Would a new vampire spawn or vampire want to be turned back alive?

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Lets say a pc became a vampire spawn or even vampire in battle.

I read the bit about memory loss but with the attachment thing it seems more like life becoming a distant memory.

Almost immediately after getting free will what is the common lore for if the how the player would act? Would the former PC fight their party, just not want killed, want to be turned back or what?

[ProsecutorGodot]

Firstly, gaining your free will as a vampire spawn doesn't revert your alignment back to what it was previously. You are still a lawful evil undead creature and you would take actions as such. There's also the caveat that it's not technically possible for a creature to become a vampire spawn in the middle of battle as it requires at least one night to pass before the corpse raises as a vampire spawn.

With that said, there's no good answer as it depends entirely on the context of the situation. I assume the most common result is that, being a lawful evil undead, you continue to do the evil things you need to do to maintain your undeath, which is drinking the blood of the living. If that source happens to be your friends, you'd be more likely to attempt to deceive them and drink their blood than turn yourself in for a chance at resurrection.

This topic has actually been explored pretty thoroughly in the Webcomic tied to this very site, The Order of the Stick. An entire Arc of the story revolves around a core character being made into a vampire and what happens afterwards.

[Eriol]

ProsecurtorGodot, I respectfully disagree. I don't think the comic is a good way of exploring this, given the twists that have happened post-vampire.

As for a PC, race does not dictate alignment, which is what a condition like this would be. Extra compulsions to fight against and/or need to channel to productive ends? Absolutely. But once given Free Will back, with a decent amount of memories, their alignment is exactly what it was. Whether that compels them to ask to be killed immediately (believe themselves to be too much of a risk, or an abomination by existence alone), or is a strong motivator for a cure, or a "meh, I'm good being a vamp, cool powers!" is up to them, and then up to the other PCs with how they react.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

ProsecurtorGodot, I respectfully disagree. I don't think the comic is a good way of exploring this, given the twists that have happened post-vampire.

As for a PC, race does not dictate alignment, which is what a condition like this would be. Extra compulsions to fight against and/or need to channel to productive ends? Absolutely. But once given Free Will back, with a decent amount of memories, their alignment is exactly what it was. Whether that compels them to ask to be killed immediately (believe themselves to be too much of a risk, or an abomination by existence alone), or is a strong motivator for a cure, or a "meh, I'm good being a vamp, cool powers!" is up to them, and then up to the other PCs with how they react.

I kind of like this and in fact am working up an idea for an NPC who was an aging person who wanted to be eternally young, but is now a vampire of increasing bitterness.

I'm imagining role playing the whole gamut of emotions a PC charmed by a vampire then turned by the vampire then given free will as a spawn after the vampire is killed would go through.

[ProsecutorGodot]

ProsecurtorGodot, I respectfully disagree. I don't think the comic is a good way of exploring this, given the twists that have happened post-vampire.

As for a PC, race does not dictate alignment, which is what a condition like this would be. Extra compulsions to fight against and/or need to channel to productive ends? Absolutely. But once given Free Will back, with a decent amount of memories, their alignment is exactly what it was. Whether that compels them to ask to be killed immediately (believe themselves to be too much of a risk, or an abomination by existence alone), or is a strong motivator for a cure, or a "meh, I'm good being a vamp, cool powers!" is up to them, and then up to the other PCs with how they react.

Quoted from the Monster Manual:

PLAYER CHARACTERS AS VAMPIRES

The game statistics of a player character transformed into a vampire spawn and then a vampire don’t change, except that the character’s Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores become 18 if they aren’t higher. In addition, the character gains the vampire’s damage resistances, darkvision, traits, and actions. Attack and damage rolls for the vampire’s attacks are based on Strength. The save DC for Charm is 8 + the vampire’s proficiency bonus + the vampire’s Charisma modifier. The character’s alignment becomes lawful evil, and the DM might take control of the character until the vampirism is reversed with a wish spell or the character is killed and brought back to life.

Your alignment is lawful evil until you are cured of your vampirism, which can only be done via wish or being revived. It's worth noting that when a Vampire is truly killed, their body is destroyed, meaning that only True Resurrection can restore them. Vampire Spawn leave room for argument on whether the body is destroyed or not, except when they are staked through the heart. Even more contentious is whether or not Revivify would be sufficient to raise them as a living humanoid or if they would raise as a Vampire Spawn, RAI and RAW disagree in this case.

In the case of being a Vampire, your free will is not the same as your alignment. Where your alignment would normally be defined by your actions (in an ideal interpretation of the game system) you are locked into be a lawful evil undead as a vampire, so instead your actions are defined by your alignment. You are lawful evil, and you require the blood of the living to sustain yourself. If your very survival depends on drinking the blood of your friends to survive the nicest thing you'll probably do is bargain for only taking some of their blood, while secretly plotting behind them to enthrall them and take the rest.

The longer you remain a Vampire, the more twisted your view of your friends becomes until eventually you don't see them as your friends, but as disposable blood bags.

[Laserlight]

Almost immediately after getting free will what is the common lore for if the how the player would act? Would the former PC fight their party, just not want killed, want to be turned back or what?

My take on Common Lore is that the vamp would certainly not want to be turned back. He probably wouldn't fight the party unless he had to; however, if the PCs are the only (or easiest) food around, he would.

[Eriol]

Your alignment is lawful evil until you are cured of your vampirism, which can only be done via wish or being revived. It's worth noting that when a Vampire is truly killed, their body is destroyed, meaning that only True Resurrection can restore them. Vampire Spawn leave room for argument on whether the body is destroyed or not, except when they are staked through the heart. Even more contentious is whether or not Revivify would be sufficient to raise them as a living humanoid or if they would raise as a Vampire Spawn, RAI and RAW disagree in this case.

In the case of being a Vampire, your free will is not the same as your alignment. Where your alignment would normally be defined by your actions (in an ideal interpretation of the game system) you are locked into be a lawful evil undead as a vampire, so instead your actions are defined by your alignment. You are lawful evil, and you require the blood of the living to sustain yourself. If your very survival depends on drinking the blood of your friends to survive the nicest thing you'll probably do is bargain for only taking some of their blood, while secretly plotting behind them to enthrall them and take the rest.

The longer you remain a Vampire, the more twisted your view of your friends becomes until eventually you don't see them as your friends, but as disposable blood bags.
OK, I didn't know that the RAW was that restrictive on it. I disagree with how quickly they would necessarily bloodlust (evil doesn't necessarily mean stupid), but the flavor text from the book definitely says how it affects you mentally, going far beyond what some Lawful Evil PCs I've seen around (and played as well) go for in the "twisted" category.

Or the DM could be more free-form with what they allow to happen. I'm for more of a "the player has to be OK with it" kind of thing, but the MM does say the DM could take control. So it's "like" the PC is dead... kinda.

[ProsecutorGodot]

OK, I didn't know that the RAW was that restrictive on it. I disagree with how quickly they would necessarily bloodlust (evil doesn't necessarily mean stupid), but the flavor text from the book definitely says how it affects you mentally, going far beyond what some Lawful Evil PCs I've seen around (and played as well) go for in the "twisted" category.

Or the DM could be more free-form with what they allow to happen. I'm for more of a "the player has to be OK with it" kind of thing, but the MM does say the DM could take control. So it's "like" the PC is dead... kinda.

It's generally very difficult for a player to properly roleplay a transition from being a part of the team to being an evil undead who could try to drain the life out of you given enough time to stew. I would encourage a DM to take away control of a character who has been corrupted in this way, at most allowing them some time before the effects become too much of a hindrance.

Vampires are a special breed, and vampirism as a whole is debilitating. Historically in DND, there are instances of vampirism completely dominating good people. The White Plume Mountain adventure features Whelm, a sentient weapon created to protect the Dwarves, even more specifically the Dankil clan that forged it. A valiant noble dwarf named Ctenmiir acquired the weapon but was turned into a vampire and was able to use it to slaughter a multitude of dwarves against it's wishes, even killing members of the his own clan. If a Dwarf can be swayed into having a complete disregard for their own clan that's surely telling of how terrible an affliction vampirism can be.

In fact, this draws some pretty neat parallels to Order of the Stick's interpretation of vampirism.
Vampirism is hardcore, most would consider it worse than death.

[Angelalex242]

Well, I think the PC here might be hoping to go the Angel/Spike/Damon/Stefan/Bill/Eric/you get the idea.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire

Then again, Angel has been turned human again twice and wasn't fond of it either time.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

It's generally very difficult for a player to properly roleplay a transition from being a part of the team to being an evil undead who could try to drain the life out of you given enough time to stew. I would encourage a DM to take away control of a character who has been corrupted in this way, at most allowing them some time before the effects become too much of a hindrance.

Vampires are a special breed, and vampirism as a whole is debilitating. Historically in DND, there are instances of vampirism completely dominating good people. The White Plume Mountain adventure features Whelm, a weapon created to protect the Dwarves, even more specifically the Dankil clan that forged it. A valiant noble dwarf named Ctenmiir acquired the weapon but was turned into a vampire and was able to use it to slaughter a multitude of dwarves against it's wishes, even killing members of the his own clan. If a Dwarf can be swayed into having a complete disregard for their own clan that's surely telling of how terrible an affliction vampirism can be.
Vampirism is hardcore, most would consider it worse than death.

A timely example, I just read White Plume Mountain as a group I DM might just be heading there.

Back a few years ago I roleplayed a character who was taken over by a ghost or something similar and was forced to attack the party. It went pretty well and the party was impressed by the power of my Bard. They did solve the situation by waterboarding my poor 9 strength elf to near death before whatever it was that possessed me fled for stronger pastures. Some of the other players in similar situations have shined or done poorly though so I understand.

Since I've DM'ed a bit and as long as I can figure out what degree of control or personality effects I think I can pull it off.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Well, I think the PC here might be hoping to go the Angel/Spike/Damon/Stefan/Bill/Eric/you get the idea.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire

Then again, Angel has been turned human again twice and wasn't fond of it either time.

I know I'm being strict about it in regards to the DND lore, but the interpretation of some Vampires in television are pretty enjoyable. Being Human had some of my favorite alternative takes on stereotypically evil fantasy creatures.

Coincidentally, Sam Witwer who played Aidan on the series has writing credits for the new Art and Arcana book that was published. He's a huge dungeons and dragons fan.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Quoted from the Monster Manual:


Your alignment is lawful evil until you are cured of your vampirism, which can only be done via wish or being revived. It's worth noting that when a Vampire is truly killed, their body is destroyed, meaning that only True Resurrection can restore them. Vampire Spawn leave room for argument on whether the body is destroyed or not, except when they are staked through the heart. Even more contentious is whether or not Revivify would be sufficient to raise them as a living humanoid or if they would raise as a Vampire Spawn, RAI and RAW disagree in this case.

In the case of being a Vampire, your free will is not the same as your alignment. Where your alignment would normally be defined by your actions (in an ideal interpretation of the game system) you are locked into be a lawful evil undead as a vampire, so instead your actions are defined by your alignment. You are lawful evil, and you require the blood of the living to sustain yourself. If your very survival depends on drinking the blood of your friends to survive the nicest thing you'll probably do is bargain for only taking some of their blood, while secretly plotting behind them to enthrall them and take the rest.

The longer you remain a Vampire, the more twisted your view of your friends becomes until eventually you don't see them as your friends, but as disposable blood bags.

You forget the Lawful part, he may be evil or Evil, but he is still Lawful.
He have no reason to betray his party, maybe he will act in a way that will hurt them mentally (a lot of people have hard time with torture and murder and other evil stuff that I forget how to write).

The party may want him out because he do a lot of bad stuff.

If he have any intelligent or wisdom he may know that killing his friends will be inefficient as he will lose refilling blood bags(if they have any healing they will be better blood bags).

[Sigreid]

This is a DM thing. If he's generous with the idea of the player getting their character back, he can take decide that the character has a little bit of time to seek redemption before he's fully corrupted by the curse. If he wants it to be harder to get the character back, perhaps to discourage recklessness in the future he can either take over the character and have it resist or tell the player to resist to his utmost.

I'd make the party work to get him back, personally.

[ProsecutorGodot]

You forget the Lawful part, he may be evil or Evil, but he is still Lawful.
He have no reason to betray his party, maybe he will act in a way that will hurt them mentally (a lot of people have hard time with torture and murder and other evil stuff that I forget how to write).
He has no reason to betray them initially but it's important to remember that Vampirism erodes your mind, if you even remember how you were before you become a vampire. There will come a point where your loyalty will fall away into distrust and paranoia. For context, Devils are Lawful Evil and they live off a hierarchy of slavery and the constant threat of treachery from their own kind.

And like I said, a group trying to make it work might willingly allow their now vampire ally to feed on them so that they're able to sate the vampires thirst. This is only delaying the inevitable betrayal, they're doomed to become detached and resentful unless you cure them.

I'm making these comments under the assumption that the PC becomes a full vampire, since there are no rules for allowing them to play vampire spawn, so they would likely plan to charm their former allies into becoming willful blood bags than kill them. They only really need to charm one person anyway.

[SociopathFriend]

I don't remember where it's from but one of the forum posters once showed a passage that more or less stated Vampirism would turn you into a mockery of yourself- a twisted reflection of who you were because it's not "you" in the body anymore but basically an undead entity that happens to be just like you, walk like you, talk like you, dooOOoo... (sorry)

So if you didn't WANT to be a man-killing monster that feeds on the living when you were alive- Vampirism would twist that into you loving your new life and even enjoying the death you deal to continue your unlife.

Ironically if true and taken in the right way, the only Vampire that would want to stop being a Vampire would be someone who WANTED to be a Vampire when alive; because his desire would be perverted to its opposite.

[Unoriginal]

ProsecurtorGodot, I respectfully disagree. I don't think the comic is a good way of exploring this, given the twists that have happened post-vampire.

As for a PC, race does not dictate alignment, which is what a condition like this would be. Extra compulsions to fight against and/or need to channel to productive ends? Absolutely. But once given Free Will back, with a decent amount of memories, their alignment is exactly what it was. Whether that compels them to ask to be killed immediately (believe themselves to be too much of a risk, or an abomination by existence alone), or is a strong motivator for a cure, or a "meh, I'm good being a vamp, cool powers!" is up to them, and then up to the other PCs with how they react.

There is one huge mistake in what you say here:

A vampire might have some elements similar to the ones of the creature they were created from, but they are NOT this creature.

A vampire created from an adventurer is a different character than the adventurer. And a thoroughly evil one.

[Unoriginal]

I don't remember where it's from but one of the forum posters once showed a passage that more or less stated Vampirism would turn you into a mockery of yourself- a twisted reflection of who you were because it's not "you" in the body anymore but basically an undead entity that happens to be just like you, walk like you, talk like you, dooOOoo... (sorry)

So if you didn't WANT to be a man-killing monster that feeds on the living when you were alive- Vampirism would twist that into you loving your new life and even enjoying the death you deal to continue your unlife.

Ironically if true and taken in the right way, the only Vampire that would want to stop being a Vampire would be someone who WANTED to be a Vampire when alive; because his desire would be perverted to its opposite.

It's from the Monster Manual.

I don't get where people got the "slowly erode your mind" thing, the MM is quite clear the transformation is immediate.

[ProsecutorGodot]

It's from the Monster Manual.

I don't get where people got the "slowly erode your mind" thing, the MM is quite clear the transformation is immediate.

I suppose it's up for interpretation as far as this goes

"Whether or not a vampire retains any memories from its former life, its emotional attachments wither as once-pure feelings become twisted by undeath."
"wither" and "become twisted" don't have to mean immediate from my point of view. Strictly by definition, they aren't immediate.

It's even mentioned in the anecdote about Strahd that his mental state has only become worse with time, implying that all of the emotional changes aren't strictly immediate but ongoing. At the very least, you are immediately Evil and would act according to your own best interests.

[SociopathFriend]

I suppose it's up for interpretation as far as this goes

"wither" and "become twisted" don't have to mean immediate from my point of view. Strictly by definition, they aren't immediate.

It's even mentioned in the anecdote about Strahd that his mental state has only become worse with time, implying that all of the emotional changes aren't strictly immediate but ongoing. At the very least, you are immediately Evil and would act according to your own best interests.

To be fair, Strahd is not the 'typical' vampire. One imagines at least slightly that his realm had some partial effect on him.
Also just because you're a vampire doesn't suddenly mean you don't have a mental state to begin with. You can still go crazy and the like.

[Angelalex242]

Well...

If we take a look at TV vampires again...(I'll stick with Buffy)

The Master was Lawful Evil. He treated his underlings as a 'family', but could and would maim/kill them if they screwed up.

Darla was Neutral Evil, with the Law/Chaos axis influenced by whether she was hanging with the Master or Angelus.

Angelus is Chaotic Evil with Vile Feats if it were 3.5. Dude is humanity free and 'beyond the pale' evil. This is the sort of vampire who'd have Strahd himself wondering if he went too over the top with the evil.

Angel is what happens when you hit Angelus with a Curse of Opposite Alignment (and a healthy helping of guilt, and an escape clause that turns him Angelus again if he's truly happy)

Drusilla is also Chaotic Evil, but she's also certifiably insane. Like, cuckoo for cocoa puffs insane.

Spike is Chaotic Neutral who's easily influenced into Evil by Angelus or even Drusilla. Also easily influenced good by Buffy.

[Ganymede]

Ask your DM (or, if you don't like what your DM says, ask a D&D forum, print out the results, and shove it in your DM's face).