(SE SEI UNO DEI MIEI PG NON LEGGERE! CI SONO SPOILER!)
In my campaign, the PCs fought Toben many times. After some time, they discovered it to be connected with the cult of an evil nature god, Vyeserhad.
Vyeserhad is the canonic god who requests sacrifice of children to give you healthy crops, and send insect swarms if you don't. Its female worshippers are druids/priestessed/witches with scythes and similar, its male worshippers are slowly possessed by insect spirits and turned into horrible human/insect hybrids (the poor harmless hunch-backed old man turned out to be a success when they discovered his hump to be a beehive of flesh...)
Well, in my campaign Toben is "the Many" in many ways; since I couldn't decide a single background story I decided that he's condamned to be completely destroyed after some time, only to be reborn later with a different story and personality.
Well, since the Vyeserhadites need a lot of children to sacrifice (at least one every cell every solstice and equinox) they have opened some orphanage, one of whick is called Chandler House, in central Mordent. But in Chandler House there was a child who was very evil with his comrades, and so they closed him alone in a room in the basement, whose floor was made of dirt and sand. And since he always wanted to be the lord of the orphanage, he began to build a little orphanage out of the sand and dirt of the ground, and to make little human figures to see them move, and play, and die by his whim.
One day, when he was locked in the basement, a gentleman came out from nowhere and called to him (guess who he is
)."Little child," the gentleman said, "you seem to have fun moving all of these people, like a puppetmaster. Do you?"
"I do, sir" the child answered.
"And would you have more fun if you could move the other children out there like you do with your dolls?"
"Yes, sir, I would! Is it possible?"
"Every child's wish is my duty, little one..." said the gentleman, disappearing.
And then the children saw his dolls were alive and moving by themselves, and there were one of them for every child and adult in the orphanage!
He was so happy, and spent some time having his dolls playing between themselves, dying at his whim, and killing the nasty adults who locked him in the basement. And when all of the adults were dead, he noticed a doll in the basement who was playing with a tiny orphanage, and in that moment his dolls turned up to look at him, and he understood he didn't exist anymore, and all that was left of him was the will to play with others and to see them die at his whim... And that child's name was Toben.
Later, when Toben moved away from the orphanage, the high proestess of Vyeserhad (Vivian , the Red Witch) came back and retrieved the original Toben's body and his heart, and used it to control Toben's action.
After five or six adventures against Vyeserhad and Toben, the PCs were gifted of magical weapon against Toben by a mysterious benefactor (who it is is still unknown...) and killed Vivian and found and shattered Toben's heart. But...
In an older battle one of the PCs was killed by Toben (bleeded to -10), but immediately "cured" and "returned to life", apparently with no ill effect; but in fact Toben planted his seed inside him. Now that character died later in another fight and was buried, but when the time is right Toben the Many will rise again...
I customize some of Toben's abilities and weaknesses depending on his current story; since the child Toben was always alone Toben is afraid of solitude, and as the PCs discovered, will not attack someone who is completely alone; obviously when you're in a cursed forest full of Tobens, Vyeserhadites and monsters being alone is not exactly a good idea...
Just my 2 €cents
