I keep thinking about this starting session question/love letter:
“Fighter, you tell everyone you seek [enter big bad boss monster] because you want the honor of defeating it in single combat. Why are you really seeking it? Why didn’t you tell anyone, even your trusted companions?”
If you were asked that, what would be your awesome answer?
It’s actually my twin brother, turned into a monster by a terrible curse. I intend to free him from it… one way or another.
When I was a child, I had a dream that the creature would kill me. I was sure that this wasn’t just a dream, but a vision of the future. Eventually I decided that the gods were warning me away from it, as a sign of their favor.
As I grew older, I found that the only thing I was truly good at was killing. I hate myself for being good at killing, and I hate myself, because I can’t give up the only thing I’ve ever been good at.
So now I want to find the monster, because it’s going to force me to make a choice. If I face it, and can’t raise my hand against it, then I die, and I don’t have to live with what I have become. If I kill it, then I know there is no purpose for me laid out by the gods, that I myself am a monster, and I can embrace being the real monster without any illusions from that point on.
My friends can’t know this, because if I die, then I can die with the comfort of knowing I had friends. If I tell them the truth, I have to face what I am, and to an extent, what they are.
The Rakshasa killed several of my ancestors, then barred their souls from passing over to the afterlife. They now reside in my weapon, waiting to get their revenge.
You see, unbeknownst to the Rakshasa, it ended up turning my blade into the perfect weapon to kill it. Rakshasas souls can sometimes escape death, but my ancestors will be there in its death throes to trap it’s soul along with their own.
The reason I didn’t tell the party, is because in order to permanently trap the Rakshasa’s soul, there must be a sacrifice. When the time comes, I intend to be that sacrifice…
It’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen and I need to declare my undying love.
“Honor? Honor’s got nothing to do with it. I fed these assholes that line about honor because it seemed like something they’d want to hear. Truth is, the only “monster” here is me. I’m the one who killed all those people. Did it on a lark. I pinned the murders on the creature because I want that bounty money. These idiots are the bait. And hey, if they find out It was me the whole time, well, dungeons are dangerous places, right? Heh heh…”
I was commissioned to kill the basilisk’s mother years ago. I ensnared her in a gruesome trap, and finished her off with my blade leaving her child alive and parentless. Alone in the lands he’s been wreaking havoc, aggressively attacking settlements, eating people and livestock.
I can’t let anyone know I caused this, but I must clean up my mistake. The child, now an adult, doesn’t truly deserve to dies but I must take care of it one way or another.
I must retrieve the beast’s heart. I don’t know what that Necromancer will do with it, and quite frankly I don’t care. He’s offered to return my true love to life. Of course, Death already refused to bargain with me once already, and his wrath will be fierce.
Wow guys! I was expecting greatness from this thread but you surpassed yourself. Keep em coming!
Here’s my suggestion:
” I will never defeat this beast. The fight is lost already. I’m going there to die as I lost the will to live when my true love was taken from me. I’m not telling my companions because they might change their plans if they figure out we can’t win. Onward we march towards this fight, ever closer to the black gate…”
I am the beast I hunt. You see, I’m under a curse that transforms me into a monstrous creature at night. I have no control of my actions in this form, and when I return to human I have only vague and hazy memories of what my monster self did. “Hunting” the beast is just an excuse for why we’re never far away from each other, and why I ask so many questions about what it’s done. The only thing I truly seek is a way to break this curse.
Aside from fighting back when attacked, this beast hunts down and kills specific people. Many think it chooses its victims at random, but there’s a method to its madness. It hides a terrible secret, and is trying to eliminate everyone else who knows. Since I’ve already learned the truth, the only way I can survive is by killing it before it kills me, but if I keep my comrades in the dark there’s a chance for them to escape its wrath.
When you bargain with a Demon to “protect what you love most and all others be damned” make sure you know where your heart is! I loved her. I DID! And now I must give her her eternal rest because my heart loved my daughter most of all. What that thing turned her into…I’m so sorry my love…