One DM I played for had a bunch of skeletons dressed in expensive clothes and armor, others wrapped like mummies and the "leader" decked out in fine robes covered in runes. They were all normal skeletons, but they had spells cast on them, making them radiate magic and evil all the way up to 11.

Our party thought the tomb was full of mummies, death knights and a lich, so we ran like hell to get out of there.

We just did a Twitch session on Undead in AD&D and Greyhawk last night:  https://www.twitch.tv/videos/507990579

Might find some interesting ideas in there!

Allan.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1113278Yes, absolutely. That sort of thing, magic of enchantment that alters the will or memory of a person, while mechanically could be very similar to "charm person" is way more interesting in terms of roleplay connotations.
It's not voodoo, but my RPGpundit Presents: Medieval Enchantment Magic has elements of those sorts of connotations; the sorcery of elves and druids to dominate or alter men's minds.

Indeed! The stakes in typical "Zombie Romero" scenario is Apocalyptic Plague with futile scrambling. (And how much of this is a cultural scar upon the West from the Black Plague is something I cannot say.) With lowered stakes such classic zombii as domination becomes frighteningly reliable power projection.

Quote from: ZeroSum;1113314If you're running a version of D&D with morale checks, it's good to remember that even the lowest zombie or skeleton never has to make one. Ever.

Orcs get tired. Goblins get scared. A dragon might get bored and fly away. But the dead never, ever stop.

To put it another way: It can't be reasoned with, it can't be bargained with...it doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear...and it absolutely will not stop. Ever. Until you are dead.

Yes! Undead as Terminators! And yes, ignored morale checks is a massive power projection.

Keep this thread going!

I have used voodoo-esque zombies in my campaigns before.

In one instance there was a bit of a "twist" with an ongoing, seemingly mental affliction spreading (sometimes one person, sometimes an entire village at a time) in which the person would become more or less catatonic, before one night mysteriously walking off into the darkness, taking nothing with them and disappearing with little trace, and no one knowing where they went. Occasionally resulting in eerie ghost towns.

This eventually culminated in a huge mass of these zombies (still living) showing up at the PC's doorstep, seemingly all enslaved and interlinked by a single intelligent hive mind and moving all of the zombies as a single amorphous "body" of sorts. Turns out it was a way for the Sleeping King under the Black Ziggurat to manifest himself into the world again, and exact his vengeance as a side dish (the PC's having earlier broken into his temple with high explosives and ransacking it, ignoring all the written and physical warnings/dangers and reawakening him in the process).

It was a lot of fun, and slightly more complex than dealing with "regular" undead in that these people were still alive and could perhaps be saved... but at a certain point, it becomes "us or them" especially when you have 200+ literally shaking down the rickety structure you're standing on top of. Then again around 3/4 of the zombies they encountered then were cannibalistic tribesmen from the nearby jungles, so the PC's may not have been quite as conflicted at that particular moment...

I don't use these often enough and haven't done an undead focused adventure in a while, but some of the stuff I do (with undead and encounters in general) include the following:

1) I give my "monsters" class levels--specially if they're some type of humanoid being. In the case of zombies and skeletons I might give them fighter or some other class levels, or I might even make them spellcasters. I do this with ALL monsters ALL the time. If you play in my campaign, get ready for multi-Hit Dice goblins from every class in the book (no wimpy 1 HD goblins in my games--EVER!).

2) Intelligence: I would consider giving zombies and specially skeletons full or at least some measure of intelligence. I would also consider making a few of them spellcasters (skeleton wizards FTW!). Similar to Liches, there might be some undead beings that come back as essentially zombies or skeletons, but with full use of their faculties. Either as the result of some special ritual, or because undead in that area come back that way (why? Could be a motive for adventure).

3) Grafted weapons: Something I've done in the past (particularly with zombies) is give them grafted weapons, like swords or long metal skewers stuck to their wrists. They're walking corpses after all--it's not like they're gonna feel a thing, specially if they're mindless.

4) Magic Auras: Undead creatures could have some type of magic aura as well. This could be a damage aura (flaming aura, freezing aura, etc.), penalizing aura (roll penalties, obscuring auras, slow aura, etc.) or some type of save-effect (fear, etc.). This could be a inborn effect (maybe this is a special sub-type of skeleton/zombie that's just built that way), or maybe it's something about the location where they were raised, or maybe the necromancer who created them imbued them with temporary spell effects.

Welcome to therpgsite, VisionStorm!

Related to your point #2, I've always liked including "animus storms" whether they be blizzards, sandstorms, etc. where, if someone dies of exposure or what have you while inside one, they are animated as free-roaming undead. Desecrated battlefields and things like that are always fun too.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1114021Welcome to therpgsite, VisionStorm!

Related to your point #2, I've always liked including "animus storms" whether they be blizzards, sandstorms, etc. where, if someone dies of exposure or what have you while inside one, they are animated as free-roaming undead. Desecrated battlefields and things like that are always be fun too.

Thanks!

I like that. I've thought about adding similar things as well. One thing I considered doing for an unfinished setting idea I had a while ago was the notion of including one patch of land called "The Undying Fields". The concept of the setting was based around the idea of a Ragnarok-style "War of the Gods" where a new breed of gods fought to usurp the old, and many gods died in the ensuing battle (which was fought simultaneously in both, the world of the gods, as well as the mortal realm). One of them was the old God of the Dead--who was tasked with carrying the souls of the dead to the Underworld to await judgement. When that god died his essence fell upon the earth near a massive battle field where one of the earthly battles had been fought and all the soldiers rouse again--unable the find rest. From that point on, the soul of anyone who died in the entire region would be unable to travel to the Underworld and would come back as a conscious undead (skeleton or zombie).

Quote from: VisionStorm;1114023Thanks!

I like that. I've thought about adding similar things as well. One thing I considered doing for an unfinished setting idea I had a while ago was the notion of including one patch of land called "The Undying Fields". The concept of the setting was based around the idea of a Ragnarok-style "War of the Gods" where a new breed of gods fought to usurp the old, and many gods died in the ensuing battle (which was fought simultaneously in both, the world of the gods, as well as the mortal realm). One of them was the old God of the Dead--who was tasked with carrying the souls of the dead to the Underworld to await judgement. When that god died his essence fell upon the earth near a massive battle field where one of the earthly battles had been fought and all the soldiers rouse again--unable the find rest. From that point on, the soul of anyone who died in the entire region would be unable to travel to the Underworld and would come back as a conscious undead (skeleton or zombie).

Very cool! That seems like a great explanation / excuse for potential undead PC's, too, which I've found very fun to invite the possibility for in the past.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1114024Very cool! That seems like a great explanation / excuse for potential undead PC's, too, which I've found very fun to invite the possibility for in the past.

Yeah, that was partly how I came up with that idea. Initially the whole thing behind the setting was about coming up with a scenario that would allow/explain Tieflings/Demon-human hybrids (which I normally HATE as a D&D character race) as a proper PC race I would find acceptable for a setting. I eventually came up with the idea of a War of the Gods, where new gods usurped the old, and "angelic" beings who joined the side of the New Gods were turned into demons and cast out by the Old Gods into the land of the mortals, where they became known as the "Fallen". But when the New Gods won the war the demons/"Fallen" (who were loyal to the Usurper King of the New Gods) were given control of human lands, where they built an empire. But the demons couldn't reproduce on their own, so they used humans as breeding stock, and took human nobility to breed their own Demon-human noble bloodlines to rule the empire. And eventually they began to expand and conquer human lands.

But then I started thinking to myself "Since I already have Demon-human hybrids as a potential PC race and went full dark fantasy with this world...What IF there's a "race" of undead too?" *big think emoji*

And since I already had the idea of a "War of the Gods" going on, where multiple gods died, I figured if the god of the dead died in the mortal world that could serve as a trigger event to how a race of undead creatures was born. I was still on the fence about whether to actually allow them as PCs, but I still liked the idea of a field of land where the dead couldn't rest, and would come back as undead.

I'm not sure why skeletons have become wimpy low level encounters. My first exposure to animated skeletons came from Ray Harryhausen in 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and Jason and the Argonauts. They were major encounters that threatened heroic level characters. The skeletons also managed to display some personality and menace.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1114027I'm not sure why skeletons have become wimpy low level encounters. My first exposure to animated skeletons came from Ray Harryhausen in 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and Jason and the Argonauts. They were major encounters that threatened heroic level characters. The skeletons also managed to display some personality and menace.

Agreed!  In my games, I flip skeletons and zombies, so that skeletons are the 2HD (or 2+3 HD in my case) undead, with zombies being the bottom of the heap 1+3 HD undead. Skeletons are also fast (+1 to initiative), in addition to their standard special defenses.  All undead in my games also cause fear in their HD or less, without a successful save vs. spells.

Allan.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1114021Welcome to therpgsite, VisionStorm!

Related to your point #2, I've always liked including "animus storms" whether they be blizzards, sandstorms, etc. where, if someone dies of exposure or what have you while inside one, they are animated as free-roaming undead. Desecrated battlefields and things like that are always fun too.

That reminds me, I used that "natural disaster spawning some undead" concept for my description of the NPC/Location Magic the Gathering Ice Age "Drift of the Dead" card in my "MtG cards for PC v. Hegemony" topic example.

Basically the snow drift is a natural wind break comprised of dead plants and animals... that has dripping icicles from the composting warmth on its lee. It is like a frozen wave of corpses breaking upon the snowy land, and if you stay too close to its lee/curl you will find out it moves from the warmth and refreezing faster than you expect. Reminds me, I need to upload the last of the 3rd Location NPCs... Let me finish that and throw it up there.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1114008I have used voodoo-esque zombies in my campaigns before.

In one instance there was a bit of a "twist" with an ongoing, seemingly mental affliction spreading (sometimes one person, sometimes an entire village at a time) in which the person would become more or less catatonic, before one night mysteriously walking off into the darkness, taking nothing with them and disappearing with little trace, and no one knowing where they went. Occasionally resulting in eerie ghost towns.

This eventually culminated in a huge mass of these zombies (still living) showing up at the PC's doorstep, seemingly all enslaved and interlinked by a single intelligent hive mind and moving all of the zombies as a single amorphous "body" of sorts. Turns out it was a way for the Sleeping King under the Black Ziggurat to manifest himself into the world again, and exact his vengeance as a side dish (the PC's having earlier broken into his temple with high explosives and ransacking it, ignoring all the written and physical warnings/dangers and reawakening him in the process).

It was a lot of fun, and slightly more complex than dealing with "regular" undead in that these people were still alive and could perhaps be saved... but at a certain point, it becomes "us or them" especially when you have 200+ literally shaking down the rickety structure you're standing on top of. Then again around 3/4 of the zombies they encountered then were cannibalistic tribesmen from the nearby jungles, so the PC's may not have been quite as conflicted at that particular moment...

Consider this idea stolen!  My PCs won't know what hit them (until it's too late)!

Quote from: Opaopajr;1114046That reminds me, I used that "natural disaster spawning some undead" concept for my description of the NPC/Location Magic the Gathering Ice Age "Drift of the Dead" card in my "MtG cards for PC v. Hegemony" topic example.

Basically the snow drift is a natural wind break comprised of dead plants and animals... that has dripping icicles from the composting warmth on its lee. It is like a frozen wave of corpses breaking upon the snowy land, and if you stay too close to its lee/curl you will find out it moves from the warmth and refreezing faster than you expect. Reminds me, I need to upload the last of the 3rd Location NPCs... Let me finish that and throw it up there.

Excellent, very cool! Please do throw that up here somewhere when it's convenient!

Quote from: Eirikrautha;1114119Consider this idea stolen!  My PCs won't know what hit them (until it's too late)!

Please do, use it and abuse it! My group had a lot of fun with it. Lots of surprises, ingenuity and opportunities for heroics.

I have skeletons immune to piercing weapons and auto detect the living within 60 ft; once they detect you, they know where you are. For zombies, I have them mindlessly keep attacking downed foes until they are torn to pieces (if a zero hp PC isnt recovered in one round from a zombie, they are torn apart/auto dead. I dont use dead at zero hp normally, so this makes zombies quite scary). Ghouls and ghasts are already interesting I think due to paralysis and foul stench effects - indeed they are SUPER BAD ASS when it's the old school 1 save or you're fucked variety (as opposed to 5e's weaksauce save or die BS where you save every round uughhhhhhhhhhhhhhh).