>>5859214
Perfect Fallen Paladin.

A paladin can never fall without at least a bit of consent from the player him-/herself.

Paladins fall.

Party dies.

>>5859225
THERE WAS ANOTHER
WHO CAME BEFORE YOU
HE WAS A HERO AND YOUR BROTHER AND MY SON
AND HE FOUGHT BRAVELY AND HE DIED BRAVELY
HE FOUGHT THE DARKNESS THE DARKNESS WON
HE WAS FORSAKEN BY THE ONES HE WISHED TO SAVE
AND WHEN HE DIED HE DIED IN VAIN

>>5859225
>>5859272
Tell me now;
Is there a man among you here? Is there no one who will stand up, and try to fight?
Tell me, Man!
Is there not one in all your ranks, is there no one who values courage over life?!

>>5859272
"So tell me now.

Is there a man among you here? Is there no one who stand up, and try to fight?

Tell me Man! Is there not one in all your ranks who values courage over life?

I've given everything I can, there are no heroes left in man. If they would survive let them stand for themselves."

Protoman to the terrified crowd of people who watched him fall trying to save them.

Went out Fingolfin style to fight Wiley and his army, got his shit WRECKED in front of the city's population, who were too scared to do anything.

Enter Bitter jaded but still good Protoman.

>>5859293
>>5859272
You will never have another hero!
You will never have another chance!
You will fall, because you never tried to stand for yourselves!

>>5859331
>>5859323
>>5859293
>>5859272
But don't you get it? There are no heroes. Mankind is doomed.

Yeah, I think that Proto is possibly the best example of the fallen paladin.

>>5859395
What first did it for me was Unrest in the House of Light. The inflection in Light shouting "You are all that I have left!" killed me.

>>5859214
ITT: The Protomen.

Let's see.. other fallen paladin stories...well there is the Horus Heresy. One big super fall. Which is pretty tragic imo.

Lancelot? Though he was more of a knight, and there is a difference.

The Story of the Morningstar is a GREAT example of a fallen paladin.

Most beloved servant of his god, who in turn cooks something else up and leaves his first born children to be his slaves, Lucifer said "What?......Father.. How could you..No. Fuck that. Fuck you. I'll fight you even though I cant win to make a point. We are enemies forever more."

>>5859226
That's kinda what I'm talking about. A concerted effort between player and DM that produces a great story.

But just to not rule anything out, why can't a paladin be declared fallen? (I'm aware of the 4th ed stuff, but let's assume 3.5 rules here) What's stopping the paladin from making the best of that situation and going blackguard, or regaining his status? That was one of the options that made the class so attractive to me.

>>5859214
Bump because the Protomen dont need to be on the second page

>>5859403
So you will STAY HERE
And you will OBEY ME
And I'll keep grieving for the son I sent to death!
YOU ARE ALL THAT I HAVE LEFT!!!

>>5859214
When is their next album due out?

>>5859472
Five days ago.

>>5859472
You mean Act II? It's been out for a couple days now.

One would argue that he was never a true paladin in the first place, but eh, it's the thought that counts.

Neverwinter Goddamn Nights.

>>5859486
I always felt that his fall seemed a bit rushed, personally.

KILL THE INFECTED PEASANTS
OH NO THATS EVIL
RAPE BABIES WITH A FLAMING SATAN DICK

>>5859451
You are not him!

His fight's not yours!


You CAN NOT WIN.

One of our campaigns had a plot where a paladin fell, I really don't want to get into it because it was pretty mediocre story telling.

>>5859214
Her wing was savagely torn away by those she thought she trusted.

She was replaced by an evil black dragon child, without so much as a fuss from her fans.

Her life has been a miserable shadow of what it once was.. Attempting to reach her old friends, but mocked and shunned by none other than the evil dragon that caused her downfall in the first place.

Her only option, is to turn evil herself. To embrace the shadow for the sake of /tg/ and it's denizens.

Her only option... to become a fallen flarepaladin.

>>5859481
>>5859477
Oh damn.

Its about Light righto?

>>5859486
sucks dogshit

>>5859537
And then die.

Ah, where's that quote from MR. RAGE that pretty much summed it up... Something about a paladin only falling when he wants to- when he has lost all faith.
Then there's the assisted-rape story from yesterday, but we don't want to talk about that anymore.

The only time a paladin ever fell in our campaign was a pre-agreed notion between our DM and the Paladin player that he decided to randomly stab a peasant for no reason, snap into chaotic evil, rain falls, his armour and hair turns black in the rain..

Cheesy weeabo cliche up the fucking ass with no reason or RP invovled.

>>5859537
So someone stabbed her throat with a hammer or was that her attempt at suicide?

>>5859550
Ah, one of my favorites, but I wasn't exactly curious about whether or not a paladin COULD fall.

Is there seriously not ONE awesome story about a fallen paladin on these boards?

>>5859537
Oh Christ no.

As long as it's well-written, pre-planned or not, a fall can be a wonderful symbol of sorrow and the failure of good in the face of struggle.

A Paladin is a champion. They're afraid of nothing (literally in 3e/3.5). If they give up, what hope do any of the other adventurers have?

The only two times I've seen a fall were both done well, but both were done intentionally. The first was in an evil campaign, where the 'Din in question didn't even realize he was falling, even as he made compromise after compromise in the name of pragmatism. He finally realized what he'd done after rationalizing away the cold-blooded murder of a 12-year-old seer who was going to reveal some of his prior questionable acts to his order.

The second was as I described above - meant as a symbol to sap the hope out of the party in a Heroes of Horror-oriented game. The player was planning with the DM all along, and thus was more like a played NPC. The bad news is that only some of the players gave a shit and those who didn't just went along their merry hack-and-slash way. The good news is that those of us that did care got a big, fat dose of "we're fucked" to really supercharge the mood of the situation.

>>5859733
That's almost exactly the kinda thing I wanna hear, thanks.

Care to elaborate on the latter example a bit more? Uncaring players aside, it could still be a good story.

Mine isn't so much epic but it was pretty well done in my opinion.

The party is stuck in an evil demiplane, in return for helping us get to the center of the demiplane to retrieve a broken holy sword o'doom, we agree to take a LE wizard with us when we left via our newly acquired cubic gate. The paladin gives him her word as a servant of her deity that we will do this. Well, when we retrieve the sword and make whole it, the demiplane goes ape shit and tries to eat us. So we GTFO. Paladin broke her word, loses her paladin abilities and spends the next 2 sessions trying to get them back. Overall pretty fun game.

>>5859576

The hammer is behind her, as a symbol of her paladin lineage being behind her.

FROM NOW ON, SHE SHALL WIELD THE LEGENDARY SWORD, THE CORRUPTED ASHBRINGER, AND BECOME A DEATH KNIGHT FOLLOWING THE WILL OF THE LICH KING

/R/ DEATHKNIGHT FLARE SO I CAN USE AM IMAGE FOR THIS AWESOMENESS THAT IS IN CAPSLOCK TO MAKE IT EVEN MORE AWESOME.

>>5859791
Sure.

When I say it was a "Heroes of Horror" game, I don't just mean that we were fighting a lot of Undead and Aberrations. The DM, who runs a lot of games with these themes, was going for a sort of gritty morality play, where we'd try to have a "realistic" human outlook towards violence and combat. (i.e. If you, personally, had to watch monsters burn your city down or were forced to hack a sentient humanoid to death in mortal combat, that shit would be a little more psychologically rattling than "Oh, sweet, time to loot bodies!")

This also meant using the rules for shock and horror in game (i.e. making Will saves versus dazing or stunning when you discover awful truths or unpleasant scenes). Of course, with our bastion of justice Paladin in the party, being near him helped with a lot of these situations, as said checks are considered fear-based.

Summarizing the campaign into what sounds like a cheesy plot hook instead of a two-year-long campaign, we deal with all sorts of shady incursions onto the party's home city by savage races, undead, aberrations, and all that other standard D&D crap, but with a slowly escalating emphasis on the awful results of what goes on. We've dealt with serial killers, sacrificial cults, all that kind of wholesome Book of Vile Darkness shit, and each time the Pally is wearing down and his sermons/pep-talks to the rest of the party are coming fewer and further between.

Ravenshorn was a young paladin, who had recently joined the ranks of the knights of the Iron circle, an order devoted to law and justice. Early in his adventuring career he and his fellow knights led an incursion to the neighboring kingdom of Glarm, a place of decadent evil, who openly practised slavery and dark magics. They fled groups of slaves and were escorting them out of Glarm when they were attacked by the ogres, goblins and giants. They knights held the line so the people could flee. In the end, they began to become overwhelmed by the creatures and lost horribly. As the knights began to be cut to a man, Ravenshorn blocked a terrible blow from a giant with his shield, which crushed his arm. At this point, the knights were all but dead, and for the first time Ravenshorn felt fear for his own life...and ran.

>>5859923
When we get to the task at hand, we come to find that the BBEG in question has actually driven an entire town to perform ritual suicide to help his magical ritual, a la Jonestown. Walking through this ghost city with peasant bodies strewn around, man and woman, infant and old, just finally breaks his back. If I recall, he just dropped his sword on the ground, withered to his knees, and started weeping. Mr. "Smite it for Justice, We'll Make It Through Because Good Always Triumphs" just. Gives. Up. Not even in combat, either. And believe me, part of being a Paladin of Heironeous does not include giving up or wimping out in the face of evil. There were no demons or Blackguard levels or eating of babies, just a man who couldn't take any more horror or suffering.

As I said, the fact that half the party just ignored this and kept going was shitty, but the rest of us really felt that one in our guts. It was brilliant.

>>5859924

Seperated from his knightly order, the people he sought to protect, he was all alone. As he journeyed home, noticed his arm would not heal when he tried to channel Amisir's divine light. He grew weak, his arm became diseased and infected. It was then he began to realise he was no longer a paladin...and that his cowardice had caused him to fall. His arm could not be treated so far from civilization without healing and it turned gangrenous. When he finally made it to the safety of his homeland his arm was cut off to preserve his life, shortly after he was cast out of the Iron circle. His missing arm was a mark of shame and a constant reminder of his fall from that day on.

>>5859947

Ravenshorn adventured for many levels as a fighter with no benefits, and one arm to boot. Trying to do right, to make amends for his actions. He never strayed from his code of conduct and remained honorable.

It was only after much hardship that he was redeemed during a climactic fight in which the rest of the party had fallen. The traitor knight Grecos he and his companions hunted down held the upper hand, and Ravenshorn begged amisir to give him the strength he once had in order to save his friends. At that point he felt the grace return to him, he used his lay on hands and was able to barely defeat Grecos.

Ravenshorn still adventured as a paladin afterwards, and even the other PC's began asking about his arm...why didn't he get it fixed? Even though he was once again a paladin, the missing arm would always serve as a reminder should he ever stray again. He has never regenerated or tried to compensate for it.

A paladin can fall very easily, the gods of d&d are petty. Worshiping at another gods alter, breaking code of his diety.
A paladin must be above reprotch. That said, somethings are easier to repent of then others. Some just require confessing the sin to a priest, others require an attonement spell. Very few paladins are "fallen" for long.
To truly fall, is to do something unforgivable. To betray a god, willingly sacrifice the life of an innocent for personal gain, consort with an enemy of the gods, raping a nunnery of their god, or an allied god. Butchering children who are paladins in training. It's got to be some big time evil shit. When that happens you better believe a fiend is showing up spouting the benefits of blackgaurd hood.
Anything less than an utterly and decided evil act for which they are unrepentant and their god is just chastising them by removing their presence for a short time.

Actually, I happen to have played just such a character.

I'm going to namefag this, as its really the only character I ever truly roleplayed. Normally I tend to play characters very close to my own personality despite the difficulty of bringing such over to a fantasy setting. For once however, I broke out of this comfort zone, and played a character of moral absolutes.

The party (TN Druid, CG Bard, and LN Ranger) and I (LG Paladin of Morrein) began play at 3rd level in a mostly DM designed setting, although I suspect he borrowed heavily from the Iron Kingdoms in tech levels and the low-magic of the setting. Morrein is basically the god of the pursuit of perfection through selflessness which allows you to ascend into the heavenly realms as something like a demigod, with quite a few recorded cases of such.

>>5859550

I have never had one of my paladin's fall. I had plenty that left the party after character conflicts. but never fall.

COOKIES AND MILKSHAKES FOR ME!!!!!!

Best way to have a paladin fall is to make him try to compromise between his devotion to law and his devotion to good. My favorite campaign villain was a paladin-soldier enduring an endless, meaningless, destructive, and dehumanizing war he felt compelled to participate in.

>>5859923

God I love heroes of horror. Wipes the floor with vile darkness.

A paladin falls for the same reason a wizard or bard would fall. Doesn't want to use magic anymore.

>>5860115

Wat

My character had grown up as kind of the poster boy for his village, mainly by just trying to be a good guy. He'd smile, help out when someone was in trouble, and generally maintained a reputation for always being there when you needed somebody to lean on.

Lo and behold, a paladin of the order of Morrein comes stumbling through his doorway with some nigh lethal wounds. Surprised, I naturally help the guy over and get him to sit down, get him some water from the pump, and wet a rag to start cleaning the blood thats all over this guy only to find out about the ragin fever and infection. After about 8 hours, and more shitty Heal skill checks than I would ever believe possible, I get the guy stabilized enough to run out to grab the town doctor (actually at a tech level where the paladin has a better chance with a doctor than with me) and a nightside vigil by the doctor and I sees the paladin patched up enough that his fever dies down overnight so he's sleeping soundly.

Business almost as usual or the day, before the guy finally starts stirring awake while I'm making some broth. Get him propped up on some pillows, give him a hot bowl of broth, and get him a glass of fresh milk. While he digs into the bowl of broth, I get the classic, "who are you, where am I"speech, and I fill him in on the village he's in and who I am. Profuse thanks are offered, and he begs leave while trying to get up, nly to find out his injuries are a lot more severe than he thought (and that I had warned him of). I tell him that the doctor ordered not to move too much until he heals up a bit, and that he might tear his stitches.

>>5859214

Why, hello there.

>>5860153

>paladin
>infection

no.

I had a game in which I was a bad guy and my ennemy was a paladin. He was always trying to stop me and sometimes he would even succeed.
But I always survived and I always killed his friends and stuff.
Eventualy he became mad with hate and he started doing more and more evil stuff while trying to catch me. And then he killed me but he had become worst than me :D

After that we made a game in which he was the big bad

Naturally, the goddamn thing that did this to him shows up downtown looking to finish him off. I think it was a demonically possessed bear or something close to that, and it proceeds to reap holy hell while I'm getting a little bit of education as to the order of Morrein and what he's doing in these parts. Through my door bursts one of my childhood friends (Milli, the Bard) and starts yelling about said bear. Stone-faced, the Paladin hauls himself upright and waves away a good deal of his wounds (Lay on Hands) and grabs is shield and sword. Looking much more paladin like now, Milli leads him to the beast, who is bearing down on the town baker who is trying to keep the thing away with one of those bread spatulas. Roaring out a prayer "By Morrein, Cease!", The paladin up and nails the bear with a huge sweep of his sword, drawing the things attention. Batting away blows with his shield, the paladin intersperses himself between the butcher and the bear. Retaliating, the bear rips the Paladin's shield off his arm, and takes a huge chunk out of his shoulder. The paladin responds with a flurry of blows, his longsword glowing with the divine power of Morrein he's channeling as a conduit. The blows carve up the bears chest, and it staggers away to attempt to run. Unfortunately, one of the town's tailors gets in the way of this impromptu escape, and the bear is barreling down on him. The Paladin books it in a rather sprightly fashion despite the injury, and throws himself in the way again, recieving a brutal blow which crushes him to the ground, for all intents and purposes down and out of the combat, sending his blade skittering across the cobbles to my feet.

>>5860176

I said custom setting :) Wounds are a bit more serious, and lay on hands only works to cure minor injuries. It doesn't cure disease.

Inspired by these acts, my character picks up the blade, feeling a knowing that this is truly his calling, and that this is the hand of destiny itself upon him. (and also when we started using the rest of our character sheets, as the Heal check bit was before the sheet was made) Gripping the sword hard, he charges the bear who is closing in to make sure the paladin is dead, and lashes the thing right across the eyes with his first shot. Screaming unnaturally, the things bull rushes me into a wall, crushing at least a rib or two in the process. Gasping for air, I get back up unsteadily, and brace myself with sword out front as best as possible. the thing charges again, and I go for the overhead blow, reversing the sword point downwards, and manage to get just high enough to beat the AC, plunging the sword down through the bears brainpan and having it crash down in a heap in front of me. With the thing still twitching slightly, I draw the sword out and run over to attend to the paladin, who is still alive despite his injuries.

Grabbing the collar of my shirt, he pulls me in close to whisper to me, "Now you know what burdens I face everyday. Look around at the people you just saved by your actions. Look closely at their faces. That gratitude is all the reward I have ever needed, and that is what Morrein teaches. Through my actions, however small, make the world a better place." I look around like he asks, and see what he is talking about, all the people of my little village arrayed to see the horror that had found them had been put down. I ran for the doctor, and that's where that first session ended.

>>5860157
Just made an inference about you. Yeah classic example right here.

The next session starts with us put up in the doctors home, where he deals with the most seriously injured cases. The only other guys there is the blacksmith, who crushed his hand with his hammer, and a woman bludgeoned unconscious during the bear in the attack. The paladin then begins by offering me a place as his squire, and induction as a devotee into the church of Morrein. Thinking over the course of his life, I decide that I will stand guard for the innocent, and that I will devote myself devote myself to the church. I ask leave to get permission from my parents (who live on another farmstead), and to bid farewell. A fond farewell and solemn promises to come visit assure my parents, and while the paladin heals I close up and sell my farmstead, and commission a sword and shield from the blacksmith's journeyman. Sword and shield on back, I bid a fond farewell to the people of the village, and start off with the paladin, who is using a branch as a crutch while I carry his equipment for him (standard gear is a plate helm, chainmail, a tabard with Morrein's holy symbol emblazoned in crimson on a white background, plate boots, a steel shield, and a masterwork longsword) in a large backpack, with my sword and shield hung from the side. We find Milli standing in the road a little ways out of town, and demands that we take her with us, stating she doesn't have a home to go back to anyway (she was the town's jack-of-all trades, and tended to sleep where she worked). Seeing no way to dissuade her despite the dangers we would likely face, we set off on our first couple of miny adventures with the paladin as my instructer, and Milli learning a bit of swordplay along with me (cue training montage).

Paladin falling ?

There was that guy who thought that a hostage would prevent me from finishing him. One life versus the whole city. I fell, the BBEG died, and the hostage somehow survived and gave me a terrible reputation.

So Milli and I get the crash course on being able to take care of ourselves in a fight, consisting of me getting the shit beaten out of me on a regular basis by an injured guy with a wooden stick, and Milli laughing at my sorry ass while she did whatever the hell she felt like during these periods, before then proceeding to trounce me again despite not practicing like I did (backstory thing, comes up later).

This training continues for about a month, until we reach one of the true cities, which holds close to 400,000 thousand people, as well as a full garrison of Morrein's clergy and the attending paladins. As this is where I am to ake my lay vows and officially become a paladin, rather than a simple devotee, we were going to be there a while. I continued my training in Morrein's teachings and scripture with the clergy, while the paladin that taught me up to this point (Sir Merim) went off to report to his superiors, be attended to by the priests, and to sumbit his petition for my induction.

Meanwhile Milli goes out and about the town, and manages to beat Tomas (the Ranger) in cards enough times to, quite literally, own his ass. With debtor's prison as the alternative, a surely Tomas becomes Milli's bodyguard, at standard rates, for the next eighteen months at least. Meanwhile, it turns out Tomas is a debtor to a local herbalist/alchemist Gregor (the Druid) as well, who demands he be paid before Tomas skips town. Milli, the calculating sort, pays the guy herself (putting Tomas more into debt to her) and then inquires about rare reagents using her bardic knowledge and some incredible rolls. Gregor, being a true connoisseur of knowledge and lover of experimentation, decides to travel wih Milli enough to pick her brain for more interesting bits of knowledge, as well as to escape the drudgery of being a street medicine peddler.

While this is going on, I get a full indoctrination into the order of Morrein, becoming a lay priest and paladin of Morrein. The party meets up for the first time inside the order's compound, and we have an all-night talk which ends in a good friendship between us, except for Tomas, who still feels cheated.

Sir Merim finds us he next morning, and tells me I have my first duty to the order, and that he will be supervising me as this is my first task. We are to travel about a week and a half to a border town, where people are getting incredibly sick, and to lend what aid we can - fixing he problem if possible. A week's journey over a bi quicker thanks to Tomas and his knowledge of shortcuts which actually work (Getting him some serious respect from the party), we arrive at the village to find the report was inaccurate in how severe the problem was. In fact, everyone seems just fine. Pretty creeped out, we start asking around to find that the sickness seems to have died out as suddenly as it had appeared, with the locals blaming seasonal illness. Not sure yet, we decide to wait out a few days and see if it reappears. Sure enough, a problem comes up two days later when a villager dissapears. We go to the house and find no signs of forced entry, so we follow the footsteps to a basement where we find a small pile of ashes a the bottom of the stairs, right where the sun would shine down in the morning through the wood.

Now that we've noticed this bit about the sun, we find out that most everyone in the village is squinting a lot, and that many of them seem to be boasting severe sunburn despite a lack of significant sun exposure. We join efforts with Gregor to find out that these people have developed a severe light allergy. We go back to the ashes and find a curious smell and feel to them, obviously unnateral. Merim is worried, enough so that we notice, and uses sending to call help from the order. That night the village gets raided by ghouls (normal people that have been corrupted by vampiric blood) to collect their future brethren.. The party and I fight hard to drive them back, but they make off with a few women and one of the outlying families that we couldn't get to in time. Follhardy as I am, I run after them immedietly with Merim, despite the frantic calls of the party.

True enough, we find ourselves at a ruined stone keep. Charging headlong, we burst through the gate guards and through the numerous ghouls between us and the great hall. We enter the hall to see one woman already dead and drained of blood by a vampire, while he's busy polishing off the second of the hree women when we come in. Merim shouts out a prayer and hurls his sword through the thing's back (Smite on top of that for cool factor), leaving himself without a weapon. The arches back, drops the woman, and wrenches Merim's sword out of his back. I throw my sword to Merim as the thing rushes him. Using his own blade against him, the vampire and Merim start duking it out, where Merim is obviously a better swordsman while the vampire has unnatural resilience. Battered down gradually, Merim starts getting slower and slower, until finally the vampire flips m sowrd out of his hands and slices him from collarbone to hip. As he collapses, the party arrives after us to see Merim go down, and gregor lets loose with a few alchemical grenades while the tomas and milli start peppering it with arrows. As its distracted, I try to patch Merim up only to find he has already bled out. Greatly saddened at seeing death firsthand, I pick up my sword, draw my shield, and challenge the thing into personal combat (crit diplomacy). Greatly weakened by Merim and the party, the vampre is on its last legs, and I start savagely raining blows down on it while it's are bouncing off my chainmail. I pull a similar move to that used by the vampire, disarming it and taking its head off. As it collapses into dust, we watch as the ghouls and the townsfolk shift back to normal. Nonetheless, Merim lies dead, and we make a stretcher to carry his body back to the temple.

Is anyone actually interested in this writefaggotry? Or should I just GTFO and STFU?

>>5860153
>>5860267
>>5860307
>>5860487
>>5860593
>>5860659
>>5860755
>>5860952
>>5860957
>>5860965

It's all very nice, but where is the part where you fall?

Imma reading it at least.

>>5860999

A long way off. Hence why I was gauging interest. It's going to be a frikking long story if I write all this out.

>>5860965

Continue.

>>5860965

Dont stop now.

>>5860965
Don't stop, this is sweet.

GOD DAMMIT STOP TAKING SO LONG!

>>5860957

Going to speed it up, so I write this thing before bed calls me as I'm a Eurofag.

With Merim dead, my character is pretty crushed, and a little ticked that he basically stood there and watched while his instructor got himself killed. The trip back was largely uneventful, although we did find out that the villagers were all okay.

We get back to the main city to find most of the place in an uproar. The big evil empire (Iclamina) off our coast has launched boats all up and and down the coastland, raiding and pillaging as they go. Despite a very solemn ceremony seeing Merim interred, we are shipped out immediately to hold off these attacks.

To summarize, we basically ended up starting as foot soldiers following orders, before officers started getting killed off faster than they were availible (BBEE has a near monopoly on arcane firepower, and enough tech to have the odd flintlock rifle or two in the hands of marksmen).As such, I found myself in a position of authority (leadership feat), with my party as my trusted advisors and seconds. Milli worked overtime to raise moral, Gregor did his best to heal everybody with his remedies, and Tomas led our small body of flankers (as he'd paid off his debt and was there by choice now, mainly from me saving his ass despite my near death).

We hold off raids until our supply lines get cut, forcing us to move back before the, quite literal, firestorm their casters are throwing up in front of them as they advance. Whenever it comes down, we launch concentrated volleys of arrows to take out as many as possible, but we are vastly outnumbered and they have too much arcane support, so we are forced into a fighting retreat, evacuating civilians with a near 100% sucess rate (6 months of constant fighting tends to do that, as well as seeing us rocket up to 15th level over the two years this campaign played out).

He was a PLADIN
he liked to save Poeples!=D

then one day the bad DM said that me PLAAdin hAs sex witH a zombi! I was lrealy saaad!

=(

told my plaasDIN to has seeezx with zombi next toooo me! =O

i go have sex with my SISTEar! She cried!!!!! D=

I AM a falen PALAAAdeen. =)

Now a confident leader and possessed of a depleted, but veteran company of the Almacian (resident kngdom's) army, we decided to make our stand at the same city where I got inducted and where we buried Merim, as it has high walls and is isolated in a valley (think 300 style stall for time type tactic, as we had civilians to protect).

Even with as much damage as we've done in concert with the other army companies, the enemy army is still at about half strength, and they are massing to punch through this city into the scarcely defended open plains of the country, where they will be impossible to remove.

We held off the enemy army for about a week, reaping massive casualties in a failed bid to collapse the enemy army through an attack on two fronts (every other ranging army company hit them from behind, but got pepperred into oblivion with a veritable arsenal of arcane might, but it depleted the mages enough that they couldn't just blow down our walls.)

Down to a quarter strength, the enemy army breached the main gate, as well as breaching the wall in two other places. While the defenders broke and fell back, my party and I worked to coordinate the retreat, so that we could lay enough in the enemy armies way to slow them down in order to reform and fortify another position.

Seeing all his work failing, I started to thik more dangerously, nd starting using volunteers as bait to lure pockets off enemy into a massed firing range. While sucessful, the enemy caught on and I finall made the fatal mistake of working for the "greater good".

Scorched earth saw whatever ground the enemy gained was worthless, even as I justified it as saving more people despite the destruction of generations old farmsteads. While we wittled the enemy down, I became more prone to doing "what was best", branching off into Grey Guard to show this shift. As we all hit 20th level, I had shifted from being a true example of Morrein's selflessness into a "the ends justify the means". I had begun fighting for the ideal rather than the individuals I was protecting.

This culminated in the final battle. We had been pushed back to the capital city, the royal defenders joined us on the walls, and we held off the enemy for as long as we could. this really was the last possible defensible position, as we had been pushed back to our very limits. The enemy kingdom's lord was there as well, wielding some serious arcane firepower. We broke out all the kingdom's relics, including the Sword of Heroes which was placed into my hands. The Sword of Heroes is a soul-ensnaring sword, in which the wielder, on death, has their soul drawn into the blade to serve as an advisor and aid to the next wielder, and was only entrusted to true heroes of the kingdom. The biggest power was the ability to expend a soul to force a massive save or die check, as the heroes soul takes down the enemies soul with them.

The battle reached an apex, with both sides being down to their last few combatants. The enemy lord and the party fought their way up the stairs into the high tower. Gregor died by blowing up the staircase to trap the enemy lord, Milli, Tomas and I in the keep's tower. Tomas likewise died taking a shot for Milli, as I had been crushed up against a column and was forced to heal myself.

It was just Milli, myself, and the enemy lord at the top of the tower. My armor was shattered, I was out of reserves, and Milli was the same way. Worse yet, the Sword of Heroes was depleted, and the enemy lord seemed just fine.

In probably the greatest roleplaying moment of my life, I was struck by the enemy lord, intentionally dropped the Sword of Heroes, and feigned death with a bluff check. Milli, thinking she was the last one left, picked up the sword and was promptly struck down while I feigned death, and her end didn't come until she realized with horror that I was still alive and was only faking while her soul was drawn into the Sword of Heroes.

Grasping the handle, I struck the enemy lord and expended Milli's soul to take him out as well, winning the battle at the cost of every one of my friends - the last by my own hand.

I got blasted with the abrupt pain of having my powers stripped from me, a flaying of the soul at the betrayal of everything I had ever stood for. Worse yet, I was haunted by the whispers of all three of my fallen friends, who were each allowed to say a piece by the DM before the end of the campaign. The campaign ended with Merim whispering "Was it really worth it?", and my ex-paladin slowly descending the stairs bearing the sword of heroes, and dissapearing into legend, not as a hero - but as a cautionary tale.

That's it folks. I'd love if this gets archived, but I doubt this bit of writefaggotry is worth it. I hope everyone enjoed it, and sorry I sped up the tale.

I don't think an explanation of why the Bard could kick your ass at the beginning existed in that story.

>>5861649
You should have.. like... killed yourself and had Milli do it, bro. WOULD HAVE BEEN THAT MUCH MORE AWESOME

>>5859501
They... slew my lover. My pillar of strength. The man I was to marry, all because of HIM! The mobs didn't show mercy, but I KNEW! He was only following, eager to serve, trying to do the right thing...

But they didn't care..

And now... Just as they forsook their once dear friend and protector..

I have turned my back on them, as well.

>>5861649
You sir, have had flawless victory. Archive this, for future paladins.

One of the paladins I've played fell due to a bullshit ruling from the DM. Basically, one of those "Make a choice, any choice, and fall" situations, where the BBEG sets up an unwinnable situation and then forces your hand. I'll admit that I never saw the situation coming, but I did manage to salvage something out of it.

So I fall. I find myself powerless and helpless against the world. I also find that the BBEG is still too busy gloating over his success to beat me on initiative. Instead of taking the fight directly to him, I walk straight for him and offer a handshake.

"Well done, villain. You're a pretty smart guy. There was nothing I could do to possibly get out of this one. Put 'er there."

Handshake. And then I clap manacles on both of us. And then I start uttering the most profane blasphemies that I could thing of, directed at Heironyous himself.

Bolt of lightning, straight to the chest. Electricity is transferred through the manacle and severely wounds the BBEG whilst reducing me to a pile of ashes. Party takes the weak moment and utterly annihilates the bastard.

>>5861649

I'd agree with that archive request. This story in particular shows a paladin falling proper, not in one fell swoop, but by having his faith and morals undermined for some time, to the point where being a paragon of light and justice no longer seems worthwhile to the paladin.

>>5861649
Excellent story, especially the ending. The "was it really worth it" bit is what gets me.

>>5862242
OK, just for that you should have been automatically made a Paladin of Freedom the instant you were resurrected. Because that's CHAOTIC FUCKING GOOD, BITCHES! right there.

I had a Paladin that didn't fall by the classic means at all.

He was the sort taught by an old paladin in his village who had retired from the big order thingy, and who had, as a result, a slightly different ideal of things than the official order and the divine power that sponsored it. The order was willing to accept him because the doctrinal differences were close enough, and because the kid believed in them strongly enough that to remove that belief would be to make him a lesser man.

He makes a bit of a name for himself, principally as a man of utter iron will. He becomes famed for never, ever compromising, not in the slightest way. Somehow, despite his enemies specifically using what should be a vast weakness against him his sheer will always finds another way, to the point where the order suspects their god is paying close personal attention to this figure.

Then, one of his longtime enemies gets smart, having talked to men who engineered the fall of paladins for enormosu sums, and started attacking the difference in doctrine. Though it had been a small gap at first, he drove a massive wedge into it. He made the paladin realise that the differences in his doctrine were unavoidable, and when he chose to stay true to his own faith and ignore that of the order, his magic was temporarily taken, a warning from the god. All that did was tell the paladin he didn't need magic to utterly crush his foes.

At the end of that bit of the campaign, he walked into the sacred room of the order, where their god was said to be seated on earth, and basically told it that its services were no longer required.

He then proceeded to do the exact same things as before, working now directly for an ideal instead of its representative. He was, in fact, so good at it he eventually ascended to demigod status, and peacefully usurped the position of his former god. That particular plot point I felt got thrown in too easily as the standard DM's YOU DUN REAL GOOD SEE? 'reward'. What, exactly, do you do as a good god when your former servant is going to take your place, and will actually do a better job of it than you?

>>5862324

>OK, just for that you should have been automatically made a Paladin of Freedom the instant you were resurrected. Because that's CHAOTIC FUCKING GOOD, BITCHES! right there.

I got tired of listening to the asshole Always Neutral Evil player tell me that I sucked for playing a paladin and for "hamfistedly shoving moral lessons down our throats." I wound up rolling up something new, partly because we had no access to True Resurrection, partly because I did not care to listen to the asshole stand up on his soapbox every time we ran into a death cult or an evil necromancer or someone else that registers as evil.

>>5862404

>>Shoving moral lessons down our throats.

The only valid reply for a Paladin is "And I shall continue to do so until you swallow or choke."

>>5862378

>What, exactly, do you do as a good god when your former servant is going to take your place, and will actually do a better job of it than you?

Spend a couple of centuries preparing the way for the next guy that has something even better, so the title of the Dread Pirate Roberts will live on?

I enjoyed the "fall" from grace that Anakin Skywalker had.

>>5862442

Good one, but my response to his constant blathering was, "Look, I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life. I'm just trying to teach you how to make the world a better place. Things are more enjoyable when you can walk the streets at night without fear of mugging, right? Things are better when your fellow man looks out for you, as you look out for him, yes? That's all Good is. Making the world a better place for your children to live in."

>>5862450

Holy shit. I never thought about it like that. The gods get replaced by their servants, taking up their roles when they prove that they can uphold the concept as well as the god did, so the former religious icon can retire and finally stop serving their purpose.

It's not usurping the throne. It's your final act of devotion to a weary spirit.

I'm very surprised nobody archived this thread yet. Am I the only one thinking it deserves it?

Bump because of awesome and falling.

Heretic, they say...
Knave, they say...
Traitor, they say...

They'll see. They'll all see...

>>5864509
God I wish he was that epic in game

Best fallen paladin story I ever heard was from a friend who started off running a half elf fighter in a 1dt ed ad&d game. He was basically forced (gaesed) to work for this LG god in the campaign setting and after succeeding in freeing this realm from being overrun by evil was rewarded with full paladin status. he then earned his horse and holy avenger through some pretty harrowing adventures, the gaes had long since been removed and he tried to be the best paladin he could, up until the time he faced a choice of abandoning his friends (the other pc's) when they were in trouble because they were helping the followers of a rival god to his own. Not an evil god, but a god who was contesting with and luring followers away from my friends god. He chose to abandon his god and fell completely- his sword shatters, his horse died, and all of his gear crumbled to dust. His ex-god was not happy. It was his choice though.
The real great thing is he earner his paladinhood back eventually by fighting for the other god- and was fully restored to power right as the pc's were fighting off Orcus himself, and he landed the finishing blow that banished Orcus back to the abyss. It was an epic moment.

>>5865275

[spoiler]HE WAS![/spoiler]


Also, fuck yeah, this thread. You make me feel fucking great.

>...None of that, 'Oh well if you're truly sorry, there's nothing I can do,' horseshit. No, he coup de graces your ass because he's a goddamn Paladin. His job is killing evil. You know what his job doesn't entail? Being a sympathetic ear for every whiny NE or CN or LE douchebag who's only being evil because the world is unfair to him or every punk that lets his own dislikes or laziness overcome his own personality.
>You know what unfair is? Being able to know what kind of person everyone is before you even talk to them. Smelling evil so potent on a motherfucker that you want to sink your fingers in his chest and pull that tar out until the screaming stops. Having the psychotic urge to murder people that you've never even met, for the sole reason that your God decided that you ought to be his right hand without your choice in the matter, that's unfair.
>But unlike Evil McBlacknails over there, that Paladin puts on his helmet, sharpens his sword, and then continues walking through crowds of people day by day, resisting the urge. Seeing evidence of injustice so black it makes him sick. Seeing murderers and rapists walk the street, watching good men hang as evil ones pull the lever. Saving his righteous violence for when the situation exactly, specifically, precisely calls for it. Surgically removing that which is most evil. >Because he's a Paladin. And if he gave in to the urge, what would he be?
>Who will right the true wrongs if not he?

>It's not about not falling as a Paladin. It's about falling so fucking hard you crash through the planet and stand up on the other side, still a Paladin.

>>5865599
Got. Dayumn.

>>5861649
I want to bear your children

>>5865599
Fuck yes.
>>5864509
Fuck yes.
>>5862242
Fuck yes.
>>5861649
Fuck yes.

>Paladin thread
Fuck yes.

>>5865599
also yours

>>5865599
I know it's old, but this is still full of
WIN

>>5865599
I've seen this in Paladin threads before, anyone know what this is from?
Sauce?

>>5865599

Welllllll... <('_'<) . . . (>'_')> . . . <('_'<) ctrl-c'd like a motherfucker.

>>5865735

Random postan.

I personally think the idea of the paladin being an unwilling pawn who suddenly has homicidal thoughts crammed into his head is pretty silly, but it's well written.

>>5862442
Paladins don't preach, they lead.

Have any of the D&D RPGs ever actually had any 'event' for a player falling or otherwise shifting alignment? Or has it always just been, "Ding! Your powers don't work no more"?

If a paladin disobeys the law of gravity, does he fall?

My Paladin fell once. It was the first character I'd played after my Samurai-to-20, the first warrior I'd played, so I was still getting the hang of it. To get at him, the BBEG was slaughtering the children he'd been saving from goblin camps during a previous adventure. Then he stopped killing and started infecting them with magical spells designed to turn them into monsters. Unstoppable, magic armoured death machines.

Long story short, he went through and killed the children before they changed and fell because of it, since he'd lost all his fatih that a merciful god would let something like that exist.

>>5865982
THIS is an acceptable reason for a paladin to fall. Not railroaded or forced to make a choice. Loss of faith is the only reason a paladin truly falls.

BUMP FOR MOST-EXCELLENT EXAMPLES OF AWESOME FALLEN PALADINS.

It's not exactly a falling story but I hope it counts. Long ago, Aelen had given up his former life as a bodyguard in a large city when his pregnant fiance Luna had left him suddenly without warning in the middle of the night. He became a paladin when a cleric of Birod gave him solace in his time of suffering. After several years of adventuring as a champion of his newfound god, the group heard of news of a strong military force growing in the mountains to the east and decided to investigate before they become a threat to the crown. Upon arriving they began to cut through the loosely organized ranks, discovering at the center a blackguard of Kalus, Birod's brother and rival. When they finally met this blackguard, Aelen demanded they allow him to kill the fiend. However, upon fighting him they discovered he was a she--and when Aelen had her beaten, she pulled off her helmet to reveal she was his former lover.

Turns out Aelen's job those years back didn't do enough to bring in the bacon, so his fiance decided to bolster the house's income by turning tricks. Which was all well and good until she became pregnant. Horrified that the child might not be Aelen's, she fled. She was lost in the mountains for some weeks when a cult of Kalus found her half-dead in the wild, her child long since dead in her womb. They took her in and she gradually became not only a servant of the dark god, but a zealous one.

At this point the big nasty cleric/blackguard of Kalus arrived and offered Aelen a choice: abandon his god and finally marry his long-lost love, or kill her, and know he spilled her blood.

At this point the party jumps in, justifying their invasion because they're gonna kill the cleric, not the crazy blackguard bitch. Aelen spends the fight struggling with Luna, who is trying to attack the party. When all is said and done the party wins, the massive warband is disbanded, and Luna is their captive. Aelen, in turn, asks her to abandon her evil ways and join him, so they can be together again.

Luna demands that Aelen give her the honor of execution rather than the disgrace of the love of a paladin. Knowing that if he lets her go, she will only continue to try and take over the kingdom, Aelen has her kneel before him and slices off her head.

The last thing she says before he kills her? "I am glad our child died before I had him--he would only be as pathetic as his father."

After that, Aelen hung up his blade and never fought again.

To be good it couldn't ever happen in an ambiguous situation. And the player should probably be willing to accept it at all in some way. The DM would also have to understand that this is a pretty large plot changing happening, and should be treated as such. Giving a lot of detail and writing it out very well.

>>5862460
That wasn't a "fall" so much as some idiot that somehow managed to bluff his way into an order getting punched in the face, going emo about it and slipping on a banana peel and back into a pit while being too busy whining about how everyone's so mean and no one understands him to watch where he was fucking going.

Granted, at the same time, everyone ELSE should've spotted what was happening from miles away long before it happened.

>>5865944
The event is a good DM.

He couldn't let that particular child live. It wasn't because of what he had done, but because of what he was destined to do, considering his relation to a particular necromancer he had just dispatched. It had to be done; there was no room for regret, and atoning seemed ludicrous to him, considering it was a necessary evil; he felt it would have made him foolish to try to pretend regret for the action.

SO. Dick DM decides that it's time for me to fall. He enforces this decision by having the BBEG show up on the scene with a hostage, miles away from civilization, in a dungeon that he apparently likes to take walks through when he's captured someone new. He demands that I give up my weapon. And when I do give it up, thinking that the negotiations can begin now, I'm immediately mind-fucked into slaughtering the hostage. A Will Save was thrown to avoid it, and I still failed it, despite the huge bonuses I had towards such things.

So now I've fallen. You know, because it's Totally A-Okay for this to happen when I'm mind controlled into slaying an innocent. But hey, I work with what I'm given, even if it is aggravating. The BBEG makes off with my weapon, leaving me to scrounge something up within the dungeon that we're in. I eventually do find something, but it's a fucking cursed sword, complicating matters further.

Lucky for us, and somehow completely missed by the DM, we have a ranger in the group. One who has been preparing his entire life to track things like goblins through snowstorms, over solid marble, after the trail is six years old, and do it with style. We manage to track the BBEG. And then, as a single unit, the four of us deal enough nonlethal damage to knock him out.

We dragged him through the streets when we got back to the nearest town, manacled to the Nth degree, and then tied to the back of one of the party member's horses.

Pic fucking related.

>>5869726
Ah, a man who broke under the terrible price of utilitarianism.

>>5869731
Even though Archer would technically be Neutral he is still one of the best examples I can think of. He sacrificed everything to help others and all he got was a big 'FUCK YOU' from them.

>>5869751
He also never stopped trying to do good. The problem was that the greatest good for the greatest number of people inevitably meant impossible horror and cruelty for the minority that had to be sacrificed so the rest could carry on.

He lost his faith, and thus he fell. Not through any outside action, but because he could no longer accept that what he did was just.

A fine example indeed.

>>5859407

>The Story of the Morningstar is the quintessential example of a fallen paladin.

Fix'd for you.

Fall'n cherub, to be weak is mis'rable,
Doing or suffering, but of this be sure:
To do aught good will never be our task
But ever to do ill our sole delight
As being contrary to His high will
Whom we resist.

>>5869726
NO

FUCK YOU

>>5869785
Search your feelings - you KNOW it to be true.

"I was so proud when I first realised I was an instrument of your will. Through me, the power of the divine, of the pure and the holy, reaches down to the world beneath and changes it for the better.

Then I saw one too many villages burned to the ground that you could have saved, one too many poor souls who did not have to die if you had done something, and one too many atrocities I could have stopped if you had but helped.

'Instrument of your will'. I realised what that made me, at last. A tool, but not a tool of your will, a tool of your excuse. You were giving the shovel to but a child and telling them to dig. If they do not make the hole correctly it is not your fault, you were not involved, you did not fail, it was your tool who failed. A poor craftsman always blames his tools, and if people die it will always be my fault, not yours.

Well no more. I am no longer your tool. I am no longer afraid I cannot live up to your expectations, because you cannot live up to mine. I have seen the world and for the first time I do not fear it's evil. I fear yours."

A friend's Paladin, directly to an alter said to be "the ear of his goddess". His character fell from a loss of faith in the middle of his Goddess' church, going from LG to TN in one speech.

>>5869861
Just to clarify, this is a player willingly making their Paladin fall. Not "I need to break the rules or something bad will happen", just "My character is fed up with his god being useless."

>>5860040
Where did Mr. Rage do, anyway?

Never witnessed a Palidan fall, though partially because my groups agreed on palidins being much harder to compromize than the standard issues. Our palidans need no gods to get their powers, their righteousness is the source of their power in a similar way sorcerors get their power. While Palidins tend to make orders to improve their efforts through teamwork, it isn't necessary. A palidin's duty is to do what is right above all else.

>>5869861
Why would that make him true neutral? Did he just suddenly stop giving a shit about everyone else?

>>5871026

I agree. If anything, he might go to Neutral Good; he clearly shows empathy and a desire to help others, he's just tired of the bullshit his deity has put him through in her name.

I don't see how that would change him even to NG. He's done nothing chaotic at all, let alone evil. All he's done is denounce his former employer as an uncaring, neglectful evil.

Upon realising everything, he had the choice to stick by the deity and continue to be a tool, or leave its employ so he could follow his frickin oaths and uphold justice and goodness for their own sake, as its obvious "in x's name" was nothing but false advertising.

>>5870347
I think he ascended to a higher plane of rage.

>>5861649

I like the Captain Sisko "In the Pale Moonlight" end question. You should have had a Sisko answer.