easiest way to save a black court vampire and return them to a human

[Viatos]

According to canon...this just hasn't been something Harry's had any interest in, and so there's no canon answer.

Harry devotes a lot of time and resources to searching for a cure for Susan without success. On the other hand, Harry is pretty lame in terms of Lore; he relies heavily on Bob and legwork, and he's just not an academician by nature. So let's not that count that against an interesting story possibility.

Bram Stoker's Dracula was weakened by sunlight and repulsed by holy icons; maybe nailing a Black Court vampire to holy ground under the open sky for one day for each life it has swallowed will cure it. Of course, first you have to beat it down, restrain it...and then find somewhere that fits the bill you can actually keep it without drawing attention. In the mean time, there's its brood/sire and any Renfields it created to deal with...

One thing that requires a little consideration is personality. Black and Red vampires are universally monstrous in the series. Reds are more literal monsters, and seem to have little if anything of themselves remaining; curing a Red might be like raising a dead man, with nothing of his time as a vampire remembered except perhaps in nightmare.

For Blacks, you could try Buffy-style: they retain the skeleton of who they were, but twisted to evil, akin to taking an Extreme Consequence or Lawbreaker for all their Aspects and tainting them with darkness. Curing them reverts their personality, but does nothing to erase the memory. They might no longer be able to understand why they were overcome with bloodlust at the sight of a helpless child, but they will certainly remember those feelings and what they did about them.

[BumblingBear]

Ummm. . . black court vampires are actually dead-dead people. They're not just twisted demons like the RCV are.

Not only would you have to somehow get rid of the taint and evil from a BCV, but you'd have to reanimate their dead corpse as well.

Yeah..  Not gonna happen.

[BlackMage]

According to Mother Winter, her

(click to show/hide)

Unraveling

can undo literally any enchantment or transformation.  She is the unmaker, after all.  Sure, she never comes out and says as much, but when Harry says those exact words she responds with a yes.

[ways and means]

According to Mother Winter, her

(click to show/hide)

Unraveling

can undo literally any enchantment or transformation.  She is the unmaker, after all.  Sure, she never comes out and says as much, but when Harry says those exact words she responds with a yes.

does that include death ?

[evileeyore]

According to Mother Winter, her

(click to show/hide)

Unraveling

can undo literally any enchantment or transformation.  She is the unmaker, after all.  Sure, she never comes out and says as much, but when Harry says those exact words she responds with a yes.

Sure, they stop being a Bampire and start being a corpse.

Not really a solution...   

[ryanshowseason2]

According to Mother Winter, her

(click to show/hide)

Unraveling

can undo literally any enchantment or transformation.  She is the unmaker, after all.  Sure, she never comes out and says as much, but when Harry says those exact words she responds with a yes.

I'm nearly ok with this, but it has to be within reason. What does this get her? why should she bother with the PC's petty wishes? She isn't a vending machine that you just pop a quest out for her and she does whatever you ask. In all likelihood if she did do this favor for a PC that PC will basically become an NPC from the debt incurred and what she would require of the PC in return for waving her near almighty hand.

Not to mention getting an audience with such a woman is not something even a white council member would just be able to do at a whim, that is to say if you're not *somebody* already forget it she probably won't even waste her time with you.

I do like the comment on "how do you change something's high concept?" Answer being you don't not for anything I've read in YS. The only things that come close are an extreme consequence which doesn't unmake your previous template it just adds bad stuff to it, and law breaking which doesn't apply to BCV, and lastly contracting some form of vampirism which is what you're trying to undo.

[Ala Alba]

That is a good question and it can't be simple, regardless of how "easy" they are to supposedly dispatch by vanilla humans, if making more Bampires were easy, they could overrun whole towns, breed armies in a night....

Granted...  Drulinda did raise both rentacops within a radically short time period, so it's possible it is very easy, little more than drinking a human dry and letting the body get back up as a Bampire.  The low numbers could simply be that smart Bampires don't allow too many of thier victim's to raise, to keep their whereabouts more subtle and to reduce the competition.



But simplecreation does not indicate it would be simple to undo.

As per canon, it IS really easy and quick. That's why, in Blood Rites, Harry is so quick to take out the BCV nest. That's why the WCVs got the mortal world involved with Dracula.

[Richard_Chilton]

It's easy for an existing Master Black Court Vampire to make another Black Court Vampire, but was it easy for the first Black Court Vampire to come into existence?

This could be thought of the ease of infecting someone with a custom designed germ and the difficulty of making that germ in the first place.

Richard

[Viatos]

Ummm. . . black court vampires are actually dead-dead people. They're not just twisted demons like the RCV are.

Not only would you have to somehow get rid of the taint and evil from a BCV, but you'd have to reanimate their dead corpse as well.

Yeah..  Not gonna happen.

Okay, two-step process. Purge the evil, get a resurrection. Given that this isn't what you'd call a cinematic resurrection - lost love, the character who gave his life to "hold them off", et cetera - it shouldn't be terribly difficult. Maybe the nature of becoming a BCV kicks their soul out early with nowhere to go, and it's as simple as restoring the soul to the body, reanimating the fallen with the time they have left as if they'd never been turned.

The thread title is a "How do I do this?". "You don't" isn't a very helpful answer, despite about half the replies here. Pretty much every book in the series has at least a few impossible events occur; in Changes, he answers the question

(click to show/hide)

how do you kill the entire Red Court with one thaumaturgy spell

and in the upcoming Ghost Story it looks like

(click to show/hide)

how do you stop being a ghost and come back to life

. There's no reason the short arcs of someone's game can't do the same, especially when there isn't even a canon barrier against it working in the worst place.

[BumblingBear]

Okay, two-step process. Purge the evil, get a resurrection. Given that this isn't what you'd call a cinematic resurrection - lost love, the character who gave his life to "hold them off", et cetera - it shouldn't be terribly difficult. Maybe the nature of becoming a BCV kicks their soul out early with nowhere to go, and it's as simple as restoring the soul to the body, reanimating the fallen with the time they have left as if they'd never been turned.

The thread title is a "How do I do this?". "You don't" isn't a very helpful answer, despite about half the replies here. Pretty much every book in the series has at least a few impossible events occur; in Changes, he answers the question

(click to show/hide)

how do you kill the entire Red Court with one thaumaturgy spell

and in the upcoming Ghost Story it looks like

(click to show/hide)

how do you stop being a ghost and come back to life

. There's no reason the short arcs of someone's game can't do the same, especially when there isn't even a canon barrier against it working in the worst place.

The problem is that being able to turn a BCV "back" has several problems with the principal.

1.  How can a good character with a pure heart kill even a monster like a BCV if they know they are just a victim and can be turned back?

2.  It really cheapens the monster.  Sure, Harry did an "impossible" thing with the red court, but he did not redeem them.  There is a big difference between reforming a rabid dog and putting it down.

3.  What if the BCV does not want to change back?  What if it likes its existence and likes being at the top of the food chain.  If that is the case, what right do you have to change them?  Kill them, sure  - you have the right to self defense and the preservation of other human lives, but to irrevocably change something into something else is against the laws of magic for a reason.

4.  What about all the evil the BCV has done?  This is not Angel.  If someone were a BCV and did all those terrible things, including make renfields, those memories would drive them insane if they became mortal again.  They could very well become a predator of another sort.

5.  If BCVs could be changed back, so could renfields - which would cause all of these moral issues with renfields as well.

It's a can of worms that I personally would not open up.  Sure, I am sure that some creature out in the DV /could/ do it, but at what cost?

[Bruce Coulson]

There has to be a reason why this hasn't been done before, or isn't done very often.

Otherwise, the suspension of disbelief necessary for a game goes away.  (imho)

So, perhaps in order for a BCV to live, someone else must die.  Or maybe several someones, depending on the age.  Willing sacrifices.  

[evileeyore]

4.  What about all the evil the BCV has done?  This is not Angel.  If someone were a BCV and did all those terrible things, including make renfields, those memories would drive them insane if they became mortal again.  They could very well become a predator of another sort.

Why would they remember?  The body is dead, the mind is no longer storing memories...

That to me is the second hurdle, restoring the body once the Bampire is "ousted".  The third is re-Souling it...

5.  If BCVs could be changed back, so could renfields - which would cause all of these moral issues with renfields as well.

Changed back from what?  Mind-shattered and mystically beefed up mortals?  Sure they could.

But that's an awful lot of effort just to have a mind-shattered mortal...

It's a can of worms that I personally would not open up.

Yup it is.  But then Laws of Magic violations are just a-waiting...

[Viatos]

The problem is that being able to turn a BCV "back" has several problems with the principal.

1.  How can a good character with a pure heart kill even a monster like a BCV if they know they are just a victim and can be turned back?

They don't have Lore at Fantastic (+6)? That aside, there are tons of mindless or innately evil monsters in the Dresdenverse - adding some humanity to one of them doesn't need to turn the entire game into an angstfest. Unless you enjoy angstfests, in which case, game on.

2.  It really cheapens the monster.  Sure, Harry did an "impossible" thing with the red court, but he did not redeem them.  There is a big difference between reforming a rabid dog and putting it down.

It cheapens the monstrousness, not the monster. Moral complexity can be good as well as bad. Also, curing rabies is currently impossible past a certain stage, but instantaneously erasing the disease is a few orders of magnitude harder.

3.  What if the BCV does not want to change back?  What if it likes its existence and likes being at the top of the food chain.  If that is the case, what right do you have to change them?  Kill them, sure  - you have the right to self defense and the preservation of other human lives, but to irrevocably change something into something else is against the laws of magic for a reason.

It's no longer a mortal, unless it is thematic to argue that it is a mortal. It doesn't need to be given agency here. See also Angel.

4.  What about all the evil the BCV has done?  This is not Angel.  If someone were a BCV and did all those terrible things, including make renfields, those memories would drive them insane if they became mortal again.  They could very well become a predator of another sort.

Angel did go pretty nuts for a few decades, actually, as I recall. He's just had a lot of time to deal with it. These are certainly possibilities, and interesting ones. Some people might not like the grimdark and choose to declare that the returned soul is sufficiently distanced from the BCV's actions as to avoid such a fate. Some people might embrace it, and all it brings.

5.  If BCVs could be changed back, so could renfields - which would cause all of these moral issues with renfields as well.

Maybe. It could be argued that Renfields are a different kind of broken, one that is ultimately too mortal in nature to sort out with magic, but advanced psychiatry might do the trick. It could simply be argued that Renfields are more like zombies, their souls have already passed on to whatever awaits them.

It's a can of worms that I personally would not open up.  Sure, I am sure that some creature out in the DV /could/ do it, but at what cost?

Whatever cost is dramatically appropriate. I understand your perspective and probably would not personally give BCV redemption as an option to my players, but I am a firm believer that all options and game styles should be supported as long as they don't start damaging anyone's fun.

[BumblingBear]

Why would they remember?  The body is dead, the mind is no longer storing memories...

That to me is the second hurdle, restoring the body once the Bampire is "ousted".  The third is re-Souling it...

Have you read the short story where Harry goes to the mall to give Thomas a birthday present?

BCVs definitely still retain their personalities and memories they had in life.  They're just... more evil and a lot more powerful.

Based on how Mavra acts too, I really don't think that vampires are easily classified.

In fact, they could still have a warped kind of soul.

Perhaps the reason they are so powerful and so unnatural is that the process changing them damages and tears apart the soul itself.

Whatever cost is dramatically appropriate. I understand your perspective and probably would not personally give BCV redemption as an option to my players, but I am a firm believer that all options and game styles should be supported as long as they don't start damaging anyone's fun.

I am willing to concede that point.

I just think the notion is up there with letting a character perform a darkhallow

If I did allow this to happen in my campaign, once the BCV was "redeemed", I'd have the characters over time discover that the x BCV is even more evil than ever, learned some magic while still mortal, did things that a walking rotting corpse would not be able to do, and then got turned again.

After being turned again, the BCV comes after the party with a vengeance, looking for blood for what they did to it.

::shrug::

We can't even reform sexual predators who are still human.  I really don't believe it would be possible to redeem a BCV - even with magic.

WOJ is that Renfields are done, their fates irreversible.  Harry says so with great authority in the casefiles.  I believe him.

I have a hard time believing that in the last few thousand years, a BCV has not turned a wizard's family member into a renfield out of spite.  And just like Harry did for Susan, I have a hard time believing that said wizard would not turn every resource they had available to them to the cause of "curing" their loved one.

If thousands of years of wizards could not do it, I doubt PCs could.

A caveat

I would allow my PCs to "redeem" a BCV /IF/ they went to knowledge from the outer gates or killed other people to do it - especially innocents.

Something equally dark, staining the souls of the PCs in order to save a BCV from the darkness it has would be thematically appropriate imo.

Kind of like the debate about extreme consequences, allowing them to heal quickly really devalues the consequence.  Allowing PCs to "cure" ridiculously evil monsters with easily acquired magic or favors would really detract from the horror and relevance of said monsters.

I think for PCs to cure a monster, they'd have to become monsters themselves.

[Richard_Chilton]

Turning a Black Court Vampire human is one thing, but making an Angel like Black Court Vampire is another.  The Dresden RPG is a game of snowflakes and if Thomas (a White Court Vampire) can have a conscience then why not a Black Court one?

Red Court Vampires - we know that they can't truly have human emotions, but there's not enough out there to say "it's against canon" for a moral Black Court Vampire to exist.  Maybe Master Black Court Vampires have positive refreshes and that's what makes them so dangerous?

But I think this thread has become another "It doesn't work in canon" verses "there's nothing in canon that says it doesn't work" debate - which means it's endless.  We have a better chance of stumbling over one of the scores of bodies of Harry Dresden's victims (nothing in canon says that he's NOT a serial killer) than reach consensus on this thread.

Richard