Jander Sunstar from Ftr8 (2E) to Ftr16 (3E) !?! Why? How?

[The Giamarga]

Jander Sunstar's official 3E stats from Champions of Darkness are Eminent Vampire Ftr16. (though he's missing a lots of feats!)

But in 2Es Children of the Night:Vampires and in the Forgotten Realms book Villains Lorebook he's only a Ftr8. (Though the stats in those two books differ in some ways too).

So how do you account for that?
Did Jander really sleep 200 years in the mists as CoD states? Could he be a mist creature now?
Or was he busy hunting Vampires and opposing Strahd secretly thus gathering more levels?

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Jander's statistics under the previous editions' rules were limited by the old AD&D systems' level-limits for demihumans. IIRC, elves couldn't go much past 8th level as fighters back then (maybe 10th tops?), so Jander's original race-limited stats may have seemed too wimpy for the sorts of foes he's presumably fighting in 3E. Giving him more fighter-levels also helps keep his HD where they ought to be, since 3E no longer grants him the 8d8+3 which past editions gave for being a vampire (now a template bestowing no extra hit dice).

FWIW, a lot of DMs prefer to leave Jander dead at the end of VotM. Sure, he's a neat character, but the "monster struggling to be a hero" gimmick has been done so often in the past two decades that what seemed fresh in the late 80s is rather tired as a plot-premise today ... plus, some of us believe the gold elf's earned some peace.

[Boccaccio Barbarossa]

Jander's statistics under the previous editions' rules were limited by the old AD&D systems' level-limits for demihumans. IIRC, elves couldn't go much past 8th level as fighters back then (maybe 10th tops?), so Jander's original race-limited stats may have seemed too wimpy for the sorts of foes he's presumably fighting in 3E. Giving him more fighter-levels also helps keep his HD where they ought to be, since 3E no longer grants him the 8d8+3 which past editions gave for being a vampire (now a template bestowing no extra hit dice).

FWIW, a lot of DMs prefer to leave Jander dead at the end of VotM. Sure, he's a neat character, but the "monster struggling to be a hero" gimmick has been done so often in the past two decades that what seemed fresh in the late 80s is rather tired as a plot-premise today ... plus, some of us believe the gold elf's earned some peace.

Although, there is an interewsting case to be made for Jander Suntar's continued existence in the realms - it might be neat for Clerics of the Morninglord to think they spy the morninglord moving through the forests in the pre-dawn light... (And I can't help but think how great it might be for a cleric of the morninglord to discover the true identity of this "morninglord" and go hunting for him... And if it is revealed that the whole church is based on lies, yet the priest get their spells... there's potential to the eventuality!...)

[Jester of the FoS]

I'd attribute the level increase to the CoD writers who probably thought eight levels was "too wimpy" and that he wouldn't last a second in the Realms.

[The Giamarga]

Yeah his CR 20 boosts him too an equal level with Strahd, his main nemesis.

The 2E level limit for elves was Ftr 12 btw (and optionally 4 higher with Str 19) and interestingly he has 13 HD in both 2E sources (VL has him as a 13 HD Ftr8 Eminent Vampire while CotN:V doesn't even mention the Ftr 8).

[Rotipher of the FoS]

(And I can't help but think how great it might be for a cleric of the morninglord to discover the true identity of this "morninglord" and go hunting for him...

Come to think of it, you might be able to do this with any male gold elf from FR, not necessarily Jander. Imagine the trouble an outlander elf could stir up within the Church, posing as an avatar of the Morninglord! I certainly wouldn't put it past them to exploit peoples' beliefs that way, given that most Faerunian gold elves since Jandar's day seem to think of humans as little more than orcs who've grown an extra brain-cell or two....

FWIW, I don't think that meeting Jander Sunstar would necessarily lead to a lasting crisis of faith ... at least, not if the cleric who discovered him actually talked to Jander. The vampiric gold elf might have been mistaken for the Morninglord, in that initial confrontation when he rescued Martyn, but he'd also personally worshipped Lathandar in life and would reassure the cleric that there really IS such a deity. Indeed, once the cleric realized that this long-undead creature still believes in (and sorely misses) his erstwhile divine patron, knowing that another being's faith in the Morninglord has survived even vampirism might make that cleric's own faith even stronger! What better proof, after all, that the dawn's promised salvation can penetrate any darkness ... or dark curse?

[Boccaccio Barbarossa]

(And I can't help but think how great it might be for a cleric of the morninglord to discover the true identity of this "morninglord" and go hunting for him...

Come to think of it, you might be able to do this with any male gold elf from FR, not necessarily Jander. Imagine the trouble an outlander elf could stir up within the Church, posing as an avatar of the Morninglord! I certainly wouldn't put it past them to exploit peoples' beliefs that way, given that most Faerunian gold elves since Jandar's day seem to think of humans as little more than orcs who've grown an extra brain-cell or two....

FWIW, I don't think that meeting Jander Sunstar would necessarily lead to a lasting crisis of faith ... at least, not if the cleric who discovered him actually talked to Jander. The vampiric gold elf might have been mistaken for the Morninglord, in that initial confrontation when he rescued Martyn, but he'd also personally worshipped Lathandar in life and would reassure the cleric that there really IS such a deity. Indeed, once the cleric realized that this long-undead creature still believes in (and sorely misses) his erstwhile divine patron, knowing that another being's faith in the Morninglord has survived even vampirism might make that cleric's own faith even stronger! What better proof, after all, that the dawn's promised salvation can penetrate any darkness ... or dark curse?

I hadn't thought about the other gold elf thing. But yeah, you could really make that work.

As for the rest: yeah, that's definitely a possibility. I guess what I was trying to say (but it came out a little crooked) is that an encounter between a cleric of the morninglord and Jander Sunstar would have great dramatic potential either way. It could go one of many ways, but I suspect, with the right conversation, you are right: it might very well renew his faith.

But, an interesting question: does he kill Jander Sunstar anyway, being that he IS a vampire? Or is another scenario more likely? (perhaps they join together to fight Strahd? hmmm... (that's a tough one...)

[The Giamarga]

Well he'd have to be one heck of a cleric to kill CR 20 Jander...

[Scipion_Emilien]

Wait a minute! Are you saying that the whole faith of the morning lord start when jander rescue some barovian who lost their track in the middle of the night???

[The Giamarga]

Didn't you read Vampire of the Mists?

[Scipion_Emilien]

Unfortunately no, I come to ravenloft into the third edition, and as all know, Ravenloft novels are harder to find now

But it is good to know that little bit of hidden Ravenloft history.

[The Giamarga]

Try half.com They are awesome cheap for novels. They have most of the other novels too and even some of the gamebooks.

[Bloody Morgan]

Wait a minute! Are you saying that the whole faith of the morning lord start when jander rescue some barovian who lost their track in the middle of the night???

Correction some crazy kid Barovian who lost their track in the middle of the night. iirc, he's the guy whose mummified hands are in the cathedral in Krezk

[Boccaccio Barbarossa]

Wait a minute! Are you saying that the whole faith of the morning lord start when jander rescue some barovian who lost their track in the middle of the night???

Correction some crazy kid Barovian who lost their track in the middle of the night. iirc, he's the guy whose mummified hands are in the cathedral in Krezk

Sounds about right, I think: Hands of the Dawn Healer? And... Bastion of First Light...

So, yeah, to repeat what has been said - that's about right. (And, don't worry - I'm just reading Vampire of the Mists right now for the first time... in large part because I decided to play this Cleric of Morniglord who is supposed to hhave visions. SO, I wanted more material to draw "visions" from. )

The Well he'd have to be one heck of a cleric to kill CR 20 Jander...

I didn't really mean KILL, but rather... "confront." Then again, there's always the possibility that Jander Sunstar might WANT the cleric to kill him. Especially if the cleric can kill him and pretty much guarantee that he won't become a crimson mist.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Wait a minute! Are you saying that the whole faith of the morning lord start when jander rescue some barovian who lost their track in the middle of the night???

Okay, here's the real story:

Jander Sunstar really does look a lot like the Faerunian concept of the god Lathander Morninglord, an established (and real) greater FR deity. He had actually been mistaken for Lathandar's avatar by the ignorant, a time or two, in his mortal life, and was rather embarassed by that ... the moreso, in that Lathander was his own patron deity.

When Jander was brought to Barovia (then the only domain in Ravenloft), he wasn't the only Faerunian whom the Mists kidnapped: a party of human travelers also got swept up into Ravenloft, shortly thereafter. One of them was Martyn, a little boy. Jander met Strahd, reluctantly went with the darklord and his vampiress slaves to hunt for blood (only because the elf's usual staple diet of animal blood seemed toxic to him in Ravenloft), and they ambushed Martyn's group of outlanders.

Jander'd intended only to feed and not kill, but Strahd and his slaves went wild and started indiscriminately draining the adults in the group dry. The elf spotted the boy, and intervened before Strahd's slaves could kill him. Strahd had already drunk his fill, so let Martyn live as a grudging curtesy to the gold elf -- he still wanted to learn from Jander, then a much more experienced vampire than himself -- and the little boy (confused by the horrors he'd witnessed and the reprieve Jander'd won for him) assumed that he'd been spared a horrible death by the Morninglord: a god, he, like Jander, knew of from Faerun.

That's how the "bloody-mouthed" image of the Morninglord became a part of the Church doctrine of Lathander's faith in Barovia: Jander'd fed on one of the men-at-arms in Martyn's group, before he saved the child. He was so young, and so traumatized, that Martyn (later Father Martyn and the Morninglord's first Barovian cleric) misremembered what had happened to him, and concocted his own spiritual explanation for why the glorious, golden rescuer he recalled had had blood on his lips.

None of this, as noted above, need mean that the Morninglord's Church is a lie -- Lathander (whose first name seems to have been forgotten over the centuries) really is a real deity, with much the same creed as what Martyn taught his successors -- but it's certainly something that would make an encounter with the real Jander extremely dramatic, for a cleric trained to take Martyn's version of events as literal truth.