I am about to begin a new D&D campaign and Im thinking of making the first bad guy a Vampire Kobold. One of my players is likely to be a Kobold and has a rivalry with another kobold. They would both leave the colony at an Ancient dragon's lair at different times.
The backstory and start of the campaign: (explanation of what is going on) The Non playable Kobold (NPK) would have been guarding an entrance of the green dragon lair as a group of treasure hunters would enter it. A Tiefling of that party would end up killing him. Upon killing him the NPK would be filled with so much hatred and anger left in his spirit that Orcus would turn the NPK into a Kobold Vampire. The NPK would then viciously kill all the treasure hunters and run off into the woods abandoning his post to satiate his bloodlust.
At the same time the Player Kobold (PK) would be sneaking into the Ancient dragon's lair to attempt to satiate its curious mind. The Ancient dragon upon realising this as well as the commotion outside of its lair would change into one of the treasure hunters (evil dragons, especially extraordinarily ancient ones like this one have the ability to polymorph into humanoid forms in my world). He would approach the PK and promise the PK Riches and other curiosities if it helped him escape the lair and get back to a major city in this country. Leading the PK past all the dead bodies, seeing a Tiefling body missing its head. The hidden dragon would want to hunt down the missing dangerous NPK. Knowing that such creatures though not extremely dangerous to the dragon themselves, are a chaotic wildcard the dragon wouldn't want anywhere near its lair. At the same time the Dragon would want to have the PK far away from the colony as it doesn't like its minions trying to snoop around its hoard.
While the dragon is travelling with the PK they would stop at the place where they would meet some of the other players. This is where the campaign begins. The dragon, in disguise, will tell them of a dangerous murderous kobold (NPK) that is killing travellers and has killed one of his "friends" (meaning the tiefling that tried breaking into its lair). He, now disguised as a semi-wealthy treasure hunter and merchant would hire the party to track down the NPK. Eventually, the party would find this kobold has been turning the dwarves that live around the forest into undead slaves and has started attacking travellers to kill them. The party would eventually track it down to a small cave where they face off against a few of the dwarven zombies before eventually fighting the NPK. The NPK would, at this point, look like he drowned in blood. While he is fighting the party he will curse at them saying "the horned one came for me, he will come for you all". This, at face value, could be pointing at the horned Tiefling head thats mounted on a spike that has carved "murderer" into it. After being killed he would rise again but as a Slithering Tracker made out of blood. After this boss battle the party would be able to find some treasure that it had gathered from its victims.
The Dragon, still hidden would thank the party and, now having seen the skill of this group, will hire them to escort him back to the nearby city where the Dragon will pick up its part-time humanoid life where it tries to manipulate the kingdom that lives outside of the forest to attack the one that lives in the forest. Both these kingdoms have a magical arms race to try and destroy the other as they have been in conflict for many years. The Dragon would always follow and kill parties of treasure hunters that are send into the forest to retrieve magical artifacts from ruins or steal them from the other kingdom. The dragon would then take whatever these parties had and take it back, making sure the one side knows that the Out of Forest Kingdom tried to steal from them, but let the other know the In Forest Kingdom killed all of its treasure hunters. Then he would present himself as now owning this item and would sell it to the Out of Forest Kingdom. This would cause trouble to start brewing between the two nations and that would be something the dragon thoroughly enjoys. The only one to suspect the dragon of being up to no good would be the Bladesinger Archmage of the city who might become an ally of the party at later levels.
The Dragon would mark the Kobold, to be sure it knows where it is and would send out the party on a quest that will lead the party into the next step of the adventure. Requesting it to return at one point to work for it on a few jobs when the party is of higher level. He will request the party to find an item known as The Horn of Dragons which is a horn that, once blown, will summon a group of extremely powerful ancient dragons together who will take over most of the civilised world for a while (kinda Chroma Conclave from CR).
Now that all is over...
This would tease/introduce a few of the major villans of the campaign (First, the Ancient Dragon who will become a big villan at one point and Second, Orcus who has become more powerful thanks to a major nation of evil beings worshipping him and building massive undead forces). At the same time this would engage in one part of the PK's backstory where they have a fierce rivalry with the NPK that has boiled to the point of them wanting to kill eachother.
I think this could be an interesting introductionary story that provides a decent challenge for a level 2/3 4 man party. (I will be lowering the power of both the vampire kobold and the slithering tracker to make it a more level-appropirate fight)
The Question:
The real question is, Is Orcus able to turn someone into a Vampire if he can then assure that this vampire will be a vicious agent of chaos that will destroy as much as he can?
At the same time, lmk what you think of the story if you have got the time.
Orcus is quite literally the demon prince of undeath. Hell yes, he can create a vampire.
Yeah I thought so, I'm currently still doing my research and was wondering if it would also make sense for him to make a vampire, as they are normally Lawfull creatures.
The Dragon would mark the Kobold, to be sure it knows where it is and would send out the party on a quest that will lead the party into the next step of the adventure.
The "Marking" will be in the shape of a green lizard pet, given to the PK as a gift.
Yes, definitely. You're the DM, you can advance the plot as you see fit. Also, on a related side note, have you watched Matt Colville's Running the Game YouTube series?
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All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
Orcus is quite literally the demon prince of undeath. Hell yes, he can create a vampire.
Yeah I thought so, I'm currently still doing my research and was wondering if it would also make sense for him to make a vampire, as they are normally Lawfull creatures.
While it's common for vampires to be lawful, there's nothing inherently restricting to that alignment. Orcus can create just about any type of undead he wants, thanks to being the Demon Prince of Undeath. It'll just likely be chaotic.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Orcus is quite literally the demon prince of undeath. Hell yes, he can create a vampire.
Yeah I thought so, I'm currently still doing my research and was wondering if it would also make sense for him to make a vampire, as they are normally Lawfull creatures.
I completely agree with the sentiment that what the DM says trumps all other rules. If a player wonders how and why a chaotic demon created a lawful creature, that just adds to the mystery of the story. This might even spur them—in character—to look for the reason. That sounds like a great session of D&D to me.
And, for the sake of discussion, what if a chaotic creature did not have the control and patience to create a lawful creature? Then what? * Who might he turn to for help? * What did he have to trade for that help?
Codes of behavior such as 'never enter a building without invitation' are more the type of thing associated with devils than with demons, and vampires are often depicted as very set in their ways, so it's not unreasonable to have vampires be LE, but I wouldn't have any problem believing in a CE vampire.
Codes of behavior such as 'never enter a building without invitation' are more the type of thing associated with devils than with demons, and vampires are often depicted as very set in their ways, so it's not unreasonable to have vampires be LE, but I wouldn't have any problem believing in a CE vampire.
Honestly, it's not a "code of honour" or anything, it's a weakness just as the devil's weakness to fire or a faerie's or demon's weakness to cold iron.
It's a supernatural compulsion, but the compulsion being applied (which is about borders, property rights, and rules of hospitality) is lawful.
Codes of behavior such as 'never enter a building without invitation' are more the type of thing associated with devils than with demons, and vampires are often depicted as very set in their ways, so it's not unreasonable to have vampires be LE, but I wouldn't have any problem believing in a CE vampire.
Honestly, it's not a "code of honour" or anything, it's a weakness just as the devil's weakness to fire or a faerie's or demon's weakness to cold iron.
It's a supernatural compulsion, but the compulsion being applied (which is about borders, property rights, and rules of hospitality) is lawful.
Choosing not to enter a residence because a local ordinance prohibits undead from entering peoples' homes uninvited is lawful. Being physically unable to do so due to a supernatural effect has no bearing on alignment.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Codes of behavior such as 'never enter a building without invitation' are more the type of thing associated with devils than with demons, and vampires are often depicted as very set in their ways, so it's not unreasonable to have vampires be LE, but I wouldn't have any problem believing in a CE vampire.
Honestly, it's not a "code of honour" or anything, it's a weakness just as the devil's weakness to fire or a faerie's or demon's weakness to cold iron.
It's a supernatural compulsion, but the compulsion being applied (which is about borders, property rights, and rules of hospitality) is lawful.
Choosing not to enter a residence because a local ordinance prohibits undead from entering peoples' homes uninvited is lawful. Being physically unable to do so due to a supernatural effect has no bearing on alignment.
A supernatural effect that enforces the law is a lawful effect. When that supernatural effect is tied into the essence of a creature, it's not absurd to apply the alignment of the effect to the creature.
A vampire being forced to follow its racial compulsions doesn't make it lawful any more than a player character failing a save vs the Command spell makes them lawful.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
A supernatural effect that enforces the law is a lawful effect. When that supernatural effect is tied into the essence of a creature, it's not absurd to apply the alignment of the effect to the creature.
I'm sorry, but you are really extrapolating much too much from a single vampire supernatural rule of not entering buildings uninvited, as far as I know, there are no official laws about crossing running water or a circle of crushed wafers, or walking around in sunlight. None of this have anything to do with the law, they are indeed supernatural and come maybe from divine law, but the vampire has to abide by them because he is forced to do so, not of his own volition because he respects them.
This assumes vampires have free will in the first place.
That's a fairly good assessment. Unlike many creatures, vampire espouse a ton of magical compulsions, in actual myth, and some in game. It's not just the simple aversion to sunlight, or a direct force in opposition. The 5e vampire may not have the laundry list of compulsive lore, but it's cherry picking to say the 5e alignment doesn't make sense, than say the traditional background doesn't apply because it's not in the rules... the LE alignment is in the rules and it's an exploitable part of the character, so they can pick their poison.
LE foes have a different approach to opposition, negotiation, and respect for keeping agreements.
The OP can choose to depict them RAW, or choose to depict them homebrew, it's perfectly valid either way, alignment is a poor sticking point. Yet, it is homebrew to make your vampire CE no matter how much artifacting or justification one summons.
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Dear Dungeon Masters,
I am about to begin a new D&D campaign and Im thinking of making the first bad guy a Vampire Kobold.
One of my players is likely to be a Kobold and has a rivalry with another kobold. They would both leave the colony at an Ancient dragon's lair at different times.
The backstory and start of the campaign: (explanation of what is going on)
The Non playable Kobold (NPK) would have been guarding an entrance of the green dragon lair as a group of treasure hunters would enter it. A Tiefling of that party would end up killing him. Upon killing him the NPK would be filled with so much hatred and anger left in his spirit that Orcus would turn the NPK into a Kobold Vampire. The NPK would then viciously kill all the treasure hunters and run off into the woods abandoning his post to satiate his bloodlust.
At the same time the Player Kobold (PK) would be sneaking into the Ancient dragon's lair to attempt to satiate its curious mind. The Ancient dragon upon realising this as well as the commotion outside of its lair would change into one of the treasure hunters (evil dragons, especially extraordinarily ancient ones like this one have the ability to polymorph into humanoid forms in my world).
He would approach the PK and promise the PK Riches and other curiosities if it helped him escape the lair and get back to a major city in this country. Leading the PK past all the dead bodies, seeing a Tiefling body missing its head.
The hidden dragon would want to hunt down the missing dangerous NPK. Knowing that such creatures though not extremely dangerous to the dragon themselves, are a chaotic wildcard the dragon wouldn't want anywhere near its lair. At the same time the Dragon would want to have the PK far away from the colony as it doesn't like its minions trying to snoop around its hoard.
While the dragon is travelling with the PK they would stop at the place where they would meet some of the other players. This is where the campaign begins. The dragon, in disguise, will tell them of a dangerous murderous kobold (NPK) that is killing travellers and has killed one of his "friends" (meaning the tiefling that tried breaking into its lair). He, now disguised as a semi-wealthy treasure hunter and merchant would hire the party to track down the NPK.
Eventually, the party would find this kobold has been turning the dwarves that live around the forest into undead slaves and has started attacking travellers to kill them. The party would eventually track it down to a small cave where they face off against a few of the dwarven zombies before eventually fighting the NPK.
The NPK would, at this point, look like he drowned in blood. While he is fighting the party he will curse at them saying "the horned one came for me, he will come for you all". This, at face value, could be pointing at the horned Tiefling head thats mounted on a spike that has carved "murderer" into it. After being killed he would rise again but as a Slithering Tracker made out of blood.
After this boss battle the party would be able to find some treasure that it had gathered from its victims.
The Dragon, still hidden would thank the party and, now having seen the skill of this group, will hire them to escort him back to the nearby city where the Dragon will pick up its part-time humanoid life where it tries to manipulate the kingdom that lives outside of the forest to attack the one that lives in the forest. Both these kingdoms have a magical arms race to try and destroy the other as they have been in conflict for many years. The Dragon would always follow and kill parties of treasure hunters that are send into the forest to retrieve magical artifacts from ruins or steal them from the other kingdom. The dragon would then take whatever these parties had and take it back, making sure the one side knows that the Out of Forest Kingdom tried to steal from them, but let the other know the In Forest Kingdom killed all of its treasure hunters. Then he would present himself as now owning this item and would sell it to the Out of Forest Kingdom.
This would cause trouble to start brewing between the two nations and that would be something the dragon thoroughly enjoys. The only one to suspect the dragon of being up to no good would be the Bladesinger Archmage of the city who might become an ally of the party at later levels.
The Dragon would mark the Kobold, to be sure it knows where it is and would send out the party on a quest that will lead the party into the next step of the adventure. Requesting it to return at one point to work for it on a few jobs when the party is of higher level. He will request the party to find an item known as The Horn of Dragons which is a horn that, once blown, will summon a group of extremely powerful ancient dragons together who will take over most of the civilised world for a while (kinda Chroma Conclave from CR).
Now that all is over...
This would tease/introduce a few of the major villans of the campaign (First, the Ancient Dragon who will become a big villan at one point and Second, Orcus who has become more powerful thanks to a major nation of evil beings worshipping him and building massive undead forces).
At the same time this would engage in one part of the PK's backstory where they have a fierce rivalry with the NPK that has boiled to the point of them wanting to kill eachother.
I think this could be an interesting introductionary story that provides a decent challenge for a level 2/3 4 man party. (I will be lowering the power of both the vampire kobold and the slithering tracker to make it a more level-appropirate fight)
The Question:
The real question is, Is Orcus able to turn someone into a Vampire if he can then assure that this vampire will be a vicious agent of chaos that will destroy as much as he can?
At the same time, lmk what you think of the story if you have got the time.
Orcus is quite literally the demon prince of undeath. Hell yes, he can create a vampire.
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
Yeah I thought so, I'm currently still doing my research and was wondering if it would also make sense for him to make a vampire, as they are normally Lawfull creatures.
The "Marking" will be in the shape of a green lizard pet, given to the PK as a gift.
Yes, definitely. You're the DM, you can advance the plot as you see fit. Also, on a related side note, have you watched Matt Colville's Running the Game YouTube series?
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
While it's common for vampires to be lawful, there's nothing inherently restricting to that alignment. Orcus can create just about any type of undead he wants, thanks to being the Demon Prince of Undeath. It'll just likely be chaotic.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I have seen most of them. Some of them even twice.
nope no other reason. I have only played dnd for about 2 years now and have mostly been in the DM's chair for 5e.
I completely agree with the sentiment that what the DM says trumps all other rules. If a player wonders how and why a chaotic demon created a lawful creature, that just adds to the mystery of the story. This might even spur them—in character—to look for the reason. That sounds like a great session of D&D to me.
And, for the sake of discussion, what if a chaotic creature did not have the control and patience to create a lawful creature? Then what?
* Who might he turn to for help?
* What did he have to trade for that help?
Or, say he did it anyway:
*What does the chaotic view of lawful look like?
Codes of behavior such as 'never enter a building without invitation' are more the type of thing associated with devils than with demons, and vampires are often depicted as very set in their ways, so it's not unreasonable to have vampires be LE, but I wouldn't have any problem believing in a CE vampire.
It's a supernatural compulsion, but the compulsion being applied (which is about borders, property rights, and rules of hospitality) is lawful.
Choosing not to enter a residence because a local ordinance prohibits undead from entering peoples' homes uninvited is lawful. Being physically unable to do so due to a supernatural effect has no bearing on alignment.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
A supernatural effect that enforces the law is a lawful effect. When that supernatural effect is tied into the essence of a creature, it's not absurd to apply the alignment of the effect to the creature.
A vampire being forced to follow its racial compulsions doesn't make it lawful any more than a player character failing a save vs the Command spell makes them lawful.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
This assumes vampires have free will in the first place.
That's a fairly good assessment. Unlike many creatures, vampire espouse a ton of magical compulsions, in actual myth, and some in game. It's not just the simple aversion to sunlight, or a direct force in opposition. The 5e vampire may not have the laundry list of compulsive lore, but it's cherry picking to say the 5e alignment doesn't make sense, than say the traditional background doesn't apply because it's not in the rules... the LE alignment is in the rules and it's an exploitable part of the character, so they can pick their poison.
LE foes have a different approach to opposition, negotiation, and respect for keeping agreements.
The OP can choose to depict them RAW, or choose to depict them homebrew, it's perfectly valid either way, alignment is a poor sticking point. Yet, it is homebrew to make your vampire CE no matter how much artifacting or justification one summons.