Character Idea: The Unwilling Cain (Leave Alignment Discussions at The Door...)

[Leliel]

I recently watched a walkthrough of an old adventure game called Waxworks, and I was inspired by the main plot of the game, undoing a family curse that forces any twins born to the line to follow Cain and Abel's example with one being good and the other villainous (how much? One of the twins is known to history as Jack the Ripper).

The twist that happens at the end of the game, though unlike many it actually makes the ending happier, is that the main character is the traditionally "evil" brother, but he broke the curse anyway so he wouldn't have to fight his sibling to the death.

Needless to say, that reeks of a very Raveloftian plot (a tragic hero who took the hard and moral way, and thus thumbed his nose at the "tragedy" part), so, when I thought of what I wanted for my "neutral good necromancer", I thought "Hey, why not make him like the guy from Waxworks?"

So, yeah, we have Vladimir Albedo, cursed through blood by a vengeful Vistana to become a force of darkness in the world, and the morbidity-plus-power of a necromancer...except he desires nothing to do with his supposed "destiny" and wants nothing more from the dead then a nice chat and perhaps a few words of wisdom. 'Course, there's a demon with a vested interest in making sure Vlad turns to evil (if he doesn't carry out the curse, he doesn't get a new soul), not to mention there's bound to be a few ancestors who didn't actually die...

So, do you like this idea for a character? What plot hooks do you see branching out from him?

EDIT: And before you tell me: My DM hates alignment spells for wizards, and he's decided to judge use of necromancy on a case-by-case basis for powers checks

[Beelzebub1111]

Having played Waxworks, and being a moderate fan of the game, I love this idea. As a DM it would make my job ten times easier. The character based adventures practically write themselves! unless your DM is using an adventure path (Age of Worms etc.)where such a back-story would only complicate maters.