Creepy Girl (my players stay out)

[Mapleaxe]

In one of my upcoming sessions, my players are going to come up against a creepy, Wednesday Addams-type girl who controls/befriends wraiths and spectres. I know that she's some sort of necromancer, but I'm not exactly sure how to model her, if there's some specific alternate class/prestige class/monster/template that models this really well. I need her to fall in the CR 10-11 range. Any ideas?

 

[FrankTrollman]

http://www.scshop.com/~ritaxis/summoner.html

Simply change the allowed creature types to Undead and you'd have a perfectly valid character class from a power perspective. Of course, it would probably be too limited for a player character (you simply don't encounter enough undead in most games for this to be a viable character).

Still, for an NPC who gets an arbitrarily easy time gaining new creatures it would work fine.

-Frank

 

[Shadowwraith]

From Master of Shrouds description (Defenders of the Faith): The master of shrouds is an evil spellcaster who magically seizes incorporeal undead and sets them to do her bidding.

The Master of Shrouds seems like what you may be after. Unfortunately at 10-11 CR the character will most likely be a Clr7/MoS3-4 (due to prerequisites to enter the PrC) which means you will only be able to summon shadows or allips (or vampires/ghosts of the right CR). A 5th level Master of Shrouds will be able to summon wraiths, and a 7th level Master will be able to summon spectres.

If you have access to Savage Species or the Dragon Magazines which features undeads as templates, you can probably treat wraiths the way vampires/ghosts are treated now.

 

[Mapleaxe]

I'll have to check out the Master of Shrouds. For an NPC, especially a "concept NPC" like this, I won't necessarily follow the prereqs, so I might advance here in MoS earlier, but either way, it sounds like a good start. Thanks.

 

[Shadowwraith]

I would be happy to get some more information about this girl. Why does she befriend the dead (are they the only friends she has ever had). Is she really evil or are people just afraid of her, things like that.

I think it seems like an interesting encounter and may use it myself (if you don't mind).

If you don't want to post here, you can reach me at: samwise2000@hotmail.com

 

[Mapleaxe]

I would be happy to get some more information about this girl. Why does she befriend the dead (are they the only friends she has ever had). Is she really evil or are people just afraid of her, things like that.

I think it seems like an interesting encounter and may use it myself (if you don't mind).

If you don't want to post here, you can reach me at: samwise2000@hotmail.com

Definitely Evil with a capital E. There's nothing scarier than a genuinely evil child.

Haven't really come up with any sort of backstory yet; she's mostly just set dressing/creepy encounter. She's loosely aligned with the BBEG in my campaign and hangs around one of his main fortresses where his minions tend to give her a wide berth. I'm thinking of upping her CR to the 12-13 range and I'll probably model her as a Sorcerer 6/Cleric of Evil God 1/Master of Shrouds 5-6.

 

[Tilla the Hun (work)]

Definitely Evil with a capital E. There's nothing scarier than a genuinely evil child.

Haven't really come up with any sort of backstory yet; she's mostly just set dressing/creepy encounter. She's loosely aligned with the BBEG in my campaign and hangs around one of his main fortresses where his minions tend to give her a wide berth. I'm thinking of upping her CR to the 12-13 range and I'll probably model her as a Sorcerer 6/Cleric of Evil God 1/Master of Shrouds 5-6.

Heh - add in a lessened (or not) vampire template, raised by an elder vamp who was slain by the BBEG (thus, she is friendly to the party) or who was in the service of the BBEG and died. The child knows the BBEG as Grandpa.


Ooo the scary things one could do with that setup I might just steal this idea

 

[der_kluge]

I would think Sorcerer would be the way to go, but it's a fair ways off for control undead.

 

[adwyn]

Here's a quick insight into Players; the scariest things are those that break the rules. Don't give her any more than a few levels of commoner and simply insist the girl has "friends", albeit dead ones. The rules provide a solid framework that the players use to interpret the game world. By occasionally deviating from it you shake up that confidence, and you will find that she is scarier than the BBEG, even if she is not as powerful. Don't worry about how many undead can be summoned, just play up her begging voice as she calls for help and throw as many at the PC's as necessary to make for a good encounter. In this case make inconsistency the key.

 

[Tilla the Hun (work)]

Here's a quick insight into Players; the scariest things are those that break the rules. Don't give her any more than a few levels of commoner and simply insist the girl has "friends", albeit dead ones. The rules provide a solid framework that the players use to interpret the game world. By occasionally deviating from it you shake up that confidence, and you will find that she is scarier than the BBEG, even if she is not as powerful. Don't worry about how many undead can be summoned, just play up her begging voice as she calls for help and throw as many at the PC's as necessary to make for a good encounter. In this case make inconsistency the key.

True dat. In fact, if you blatantly ignore the system and NOT tell your players, they'll often discuss it and come up with better explanations than you could

My old vampire games ran that way - more of off player's suggestions as to what was going on than my own plots Made for some really memorable plot lines that they still fondly recall years later...