Evil immortal sorcerer destroyed all traces of his background - fair or cop out?

[Vitruviansquid]

So I'm writing this setting for my players to read at the start of the new campaign. I'm keeping it short, to 1 or 2 pages in a word processed document that only really talks about the basics.

There is going to be an evil sorcerer king who plunges the kingdom this game is set in into a few centuries of repression. The story takes place immediately after he is overthrown. Now, I think for completeness's sake, players would expect to know something like how the sorcerer king came into power, how he acquired sorcerous powers in a world where magic had been myth. But in my head, it wouldn't really be that interesting:

Sorcerer king is the son of the previous king, and so inherited the kingdom rightfully. He was born knowing how to do magic. There is no reason why anybody outside of him and his intimate acquaintances would know why he became so evil. He also has an unsexy, normal name besides his badass moniker (like "Edward, the Black Prince").

So, given that he is an evil sorcerer king who will have ruled for centuries, I think it would be fairly appropriate to say that simply he had all records of his early life destroyed. But at the same time, I could see it being fairly unsatisfying for the setting's backstory to include a section that basically says "nope!"

What do people think?

[Koo Rehtorb]

I think you're probably overestimating how invested your players will be in digging into backstory. If they mention a vague interest in it then I think saying that few records of that time period have survived would be fine. If they, for some reason, get super interested in looking into it and put a bunch of effort then I think it would be bull**** not to let them get actual results at that point. I strongly doubt that that'll happen, though.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

I'd say that even if you decide that history has been erased, you still need to know what happened.
Especially because players may latch onto the fact that the Evil Immortal Sorcerer King (EISK) has erased the story. "It must be important!" "He wouldn't have erased it if there was nothing significant hidden in the history!"

Personally, if my players started getting super into researching something, then I tend to make it part of the story. You're all playing the game together, so player ideas should shape GM story... but that's probalby a whole other thread.

Anyway, if the players got interested, I reckon I'd decide that there was something important to the present day plot, and that it hasn't been properly erased, and that good enough research and skill checks can unearth it.

[Anonymouswizard]

If it's been centuries there's likely to be conflicting stories about how he came to power. Or in other words, people know his background, they just know eight different versions and the only records as to which is correct are held by the kingdoms surrounding the one ruled over by your Friendly Local Sorcerer Monarch (FLSM from here on). Those kingdoms might have an interest in hiding the FLSM's legitimacy, because it could allow them to pretend they have a right to 'take back the territory the FLSM stole'.

Or for the people in the kingdom itself, few will support the real version, it's just boring. After a couple of hundred years there will be an official line (probably something about divinity), people claiming he's a demon sent to punish them for their sins, twelve different stories about him being an adventurer who punished the old king (who at this point might be a messiah figure), a group who believes that the FLSM is eternal and ruled the world as it should be, one group in some forgotten village who insists he died nine years ago when the tax collectors stopped coming, another where nobody realises he exists, some group of people who think his ministries run everything and that the FLSM is just a metaphor, one person who has come up with the real story via dumb luck, and so on.

[Yora]

In what way could the origin story of a sorcerer who is no longer around be important information for the players to make their decisions for the present? It seems like information that is completely inconsequential and wouldn't make no difference for the present and future. That's generally the kind of information players have no interest in.

It wouldn't have even occured to me that I would have to explain why the sorcerer has no known backstory. Even a sorcerer king who is still alive and currently fighting the PCs actively would work perfectly fine without any kind of backstory in my opinion. When I create NPCs, I never bother with such things.

[Vitruviansquid]

Hmmmm...

I think I'll go with the many conflicting stories.

[Mastikator]

Does he have an actual reason for wanting his own background destroyed? If not then that's a plot hole. I'll echo the others and say that he doesn't really need a deep background, just make something believable up.

Why does he have magic? same reason Elsa (or whatever her name is) from Frozen has magic: Because that's the story, why is he such a big jerk? Some people just are big jerks.

[Xuc Xac]

Those kingdoms might have an interest in hiding the FLSM's legitimacy, because it could allow them to pretend they have a right to 'take back the territory the FLSM stole'.

This is one of several reasons that it makes no sense for the Sorcerer King to erase his history. Most bad guys in his position would make up a background that makes them look like the legitimate ruler. In this case, he actually is the legitimate ruler. He should be waving his birth records and "boring" genealogy in the face of everyone who says otherwise, especially neighboring kingdoms that say they have a claim on his territory.

[Vitruviansquid]

This is one of several reasons that it makes no sense for the Sorcerer King to erase his history. Most bad guys in his position would make up a background that makes them look like the legitimate ruler. In this case, he actually is the legitimate ruler. He should be waving his birth records and "boring" genealogy in the face of everyone who says otherwise, especially neighboring kingdoms that say they have a claim on his territory.

He would have destroyed his background in order to replace it with something psychotically self-aggrandizing, like that he is a god and was always there. Dynasties come and go, divinities do not.

[Mastikator]

He would have destroyed his background in order to replace it with something psychotically self-aggrandizing, like that he is a god and was always there. Dynasties come and go, divinities do not.

Ok maybe this relates directly to why he was overthrown. He was so arrogant and obnoxious that his neighbors put aside their differences for once and all attacked at once.

Now the game starts in a war torn nation that is under occupation by at least two neighboring nations that are currently in a period of cold war, they want to divvy up the country and all want the lion share.

Meanwhile the sorcerer is still alive, but diminished, and is trying to make a return under a new name, a new alias, reborn as the true god that he like totally is you guys, not a king but a god-emperor. Instead of having a kingdom he has a little cult.

So now we have a setting AND a BBEG, the quest is to find out the source of this BBEG, if you can discover his true origin then and only then can be be defeated.

[Vitruviansquid]

Actually...

- Internal factions and outside forces alike can't stand up against the immortal sorcerer king because he is a wizard and has an army of giant monsters and enchanted super soldiers.
- Someone else in the kingdom then also lucks into magical powers and puts together a rebellion by recruiting trustworthy people and awakening the magic within them. The leader of the rebellion calls this brotherhood of magical warriors "Paladins," after an ancient council of nobles whose deeds inspire many heroic tales.
- After the rebellion manages to defeat the evil sorcerer king, the original leader of the rebellion is assassinated at the victory celebration.
- Without a leader and with many paladins who each have different visions of how the kingdom should be run, the kingdom is broken up by paladins-turned-warlords.
- Without their master, the monsters and enchanted super soldiers that fought against the rebellion now are free to do whatever they want. Monsters roam the countryside eating people, the enchanted super soldiers knew only war.
- Enter the player party. They are part of a faction who think the paladins-turned-warlords have lost their way, and who are dedicated to re-creating the paladin order as itinerant do-gooders who protect the land.

[Mr Beer]

I think he would destroy his background and rework it Kim Jong Un style. You know, divine origin, best at spells, plays a perfect round of golf, tames wild dragons with a stern look...that kind of thing.

[Mastikator]

Actually...

- Internal factions and outside forces alike can't stand up against the immortal sorcerer king because he is a wizard and has an army of giant monsters and enchanted super soldiers.
- Someone else in the kingdom then also lucks into magical powers and puts together a rebellion by recruiting trustworthy people and awakening the magic within them. The leader of the rebellion calls this brotherhood of magical warriors "Paladins," after an ancient council of nobles whose deeds inspire many heroic tales.
- After the rebellion manages to defeat the evil sorcerer king, the original leader of the rebellion is assassinated at the victory celebration.
- Without a leader and with many paladins who each have different visions of how the kingdom should be run, the kingdom is broken up by paladins-turned-warlords.
- Without their master, the monsters and enchanted super soldiers that fought against the rebellion now are free to do whatever they want. Monsters roam the countryside eating people, the enchanted super soldiers knew only war.
- Enter the player party. They are part of a faction who think the paladins-turned-warlords have lost their way, and who are dedicated to re-creating the paladin order as itinerant do-gooders who protect the land.

Then the sorcerer's backstory (or erasure thereof) is pointless fluff. Attention is a very limited resource and you should respect the player's enough not to waste their attention on things that don't have a purpose or even sets the mood. Give the sorcerer a short and boring backstory if any at all.
Don't waste time on writing something that won't affect the game and nobody but you will care about.

It's better to spend time and effort on fleshing out the paladin warlords, their goals and characteristics. Since they are what the players will be dealing with, the sorcerer is backdrop at most.

[sktarq]

I'd even say you could combine several of the above.

At first he was very clear about being the true heir but a couple centuries in he had reached "has always been there" status and stopped with that tack as he was as legitimate as he would ever be.

In the half-millennium since various stories have sprung up. Many based in dark propaganda and trader-tales looking to scare children but given a kind of acceptance since even the eldest dwarf remembers hearing some version when he was a beardless tot breaking peebles.

Mildly concerned that his legacy could possibly contain a weakness or that his current proclamations be desputed from his early statements the Immortal Sorcerer King start collecting his history in an official library/museum/royal archive. Which since it burned in the war (except various handfuls snatched by workers and scattered about to act as plot hooks) has left the "official history" a well of the unknown with only tall tales and memories of propaganda to fill in.

This way if you players ask you can give them a vague idea without letting i t be interesting enough to distract from current events.

[ElChad]

You should definitely have his background written down. Whether you want the players to see it or not. It gives him life, and allows you to know his strengths and weaknesses and draw inspiration from his past for the future. If you say he destroyed all traces, and do not want them to find them, then tell them that there are no traces. Any searches they find, no matter how high they roll will come up with nothing.

However, if you DO want to make it possible, albeit difficult, this is how I think you should do it.

Deep in the Underdark, in a cave system not easily found and extremely difficult to explore lies a lone Aboleth who refers to himself as 'The Record Keeper' and his expansive library of mortal history. Remaining unbiased, he has a compulsion to keep record of everything that he is aware of, reading historians minds and hiring spies through agents to acquire information of anything of possible note. He is the source of top sider history to all Aboleths. He knows the true history of the Immortal Sorcerer, he knows his weakness. If they somehow find out about The Record Keeper, and can get past the dangers of the underdark and the many traps leading to his expansive library, they may find what they seek.

The Record Keeper isn't hostile, as he would be certainly impressed by those who managed to actually reach them, though he isn't exactly good. He would easily give them what they want to know, at a costly price.

A bit cliché'd, but definitely presenting it as a suggestion haha.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

If you specifically tell them that all traces of something have been erased then there must be an old librarian somewhere in a far off city who has hidden a last book on the subject in a small secret room. Those are the rules.

[Shalist]

How about this?

1) BBEG protects himself from alterations to his timeline via magic, a fancy floating fortress 'o happyfuntimes, or whatever.
2) BBEG travels back in time and (for instance) discretely poisons his mother so he'd be stillborn.
3) The 'unshielded' portions of the BBEG's timeline (i.e. everything up to point 1) are completely purged from existence.

This allowed him to completely blindside former or potential rivals, since to most he simply popped into existence one day raring to go, even as most divinations and prayers insisted that he didn't even exist. To ensure absolute victory, he systematically consolidated or eliminated magical knowledge, and even seeded the belief that such knowledge and power originated with the 'arrival' of his 'divine' personage.

As the decades wore on, his hubris eventually grew too great and he actively banned the worship of 'false gods'. This challenge and insult(/threat) finally united them and gave them the impetus to impart much of their dwindling power and influence unto their champions in a desperate bid to cast him down.

In the wake of the sorcerer's downfall the gods were left weakened and exhausted, and in the handful of years that they slept, their champions - each entirely too certain of their own divine favor and mandate - fractured along ideological lines, and the lands fell into disarray once more.

[LibraryOgre]

I would say it's pretty reasonable that he's destroyed all knowledge of what happened after a few centuries... but, as mentioned, you need to know what happened, and realize that, in the absence of real information, myths will pop up. Who is he? What is this power he wields? There will be theories, myths, and lies presented as absolute truth.

[Vitruviansquid]

How about this?

1) BBEG protects himself from alterations to his timeline via magic, a fancy floating fortress 'o happyfuntimes, or whatever.
2) BBEG travels back in time and (for instance) discretely poisons his mother so he'd be stillborn.
3) The 'unshielded' portions of the BBEG's timeline (i.e. everything up to point 1) are completely purged from existence.

This allowed him to completely blindside former or potential rivals, since to most he simply popped into existence one day raring to go, even as most divinations and prayers insisted that he didn't even exist. To ensure absolute victory, he systematically consolidated or eliminated magical knowledge, and even seeded the belief that such knowledge and power originated with the 'arrival' of his 'divine' personage.

As the decades wore on, his hubris eventually grew too great and he actively banned the worship of 'false gods'. This challenge and insult(/threat) finally united them and gave them the impetus to impart much of their dwindling power and influence unto their champions in a desperate bid to cast him down.

In the wake of the sorcerer's downfall the gods were left weakened and exhausted, and in the handful of years that they slept, their champions - each entirely too certain of their own divine favor and mandate - fractured along ideological lines, and the lands fell into disarray once more.

That's pretty convoluted and requires I reveal to my players all sorts of rules about magic and time travel, which I do not want to come up with and they probably would not want to keep straight.

[Arbane]

Ever read the Black Company novels? The Evil Overlord (Well, Lady) in those went through some trouble to hide her history, because another spellcaster who knew her real name could shut down her magic. (The "good" guys DID manage to find it out.)

Why was this guy trying to cover his tracks?

[90sMusic]

If he ruled for a couple of centuries, it wouldn't be very hard to remove most knowledge of him from history.

Afterall, think about historical events that happened in the real world just 200 years ago. History can get distorted pretty easily over that many generations and people will pass on what they know or are told as fact because that's just their nature. After a few generations, the masses will believe whatever you want them to believe, especially in a world that doesn't exactly have public education systems that teach history to everyone. Most of what folks know will come from word of mouth passed down from one generation to the next.

I would argue that it would be next to impossible to COMPLETELY erase all record of himself because there is bound to be records of him somewhere, especially for a major historical figure like a king that ruled for a couple of centuries. You'll have libraries and scholars and records from other kingdoms in the world that would have this information because in a foreign kingdom he wouldn't be able to exert his influence as easily to go wiping out their records and libraries. And even if he did, there could be copies and duplicates stored in other locations, even in private libraries. There's just no way to be 100% certain you've erased everything.

In the homebrew campaign I always run my games in, I actually have a queen who has ruled almost 1,000 years and the celebration of that anniversary is the third chapter in the story even. She has a lot of secrets and backstory that might potentially give you some ideas if you're interested. My campaign is very open ended and a lot of players never really learn much about her, but some go so far as the find out the truth and some even fight her.

[Bohandas]

vecna blooded template

[FreddyNoNose]

Some kind of changeling?

[Vitruviansquid]

If he ruled for a couple of centuries, it wouldn't be very hard to remove most knowledge of him from history.

Afterall, think about historical events that happened in the real world just 200 years ago. History can get distorted pretty easily over that many generations and people will pass on what they know or are told as fact because that's just their nature. After a few generations, the masses will believe whatever you want them to believe, especially in a world that doesn't exactly have public education systems that teach history to everyone. Most of what folks know will come from word of mouth passed down from one generation to the next.

I would argue that it would be next to impossible to COMPLETELY erase all record of himself because there is bound to be records of him somewhere, especially for a major historical figure like a king that ruled for a couple of centuries. You'll have libraries and scholars and records from other kingdoms in the world that would have this information because in a foreign kingdom he wouldn't be able to exert his influence as easily to go wiping out their records and libraries. And even if he did, there could be copies and duplicates stored in other locations, even in private libraries. There's just no way to be 100% certain you've erased everything.

In the homebrew campaign I always run my games in, I actually have a queen who has ruled almost 1,000 years and the celebration of that anniversary is the third chapter in the story even. She has a lot of secrets and backstory that might potentially give you some ideas if you're interested. My campaign is very open ended and a lot of players never really learn much about her, but some go so far as the find out the truth and some even fight her.

Well, the good thing is, it is an island nation like Britain or Japan, and it makes sense for travel to be heavily restricted, in my mind.


vecna blooded template

Not D&D. Don't know what that is.


Some kind of changeling?

That could be one of many backstories spread around that are indistinguishable from the truth.

[FreddyNoNose]

Well, the good thing is, it is an island nation like Britain or Japan, and it makes sense for travel to be heavily restricted, in my mind.



Not D&D. Don't know what that is.



That could be one of many backstories spread around that are indistinguishable from the truth.

As DM, you have to know what you want to accomplish here. The more you tell us up front, the better suggestions we can make. Are the players going to be forced into this or are you just making something for fun and hope they explore it but are ok if they completely ignore it?

[Vitruviansquid]

I honestly did not think so many factors would come up.

(but let's be real here, some of these questions have been answered already)

edit: No, they will not be forced to explore the background of the sorcerer king.

[Malimar]

I had an epic archmage NPC once who erased his very name from either the minds of everyone who had ever known it, or from the very fabric of reality itself (possibly for protection-from-truenamers-related reasons, though the setting/system didn't have truenamers), leading him to be known only by nicknames.

[Spore]

Offer plot hooks were the players look for them. He did erase his history. And he did a great job. But you can NEVER erase everything. He became evil. But why? This also helps you to play him as a human(oid) being rather than a stereotype. If he became evil because he was an orphan that was never picked up he would not burn down orphanages. Or exclusively orphanages. Have a "system or logic" behind his madness. I know in D&D evil is objective but usually people are not "evil". People call them evil because they do selfish things. Mad things. Tyrannical things.

[Vitruviansquid]

Eh? Didn't expect this old thing to be revived.

I already finalized the background for this setting, and the campaign is already underway.

If anyone's looking for closure:

I changed the evil immortal sorcerer king to an evil immortal sorcerer queen. Backstory goes thusly: Kingdom was ruled in mythical past by benevolent sorcerer monarchs, the last of which gets rid of his magical powers in an act of spite. Ages pass in which magic is thought to be extinct in the kingdom until the sorceress queen is born. Players didn't seem to have a problem with this explanation which really seems more like a history to me than a personal backstory.

[Misereor]

Evil immortal sorcerer destroyed all traces of his background - fair or cop out?

I prefer to hide stuff in plain sight.

For instance:
Setting the stage: Everyone thinks the mad tyrant is dead, but he is still there, only now he is working from behind the scenes.
Campaign starts, and through their adventuring the party discovers this.

Investigation: Very few people know who he really was, because like most evil men of power, he had everyone who knew him on any intimate level killed, so they could not interfere with his führer myth.
Campaign progresses, and the party discover who the bad guy was.

Solution: Legends speak of a champion of good, who would be capable of fighting the BBEG.
Campaign now focuses on finding champion of good, in order to thwart bad guy.

Great reveal: Turns out the champion of good is actually the same individual who later became a mad tyrant. (Like many princes he preferred to adventure under an alias.)
Campaign has "Oh cr*p" moment, and the players realize that they must rely on their own power to save the day.


Or something like that... Didn't notice thread necro until after posting.