Aliatra Darksbane - the famous mild nuisance [Archive] - Wizards Community

Aliatra Darksbane - the famous mild nuisance [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Golden Zealot
07-07-06, 07:37 PM i've got an NPC in my world who goes by the name of Aliatra Darksbane. She was born an elf and was raised in a very religous family. One day her family was killed in an orc raid of some kind, I dont really know. She called on the power of Corellon Larethian to smite the orcs, but failed because she was only level one.
She went off and adventured or something to get stronger, came back ready to smite once more, and found the orcs had died/gone away/something which consequently lead to her not being able to smite them. She was miffed. She started smiting all kinds of evil instead, but she could never get the revenge she was looking for, and her mad rampage drove her to insanity.
Corellon abandoned her, and although she still thinks she serves him, she actually gets her power from her insane dedication to destroying evil and oppressive (so in her mind most kinds of) law. The law part is I guess because her parents weren't allowed to flee their castle or whatever because of some technicallity in the ownership contract or something.
I'm planning on having her run into the PCs and just generally get in the way a little bit. She's got nothing to do with anything else, she's just an interesting character for them to meet for a bit and who knows what may result.
Which brings me nicely to the point of this whole post: how should insanity of this type be reflected in her mental stats? As you may have noticed there are a lot of fuzzy areas in her background story. I'm planning to fill in the gaps myself, but if anyone has any suggestions I won't refuse. Also if you can just think of any interesting ways to portray this character, or anything fun to add to her go right ahead. She'll be encountered here and there just going about her business and being strange and smiting things.
Archmage Atrus
07-07-06, 09:05 PM Why would her mental stats be affected? It's not like she actually has a biological disease which made her insane. She's just a manic schizophrenic. You should find plenty of inspiration out there, it's pretty much an archetypal blackguard model.
utilitarian
07-07-06, 09:43 PM ^
what he said.

That given, generally insanity is reflected by a low wisdom score in AD&D. IE, reducing your INT to 0 just makes you a vegetable. Reducing your Wis to 0 makes you completely insane and non-functional. Also things which cause damage from "madness" and the like usually do Wisdom damage.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Golden Zealot 07-07-06, 07:37 PM	i've got an NPC in my world who goes by the name of Aliatra Darksbane. She was born an elf and was raised in a very religous family. One day her family was killed in an orc raid of some kind, I dont really know. She called on the power of Corellon Larethian to smite the orcs, but failed because she was only level one. She went off and adventured or something to get stronger, came back ready to smite once more, and found the orcs had died/gone away/something which consequently lead to her not being able to smite them. She was miffed. She started smiting all kinds of evil instead, but she could never get the revenge she was looking for, and her mad rampage drove her to insanity. Corellon abandoned her, and although she still thinks she serves him, she actually gets her power from her insane dedication to destroying evil and oppressive (so in her mind most kinds of) law. The law part is I guess because her parents weren't allowed to flee their castle or whatever because of some technicallity in the ownership contract or something. I'm planning on having her run into the PCs and just generally get in the way a little bit. She's got nothing to do with anything else, she's just an interesting character for them to meet for a bit and who knows what may result. Which brings me nicely to the point of this whole post: how should insanity of this type be reflected in her mental stats? As you may have noticed there are a lot of fuzzy areas in her background story. I'm planning to fill in the gaps myself, but if anyone has any suggestions I won't refuse. Also if you can just think of any interesting ways to portray this character, or anything fun to add to her go right ahead. She'll be encountered here and there just going about her business and being strange and smiting things.
Archmage Atrus 07-07-06, 09:05 PM	Why would her mental stats be affected? It's not like she actually has a biological disease which made her insane. She's just a manic schizophrenic. You should find plenty of inspiration out there, it's pretty much an archetypal blackguard model.
utilitarian 07-07-06, 09:43 PM	^ what he said. That given, generally insanity is reflected by a low wisdom score in AD&D. IE, reducing your INT to 0 just makes you a vegetable. Reducing your Wis to 0 makes you completely insane and non-functional. Also things which cause damage from "madness" and the like usually do Wisdom damage.