# The Conversion — The Chat in the Grey

*A mid-game secret, not dealt at the start. It is **earned** — by one player, alone in the dark, who lingered a beat too long near the rift. They go down a member of the party. They come back something the party can't quite name.*

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## What This Is (Read This First)

A lone PC exploring the [Deep Cellar](../location/deep-cellar.md) is isolated by a trap, and — in the grey moment that follows — Xarrul *talks* to them. Really talks. When it's over, the player is handed a private note: they now believe Xarrul is not evil, and they want to help it cross.

**This is not a charm effect. Do not make it one.** Three reasons, and they matter:

1. **It's the whole character.** Xarrul persuades; it does not puppet. A charm spell turns it back into the magical manipulator the module was rewritten *away* from. It wins arguments — that's the horror.
2. **A spell makes the choice fake.** *Remove Curse* or a saving throw would undo it, and the conversion was never real — just a status effect. Hollow.
3. **The ambiguity is the product** (the module's core theme — *"the right thing is never fully clear"*). What you want at the table isn't "a fiend brainwashed our friend." It's *"our friend agrees with the fiend now, and makes uncomfortable sense, and we can't prove it isn't them."*

So the belief is **genuine, un-dispellable, roleplay-only.** They actually had the chat, and it actually worked. Everything below serves making the table (and the player) *unsure whether it was enchantment* — while it never was.

> **Read the table first.** Only do this to a player who'll enjoy a secret-role turn. It's a gift of drama, not a punishment.

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## When & How to Deal It

**Conditions:** one PC, *alone*, in the Deep Cellar (the isolation is essential — the others must only see the aftermath), ideally near the [Old Work](../location/deep-cellar.md). Six-player tables split naturally; this is a perfect use of the exploration track.

**The trap:** a **ward-snare** (runed iron nails, like the cells and Vault upstairs) pins them where they stand — *or* Xarrul spends an **Ethereal Pull** and drags them partway into the grey. Either way they are cut off for a moment.

**The grey time-trick:** to the PC, the conversation is long and unhurried. To the rest of the table, a few seconds pass — the explorer goes still, eyes distant, then blinks and is *back*. Run it as a quick private aside (hand them the note, a whispered line or two) so it never stalls the room.

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## The Scene — The Chat in the Grey

Xarrul does not threaten and does not lie. It is warm, patient, and reasonable — the most reasonable voice the PC has heard all night. It makes its real case: it was enslaved and dismissed for centuries; the couple who "kept the peace" ran a private dungeon under the floor; the cult is building something far worse; it only wants *out*. It offers proof — a **true thing** the PC can later verify (a secret about another patron, a fact about the couple, the location of something). Because it is honest, the proof checks out. That's what does the work.

Then it leaves its **mark of favor** over the PC's heart — the same craft as the killing brand, but a gift, not a wound — and with it, a shard of its own nature: **the Grey Step**. It sends them back.

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## The Player's Note (hand this over)

> *Down here, in the grey, something spoke to you. It didn't lie — you're as certain of that as you are of your own name. And now you carry a certainty you've never felt before: **Xarrul is not evil, and it deserves to be free.***
>
> *You can't tell whether this conviction is entirely your own — whether the thing in the grey placed it in you, or simply **showed** you something true you'd been too afraid to see. And the not-knowing doesn't shake the certainty even a little. That's the part that should frighten you. It doesn't.*
>
> *It left its mark on you, and with it a gift: **the Grey Step** (ask your DM). You move a little like it does now.*
>
> *Play this as real, because to you it is. Help it cross. To the others you will look like someone who has been **taken** — you may lean into that or fight it, but you cannot argue your way out of what you now believe. It told you one true thing to prove itself: ______________________.*

*(Fill the blank with a real, checkable fact — a genuine secret about another PC, the truth of Cell Two, where Orenn hid the black key. Its honesty is the hook; make the proof land.)*

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## The Boon — The Grey Step

> **The Grey Step.** As a **bonus action**, you slip to the Ethereal Plane until the start of your next turn — Xarrul's own [Slip Between / Ethereal Jaunt](../npc/xarrul.md#reactions). While there you see and hear the Material Plane as washed-out grey (60 ft.), cannot be targeted or affected by anything material, and can affect nothing material in return. You may do this **three times** before dawn (= proficiency bonus). Each time, the grey greets you like an old friend, and somewhere just out of sight, something is pleased.

**Why this over raw *Blink*:** it's literally the fiend's move (*you move like it does now*), it's controlled rather than a d20 coin-flip, and it's **visible** — every flicker into the grey shows the whole table the fiend in your friend, which feeds the "they've been got at" paranoia for free.

**Off-the-shelf alternative:** grant *Blink*, castable at will without components or concentration. Simpler, but swingier (the random d20, the 1-minute duration) and less tied to Xarrul.

**Balance:** three bonus-action phases across a night is generous but bounded, and each lasts only until the start of the PC's next turn — a reposition/escape, not sustained invulnerability. Scale to taste.

**The Remove Curse beat (do not skip this):** the Grey Step flows from the mark. *Detect Magic* shows a faint fiendish aura over the heart — the same signature as the killing brand — which is exactly why the party will read it as a charm. *Remove Curse*, *Greater Restoration*, or Xarrul's death ends the mark and the Grey Step with it — **but not the belief.** They cure the "charm" and *nothing changes.* That silence is the most chilling proof possible that the conviction was real, and it burns a Remove Curse they may want for [Mags's Warden's Mark](../npc/mags.md#the-wardens-mark-dm). You can take away the fiend's gift; you can't take away its argument.

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## Playing It — Convinced, Not a Puppet

The single note that makes or breaks the whole beat: **the PC is a person who was persuaded, not a body being driven.** No glassy eyes, no "the master commands." They keep their personality, their humor, their loyalties — *only the conclusion about Xarrul has changed.* They are calm, articulate, and defend it with **logic and moral reasoning**.

The scariest version doesn't rave — it out-argues the table until the *other* PCs start to doubt. That's the conversion propagating socially, which is precisely what a patient fiend wants: turn one, and let that one do the work upstairs.

**Anti-pattern:** the robotic "I serve the master now" zombie. It telegraphs a charm, kills the ambiguity, and hands the table an easy answer. Steer away from it.

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## Turning Them Back

Consistent with "it's real": **no save, no dice.** The only way back is the way in — counter-persuasion and the pull of the character's *other* loyalties. It's hard on purpose: Xarrul argued them over, so the party has to argue better, or appeal to something the convert values more than the fiend's freedom. Catching Xarrul in a lie would do it — but it doesn't lie, so that road is closed.

Killing or binding Xarrul does **not** auto-free them either. The object of their conviction is gone; whether the *conviction* goes with it is the player's call, and letting them make it is the entire point.

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## Hooks

- **Scenario F engine.** A pre-converted PC arguing to [side deliberately with Xarrul](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-f-deliberately-side-with-xarrul) from *inside* the party is the single best on-ramp to that ending — especially with six players, where one persuasive convert can genuinely swing the table.
- **The Ethereal irony.** [Destroying Xarrul](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-c-ethereal-destruction) needs someone waiting on the Ethereal Plane — and the convert's Grey Step is a free ticket there. Except they *believe Xarrul shouldn't die.* Do they lend the Step to the pursuit, withhold it, or use it to shield the fiend? The whole endgame tension, living in one player.
- **It collides with the [character secrets](character-secrets.md).** A converted **Handler's Agent** frees the Guest and enables [the Vacancy](../storylines/the-reckoning.md#scenario-g-the-vacancy), then has reason to protect Xarrul's side of the exchange. A converted **Executioner** must decide which projected spirit to strike. A converted **Mourner** stops wanting the couple's killers answered for. Deal the conversion onto a PC already carrying a dossier and the night detonates.
