Topic: [D&D 3.5 high-level evil campaign] Project Blackguard

[Autocad]

***CONFIDENTIAL***

From: Vice President of Client Management, Meta Ideas and Solutions Consulting
To: Operations Department - Paladin, Pest and Vermin Control Subunit
Subject: CONFIDENTIAL - Project Blackguard


ATTN: If you are not the intended receipient of this message, both you and this message will have been removed from existence by the time you finish reading this sentence; have a nice day.



Dear [you],

It is my pleasure to announce a new and exciting opportunity to further your career and develop your professional skills!

ATTN: By opening the below you agree to be bound by the MISC Terms and Conditions of Confidentiality. Violation is punishable by severe penalties up to removal from existence.

As you may recall from the most recent business plan, one of our targets this year is to expand our business into multiverse Q-51 to tap its huge growth potential and make up for past losses in other regions caused by adverse legal environments and destructive competition in over-saturated markets (you may recall Greenhilt vs Xykon and the IFFC startup in multiverse O-0t5, among others). We now have an unprecedented opportunity to be the first intermultiversal solutions provider to establish a foothold in the booming Q-51 market!

It is my honor to extend to you the priviledge of being one of the pioneers of our promising MISC Q-51 branch.

Our first contract is with a fine gentleman of Q-51's lower planes, who shall for the sake of client confidentiality be referred to as Mr B from this point forth. Mr B's organization has recently suffered from the loss of several key members of senior management, directly caused by the unprovoked actions of a group that refers to itself as the "Holy Order of Artemiana". Even before these incidents, the so-called "holy order" had already been designated by the authorities of 42 planes as a dangerous reactionary terrorist group.

While Mr B has opted to recruit internally to replace his staff, he is interested in our paladin, pest and vermin control services and has signed a memorandum of understanding regarding the removal of the Artemianian infestation. However, simple extermination will not suffice for a gentleman of Mr B's tastes. He has requested that the Holy Order of Artemiana be destroyed by none other than their own, a fallen Artemianian paladin. The Bardic Narratives department has studied this request and proposed the following stratagem to fulfill it. You are, of course, as always, free to follow, modify or disregard the provided plans as you see fit.

1) Select a candidate to be enrolled into the Holy Order of Artemiana. We recommend a fresh candidate for fine control of personality, upbringing and backstory.
2) Arrange a locale-threatening incident for the candidate to resolve just before confirmation as a paladin. This is to ensure the candidate is chosen for step 3 below.
3) Arrange a plane-threatening incident that only the candidate can resolve. This is to ensure the candidate reaches sufficient height for an effective fall.
4) Arrange for the candidate to be framed for a dreadful crime and/or betrayed by the Order. Assist the candidate's fall from paladin to blackguard.
5) Assist the return of the candidate to power and the vengeful destruction of the Order.

Also, R&D has confirmed that the physical laws active in multiverse Q-51 are Delta-November-Delta, version 3.5. It is highly recommended that you refresh your knowledge of these physical laws before your transfer. Management has decided that you will be initially provided with a character of any creature type you wish with sufficient training to reach an effective character level of 12, with a tentative two-level increase upon successful completion of each step above. Further character details will be confirmed at a later date. Further support including operational expenses, item creation and high-level spell-casting will be arranged by Mr B as per the MOU, with particulars to be confirmed at a later date.

I look forward to your favorable reply to joining us in this groundbreaking endeavor.

Yours faithfully,

N.
Vice President of Client Management
Meta Ideas and Solutions Consulting

[Autocad]

(OOC explanation here.)


Basically, the evil* PCs work for a "solutions provider", so to speak, that has been contracted with setting up a paladin to fall and afterwards willingly and knowingly destroy his or her own holy order. They may use any and all means available to achieve this goal.

*Being evil is a requirement, given what they are tasked with doing.

The PCs may be any race, monster, creature, whatever, with effective character level 12 (UNCONFIRMED, LA may be modified or disregarded for exotic races). They will level up as the plan progresses with the target of reaching level 20 just in time to join in the final destruction of the paladin's order.

Things the PCs will mostly be doing before that last step:

• Keep the paladin unaware of what is really going on.
• Work behind the scenes to set up events and crises that the paladin can resolve while not getting killed, and thus gain fame, wealth, power and levels. Basically raise a paladin from a level 1 noob to a high-level hero!
• Observe and intervene if necessary if things go horribly wrong, but otherwise remain behind the scenes as much as possible until the correct moment to reveal themselves (which may or may not be never).
• Set things up for the paladin's eventual fall, which is the entire point of the plan.
• Prevent knowledge of this plan from being leaked to the forces of good, which will no doubt muster all their strength to stop it. Since all the forces of good really need to do is tell the paladin what is going on in order to foil the entire plan, this is rather important.

Metagaming is expected and is practically a requirement, given that the PCs originally hail from another multiverse (possibly where the physical laws of the multiverse aren't D&D3.5e) and have been transferred to carry out this plan.

Currently interested:
PaleEnchantress
Zaer Darkwail
ExisD
AndyZ
TheGlpyhstone
Kunoichi

[PaleEnchantress]

ERMAGHERD! Awesome!

[Videospirit]

This is hilarious. I wonder if I can come up with something...

[Muse]

Wow!  I applaud you. 

[AndyZ]

I wonder if I could play a lich...I love them but haven't gotten to play one since the Lich Game.

[Zaer Darkwail]

Lich is good choice, altough needing 11th caster level to create phylactery (so becoming a lich may be your goal and after doing parts 1 and 2 you can complete transformation).

Anyways I voice interest to join, rolling a char concept based on what others pick first. Altough I have seriously thinked about to roll a changeling rogue/chameleon (a jack of all trades inflitrator type and able change looks and even 'act' role of BBB villains the paladin faces in his/her journey). Only what is needed to ensure his survival each time is to have fake death each time (this would need planning or simply use of Simalcrum spell and send clone for final confrontation).

[PaleEnchantress]

She said high level so Lich should be okay since that just required level 13 which is just modestly high level.

If we go really high I may see about bringing out one of my most signature characters, a Nymphomaniac Alhoon.

[Zaer Darkwail]

Lich has +4 LA doesn't it not?

[AndyZ]

I don't honestly remember, just that you had to be level 11.  If it doesn't work, though, sorry to bother.

[PaleEnchantress]

Lich has +4 LA doesn't it not?

Oh bah I forgot it's LA 4, CR 2. Not LA 2. Most of my games houserule that LA 3-5 is reduced by 1 and  6+ is reduced by 2 since monster characters are horribly weak compared to LA +0 races. WOTC even admits they did it purposefully. So I tend to forget sometimes.

[Autocad]

I'm open to LA tweaking as long as you have an interesting enough character idea.

[PaleEnchantress]

I'm open to LA tweaking as long as you have an interesting enough character idea.

Does the paladin have a sex and a sexual preference yet. If both are "Male" I'm going to evilgasm.  "Male" and "Unsure" could be even better let us mold his desire and shape his love. Then turn it against him. Oh darling it's what I do... It's what i LIVE FOR. To help those poor unfortunate merfolk like...

Wait wrong villain speech. I still might have to break out into villainous monologue song though.

[Autocad]

The PCs will select the candidate. The department of bardic narratives recommends a child so that the PCs can fully control his or her (tragic) backstory and growth. (Note: the candidate will have to be of age before sexy times happen with him or her! But this doesn't preclude sexy times involving the PCs or other already-of-age NPCs.)

Both the plan and its implementation will have to be completely driven by the PCs, or if they are smart, the agents they will employ to keep their own influence secret. As the PCs will be 10 or more levels higher than the candidate, they can easily set up the appropriate environs to raise the candidate along their desired path. Basically they are in-character DMs.

As the entire plan may play out over thirty years or more, PCs who aren't already immune to aging will probably receive a free feat or magic item to prevent aging.

[PaleEnchantress]

Leadership has always been my favorite feat in the game, it's even better in a parody game since the cohort is the ideal person to invoke the lampshade hanging humor over the (semi) serious villainous main. Zaer will tell you I have a character archetype I like playing and just run through variations of that. Now I get to do the same thing, and deconstruct all of them by doing so.

[ExisD]

Hello, I'm going to express some interest, though I'm not quite sure on character yet. Depending on what we can do with LA or monster classes I'd be interested in playing a succubus or erinyes since they are a lot of fun if they can still be effective in game. In particular the Fiend of Temptation PRE from Fiend Folio seems to be quite appropriate if it's allowed.

Though otherwise I really like the sorcerer and wizard classes which could also lead to fun things.

[Zaer Darkwail]

Well, my changeling lives long as a half-elf so far as I know. But what if changeling had elven mother? Would changeling heritage lifespan of a elf?

Besides that any suggestions for anti-aging formulas?

[Autocad]

Don't worry about aging.

[AndyZ]

I would certainly love to do a lich.  With the +4, though, I'm not sure that'd be very feasible.  I'd never be able to get level 9 spells.

If the GM is up to LA tweaking, and people all want to, maybe we can all be something with LA and let it cancel out.

[Zaer Darkwail]

That is one way to do it. Example allow everyone have +4 LA which should either give immunity to aging or give very long lifespan.

[Autocad]

As I do want to encourage unconventional races, please disregard LA when thinking of character ideas for the time being. I'll balance the party out later if needed.

[AndyZ]

How should we do stats?

I offer up the Andy array as a possible suggestion: 18, 18, 16, 14, 12 10

[Autocad]

We'll worry about stats at a later point.

[AndyZ]

Alright, well, a few possibilities:

I'm going to suggest that we find The Hero, as well as a place that he either works at or will work at, The Temple.  Gender for the hero doesn't matter, but since Pale wants a male one, that can work fine.

The Hero will be reasonably simple to handle.  We get him to fall in love, find out about his past and set a few things up.  We add some bits to The Temple so that they've been forced into a situation where they have to betray the thing that The Hero sees as most important in the name of the greater good, and conceal it from The Hero.

When we're ready, we reveal to The Hero everything that The Temple has done, and that that's what they consider to be good.  It'll break his heart and he'll lose trust in everything, and then we can convince him that he's been wrong his entire life.

How's that sound?

[TheGlyphstone]

I love upper-level play, so much room for non-classical solutions to programs, and the metagame twist is amusing. Add me to the interested list.
(Race-wise, if free LA is on the able, I'd love to play an Unbodied Psion/Thrallherd. My incorporeal nature and Assume Likeness would set me up perfectly to play the role of our Hero's Obi-Wan or spirit mentor,and having lots of Charm and Dominate at my disposal will make moving the game pieces around easier in the background.


Andy's "False Front' idea is a good once, though I'd see if we can arrange something grander. Rather than just subverting or co-opting an existing Temple, create one of our own, staff it entirely with our minions and followers but have the entire thing dressed up to look and act like a legitimate do-gooder organization (with some actual do-gooders lured into helping for authenticity). Arrange the classical monsters/BBEG-creates-orphan scenario and have the target (or targets, I'd actually like two potential victims) to be raised in the Temple as foundlings together, taught to be good and righteous. Write a suitably vague false prophecy about the Hero, and set it up so when the Hero is on the verge of fulfilling the 'prophecy', have it collapse and show him that not only was the prophecy false, he/she was actually raised by an Evil temple for the specific purpose of foiling the prophecy.