[BIG SPOILER] The Luremaster's Logic...

Grum

So...

(1) The Luremaster witnesses 4 knights kill a dragon, while their lord hides
(2) The lord takes credit for killing said dragon
(3) The Luremaster writes a poem, exposing the Lord's cowardice
(4) The Luremaster is imprisoned and has his hands cut off by the lord. He keeps singing, so he has his tongue cut out by the lord. He dies.
(5) The ghost of the Luremaster haunts the lord. The guards and servants all flee. The lord goes crazy and kills himself.

So far so good, right? The lord got what he deserved. He wanted glory, a "golden future", and instead he was driven to a lonesome death as a broken man. Justice served! But wait...

(6) The Luremaster goes on to haunt the castle. He binds the souls of the nobles and guards to it. He takes over the denizens beneath the castle. He fills the place with all sorts of traps and monsters.
(7) The Luremaster lures in people from all over Faerun. He does not allow them to know what they are getting into, but once they are the castle he refuses to let them leave.
(8) The only way out is to defeat the traps, ghosts and creatures within the castle. Failure means...having your soul bound to the castle.
(9) He shows no pity to those who are not "heroes." They are doomed to die like everyone else.
(10) We know that, at the very least, "hundreds" of innocent people have been killed by the Luremaster.

And for what? What is his purpose? For his story to be known? Common sense means that the guards and servants who fled the castle knew what was up. They would have heard the signing. Even the most obtuse person would realize "Hey...maybe the lord didn't single handedly kill a dragon?" So it can't be that. His story was already known.

For vengeance? He already drove the lord to suicide, and bound his soul to the castle like everyone else. He more than got his vengeance.

Because one must be a "hero"? It can't be that. Because he wasn't a hero. He was a bard who didn't fight the dragon, couldn't fight the lord...by his own standards of what a hero is, he didn't have the martial prowess to meet that.

From what I can tell, the Luremaster is just a jerk. He wanted to write a story about heroes, and was upset that the one time he got to witness real heroes he was killed for it. So now he has caused hundreds of people to die deaths, just as bad as his, because he wants to see a few more good fights.

I just find it ironic that in all of his self-righteousness, he has caused far more harm than his lord ever did. I don't think I have ever seen a character so completely without morals before.

I mean...Sarevok was willing to start a war for godhood. Sure. But he's got that Bhaalspawn essence going for him. And he can be redeemed if he finally starts hanging around with a good crowd.

Irenicus did horrible things, yes...but then again he had his emotions literally stripped away. Sure, he tried to reach godhood, but that's more arrogance than anything else. And from what we've seen, before he completely lost his emotions he did things like try to recreate his love, and to keep his close friends from death (though the fate of said friends became worse than death as Irenicus lost his emotions).

Out of all of the villains we have seen, is any as evil as the Luremaster without literally being a devil/demon?

Pokota

Well I mean there's a certain svirfneblin who double-dealt dwarves and orcs during a major war for fun and profit, which led to the unbirth of a certain friendly neighborhood baelnorn and virtual obliteration of an elvish stronghold... but that's still not as bad as the Luremaster and his "I am bored. Entertain me."

God

Pokota said:

Well I mean there's a certain svirfneblin who double-dealt dwarves and orcs during a major war for fun and profit, which led to the unbirth of a certain friendly neighborhood baelnorn and virtual obliteration of an elvish stronghold... but that's still not as bad as the Luremaster and his "I am bored. Entertain me."

Was a drow called Nym.
Also keeps caged squirrels for fun... That's one vile son of a beach.

The Luremaster, though, is just a cuckoo.

Redrake

The Luremaster actually wanted to be free. He knew he needed heroes for that though. The problem was that he picked Hobart as his lure bait and that guy's a tiger in disguise. As such, Hobart is the one who lures heroes with idea of treasures, when in fact he wants to use those heroes and discard them.

Also, most of the denizens from the castle are not bind there by luremaster, they just happened to be there. Trolls, humber hulks, minotaurs and orogs are actually prisoners. Beholders might be up to make their own ends, while the spectral knights are the only ones bound by the luremaster.

The jackal people do not count. Those were there before the castle was even built.

ineth

This thread should have a big fat [SPOILER] tag in the title.

As to your question:

Grum said:

And for what? What is his purpose? For his story to be known? [...]
For vengeance? [...]
Because one must be a "hero"? [...]
From what I can tell, the Luremaster is just a jerk.

The problem is that you are trying to find a human motivation for a being who is no longer human, and no longer thinks/feels/decides on that level.

I think the point of the story is how the injustice that led to the bard's death, prevented him from resting in peace and turned him into a "restless spirit", an automaton with at most small traces of consciousness and free will left, who harms others not because of any human motivation or decision on his part, but simply because that is now his nature. Only acknowledgment and some form of redemption (even if vicarious) for the original injustice, can break that 'spell' and allow him to rest in peace.

This is a recurring theme in the HoW expansion (e.g. the Wailing Widows), and other games made by some of the same game designers (e.g. certain quests in Pillars of Eternity). My theory is that it's Josh Sawyer who just really likes that trope in his games, but who knows...

recklessheart

I wouldn't try to morally redeem Sarevok or Irenicus using the reasoning that you have provided, personally. I think their morality lies in the fact that they have a goal and a purpose. They have morals (no being can be a God without possessing some kind of idealogy, after all), they just aren't morals that we consider to be acceptable. But both villains fight from a place of belief and aspiration. If they are better than the Luremaster it is because - as you say - the Luremaster seems to have no purpose except to arbitrarily cause grief.

That said, I do agree with @ineth that the likelihood is that the Luremaster has been transmuted into a difference consciousness than a human one. Much as a man afflicted with lycanthropy might harm his loved ones during the full moon, there is a switch in psyche that can't be accounted for by presuming to impose the mindset of a rational, sentient human upon the villain.

Grum

Feels much more fulfilling with that explanation. Thank you!