The cultist opened his mouth to speak, but Sir Peter cut him off.

Sir Peter:

"As a paladin, I walk on a razor's edge. Not between good and evil, I could never be something like you, but between "law" and "justice". The "law" I follow doesn't permit me to harm you, but I could be "justified" in anything I did to you in order to save innocent lives. ANYTHING!"
"You don't know what it is like to be me. You don't know the pain of having to store all your anger, all your fury, all your sense of justice, and hold it inside you, all day every day for the rest of your life. Doing the right thing doesn't mean I get to stop all evil, I just get to trim it when it becomes overgrown. The path I walk is not about vengeance, or what's right; it's about moderation in the face of power, restraint and compassion for scum like you.
"This is why paladins don't fear falling. We don't spend all day looking for ways to prevent ourselves from doing evil and giving in to the darkness -- we actively seek it out. Every time we face evil, we ask ourselves, 'Is this the threat that I'm going to give it all up for? Is this what I am going to give up my ability to help others in the future, in order to bring it down now. Is this the evil that I am willing to forsake my God and my power to stop?!'".
At this point, he stands up suddenly and swings his arm against the chair he was sitting on. Sending it flying and shattered against a wall, he then kicks over the chair the cultist was sitting on, he leaps and straddles his chest, flinging him about for a few seconds in pure rage, before calming once more.

He looks the cultist straight in the face, both their noses just inches from each other.

"What you should be asking yourself now, what you really need to be thinking about, is: 'Is what I'm doing something that will make this guy want to fall?' Because you should know that once I fall, all those rules which protect you from me are gone. No longer will I be able to be stopped by you, or by my order, or by my God. If I give everything, and I mean give everything, I will never stop. If you escape me today, I will hunt you down and grab you into the pits of hell myself. Even if that means that I have to invoke the wrath of every demon in creation, just so they throw open a pit and drag me down where I stand, because when they do drag me down, I will make sure that my fists are wrapped firmly around your ankles and you go down with me. I want you to listen to me now, and I mean really listen, because Hell truly hath no fury like a paladin scorned."
"So I ask you, one last time: tell me where the other rituals are being held, or I swear to all on high that I will fall, and fall hard, just so I can show you what it is that paladin truly keeps his code in order to hold back..."
At this point the player, Chris, just stops talking and looks at us. We are all kind of stunned by his speech, naturally.

He just picks up a D20, looks at the DM and says "I wish to roll intimidate."

And that is how a Paladin should fall.