Toben the Many? o.O'

[Manofevil]

I wonder if there isn't some curse or something that specificly keeps Toben away from DarkLords. Otherwise, I'd expect most of THEM to be his favorite playthings. I could just see Tristessa sitting there rocking and singing her lullaby to a baby's corpse when suddenly the corpse's baby head looks up grinning and says " Yeah! Sing it, Ma! and IEEEIEEEIIIII WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOOOOOOOOOUUUUOOOOHH WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOOOOOOU!!!"

Imagine one of his corpses suddenly getting caught on the road with the Headless Horseman, maybe as a member of a party he was messing with. Everybody else runs for their lives. Toben just stands there with his thumb out like a hitchhiker. After the Horseman hacks his head off, Toben's headless corpse spinns around and executes one of those perfect soccer kicks likes we all just watched in the olympics and Toben's Head lands somewhere on the galloping horse and rider. Grinning, Toben yells, "Hey Dad, where are we going? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"

I like the idea of Strahd walking into his dungeon and a corpse suddenly smiling up at him and yelling "STRAHDEEE!! How's the family?"

[HuManBing]

Vlad Drakov actually met Toben once. This was back when Falkovnia resembled Nazi Germany during the Berlin Olympics, rather than North Korea during the third generation handover.

Allegedly, Toben asked Drakov whether it be nobler to suffer the blood of a thousand enemies, or the tears of a million Hawaiian orphans. Apparently Drakov responded by roaring incoherently and kicking a nearby watermelon so hard it orbited the known world twice and decapitated a nearby concubine the following Thursday.

Van Richten translates this to mean "Kindness rests in the hearts of men but virtue rests in the codpiece", though he was not personally present at the event as an observer.

...

I'm just making shit up now. I'll see myself out. >_>

[Zilfer]

Hah! those posts were both good for a smile here at work.

[Hazgarn]

Okay, here's a creepy as all get out idea...

I was thinking about Toben today, and the Hannibal Lector vibe they went for in (web enhancement, I think?), and comparisons with the Joker. Well, this of course (because I'm insane) lead me to extend the comparisons further and imagine a Clarice Starling/Harley Quinn character.

Perhaps a mage, curious about the supernatural principles behind how he functions. Perhaps a Kargat agent, charged by Azalin to study Toben and find a way to use him. Perhaps a Lamordian scholar trying to find decode "natural" scientific principles behind a sentient disease, or a historian trying to uncover his true history, or someone who lost their family or whole village to him and was driven into a mad fascination with him as a sort of incarnate natural disaster.

So, um...yeah...

[Zilfer]

So some questions to pile onto your idea from me reading your idea.

First, what might keep Toben from possessing this person himself? Does he like this person or do they just keep getting lucky? Or taunted by him? Perhaps there is no reason Toben doesn't kill and possess them (or maybe their immune to his posession for some reason? o.O').

Second, this facinsation does it cause them to help toben spread by killing people near the disease and maybe it's even protecting Toben from Azalin's clutches. (Just imagined a coven of children who don't want you to take "uncle toben" away. xD now who could break their little hearts?)

This totally doesn't fit anything but my mind makes random jumps and i figure i'll share my insanity. What if the Requim split Azalin and toben is as good as controling all his bodies because he's part Azalin? And then Azalin could be questing to return himself "whole". Ugh... if Azalin had Toben's powers that would be scaaaaary.

Meanwhile in the land of Zilfer, we get back on topic. Food for thought!

[Hazgarn]

First, what might keep Toben from possessing this person himself?

They may not have met face to face yet. Or, they were simply lucky. Toben may not even be aware of the stalker as yet.

Does he like this person or do they just keep getting lucky? Or taunted by him? Perhaps there is no reason Toben doesn't kill and possess them (or maybe their immune to his posession for some reason? o.O').

There are a lot of different ways Toben might see this person. He could be indifferent, or he could be intrigued. If they express an appreciation of his pranks, he might like the idea of someone with a sense of humor similar to his own. Perhaps the stalker pulls their own brutal pranks in order to catch his attention (a la the Ice Truck Killer from Dexter).

Second, this facinsation does it cause them to help toben spread by killing people near the disease and maybe it's even protecting Toben from Azalin's clutches. (Just imagined a coven of children who don't want you to take "uncle toben" away. xD now who could break their little hearts?)

All good possibilities. And I love the idea with the children. Toben is a very bored "individual", and there's no reason he might not keep pets. And he may even have some use for such a group of children. His infection isn't exactly subtle, and its hard to trick people into getting attached to a leering little monster. Children make a great punchline, and it might be useful on occasion to keep a "fresh" stock on hand.

Maybe that's even what he was originally doing in that orphanage... Ooh. Another possible origin for the stalker: what if she's a survivor of that orphanage?

Not sure if the Requiem as Toben's origin really feels well to me, though I can't think of a real reason why not. With the tricky nature of time in the Mists, one zombie could have wound up in the past to account for Toben's overall longer existence, or he may have started the stories about him having been around that long himself...

If one were to use the idea of Toben being a part or biproduct of Azalin, it might be interesting to explore just how different in personality they are. It brings the Jyggylag/Sheogorath dynamic from The Elder Scrolls games to mind. And it could hook into the idea discussed earlier in the thread of Azalin and Toben somehow swapping places.

(Azalin with Toben's powers is scary, but to me Toben with Azalin's powers--mystical or temporal--is even scarier.)

Tangent:

VIEW CONTENT:

I've been considering using the idea of Azalin's split essence as a thread in my campaign in a weird way that is, oddly, starting to echo the Trinity. Azalin and Death each represent an odd conjunction of "father" and "son", Azalin possessing Irik's body, and Death by being both clone and protege to the original. I've considered incorporating the idea that Azalin didn't manage to recover all of his essence when he reformed, and that one of the players is not only a vessel of part of his essence, but also the biological son of Lowellyn Dachine. So that, basically, Azalin is the Lord/Father, Death is the Spirit, and the PC would be the Son/Resurrection...

Um, anyway.

[Azimer the Mad]

Been using Toben basically as the Joker. He's a bored nihlistic psychopath trying to get everyone else in one the joke. I even gave him a Dementlish ghoul noblewoman as a Harler Quinn-style girlfriend to keep around as his audience. I gave her the burrowing power from VRGttWD to ensure her constant escapes from the party. The players were a little grossed out at the cut-scene where Toben looked deep into her eyes and offered his fingers for her to chew on.

Two plans he's had so far...

1) He followed around a Mordentish Punch and Judy show long enough to infect some of the audience. During a performance, a family of four stood up and started acting out the show, clubbings and baby-snatchings in all.

2) He took over a plague doctor and cohorts (Paridonian monks) and set up a hospice for the "plague" he was causing. Toben proceeded to operate needlessly on patients and serve them up alive to his Lady.

I plan on him seeking vengence on the party at some point as the possesed zombies did in Brian Keene's "The Rising." The novel featured "zombies" that were corpses possessed by Babylonian demons. When one shell died the consciousness jumped. Thus, they would laugh while ramming cars at the protagonists in suicide attempts.

Now, imagine twenty hive-minded vengeful Jokers decending upon a sleepy Mordentish village...

[Rucht Lilavivat]

Hey guys, just wanted to pop in and say that this thread was a real treat to read! Makes my black heart warm and cuddly inside.

[Zilfer]

Yeah I had saw discussion in one of the old topic's on the main site so i decided to make that topic to find out more about Toben and see what everyone would say the second time around. He's just everyone's favorite zombie right?

[Hazgarn]

He's just everyone's favorite zombies right?

Fixed.

[Zilfer]

details details details!

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

In case any of the new folks don't realize why Rucht's heart is warmed by the Toben talk, he's Toben's creator. Just FYI.
http://fraternityofshadows.com/TheParlo ... _Dead.html

[Zilfer]

Hehe....well i do say I enjoy the guy a lot though i've not found time to use him in my campaign just yet.... maybe this coming session i'll find a way to fit him in....

[twinwolf]

So we all know that to a certain extent Toben is afraid of Azalin... but Ravenloft has more than one necromantic Darklord. Do you think he has worries about any of them? or are any of them potentially seeking him out? this seems like just the thing to peak Meredoth's intrest (a new kind of undead, one that might be the key to his actually defeating Nature. and due to his stunted creativity possibly an incentive for him to try to team with Azalin again. i think i read that somewhere). Or perhaps the Gypsy curse is just false history and Toben was considered a failed experiment. So little has been canonized about either i've begun wondering what if that isn't the case.

Anyway all of this rambling so i could ask the question: do you think the Darklord of Todstein has a few Tobens in cold storage.