I like the Hunger, Darkness and Undead affinities for a theist Vivamort... Old RQ2 Cults of Terror names Chaos, Darkness, and Undead as Vivamort's runes, tho that was ages ago (!). The Chaos association in particular is interesting - faced with the encroaching Chaos of the Greater Darkness, Vivamort 'begged help from his chaos foes and made evil pacts with them... Faced with complete annihilation or acting as an agent of active entropy, he chose the latter out of pride and fear'... Hunger as Vivamort's manifestation of the Chaos rune affinity seems appropriate.
Feats? How about Hunger (Drain Soul, Chilling Touch, Creeping Chills); Darkness (Summon Shade, Melt into Shadow); Undeath (Create Skeleton, Create Ghost, Create Zombie, Raise Ghoul, Ecstatic Communion). That leaves Special Abilities (Become Bat, Become Wolf, Become Smoke, Harmonise, Great Strength). I'm drawing heavily on the old Vivamort Cult writeups here - any other interesting possibilities?
I also liked Tim's thoughts on the Cult Secret of Vivamort being what actually turns you into a Vampire, although by my reckoning this would make vampires rather rare... which is perhaps a Good Thing. Again, RQ2 makes Create Basilisk the perquisite of the Vivamort High Priest - is that too wimpy a Cult Secret?
My gut feeling is that Vampire's are more common than that - perhaps subject only to the local cult's preferences, ie Mastery of all three runes. That would give us doomed Vivamort devotees who are approaching the Ecstatic Communion but still human...
Thanks for all the suggestions - these guys are getting more intriguing by the minute!
Grins,
Sarah
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