Evil cleric posing as neutral or even a good cleric

[iwatt]

If you want to do something a little different and more confusing, try giving him a saintly sidekick or "spouse" that accompanies him everywhere with a Misdirection spell always cast between them so that the evil SOB detects as a saint. Why would the saint help them? Either the saint is naive and misled, blind with love, is being mind controlled but they provide the cover.

I LIKE this .

A high charisma bard/vampire ..... has the saintly wife with him.... voila...

 

[Glyfair]

Although this doesn't necessarily apply to your world, this works very well in Eberron. Eberron dispenses with the alignment requirement to worship a god (corrupt priests and all).

However, because of the wording of the cleric class, a Chaotic Evil cleric who worships a Lawful Good god, detects as Lawful and Good. There are other issues with this (for example, Keith Baker believes that the CE cleric has to believe he's following the gods wishes i.e. he has to have faith).

 

[Sir ThornCrest]

walla,no?

I LIKE this .

A high charisma bard/vampire ..... has the saintly wife with him.... voila...

 

[fafhrd]

try giving him a saintly sidekick

Anyone else find this hilarious given previous discussions of said vampire lord?

 

[Sir ThornCrest]

I have a total of 6 vampire lords to make, this just being one of them.l

Anyone else find this hilarious given previous discussions of said vampire lord?

 

[Saeviomagy]

You could always have him TELL the church that he's undead. Then mislead the alignment divinations.

His story: He was a great crusader for the church, he went off, got unfortunately taken by a vampire, but fought off control and killed the beast. Upon returning, he seems to be the same guy, he's still got his divine powers, he still detects as good. He just happened to have the unfortunate lot of being turned into a vampire.

So - the big guys in the church hail him as a hero, despite his undead status. Maybe there are factions in the church that still distrust him, just because he's undead. Try to play off these factions as irrational and looney, and have the main church heirarchy do so too.

 

[Eremite]

anks for the grammar lesson....

You're welcome. Actually, don't take it that way: you've mentioned in other threads that you have found the posters here hostile and I think part of that is that you don't communicate clearly (and please don't blame this on being Australian as I will take issue with that...).

This term politically affluent is commonly used in conversations, speeches seen on TV or heard on the radio...."basically meaning you’re well endowed with political knowledge"

OK, it seems it's an expression of American English that has appeared in the past couple of years (44 hits on Google).

Anyway, back to the actual campaign. Are you going to post any information on the good and evil religions in your game?

 

[Voadam]

You could always have him TELL the church that he's undead. Then mislead the alignment divinations.

His story: He was a great crusader for the church, he went off, got unfortunately taken by a vampire, but fought off control and killed the beast. Upon returning, he seems to be the same guy, he's still got his divine powers, he still detects as good. He just happened to have the unfortunate lot of being turned into a vampire.

So - the big guys in the church hail him as a hero, despite his undead status. Maybe there are factions in the church that still distrust him, just because he's undead. Try to play off these factions as irrational and looney, and have the main church heirarchy do so too.

Misleading the alignement after saying he is undead is unnecessary. All undead detect as evil for detect evil in RAW, even neutral or good ones. So he just has to say he is neutral and avoid the lie detection spells.

 

[Sir ThornCrest]

The local population on the edge of a huge thriving metropolitan area at least 100,000 or more (enter suggestion of city here?) will be dominantly neutral humans with the minority openly & consistently worshipping Pelor, not to huge of a loyal following. Grandwood (local Elvin forest) has a few thousand elves that worship their races dominate god, and are lead by the minority elitist lore master Grey Elves. The Grey elves (in this campaign) are headstrong, stubborn and consider themselves superior to other elves and especially to humans...as a result nobody really likes them they tend to be the target of ridicule.

Ok so I got the idea from this thread to have the vampire lord already in power in the community, a real hands on likable fellow. Perhaps a noble baron of the lands? Elected representative senator to the kingdoms? Suggestions?

Possible scenarios
1) A sythe like vibe from star wars, have him tempted by the darkside (evil god?) and lured into being evil and eventually to undead “dom" & to the vampire lord maybe a former paladin, or like good doer?

2) he's a victim of an attack and has been hiding his problem via magic, his own or someone else? and social skill. He may hate his affliction disease and is searching for a cure....some people obviously will have to be killed on the way but he will justify any and all of his attacks as being necessary for the greater good.

3) The embodiment of evil, a guy who is so twisted in black arts that he was turned into a vampire thru the black arts and ritual. He uses his position to promote as much warfare death and destruction as possible, all the while with an innocent smile.
4) other....suggestions?

EDIT: This guy will have to be half elf as the vamp lord has a prereq of 100 years, and it would fit in with the local pop.
Thorncrest

 

[kenobi65]

Interesting that you mention Star Wars and the Sith, Sir T. Honestly, this guy reminds me of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, managing to "hide in plain sight" as a Sith Lord while leading the Senate of the Republic.

Misdirection (by magical and diplomatic means) is the key here. Have him work through flunkies. In fact, it'd seem to be in character for him to set up such flunkies as being the more obvious sources of the troubles he's causing, while he acts as the puppeteer behind the scenes.