Roleplaying Chellan [Spires of Xin-Shalast spoilers]

[Laski]

So my PCs have defeated Viorian and managed to escape with her loot barely alive. They didn't take many precautions when looting her, so one of the PCs took Chellan, and we ended the last session when he realised the sword could talk to him.
My idea was to make the sword really intelligent (consistently with its stats), so it made a lot of sense that it wouldn't immediately reveal its allegiance. After all, it clearly knows that their new owner is an enemy of Karzoug.
I decided that the sword would play friendly at first, perhaps giving some small hints (as suggesting the character to loot the jewels from the walls or something), and reveal its true nature closer to the end.
Has anyone went that way? Do you have any advice for this roleplay, or funny situations that may happen? There's no much insight about Chellan's personality in the books, and in the journals I've found the PCs discarded it without much interaction.

[Adjoint]

As desribed in Appendix 8 to the AE, Chellan is fanatically devoted to Karzoug:

Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition, p. 421 wrote:

Fanatical in the extreme, Chellan seeks to force its wielder into serving Karzoug and furthering the runelord’s goals. To enforce this purpose of their existence, it can use its intelligence and special abilities to aid and manipulate those who think to wield it.

It is LE and has Ego Score 25, and by the general rules, "any item with an Ego score of 20 or higher always considers itself superior to any character, and a personality conflict results if the possessor does not always agree with the item". That means that rather sooner than later Chellan would try to dominate its wielder, as he did with Viorian.

If you prefer him to be smart about it, it can tell stories about the riches that Karzoug has created in the past, indirectly trying to make the PC think that Karzoug wouldn't be such a bad ruler, end they could gain many times more from siding with Karzoug rather than fighting him.
He knows however that Karzoug can destroy him with one word, and nothing else can hurt him, so if 'smart way' turns out impossible, he'll try to control the PC by force (DC 25 Will) the moment that PC will try to do something that Karzoug would disapprove. That may as well be a possibly at the worst possible moment, for example, when they are fighting other Karzoug's minions. Chellan would not think for a moment that Karzoug could lose, and he knows that once the PCs are defeated he may be judged for his actions, how well he tried to stop them, so I think he'd rather be safe than sorry.

[Laski]

Adjoint wrote:

[...]

If you prefer him to be smart about it, it can tell stories about the riches that Karzoug has created in the past, indirectly trying to make the PC think that Karzoug wouldn't be such a bad ruler, end they could gain many times more from siding with Karzoug rather than fighting him.
He knows however that Karzoug can destroy him with one word, and nothing else can hurt him, so if 'smart way' turns out impossible, he'll try to control the PC by force (DC 25 Will) the moment that PC will try to do something that Karzoug would disapprove. That may as well be a possibly at the worst possible moment, for example, when they are fighting other Karzoug's minions. Chellan would not think for a moment that Karzoug could lose, and he knows that once the PCs are defeated he may be judged for his actions, how well he tried to stop them, so I think he'd rather be safe than sorry.

Good advice! I obviously intend the "treason" to happen in the middle of a fight, if the PCs don't realize there's something wrong before that. I'd go a little further and assume that the DC to resist would be 29:

Quote:

If the wielder specifically ignores or goes against an intelligent item’s special purpose, the item gains a +4 bonus to its Ego until the wielder cooperates.

[Misroi]

I actually waited to spring the domination effect until the final battle with Karzoug. I felt that it wouldn't spring that on the party until it was necessary. The fighter managed to shake off the domination, so she didn't have to pull Chellan and turn on her friends.

Bummer, I know. ;)

[mousmous]

The roleplay of Chellan lead to it succesfully dominating the party alchemist/monk while the party was recuperating from that fight. When the monk couldn't escape the pocket dimension that they created to join Karzoug, he turned on the party and nearly wiped them out. I have no regrets over the lack of an ambush moment. Chellan was terrifying to the party even before they figured out it could hijack a party member, so even if it had failed, they would have gotten a satisfying story out of interacting with it.