Magic Items for a Nation of Undead

[Madara]

Due to recent actions of my party, a goblin lich has gathered a large following and started a nation of undead. Currently, with assistance by his necromancer associates, he is willing to turn individuals into Zombies for a low price upon their death. Individuals looking to join this nation after death sign a contract...etc

This is a growing nation that doesn't need to invest in food/water resources. They are currently living in a tundra. What kind of magical wonders would the nation want to create. They aren't Tippy-level in terms of advancement, but they should be Ebberon-esq in their use of magic.

An example would be "Phone Booths" which undead can go into to heal via Inflict Light Wounds, which would make up for their lack of natural healing.

[Karl Aegis]

Magic Mirror Funhouse: Shows you the exact choices you made that put you on the path to becoming a failure without the nostalgia filtering your memories so they seem better than they were.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Turning/rebuking would be a rather easy way to get large parts of the population to do what you want, or just kill them. Suffusing the area with negative energy is probably the best way to get everybody to heal and resist clerics.

Since everybody is immune to nonlethal damage, lots of safety features aren't needed, and you can make stairs and stuff steeper because there is no fatigue from climbing them. Also, fresh air and running water are less of an issue, although the smell might get annoying after a while.

[Bad Wolf]

I'm assuming sentient zombies? I'd look in Libris Mortis, you might find a few gems there.

[Renen]

Magic Mirror Funhouse: Shows you the exact choices you made that put you on the path to becoming a failure without the nostalgia filtering your memories so they seem better than they were.

Made me lol. Poor zombies...

[Erik Vale]

Items of Gentle Repose. I know they exist somewhere, and I know they'd be in demand.

[Alex12]

You'll want to look into Libris Mortis, which is all about undead, and Heroes of Horror, which is noteworthy primarily because of the existence of Dread Necromancers.
In particular, pay attention to the Necropolitan template in Libris Mortis. It's a sentient undead template that grants a facsimile of natural healing, including of ability damage. Dread Necromancers in an undead city make excellent healers, because their charnel touch can be used at-will and explicitly heals the undead.
In terms of magic items, take a look at all the healing magic items based on the Cure line, flip them to negative energy, and base them off the inflict line instead. You might also want to houserule in a variation on resurrection spells that returns destroyed undead back to undeath.
Furthermore, Black Sand, from Sandstorm, deals a small amount of negative energy damage each turn. The possible uses of this are obvious.
For undead with unusual dietary needs (vampires being the most obvious) there are a few possible solutions. The most amusing and least plausible is to find a Chicken-infested Commoner and pay him to sit there and make chickens to drain. Alternately, an undead-specific variant of Create Food and Water might be possible (Create Brains and Blood?)

[Karl Aegis]

You'll want to look into Libris Mortis, which is all about undead, and Heroes of Horror, which is noteworthy primarily because of the existence of Dread Necromancers.
In particular, pay attention to the Necropolitan template in Libris Mortis. It's a sentient undead template that grants a facsimile of natural healing, including of ability damage. Dread Necromancers in an undead city make excellent healers, because their charnel touch can be used at-will and explicitly heals the undead.
In terms of magic items, take a look at all the healing magic items based on the Cure line, flip them to negative energy, and base them off the inflict line instead. You might also want to houserule in a variation on resurrection spells that returns destroyed undead back to undeath.
Furthermore, Black Sand, from Sandstorm, deals a small amount of negative energy damage each turn. The possible uses of this are obvious.
For undead with unusual dietary needs (vampires being the most obvious) there are a few possible solutions. The most amusing and least plausible is to find a Chicken-infested Commoner and pay him to sit there and make chickens to drain. Alternately, an undead-specific variant of Create Food and Water might be possible (Create Brains and Blood?)

So a city where there are a bunch of dudes that go around molesting zombies with their charnel touch. I guess that's one way to get Lich-Loved.

[Madara]

You'll want to look into Libris Mortis, which is all about undead, and Heroes of Horror, which is noteworthy primarily because of the existence of Dread Necromancers.
In particular, pay attention to the Necropolitan template in Libris Mortis. It's a sentient undead template that grants a facsimile of natural healing, including of ability damage. Dread Necromancers in an undead city make excellent healers, because their charnel touch can be used at-will and explicitly heals the undead.
In terms of magic items, take a look at all the healing magic items based on the Cure line, flip them to negative energy, and base them off the inflict line instead. You might also want to houserule in a variation on resurrection spells that returns destroyed undead back to undeath.
Furthermore, Black Sand, from Sandstorm, deals a small amount of negative energy damage each turn. The possible uses of this are obvious.
For undead with unusual dietary needs (vampires being the most obvious) there are a few possible solutions. The most amusing and least plausible is to find a Chicken-infested Commoner and pay him to sit there and make chickens to drain. Alternately, an undead-specific variant of Create Food and Water might be possible (Create Brains and Blood?)

I've got plenty about creating undead and such, I'm quite comfortable with the topic. More so just curious about what kind of *Good* things they would have to make undeath more enjoyable.

The undead nation is not evil. I don't need ways for it to suppress the population.

[malonkey1]

Continuous wondrous items of lesser vigor (2000 GP/pop, less with optimization) gets around the lack of natural healing.

Just a question, but will this nation only include zombies, or multiple types of undead and undead-adjacents? (e.g. Vampiric nobility, Lich priests, Half-undead templated offspring, creatures with the Deathless type, etc.)

[Satinavian]

"Awaken Undead" is the spell you want to use a lot.

Why would anyone want to become a zombie if he doesn't get free will ?

[ExLibrisMortis]

More so just curious about what kind of *Good* things they would have to make undeath more enjoyable.
Well, assuming these are all necropolitans or alike, so undead-but-mostly-like-living, they would have anything you find in a regular city: theatre and other perform skills, sports, art, tourism, nightall-day clubs. However, their immunities mean you won't get food, drink or intoxicants, and no beds. Undead are low-maintenance, that's one of the perks, so many utility magic items are probably not needed (the repeating trap of create food and water, for instance, or all of the logistics that goes into keeping a city fed and the farms, sewers and water supply operational, if you don't use magic). Magic items of fantastical illusions, self-shuffling and self-dealing cards (and self-setting chess boards and whatnot), items that take care of menial tasks (Tenser's floating automatic shopping bag pops down to Ye Olde Magic Store). Perhaps very significantly: items that restore and preserve your pre-death good looks, as Erik Vale mentioned, are probably big. Possibly make-up and perfume, and fine clothes. And for those who really can't leave life behind, a way to have children, perhaps. Nothing says undead can't have romance, right?

If the usual motivation for undeath is power and immortality, expect a greater-than-average number and quality of magical institutes, libraries and magic workshops, or at least interest in founding these.

[Madara]

Continuous wondrous items of lesser vigor (2000 GP/pop, less with optimization) gets around the lack of natural healing.

Just a question, but will this nation only include zombies, or multiple types of undead and undead-adjacents? (e.g. Vampiric nobility, Lich priests, Half-undead templated offspring, creatures with the Deathless type, etc.)

At its infancy, the nation has the Lich, mostly awakened zombies/skeletons, and some wights. I'm still debating the addition of vampires, mainly because I don't like the way the template works.

It seems like illusions will be the main go-to, and perhaps some simplistic magical communication and lighting.

[malonkey1]

At its infancy, the nation has the Lich, mostly awakened zombies/skeletons, and some wights. I'm still debating the addition of vampires, mainly because I don't like the way the template works.

It seems like illusions will be the main go-to, and perhaps some simplistic magical communication and lighting.

For communication, a use-activated item of sending, lighting achieved with continuous flame and a cover.

[Necroticplague]

1st off: items of continuous Gentle Repose. Just because you're willing to be dead, doesn't mean the mortal fear of aging goes away (your fear of wrinkles just gets replaced by fearing the skin near your eyes falling off).
2nd: Any form of entertainment. Keep in mind that in dnd, it seems 8 hours of sleep is the standard. So the undead have a solid 8 extra hours on their hands, minimum. Their gonna want things to do during that time. Keep in mind that all undead have darkvision, so there's nothing stopping pretty much anything from being a 24-hour operation.
3rd:Something for their dependence. Some types of undead go slowly insane if they don't get something every day or so. Typically, this "something" is either levels or ability damage/drain from living creatures. Thus, livestock to feed these diet dependencies will be needed.
4th:Security. The dead still have the same need to protect all their crap as the living (and if they're a ghost, they actually have a greater one). However, fellow incorporeal undead make it so most security systems have to have magical components (at the most basic, some kind of Abjuration that makes the walls solid to the incorporeal, and at higher levels, walls of force hidden within the actual walls).

[Alex12]

I've got plenty about creating undead and such, I'm quite comfortable with the topic. More so just curious about what kind of *Good* things they would have to make undeath more enjoyable.

The undead nation is not evil. I don't need ways for it to suppress the population.

Negative energy damage. Which, by its very nature, heals the undead. The goal isn't to keep the population down, it's a way to heal them. Imagine a Black Sand spa, where a necropolitan goes to relax, get a massage, and get charged up with pure unlife energy.

[Jack_Simth]

For communication, a use-activated item of sending, lighting achieved with continuous flame and a cover.
Except where noted, all undead have Darkvision-60 at a minimum simply from type. Lighting is only needed for when you need to see a long distance, or when colour is important. Yes, things with a quick Continual Flame on them should be fairly common if it's high magic, but they won't be everywhere. They'll be surrounding higher-security areas that need to be watched with fewer personnel, they'll be in entertainment areas, and a lot of people will have one for when they want to look at the pretty things they've accumulated... but they won't be absolutely everywhere.

Well, unless you're using them as a form of official currency. A Cleric using Lesser Planar Ally (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/planarAllyLesser.htm) can call a Lantern Archon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/archon.htm#lanternArchon) for a "A nonhazardous task" at a day/level task to use it's at-will Continual Flame spell-like ability on a large number of wooden tokens. Given that it's a LANTERN archon, and you're using it in the official capacity of a ruler to make a reasonably secure currency for the realm, you can probably convince the DM to halve the cost again to a fee of 250 gp per hit die (one for the standard Lantern Archon). If you hire out the spell, that's Caster Level (7)* spell level (4) * 10 gp + 5*XP component (100) + payment to the creature (250-500 gp) = 1030 gp to 1280 gp per Archon. As an Archon is an outsider, it doesn't need to rest. 10 rounds per minute, 60 minutes per hour, 24 hours per day, for 7 days = 100,800 standard actions = 100,800 lighted kopecs (if you get them carved in advance). Each one costs you a little more than one copper to produce (and it gets more efficient at higher caster levels; at caster level 20, for instance, it costs you 1550-1800 gp to hire, which means a little under half of a copper per lighted kopek) so that's the value of your coin.

The coin is surprisingly secure from forgery. Lantern Archons are [Lawful] [Good], so any attempt to use the same method to subvert the currency of a realm is going to fail. Hard. Sure, you can maybe use a light spell to fake it for a few minutes... but your basic Sorcerer-1 that's going to try that is going to net maybe ten cp worth of goods expending the entire allotment of spells. Casting Continual Flame directly has the problem of the 50 gp material component for each 1 cp value coin. Faking it with Shadow Evocation is potentially useable... but then you've still got the problem of using a 5th level spell to get 1 cp. Oh yes, and if one of these coins ever needs to be verified? Detect Good, Detect Law, and Detect Magic. It's caster level 3, spell level 2, from a [Lawful] [Good] Outsider, so it shows up as Faint under Detect Magic, and Moderate under both Detect Good and Detect Law.

Due to the nature of how Detect Law, Magic, and Good work, you can use higher-level Archons for higher-value coins. A Trumpet Archon from Planar Ally also has Continual Flame as an at-will, but it's caster level 12 - which makes it a Strong aura on Detect Law and Detect Good (it's also much more expensive to get the Archon's services... but eh, that's why you use that for higher-value coins).

This would, of course, crash the local market on Everburning Torches....

[Alex12]

Except where noted, all undead have Darkvision-60 at a minimum simply from type. Lighting is only needed for when you need to see a long distance, or when colour is important. Yes, things with a quick Continual Flame on them should be fairly common if it's high magic, but they won't be everywhere. They'll be surrounding higher-security areas that need to be watched with fewer personnel, they'll be in entertainment areas, and a lot of people will have one for when they want to look at the pretty things they've accumulated... but they won't be absolutely everywhere.

Well, unless you're using them as a form of official currency. A Cleric using Lesser Planar Ally (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/planarAllyLesser.htm) can call a Lantern Archon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/archon.htm#lanternArchon) for a "A nonhazardous task" at a day/level task to use it's at-will Continual Flame spell-like ability on a large number of wooden tokens. Given that it's a LANTERN archon, and you're using it in the official capacity of a ruler to make a reasonably secure currency for the realm, you can probably convince the DM to halve the cost again to a fee of 250 gp per hit die (one for the standard Lantern Archon). If you hire out the spell, that's Caster Level (7)* spell level (4) * 10 gp + 5*XP component (100) + payment to the creature (250-500 gp) = 1030 gp to 1280 gp per Archon. As an Archon is an outsider, it doesn't need to rest. 10 rounds per minute, 60 minutes per hour, 24 hours per day, for 7 days = 100,800 standard actions = 100,800 lighted kopecs (if you get them carved in advance). Each one costs you a little more than one copper to produce (and it gets more efficient at higher caster levels; at caster level 20, for instance, it costs you 1550-1800 gp to hire, which means a little under half of a copper per lighted kopek) so that's the value of your coin.

The coin is surprisingly secure from forgery. Lantern Archons are [Lawful] [Good], so any attempt to use the same method to subvert the currency of a realm is going to fail. Hard. Sure, you can maybe use a light spell to fake it for a few minutes... but your basic Sorcerer-1 that's going to try that is going to net maybe ten cp worth of goods expending the entire allotment of spells. Casting Continual Flame directly has the problem of the 50 gp material component for each 1 cp value coin. Faking it with Shadow Evocation is potentially useable... but then you've still got the problem of using a 5th level spell to get 1 cp. Oh yes, and if one of these coins ever needs to be verified? Detect Good, Detect Law, and Detect Magic. It's caster level 3, spell level 2, from a [Lawful] [Good] Outsider, so it shows up as Faint under Detect Magic, and Moderate under both Detect Good and Detect Law.

Due to the nature of how Detect Law, Magic, and Good work, you can use higher-level Archons for higher-value coins. A Trumpet Archon from Planar Ally also has Continual Flame as an at-will, but it's caster level 12 - which makes it a Strong aura on Detect Law and Detect Good (it's also much more expensive to get the Archon's services... but eh, that's why you use that for higher-value coins).
Does a spell have an aligned aura just because it's cast by someone with a similarly aligned aura? I'd have thought it would only be spells with the relevant tag (or otherwise somehow modified, like using Liquid Agony as a component)


This would, of course, crash the local market on Everburning Torches....
Not like that's a useful spell anyway, since Liquid Sunlight from Complete Scoundrel does the same thing for less money and works in an antimagic field.

[Almarck]

Limb clinics. No, seriously. Even with healing powers, it's likely the undead will end up losing body parts eventually if from weather damage, dangerous activities, or having it getting eaten off or something. and last I checked, there weren't healing spells that covered this sort of thing for undead.

A reasonable thing to do is figure out some sort of cheap replacement limbstrategy. Maybe raising pigs not for food but to harvest their bones and flesh to use into transplants to keep the undead in tip top shape with some grafting.

[Gritmonger]

Taxidermists. Why go for only Gentle Repose or Unguent of Timelessness when you could get an upgraded appearance?

Sculptors and artificers as well. If we're talking an economy similar to a construct economy, then body modification (including limb replacement, as mentioned above) might be a grand industry.

Censers, incense, a whole industry of trying to get undeath to smell less like a tomb.

Darkvision light-sources. Light sources that only illuminate for darkvision, for those undead that might be too sensitive to flames or other bright light sources.

There is no longer a need for night soil disposal - so they would have exceptionally clean streets.

If anything, they may wear through clothing faster, what with not being concerned about their own body as much (injury or pain) and maybe a loss of proprioception as a result, as well as being potentially "active" an additional eight hours a day, plus a zombie's proclivity to shuffle. So, clothing manufacturers that make modern outfits out of more unusual, durable substances, since comfort also might not be an issue.

[ben-zayb]

If you are already considering raising livestock (for blood/ability drain) and alchemy (for perfume), I'd suggest raising venomous livestock and a garden with venomous plants as well. Then maybe set up an Alchemist Workshop and Factory to brew perfumes, poisons, and other alchemical items for profit. It's not as hazardous as when done by usual mortals.

[Jack_Simth]

Does a spell have an aligned aura just because it's cast by someone with a similarly aligned aura? I'd have thought it would only be spells with the relevant tag (or otherwise somehow modified, like using Liquid Agony as a component)The spell doesn't pick up the Good & Law aura because it was cast by someone who was Lawful Good.
it
...

Hang on: I remember reading that spells cast by outsiders detect as the subtype alignment of the outsider, but I'm not finding it now. That's annoying.

Still, even if it doesn't: Anyone who would have the ability to forge such coins has Better Things to do with those resources (except, perhaps, for the Sorcerer-7 with a Lantern Archon Familiar).

[Inevitability]

4th:Security. The dead still have the same need to protect all their crap as the living (and if they're a ghost, they actually have a greater one). However, fellow incorporeal undead make it so most security systems have to have magical components (at the most basic, some kind of Abjuration that makes the walls solid to the incorporeal, and at higher levels, walls of force hidden within the actual walls).

Ghostwall Shellac, from Dungeonscape, will help here. It is a greenish sludge that, when applied to the walls of a room, prevents incorporeal undead from entering through the walls. It also extends onto the ethereal plane.

Downside: It is hard to make (DC 30 Alchemy, 50 GP) and lasts only for 4d6 hours. Maybe combine a self-resetting Polymorph Any Object trap and several groups of zombies to 'paint' all houses with the stuff every four hours? With enough undead and planning it should work.

[Milo v3]

Ghostwall Shellac, from Dungeonscape, will help here. It is a greenish sludge that, when applied to the walls of a room, prevents incorporeal undead from entering through the walls. It also extends onto the ethereal plane.

Downside: It is hard to make (DC 30 Alchemy, 50 GP) and lasts only for 4d6 hours. Maybe combine a self-resetting Polymorph Any Object trap and several groups of zombies to 'paint' all houses with the stuff every four hours? With enough undead and planning it should work.

Could make a custom wondrous item, where it is combined with a permanency spell?

[drack]

The whole lack of intelligence thing kills it, I've done a few necromantic societies over the years, and what it really boils down to is that the theme or personal style of your undead city is. Is it a small village community where everyone bands together to carve out a village in inhospitable terrain? Is it a dark empire fighting to throw off the tyranny of those "evil" paladins who say that human livestock is wrong who form a highly class oriented society where zombies are the bottom of the bottom unintelligent working literally to the bone until they grind into dust, if intelligent working to buy their freedom and move up in class? Is it one where everyone's a remnant ghost of the past gathering there to join together and resist the unending social change that civilization after civilization will try to bring to them over the eons who just want to celebrate their old ways? Is it a nation of secrecy there people go to enjoy immortality in a city well hidden from the outside world? I've made all of these at some point or another, but you can readily see just off the bat what sort of commodities each society might hold where the others wouldn't. What is the general mood or intent of this nation and what sort of things will these undeads want?

Um, in that one with the class system I implemented black onyx gems as a standardized currency for the nation, that might be a fun way to go. :smalltongue:

[Tindragon]

Murlynd's Spoon, modified to conjour braaaaiiiiiinzzzz!

[Izmister]

Those books that are bigger on the inside, like content not a living space. Expansive tunnel system, some graft shops. psychiatrists galore. Also something like BTL's from shadowrun, some kind of memory crystal maybe. Chop shop, for those undead wishing to retire, thus leaving behind aforementioned needed spare parts.

[Coidzor]

Due to recent actions of my party, a goblin lich has gathered a large following and started a nation of undead. Currently, with assistance by his necromancer associates, he is willing to turn individuals into Zombies for a low price upon their death. Individuals looking to join this nation after death sign a contract...etc

I'd go with Necropolitans and Mummified Xs over Awakened Skeletons and Zombies.

Or even Bone Creatures and Corpse Creatures (BoVD) over Awakened Skeletons and Zombies.

Zombies are just so slow, and from what I recall, awakening them doesn't actually speed them back up.

The Tundra would be a point in favor of skeletal undead and other creatures immune or resistant to cold damage, since if they're in the tundra then they don't need to worry about shelter and heating and insulation to prevent cold damage from environmental effects. Just shelter to prevent their stuff from being damaged. Though I suppose they'd probably want many places to be around 0 to 10 degrees celscius just for keeping their stuff in optimal condition.


This is a growing nation that doesn't need to invest in food/water resources. They are currently living in a tundra. What kind of magical wonders would the nation want to create. They aren't Tippy-level in terms of advancement, but they should be Ebberon-esq in their use of magic.

An example would be "Phone Booths" which undead can go into to heal via Inflict Light Wounds, which would make up for their lack of natural healing.

Hmm. I'd say those would probably be better like emergency chemical showers of inflict light wounds and maybe mobile supplies of black sand near hazardous sites and at strategic locations throughout the city as part of its strategic defense. Since they're undead, they don't need to have bleeding stopped or for them to be stabilized, outside of falling into lava and not being able to get out, most sources of damage that would prevent them from going to a healing station are going to be the result of deliberate attempts at re-murder.

So if something does cause them damage, they're either fighting for their unlives, already redead, or they can travel to a location for healing. So the caches of black sand are more for support personnel moving up to the front. Although with sufficient resources, all citizens could just have black sand on their persons at all times.

Since they're going to have a low population but ideally a more concentratedly skilled one, since most ways of becoming undead and staying one's self require a few levels under one's belt, labor-saving workshops with magical architecture to have one master craftsman replicate the work they'd have done with a whole mess of living assistants come to mind.

The ability to work more and have less costs after the initial upfront investment in conversion also suggests that the populace will, generally, be more well-to-do than other cities' citizenry. Which, if the tundra isn't sufficient discouragement, may make them a tempting or lucrative target for raiding/conquest.

Some form of magical anti-life shell-like barrier that requires a guide from the city or that allows only one controlled path of access to the city for the living may be of interest.


Still, even if it doesn't: Anyone who would have the ability to forge such coins has Better Things to do with those resources (except, perhaps, for the Sorcerer-7 with a Lantern Archon Familiar).

The main utility I could see would be someone wanting to purchase miscellaneous crafting materials by having a simulacrum build up a supply of coinage, though anyone high enough level to do that can just create gp and trade it for those materials in any other city in the planes, IIRC.


Except where noted, all undead have Darkvision-60 at a minimum simply from type. Lighting is only needed for when you need to see a long distance, or when colour is important. Yes, things with a quick Continual Flame on them should be fairly common if it's high magic, but they won't be everywhere. They'll be surrounding higher-security areas that need to be watched with fewer personnel, they'll be in entertainment areas, and a lot of people will have one for when they want to look at the pretty things they've accumulated... but they won't be absolutely everywhere.

That reminds me.

For a real contrast, you could have the city be almost completely dark, especially at night, but be surrounded by a field of continual flames out past the range of the city's siege engines. So it's a reverse of the usual city not only in its living:not-living ratio but also in that it's darker than the surrounding area instead of being the source of light pollution itself.

The principle difficulty would be what to have so that the emplacements aren't easily moveable, especially vulnerable to destruction, or providing cover to enemy forces.

[drack]

Since they're going to have a low population but ideally a more concentratedly skilled one, since most ways of becoming undead and staying one's self require a few levels under one's belt, labor-saving workshops with magical architecture to have one master craftsman replicate the work they'd have done with a whole mess of living assistants come to mind.

Not necessarily. It takes substantially less resources to make the less mechanically advantageous undeads (such as zombies/skeletons, awakened or otherwise), so usually there would be many magnitudes more of them.

For a real contrast, you could have the city be almost completely dark, especially at night, but be surrounded by a field of continual flames out past the range of the city's siege engines. So it's a reverse of the usual city not only in its living:not-living ratio but also in that it's darker than the surrounding area instead of being the source of light pollution itself.nciple difficulty would be what to have so that the emplacements aren't easily moveable, especially vulnerable to destruction, or providing cover to enemy forces.

Ooh, that's a fun one. :smallbiggrin:

[atemu1234]

Items of Gentle Repose. I know they exist somewhere, and I know they'd be in demand.

There's a third-party spell from Advanced Bestiary that would come in handy here.

Also, for Zombies, are we talking sentient ones? If so, then probably the Corpse template from BoVD.