Vampire Mage v.s. 1-3 lvl character, Any suggestion?

[Death_Jester]

Greetings All,


In the game I'm getting ready to run one of the planned series of adventures that I have been thinking of is a Vampire Mage. He has been working for a human mage for several years now. When the human mage is away (Seeking Lichdom) he (the vampire) loses several item (books) of the human and now has to compete with the players to get them back.

By the way this is set in the forgotten realms.

My question would is how do I keep him in the shadows and make the adventures exciting for the very low level characters, while definitely giving the impression of a Master vampire behind things? This series should last about 6 to 10 sessions if at all possible.

All I really need are some cool vampire inspired plots to flesh out not full-blown sessions. I just need a little something to get my mental juices flowing.


Oh, and sorry about spamming the boards earlier. I was a little overzealous.

Thanks in advance.

 

[EricNoah]

I see you had a little triple-post problem. I'll delete the others, and we'll keep this one as the "real" thread.

 

[Death_Jester]

Thanks Eric, Sorry about that It seems that everytime I pressed the button it saved the post. Glad you where there looking out.

 

[Death_Jester]

Has anyone expreiminted with useing the Ravenloft style Vampires for the Realms? If so what kind of results did you get from the encounters?

 

[Nifft]

I dunno, dude -- if a Vampire IMC found out that a bunch of 1st-3rd level snacklings were a credible threat, they wouldn't keep their blood for long.

-- N

 

[Nightchilde-2]

How about this...

Instead of directly competing with the PCs, the vampire, seeing them as no threat, actually use them to obtain the items through various agents (most likely dominated and/or charmed ones). People start disappearing wherever the PCs go (victims of the vampire's feeding habits) and occasionally, the PCs run across the dead body of one of the vamps' victims. The vampire remains in the shadows until the PCs have the items in-hand. Still believing them to not be a threat, he attacks and, in typical overzealous baddy style, reveals that he has been manipulating them all this time.

 

[Death_Jester]

The Vampire was badly wounded in a fight with some Adventures (not the players) that stole it treasure,(the thing he is trying to get back from the 1-3rd level players), a collection of books. The vampire was protecting them for his master, a mage on the path to lichdom that is away preparing for the transfermation.

The vampire was badly wounded and it will take a long time for him to recover from his wounds. So he will be working indirectly for the most part until the end of the arc.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Perfect reason for him to be using the PCs, then! He can send them to places that he can't get to (like the local temple or something) or that he might still be too injured to reach safely. After all, the PCs are, to him, expendable and if they die while obtaining an item, he can just go in after he's healed up and take it.

 

[Death_Jester]

Greetings Everyone,

Glad that people are taking a look at this little subject. Does my heart good to know that people are looking this subject. If the vampire is going to be using the players to get the books back what kinds of scenarios could I use for the actual book adventures?

What kinds of books would a Lichdom seeking mage have in his library?

What kinds of adventures would be good for the adventers trying to find the books again?

The books will more then likely be in the hands of random people and in random locations as they (the books) would have been dropped though a portal. The portal would scatter the books and before the players can get to them people or creatures would have picked up the books for one reason or another. So the locations and the hooks will open to the imagination.

By the way the books will be marked with a special mark and the player will have an item to track them down.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Death_Jester]

Sorry about the double post.