another question about undeads

[meltinbradley]

A while ago I posted about Undead PC's. The Lich has been killed. She was killed by a high level Ranger(NPC), A Ghael(NPC) and a 13th level cleric (PC). It was really easy, she was killed in one round as a matter of fact.
Now there is just the vampire who is considering becoming living again. That is one of my questions:
Has anyone ever been in a situation where a vampire was returned to mortal form?
If its something a PC wants to pursue I will definetely allow them to attempt it.
I was thinking, since the vampire has no soul, that the vampire must travel to the Negative Material Plane to find and reclaim his soul, followed by battling his inner self which would be basically fighting himself (but that has been done so many times) Anyone have any ideas? I want to make it interesting and challenging...Thanks. MB

 

[Runestar]

Resurrection would work. Just destroy the vampire and raise him on the spot.

But very anticlimatic...

 

[s-dub]

Maybe a quest where he has to get his soul and purify it by carrying it around and do good deeds?

Or instead he could sacrifice other souls to whomever rules the undead in exchange for his soul back.

 

[meltinbradley]

hey

Lol..Runestar- Yeah, I just checked that out. But like you said, anticlimatic.
S-dub- Yes, I thought of having his soul sent to the negative material plane and then having him retrieve it from there. And right now I just thought of after retriving the soul from the negative plane and returning to the prime, the soul is immediately sucked into the underworld where it is to be judged by the death goddess. Thus requiring him to make a journey to the underworld and deal with Death to regain his soul?
Orcus rules the undead, but this vampire wishes to become good, I dont know if sacrificing other souls to Orcus would make sense, even evil souls. I kind of want to make it more personal for the character...
Anything is appreciated though, thanks fellahs. MB
Any other ideas would be greatly welcome...

 

[Animal]

i had almost similiar occurence in one of my own campaigns. only the PC was turned into a vampire involuntary. you might not like my ruling because it's not RAW, but the player seemed to like it a lot. so here goes.
vampirism IMC is not a desease and not actually a curse. to become a vampire one has to perform a ritual of summoning a powerful demonic being into the world. and to offer his soul in exchange for great power and limitless life. so basicly vampires are corrupted people who signed a pact with a mighty demon or victims of dark rituals possessed by a demon without their consent. one of my PCs was turned into vampire for a brief period of time but he managed to preserve his identity and at one point he overcame the will of a demonic essense in him. afraid that the demon might subdue him again he found his ex-friends and managed to tell them how his curse may be dispelled. but right after that the demon woke from his slumber and took control, a short battle ensued and he retreated.
the rest of the party went on with the quest - gathering rare components, finding a powerful enough exorcist, clearing out an ancient holy ground from taint to perform a ritual. at the same time the possessed PC, driven by a demon, was their arch-nemesis during this quest, ever trying to stop them from banishing him. finally everything was set and they caught the vampire at last, but after the ritual the demon wasn't banished into abyss at once. he was so powerful that he managed to assume a half-material form (something like a shadow-body) and linger on the mortal plane. even now he is the worst nightmare of that poor PC. but not only he haunts the PC in his sleep, due to his semi-material body he can still interact with the real world plotting and scheming against the PCs to return into that body again.
something along the lines of the Shade haunting and chasing Ged from the "Wizard of the Earthsea".

what i and my players liked most in this quest was the possibility to have players work against each other and actually try to kill each other for a few sessions without any hard feelings afterwards.
also the Shadow - a demonic recurring villain. one of my favourite villains in the campaign - his goals were very clear and credible, his personality quite rich for roleplaying and his hatred to PCs natural, enormous and very personal.

 

[meltinbradley]

hey

Animal, I like your idea. I would of course have to tweek somethings. But I may use some of your ideas. In my campaign, its pretty much the typical vampire, even though I like the demon idea. But requiring a ritual also isnt a bad idea so that I can include the other pc's. I think I have had enough infghting within the group. I run a fairely evil/neutral campaign. The chaotic evil lich just got destroyed because she played a really good chaotic evil character. Only 1 of the PC's entered the battle while the other PC's watched and let it happen. None were sad to see her go.

 

[irdeggman]

While resurrection is the easiest way - a wish spell would likewise work and is much easier to incorporate into a story arc, IMO.

Seeking the all powerful wizard of Oz to remove the affliction of the poor tortured undead creature.

Something from Angel might be dramatic too. You could start with him re-acquiring his soul and having to live with that for a while, attempting to undo the evil he has performed as a repentence.

You might want to use the Savage Progressions level progression in reverse to document the transformation. Remember that there is a huge reverse LA adjustment involved in losing the vampire template - that is to say there is a corresponding xp loss to account for this change. Unearthed arcana has a system for buying back LA, which is another possibility to use a basis for game mechanics.

 

[Runestar]

In tome of battle, the shadow sun ninja prc has a brief entry about how said ninjas turned into vampires via their capstone ability have their souls captured by Dispater. A brief raid into a layer of hell might work...

 

[meltinbradley]

hey

Runestar- I have the tomb of battle...I will look into that. Thanks.
irdeggman- Now I am no expert in Angel, but my room mate did make me watch the last season....and I dont remember him ever getting his soul back. Did I miss something? Also the its the vampire spawn template so there is no LA. Sorry for not stating that. I still think a lot in 2nd edition.

 

[irdeggman]

Runestar- I have the tomb of battle...I will look into that. Thanks.
irdeggman- Now I am no expert in Angel, but my room mate did make me watch the last season....and I dont remember him ever getting his soul back. Did I miss something? Also the its the vampire spawn template so there is no LA. Sorry for not stating that. I still think a lot in 2nd edition.

Angel was cursed as a vampire with his soul - which is why he was "special" and "good". He had to remember all of the evil things he did before he was "cursed" as torture.

There were several episodes where he lost his soul though.