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

[Bruce Coulson]

My opinions on the matter.

Black Court Vampires are described as undead; classic Dracula.  I wouldn't allow them to be 'cured', because essentially that's resurrection.  It also changes the entire tone and feel of the campaign.  If a table decides to allow this to be done, it should be very difficult, because if it was easy, it would happen more often.  (Hence my comment about making a cure dependent on, say, willing human sacrifices.)

Renfields are so mangled, mentally and spiritually, that they no longer qualify as human.  (Which does lead to the interesting question of how damaged a human being has to be to no longer be 'human' under the First Law...)  I actually do have a group that can, at considerable cost and risk, sort of recover a person from a Renfield.  (As described to a PC, "It's like glueing a Ming Vase back together; it may look much the same, but you can't make the person fully whole again.")  It takes a very long time, and since there's also some risk, the group doesn't normally bother.  And Renfields are still living beings.

Red Court is much the same as Black Court; they're a type of undead/demon cross, and there's nothing human left to bring back.  RCV Infected haven't quite crossed over...but again, if you allow a cure, then you're changing the tone of the universe.

White Court Vampires have all made a choice (consciously or not), so no, they don't get to 'come back'.  That would be altering the concept of actions having consequences.  They may feel very sorry afterwards that they killed someone; but they killed them.  (Now redemption AFTER death is in the hands of Someone Else, and would depend on how the WCV had conducted themselves in life; you might not be able to become human again, but you can chose not to become a monster...)  White Court Virgins explicitly can be cured.

Vampire: The Angst...err Masquerade/Requiem is a different game, with a different tone.  Even there, a cure was supposed to be very difficult and nigh-legendary; many NPC vampires didn't believe it existed.

For me, it's a question of what type of universe do you wish to play in?  What is the tone, the setting?  In the basic Dresdenverse, actions have consequences, and Bad Things Happen to Good People.  If you start changing that, you're starting to change what attracted us to the universe in the first place.

Again, all the above is my opinion, and should not be taken as a criticism or reflection of anyone's game or setting.

[Wolfwood2]

No offense to Jim Butcher, but the Dresden Files isn't exactly a tightly crafted LotR style universe where every setting element has been developed to support a certain theme.  I suspect rather a lot of the setting elements are there simply because they supported whatever plot Jim was writing at the time.  (Which isn't to deny that he clearly had ideas for long term plots that have stabilized as the series continued.)

That's fine, there's nothing wrong with that.  But personally, when I'm playing or running DF, I make it clear to the group this is our universe to tell the plots that we want to tell.  If we find that we never end up wiping our butts with some Butcher-defined element of the setting, then we're probably doing it wrong.  Vampires, like any other setting element, are what we need them to be.

If it cheapens one of the themes of the setting, so what?  I guess we weren't all that invested in that particular theme for that particular game.  The Butcherverse is merely a convenient baseline to return from to decide how we will deviate for any particular game.

[MrobFire]

I'm going to ignore the debate of canon versus "your table, your rules" which seems like maybe it should be split into a different thread and go back to the OP's question. Also note, comments on the laws of magic are there to explain some of my reasoning, not to start a discussion of the laws themselves. Feel free to interpret those bits how you will (or discard them all together).

I've been thinking about this for a day or so and I think I've come up with the (nigh impossible) way that I would pull this off while conforming to canon (I think) and (maybe) avoiding violating the laws of magic. Basically, the process would involve three truly epic rituals.

1) A fairly straightforward ritual that would take out the BC vamp with a massive mental attack, the specified result being that the central will and subconcious of the vamp is destroyed, probably leaving the animating magical influence intact. At a guess this would be something like a 35 to 40 shift effect but I don't think excercising mental effects on a BC vamp violates the laws of magic (but I don't have the book available and could be totally wrong on that). Edit: Note that I'm leaving whether or not this leaves memories in tact an open question. Personally, I would since that leaves all kinds of role playing on the table... although having no idea what kind of monstrous things "you" did is also pretty awesome story material.
2) Another "straightforward" ritual to take a corpse and return it to life (sans moral agency [i.e. no soul]). Call this something on the close order of 40 shifts. At this step it may be necessary to expell the animating magic of the black court vamp (although you could say that the mere act of bringing the body to life destroys the death magic or that the body is essentially infected and will revert to BC vamp'ness upon death [I like the second option]). If you have to expell the animating magic add.... say another 40 shifts of effect (Doing this would kind of obviate the need for the first ritual soo... just changing the first ritual would be a smarter way to do it).
3) Now, since I would argue that performing a true ressurection (i.e. bringing a sould back from the afterlife) would require -at least- archangel level magic, and probably WG level mojo, I'm going to do an end run around that with this ritual. Instead of bringing the soul back from the afterlife I would use chronomancy to provide a bridge from the moment of death to the present thus using the awesome power of time travel to allow the soul to never have gone to the afterlife in the first place. Note that in order for this bridge to be usable by a soul would also take some pretty serious necromancy. Also note that since the soul only moves forward in time (thus swimming with, not against, time) and since the soul isn't compelled to take the bridge as opposed to 'moving on' (so we're not compelling it, just providing it a choice) I think and argument could be made in game that the White Council's laws of magic haven't been broken and can be made that the 'physical' laws of magic (involving the stunts/change of aspect/whatever) also haven't been broken. This spell is kind of hilarious and I have no idea how to guess at the number of shifts it would take.

Sooo.... that's how I would go about "curing" a BC vamp while trying to not get my head chopped off (unlikely to work) and without driving myself insane (a debate that this board has established is pretty subjective and not really worth having).

P.S. I think this method establishes the morality of killing BC vamps since, bar time travel, the BC vamp is not savable. You can only change this fact by, kind of, changing the past. If you don't change the past then the BC still isn't covered by morality and is just an evil automaton (or something). But... that is also probably a different thread.

[Richard_Chilton]

Seriously?  Cost.

The discussion (not our slapfest) was on how and how much cost.  Deciding "Sure, if it's possible it's as easy as killing someone" isn't really moving the discussion forward.  It's dismissing it.

I gave the cost in the post where I initially mentioned this but I'll repeat it now.  The cost is the same as any other unwilling transformation  - a total takeout (including all consequences) + 4 (the max the defender can roll).  How many steps is that? Depends on the target.

I'm not pulled the "turn to unliving stone / turn to living person" thing out of my ass - it's a major part of one of the plots in Summer Knight.  The "turn back" thing would take a while to cast so the person doing decided on using what is basically a potion to do that - but the theory is the same: Stone girl used to be unliving stone and is now a living girl.  Black Court Vampire used to unliving Vampire and is now a living human.

I feel this is completely against canon, but if you do then you can use the rules as written and transform someone that way.


As for the "just say yes" bit of Fate - there are reasons why there is more than one Fate rulebook out there.  The rules are okay but it's how the rules mesh with the setting that matters.  The DV setting has some established rules and "saying yes" sometimes breaks those rules. 

Richard

[devonapple]

Seriously?  Cost.

The discussion (not our slapfest) was on how and how much cost.  Deciding "Sure, if it's possible it's as easy as killing someone" isn't really moving the discussion forward.  It's dismissing it.

Regardless, so if you think it's as easy as turning someone to stone and back, what would you consider to be necessary to Unstone someone?  Keeping in mind they've now been killed by becoming stone...

Let me see if I'm clear:
You specifically want recommendations on *what* the players have to do in order to put this ritual together
 - a list of the actual tasks, Ritual Declarations, etc. that they have to come up with -
in order to power the 40+ shift Ritual :

(filling the entire consequence track 20
overcoming the largest stress track 5
matching a Superb Endurance skill 5
matching the best roll possible + 4
extra to overcome any additional Toughness, say another 6)

Those are going to be better if the players come up with them. It's their ritual, after all - they should come up with it. You can set a few benchmarks for them, a short checklist of elements they must incorporate, but ultimately, the players are going to tell the story of their own ritual. Even if you don't accept the DresdenVerse's "canon," this is still all in the RAW.

If one does not care about either the RAW, *or* the setting: why would such a one be participating in a forum and asking/answering questions which sort of imply that one at least care about either the RAW or the canon?

[Becq]

Not belittling you:  You never played White Wolf's Vampire : The Masquerade or Requiem, have you?

If becoming mortal again is flatly impossible, there is no reason to struggle for it.  If your Meta-premise for the character can never be realized, there is much less reason to really work at it, it becomes a side thing, that hobby the character pursues.  The character won't ever really sacrifice for it, because the player knows it's impossible.*

And if you set down a process by which the curse can be reveresed, then vampirism no longer poses a threat, because the player knows on behalf of his character that if he ever gets infected, all he needs to do is follow the 12-step program.  I *have* played the VtM, and know that there, like here, there is always rumors or hints that a cure might conceivably possible, but never any proof that it has been realized.  Well, until they ended WoD1.0, at least.

It's absolutely fine for the characters to long for and struggle for a cure.  This is good story material (see the novels for proof).  But actually finding the cure is boring.  Once it's done, vampirism loses it's teeth.

But, hey ... play it the way you want to.  The above is my opinion.

[Tedronai]

Once it's done, vampirism loses it's teeth.

If it's easily repeatable, sure.
If it, instead, requires the intercession of a higher being (a Faerie Mother, for instance), for whom you'd have to perform a minor quest just to receive an audience, that itself could end up being a major social conflict, just to have the opportunity to perform a major, extended quest for which the reward will provide only the key component of a ritual that will allow you to succeed on your own merits...

[Becq]

Well, once you get into the realm of Faerie Mothers, you're basically talking about Divine Intervention (or at least Near-Divine Intervention).  Since there is definitively a God who is 'Almighty' in the Dresdenverse, Divine Intervention as a Plot Device can presumeably accomplish anything.  I generally think of something described as a 'cure' to be a formula or process, rather than a one-time miracle.

And frankly, given that the sorts of favors the Faerie Mothers might require in repayment could (and should) end up being more frightening that the original curse of vampirism, so that takes care of my argument about it becoming too easy.  Just make sure that the Mothers don't start posting a price list, regardless of how high it might be.  The cost should be tailored to the individual, and the the Mothers should rightfully get pissed if a line starts forming outside their door.

[Richard_Chilton]

Let me see if I'm clear:
You specifically want recommendations on *what* the players have to do in order to put this ritual together
 - a list of the actual tasks, Ritual Declarations, etc. that they have to come up with -
in order to power the 40+ shift Ritual :

(filling the entire consequence track 20
overcoming the largest stress track 5
matching a Superb Endurance skill 5
matching the best roll possible + 4
extra to overcome any additional Toughness, say another 6)

There's a way around the toughness.  Get someone who is happy to fill a handkerchief with sunlight and make garlic an important component of the spell.  I'm envisioning the ancient remedies combining in a cloud of vapor and light that washes over the target - driving out the evil as it transform him.

You could probably even tag the sunlight and garlic for steps in the prep step.

So 34 or so steps - if you're letting someone change another character's High Concept and template.

Richard

[InFerrumVeritas]

There's a way around the toughness.  Get someone who is happy to fill a handkerchief with sunlight and make garlic an important component of the spell.  I'm envisioning the ancient remedies combining in a cloud of vapor and light that washes over the target - driving out the evil as it transform him.

You could probably even tag the sunlight and garlic for steps in the prep step.

So 34 or so steps - if you're letting someone change another character's High Concept and template.

Richard

Plus some breaking of the laws of magic.  This is important.  You are, at the very least, bringing someone back from the dead and violating there.  Lawbreaker for sure.

[Richard_Chilton]

Plus some breaking of the laws of magic.  This is important.  You are, at the very least, bringing someone back from the dead and violating there.  Lawbreaker for sure.

Is undead the same as dead? Shrug.
For this to work the vampire has to be considered as unliving as stone.  It's more of "take the vampire and put it in a living body" than "restore the vampire to life" as no part of the magic is explicitly returning him to life, just shifting the shape of his body.

Richard
(who can't believe he's debating something that breaks canon and twists the rules so much)

[devonapple]

There's a way around the toughness.  Get someone who is happy to fill a handkerchief with sunlight and make garlic an important component of the spell.  I'm envisioning the ancient remedies combining in a cloud of vapor and light that washes over the target - driving out the evil as it transform him.

You're definitely right - my only goal was to get some numbers on the table. If one of the players takes the initiative to propose a way to bypass the Toughness, I consider that a small victory.

(who can't believe he's debating something that breaks canon and twists the rules so much)

No worries: people are allowed to run games that are close to - but not exactly - the DresdenVerse, so it is alright to debate such things, as long as everyone involved understands that we have no intention of ever allowing this in a canonical game, and have no desire to set a precedent. I'm certainly not judging you.

[evileeyore]

No worries: people are allowed to run games that are close to - but not exactly - the DresdenVerse, so it is alright to debate such things, as long as everyone involved understands that we have no intention of ever allowing this in a canonical game, and have no desire to set a precedent. I'm certainly not judging you.

And as long as we agree our definitions of Canon do not all agree on all points.


/trying to not fan the flames of war, just sayins all.

[devonapple]

And as long as we agree our definitions of Canon do not all agree on all points.

Oh, I think that is pretty clear already.

[Roxy Rocket]

Swim against the streams of time and prevent them from being tuned?
Kill them, and bring them back to life as a human?
Mind-swap them into a normal human body?

I like a nice Rube Goldberg machine as much as the next warlock.

However...

Popping back to the title of the thread or a moment: Isn't the difficulty or complexity mostly about the effect? One method should be as hard as the next in for magic. Plus you're always going to annoy someone (...or something,) bigger than you for doing this.

The rest is just a choice between who you annoy and how long the thaumaturgy scene is. Or, you know, selling your soul to a trustworthy never-never-kin. I mean, unless your GM will give you a discount for violate multiple rules and making everything in the city angry with you.