Café de Nuit

Now I'd think *you* of all people should know...

but probably Aristocrat.

Well, I believe the time he was most close with his son, Azalin carried an executioner's axe.

Aristocrat I believe, with perhaps a level as a fighter.

If you're familiar with it, I suggest you take the Noble Class from the *Dave Arneson's Blackmoor* CS instead of the usual aristocrat class. I believe there was some some way to get it for free here. (Check the Character Creation books.)

What with his desire to help people and all that, my friend had Irik as a low-level paladin in his campaign. An alternative to consider, anyway.

I don't know if I'd go with the paladin idea; Irik's behavior seems more in keeping with a Chaotic Good alignment (i.e. covertly working against the government's pogroms because his personal conscience knew they were wrong, no matter how hard his Lawful father tried to indoctrinate him). Plus, religions seem to have been anathema under Azalin's rule, given that the Big A never even considered having a *cleric* bring his son back to life. :-/

I'd go with aristocrat, straight up, with an emphasis on courtly skills over the "hunting-and-dueling" side of noble culture.

At the risk of opening up a big can of worms here, I have to admit that it's questions like these that drove me away from class-based RPG systems and into systems like GURPS and HERO, where you don't have to worry about trying to shoehorn a character into a class. Is Van Richten a thief? Does it matter? He just happens to know lockpicking and stealth...

[I'm also not real keen on the D&D alignment system but that's an even BIGGER can of worms. If anyone wants to discuss either of these two topics let's take it over to the Roleplaying Games section of the board.]

Thats why I like the stat based classes from d20 modern. While its very hard to pin point down a persons skills its quite easy to describe them in terms of physical and mental abilities-

Take Van Richten for example-
We know he was very smart to begin with (being a doctor and all) so we add a few levels of Smart hero (with the added skill points and Stategy talent tree).
After his son dies he becomes more wisdom based in his tactics so you add on several levels of Dedicated and he takes the Insighfull tree.

Add on a few final levels of a monster hunter type PRC and you have a much more realistic Van Richten.

Rotipher wrote: Plus, religions seem to have been anathema under Azalin's rule, given that the Big A never even considered having a *cleric* bring his son back to life. :-/

Well if he wanted Irik alive that much the obvious choice would be . . . to not execute him. I believe that Azalin wanted to bring back Irik as he wanted him to be not just to bring him back. Heck a wish would do the ressurecting as well.
All of our parents have different opinions with us about our choices in life but they more or less accept them without beheading us and then not regretting the act but trying to create us again as their own images.

Rotipher wrote:I don't know if I'd go with the paladin idea; Irik's behavior seems more in keeping with a Chaotic Good alignment (i.e. covertly working against the government's pogroms because his personal conscience knew they were wrong, no matter how hard his Lawful father tried to indoctrinate him). Plus, religions seem to have been anathema under Azalin's rule, given that the Big A never even considered having a *cleric* bring his son back to life. :-/

I'd go with aristocrat, straight up, with an emphasis on courtly skills over the "hunting-and-dueling" side of noble culture.

I didn't mention the other strange alternative take on Irik, even farther from the canon:

Azalin, fed up with the ghost haunting his castle, manages to clone Irik's body and transfer the ghost into the clone (I don't really know how he did it). Irik, suddenly alive again, is not too happy with his father having him executed, and the two of them begin to fight. Irik becomes very popular in Darkon and gains many followers, but in the end Azalin ends up killing him again. This time, however, Irik's followers take the body and mummify it, and Irik ended up rising as an Ancient Dead, defeating Azalin and replacing him as the Darklord.

As I said, not even close to canon, but an interesting take nonetheless. And the fallen Irik made for a hell of a villain.