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I want to collect some input and thought this would be a fun way to do it. The premise:

You are the Avatar of a Nightlord. You have discovered that a small group of six (two Nightbane, two Sorcerers, and two Psychics) have dared to intrude upon your domain. They think they are clever. They think they will get away with this. You must teach them a lesson that will make them regret their life decisions while also discouraging any future such incursions by others who may be emboldened by these reckless trespassers.

So here's the simple question: What do you do? How do you go about making teaching them and their ridiculous factions the folly of their arrogance? There are no wrong answers, I'm just looking for ideas here.

1 - Steer them towards a rival.
2 - Poison pill - let them 'rescue' a prisoner who is unknowingly a programmed servitor of your own.
3 - Kill at least half but let the rest escape to spread fear of your might. After word spreads follow up with attacks on their homes/loved ones on Earth if possible.

Jasper wrote:1 - Steer them towards a rival.
2 - Poison pill - let them 'rescue' a prisoner who is unknowingly a programmed servitor of your own.
3 - Kill at least half but let the rest escape to spread fear of your might. After word spreads follow up with attacks on their homes/loved ones on Earth if possible.

Beautiful ideas.

Realistically an Avatar would have the intruders tracked down and brutally murdered by an overwhelmingly large force of minions. Any Avatar (or any Nightlord for that matter) who's managed to survive for thousands of years has done it by being a paranoid bastard who doesn't take unnecessary risks, and that means he's gonna make a point of liquidating supernatural interlopers as quickly, efficiently, and safely as possible, so that any wizards and nightbanes and vampires out there get the message that he is not a dude to mess with and they cannot rely on any machiavellian wheels-within-wheels games of bluff and double bluff to save them from straightforward brute force. And then he'll have his people track down their mortal families and butcher the lot of them, just to send a message to people in the know.

So ah... yeah, you probably don't want realistic baddies who respond realistically to threats

I would let them 'get away with' what they are doing.
In fact I would specifically make SURE to let them get away with it. I would ensure that only my most expendable disloyal or incompetent minions are the ones they run into.
I would let this go on for a few months (what is time to ME?)
And then I would 'allow' for a dopleganger to 'discover' that they are my agents.
I would slowly allow those around them to 'find out' all about how they have been not 'good' or 'skilled' or 'lucky' but that their every success was a willing gift. No one would trust them. BETTER everything that they have fought to do these months? Their own factions would now be working to undo. Every rescued slave will be cast out, every one who they have talked to will be tainted every resource they have known of will be discarded. My foes will reap my slaughter for me.

And as a hobby I would run a genealogy project so that I can offer jobs and scholarships, and other such things to their every relative. Thus 'proving' that they sold out humanity to help their bloodlines and incidentally making their every loved one a target for their own 'resistance'.

And then, after everything they have ever loved is destroyed by their own side. After no one on either side will ever trust them? Then, just to twist the knife. I would personally speak to each of them and explain what I have done I would let them live... with knowledge that no one will ever believe. I might even give them some TRUE valuable secrets... since as modern day Cassandra's no one will ever believe them.

eliakon wrote:I would let them 'get away with' what they are doing.
In fact I would specifically make SURE to let them get away with it. I would ensure that only my most expendable disloyal or incompetent minions are the ones they run into.
I would let this go on for a few months (what is time to ME?)
And then I would 'allow' for a dopleganger to 'discover' that they are my agents.
I would slowly allow those around them to 'find out' all about how they have been not 'good' or 'skilled' or 'lucky' but that their every success was a willing gift. No one would trust them. BETTER everything that they have fought to do these months? Their own factions would now be working to undo. Every rescued slave will be cast out, every one who they have talked to will be tainted every resource they have known of will be discarded. My foes will reap my slaughter for me.

And as a hobby I would run a genealogy project so that I can offer jobs and scholarships, and other such things to their every relative. Thus 'proving' that they sold out humanity to help their bloodlines and incidentally making their every loved one a target for their own 'resistance'.

And then, after everything they have ever loved is destroyed by their own side. After no one on either side will ever trust them? Then, just to twist the knife. I would personally speak to each of them and explain what I have done I would let them live... with knowledge that no one will ever believe. I might even give them some TRUE valuable secrets... since as modern day Cassandra's no one will ever believe them.

Now that's diabolical! I love it!

Rallan wrote:Realistically an Avatar would have the intruders tracked down and brutally murdered by an overwhelmingly large force of minions. Any Avatar (or any Nightlord for that matter) who's managed to survive for thousands of years has done it by being a paranoid bastard who doesn't take unnecessary risks, and that means he's gonna make a point of liquidating supernatural interlopers as quickly, efficiently, and safely as possible, so that any wizards and nightbanes and vampires out there get the message that he is not a dude to mess with and they cannot rely on any machiavellian wheels-within-wheels games of bluff and double bluff to save them from straightforward brute force. And then he'll have his people track down their mortal families and butcher the lot of them, just to send a message to people in the know.

So ah... yeah, you probably don't want realistic baddies who respond realistically to threats

Evil has so many varieties. It's as varied as the Nightlord's themselves.

Rallan wrote:Realistically an Avatar would have the intruders tracked down and brutally murdered by an overwhelmingly large force of minions. Any Avatar (or any Nightlord for that matter) who's managed to survive for thousands of years has done it by being a paranoid bastard who doesn't take unnecessary risks, and that means he's gonna make a point of liquidating supernatural interlopers as quickly, efficiently, and safely as possible, so that any wizards and nightbanes and vampires out there get the message that he is not a dude to mess with and they cannot rely on any machiavellian wheels-within-wheels games of bluff and double bluff to save them from straightforward brute force. And then he'll have his people track down their mortal families and butcher the lot of them, just to send a message to people in the know.

So ah... yeah, you probably don't want realistic baddies who respond realistically to threats

Realistically not all avatars are that efficient and capable, they're independent (for the most part) aspects of a particular Nightlord and subject to all their flaws and sometimes more. The avatar for Chicago I think it was is so incompetent that he's looking at being replaced by his creator because he can't even meet a minimum level of usefulness due to his extreme flaws. Just as they don't all have huge resources to make use of which is why there can still be resistance and why humans still exist on the Earth by the billions.

The game was more fun back when I was planning on how to win ... but these days it seems like i've already won. I own the government, I own the police, the people are barely aware that they're little more than cattle.

This looks like an opportunity to play the game again. Unfortunately these 6 players are no match for me, I'm still too good at the game. I wonder if one of my minions would be a better match. You 6 over there, each of you are to build a team of 5 other people. 10 points for a destroyed base, 20 points for dead Psychic, 25 points for a dead sorcerer, 50 points for a dead nightbane. 30 points for a captured Psychic, 50 points for a captured sorcerer, 100 points for a captured nightbane. Bonus points for how well you entertain me.

Let the games begin.

Glistam wrote:

Rallan wrote:Realistically an Avatar would have the intruders tracked down and brutally murdered by an overwhelmingly large force of minions. Any Avatar (or any Nightlord for that matter) who's managed to survive for thousands of years has done it by being a paranoid bastard who doesn't take unnecessary risks, and that means he's gonna make a point of liquidating supernatural interlopers as quickly, efficiently, and safely as possible, so that any wizards and nightbanes and vampires out there get the message that he is not a dude to mess with and they cannot rely on any machiavellian wheels-within-wheels games of bluff and double bluff to save them from straightforward brute force. And then he'll have his people track down their mortal families and butcher the lot of them, just to send a message to people in the know.

So ah... yeah, you probably don't want realistic baddies who respond realistically to threats

Evil has so many varieties. It's as varied as the Nightlord's themselves.

Nightlords and their avatars are immortal supergeniuses who've survived for thousands of years despite having a lot of powerful enemies, including their fellow Nightlords, and they've all seen (and quite possibly been responsible for) the death of colleagues who weren't prepared for every eventuality. There are a lot of varieties of evil, sure, but natural selection's going to have weeded out the ones that take unnecessary risks or that just aren't clever, competent, and paranoid enough.

Rallan wrote:

Glistam wrote:

Rallan wrote:Realistically an Avatar would have the intruders tracked down and brutally murdered by an overwhelmingly large force of minions. Any Avatar (or any Nightlord for that matter) who's managed to survive for thousands of years has done it by being a paranoid bastard who doesn't take unnecessary risks, and that means he's gonna make a point of liquidating supernatural interlopers as quickly, efficiently, and safely as possible, so that any wizards and nightbanes and vampires out there get the message that he is not a dude to mess with and they cannot rely on any machiavellian wheels-within-wheels games of bluff and double bluff to save them from straightforward brute force. And then he'll have his people track down their mortal families and butcher the lot of them, just to send a message to people in the know.

So ah... yeah, you probably don't want realistic baddies who respond realistically to threats

Evil has so many varieties. It's as varied as the Nightlord's themselves.

Nightlords and their avatars are immortal supergeniuses who've survived for thousands of years despite having a lot of powerful enemies, including their fellow Nightlords, and they've all seen (and quite possibly been responsible for) the death of colleagues who weren't prepared for every eventuality. There are a lot of varieties of evil, sure, but natural selection's going to have weeded out the ones that take unnecessary risks or that just aren't clever, competent, and paranoid enough.

Except we've examples in the books where that's not actually true, including one Nightlord that's on the run after losing everything because he was tricked by a creature from a race that loves to deceive powerful creatures most of all. Most seem content to rule over their areas and engage in whatever depravities please them without bothering much with each other and actually aren't super-clever or super-competent (will grant that they're all going to have decent levels of paranoia).