Prince Mamuwalde "Blacula"

Just watched this again last weekend and I am still amazed at the depth of this move I so off-handedly dismissed the first time I saw it.  There is a lot here in this flick that many modern vampire shows/movies lack.
This has easily moved into one of my favorite vampire films, and Prince Mamuwalde as one of the more tragic figures in vampire storytelling.

Prince Mamuwalde "Blacula"

Blacula and Scream Blacula Scream were noble, and novel, experiments. It was 1972 and two things were popular in cinema, Blaxplotation films and Hammer's Vampire films. Blacula then seemed like a logical, if formulamatic, solution. Chances are it would have made a quick buck in a highly derivative market and it would have been forgotten.

Except someone forgot to tell William Marshall this.

William Marshall was a Shakespearean trained actor with a commanding presence and a booming voice, but more importantly he interject a style and nobility to the character of Blacula. Rumor has it that Blacula was going to be nothing more than some ghetto clone killing people in LA. But Marshall proposed the Mamuwalde, African Prince story-line that made the character more three-dimensional. His Blacula was more noble than any vampire before, or since, with the possible exception of Christopher Lee.

I wont ruin the story here, if you have not seen it. Nor will I reference Scream Blacula Scream too much except that the voodoo angle in it was really cool.

History

It is 1780 and European educated African Prince Mamuwalde returns to Europe, hoping to speak to the European heads of state as equals to end the slave trade that has been robbing his country of its citizens.
He has met with resounding failure, but no failure will compare to what waits for him and his lovely wife Luva when they go to Transylvania and meet with ruling lord, Count Dracula.
Dracula acts improper with Luva, raising Mamuwaldes ire some more. Dracula, insulted by the African prince bites him and curses him with vampire immortality. He seals the newly dead prince in a coffin and then seals the coffin and Luva in a room. Mamuwalde is forced to listen as Luva dies of starvation and he remains, his bloodlust and revenge unsaited for nearly 200 years.

1972
Dracula's castle, and its lands have fallen into decay, but two enterprising interior designers (maybe hoping to make a few bucks on the Hammer Films craze) make off with several of Dracula's possessions, including an ornately designed coffin. Back in LA the designers fatally discover that their coffin is not empty at all and Mamuwalde, aka "Blacula" is loose on the streets. He alternates from killing machine to suave royal, till he meets Tina. Tina is the reincarnation of Luva and Mamuwalde will do whatever he can to have her.

Today
So 1972 was a long time ago. What is Mamuwalde doing today in your games?
Well you have a couple of options. You can take the events of the movie and move them up nearly 40 years. Course you loose some the nice gritty feel of early 70s LA, but it would be easier to adapt the story.
Or you say that after the events of SBS Mamuwalde returned again (after all Dracula is his sire) and he is still search for Luva/Tina. Borrow a page from the Ravenloft playbook (or are they borrowing from Blacula?) and have Luva show up every generation to tempt the Prince. She would be about due again now.

The Soul Question
Does Mamuwalde have a soul? Absolutely. He is not tortured because he is angst filled and existential rather he is tortured because he know he is a monster, and yet he feels love, remorse and regret. This tends to make him a tad depressed and focus on his lost love even after all these centuries. He was, and remains, an honorable man. Winning him as ally would be a great boon to any group of characters, winning his enmity however is certainly inviting death.

Prince Mamuwalde

Life Points 110
Drama Points 15

Strength 8
Dexterity 4
Constitution 6
Intelligence 4
Perception 3
Willpower 5

Initiative +4
Actions 2
Gender Male
Age 250
Eyes Black
Hair Black
Height 63
Weight 250 lbs.

Qualities
Age 2
Attractiveness +2
Contacts, Financial 2 (for 2010 use)
Contacts, Governmental 2 (for 2010 use)
Fast Reaction Time
Hard to Kill 2
Hynosis
Increased Life Points
Nerves of Steel
Resources +7
Status +5
Vampire

Drawbacks
Antisocial Impulses, Cruel (Mild)
Dual Shape
Honorable (2)
Love, Tragic (Luva)
Mental Problems, Depression (Mild)
Minority

Skills
Acrobatics 1
Art 3
Computers 0
Crime 1
Doctor 1
Driving 1
Getting Medieval 5
Gun Fu 0
Influence 5
Knowledge 4
Kung Fu 2
Languages 3
Mr. Fix-it 0
Notice 1
Occultism 4
Science 0
Sports 1
Wild Card 0

Combat
Manoeuvre        Bonus        Base Damage        Notes
Bite                +8        27                Slash/stab; Grapple first to feed
Break neck        +13        32       
Punch                +6        16                Bash
Dodge                +9                        Defence action
Grapple        +8                        Resisted by Dodge
Feint                +9       


Blacula, www.imdb.com/title/tt0068284/&e=9797
Scream, Blacula, Scream! www.imdb.com/title/tt0070656/

Yamil Zacra: The Infernal Star

I have been a fan of H.P. Lovecraft since high school.  I like his works as much as the next gamer/horror geek (which is to say, a lot), but it was a chance discovery in my college library one day that I happened on a collection of unfinished stories by Clark Ashton Smith.  I had known of CAS for a long time.  I knew he was a friend of HPL and the D&D module X2: Castle Amber, was a pastiche of his ideas.   One story in this collection of unfinished tales was The Infernal Star, a story of a evil star.


Accursed forevermore is Yamil Zacra, star of perdition, who sitteth apart and weaveth the web of his rays like a spider spinning in a garden. Even as far as the light of Yamil Zacra falleth among the worlds, so goeth forth the bane and the bale thereof. And the seed of Yamil Zacra, like a fiery tare, is sown in planets that know him only as the least of the stars .... -Fragment of a Hyperborean tablet.

This story grabbed a hold of my imagination and never really let go.  I could never find that book again in the library, despite my best efforts at looking.  But a couple of years ago I discovered the story online at Eldritch Dark, a CAS devoted website.
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/101/the-infernal-star-%28fragment%29

This dredged up another half-forgotten memory of Nemesis, the hypothetical red- or brown-dwarf star that obits our sun.  The theory is that Nemesis causes extinction events about 26 million years or so.  The two certainly could be one and the same in a near-apocalyptic game.

Yamil Zacra: The Infernal Star
Somewhere between the stars Polaris and the acknowledged evil star Agol, lies a star nearly invisible to the naked eye; but a star whose ill light shines on Earth still.
The star, Yamil Zacra and it's darker, smaller companion Yuzh, though were once worshipped as evil gods by the Hyboreans and the twisted sorcerers of Mu. Astrologers say that it's foul light was visible when Atlantis sank and the contents moved. In the far future, when many stars have burned out their fuel, they will again be honored by the fell Necromancers of the last continent of Zothique when the Earth is dying.
The ancient Hyboreans believed that this evil star bore the seeds in which all foul magics have grown. That the greatest and most terrible of witches, necromancers and foul wizards were born under it's light.
These magics may be realized when certain amulets of black extraterrestrial metal are grafted into the skin, most often the chest, of those willing. These amulets fell to Earth in ancient times were from the solitary planetary body of Yamil Zacra, a twisted world know as Pnidleethon.

Once in the possession of one of these amulets the dreams of Pnidleethon and Yamil Zacra begin including the means to travel to this chthonic world. When the amulet is finally embedded into the prospective student's chest he forfeits forever his soul and Earthly shell in favor for a form to travel the distances across cold space to the immense world of Pnidleethon.

The scene of these latter dreams was not the Earth, but an immense planet revolving around the sun Yamil Zacra and its dark companion, Yuzh. The name of the world was Pnidleethon. It was a place of exuberant evil life, and its very poles were tropically fertile; and the lowliest of its people was more learned in wizardry, and mightier in necromancy, than the greatest of terrene sorcerers. How he had arrived there, the dreamer did not know, for he was faint and blinded with the glory of Yamil Zacra, burning in mid-heaven with insupportable whiteness beside the blackly flaming orb of Yuzh. He knew, however, that in Pnidleethon he was no longer the master of evil he had been on Earth, but was an humble neophyte who sought admission to a dark hierarchy. As a proof of his fitness, he was to undergo tremendous ordeals, and tests of unimaginable fire and night.

Yamil Zacra in WitchCraft/Buffy/Ghosts of Albion
It is rumored that the possession of such an amulet will increase one's magical energies ten-fold. In game terms increase the character's Sorcery/Magic by +10 or increase their Essence 10 times. While this seems to be great remember at this time there are only two amulets left in the world and the user forfeits their own soul for this power. The soul is not given to some demon or even otherworldly god, but it is consumed whole.

In the Armageddon game I would have Yamil Zacra appear in the nigh sky, a brownish-red blotch on the night sky.  It casts no light, save for those already under Leviathan's influence, but everyone can feel it's heat.

Yamil Zacra in All Tomorrow's Zombies In the present day it is difficult to travel to Yamil Zacra and Pnidleethon other than by eldritch or sorcererous means. But in the future worlds of ATZ such an expedition to a planet that is seemingly dead is different sort of tale.

Option 1: The planet is dead. The crew lands on a planet where there had once been a great, if evil, civilization. Yet something is still out there in the dark picking off the cast one by one. It's Cthulhu meets Aliens, or "Journey To The Seventh Planet" with less suck.

Option 2: The planet is alive. Here the civilization of seemingly advanced humans still thrives. But the cast is trapped. Think of the song Hotel California and apply it to the entire planet. Or, Planet Ravenloft.
Escaping in either case is the goal, the means in each option differ. In Option 1 it is just get back to the ship before you all die. In Option 2 it is figure out how to get back to the ship and get out.

Yamil Zacra in D&D4
Obviously one of the dread and fell stars that grant warlocks their power.

More Revelations of Melech
Yamil Zacra: When civilizations fall, it is the light of Yamil Zacra that falls on them. It is a dark red star barely seen by mortals, those that can see it know it is a portent of doom.

Level 23 Encounter Spell
The Doom of Yamil Zacra                                        Warlock Attack 23
For brief, horrible moment the light of Yamil Zacra shine on your enemy, revealing the doom that must come to all.
Encounter ✦ Arcane, Radiant, Fear, Implement
Standard Action                                                            Ranged 10
Target: One creature
Attack: Constitution vs. Fortitude
Hit: 4d8 + Constitution modifier Radiant damage, and the target grants combat advantage to all your allies until the end of your next turn.
    Star Pact: If this attack hits, the target takes a penalty to Will equal to your Intelligence modifier until the end of your next turn.
    Infernal Pact: If this attack hits, target also takes Fire damage equal to your Intelligence modifier.

Monks come from Blackmoor, part 2

So reflecting on my previous post, Monks come from Blackmoor, I went back and looked over my new (new as of Gen Con) 4e Blackmoor book.  Right there, just as I remembered was the Mystic.  Not what I liked about this Mystic class is it reminded me so much of the old D&D Rules Cyclopedia Mystic.  I am not sure how they stack up against the official 4e Monks, but right now that doesn't matter much to me since these Mystic look like they fit the bill I want as is, right now.  So well in fact I am going over my 4e Blackmoor book with a renewed interest.

Their power source is "Spiritual" rather than "Psychic", but that could just be splitting hairs.  The effect is largely the same for my use.  Though Spiritual is a bit better sounding for what I want to do with them.

They do compare well to some of the other 3rd party monk classes I have seen for 4e, so I Am inclined to say, balance or not, they are roughly compatible with the 4e monks.

Given the roots that Blackmoor share with Mystara I might even go out on a limb here and say Blackmoor has no clerics in the traditional sense.  The people of Blackmoor worship, or at least honor, immortals.  They are not gods and don't grant spells.  Clerics, normally the healers of a group, can be replaced by nobles  who have healing powers and the wokan who also have healing powers and herbalism.  This is not really a big issue as one might think.  D&D4 is using the paths to immortality that was fairly common in Basic D&D and with the Leader roll and everyone having access to healing now, the cleric can be left be things other than the party medic.  Nobles then could gain this as part of their background fluff.  They are trained as both healer and soldier. This also gives the the Nobel class something to do. The hands of the king are the hands of the healer anyone? The msytic/monk then can focus on the spiritual aspects of life.

The people then of Blackmoor do not believe in gods per se. They know their are supper powerful beings out there, but they are hardly owed worship.  Honor in some cases yes, for their deeds, not their words.

I like this idea to be honest with you. Sets up a very different sort of culture for Blackmoor and I like that.

My game world is taking shape.