#tl;dr naielle got her sister into a warlock pact unintentionally and this has made things significantly worse

[isaacathom]

my character got given a fun crisis in the last dnd session and im still like *head in hands* oh christ

the brief context is that my character, Naielle Odelia, was exiled from elf!France for treasonous writings, which she produced incidentally while doing historical research with the aid of her warlock patron, Alcor. Also being a warlock is treason too. Naielle's younger sister, Mariela, is in the french army as a feywalker, some cool feywild traveller type.

When Naielle made a brief trip back (using a daisy chain of Plane shifts and Gates) to see her wife, a resistance fighter, the two of them ended up capturing Mariela to prevent her from doing Some Shit, don't worry about it. It was decided that, because of Mariela's skill set, the best way to remove her from the war would be to take her back with Naielle to the plot of the campaign (set in fantasy South-East Asia, broadly, and which is classified as a separate material plane). Lo, it is done.

Naielle and Mariela do not get along. real contentious sibling relationship. Their first actual conversation in the ~20 years since Naielle's exile was an argument about the Some Shit Mariela was trying to do, and it was fucking BITTER. And yknow, yeah, Mariela has a right to be fucking pissed in this context. ESPECIALLY now she's been kidnapped to another plane several months normal travel away from home. have fun!

Naielle does love her though. She's her younger sister! She's wicked clever, she's very good at her job, the family has long been justifiably proud of her. She's her sister!!! Naielle justified the plane shift as a way to keep Mariela out of trouble and, ultimately, to keep her safe. There's more to that specific sentiment but it's not important.

Well.

Alcor, as Naielle's patron, saw Mariela and went :) Ah! Another member of your bloodline! An ally to assist you in our quest to oppose abominations (mindflayers and so on).

And forcibly formed a warlock pact with her

When Mariela, understandably, objected quite strenuously, Alcor blinded her (temporarily, though uh, not by design i guess). The stress of the magic, one supposes.

And the worst part, for the both of them?

Naielle, functionally though not specifically, has a Geas on Mariela. they're bound together. Mariela has to work with her, has to help her with the abomination shit, or Alcor will keep fully fucking with her shit.

And Naielle is furious.

The whole point!!! The whole point!!! Was she wanted her sister out of trouble. She didn't want her sister to do her Some Shit (which would, whether it went well or not, have technically been Naielle's fault). She wanted her to stay safe. And in so doing, directly brought her into contact with her warlock patron, an entity that has fucking RUINED NAIELLE'S LIFE. She wouldn't've been exiled if not for that fucker! Maybe she's done some good using their power, but has it outweighed the fucking cost to her soul? jesus christ.

And now Mariela has been forcibly roped into it, and now she is bound to Naielle, and NONE of this is what Naielle wanted, and she can't even convey that to Mariela because WHY WOULD SHE BELIEVE HER??? Mariela has absolutely no incentive to trust what Naielle says, and in fact multiple incentives to believe she's a duplicitous bitch. It doesn't matter if, at least on this matter, Naielle is sincere. It's not trustworthy. Mariela's life had already been derailed by Naielle, and now its been completely fucking upended, and she can't even do anything about it bc if she attacks Naielle with intent she takes fucking 5d10 of psychic damage. and i've seen that woman's spell list, she can't bring naielle down before that damage would become a hazard and she doesn't have naielle's sustain. like, whats she gonna do, thunder step a bunch??? good luck. she'd be trading 5d10 psychic for 5d10 thunder on naielle and naielle has more health and other things that would keep her okay that Mariela doesn't have.

It sucks!!! Naielle's genuinely furious about the whole thing, for Mariela's sake, and her own. Her pact ruined her life, and she's been trying desperately to be good and do good through that pact to try and make that "worth it", so that her life being ruined had a fucking purpose. And now she's ruined her sister's life, and it is her fault, even if it very much was not her intention. So what good is it? Has that debt been remotely settled through her deeds? No!! No it hasn't!!

It sucks, man. Naielle's fucking shaken about it.

All that said, I have thought of a fun Bonding Exercise for the two to do which will keep Alcor off both their backs for a while - Naielle has a specific mindflayer she has to kill. Mariela has to help her (in general). So, team bonding, when we get an opportunity you, i, and the robot who hates mindflayers and has custody of the teleporting ship, we go for a jaunt and we fucking kill him, and you can pretend the mindflayer is me the entire time if it makes you feel better :) and my gm has already said that proposal will probably work and be a very fun lil side session in future. especially bc it'll be done without the commodore's permission ;) fuck listening to his orders ive got personal matters to deal with