Five wrote:ewancummins wrote:I don't think consenting to be made a vampire can be taken as other than a willful embrace of evil. Vampires are by their very nature unholy abominations. They are undead, evil-aligned monsters that feed on the living.
On the flipside there is one CN vampire in published TSR Ravenloft material. I think perhaps he was a nosferatu and not a level-drainer.I'm also pretty sure he did not choose to become what he is.
Thats the black and white textbook of them, for sure. But what if there was a vampire who willingly became a vampire and who only drinks the blood of the willing?
I dont see any evil. I see a norm-breaking twist to throw at non-norm-breaking players...
Also, holy and unholy are subjective terms. But now I'm playing devil's advocate (or, being a stick) Haha
I see your point. I do. And I dont disagree. I just like playing in the woods sometimes is all.
Holy and unholy really aren't subjective terms in D&D, not when used in conjunction with alignment. We're talking game mechanics, then.
RE mechanics
Alignment as a rule set is under yoru control as DM, obviously. Rule Zero.
RE blood
Standard vampires may drink blood in the ''flufff text'' but in game terms they drain energy levels. That means, and the rules in older editions bear out, that vampires have strong connection with the Negative Material Plane. The Negative plane isn't in itself evil, but note that nearly everything in the game strongly associated with it
is evil: level draining undead and evil clerics (who use negative energy to harm people and to command/rebuke undead).
Level drainers feeding on 1st level volunteers isn't going to be very nice for those 1st level guys.
Nosferatu vamps drain CON, IIRC, though drinking blood.
Can they feed on animals? Drain a guy but not kill him?
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
-from Moby Dick (Hermann Melville)