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View Full Version : Nosgothic Vampires [Template] (SO1)



Paragon Badger
2007-08-17, 05:27 AM
This is a template for creating a Vampire of Nosgoth, generally of the Soul Reaver 1 ilk, after the pillars have fallen and everything's gone to hell.

Nosgothic Vampires appear just as they did in life immediatly after receiving the dark gift, although as they age, they grow in power and unless the aging process is halted, they can become monstrous mutations, from steel-skinned giants to wracked juxtapositions of human flesh.

Like liches, they often embrace finery and decadence and may assume the guise of nobility. Despite their human appearance, older vampires can be easily recognized, for they often grow bestial in appearence. Vorador appeared as a green bat-like humanoid in his later life, while Kain had scales and slight horns. One defining trait of all older vampires, however, is that their fingers meld throughout the years and they end up with two fingers and a thumb, often claw-like in appearence. The feet also become simply two claws. Also, most vampires have a yellow or gold tint to their irises. Apart from this, every older vampire is unique.

Vampires speak any languages they knew in life.

Creating A Nosgothic Vampire
"Nosgothic Vampire" is an acquired template that can be added to any humanoid or monstrous humanoid creature (referred to hereafter as the base creature).

A Nosgothic vampire uses all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Size and Type
The creature’s type changes to undead (augmented humanoid or monstrous humanoid). Do not recalculate base attack bonus, saves, or skill points. Size is unchanged. As a vampire ages, though, it grows into a larger size category (ending in Gagantuan) for every 1200(-400 for every size larger than medium) years unless the aging process is halted.

Hit Dice
Once reborn, the Vampire retains its hit dice, but as it ages, it grows more powerful. For every 150 years the Vampire has lived, increase its hit dice by one level (d4 to d6, d10 to d12, ect.) to a maximum of 1d12.

Speed
Same as the base creature. If the base creature has a swim speed, the vampire loses the swim speed.

Armor Class
The base creature’s natural armor bonus improves by +1 for every 100 years it has lived, to a maximum of +8.

Attack
A vampire retains all the attacks of the base creature and also gains a claw attack if it didn’t already have one. If the base creature can use weapons, the vampire retains this ability. A creature with natural weapons retains those natural weapons. A vampire fighting without weapons uses either its claw attack or its primary natural weapon (if it has any). A vampire armed with a weapon uses its claws or a weapon, as it desires.

Full Attack
A vampire fighting without weapons uses either its claw attack (see above) or its natural weapons (if it has any). If armed with a weapon, it usually uses the weapon as its primary attack along with a claw or other natural weapon as a natural secondary attack.

Damage
Vampires have claw attacks. If the base creature does not have this attack form, use the appropriate damage value according to the vampire’s age. A vampire's claw attack is equal to its hit die, and also scales in power as the vampire ages (every 150 years). Creatures that have other kinds of natural weapons retain their old damage values or use the claw attack, whichever is better.

Special Attacks
A vampire retains all the special attacks of the base creature and gains those described below. Saves have a DC of 10 + ½ vampire’s HD + vampire’s Cha modifier unless noted otherwise.

Blood Drain (Ex)
A vampire can suck blood from a living victim with its fangs by making a successful grapple check. If it pins the foe, it drains blood, dealing 1d4 points of Constitution drain each round the pin is maintained. On each such successful attack, the vampire gains 5 temporary hit points. Vampires with telekenisis can suck blood from open wounds at no more than 5 feet away.

Telekinesis (Su)
As the spell. A Vampire is considered to be a caster level equal to their hit die.

Special Qualities
A vampire retains all the special qualities of the base creature and gains those described below.

Damage Reduction (Su)
A vampire has damage reduction 30/Impalement*, fire, sunlight, sonic, and water. A vampire’s natural weapons are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

A Vampire can only be impaled by having a piercing weapon go through it's heart. A critical hit is always an impalement. You may take a -4 penalty to attack to actively aim for the heart.

Fast Healing/Immortality (Ex)
A vampire heals 20 points of damage each round so long as it has at least 1 hit point. If reduced to 0 hit points in combat, its soul parts from its body. If the catalyst to the vampire's death is removed or undone (such as removing a spear impaled in the vampire), the soul will return and the vampire is revived with 1 hit point. Burned, underwater, light-stricken, or vampires killed by sound cannot return to their bodies.

Vulnerability (Ex)
A vampire takes 200% damage from any fire or sonic damage. And all water is considering to be boiling, dealing 200% normal scalding damage. Direct sunlight deals 10d20 points of damage to a vampire. For every 250 years the vampire ages, remove one hit die from sunlight damage.

Turn Resistance (Ex)
A vampire has +6 turn resistance.

Create Vampire (Ex)
A vampire, after being at least 1000 years old, may start creating new vampires, or fledglings. Doing so drains the vampire of its abilities by 2 for every vampire created. Any corpse, even a skelaton, can be raised a vampire, but their memory may be erased if they have been dead for too long.

Abilities
Increase or decrease from the base creature equals the current ability modifiers, negative or positive, of the vampire's creator.

(These are generally the type of vampires that Raziel and his brothers were, although I may add the time shift vampires from 2000 years later here... you know, the Rahabim, who could swim, or the Turelim, those drider thingies...)

Also... note that Kain created 6 vampires, and Melchaih was the last... so Kain was suffering from a 12 ability score penalty when he created the last sibling... which kind of explains why the dude's flesh was rotting off and his fledgelings had to attach human flesh to themselves just to keep together. >_>)

Why do this? Because once again, I'm bored.

Oh, and if you're worried about CR or anything... Well, these things were tough as hell to kill in Soul Reaver... And most PCs don't have the capability to consume a vampire's soul once it's been killed. :smalltongue:

A good example of a 1000 year old vampire and its transformation into a 3000+ year old vampire:
http://www.dark-chronicle.co.uk/az/melchiah.php (spoiler in there if you haven't played Soul Reaver 2....and 1.)

I won't even begin with the other series' vampires... since it's so inconsistent. I just liked Soul Reaver's vampires the best. Each enemy was a challenge to fight.

Wolfman42666
2007-08-17, 06:51 AM
Sweet, But I always found all but Turel's offspring easy to kill, could you add the evolution/hibernation ability to vampires with a safe place to rest.

Also it was inconsistent because each "set" of vampires were created differently, the originals might as well have been considered celestials, the second were, drained of blood (did it ever say how Vorador was made?) Kain was resurrected with Janos' heart and he snatched souls from the underworld. So you can see how they'd differ.

Arakune
2007-08-18, 07:02 PM
also, i don't think they grow that much in syze. i mean, janos was just a medium size creature, not a gargantuan vampire, and he was the oldest vampire in his time (1000~2500 more, maybe) .

Rob Knotts
2007-08-18, 07:10 PM
also, i don't think they grow that much in syze. i mean, janos was just a medium size creature, not a gargantuan vampire, and he was the oldest vampire in his time (1000~2500 more, maybe) .I think this is mainly in reference to the various "evolved" lieutenants Raziel had to defeat.

But I also don't think a change in size is appropriate for this specific template.

If anything, the "godlike" forms of the lieutenants would be better reflected by adding one or more templates on top of the Nosgothic template, rather than trying to incorporate traits from all the unique lieutenants.

After all, Kain always remained the most powerful Nosgothic vampire, and he always retained a human-sized and humanoid form.

Kain should probably be treated as both the prototypical and "ultimate" form of the Nosgothic vampire, since all of his lieutenants ended up developing into unique deviations from Kain, starting with Raziel and his wings.

Wolfman42666
2007-08-19, 06:43 AM
To ryuan: I highly disagree:
increased size happens when as janos himself said a creature "devolves" when he was drained of blood to the point of starvation he grows to a least 3 times his original size (in blood omen 2, a bad game but a compelling one) and he is unrecognisable.
There's no skin on his face at all, he has huge muscles, no skin on his hands or feet and his spinal cord is also visable along his back.
He really reasembled Turel actually.