, a (literal-minded) game where you play as an undead hero-turned-BBEG.
Of course, we have the mummies, and the vampires, and the liches, but a template that the players submitted got my attention-the Pale Reaver.
For those of you who don't own Open Grave, that's essentially a type of vampire that arises when a person dies as a result of a betrayal they facilitated.
Naturally, I was intrigued, so I retooled an old hero of mine-Math ab MacCool-as what would happen if the fire of vengeful wrath burning inside him-a pretty important flaw in his personality-if he was consumed by it, and ended up failing his friends because he put punishing the guilty ahead of protecting the innocent.
Basically, Math was a founder of a group of resistance fighters against a racist, corrupt empire of elves, despite-or perhaps because of-a prophecy made when he was born that slated him to become an enemy of the gods.
During his adventures, he fell in love with another founder-a tiefling named Akita. This was not lost on an empire Major by the name of Kurias, who killed her in an ambush deliberately designed to do that in hopes of breaking Math's spirit, and thus killing two birds with one stone. Unfortunately for the Major, and a lot of other people, this had the effect of unhinging him instead, causing the inferiority complex left over from his childhood to blossom into a fiery hatred of all things imperial.
This would later cause a major tactical error when he deliberately withheld battle intel from his squad in hopes of fighting Kurias again. However, the trap he sprung has a lot more troops then he had initially thought, and he and his friends were massacred.
Since he betrayed his allies to fulfill his lust for vengeance, he fell prey to the curse of the Pale Reavers and came back as one of the masked vampires. After the initial shock and self-horror wore off, he came to realize that his new state isn't that bad, as the abilities he gained allows him to pursue bloody justice much more efficiently.
And the fact that he deliberately avoids contact with his own resistance group has nothing to do with the fact that he is so ashamed of himself that he never wants to show his face to them again, I assure you.
[/blatant lies]
Of course, the DM-hopefully I'll be able to call him our DM-wants top-notch roleplaying, I am wondering how you would portray a hero that fell to his dark side, but is still trying to serve the cause of justice.