Editing Midnight RPG - Notes on Zal's Becoming (section)

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A lot of the collaborator's abilities revolve around using evil for non-evil purposes, particularly the later ones, where he gets to "tap into" Izrador's power in order to gain access to spells normally accessible only to the faithful, or convince demons and spirits to do his bidding willingly. Maybe, when he crossed that line and became genuinely evil, Izrador suddenly "found" where he'd spliced himself into the evil-pipe. Maybe he still has all the same abilities, but he's no longer REALLY in control of them anymore, because they're now being granted willingly by the Shadow.

The thing is, there's a difference between what happens to a paladin or bladebond who breaks his vow and what's happening here. When Durgaz broke his vow, he was going off the path he'd set for himself, and he needed to "correct" himself to get back on it. But with Zal, this IS the logical progression of the path he's chosen. So just flat-out taking his powers away until he "corrects" doesn't seem quite right. However, by actually falling to evil, he has ceased to be a solitary individual secretly siphoning off power from the Dark God and channeling it elsewhere, and just become another of Izrador's countless evil servitors.

So I say there's no real need to directly strip him of any of his powers. However, they are now knowingly being granted to him by the Shadow, meaning that there is no guarantee whatsoever that they will work as he expects them to. They'll work just as long as the results please the thing that powers them.

See what I mean when I say it tends to be worse for the rest of us than for him? That's probably technically true, but it just strikes me as thematically appropriate somehow.

However, I'd be interested to see what you come up with as well. The only thing I don't necessarily think appropriate would be making him "make amends" or "atone" the way a paladin does, because he hasn't really done anything "wrong", per se. He's just failed to stop at the edge of the precipice.