Darkness said:
BTW, if he was around 11th level, he can't have been a vampire spawn; only an actual vampire...
Well, if he was an 11th level cleric that was slain by a vampire's energy drain (i.e., he got slammed six times & took 12 negative levels), he'd come back as a vampire spawn. Only death by blood drain allows one to come back as a vampire.
However --
no vampire spawn could cast spells. They're monsters, not templates, so they don't keep abilities they had in life.
So if he was spellcasting at all (maybe the other players mistook energy draining-slam attacks for
harm?), it was a full-on vampire. And a full-on 11th level cleric vampire should not have been that easy a victim for a druid 8-10.
Again, though, maybe the other players misunderstood the guy's abilities.
(Can you tell I just wrote an adventure that featured several vampire spawn & a vampire?
)
As for the GM using Craer's PC like that -- maybe he didn't understand that you wanted to bring the character back? Of course, even if true, he still should've asked first ("Hey, your character is an NPC; is it okay if, ah, do horrible, evil things to him? All in the name of fun, of course!").
I like the "No, wait! It was a flunky who was made to look like Ghoulflayer! The real Ghoulflayer must be prisoner somewhere." option. If Craer's GM happens to be reading this, you should use this idea.