Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Morrigane 04-12-04, 12:09 PM	Hello! I'm seeking ideas, since I'm a little at loss. I've started DM recently, the campaign is a few games old. One of my player had to gather information from a guild of thieves, something very secretive and important. The guild leader asked him what he was willing to give for this info. Since he just couldnt come up with any offer (none at all), the leader asked him for his soul. To my surprise, he accepted without hesitation, saying ooc that he only needed to return later and kill the man to get it back. Now, the leader was hooded and dissimulated (he could have been anything, it isnt determined since it was improvised on the spot, but they dont know that). The deal was basically his soul against the information, and both sides delivered. My problem... What to do with the soul? I find the player a little arrogant (I just need to return and kill him for my soul, no problem!), but at the same time, he's lvl 3, so I dont want to do something too drastic either. Would any of you have any suggestion? He's a rogue chaotic neutral who cares mostly about himself. Thank you for any advice! ~Morrigane
Spongly 04-12-04, 12:23 PM	If the guy is some kind of demonic entity he needn't BE there when the rogue returns. Plus it may be impossible to kill someone who owns your soul - that means they own YOU. Make him pay for it. Don't kill him - but make his life difficult, for ce him to do tasks for this being...who knows what threats someone who owns the essence of your being can threaten you with?
Bacon and Eggs 04-12-04, 12:27 PM	Have the guild leader be collecting them for somebody(something) else. Therefore will not be in posession of said soul when the player returns. Now that's a plot hook.
Bomba 04-12-04, 12:29 PM	if you want to be evil let him level to like 10th or 15th level kill him and dont let him get raised. cause you cant get raised if you have sold your soul. check the book of vile darkness. i would use this as a good hook for the campaign. you could run a whole campaign off him trying to retrive his soul the first thing i would do is have the thief trade his sould to a devil for something possibly a magic item. definately something that he could use against the party. since he is only 3rd level i would keep things pretty simple though a devil is better then a demon i think cause a low powered devil would be looking for the soul so he could rise in rank to a more powerful devil and every little bit helps. or the thief who bought the soul could be part of a cult that worhips some evil god. and traded for it for his diety. the main thing is to figure out why the thief bothered with teh soul for a mortal thief a soul has very little value but if you can think of a good reason why he would be willing to trade anything for a soul then you can extrapolate from there. i would definately check out the BoVD though it has good ideas for situations like this. but some miht be alittle high powered.
Alkaline 04-12-04, 12:31 PM	You could even adapt this into your campaign. Perhaps the being who possesses his soul has already TRADED his soul away when the rogue returns to slay him. If the rogue kills him, he'll never find his soul. :) This could spur an adventure all based around this rogue trying to get his soul back. Perhaps he has to travel to a distant land or another plane and find this other being that traded for his soul. Once he even finds the being with his soul now, he still has to figure a way to get it back. Maybe he needs to buy it back, or maybe this being wants someone ELSE's soul and will trade for it. Perhaps the soul of a Lawful good being. Now, the rogue must figure out how to get a soul like that and trade for his... (Excellent roleplay opportunity) There are TONS of possibilities for you to turn this into an adventure. Alkaline
canamrock 04-12-04, 12:36 PM	There are two alternatives besides the actual soul-taking route (assuming you didn't have some rite performed or the like): 1) One worthless soul for one bit of useless info. I'm not sure what the information was for, but if the guild was secretly involved, there's good reason for him to give misleading information. 2) The guild tries to cash in on his payment prematurely. Simply have guild-funded assassins go for him on occassion when he's carrying around some monetary rewards along with his flesh. Now, if you really want to play up the actual soul being taken angle, downplay it. Make sure the guild leader was sufficiently to be nigh indestructible for some time. Now, just let the game run normally. At some point, the rogue dies off. When Resurrection is cast, he just isn't able to come back. Rather than just let him make a new character, put to the rest of the party that they have the duty to track down what is logjamming his soul from coming back via Ressurection.
Nyvinyd 04-12-04, 03:33 PM	Have the guild leader sell the soul to an evil diety. Hextor or Vecna sounds right to me. Then wait until the next time he dies, give him the opportunity to earn the soul back, or just use him as an instrument of that god. Think Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. Have him get raised, and rejoin his former party with markings that indicate the god he must now serve, and have him have to cover them up. After this, every time the character does something outside the scope of the alignment of his new patron deity, slap him with 3D6 damage and give him a new marking to cover up. Maybe even make him grow pale. ;)
simpkin 04-12-04, 03:42 PM	I definately agree with others that without a soul raise dead and ressurection spells simply should not work on the rogue untill he gets it back. In addition I would probably add other strange events, like dogs and other animals fearful of the character. There are also different myths that mirrors are a reflection of the soul, perhaps you might want to remove the characters reflection or other fun roleplaying things. As far as what happens to the soul, I seem to remember that souls of some type were used as currency on one of the evil outter planes. (I want to guess the abyss her) If I remember right there was some type of hag (night hag or dark hag or something) that had a role in collecting such things. Might be a place to look for information. ~jeff
RoBo_Hobo 04-12-04, 06:04 PM	every level roll a 20 sided die if he gets 1 then he does not level up because of a lack of soul hows that for punishment? when he gets it back then the penalty goes away.
Greyman 04-12-04, 09:23 PM	Originally posted by Morrigane My problem... What to do with the soul? The phrase "to sell one's soul" is an ephemism for taking a vow of aliegance to the powers of (d)evil.  It's also related to the phrase "owned mind, body, and soul".  So, perhaps taking possession of the rogue's soul gives the guide leader a measure of control over the rogue.  Like, say, by putting it into a voodoo-esque talisman and using the principles of sympathetic magic to inflict punishment or cast spells on the rogue at a distance (like, a geas for instance).
Autosponge 04-12-04, 11:09 PM	The character can no longer be resurrected, brought back from the dead, or reincarnated. Dead=dead. That is, if the hooded figure could actually cash in on such a deal (i.e., he is a demon or devil or has such contacts available to him).
Sildatorak 04-12-04, 11:55 PM	Maybe the thieves' guild leader is using that soul to protect his own life. He has forged it into an amulet designed to trick the reaper, so that when he dies, it is actually the purchased soul that is taken and the guild leader regains conciousness in 1d4 hours or something.
Greyman 04-13-04, 12:41 AM	Originally posted by Autosponge The character can no longer be resurrected, brought back from the dead, or reincarnated. Dead=dead. That is, if the hooded figure could actually cash in on such a deal (i.e., he is a demon or devil or has such contacts available to him). That, or possesses a soul cage of some sort. That would be either a magic item or an artifact, based on the trap the soul spell, but with a somewhat different effect.
Sssargoth 04-20-04, 01:01 AM	Im just wondering what would happen if he drew the Void from a Deck of many things. Would he be protected from the effect, or would the soul be wrenched from the being who possesses it, and he be effected normally? back on topic, i like what simpkin said about the animals fearing the pc and not casting a reflection in mirrors and other reflective surfaces.
Degobah 04-20-04, 07:50 AM	Well some evil ideas -BoVD suggests a few uses for souls -making magic items: souls can substitute for xp when forging magical items so if its been used by the time he gets back, he may find a magic item tainted by evil and no soul, ever. When he dies that's it: no afterlife, no resurrection. This would be likely if the soul was taken by an evil wizard of some kind. -souls are used as currency or food by lower planar creatures, so a demonologist might feed it to a nightmare as a spell component, for instance. Same as before. -They could be traded to lower plane creatures as the raw material from which demons and devils are made. Their soul also implies the feelings and the substance of who the character really is. Without it they probably feel nothing and care about nothing. If you prefer un-nasty, get someone to tell them all the things that could be happening and then let them get it back unharmed...otherwise give them an object lesson in the value of moral dilemmas.
Gothic_Demon 04-20-04, 10:03 AM	Generally, a person who sells their soul trades something now for something they don't think they'll need later. The buyer of the soul pays up, and thus the soul in trade is then indebted to the buyer until such time as he dies and pays up. I'd run it like a karmic balance transfer. Because the hooded guy doesn't get the soul straight away, the rogue instead must pay him karmic interest on the loan. (The soul's not really his anymore, right? ;) ) Use geas or something similar, every couple of adventures, until the character dies and loses their soul. The only way to prevent this happening would be for the character to remove his/her name from the contract (there was a binding, legal, written-in-blood contract, right?). This should be incredibly difficult and a very viable option once the owner of the soul has geased the rogue into a few very bad situations...
mercurial67 04-20-04, 03:53 PM	I think a lot of it depends on did he actually take the soul right then and there and the character is running around without a soul OR did he sign something or do something so the soul belongs to the person, but he still retains possession of it. If he doesn't have his soul anymore, he is a soulless being and you should think up something along those lines. Treat him as undead for purposes of turning or he gains no enjoyment out of anything. Personally I think if he were soulless, he would be more of a living undead (no free will) and wouldn't go along this route. If he still has his soul and it just belongs to the person he traded it to, then I would suggest it simply goes to that person when he dies and he can't be raised/reincarnated/resurected (without permision of the new owner). But, since the guild leader owns his soul even though the PC still has possession, he can do what he wants with it and can even destroy it (thus destroying the character). So he has a limited geas ability over him in that he can threaten to destroy the soul if he doesn't do something. You could even have him demonstrate this at one point by having him do something which applies a negative level and he is able to do this at will.
Noel 04-21-04, 02:20 AM	I would suggest Shar getting hold of it and every new moon ( dark moon) have him sleep walk about and do wicked deeds with no memory of what he did (like killing enemy priests) ( similar to a lycanthrope but without shapechanging). Eventually he can become aware of this and cage himself. Really freaky dreams are another good one, possibly resulting in being fatigued on the days before and after the new moon. His patron diety is now Shar, whether he likes it or not. You might wish to allow him to use shadow weave items but not standard items with his rogue use magic device skill.
maven50312 04-21-04, 02:22 AM	Not sure if this has been suggested or not, but you mentioned that he's a cleric in addition to a rogue, right? First, I doubt ANY cleric would sell their soul. Second, have fun with it. If/when he tries to cast divine spells, roll a percentile dice and let him have a 50% chance or so of the spell having an effect. If you wanted to be dastardly, make it so that he sees the spell going off, but it has no real effect on the player/creature. Note that the latter of the second suggestion would require alot of mental capacity on your part. Making sure that something like Divine Favor or Righteous Might appear to work, but mentally rework their attacks and damge rolls. Also, let them know that curative spells for some reason aren't effective anymore... that'll be plenty of incentive to get his soul back.
Leap 04-21-04, 07:24 AM	[slaps head] This sounds horribly like an episode of the Simpsons. I get the impression that your folks dont really understand what it means to "sell your soul" (hence not having any idea what to do with it - sorry that made me laugh out loud in the office and I got some reall odd looks :) )..... Selling your soul is not a matter of exchanging a quantity of something; when you sell your soul you are not handing over a 'thing' you are dedicating your entire life in the service of something meaningless - think of a cleric of liira being conned into becoming a cleric of bane or cyric. THATS selling your soul. Make the leader of the thieves a devil, change the characters alignment to LE and have him be a divine seeker of Bane - THEN the arrogant schmuck will understand what selling the soul is about :devil:
Sildatorak 04-21-04, 12:29 PM	Originally posted by Leap Selling your soul is not a matter of exchanging a quantity of something; when you sell your soul you are not handing over a 'thing' you are dedicating your entire life in the service of something meaningless - think of a cleric of liira being conned into becoming a cleric of bane or cyric. THATS selling your soul. Actually either interpretation could be correct in a world where a soul is a definite thing. Either the literal selling of the (meta)physical soul or the figurative selling of dedicating your life to a new cause. IRL, yes, selling your soul is just a turn of phrase (let's not get into a religious debate over this, though), but D&D isn't real life. There are spells, creatures, and devices that exist that can wrench the essence of your being from you and make it their *****. Take a look at folklore and you'll see instances of "selling your soul" being taken in a literal light. D&D would probably follow that pattern. If the thieves' guild leader has no way to enforce it, though, it would probably be taken along the literal line. But why would he make the deal if he couldn't enforce it :devil:
Leap 04-21-04, 12:38 PM	Sildatorak – Take a look at folklore and you'll see instances of "selling your soul" being taken in a literal light I would suggest that is typically more symbolic than literal ;)
Max422 04-21-04, 01:48 PM	This is a terrific situation and a hook for numerous adventures. I wouldn't look at it as "punishing" the player for arrogance though. I mean why not "sell your soul" in D&D if given the chance? This is a fabulous opportunity to use your imagination (and there are plenty of good ideas to borrow here) and create a long-term plotline. If I were the player/character I'd hop on board and enjoy the ride. Chances are, it could be one of the best characters they ever play.