OK, for another of my Poe based adventures I decided to have one of the feature characters from a story be found as a Crypt Thing.
Why, because Crypt Things are not Evil but Neutral instead and they aren't there to really cause harm to the PC's but maybe answer some questions about the area and mess with their heads a bit by teleporting them somewhere else in the tomb, catacombs, etc...
I don't want this character to be Evil and necessarily be a problem child for the party. I want it to be a way to introduce this Poe character and have the Players interact with it a bit.
However, I was asking myself the question, how is a Crypt Thing created? While it is not "undead" like a vampire, zombie or typical skeleton, etc... it is a shrouded skeletal figure. Not exactly the same thing as "living" either.
So, thanks to good old Occulus(the putzbunny)Orbus, a curse would explain the "undying" nature of such a character. I am taking "undead" to now refer to something Evil and "undying" to be something more Neutral or otherwise.
In an earlier post on this blog, I discussed my way of dividing curses into Magical Curses or Blood Curses. In my thinking, a curse to cause someone to become a Crypt Thing would be a Magical Curse, cast upon someone by a magic using class or a demi-god, deity, demon, devil, etc...
Why does it matter? Well, it matters to me because I may want to use that information in another part of the adventure or I may want to utilize it in another adventure. Knowing how it happens helps me to add to the overall story.
Perhaps a cursed artifact in the crypt turns anyone who tries to possess it into the new Crypt Thing. This, of course, frees the spirit of the old Crypt Thing.
ReplyDeleteIn my previous campaign, I had a dwarven Crypt Thing that was a Clan priest who had received the honor of protecting the Clan ancestors for eternity. (In that campaign, dwarven religion centered around ancestor worship)
I had someone else bring that up as well. I have nothing against the idea. A curse in this particular situation works for the better I think. Overall, I would still render it as a curse in general, but you do have those types out that who look at things differently.
ReplyDeleteOne man's curse is another deviant's blessing.
Why, anyone who wouldn't want to spend an eternity protecting his sacred ancestors is clearly the deviant. ;)
ReplyDelete