Yeah, this is a bit odd. I like the undead, and if I can play them as a race, then I do.
First, I'm willing to bet that D&D has undead skeleton as a player race because D&D has everything. It wouldn't surprise me if you could play an anthropomorphic pangolin from D&D "China". So, let's just skip that one if for no other reason than I don't play D&D and want to keep my record.
The closest I have is Pocket Fantasy where you can play as a Whampyr, assuming you download the free expansion that adds the other races.
I have a couple games that let you play half-devils/demons, usually countered by half-angels/celestial. Those are ok, but not what I want.
What I'm talking are full blown skeletons. No flesh, no master/free willed, probably with glowing eye sockets.
Any game have that?
All I remember is the Eleti race from some Fantasy Flight Games supplements. They appeared in Mythic Races and Dragonstar
WotC did a much overlooked setting booked called Ghostwalk where you could play some forms of undead.
Not an RPG but Lost Worlds had the now classic Skeleton with Sword and Shield as one of the combatants.
If there is not one in Rifts then I will be very surprised.
TSR's Marvel Superhero RPG allows for it and even weirder things.
Yeah I can't think of one. Funny that, since I can think of multiple videogame RPGs where you can play a skelly. I can't even call an example from D&D to mind, though I'm sure 3rd edition will have had rules for it. Eventually they had a race-template for everything.
Quote from: Omega on November 19, 2024, 10:06:27 PMWotC did a much overlooked setting booked called Ghostwalk where you could play some forms of undead.
I don't know why Ghostwalk wasn't more successful. It was one of the best books WotC put out. Great high concept, well executed, excellent art.
Not a TTRPG, but Divinity Original Sins 2 put in undead as a playable class. Features you could put in for a RPG:
-Poison Healed Them
-Head had to be covered at all times to prevent locals from going fearful due to being undead
Dragonbane RPG allows them, if the GM allows it, along with all the other non-monster "Kin" like Orcs & Goblins.
Quote from: S'mon on November 20, 2024, 06:44:49 AMDragonbane RPG allows them, if the GM allows it, along with all the other non-monster "Kin" like Orcs & Goblins.
Do you just take their monster manual equivalent and use it as written? I know they had some optional races like ogres that you could play but I didn't know playing a skeleton was possible.
Quote from: Thor's Nads on November 20, 2024, 12:11:44 AMQuote from: Omega on November 19, 2024, 10:06:27 PMWotC did a much overlooked setting booked called Ghostwalk where you could play some forms of undead.
I don't know why Ghostwalk wasn't more successful. It was one of the best books WotC put out. Great high concept, well executed, excellent art.
My theory has been that it launched just before the 3.5 revision, which sucked all of the air out of the room.
Well, there are the games where 'anything' is theoretically playable, such as many flavors of BRP, GURPS, HERO, etc.
The only one I'm aware of that calls out skeletons specifically and uniquely is, alas, an AD&D product--the Requiem: The Grim Harvest supplement for RAVENLOFT, which includes rules for playing all the classic D&D undead.
Quote from: RNGm on November 20, 2024, 08:04:45 AMQuote from: S'mon on November 20, 2024, 06:44:49 AMDragonbane RPG allows them, if the GM allows it, along with all the other non-monster "Kin" like Orcs & Goblins.
Do you just take their monster manual equivalent and use it as written? I know they had some optional races like ogres that you could play but I didn't know playing a skeleton was possible.
You just roll up a PC as normal and apply any Kin abilities and the listed base movement. Skeletons have:
Resistance: All piercing damage is halved (rounded up).
Immunity: Skeletons are immune to fear and PERSUASION.
Movement 8Which is pretty balanced vs the default Kin.
oh and one forgot. At least one edition of Tunnels & Trolls allowed playing a skeleton. Makes sense as was same publisher as did Lost Worlds.
Oh and one of the old TSR modules, one of the rare one-on-one books I believe, had the player as a skeleton.
Savage Worlds Horror Companion for SWADE has a whole chapter for creating monstrous PC races. You can get really granular with it too. It also comes with sample rules (all of which are modifiable) for playing Angels, Demons, Vampires, Werewolves, Mummies, Revenants, Patchwork Monsters, and Ghosts.
Doing a Skeleton would be pretty easy. But with the rest of the rules present you'd have the ability to give it more options for scalability than you otherwise might imagine.
Palladium has two ways to play a skeleton. Sort of. And, interestingly, neither is from Rifts.
Nightbane. One of the body types is skeleton.
Heroes Unlimited. The Powers Unlimited 3 book adds the major super power of Alter Physical Structure: Bone.
Now, I'm going to say these are a bit of a cop-out. Neither one is an actual undead. They're just a person with a power to look like an undead. So, while definitely cool, these don't count.
Tunnels and Trolls. I'll have to investigate. I own that PDF file, so it is worth a look.
Savage World, Hero, GURPS maybe. GURPS is kind of an odd duck as the price of the various advantages to emulate the concept could make the concept too expensive to be worth it.
Another one is Champions, especially later editions. One of the bigger threats is a lich.
Index Card RPGs' setting Ghost Mountain let's you play as a Muertos,basically a raised skeleton.
Charisma takes a big hit tho.
One of the player's in my long running Dungeon's Unleashed campaign play(ed) a skeleton.
His backstory was he put on some cursed armor that basically killed him, and brought him back. He can't take it off.
There's no specific rule support or lore for that in the playtest materials I've shared publicly. Mostly you just make up Talents that suit your concept and rate them with an intent. So he just took an 2-undead [Defensive] and we noted there would be some drawbacks to this and we left it at that :)
There is a lot of Undead stuff that has taken place in that campaign world. The County of Ebilith is "the land of the necromancers." Typically the dead / undead are viewed as a family resource -- so you might be in charge of your dead 3rd cousin who has been helping you in your carpentry shop for the past 8 years.
Of course there is an evil necromancer too, just like there are good ones.
Quote from: Thondor on November 21, 2024, 09:12:06 PMOne of the player's in my long running Dungeon's Unleashed campaign play(ed) a skeleton.
His backstory was he put on some cursed armor that basically killed him, and brought him back. He can't take it off.
There's no specific rule support or lore for that in the playtest materials I've shared publicly. Mostly you just make up Talents that suit your concept and rate them with an intent. So he just took an 2-undead [Defensive] and we noted there would be some drawbacks to this and we left it at that :)
There is a lot of Undead stuff that has taken place in that campaign world. The County of Ebilith is "the land of the necromancers." Typically the dead / undead are viewed as a family resource -- so you might be in charge of your dead 3rd cousin who has been helping you in your carpentry shop for the past 8 years.
Of course there is an evil necromancer too, just like there are good ones.
That's my thinking too.
I'm basing this whole request on three things. The video game RPG Divinity Original Sin 2 that has skeleton as a playable race, although you get a magic mask to wear so you can appear human. The other two are anime. Skeleton Knight in Another World, and Ainz Ooal Goan from Overlord. Both are Japanese guys who get transported/Isekai'ed to a real life fantasy world, but as their video game characters.
I also agree that it would be super easy to just home brew your own race. Like you, just curse a guy to be undead, but with free will and 100% intelligence somehow. Bonuses of not breathing or affected by extreme temperatures, with the flaw of being monstrous and killed on sight by the majority of people. Keep your helmet closed, or learn illusion magic.
As for "good" necromancers, that's another discussion, and made me chuckle. I'm not so sure, but I will listen to arguments about good guy necromancers.
Pirate Borg? (https://freeleaguepublishing.com/games/pirate-borg/)
Weird Ancestries for Shadow of the Weird Wizard has Revenant. While they are more zombie reanimated because ghost cling to the body too much, flavor text says its flesh can rot and animated bones. And for further grounding the body it even suggests becoming a Tatterdemalion (ghost possessing clothes).
There is also Daeva which is more symbiote (ghost from ancient civilization possesses someone) but it has Spirit description like Tatterdemalion, and Dhampir which is vampire-lite for more undead like character options
Mr. "keeping the order" god Lord Death doesn't like necromancy but necromancy tradition is related to Grandmother Spore who has a kind side to her. So good necromancer is possible in setting. But soul manipulation spells, even a simple speak with dead spell is under Dark Arts tradition which is evil.
Quote from: weirdguy564 on November 22, 2024, 09:46:25 AMI'm basing this whole request on three things. The video game RPG Divinity Original Sin 2 that has skeleton as a playable race, although you get a magic mask to wear so you can appear human. The other two are anime. Skeleton Knight in Another World, and Ainz Ooal Goan from Overlord. Both are Japanese guys who get transported/Isekai'ed to a real life fantasy world, but as their video game characters.
I also agree that it would be super easy to just home brew your own race. Like you, just curse a guy to be undead, but with free will and 100% intelligence somehow. Bonuses of not breathing or affected by extreme temperatures, with the flaw of being monstrous and killed on sight by the majority of people. Keep your helmet closed, or learn illusion magic.
Funny, my mind immediately went to DOS2 as well. Speaking of videogames, another potential justification for having free-willed skeletons would be the one which appears in World of Warcraft, that they were originally created with the intent of being mindless servants but due to some kind of magical event they were able to free themselves.
Really the only reason everyone assumes that skeletons have to be mindless is because D&D established a hierarchy of undead with skeletons generally at the bottom, ascending up through zombies, ghouls, wights, mummies, vampires, liches, etc. Most games pick that up and run with it, but there's no law that says it has to be that way. All undead could be intelligent and free willed, or their could be a progression between them. Say, a person rises from the grave as an intelligent undead with sorcerous powers, akin to a D&D wight or lich, and then the longer they stay undead, their body and mind both decay and they pass down the D&D hierarchy until the final state is the mindless skeleton. You can do it any way. In myth and literature there's a pretty much infinite variety of revenants with different powers and reasons for existing.
Quote from: weirdguy564 on November 22, 2024, 09:46:25 AMAs for "good" necromancers, that's another discussion, and made me chuckle. I'm not so sure, but I will listen to arguments about good guy necromancers.
Whether or not necromancy is inherently evil depends on the cosmology and metaphysics of a given setting. Is there an immortal soul? Does that soul have to be bound in some way to raise a corpse? Is a dead body in some way sacred? If you have a campaign world where there is no afterlife or immortal soul, raising an intelligent undead could be argued to be doing them a favor. You are effectively granting them immortality. Even mindless undead are potentially morally neutral if you're just mechanistically animating the remains of people who've been dead for centuries and have no living relatives to be insulted by the appropriation.
I've seen the opposite in some East Asian media. The different types of undead are different ranks in a pseudo-evolutionary tree, like Pokemon. This structure is applied to all monsters in such stories.
Semi-related question... how does one "heal" an Undead? Cure Wounds wouldn't work, and do they heal "normally"?
Quote from: Brigman on November 25, 2024, 10:48:34 PMSemi-related question... how does one "heal" an Undead? Cure Wounds wouldn't work, and do they heal "normally"?
Their animating Necrotic/Negative energy can heal most types. Inflict Wounds type spells that use Necrotic/Negative energy can potentially heal them too.
Quote from: Brigman on November 25, 2024, 10:48:34 PMSemi-related question... how does one "heal" an Undead? Cure Wounds wouldn't work, and do they heal "normally"?
Milk.
It's full of calcium!
What? It could work.
Quote from: Brigman on November 25, 2024, 10:48:34 PMSemi-related question... how does one "heal" an Undead? Cure Wounds wouldn't work, and do they heal "normally"?
Quote from: S'mon on November 26, 2024, 04:34:41 AMQuote from: Brigman on November 25, 2024, 10:48:34 PMSemi-related question... how does one "heal" an Undead? Cure Wounds wouldn't work, and do they heal "normally"?
Their animating Necrotic/Negative energy can heal most types. Inflict Wounds type spells that use Necrotic/Negative energy can potentially heal them too.
It varies depending on the game and edition. Some games have regular healing magic work. Some games require you to, bizarrely, inflict evil energy damage on undead to heal them (the logic behind this is questionable at best). Some games have special healing magic for undead specifically. Some don't have spells to heal undead at all.
Quote from: weirdguy564 on November 22, 2024, 09:46:25 AMQuote from: Thondor on November 21, 2024, 09:12:06 PMOne of the player's in my long running Dungeon's Unleashed campaign play(ed) a skeleton.
His backstory was he put on some cursed armor that basically killed him, and brought him back. He can't take it off.
There's no specific rule support or lore for that in the playtest materials I've shared publicly. Mostly you just make up Talents that suit your concept and rate them with an intent. So he just took an 2-undead [Defensive] and we noted there would be some drawbacks to this and we left it at that :)
There is a lot of Undead stuff that has taken place in that campaign world. The County of Ebilith is "the land of the necromancers." Typically the dead / undead are viewed as a family resource -- so you might be in charge of your dead 3rd cousin who has been helping you in your carpentry shop for the past 8 years.
Of course there is an evil necromancer too, just like there are good ones.
That's my thinking too.
I'm basing this whole request on three things. The video game RPG Divinity Original Sin 2 that has skeleton as a playable race, although you get a magic mask to wear so you can appear human. The other two are anime. Skeleton Knight in Another World, and Ainz Ooal Goan from Overlord. Both are Japanese guys who get transported/Isekai'ed to a real life fantasy world, but as their video game characters.
I also agree that it would be super easy to just home brew your own race. Like you, just curse a guy to be undead, but with free will and 100% intelligence somehow. Bonuses of not breathing or affected by extreme temperatures, with the flaw of being monstrous and killed on sight by the majority of people. Keep your helmet closed, or learn illusion magic.
As for "good" necromancers, that's another discussion, and made me chuckle. I'm not so sure, but I will listen to arguments about good guy necromancers.
YEP, that was most of it.
Good is debatable for sure. There are definetly folks who find it abomitable in that world.
In Ebilith though they just see it as a tool. Could be bad, could be used to benefit society. Undead are always paired with a relative because they do tend to go... Evil if they are left alone for a while or with someone without a family connection.
Part of the campaign had this culture being exported from Ebilith to the borderland of a nearby barony. Players could have sided with any faction but ended up supporting the "good" necromancer Lorent and his settlers.
Quote from: Brigman on November 25, 2024, 10:48:34 PMSemi-related question... how does one "heal" an Undead? Cure Wounds wouldn't work, and do they heal "normally"?
In the case of my Darsivia campaign, the first time the cleric of life tried to heal his cursed undead knight colleague he hurt him by accident.
After that though he figured it out and was able to pray appropriately. (I think we had it cost an extra success a few times.)
Some clerics in the setting argue over wwhether the god of life and death are separate or just two faces of the same deity.
Quote from: ForgottenF on November 24, 2024, 12:13:32 AMQuote from: weirdguy564 on November 22, 2024, 09:46:25 AMAs for "good" necromancers, that's another discussion, and made me chuckle. I'm not so sure, but I will listen to arguments about good guy necromancers.
Whether or not necromancy is inherently evil depends on the cosmology and metaphysics of a given setting. Is there an immortal soul? Does that soul have to be bound in some way to raise a corpse? Is a dead body in some way sacred? If you have a campaign world where there is no afterlife or immortal soul, raising an intelligent undead could be argued to be doing them a favor. You are effectively granting them immortality. Even mindless undead are potentially morally neutral if you're just mechanistically animating the remains of people who've been dead for centuries and have no living relatives to be insulted by the appropriation.
Raising the dead could also be sacred task that is viewed as a blessing rather than an insult, if it is done in keeping with the religious traditions. Many cultures are (or were) more sanguine about uses for dead bodies. One sign of this is if the god of death is more of a positive figure in the mythology. This was very important in my recent Incan fantasy campaign, because of the Incan tradition of mummies:
QuoteThe Inca civilization, like other ancient Andean groups, practiced artificial mummification as a way of honoring their ancestors and preserving the connection between present and past. The most important Inca mummies, including those of their emperors, were treated as still-living beings—draped in fine textiles and jewelry, served food and drink and carefully tended by their living descendants.
Source: https://www.history.com/news/inca-mummies-afterlife
I think some Mesoamerican cultures might also fit this, as would ancient Egyptian.
Even if a culture isn't sanguine about mummies or skeletons, a necromancer who deals with ghosts and spirits might still be a positive figure -- especially if they have a tradition of ancestor worship, which is extremely common. I'm familiar with it most often in East Asia, but there are variations of this in ancient Rome and many others.
Quote from: Armchair Gamer on November 20, 2024, 10:02:59 AMWell, there are the games where 'anything' is theoretically playable, such as many flavors of BRP, GURPS, HERO, etc.
The only one I'm aware of that calls out skeletons specifically and uniquely is, alas, an AD&D product--the Requiem: The Grim Harvest supplement for RAVENLOFT, which includes rules for playing all the classic D&D undead.
That is my memory of this one too. It has been a long time though and I don't have a copy anymore. It is on my list to pick up again though. My impression at the time was these rules were put in to chase the Vampire zeitgeist
Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on November 28, 2024, 06:42:14 PMThat is my memory of this one too. It has been a long time though and I don't have a copy anymore. It is on my list to pick up again though. My impression at the time was these rules were put in to chase the Vampire zeitgeist
That was the general consensus of the fan community at release, as well. I was always more interested in the mechanical underpinnings as an approach to freeform D&D class/character creation than the undead trappings.
Pathfinder 2e has rules and abilities for playing Skeletons, Ghosts and Zombies in their Book of the Dead supplement.
In some (most?) iterations of Basic Roleplaying, every being has stats and skills presented the same way as humans, so you can easily play anything, undead included. This was also the case with the old "Drakar och Demoner" from Scandinavia, which is based on BRP.
I found this on DT-RPG.
I'm a level-1 Skeleton (https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/473404)
Not sure it's a full blown RPG.
Also, the draw to play undead has always been there for me. Yet, I don't mean a vampire. I definitely don't like zombies. I think litches and skeletons are more interesting.
Can you play a minor litch in any game?
Also, what's the difference between a skeleton or a litch?
Quote from: weirdguy564 on December 06, 2024, 09:51:24 AMAlso, what's the difference between a skeleton or a litch?
A "litch" is an archaic indigenous English word for "corpse." It still occurs in compounds like lichyard (cemetery) and lichgate (cemetery gate). In Clark Ashton Smith's stories he used it to refer to animated cadavers that were fresher/fleshier than skeletons. In D&D, it somehow mutated into meaning "undead wizard king with a horcrux."
I prefer the Clark Ashton Smith version.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 06, 2024, 02:33:41 PMA "litch" is an archaic indigenous English word for "corpse." It still occurs in compounds like lichyard (cemetery) and lichgate (cemetery gate). In Clark Ashton Smith's stories he used it to refer to animated cadavers that were fresher/fleshier than skeletons. In D&D, it somehow mutated into meaning "undead wizard king with a horcrux."
Remember, this is the game that made 'wraith', 'spectre', and 'ghost' into 3 different types of creatures, and later added 'phantom' and numerous others to the list. :)
A litch has a different definition to me.
It is a person, usually a wizard or necromancer who has perfected their magic and used it on themselves to never die of old age even after their organs all stop. However, there are still side effects like becoming horribly desiccated and cannot pass as a human anymore. Like a mummy without the bandage wrapping.
I prefer just a clean skeleton as a look. Just a personal preference.
Not really a skeleton but playing an undead is a core "race" in Symbaroum both the original version and the Ruins 5e one that's probably most similar to a fresh zombie that doesn't decompose. I completely forgot to mention that when this thread first popped up.
Bully Pulpit Games has a game called The Skeletons in which you play...a skeleton. I have run it, weird, fun.
Quote from: DocJones on November 22, 2024, 01:13:44 PMPirate Borg? (https://freeleaguepublishing.com/games/pirate-borg/)
I'm sure there's something like that in some of the many, many Pirate Borg products that have come out but, in the base game, you play a human.
As usual, prowlers and paragons is better at doing fantasy than fantasy games.
INANIMATE
Self • Special • 9 Hero Points
You aren't alive, at least not in the usual sense. You might be a construct, a robot, undead, or something else. You are immune to physical attacks and Powers that only affect living beings, whether those Powers are harmful or helpful. Additionally, you effectively have Immunity (Life Support, Toxins). You still have a mind or spirit, so you remain vulnerable to mental attacks and Powers. This Power has no rank and can't be absorbed, drained, mimicked, or affected by other abilities. It does have a Source (other than Trained) which suggests what kind of being you are,
as follows:
• Innate: you are a living being, but not in any way that resembles life on Earth.
• Magic: you are a supernatural being like an angel, devil, elemental, fairy, golem, or undead.
• Psychic: you are an astral or ectoplasmic being like a ghost or spirit and are likely incorporeal.
• Super: you are inorganic matter or energy brought to life by some inexplicable phenomenon.
• Tech: you are an artificial construct like a clockwork being, nanoswarm, robot, or sentient program.
PRO Mindless (+9): You are also immune to mental attacks and Powers because you lack both mind and spirit, as in the case of a true robot or a magically animated skeleton or zombie.