help me find a puppeteer!

[Evilserran]

so with most home games that are "sandbox" my group has thrown me for a loop by doing something i wasnt expecting. As the stroy progressed a "villain" ended up being "less villainy" and the group now wants to go find the person that manipulated the villainIdidnt think that through). While the easiest part would just make the head of the temple an evil cleric, the deity makes that kind of hard... so i was looking for some sort of puppeteering monster. I am aware of mindflayers and intellect devourers, but those dont rreally fit what i am looking for.

If you know your fantastic four, i am kind of looking for someone/something, that can function almost like the puppet master. I could create one if i have to, but as i am supposed to be doing this tonight any sort of direction would be appreciated.

As concise as i can put it, there was an inquisitor that was meant to be a bad guy, but i was trying to make neither side look to obvious good or evil, when push came to shove the group sided against her, and when they killed her, they found out she had been twisted due to torture to break her will, rather than magically compelled. The group then decided, despite the "issue" being dealt with, they want to track down whomever did this to her, and are planning (i think) on storming the temple.

[Mark Hoover 330]

A religious figure tortured into acting against their nature or faith? Sounds like: demons, devils, kytons, or really most powerful, evil outsiders. But then you also talked about something that could literally enter a person's mind and puppet them.

Anything capable of the spell is a good fit. Another way to go would be the [url=https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/devil/devil-belier/]Belier Devil who Magic Jars into a victim's body and possesses them.

Do you have any major campaign-spanning threats planned in your sandbox? I mean, if your game is mostly dragon-themed for some reason, it might not make sense to set up a CR 16 devil as the BBEG.

[Smoke & Mirrors]

vampire spawn & dominate?

the most evil creature of all:

A human.

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?"

So many ways of producing an evil NPC...

[Evilserran]

The current theme is fairytales. There is no announced bbeg now, though I was planning on having some sort of malicious fairy causing the things to happen in fairytale like ways. They are only level 3 at the moment so have more time to flesh that part out. I'll take a look at the devil, and I totally could use magic jar too, which could be fun, since gozeh normally would channel positive, to have them channel negative and see if the pros in my group pick it up. ...

[Might be Mighty Mite]

Vermlek Demon - kill the good NPC and replace him by crawling into the body...

[JiCi]

How about a creature that can possess other creatures? A Shadow Demon with the Improved Possession feat, or any Demon with both that feat and Demonic Possession, or a Half-Fiend (or even Tiefling) with both feats would make a great puppeteer :)

[Mark Hoover 330]

Fairy Tales, ok, here's a couple avenues:

1. Hag coven: hags are all about sowing chaos. Could be that the coven got together and used their Coven abilities to charm, intimidate or coerce members of the clergy into acts of heresy or mayhem?

2. Powerful fey: lots of possibilities - when the inquisitor spurned a fey's advances, she turned him into her proxy; something along the same lines as the hags, but because the fey are trying to get back at the gods for their abandonment of the First World; a cruel tormentor using pain and intimidation to force mortals to do their bidding as a would-be monarch

3. Evil enchanter: a dark spellcaster, capable of the Possession spell, using their proxies as a way to gain access to the most well-guarded lore. Where better to start than with an Inquisitor, a being imbued with divine power to find answers?

Of all of these, I like the evil enchanter the best as a fairy tale - Rumplestiltsken. See, the enchanter has a sympathetic reason; someone very close to them is about to be taken to the First World to live an eternity as a slave to a deranged fey. This BBEG doesn't have time to be subtle or kind as they are trying to find the True Name of the fey in question. If they can discern the True Name, they can win their bargain and save their loved one by dismissing the fey creature.

How does the enchanter know this? B/c the church encountered this fey creature once before and the enchanter is sure that somewhere amid the forbidden church lore is the name they seek. They tried once to ask for the information but they were rebuffed, so now they're using Possession and other spells to gain access to old church records, to find the information to save their loved one.

If you want you could even spin this into a multi-level event. The PCs are dedicated to finding out who controlled this inquisitor; while they're investigating, other weird stuff happens. See, the evil enchanter possesses someone and accidentally sets a powerful demon free that runs amok; then learn that the demon was under lock-and-key by some church official but going to them reveals similar control from an outside force like the inquisitor. Finally, after putting all of the clues together they learn that the evil enchanter first came to a high priest - the PCs visit them only to find them in the thrall of the BBEG too, except this time there's the chance to free them before they are fully corrupted.

After all of this either they save the high priest who tells them about the BBEG or they have found enough to piece it together. They go after the BBEG and catch up to them just as the vile fey is about to show up and take their loved one. Now it's a moral quandary for the players - do they help save the innocent that's about to get whisked off to the First World or do they deal with the evil enchanter?

[VoodistMonk]

The party pulls a jack move, kills the Evil Enchanter's loved one so the Fey can't take him/her to the First World...

[avr]

There's plenty of ghosts in fairytales, and ghosts can possess people if they have the malevolence ability. Vetalas have a similar malevolence ability. Either has class levels which can show them as not-the-inquisitor if you want to drop hints.

[mardaddy]

Don't overlook the mesmerist as the possible "dark enchanter," lotsa unique stuff there and suitable occult magic items to assist.

My players were completely thrown for a loop for quite a few sessions when I used one as a gang leader that held power over his gang and victims through lesser geas.

[gnoams]

Aboleths

[Evilserran]

Hm I started along the lines of a skinwalker/skin taker. How does that seem?

[Mark Hoover 330]

Do you mean a Skin Stealer? Also, is there a particular fairy tale you're looking to emulate? I think in previous threads you've tried to simulate an actual story with your adventures.

[Evilserran]

The group kind of veered off the fairytale track i had laid out a bit, and so i have decided to branch off and use the navajo tales of a skin walker to expplain this part further, i could really keep it going as it was with the sudden line of questioning and the direction they went. Problem of open worlds lol, but i'll get em back in line eventually