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Suggesstions for writing up Dong Zhuo

Epametheus

First Post
The campaign I'll be in this summer is going to be heavily inspired by The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (can be read at http://www.threekingdoms.com). Dong Zhuo was a horribly corrupt minister who deposed and murdered the 2nd-to-last Han emperer of China, set up the last Han emperer as a puppet, and managed to perform a long series of atrocities (which included sacking the capitol) before ultimately being betrayed and murdered by his best warrior, Lu Bu (I'd say best general, but one of Lu Bu's own officers, Zhang Liao, would eventually prove to be a greater general than him, and Dong Zhuo also had a highly skilled civil and military advisor in the form of Li Ru).

Anyways, I want to write up a variant of Dong Zhuo as a major NPC in this campaign (the party won't ever face him, but I want his stats lying around on general principles). What I'm currently thinking is a human with the half-fiend template (there's no visible evidence of what he really is, of course), L15 (not counting ECL for the template), who is excellent at manipulating those around him through non-magical means but also can hold his own in a fight. The simplest thing I can think of is an L11 Rogue/L4 Fighter, but that's not cool, and what I'm after is something cool.

For comparison, Lu Bu actually is written up, and he's a L6 Barbarian/L4 Fighter/L10 Frenzied Berserker (much to the amusement of Neobolts (the head DM for this campaign) and myself, for all practical purposes Lu Bu can't be killed in melee combat) who rides on a Legendary Horse that has maximum hit dice and Horseshoes of Speed.

Equipment is almost irrelevant -- Dong Zhuo has control over the resources of a wealthy, very wide-spread nation, and can pretty much get whatever or whoever he wants. Stats will be arbitrarily assigned (factoring in 1/2 fiend mods, Str 18, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 18 (32 points by point-buy, actually; maybe I should be disturbed that I hit that on the dot without even trying) would be a good sample spread). Alignment is definately Neutral Evil.

One of the running jokes in my group about Dong Zhuo (almost everyone in the group is at least partially familiar with R3K) is that he ate children. This version actually does.

Anyways, thanks in advance for suggestions, and gomen if I've placed this in the wrong forum.
 

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Hmmm---

I always saw Zhou as a more behind the scenes wheeler-dealer myself--more vicious and treacherous then an intelligant man, and more a guy who gets good generals than a warrior himself..

Eh, I'm rambling. Rogue/Necromancer or Wu Jen might be what you're looking for...
 

do you have a playstation 2? if so rent dynasty warriors 3, you can kill him, it's great fun. they made him just another guy with a sword, and there are guys like sima yi and a few others who do have some kind of magical power.
 

Yeah, I have played Dynasty Warriors 3, and a great deal as well. As far as being a swordsman goes, Dong Zhuo possessed the Sword of the Seven Stars, given to him by Cao Cao when Cao Cao changed his mind about assassinated Zhuo at the last minute. One thing of note in the passage is that Zhuo was strong enough that Cao Cao immediately dismissed the notion of killing him head-on, despite the fact that Lord Cao was armed and Dong Zhuo wasn't.

As DW3 can't really cover everything (fun fact: every single playable character in that game is dead before the end of the novel that is the basis of that game), it accelerated some stuff -- such as combining the two battles of He Fei into a single battle -- which includes the whole Dong Zhuo mess: all that actually got accomplished at Hu Lao Gate was that the Oathbrothers stopped Lu Bu from killing anyone important, and Dong Zhuo decided to sack the capitol and leave once Li Ru told him that he wouldn't be able to hold it.

Hmmm... I don't really see Dong Zhuo as a spellcaster, though the option is certainly open. Hell, Neobolts has actually suggested Bard, but I find the notion of Dong Zhuo even possibly singing to be somewhat appalling...
 

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