[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by b-dog

Thanks for the help. I am fine with the idea of a supernatural force of evil and having people be able to tap into this force. The main thing I like to have is a reason for the person to tap into the force of evil. Maybe the person wants revenge or is jealous or just plain hateful. The person's goal shouldn't be IMO to squish puppies for the sake of squishing them, it is better at least from a motivation standpoint that the person squishes puppies because he will be rewarded by the power of evil for doing so.

...More regarding reasons and motivations for taping into supernatural darkness
...(and it taping into your soul, pulling your essence towards the Abyss for engulfing it)

Any egotistical goal can be enough for turning a character into a suitable puppet (if he's unaware of the true happenings) or into an active minion of it (if he is aware in some degree). Of course that force, if it does have a sort of plan, would chose individuals with somewhat special or valuable talents, instead anybody.

Revenge, hate, are OK. The wish of having children, too. The security of your life and your family, the prosperity and maintenance of the world (*)... OK too. Any personal and/or earthly goal is egotistical in some degree -even if it's morally justifiable from a conventional point of view- and so it's suitable. BTW, egotism is completely linked to that supernatural darkness or force of evil, and indeed it's something like a microcosmic aspect of it: the one present in the individual beings. That's why egotism -even when it sounds as good intentioned- would be a true requirement for being subjected to that force, whatever the character is awarely tapping from it or not.

Other requirement would be the state of a given world-campaign-setting. If entrophy (another approximate name for that malignant force, but see 3e GURPS Religion) is far and the world is in a Dawn Age (see 4e GURPS Fantasy, p. 79), the malignant force or substantial pole would be almost completely powerless and unreachable.

OTOH, a scenario in which that chaotic-dark-evil force pervades many things and even seems to be more powerful than any other, would be a world near of entrophy -or at least really menaced by entrophy, which is the increasing preponderance of the substantial pole before mentioned, in detriment of the essential one. For this, approximate frames of reference (increasingly worse) could be Decadence, Exhaustion, Catastrophe and Dark Ages (4e GURPS Fantasy, p. 81-85.)

In such setting, any egoism can involve such malignant force in some degree, making very difficult to not being tainted by it and so making "the good guys" really scarce. Simple altruism wouldn't be enough: freedom of egoism requires tons of qualifications (Unusual Background) and training (something equivalent to Trained by a Master, but regarding "the soul"), and even that would require the active involvement of a "positive" supernatural element... which can be almost missing in the current state of the world...

So, if you were to follow a line like this (you don't need to do it, OFC), you would have your evil NPCs as you wanted, but besides the PCs would be constantly deluded and attracted from the Abyss.

(*) The egoistical longing for physical (or energetic -whatever individual form) immortality can be transferred to the world as a whole, turning the petty desire of "personal permanency" or ego's immortality into something with a semblance of altruism and even justice (the current extropianism). So, one of these worlds which just needs to be finished (due the cyclic alternance) by the transcendent divinities could have characters (PCs and/or NPCs) trying to defend its status quo, instead, or even trying to improve it, taking the transcendent divinities for enemies: these characters can be themselves too rooted in the material experience of life, unable to conceive any other form of being, and so keeping a reluctant or hostile posture towards any sort of death & transformation or passage to another ontological degree. Again, any confrontation with the trascendent "good" divinities would be an egotistical (and ignorant of the cosmic laws) attitude -likely concealed under tons of seeming justifications-, and that behaviour aligns characters, again, knowingly or unknowingly, with "the dark side" or supernatural evil force that perhaps doesn't want "to release the world", keeping it instead "'safe' in its claws" (or tentacles) for turning it -after an irreversible stage of decadence- into a perpetual hell of suffering and despairing. In other words: its own post-apocaliptic kingdom.

Originally Posted by GURPS Thaumatology, p. 216-217

Alternatively, the plot may task the PCs with destroying the world (...) This doesn’t mean that they have to be nihilistic villains. (...) perhaps the world’s destruction is inevitable, but if it’s accomplished in the right way, then it will be possible to recreate it afterward in an improved form. Or maybe (...) the world is a prison, and that destroying it will free all the souls trapped within (...)