Half-Vistani by Darkling parent?

[The Giamarga]

I'm in the process of creating a half-vistani whose vistani parent was a darkling. What kind of Vistani racial traits would you give such a one?

[Jasper]

Thats a tough one. Being a darkling strips away nearly everything that makes a vistani a vistani but the vistani is stil in its blood.

I see three ways you can do this-

1. Full half-vistani power but with a taint to her that all other Vistani can detect. "You carry the blood of the outcast! You are not welcome in our circle."

2. Deluded blood. The bond with the vistani blood is weak and functions at only half power IE: 1+ to wis, -1 to Cha, Only effected by moon madness on the night of the fullest moon, +1 to still from tribe bonus etc:

3. Full Darkling blood. The Half Vistani suffers the same fate as her father along with the same powers and will pass it down for the next three generations. Other vistani can tell what she is and who her father was just by sight if from the same tribe.

[Brandi]

I think you meant "diluted"-- unless you're suggesting that apart from moon madness the half-Darkling doesn't get *any* bennies from the bloodline....

[Personally I would probably lean towards the first option of Jasper's.]

[Jester of the FoS]

I agree. Racial they should have the same game statistics as a regular half-vistani (as, I assume, the taint is not that strongly passed down) but other Vistani would still be able to recognise the tainted blood.

[The Giamarga]

Thanks for the input Jasper. I'm leaning toward option 1 or 3 atm.

To elaborate a bit: I'm trying to convert Trisler a Ravenloft NPC from the 1993 Trading Cards.

She's a 2nd Edition LG Cleric 10 there, but with a twist. The picture on the card is the woman from the cover of Touch of Death, where she does not look like a typical cleric.

Here's some info from the card:

Equipment: Anklet of protection from fire, necklace of prayer beads.

Background: Trisler is a native of Ravenloft. Her mother was an inhabitant of Har'Akir, but her father was a darkling - an outcast vistani. Her unusual heritage has given her powers similar to a cleric's. She cannot turn undead but is also immune to level-draining attack.

I was thinking of making her a favoured soul, but without the weapon focus and spezialisation. (PHB II has substitution levels that grant her a healing power instead.) So there goes the undead turning. She also gets energy resistance as a class feature (instead of from her anklet) which is just fine. For further classes I'm toying with some levels of Divine Oracle.

But how to get the immunity to energy draining? The Hollow feat comes to mind, but she can't be good aligned then. Also I'm considering giving her Reicarnated which like Hollow must be taken at first level.

Any ideas...

[Luke Fleeman]

: 1+ to wis, -1 to Cha, Only effected by moon madness on the night of the fullest moon, +1 to still from tribe bonus etc:

A note on bonuses. Typically in 3e/3.5 design, you do not give +1 bonuses to stats. The +1 means 15s and 13s get bumped up to the next level of bonuses, which makes it as good as a +2 in most situations; but the cost is usually treated as less since it is "only" a +1. Check most of the WotC core products for 3.5 and you'll see even bonuses are the rule.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

FWIW, there's some precedent in the novels for the notion that Vistani consider a darkling to have rejoined the "family" of their people, once he or she dies. If the half-Vistana's darkling parent is still alive, then Vistani might be leery of the character, but after the parent's death the character could be considered 'cleansed of taint' and tolerated to the same degree as any other giomorgo would be.

As for the energy-drain immunity in Trisler's case, who says that had to come from the darkling side of the family? Perhaps her mother was a big-league cleric of Osiris, and Trisler's resistance to energy draining derives from an unique blessing (i.e. a feat) bestowed upon her by that undead-hating faith. She might even be Osiris's "chosen one", whose birth was foretold in an ancient Akiri prophecy: a status that can account for all sorts of rule-bending quirks, in a Gothic setting like Ravenloft.

[The Giamarga]

That's exactly along the lines that i was thinking Rotipher. She is a chosen one of Osiris and perhaps the reincarnation of a high priestess of old.. But I was searching for a way to represent this immunity mechanically within in the rules for PCs.

Libris Mortis has the following two feats:

Enduring Life [General]
Benefit: Whenever you gain a negative level, you can ignore the effects for a number of minutes equal to your Constitution bonus.
You also gain a +4 bonus on Fortitude saves made to remove negative levels.

Lasting Life [General]
Prerequisites: Endurance, Enduring Life
Benefit: Once per round as a standard action, you can attempt to remove one negative level from yourself with a Will save (DC = DC to remove normally).

So how does this look for feats: Voice of Wrath, Reincarnated [-->Knowledge Religion], Endurance, Enduring Life (Libris Mortis), Lasting Life (Libris Mortis).
That leaves no space for Skill Focus(Know Religion) though which is a prereq for Divine Oracle.

... perhaps an item that grants Death Ward? Or a curse?

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Being someone's reincarnation doesn't mean you have to select the Reincarnated feat, IMO. It shouldn't be necessary for everyone from Paridon and Sri Raji to take that feat, merely to validate their respective religious beliefs, after all; she could be a reincarnation who lacks a 'soul mate' from a former life, and who doesn't recollect enough from her past life to gain an extra class skill.

So ditch the Reincarnated feat, and take the Skill Focus instead.

[The Giamarga]

Ah, but than she doesn't have knowledge religion as a class skill in the first place and it becomes hard to get those 8 ranks.

Another thing that i stumbled upon is the half-undead templates in Dragon 313. Half undead traits grant immunity to level drain among other things. Perhaps her other parent is indeed the source of the power. Unforutnately there's no Half-Mummy in there. And I can't think of the dark story that could spawn a half-mummy. Normally it would take a living pregnant woman who dies and is mummified/turned into a mummy.

But then again on the picture she does definately not look even half-undead... And it might be a bit over the top, too.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Ah, but than she doesn't have knowledge religion as a class skill in the first place and it becomes hard to get those 8 ranks.

You could always give her a level of expert, if skill-access is really an issue.

For that matter, you could just downgrade the degree of immunity she's got, and do without the Lasting Life feat. If entire races can lose their blanket immunities in the 2E/3E transition, reducing one NPC's resistance from total to partial isn't a big deal.

Heck, maybe she's just been really lucky on her Fort saves to remove negative levels up until now, and only thinks she's "immune"! Could make for an interesting character, if she sincerely believes that Osiris will guard her from such threats, when in fact she's somewhat vulnerable after all....

[NeoTiamat]

Who says that she has to look undead?

If I remember my Van Richten's Guides, then *pulls out VRGttAD* Ancient Dead can be of any level of preservation from Skeletal to Pristine. Let's say for the sake of argument, that the mummy parent is of pristine preservation. The parent would look utterly human in every way, with only some rather spectacular powers to show that he's not quite, well, alive. Oh, and the lack of a pulse.

As for the stories regardin a half-mummy, I'd say that a Half-mummy is probably the most common of the half-undead, after vampires (Curse you Lord Byron). The original mummy stories (which unlike the vampire, which was pure folklore, the flesh golem, which was a literary creation, or the Lich which is a corruption of slavic folklore), were creations of Hollywood. The original mummy film (Named, rather imaginatively, "The Mummy"), was essentially a case of an ancient creatue woken up, and who along the way searches for the reincarnation of a woman it loved (I'm skipping over a great deal). Likewise, I think most of the more modern mummy films keep some part of the ancient lust aspect of the story.

Assuming you're mind is sufficiently twisted (mine is, although I'm not sure that's something I ought to be proud of), one can see this leading to a half-mummy rather easily. In the purest sense of the story, the Mummy, a vizier, was killed (in some suitably brutal fashion) for having an affair with the wife of the pharoah. Due to the not quite proper burial (such as the fact that the mummy was alive at the time), then it remains as an ancient dead. A few millenia later, tomb is opened, and the mummy starts wandering around and finds someone who just so happens to look exactly like the pharoah's wife of ages gone by (Reincarnation? Coincidence? Who knows? Who cares?). The mummy decides to continue what it started centuries ago...

As for the actual method, well, I can see three ways. An ancient Dead is certainly strong enough to simply take what it wishes, although this is likely to be an unpleasant experience for the mother.

Alternatively, a mummy in pristine condition, (or even an 'Intact' one, which is the same level of decay as a vampire, say), or with the Alter Form ability, and a good level of charisma and intelligence could seduce the target with relative ease. This is most likely with a high rank mummy.

Lastly, and most disturbingly, the case might be one of religious veneration. VRGttAD mentions that quite a few Ancient Dead are worshipped by degenerate cultists. A sufficiently zealous cultist might consider the attention of her deity (or his avatar) a great honor.

Now, as you may have noticed, I use the HE pronoun for the ancient dead in all of these cases. Fact is, I'm not sure (and rather doubt) that undead can become pregnant. I don't have Liber Mortis, so I don't know if it says otherwise, but so it seems.

To be honest, I'm not familiar with the character in question, so I can't tell if any of my slightly strange ramblings are helpful, but I hope they are useful in deciding what to do.

[The Giamarga]

NT, the info I posted above is all the info there is for this NPC AFAIK. The story of The Mummy is probably what my subconcious is trying to implement. Thus also the Reincanation feat. But I guess Rotipher is right in that she can change a bit with the conversion.

As for a half-undead looking undead-ish, it's in the Dragon article. All half undead look quite similar to their undead kin. The article also notes that "normally half-undead are created when a pregnant mother is turned into an undead creature. Others result from botched resurrections, necromancers' experiments or the intervention of dark gods."

[NeoTiamat]

Note to Self: Subsrcibe to Dragon.

As always, use whatever works best for your specific situation.