Hackin' and Coffin
It’s Vampire Week here at Necromancers of the Northwest, and as I hope you’re already aware, the whole thing is really just a thinly-veiled charade to hype our latest book, Liber Vampyr. Wait a minute! That can’t be right. Liber Vampyr was released in March of 2010. It’s over three years old, and has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times since it was initially released for free on this very website. How can it possibly be our latest book?
Oh, right, of course. I remember now. After a lot of thought and soul searching, we determined that while there were a lot of things about Liber Vampyr that we were proud of, there was also a whole lot that we could do better. The fact of the matter is that we’ve come a long way since Liber Vampyr came out, and we felt that it was time that we gave the book a real update, to bring it in line with our current (higher) standards of quality. So, we rebuilt it more or less from the ground up, making it more in line with the model we adopted for Marchen der Daemonwulf. Almost every aspect of the book, from the revenant classes, to the feats and blood powers (which are now feats), and the prestige classes and even the monsters at the end have all been essentially re-written from scratch to be in line with what you would expect from one of our more modern books. And the best part is…it’s still free. Check it out now.
Anyway, this puts me in a somewhat awkward position. You see, today I’m supposed to give you a bunch of new vampire-themed feats. I could preview some feats from the book but I’m not sure what the point would be, since the book is, of course, free. And since I’m writing this article far enough in advance that, technically, Liber Vampyr isn’t done yet, any feats I write will beg the question “why isn’t this part of the book?”—in fact, this article originally had one more feat, which was ultimately added to the book when I decided to make this article have a more focused theme. Can you guess which one it is?
Now, we have vague plans to do additional cruomancy/revenant/vampire books in the future, building off of the new-and-improved Liber Vampyr, and there’s definitely plenty of room left for making new vampire-themed feats in the future, but the challenge is making new vampire-themed feats that feel separate enough from Liber Vampyr to justify not just throwing them in. After a lot of thought, I ultimately decided that a group of feats that all tied into a specific, very narrow theme might just be good enough. So, I picked an aspect of vampires we didn’t hit very hard in the book (coffins), and decided to run with it. Since these feats wound up especially long and complicated, there’s only three today, but rest assured vampire fans, there will be more support for revenants and cruomancers in the future…assuming that enough interest is shown, anyway.
Coffin Rebirth (Vampire)
Should you die, you are reborn in your coffin, though you are permanently scarred by the experience.
Prerequisite: Coffin Sleeper, revenant, cruomancer level 9th.
Benefit: If you are destroyed, you are reborn in the nearest coffin that you have affected with the Coffin Sleeper feat 1d4 days later. When you are reborn in this way, you permanently gain an additional major weakness that you do not already possess from among the options on the list of available major weaknesses for the revenant template. If this would cause you to have 5 or more major weaknesses, the rebirth fails, and you remain destroyed. You are reborn without any of your possessions, which remain in the place where you were destroyed, unless they are otherwise moved. Weaknesses gained as a result of this feat can be removed only by a wish or miracle spell, at a rate of one weakness removed per wish or miracle spell cast. Removing a weakness in this way with a miracle spell requires the expenditure of 25,000 gp in powdered diamond.
For more information on cruomancer levels, blood points, and vampire feats, see Liber Vampyr.
Coffin Shroud (Vampire)
The privacy of your coffin sanctum is ensured supernaturally.
Prerequisite: Coffin Sleeper, cruomancer level 7th.
Benefit: By performing a special ritual, you can imbue a coffin that you affected with the Coffin Sleeper feat with a variety of potent security effects. This ritual requires inscribing additional mystic runes on the inside of the coffin with your own blood, a process which requires 3 hours to perform and the expenditure of 5 blood points. Once the ritual has been performed, the coffin remains affected indefinitely, though if you perform the ritual on another coffin, the first coffin loses all benefits from this feat.
The affected coffin is constantly locked, as though by the spell arcane lock. The coffin unlocks automatically at your touch, and you can suppress or resume the locking effect as a swift action, regardless of your distance from the coffin. Additionally, the coffin, as well as the surrounding area within a number of feet of the coffin equal to five times your cruomancer level (to a maximum of a 100-foot-radius at 20th level) cannot be perceived by spells of the scrying subschool, and spells such as locate creature or locate object cannot find creatures or objects that are within this area.
For more information on cruomancer levels, blood points, and vampire feats, see Liber Vampyr.
Coffin Sleeper (Vampire)
You learn how to gain power from sleeping in a coffin or similar container.
Prerequisite: Undead, cruomancer level 1st.
Benefit: You learn the secrets of turning a coffin or similar item (such as a bier, sarcophagus, etc.) into a personal sanctum that grants you power. In order to do so, you must perform a special ritual in which you inscribe several mystic runes upon the inside of the coffin with your own blood. This takes 1 hour to perform and requires that you spend 1 blood point.
Whenever you rest for 8 hours within a coffin that has been specially prepared in this way, you heal 3 hit points per Hit Dice you possess, instead of the normal amount that you would gain from resting. Additionally, if you choose, you can enter a state of suspended animation while in your coffin. If you do so, you determine when you enter the state how long you wish to remain that way. You are then placed in a state of suspended animation, as the spell temporal stasis, until the chosen amount of time has passed, or until your coffin is opened or destroyed, in which case the effect ends immediately.
Coffins that you prepare in this way are mystically linked to you, personally, and cannot be used by other characters in this way. Any given coffin can only be linked to a single creature in this way at any given time. Further, as long as you remain linked to the coffin, whenever the coffin is dealt damage, you suffer an equal amount of damage, of the same type. Apply the object’s hardness, as well as any special weaknesses or defenses you possess, when determining how much damage you suffer (for example, if someone dealt 10 points of fire damage to your coffin, after hardness, you would suffer 10 points of fire damage. If you had fire resistance 5, you would suffer only 5 points of fire damage, whereas if you were vulnerable to fire, you would suffer 15 points of fire damage, etc.). You can safely sever the bond between yourself and a coffin you have affected with this feat through a special ritual that takes 10 minutes to perform, and requires physical contact with the coffin.
For more information on cruomancer levels, blood points, and vampire feats, see Liber Vampyr.
Also, just as a head’s up before you go, Liber Vampyr is now also available in print! There is, of course, a cost for the print version, but we still think it’s a pretty good deal. Why not take a look?