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janusmaxwell
2014-12-21, 12:36 AM
Looking for fluffy stuff regarding the creation of undead creatures outside of the "Animate Dead/Create Undead" spells. Things like "Allips are created when somebody is driven to suicide by madness"

If anyone can point me to some kind of archives for such things, otherwise the most specific type of situations involve various types of sacrilege and murder of religious people.

First type: holy man is tortured, incapacitated and then left to die because of thirst/starvation.

2nd type: a temple is sealed with bars on the doors and windows and all it's 'officials' like the nuns and priests are locked inside, then set on fire so they all burn alive.

Anybody got good ideas for Undeads created for that?

the_david
2014-12-21, 01:37 AM
I've got no idea for the first one, but for the second, burning skeletons?

janusmaxwell
2014-12-21, 02:02 AM
I've got no idea for the first one, but for the second, burning skeletons?

hmm...fluffy fluffy shenanigans...the city where the temples were burned has people afraid of the blackened pits where the holy temples once stood...but shenanigans...if something was thrown onto that spot by a knowledgeable enough necromancer they could cause the burning skeletons or some kind of flaming spirit to spawn? Ohh, that could work.

SiuiS
2014-12-21, 03:20 AM
Looking for fluffy stuff regarding the creation of undead creatures outside of the "Animate Dead/Create Undead" spells. Things like "Allips are created when somebody is driven to suicide by madness"

If anyone can point me to some kind of archives for such things, otherwise the most specific type of situations involve various types of sacrilege and murder of religious people.

First type: holy man is tortured, incapacitated and then left to die because of thirst/starvation.

2nd type: a temple is sealed with bars on the doors and windows and all it's 'officials' like the nuns and priests are locked inside, then set on fire so they all burn alive.

Anybody got good ideas for Undeads created for that?

Avoid Necromancers. They sort of ruin the point of "not just an animate spell".

The second example exists in 2e D&D. It's a burning skeleton which is a priest who died to fire while something something. They are driven mad and seek out others of their old faith to torment, cackling obscenities and heresy against the gods and hurling gouts of fire.

Naturally accumulated negative energy causes undeath. That's why we consecrate and hallow graveyards. But when enough death is brought in, and enough tears and anger are absorbed, it's canceled out. In a graveyard, you get minimal stuff. Ghosts. Memories come to life. Maybe the dreams of all the corpses merge into a nightmare realm that sometimes plagues the town. But in the wild?

The deep of the glen, where the animals go to die. Where battles are sometimes fought. Where the blood of the wars of the three lands washes when it rains. Where sometimes, friendly tussles lead to deaths as heads hit rock or branch, or maybe someone gets ungodly angry for no reason at a playful tease. Here, the energy is note rampant. Here, the dead rise but bear no resemblance to humanity. Zombies, naked and sexless and smooth purple of flesh, rise. And they walk to the town as with inhuman intelligence, they simply stare...


*


Anyway. Morghs are created by traitors. Ghouls were canibals in life. Someone who does with a great sense of being wronged I. Their heart may stay as a wight or revenant. Those forgotten to die in the wilderness resent their loss and haunt the world as wraiths. Those consumed by darkness may stain the world as shadows. Those who lived with passion in life may linger as ghosts in death. Someone who who does after having taken food from others all their life becomes a famine spirit. The ancient dead (mummies) sometimes spontaneously arise when a great person is buried in a facsimile of their kingdom or demense, to watch over it. Vampires don't have an origin... There's an undead that forms by being left at a gallows, where crows eat their eyes and nothing else, but I don't remember what it is. Oh, and at one point anyone who left their soul in a box became a lich – this included instances where great turmoil or magic astray led to them leaving their soul behind accidentally and without knowing.

Those are all I can recall from my time with the game.

Milo v3
2014-12-21, 07:09 AM
Ashen Husk (Sandstorm) is an undead born from people who died from dehydration.

Solaris
2014-12-21, 10:29 AM
Vampires have very nearly as many origins as they do legends about them. In fact, one of their origin stories is an unholy bargain - such as a holy man who's been tortured and left to starve to death might make in exchange for vengeance against his tormentors and to spite the god that abandoned him.

The effigy from MM II seems like it might work for the burnt-to-death crowd, but is a bit overpowered (it wouldn't be too much work to scale it back down to a level people actually play at regularly, though).

Quells and cinderspawn from Libris Mortis are monsters that seem like they fit with the first type and the second type, respectively.

janusmaxwell
2014-12-21, 03:25 PM
Just thought of something for the tortured priest situation.

Basically, the dude was staked to the ground at the knees and elbows and his arms and legs were pulverized.

I just pictured a skeletal based monster, like a skeleton version of a "Djinni" with an intact human torso and head, but a swirling mass of bony splinters instead of legs supporting it, and the players getting into melee would take 1d4 slashing damage from the sharp chunks, along with the usual skeleton/undead traits.

Oh! I was wondering about the arms and how that'd work if the bones were smashed as well, but make it a simple mass of splinters that grant reach. It won't have the strength bonus to it's "Claw" attacks, but it could work.

Problem is, I'd want any encounter with the thing to be a mini-boss.

Actually no...back-story and fluff important aren't the same as needing it to be a huge combat encounter. So nevermind needing it to be a major boss.

[EDIT]

Oh! Boss-ish Monster could work! Transfer the priests former priest levels into evil Cleric levels, like he was a formerly level 4 priest (Like the equivalent of a 2nd level cleric) and the skeleton is now a 2nd level evil cleric with access to negative energy spells and such.

the_david
2014-12-25, 05:24 AM
Flameskulls maybe?