possessed ashes?

[Braininthejar2]

I'm looking for a "hive mind" themed undead that could emerge from a mass sacrificial pyre. Can anyone suggest anything?

[The Viscount]

Depends on what you want to make it from. If you want a bunch of animals, an ephemeral swarm.

If you want a bunch of people, a dream vestige. Alternatively, a caller in darkness.

If you want to make many small monsters out of them, you could do it via tomb motes and vasuthants, since they're made of dust and other detritus, and vague smoke respectively.

[Necroticplague]

Swarm-Shifter template applied to any sufficiently massive undead seems appropriate. One of the options, Swarm of Undead Sand, seems fairly close thematically.

[TheBrassDuke]

It's not necessarily hive-mind, or even a swarm--but for something like this, I immediately thought about Boneyard, from Libris Mortis. Refluff it as animated ashes.

Ironically, my equivalent to a DA-style Temple of Sacred (Saint) Ashes was animated using the Boneyard, and it was the very angry spirit of a vengeful saint and their dead retainers. Killed our Elf Druid and the Gnome Bard. Whoops. They became one with the mass.

[Ruethgar]

You could also do a Mob(DMII) of Dustform whatevers.

[Coidzor]

Could have a Haunting Presence(Libris Mortis) or take a gander at the Haunt rules over in Pathfinder(IIRC their newish Horror Adventures book)

[Bohandas]

There's the Pyre Elemental and Grave Elemental from Denizens of Dread

[unseenmage]

Awaken Sand from Sandstorm could turn ash into an ooze-like Construct.

Check out the Dust is Lazy link in my sig for some other ideas of what to do with particulates.


Theres also the original swarm rules in the Book of Vile Darkness. Turns a massive lot of little things into a sorcerous evil hive mind.
Supposed to be used on vermin but nothing says you couldn't use it on Dust Motes ir even Animated Object ashes if you wanted.

[Braininthejar2]

There's the Pyre Elemental and Grave Elemental from Denizens of Dread

I see the authors never run out of ideas for monsters... though they do run out of names. Geist? seriously?

[Segev]

I'll second boneyard. Bones are often left behind after a charnal fire, so just make it out of blackened bones and dripping streams of ash with every motion.

[TheBrassDuke]

I'll second boneyard. Bones are often left behind after a charnal fire, so just make it out of blackened bones and dripping streams of ash with every motion.

It worked really well. Our Boneyard "Ashpit" was able to twist and contort, take on the aspect of its many victims (obviously in ashen form) and whatnot; it was decent. It demolished the Temple towards the climax of the encounter, which I hadn't initially planned on, and with the deaths of few PCs only made it better. I frightened our wizard...heh.

Edit: Oh. Don't forget to add the Evolved Undead template to it.

[Extra Anchovies]

Caller in Darkness hits the undead psychic collective nail right on the head, but it lacks any thematic ties to fire. The Fire-Souled template (Dragon 314) is, to my knowledge, the only template which adds the fire subtype and can be applied to incorporeal undead, so if we want to avoid fiat or handwaving it's probably our best option. Adding Fire-Souled to a Caller in Darkness gives it the fire subtype, a 1/day Haste SLA, immunity to daze, an almost-unusably-situational x/day on-hit debuff (it blocks the use of one Cha-based-save-allowing ability or spell for a few rounds), +4 Cha (which boosts its psionics DCs), and Leadership as a bonus feat. I think the listed CR of 10 (9, +1 from Fire-Souled) is pretty fair; it's low on HP, but incorporeality makes it hard to hit and it's got some rather strong save-or-lose and ability damage effects.

[Inevitability]

What if the mass sacrifice summoned a high-level Fiend of Possession, which then took control of the victim's ashes? It's not undead by nature, but with the right templates it could be.

[Braininthejar2]

Edit: Oh. Don't forget to add the Evolved Undead template to it.

It wasn't years of sacrificing people in the fire. It was a jaw-droppingly horrible mass sacrifice last week.


What if the mass sacrifice summoned a high-level Fiend of Possession, which then took control of the victim's ashes? It's not undead by nature, but with the right templates it could be.

The sacrifice brought Imix. (this is a part of my Baldur's Gate campaign - I want to include him there like in the computer game, but he's too big a player to just sit there like a random encounter, so I'm building the dungeon around him, with him as the boss)

[TheBrassDuke]

It wasn't years of sacrificing people in the fire. It was a jaw-droppingly horrible mass sacrifice last week.

No, but giving it the Evolved Undead template can still work, as it's a pretty downright brutal ritual what killed many, many people. Dark magic can be ridiculously convoluted. Add the template and add one of those SLAs that fits best...it can be beautiful.