That time my player ate Cthulu’s soul and became a god

One of my players not only managed to trick Cthulu into giving him his soul, but also managed to find a clever way to consume it for godhood!


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In the Lore of Pathfinder there is a stone called the Starstone that anyone who touches it becomes a god.  Since there are a number of groups and gods who don’t want there to be more gods, it is the most well defended location on the planet.  But my players were level 19 and looking for a challenge so I offered to run them through an epic level dungeon to touch the Starstone.  Half of the rooms were epic fights and half were roleplay scenarios to determine what kinds of gods they would be if they managed to touch the Starstone (their alignment, portfolio, domains, that kind of thing).  Before each room the sorcerer would cast greater invisibility and mind blank (which let him not be detected by most spells that could see invisible things) and attack the enemies with little to no retaliation.  After fighting taraques in space and taking part in a kaiju battle my players got to the final room and found that the final door was being protected by none other than the Great Old One, Cthulu.  So for reference, the Pathfinder system lists a fight with a CR 3 higher than the party’s level as “Epic” and Cthulu was a CR 11 higher than the party’s level!  Part of what made him so deadly is that he can’t be killed … ever.  Now I suspected that my players would find a clever way to bypass him and get to the final door … but instead they took this as a challenge and started fighting him! 

Now for reference, they made knowledge checks and found out that if they could kill him twice, his regeneration for the third time would be so long that they could just get out of the room.  So an epic battle ensured with my players fighting tooth and nail against this demi-god.  And the whole time the sorcerer never participated.  Out of character people would ask him to help and he would keep answering that they had this and he was, “working on something”.  The whole fight he cast, as stealthily as he could, three spells: Disguise Self, Glibness, and Trap The Soul.  My party finally managed to kill Cthulu and when Cthulu reformed the sorcerer teleported next to Cthulu and dropped his invisibility.  He had an illusion of being dressed in Cthulu cultist robes and said that he was a cultist leader who had heard the demi-god’s cries of pain and had brought him a gem infused with the souls of a thousand sacrificed mortals that would boost Cthulu’s power!  Cthulu was suspicious of this stranger, but thanks to the Glibness spell and a life time of lying the sorcerer was able to beat Cthulu’s ridiculous sense motive and since Cthulu was desperate for enough power to beat these interlopers and didn’t have time to identify the object he took the offer gem.  At this point the sorcerer’s player became laughing gleefully.  He offered me his copy of the Player’s Handbook turned to the spell Trap The Soul.  Apparently, if someone willingly takes a gem that has Trap The Soul cast on it, their soul is sucked into the gem without a save or spell resistance or anyway to stop it from happening.  So Cthulu couldn’t be killed, but his soul was now in a gem. 

The sorcerer then pocked his “new toy” and the group moved into the final room.  There they found the Starstone and it spoke to them, telling them that it only had enough divine essence to make one of them a god.  This news was supposed to start a race/fight to see who could touch it first, but much to my disappointment, my group decided to discuss it rationally and roll dice to see who got to touch it.  The sorcerer however abstained from rolling dice and told the others he was, “working on something”.  After watching a friend rise to godhood he approached the Starstone and asked it if would have more divine essence if he could consume something with divine essence.  I said “sure” and he offered to let it eat Cthulu’s soul!  In retrospect this seems obvious but we had been so focused on who got to touch the Starstone that none of us saw it coming and the whole table had a “ohhhh snap!” moment.  And that is how the sorcerer, by proxy, ate Cthulu’s soul and became a god.

PS.  In every campaign I have run since then I have included the sorcerer as a god of magic and trickery.


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