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The Celestial Pact
14 Plays2 months ago
When you make a deal with an angel, it can be Hell.
Music by Nicolas Gilfillan: youtube.com/@NicolasGilfillan
Comments? Questions? Write to us at btcs.hosts@gmail.com!
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Transcript
Reintroducing the Podcast and Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Beyond the Character sheet. Stopping- stopping again. Already stopping. Did I have a like pre-recorded- How do I usually open these shows? Okay, so. It's been so long. It's been a minute. It's been a minute. It's been so long.
00:00:31
Speaker
Welcome to Beyond the Character Sheet, a podcast about creating and playing fun characters for Dungeons and Dragons, from stats to table antics. Each episode, we'll talk through character sheets, item sets, and points of personality that can make your next adventure one to remember.
00:00:48
Speaker
So, uh, hello and welcome to Beyond the Character Sheet. I'm your host Sean. I'm here with TJ. Hello. And Nick. Hello. And, um, as another infrequent and much better shows host has pointed out podcasting is like a muscle. And I gotta be honest with you guys. I'm feeling flabby today. but Yeah. Yeah. A little bit in a minute. Yeah.
00:01:09
Speaker
Well, a lot has happened. um I mean, you know, I've moved and that was kind of a hampering things and I didn't have my setup and stuff. So I'm going to take the blame on this for why this episode took so long. Well, thank you for taking that bullet for me because I could not, I could not come up with a better excuse. I have time blindness. We could also blame that. Sure. A year will go by and I will blink and it will be.
Role-Playing Focus: Beyond Stats and Items
00:01:31
Speaker
i just a completely different time in my life. But we are here today with a slightly different episode format. Instead of doing our usual character sheet and ah stats and feats and items and then role-playing, I think we can just dive right into the role-playing for this one.
00:01:47
Speaker
TJ this was originally your idea and with the advent of the new player's handbook we kind of ran up against some new rules that set us up to say well maybe we don't really need to worry too much about the character sheet on this one and we can just talk about what is beyond the character sheet yeah you said the thing there's there's really a lot of meat to this concept without any like the limitations of mechanical anything and i think that that makes it I hesitate to say this, but probably my favorite that we've done so far, just because it's, um, it could be, it's setting agnostic. It also kind of feels system agnostic because there's no mechanical hooks in it. It's just kind of, you could play this in really any fantasy system, probably. And I do have some mechanical suggestions, at least for my idea. It's less I built a sheet, but more just like, for the old rule system especially, I have some suggestions.
00:02:44
Speaker
TJ, would you like to tell us what the idea is? Yeah, so basically the concept came from this thought I had of like, you know, a lot of people do um a warlock where the warlock gets their magic from a patron who is of some, you know, otherworldly, it's some otherworldly entity. and a lot of people do these as like i'm a good person and i and made it deal with ah evil thing like a devil or some kind of fiend right or i i have some kind of i am beholden to some evil entity that is giving me power and exchange I have to do what it wants but I don't want to do what it wants and that's like a very like tropey thing and if that's what you want to do that's cool it's a tried and true method but I kind of wanted to do the opposite and the original idea was what if there was something that is some like D and&D species that is known for being evil or is typically
00:03:45
Speaker
uncaring or typically evil like maybe a goblin or something like that and it wanted to do evil all the time and instead of accidentally getting tricked into a deal with a devil it got tricked into a deal with the celestial and the celestial was making it do good all the time and it was like a begrudging good guy
00:04:09
Speaker
um So, first things first, I will say that mechanically, if we are talking about D and&D 5th Edition, which is what we normally do, um the new Player's Handbook just came out, there's a whole new rule system and stuff, a whole new rule set, and the new Warlocks are really interesting, and the Celestial Patron, I haven't looked at it.
00:04:29
Speaker
at all I'm glad that it's in the book I think it's flavorfully really cool and I'm glad that it's there but definitely if you're thinking about this kind of character um check it out and see if you like it but as you are going to find as we continue talking you don't have to be a warlock and you if you are you don't have to be celestial Anyway, so the original idea was to play a goblin um and just be a celestial
Goblin with Celestial Pact: Morally Gray Characters
00:04:53
Speaker
-packed warlock. That is the original concept. And it's because when I was looking at it, when I came up with this idea, we were talking the the original D and&D 5th Edition 2014 Player's Handbook. And in that,
00:05:05
Speaker
the celestial warlock had some healing abilities and they had you know all kinds of supporting stuff and i like the idea of this goblin just wanting to kill but being forced to heal i think that's really cool as a concept and it looks like just kind of glancing over some of the features here they have some very similar stuff they also have um some things that you can do and some unique bonuses when you the radiant or fire damage which I think is cool for a celestial. They have ah all kinds of like special celestial resilience, getting temporary hit points and stuff. I think some of that stuff can be really cool and would definitely fit in with the the goblin idea. another idea that I had was a little bit more abstract and it's more of along the lines of if there were like a mercenary that was kind of just in it for themselves like kind of morally gray kind of always in it for the money and maybe because of that they've developed a reputation for being morally gray and they've developed a reputation for just
00:06:08
Speaker
Doing whatever it takes to get the job done taking the easiest path to just get paid so and then it catches the the eye of this celestial and this celestial comes in and is like hey, I'm going to beat you into being a good person or something along the lines of Like what was that? um um There was a show on Nickelodeon when I was a kid And I'm looking it up right now. A hundred deeds for Eddie McDowd. So yeah there was a hundred deeds for Eddie McDowd. So maybe it's one of those situations where this celestial was like, Hey, you're a person. And because of that.
00:06:56
Speaker
I am going to give you one chance, you have this amount of time to do this many good things, and if you don't, I'm gonna kill you. Ooh, I like the quantified goal there. I'm like, you need to do this many good things, and especially if that comes with a threshold of like, it has to be of a certain magnitude of good, like you can't just pick up 100 pieces of trash off the sidewalk. Right, yeah. like yeah Yeah, you have to help someone. So almost like, ah you know, a divine intervention version of, my name is Earl, where instead of Karma and him being worried about it, it's like an angel descends from heaven and tells him, stop being a s***. So yeah, that that kind of idea of this s*** be mercenary who's just in it for the money and will do anything for money, regardless of morality.
00:07:44
Speaker
And then this celestial comes down and is like, hey, you have to stop being a face. But yeah, some something along those lines. So those are those are my ideas. I think that those could be interesting concepts. And I like that. Again, I like that this idea, the ideas that you guys have discussed before we started recording, the ideas that I had, none of them are really beholden to a system or a setting. And I i like that a lot.
00:08:11
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like the the big draw here is the interaction between the celestial and the character. Yes, and and it can be of any class. You don't have to be a warlock. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
00:08:22
Speaker
you can play it however you want as long as you're playing it against this kind of ah this antagonistic rapport is really the is the draw yeah so this could be kind of like our first episode where we talked about the moon blade elf and the idea could have been that the blade is alive the blade is sentient and the player could have someone else play the blade yeah and so the DM is not saddled with the addition of having to play that role and you don't have to kind of you know role play against yourself but you can have somebody else at the table playing this other character.
Party Dynamics and Celestial Influence
00:08:58
Speaker
I like that idea a lot actually I hadn't considered that idea and even if that isn't like my main character let's say that you want to be the mercenary and I'm going to be the celestial
00:09:07
Speaker
I can have my regular character that I'm playing at the table and then the DM isn't on the hook for another NPC. That could just be my responsibility that whenever I see your character doing something that I can just decide, hey, the the celestial is here now.
00:09:24
Speaker
That brings up another question. Is the celestial always present? Yeah and you know that is something that I looked at when I was ah when I had this idea is that I think it was the planetar it could have been the solar I forget which one it was but um one of them can cast invisibility it will and fly oh yeah so it can just be there watching it can just be there watching you all the time You were just being stalked constantly. Yeah. By the worst Jiminy Cricket. Yeah. Yeah. How great would that be for like a first interaction of the celestial telling this character, hey, you need to do good things or it will get very bad for you. And then they poof and the characters like, yeah, whatever. I've probably drunk or hallucinating. I'm not sure what's going on anyway. And they go do something. b And the celestial goes, I saw that.
00:10:16
Speaker
yeah No splash pole. I've been here the whole time. yeah but the So the solar can cast invisibility at will. It can also cast detect evil and good at will. And those are both interesting for this concept. It can also cast resurrection three times a day. So if you want to get really dark with this idea, it could just kill you to stop doing something evil and then bring you back and say, what have you learned?
00:10:45
Speaker
Now, I feel I am gonna caution against this because this has the potential to kind of gut the celestial's threat. If the threat is, I will kill you, and then they just do it every day. Oh yeah, that's that is true. and yeah Your character's were like, whatever man, I've been dead 10 times. It's fine.
00:11:02
Speaker
So maybe that has to kind of go back to the DM of like, well, you need to make it you need to make it a credible threat in that dying is very painful or yeah characters that die, you know, their their souls are sent to specific after lives. And so this is the slice you're really showing their hand. Look, if I kill you now, you go to this. Oh, yeah, you will not like where you go. Yeah.
00:11:26
Speaker
here's you I will show you firsthand where you'll end up and that kind of scares them straight. And that's an interesting concept too, because if I remember correctly, specific wording on resurrection is that the soul has to be willing to come back. Okay. Yeah. So they very much wanted like, Oh, this absolutely not get me back in that body. And then yeah, when the celestial brings back, all right, what did you learn? Yeah. Do you want to do that again? Cause if, you know, yeah.
00:11:50
Speaker
And you can also throw in things like curses, other sort of long lasting permanent things that not necessarily cripple the character, but make kind of the things they would do outside of their core mission harder. It could even be something along the lines of you have trouble speaking to people like, great, you're not going to do what I want you to do. You're not not going to be able to buy food. Like I'm going to take away your ability to write. Like we're going to make it so that you do this or your way out will be difficult and unpleasant. And then you have unpleasantness afterwards. Wouldn't you like to rather? I don't know. Go save that ah person from the burning barn. Yeah. If you will not stop negotiating with warlords, I will make you a very bad negotiator show. you So you are always getting a yeah bad deal. yeah Yeah. The thing you're doing that is pissing me off. I'm going to make it real bad for you. Yeah. But yeah, just now that we're talking about this and I'm i'm actually looking at the step block of the solar, I think this is perfect for the concept.
00:12:48
Speaker
if we're talking specifically D and&D 5e. Just because, holy shit, I've never looked at this thing before. God damn, it can turn invisible at will. It can cast control weather once a day. It has 120 feet of true sight and telepathy out to 120 feet, and it can teleport up to 120 feet as an action. The biggest brother. Yeah, yeah, that is just always there watching, and there's nothing you can do about it, and it can communicate in your mind so you don't know what direction it's in while it's invisible.
00:13:19
Speaker
And 150 foot fly speed? Oh, yeah
Character Growth and Redemption Arcs
00:13:23
Speaker
but yeah. Even if it's not right next to you, it is it is your parent that just appears when you're doing, so you know, when you're drawing on the wall with crayons on the other side of the house. yeah There's there's also one of my favorite things about the stat block is there's the flying sword that they have. So you could have a literal sword of Damocles hanging over you any time.
00:13:43
Speaker
yeah Yes, it has to just be within 50 feet of the solar. So even if they're like, eh, I don't want to watch them anymore. I'm just going to go off over here for a bit. You could still just leave the sword. Yep.
00:13:58
Speaker
And then considering this would have, you know, DM buy-in, you know, for this, you could even have an exception to that to make it even harder for say, like a veteran player or someone who kind of knows the stat block be like, Oh, they're within 50 feet. Not this one. This one's special. Why? Because I say so.
00:14:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I love the step one. I feel like everybody else at the table is going to have a wonderful time at your character's misery. This is going to be a delight for everybody else. I feel like that's the draw of playing this character. It's like, yes, the character itself does not have a good time, but the player and the people at the table have a really good time making this person's life difficult.
00:14:37
Speaker
Yeah, especially, and I didn't think about party dynamic at first, but this is like, you could play with some of the concepts that you guys have, you could play a neutral evil character, and I guess even with the goblin, you could play a neutral evil character with a lawful good party. Oh yeah, yeah. Because your your desire is to do evil, and you are crippled from doing it.
00:15:00
Speaker
And one of the ideas that I actually had for this specifically involves the whole party has to kind of accept a specific set of circumstances related to this. um It kind of like helps shape the party dynamic in a ah way that I feel it could be interesting to tell a story in.
00:15:16
Speaker
or flip that around, what if the whole party is the other mercenaries, and this one really unlucky one has been in this universe. That's acting real weird. Yes, now this pirate crew has to figure out how to go about plundering, but Jeff over here has got a babysitter.
00:15:37
Speaker
Jeff's mom won't let him, you know, come out and play River Pirates. So now we have to we have to figure out what to do about Jeff. I like I like both of those. I think a lot of those be a lot of fun. the The party full of lawful goods is an easy one because they just all now get to get to finger wag this character justifiably at every turn. Right. Yeah. And and that kind of makes him the the comic relief character to enjoy being the comic relief character.
00:16:05
Speaker
then yeah, that's a good way to do it without playing a cartoon character. That's a good way to be funny in a way that isn't goofy.
00:16:17
Speaker
My ideas for this, and I'll kind of stick with, I have one that is specifically like a warlock idea, but then I have one that branches out into a different class. Once again, talking specifically about 5E. But the the the line of text that I wrote down in a text document back when we had this idea initially is, yes, I'm lifting you from perdition, but you're going to wish I had put you back by the time you're done.
00:16:39
Speaker
and building a character around essentially going fully into like this was someone reprehensible and awful and a god like a celestial or something else with that type of power potentially even just a very powerful mortal wizard lifts someone from perdition and puts them in a ah a body or a position where now you have to go undo the things that you did. yeah And so jumping into the one that involves specifically a non-warlock class in 5E is you take something like, let's say, you know, Evil Warlord gets killed in battle, a Celestial brings him back, you know, this is sort of like our, you could almost say like the game settings version of like Attila the Hun or similar. you know big warrior evil person and puts them in the body of a cleric of the peace domain yeah it's very powerful but they can't fight they can't do that thing and talking about party dynamics that's the peace domain clerics whole bag is making everyone else better improving the lives of your party
00:17:45
Speaker
And I feel like that could be a fun dynamic to bring to the right group of you have your peace domain cleric, but they very much don't want to be doing this. They don't want to be helpful, but they are physically and spiritually or magically bound from falling into their old habits. And it could be... You know, from a roleplay perspective or a story perspective, um, it could be something that's hidden at the start. You join up with this cleric. He seems, you know, intent upon helping you, but hates it the whole time. And then eventually you find out he's the warlord that slaughtered your village in front of you. You know, if you take the classic fantasy character trope, and now he's reincarnated in a different body and is forced to help you.
00:18:25
Speaker
How does that change the party dynamic? Do you do a full redemption arc of, and you know, they start out evil. They mend the hurt that they did. Eventually they get up to some number or arbitrary limit set. And then they are maybe forgiven or maybe allowed to rest someplace that isn't awful. Or are you just reluctant the whole time? Do you earn, you know, your redemption, but you hate it the whole time because it's not what you want?
00:18:52
Speaker
Yeah, do you achieve the bare minimum just so your patron will leave you alone and you can go back to whatever it was you were doing before? Yeah, it's like, oh, I was roaming around the the Nine Hells as a, you know, a raving madman, you know, fighter, warrior, berserker. I want to get back to that. Well, not until you help all the people that you hurt. Yeah. And then that could really play into the, like,
00:19:17
Speaker
going back and forth with a DM or even another player um as just this kind of adversarial but still beneficial um to to moving things along and not stalling things out. But if we want to stick with the the Warlock,
00:19:34
Speaker
idea. I also came up with a a build, you know, you could do the celestial warlock build, but I also love taking the same concept and applying it to ah the undying subclass in fifth edition, where you could flavor that as yes, you do weird necromantic, but it's really hard to kill you.
00:19:53
Speaker
And you could even work in elements of this unearthed arcana from way back when that allows for players to be revenants, yeah where you can tack things on to that subclass and start having it to be, yes, you know you can die, but you come back in a day. you know There could be some downsides or other things. but That was sort of sticking to the the letter of the initial prompt, having an undying warlock tied to some sort of celestial, you know, good aligned entity. I feel like could make this kind of pigeonholed, I feel, subclass and make it a little more interesting um maybe to play.
00:20:30
Speaker
I feel like the coming back from the dead could still be used as a sort of punishment like we were saying earlier with TJ is the idea of like, the character should not want to be dead. It's an unpleasant experience. There was an anime I watched years and years ago, where all the characters through some, some kind of a deal with the devil all gained immortality. And One of the features of immortality in this universe is that you experience dying. It's not like it's ah it's a painless thing that you bounce back from. you You die. You go all the way there, and then you snap back. So you you fully experience every death you have. ah One of the punishments for one of the characters is, you know, he runs afoul of some mob bosses or something, and so they send him to sleep with the fishes.
00:21:13
Speaker
And now he is cursed to this eternity of drowning and resurrecting and drowning and resurrecting constantly. Horrifying stuff. But that could be what we do with this character is, hey, you you do come back the next day, but it's not like you didn't die to begin with. You know, it is kind of your curse. You have to carry this. And now every time you go against the will of your patron or you screw up in combat and die, well, take another try.
00:21:41
Speaker
But, you know, you really do not want to do it again. And there can be long lasting consequences for, especially if you're a DM who's worried about a player being like, well, if I'm just going to come back anyways, you know, yes, ah narratively, it's horrible, you know, for the character, but eventually I come back and mechanically I'm fine. You could and introduce things ah like there's a, like a supplement that introduces like a sanity stat or score.
00:22:07
Speaker
Like you could have, like I've thrown out before as well, curses, a great way to essentially like, yes, they may might wear off over time. But if you're going into every combat being like, I'll hold the choke point and then I'll just die and come back. You know, there's still a major downside to that. You also, your stuff just might lose your stuff, but that's.
00:22:28
Speaker
I think we just invented Dark Souls. Yeah, I mean, to be fair, being fair, I think that would be an excellent way to do a Dark Souls one shot.
Complex Dynamics: Vile Characters and Celestial Witnesses
00:22:37
Speaker
Yeah. TM, TM, TM, TM. That's my no, I'm kidding. And honestly, like um the whole Dark Souls kind of universe, I feel like has has a lot to tap narratively. I feel like there's a lot of good material in there that would work in this regard.
00:22:51
Speaker
Yeah. I also just thought of like another kind of complex and like philosophical punishment. What if each you that comes back is like an identical and yet new instance? So that... Guys, did we just invent the prestige? Yeah, no. So snap so that so that version of you that died before is suffering for eternity. Yeah, is dead. ah you You are suffering for eternity and there's no going back. And every time that you do die, it creates a new you that is suffering for eternity. Oh my God. And that is correct and then a new you is created to make better choices.
00:23:30
Speaker
And when you finally make better choices, then you can all become one again and stop suffering for eternity. and but until But until you do that, there are going to be fragments of you that are left in hell to suffer until you get shit right. Ooh, I like that a lot.
00:23:46
Speaker
her
00:23:57
Speaker
So this is the part of the show where I read to you. I'm sorry. ah What I've been trying to do for this show is is kind of workshop the ideas in ah in a kind of methodical sense. So for this one, I took two character ideas and I wrote like a thesis that I wanted to kind of guide the idea on a setup for the character and the celestial.
00:24:18
Speaker
a way to develop their relationship, a plot twist for the relationship, and then a kind of way to resolve it. I'm still not a very good writer, so bear with me if I'm not completely on rails here. So let's say for the first one, we want a really vile, gross, just just an evil, violent little character, and I want to pair them with a lantern archon. I want the dichotomy here to be someone who has a lot of agency and bad motives,
00:24:46
Speaker
paired with someone who has almost no agency and very good motives. To start this idea, I went and looked up a quote that I had heard a while ago. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic hordes of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be by the better angels of our nature.
00:25:13
Speaker
That's probably profound if I was a little more literate. So for this arrangement, I was thinking of pairing a lantern Archon with some kind of violent player character, someone as close to chaotic evil as you can get without actually going there because nobody likes it when you go there. All right. I know we're doing audience. I know we're doing evil characters. We still don't like chaotic evil characters.
00:25:36
Speaker
This is correct. you You have to do it right. You have to do it right. I'm on team, try it, but do it right. All right. Okay. So the Celestial, this lantern Archon, will say is a newly deceased soul belonging to a lawfully good person. Maybe in the transition across planes they lost some component of their identity or they lost their memory, so all they really have is their moral compass. They're retained enough to keep their alignment, but now they are chiefly concerned with making a good impression on Mount Celestia and ascending to a higher form.
00:26:10
Speaker
From what I read, it seems that lanterns are subject to some kind of cursory review and approval, some kind of bureaucratic advancement. um So we'll say that this one was given a task instead of being immediately welcomed in from the material plane. You have a labor you must go do before you're granted the rank above Lantern Archon.
00:26:28
Speaker
Alternatively, we could say that this lantern, with its keen sense of evil and aptitude for helping those in need, maybe pick something up on the radar. They sense something back on the material plane and before they go seeking their appointment at Mount Celestia, maybe they go back to investigate. I read that lanterns are inquisitive, so I think there's a lot of narrative room here to do that.
00:26:48
Speaker
Now the character, they're awful. I recently finished Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, and there was this incidental character in that book named Paul Lazaro. Lazaro, not entirely sure how to pronounce it. ah Paul was a turn. Paul was awful. And I think Paul makes a great template for this character.
00:27:05
Speaker
Paul was hateful and vengeful. He told all of his companions about the awful ways he delivered retribution on people and even some animals that he believed had slighted him no matter how minor it was to anybody else. Paul's hatred just simmered in him. He just bubbled with with hate, and he would hold grudges for years, decades on end. He would even pick up other people's vendettas if he found them compelling. ah He's just, he has no conscience. He's a horrible person. Very bad guy. And this lantern archon now is Paul's Jiminy Cricket.
00:27:42
Speaker
Paul didn't ask for this. Surely the Archon wasn't expecting this. Either by assignment or by inquisition, the Archon is now in over its floating head. And either because of who the Lantern was or how they are now, they will not be dissuaded. So that's how we kind of make sure they stick together.
00:28:00
Speaker
Now, from what I read on the little wiki that I pulled up, lantern archons have low intelligence and low wisdom, so it's pretty easy to believe that this archon could be naive enough to, you know, want to persist here. So the audience might be thinking, why wouldn't Paul just kill this thing and move on? If he's got this annoying voice in his ear, why would he just, you know, flick it off and and keep going?
00:28:21
Speaker
ah Well, it turns out Lantern Archons can't actually be killed by conventional weapons, so you could have some fun table banter where he's swinging his weapon, he's swatting at this thing trying to make it go away, and it doesn't work. If they are killed by any non-conventional weapons, they usually just reform, so Paul's stuck with this thing.
00:28:38
Speaker
As the campaign goes on, this unfortunate lantern will bear witness to Paul's atrocities. Being without a corporeal body, though, the lantern can't actually do anything about it. All it can do is be a voice in his ear. It could try to foil Paul, since it can still interact with the world through lights and sounds, so if Paul is built as a stealth character, the lantern Archon can make a lot of noise and light to ruin his sneaking attempts.
00:29:04
Speaker
And I think it could even, again, fun table interaction, could try to punish Paul. It can shoot rays of light that only harm those without a pure heart. And we know that Paul in this situation does not have a pure heart. So it gives him little zaps in the butt when he does something that the Archon doesn't yeah yeah like. Yeah, I like that a lot. It's got a little taser and it and it buzzes him every time, you know, every time he kicks a puppy. Yeah, our our party rogue has a shock collar on.
00:29:29
Speaker
I mean, that should just be standard equipment for most party rogues. And again, ah a riot is good time for everybody else at the table. This is going to be a delight for everybody else to watch. Yeah. So for Paul's part, he just, you know, maybe he's just one of those wants to watch the world burn. Again, he's just seething with hate. He's just a vile little person. Or maybe he's out to get the biggest revenge he's ever gotten. Paul should always have a way to contravene with the Archon or to otherwise deny his guilt when he does something abhorrent.
00:29:59
Speaker
Paul, in this case, always thinks he's right, or at the very least doesn't care enough about morality to pay much attention to it. He at least thinks he's justified in whatever he does, and that kind of helps these two characters, I think, rub together. The Archon says, you shouldn't hurt people, and Paul comes back while he hurt me first. Yeah. Now, I thought about a way to throw a twist in here, so to make this pairing more interesting, I figured What if this lantern archon was made the way they are by Paul? I said earlier maybe they lost their memory or some piece of their identity. So what if this archon was a good Samaritan that got in Paul's way even by accident? What if this archon was someone on Paul's hit list? What if neither Paul nor the lantern knew that at the start? What if these two get stuck together not knowing who the other one is? Somewhere in the campaign this comes out.
00:30:48
Speaker
I'm not sure if it's better to expose it to one character at a time or both simultaneously. Like, the Lantern Archon can speak any language and teleport wherever they want, so they could pretty easily get ahold of some piece of information that tells them who they were and who killed them. Or maybe they go check in with their celestial bosses and they have questions. ah The assignment has been a chore. Why can't somebody else do it? Well, but because it's personal. It has to be your labor.
00:31:11
Speaker
ah Maybe Paul gets visited by some greater celestial that tells him what's going on. You know, Paul gets a revelation. Hey, by the way, here's why you're having to put up with this person. Yeah. And Paul, up until now, has never felt remorse. Now he has to face directly the consequences of his actions. You know, he's always been able to just walk away from the horrible things he does. Now someone he has wronged is attached to him. And maybe that person doesn't know. Maybe that weighs on Paul. You know, maybe Paul's never had to really consider this. And now he is. Yeah.
00:31:41
Speaker
he's almost been shifted into a shepherd role now he is the caretaker hey this archon wants you to be a good person and this archon doesn't know what you did to them but you do yeah In the end, you know, is this enough to reform Paul? I think that's kind of for the player to decide. Does the Archon throw up its little ghostly hands and let Paul continue? Irredeemable? Maybe can the Archon forgive Paul? If we go with the narrative that these two characters have interacted before and ended violently, can the Archon in its non-mortal state find forgiveness for this person? Yeah, I know. I like that idea a lot.
00:32:15
Speaker
ah hell of a lot Definitely. I really enjoy. I feel like that this specifically is a character that would slot well into just sort of a campaign without needing a lot, a lot of DM buy-in. I feel like that's a really ah achievable and fun way to just take this character concept, drop it into a game. Yep. So I do have another proposed resolution that again, I had to pillage from other work because again, I have no personality. I'm terribly boring. So let's take a page out of the preacher comics.
00:32:44
Speaker
In that series, spoilers ahead, the protagonist Jesse and his friend Cassidy have spent the entire series going on adventures and helping each other out of jams and ultimately becoming very close friends. It's noteworthy because one of them carries the literal voice of God and the other is a hundred-year-old vampire.
00:33:01
Speaker
Their big fight at the end is really about their respective natures and how they see good in one another. In the end, Cassidy, the vampire, decides that his friend is a real source of good in the world. It's given Cassidy hope for his own soul, and with that revelation, he opts to expose himself to sunlight and die so that Jesse can be free of him.
00:33:22
Speaker
So let's say that Paul, this player character, has spent their whole lives being violent and vengeful, and that has left them aimless. They're just a little ball of violence that rolls around. After all the time spent with the Lantern Archon, maybe they formed the first real friendship they've ever had. Maybe they grow sympathetic to the Lantern. Maybe they now have a vested interest in the Lantern completing this labor so that they can go on to the next, you know, whatever the next layer is in Mount Celestial.
00:33:50
Speaker
knowing that their misdeeds will always be in the way of this good person just trying to be good, they will find a way to excuse or sacrifice themselves. They say, look, I appreciate what you're doing. And I think maybe I'm not redeemable at the end of the day, but there's a chance they they in some way absolve the lantern of their deed. Yeah.
00:34:11
Speaker
the kind of um moral question of like if someone one is tasked with making you a better person and you think that that's an impossible task and you want to make their job easier by self-sacrificing does that not make you a better person yeah or if they're failing you know yeah whose fault is it yeah if if you're the first one to recognize that it's a fool's errand yeah you know do the ends justify the means maybe i don't know So for the second one, the thesis was much simpler. Like he who is without sin cast the
Moral and Ethical Boundaries: Celestial and Manipulative Characters
00:34:40
Speaker
first stone. We've all heard that one. So for this one, I wanted to flip that dynamic. I wanted to turn that dichotomy over. So in the first one, we had, you know, a violent character and a passive celestial. For this one, I wanted a very dynamic and very aggressive force of good pitted against a very steady and sturdy kind of evil.
00:35:00
Speaker
I was on the Forgotten Realms wiki and it tells us that the Shirati were a type of celestial Elagiran best known for wandering the plains to fight for freedom and to help the oppressed and deceived. They were the kind of chaotic good force out and about doing good wherever they could squeeze it in.
00:35:16
Speaker
Pointedly, they are cited here as asserting that all beings should be free to act as they want, and they are morally flexible. Pin in that. ah They seem to have the ability to make them flashy and boisterous, which would be kind of fun next to a more subdued character, as well as being very difficult to deceive, which I think is a really important point for the kind of character I would pair with this Celestial.
00:35:36
Speaker
Since they are chaotic and compelled to good, the shiradi encountering your character can just be chalked up to happenstance. We don't really need a motivated way for these two characters to stick together. It could be a random occurrence.
00:35:47
Speaker
The player character here, like before, should be everything that the Celestial isn't. While the Sharadi is a towering, imposing figure, our player can be a short, or fat, or lanky, maybe kind of rat-like. While the Sharadi is very outward in their mannerisms, maybe the player character is more subdued and soft-spoken. But I still want them to be ah menacing in a kind of way.
00:36:08
Speaker
Most importantly, though, the sharate wants to see beings be free, and the player character wants other beings to serve them. So I'm picturing a politician, a lawyer, a businessman, a kind of probably a high charisma build, yeah but someone who is very Greedy somebody who's used to talking their way into getting what they want and talking their way out of trouble and talking their way into ya yeah Yeah, ye exactly manipulating people. Yes a master manipulator And that's kind of a hard point for me because I'm not good at that. I don't know how to play that character I I wouldn't know what to do if I were just you know, actually had to play this one.
00:36:49
Speaker
Throughout the campaign, this character should do everything they possibly can to gain as much money and power as possible. That's the evil they do. As opposed to roaming around and killing, they roam around and steal. And that really rubs against the celestial the wrong way. But keep it mundane. They're not thieves. They don't rob banks.
00:37:07
Speaker
ah The Eladrin is a formidable obstacle for sneaky magic users, right? They can dispel illusions. So maybe if this person is, if they're a magic user, maybe that's kind of how they have been greedy. That's how they found success is the equivalent of Jedi mind tricks, you know, or slight of hands, small illusions that let them get negotiating leverage in situations without having to be outwardly, you know, evil.
00:37:31
Speaker
Since the Elagrant is a a formidable obstacle for sneaky magic users, this player needs to be able to maneuver around them in ways that are harder to detect or even better, harder to prove in a court of law. Again, going back to the idea of of a greasy lawyer or TJ to your earlier idea of a mercenary who's just in it for the money. yeah They don't even, they kind of reject the premise of a moral argument because it's irrelevant.
00:37:54
Speaker
So this player character should always aim to convince NPCs and other players to do something in their favor without ever actually forcing anyone to take any action, therefore always skirting around the Shiradi's trigger point of free will. Whenever confronted, the character just doesn't see things that way, or surely they can't be held responsible for the decisions of others.
00:38:13
Speaker
So, there's always a bit of friction between the two, but it never, it never quite reaches a flashpoint, which brings me to this pairing's plot twist. And for this twist, the player needs to get the Elagrin to snap. The player needs to push the boundaries of this Celestial to the point that the Celestial loses their cool.
00:38:30
Speaker
After one too many times of evading the ire of the Shiradi, who has borne the burden of watching all these people fall to the player character's schemey ways, they can't take it anymore. They would do something that overwhelms the free will of either the player character or the victim in order to foil the player's scheme. Maybe it gets dire enough that the Shiradi is pushed to even kill.
00:38:50
Speaker
probably best to not have the celestial kill your player character though so yeah so from there the player kind of gets the celestial and checkmate they've violated their own rule they have crossed their own line in the sand now it is the celestial's turn to be introspective their whole thing was i am a fighter of free will but at some point they were like there's no way to prevent this person from doing evil other than overriding someone's free will yeah that's that is also a really interesting concept I really like that I had I had some ideas that were slightly different but I think yours is better um and it's just because you were talking about the idea of you know this person being a ah liar and earlier when I was you know looking at stat blocks and stuff and when we were looking at the solar and I was talking about how all the weird shit that they can do and they can turn invisible at will and fly really fast and have telepathy and
Celestial Abilities: Detecting Lies and Character Interactions
00:39:44
Speaker
all that stuff. They have a feature that I don't think would come up very often, except in this concept called divine awareness. Okay. And the ability reads the solar knows if it hears a lie.
00:39:55
Speaker
full stop that's the ability no deception check no nothing yeah nope just it just knows it knows it just knows so this solar could be invisible right behind you and every time you try to lie to somebody it just says lie lying ah And it could be antagonistic in that way. And then, you know, you have the whole thing of Solars being lawful good and being celestial and having this, you know, ah kind of divine retribution aspect. But the interesting thing with the Shiradi is that they are not that lawful good. They're chaotic. And they have that conflict of, you know, free will. And yeah the only way to stop someone is to violate their free will. and
00:40:42
Speaker
yeah Yeah, it's yeah, so I had another idea for a plot twist again pilfering from other stuff I've read. I read this book called starter villain. It was ah a little little novel. It's like under 500 pages. I think it's a short one to recommend anybody to read it. And if you don't want me to spoil it, you better go do it now. Because here I go ah in starter villain.
00:41:01
Speaker
The setup is there's a man with some inordinate amount of wealth, and he's a major player in the morally gray underbelly of world events. He is a supervillain. He contracts and blackmails world governments and has all kinds of crazy technology at his disposal, yet their maneuvering is expressly to destroy an even greater evil than themselves. They have orchestrated events to topple the secret society that they are part of because they recognize the secret society poses an even greater threat than any one of its members by itself. So kind of a greater good situation. So let's say your player character is like this.
00:41:35
Speaker
Let's say they're that kind of villain. They're not a good person, as identified by their peers, but their work would prevent a greater deal of harm. So maybe when the plot twist hits, when the Elagiran has to step over their own line and intervene in someone else's free will, maybe they've actually doomed more people than they could have saved.
00:41:54
Speaker
Maybe that's part of the plot twist. The Eladrin steps in, overrides someone's free will, consequence strikes, and now the player character in their greasy little way says, well, you got what
Irreconcilable Differences and Parting Ways
00:42:04
Speaker
you wanted. I didn't get to steal from someone or I didn't get to ruin someone's company. But now think of the consequences. Think of all the all the people you've doomed because you wouldn't let me get ahead.
00:42:16
Speaker
And I think this kind of leads us to a fun, cray ending for the duo that's kind of like a mutual resignation. ah The Elagrin comes to learn that the player character is completely beyond their help. i think I think this is the kind of character that is irredeemable. This person is probably high intelligence. This person is...
00:42:33
Speaker
they've thought through what they're doing. They're not impulsive, they're not violent, they're doing all this stuff for a well-understood reason. yeah So the player character feels no need, no obligation to keep the game going. Or perhaps they have found a skeevy way to satisfy the Elagrin's needs without really having to change their behavior. Like we were saying before, look, I met your bare minimum, you can go.
00:42:55
Speaker
Yeah. After the plot twist, they've proven that the celestial really isn't the embodiment of morality. You did the thing you say nobody should do, so I don't see why you get to follow me around and tell me when I'm being a good person. So they both agree to disagree and they sever ties, and that's kind of the end of it. Yeah. God, all of these ideas are awesome. Oh, yeah.
00:43:13
Speaker
I thought this was going to be a really fun episode. Yeah. I don't know if we go back and listen to older episodes. I don't know how often I say that our current topic is my favorite topic, but I currently feel like this is my favorite topic and we'll see if I say that again next time. If we're doing it well, every topic should be your favorite topic. Yeah. But just get better. Yeah. And if not, then we'll cancel the show because obviously we're not doing it
00:43:40
Speaker
But I like the idea of this kind of non-ending, right? We didn't really reach a resolution. These two characters just ran to the end of their thread and then broke it off. You know, and I think that's a good representation of reality. We know there's many people in the world, and we know that those people are probably never going to change.
00:43:56
Speaker
We think we're out doing our best to realize the most good, but maybe it's not enough, or worse, maybe it's only good to us. Maybe what we think is good is only good in our limited view of the world. Maybe our efforts are better spent somewhere else, or maybe saving the world can't be done by saving everyone in it.
00:44:21
Speaker
No, that's great. i I think all of these are good. I really like that this is open for any setting, any system, any class, any anything. I think it puts a lot on the table for for the player. Yeah. I think this is a really meaty idea. I really like it. I'm glad to youdayating that you came up with it. That that simple inversion of the cliche. yeah It's usually a good character who made a deal with the devil. What if we flip it around?
00:44:46
Speaker
Yeah, i I really enjoy, I mean, the the reversal or flipping of tropes can always provide some interesting concepts. And then especially if you stick within 5E, I like the idea of you almost have a limited, you have restrictions that are breeding creativity. So yes, you have your typical arc of, you know, your will from Baldur's Gate 3. But what about the other side of that?
Teaser: Unique Bard Character Concept
00:45:08
Speaker
It was really fun also to just find a single line of text I wrote and then remember the topic and then feel like I had like three or four different ideas.
00:45:16
Speaker
Uh, do we have anything else to talk about for this one? No, I think that's it. I mean, we're kind of breaking from our normal formula of like, there's no character builder features. There's no stats. There's no magic items. There's very little of it matters, I think. and Yeah. Yeah. it yeah piece It's all, it's all concept. And if you don't like that we're breaking from format, you're welcome to unsubscribe from our Patreon.
00:45:42
Speaker
If you don't like it, well, tough. yeah yeah you know that yeah you can you can leave the patreon that i haven't made yet maybe i need a celestial to make me stop being lazy i need the duolingo owl but for getting tests done yes actually there there's an idea of a patron i actually isn't that a thing that exists the duolingo owl as your patron i don't know I'm fairly certain that's ah a meme, unearthed, arcana-style custom thing that floated around for a bit. I'm gonna find it. In fact, hey, actually, no, it works because we know that celestials can speak any
Humor: Duolingo Owl as a Celestial Guide
00:46:21
Speaker
language. Yep. And who's to say that the celestial could not inhabit the body of a bird or appear as a bird? Yeah. And now you've got this magic green owl floating around that says, by the way, I saw you swipe that healing potion. I'm taking one of your toes now.
00:46:40
Speaker
you Haven't learned how to say, where can I find the bathroom in that language yet? So now pick a toe, any toe. yep It's mine now. Yep. You have not done your daily goodness exercises. Also, I was correct. I found it.
00:46:56
Speaker
The owl patron. Yeah, I'm gonna read this later. Yep. So there you go. There's a neutral way to flavor this. We've done the good and the evil. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a more neutral style one that's a little less sinister than what we put out there just a moment ago. It's about building connections between cultures. See? It's nice. It's nice. That's good because we definitely want some dark places on this one. I mean, yeah, I think about the people on this call.
00:47:23
Speaker
Yeah, i I actually, I haven't done that in a while, but I actually scared myself during this during this episode. That that whole idea of like a fragmented part of you that is suffering for eternity. That's horrifying. Yeah. Mm hmm. Especially and if that fragment is aware that they are a fragment.
00:47:40
Speaker
Yeah, an eric or copy what if what if that's the original you and you are the fragment but you are identical to the original in every way and now the original you is suffering for eternity and it's like okay I could exist as I would want to as this fragment but like the real me I know I'm not the real me and the real me is suffering for eternity that's horrifying even better how would you know yeah yeah it could be either yeah there's no way to know for sure what if the copies age in real time so every time a copy is created they continue through time as normal so the resolution is
00:48:20
Speaker
whatever copy you are playing eventually meets the original who is, you know, because they've been in some kind of afterlife, um you know, some interdimensional thing, you know, some timey-wimey nonsense. They're thousands of years old. Yeah. And they're like, I've finally learned my lesson. Here's the secret. he Stop stealing. yeah I understand. Keep my hands to myself. Got it.
00:48:46
Speaker
Yeah. And I think there's, you know, there's another fun interaction that your DM can set up for you is, hey, eventually you might encounter these copies of yourself that have been suffering because you refuse to learn your lesson. And maybe that's the tipping point for the character's redemption. You know, it's nothing that the celestial does. The celestial is just this constant kind of threat. And eventually by talking to yourself,
00:49:09
Speaker
you get better. And now we've made you know a metaphor for, I think, how people genuinely get better as people. They reflect, they look back on their um themselves and they go, oh, I get it now. Yeah, that's ah that's terrifying.
00:49:22
Speaker
Just that's a terrifying concept. All the stuff, love it. Yeah, let's go back to people fighting with swords and stuff next time. Let's do something fun. Yeah, yeah. ah Okay, fine. you this Whose turn is it for the next idea? Do something not scary, Dave. It's Nick's turn. not i'm gonna Yeah, we're gonna skip Nick because his idea is scary. Thank you.
00:49:44
Speaker
Do you think we should start doing that? Should we start teasing the next episode at the end of whatever one we do? Yeah, let's let's do one of yours, because this one was mine. Okay. um I'll just go down the next one on my list, unless, Nick, you have an idea you want to throw on the table. Nope, I would love to hear yours, and then yeah that'll give me time to come up with my own list.
00:50:02
Speaker
OK, so here's my pitch. A country western bard. Yes. Yeah. Sorry. yep Yeah. So yeah the hook for this one is bards go to college, right? This one didn't. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. So we'll we'll work on that next. All right. I love it. Mm hmm.
00:50:43
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Beyond the Character Sheet. In this episode, I got to use Nico's sensor effects 18 times. Join us next episode for more Legends in the Making.
00:51:19
Speaker
Also, I'm going to have a lot of censoring to do this episode. We are being little potty mouths in here. oh yeah anyway yeah i think no fun it's can we Can we get a little shit counter for how many episodes? At the end of the episode, can you just edit in how many times I said shit? Yes, will I will do that. Okay.