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Lord Denyuar
2008-11-03, 05:37 PM
Quick question, is there a way for a character to gather a vampire template without actually meeting a vampire. I know I as the DM can just give my cleric NPC the vampire template, but what if it the character would never meet a vampire in his past. Is there a way?

Captain Six
2008-11-03, 06:05 PM
I might be mistaken but didn't Kas of the whole Vecna story become a vampire just by hanging around the Plane of Negative Energy too long? Even if that isn't how it went down too much exposure to Negative Energy might create a tolerance, and then a dependence, and eventually followed by a complete shift in which energy sustains you.

Tadanori Oyama
2008-11-03, 06:07 PM
Make one up.

Most Vampire legends have their origins with divine curses and there's plenty of divine things out there to do the cursing.

Fax Celestis
2008-11-03, 06:09 PM
High level magic can do pretty much anything you want it to.

Keld Denar
2008-11-03, 06:19 PM
Just curious, but why? Cleric tends to be better when you take more levels of it, rather than water it down with other things. If you can become a vamp without any detriment to your character advancement, that's cool. If it adjusts your ECL so that you won't get another level of cleric for like, 8 levels?, than its pretty much not worth it, since you're clerical abilities will be almost worthless next to your vampire abilities, in which case you'd be better off taking something non-spellcaster oriented, like Hexblade or Blackguard for the cha focus.

Just sayin...

Other than that, talk to your DM. Come up with a neato reason like one of the ones above. See if you can slide it in using the Rule of Cool, if that's what appeals to you. If that fails, try tequilia :).

Lord Denyuar
2008-11-04, 10:36 AM
Why? I was thinking of my group (I am the DM) being asked to help locate a missing temple. I star-shaped church that was actually a pretty beautiful but happened to have been abandon for unknown reasons several hundreds of years before. What they realize not was that this church was devoted to demon slaying. However, one of the clerics, after being set against time after time and after being falsely accused and sent away in exile for atonement he discovers that what he has been destroying can be used for power. It wasn't the whole Miko thing where my past fellow church members are wrong, but that they are right and I am different so I will revel in my difference. He knows of the peril of dealing with demons themselves and the threat to his soul with their dealings. He manages to kill and forcibly remove everyone from that church and starts intesively studying demonalogy. However, due to his god stopping the inflow of spells, he has to turn somewhere for his spells. While searching and studying he comes across or creates a way to actually summon and assume complete control of a very powerful demon (I was thinking 20+ hd) but to do so, needs so many souls and sacrifices that he would not have time to do so in this life. So he becomes a vampire, whose base is the catecombs of this temple/church. He seeks and finds a wizard who specializes in demons and summoning and dominates him and eventually wins him over without maintaining domination. The vampire controls the wizard who summons and deals with the demons. As travelers and explorers and adventures travel to the temple. The demons summoned by the wizards destroy and collect the souls for the cleric vamp. It is an elaborate trap and dungeon. The five-star temple is actually due to the tunnels underneath, for a pentagram. and the area desecrated like no other including plaguing nearby wanders with nightmares of slaughters inside a once holy place. My group will be approached my a young ambitious, but pious, cleric to settle a small village around a once holy area and he himself become head of the church/temple. He has no knowledge of why it was abandon, etc. The cleric, knowing the power of divination spells, is acting in the background setting up the wizard, to whom he has promised the way to lichdom (through some of the souls).

Keld Denar
2008-11-04, 11:06 AM
Well, in that case, you are the DM....make the cleric a vampire. Simple as that. If you REALLY need a why, like, if your players ask HOW he became a vamp, just cite one of the reasons above (magic, a wizard did it). Then again, vamp might not be the best idea for a cleric who is conducting magical research due to the whole diet dependance thing. You could just make him a Necropolitan (Libris Mortis: The Book of Bad Latin), and give him Dominate Person(PHB) from a domain (I'm pretty sure there is a domination domain or something similar in Complete Divine). Or just say he researched a clerical version of Dominate Person, or found a demonic artifact that gives him the ability to cast DP with a really high DC, but requires great depravity to activate (plot MacGuffin (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main.MacGuffin)) or source of future adventure via "Destroy the artifact of great [Evil]"

The greatest thing about being a DM is making liberal use of the RuleOfCool (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool) to make things fun and interesting for your PCs.

hamishspence
2008-11-04, 02:44 PM
I kinda liked old 2nd ed idea- vamp has personality, not soul. The Soul is elsewhere as a Crimson death- nasty blood-drinking mist creature. Reunite the two with some McGuffin-esque magic, and the mortal may be restored to life. Book of Lairs, 2nd ed. Adventure Quest- Retrieve the Crimson Death- in a bottle.

Mastikator
2008-11-04, 03:06 PM
The miracle spell, and add an [evil] descriptor, or a different version of Create Greater Undead.

Just make it a LA +0 and force the cleric to gain each LA (and ablities) as if they were levels.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20030824a

Makes perfect balanced sense if you ask me.

Suzuro
2008-11-04, 03:12 PM
One I've always liked is that basically sometime in his past he fought a great evil/good and he made a pact with his deity to gain the strength to fight it for all eternity...hence the vampire....doesn't work quite as well with good characters, but it still can, I suppose.

-Suzuro

Lord Denyuar
2008-11-04, 04:13 PM
Thanks guys.

JeminiZero
2008-11-04, 08:01 PM
If you subscribe to the Vampirism as a disease theory, than something along the lines of getting a vial of vampire blood injected into you might do the trick, possibly accompanied by some elaborate ritual (so the PCs don't try to replicate it). Where might he get a vial of vampire blood? As a reasonably cheap item, it should be obtainable via Wish, which in turn may be obtained from via Candle of Invoc.

EvilElitest
2008-11-04, 08:03 PM
3E or 4E? Can't say for the latter
from
EE

Mando Knight
2008-11-04, 08:10 PM
3E or 4E? Can't say for the latter

...Doesn't really matter--vampirism is spread almost exclusively through a vampire's bite in most RPGs... a vampire who became one without encountering another vampire would have to use some kind of story-based explanation either way...