Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Nainoa 12-16-04, 12:16 PM	Well 99% of the time I'm the DM... I have the opportunity to play a little... With the new Libris Mortis in my possession I'm thinking of building toward being a True Necromancer... At the same time the current Gods of the Dead don't really appeal to me... And I used to be a huge fan of Myrkul... Back in 2E he was my favorite God to mess around with... The campaign is set pretty much around me, in fact I might be the only player, and then would run 2 PC's. After talking over with the guy DMing for me... He's allowing me to worship Myrkul, as the essence of him still living has just enough power to grant spells to a small handful of followers etc... Most of my 2E stuff, including my old Avatar trilogy books, is packed up... So for the Clerical Aspect of him, I'm looking for what Myrkul's favored weapon would be? I don't recall it being mentioned in the Avatar trilogy... Here's the basics of the character... (I forgot the sheet of paper with his build on it so I'm going from memory, and might have something a little off.) Favored Weapon:? Domains to choose from: Death And (Time Or Undeath) Stats: Str: 10 Dex: 17 Con: 12 Int: 18 Wis: 18 Cha: 15 Feat Plan (Please make any notes you would like to... Note we also allow flaws from Unearthed Arcana, with a little house ruling) Flaw (Pathetic -2 Str): Mind over Body Human: Shadow Weave 1st Cleric 1: Corpse Crafter 2nd Necromancer 1: Scribe Scroll* 3rd Cleric 2: Spell Focus Necromancy 4th Necromancer 2: 5th Necromancer 3: 6th Cleric 3: Fell Animate 7th True Necro 1: 8th True Necro 2: 9th True Necro 3: Destructive Retribution 10th True Necro 4: 11th True Necro 5: 12th True Necro 6: Greater Spell Focus Necro (I try not to plan beyond 12th, as the character might develop in different way... But most likely it'll be True Necro all the way out.) PC goals and Background... Alignment: Neutral Evil Viscerian spent the first 28 years of his life as a Peasant Noble, in the town of (DM yet to decide). He had been heavy on taxing the people, but fair in his hand of judgement. Though stingy with giving back to the community. Viscerian loved his wife very much... He considered her his soul mate... He awoke one day to find that his wife and daughter had been abducted. Eventually he recieved a ransom note, asking for more money than he actually had, even if he was to liquidate his entire estate. He attempted to fake out the Kidnappers, by taking all of his available gold, save a few coins... And had the local smith, melt and gilde the gold onto coins made of lead... He then loaded the fake coins into stacks packed tightly into a chest that was a little to small... On the top of each stack he put 2 real gold coins. He went to make the exchange, believing that his wife and daughter would be there, he would make the switch and have them back before the kidnappers could realize the deception. When he went to make the exchange his wife and daughter were not there... He was told that he would recieve word of their location after the coins had been counted... Before he could act the kidnappers escaped (DM to give me more details.) He returned home, hoping the ruse would pass... The next day he recieved a chest... Inside it was the eyes and heart of both his wife and daughter! Viscerian went mad... (Once I have all the details I'm going to write up a descriptive story about a year he spent, filled with depression, dreams of revenge, and morbid desires... He even goes so far as to sell his tower and lands for money to pay a temple of Kelemvor in a large city nearby, to cast a True Ressurection to bring his wife back to him. He tells them the long piteous story... The Cleric's take the money, and tell him to return the next day... The next day comes, and the temple is decked out... The Clerics instead of bringing back his family, have spent the money on an elaborate funeral rite, meant to help him come to terms with losing his wife and daughter... Viscerian is enraged by this, but goes along half heartedly, intending to speak with the high priest to get his money back... As the ritual ends, the priests enact spells, using locks of hair and such, to contact the souls of his dead family, so that he can have one final conversation with them to say goodbye and get closure... Only when they summon up the spirit of his wife and daughter... The room is filled with terrible screams, and the spell fails quickly... One of the lesser priests exclaims "They must be trapped between life and death... They... They are... Undead!" Viscerian goes into a rage, knocking over candelabra's and defiling the temple... He pulls forth a dagger, and plunges it into the chest of the high priest, then runs... He's chased through the city, but manages to escape... He's being persued through the wilds as a torrential rain storm moves in... Suddenly as he's running through a muddy part of the forest he falls into a sink hole... He awakens some time later to find that he's in the ruins of a temple once dedicated to Myrkul. Little remains after the centuries of abandoment except the altar and a few necromantic holy texts... The way the DM describes the next part... Well is a little strange... A remnant of the soul of Myrkul whispers to Viscerian, enticing him by telling him that if he learns about the old ways of Myrkul that he can have his family back, and earn the satisfaction of vengence. The way he describes it though is kind of like the movie "Field of Dreams." Except for a necromancer, and instead of the Dad, it's Myrkul... I kept waiting for his description to end with me playing catch with the old God of the Dead. Basically, he takes up philosophical worship of Myrkul... Who gives him enigmatic clues on the location of his wife and daughter... And the DM hinted that around the time Viscerian takes his first level of True Necro, that I should find his daughter, who has now become a Slaymate! He also dropped another hint that sounded a bit like either I might find the crown of Horns, or ressurect Myrkul himself! Well I know that was rather long, but I figured I'd post it up, and see if anyone had any thoughts, or contributions? Thanks in advance! Nainoa
Orochi_Furor 12-20-04, 10:02 AM	Loved the avatar series, exept the end, as I hated Kelemvor. So definetly bring back a decent god of the dead, lol. If you're character is going to be heavily important in the game world as a whole, definetly try to get your DM to use the Crown of Thorns. I think it gives you a PRC though, and that may be bad for a true necro, as you lose controle over yourself(I think) and gain other abilities. So maybe your DM could have someone who has the Crown, as Myrkul himself, seek out aprentices to start up his faith once more. You're character could be found by this person when he falls into the hole or such, as a charismatic person is more convincing then some voice, IMO. The person could explain that theres only one way you could be reunited with your family as they are undead, and undead kill the living, since Kelemvor and his clerics would rather destroy your family, another power could bring peace to your family. Could have lots of fun with trying to keep silent and recruit people as well as fight other followers for your gods favor. Force yourself to be Myrkuls head cleric and then make your move to find an artifact or whatnot(perhaps even a few of them) to bring back Myrkul, then help him fight Kelemvor. Even though a slaymate(though I realy hate the name) is something every necromancer would want(unless you realy hate kids), I think the father/daughter interaction would need to be more personal for her to come back as one. Perhaps have the kidnapers bring the girl with them when they take the money and find out the money is fake then, and kill the girl, letting her know that since her father didn't pay them she had to die. As the killers get away your character holds his daughter and her last words to him are "daddy why?". I think that would fit the betrayal aspect of a slaymate. The only thing then is what happens to the body, perhaps she revives during the cerimony at the temple, during the screams and when your character goes nuts the girl escapes. Perhaps her escaping kills some clerics making her fathers getaway easier. If your DM realy plans on having your character get his family back, then he should be realy far gone by the time that happens, a level or two into true necro and having plenty of experience with the dead to harden his emotions. Then later he could get his wife back as well, and instead of putting the family at "peace" with his new mentality they can be together forever in undeath, and you could have some interesting emotional interactions when he finds his daughter and wife, as he'll likely have to make up for what he did to them, but in such a way as to not put their souls at rest. Perhaps he could come to realize that money isn't important, that power and being with his family is, and being undead they could have both. I can't think of anything the wife could be off the top of my head that would realy fit. I havn't gotten to play my TrueNecromancer yet, so I don't know how well things work. I wouldn't use fell animate though, zombies are only good as strong creatures that have no multiple attacks, and since they take up so much controle power you should be selective about them. Take crafting skills. You'll need to outfit your undead in +str and AC gear, and buying that sort of thing might be suspicios in town, at least if you need it in bulk, heh. Most towns would want to know of evidence of some militia forming, how ever small, buying several magical weapons and armor even over a few days could draw attention you don't want. Item creation might suck up a bit of your small amount of feats, but wands/rods of inflict wounds and negative energy burst type spells can do wonders, specialy if you can hand them out to your inteligent undead. Having Craft Arms&Armor and Wonderus Items can help put your undead at their peak. Depending on what books your going by, theres a feat in LibrisMortis that does +50%negative energy damage to living creatures with very little adjustment to the spell. But I think that same feat is in Complete arcane with MUCH less effect, only turning half the damage into negative energy and not adding any. I think its the same feat anyhow, but just a good example to look up.
Nainoa 12-20-04, 11:52 AM	I like the Daughter killed before his eyes angle... I'll have to mention it... I had thought of the "Item Creation" direction... But the few times this guy has DMed before, he generally has items just raining out of the sky... The Fell Animate is 1/2 of a strategy, that then also goes with Destructive Retribution... This DM loves to use the strategy that I call "The Tribe Fight." A lot of his battles are say a bunch of orc's or goblins, and a big tough leader or two... So when I just have Fell Animate... I can hit the Orc's with a fireball... Drop them and they come back as Zombies to help me fight... Once I have Destructive retribution is where it really comes in handy in my strategy... Say I walk into the fight either with a bunch of zombies already... Or he's got a tribe of guys and a Big leader (So I go to fireball/animate the little guys). Then surround the leader... Chuck a fireball in which hits my pile of Zombies, killing them easily... They all go off for the 1d6's of damage to the Badaz leader! So I don't look at them as "Zombies for Melee" as much as I look at them as "Zombie Bombs." For good undead, I plan to use the "Create Greater Undead" type of spells. I would love the Crown of Horns, and the return of Myrkul idea... Although currently I'm about to start a campaign that this guy would be a player in, where one of the party objectives is to stop a group of Kir-Lanan from finding the Crown, and using the power and essence of it to usurp the last shreads Myrkul's essence, and give one of the Vrlak the power to become a lesser God who can grant spells to the Kir-Lanan... So the overlap might be a little much... On a down note... The DM is starting to talk like he has second thoughts about his ability to DM a mini Campaign like this... So I'm stuck in a "We'll see" situation.
Orochi_Furor 12-20-04, 01:19 PM	Doesn't Fell animate force you to give up the controle of the undead you may already have for the new ones, just like using Animate Dead? If so I would prefer metamagic or undead creation feats instead. The create undead spells don't give you controle over them though, you'll have to use Rebuke and then you can only get things half your HD and controle a max of your HD.(Unless its changed for 3.5). That leaves you with 4 times your HD worth for Animate dead to create realy powerfull undead and use command undead on. Thats too bad, hope things work out, I've only done one solo adventure before, it can be fun. Always nice to have at least two heroes though, to have interaction and back up.