Undead, Energy Drain and Bloodlines

Any ideas if energy drain from undead attacks can drain bloodlines and even perhaps give bloodline Str to the drainer?

How about for the vampire and his bloodsucking?

The Spectral Scion, found int he last pages of the rjurik’s book drains bloodstrength.

If you say that all vampires drain your blood, then the Vampire is not so special. Hm, well perhaps the vampires could gain only 1-2 points, while the Vampire acts like a tighmaevril.

I don’t think that energy drain and bloodline strength should be connected. energy drain is some kind of life energy and the bloodline strength is some kind of mystical power.

the spectral scion is a special case, it drains bloodline because of his creature-background.

>
> If you say that all vampires drain your blood, then the
> Vampire is not so special. Hm, well perhaps the vampires
> could gain only 1-2 points, while the Vampire acts like a tighmaevril.

But there are no vampires in Birthright, right? Other way, there would
be no THE Vampire.


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But there are no vampires in Birthright, right? Other way, there would
be no THE Vampire.

the fact that there is a special monster awnsheglien does not mean that “normal” monsters of that kind do not exist.
For example there are hundreds of kraken in the seas in coincidence with the “anwsheglien kraken”. the same could be true for a vampire, maybe there are some in the shadowworld.

Quote:

Posted by Azrai

I don’t think that energy drain and bloodline strength should be connected. energy drain is some kind of life energy and the bloodline strength is some kind of mystical power.

the spectral scion is a special case, it drains bloodline because of his creature-background.


I agree with this. Specifically I was thinking about the Magian and the Riders. They are all considered scions, the Riders in life and the Magian now. I assume the Magian has drained them of their bloodlines or perhaps allowed them to keep part of it even if smaller than it was in life. (all up to the DM of course) Even if they have no bloodline str. could they be considered bld str 0 and act as scions in respect to the bloodline drain proposal?

Quote:

Posted by A_dark

The Spectral Scion, found int he last pages of the rjurik’s book drains bloodstrength.

If you say that all vampires drain your blood, then the Vampire is not so special. Hm, well perhaps the vampires could gain only 1-2 points, while the Vampire acts like a tighmaevril.


If we consider special undead as bloodline draining monsters then how do we set it up? How does the Magian do it? What about his Riders if you allow that? The vampire I think would use his bite. Maybe a special attack could be used or perhaps as a result of his normal bite.

Also I think it would be cool for him to start a clan of vampires. He is CE so his intentions could be for power but of course and he may not forsee the holes in his plan until its too late. Of course according to BR history he would be the first vampire, but from memory I think he is a little different from the standard vampire thus maybe before the clan-thing can happen a character must slay him and absorb his bloodline in order for this kind of proginy to be produced. (the slaying and absorbtion in order to allow a transformation of the awnsheghlien)

I think that the vampire ability for drain could go something like this; the % of hp drained equals the % bloodline str. drained. Or maybe just a die roll.

Other undead with drain attack 1 point per hit. Or perhaps a die roll of some sort.

Oh one thing I forgot to mention. I am thinking of these abilities not only as a drain from the victim of the attack but also as a gain for the draining monster. Thus some transferance is involved perhaps reducing the amount drained to the amount absorbed like bloodtheft.

Originally posted by Magian

I am thinking of these abilities not only as a drain from the victim of the attack but also as a gain for the draining monster. Thus some transferance is involved perhaps reducing the amount drained to the amount absorbed like bloodtheft.

I think, the vampire does this (That’s why he mentioned it to enhance his bloodline from major to great). If other monsters do this, I don’t know, but I think, the spectral scion’s attack acts as tighmaevril as well, so he should gain the bloodline too.

I know the Vampire drains bloodline strength. He bit me once…
I got better.

Yes the Vampire does it, but his bite does not transform the victim into a vampire. he is not really an undead creature, just transformed to resemble one.

The magian is different, since according to the rumours and of course the DM’s choices, he is undead. However, I would not give him a blood draining ability. Energy Drain, dains the life force, Blood drain is something very different. Again, I will tell you to go look the Spextral Scion. Those are two different abilities. They can certainly coexist, so you can for instance have the special undead monster that sucks levels and bloodpoints, but not in one ability.

Bah, I will go copy the Spectral Scion :stuck_out_tongue:

“A spectral scion temporarily drains 1d4 Con points with each succesful hit. When the victim reaches 0, it falls into a coma. During the coma, the SS can drain 1d6 bloodpoints per turn. When it reaches 4d6 the creature is sated and departs. The SS can drain the victim to no less than 1 point. When draining the SS is vunlerable to attacks by normal weapons taking half damage. (You need +1 or better normally) If the drained person kills the SS within 7 days his blood is restored. If the SS has drained someone else after the victim, the first victim’s blood is lost forever and cannot be restored sort of spells. 10% of the drained bloodpoints are lost each day after the drain. Thus if the SS is killed 4 days after the drain, the victim will only get 60% of his blood back.”

That;s it :slight_smile:

The SS does not gain any blood. It actually destroys it. It wants to destroy it. It is also immune to all tighaevril and if you go to fight it with it, then it will snatch it off your hands and destroy it!! :slight_smile:

The Vampire, Britter Kalt, though, does act like tighmaevrils and so did that Awnie he killed before he became what he is now. I would have Vampires gain bloodpoints, but I would not make them tighmaevril weapons. In my opinion they have to be lesser in power to The Vampire. :slight_smile:

There are individuals with 0 Bloodlines. They are those that invested it to someone else. They are still blooded but with no power. There is one mentioned in the adventure in the Khinasi book, or in the Legends of the Hero Kings, he is in Serpent’s servitude.

Reading some things and thinking, I believe that the actual undead cannot be blooded. They don’t have blood, do they? Vampires would be an exception, but other than that, wraiths, or spectres would not have blood. The Magian perhaps is an exception or he simply is not an undead either, and falls under the same category I spoke of for the Vampire. But that is up to the DM I suppose. Plenty of room for interpreting these things any way one wants :slight_smile:

I believe I have covered anything I could think of :stuck_out_tongue:

Alright, A_dark

I read the Spectral Scion the first time you mentioned it, to your credit. This did aid me in my original post of the thread to reconstitute my approach to this topic. I understand that energy drain and bloodline drain are separate powers. I also agree that they are as I posted earlier after the quotation from Azrai about this. But if it makes you feel better to post the explanation then good, perhaps now we can move on to what could be, and not further dwell on what is not. (according to printed materials)

Whether you agree or not that undead can have bloodlines, the Magian is undead, the Vampire is undead (I don’t think he is thus I proposed he have some transformation take place or we could just ignore the undead altogether), or whether the bloodline drain/theft which is similar in reflection to that of energy drain or vampiric regeneration I have decided as a DM in my campaign to consider these options for the above mentioned characters and creatures.

With this, I submit my planned ideas to this message board for possible ideas on how to regulate them in game rules so that they may be conducted in a balanced system.

My questions are directly:

If I was to give the Magian bloodline drain ability and allow him to gain bloodline strength points from this how would you suggest it to be done?

If I was to give the Magian’s Riders bloodline drain ability and allow them to gain bloodline strength points from this how would you suggest it to be done?

If I was to have something happen to the Vampire and he is transformed to an undead vampire similar to that of the classical or more familar type of vampire associated with D&D and him having his already instituted bloodline drain ability how would you set up a system for him to start creating a clan of vampires spreading his kind across the lands?

Orginally posted by blitzmacher

I know the Vampire drains bloodline strength. He bit me once…
I got better.

Oh, there is something around with keeping fingers away from an awnsheglien…

If you really want to give the Magian a blood draining ability (dunno why you would want to make him so much more powerful tho) I suggest that with each hit he drains 1d4 points, unless the victim saves vs Death.

For the Riders, 1point per hit and again give a save.

Or perhaps 1d6 and 1d4 respectively, depending on how much more powerful you want to make him.

Blooded Vampires, should drain a specific amount of bloodpoints and be satiated. Meaning that they might have to kill 2 or three people before they are satiated, or meaning that they might not kill and individual. The individual not killed would turn into a vampire, while those that are drained completely are killed. Depending on where you set the satiation (is there such a word?) level, you basically define how many bloodpoints one should have to become a blooded vampire. Eg. A BV drains 20BPs before being satiated. A character with 15BPs will die if he is drained, a character with 25BPs will become a blooded vampire.

You can choose instead that those that I said that die, do not die, but instead, become natural vampires.

Also, I would not give the draining bloodpoints attack to all vampires but only to the already blooded ones.

Blooded vampires, would gain only 1-2 BPs, just like normal bloodtheft, and the rest would be destroyed.

The Vampire, if you choose to make adjustments, I would say that he still acts like a tighmaevril in regards to what BPs he adds to his total, and he should have a higher saturation limit. meaning if Vlad the Vampire needs 20BPs, Kalt, would need 40. It would be perhaps harder for him to be satiated, so I am not sure if this is a good idea.

What you also have to consider is what happens when they kill normal people. In that case, I would say that if you use the 20BPs, they would gain the equivalent of this amount of blood from 2-3 unblooded victims.

Then there are combinations…

I feel it is harder than it is worth it…

Thanks for your in depth system on the vampires. It does seem more trouble than its worth according to all that kind of tracking.

After thinking about it, the Magian having a bloodline drain ability does make it too easy for him. Perhaps some sort of spell would work better for him along those lines.

On the vampire, since he is not considered undead according to the Blood Enemies description perhaps as a suggestion if he wanted to create another like himself he would have to sacrifice a portion of his bloodline strength in order to do so. He can replenish it if he wants, but the problem with him doing this without the undead state is the lack of control over the “vamp spawn”.

Anyway just a few more ideas that came to mind since yesterday.

A spell for the magian sounds much much better :slight_smile: He already has the Bloodline corruption or what it’s called :slight_smile:

Yes, make a spell for him, a ring even, he can afford to make any magical items he wants :stuck_out_tongue:

As for your Vampire idea, it is really cool. I don’t really know how Kalt would have control of his children, but perhaps he binds them through some sort of vassalage. To invest a portion of his blood to them, means that he has to perform a very special ceremony, that could perhaps create a bond between the two that cannot be broken. Sounds good to me :slight_smile:

You could perhaps use a similar binding idea to the idea of the Oath, though naturally what oath the spawn would give to Kalt, would not be even close to the Oath to Ruornil, but it is still an idea, you might want to consider.

One final note, is that the spawn should not have a tighmavril bite, as we discussed (just reminding that note) and you should also figure out a way to prevent the spawn from having more bloodpoints than Kalt. It would be something really hard, but if the Spawn does nothing but feed… well it could be done.

A final note, you have to definea time limit for these draining attacks. There are spells (restore bloodline) that can restore those Bloodpoints. What happens then?

Would the Vampire that loses his BPs know why he lost them and who took them? Would the BPs be restored regardless of the time passed after the spell was cast?

I would say no to the first and no to the second. A time frame of one or 2 weeks seems to be fair for both the victim and the vampire. Then again, if the vampire bites you and sucks you, you die… so there is not much point in this, is there? :slight_smile:

Without pissing anyone off, I would ask how an undead creature is blooded if at death you lose your bloodline and therefore become unblooded.

Perhaps they become reblooded because someone vested them with their bloodline. This would be REALLY rare.

As for the THE VAMPIRE AND MAGIAN. I am not so sure they are undead. I think they are living creatures with all the qualities of being undead due to the way the curse of the Azrai has warped their bodies. Thus they both can be blooded despite the rules.

HOWEVER LET ME STATE IF YOU WANT TO DO IT DIFFERENTLY GO RIGHT AHEAD. I AM NOT A RULES LAWYER LIKE SOME PEOPLE NOT TO MENTION ANY NAMES.

At 06:54 AM 8/1/2002 +0200, Lord Eldred wrote:

>I would ask how an undead creature is blooded if at death you lose your
>bloodline and therefore become unblooded.
>
>Perhaps they become reblooded because someone vested them with their
>bloodline. This would be REALLY rare.
>
>As for the THE VAMPIRE AND MAGIAN. I am not so sure they are undead. I
>think they are living creatures with all the qualities of being undead due
>to the way the curse of the Azrai has warped their bodies. Thus they both
>can be blooded despite the rules.

I agree that the Vampire or the Magian are not undead in the traditional
D&D sense. They are awnsheghlien whose bloodform has taken on a path that
mimics undead creatures. In the same way that the Spider isnt a spider, and the Gorgon isnt a gorgon, the Vampire isnt a vampire. In the case of the Magian, however, there is the distinct possibility that s/he/it is an extraplanar or at least extra-continental arrival to Cerilia who got a bloodline by stealing it, or otherwise using magics (like the Chimaera) to get one. The Magian could be a lich. One does lose ones bloodline upon
death, but the Magian could have died, become undead and then gained a
bloodline. The Magian could easily be that really rare case of a blooded
character who isn`t born with that bloodline.

Gary


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OK Gary, How did he steal the bloodline. Unblooded can not commit blood theft. Someone would have had to vested him with a bloodline. Who would do that and why?

Why a commoner can’t commit bloodtheft? This does mean, no commoner can EVER get blooded. Why a commoner, who kills an awnshegh, become then one?

At 01:35 PM 8/1/2002 +0200, Lord Eldred wrote:

> OK Gary, How did he steal the bloodline. Unblooded can not commit blood
> theft. Someone would have had to vested him with a bloodline. Who would
> do that and why?

Well, first of all, I dont think he did steal his bloodline. I go with a version of the Magian as a "typical" awnsheghlien, corrupted by his bloodline into the form that somehow represents his personal/spiritual image, just like all the others. It hasnt really come up IMC that I need
to have more background material on the Magian, so I havent ruled as to his specific origin, and if it does Ill probably go with the simplest
interpretation. There are several possible origins for the Magian as a
blooded lich, however, including such things as:

  1. It may not be absolutely necessary to have a bloodline in order to
    commit bloodtheft. There are several examples of awnsheghlien who gained
    their bloodline by committing an act of bloodtheft. The Wolf and the Boar,
    for instance, gained a bloodline after an act of bloodtheft, or it is
    speculated that some similar event caused their corruption. I would
    suggest that has something to do with the nature of Azrais bloodline, since those whove been described as having gained their bloodline by
    bloodtheft seem to have Azrai`s derivation.

  2. The Magian may be one of the last members of the Lost. (Maybe he`s the
    Last Long-lived Lost Left?) The Lost gained some sort of bloodline like
    power from Azrai and the ability to cast true magic. We have very little
    information on what specific powers were gained by being one of the Lost,
    but since it replicates the ability to cast true magic the same way a
    bloodline does, it may also allow one to commit bloodtheft.

  3. He might have been at Deismaar. The Magian could have gained his
    bloodline after having transformed into a lich and attended the
    battle. The Magian was unknown on Cerilia until recently, but that just
    means that he wasnt around as The Magian. He could have existed for centuries, he might have left the continent immediately after the battle and travelled Aebrynis, he could have been trapped somehow by the energies released at the battle and only recently freed himself, or he might simply have been laying low, gathering his strength and preparing for the right time to make his appearance on the scene in Cerilia. Granted, it would seem strange not to note the appearance of a lich at Deismaar, but there were some pretty powerful characters there, not to mention a few gods and dragons, so the Magians presence might not figure too highly on the
    billing. He may not even have been there as a combatant, but as an
    observer trying to learn as much as possible about the nature of
    divinity–of interest to a lich.

  4. The Lands Choice. Why must the Lands Choice always be
    benevolent? Sometimes Cerilia (not to mention the DM) needs a dark
    overlord to thin out the population and act as a foil to youthful
    adventurers. Who better than a vastly powerful lich? “You speak of the
    one prophesied to bring balance to mebhaighl? You think it is this… lich?”

  5. The Magian is also known to have done extensive research into the nature
    of bloodlines itself. Hes created a spell that can corrupt the bloodline of another character, so its possible that he`s also come up with a means
    of stealing the bloodline of another character. Danita Kusor, the
    Chimaera, is/was a much less powerful wizard than the Magian (W13 compared
    to W20) but she managed to gain her bloodline after being soaked in the
    same alchemical fluids she used to create the Binman–who also gained a
    bloodline–after slaying the Iron Troll.

  6. He could have gotten his bloodline by investiture. That doesnt mean he was necessarily someones heir (though that too is a possible explanation)
    since he could have used his powerful magics to charm/enslave someone with
    a bloodline and then got a priest (by coercion or he might have just found
    an evil priest) to perform an Investiture to transfer his victims bloodline. This person need not necessarily have been of Azrais
    derivation, since one of the spells the Magian has access is to switch a
    bloodline derivation to Azrai. Maybe the first person that spell was used
    on was the Magian himself…

I`m sure there are other possibilities, and there are combinations of the
above that could be used to explain his bloodline.

Gary


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