Ideas for a cleric of nerull build

[King of Nowhere]

In a few weeks, the high priest of nerull will take an active role in my campaign. Time to stat him.
I've made a lot of clerics over the years, but they were all kinda generic; full caster cleric, spams save or die, or maybe heals and buff. I'm looking for some more original idea.

what I have established about him so far:
- halfling
- extremely strong (level 20)
- accomplished researcher (so should be cloistered cleric)
- equivalent to 40-45 human years (one aging modifier)
- fanatically devoted to nerull, he's happy whenever some dies, somewhere.

so the start is cloistered cleric, specialized as full caster. I also established his own party includes a wizard specialized in defence, so this cleric is probably more offensive.

any suggestion for something i can do with him that's different from "just another high level cleric"?

[Particle_Man]

Thematically Master of Shrouds could work. Usually people go for early entry but if you are already level 20 then that doesn’t matter. You do lose one caster level, however (although your rebuke undead stays current).

[Telonius]

Okay, concept out of left field here. Play him as a charismatic funeral director - Mutliclass Bard, with a modified "Initiate of Milil" feat (houseruled to allow worshipers of Nerull). Hymnist feat. So basically just one level of Bard, then Cleric afterwards. This will work best if he's encountered as part of a group, not a one-on-one battle. He'd need acolytes.

[Anthrowhale]

It may be overpowered, but Persistent Spell[Consumptive Field, Greater Consumptive Field] and then using Blasphemy seems consistent with Nerull. The two persistent spells, used appropriately, can double effective caster level to 40, so Blasphemy is an automatic kill for anything unprotected with 30HD or less. You can also leverage the high caster level via the Spell Resistance spell, or (more esoterically) Persistent[Skin of the Steel Dragon].

Looking into domains, Fate has good high level spells (Mindblank and Foresight). The ability to spontaneously cast Shadow spells is super-adaptable. The Winter Domain enables Snowsight+Obscuring Snow. Trickery enables Polymorph Any Object. And, you can easily switch between domains using Substitute Domain.

[Beni-Kujaku]

It may be overpowered, but Persistent Spell[Consumptive Field, Greater Consumptive Field] and then using Blasphemy seems consistent with Nerull. The two persistent spells, used appropriately, can double effective caster level to 40, so Blasphemy is an automatic kill for anything unprotected with 30HD or less. You can also leverage the high caster level via the Spell Resistance spell, or (more esoterically) Persistent[Skin of the Steel Dragon].

Looking into domains, Fate has good high level spells (Mindblank and Foresight). The ability to spontaneously cast Shadow spells is super-adaptable. The Winter Domain enables Snowsight+Obscuring Snow. Trickery enables Polymorph Any Object. And, you can easily switch between domains using Substitute Domain.

I absolutely second this idea. Nothing screams "cleric of Nerull" like people dying around it as soon as they're a bit weakened, and him being empowered by it. Blasphemy is extremely strong and very relevant, but I don't think it makes for a good boss fight, since the PCs will simply die during the first round of encounter. Except if they're not supposed to fight him. In that case, absolutely do use Blasphemy.

Nerull is also (mainly, I would say) the god of undead. If your cleric doesn't have at least three of those with him, then he failed. Divine energy focus and a few items including a rod of defiance and you should be able to get to effective turning level 30. And if you can homebrew an Evil version of Light of Wisdom (Darkness of Intelligence?), that comboes very well with GCF for a total of around level 45 turning. Surround yourself with tome dragon spectral mages (6 touch paralysis attacks per round), with charnel hounds, with juju zombies of White Raven warblades, and ride a Blackwing in battle. Yes, all of these can be created by Create (Greater) Undead. And if you allow for level 21, take Undead Mastery (no, not Epic Spellcasting. Even as the DM, you don't want to deal with that, and Quickened Blasphemy is almost memento mori anyway). If you have a few feats left, then the Corpsecrafter line is always welcome.

I don't think you should be a lich. It would probably be more impactful if it was a living being that controls all these undead.

[King of Nowhere]

blasphemy (and its equivalent holy word and such) are banned at my table, due to being no-save lose effect.
consumptive field would be available (though caster level stacking is nerfed), but it's kinda underwhelming. I mean, the usual mean is to feed chickens to the spell. So, this cleric enters the fight and... pulls out a herd of chicken from a bag of holding... and the chicken die, while he screams "power overwhelming!"... no, I can't take him seriously (persistomancy is also banned, so no casting consumptive field and having it up all day)
I could devise a modified version where he would sacrifice his own people for power, maybe.

as for undead, i was already taking for granted that the nerullian army would have several high powered undead. This villain may have a single one as mount, but i'd rather limit the number of pets, as part of the table agreements; else the druid could bring in a ton of summoned creature, the wizard would be accompanied by a handful of simulacra, and the whole party would also bring several allies, and all it would happen would be cluttering of the table. and if that has to happen, i'd rather just handwave that minions and pets fight each other and focus on the VIPs.
Fighting powerful undead will certainly be included - I will have to look those up.
Perhaps the nerull party fighter could be replaced with some kind of undead brute.

finally, i'd rather keep all those undead mindless; the previous campaign involved the lich cleric of vecna and his lich army, I'd rather do something different here. When nerull really wants to keep some high level minion handy for the future, he just asks the minion to die. they keep scrolls of true resurrection and their equipment in the main vault of nerull for when those champions are needed.

finally-finally, I take the chance for a tangential question. Already at low level the party wizard was able to take control of a powerful undead with the command undead spell, which has no saving throw and is level 2. If I want to introduce fights with powerful undead, how do I prevent the party wizard from snatching them up so easily? (in retrospect, i should have banned the spell; second level, no save, you can control minion much more powerful than you with no limits? how did it fly past the playtesters?)

[liquidformat]

I mean you could go more of a melee route and do a crusader/cloistered cleric/Death Knight Slaughterer (Nerull version of Ruby Knight Vindicator) Build though without persist that is a lot less powerful. If he wasn't a halfling doing a tripper build with above buildout would be quite amusing, even as a halfling it is still viable just not as powerful.

Alternatively if you could do a... I think its called Jack Frost build? where you stack Walker in the Waste with Winterhaunt (Reskinning from Iborighu to Nerull) That could be a lot of fun and your 'Defensive' Wizard into a Lord of the Uttercold build. Though that combo might work better when you want to bring out your big gun undead...

[Beni-Kujaku]

We don't take consumptive field for power (although power is always nice). We take consumptive field for the utter fear it instills in our enemies!! Mwahahahahaha!!!

If you don't want any persistomancy, and no SoD, may I recommand you the build of a cleric of Nerull I had as an NPC in one campaign: Cleric 9/Runecaster 8 (he was also a reassigned-LA vampire, but apart from fluff, it's not necessary. In fact, nothing is really necessary beyond cleric 5/runecaster 8, so you can compete as you wish). He used the permanent "when passed" runes to have a lot of spells active at the same time on himself. The first rune he created was a rune of Greater Anyspell using manuals of enlightenement to get access to the Magic Domain just the time to create the rune. After that, he could use the rune to create other runes of any spell lower than 6th level. He had one of his eyes removed and replaced with a tiny globe composed of hundreds of tiny diamonds. Each diamond contains a rune, which are "passed" everytime he blinked. He liked to use a spell-storing scythe to put a greater curse in each of his blows. Or, if he is confident he can hit the enemy twice in a row, cause fear in each blow. No need for a save, they'll be at least frightened.

[King of Nowhere]

Alternatively if you could do a... I think its called Jack Frost build? where you stack Walker in the Waste with Winterhaunt (Reskinning from Iborighu to Nerull) That could be a lot of fun and your 'Defensive' Wizard into a Lord of the Uttercold build.

how... how are that supposed to work?
i checked both classes, i see nothing special in either. walker in the waste gives up two cleric spellcasting levels for a few static bonuses and becoming a dry lich (i don't want to make a lich for story reasons).
the winterhaunt only real boost i see is the permanent piercing cold, it could get very useful for a blaster wizard who would get to use cold damage and ignore immunities. but i see nothing of value for a cleric.

what am i missing?

[Anthrowhale]

One other thought is that since Nerull has a scythe for a favored weapon, you could add Vorpal to it and use Surge of Fortune + Sense Weakness to lop off heads. The toned down version of this would just use the x4 crit multiplier with maximum 2-handed power attack.

[King of Nowhere]

Okay, concept out of left field here. Play him as a charismatic funeral director - Mutliclass Bard, with a modified "Initiate of Milil" feat (houseruled to allow worshipers of Nerull). Hymnist feat. So basically just one level of Bard, then Cleric afterwards. This will work best if he's encountered as part of a group, not a one-on-one battle. He'd need acolytes.

i actually like that idea, and it would fit the character.
but, if i read the rules correctly, it's a rather weak option. the initiate feat lets you use advanced bardic music, but not boost the effect per level. so your inspire courage is basically stuck at +1. and every other effect is stuck at single target. the bardic music is basically useless this way.
unless there's some trick to make it useful?

[Troacctid]

Nerull's relics in MIC are both really interesting. Censer of the last breath lets you set up asymmetrical fog effects that you can see through, but others can't. Tabard of the disembodied allows you to become ethereal while still being able to affect creatures on the material plane with your spells. Using either or both of them in a fight basically makes it so that you can mess with them, but they can't mess with you.