Carmichael (3.5e NPC)
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| Male vampire wizard 10 | |
| LN Medium undead (augmented humanoid) | |
| Init/Senses | +8/Listen +12, Spot +12 |
| Languages | Common, Undercommon, Draconic, Abyssal |
| AC | 20, touch 14, flat-footed 16; +1 dodge with Dodge (+4 Dex, +6 natural) |
| hp | 65 (10 HD) |
| Fort/Ref/Will | +3/+9/+9 |
| Speed | 30 ft. (6 squares) |
| Melee | slam +8 (1d6+3 plus energy drain) |
| Base Atk/Grp | +5/+8 |
| Atk Options | +2 DC to evocation spells |
| Special Actions | spells, blood drain, energy drain |
| Spells Prepared | (CL 10th): |
| Abilities | Str 17, Dex 18, Con —, Int 21, Wis 15, Cha 15 |
| SQ | school specialization (evocation), children of the night, dominate, create spawn, alternate form, damage reduction 10/silver and magic, fast healing 5, gaseous form, resistance to cold and electricity 10, spider climb, +4 turn resistance |
| Feats | Alertness, Combat Reflexes, Craft Construct, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Wondrous Item, Dodge, Greater Spell Focus (evocation), Greater Spell Penetration, Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Scribe Scroll, Spell Focus (evocation), Spell Penetration |
| Skills | Concentration +13, Craft (armorsmithing) +18, Craft (leatherworking) +18, Craft (mechanical device) +18, Craft (torture implement) +18, Knowledge (arcana) +18, Profession (mechanic) +18, Spellcraft +18 |
| Blood Drain (Ex) | Carmichael can suck blood from a living victim with his fangs by making a successful grapple check. If he pins the foe, he drains blood, dealing 1d4 points of Constitution drain each round the pin is maintained. On each such successful attack, he gains 5 temporary hit points. |
| Children of the Night (Su) | Carmichael commands the lesser creatures of the world and once per day can call forth 1d6+1 rat swarms or 1d4+1 bat swarms as a standard action. These creatures arrive in 2d6 rounds and serve him for up to 1 hour. Carmichael serves in the Keepsake, where there are no wolves, so calling them forth is out of the question. |
| Dominate (Su) | Carmichael can crush an opponent’s will just by looking into his eyes. This is similar to a gaze attack, except that Carmichael must use a standard action, and those merely looking at him are not affected. Anyone Carmichael targets must succeed on a DC 16 Will save or fall instantly under Carmichael's influence as though by a dominate person spell (caster level 12th). The ability has a range of 30 feet. |
| Create Spawn (Su) | A humanoid or monstrous humanoid slain by Carmichael's energy drain rises as a vampire spawn 1d4 days after burial. If he instead drains the victim’s Constitution to 0 or lower, the victim returns as a spawn if it had 4 or less HD and as a vampire if it had 5 or more HD. In either case, the new vampire or spawn is under Carmichael's command and remains enslaved until its destruction. At any given time Carmichael may have enslaved spawn totaling no more than twice his own Hit Dice; any spawn he creates that would exceed this limit are created as free-willed vampires or vampire spawn. A vampire that is enslaved may create and enslave spawn of its own, so Carmichael can control a number of lesser vampires in this fashion. Carmichael may voluntarily free an enslaved spawn in order to enslave a new spawn, but once freed, a vampire or vampire spawn cannot be enslaved again. |
| Energy Drain (Su) | Living creatures hit by Carmichael's slam attack gain two negative levels. For each negative level bestowed, Carmichael gains 5 temporary hit points. He can use his energy drain ability once per round. |
| Alternate Form (Su) | Carmichael can assume the shape of a bat, dire bat, wolf, or dire wolf as a standard action. While in his alternate form, Carmichael loses his natural slam attack and dominate ability, but gains the natural weapons and extraordinary special attacks of his new form. He can remain in that form until he assumes another or until the next sunrise. |
| Fast Healing (Ex) | Carmichael heals 5 points of damage each round so long as he has at least 1 hit point. If reduced to 0 hit points in combat, he automatically assumes gaseous form and attempts to escape. Carmichael must reach his coffin home within 2 hours or be utterly destroyed. (He can travel up to 9 miles in 2 hours.) Any additional damage dealt to him while forced into gaseous form has no effect. Once at rest in his coffin, Carmichael is helpless. He regains 1 hit point after 1 hour, then is no longer helpless and resumes healing at the rate of 5 hit points per round. |
| Gaseous Form (Su) | As a standard action, Carmichael can assume gaseous form at will as the spell (caster level 5th), but he can remain gaseous indefinitely and has a fly speed of 20 feet with perfect maneuverability. |
| Skills | Carmichael has a +8 racial bonus on Bluff, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Search, Sense Motive, and Spot checks. |
History[edit]
Carmichael was turned to a vampire when he was only fifteen, the only one among a slain noble family to become a true vampire instead of a spawn. The wild vampire that had drained his family had little use for the help of minions, so he released them to be killed by the fearful mobs and hunter-clerics of nearby provinces. Carmichael, using his superior vampire powers, managed to escape, while his spawn family was hunted to the last second cousin. Ravenous and terrified, Carmichael was soon caught by a troupe of graveyard-plundering necromancers.
As an intelligent undead, Carmichael was a sort of cross between an object of worship and a slave. Carmichael was an intelligent chap, and managed to earn the troupe's respect through helping them in their labor and in capturing living victims. He lived, he learned, and when the troupe disbanded (as backstabbing necromancers are wont to do), Carmichael sought out another one. Not because he enjoyed the lifestyle - in fact, he quite despised graverobbing and wanton killing. But this was what he had grown used to: the only thing that made him feel at home.
This is how Carmichael lived for hundreds of years, caught in a cycle of gatherings and disbandings, with violence in between. Finally, one of the more well-equipped troupes told Carmichael of a legendary fortress hidden between the planes: the Keepsake, the master of which was the lich Nerukath. His wife Ysabella, a powerful vampire herself, accepted willing and gifted vampires as retainers. Carmichael left his troupe, and through arduous journeys and hardships reached the mithral gates of Keepsake.
Vampires count their lives not in years, but in centuries or even millenia. Each has to find their own way to fill the long years. Carmichael had taken up tinkering even while still working as a laborer for necromancers hundreds of years his junior, but it was in Keepsake that he started to master his craft. After five hundred long years spent under the tutelage of the best tutors Nerukath could lure in, Carmichael constructed his masterpiece: the Wheel of Pain. But while he loved the perfect artifice of the thing, he hated it for what it was: an implement of torture. Thousands of years old and still nothing but a craftsman for other people's dreams.
Appearance and personality[edit]
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| Carmichael was turned while still young, so he stays a youth forever. |
Vampires do not age physically after they have been turned, and thus in appearance Carmichael is still a gangly fifteen-year-old. His vampiric state has gifted him with a gorgeous complexion, and he maintains a full head of naturally-curly snow-blond hair. Carmichael is 5' 9'' and weighs 165 lb. Like all vampires, his physical appearance has little to do with his powers. Carmichael is faster than a running wolf and stronger than an angry bear, although both are talents he naturally subdues: he loathes showing off. He wears loose clothes, preferring gray and brown, perhaps an adopted style from his necromancer troupe days.
While Carmichael's body might be pristine even after the over thousand years of his life, his mind is a wreck. Carmichael is a good person at heart, fostered into one by loving parents and a good upbringing. The fact that he spends (and has always spent) his days among the foulest, cruelest people who exist gnaws at him and has turned him into a shut-in. Only Ysabelle can coax him out of the foul, closed-off moods he often falls into, and she is the only person Carmichael trusts and wants to be with in the entire fortress.
Carmichael channels all his impotent anger and self-loathing into his work. This has made him an artificer without comparison: he has a mind all numbers and gears. Carmichael's golems might appear monstrous and sickening to most people - at least those who don't live in Keepsake - but to him the physical form means little: what's important is the technical mastery and execution. Carmichael wanders the corridors of Keepsake, never rising his gaze from the floor, maintaining the many technological wonders he's devised. Sure, golems might hurt, but they don't enjoy it; they might kill, but don't try to rationalize it.
Followers and allies[edit]
See Nerukath.
Recent activity and plans[edit]
See Nerukath.
Combat[edit]
Carmichael never joins a combat unless protected (or indeed protecting) his golems. They are his masterpieces, and he will fight tooth and nail with anyone who so much as scratches one. The newer inhabitants of Keepsake might consider Carmichael something of a harmless weakling, but the older vampires have witnessed him destroying foes with ease while supported by his golems, and know better. Carmichael positions himself behind his golems, at least one torture golem and one autopsy golem, but usually more. If other inhabitants of Keepsake join the fray, Carmichael ignores them entirely.
Carmichael tries to first and foremost keep his fighting companions alive. He achieves this through his spells: he carefully casts fiery spells like wall of fire and flaming sphere to continually heal the torture golems and electric spells like lightning bolt and even shocking grasp to heal the autopsy golems. He has to be careful not to mix the effects, since the golems would be slowed - a clever party might use positioning against him. Carmichael always makes sure the spell effects also target foes to make the beating easier for his creations.
Carmichael is also surprisingly gifted tactically, and hedges foes in with wall of force and wall of ice to maximize the effectiveness of both himself and his golems. While the golems are at or near full health, Carmichael lets loose with powerful area spells like cloudkill and stinking cloud to devastate enemies. Bull's strength is reserved for the autopsy golems, and Carmichael can use dimension door and expeditious retreat to both position himself and flee effectively. It's very likely, however, that those who've destroyed even one of his golems have to fight to the death - either theirs or Carmichael's (which, for a vampire, might not be permanent).
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