Post/Author/DateTime	Post
SearcherOmega 10-17-04, 01:13 PM	I'm trying to flesh out an NPC for a campaign I'm running. If you're a player of mine (I'm normally known as Adept Omega to you guys), please don't read this. Thank you. The situation, in a nutshell: -There are two 'material' planes, the standard "Material Plane" (known as Nemos) and the "Mirror Plane". Since their creation, Nemos has slowly shifted towards good, Mirror has slowly shifted towards evil. -A tyrannical, low-epic level (Around 22) mind-flayer sorcerer/psion, who is a follower of Ilsensine known as Feraise, rules over the Mirror Plane. In this multiverse, deities draw power from how many worshippers they have, so Ilsensine is among the greatest deities due to Feraise's rule. Now, Feraise seeks to expand the power of his Lawful Evil empire through a grand conspiracy to invade and dominate the Material Plane. -He is not unopposed, however. The Court of Stars (CG) has been especially vehement in their efforts to stop Feraise's empire. The Emerald Knights (LN, Campaign Specific), who share a hatred of all extraplanar activity, seek to prevent his invasion. The Five Champions (NG) have also had a hand in opposing him. Finally, there is a fourth organization bent against him -- more on that later. Alright, now the problem. Feraise is persistantly seeking new ways to increase the power of his armies and servants, as well as, of course, himself. To this end, he had his greatest teams working on a project -- an attempt to make a being incarnate from both positive and negative energy. Now, most certainly, this should thereoretically be impossible, and several of the first few experiments ended quite explosively. After years of painstaking work and many replacements of workers, however... the nigh impossible was acheived. Adan was born. Adan, however, was not a complete success. Although he was stable, conscious, and could channel both positive and negative energy, the illithids soon discovered that they could not control his thoughts. Through this creation process, his mind functions so radically different from that of a normal humanoid that they could not grasp it. They tried to restrain him, to little avail. They soon found that he could use the opposing forces of light and dark energy to unleash massive force (rather than neutralize each other, as normal). He broke free, and wandered out into the world... Nobody knows exaclty how Adan's mind functions. Some say it is below the neural processings of a humanoid, incapable of comprehending concepts. Some say it is above them, seeing levels of depth that a weaker mind cannot possibly comprehend. Others yet insist it's on the same level, but just radically different in approach. Whatever the case, Adan is very silent, only speaking on rare occassion. On the outside, he is calm, patient, and thoughtful, but on the inside, there is a storm brewing between good and evil. In essence, he is the inverse of a hurricane -- a structured calm on the outside with raging winds within. He appears as an androgynous humanoid male of indiscreet race. He has an unusually light frame, but doesn't appeare to be gaunt or starved. Despite a height of only 5' 4" and a light frame, the force his mere prescence could silence a bar room brawl. Adan has started an institution of his own, for reasons unknown. He silently moves his pawns into place, seeking to oppose Feraise for reasons unknown... ---------------------------------------- Adan was created to bring to life an interesting organization in itself. However, I was also thinking in terms of campaign interests. Some of my players are asking if we're going to go epic, and my honest response is 'I don't know'. Adan, I realized, could make an excellent plot hook to go epic if we do decide to do so. He's not a deus ex machina -- he was part of the campaign before, and some of his actions would very well arouse the suspicions of the PCs. The problems I have are these: -Despite my own creating his concept, I have no honest idea why Adan opposes Feraise. It can't be for simple revenge, or to explicitly further the cause of Good, because Adan's mind is too radically different from a normal person's mind to think in those terms. Perhaps the good in him opposes the power of Feraise, and the evil in him wants that power for itself, and so they work in a balanced conjuntion to undo Feraise -- were I more aware of his goals, this might be easier. -His institution has no name. It has a broad base, from Chaotic Good rebels to Lawful Neutral monks. -I'm trying to figure out what Adan's alignment would be. A portion of me wants to say Chaotic Neutral due to conflict between good and evil within him, but I'm not entirely sure if that would fit. -Also, I need a few instutions to support Feraise, given all the opposition he has. I figure it only natural that the Nine Hells of Baator have a hand in this, but to what degree, I'm not certain. Lacking the BoVD, I don't know any orders of devils or demons, or where I could get this information. -I'm intending to have the Evil in Adan win out if the players decide to go epic. I'm intending to have the Good win out if they'd prefer to bring the campaign to a close. How do I represent Adan's deep and percarious balance between good and evil without breaking the 'calm, collected' surface? I'm considering having him drop a few cryptic messages about it, but am lost as to what kind of things to do. Any suggestions?
preXus 10-17-04, 06:47 PM	Here is a litle idea of mine: Let em' go into epic with Adan. His good side will make him go with them to kill Feraise, and let them feel good and happy. Then, when Adan's good side feels it has done it's job, let the evil side come out and try to kill your PCs for whatever loot/info they got from Feraise, to gain his power.