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View Full Version : [3.5 Mythos] "When There's No More Room in Hell, the Dead will Walk the Earth"



7th son of sons
2015-09-24, 02:57 AM
Mythos Discussion Thread I (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?323694-Mythos-Inspired-Homebrew-Discussion)
Mythos Discussion Thread II (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?364949-Mythos-Homebrew-Discussion-II-Where-Simplicity-Goes-to-Die)


http://imgur.com/aheJqk0.jpg

“Corpses... lumbering, rotting cadavers. What contrivance could have wrought this... this... abomination? Diseased science? Blasphemous occult rituals? How could something so, so dead... yet be so... alive?! And hungry! They lust for flesh! Human flesh! And feast on all the sweetbreads a man has to offer…” - Dr. Maximillian Roivas, Eternal Darkness

The Mythic Zombie

What does it mean to be Alive? What does it mean to be Dead? What lies beyond the boundaries, the misty veil of permanent, unreclaimable death? Where do we come from? Where do we go? What becomes of our dreams, our hopes, all those things that separate us from rank and file faceless drones, fighting to be king of the hill for the flicker of time that is our lives?

The answer is not so simple to be put into words. “Life” is an incredibly complex and multilayered miracle, one of an uncountable number of processes and beings working in tandem to maintain the careful balance necessary to sustain life. The remains of the Titans, the Gods, and even The Far-Plane, an intiricate, unspoken bond working to keep things as they are. And for much of time, that was all they did, maintain life as a passive job that none thought to challenge. And then the God-Spear was born, and the first thing died, and the careful process was shaken.

Now, there was an entirely new variable to take into account. When does a creature die? Who balances the scales in that regard? Whose decision is on what should and should not be dead? Who decides where the dead go? And what about when entropy consumes that place as well? While such decisions were being iron out, the entire delicate process tweaked and edited to allow for the possibility of not-life, there was a period of time. A period when The Abomination lived without life. And from this tragedy was born three pillars of his story, echoes of what the Abomination was, in life.

First of the new born-dead aspects was Structure. Structure was an aspect of that which was born of solid, definitive form. Structure sat upon a throne deep below, forging away at bones and designs from which they could be shaped. Then came The Husk. The Husk was the resonance of the flesh that draped the Abominations body, both in life and beyond. By his hands were the designs of his elder given cover, protection from the outside, and a definitive identity in its appearance. And third of the three was the sister, Purpose, an echo of the abominations will to live, both before and after his death. Purpose did little for the creature in the short term, but for the needs of the process did she infuse her brothers creations with a driving force, something to discern between what was alive, and what was dead, a feasible, measurable life-force, to be channeled elsewhere when its shell broke, to be passed into the next cycle.

And so they remained, as war waged around them, shutting down all outside stimulae besides their work. And after numerous failures did they create the first truly mortal life. And to some, the design seemed inane and pointless, and creature that was alive but to do. But to others, the Gods most notably, the concept was novel. It appealed to them at a base level, and they commissioned of the siblings untold amounts of their works. And, true to their word, as the war reached its wane, the siblings were the last of the dying to fall.

Not all their creations were three part creations, however. For those built only of structure, creatures without covering or protection, they are the Skeletons of this world, only a framework of a living thing. For those built only of Purpose, with no a way to draw from the Omphalos, they are the Spirits of the World, the driving force of life with little way to channel it. And those born only from the Husk. Pity them, for their tale is the saddest of all, creatures without drive or structure or understanding. They know only the basest desires, without a way to make them known, and rawest emotions, with no way to express them. Saddest of these are those who once knew life, but have since lost purpose and lived on despite. These creatures, these dejected and disheveled creatures of purposeless wandering hunger. They are the Zombies.

NEW FEAT: Legacy of Marching Aeons
Prerequsite: A Corporeal Form
Benefits: Beyond the boundary of death, but before reaching the waiting arms of the afterlife, something went wrong. Your Soul and Body have been split, but not severed. You are neither alive nor dead, your soul staying with you, but not a part of you. This development does not go unnoticed.

You do not gain the effects of this feat immediately. Rather, the next you die, you experience the chilling and life changing shell shock that comes from revival without your soul, even just for a moment. While your soul does return to you within moments of your rebirth, for one instance, you were both alive and dead.

Within 24d4 hours of your death, you return to life, taking all the normal penalties for being affected with “Raise Dead”, with the following alterations. (If you body is ravaged by wolves to the point of non-recognition, or your friends actually DO cast Raise Dead upon you, this effect is negated (If the former, you are well and truly dead, and If the latter, the effect will come into play when next you die.) Of some note is that a characters body is in a temporary state of "Reboot" upon being woken up. Certain biological functions (Breathing, Blinking, Fear of being in a little wooden box 6 feet underground), can take a bit of time to come back to the body, usually until the body becomes fully exposed to sunlight again.

The next time you gain a character level, making up the difference between what you are and what you were before death, you must take a level of a Mythos class. When you do, you gain the effects of this Feat.

Choose one Mythos-granting class that you have levels in. You may treat the following Mythos as if they belonged to that class. You now heal from Negative Energy, rather than Positive Energy, if you did not previously, and count as Undead for purposes of meeting prerequisites. This counts as Tomb-Tainted Soul for purposes of prerequisites. You may also develop a penchant for never quite closing your mouth.

Of course, sometimes the call of life is too strong to worry about whether you have taken the necessary precautions or not. If you already possessed levels in a mythos class, and a Mythic Archetype Feat, when you die, if you meet the above prerequisites, you may cash in that archetype feat for this one, replacing any mythos granted by that feat with mythos granted by this one.

If you are Undead, you may take this feat at any point, and gain the associated benefits. If you had the Single Action Only special quality, you lose it when you take this feat. If a specific feat is forced upon you from your undead template (Such as Toughness), you may trade it for another feat you meet the prerequisites. If you are forced to have specific ability scores, you may remake them, as per the rules of ability score construction for your group, and you gain an intelligence score, if you did not have one already.

EXCEPTIONAL MYTHOS

Bleak Lifeless Synapse Acceptance
Prerequisites: -

You gain Improved Toughness as Bonus Feats.

Your skin tightens, your muscles swell, your bones stretch. The sense that you are something not entirely of this world becomes all the more evident. You gain a bonus to your natural armor equal to your constitution modifier. If you do not have a constitution modifier (as many undead don’t), you may use your strength modifier in its place.

You become immune to all non-magical diseases and poisons, as your circulatory system slows and eventually stops, leaving the impure blood to fester in your system. So long as you are suffering from at least one point of hit point damage, you may rub your weapon all along your wound, covering it in your blood. When you do so, select one poison or disease you have been exposed to since taking this mythos. Your weapon inflicts that poison/disease as it would normally on a living creature. Such a toxin remains active in open air for (class level) rounds before becoming inert. You must take a new wound before you can poison another weapon.

Creatures that bite you must make the save against such a toxin as well, and take a -10 circumstance bonus on the saving throw.

Advanced
Festering Sanguine Synthesis: When you apply your blood toxin to a weapon, you may choose both a disease and a poison you have been afflicted with to apply to your weapon.

Involuntary Steel-Transfusion: The difficulty class for saving throws against a poison or disease drawn from your blood become as a mythos, not static.

Multiplicative Afterlife Crowding: (Requires “Viral Tyrant Legacy”) You may choose Walking Death (or its' equivalent) as a Disease you can poison your weapons with.

Occult Infection Diffusion: You can choose to let Magical Diseases and Poisons be absorbed into your bloodstream, afflicting you as normal (if possible), but allowing them to be spread as well through use of this mythos.

Ignoble Bloodlust-Satiating Banquet
Prerequisites: -

You gain a Bite attack as a primary natural weapon. This bite deals 1d6 damage for a medium creature, or 1d4 for a small creature, plus 1.5x your strength modifier. You may attack with weapons and your bite in the same round, but your bite attacks are treated as secondary weapons: The attacks are made with a -5 penalty on the attack roll, and you add only your Strength bonus to the damage roll. You do not take the normal -4 penalty to attacks made with your Bite attack while in a grapple.

When you land a successful bite attack against a creature in a grapple, you heal two hit points, in addition to the usual effects. In addition, you may feast on the corpse of a creature that has been dead no longer than one minute per class level. For each round you spend feeding, you heal a single hit point. You can heal a number of points off one corpse in this way equal to the creatures constitution score. This also provides one days’ worth of food for you.

Consumption of a living creatures Brain is especially effective. By spending a full-round action feasting on a creature whose brain is exposed, and that has an intelligence of higher than three, you heal a number of hit-points equal to the creatures hit-dice, and have one of the following effects lifted from you: Fatigue, Exhaustion, Sickened, Nauseated, Dehydrated, Shaken, Frightened, or Confused.

Relentless Fleshen Onslaught
Prerequisites: -

You gain Endurance and Diehard as Bonus Feats, and may charge even over difficult terrain without taking a penalty to your movement speed. You take half the numerical penalties from being fatigued or exhausted. Any penalties you would take from missing or broken limbs is reduced by your strength modifier, down to one.

When you make an attack with a natural weapon or unarmed strike, you can choose to deal additional damage up to your class level, taking the same damage in return, as you bite with the force to shatter your teeth or punch with the force to snap to your wrist. This must be announced before the damage roll is made. This damage ignores any damage reduction you would possess.

Finally, you are immune to Bleed effects and effects based on the feeling of Pain.

Viral Tyrant Legacy
Prerequisites: The “Corpse-Body Resilience” Mythos or the Undead type
[Undeath]

The ecosystem of a living body is vast and intricate, with numerous specialized cells for fighting off disease and infection from the blood, digestion, or airborne particles. All of these are now largely vestigial to you, but the necrotic energies that have come to sustain your body may have another use for them. These phagocytes, intestinal flora, and other creatures may be slain and raised as a mockery of what they were, becoming a virulent undead plague upon living things.

This disease can be called many things, but is referred to here as Walking Death. Its method of delivery is via transfer of a host's bodily fluids into a victim's bloodstream. This may be done through a natural bite attack, or by a creature without a natural bite attack by succeeding on a grapple check against a pinned target. Other ways are possible, but the disease loses its virulency one round after the host's fluids leave its body. The DC to resist Walking Death is (10 + 1/2 host's hit dice + host's Strength modifier). Its Incubation period is 1 hour, and it deals 1d4 Strength and 1 Constitution damage.

When a creature dies while afflicted with Walking Death, they rise as a Zombie one minute later, with an insatiable urge to consume flesh and spread their disease, for they continue to host its tyranny even in death. They instinctively do not consume or mutilate a body to the extent that it would not rise as a functional Zombie.

Advanced
Mutant Necrosis Proliferation: When a creature rises as a Zombie due to the Walking Death, there is a 10% chance that they will become mutated, gaining a new ability. If, in life, their highest ability score was Strength, they become a Big Zombie, gaining the Powerful Build quality and Toughness as a bonus feat (in additional to the first purchase of Toughness granted by the Zombie template). If their highest ability score was Dexterity, they become a Fast Zombie, losing the "Single Action Only" special quality granted by the Zombie template. If their highest ability score with Constitution, they become a Carrier Zombie; upon their destruction, they release a specialized airborne variant of Walking Death, which forces living creatures within 30ft to save against being infected, before dying out. If multiple ability scores are tied for highest, choose randomly among them for which mutation takes precedence.

Noble Plaguefather Authority: Zombies created by the Walking Death never attack you, ignoring even magically enforced orders to do so. In addition, as a standard action, you may assert your authority over every Zombie created by the Walking Death that can hear you, and spur them to rampage in a direction of your choosing. Any commands more intricate than "Rampage that way." are too much for them to understand. Zombies that are already hunting prey, or are under the direct control of another being, ignore you.

Slavering Horror Malformity: After a Zombie is created by the Walking Death, the necrotic disease polluting their body begins to develop them towards becoming an even more effective scourge on the living world. Over the next day, bits of bone and flesh are broken down and repurposed to give the Zombie an oversized, gaping maw filled with sharp too-large fangs. This weakens them structurally, reducing the Natural Armor they gain from the Zombie template by 1, but granting them "Deformity: Teeth" as a bonus feat (HoH).

Tyrannical Progenitor Inheritance: When the Walking Death is transferred to a new creature, that creature uses the DC of their infector's version of the Walking Death, minus 1, if it would be higher than calculating it from their own Strength and Hit Dice.

(For example, if you have 18 Strength and 4 Hit Dice, the DC of your Walking Death is 16. If you infect a level 1 Commoner with 10 Strength, the DC of their Walking Death would normally be 10, but is instead 15. If they infect another level 1 Commoner, that Commoner's DC would be 14. And so on.)

FANTASTIC MYTHOS

Godless Animative Restoration-Presence
Prerequisites: One Mythos granted by “Legacy of Marching Aeons”

You gain Necromantic Presence and Necromantic Might as Bonus Feats. These abilities affect Zombies you raise through Mythos as well as any undead you may control. Furthermore, you may speak with dead and undead creatures as easily as you could a flesh-and-blood being, though mindless undead often have very little of importance to say.

You gain an Aura of Unlife out to 60 feet. You suffer a permanent -2 penalty to Charisma based checks against living creatures, but a +2 on such checks made against the Undead (Certain living creatures, such as worshipers of Nerull or members of the Dread Necromancer class may be excluded, at your DMs discretion.) This bonus Doubles against Zombies, and Zombies will never attack you of their own will unless provoked. Living creatures within your Aura (other than yourself) take a -1 penalty to saving throws against the special abilities of Undead.

When a humanoid or animal creature within your Aura of Unlife dies from hit point damage, disease, ability damage/drain, or poison, you may, as a standard action, will them into Undeath. With a Symbolic Gesture, usually a raising of the hand, the corpse rises back to life with the Zombie template. Mindless Undead (as most zombies are) instinctively treat you as "Friendly", while intelligent undead have a disposition towards you one step friendlier than they normally would have. Along with you raising the creature, you may make a suggestion of 10 words or less, as per the spell of the same name.

You may only raise (Twice your Level) in Hit-Dice of Undead in this way each day, and each instance deals one point of damage to you, as you substitute some of your life energy for theirs. Zombies raised by this mythos effect take one point of damage per hit dice, which ignores damage reduction, each hour they are more than 100 feet from you.

Advanced
Awakening Sleeping Angels: You may raise dead Humanoids or Animals that did not pass away in your Aura of Unlife, so long as they have been dead no less than one day per class level. You take damage equal to the number of days they have been dead (rounded down), but are otherwise raised as normal.

Expanding the Mausoleum: You may raise zombies of Giants, Monstrous Humanoids, or Vermin as zombies in addition to the usual Humanoids or Animals. Zombies you raise with this mythos lose the “Partial Actions Only” Special Quality.

Fantastic Undeath Expanditure: You may raise Abberations, Fey, Magical Beasts as zombies in addition to the usual Humanoids or Animals. Zombies you raise with this mythos retain any special attacks they had in life.

Growing the Garden of the Afterlife: You grow a layer of thick spores and roots along your non-dominant arm, which can be used to grant you a shield bonus to armor class equal to (2 + 1/3 your class level, up to 7 at level 15). Your taint and corruption of this plant life, augmented by the touch of undeath that is your story, allows you to, quite literally, plant a seed of undeath into a corpse. The seed hatches from the corpses head and grows into a fully mature Yellow Musk Creeper within 1 min. due to the unnatural vigor of the undead taint (costing 6HD of your daily animation limit). You may provide the Creeper with a Suggestion as per Godless Animative Restoration-Presence and that suggestion is applied to any Yellow Musk Zombie it creates as well as any future generations of Creeper grown from its Zombies. Both Yellow Musk Creepers and Yellow Musk Zombies created as a result of this manifestation are treated as both Undead and Zombies for the purposes of any mythos requiring the "Legacy of Marching Aeons" feat and may exist further than 100 feet away from you without taking damage from this mythos.

Macabre Hate-Monger Factory: Zombies you create are automatically proficient in Light Armor and Simple Weapons, if they weren’t already. You gain a +3 bonus to your Natural Armor. In addition, by paying 25 mythos points per hit dice of a creature, and assuming it meets all other prerequisites, you may raise a zombie as a Juju Zombie, rather than a standard Zombie.

Unflinching Single-Minded Obstinence
Prerequisites: One Mythos granted by “Legacy of Marching Aeons”

You gain Damage Reduction, as well as Fire, Cold, Electricity, and Acid Resistance, equal to your class level. Your damage reduction is beaten out by Good and Slashing. Note that your energy resistances do not prevent the elements from affecting you, merely preventing your body from realizing that the effect is going on at all.

If your Energy Resistance successfully reduces the amount of Fire damage you take, you automatically Catch on Fire. If it reduces the amount of Cold damage you take, your body becomes covered in a thin layer of frost and ice, granting you a natural armor bonus equal to your half level for 1d4 rounds. If it reduces the amount of Electricity damage you take, the electricity jolts and bounces along your dying nerves, granting the effects of Haste for 1d4 rounds. If it reduces the amount of Acid damage you take, the acid seeps into your muscles, letting you deal 1d6 bonus acid damage on all your natural and unarmed attacks for 5 rounds.

Advanced
Corrosive Dread Revenant: The duration of your Acid soaked body doubles. While there is Acid in your muscles and body, your natural and unarmed attacks ignore hardness possessed by metal and stone items, and are treated as having the Sundering weapon enchantment.

Frozen Waste-Walker: The duration of your ice armor doubles. While coated in Ice Armor, any living creature or inanimate object within 10 feet takes 1d6 cold damage each round. Creatures that come into direct contact with you take 2d6 cold damage, and liquids free solid for one minute.

Scorched-Earth Soldier: While you are on fire, any living creature or flammable inanimate object within 10 feet takes 1d6 fire damage each round. Your unarmed strikes and natural weapons also risk catching their target on fire. You also give off light as a torch.

Voltaic Grave Visitant: While you are hasted by the effects of this mythos, you gain a +2 Dodge bonus to armor class, a +2 bonus to reflex saves, an additional attack of opportunity per round, and your unarmed strikes and natural attacks deal 1d6 points of electricity damage.

LEGENDARY MYTHOS

Blightful Unsanctified Hordechief
Prerequisites: Two Mythos granted by the “Legacy of Marching Aeons” Feat

You gain the ability to Rebuke Undead as a Cleric of your class level. You may Rebuke Undead a number of times per day equal to 3+Your Charisma Modifier (Minimum 3). You may only use the Command and Bolster aspects of Rebuke Undead on Zombies, Juju Zombies, or Yellow Musk Zombies, hereby referred to jointly as “Zombies”. (In case there was any confusion) To compensate for this fact, you may Command as many as Four Times the usual amount of Zombies you normally would have. If you create a Zombie (through the effects of a spell or mythos), you may add it to your control without need of a Rebuke Check, so long as you are present when it rises.

Any Zombie you command, or that you create by effects of mythos granted by “Legacy of Marching Aeons” gain +4 to Strength and Dexterity, 2 Hit-Points per Hit dice, +2 Natural Armor and a +5 Unholy bonus to all saving throws. They also gain Improved Toughness, Improved Critical, and Eviscerator as Bonus Feats.

Finally, so powerful is your necrotic ability, so strong is your hunger for the living, your very presence yearns to feast. You radiate an aura out to 50 feet. The area of this feat replicates the Unhallow and Deathwatch spells. More interestingly, the aura siphons the life from all things around you. Every round, you deal 1d6 negative energy damage to everything within your aura, including plant-life. This energy heals undead and other creatures who heal from negative energy as normal. Within 10 feet, this damage becomes Vile Damage, ignoring typical negative energy resistance, and damaging even undead, save for Zombies, who instead heal an additional 2 hit-points. When you deal Negative Energy or Vile damage to an intelligent creature within this aura, you heal hit point damage equal to the amount of damage you dealt, up to your class level.

Any creature that you could normally animate with "Godless Animative Restoration-Presence" killed while in your Aura will rise as a Zombie, as if by its effects, in 1d4 minutes, and do not count against the number of undead that you can normally animate per day.

As a full-round action, you can choke down your hunger and the gnawing void that lies within you. This suppresses the Aura granted by this mythos until such a time that you reactivate it as a swift action. As long as your aura is suppressed, you are not fully yourself, eating yourself from the inside out as you hunger longs to be sated. You are treated as "Sickened" for as long as your aura is suppressed, even if you would normally be immune to the condition. This does not stack with other sources of the Sickened condition.

Finally, Zombies will never attack you, even when magically inclined to do so.

Advanced
Building a Better Horde: You gain Graft Flesh (Undead) as a Bonus Feat. You are always treated as having the proper spell for creating a Graft. You may substitute Mythos Points for XP when crafting your Graft, and need only pay half price for the material needed to create these grafts. Undead you command never risk rejecting the Graft. You develop undead grafts at twice the speed of a normal Grafter. Any save offered by an Undead Graft is treated as a Mythos you possess, rather than the original save. Undead you command gain +1 to Hit and Damage for each grafts they possess, or for every two that you possess.

Elite Undead Enforcers: When a creature raises as a Zombie as per an effect of this mythos, it has a 25% chance of becoming a “Special” Zombie. If it’s highest ability score was Strength, it becomes a Tank, growing in size one category, gaining Toughness as a Bonus Feat, and Damage Reduction equal to half its Hit Dice. If it’s highest ability score was Dexterity, it becomes a Blitzer, gaining the Pounce Special Ability, Powerful Charge as a Bonus Feat, and 20 feet bonus movement speed. If its highest ability score was Constitution, it becomes a Tyrant. Tyrants gain any three fighter bonus feats it meets the prerequisites for. Whenever a Tyrant would be killed by hit point damage, roll 1d20. If the result is 11 or Higher, it remains alive at 1 Hit Point.

If a creature does not rise as a "Special" Zombie, initially, you can still augment and rework it to a state in which it can. By paying 30 Mythos Points per Hit-Dice of the creature, you can suffuse it with extraordinary necrotic power, transforming it into the Special Zombie it qualifies for. This must be done at the time the Zombie is raised.

By paying 3,000 Mythos Points and 5,000 XP, you may undergo a specialized right, which takes 24 hours. At the end of the ritual, you rise anew. You now count as a Zombie for all intents and purposes related to your mythos, and gain the "Special" Zombie trait you most qualify for.

Specialized Afterlife Mutation: When a creature raises as a Zombie as per an effect of this Mythos, is has a 25% chance to become a “Special” Zombie.

If it’s highest ability score was Intelligence, it becomes a Smart Zombie, gaining proficiency with all simple and martial weapons, and retaining all feats it had in life. If it’s highest ability score was Wisdom, it becomes a Sentinel, gaining Lifesense as a Bonus Feat, and a bonus to Spot and Listen checks equal to its hit-dice. As a standard action, a Sentinel can Shriek, blocking out any other sounds within 30 feet of the Sentinel and, forcing any intelligent living creature (other than yourself) within 30 feet to make a Fortitude saving throw (DC 10 + Half the Sentinels Hit dice + Your Charisma) or be Paralyzed and Deafened for 1d3 rounds. If it’s highest ability score was Charisma, it becomes a Dread Lord. Dread Lords have an Aura of Fear out to ten feet (DC 10 + Half the Dread Lord’s Hit dice + Your Charisma or be shaken), and gain a +20 Bonus to Disguise Checks made to look human (And alive) and to Bluff checks made to appear in distress/in need of help. Special Zombies raised by this manifestation retain their highest mental ability score they had in life.

If a creature does not rise as a "Special" Zombie, initially, you can still augment and rework it to a state in which it can. By paying 30 Mythos Points per Hit-Dice of the creature, you can suffuse it with extraordinary. necrotic power, transforming it into the Special Zombie it qualifies for. This must be done at the time the Zombie is raised

By paying 3,000 Mythos Points and 5,000 XP, you may undergo a specialized right, which takes 24 hours. At the end of the ritual, you rise anew. You now count as a Zombie for all intents and purposes related to your mythos, and gain the "Special" Zombie trait you most qualify for.

Village Razing Mob Mentality Your Zombies Natural Attacks ignore hardness possessed by Stone or Wood inanimate objects. As a standard action, you can call out an individual living creature of structure. All your Zombies gain a +5 Morale Bonus on Attack Rolls (If a living creature) or Damage Rolls (If a structure) against that target, until such a time that you declare a new target. Any Zombies you created within a 300 foot radius automatically become hostile towards the target you've pointed out. Any creature that Zombies under your command kill has a 20% chance of rising as Zombies in 1d4 Hours.

nikkoli
2015-09-24, 11:20 AM
So who wants to reenact the Walking Dead or bring the Scourge back to Azeroth?
Also who are the two critters next to Captain America?
Does the feat only raise you once?
I like the mechanic for weakening the disease from Viral Tyrant Legacy: Tyrannical Progenitor Inheritance, I think that's a good way to not wipe out entire continents inadvertently after lvl 10 or so. I do feel like the book keeping will be a pain if you've collected a zombie swarm to follow you around, especially if they are all different creatures. Do the zombies you create live indefinably until killed or do they rot away after some time?
Do you want to do a flip side memo for making Deathless rather than Undead, or would that be a whole other mythic race?

7th son of sons
2015-09-24, 12:02 PM
So who wants to reenact the Walking Dead or bring the Scourge back to Azeroth?
Also who are the two critters next to Captain America?
Does the feat only raise you once?
I like the mechanic for weakening the disease from Viral Tyrant Legacy: Tyrannical Progenitor Inheritance, I think that's a good way to not wipe out entire continents inadvertently after lvl 10 or so. I do feel like the book keeping will be a pain if you've collected a zombie swarm to follow you around, especially if they are all different creatures. Do the zombies you create live indefinably until killed or do they rot away after some time?
Do you want to do a flip side memo for making Deathless rather than Undead, or would that be a whole other mythic race?

In Order: That sounds hilarious

Those are Nemesis T-Type (Resident Evil 3), a big bad zombie beasty, and the Lord of Tresserhorn (Magic the Gathering), a pretty famous MtG Zombie Ruler.

Yes, you can only be revived once by Legacy of Marching Aeons

Viral Tyrant Legacy is not my creation of mine, it comes from the Olethrofex class, as do all of its manifestations. All I did was alphebetize them. Your zombies act just like normal zombies in your setting, so they'll rot if others rot, and stay strong if others stay strong. Having a horde of anything can always be annoying book-keeping, trust me.

I don't know what Deathless are, I'm afraid.

nikkoli
2015-09-24, 01:13 PM
Deathless are like undead but the opposite, like powered by positive energy not negative energy. They are supposed to be inhreentry good, not evil like most undead.
Afterthought: deathless don't really fit the theme of what's made up here. They don't really spread the plague and zombies and such if I remember right.

InfiniteNothing
2015-09-24, 10:47 PM
Huh. You went minion master after all. Looking back, I probably should've expected that.

Any chance the mythic zombie could become 'special zombie' themselves? I know a Tank/Blitzer/Tyrant combo would be terrifying for an opponent to face.

EdroGrimshell
2015-09-24, 10:57 PM
Deathless are like undead but the opposite, like powered by positive energy not negative energy. They are supposed to be inhreentry good, not evil like most undead.
Afterthought: deathless don't really fit the theme of what's made up here. They don't really spread the plague and zombies and such if I remember right.

Generally speaking, Deathless are protectors; of people, of knowledge, of morality, etc.

Also, what about Karnathi Zombies from the Eberron Campaign Setting?

Yasahiro
2015-09-25, 07:53 AM
It happened... Someone made Mythic Zombie.

I must hurry and finish work on my Mythic Skeleton!

Hell, it is already somewhat affected by Mythic Zombie's lore...

Did the three new Titans appearing sisterly after Abomination was slain? Or only after some time? Since I had lore written down that the creature of Mythic Skeletons became a new Primordial, or Titan, recently after Abomination died. And it was life energy that broke his skeleton body, of which pieces were imprisoned in flesh of mortals, hoping they won't escape... Actually, your lore fits so well. Because if we were to look for connections, it could be that your Titans were those that defeated mine, after which they took on task of shaping body, spirit and life to ensure nothing like my titan reappears...

Because there is a skeleton inside of you. And it wants out



You got nothing against this lore? Right?

7th son of sons
2015-09-25, 08:32 AM
It happened... Someone made Mythic Zombie.

I must hurry and finish work on my Mythic Skeleton!

Hell, it is already somewhat affected by Mythic Zombie's lore...

Did the three new Titans appearing sisterly after Abomination was slain? Or only after some time? Since I had lore written down that the creature of Mythic Skeletons became a new Primordial, or Titan, recently after Abomination died. And it was life energy that broke his skeleton body, of which pieces were imprisoned in flesh of mortals, hoping they won't escape... Actually, your lore fits so well. Because if we were to look for connections, it could be that your Titans were those that defeated mine, after which they took on task of shaping body, spirit and life to ensure nothing like my titan reappears...

Because there is a skeleton inside of you. And it wants out


You got nothing against this lore? Right?

They showed up shortly after the Abomination was killed. I have no problem with that lore, I'm actually a big fan. You go! Arise, my boney brothers. Arise and spook!

Lanth Sor
2015-09-25, 11:09 AM
Haven't read through it but I really like the approach to the feat having a delay to it.

Yasahiro
2015-09-25, 02:04 PM
They showed up shortly after the Abomination was killed. I have no problem with that lore, I'm actually a big fan. You go! Arise, my boney brothers. Arise and spook!

Makes me wonder. If Zombie is the Husk, it is the flesh of a creature that still moves, while Skeletons are the Structure and Spirits are those being built only of Purpose... What happens if three separate Mythic versions of each try to combine? Should they be allowed some special fusion that is outside of Mythic Fusion rules or just have a manifestation that only they could do?

Could a creature be separated into Husk, Structure and Purpose that seek to recombine, the way that Flay, Girdle and Spinal tried in Iron Kingdoms?

Arguably, it could be Mythic Spirit possessing either of them as they seek out last one, or Mythic Skeleton and Mythic Husk using the mythic fusion to even combine temporarily, unless Mythic Skeleton somehow rearranges itself into bony exoskeleton, but it would be exoskeleton, not Endo... Unless...

We could work out some separate mythos that would work for such ocassion.

Primal Fury
2015-09-25, 08:00 PM
I'm wondering why there's no brain-eating going on here. Is that not iconic enough?

EDIT: A suggestion... Rather than adding more and more Titans, have you considered making things such as these mythos of the Titans' Premises? For example, maybe the Husk is a premise of the Abomination, exemplifying, as you say, the structure of Death (if what I just said makes any sense at all).

EDIT 2: Also, that brain-eating addition is really cool, but seriously...

Consumption of a living creatures Brain is especially effectiv. By spending a full-round action feasting on a creature whose brain is exposed, and that has an intelligence of higher than three, you heal a number of hit-points equal to the creatures hit-dice, and have one of the following effects lifted from you: Fatigue, Exhaustion, Sickened, Nauseated, Dehydrated, Shaken, Frightened, or Confused.

Consumption of a living creatures Brain is especially effectiv.

is especially effectiv.

effectiv.
It burns.

Quarian Rex
2015-09-28, 01:41 AM
This is all kinds of good. In return, I present to you a PEACH. Take what I say with a grain of salt and remember that I like what you're doing and think that I'm helping.




NEW FEAT: Legacy of Marching Aeons

The fluff seems good but fluff is not my forte. I'll leave proper commentary on that to others.



Prerequsite: A Corporeal Form, 6th level

The 6th level restriction seems odd. What was your thinking here? If you think that a free Raising is something that should be delayed for balance reasons, I would have to disagree. The higher the level of the character the more value a Raising has due to time/energy inversted in the character. Giving a first or second level character a mulligan after a fatal encounter with the neighbors dire chihuahua is functionally the same as bringing in a new character and so has little to no effect balance-wise.

What the 6th level limit does do is restrict a lot of interesting concepts. No tales of how a characters first adventure resulted in a TPK, yet he still walked away, vowing to never let his weakness endanger those around him again. No encounters with a child who just came back wrong after being buried in the wrong (right?) place (a la Pet Cemetary).

Obviously, I'm not a fan of the 6th level restriction. I can't see any up-side, balance or otherwise, and plenty of downsides. Please reconsider.



You do not gain the effects of this feat immediately. Rather, the next you die, you experience the chilling and life changing shell shock that comes from revival without your soul. Within 24d4 hours of your death, assuming no outside interruptions, you return to life, taking all the normal penalties for being affected with “Raise Dead”, with the following alterations.

Good call on delaying the effects of the feat till after the character dies. This adds a lot of potential fun while the player seeks a dramatically appropriate trigger event. The bolded parts, however, need to be clarified. You need to specify if the lack of soul is fluffy exposition or if spells and effects (like Trap the Soul and such) work differently on him. Also, what if there are interruptions? Does he stay dead? Is the Raising delayed? What constitutes a disruption? This will come up in game and needs to be addressed.

I suggest adding a note that the characters biological functions (breathing, blinking, etc.) can take up to 24hrs after Raising to kick back in. That way there is no question as to whether character has enough time to dig himself out of his grave before he suffocates.

Since the character is healed by negative energy and counts as undead for prerequisites but has no other traits of the undead type you should say that he counts as having the Tomb Tainted Soul feat for prereq's as well. Let him add a little more undead flavour without paying for something he already has.




The Waking Dead

A lot of interesting options here and further support for removing the 6th level limit so a 2HD zombie can qualify. Granted, how a mindless creatue can get feats is a question best left for the DM.




Bleak Lifeless Synapse Acceptance



... select one poison or disease you have been afflicted with since taking this mythos.

Change 'afflicted with' to 'exposed to' since, technically, immunity means that he can't be afflicted. Otherwise, great mythos. All of the manifestations are good options as well. Interesting, versatile, a little masochistic, I like.




Ignoble Bloodlust-Satiating Banquet



This bite deals 1d6 piercing damage...

By default bite attacks do Bludgeoning/Piercing/Slashing damage. These guys aren't dainty little vampires, no need to restrict it. Let them rip/tear/crush.



For each round you spend feeding, you heal a single hit point. You can heal a number of points off one corpse in this way equal to your constitution modifier.

No. This is just too pitifully small an amount of healing. To be clear, the rate of healing, 1 hp per round of eating (or 2 hp per bite to a mobile opponent) is fine, but only getting your Con bonus out of an entire corpse? Tis a tragedy. Allow them to get up to the dead creatures Con Score and I think you'll be good. That way each corpse is a little better than a Cure Light Wounds spell and larger creatures will generally provide more healing (previously a rat and a great wyrm healed the same).

The brain-eating seems to be at a good balance point and provides a little extra utility. Good job.




Relentless Fleshen Onslaught

The first paragragh has some interesting bonuses and some appropriate but lackluster feats. You just need to clarify whether the charging over difficult ground is with halved movement or not. Currently it could be taken either way.



When you make an attack with a natural weapon or unarmed attack, you can choose to deal additional damage up to your class level, taking the same damage in return, as you bite with the force to shatter your teeth or punch with the force to snap to your wrist. This must be announced before the attack roll is made but you do not suffer the damage from this ability unless you successfully hit the target.

Add the bolded parts or something like it. I think that Monks are the only ones who consider unarmed attacks to be natural. The second bolded bit is vital. I like the idea of adding your pain to someone elses but taking damage for punching air is silly, unthematic, and negates the utility of an ability that is already a gamble.




Godless Animative Restoration-Presence

Necromantic Presence and Necromantic Might only effect undead that you control. And, at least with mythos from this feat, you don't actually control any. Add a note that these bonuses apply to any undead in their area that you wish to effect.

The Aura of Unlife is flavourful but the bonuses and penalties are of little mechanical concern.

As for the reanimation, that's cool. I like. Tis inreresting that it is uncontroled but with suggested direction. Adds an interesting twist. The only problem I have with it is this...


... the corpse rises back to life with the Zombie template, and a starting disposition towards you one higher than it was in life.

Considering that most things that die in your Aura of Unlife are things that you kill you will be animating a lot of uncontroled undead that are, at best, unfriendly to you. With mindless undead that usually means face eating. Granted, the aura prevents the direct face eating of you but that doesn't stop them from pouncing on those near you, or anything you happen to glance fondly at. In short, everything you reanimate is going to be a jerk to you. And because they are mindless they won't even be clever jerks, just full on stick-their-head-one-inch-in-front-of-your-eyeholes-when-you-have-to-make-a-perception-check jerks. You better hope that you worded that suggestion just right cause the DM is going to monkey paw the hell out of it just so he can get back to making the zombies act like jerks. This needs fixing.

Perhaps say that all mindless undead created are considered Friendly (zombies now pick you the occasional pretty flower or offer you the very choicest gobbet of spleen) and all undead animated with an Int score have a disposition towards you one higher than it was in life.

Also, specify that bonuses from the Corpsecrafter feats apply to undead created with this ability.



Awakening Sleeping Angels

Increases the animation possibilities and is a solid choice,



Expanding the Mausoleum

Increases target possibilities and so is a good option. Just change the last sentence to...

"Zombies animated with this mythos lose the “Partial Actions Only” Special Quality."

I really like adding a buff to your zombies with each creature type expansion, just make it inclusive, having an effect on all the zombies you raise, not just the narrow few.



Fantastic Undeath Expanditure

Same as above, just change the last to...

"Zombies animated with this mythos retain any special attacks they had in life."

For the same reasons as above.



Growing the Garden of the Afterlife

This one leaves me with a giant 'Meh". The shield bonus is lackluster and I'm not sure if the Yellow Musk Zombie can even function without a Creeper. Maybe if you got rid of the shield bonus and said that the character now counts as a Yellow Musk Creeper for control purposes it might be useful but then it would be the most powerful option, being the only one that would offer any actual control. No easy answers here.

And this 10% chance thing? It has got to go. Seriously. Even if someone actually took this manifestation (masochism perhaps?) just to drop dead Musk Zombies everywhere to sprout Musk Creepers as a harrassment tactic against an enemy domain (not a bad idea actually) he would have to pray to RNJesus that the dice favour him to get the precious Musk Zombie. Do not do this thing. How about having a cost in mythos points of 25/HD of the animated creature? That way when making something a little funky you need to pay the equivalent gold cost of the Animate Dead spell.



Macabre Hate-Monger Factory

The NA bonus is nice but the prize here is that you finally get to an intelligent zombie and that opens a lot of interesting options. Or at least you would have interesting options if you could actually apply the template where it needs to go. Even more than the last manifestation, this one needs to lose the 10% component and allow the player to put this where it is interesting. I know that this is kind of a holdover from Mutant Necrosis Proliferation but it made that otherwise cool ability useless and it is even worse here.




Unflinching Single-Minded Obstinence

This is a solid mythos. Incredible useful abilities and flavourful side effects. The only recomendation I can make to the base mythos is to bump up the duration on Haste. Everything else 1d4 rounds or longer and the Electricity option is noticibly weak by comparison. If you don't want to bump it up to 1d4 then at least make it a solid 2 rounds to get some tactical use out of it.



Corrosive Dread Revenant

Effective in a niche application, nothing too nuts. It's good.



Frozen Waste-Walker
Scorched-Earth Soldier

Lumping both these together since they are essentially the same ability just with different elements. That said, tis good. Definite offensive buff but nothing too crazy and that works for a mainly defensive mythos.



Voltaic Grave Visitant

The quadrupling of the speed seems a little out of place here. Base level Haste has the speed angle covered, how about focusing on the reflex angle more? What about a +2 dodge bonus to AC, +2 to Reflex saves, an additional Attack of Opportunity and the 1d6 electricity damage? And again, this really needs a duration boost. A single round just is not going to cut it.




Blightful Unsanctified Hordechief

This is a mythos filled with cool stuff... that doesn't really work together... and is kind of a letdown.

By this point you've probably spent the last six levels randomly animating an extremely limited number of zombies that you can vaguely direct in a given direction, hoping against hope that the DM doesn't monkey-paw your wording. Six levels of wrangling a herd of cats composed of petulant zombies that don't even like you. And your reward for reaching the pinacle of Mythic Zombie-hood? You may now Rebuke Undead. You can finally get a single good sized Juju zombie to actually do what you want. Yay! Oh, and your herd of petulant cats just got a buff so they can trash your stuff even more effectively. And you're probably killing your entire party just by standing next to them. Even if they are also Mythic Zonbies.

Seriously though, the Rebuke Undead thing is just way too little way too late. By this point, give them a way to actually control some undead. Give them triple the control limit for commanding undead so long as they're zombies. Say that if you want create a zombie you can automatically add it to your control pool, without a command check (or save if using Pathfinder) so long as there is room.

The bonuses are all solid, and I see that they are mostly untyped so they can stack with Corpsecrafter and such. That's good. You have a narrow enough animation niche that I don't see that as being a problem.

As for the life sucking doom aura, it needs a way to be suppressed. Some way to not leave a swath of dead commoners/party members behind you as you walk through the market. It doesn't have to be pleasant though. How about it takea a full-round action to choke down the hungry void inside you and it will stay suppressed until you set it free (swift action to release it), but so long as it is suppressed you are sickened. This condition applies even if you are normally immune to it and does not stack with any other sickened condition.

The damage component needs some clarification. Negative energy is dealt to everything but only Zombies are healed by it. This implies that other undead and negative energy resistants/healers are undamaged in the outer field. Within 10ft, however, the damage becomes vile negative energy and bypasses resistance. Does this mean that non-Zombie undead take vile negative energy damage within that radius? Does that mean that two Mythic Zombies with this Mythos would be damaging each other within that radius (since they are not listed under the previous definition of zombie)? This all needs to be spelled out.



Any intelligent living animal, humanoid, or monstrous humanoid killed in your Aura will rise as a Zombie in 1d4 minutes.

This needs to be changed to reflect effort and expense placed into Godless Animative Restoration-Presence. Unlocked creature types should be fair game here, likewise special abilities. How about a change to something like...

'Any creature that you could normally aimate with Godless Animative Restoration-Presence killed in your Aura will rise as a Zombie, as if with that mythos, in 1d4 minutes, not counting against the number of undead that you can normally animate per day.'

That way you can raise up all the dead so long as you don't mind waiting 10-40 rounds. Have a more immediate need? Double your HD will jump to attention at the snap of your fingers. And the slow risers are more pleasantly disposed towards you and take suggestions for good measure. Now you have a nice progression from a previous ability instead of a sub-par replacement.



Building a Better Horde

Interesting ability but expensive and very niche. I suggest letting them craft undead grafts for half cost since they are over priced and he will need to make a bunch to make this worthwhile.



Elite Undead Enforcers

Again, cool little abilities but the percentage chance needs to go. Or keep it and add the option to spend mythos points to empower them. Even a token cost of 10 or something would be good. You just need to be able to use this strategically and that currently cannot be done.



By paying 3,000 Mythos Points and 5,000 XP, you may undergo a specialized right, taking 24 hours, and then having you reborn as the Special Zombie you qualify for.

This needs way more explaination good sir. Are you becoming undead and getting one of these bonuses? Are you applying one of your available Zombie templates, and one of these bonuses, to yourself? Are you remaining a living creature but getting the special ability you qualify for from this ability and now counting as a Zombie for the purposes of the rest of your abilities? These are all possible, yet incompatible, interpretations. You must pick one and spell it out (I'm leaning towards the last one).



Specialized Afterlife Mutation

Same thing as above times two. Times two because you have mental enhancements on a creature that is notorious for having no mental abilities to enhance. You have Smart Zombies with no Int score and Dread Lords with Cha 1. Not useful. I'd suggest that any Zombie that gets this mutation keeps the mental attributes it had in life if they were better. Now you have a baseline and the rest of this can make sense.



Village Razing Mob Mentality

I like the base ability. Trying to defend against a siege of these guys would be a nightmare. As for the standard action target calling, how long does the bonus last? A set number of rounds? Till you call something else? I'm leaning towards the later. Also, you need to add something to motivate the Zombies. Remember, you really don't control much here. You gave these guys a vague suggestion upon creation and if they go too far they start dying, and so generally mill around you, but you have no abilities to actually profide direction. How about all Zombies in the area are automatically Hostile to the targeted creature/object and any non-Zombie between them and it. And at long last you finally have a way to reliably direct your hateful herd of cats.


I hope this helps.

7th son of sons
2015-09-28, 02:49 AM
This is all kinds of good. In return, I present to you a PEACH. Take what I say with a grain of salt and remember that I like what you're doing and think that I'm helping.

Yay! A PEACH! I'm all for it, let's see what I screw up beyond repair.



The fluff seems good but fluff is not my forte. I'll leave proper commentary on that to others.

Cool, Thanks! Probably gonna tweak that too at some point. Like Primal said, when everyone's a Titan... no one is.


The 6th level restriction seems odd. What was your thinking here? If you think that a free Raising is something that should be delayed for balance reasons, I would have to disagree. The higher the level of the character the more value a Raising has due to time/energy inversted in the character. Giving a first or second level character a mulligan after a fatal encounter with the neighbors dire chihuahua is functionally the same as bringing in a new character and so has little to no effect balance-wise.

What the 6th level limit does do is restrict a lot of interesting concepts. No tales of how a characters first adventure resulted in a TPK, yet he still walked away, vowing to never let his weakness endanger those around him again. No encounters with a child who just came back wrong after being buried in the wrong (right?) place (a la Pet Cemetary).

Obviously, I'm not a fan of the 6th level restriction. I can't see any up-side, balance or otherwise, and plenty of downsides. Please reconsider.

Originally, Yes, the 6th level restriction was because I thought coming back to life, for free, was a very powerful effect. And while it is, in a sense, you bring up quite a solid array of points on why it's okay for low level characters to take this feat, for both power and pleasure, have made me reconsider. And yeah, the fact that regular Zombies don't qualify is dumb.


Good call on delaying the effects of the feat till after the character dies. This adds a lot of potential fun while the player seeks a dramatically appropriate trigger event. The bolded parts, however, need to be clarified. You need to specify if the lack of soul is fluffy exposition or if spells and effects (like Trap the Soul and such) work differently on him. Also, what if there are interruptions? Does he stay dead? Is the Raising delayed? What constitutes a disruption? This will come up in game and needs to be addressed.

I suggest adding a note that the characters biological functions (breathing, blinking, etc.) can take up to 24hrs after Raising to kick back in. That way there is no question as to whether character has enough time to dig himself out of his grave before he suffocates.

Since the character is healed by negative energy and counts as undead for prerequisites but has no other traits of the undead type you should say that he counts as having the Tomb Tainted Soul feat for prereq's as well. Let him add a little more undead flavour without paying for something he already has.

All very good points. The Soul bit is, indeed, just fluff, your soul works as normal in all regards aside from maybe how your character acts towards it, if that makes sense. By "Interruptions" I mostly meant if something like, say, Wolverines showed up and mauled your corpse to shreds, or, more friendly, your buddies brought you back to life. If the former happens, well, there's not enough for you to come back, and your DM might be unhappy with the feat (Or realistic with the world), and the latter means... you're not dead anymore. You'll just have to be raised next time you die.


A lot of interesting options here and further support for removing the 6th level limit so a 2HD zombie can qualify. Granted, how a mindless creatue can get feats is a question best left for the DM.

Thank you, thank you. I never considered that a Zombie couldn't qualify for this class. Last time I fought a Zombie in Dnd was... it's been a while.


Change 'afflicted with' to 'exposed to' since, technically, immunity means that he can't be afflicted. Otherwise, great mythos. All of the manifestations are good options as well. Interesting, versatile, a little masochistic, I like.

Specific English, the bane of my existence. Consider it changed!


By default bite attacks do Bludgeoning/Piercing/Slashing damage. These guys aren't dainty little vampires, no need to restrict it. Let them rip/tear/crush.

I Actually did not know this. That's cool!


No. This is just too pitifully small an amount of healing. To be clear, the rate of healing, 1 hp per round of eating (or 2 hp per bite to a mobile opponent) is fine, but only getting your Con bonus out of an entire corpse? Tis a tragedy. Allow them to get up to the dead creatures Con Score and I think you'll be good. That way each corpse is a little better than a Cure Light Wounds spell and larger creatures will generally provide more healing (previously a rat and a great wyrm healed the same).

The brain-eating seems to be at a good balance point and provides a little extra utility. Good job.

Again, fair and strong points. You SHOULD get more Hit-Points back from eating big things with big constitution. Red Head is good for you!


The first paragragh has some interesting bonuses and some appropriate but lackluster feats. You just need to clarify whether the charging over difficult ground is with halved movement or not. Currently it could be taken either way.

I don't think allowing full movement over bumpy rocks and knee-deep water for a character who can injure himself to hurt people is such a stretch, do you?


Add the bolded parts or something like it. I think that Monks are the only ones who consider unarmed attacks to be natural. The second bolded bit is vital. I like the idea of adding your pain to someone elses but taking damage for punching air is silly, unthematic, and negates the utility of an ability that is already a gamble.

While the thought of a Mythic Kathados Zombie throwing a punch, missing, and his arm flying off into the distance, never to be seen again, is hilarious, I can see how this might be problematic. I'll make the necessary edits.


Necromantic Presence and Necromantic Might only effect undead that you control. And, at least with mythos from this feat, you don't actually control any. Add a note that these bonuses apply to any undead in their area that you wish to effect.

The Aura of Unlife is flavourful but the bonuses and penalties are of little mechanical concern.

As for the reanimation, that's cool. I like. Tis inreresting that it is uncontroled but with suggested direction. Adds an interesting twist. The only problem I have with it is this...

Considering that most things that die in your Aura of Unlife are things that you kill you will be animating a lot of uncontroled undead that are, at best, unfriendly to you. With mindless undead that usually means face eating. Granted, the aura prevents the direct face eating of you but that doesn't stop them from pouncing on those near you, or anything you happen to glance fondly at. In short, everything you reanimate is going to be a jerk to you. And because they are mindless they won't even be clever jerks, just full on stick-their-head-one-inch-in-front-of-your-eyeholes-when-you-have-to-make-a-perception-check jerks. You better hope that you worded that suggestion just right cause the DM is going to monkey paw the hell out of it just so he can get back to making the zombies act like jerks. This needs fixing.

Perhaps say that all mindless undead created are considered Friendly (zombies now pick you the occasional pretty flower or offer you the very choicest gobbet of spleen) and all undead animated with an Int score have a disposition towards you one higher than it was in life.

Also, specify that bonuses from the Corpsecrafter feats apply to undead created with this ability.

Bossing around a bunch of passive aggresive dorks is not the intent of this mythos, so yeah, probably want mindless undead to be nice to us. Smart Zombies are Smart Zombies, so they'll probably be dorks anyway, but that's the risk we run when we give henchmen intelligence. And yeah, adding Corpsecrafter stuff to these guys isn't going to break anything (Except Bones) so we'll stick it on too.


Increases the animation possibilities and is a solid choice,


Increases target possibilities and so is a good option. Just change the last sentence to...

"Zombies animated with this mythos lose the “Partial Actions Only” Special Quality."

I really like adding a buff to your zombies with each creature type expansion, just make it inclusive, having an effect on all the zombies you raise, not just the narrow few.


Same as above, just change the last to...

"Zombies animated with this mythos retain any special attacks they had in life."

For the same reasons as above.

Yeah, we want to be an Equal Opportunities Zombie Tyrant Lord, so we should be giving all of our undead underlings the opportunity to walk AND talk in the same round.


This one leaves me with a giant 'Meh". The shield bonus is lackluster and I'm not sure if the Yellow Musk Zombie can even function without a Creeper. Maybe if you got rid of the shield bonus and said that the character now counts as a Yellow Musk Creeper for control purposes it might be useful but then it would be the most powerful option, being the only one that would offer any actual control. No easy answers here.

And this 10% chance thing? It has got to go. Seriously. Even if someone actually took this manifestation (masochism perhaps?) just to drop dead Musk Zombies everywhere to sprout Musk Creepers as a harrassment tactic against an enemy domain (not a bad idea actually) he would have to pray to RNJesus that the dice favour him to get the precious Musk Zombie. Do not do this thing. How about having a cost in mythos points of 25/HD of the animated creature? That way when making something a little funky you need to pay the equivalent gold cost of the Animate Dead spell.

The pricing for making weird stuff seems fair. If Dread Necro's got to do it, these guys probably should too. Hmm... I'll meditate on this one, see if I can find a way to boss around these weird-undead-plant-spore-people....


The NA bonus is nice but the prize here is that you finally get to an intelligent zombie and that opens a lot of interesting options. Or at least you would have interesting options if you could actually apply the template where it needs to go. Even more than the last manifestation, this one needs to lose the 10% component and allow the player to put this where it is interesting. I know that this is kind of a holdover from Mutant Necrosis Proliferation but it made that otherwise cool ability useless and it is even worse here.

Yeah, probably gonna take that price from above and put it on here too, maybe a little higher for making these scary, but smart, hate zombies.


This is a solid mythos. Incredible useful abilities and flavourful side effects. The only recomendation I can make to the base mythos is to bump up the duration on Haste. Everything else 1d4 rounds or longer and the Electricity option is noticibly weak by comparison. If you don't want to bump it up to 1d4 then at least make it a solid 2 rounds to get some tactical use out of it.

1d4 Rounds of a 3rd level spell when getting electrocuted (possibly the rarest of the 4) shouldn't cause too much unbalancing.


Effective in a niche application, nothing too nuts. It's good.

Lumping both these together since they are essentially the same ability just with different elements. That said, tis good. Definite offensive buff but nothing too crazy and that works for a mainly defensive mythos.


The quadrupling of the speed seems a little out of place here. Base level Haste has the speed angle covered, how about focusing on the reflex angle more? What about a +2 dodge bonus to AC, +2 to Reflex saves, an additional Attack of Opportunity and the 1d6 electricity damage? And again, this really needs a duration boost. A single round just is not going to cut it.

Blame it on my own lack of experience, but I forgot Haste increases your movement speed. Yeah, giving bonuses to all those dexterity abilities tyou might be lacking in post Rigor-Mortis seems like a fine substitute for being Zombie Flash.


This is a mythos filled with cool stuff... that doesn't really work together... and is kind of a letdown.

By this point you've probably spent the last six levels randomly animating an extremely limited number of zombies that you can vaguely direct in a given direction, hoping against hope that the DM doesn't monkey-paw your wording. Six levels of wrangling a herd of cats composed of petulant zombies that don't even like you. And your reward for reaching the pinacle of Mythic Zombie-hood? You may now Rebuke Undead. You can finally get a single good sized Juju zombie to actually do what you want. Yay! Oh, and your herd of petulant cats just got a buff so they can trash your stuff even more effectively. And you're probably killing your entire party just by standing next to them. Even if they are also Mythic Zonbies.

This picture entertains me, but, again, problematic. So let's disect these problems, shaaaaaaaall we?


Seriously though, the Rebuke Undead thing is just way too little way too late. By this point, give them a way to actually control some undead. Give them triple the control limit for commanding undead so long as they're zombies. Say that if you want create a zombie you can automatically add it to your control pool, without a command check (or save if using Pathfinder) so long as there is room.

Now that you mention that, five levels prior to this mythos becoming available (at least), the Dread Necro got a boost pretty comparable to this one, but for ALL undead. So multiplying our command horde by three, or even four, at 13th level, shouldn't be too big a deal, as you bring up.


The bonuses are all solid, and I see that they are mostly untyped so they can stack with Corpsecrafter and such. That's good. You have a narrow enough animation niche that I don't see that as being a problem.

Thanks!


As for the life sucking doom aura, it needs a way to be suppressed. Some way to not leave a swath of dead commoners/party members behind you as you walk through the market. It doesn't have to be pleasant though. How about it takea a full-round action to choke down the hungry void inside you and it will stay suppressed until you set it free (swift action to release it), but so long as it is suppressed you are sickened. This condition applies even if you are normally immune to it and does not stack with any other sickened condition.

Flavorful AND Encourages Team-Play! Fun for the whole party! I like it. Mind if I lift this?


The damage component needs some clarification. Negative energy is dealt to everything but only Zombies are healed by it. This implies that other undead and negative energy resistants/healers are undamaged in the outer field. Within 10ft, however, the damage becomes vile negative energy and bypasses resistance. Does this mean that non-Zombie undead take vile negative energy damage within that radius? Does that mean that two Mythic Zombies with this Mythos would be damaging each other within that radius (since they are not listed under the previous definition of zombie)? This all needs to be spelled out.

One of these days, non-specificity is going to kill me. I'll spell it all out within the mythos.


This needs to be changed to reflect effort and expense placed into Godless Animative Restoration-Presence. Unlocked creature types should be fair game here, likewise special abilities. How about a change to something like...

'Any creature that you could normally animate with Godless Animative Restoration-Presence killed in your Aura will rise as a Zombie, as if with that mythos, in 1d4 minutes, not counting against the number of undead that you can normally animate per day.'

That way you can raise up all the dead so long as you don't mind waiting 10-40 rounds. Have a more immediate need? Double your HD will jump to attention at the snap of your fingers. And the slow risers are more pleasantly disposed towards you and take suggestions for good measure. Now you have a nice progression from a previous ability instead of a sub-par replacement.

Dynamicaly useful and bring up the power of the mythos to be in line with other mythos you could have taken. Looks good, feels good.


Interesting ability but expensive and very niche. I suggest letting them craft undead grafts for half cost since they are over priced and he will need to make a bunch to make this worthwhile.

I didn't know Grafts were considered overpriced, but I can see it. Let's making our corpse-ificier pretty good at it.


Again, cool little abilities but the percentage chance needs to go. Or keep it and add the option to spend mythos points to empower them. Even a token cost of 10 or something would be good. You just need to be able to use this strategically and that currently cannot be done.

Yeah, 10% to be a better horde master at (un)birth, and a cost you can pay to become a better one despite this. Perhaps something similar to the cost of "Awaken Undead"?


This needs way more explaination good sir. Are you becoming undead and getting one of these bonuses? Are you applying one of your available Zombie templates, and one of these bonuses, to yourself? Are you remaining a living creature but getting the special ability you qualify for from this ability and now counting as a Zombie for the purposes of the rest of your abilities? These are all possible, yet incompatible, interpretations. You must pick one and spell it out (I'm leaning towards the last one).

Yeah, this one wasn't in the initial design, so it makes sense that it would prove somewhat problematic. Yes, the last of those options you explained looks very attractive, and allows us to be stronger from... being stronger. BUFFS!


Same thing as above times two. Times two because you have mental enhancements on a creature that is notorious for having no mental abilities to enhance. You have Smart Zombies with no Int score and Dread Lords with Cha 1. Not useful. I'd suggest that any Zombie that gets this mutation keeps the mental attributes it had in life if they were better. Now you have a baseline and the rest of this can make sense.

I actually meant to include this. Oops. :smallredface:


I like the base ability. Trying to defend against a siege of these guys would be a nightmare. As for the standard action target calling, how long does the bonus last? A set number of rounds? Till you call something else? I'm leaning towards the later. Also, you need to add something to motivate the Zombies. Remember, you really don't control much here. You gave these guys a vague suggestion upon creation and if they go too far they start dying, and so generally mill around you, but you have no abilities to actually profide direction. How about all Zombies in the area are automatically Hostile to the targeted creature/object and any non-Zombie between them and it. And at long last you finally have a way to reliably direct your hateful herd of cats.

Yeah, your zombies should continue rampaging at that thing you hate slightly more at this moment until you hate something else more than that. Holding grudges is an undead speciality. Your aura feeds them, why not have it instill them with your hatred too? I'm all for it.


I hope this helps.

I certainly think it does. I'm glad I now have such a thorough review of one of my works. I'm very thankful. These changes will probably be put into effect very soon. Now what to do about Yellow Musk Zombies...

Quarian Rex
2015-09-28, 08:36 PM
I don't think allowing full movement over bumpy rocks and knee-deep water for a character who can injure himself to hurt people is such a stretch, do you?

Nope, sounds good.



Flavorful AND Encourages Team-Play! Fun for the whole party! I like it. Mind if I lift this?

Tis yours. Gratis. Freely and of my own free will.



Yeah, 10% to be a better horde master at (un)birth, and a cost you can pay to become a better one despite this. Perhaps something similar to the cost of "Awaken Undead"?

I had to look up Awaken Undead, but yeah, if you do it in a similar area and have a cost of 200 mythos points (I try to avoind Xp costs whemever I can) or so I think that would be fine.



I'll meditate on this one, see if I can find a way to boss around these weird-undead-plant-spore-people....

Now what to do about Yellow Musk Zombies...

I was thinking about this. How about changing the shield bonus to 2+1/3 levels (to a max of +7 ar 15th level). Your undead corruption of this bit of plant life allows you to plant a seed of undeath (literally) in a corpse. The seed hatches from the corpses head and grows into a fully mature Yellow Musk Creeper within 1 min. due to the unnatural vigor of the undead taint (costing 6HD of your daily animation limit). You may provide the Creeper with a Suggestion as per Godless Animative Restoration-Presence and that suggestion is applied to any Yellow Musk Zombie it creates as well as any future generations of Creeper grown from its Zombies. Both Yellow Musk Creepers and Yellow Musk Zombies created as a result of this manifestation are treated as both Undead and Zombies for the purposes of any mythos requiring the Legacy of Marching Aeons feat and may exist further than 100ft away from you without taking damage.

Now you have an interesting niche ability for long term area denial. Having the Creepers come off of daily animation is a good enough limit on Creeper spam and I don't think this one needs a mythos point cost. Thoughts?

InfiniteNothing
2015-10-01, 12:08 AM
Hmm... Here's a thought for a Blightful Unsanctified Hordechief manifestation:

Graveyard Miasma Shroud: The deathly cold of your aura creates a cloud of unnatural mist within it that grants all creatures inside concealment (20% miss chance). Within 10 feet of you, the miss chance from concealment doubles. Zombies (including yourself) do not suffer a miss chance from the mist, and can see through it clearly. Additionally, living creatures (apart from yourself, if applicable) entering the mist must make a Fort save or become sickened, and must make another when they come within 10 feet of you or become nauseated. These conditions last until they leave the aura +1d4 rounds.

What do you think? Too much? Not enough?

Side note: I think you mean deathwatch instead of death knell in the above mythos' description, unless you want to kill every dying creature within 50 feet.

7th son of sons
2015-10-02, 01:14 AM
Hmm... Here's a thought for a Blightful Unsanctified Hordechief manifestation:

Graveyard Miasma Shroud: The deathly cold of your aura creates a cloud of unnatural mist within it that grants all creatures inside concealment (20% miss chance). Within 10 feet of you, the miss chance from concealment doubles. Zombies (including yourself) do not suffer a miss chance from the mist, and can see through it clearly. Additionally, living creatures (apart from yourself, if applicable) entering the mist must make a Fort save or become sickened, and must make another when they come within 10 feet of you or become nauseated. These conditions last until they leave the aura +1d4 rounds.

What do you think? Too much? Not enough?

Side note: I think you mean deathwatch instead of death knell in the above mythos' description, unless you want to kill every dying creature within 50 feet.

I like it. I like it a lot. However, I think I have somewhere else for this, if you don't mind seeing your work a little later on The Mythic Ghost (BUM BUM BUUUUUUUM!). And, yeah, Deathwatch =/= Death Knell.

As for Quarian's Yellow Musk Fix, I'll add it all the same. Seems like this bad boy is nice and ready to roll into a game, somewhere.

InfiniteNothing
2015-10-02, 01:47 AM
You sure? 'Cloud of decay-scented mist' says 'zombie' to me more than 'ghost'. The 'decay-scented' part, at least. Besides, it's already building off the mythos' base aura.

Still, let's see what the Mythic Ghost has in store before making a final call. What do you say?

7th son of sons
2015-10-02, 01:52 AM
You sure? 'Cloud of decay-scented mist' says 'zombie' to me more than 'ghost'. The 'decay-scented' part, at least. Besides, it's already building off the mythos' base aura.

Still, let's see what the Mythic Ghost has in store before making a final call. What do you say?

Fair points, indeed. The sickening chill of undeath seemed to point towards ghostly spookiness, but it lends itself towards zombie just as well. Your idea, your call to make. Expect the Mythic Ghost within the week. (Setting deadlines helps me disappoint people)