John Chard
It was rumoured that John Chard had made a deal with a demon, but perhaps it was mere idle rumour and speculation.Or maybe not...
Special Equipment:
Under his robe he has a book of deadly dark magic.
Appearance:
He is not much to look at, an old man with grey hair and tattered robes that have seen better days. He is softly-spoken, but if hassled, a yellow glow will appear for a few seconds in his green-gray eyes. There is a silver amulet at his neck, the badge of a legal wizard of the region,as oppossed to an illegal wizard.His hair is black, but is becoming grey with age.
Background:
John Chard was an elderly wizard. His spells were mainly small cantrips and healing spells, nothing highly dangerous. But he had a secret which he let nobody know about, not even those who were closest to him. He had a book of seriously dark magic that had been passed down through his family for generations. He never cast any of the spells, he never thought he needed to. Until his only son was murdered as a result of 'track rage' by a notoriously bad tempered noble, Lord Stratton, who knifed him to death.
There were several witnesses and the city guards were sent out after Lord Stratton who went into hiding and was not captured for a month. In that time a witness was found in an alley with his throat slit, another was infected by one of the Sons of Charshaff (OOC-Sorry if I got the spelling wrong)and a third was poisoned. The rest of the witnesses retracted their stories and Lord Stratton went free.
Chard opened the book in secret and for the first time cast one of the dark spells, a spell of demon-summoning. Not long afterwards, Stratton and his bodyguards were found torn to small pieces, none of the pieces bigger then a hand. Chard was questioned but set free when it was thought that he had niether the strength nor the magic to carry out the crime.
Unknown to anyone else,Chard made a deal with the demon he summoned to let it take over his body when he got angry. Recently, other seemingly motiveless murders have taken place in the region...Chard fears and hates the demon within him but dares not try and cast it out, in case the effort kills him and the demon takes his soul down to Hell...
Roleplaying Notes:
Hooks/plots... After the murder rate has skyrocketed, people are leaving town and the ruler of the region is panicking. He offers to pay the PC's a lot of money to find and slay the killer before trade in his town drops to zero.
Chard himself is the person who calls in the PC's to 'protect' him, having grown rich on the money that his demonic self has stolen...
The ruler's daughter has gone missing and the PC's are called in to find her...
Notes-The demon in it's true form is hugely strong but can only appear in it's true form for short time periods. If Chard is slain with a magical weapon the demon will possess the weapon and try to warp the mind of it's owner.I leave it up to the GM to say what the true form of the demon looks like.
The demon cannot use magic as it comes from a different plane and it's magic is useless here, nor can it breath. It uses Chard's host body as it's lungs, so can only stay in pure demonic form for three minites at a time, after which it cannot reappear for a further five minites.
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? Responses (8)
Actually more of a character based scenario than a character entry itself. Unless the players meet him before, when he was a nice old man, met him durring the manhunt for the man who killed his son, then confronnt the mysterious murders after... he really is just a cypher. The players need to know the man, and know him well, otherwise he is just a cheap plot device.
Broadly I agree with MoonHunter - would, with very work this could become an extremely good murder-mystery scenario - after all, who would suspect the nice old man
Of course the death of Lord Stratton is highly suspicious but the Watch have aready cleared him of that
As for the character - I like him - his original motive is believable and his extreme measure in the search for justice is just the kind of really stupid mistake people are prone to making - especially in extreme circumstances
Definitely 5/5
You're right Moon...maybe I should have put him in the scenario thread.Should I put this as a scenario as well? :) Thank you B Horde and Dragon Lord for your high votes. :)
Cheka Man, this is probably the best submission I've seen out of you.
Fairly good characterization and backstory, and nice 'hook' if you will. It would probably make a more useful character in a novel where everything is not seen through personal eyes- that way it will be easier to reveal his secret. I find that adventurers don't tend to be very patient(sp?) in murder mysteries (or is that just my adventurers?).
The best thing to do with this character is to have him as a contact or helper of sorts to the heroes, and then slowly involve them in his background over a course of time.
4/5.
Okay, in the comments I read 2*5 and 1*4, yet still the score is 3.75 with only 4 votes? Hello?
To counter that meaningless vote of 1, I gave this the highest score possible. Unfortunately it would have scored purty high anyway. Sorry Cheka. Mean voting hurts, for this is NOT a 1 post.
Nice character Cheka, though he has a hint of the Incredible Hulk - you don't want to see me hassled!
This guy has a lot of potential. I'd throw him in in the background at first, then drop in the murder mystery.
A good one! You had nice comments on this one - he does have a lot of potential.