Quote from: Antiquation!;1114128Excellent, very cool! Please do throw that up here somewhere when it's convenient!

It's been put up already. Just the forum churn has it already halfway down the first page by now. (But that churn is good for conversations on this site.)

I have been looking at my other MtG deck 'Duel' spreads, both past and today, and I am contemplating different hegemons and adventures. Having now the Region and NPCs done saves a lot of adventure prep time. And some cards drawn brought up interesting options for undead, too!

Things like, "Lim Dûl's Cohort," which are zombies that prevent creatures it blocks (or is blocked by) from regenerating. Which would be neat as a specific type of zombie reputation, "Oh those zombies... healing and resurrection upon the dying is useless when they are around." Have their mere presence null healing during Death Saves in 5e, and outright prevent things meatball surgery resurrection, like Revivify.

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I am currently contemplating a nifty spread that I might attach to a typical Bokor (Voudoun sorceror) as Hegemon antagonist. It has elements of cursed withering, enchanted mental torment, enchanted empowerment, and skeletons. I'll just reskin the Bokor into an Ice Age 'Northern European' sorceror... maybe something shamanic out of Finnish folklore?

Loc 1: Weakness.

Loc 2: Seizures, Seizures.

Loc 3: Soul Kiss, Kjeldoran Dead, Kjeldoran Dead.

Use the same Region and its NPCs, write a few basic adventure hooks, and let the sandbox work its magic.

Quote from: A.E. HousmanThe Immortal Part

When I meet the morning beam,
Or lay me down at night to dream,
I hear my bones within me say,
"Another night, another day."

"When shall this slough of sense be cast,
This dust of thoughts be laid at last,
The man of flesh and soul be slain
And the man of bone remain?"

"This tongue that talks, these lungs that shout,
These thews that hustle us about,
This brain that fills the skull with schemes,
And its humming hive of dreams,--"

"These to-day are proud in power
And lord it in their little hour:
The immortal bones obey control
Of dying flesh and dying soul."

" 'Tis long till eve and morn are gone:
Slow the endless night comes on,
And late to fulness grows the birth
That shall last as long as earth."

"Wanderers eastward, wanderers west,
Know you why you cannot rest?
'Tis that every mother's son
Travails with a skeleton."

"Lie down in the bed of dust;
Bear the fruit that bear you must;
Bring the eternal seed to light,
And morn is all the same as night."

"Rest you so from trouble sore,
Fear the heat o' the sun no more,
Nor the snowing winter wild,
Now you labour not with child."

"Empty vessel, garment cast,
We that wore you long shall last.
--Another night, another day."
So my bones within me say.

Therefore they shall do my will
To-day while I am master still,
And flesh and soul, now both are strong,
Shall hale the sullen slaves along,

Before this fire of sense decay,
This smoke of thought blow clean away,
And leave with ancient night alone
The stedfast and enduring bone.

Do you ever sleepwalk? Catch yourself doing something automatic, without thinking about it? Sometimes those are the bones within you, moving on their own.

And when you become ill, or frail, or old, the bones become stronger. That's why the sick sometimes shake and jerk, and the elderly tremble. As the flesh fails, the skeleton within wakes.

And when someone passes away, the bones take control. They may burst free of the flesh, in a bloody shower. Or scrape it off, with fastidious care. Or continue, half- or fully wrapped in decaying meat, until it finally sloughs off. Reactions vary, and often form strange ritual patterns, a morbid mimicry of life, after a mass death. But your former friend, acquaintance, or loved one is gone, and has been replaced by... something alien.

Intelligent? Maybe. They can act in ways that are too complex for automatons, and they're aren't following animal instincts. But they do not speak, or communicate in any way, though they may stare with a kind of blank attention while someone tries to arouse a response. They cannot be compelled by threats against their existence, like mortal beings. They can be intensely violent, but they don't seem to actively hate the living, at least not most of the time. They congregate in certain places, and can be controlled by certain priests. They may free other skeletons who have been restrained, often by misguided family members. They're curiously dispassionate, endlessly patient, and perform certain actions repetitively, but ultimately their motives are mysteries.

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.

I would not model every NPC or creature after what one sees in movies or other forms of media. When the Sarah Conner Chronicles was cancelled we actual get to see what truly happens to human vs machine fight. One of the characters Derek who survives fighting Terminators dies in seconds after going up against a Terminator. Where before he managed to survive most encounters happens at 1:13 in the video. Warning Spolier Ahead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0iNpSpW21Y . The only reason humanity is written as having a fighting chance vs not only losing and very badly to the machines is because the script says they do. Otherwise imo 99% of the time Terminator vs humans is pretty much insta-kill. While also not making a depressing movie franchise. Borrow inspiration from movie yet one also has to use a healthy does of common sense that what we see is planned by the script and the desires of the writers and producers.

I don't know what campaigns posters here are playing in 5E or any more recent version of D&D Undead are sill deadly. Skeletons in Pathfinder have DR 5/Bludgeoning. Zombies have Dr 5/Slashing and if played properly should tear an unconscious party member to shreds to feed unless controlled to do otherwise.

A way I thought to make undead in general more interesting, with ramifications especially for the mooks, was to adopt a more coherent cosmology based on real world beliefs about death and the afterlife.

Rather than souls leaving the body after death, a person's soul is remains linked to their body. That's why societies respect bodies rather than discarding them as empty shells. Burying stuff with bodies in graves allows the soul to use that stuff in the afterlife. Visiting graves and paying respects makes the dead feel better.

Undeath isn't an inherently good or evil concept, because the dead may rise for a variety of reasons (and because I don't have good/evil alignment in my settings). A white necromancer bargains with the dead for their services, whereas a dark necromancer interrogates or controls the corpse without the deceased's consent. Even then dark necromancers aren't necessary doing this on their own: they may be bribed by a hated person's family to make them a zombie (yes, this is cited as actual belief in the voodoo religion). The undead in a tomb may be innocent guardians and the party are looters in the wrong.

The predatory undead are animated by demons, either from elsewhere or the transmuted soul if the person was wicked in life. For a possessed corpse, the owner is still watching; giving them power over their body may either force the demon out or suppress it.

In this case, any lesser undead is still connected to their past life and by fighting them you are either defying the deceased's wishes or releasing them from slavery.

In Lion & Dragon all non-magical weapons do only half-damage to skeletons.

These are meant for all undead; from an upcoming book of mine, TERATOGENICON:

d6   Clothing
1   Naked
2   Robed
3   Ragged
4   Armored
5   Old fashioned
6   Roll twice

d20   Body
1   Burning
2   Flayed
3   Desiccated
4   Bloated
5   Poisoned
6   Frozen
7   Impaled
8   Beheaded
9   Dismembered
10   Disemboweled
11   Hanged
12   Filled with worms
13   Boneless
14   Skeletal
15   Trespassed by arrows (etc.)
16   Broken spine
17   Covered by flies
18   Chained
19   Twisted limbs
20   Roll twice



d20   Additional features
1   Child features
2   Beast features
3   Crawling
4   Long claws
5   Scythes for hands
6   Carries a lantern
7   Covered in blood
8   Severed head (no body)
9   Tentacle arms
10   Bat wings
11   Elongated limbs
12   Walks on all fours
13   Very long hair
14   Completely hairless
15   Jumping
16   Horns
17   Levitating
18   Hunched
19   Long neck
20   Roll twice

d20   Head
1   Grinning
2   Glowing red eyes
3   Bulging eyes
4   No jaw
5   Tilted head
6   Skull with eyes
7   Long tongue
8   Sharp teeth
9   Featureless
10   Fangs
11   Black hole face
12   Cut in half
13   Toothless
14   Animal features
15   Mask or helmet
16   Sewed mouth or eyes
17   Long (horse, bull, or bird)
18   Noseless
19   Eyes without a face
20   Roll twice



d6   Goals
1   Pain. I am in constant pain, and I need to bring others with me.
2   Vengeance. I cannot rest until I make them pay.
3   Guilt. I am trapped in this world until I atone for my sins.
4   Obsession. My obsessions with a person or place prevents me from moving on.
5   Protection. Death will not keep me from my duty to protect this place.
6   Order. Only Death brings peace. I'll give you her sweet embrace.

@eric melikey!