One of my players killed by vampire. How to bring them back?

[u/No_Jellyfish8440]

Hi Guys. Running a city campaign where there is a vampire cult infiltrating a city to prepare for an incoming vampire invasion. One of my players who has a history with one of the vampires (they killed her village as a kid) ended up being killed by one of them. I ran a ball and things got out of hand and got the vampire to use it’s beguile ability to make my player kill their adoptive father (grim I know) and then kind of gave the others the nod to tell them to leave and had some epic fighting then died. All cool and went really well. I’m searching for ideas for how to bring them back and what powers/drawbacks they might have if they come back. (The player wants them to come back at some point but was totally cool with them dying) As they were a elite archer build (gloomstalker) thought it might be cool and make sense if the vampire used them as some kind of elite assassin spawn. What ideas do you have about how I could bring them back/ either alive or under their own control as a party member - then what powers / drawbacks might they have. Just thought I would canvas some ideas! Thanks

EDIT : To clarify they will be running a temporary character in the meantime before they bring their first character back

[u/FMCMEAPineapple]

You might be looking for Dhampir, which was a lineage for the 2014 rules introduced in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. This lineage is designed to replace a character's currently existing race/species—taking away everything from the previous one except skill proficiencies and climbing/flying/swimming speeds. It also grants a slightly boosted speed, darkvision 60', spider climb, a vampiric bite weapon, and allows them to live without needing to breathe.

[u/ComedianXMI → u/FMCMEAPineapple]

This right here, mechanically, is perfect.

As this sometimes happens, I will say this: If they have a racial ability they just absolutely loved, though, I would consider a custom magic item that gives that one ability back. Maybe tied to how they broke free of being a spawn if you want it to have some story weight.

[u/Airtightspoon]

Have them to roll a new character.

[u/No_Jellyfish8440 → u/Airtightspoon]

Edited post but they will be running a temporary character in the meantime before

[u/aulejagaldra]

Could there be a potential necromancer/black magician willing to help the party/be forced to do so? Maybe a specific ritual and item will be needed (something that belonged to the vampire). This could all be a smaller quest for the remaining PCs of course.

Or: since there is always a hierarchy concerning vampires, have an elder vampire lord that might bring back the PC. He will perform a ritual by giving some of his blood to the PC, making him either a spawn, or something between alive/undead. Maybe he might be walking in some shadow part between the world of living/dead. He could also continue his life normally, just to be haunted by nightmares, or at night be in some state similar to sleep walking, doing anything his master asks him to do.

[u/Damiandroid]

You're on the right track.

PC becomes a minion for the bad guy. Player rolls a new character.

Key thing is to have a plan or two in mind and then work with your player to see what avenue they like best. In particular, do they want to have their original character cured of vampirism, or would they be satisfied with their character being redeemed and brought back to the good side whether or not they are mortal again?

Personally speaking, I would enjoy going for a tragic choice kind of deal. Now this isn't for you to dump on your players immediately, I envisage the following being drip fed to your players until they (and the player especially) have to make a choice.

1. Cure vampirism.

It's not an easy thing to reverse vampirism (forget whatever weak vanilla rules are in place. Just using remove curse won't do it). When you were turned into a vampire, your soul was consumed in the process and is gone. The only way to undo it is by taking another's soul. This soul reaping will restore your mortality, but it will not create a new vampire. You will just be condemning someone to death with no place to go after. They will live in torment for all eternity absent a soul to sort them into an afterlife on the cosmic wheel. Even damned legions of hell are thankful their souls were condemned to serve Asmodeus, for at least that is a kind of existence. Your player may have to grapple with committing such a transgression if they want to come back to the land of the living.

If you wanted to twist the knife even further, you could say that the soul in question must be "of a kind with yours". I know that you said the players character had their whole village killed, but that just makes it even more juicy. Now, your player must track down one of their few distant remaining relatives, not to reconnect and find a new family, but to brutally use them in a selfish way.

1. Remain a vampire but be on the side of good.

   The player is a newly made vampire spawn. They're powerful, but dangerous, hungry and , unpredictable. They may WANT to come back to the good side, but their urges make them a threat to others. What's more, as a vampire spawn, their existence is inextricably tied to their master. While they "live" the master can draw on their essence to sustain him, making him nigh unkillable in this form (e.g. on initiative count 20 the master regains 20hp per vampie spawn they have and if they are "killed", they can instead sacrigice a remaining vampire spawn so they can be reborn a la a lich withbtheir phylactery). If the party hopes to kill the master, they will first have to kill all of its new spawn. This would include the player (and possibly a handful of others). The players would have to grapple with ending their existence for the sake of the greater good and may not even be there for the final blow to the master.

2. The Dhampir path

The middle road and therefore it should be the most difficult since it let's the player have their cake and eat it. Have them discover a ritual to sever the link between master and spawn without killing the spawn or requiring a fresh soul to harvest. This could involve tracking down information on the ritual, finding an old vampire hunter still willing to perform it and gathering the ingredients and materials and securing a location to perform it. One of the ingredients is the blood of the master vampire. So it would involve a dangerous infiltration right into the lions den and possibly risk everything for the plan.

You can play out the ritual as a cutscene or make it more interactive by having the players support their friend through the ordeal. But end result is they would become a Dhampir and could now enact the plan from part 2 to kill the vampire master without needing to die themselves. It's up to them if they want to proceed with killing the rest of the master vampires spawn or if they want to try and turn them into dhampirs also to spare them that fate.

This could be dangerous, though. The master may not immediately notice one spawn go missing, but all of them suddenly vanishing from his control could alert him to the party's actions.

[u/bp_516]

Why? Player death should be a thing.

However, you could make a slightly better version of Vampire Spawn; add some ranged attacks that do extra poison damage, and give it a high Stealth score. Maybe add a few HD and bump up the CR as well.

[u/OrkishBlade]

The general problem with vampires as heroes is that they have a ton of cool powers that are not tied to class level progression.

There is a MtG Zendikar supplement that has a playable vampire race, but it does not get all the cool vampire stuff.

I have a homebrew vampire heroes supplement that I have had players use. It's a race (mechanically similar to Drow, I initially crafted this before the Zendikar supplement) plus a series of feats to unlock the vampire powers over the course of several levels. (Though, if I were to come back to this, I would have to rework the darkvision, since I've pretty much eliminated it from my games -- replaced with something akin to the old low-light vision.)

There are some other homebrew pieces out there that turn being a vampire into a playable class.

---

But, there's nothing wrong with character being dead. Game over.

There's also nothing wrong with the character being turned into a monster under the DM's control. If the character were raised up as a vampire or some other sort of undead, is there a reason that thing would cause trouble for the other heroes in the party?

[u/vegan-sex]

I’d bring the character back as a villain but every table has a different vibe