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Alright, I just had to share this one. It was a moment that sort of just blew my mind and is currently top of my list for well-played inconspicuous and enigmatic roleplay. Gilbert, this is a toast to you.

So my player has the character in the campaign I DM, 'Broken Kohn'. He has a backstory we worked out where he grew up in the Anauroch desert, during a time of warlords and clan wars. He was captured by an enemy clan lord, and 'broken' until he submitted, then came to understand and sympathize with his previous captor until he went on to fight for him instead. Now, years later, the warlord-turned-sensei has disappeared and Broken Kohn left o adventure and see the wider world.

Kohn has an intelligence of 8, but a much higher Wisdom being the monk he is. He started out roleplaying him as frequently quoting his former master; "Master Yew always said victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win" and those sort of Sun Tzu or Confucious style mantras. He wasn't always, or even usually, using quotes but came up with them himself I think.

Now, the campaing we are playing is Night Below (but in 5e), and the group has been in the Underdark for most of it. Several sessions ago, a little over a month of real time (we play every week), Broken Kohn became the unfortunate victim of an intellect devourer; which reduced his intelligence to 0. Now the party's rogue (an arcane trickster) had a headband of intellect, and decided to try putting it on him. It took some time, but I allowed this to work; as long as he had the headband on he would have an intelligence of 19 and no longer be perma-stunned. Unfortunately, the party had no other means to fix this, so he went on for a long time using the headband. Now, at INT 19, Kohn was more than twice as smart as he was before; this took the form, somewhat jokingly in our group, of him speaking in a much less low-tone and gravely voice than he did before. He also said 'jolly good!' at one point, which another player roleplayed a reaction freaking out because he had never said anything like that before, and then 'jolly good' sort of became a calling card for him.

'Jolly good' is actually kind of important, for while that sort of became his new thing, he had also stopped with the Sensei Yew quotes; at first when we started playing he did it all the time but in more recent sessions they stopped entirely which seemed fine to me; roleplaying aspects, while cool, often get forgotten or left by the wayside as the story progresses and they flesh out their characters more. I noticed the lack of quoting, but let it slide without mention.

Now, fast-forward to a more recent session, and the group found a possible way to cure Kohn of his mind crippling after all; jolly good. They pursued this, and in a way that I won't go into here, did manage to reverse the effects of the intellect devourer! Kohn took off the headband and suffered no ill effects, back to his original intelligence of 8. Then, one of the first things he said after that was "Sensei Yew always said no battle can ever be truly one, only lost less than your opponent."

I didn't have to say it, another player laughed and said "hey, that's the first we've heard of Sensei Yew for a while! He loses his higher intelligence and suddenly it's back" and everyone laughed.

Except me. I didn't laugh. Because suddenly something dawned on me. While the players were laughing, I just absently said "It's almost like he can't think for himself any more."

Kohn's player snapped his fingers into a point and, chuckling, replied "exactly."