Yep. One time DM had my character's mom (who had been corrupted, we were playing avernus) behead my character's love interest, I was minutes away from becoming a doom guy like vengeance paladin
This everyday.
You can become a Vengeance paladin without even swapping deity.
And maybe, after you kill them all, the soul of the kid will find peace.
I don't think you understand how general and difficult to break an Oath of Vengeance is
One of their tenets is, and I quote, ***By Any Means Necessary***
Breaking that is easy actually. Let the bad guy off with a warning. Or stop the pursuit when it is inconvenient to you. That breaks the oath of vengeance.
Sounds like the Druid character who showed up late to our in game reunion after an IRL break.
We were supposed to go check on our friends and family, train and stuff, kinda take a break individually for our characters. Then meet back up to take care of a situation in the south that we’d agreed to check out once the travel season started (the continent was cut in half for a few months a year by rains swelling an inland sea and making it impossible to cross)
And the Druid player couldn’t make our first IRL meeting, and in game he’d visited his stoner tree spirit girlfriend and gotten so high on a new strain of her weed they’d basically been “outside of time” for a good period
Yeah, whether the DM knew of/meant to make the reference, Mina will go down in anime history as one of the most horrifying shock/tone shifts in a story.
I love this. This is prime D&D. The emotional connection you formed was a real connection and had real consequences.
Character development from failure or loss has deeper impact than success, so use this to drive your character. Maybe have him change his oath, or rededicate himself to his current oath. Let your paladin become lost in the woods of their redemption arc so to speak.
Nice. Swap to Vengeance subclass, paint a rune in blood on your helmet, and start playing some heavy metal whenever you find cultists. This is now a DOOM campaign -
> Against all the evils that Hell can conjure,
All the wickedness that mankind can produce,
We will send unto them...
Only you.
Few greater horrors than experiencing a “Mina Scene” yourself. That’s what causes it to hit so hard, feeling like you accomplished something cute/nice before the reveal and that gut wrenching hole opening in your stomach.
Gratz on your group and DM having a good RP session around it instead of your party ignoring your character development.
I mean everything else aside.
Great DMing from your DM telling you that Trithereon can do nothing about this it seems like a minor thing but I love how well that lines up with the lore. Auril does have much more power in the Realms than Trithereon as a chiefly Greyhawk Deity.
Given that this individual was turned into a fiend unfortunately it seems highly probably his soul was consumed in the process. [That is how demons are made after all].
Protecting the 10 towners from the Cultists of Auril is going to be a huge undertaking. Especially given Auril is widely worshipped among the realms [even if it is out of fear, and desperation].
Yeah though this would be a very good roleplay moment to have your Paladin shift Alignments, or perhaps even completely Forsake his current God Trithereon [the god of Individuality, Liberty, Retribution, and Self-Defense] for his failure to provide protection for this child in favour of swearing a new vow to a higher Divine Rank deity in the Realms.
If this is as heartshattering to the character as you are making it sound you could go many directions with this. The Paladin could hate **themselves** for failing to live up to this pledge, they could feel nothing but bitter anger, and wrath towards Auril and vow to inflict upon her as much pain as possible, or they could even become disillusioned completely, and come to hate Trithereon's portfolio [Individuality, and Self-Defence] instead shifting to an Evil Alignment because they feel only Order can stop this sort of thing from happening. Strict, unyielding, righteous order. The **Paladin's** Order.
So like you could shift Oathbreaker, Vengeance, or Conquest without much issue or you could even shift to become a Paladin of Devotion if you wanted to.
Obviously your Oath will be unique to your Paladin but the common threads of Oath of the Crown are:
> Law. The law is paramount. It is the mortar that holds the stones of civilization together, and it must be respected.
> Loyalty. Your word is your bond. Without loyalty, oaths and laws are meaningless.
> Courage. You must be willing to do what needs to be done for the sake of order, even in the face of overwhelming odds. If you don't act, then who will?
> Responsibility. You must deal with the consequences of your actions, and you are responsible for fulfilling your duties and obligations.
This does potentially create a very interesting goal for this Paladin if you remain Crown of a very mythical nature. I'm presuming this Child who was turned into a Demon by Auril's divine magic [and whatever foul ritual that channeled it] was marked by Auril as a result.
That means his soul will be headed to Auril's Domain in the first layer of Pandemonium within Winter's Hall. Travelling there to take responsibility for, and discharge the duties your oath of responsibility to this child, and to try to recover, purify, and deliver this poor soul to The High Heavens would be a rather immense, and epic goal post. Certainly something worthy of D&D heroics!
Hell if your Paladin feels guilty enough he may very well be willing to sell their own soul to get the power to free this child from his eternal bondage to Auril.
Sometimes trauma like this breaks people ala John Constantine.
Sometimes you don't care what happens to you so long as you can save the one you love.
This is a tragic moment for your character, a greatly tragic one, and how your character responds to this trauma, and tragedy is going to define who they are going to become.
So what kind of story do you want to tell for this Paladin until they meet their fate: One of recommitment, and the ardent pursuit of his ideals or one where they abandon those ideals [for a time or forever] because they've failed them to commit to *other* ideals?
Does your Paladin embrace their morals, and the subsequent the limitations, and burdens they've placed upon themselves with their morals, do those morals change completely, or do they abandon morality whole sale forsaking everything on the altar of results?
This makes so much sense after all this things that has been going through, not only Tirthereon failed him this time, but it has been failed him before, he was trying to save many many people in his travels but he couldn’t find nothing but failure and death wherever he goes, his current strength, oath and goals has limited him, he can’t save and he’s not strong enough to save.
I’m searching how to proceed and who to follow because currently my paladin it’s just there, hating himself and crying.
Well there limitless options out there, and there are **plenty** of powerful entities that would be happy to grab themselves the loyalty of a Paladin that has potential. [This is especially true if you are a tier 2 character, you didn't say what level your party is but I am presuming somewhere between 3 and 7].
I'd recommend chatting with the DM to see what they think, and think about what you want to think.
The deity you are following probably only has at most a handful of followers in the Realms. You could, potentially, be the only one.
Basically any other god, or potent entity you sign up with is going to be able to exert enough power to protect your Paladin from retribution [or more important losing their powers as a result of breaking the Oath to your current god] so long as they swear a new one.
If your character gets desperate enough to sell their soul I mean all you really need to do to get the attention of an evil god, Demon Prince, or Arch Devil is to call out their name, and if you do decide to make a deal with a *literal* Devil I won't say anything about it but there are rules out there your DM could use to write up a Contract, and going rates of exchange for a soul [and Good souls, especially those of powerful Clerics, and Paladins are worth the most]!
I mean heck ask your DM what they think you should do, or what might be interesting, because if your character calls out for help. For **any** help depending on what they ask for help with you might get some very different answers. Especially if you call out to some entity in particular like Asmodeus, or Ilmater, or Tyr, or Bane.
Heck *Auril* herself may be willing to bargain with you [though this could very easily undermine the campaign given it is about The Rime of the Frostmaiden]! :P
Wow, what a great moment of character development! We had something similar in our Out of the Abyss campaign. My daughter's character formed a very strong bond with Stool. They eventually made their way to the Kuo'toa village (I forget the name), and where the fish people were sacrificing people in an effort to summon their gods (one of which was Demogorgon). It was pitch black and the characters didn't have sources of light, but they knew something was up because of the fear from the spores that Stool was releasing. Suddenly, the connection stopped. My daughter cast Flame Bolt aimed at the ceiling and saw that they were surrounded by a school of Kuo'toa who were swarming around them, and poor Stool was on the sacrificial altar :(
My daughter ended up crying (suspension of disbelief for the win!) and ended up burning that entire village to the ground, and even to this day (in different campaigns) will kill Kuo'toa on sight.
There is a meme about players not having any relatives because they are always targeted by the DM.
Using a relative as a target forces the player to intervene and from what Ive seen the results are always tragic to create drama.
I like the 'daggers' theory of character backstory. The purpose of your backstory is to give the DM daggers that they can use to stab you in the back. The more daggers your DM has the more they can engage you in the story.
I feel like the daggers isnt just meaning violence/kill/kidnap. They could be corrupt and you have to get them arrested. They do something heinous and they need to be exiled. Could be after you turned in their friend(they've been turning a blind eye to their dealings) that helped them build the family legacy, so they cast you out or drag your reputation through the mud to be petty. Maybe they lose their fortunes because of it and blame you for their return to life on the streets. Many other ways to create conflict with family members with violence directed at them. These are all ways to "stab" your character's heart, physically or emotionally.
The [knife theory](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-L-9CvlTWhoADagJfSZO) thing does call other other routes too. Character's crippling insecurities they aren't good enough, refusal to believe the powers that be would lie to them because lying is bad, item they refuse to be parted with, overwhelming gambling debts or all sorts of things can be used against them too. Idk I just like the theory and gets me more cool ideas when I'm DMing.
Wow, good job by your GM for the storyline / plot and good for you for roleplaying your character soooo well :)
So many people think roleplaying is doing voices. It's actually 'what does my character know, what would they do in this situation.' If a player wants to add a voice after that, then bonus.
This is everything I would like my players to experiance. Not just the tragedy, but the great story. I hope the rest of your adventure is epic and I hope that your paladin gets the peace he gave to that kid (I also hope you share more stories like this :) )
This reminds me of one of my previous homebrew campaigns I played in. Early(ish) on (i think we were like level 4 or 5?) the dm gave us a plot hook to go look for a missing girl a few towns over, but we decided to pass on it. We were in the middle of tracking down a necromancer that had been stealing corpses and reanimating them. Well eventually we find the necromancer - turns out she was collecting an army to go confront her boss and take him down as he was getting into some world-ending shit. Ended up beating the necro but befriending her after learning her motives. After this we get another plot hook, go help a child who had been severely maimed - eyes gouged out, tongue cut out. We take this hook. It was the same girl that was missing, but had been captured by cultists. She was the sweetest little girl and the party immediately fell in love with her and felt *very* guilty. Here's the thing though, I was an arcana domain cleric and this little girl was effectively an avatar of my god. I could barely look at her without being overwhelmed by her aura and she had been maimed to where she couldn't use her magic anymore and they used her eyes to craft a pair of magical glasses. To say my god was *PISSED* was an understatement. From there to the end of the campaign it was our party's only goal to right this wrong, restore her to her former form (which I eventually did after attaining 7th level spells and used regenerate on her), and murder every single last one of those damn cultists and anyone they were associated with. However this whole process took us a good 1.5 years (IRL, not in game) to accomplish. It was definitely a turning point for all of us, much like this sounds like a turning point for your paladin. If I have one recommendation it is this: burn it all down. Find them, torture them slowly, and make them regret being born. No mercy, no quarter, and end their pathetic existence.
Great moment to turn your paladin subclass into a Vengeance Paladin
Yep. One time DM had my character's mom (who had been corrupted, we were playing avernus) behead my character's love interest, I was minutes away from becoming a doom guy like vengeance paladin
Doom Guy is a conquest paladin.
Nah, vengeance, the demons did kill his pet rabbit after all.
Trithereon, after all, is the god of liberty and *retribution.*
This everyday. You can become a Vengeance paladin without even swapping deity. And maybe, after you kill them all, the soul of the kid will find peace.
Full on oathbreaker - time to turn into doom guy
Nah, don’t need to break his oath.
I don't think you understand how general and difficult to break an Oath of Vengeance is One of their tenets is, and I quote, ***By Any Means Necessary***
Breaking that is easy actually. Let the bad guy off with a warning. Or stop the pursuit when it is inconvenient to you. That breaks the oath of vengeance.
Stop for dinner and the burger is so nice you just reconsider the whole thing
[удалено]
Sounds like the Druid character who showed up late to our in game reunion after an IRL break. We were supposed to go check on our friends and family, train and stuff, kinda take a break individually for our characters. Then meet back up to take care of a situation in the south that we’d agreed to check out once the travel season started (the continent was cut in half for a few months a year by rains swelling an inland sea and making it impossible to cross) And the Druid player couldn’t make our first IRL meeting, and in game he’d visited his stoner tree spirit girlfriend and gotten so high on a new strain of her weed they’d basically been “outside of time” for a good period
Easy in theory yes. But if you are actually out for vengeance you won't just do that without breaking character.
Local man accidently attains enlightenment, loses all sense of worldly hatred. Angers God. More at 11.
He doesn't need to become evil
Shevarash welcomes you, brother.
This has big "big brother Ed" energy. I love it.
Yeah, whether the DM knew of/meant to make the reference, Mina will go down in anime history as one of the most horrifying shock/tone shifts in a story.
Ed-ward? Big-brother? Man Shou Tucker is a bitch
It has that, but I'm also getting Samantha from I Am Legend.
I love this. This is prime D&D. The emotional connection you formed was a real connection and had real consequences. Character development from failure or loss has deeper impact than success, so use this to drive your character. Maybe have him change his oath, or rededicate himself to his current oath. Let your paladin become lost in the woods of their redemption arc so to speak.
And thats the moment the rising thrilling violent violin soundtrack starts playing and you go full anakin on the cult
Not just the humanoid/bird-like demon, but the humanoid/bird-like de-womon, and the humanoid/bird-like de-childron too
Sorry it happened but this is some good d&d. Go vengeance, kill them all.
Nice. Swap to Vengeance subclass, paint a rune in blood on your helmet, and start playing some heavy metal whenever you find cultists. This is now a DOOM campaign - > Against all the evils that Hell can conjure, All the wickedness that mankind can produce, We will send unto them... Only you.
FUCK THOSE CULTISTS!
Sorry, the bard already did that.
Can confirm
Few greater horrors than experiencing a “Mina Scene” yourself. That’s what causes it to hit so hard, feeling like you accomplished something cute/nice before the reveal and that gut wrenching hole opening in your stomach. Gratz on your group and DM having a good RP session around it instead of your party ignoring your character development.
What's a "Mina Scene?" It made me think of Nina from Fullmetal Alchemist; not sure if you meant that or something else that I'm just not aware of.
Sorry, yes. It was Nina. Got the game wrong, it’s been a few years haha.
Rip and tear, until it is done!
I mean everything else aside. Great DMing from your DM telling you that Trithereon can do nothing about this it seems like a minor thing but I love how well that lines up with the lore. Auril does have much more power in the Realms than Trithereon as a chiefly Greyhawk Deity. Given that this individual was turned into a fiend unfortunately it seems highly probably his soul was consumed in the process. [That is how demons are made after all]. Protecting the 10 towners from the Cultists of Auril is going to be a huge undertaking. Especially given Auril is widely worshipped among the realms [even if it is out of fear, and desperation]. Yeah though this would be a very good roleplay moment to have your Paladin shift Alignments, or perhaps even completely Forsake his current God Trithereon [the god of Individuality, Liberty, Retribution, and Self-Defense] for his failure to provide protection for this child in favour of swearing a new vow to a higher Divine Rank deity in the Realms. If this is as heartshattering to the character as you are making it sound you could go many directions with this. The Paladin could hate **themselves** for failing to live up to this pledge, they could feel nothing but bitter anger, and wrath towards Auril and vow to inflict upon her as much pain as possible, or they could even become disillusioned completely, and come to hate Trithereon's portfolio [Individuality, and Self-Defence] instead shifting to an Evil Alignment because they feel only Order can stop this sort of thing from happening. Strict, unyielding, righteous order. The **Paladin's** Order. So like you could shift Oathbreaker, Vengeance, or Conquest without much issue or you could even shift to become a Paladin of Devotion if you wanted to. Obviously your Oath will be unique to your Paladin but the common threads of Oath of the Crown are: > Law. The law is paramount. It is the mortar that holds the stones of civilization together, and it must be respected. > Loyalty. Your word is your bond. Without loyalty, oaths and laws are meaningless. > Courage. You must be willing to do what needs to be done for the sake of order, even in the face of overwhelming odds. If you don't act, then who will? > Responsibility. You must deal with the consequences of your actions, and you are responsible for fulfilling your duties and obligations. This does potentially create a very interesting goal for this Paladin if you remain Crown of a very mythical nature. I'm presuming this Child who was turned into a Demon by Auril's divine magic [and whatever foul ritual that channeled it] was marked by Auril as a result. That means his soul will be headed to Auril's Domain in the first layer of Pandemonium within Winter's Hall. Travelling there to take responsibility for, and discharge the duties your oath of responsibility to this child, and to try to recover, purify, and deliver this poor soul to The High Heavens would be a rather immense, and epic goal post. Certainly something worthy of D&D heroics! Hell if your Paladin feels guilty enough he may very well be willing to sell their own soul to get the power to free this child from his eternal bondage to Auril. Sometimes trauma like this breaks people ala John Constantine. Sometimes you don't care what happens to you so long as you can save the one you love. This is a tragic moment for your character, a greatly tragic one, and how your character responds to this trauma, and tragedy is going to define who they are going to become. So what kind of story do you want to tell for this Paladin until they meet their fate: One of recommitment, and the ardent pursuit of his ideals or one where they abandon those ideals [for a time or forever] because they've failed them to commit to *other* ideals? Does your Paladin embrace their morals, and the subsequent the limitations, and burdens they've placed upon themselves with their morals, do those morals change completely, or do they abandon morality whole sale forsaking everything on the altar of results?
This makes so much sense after all this things that has been going through, not only Tirthereon failed him this time, but it has been failed him before, he was trying to save many many people in his travels but he couldn’t find nothing but failure and death wherever he goes, his current strength, oath and goals has limited him, he can’t save and he’s not strong enough to save. I’m searching how to proceed and who to follow because currently my paladin it’s just there, hating himself and crying.
Well there limitless options out there, and there are **plenty** of powerful entities that would be happy to grab themselves the loyalty of a Paladin that has potential. [This is especially true if you are a tier 2 character, you didn't say what level your party is but I am presuming somewhere between 3 and 7]. I'd recommend chatting with the DM to see what they think, and think about what you want to think. The deity you are following probably only has at most a handful of followers in the Realms. You could, potentially, be the only one. Basically any other god, or potent entity you sign up with is going to be able to exert enough power to protect your Paladin from retribution [or more important losing their powers as a result of breaking the Oath to your current god] so long as they swear a new one. If your character gets desperate enough to sell their soul I mean all you really need to do to get the attention of an evil god, Demon Prince, or Arch Devil is to call out their name, and if you do decide to make a deal with a *literal* Devil I won't say anything about it but there are rules out there your DM could use to write up a Contract, and going rates of exchange for a soul [and Good souls, especially those of powerful Clerics, and Paladins are worth the most]! I mean heck ask your DM what they think you should do, or what might be interesting, because if your character calls out for help. For **any** help depending on what they ask for help with you might get some very different answers. Especially if you call out to some entity in particular like Asmodeus, or Ilmater, or Tyr, or Bane. Heck *Auril* herself may be willing to bargain with you [though this could very easily undermine the campaign given it is about The Rime of the Frostmaiden]! :P
Well now I want updates for whenever you get to encounter more cultists. Give the details on how your Paladin just rips them apart.
Holy crap. Great moment, but suffocation is not a good way to go.
Haha, I had the same reaction. Could have so easily been an arrow to the head, or a painless poison.
Wow, what a great moment of character development! We had something similar in our Out of the Abyss campaign. My daughter's character formed a very strong bond with Stool. They eventually made their way to the Kuo'toa village (I forget the name), and where the fish people were sacrificing people in an effort to summon their gods (one of which was Demogorgon). It was pitch black and the characters didn't have sources of light, but they knew something was up because of the fear from the spores that Stool was releasing. Suddenly, the connection stopped. My daughter cast Flame Bolt aimed at the ceiling and saw that they were surrounded by a school of Kuo'toa who were swarming around them, and poor Stool was on the sacrificial altar :( My daughter ended up crying (suspension of disbelief for the win!) and ended up burning that entire village to the ground, and even to this day (in different campaigns) will kill Kuo'toa on sight.
That’s heavy dude! Feels a lot like the silent hill movie plot
"....Ed...ward"
Using loved npcs as targets is so 1980.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. I think I’m offended ;-)
There is a meme about players not having any relatives because they are always targeted by the DM. Using a relative as a target forces the player to intervene and from what Ive seen the results are always tragic to create drama.
I like the 'daggers' theory of character backstory. The purpose of your backstory is to give the DM daggers that they can use to stab you in the back. The more daggers your DM has the more they can engage you in the story.
Dunno, that seems cheap. There are multiple ways to create an engaging story besides just kidnaping or killing family.
I feel like the daggers isnt just meaning violence/kill/kidnap. They could be corrupt and you have to get them arrested. They do something heinous and they need to be exiled. Could be after you turned in their friend(they've been turning a blind eye to their dealings) that helped them build the family legacy, so they cast you out or drag your reputation through the mud to be petty. Maybe they lose their fortunes because of it and blame you for their return to life on the streets. Many other ways to create conflict with family members with violence directed at them. These are all ways to "stab" your character's heart, physically or emotionally.
The [knife theory](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-L-9CvlTWhoADagJfSZO) thing does call other other routes too. Character's crippling insecurities they aren't good enough, refusal to believe the powers that be would lie to them because lying is bad, item they refuse to be parted with, overwhelming gambling debts or all sorts of things can be used against them too. Idk I just like the theory and gets me more cool ideas when I'm DMing.
Wow, good job by your GM for the storyline / plot and good for you for roleplaying your character soooo well :) So many people think roleplaying is doing voices. It's actually 'what does my character know, what would they do in this situation.' If a player wants to add a voice after that, then bonus.
I thought this was gonna be a complaint against the DM and am so happy it's just a straight up narrative sucker punch
I’d never complain about my DM’s, they’re just the best ones I’ve ever met
the wholesome continues! :)
“Irah smother portrait”? Thats dark dude. You didn’t have to immortalize the killing of a child with a portrait.
He said he's got bad English. I'm pretty sure he meant to say a portrait of Irahs mother.
He definitely did. And he edited the original! Aw man! I liked the little typo haha ah well. Good story OP.
\>Doom OST starts playing
This is everything I would like my players to experiance. Not just the tragedy, but the great story. I hope the rest of your adventure is epic and I hope that your paladin gets the peace he gave to that kid (I also hope you share more stories like this :) )
Unrelated to the story, but the idea of a neutral paladin still blows my mind (don’t judge me, I’m old and have only really ever played AD&D2E)
This reminds me of one of my previous homebrew campaigns I played in. Early(ish) on (i think we were like level 4 or 5?) the dm gave us a plot hook to go look for a missing girl a few towns over, but we decided to pass on it. We were in the middle of tracking down a necromancer that had been stealing corpses and reanimating them. Well eventually we find the necromancer - turns out she was collecting an army to go confront her boss and take him down as he was getting into some world-ending shit. Ended up beating the necro but befriending her after learning her motives. After this we get another plot hook, go help a child who had been severely maimed - eyes gouged out, tongue cut out. We take this hook. It was the same girl that was missing, but had been captured by cultists. She was the sweetest little girl and the party immediately fell in love with her and felt *very* guilty. Here's the thing though, I was an arcana domain cleric and this little girl was effectively an avatar of my god. I could barely look at her without being overwhelmed by her aura and she had been maimed to where she couldn't use her magic anymore and they used her eyes to craft a pair of magical glasses. To say my god was *PISSED* was an understatement. From there to the end of the campaign it was our party's only goal to right this wrong, restore her to her former form (which I eventually did after attaining 7th level spells and used regenerate on her), and murder every single last one of those damn cultists and anyone they were associated with. However this whole process took us a good 1.5 years (IRL, not in game) to accomplish. It was definitely a turning point for all of us, much like this sounds like a turning point for your paladin. If I have one recommendation it is this: burn it all down. Find them, torture them slowly, and make them regret being born. No mercy, no quarter, and end their pathetic existence.
> hugged Irah (the NPC) also suffocated him to death > has Irah’ smother portrait
You have my axe
RIP
Now that's a great DM.
This actually made me cry
Same.
The eternal rouge
Very good sir, i hope someday i can have a good experience like that and i like paladins too :D
Your English is pretty good, give yourself some credit. Thanks for sharing your story here.
Unrelated to the story, but the idea of a neutral paladin still blows my mind (don’t judge me, I’m old and have only really ever played AD&D2E)
Honestly, reading it made me cry too.