Disguising Undead

[TheLooker]

Currently I am playing a Lich who is trying to take over the world (a little unusual, I have no doubt). I just succeeded in wiping out a town of about 22,000 people, and also acquired a couple of cleric helpers through some trickery. However, the device in which I took over the town was a dreadful plague: naturally the city was quarantined, and the cities surrounding this one were informed that it was sealed to halt the spread of the plague. Now that some time has passed, some people are probably going to come and investigate. That means that I want to have some "survivors." I plan on animating several hundred skeletons, awakening them, and then somehow disguising them so that they can go and infiltrate many towns, thus beginning a vast network of spies. My problem is I don't know how to disguise the undead. Does anyone know a viable, cost-effective way of disguising hundreds of undead to look like humans for a while? Spells? Magic items? Thanks!

[AlchemicalMyst]

Hundreds? Well not knowing what level you are that means only 44 (CL 11th) to 80 (CL 20th) skeletons under your control. Assuming a couple means two and that the clerics you "acquired" are just powerful enough to cast Animate Dead, then you are looking at maybe 10 extra for a total of 54 to 90 undead. So hundreds is going to be tough without an army of upper level clerics heh. EDIT: Missed the part of Awaken Undead that says they obey your command. Talk about some OP use right there!


Honestly, the better solution would be to literally raise the deceased using a spell like Raise Dead and just force them to your will via Necrotic Cysts from Libris Mortis. It is worth the feat if looking to control loads of people if your DM allows it.

In the long run there is very little relative value of animating, awakening, and disguising handfuls of simple undead versus controlling hordes of living hosts.

Although it is very expensive gold wise to go the Raise Dead route, the XP cost alone for awakening just the undead you create alone is enough to send you back a level (11,000 for 44 to 20,000 at 80). Big area = little work, continue xD

If you do go the undead route, might I recommend using zombies as they would probably be ruled as easier to disguise than skeletons.

[TheLooker]

Hundreds? Well not knowing what level you are that means only 44 (CL 11th) to 80 (CL 20th) skeletons under your control. Assuming a couple means two and that the clerics you "acquired" are just powerful enough to cast Animate Dead, then you are looking at maybe 10 extra for a total of 54 to 90 undead. So hundreds is going to be tough without an army of upper level clerics heh.


Well actually I have the Dread Necromancer's ability to control undead equal to 4+my CHA mod, the Stitched Flesh Familiar feat, a rod of undead mastery, and an absurdly high caster level for animating undead (kind of homebrew with my DM). So actually I can control quite a few, especially if I spell-stitch my familiar and get it to do most of the same things.

Honestly, the better solution would be to literally raise the deceased using a spell like Raise Dead and just force them to your will via Necrotic Cysts from Libris Mortis. It is worth the feat if looking to control loads of people if your DM allows it.


That's actually a brilliant idea, especially if I just make the Raise Dead a spell like ability. Thanks!


In the long run there is very little relative value of animating, awakening, and disguising handfuls of simple undead versus controlling hordes of living hosts.

Although it is very expensive gold wise to go the Raise Dead route, the XP cost alone for awakening just the undead you create alone is enough to send you back a level (11,000 for 44 to 20,000 at 80).


The only thing though is the Awaken Undead spell just has a base cost for casting the spell, rather than 250 xp per undead.


If you do go the undead route, might I recommend using zombies as they would probably be ruled as easier to disguise than skeletons.

Ya, I'm just wondering if there was a spell or relatively cheap magic item or something.

[Doxkid]

Currently I am playing a Lich who is trying to take over the world (a little unusual, I have no doubt).

This is literally ever lich in every game ever.



Although it is very expensive gold wise to go the Raise Dead route, the XP cost alone for awakening just the undead you create alone is enough to send you back a level (11,000 for 44 to 20,000 at 80).


Actually, with a meta magic rod of Widen you could get away with relatively few castings of the Awaken undead spell.

The number of undead you Awaken is based off a circle with a radius component givin the the spell's description. You can comfortably fit two living beings in a 5 foot square and 4 people in that same square if you forced them.

Thus the number of undead awakened can reasonably be considered above 300 per casting. 1000 is a fair number. Widen it and you three or four time as many per casting without being cheesy.
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Can't help much with disguising those undead though.

[TaiLiu]

Ya, I'm just wondering if there was a spell or relatively cheap magic item or something.

Well, I don't know how many gold pieces you have, but a Hat of Disguise costs 1800 gp. Unlimited Disguise Self.

[eggs]

I want to say mundane disguise checks would be the easiest and cheapest (a little bit of makeup, maybe some Spackle on the obvious holes :smalltongue:), but the problem would be labor-hours.

I'm sure there's a way to make a lot of those skill checks at once but at very worst, you could open gates to an accelerated-time plane, send some homonculi along with the undead and do some industrial-scale cosmetics.

[Pyromancer999]

There is a spell in the Spell Compendium(forget the name) that is explicitly for disguising undead for an extended length of time.

[AlchemicalMyst]

Ya, I'm just wondering if there was a spell or relatively cheap magic item or something.



Actually, with a meta magic rod of Widen you could get away with relatively few castings of the Awaken undead spell.
Except for the fact that Awaken Undead is a 7th level spell and Widen Spell would cause it to be a 10th level spell... unless of course they have the Deathbound Domain making it 9th level instead.


The number of undead you Awaken is based off a circle with a radius component givin the the spell's description. You can comfortably fit two living beings in a 5 foot square and 4 people in that same square if you forced them.

Thus the number of undead awakened can reasonably be considered above 300 per casting. 1000 is a fair number. Widen it and you three or four time as many per casting without being cheesy.
I missed the part of the undead obeying your command. Jeez, just keep releasing hordes of uncontrolled undead into a pen then awaken, rinse, and repeat. :eek:

[Doxkid]

Except for the fact that Awaken Undead is a 7th level spell and Widen Spell would cause it to be a 10th level spell...



No. Meta-Magic rods (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rods.htm#metamagicMaximize) do not modify the spell slot used. You would need a Greater rod to affect level 7+ spells, but that costs 25k gold and you have around 150k gold at that level so that probably wont be a problem.

[AlchemicalMyst]

There is a spell in the Spell Compendium(forget the name) that is explicitly for disguising undead for an extended length of time.


Ya, I'm just wondering if there was a spell or relatively cheap magic item or something.
Disguise Undead from Spell Compendium but you will have to go one by one and it only lasts 24 hours so not quite practical.

Zombies with makeup is best bet ha. Hats of Disguise if you have enough time to craft them as well.

[Doxkid]

Also, the cheapest way to Animate all of those undead is to Planar Bind something with the SLA and have it work for a few days in a Desecrated area.

MAUREZHI, Kocrachon and Marraenoloth are all examples of Acceptable Planar Binding targets with the Animate Dead SLA. Each can churn out around 2 times its CL in human zombies per casting. With 5 bound that can create 40 HD of undead per casting (twice its caster level based on the spell's text and then twice that because of desecrate) it would take a few hours to finish transforming the city.

[Mithril Leaf]

Also, the cheapest way to Animate all of those undead is to Planar Bind something with the SLA and have it work for a few days in a Desecrated area.

MAUREZHI, Kocrachon and Marraenoloth are all examples of Acceptable Planar Binding targets with the Animate Dead SLA. Each can churn out around 2 times its CL in human zombies per casting. With 5 bound that can create 40 HD of undead per casting (twice its caster level based on the spell's text and then twice that because of desecrate) it would take a few hours to finish transforming the city.

A few lesser planar bindings for Maurezhi, promise them they can eat one corpse for every 10 they animate. That's a screaming deal for both of you.