Manny Green, the Twisted Tycoon (3.5e Vestige)
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Contents
Manny Green, the Twisted Tycoon
A wicked and corrupt CEO of a pharmaceutical company who sought to obtain a monopoly on supernatural healing by assassinating clerics and paladins, especially the owner of the Healer's Necklace, which he sought to have for himself; his murderous behavior eventually earned him an asploded head, but his greed, hatred, and sheer determination to take what he desired by any means necessary caused a piece of him to cling to the world of the living even as his soul was shipped directly to Hell.
Level: 5th
Binding DC: 34
Special Requirement: Yes
Legend
Coming soon
Special summoning
Manny views being summoned by a binder and forming a pact with them to be equivalent to a business transaction — that is, either "hiring" the binder for his services or being "hired" for his services. And while he is evil and ruthless, he is also fair-minded and believes that all services should be compensated. As such, when he is summoned, Manny will promptly attempt to "hire" you, which means that he will offer you 10,000 gp to voluntarily fail your binding check with him; if you accept, the gold magically appears on your person when the pact is made, effectively being transferred from the plane of vestiges to your wallet (or whatever you carry your money in). If you decline, Manny will still pay you 6,000 gp if you fail your binding check anyways, as he will still consider himself to have "hired" you.
Alternatively, you may offer Manny up to 20,000 gp while making the pact; you get a +1 bonus to your binding check for every 1,000 gp offered. You must have the gold you wish to offer on your person at the time you form the pact. If you do, and you succeed on the binding check, the offered gp vanishes from your person, entering the plane of vestiges. If you attempt to buy Manny's services, but still fail your binding check anyways, Manny won't take your money, as he does not consider himself a conman and is averse to ripping people off without giving them something in return. In fact, he'll still pay you 2,000 gp in return for your "services", as he will still consider himself to have "hired" you.
Manny will be very displeased if he "hires" you and you proceed to disobey his instructions. Each time you disobey Manny's influence, he will take 1,000 gp from you in addition to imposing the standard −1 penalty to attack rolls, but he won't take more gold from you than the amount he originally paid you. Instead, once he has taken back all the money he gave you, any further violations of Manny's influence will incur a −2 penalty instead of the standard −1 penalty. This does not affect the penalties from your prior violations, or penalties from violating the influence of other vestiges, but it stacks with them just the same.
(To recap; Manny pays you 10,000 gp if you voluntarily fail your binding check against him; he pays you 6,000 gp if you involuntarily fail your binding check; and he pays you 2,000 gp if you try to buy a good pact with him but fail your binding check anyways. If you make a good pact with Manny, he doesn't pay you anything, as he considers you to have "hired" him instead of the other way around.)
Manifestation
You hear the voice of an early-adolescent female sobbing in fear, while a middle-aged human male voice boasts in triumph while threatening the girl, declaring that the bearer of the female voice is going to die soon and nothing will change that. After a few seconds, both voices are interrupted by a loud gunshot, and a human male figure collapses into the confines of the seal with his head blown apart like a smashed wastermelon. After several seconds, he gets up, apparently either completely oblivious to his head trauma or simply not bothered by it, and turns to address the binder. His voice is the same male voice that was heard threatening the girl, but he barely brings the subject up outside of expressing some irritation that she escaped from him with her life intact; instead, he offers to hire the binder to perform some services for him.
Sign
You come to look a bit more well-fed, gaining roughly 5 pounds as a side-effect. In addition, any clothes you wear will look a bit less grungy and more formal, fancy, ornate... basically, a little more like the sort of outfit you'd expect a high-ranking Western businessman to wear.
Influence
The binder becomes extremely selfish, and will refuse to do anything that is asked of him unless he somehow benefits from it. Essentially, he acts only in his own interest; he might come to the aid of an ally if he has a close working relationship with them and knows that they would do the same for him, but he won't help strangers or acquaintances unless there's something in it for him or he owes them something. (If he acts altruistically, he violates Manny's influence.)
In addition to the selfishness, the binder becomes deeply cynical, and will be simply incapable of believing anybody to be selfless; he is convinced that everyone else is as selfish as he (now) is, and so he is automatically suspicious of and hostile towards anyone who appears to be acting altruistically, even if (no, make that especially if) they genuinely are altruistic. The binder also considers anybody who does something without expecting or desiring any sort of reward to be an idiot and a fool, as well as somebody who he will probably have to... dispose of, especially if they have healing abilities.
The binder becomes obsessed with controlling all sources of supernatural healing. He will insist on owning any healing-related magic item he comes across (other than something that he or one of his agents sold). If he encounters someone who has a healing item, he will attempt to purchase it from them or convince them to work for him. If he cannot, he will attempt to steal it from them, and will not be adverse to murdering them in the process. If he encounters someone who has some sort of ability to heal others, like a cleric or paladin, he will attempt to convince them to work for him. If they refuse, he will attempt to kill them. The binder will go to utterly ridiculous lengths to establish a monopoly on healing abilities, and once he decides to kill someone to remove them as "competition", he will do so relentlessly, hunting them down wherever they go and attacking them whenever the possibility presents itself, as well as hiring assassins to kill them. (If the binder becomes aware of a healer's existence and then lets them go about their business without doing everything in his power to employ, control, or slay them, he violates Manny's influence. Note that he can make an exception for members of his party.) If the binding ends, the binder will return to his senses and stop trying to kill the unfortunate healer he's targeted (unless he has some other reason to kill them), but if he re-establishes the binding, he will resume his efforts to murder the healer. However, while he is relentless, he is not suicidally so; if he is outmatched or simply losing a battle, he will not be adverse to retreating from that battle. However, once he is safe, he will regroup and resume his efforts to murder the healer who is the focus of his ire (if he does not, he violates Manny's influence).
Granted Abilities
Medical Expert
In life, Manny Green was first and foremost the CEO of a pharmaceutical company, which he founded himself; he had to know quite a bit about medicine to pull that off. As a vestige, he confers some of that knowledge to those who bind him.
While bound to Manny Green, you have a +4 competence bonus to Heal checks. This bonus increases by +1 for every two effective binder levels after 8th.
Firearm Proficiency
In life, Manny was not afraid to do his own dirty work when he deemed it necessary, and he trained himself in the use of many firearms in order to carry out his campaign of monopolizing healing. As a vestige, he enables you to use a wide variety of firearms.
While bound to Manny Green, you gain proficiency in handguns, combat shotguns, sniper rifles, elephant guns, TO BE CONTINUED
Machinist
While Manny wasn't afraid to do his own dirty work, he was well aware that he was only human, and could be putting himself at severe risk of exposure, arrest, and even bodily harm if he happened to target someone capable of fighting back. So he taught himself to design robots, mecha, and weapons that he could use to carry out the hits that he didn't trust assassins to do for him.
While bound to Manny Green, you have a +2 competence bonus to Craft (weaponsmithing), Craft (golems), Craft (Bots), and Program checks, and can use these skills untrained. This bonus increases by +1 for every two effective binder levels after 12th.
At effective binder level 10th, you gain Craft Magic Arms and Armor. At effective binder level 12th, you gain Craft Golem.
Pokémon Mastery
Manny Green always had an affinity for Pokémon, and even as his heart hardened and he fell into evil, his love for them remained. Of course, he was not adverse to using his Pokémon to kill people.
While bound to Manny Green, you can control Pokémon as though you were a Pokémaster whose class level is equal to your effective binder level −4.
If you are also bound to Wrapsodi Skuttla, your effective Pokémaster level equals your effective binder level.
Manny's Rifle
While bound to Manny Green, you gain the ability to summon and wield the high-powered hunting rifle he owned in life. You are proficient with this rifle, just as you would be with another gun of its make, model, and type. You can summon the gun with the same action you would take to draw a hunting rifle, and unsummon it with the same action you would take to put a hunting gun away. If the rifle leaves your person (such as by you being disarmed), it vanishes in 1 round. (This might be enough time for a very skilled gunman to pick up the rifle and shoot you with it, so there are legitimate reasons to manually unsummon the rifle instead of simply dropping it, even if the latter would be faster for you.) You do have to load the gun manually, but the necessary ammunition automatically appears on its person as needed, so you don't have to worry about running out.
Manny's rifle was designed to be extremely powerful, as Annie Belnades, the woman he spent the last 25 years of his life trying to murder, is extremely durable and an ordinary gun would not be able to down her in one shot. Manny's rifle does 4d12 damage on a successful hit; this is upgraded to 8d12 damage when the attack is performed within 20 feet of the target.
Back to Main Page → 3.5e Homebrew → Class Ability Components → Vestiges
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