Campaign Concept: Redeemer's Parole

[hoverfrog]

Using Pathfinder 2.0 rules with the Book of the Dead being newly released have all or nearly all PCs as undead characters. (Free archetype that has to be an undead heritage)

 

The characters all died and were condemned to the lower planes for their evil acts. Your typical Evil Campaign types.

There is a twist. After settling in to their after lives they are pulled from them by one of their former colleagues. This formerly evil necromancer has found redemption through Sarenrae and seeks to save others. The necromancer has proposed an experiment: resurrecting the wicked would cause endless problems and allow them to escape to do evil, avoid redemption, or attract the attention of divine or infernal parties, animating the bodies does not. Pulling souls out of their punishments to seek redemption as the undead bypasses many such issues as they don't really get a choice, are less likely to get the attention of dark forces, and the Sarenites are quite able to put down weak ghosts or revenants.

The necromancer knows them best and hopes that he can save them. They are the first test subjects in the experiment dubbed, "Redeemer's Parole". If it works as a viable method of offering one last shot to those who didn't realize just how badly they'd screwed up in life until they were in front of Pharasma and being read a list of their deeds, thinking, "well, when you read it all out at once like that, yeah, I sound like a dick, but-" then others might be saved in the same way too. It is certainly a better option that being tortured for eternity by giant, carnivorous, woolly, abyssal spider bees anyway.

The characters have to try and do what they can to settle their debts to the world, and maybe do something good enough to prove that they aren't beyond reach. Or they could try to dodge the priests watching them like hawks until they can find some way to place themselves beyond the reach of the meddling idealists. A party might even be mixed in their attitude and could be led by a living member of the team who keeps them in check.

 

As they are undead they can be sent on suicide missions too, like a suicide squad type game. If they're killed, they can be stitched back together, reanimated and put right back to work.

 

Are there other game systems where this would be possible? Would this interest players or GMs for that matter? How would you change this campaign concept at all?

[CharmingSatyr]

6 hours ago, hoverfrog said:

 Would this interest players or GMs for that matter?  How would you change this campaign concept at all?

Interest?  As a GM, I would run an AP like this.  Absolutely.  I would not want to build this from scratch.  As a player, also absolutely -- just shut up and take my character already.

 

What would I change?  There are a couple of things that I can think of.

1.  There needs to be a redemption mechanic of some kind.  Some way of measuring progress, maybe even a reward for progressing. 

2.  In addition to mechanical redemption, there also should be a narrative one.  Some kind of arc should be pre-built into characters so there's reasons to strive for redemption -- "My daughter died trying to redeem me; I want to someday be worthy of her love".

3.  I would build in some kind of ... morality penalty?  Maybe some drawbacks-on-steroids.  Some way to demonstrate how tempting it is to go back to their evil ways.  For example, if you have a wizard was a devil-worshipper in life who now has the opportunity to make a deal with a devil in his unlife, it should be harder to remain on the path of redemption.  At least temporarily.

[hoverfrog]

How about having the priests offer a full resurrection to those who they deem worthy? A mechanic to measure that would be useful but I'm not sure what form that would take. Building in story awards for individual characters would be good and would need the player to build that in to their character. Adapting the champion's tenets might work.

 

As for the penalty\temptation, having the priesthood test the PCs with fake temptations would be likely and then having a real temptation be offered.

 

This would take a lot of cooperation between players and DM. Redemption arcs are fun. Having a whole party on redemption arcs should be interesting.

[CharmingSatyr]

On 12/10/2022 at 9:13 AM, hoverfrog said:

How about having the priests offer a full resurrection to those who they deem worthy? A mechanic to measure that would be useful but I'm not sure what form that would take. Building in story awards for individual characters would be good and would need the player to build that in to their character. Adapting the champion's tenets might work.

 

This could make a good opening scene/adventure.  Recruited by an undead former-villain, the first mission of the PCs secretly acting as the last mission of their recruiter.  They get to see their recruiter/mentor achieve his goal, regain his humanity, having finally made amends for his (or her, no judgement) past misdeeds.  Conversely, having to hunt down a former redeemer-(re-)turned-villain could also be an interesting adventure.

[Inash]

Finally made amends. Some brief time later makes a heel turn and doubles down on villainy (possibly with good intentions but goes way too far). Sounds like a good overarching story for a BBEG.

 

Edited December 16, 2022 by Inash (see edit history)

[hoverfrog]

You just need Captain Hammer as the Lawful Good Champion keeping an eye on the party.

[Inash]

Captain Hammer, corporate tool

[GreysonWulffe]

This could be run as a reverse of the Corruption mechanic in Fate of Cthulhu. PC's start with Corrupted Aspects, and they "cleanse" them one by one. A Cleansed Aspect can then provide a bigger bonus, such as providing a +4 bonus instead of just +2 when invoked. The Corrupted High Concept will be the last to be cleansed, and the goal is to cleanse all of the PC's five aspects.

 

Instead of a Corruption Counter, each PC has a Redemption Counter. Starts at zero, going up by 1 for each meaningful good deed, maybe goes down by 1 for each particularly grievous sin. When it gets to 4, the PC cleanses one of their Corrupted Aspects (rephrasing it accordingly), and the Redemption Counter is reset to zero.

 

Maybe a starting PC would look like this:

 

Mercurion the Undying

• High Concept: Dread Sorcerer Seeking To Save A Daughter's SoulThis allows the PC to cast magic
• Trouble: A Widow's CurseMaybe people die or get really sick when they stick around him too long, or if they earn his friendship. Something like the curse on Van Richten in "Curse Of Strahd".
• Others:
  •  Great Strength From The Heart Of A UnicornBasically, super strength, but with the "corruption" stemming from how it was obtained through the killing of a pure creature.
  •  Opened My Mind's Eye Thru A Virgin SacrificeNarrative license for psionic abilities, might be restricted to just precognition or something. Note the reference to the great price for this power.
  •  The Ebon Staff Drinks The Blood Of My EnemiesA legendary implement or artifact of power. Obviously evil, but it might be purified like how Ahsoka Tano purified the kyber crystals of the Sixth Brother.

 

[Basil_Bottletop]

I don't mean to open a large can of worms, but what is going to constitute a good act? Will there be immediate action Good Acts (r) and then long-term Good Acts (r)?

 

I like the narrative arc capabilities of such a premise, but the mechanic feels hard to quantify and maybe isn't necessary. I'm only recently getting into Ironsworn, I guess their Progress Track might be something worth looking at, since the scale can move.