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Some of my roommates are playing Skyrim right now, so I tried it out. I haven't played an Elder Scrolls game since Daggerfall (in 2002 that game was already ancient history. Dear God!!). I remember having fun back then joining the fighter and mage guilds, crawling through dungeons, and contending with the god awful FPS sword fighting controls.
So I made a mean-looking orc with no plan beyond using heavy armour and big weapons, joining the Champions, just being a good-guy fighter clanking about which seemed to be what the game was hoping for.
It didn't work out that way. First it was the lycanthropy, but soon enough I was waging war for Malacath, backstabbing for Molag Bal and committing human sacrifice for Boethiah. I joined the Dark Brotherhood and slew beggar and emperor alike for hard cash. Now I prowl the countryside for friendly innocents whose souls can feed my Ebony Blade (it's basically Stormbringer, and gets more powerful when it kills allies & friends). Turns out, the bad dudes of Skyrim have the best quests and the hottest gear!
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| BEND THE KNEE, MORTAL. |
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Everybody knows Elric, he is the classic good guy taking quests from an evil patron, and it works beautifully. Sticking to the simple law/chaos alignment axis of Moorcock and leaving questions of good and evil up to the hero's own conscience (you guys remember having one of those?) lets this work so well, and is why I always love simple L/N/C alignment in my home games.
Because alignment is ridiculous - your belief system/personality/morality is also a set of super-physical laws that bind what you can do and how magic works on you, etc? Let's see a game with the protection from secular humanist spell. Actually I would play that, but it's not the point. When some of my gamer pals and I get drunk, alignment becomes the subject of argument so often it's a running joke.
The best solution I have is to differentiate between the 'moral compass' portion and the 'cosmic allegiance/supernatural laws' portion. Alignment covers your cosmic affiliation in my game, and will change your religious options, magic items, some spells, and certain social interactions. In this way it's more like a 'cosmic vibration' than anything else.
It will *not* prescribe which actions your character is allowed to take. Soooo you can be a Lawful piece of garbage (check out most LotFP material for lots of these guys), a Chaotic good guy like Elric, or anything in between. If you don't care about the gods or unearthly forces, or don't want to participate you can be neutral.
So Skyrim had me thinking: what about PCs who say 'fuck it' and sign up for an evil cult to get fabulous cash & prizes?
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In Dark Souls (my personal fave of course), you can battle your way through a crypt rammed with skeletons, wherein a coffin can be climbed into, taking you to their boss - Gravelord Nito - who promptly offers to sign you up for his covenant and give you a magic sword so you can fight other players online in his name! This doesn't give you any protection against his skeletons though, because everything in the game is trying to kill you. This feels weird, but makes sense in the game's milieu.
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| Sign me up!!! |
I've spent a fair bit of time outlining the deranged cultists that hunger to crack the PCs' skulls open and feast on their very brains. I suppose what makes this idea cool in Dark Souls is what makes it difficult at the table though. A friendly (albeit hideous) face in the middle of the dungeon who is part of a normally dangerous faction, but is nonhostile. Usually, my players would expect to chop their way through a horde of foul monsters to encounter a boss, oversized beast or evil mastermind of some kind.
To get there only to find a job offer is a bit of mental whiplash. Let's brainstorm:
WAYS TO SIGN UP WITH THE FORCES OF CHAOS
Divine Concealment:
Maybe the god you think you worship is actually... something far worse. Could be the god you started with, or one you just stumbled across, and like an idiot started hanging out at their lost and forgotten altar.
Desperation:
Remember in Saga of the Swamp Thing when Arcane appeared to Matt Cable as a fly and saved him from that car accident by possessing him? (Holy crap, I just remembered how great Swamp Thing was). This is great if your PCs get in over their heads, as mine do quite often. Instead of a TPK or some other catastrophe, they get stuck with a new patron who wants some harsh tasks accomplished!
Information:
This is another perennial favourite around my place, as the dudes relentlessly interrogate everybody until they can't say any more. Just let it be known that you have information they want - all they have to do is sign on the dotted line. Intel on their enemies, maps of the area, advice on the future, this is basically what Contact Other Plane is for.
Greed:
Especially with XP-for-treasure, my newfangled ultra-expensive jackass equipment lists and magic items being exceptionally rare, signing up with Arioch might be the only way to get the swag you need.
Compulsion:
Being Dominated to do the Elder God's task might be cool in limited doses or over the short term, but who plays D&D to get bossed around? Make sure there is a way out, and/or prepare for your PCs to try and whack the entity that just Geased them, unless they get paid real well.
Supplies/Healing/Equipment:
Setting up the sinister cult as a dungeon or wilderness trading post forces the PCs to at least make nice if they want healing, rest and a place to resupply. This is basically how Dark Souls does it, since all the covenants give some kind of cool swag, a store to shop at or something else. Maybe that deadly new Chaos-tinted weapon you swing around is doing something to your... chakras... though?
Plot-related purpose:
This ties in with Information and others. Maybe there is a dungeon entrance in some forgotten corner of the cult's HQ (I mean, they could just fight through...). Maybe if we rise through the ranks, they'll give us a key that unlocks that damned door we cant get past! (This is straight from Dark Souls, where you need to rank up with the Chaos Servant covenant and a certain door to save Solaire in the end).
Hearing voices:
In Skyrim it happens the same most every time, you just walk up to an impressive-looking statue and hear the Daedra's voice in your head. I find this pretty heavy-handed, not to mention it doesn't really fit for Azathoth to do shit like that. Maybe for more small-time spirits or godlings.
Curses:
Using the great forbidden tome rules from Realms of Crawling Chaos, you might get more than you bargained for when you dig into that sweet new spellbook. Spontaneous alignment change being the least of it!
Mutation:
Remember that huge mutation table a few posts back? PCs who accumulate more of those will find their alignment inexorably turning towards Chaos.
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I'll add more as I think of them, but this post has gone on long enough. In the meantime, remember to DIE!!!!
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