(3.5)(Template) Now with Simplified Alt. Version! Low Angst & LA Vampires (PEACH)

[DracoDei]

WARNING! This template and thread contain spoilers for a fanfic I am writing!!
(Knowledge of fanfic or even setting not necessary to understanding this template)
Wikipedia-like cross-indexing:
A vampire class.
A Vampire Template
Vampire Lite



Explanation and notes for further development, and questions.

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The following is the story of how I came up with this idea, but what you see should be usable in any campaign.

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I have read a few MLP:FiM fanfics that featured vampires. My brain twisted this perhaps overused concept around into something a bit different, and I started writing my own story, in which the niceness and even cuteness destroy any evil tendencies and standard vampire angst (there is a bit of angst at the start of things, but only because the caster was Luna and the accidentally target was Fluttershy).

I had run low on steam for the story itself (EDIT: I got past it.), but for some reason I got a bug up my butt to write the D&D rules for the condition.

And here are some comments on mechanics.

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I toned down a lot of the vulnerabilities and strengths of the SRD vampires here, trying to make something a bit more playable while I was at it. For instance, sunlight is painful without protective spells, but much more survivable even in such cases. In the original story, the sunlight vulnerability is something that Princess Celestia created, and she installs an exception for Fluttershy and her spawn within a few days of Fluttershy's tranformation. Similar things apply to running water and "native soils" although those are slower to be altered.

Unfortunately one of the most important facets as far as the mood of the whole thing proved to be a bit of a pain in the neck (joke intended) to write out, and the entire template benefits greatly from being paired with a good diplomacy fix (which might require re-working the table... suggestions welcome), but I think I did a good job, providing two versions of the template depending on how in-depth a particular play-group wants, and it isn't the sort of thing most parties worry about anyway. Basically the nutrition level of blood is both vaguely volume proportionate, and proportionate to the good-will in which the blood is given (IE their bonuses to diplomacy and sense motive are a survival trait for maintaining the relationships that keep them well-fed). This means that holding a screaming victim down and biting them deals damage to the drinker, while an eripmav (see above or the story for the source of the name) who is well-loved in their community can sustain themselves without ever drinking enough from any one individual to cause so much as a single point of constitution damage. Even in the average adventuring party, the occasional point of constitution damage will prove a minimal problem. There should be enough there for most GMs to wing it.

Questions:
What do people think of the CR and LA?

What would be a good Diplomacy fix to pair this with?

How is the feeding/damage table looking?

Do the "fiddly bits" such as how sunlight effects them, the "native soil" requirements, and the various tables add more to the feel, and interestingness of social, tactical, and logistical roleplay than the complication they impose?

Eripmav
Author's recommended version of Template. (Other version moved to the next post).

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How Eripmavs came to exist in-universe (remember that fluff is mutable):

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In a far distant outer plane, a mighty archangel associated with the moon and night fell, becoming an arch-devil. She was imprisoned for a thousand years, before she escaped and was redeemed. Thinking (correctly at it turned out) that her evil powers were gone from her, later while laying blessings on a timid mortal whom she was aiding the archangel accidentally cast a spell that would have slain its target and raised them as a vampire... and slay them it did, but what they become was not a vampire exactly. In a hurry to reassure the ex-mortal, one of the archangel's retinue named the new condition the first thing that came to her mind, simply spelling "vampire" backwards. The name stuck. Although the archangel did not dare cast the spell again for many centuries, she had the person she had visited this accidental "gift" on grant it to worthy individuals via the vampiric bite. Since then it has spread to less worthy individuals, although it reacts... violently with outright evil.

Appearance and Language
Eripmavs appear just as they did in life although with a bluish cast to their skin, due to their permanent cyanosis.

Unlike vampires, eripmavs usually dress in a very normal fashion. Despite their mostly normal appearance (and the coloration can, of course, be disguised), eripmavs can be easily recognized, for they cast no shadows and have no reflections in mirrors.

Eripmavs speak any languages they knew in life.

Creating An Eripmav
"Eripmav" is an acquired template that can be added to any non-plant living creature with an intelligence of at least 3(referred to hereafter as the base creature). Note, however, the strong restrictions on evil creatures becoming eripmavs listed under "alignment" below.

An eripmav uses all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Size and Type
The creature’s type changes to deathless (augmented <previous creature type>). Do not recalculate base attack bonus, saves (but see below), or skill points. Size is unchanged. Unlike most deathless, eripmavs are subject to starvation and lack of sleep as if they were still alive, see Mortal Frailties below. They also still experience aging after a fashion, see Abilities below.

Hit Dice
Increase all current and future Hit Dice to d12s.

Speed
Same as the base creature. If the base creature has a swim speed, the eripmav retains the ability to swim and is not damaged by running water (see below).

Armor Class
The base creature’s natural armor bonus improves by +3.

Attack/Full Attack
Unchanged from base creature.

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

Blood Drain (Ex)
An eripmav can suck blood from a living non-plant victim with its fangs. While this technically requires a successful grapple check and pin eripmavs do not usually use this ability in any situation that would require these to actually be rolled. Each round the eripmav drinks it may deal up to enough blood drain to cause a single point of constitution damage, although outside of emergencies most eripmavs feed over the course of several minutes both to use a smaller bite-hole and just in case the "donor" has a sudden flash of annoyance at them. In whatever case it drains blood, but usually not enough to deal even as single point of constitution DAMAGE. On each such successful round of feeding, the eripmav gains sustenance or takes damage as per the following table if dealing a point of constitution damage, or proportionately less if feeding more slowly. No hitpoint damage is healed, only nourishment such as a living individual would gain from eating.
Days worth of nourishment or damage per point of constitution damage inflicted, indexed by the size of the "donor" relative to the eripmav (WITHOUT including an supernatural or magical size changes, but including such things as Powerful Build and Slight Build when they would be to the eripmav's benefit) and the "donor"'s attitude towards the feeding (which may not exceed their attitude towards the eripmav in general). Any magical influence improving the donor's receptiveness (such as Charm spells) do not count for this, but any worsening it (such as a Suggestion that an eripmav wife might be cheating on the husband she feeds on in strict moderation each day) are effective in reducing the nutrition/harming the eripmav.

~	Size class of Donor Relative to Eripmav
Donor Disposition	3+ Smaller	2 Smaller	1 Smaller	Same Size	1 Larger	2 Larger	3 Larger	4 Larger	5+ Larger
Hostile	2 damage	1d6+1 damage	2d8 damage	3d10 damage	8d6 damage	16d6 damage	32d6 damage	225 damage	450 damage
Unfriendly	1 damage	1d4 damage	1d8 damage	2d8 damage	4d6 damage	8d6 damage	16d6 damage	32d6 damage	225 damage
Neutral	1/32 day	1/16 day	1/8 day	1/4 day	1/2 day	1 day	2 days	4 days	8 days
Friendly	1/16 day	1/8 day	1/4 day	1/2 day	1 day	2 days	4 days	8 days	16 days
Helpful	1/8 day	1/4 day	1/2 day	1 day	2 days	4 days	8 days	16 days	1 month
Exceptional RP	1/4 day	1/2 day	1 day	2 days	4 days	8 days	16 days	1 month	2 months

An eripmav may take half this amount (gaining half the nourishment or taking half the hitpoint damage) in any 24 hour period without dealing dealing constitution damage. Note that no matter how slowly an eripmav feeds, they have a general idea of the effectiveness of the blood within the first few rounds, just as a living individual can tell the quality of food as they eat it. Spells exist to disguise the taste of blood from an eripmav, but they are incredibly obscure, requiring a DC 25 Knowledge(Religion) or Spellcraft check to know of the existence of the divine and arcane versions respectively.
At any one time an eripmav may store enough blood inside itself to have caused 12 points of constitution damage (equal to 24 feedings not sufficient to cause constitution damage) to a creature of its own size-class. Note that the amount of time this will sustain the eripmav varies widely based on the disposition and relative size of the "donors".
Note that paying people for their blood generally produces a neutral result, unless they are well accustomed over a long period of time to being fed from in that fashion, or bleeding treatments. In such a case the result might improve to Friendly at the GM's discretion.
The final catagory is reserved for boon companions/family members, with an eripmav player (AND donor if that is a PC as well) who demonstrated exemplary roleplay of their character's relationship with eachother. This is always at the GM's sole discretion.
Sustenance from creatures of animal intelligence is divided by four, damage is uneffected.

For convenience, the rules for starvation from the SRD, edited for clarity,:

A character can go without food for 3 days, in growing discomfort. After this time they take 1d6 points of nonlethal damage, which repeats each day.

Characters who have taken nonlethal damage from lack of food or water are fatigued. Nonlethal damage from starvation cannot be recovered until the character gets (sufficient) food (to make up the deficit)—not even magic that restores hit points heals this damage.

Note that Eripmavs are subject to both the nonlethal and fatigue effects from starvation, despite being immune to nonlethal damage and fatigue from other sources. Note that the 3 days does not start to run out until their stored blood is exhausted.

Children of the Night (Su)
The lesser nocturnal creatures, such as rats, bats, wolves, jackals, owls, and some cats are well-disposed toward eripmavs. When dealing with such creatures they gain the Animal Empathy class feature of a druid of level equal to their ECL, and a +8 bonus on handle animal checks. Their presence is slightly disturbing to daylight favoring creatures, imposing a -8 penalty to Animal Empathy and handle animal checks on any such creature that has not had positive interactions with them for at least the last 24 hours. Both the bonus and the penalty apply to Magical Beasts and Abberations, provided they are of True Neutral alignment, have racial intelligence of 6 or less, and do not possess a true language.

Influence (Su)
An eripmav can weaken an opponent’s will just by looking onto his or her eyes. This is similar to a gaze attack, except that the eripmav must use at least a standard action, and those merely looking at it are not affected. This action must be combined into a single action with a use of the Diplomacy or Intimidate skill. Anyone the eripmav targets must succeed on a Will save after the first standard action of the diplomacy or intimidate check or be Entranced for the duration of the intimidate or diplomacy attempt (to a maximum of twice the eripmav's ECL in rounds). On a failed save the diplomacy or intimidate check also gains a +8 bonus. The ability has a range of 30 feet, an equivalent spell level equal to half the eripmav's ECL (Maximum 9), and a caster level equal to the eripmav's ECL. The influence of this ability NEVER applies to nutrition-levels, although a long-term relationship that started off this way is not forever ruined.

Create Spawn (Su)
A creature that qualifies for this template slain by an eripmav’s blood drain (either by hitpoint loss in combination with an earlier injury, or by having its Constitution reduced to 0 or lower) rises as an eripmav 1d4 rounds after death.
Optional rule to keep spawn from becoming too numerous.

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This costs the eripmav creating the spawn 50 xp per hit-die of the newly created eripmav. This process is not optional, although if the creating eripmav does not have enough xp's or simply wishes an alternate cost, they may take burn to any of their stats that they actually have at a conversion rate of 100 xps per point of burn. This CAN result in a gain of up to 50 xps. This burn may not be removed in any way until they points are bought back with xps at the same conversion rate, after which it recovers at the normal rate for ability score burn.

In either case, the new eripmav is under the influence of the eripmav that created it as per Charm Monster without benefit of spell resistance or saving throw, and not suppressed by Protection from Chaos/Evil/Good/Law or Magic Circle Against Chaos/Evil/Good/Law. This effect has a duration of a number of days equal to the creating eripmav's ECL. The effects of this ability are otherwise treated as a 4th level spell cast by a sorcerer of a level equal to the eripmavs ECL. At any given time an eripmav may have influenced spawn totaling no more than twice its own ECL; any spawn it creates that would exceed this limit are created as free-willed eripmavs. An eripmav that is influenced may create and influence spawn of its own, so a master eripmav can control a number of lesser eripmavs in this fashion. An eripmav may voluntarily free an influenced spawn in order to influence a new spawn, but once freed, an eripmav or eripmav spawn cannot be influenced again.


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

Alternate Form (Su)
An eripmav each may assume two alternate forms, one flying, and one canid. The appearance of these forms is consistent each time a given eripmav assumes it and will look as much like the eripmav's base form as is possible within the normal variation of that type (not species exactly since, for instance "dog" and "riding dog" are considered two different things) of animal, and always shares the body-temperature and cyanosis of the eripmavs true form(unless lesser phoenix, see below). Once each of these forms is selected it may not be changed. Eripmavs of medium or smaller size can assume the shape of a bat or owl for their flying form, while those of Large or larger size select either dire bat or giant owl. Regardless of size if at the moment after their transformation into an eripmav is complete they meet at least one of the following criterion then they may select lesser phoenix as their alternate form:

1. [Fire] subtype.
2. Cleric or other divine caster with access to the sun and/or fire domains. (Note that this is AFTER any domains have been exchanged).
3. Evocation specialist, Warmage, or sorcerer with at least 3 spells known (of levels they can actually cast) that "natively" deal fire damage.
4. Have the Energy Substitution(Fire) feat.
5. At least 4 ranks and skill focus in a craft skill that uses large amounts of fire(such as pottery or any sort of smithing) focused around objects larger than kitchen utensils.
6. At least 4 ranks and skill focus in Craft(Alchemy) AND have created at least one gallon of alchemist's fire for each year since their birth.
7. Have a breathweapon capable of dealing fire damage.
8. Know at least 6 maneuvers (including stances) from the Desert Wind discipline. If this option is used to qualify for the lesser pheonix form, then they they only have access to that form if they continue to know at least that many maneuvers from that discipline. If, for some reason, this changes while they are in lesser pheonix form, they immediately revert to their base form.

Eripmavs of small or smaller size select either dog, coyotes, jackals, and African wild dogs (all of which use the same statistics). Eripmavs of medium size turn into wolves or riding dogs mechanically, but if riding dog is selected then they may choose to resemble an enlarged version of any form a small eripmav could take, and which the GM rules suits their personality. Eripmavs of large or larger size use dire wolf for the mechanics of their canid form, but can resemble an enlarged wolf(without the more primative cast of a dire wolf) or any other canid with the animal type as suits their personality. For instance, especially kindly giants have been known to turn into gigantic lap-dogs, although the individuals in question almost invariably consider this an embarrassment.
In addition, if at the moment after their transformation into an eripmav is complete they meet at least one of the following criterion then they may replace the normal subtype of the canid they turn into with plant. In which case the form appears to be made out of dried wood of some species of plant that is in keeping with the eripmav's personality. There may even be perfectly dried flowers blooming from them (while easily damaged these regrow with hours and losing them deals no damage to the eripmav). They never have thorns or contact poison (such as poison ivy), regardless of species.

• Have the Animal Empathy ability.
• Cleric or other divine caster with access to the plant domain.
• Augmented Plant subtype in native form.

Assuming an alternate form is a standard action. While in its alternate form, the eripmav loses its influence ability, but it gains the natural weapons and extraordinary special attacks of its new form. It can remain in that form until it assumes another or until the next sunrise. (If the base creature is not terrestrial, this power might allow other forms.)

Damage Reduction (Su)
An eripmav has damage reduction 5/silver and magic, increasing at the following ECLs: at ECL 10 this increases to 10, at ECL 15 it increases to 15, at ECL 20 it increases to 20, and so on. At ECL 25+ this damage reduction is only bypassed by weapons that are both Silver and Epic.
An eripmav’s natural weapons and unarmed attacks are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. At ECL 25 they are also treated as Epic Weapons for similar purposes.

Gaseous Form (Su)
As a standard action, an eripmav can assume gaseous form at will as the spell (caster level 5th), but it can remain gaseous indefinitely and has a fly speed of 20 feet with perfect maneuverability. In this form it takes quadrupal damage from fire and acid(including sunlight and running water), and double damage from all area of effect attacks. Unlike most multiplications, area of effect fire or acid attacks deal octupal damage to an Eripmav. HOWEVER, apply all multiplications from this weakness AFTER resistances and and protections. An eripmav reduced to 0 hitpoints in this form instantly reverts to its normal form.

Healing Lick (Su)
An eripmav can close wounds on living creatures with its lick, healing one point of damage from a slashing or piercing injury as a full round action that provokes attacks of opportunity and causes both parties to count as flat-footed. Each individual injury may only be treated once by this ability. Injuries treated in this way will be closed up enough to prevent dirt and such from entering the wound, thus avoiding later infection, although the deeper damage will remain. This also stops any ongoing hit-point or constitution damage from the injury in question.

Mortal Frailties (Ex)
An eripmav is subject to subdual damage and fatigue from lack of food (blood in their case, see the blood drain special ability).

They also take the same penalties to lack of sleep/trance as they when they were alive, and furthermore they only benefit from such rest when taken while in their native forms and near a certain amount of their native soil (about 20 dry weight pounds for medium sized eripmavs). Most use bedrolls, mattress covers, or blankets filled soil. Native soil is where-ever the eripmav considers its true home. As a rule of thumb, they should have to have lived a particular place for at least a year, and the soil should only count within a radius of a few miles at most. Alternatively, for dedicated travelers, an approximately equal mix of soils from at least 10 locations, each separated from all the others by at least 200 miles or one change to a non-co-existant plane may be substituted.
Since the SRD seems to lack rules for sleep deprivation, here are some simple ones to apply to Eripmavs:

An eripmav requires 8 hours of sleep (or 4 hours of trance) after 20 hours of alertness or they become fatigued. 24 hours after this they become exhausted. Each 12 hours after that, they take 1d4 points of damage to each of their ability scores. Sleeping/Trancing stops this progression, and removes the penalties in reverse order as the deficit is made up (note that this may require one or more full days in extreme cases).

On the plus side, eripmavs regain hit-points and ability points over time as if they were living creatures.

Power of the Empty Mirror (Su)
An Eripmav gains a +10 bonus on saving throws against Scrying, Greater Scrying, and similar spells, effects, and abilities. For any spell, spell-like ability, effect, or non-racial ability that allows seeing an eripmav where the caster or creature would not normally be able to see them, they gain spell-resistance equal to 15 + their ECL. A spell that does not beat this resistance (which the GM should roll secretly) can not see them. This means that Clairvoyance, Prying Eyes, Detect Undead, and scrying another creature in the eripmav's vicinity treat them as invisible. Even augmenting such spells with See Invisible or True Seeing spells or abilities of any kind does no good if the other spell does not succeed against the spell resistance.

Eripmavs invisible from other sources gain this spell resistance against attempts to directly view them(rather than via a separate divination effect) via See Invisible, True Seeing, etc.

This ability provides no protection against Glitterdust, Invisibility Purge or similar spells and effects.

Resistances (Ex)
An eripmav has resistance to cold 10 and electricity 10.

Turn Resistance (Ex)
An eripmav has +4 turn resistance.

Abilities
Increase from the base creature as follows: If their prior constitution score (not including any enhancement bonuses or bonuses of any kind from equipment and non-permanent spells) is higher than their prior strength score(Ditto) then their strength score changes to the average of the aforementioned two old scores(rounded up). In either case, the eripmav then gains a +4 racial bonus to their strength score.

As a deathless creature, an eripmav has no Constitution score, however they multiply their charisma bonus (if any) by their hitdice, divide by two, and add the result to their hitpoints. They also add their charisma modifier to their fortitude saves and concentration checks in lieu of their constitution modifier.

In addition unlike most deathless and undead, an eripmav is effected differently by aging. They remove all aging penalties to dexterity. Aging penalities to strength (and technically constitution) present upon becoming an eripmav remain. The eripmav no longer takes ability score penalties for further aging and cannot be magically aged.

Bonuses still accrue, and unlike almost all other deathless the eripmav still dies of old age when her time is up, going instantly from perfect functionality to dead at the moment that fate has ordained for them.

Skills
Eripmavs rely on friendship to eat well, and their psychology adjusts to this, both quickly (via gaining the Negotiator Feat) and over a period of time. They gain a racial bonus to diplomacy and sense motive checks made outside of combat based on how long they have been an eripmav. They also use their ECL instead of their class levels or hitdice when determining their maximum ranks for these two skills and always treat them as class skills.

Time	Bonus
Less than a month	+0
1 month	+1
3 months	+2
6 months	+3
1+ years	+4

They also gain a +2 racial bonus to Hide, and Move Silently checks. Otherwise same as the base creature.

Feats
Eripmavs gain Great Fortitude and Negotiator, assuming doesn’t already have these feats.

Environment
Any, usually same as base creature.

Organization
Solitary, or Club (2-5)

Challenge Rating
Same as the base creature +1.

Treasure
Standard.

Alignment
Any non-evil, but see below.

A willing evil creature may become an eripmav, but only if the act of having their life saved by their "master" opens them to alignment change. This functions as per the alignment change from Atonement, with the same restrictions on it. The alignment of the spawn changes to neutral on the good/evil axis. Alignment on the Law/Chaos axis is never directly effected by becoming an eripmav.

An Eripmav that becomes evil must make a will save followed by a Fortitude save(without the benefit of the charisma or feat bonuses provided by this template), both against DC 22. If the will save is successful, then the eripmav exchanges this template for the vampire template, however, in this case, they reduce all their ability scores by 6 if they fail the fortitude save and do not gain the bonuses to charisma, bluff checks, nor the Children of the Night or Dominate special abilities. If both saves are failed the eripmav is utterly destroyed by holy fire burning it from the inside out (half of this unlimited damage results directly from divine energy, and thus it is not subject to resistances or immunity). If the Fortitude save is successful but the will save is failed, the eripmav loses this template and replaces it with the ghoul template((Note to self: Create this template)), but subsisting on blood rather than flesh, and lacking the paralytic touch.

Advancement
By character class.

Level Adjustment
Same as the base creature +3.

Eripmav Weaknesses
For all their differences from vampires, eripmavs share a number of weaknesses.

Repelling a Eripmav
Eripmavs cannot tolerate the strong odor of garlic and will not enter an area laced with it. Similarly, they recoil from a strongly presented unholy symbol(but not from a mirror or holy symbol). These things don’t harm the eripmav—they merely keep it at bay. A recoiling eripmav must stay at least 5 feet away from a creature holding the unholy symbol and cannot touch or make melee attacks against the creature holding the item for the rest of the encounter. Holding an eripmav at bay takes a standard action.

Eripmavs without a natural swim speed are burned by running water in something like the way that acid burns living creatures. Protections and resistances to acid apply against this damage. A creature of at least tiny size may deal damage to an eripmav by splashing them directly from such a body of water causing damage per the following table if splashed directly from such a source, treated as a splash weapon with a range incriment of 5 feet for creatures of up to large size, and 10 feet for creatures larger than that.

Size	Maximum Range	Damage	Range Incriment
Tiny	Same Square	1d2	N/A
Small	5 feet	1d4	5 feet
Medium	5 feet	1d6	5 feet
Large	10 feet	1d8	5 feet
Huge	15 feet	2d6	10 feet
Gargantuan	20 feet	3d6	10 feet
Colossal	30 feet	5d6	10 feet

Wading or swimming in running water deals damage based on the following table. Note that the water must actually touch the skin of the Eripmav, making high oil-skin boots a favorite among careful eripmavs. Note also that, until and unless it starts running along the ground, precipitation never counts as "running water".

Depth	Damage per Round
Ankle	1d3
Knee*	2d4
Waist/Full Leg	6d4
Swimming/Fully Immersed	15d4

*This is for humanoids, the more general rule is "half-way up the leg", which is quite a different thing for many quadrupeds.

Exposure to direct sunlight usually disorients an eripmav: It is dealt 3d6 fire damage per round (manifesting as the skin charring and flaking away, rather than actual flames, but subject to all sources of fire resistance/immunity/protection), and unless all of this damage is prevented disorients it: It can take only a single move action or attack action each round it is in direct sunlight.

They are utterly unable to enter a home or other building with ill intent unless invited in by someone with the authority to do so. If entering such a building without such an invitation they become incapable of attacking in any way (can not make attack rolls, cast spells on unwilling targets, etc) until they leave it. They may freely enter public places, since these are by definition open to all.

Slaying a Eripmav
Reducing an eripmav’s hit points to 0 or lower incapacitates it but doesn't always destroy it. However, certain attacks can slay eripmavs. Exposing it to sunlight or, fully immersing an eripmav in running water destroys it after such immersion and/or sunlight has dealt an number of points of damage over consecutive rounds equal to its maximum hitpoints. Actual fire and acid count half towards this total. Driving a wooden stake through an eripmav’s heart instantly slays the monster. However, it returns to life if the stake is removed, unless the body is destroyed. A popular tactic is to cut off the creature’s head and fill its mouth with unholy spices (or their equivalent).

Eripmav Characters
Eripmavs of certain classes experience special effects as described below.

Clerics
Eripmav clerics lose their ability to rebuke undead but gain the ability to turn undead. This ability does not affect the eripmav’s master-spawn relationships in either direction. An eripmav cleric has access to the domains they had in life (assuming they are not cut off from their god by an alignment change or other problem with their becoming deathless), or may swap one or both of them out for the following domains: Community, Chaos, Good, Healing, or Law. They may not select alignment domains unless they are of that/those alignment(s). Alternatively an eripmav cleric may exchange BOTH their domains for the Sun domain, in which case they gain 10 resistance to damage from sunlight, Sunray, Sunburst and other light based damage. This stacks with fire resistance, Protection from Elements (applying the reduction before the protection), and similar spells, effects, etc. A cleric who already had access to the Sun domain, must either take this option(in effect losing access to one other domain) or trade away the sun domain for a different domain on the previous list.

Sorcerers and Wizards
Eripmav sorcerers and wizards retain their class abilities, but if a character has a familiar other than a rat, owl, or bat, the link between them is broken(but with halved XP penalties, which is a quarter on a successful save), and the familiar shuns its former companion for a number of days equal to twice the eripmav's new ECL. The character can summon another familiar, but it must be a rat, owl or bat. Alternatively they may rebind their old familiar after the period of shunning has passed, followed by succeeding on a DC 20 handle animal (or diplomacy if the familiar's natural intelligence score is 3 or higher) with the same casting time and material components as summoning a new familiar.

FEAT
Tongue of the Healer of Hearts and Bodies
"I can taste your spirit my beloved."
Prerequisites: Eripmav, 5 ranks each in Sense Motive and Heal, at least three class levels.
Benefits: When you drink someone's blood, you get a feeling for their emotional state. The automatically tells you any emotions they are not trying to repress or are intentionally trying to communicate to you via this method, and grants a sense motive check opposed by their bluff check on any they were repressing and are not trying to intentionally communicate to you via letting you drink their blood. You know only the emotions, not their source. In addition, this allows you to attempt a heal check to diagnosis any diseases in the blood or psychological conditions, or gives a +5 to the check to diagnosis if combined with mundane examination. If an eripmav treats someone for a properly diagnosed psychological condition and drinks at least a few sips from them each day, then the patient gains a +2 bonus to all fortitude and will saves that would directly aid in the treatment, and the eripmav gains +5 to all will saves and skill checks directly related to treating them. Drinking from a patient directly also grants a +2 bonus to caster level for one minute for any spell to cure or otherwise treat them for a properly diagnosed psychological condition.

Changelog

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Mar 5th 2013: Many grammatical edits.

Feb 3rd 2013: Fixed a grammatical error or two, added ability to qualify for lesser pheonix access using Desert Wind.

Dec 27th: Fixed several spelling/grammatical errors (need to check for more).

8:01 PM Eastern Oct 31st 2012: Edited feeding table after seeing many empty columns.

10:16 PM: Made feeding table look nicer, and added language preventing cheese with size-changing magics. Beefed up healing lick to stop bleed damage (which was part of my original intention). Added some stuff about how emotion-effecting magics interact with feeding, as well as mentioning the existence of taste disguising spells. I would type those up, but I think that they would be more of plot points than things that would require an actual spell-description.

3:30 PM Nov 1st: Reduced nutrition levels to encourage roleplay. May not have gone far enough.

3:45 PM Had DR improve to Silver and Epic at ECL 25.

6:30 PM Nov 5th: Made Diplomacy and Sense Motive always class skills. Fixed some spelling errors, and added the simplified version for those who don't wish support from their crunch for their roleplaying (or hack and slashers I suppose, but this REALLY isn't the template for them).

[DracoDei]

Editing this in to work around characters-per-post limit better in the future:
Simplified version (Warning: Much less roleplay-inspiring).

Spoiler

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Appearance and Language
Eripmavs appear just as they did in life although with a bluish cast to their skin, due to their permanent cyanosis.

Unlike vampires, eripmavs usually dress in a very normal fashion. Despite their mostly normal appearance (and the coloration can, of course, be disguised), eripmavs can be easily recognized, for they cast no shadows and throw no reflections in mirrors.

Eripmavs speak any languages they knew in life.

Creating An Eripmav
"Eripmav" is an acquired template that can be added to any non-evil, non-plant living creature with an intelligence of at least 3(referred to hereafter as the base creature).

An eripmav uses all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Size and Type
The creature’s type changes to deathless (augmented <previous creature type>). Do not recalculate base attack bonus, saves (but see below), or skill points. Size is unchanged. Unlike most deathless, eripmavs are subject to starvation and lack of sleep as if they were still alive, see Mortal Frailties below. They also still experience aging after a fashion, see Abilities below.

Hit Dice
Increase all current and future Hit Dice to d12s.

Speed
Same as the base creature. If the base creature has a swim speed, the eripmav retains the ability to swim and is not damaged by running water (see below).

Armor Class
The base creature’s natural armor bonus improves by +3.

Attack/Full Attack
Unchanged from base creature.

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

Blood Drain (Ex)
An eripmav can suck blood from a living non-plant victim with its fangs. While this technically requires a successful grapple check and pin eripmavs do not usually use this ability in any situation that would require these to actually be rolled. Each round the eripmav drinks it may deal up to enough blood drain to cause a single point of constitution damage, although outside of emergencies most eripmavs feed over the course of several minutes both to use a smaller bite-hole and just in case the "donor" has a sudden flash of annoyance at them. In whatever case it drains blood, but usually not enough to deal even as single point of constitution DAMAGE (eripmavs never deal drain). On each such successful round of feeding, the eripmav gains sustenance or takes damage as per the following tables. No hitpoint damage is healed, only nourishment such as a living individual would gain from eating and drinking.
Days worth of nourishment or damage per point of constitution damage inflicted, indexed by the size of the "donor" relative to the eripmav (WITHOUT including an supernatural or magical size changes, but including such things as Powerful Build and Slight Build when they would be to the eripmav's benefit) and the "donor"'s attitude towards the feeding (which may not exceed their attitude towards the eripmav in general). Any magical influence improving the donor's receptiveness (such as Charm spells) do not count for this, but any worsening it (such as a Suggestion that an eripmav wife might be cheating on the husband she feeds on in strict moderation each day) are effective in reducing the nutrition/harming the eripmav.
{Table="Head"]Donor Disposition|Effect per Constitution Damage Point|Daily Maximum Without Constitution Damage

Hostile|3d10 damage|2d6 damage

Unfriendly|2d8 damage|1d8 damage

Neutral|1/4 day Nourishment|1/8 day Nourishment

Friendly|1/2 day Nourishment|1/4 day Nourishment

Helpful|1 day Nourishment|1/2 day Nourishment

Exceptional RP|2 days Nourishment|1 days Nourishment[/Table]
Note that no matter how slowly an eripmav feeds, they have a general idea of the effectiveness of the blood within the first few rounds, just as a living individual can tell the quality of food as they eat it.
At any one time an eripmav may store enough blood inside itself to have caused 12 points of constitution damage (equal to 24 feedings not sufficient to cause constitution damage). Note that the amount of time this will sustain the eripmav varies based on the disposition of the "donors".
Paying people for their blood generally produces a neutral result, unless they are well accustomed over a long period of time to being fed from in that fashion, or bleeding treatments. In such a case the result might improve to Friendly at the GMs discretion.
The final category is reserved for boon companions/family members, with an eripmav player (AND donor if that is a PC as well) who demonstrated exemplary roleplay of their character's relationship with eachother. This is always at the GMs sole discretion.

Damage and sustenance from creatures of animal intelligence is divided by four. Mindless creatures inflict no damage nor do they provide sustenance.


Children of the Night (Su)
The lesser nocturnal creatures, such as rats, bats, wolves, jackals, owls, and some cats are well-disposed toward eripmavs. When dealing with such creatures they gain the Animal Empathy class feature of a druid of level equal to their ECL, and a +8 bonus on handle animal checks. Their presence is slightly disturbing to daylight favoring creatures, imposing a -8 penalty to Animal Empathy and handle animal checks on any such creature that has not had positive interactions with them for at least the last 24 hours.

Influence (Su)
An eripmav can weaken an opponent’s will just by looking onto his or her eyes. This is similar to a gaze attack, except that the eripmav must use at least a standard action, and those merely looking at it are not affected. This action must be combined into a single action with a use of the Diplomacy or Intimidate skill. Anyone the eripmav targets must succeed on a Will save after the first standard action of the diplomacy or intimidate check or be Entranced for the duration of the intimidate or diplomacy attempt (to a maximum of twice the eripmav's ECL in rounds). On a failed save the diplomacy or intimidate check also gains a +8 bonus. The ability has a range of 30 feet, an equivalent spell level equal to half the eripmav's ECL (Maximum 9), and a caster level equal to the eripmav's ECL. The influence of this ability NEVER applies to nutrition-levels, although a long-term relationship that started off this way is not forever ruined.

Create Spawn (Su)
A creature that qualifies for this template(including being non-evil) slain by an eripmav’s blood drain (either by hitpoint loss in combination with an earlier injury, or by having its Constitution reduced to 0 or lower) rises as an eripmav 1d4 rounds after death.

In either case, the new eripmav is under the influence of the eripmav that created it as per Charm Monster without benefit of spell resistance or saving throw, and not suppressed by Protection from Chaos/Evil/Good/Law or Magic Circle Against Chaos/Evil/Good/Law. This effect has a duration of a number of days equal to the creating eripmav's ECL. The effects of this ability are otherwise treated as a 4th level spell cast by a sorcerer of a level equal to the eripmavs ECL. At any given time an eripmav may have influenced spawn totaling no more than twice its own ECL; any spawn it creates that would exceed this limit are created as free-willed eripmav. An eripmav that is enslaved may create and influence spawn of its own, so a master eripmav can control a number of lesser eripmavs in this fashion. An eripmav may voluntarily free an influenced spawn in order to enslave a new spawn, but once freed, an eripmav or eripmav spawn cannot be influenced again.


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

Alternate Form (Su)
An eripmav can assume the shape of a bat, or wolf as a standard action. While in its alternate form, the eripmav loses its influence ability, but it gains the natural weapons and extraordinary special attacks of its new form. It can remain in that form until it assumes another or until the next sunrise. (If the base creature is not terrestrial, this power might allow other forms.)

Damage Reduction (Su)
An eripmav has damage reduction 5/silver and magic, increasing at the following ECLs: at ECL 10 this increases to 10, at ECL 15 it increases to 15, at ECL 20 it increases to 20, and so on.

An eripmav’s natural weapons and unarmed attacks are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Gaseous Form (Su)
As a standard action, an eripmav can assume gaseous form at will as the spell (caster level 5th), but it can remain gaseous indefinitely and has a fly speed of 20 feet with perfect maneuverability. In this form it takes quadrupal damage from fire and acid(including sunlight and running water), and double damage from all area of effect attacks. Unlike most multiplications, area of effect fire or acid attacks deal octupal damage to an Eripmav. HOWEVER, apply all multiplications from this weakness AFTER resistances and and protections. An eripmav reduced to 0 hitpoints in this form instantly reverts to its normal form.

Healing Lick (Su)
An eripmav can close wounds on living creatures with its lick, healing one point of damage from a slashing or piercing injury as a full round action that provokes attacks of opportunity and causes both parties to count as flat-footed. Each individual creature may only be treated once by this ability until and unless it sustains further slashing and/or piercing damage. This also stops any ongoing hit-point or constitution damage from the injury in question.

Mortal Frailities (Ex)
An eripmav subject to subdual damage from lack of food (blood in their case, see the blood drain special ability).

They also take the same penalties to lack of sleep/trance as they when they were alive, and furthermore they only benefit from such rest when taken while in their native forms and near their native soil . Most use bedrolls, mattress covers, or blankets filled soil.

On the plus side, they regain hit-points and ability points as if they were living creatures.

Power of the Empty Mirror (Su)
An Eripmav gains a +10 bonus on saving throws against Scrying, Greater Scrying, and similar spells, effects, and ability. For any spell, spell-like ability, effect, or non-racial ability that allows seeing an eripmav where the caster or creature would not normally be able to see them, they gain spell-resistance equal to 15 + their ECL. A spell that does not beat this resistance (which the GM should roll secretly) can not see them. This means that Clairvoyance, Prying Eyes, Detect Undead, and scrying another creature in the eripmav's vicinity treat them as invisible. Even augmenting such spells with See Invisible or True Seeing spells or abilities of any kind does no good if the other spell does not succeed against the spell resistance.

Eripmavs invisible from other sources gain this spell resistance against attempts to directly view them(rather than via a separate divination effect) via See Invisible, True Seeing, etc.

This ability provides no protection against Glitterdust, Invisibility Purge or similar spells and effects.

Resistances (Ex)
An eripmav has resistance to cold 10 and electricity 10.

Turn Resistance (Ex)
An eripmav has +4 turn resistance.

Abilities
Increase from the base creature as follows: The eripmav then gains a +4 racial bonus to their strength score.

As an undead creature, an eripmav has no Constitution score, however they multiply their charisma bonus (if any) by their hitdice, divide by two, and add the result to their hitpoints. They also add their charisma modifier to their fortitude saves in leu of their constition modifier.

In addition unlike most deathless and undead, an eripmav is effected differently by aging. They remove all aging penalties to dexterity. Aging penalities to strength (and technically constitution) present upon becoming an eripmav remain. The eripmav no longer takes ability score penalties for further aging and cannot be magically aged.

Bonuses still accrue, and unlike almost all other deathless the eripmav still dies of old age when her time is up, going instantly from perfect functionality to dead at the moment that fate has ordaned for them.

Skills
Eripmavs rely on friendship to eat well, and their psychology adjusts to this. They gain a +4 racial bonus to diplomacy and sense motive checks made outside of combat, and a +2 racial bonus on Hide and Move Silently checks. They also always treat Diplomacy and Sense Motive as class skills. Otherwise same as the base creature.

Feats
Eripmavs gain Great Fortitude and Negotiator, assuming the base creature meets the prerequisites and doesn’t already have these feats. At ECL 10 they also gain the Improved Toughness feat regardless of if they qualify for it or not.

Environment
Any, usually same as base creature.

Organization
Solitary, or Club (2-5)

Challenge Rating
Same as the base creature +1.

Treasure
Standard.

Alignment
Any non-evil

Advancement
By character class.

Level Adjustment
Same as the base creature +3.

Eripmav Weaknesses
For all their differences from vampires, eripmavs share a number of weaknesses.

Repelling a Eripmav
Eripmavs cannot tolerate the strong odor of garlic and will not enter an area laced with it. Similarly, they recoil from a strongly presented unholy symbol(but not from a mirror or holy symbol). These things don’t harm the eripmav—they merely keep it at bay. A recoiling eripmav must stay at least 5 feet away from a creature holding the unholy symbol and cannot touch or make melee attacks against the creature holding the item for the rest of the encounter. Holding an eripmav at bay takes a standard action.

Eripmavs without a natural swim speed are burned by running water in something like the way that acid burns living creatures. Protections and resistances to acid apply against this damage. Wading or swimming in running water deals damage based on the following table. Note that the water must actually touch the skin of the Eripmav, making high oil-skin boots a favorite among careful eripmavs. Note also that, until and unless it starts running along the ground, precipitation never counts as "running water".
*This is for humanoids, the more general rule is "half-way up the leg", which is quite a different thing for many quadrupeds.

Exposure to direct sunlight usually disorients an eripmav: It is dealt 3d6 fire damage per round (manifesting as the skin charring and flacking away, rather than actual flames, but subject to all sources of fire resistance/immunity/protection), and unless all of this damage is prevented disorients it: It can take only a single move action or attack action each round it is in direct sunlight.

They are utterly unable to enter a home or other building with ill intent unless invited in by someone with the authority to do so. If entering such a building without such an invitation they become incapable of attacking in any way (can not make attack rolls, cast spells on unwilling targets, etc). They may freely enter public places, since these are by definition open to all.

Slaying a Eripmav
Reducing an eripmav’s hit points to 0 or lower incapacitates it but doesn’t always destroy it. However, certain attacks can slay eripmavs. Exposing it to sunlight or, fully immersing an eripmav in running water destroys it after such immersion and/or sunlight has dealt at least 20 points of damage over consecutive rounds. Driving a wooden stake through an eripmav’s heart instantly slays the monster. However, it returns to life if the stake is removed, unless the body is destroyed. A popular tactic is to cut off the creature’s head and fill its mouth with unholy spices (or their equivalent).

Eripmav Characters
Eripmavs of certain classes experience special effects as described below.

Clerics
Eripmav clerics lose their ability to rebuke undead but gain the ability to turn undead. This ability does not affect the eripmav’s master-spawn relationships in either direction. An eripmav cleric has access to two of the following domains: Community, Chaos, Good, Healing, and/or Law. They may not select alignment domains unless they are of that/those alignment(s).

Sorcerers and Wizards
Eripmav sorcerers and wizards retain their class abilities, but if a character has a familiar other than a rat, owl, or bat, the link between them is broken(but with halved XP penalties, which is a quarter on a successful save), and the familiar shuns its former companion. The character can summon another familiar, but it must be a rat, owl or bat.

Original Post in this spot:
133 views, no comments...

Were people expecting "more vampire, less social butterfly"? If so... just consider it as if you had never heard the word "vampire". Please?

Is it overpowered? I was sorta eyeballing it as I went along. Ordinary vampires are CR +2 and this is less extreme, so I put it at CR +1. The LA I am less sure about.

Underpowered? See above.

So weird is causes San loss merely to look upon? I am happy to explain why I did any particular thing.

[radmelon]

I like this template, and I greatly anticipate the fic that inspired it.

[sengmeng]

I think that many of the viewers are getting to the blood drain and anticipating that the rest of the entry is filled with equally clunky rules and giving up. Could really use some streamlining and elimination of oddly specific rules.

[DracoDei]

I like this template,

1.) Thank You
2.) Could you look at the below objection and my response to it and tell me if it is in keeping with what you liked about the template?

and I greatly anticipate the fic that inspired it.

Err... the first three(EDIT Febuary:Four) chapters are up... let me link you...
MAIN LINK: The Two Deaths of Fluttershy
Chapter 1: Oh, Most Black of Nights!
Chapter 2: Quarantine Period, Part 1: In Which Freak Outs are Prevented
Chapter 3: Quarantine Period, Part 2: Twilight Sciences the Tartarus out of Fluttershy
Interlude: Hunting One Who Walks in Death's Hoofsteps
Quarantine Period, Part 3: Such a Loudmouth...
(Coming at some point)Quarantine Period, Part 4: A <redacted> Siege

I assume you don't have a fimfiction account, so I will simply humbly beg you to PM me here with what you think.

I think that many of the viewers are getting to the blood drain and anticipating that the rest of the entry is filled with equally clunky rules and giving up. Could really use some streamlining

Got any suggestions for ways I could say things better? I generally have a huge blindspot for such things. If I knew a better way to say things I would have said it that way from the start, and trying to find any "streamlining" on my own is an exercise in frustration.
Would putting the splashing rules in a spoiler help?

and elimination of oddly specific rules.

Err... I could probably be persuaded to make an alternate version with simpler rules(I did so in the past with my Devotion Bower for instance), but I imagine the fluff and/or what the thing IS apart from any rules, and then I do whatever it takes to write rules that match that. It is kinda the core of most of my homebrew. I'm always up for suggestions for how to say things better, but only rarely will I change the concepts that those words are intended to convey. If I preferred "simple" over "evocative" I would do 4E.

Now then... let us talk about "simpler versions":
I can outright cut the stuff that won't come up very often (spells to disguise the taste of blood from an eripmav) from the "I don't want roleplay hooks, just give me the basic rules" version.

I suppose I could reduce the flowing water damage rules to two levels of damage (and put the splashing stuff in a spoiler).

I could remove the size classes from the nutrition thing, despite the fact that it will be an important plot point in the source material. The emotional/relational component, however, is key, as is the fact that blood is merely food to them, rather than a insanity-making addiction, or source of instant healing.

Similarly, "native soil" isn't going to be a source of healing like the MM vampire's is. I could cut the details about how much they need and where it can come from I guess.

The reduction of flowing water and sunlight to acid and fire damage respectively is both a way of toning down the disadvantages (paralleling the toning down of the advantages) to make it so you aren't either overpowered or underpowered depending on the precise circumstances with wild variations AND parallels the fact that in the original story those disadvantages are REMOVED eventually. For example, sunlight only harms vampires because several millennia ago Princess Celestia cast an Epic Spell on her sun to make it do so, and she alters that spell within days after Princess Luna turns Fluttershy into the first eripmav so it still harms vampires, but now no longer will harm eripmavs. I modeled this with both the general idea of something that can be overcome with the right spells or magic items in addition to just avoiding the situations entirely (thus rewarding forethought in more ways), and with the whole way I specifically handled the Sun domain.

A lot of the stuff is also modified from the vampire template itself, such as the business with familiars or the fact that it effects domains at all. In both cases I toned things down in their effects. You don't HAVE to change domains and you can get your familiar back, it just takes a bit of time, effort, and roleplay.

The rules relating to redemption through having your life existence saved and those for falling into actual vampirism are roleplaying opportunities (the first makes a great story element, and the second is better than being unable to become Evil period). For the "fall from grace" the saving throws make the transition something that is both possible to do successfully, and dangerous enough to think twice about and or to have a would-be villain hoist by their own petard. The simplified version could just have the alignment restrictions be absolute, both for who can become an eripmav, and that eripmavs are utterly incapable of acting Evil enough to alignment change past Neutral.

"Power of the Empty Mirror" was my in-story explanation for why vampires generally cast no reflection.

[DracoDei]

Back-up copy in case my attempts to create two versions in the first post backfire.

Spoiler

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WARNING! This template contains spoilers for a fanfic I am writing!!




Explanation and notes for further development, and questions.

Spoiler

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I have read a few MLP:FiM fanfics that featured vampires. My brain twisted this perhaps overused concept around into something a bit different, and I started writing my own story, in which the niceness and even cuteness destroy any evil tendencies and standard vampire angst (there is a bit of angst at the start of things, but only because the caster was Luna and the accidentally target was Fluttershy).

I've run low on steam for the story itself (I will get past it, but for now it is delayed), but for some reason I got a bug up my butt to write the D&D rules for the condition.

I toned down a lot of the vulnerabilities and strengths of the SRD vampires here, trying to make something a bit more playable while I was at it. For instance, sunlight is painful without protective spells, but much more survivable even in such cases. In the original story, the sunlight vulnerability is something that Princess Celestia created, and she installs an exception for Fluttershy and her spawn within a few days of Fluttershy's tranformation. Similar things apply to running water and "native soils" although those are slower to be altered.

Unfortunately one of the most important facets as far as the mood of the whole thing proved to be a bit of a pain in the neck (joke intended) to write out, and the entire template benefits greatly from being paired with a good diplomacy fix (which might require re-working the table... suggestions welcome), but I think I will figure it out eventually, and it isn't the sort of thing most parties worry about anyway. Basically the nutrition level of blood is both vaguely volume proportionate, and proportionate to the good-will in which the blood is given (IE their bonuses to diplomacy and sense motive are a survival trait for maintaining the relationships that keep them well-fed). This means that holding a screaming victim down and biting them deals damage to the drinker, while an eripmav (see below or the story for the source of the name) who is well-loved in their community can sustain themselves without ever drinking enough from any one individual to cause so much as a single point of constitution damage. Even in the average adventuring party, the occasional point of constitution damage will prove a minimal problem. There should be enough there for most GMs to wing it.


Questions:
What do people think of the CR and LA?

What would be a good Diplomacy fix to pair this with?

How is the feeding/damage table looking?

Do the "fiddly bits" such as how sunlight effects them, the "native soil" requirements, and the various tables add more to the feel, and interestingness of social, tactical, and logistical roleplay than the complication they impose?

Eripmav
In a far distant outer plane, a mighty archangel associated with the moon and night fell, becoming an arch-devil. She was imprisoned for a thousand years, before she escaped and was redeemed. Thinking (correctly at it turned out) that her evil powers were gone from her, later while laying blessings on a timid mortal whom she was aiding the archnangel accidentally cast a spell that would have slain its target and raised them as a vampire... and slay them it did, but what they become was not a vampire exactly. In a hurry to reassure the ex-mortal, one of the archangel's retinue named the new condition the first thing that came to her mind, simply spelling "vampire" backwards. The name stuck. Although the archangel did not dare cast the spell again for many centuries, she had the person she had visited this accidental "gift" on grant it to worthy individuals via the vampiric bite. Since then it has spread to less worthy individuals.

Appearance and Language
Eripmavs appear just as they did in life although with a bluish cast to their skin, due to their permanent cyanosis.

Unlike vampires, eripmavs usually dress in a very normal fashion. Despite their mostly normal appearance (and the coloration can, of course, be disguised), eripmavs can be easily recognized, for they cast no shadows and throw no reflections in mirrors.

Eripmavs speak any languages they knew in life.

Creating An Eripmav
"Eripmav" is an acquired template that can be added to any non-plant living creature with an intelligence of at least 3(referred to hereafter as the base creature). Note, however, the strong restrictions on evil creatures becoming eripmavs listed under "alignment" below.

An eripmav uses all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Size and Type
The creature’s type changes to deathless (augmented <previous creature type>). Do not recalculate base attack bonus, saves (but see below), or skill points. Size is unchanged. Unlike most deathless, eripmavs are subject to starvation and lack of sleep as if they were still alive, see Mortal Frailties below. They also still experience aging after a fashion, see Abilities below.

Hit Dice
Increase all current and future Hit Dice to d12s.

Speed
Same as the base creature. If the base creature has a swim speed, the eripmav retains the ability to swim and is not damaged by running water (see below).

Armor Class
The base creature’s natural armor bonus improves by +3.

Attack
An eripmav retains all the attacks of the base creature.

Full Attack
Also unchanged.

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

Blood Drain (Ex)
An eripmav can suck blood from a living non-plant victim with its fangs. While this technically requires a successful grapple check and pin eripmavs do not usually use this ability in any situation that would require these to actually be rolled. Each round the eripmav drinks it may deal up to enough blood drain to cause a single point of constitution damage, although outside of emergencies most eripmavs feed over the course of several minutes both to use a smaller bite-hole and just in case the "donor" has a sudden flash of annoyance at them. In whatever case it drains blood, but usually not enough to deal even as single point of constitution DAMAGE (eripmavs never deal drain). On each such successful round of feeding, the eripmav gains sustenance or takes damage as per the following tables. No hitpoint damage is healed, only nourishment such as a living individual would gain from eating and drinking.
Days worth of nourishment or damage per point of constitution damage inflicted, indexed by the size of the "donor" relative to the eripmav (WITHOUT including an supernatural or magical size changes, but including such things as Powerful Build and Slight Build when they would be to the eripmav's benefit) and the "donor"'s attitude towards the feeding (which may not exceed their attitude towards the eripmav in general). Any magical influence improving the donor's receptiveness (such as Charm spells) do not count for this, but any worsening it (such as a Suggestion that an eripmav wife might be cheating on the husband she feeds on in strict moderation each day) are effective in reducing the nutrition/harming the eripmav.
An eripmav may take half this amount (gaining half the nourishment or taking half the hitpoint damage) in any 24 hour period without dealing dealing constitution damage. Note that no matter how slowly an eripmav feeds, they have a general idea of the effectiveness of the blood within the first few rounds, just as a living individual can tell the quality of food as they eat it. Spells exist to disguise the taste of blood from an eripmav, but they are incredibly obscure, requiring a DC 25 Knowledge(Religion) or Spellcraft check to know of the existence of the divine and arcane versions respectively.
At any one time an eripmav may store enough blood inside itself to have caused 12 points of constitution damage (equal to 24 feedings not sufficient to cause constitution damage). Note that the amount of time this will sustain the eripmav varies widely based on the disposition and relative size of the "donors".
Note that paying people for their blood generally produces a neutral result, unless they are well accustomed over a long period of time to being fed from in that fashion, or bleeding treatments. In such a case the result might improve to Friendly at the GMs discretion.
The final catagory is reserved for boon companions/family members, with an eripmav player (AND donor if that is a PC as well) who demonstrated exemplary roleplay of their character's relationship with eachother. This is always at the GMs sole discretion.
Damage and sustenance from creatures of animal intelligence is divided by four.


Children of the Night (Su)
The lesser nocturnal creatures, such as rats, bats, wolves, jackles, owls, and some cats are well-disposed toward eripmavs. When dealing with such creatures they gain the Animal Empathy class feature of a druid of level equal to their ECL, and a +8 bonus on handle animal checks. Their presence is slightly disturbing to daylight favoring creatures, imposing a -8 penalty to Animal Empathy and handle animal checks on any such creature that has not had positive interactions with them for at least the last 24 hours. Both the bonus and the penalty apply to Magical Beasts and Abberations, provided they are of True Neutral alignment, have racial intelligence of 6 or less, and do not possess a true language.

Influence (Su)
An eripmav can weaken an opponent’s will just by looking onto his or her eyes. This is similar to a gaze attack, except that the eripmav must use at least a standard action, and those merely looking at it are not affected. This action must be combined into a single action with a use of the Diplomacy or Intimidate skill. Anyone the eripmav targets must succeed on a Will save after the first standard action of the diplomacy or intimidate check or be Entranced for the duration of the intimidate or diplomacy attempt (to a maximum of twice the eripmav's ECL in rounds). On a failed save the diplomacy or intimidate check also gains a +8 bonus. The ability has a range of 30 feet, an equivalent spell level equal to half the eripmav's ECL (Maximum 9), and a caster level equal to the eripmav's ECL. The influence of this ability NEVER applies to nutrition-levels, although a long-term relationship that started off this way is not forever ruined.

Create Spawn (Su)
A creature that qualifies for this template slain by an eripmav’s blood drain (either by hitpoint loss in combination with an earlier injury, or by having its Constitution reduced to 0 or lower) rises as an eripmav 1d4 rounds after death.

In either case, the new eripmav is under the influence of the eripmav that created it as per Charm Monster without benefit of spell resistance or saving throw, and not suppressed by Protection from Chaos/Evil/Good/Law or Magic Circle Against Chaos/Evil/Good/Law. This effect has a duration of a number of days equal to the creating eripmav's ECL. The effects of this ability are otherwise treated as a 4th level spell cast by a sorcerer of a level equal to the eripmavs ECL. At any given time an eripmav may have influenced spawn totaling no more than twice its own ECL; any spawn it creates that would exceed this limit are created as free-willed eripmav. An eripmav that is enslaved may create and influence spawn of its own, so a master eripmav can control a number of lesser eripmavs in this fashion. An eripmav may voluntarily free an influenced spawn in order to enslave a new spawn, but once freed, an eripmav or eripmav spawn cannot be influenced again.


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

Alternate Form (Su)
An eripmav each may assume two alternate forms, one flying, and one canid. The appearance of these forms is consistent each time a given eripmav assumes it and will look as much like the eripmav's base form as is possible within the normal variation of that type (not species exactly since, for instance "dog" and "riding dog" are considered two different things) of animal, and always shares the body-temperature and cyanosis of the eripmavs true form(unless lesser phoenix, see below). Once each of these forms is selected it may not be changed. Eripmavs of medium or smaller size can assume the shape of a bat or owl for their flying form, while those of Large or larger size select either dire bat or giant owl. Regardless of size if a the moment after their transformation into an eripmav is complete they meet at least one of the following criterion then they may select lesser phoenix as their alternate form:

1. [Fire] subtype.
2. Cleric or other divine caster with access to the sun and/or fire domains.
3. Evocation or sorcerer with at least 3 spells known that "natively" deal fire damage.
4. Have the Energy Substitution(Fire) feat.
5. At least 4 ranks and skill focus in a craft skill that uses large amounts of fire, such as pottery or any sort of smithing focused around objects larger than kitchen utensils.
6. At least 4 ranks and skill focus in Craft(Alchemy) AND have created at least one gallon of alchemist's fire for each year since their birth.
7. Have a breathweapon capable of dealing fire damage.

Eripmavs of small or smaller size select either dog, coyotes, jackals, and African wild dogs (all of which you the same statistics). Eripmavs of medium size turn into wolfs or riding dogs mechanically, but if riding dog is selected then they may choose to resemble an enlarged version of any form a small eripmav could take, and which the GM rules suits their personality. Eripmavs of large or larger size use dire wolf for the mechanics of their canid form, but can resemble an enlarged wolf(without the more primative cast of a dire wolf) or any other canid with the animal type as suits their personality. For instance, especially kindly giants have been known to turn into gigantic lap-dogs, although the individuals in question almost invariably consider this an embarrassment.
In addition, if a the moment after their transformation into an eripmav is complete they meet at least one of the following criterion then they may replace the normal subtype of the canid they turn into with plant. In which case the form appears to be made out of dried wood of some species of plant that is in keeping with the eripmav's personality. There may even be perfectly dried flowers blooming from them (while easily damaged these regrow with hours and losing them deals no damage to the eripmav). They never have thorns or contact poison (such as poison ivy), regardless of species.

• Have the Animal Empathy ability.
• Cleric or other divine caster with access to the plant domain.
• Augmented Plant subtype in native form.

Assuming an alternate form is a standard action. An eripmav of While in its alternate form, the eripmav loses its influence ability, but it gains the natural weapons and extraordinary special attacks of its new form. It can remain in that form until it assumes another or until the next sunrise. (If the base creature is not terrestrial, this power might allow other forms.)

Damage Reduction (Su)
An eripmav has damage reduction 5/silver and magic, increasing at the following ECLs: at ECL 10 this increases to 10, at ECL 15 it increases to 15, at ECL 20 it increases to 20, and so on. At ECL 25+ this damage reduction is only bypassed by weapons that are both Silver and Epic.
An eripmav’s natural weapons and unarmed attacks are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. At ECL 25 they are also treated as Epic Weapons for similar purposes.

Gaseous Form (Su)
As a standard action, an eripmav can assume gaseous form at will as the spell (caster level 5th), but it can remain gaseous indefinitely and has a fly speed of 20 feet with perfect maneuverability. In this form it takes quadrupal damage from fire and acid(including sunlight and running water), and double damage from all area of effect attacks. Unlike most multiplications, area of effect fire or acid attacks deal octupal damage to an Eripmav. HOWEVER, apply all multiplications from this weakness AFTER resistances and and protections. An eripmav reduced to 0 hitpoints in this form instantly reverts to its normal form.

Healing Lick (Su)
An eripmav can close wounds on living creatures with its lick, healing one point of damage from a slashing or piercing injury as a full round action that provokes attacks of opportunity and causes both parties to count as flat-footed. Each individual injury may only be treated once by this ability. Injuries treated in this way will be closed up enough to prevent dirt and such from entering the wound, thus avoiding later infection, although the deeper damage will remain. This also stops any ongoing hit-point or constitution damage from the injury in question.

Mortal Frailities (Ex)
An eripmav subject to subdual damage from lack of food (blood in their case, see the blood drain special ability).

They also take the same penalties to lack of sleep/trance as they when they were alive, and furthermore they only benefit from such rest when taken while in their native forms and near near a certain amount of their native soil (about 20 dry weight pounds for medium sized eripmavs). Most use bedrolls, mattress covers, or blankets filled soil. Native soil is where-ever the eripmav considers its true home. As a rule of thumb, they should have to have lived a particular place for at least a year, and the soil should only count within a radius of a few miles at most. Alternatively, for dedicated travelers, an approximately equal mix of soils from at least 10 locations, each separated from all the others by at least 200 miles or one change to a non-co-existant plane may be substituted.

On the plus side, they regain hit-points as if they were living creatures.

Power of the Empty Mirror (Su)
An Eripmav gains a +10 bonus on saving throws against Scrying, Greater Scrying, and similar spells, effects, and ability. For any spell, spell-like ability, effect, or non-racial ability that allows seeing an eripmav where the caster or creature would not normally be able to see them, they gain spell-resistance equal to 15 + their ECL. A spell that does not beat this resistance (which the GM should roll secretly) can not see them. This means that Claravoyance, Prying Eyes, Detect Undead, and scrying another creature in the eripmav's vicinity treat them as invisible. Even augmenting such spells with See Invisible or True Seeing spells or abilities of any kind does no good if the other spell does not succeed against the spell resistance.

Eripmavs invisible from other sources gain this spell resistance against attempts to directly view them(rather than via a separate divination effect) via See Invisible, True Seeing, etc.

This ability provides no protection against Glitterdust, Invisibility Purge or similar spells and effects.

Resistances (Ex)
An eripmav has resistance to cold 10 and electricity 10.

Turn Resistance (Ex)
An eripmav has +4 turn resistance.

Abilities
Increase from the base creature as follows: If their prior consitution score (not including any enhancement bonuses or bonuses of any kind from equipment and non-perminant spells) is higher than their prior strenght score(Ditto) then their strength score changes to the average the aforementioned two old scores(rounded up). In either case, the eripmav then gains a +4 racial bonus to their strength score.

As an undead creature, an eripmav has no Constitution score, however they multiply their charisma bonus (if any) by their hitdice, divide by two, and add the result to their hitpoints. They also add their charisma modifier to their fortitude saves in leu of their constition modifier.

In addition unlike most undead, an eripmav is effected differently by aging. They remove all aging penalties to dexterity. Aging penalities to strength (and technically constitution) present upon becoming an eripmav remain. The eripmav no longer takes ability score penalties for further aging and cannot be magically aged.

Bonuses still accrue, and unlike almost all other deathless the eripmav still dies of old age when her time is up, going instantly from perfect functionality to dead at the moment that fate has ordaned for them.

Skills
Eripmavs rely on friendship to eat well, and their psychology adjusts to this, both quickly (via gaining the Negotiator Feat) and over a period of time. They gain a racial bonus to diplomacy and sense motive checks made outside of combat based on how long they have been an eripmav. They also use their ECL instead of their class levels or hitdice when determining their maximum ranks for these two skills.

They also gain a +2 racial bonus Hide, and Move Silently checks. Otherwise same as the base creature.

Feats
Eripmavs gain Great Fortitude and Negotiator, assuming the base creature meets the prerequisites and doesn’t already have these feats.

Environment
Any, usually same as base creature.

Organization
Solitary, or Club (2-5)

Challenge Rating
Same as the base creature +1.

Treasure
Standard.

Alignment
Any non-evil, but see below.

A willing evil creature may become an eripmav, but only if the act of having their life saved by their "master" opens them to alignment change. This functions as per the alignment change from Atonement, with the same restrictions on it. The alignment of the spawn changes to neutral on the good/evil axis. Alignment on the Law/Chaos axis is never directly effected by becoming an eripmav.

An Eripmav that becomes evil must make a will save followed by a Fortitude save(without the benefit of the charisma or feat bonuses provided by this template), both against DC 22. If the will save is successful, then the eripmav exchanges this template for the vampire template, however, in this case, they reduce all their ability scores by 6 if they fail the fortitude save and do not gain the bonuses to charisma, bluff checks, nor the Children of the Night or Dominate special abilities. If both saves are failed the eripmav is utterly destroyed by holy fire burning it from the inside out (half of this unlimited damage results directly from divine energy, and thus is not subject to resistances or immunity). If the Fortitude save is successful but the will save is failed, the eripmav loses this template and replaces it with the ghoul template((Note to self: Create this template)), but subsisting on blood rather than flesh, and lacking the paralytic touch.

Advancement
By character class.

Level Adjustment
Same as the base creature +3.

Eripmav Weaknesses
For all their differences from vampires, eripmavs share a number of weaknesses.

Repelling a Eripmav
Eripmavs cannot tolerate the strong odor of garlic and will not enter an area laced with it. Similarly, they recoil from a strongly presented unholy symbol(but not from a mirror or holy symbol). These things don’t harm the eripmav—they merely keep it at bay. A recoiling eripmav must stay at least 5 feet away from a creature holding the unholy symbol and cannot touch or make melee attacks against the creature holding the item for the rest of the encounter. Holding an eripmav at bay takes a standard action.

Eripmavs without a natural swim speed are burned by running water in something like the way that acid burns living creatures. Protections and resistances to acid apply against this damage. A creature of at least tiny size may deal damage to an eripmav by splashing them directly from such a body of water causing damage per the following table if splashed directly from such a source, treated as a splash weapon with a range incriment of 5 feet for creatures of up to large size, and 10 feet for creatures larger than that.


Wading or swimming in running water deals damage based on the following table. Note that the water must actually touch the skin of the Eripmav, making high oil-skin boots a favorite among careful eripmavs. Note also that, until and unless it starts running along the ground, precipitation never counts as "running water".
*This is for humanoids, the more general rule is "half-way up the leg", which is quite a different thing for many quadrupeds.

Exposure to direct sunlight usually disorients an eripmav: It is dealt 3d6 fire damage per round (manifesting as the skin charring and flacking away, rather than actual flames, but subject to all sources of fire resistance/immunity/protection), and unless all of this damage is prevented disorients it: It can take only a single move action or attack action each round it is in direct sunlight.

They are utterly unable to enter a home or other building with ill intent unless invited in by someone with the authority to do so. If entering such a building without such an invitation they become incapable of attacking in any way (can not make attack rolls, cast spells on unwilling targets, etc). They may freely enter public places, since these are by definition open to all.

Slaying a Eripmav
Reducing an eripmav’s hit points to 0 or lower incapacitates it but doesn’t always destroy it. However, certain attacks can slay eripmavs. Exposing it to sunlight or, fully immersing an eripmav in running water destroys it after such immersion and/or sunlight has dealt an number of points of damage over consecutive rounds equal to its maximum hitpoints. Actual fire and acid count half towards this total. Driving a wooden stake through an eripmav’s heart instantly slays the monster. However, it returns to life if the stake is removed, unless the body is destroyed. A popular tactic is to cut off the creature’s head and fill its mouth with unholy spices (or their equivalent).

Eripmav Characters
Eripmavs of certain classes experience special effects as described below.

Clerics
Eripmav clerics lose their ability to rebuke undead but gain the ability to turn undead. This ability does not affect the eripmav’s master-spawn relationships in either direction. An eripmav cleric has access to the domains they had in life, or may swap one or both of them out for the following domains: Community, Chaos, Good, Healing, or Law. They may not select alignment domains unless they are of that/those alignment(s). Alternatively an eripmav cleric may exchange BOTH their domains for the Sun domain, in which case they gain 10 resistance to damage from sunlight, Sunray, Sunburst and other light based damage. This stacks with fire resistance, Protection from Elements (applying the reduction before the protection), and similar spells, effects, etc. A cleric who already had access to the Sun domain, must either take this option(in effect losing access to one other domain) or trade away the sun domain for a different domain on the previous list.

Sorcerers and Wizards
Eripmav sorcerers and wizards retain their class abilities, but if a character has a familiar other than a rat, owl, or bat, the link between them is broken(but with halved XP penalties, which is a quarter on a successful save), and the familiar shuns its former companion for a number of days equal to twice the eripmav's new ECL. The character can summon another familiar, but it must be a rat, owl or bat. Alternatively they may rebind their old familiar after the period of shunning has passed, followed by succeeding on a DC 20 handle animal (or diplomacy if the familiar's natural intelligence score is 3 or higher) with the same casting time and material components as summoning a new familiar.



FEAT
Tongue of the Healer of Hearts and Bodies
"I can taste your spirit my beloved."
Prerequisites: Eripmav, 5 ranks each in Sense Motive and Heal, at least three class levels.
Benefits: When you drink someone's blood, you get a feeling for their emotional state. The automatically tells you any emotions they are not trying to repress, and grants a sense motive check opposed by their bluff check on any they were repressing and are not trying to intentionally communicate to you via letting you drink their blood. You know only the emotions, not their source. In addition, this allows you to attempt a heal check to diagnosis any diseases in the blood or psychological conditions, or gives a +5 to the check to diagnosis if combined with mundane examination. If an eripmav treats someone for a properly diagnosed psychological condition and drinks at least a few sips from them each day, they any the patient gains a +2 bonus to all fortitude and will saves that would directly aid in the treatment, and the eripmav gains +5 to all will saves and skill checks directly related to treating them. Drinking from a patient directly also grants a +2 bonus to caster level for one minute for any spell to cure or treat them for a properly diagnosed psychological condition.

Changelog

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8:01 PM Eastern Oct 31st 2012: Edited feeding table after seeing many empty columns

10:16 PM: Made feeding table look nicer, and added language preventing cheese with size-changing magics. Beefed up healing lick to stop bleed damage (which was part of my original intention). Added some stuff about how emotion-effecting magics interact with feeding, as well as mentioning the existence of taste disguising spells. I would type those up, but I think that they would be more of plot points than things that would require an actual spell-description.

3:30 PM Nov 1st: Reduced nutrition levels to encourage roleplay. May not have gone far enough.

3:45 PM Had DR improve to Silver and Epic at ECL 25.

[radmelon]

1.) Thank You
2.) Could you look at the below objection and my response to it and tell me if it is in keeping with what you liked about the template?

Err... the first three chapters are up... let me link you...
MAIN LINK: The Two Deaths of Fluttershy
Chapter 1: Oh, Most Black of Nights!
Quarantine Period 1: In Which Freak Outs are Prevented
Quarantine Period, Part 2: Twilight Sciences the Tartarus out of Fluttershy
(Coming Soon When My Muse Stops Cowering) Quarantine Period, Part 3: A Polite Siege

I assume you don't have a fimfiction account, so I will simply humbly beg you to PM me here with what you think.

ಠ_ಠ How did I miss this being published? I check Fimfiction daily for stuff like this. I shall begin reading immediately, homework be damned!

And you're right on the not having an account matter, I've never gotten around to it. Maybe next weekend I will. After I read, I'll make sure to respond as to how the crunch and story line up.

Also, was the story in any way inspired/influenced by this picture?

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[DracoDei]

ಠ_ಠ How did I miss this being published? I check Fimfiction daily for stuff like this. I shall begin reading immediately, homework be damned!

Thank you. MAYBE, depending on my energy levels and what the subjects in question are, I can make it up to you at some later point by explaining your homework from alternate perspectives, if it is science or math related, or proof-reading English stuff to point out what flaws I can. It has been a while since I earned my mechanical engineering degree, but understanding what I read is still a skill I have, and a lot of the lower level stuff can be found online.

Of course, that may not be necessary?

And you're right on the not having an account matter, I've never gotten around to it. Maybe next weekend I will. After I read, I'll make sure to respond as to how the crunch and story line up.

Err... go ahead and do that, but you will probably find that they line up very well in some ways and INTENTIONALLY not in some other ways. What Fluttershy has would, in many ways, be very high-powered in D&D due to certain factors that have only been mentioned, rather than actually happened so far. For another thing, I am not sure if eripmavs in the story will have any entrancing gaze or special interactions with animals. I DO know that the answer in Fluttershy's specific case will be "She's Fluttershy, she of The Stare and Friend to All Living Things. We can't exactly tell if those may or may not have gotten stronger since they were already tremendously strong and neither is something she thinks about enough to notice the difference very precisely."

Oh, and then there is the fact that in the story she gains a compulsive behavior from her condition that would basically be a "Eripmav must save or lose/phail each round in combat" in D&D, but which the underlying concepts of the show render mostly a non-issue, even in my slightly "Edgier but NOT darker" take on the show.

I was more asking in if you thought that the mechanical complexities of the template itself justified the roleplay hooks and aids of the template without reference to the story. Of course, I would ALSO be interested in how it lines up with the story.

Also, was the story in any way inspired/influenced by this picture?

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Never seen that picture before, and it looks a bit feral for what she is in my story, especially with the tongue. With one slight edit to who she is biting that COULD be something that happens at a later point in the story, but only under unusual circumstances.

[radmelon]

Thank you. MAYBE, depending on my energy levels and what the subjects in question are, I can make it up to you at some later point by explaining your homework from alternate perspectives, if it is science or math related, or proof-reading English stuff to point out what flaws I can. It has been a while since I earned my mechanical engineering degree, but understanding what I read is still a skill I have, and a lot of the lower level stuff can be found online.

Of course, that may not be necessary?

Don't worry, I don't have all that much. It's just that I usually try to finish all my work before reading poni.

Err... go ahead and do that, but you will probably find that they line up very well in some ways and INTENTIONALLY not in some other ways.

Sorry, I thought that that was what you had asked me to do. I must have misunderstood your question, sorry.

[DracoDei]

Don't worry, I don't have all that much. It's just that I usually try to finish all my work before reading poni.

Oh, Ok.

Sorry, I thought that that was what you had asked me to do. I must have misunderstood your question, sorry.

Well, as I said, I would be very interested in how you see the relationship between the template and the story, DESPITE that not being the questions I was asking.

The questions I was asking were:
1.) What you thought of sengmeng's claim that the template could be improved by "elimination of oddly specific rules". This assumes that by "streamlining" he meant simply writing the same underlying rules in clearer ways.
2.) What you thought of the story itself (Refinement: With or without the influence of the template).

In aid of #2 above, I now provide additional spoilers relevant to the interaction with the template for the parts of the story I haven't written yet. You don't need to read them if you wish to avoid being spoiled for the later events of the story.

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Fluttershy tastes some of Cranky's blood (from a bag from the hospital) and finds it tastes horrible (he wasn't enthusastic about selling blood to the hospital after spending money on dates with Matilda). This is how the relationship between attitude of donor towards and nutrition is discovered, and this becomes widely known due to certain dramatic actions Angel takes so that Fluttershy can warn Cranky that he may have a disease (he doesn't, she just knows that food from sick plants or eggs from sick chickens may not taste good).

Celestia will, indeed, be modifying sunlight on the third day after Fluttershy's transformation. After this sunlight will not harm her or her spawn (and she WILL spawn other eripmavs eventually, since after some initial testing, eripmavism will be used as a last-ditch medical treatment).

Big Macintosh will be asking her out because:
Ah almost lost her. Made me realize how much I woulda regretted never askin' her out.
More specifically he does this by giving Twilight a bag of his blood to give to her directly, rather than the past-freshness-date stuff from the hospital, then asking Fluttershy how he tastes. She shyly replies that he tasted nice, not as nice as Rarity or Rainbow Dash (her closest friends), but DIFFERENT. It turns out that eripmavs can taste the difference between an intense friend and a light crush.

The mirror thing proves to be a hold-over from a defense that necromancers added to vampires to keep them from being detected by vampire-hunting unicorns and alicorns. Fade from mirror, fade from divinations. Most vampires keep this up so long they forget how to turn it off. I should perhaps build the choice between "Always On" and "Only on when I am spending a swift action every round to maintain it" into eripmavs so that some of them can appear in mirrors. Once made this would require a feat to get the best of both world with "Swift action to turn on or off". Then again, most PCs would pick "Always On" and not bother with the feat, relying on their diplomacy bonuses to explain themselves to anyone who notices they don't appear in a mirror.

Early experiments on elderly dying ponies in hospitals prove that eripmavism does not extend lifespan past old-age. This explains why it gives the equivalent of the monk and druid's "Timeless Body" rather than immortality. I thought about it a bit and decided to give dexterity lost to prior aging back, but not the strength.

Fluttershy is horrified when she tries to save a chipmunk that was going to almost certainly going die anyway, and ends up simply killing it when she drains it of blood. This explains the "Intelligence 3+" limit.

In order to keep Fluttershy needing to feed on Ponies rather than limiting herself to the animals she feels more comfortable interacting with (and many would offer, just as they tried to cheer her up when she was crying in "Hurricane Fluttershy"), I put in the bit about animals only providing 1/4 nutrition (I should clarify that the damage from taking blood from an unwilling animal is NOT reduced).

Later Celestia's brothers (don't laugh! I explain why they are never relevant in the series, and they AREN'T alicorns in form, plus they never appear "on camera") modify the running water and "must sleep in native soil" banes respectively. The last one takes several years/decades for reasons that aren't important to go into here.

Eventually Fluttershy and Big Macintosh will marry.

Fluttershy's condition renders her infertile(this is assumed for deathless I think, but I GUESS I could explicitly state it), but they will eventually adopt a child* who Fluttershy was called in to turn into an eripmav since he was dying after be born via C-Section after his mother died of complications while in pre-mature labor. He never gets any larger (this will be important in the next paragraph), but starts down the path to his cutie-mark and eventual career when he starts volunteering at Ponyville General Hospital, mostly working in the lab taste-testing blood. This is the origin of the feat, and any other Sense Motive bonuses I gave for tasting blood.
*I am intentionally not spoiling the foal's name, because I think I have a pretty hilariously appropriate one and I don't want to ruin more surprises than I have to.

Regarding why size classes are included in the table:

1. Big Macintosh tastes wonderful most of the time, but like any relationship, their's has its ups and downs. Big Macintosh, being big (equivalent to Powerful Build perhaps and definitely with a high constitution score) keeps trying to get her to drink more from him, but Fluttershy is much to scared of causing him long-term harm, and insists on mostly living existing on blood-bags from the hospital.
2. As for their adoptive son (who you remember is permanently the size of a prematurely born foal), takes an apple to school every day so he and his parents can feel Honest about him taking his lunch from Cheerilee's leg (Breakfast and Dinner are from the hospital bags), this happens on occasion even after he graduates from her class.
3. Their son also gets his cutie-mark when he is rushed from the hospital laboratory to the ER to save a dying stallion's life. He does so, but ends up filling up several bedpans by urinating the excess blood while still latched onto the stallion's neck. Their son notes that this is the first time in all his years of existence that he has ever urinated. This point also explains approximately how I set the storage capacity.

The influence over eripmavs you create isn't something from the story, but is my idea of how a new eripmav could be kept from doing anything too stupid while they learn the ropes, and is derived from a vampire's ability to control any vampires and vampire spawn it creates.

One thing I DIDN'T include in the template is that Fluttershy actually nurses her foal (the literal "Magic of Motherhood" causes this to happen, whereas if his biological father had raised him instead of giving him to her, it wouldn't have happened). If she had instead adopted a living child, she would have produced a substance resembling blood, but as nutritious as mare-milk.

The story ends with Fluttershy's funeral after she keels over dead in mid-sentence at a ripe old age, instantly going from a vibrant deathless (not that I will probably use that term in the story) to a corpse. We discover their son standing on Big Macintosh's head at the funeral weeping tears of Big Macintosh's blood (they were doing the feeding thing as a comfort ritual between the two of them). Ergo eripmavs, perhaps any time they cry, perhaps only if they keep crying for a very long time, will substitute deathless blood for tears.

[radmelon]

I'll pass on the spoilers for now, though it certainly is tempting. Although if the next chapter is too long in coming it will be very hard indeed to resist. I am a rather large fan of monstrous transformations, they allow for a non-whiny form of angst I think (as long as mary-sueism is avoided, that is).

[DracoDei]

I am a rather large fan of monstrous transformations, they allow for a non-whiny form of angst I think

Interesting observation...

(as long as mary-sueism is avoided, that is).

This as well.

I would remember both of these things as you read future chapters. You have made me realize that I REALLY need to lay some of the groundwork about my fanon out to the readers SOON. There are at least two key things that I need to explain and one of them is going to be a PAIN to get enough detail in to make it seem like anything other than a complete ass-pull.

[DracoDei]

Bumping because I am expecting further feedback due to a PM I received.

As long as I am here...
Link to chapter 4 "Interlude: Hunting One Who Walks in Death's Hoofsteps"

[DracoDei]

Bumping due to mentioning this on the PEACH Exchange Thread.

[Deepbluediver]

Appearance and Language

Had to look up exactly what Cyanosis is; learned something new today.

You might want to consider what, if anything, would change about the appearance for a creature covered in fur or a cytinous shell. Appearance is the least worrisome of any homebrew, but it's the kind of thing that will inevitably come up in D&D.


Creating An Eripmav

Normal vampires need to get bitten and killed, but eripmav's are supposed to be good (or even just non-evil) and they take damage when drinking from hostile creatures. With all these limitations, it honestly seems like eripmav's would go extinct in no more than a generation or two.

You might want to include some other, less-lethal method of acquiring the template.


Size and Type

There is a creature-subtype called "Native Outsider", which is an outsider in all aspects except that they need to eat, sleep, and breathe. You could make something similar for Vampires (Life-like Undead? name needs work) if you thought that it was worth it, but where looking for precedent.


Hit Dice
Speed
Armor Class
Attack/Full Attack
Special Attacks

All reasonable and fairly standard, though I've never really understood exactly where the AC bonus is coming from (this isn't really a complaint, it's in my version, too).

I noticed you cut out the RAW vampire's natural Slam attack, which is just fine in my book.


Blood Drain (Ex)

I admit to being a little bit confused about the damage at first, but the idea of "good" vampires needing to feed from willing (and not charmed) victims associates is interesting. It makes the whole thing seem less about the blood itself and more about the emotion/energy drain.
Since eripmav's have feast healing anyway, you might want to consider something besides damage for drinking the blood of a hostile creature. Maybe sickened for 24 hours or something.

The smaller chart from version 2.0 is much more easily understood than the one from the initial post, though all the various differences in partial-days and damage can still get confusing. I would try to simplfy even further, seperating things into just 3 categories: Unfriendly/Hostile, Nuetral/Friendly, and Helpful/Special. And if possible, I limit a single feeding to no less than 1 days worth of nourishment, since all the fraction are hard to keep track of, and (theoretically) you won't be feeding all that often on non-friendly creatures.

I also think you left in something from the description about relative creature sizes when you copy pasta'd.
If you really wanted to involve size in this in some way, I think it would be easier to just come up with a table for how many pounds of blood a creature has, dependent on weight, and how much they can lose before Con damage kicks in.


Children of the Night (Su)

I think this fits the flavor of the class well, though the +8 bonus might be a bit much. I think +5 would be more than enough, given that the LA is only +3 and you're getting Wild Empathy to boot.


Influence (Su)

This is kind of confusing, and unnecessarily complicated, I think. It would be easier to just say that in certain cirumstances, the eripmav can get a bonus on Diplomacy or Intimidate checks, or if they beat the required check by more than a certain amount, the targeted is affected as if by a Charm Person/Monster spell, with limited duration.


Create Spawn (Su)

I realize that this is supposed to be similar to a vampire, but killing some one and turning them into a mind-slave still sticks out as being pretty all-around evil. What about altering it so that you become an eripmav via something like a blood transfusion. Both parties have to willing donate some of their own blood and consume the blood of the other.

If I recall rightly, in the original story one step for Dracula to make more vampires was getting them to also drink some of HIS blood.


Alternate Form (Su)

This is one part where I actually didn't mind all the role-play related stuff from the first post. Transforming into an owl or a domesticated dog rather than a bat or wolf fits the theme very well


Damage Reduction (Su)

I like things that scale, but granting DR equal to ECL, on top of the AC bonus, seems like it might be a little much. I think DR equal to half ECL, minimum 5, would be better.


Gaseous Form (Su)

Having them revert OUT of gaseous form when knocked down to 0 HP is a major reduction in defense. Not that that is a bad thing, its just something to keep in mind, because fire damage it really common in D&D; even low-level adventurers can smack things with torches.


Healing Lick (Su)

Keeping track on individual injuries is not a strong point for D&D. It might just be easier to say that each full-round lick reduces bleeding damage by 1 point and heals 1 HP, you can only use this ability if the target is actively bleeding.


Mortal Frailities (Ex)

Rules for starvation and sleep-deprivation in D&D are....actually I have no idea if they even exist. I can't think of a single instance I've ever seen of them ever being used.
That's why I made up my own rules for blood-related weakness. (And I should probably change a lack of rest to just being continuously fatigued or exhausted.)


Power of the Empty Mirror (Su)

This is actually pretty neat. I never really liked the "does not appear in mirrors" things because I didn't understand where it came from or what the purpose of it was. This at least ties it into something related.

I'm not certain about how to exactly rate the SR of 15+ECL. Drow (LA +2) get an SR of 11+class levels, meaning that by the same method, the eripmav's SR is comparitively 18+class levels. It might be more reasonable to say 15+HD, or 12+ECL.


Resistances (Ex)
Turn Resistance (Ex)

Something occured to me when I read these section, if these are good-aligned vampires, are they still powered and healed by negative energy? Or are they a positive-energy variant, which would make them more like the deathless?
And it could also explain why they retain more of the living characteristics, including a limited lifespan.


Abilities

A net-gain of +4 to stats seems reasonable, but I'm not sure I like the idea that it always just goes to strength. I think it might be beneficial to consider an option like the other Vampire Template that had various sets of benefits.


Skills
Feats
Negotiator I can understand, but why greater fortitude? Is that to make up for the lack of the other normal undead immunities (Poison, etc)?


Organization
Herd of cows, a flock of geese....
A murder of crows, a crash of rhinos...
A club of vampires?....
I guess it fits


Challenge Rating

I'm not very good at estimating challenge rating, though it seems most of the combat-related stuff is still here. The original was +2, which frankly, I thought was a little low, depending on what base-creature you picked.

Since you have more scaling traits, it might be worth something like, CR=+1, but +2 if more than 10 HD, etc.


Level Adjustment

Yeah, not gonna lie. I'm not very good at figuring out LA either, which was why I resorted to just plain levels as HD. Since you tuned down a bunch of the standard powers, this doesn't seem to bad, with the exception of Fast Healing=ECL. With all of a vampires options for movement and escape, that can be real pain if you're not prepared to deal with it.


Repelling a Eripmav

To be honest, I'm not sure I really get the holy/unholy symbol thing. Its one of those leftovers from the original story where all vampires where related to the Devil/Satan, I think. But in D&D a holy symbol doesn't normally have any power on it's own, and according to this you don't even have to worship the diety of said symbol. And what, precisely, does "strongly present" mean? If I flex while holding one does that count?

Plus, any smart vampire would just carry a spear and overcome that 5-ft. issue quite easily.


I don't know if a natural-swim speed alone should be enough to provide a complete immunity to running water; it seems like they are entirely unrelated physiologies, and there are plenty of ampibious races in D&D. All I can think of at the moment is vampire sharks, but I'd probably make anyone who wanted it buy off the water-is-acid problen with a feat or by sacrificing another ability.

Fire damage is probably the easiest thing in D&D to overcome, since it's one of the most common energy-damage types. I picked radiant damage (from the BoED) specifically because it's rarer. Or you could just leave it untyped.

And the no-entering houses thing is another bit of fluff-as-mechanics I don't like. Plus, it doesn't seem to mesh as well with an eripmav's friednly/good persona.


Slaying a Eripmav

I think that saying a wooden stake "slays" an eripmav is a little misleading, since its more like putting them in a state of suspended animation. Unless you have another way to kill it, its just an innconvienence.

And the "fill it's mouth will holy wafer/unholy spices", that is BLATANTLY left over from "vampires as the devil" since I don't know of any other religion (in RL or D&D) besides Christianity that celebrates communion. Plus, how exactly does this "kill" the vampire? Does it's body disintegrate? Does it force the soul to move one? Need more info, or better yet, just get rid of it entirely.

Also, unholy spices?

Spoiler

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Eripmav Characters
Clerics

Is it assumed that the eripmav breaks his or her connection with their previous deity? Do I need to switch domains if I prefer the old ones?


Sorcerers and Wizards

What about rangers and druids with animal companions?

Were people expecting "more vampire, less social butterfly"? If so... just consider it as if you had never heard the word "vampire". Please?

Actually, just the opposite; I was expecting more differences. But I did have forewarning.

Frankly, I would have changed/tweaked MORE things to actually make it clear that this was something else entirely. As it is, its pretty obviously a vampire without the "Always Evil" alignment tag.

I vaguely recall reading something about Asian "vampires" that lived by just sucking life-energy (chi) out of people instead of blood. If you decide to rewrite things, that might tie-in well to your whole "need to drain friendly victims" thing. But its just a thought.


And here is my favorite diplomacy fix: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=253743

It's a bit long, but basically it boils down to this: it nerfs the ability into a reasonable range by limiting the change in attitude to 1 step, and having it reverse itself after a short time. That way, you can't have a diplomancer being followed around by hordes of his best-friend dragons, liches, Titans, etc.

Overall, the influence of being based on a MLP fanfic wasn't really noticable, which was what I was initially worried about. (I've never watched the cartoons, and have no desire ever to do so) Hope my comments are helpful.

[DracoDei]

At Con typing on phone. Thus brief for now.
Where is fast healing? They are supposed to heal like mortals.

The similarities to vampires are intentional due to the backstory in this thread. Lots of what you said was bad is directly from SRD template. Might still change some like I have other things.

Spawn go willingly to their new existences. Immunity to disease, no additional aging penalties until drop dead, and immunity to cold weather powerful draws in a medieval setting for common person. Darkvision compensates for sun. Adventures want power.

[Deepbluediver]

At Con typing on phone. Thus brief for now.
Where is fast healing? They are supposed to heal like mortals.

Sorry, I got confused with the Damage Reduction. My bad. I kept going back and forth between this and other projects I was working on this afternoon, and I lost track somewhere.

The similarities to vampires are intentional due to the backstory in this thread. Lots of what you said was bad is directly from SRD template.

I like what you are trying to do, and the RAW version isn't all bad, some of the stuff it has just doesn't fit together very well (or too well), especially with the opposite end of the alignment spectrum and conversion to D&D-verse. And yeah, some of it is just my personal opinion, I don't deny that.

But if you kept something from the RAW then I assumed you liked it, and I wanted to give you my thoughts on as much as possible, both good and bad. If I didn't like it in the SRD, then I'm probably not gonna like it much better if it's copy-pasta'd into some ones 'brew.

Most of the backstory-bits that where your own creation where fine, I think it was just the really outright evil stuff and leftover pointless mechanics I didn't like. I was trying to give the template an overall critique as presented.

To boil it down to as few words as possible: looks fine, no real objections

Spawn go willingly to their new existances. Immunity to disease, no additional aging penalties until drop dead, and immunity to cold weather powerful draws in medmievalsetting for common person. Darkvision compensates for sun.

You said you where aiming for a "more playable dracula without the evil"; but even within the original story, Dracula was a special case, and you've included lots of things lifted directly from Bram Stoker's book. So having something like a template for widespread use either necessitates changes or isn't Dracula.

If the benefits are as good as you say, and eripmav's have a good reputation AND you don't lose your soul for becoming one, then there I guess it could be true that lots of people would want to be one, despite them being somewhat similar to an (in)famous undead terror.
But that just leads to the other situation: to many of them and not enough humans to feed on.
It's like the movie DayBreakers. Terrible movie, FYI, but it illustrates the point that you can, in fact, have to much of a good thing, even when it's not down-and-out evil.

So basically, there needs to be SOME control on the numbers, through one method or another.
Also also, if the eripmav spawn are so willing, why do we even need the mind control/Charm Monster?


Have fun at the Con!

[DracoDei]

Appearance and Language

Had to look up exactly what Cyanosis is; learned something new today.

I should probably turn that into a hyperlink to wikipedia... it is a hyperlink in the story.EDIT: Done.

You might want to consider what, if anything, would change about the appearance for a creature covered in fur or a cytinous shell. Appearance is the least worrisome of any homebrew, but it's the kind of thing that will inevitably come up in D&D.

I'd have to ask a veterinarian.

Creating An Eripmav

Normal vampires need to get bitten and killed, but eripmav's are supposed to be good (or even just non-evil) and they take damage when drinking from hostile creatures. With all these limitations, it honestly seems like eripmav's would go extinct in no more than a generation or two.

I covered this in a previous response to this message, and you said they would now be too common.

There is still a squick/fear factor, plus losing fertility.

None-the-less I put in an optional rule about XP costs, with complicated alternate options for ability burn.

You might want to include some other, less-lethal method of acquiring the template.

Nah.

Size and Type

There is a creature-subtype called "Native Outsider", which is an outsider in all aspects except that they need to eat, sleep, and breathe. You could make something similar for Vampires (Life-like Undead? name needs work) if you thought that it was worth it, but where looking for precedent.

Well, do you think that other creatures could be fun with such a sub-type? If not, I don't see any reason to create it.

Also, that would be "Life-like Deathless" rather than "Life-Like Undead".

All reasonable and fairly standard, though I've never really understood exactly where the AC bonus is coming from (this isn't really a complaint, it's in my version, too).

Toughened flesh?

I noticed you cut out the RAW vampire's natural Slam attack, which is just fine in my book.

Indeed, these are lovers (mostly in platonic ways), not fighters.

Blood Drain (Ex)

I admit to being a little bit confused about the damage at first, but the idea of "good" vampires needing to feed from willing (and not charmed) victims associates is interesting. It makes the whole thing seem less about the blood itself and more about the emotion/energy drain.

Noting that eripmavs have no way of dealing energy drain.

The smaller chart from version 2.0 is much more easily understood than the one from the initial post, though all the various differences in partial-days and damage can still get confusing. I would try to simplfy even further, seperating things into just 3 categories: Unfriendly/Hostile, Nuetral/Friendly, and Helpful/Special.

If I were to make it three categories, it would be Unfriendly/Hostile, Neutral/Friendly/Helpful, and Special. Encouraging active RP is kinda a big deal with this.

And if possible, I limit a single feeding to no less than 1 days worth of nourishment, since all the fraction are hard to keep track of, and (theoretically) you won't be feeding all that often on non-friendly creatures.

I also think you left in something from the description about relative creature sizes when you copy pasta'd.
If you really wanted to involve size in this in some way, I think it would be easier to just come up with a table for how many pounds of blood a creature has, dependent on weight, and how much they can lose before Con damage kicks in.


Children of the Night (Su)

I think this fits the flavor of the class well, though the +8 bonus might be a bit much. I think +5 would be more than enough, given that the LA is only +3 and you're getting Wild Empathy to boot.

Hmm... vampires actually get a summoning ability. I could scale it back. I'll think further.

Admittedly, this is influenced by the MLP character (which you said you didn't know much about, so...). Her Wild Empathy works on dragons(which are fairly primitive in the setting, even if they can talk) and cockatrices.

Influence (Su)

This is kind of confusing, and unnecessarily complicated, I think. It would be easier to just say that in certain cirumstances, the eripmav can get a bonus on Diplomacy or Intimidate checks, or if they beat the required check by more than a certain amount, the targeted is affected as if by a Charm Person/Monster spell, with limited duration.

Hmmm... maybe.

Create Spawn (Su)

I realize that this is supposed to be similar to a vampire, but killing some one and turning them into a mind-slave still sticks out as being pretty all-around evil.

The thought in my head at the time was "training wheels to keep them from doing something stupid with their new power until they have gotten a feel for it". This may have been a foolish idea in retrospect. What do you think?
If I keep it, I should also emphasize that jerkish behavior can still break it, just as with Charm Person.

What about altering it so that you become an eripmav via something like a blood transfusion. Both parties have to willing donate some of their own blood and consume the blood of the other.

If I recall rightly, in the original story one step for Dracula to make more vampires was getting them to also drink some of HIS blood.

I would prefer to straight up say that a prospective convert can choose death instead of deathlessness.

Alternate Form (Su)

This is one part where I actually didn't mind all the role-play related stuff from the first post. Transforming into an owl or a domesticated dog rather than a bat or wolf fits the theme very well.

Story Spoiler

Spoiler

Show

Yeah, the alternate forms from the story will include:
The main character turns into a Dire Butterfly and a whippet made out of branches. Both species are from the show itself(except it is wolves, not whippets). The wolves are called "Timber Wolves"... MLP:FiM does have a thing for puns.

Her male spawn she adopts son turns into a wolf cub (he has the body of a premature infant) and a nightingale(he eventually becomes a doctor, plus this will let him sing well in his mother's bird-chorus).

His female spawn (which she also adopts as his sister) turns into the shows version of a pheonix (impressive, but not nearly so much as the D&D pheonix).

Damage Reduction (Su)

I like things that scale, but granting DR equal to ECL, on top of the AC bonus, seems like it might be a little much. I think DR equal to half ECL, minimum 5, would be better.

Hmm.... maybe.

Gaseous Form (Su)

Having them revert OUT of gaseous form when knocked down to 0 HP is a major reduction in defense. Not that that is a bad thing, its just something to keep in mind, because fire damage it really common in D&D; even low-level adventurers can smack things with torches.

This is completely at totally intentional.

In the story that is the entire reason why you include the torches in the "pitchforks and torches" when hunting vampires

Spoiler

Show

So you can take them to the nearest mental hospital with air-tight facitilities to keep them in with the best quality of unlife that can be arranged for the poor things... remember this is a very nice society, set in a world that could be a D&D setting.

Healing Lick (Su)

Keeping track on individual injuries is not a strong point for D&D. It might just be easier to say that each full-round lick reduces bleeding damage by 1 point and heals 1 HP, you can only use this ability if the target is actively bleeding.

Well, maybe depending on what you mean by "actively".

Half the point is so they can heal their bite-marks.

Mortal Frailities (Ex)

Rules for starvation and sleep-deprivation in D&D are....actually I have no idea if they even exist. I can't think of a single instance I've ever seen of them ever being used.

They exist. And you are right that they almost never come up.

Should I quote them?
EDIT: The starvation ones exist at least, not so much the sleeplessness. I quoted the first and made up something quick and dirty for the sleeplessness.

That's why I made up my own rules for blood-related weakness. (And I should probably change a lack of rest to just being continuously fatigued or exhausted.)

You should probably look them up in the SRD and see if they are worth ganking.

Reusing rules is a plus.

Power of the Empty Mirror (Su)

This is actually pretty neat. I never really liked the "does not appear in mirrors" things because I didn't understand where it came from or what the purpose of it was. This at least ties it into something related.

I'm not certain about how to exactly rate the SR of 15+ECL. Drow (LA +2) get an SR of 11+class levels, meaning that by the same method, the eripmav's SR is comparitively 18+class levels. It might be more reasonable to say 15+HD, or 12+ECL.

It is also a pretty narrow class of effect it works against.

Something occured to me when I read these section, if these are good-aligned vampires, are they still powered and healed by negative energy? Or are they a positive-energy variant, which would make them more like the deathless?

They are specifically listed at deathless, and that is intentional.

And it could also explain why they retain more of the living characteristics, including a limited lifespan.

Well, it WOULD except that almost none of those things are true for most Deathless...

Which I guess still makes it a pretty good explaination.

Abilities

A net-gain of +4 to stats seems reasonable, but I'm not sure I like the idea that it always just goes to strength. I think it might be beneficial to consider an option like the other Vampire Template that had various sets of benefits.

I'll take a look at it.

Skills
Feats
Negotiator I can understand, but why greater fortitude? Is that to make up for the lack of the other normal undead immunities (Poison, etc)?

Basically, but they actually ARE immune to poison(well, normal poisons, angry people still damage them with blood) and disease and etc.

Organization
Herd of cows, a flock of geese....
A murder of crows, a crash of rhinos...
A club of vampires?....
I guess it fits

Vorpal Tribble always had great collective nouns for his creatures. I try to follow in his... footsteps? Wiggle-marks?

Challenge Rating

I'm not very good at estimating challenge rating, though it seems most of the combat-related stuff is still here. The original was +2, which frankly, I thought was a little low, depending on what base-creature you picked.

Much lower stat boosts, no energy drain or slam, bite isn't meant to be used in combat, can't summon animals, gaze doesn't charm but only aids diplomacy/intimidate, no fast healing, and getting dropped to 0 knocks them out of gaseous form rather than into it.

Sorry, but scaling DR, and reduced vulnerabilities doesn't make up for all of that.

Since you have more scaling traits, it might be worth something like, CR=+1, but +2 if more than 10 HD, etc.

Eh, I could see scaling.

Repelling a Eripmav

To be honest, I'm not sure I really get the holy/unholy symbol thing. Its one of those leftovers from the original story where all vampires where related to the Devil/Satan, I think. But in D&D a holy symbol doesn't normally have any power on it's own, and according to this you don't even have to worship the diety of said symbol. And what, precisely, does "strongly present" mean? If I flex while holding one does that count?

Plus, any smart vampire would just carry a spear and overcome that 5-ft. issue quite easily.


I don't know if a natural-swim speed alone should be enough to provide a complete immunity to running water; it seems like they are entirely unrelated physiologies, and there are plenty of ampibious races in D&D. All I can think of at the moment is vampire sharks, but I'd probably make anyone who wanted it buy off the water-is-acid problen with a feat or by sacrificing another ability.

Something I took directly from vampires.

I like the idea of deathless merfolk.

Fire damage is probably the easiest thing in D&D to overcome, since it's one of the most common energy-damage types. I picked radiant damage (from the BoED) specifically because it's rarer. Or you could just leave it untyped.

I actually picked it BECAUSE it was easy to overcome.

And the no-entering houses thing is another bit of fluff-as-mechanics I don't like. Plus, it doesn't seem to mesh as well with an eripmav's friendly/good persona.

I did tone it down, so they can enter, but it nerfs them.

Slaying a Eripmav

I think that saying a wooden stake "slays" an eripmav is a little misleading, since its more like putting them in a state of suspended animation. Unless you have another way to kill it, its just an innconvienence.

And the "fill it's mouth will holy wafer/unholy spices", that is BLATANTLY left over from "vampires as the devil" since I don't know of any other religion (in RL or D&D) besides Christianity that celebrates communion. Plus, how exactly does this "kill" the vampire? Does it's body disintegrate? Does it force the soul to move one? Need more info, or better yet, just get rid of it entirely.

Also, unholy spices?

Spoiler

Show

I made something up on the fly...

Eripmav Characters
Clerics

Is it assumed that the eripmav breaks his or her connection with their previous deity?

Nope. The closest thing to a deity the character in the story I am drawing this from has* personally snuggles her shortly after her transformation to no-pulse-ville.

*Princess Celestia, who raises and lowers the sun each day. Have I mentioned that even the average pony on the street qualifies as a "nature spirit" by some definitions?

Do I need to switch domains if I prefer the old ones?

The phrasing, and my intent, was that you do not have to switch.

Sorcerers and Wizards

What about rangers and druids with animal companions?

Well, Fluttershy didn't lose her rabbit and the SRD Vampire mentions no such thing.

Actually, just the opposite; I was expecting more differences. But I did have forewarning.

Frankly, I would have changed/tweaked MORE things to actually make it clear that this was something else entirely. As it is, its pretty obviously a vampire without the "Always Evil" alignment tag.

I vaguely recall reading something about Asian "vampires" that lived by just sucking life-energy (chi) out of people instead of blood. If you decide to rewrite things, that might tie-in well to your whole "need to drain friendly victims" thing. But its just a thought.


And here is my favorite diplomacy fix: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=253743

It's a bit long, but basically it boils down to this: it nerfs the ability into a reasonable range by limiting the change in attitude to 1 step, and having it reverse itself after a short time. That way, you can't have a diplomancer being followed around by hordes of his best-friend dragons, liches, Titans, etc.

I'll take a look and add a link if I think it would work well with eripmavs.

Overall, the influence of being based on a MLP fanfic wasn't really noticable, which was what I was initially worried about. (I've never watched the cartoons, and have no desire ever to do so) Hope my comments are helpful.

They were helpful.

[DracoDei]

In the process of clarifying how Eripmavs starve(which I have now done), I am chargrinned to discover that the SRD does not apparently include rules for sleep deprivation... oh well, I've make some quick and dirty ones up.

I've also turned "cyanosis" into a link.

All of these updates happened only in my recommended version.

EDIT:

You said you where aiming for a "more playable dracula without the evil"; but even within the original story, Dracula was a special case, and you've included lots of things lifted directly from Bram Stoker's book. So having something like a template for widespread use either necessitates changes or isn't Dracula.

If the benefits are as good as you say, and eripmav's have a good reputation AND you don't lose your soul for becoming one, then there I guess it could be true that lots of people would want to be one, despite them being somewhat similar to an (in)famous undead terror.
But that just leads to the other situation: to many of them and not enough humans to feed on.
It's like the movie DayBreakers. Terrible movie, FYI, but it illustrates the point that you can, in fact, have to much of a good thing, even when it's not down-and-out evil.

So basically, there needs to be SOME control on the numbers, through one method or another.
Also also, if the eripmav spawn are so willing, why do we even need the mind control/Charm Monster?

I don't know if I answered this via PM, but I would say that this sort of thing is already a problem if you look too closely at some things in D&D. Here is a thread I started regarding what happens when you take "lycanthropy" (actually should be called theranthropy) to its logical conclusion.

In either case, it is a bit creepy, there may be ethical and moral considerations to prevent exactly the problem you describe, and you do lose your fertility (should I state this last part out-right in the description?).

[radmelon]

Yeah, it's odd. Sleeping in armour fatigues you, but not sleeping whatsoever does nothing at all. And thus the knights of caffeinia were born.

[TuggyNE]

Yeah, it's odd. Sleeping in armour fatigues you, but not sleeping whatsoever does nothing at all. And thus the knights of caffeinia were born.

Sleeping in armor fatigues you even if it's the result of a sleep spell.

The more you know!