What I like about undead such as ghosts, zombies, wights, wraiths and ghouls is that they are basically a template that can be applied to any creature. Sure maybe more so zombies and ghosts, you could say that undead which are the product of special conditions like mummies and liches should primarily be human, but for the most part if it lives it can become undead of one sort or another.
I think this is a hugely underused resource in most fantasy RPGs that can really spice up a game if used judiciously. A werewolf ghast, a spectral mind flayer, even normal animals like wolves can become much more terrifying as ghouls. Ghosts especially are useful since anything can have a ghost.
My favourite undead table-turning was when the PCs killed a giant and took his stuff, infortunately for them the spirit of the giant became bound to one of his goblets and spent the rest of the journey plaguing and harassing them until they took it to a sage and figured out what was happening. As time passed the spirit became more and more powerful and agitated, understandably, and finally the group completed a minor quest to exorcise it.
Have you ever used non human(oid) undead in your games beyond what is in the bestiary, and how did it work out?
Zombie gorillas on a spaceship is a well I've dipped into a few times.
Quote from: The Traveller;647916Have you ever used non human(oid) undead in your games beyond what is in the bestiary, and how did it work out?
Various necromancers in my games have taken herd animals and made skeletons of them to inhabit local forests and keep intruders at bay. It is amazing to me how devastating a herd of skeletal deer and moose and boars can be to low level characters. They can just be let loose under no control and allowed to attack anything alive in the forest.
Quote from: jeff37923;647919It is amazing to me how devastating a herd of skeletal deer and moose and boars can be to low level characters. They can just be let loose under no control and allowed to attack anything alive in the forest.
YOINK! Consider that swiped for my games now. :thanx:
Necromancy and necromantic spells are a prime component of my game. Spirits have trouble leaving the main plane to go to the Well of Death without the aid of shriving magics (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/22871895/Migration%20of%20the%20Spirit).
There are also different types of undead, and this is tied to the type of magic or lack of same that created them, Mindless Undead, Cunning UNdead, and Aware Undead.
Near old battlefields, where many died without shriving, undead groups and platoons terrorize the living.
And many types of intelligent animals can become undead. I remember a number of intelligent undead arachnids that terrorized a certain party....
I like the undead quite a lot in my fantasy games, so yeah I've been doing a lot of those mixed - undead werewolves, spirits of animals being summoned as a stampeding bizarre army..yeah.
And there's of course this:
(http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSFS35dn_q8h7gecvma6WItzWB4geZgtvBlpox_r6dMIlkb8q--)
I'm a sucker for undead. I loved it how in the D&D RC there was a "chain of being" among undead, and there was a table they could roll on to control each other (e.g. you could have a lich controlling 3 vampires, each controlling 2 wratiths, each controlling 4 zombies).
I like how Arcana Evolved only had two templates for undead: corporeal and incorporeal. All undead were sentient and evil. End of story. Stat up your undead foes as regular NPCs, then add on a thick layer of badass, PC-pants-crapping undeath.
In a similar vein, I like how ACKS has rules for turning any PC or NPC into any sort of undead. Who needs separatye stats for liches when you can have take a 14th-level mage or warlock, and turn him into a mummy? Or a wraith anti-paladin? I love this stuff.
And while Reign's setting of Heluso and Milonda was a bit too outré for my tastes, I did kind of like Greg's idea about ghosts as murder deterrents (murdering people in cold blood will result into a very visible, very loud ghost following you everywhere). It would make for a weird world, with veteran soldiers shunned by society because they're being followed by a string of enemy ghosts, or the interesting patrtnerships that would spring up between exorcists and assassins.
Quote from: jeff37923;647919Various necromancers in my games have taken herd animals and made skeletons of them to inhabit local forests and keep intruders at bay. It is amazing to me how devastating a herd of skeletal deer and moose and boars can be to low level characters. They can just be let loose under no control and allowed to attack anything alive in the forest.
I like that, thanks.
This can lead to some cool ideas in the right sort of over the top game, but for fantasy I tend to avoid it. I know undead are a so much a staple of fantasy they kind of don't register as horror any more, but I keep my undead as humans-even demi-human undead rubs me up the wrong way. I think the element of humanity behind the shambling horror is what keeps them creepy.
I prefer to think in terms of un-everykindofdeadperson. Hanged men come back as spirits that dangle by their neck from invisible nooses, people with slit throats blow gusts of noxious air into PC's faces from flapping trachea, spectral beggars that die of exposure can be dispelled by being offered food or money etc. There's a whole load of fun to be had with mechanics for that kind of thing.
Quote from: AndrewSFTSN;648026This can lead to some cool ideas in the right sort of over the top game, but for fantasy I tend to avoid it. I know undead are a so much a staple of fantasy they kind of don't register as horror any more, but I keep my undead as humans-even demi-human undead rubs me up the wrong way. I think the element of humanity behind the shambling horror is what keeps them creepy.
I dunno, if anything with the overload of zombie/vampire/mummy movies out there human undead have lost a lot of their zing. Hearing a clip-clopping coming closer and closer before an obviously dead dray horse emerges out of the fog and canters by at the crossroads, now
that is bowel loosening.
I've used a swarm of undead cats and a troop of undead monkeys. My Fortress Eibon megadungeon was infamous for the altered horse skeletons that would kick PCs' limb clear off.
Arduin has awesome giant grinning undead crabs, and Booty and the Beast has cool undead wasps with skull-heads as well.
The Crypt of the Mage Kings in my RM game is guarded by mummified housecats - take that MUs!
'Lure of the Lich Lord' for WFRP2 has some insanely dangerous mummy necromancer house-cats in it.
My albion players were very surprised the other night when they ran into a tomb full of undead cats. They didn't take them very seriously until the cats had dropped a third of the party very quickly..
RPGPundit
Four mentions of housecats in a row, two of them almost simultaneous. I've been missing out here!
The horror element in fantasy (and space fantasy) is very important to me and in general, most of my games are horror/other genre.
In my OD&D games, only humans can become sentient undead as only humans have gods (and eternal souls) in my setting. However, the spell Animate Dead allows for many strange creations.
Remember the forest in Snow White (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2zrs7Irzuw)? Undead Treants.
Quote from: TristramEvans;647918Zombie gorillas on a spaceship is a well I've dipped into a few times.
Tell us more!
Quote from: Spinachcat;648376Undead Treants.
I have no idea why (maybe I was raped by a dead tree as a child or something) but undead trees really freak me out.
So I use them in my games a lot.
Don't think I ever have. I've now used undead cats, and previously did undead wolves.. I think that's it.
Now what would an undead gelatinous cube look like?
Quote from: RPGPundit;648809Now what would an undead gelatinous cube look like?
Either mottled with cataract-like patches or going all flaky and powdery like rancid Turkish Delight.
I like the idea of undead bees building large "honeycombs" out of the carcasses of animals. And who knows what that putrid, pus-like substance that undead bees make like honey is?
Quote from: TristramEvans;648845I like the idea of undead bees building large "honeycombs" out of the carcasses of animals. And who knows what that putrid, pus-like substance that undead bees make like honey is?
I'd exchange bees for ravens - undead insects is a bit too much for me. But the idea made me heave a little, so yeah, interesting choice.
I always picture ravens as having one foot in the Otherworld as it is, but thats probably due to a steady diet of Sandman comics and Celtic myth as a teen.
Undead Plesiosaurs!
Quote from: Planet Algol;648862Undead Plesiosaurs!
That just gave me a great idea for a dinosaur ghost invasion game.
Quote from: TristramEvans;648852I always picture ravens as having one foot in the Otherworld as it is, but thats probably due to a steady diet of Sandman comics and Celtic myth as a teen.
The Norse had the same point of view. All over northern europe they were always considered a mystical bird.
Well, when you have a bird that's frequently flying around battlefields or plague pits or any other place where there are a few corpses lying around, and you see that bird feeding, it's not hard to imagine the train of thought leading to a notion that ravens carry souls into the afterlife, therefore they are bad omen of incoming death.
Still, the undead insects...it's really a good idea. Because insects are creepy as hell on their own.
There are other ways that undead animals or non humans can be used to add flavour to the game world for the discerning connoisseur (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxQmOR_QLfQ).