Eros Glendower as a Vampiric side-villain? (spoilers)

[Hyperkosmic]

Right now, I'm running my party through the second part of Book one. While reading everything over to prep for our play sessions, I came up with the idea to tie Eros into the backstory of one of my players (an alchemist.) The player left a lot of his character's history open, so I took the liberty of filling in the gaps. I wanted to tie Eros into his backstory by having him be the landlord of the character's potions shop. When he made his grab for immortality, Eros would have kicked the player out of his shop and used it to hide out of the notice of the Immaculate Circle while he preformed his fateful ritual.

I thought it would be a shame to have Eros die before the PC could have at him, so I came up with the idea that the ritual he performed could have brought him into contact with a vampiric god - possibly Zura, what with her strong connections to Azlant - who would turn him into an undead bloodsucker. He could then start putting together a rival cult to the Immaculate Circle, seeking revenge and an opportunity to seize the crown.

Does anybody have any suggestions on how I can implement this idea into the story? I thought I could include the Valley of Azlanti somehow, but I'm still trying to figure out how that would fit. If anyone has any additional details that could be added into this story to make it flow better, I'd be happy to hear them.

[Wyran Tegus]

Interesting idea.

Is this PC older and not human? Officially, Eros Glendower lived centuries ago. So if you want to keep with the timeline of how he's been "dead" for centuries while Dagio has been running the Forgotten Archives area, this landlording would have happened a long time ago.

Alternatively, if you want the events to have been recent, that requires a lot more shuffling and rewriting. Everything in the Forgotten Archives points to it having been mostly abandoned for centuries. If Eros and Dagio are recently in this predicament, all of the clues to the ancient events don't make as much sense.

I would recommend keeping the events of the change centuries ago while saying that Eros eventually reintegrated into society under a new identity. (Maybe a dip into vigilante for the Guise of Life social talent?) Rather than kicking your character's alchemist out to perform the initial ritual, maybe there is another ritual that he wanted to perform more recently. (Look into the Occult Rituals. Maybe Eros found a ley line running underneath your PC's old shop.)

If you haven't already done so, read over the future books. There are already vampires to face, so bringing that up too early could lessen the impact later. There are also already so many organizations and claimants to the throne (and most of those are barely discussed). A rival cult to the big bads could get messy. I'm also not sure about the revenge angle: if he became a vampire, then he succeeded in his goal of immortality, and the Immaculate Circle likely could have invited him into the Inner Council. If they refused, you'd need to come up with a compelling and consistent reason for the refusal.

Here's an idea from my campaign. In Book 4, the party travels to a few different towns on their way to Zimar. In one of these (Ortalaca), I have a brief plot involving a cabal of Baetriovs trying to induct a new sister into their cabal. They task the PCs with tracking down a local vampire (a vigilante and piano player who I'll portray as sympathetic) that they can sacrifice as part of their ritual. The cabal has most of their victims already, but will plan to bring the now-weakened PCs in as the final victims. Rather than tying this directly to the Immaculate Circle, it will be another thematic hint along the way while the party continues to discover more about the secret society.

The Valley of the Azlanti would be a *major* departure from the main adventure. Very cool location, but far from all major points of action. If you're not keen on one of the future books, you could write up something, but there's minimal support there.