Undead Encounter Help

[Mithosaurion]

I need some help with building some encounters for my party. They are going to be stopping on a planet in the D&D 3.5 universe that has been visited by an elder evil of death. The elder evil has long since moved on, but the planet remains choked in negative energy and populated solely by the undead.

I am not very good at modifying base monsters with templates without making the encounter too boring or too difficult. So, what I am asking for is any ideas for undead encounters set for around level 9 or 10. Anything goes here as long as the monsters have been corrupted by negative energy.

As a side note, I have already designed two encounters already. One is a joke encounter with lots of zombies and skeletons to keep the players off guard and the other one is the final encounter with an Insane litch near the end of the sidequest.

Any help you can provide would be helpful.

[Andorax]

One thing working in your favor, level-wise, is that since the planet is 'long since' abandoned by the elder evil, the vast majority of the weak undead would long since have died off for whatever reason (misfortune, petty squabbles between more powerful undead to have used them as pawns, etc.). In an active environment (rather than a locked-down vault), the skeletons and zombies should be mostly 'used up' over time, and with no raw materials from which to make new ones, largely not replaced.


So most of your undead should be drawn from either things tough enough to survive and persist, those less likely to be destroyed in the first place (incorporeal), or possibly things that could be cobbled together from spare parts, animated and reanimated repeatedly until they're literally chopped to bits.


I'm going to assume you have Libris Mortis available to you...at least, I sure hope so. For an undead-rich environment, it's a crucial resource.


So play off of "set piece" encounters. Ask yourself what something once was, then what it's become since the "touch of evil" fell on the place.


EL9+

...an old, ruined theatre where faint music can be heard drifting out from within. Investigating, the PCs will find a Crypt Chanter and a trio of Spectral Lyrists performing upon the stage. They seem to take no notice of the party, focused only on their musical performance, an echo of what was once playing when the horror first came to this world. The Crypt Chanter is not currently employing its Draining Melody ability.

The PCs can sit and listen, perhaps even weave clues as to the fate of this world into the lyrics of the song, but at a risk. Each minute the performance goes on, an Allip comes drifting into the theatre, to take a seat amongst the audience and listen...again, ignoring the PCs. The longer the PCs stop, wait, and listen...the more Allips accumulate.

After 10 minutes, the performace ends, and all of the undead 'break out of' the trance that the music held them in (which also happens immediately if the PCs attack) and begin their assault on the living.


ELVar

An old zoo or menagerie, fallen into ruins, could easily be populated by a combination of ghost brute, umbral creature, and revived fossil templated versions of various "normal" animals (feel free to create one of each...ghost, shadow and fossil...for each given animal.



EL7

Bug the PCs periodically with hints of sound to one side or the other, above, below...always near, but never seen. Try to build up to this and spook them before springing the four bone rat swarms, approaching from every nook and cranny nearby to strip their flesh.



EL11 (avoidable)

More an event than an encounter, let them see a 32HD Huge Hulking Corpse lumbering in the distance, neither looking for nor particularly aware of them, but instead set about its own task, that of gathering up scraps of metal (perhaps for your insane lich, if they want to follow it) and putting them in the massive sack he carries.



EL8

Show the fact that the evil done here has seeped into everything. An encounter with a Huge Earth Necromental in the streets or a Huge Water Necromental near an old, poisonous lake can drive this home. A Swarm-Shifter Huge Earth Necromental (CR9) that forms from loose dust, gravel, and fragments of gravestones could be even creepier and more effective. A pair of Voidwraiths would fit into this theme as well.


EL3+

Necrosis Carnex (MMIV, 104) make great "recycled" undead parts gathered together. On their own, they're quite weak, but they make a fine addition to other encounters.

EL 11

If you have the MMIV anyways, you could always use a Vitreous Drinker (p174) as a particularly creepy encounter, one that wouldn't mind having one or two Necrosis Carnex accompanying it. Again, the Swarm-Shifter template (Swarm of Spectral Ravens, thus CR 12) could make a Vitreous Drinker an even more cagy, and disturbing, opponent.



EL10

If you want to play up the creepy, outsider "Elder Evil" aspect of the setting, you could definately get some milage out of a Ghost Mind Flayer.



This last one's fully statted out, since I'm using it elsewhere.

EL 11
Dark Wisp

Umbral^ Evolved^ Advanced Will-O'-Wisp
CE Small Undead (Incorporeal, augmented aberration)
Init +16; Senses Listen +23, Spot +23; Darkvision 60 ft.
-----------------------------
AC 33, touch 33, flat-footed 21
hp 117 (18 HD); Fast healing 3
Fort +6, Ref +18, Will +15
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Spd fly 50 ft. (perfect)
Melee shock +21 touch (3d8 electricity + 1d4(*1.5) Str)
Base Atk +9; Grp --
Attack Options: Spell-Like Ability
-----------------------------
Abilities Str --, Dex 35, Con --
Int 11, Wis 18, Cha 16
SQ Immune to magic, naturally invisible, undead traits
Feats Alertness, Blind-Fight, Dodge, Empowered Ability Damage, Improved Initiative, Improved Natural Attack, Improved Turn Resistance, Weapon Finesse(B)
Skills Bluff +15, Diplomacy +5, Disguise +3 (+5 acting), Initmidate +15, Search +16, Survival +4 (+6 following tracks)
-----------------------------
Immune to Magic (Ex): Immune to most spells or spell-like abilities that allow SR, except for maze and magic missile
Natural Invisibility (Ex): As per greater invisiblity at will.
Turn Resistance: +6 (turned as 24 HD undead)
Create Spawn (Su): Any humanoid reduced to 0 strength by a Dark Wisp rises as a shadow in 1d4 rounds under the dark wisp's control.
Inescapable Craving (strength damage)
Spell-Like Ability: Greater Dispel magic 1/day (CL 18).

^Templates from Libris Mortis

[Runestar]

I am particularly fond of a spellstitched mhorg as a decent EL9 encounter. The template grants it access to useful SLAs to augment its combat capabilities. Here is one such example statted out for you. :smallsmile:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eo/20040821a

[Mithosaurion]

Thank you guys for the help, this should be useful to me. Any more suggestions would be welcome.