Normally, when someone says, "You should blog about that," I want to hurt them. This was not the case last time, as:
1. My girlfriend was the one saying it to me
b) She was totally right.
Basically, I turned one of my best roleplayer's characters into a horrible monster because I was bored with my own story. Her character wanted to keep trying to go home (for good reason), and I couldn't allow that. No splitting the party. So I turned him into a mind flayer.
That's the short version anyway. Here's the long one.
Leomaris Havelock is a beautiful Trishulain man (burly spaniard sea elf, with gold skin and blue marking things), who was well respected in his community, and whose charisma could charm nearly anyone. I guess I should have said he was perfect.
He was skeptical about this "mission" this crazy short man was telling him about. Alien creatures, a foreign god, his own gods powerless to stop them. He just wanted to go back home to his family and enjoy life, as his goddess instructed.
He finally left, fed up with a week of nonsense and crazy people, hobos and cultists. He took a boat back home, and relaxed as he set sail for home.
Then the ship was assaulted by a mostly grounded Illithid Nautilus, everyone was captured, and Havelock was chosen to be turned into a new Mind Flayer. This is also where I say "I'm the DM, I can do as I please," so don't come crying about how I've ruined Illithid lore, I don't care.
Havelock put up a relentless, if useless, struggle against being transformed. I would imagine most people would fight someone trying to put a cuttlefish in their ear though.
When he came to, the first thoughts to come to mind were: "I need to escape" and "Oh by the gods they turned me ugly". Or something like that.
In any case, I took a character who was beautiful, had everything going for him in life, who was nearly home from this crazy adventure, and plunged him so deep into the depths of his worst fears that he may never recover.
His looks are gone, his family and friends would now fear him instead of love him. He would bring shame to his family's name, and terrify anyone who looked at him.
Best part of all this? The player lives it. She wanted something interesting to happen to make her character believe in everything the crazy old man conspiracy theorist (my NPC) has told her. This was the MOST interesting thing I could think of doing, and it went over pretty well.
In the end, I got to mercilessly destroy a character's entire reality, stripping them of their every hope and dream, and the player loves me for it. Woo! (I think I might have the brain problems)
