Farming for undead

[Eaglejarl]

In the story I'm writing, I have an undead apocalypse going as one of the major challenges. Vampires, wights, wraiths, shadows and other "reproducing" undead. These things can create spawn (or, in the case of vampires, other vampires) by killing things. Unfortunately, it only works when they kill humanoids.

I'd like to have a way for the undead to grow their numbers very very fast by "farming" humanoids -- keep a collection of them in a cave somewhere, have them reproduce very quickly, and periodically cull the herd by making more undead from them. The problem, of course, is that it takes nine months to grow a new human.

Is there a way to generate humanoids (or monstrous humanoids), very very quickly? Any races that have a gestation period of $VERY_SHORT, or a way to magically create new people in a few hours or days on a large scale? I was looking at Reincarnate (the undead have some things with class levels), but that requires the soul to be willing to return. Any suggestions?

I suppose PAO would work, but that's 8th level and won't work for mass production. Hm. What about a PAO resetting magic trap? Could you have one that said "whenever something is placed on the X, turn it into a human", and just keep throwing rats or worms on the X? Or does the "all decisions must be made at casting time" rule that out by saying that you have to specify a single creature as the target?

EDIT: I should have said that I'm not using Epic, psionics, or planar shenanigans.

[Red Fel]

In before someone mentions a demiplane with a different temporal progression.

Because that's a thing. Drop a bunch of humans on an idyllic demiplane with food, shelter, pleasant weather, let them reproduce like rabbits. Every few minutes in the real world is a year in the demiplane, so every few minutes you can send in a raiding party.

[Eaglejarl]

In before someone mentions a demiplane with a different temporal progression.

Because that's a thing. Drop a bunch of humans on an idyllic demiplane with food, shelter, pleasant weather, let them reproduce like rabbits. Every few minutes in the real world is a year in the demiplane, so every few minutes you can send in a raiding party.

Doh. Sorry, I should have said: I'm not using Epic, psionics, or planar shenanigans. My bad, that was a pretty key piece of information. Thanks for the suggestion, though. I've added that to the OP

[inuyasha]

Use your mighty powers as a DM, and add in a homebrewed artifact, or some sort of foul draught (made of demons blood, saltwater, a little sprinkle of sulfur, bake at 300 degrees for 30 minutes) that, maybe when fed to an animal, produces painful, violent, gut wrenching transformation into basically a dumb human meant to be cattle.

[Eaglejarl]

Use your mighty powers as a DM, and add in a homebrewed artifact, or some sort of foul draught (made of demons blood, saltwater, a little sprinkle of sulfur, bake at 300 degrees for 30 minutes) that, maybe when fed to an animal, produces painful, violent, gut wrenching transformation into basically a dumb human meant to be cattle.

Could do, but I'm really trying to keep within RAW. Custom magic stuff, while legal, is something of a cheat.

[Telonius]

So basically, Logan's Run, except they're taken away by vampires instead of being killed.


EDIT: I hesitate to suggest this, but there may be a spell that can help you. Unfortunately, I'm not certain of its existence, and it's contained in a tome of such unspeakable horror that many who open its pages are lost to the world, never again to show their faces in respectable society or gainful employment. (BoEF).

[inuyasha]

Could do, but I'm really trying to keep within RAW. Custom magic stuff, while legal, is something of a cheat.

While it could be considered a cheat, it also is something that just shows creative DMing, this thing that you want to do, without epic, psionics, or planar shennanigans, would be almost impossible to do, and if you're just doing this to add some interesting depth to the game, I don't think that it'd be cheating

[Cikomyr]

Orcs, Goblins, Kobols and other such races are considered humanoid, and have incredibly fast gestation rates.

[Zweisteine]

Two certain adult-themed books* may have spells to accelerate gestation, but I can't be more specific than that, because I haven't actually read either.

Those would be the third party Book of Erotic Fanstasy and the Nymphology (or something similar).

Or just homebrew a spell or ritual yourself.

[Eaglejarl]

Orcs, Goblins, Kobols and other such races are considered humanoid, and have incredibly fast gestation rates.

Is there a canonical listing for their gestation / reproduction rates?

[Cikomyr]

Is there a canonical listing for their gestation / reproduction rates?

From Wikipedia, not sure where they have their sources:


Kobolds are extremely fecund egg-layers, having the highest birth rate (and death rate) of all humanoid species. A female kobold will lay a clutch of hard-shelled eggs two weeks after fertilization; the eggs must be incubated for an additional 60 days before hatching. Kobolds reach maturity by the age of eight or nine and are considered "great wyrms" by the age of 121. They live up to 135 years. While they do bond with one another, they have no concept of monogamy.

Not sure how many eggs per layed. Maybe 3-4?

As for Goblins, Orcs and other creatures, it's still faster than humans. But couldn't tell you how fast. I know you may be repulsed at the idea, but the Book of Erotic fantasy actually had rules regarding species gestation and infancy. It's not JUST about sexuality, there's quite a bit of biology.

edit: actually, using Kobold farms would also allow you to setup the mastermind behind this Undead Apocalypse. Since Kobolds often worship/serve dragons, why not just have a Dracolich who have created these pockets of Kobolds and ask them to send "soldiers" to him regularily?

These soldiers would be then processed into Shades. With about 10-20 communities, you could easily have at least 25-30 new shadows daily, maybe even more.

[Quorothorn]

Is there a canonical listing for their gestation / reproduction rates?

Not to my knowledge.

But in the famed and previously-mentioned BoEF, Goblins and Kobolds are listed at ~4 months gestation (and 50% "conception chance"--compared to a human's 20%), and Orcs and Lizardfolk at ~6.

[captain fubar]

If your undead farmer is a high level arcane caster you don't need to look beyond core clone (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/clone.htm) will make as many bodys as you need though with only the physical body its up to the dm weather they are good for more than just zombies and skeletons.

[Phelix-Mu]

I am not sure, but you may want to look into daelkyr half-breed template. It was recently discussed in a different thread that you could probably get something like a large dog to give birth to a litter of humans (which about halves the gestation time and allows for the birth of 5+ humans at a time, varying by dog breed, and soundly ignoring what this process must do to the mother creature). Sadly, I am not recalling if the resulting creature is still a humanoid or not, which would render this otherwise interesting idea useless for your purposes.

[LibraryOgre]

To take it from the side, why do you need to create new people? The point of the Wightpocalypse was how quickly and easily it could spread, given the right conditions.

For example, let's say you have a tribe of 100 orcs in the Badlands. You convert them quickly and easily. You then take your 100 orcs and go to a nearby town, where your numbers swell to 1000 (minus a few deaths among your orcs and the unturned humans). You drag along a few more towns, swelling your numbers each time.

Now, on a small scale, this might be defeatable. Once you take 20 wights and have them all do the same thing in different places? Then it's a hard thing to beat.

[Doc_Maynot]

Perhaps Incantations (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/incantations.htm) could help you with this.

You said you were against PAO wouldn't work for two reasons:
A. The number of Targets affected
B. The fact it was a 8th level spell.

Incantations let DMs create rituals based off of spells and this would probably help story wise, having your party stop a group of intelligent undead mid-ritual.

With the format here's what such a ritual would look like:

Call of Orcus
Necromancy/Transmutation
Effective level 8th (Same as PAO)
Skill Check (DC 23): Knowledge (Religion) 4 Successes, Perform (Oratory) 4 Successes
Failure: Death
Components: Same as PAO, All casters are Exausted
Casting time: 80 minutes
Range: Close
Target: Patch of desecrated (as the spell) earth
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
SR: No

Requires 12 secondary casters, and can only be cast on the new moon.
This incantation similar to the polymorph any object spell instead converts 20 cu feet of desecrated dirt into 16 HD worth of undead creatures.


But that's just my swing at making one.

[Slipperychicken]

There was a spell which, when cast on a person, kills him and makes 3 wererats crawl out of the body. It was an instantaneous effect, but its name escapes me.

EDIT: It's Curse of Lycanthrope (Pestilence 6, SpC), and is a Fort save or kills the target to spawn 1d6 wererats. You might want to keep the target in a pit during casting so the rats don't case trouble, as the spell specifies he rats might try to kill living creatures (which might include your breeding stock!)

You can totally cast the spell on the newly-created wererats to generate more, for a net gain of two wererats per successful casting. Then you just designate some of them as "breeding stock" and turn the rest into undead.

[Brookshw]

Iirc one of the curse of lycanthropy spells creates multiple wererats from a single victim, repeat casting would allow for exponential growth rates. Might work for you.

[Eaglejarl]

To take it from the side, why do you need to create new people? The point of the Wightpocalypse was how quickly and easily it could spread, given the right conditions.


In large part because I want to show that the leaders of the bad guys are smart too, and are doing sensible things like constantly looking for new recruits and using smart tactics.

Also, my story (see link below; check the most recent chapter) is a "if it works by RAW then your shenanigans are totally legal (although the gods will step in if you try to go too far)" setting. I've already established ways to kill truly impressive numbers of enemies at a time, and I've got at least one more way in my back pocket. I want the enemy to be able to replenish their numbers so fast that the good guys can hold out, but will feel like they aren't making much progress.


@Slipperychicken + Doc_Maynot
Thank you! Those will help a lot.

[Pan151]

Alternatively to creating humanoid farms of some sort, you could try to mass produce potions of +will save. Undead require no sustenance - their urges for brains, blood or whatever are just withdrawal syndroms.

Make sure every member of society can pump their will saves to +24 and then the real stuff only have to be used on emergencies (multiple natural 1s in a row).

[Eaglejarl]

Alternatively to creating humanoid farms of some sort, you could try to mass produce potions of +will save. Undead require no sustenance - their urges for brains, blood or whatever are just withdrawal syndroms.

Make sure every member of society can pump their will saves to +24 and then the real stuff only have to be used on emergencies (multiple natural 1s in a row).


I'm confused -- how does that end up increasing the number of undead?

[Ruethgar]

Kobolds grow much faster and if you pull their physical being into a lucid dream you can of course get a yield in 1/10th the time or less(as in 40years pass per night less).

[Cikomyr]

Kobolds grow much faster and if you pull their physical being into a lucid dream you can of course get a yield in 1/10th the time or less(as in 40years pass per night less).

Hmmm.. a Kobold Matrix?

[Phelix-Mu]

Hmmm.. a Kobold Matrix?

Lucid Dreaming gets silly so fast that you could have multiple matrices. One for the good movie, and a separate one for the other two.:smallwink:

Or, even better, have a kobold Inception where cyborg assassin kobolds are traveling into the past in order to kill the savior of kobolds. The only way to defeat the armies of assassin cyborg kobolds is to take this magical ring to a forbidden land and chuck it in a volcano. Then the main character sacrifices himself while the ship is sinking to save this chick he barely knows.

AND IT'S ALL INSIDE YOUR HEAD!

I looked up daelkyr half-blood, and sadly it does change type to Aberration. Poo.

[Nettlekid]

How about Polymorph Any Object? Get a single humanoid, and chop off its fingers. Use Polymorph Any Object to turn it into a regular being of the same species (same kingdom (animal), same grouping (humanoid), and related (twig is to tree, finger is to human) gives it Permanent duration.) Now you have ten humanoids, who can be bitten and converted. Cast Regenerate to regrow the fingers. Beware that Dispel Magic and AMFs might ruin your day (although AMFs already ruin incorporeal undead like Shadows, so this can work for them.)

Or what about getting your undead stonemasons to carve a humanoid statue, cast Stone to Flesh to get a corpse, and cast Raise Dead on it? You're making the story, so you're allowed to decide if "corpse" means "dead creature" and thus Raise Dead can work despite the thing not having been alive. After all, it hasn't been dead for more than one day per caster level! It only started being dead when you made it a corpse.

EDIT: Whoops, missed the no-PAO thing in the first post. Oh well, second part still stands.

[weckar]

Can I just point out I'm really icked out by the idea of forced reproduction? Not only is it creepy, but it comes with a ton of cultural-historical baggage...

[Nettlekid]

Can I just point out I'm really icked out by the idea of forced reproduction? Not only is it creepy, but it comes with a ton of cultural-historical baggage...

Although your point is valid, we ARE also talking about unnatural beings of rotting flesh and bone supported by purely unholy energy using said forced reproduction as a glorified means of making more animated meat.

This is in the wider scale of a universe with magic and dragons and where "race" means "species" and little lizard dudes can get it on with creatures whose ancestors were made out of solidified Goodness.

I don't know that cultural-historical baggage, while a very pertinent issue in our world, necessarily comes into play here. The cultural-historical baggage which would come into play here would be like, interbreeding Orcs with Elves or Gnomes with Kobolds. Which is a bit different than what I think you're going for.

[weckar]

True, very true. I'm also taking the psychology of the players into consideration, though, who are present in our world.

[Eaglejarl]

How about Polymorph Any Object? [...]
EDIT: Whoops, missed the no-PAO thing in the first post. Oh well, second part still stands.

Actually, I'm totally cool with using PAO for this. It's too high-level to be able to generate (tens of) thousands of new undead-food per day, but a resetting magic trap of it might work. My question above was "*would* a resetting magic trap work?" Spells used in traps need to have all their variables determined at time of trap creation, and I'm not sure if "what creature is being polymorphed" is considered one of those variables. It's one thing to have a Fireball spell in your trap -- that just says "go that way ten feet, then blow up". Would PAO require you to specify "turn Fred into a human", or would it be enough to say "turn whatever living creature is on this spot into a human?" Does anyone know if RAW speaks to this?



Or what about getting your undead stonemasons to carve a humanoid statue, cast Stone to Flesh to get a corpse, and cast Raise Dead on it? [...]


Now that's really cool. Yes, I would totally rule that as legal. Thanks for the idea.




Can I just point out I'm really icked out by the idea of forced reproduction? Not only is it creepy, but it comes with a ton of cultural-historical baggage...


Totally agreed. It's vile, but that's the point. The undead should be a horror, something that every reasonable being wants to destroy. Everyone else in my story is morally gray (*); I want something that everyone, including the audience, can agree to hate.


(*) Well, almost everyone. Suze the upstairs maid is a genuinely nice person, if a bit skittish. Allison the fire elemental is an equal opportunity snarker but not actively evil or good.

[Fable Wright]

From Wikipedia, not sure where they have their sources:

Races of the Dragon; they had a section on reproduction for Kobolds, from which I recognize most of the facts in the article. Given their reptilian biology, the fact that they lay eggs, their surprisingly long lives and short maturation periods, some mild temperature control in the warrens to make a high female/male ratio would be able to cause an exponentially increasing warren. It would also make the process slightly less squicky in that there's no forced physical intimacy and the fact that there is zero parent/child bond between Kobolds anyways, but then you get that bit where sentient beings are essentially being used in a giant, macabre chicken farm.

[Nettlekid]

Actually, I'm totally cool with using PAO for this. It's too high-level to be able to generate (tens of) thousands of new undead-food per day, but a resetting magic trap of it might work. My question above was "*would* a resetting magic trap work?" Spells used in traps need to have all their variables determined at time of trap creation, and I'm not sure if "what creature is being polymorphed" is considered one of those variables. It's one thing to have a Fireball spell in your trap -- that just says "go that way ten feet, then blow up". Would PAO require you to specify "turn Fred into a human", or would it be enough to say "turn whatever living creature is on this spot into a human?" Does anyone know if RAW speaks to this?


How about the spell Energy Transformation Field, from the Spell Compendium? I'm not sure if you get to choose the new effect each time the field activates or if you set it for good when you first set the field (the example has Summon Monster so you'd think they'd mention, but they don't.) I think even if you have to specify the transformation, it would work to say "Turn the target into a human." All you need to do is key it to PAO (perhaps by scroll) and since your Undead guys all have Supernatural abilities at will (or most do, I expect. Vampires work best, but I think even Ability Score Damage (like a Shadow or Allip) or Energy Drain counts) you can fuel it by adding their HD to the charge pool every turn. That'll charge it in no time. (Or grab an Immovable Rod and just keep clicking it like a ballpoint pen.)

EDIT: You could also have an Energy Transformation Field for Stone to Flesh and Raise Dead instead of PAO if you want to do the other thing I suggested, which will save costs on Raise Dead diamonds. Just have your Undead in control of casting Stone Shape, or Fabricate, or whatever you're using to make statues.