'Living' undead

[Stonker]

I'm looking to have some variant undead in a campign setting I am working on. This is an area that's kind of a tug of war between rifts into the positive and negative planes. I'm trying to think of some creative ways that positive/life energy can mutate things.
One thing I was considering was undead fuelled by life energy as opposed to necrotic energy.

They aren't necessarily benign. In fact when they can potentially be entities not too disimilar to the ones in The Thing they can be extremely hostile and dangerous. Even without an overdose of life energy which would account for an organism like that you have the textbook movie zombie types. In most zombie films it's usually some sort of plague/microorganism. It's something very much alive regardless of what the zombies are and what they do.

Clerics would not be able to turn these, they aren't necrotic, or in fact evil. At least in intent anyway. They are purely neutral and just running on some sort of primal instinct. If anything druids would have more control of them than anyone. Which obviously opens things up for a form of necromancy that isn't actually necromancy. It's more protomancy. If that's the right word.

So anyway, thoughts, suggestions??

[PhantomSoul]

For positive-energy Undead, there are the Deathless (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deathless_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons)). In my world they're brought back as a full creature type and the Baelnorn is essentially a Deathless counterpart to the Lich. (I haven't played previous editions, though, so I take a lot of freedoms!)

[Tiadoppler]

So, rather than decaying, these other-than-dead creatures would continuously grow (in size, or sprouting new body parts, or if they touch/eat/absorb a bit of another animal/plant, they start growing bits of that thing attached to the original)?

You could look at the Hydra for inspiration (a being that continuously regrows limbs as well as heads).

You could treat them like dragons: they start out as (tiny/small/medium) creatures that are weak, dumb, and barely have any control, but over the eons they can grow and grow into mountain-sized mounds of wood and flesh that contain the mental prowess and magical power of millions of individual beings.

It could spread by airborne infection rather than the traditional zombie's bite.

A person-turned-monstrosity could keep the personality of the original person, who might be appalled by their transformation and seek a cure or social acceptance.

A mosquito-monstrosity would still seek warmth and suck blood, draining herds of cattle in seconds.

A tree-monstrosity would simply stay still, dig deep into the earth, and grow ever larger and more intelligent...

[JackPhoenix]

While it's 3.5e material, check Ragnorra in Elder Evils. It's basically what are you asking: not undead, but living creatures mutated through excess and corrupt positive energy. Which includes bacteria and various parasites. Something between The Thing and Papa Nurgle.

[Cespenar]

Cool ideas.

Some extra interactions to consider:

-A Channel Divinity or any other positive energy action could draw their attention/taunt them instead of turning them away.

-Similarly, the mindless ones could be made to be scared by any necrotic effects, like instinctually avoid them.

-Some regenerating monsters, like trolls, could be fluffed to be made from healing spells going bad on their humanoid targets. Could be really creepy if you roleplay them as with child-like intelligence and language.

[Willie the Duck]

One thing I was considering was undead fuelled by life energy as opposed to necrotic energy.

Whenever something along these lines comes up, I feel compelled to ask, 'so what about this is distinct from ordinary life?'

I mean that seriously. Aren't undead already an 'opposite' (to the living) as it were? What about this situation is distinct from (-1)*(-x), and after that is answered, why?

I'm not trying to pooh-pooh the idea, but simply say we kind of need to know some more of the What and Why's before we can help.

[Corpsecandle717]

Forgotten Realms had a 3.0 or 3.25 book with a good lich in it. Can't remember which one off the top of my head. Could have a look at that for idea.

[Stonker]

Thanks for the feedback

Corpsecandle717
I guess to be 'good' it has to power its undeadness in a way that doesnt harm other living things. Liches have certain powers etc which are generally necrotic and the idea of taking a basic lich and just having it be 'good' isn't quite what I want to do here. Though if I can track down that occurance it might give me some ideas.

Willie the Duck
Erm well Cespenar managed to kind of hit the right notes so I'm pretty sure I gave enough to work with. Positive life energy (and this is mentioned in the main rules, or at least earlier editions) can be toxic if you get too much of it. My example of a creature like the entity in 'The Thing' pretty much sums up where this would be distinct from ordinary life. Usual undead are powered by necrotic energy but these arent that sort of undead and aren't 'opposite'. I'm sure I'll have come up with other examples by the end of this post.

Cespenar
Thanks dude. Thats golden. Points 1 and 2 especially. Didnt quite get what you meant regarding trolls. I didn't want to rewrite canon, trolls are still trolls. But healing spells going screwy is a definite option. In fact if you heal in a positive energy area, while it will get extra dice, you had better not overheal. Instant tumors or possibly part of you literally crawling off into a corner or any illnesses you might not have been aware you are carrying suddenly going into overdrive. So many possibilities.

JackPhoenix
Thanks dude. Sounds like what I had in mind.

Tiadoppler
Well I'm actually talking about 2 creatures really. Creatures like The Thing and also undead powered by microorganisms. But yeh, why not mix the two up as well! I think the zombies should be movie trope types and it's a bite/infection means of spreading. 'Thing' entities, if they are like the movie creature, would start off small and secretive and get bolder as they absorb more biomass. Hydra stats might have some useful basis, worth looking at. Nothing in this campaign setting has had eons to get going but probably enough time to be a significant threat.

PhantomSoul
Thanks dude. Some useful reading there too.

The thing with positive energy is where it hits the elemental planes it can create energies that are quite toxic. I know they ditched the para/quasi/demi planes. But that doesn't mean, (especially considering the positive & negative touch everything) that there aren't areas of the elemental planes and the feywild where things overlap. So you can have areas of radiance (as well as crystal/mist/lightning) bordering the positive energy areas. Even if you arent really supposed to in 5E I'm allowing it for what I'm doing. Radiance in particular is interesting as that is where things like radiation and other toxic energies would be found and I want to explore all the possibilities of that with this campaign setting. (I'm seeing this whole region as being a little like the Zone from the STALKER PC game.)

I feel this needs some sort of specialist druid type that deals with fungi, or plagues/parasites. I think I spotted a couple of variant ones in the homebrew section that might work for that, hopefully they are game balanced.

Another thing I wanted positive energy doing in this setting, though this is a little off topic, is it is going to resurrect (or rather undead) a dead goddess and the city that once worshipped her and was massacred for it. The living dead of the city are going to be sentient and self determining. Some will be evil. But evil in intent, not just evil because they are undead.

[Tiadoppler]

I feel this needs some sort of specialist druid type that deals with fungi, or plagues/parasites. I think I spotted a couple of variant ones in the homebrew section that might work for that, hopefully they are game balanced.

If you haven't yet, you can take a look at Jan 8's Unearthed Arcana, which includes the stats for a Circle of Spores Druid Circle and see how that'd help.

[Cespenar]

Thanks for the feedback

Cespenar
Thanks dude. Thats golden. Points 1 and 2 especially. Didnt quite get what you meant regarding trolls. I didn't want to rewrite canon, trolls are still trolls. But healing spells going screwy is a definite option. In fact if you heal in a positive energy area, while it will get extra dice, you had better not overheal. Instant tumors or possibly part of you literally crawling off into a corner or any illnesses you might not have been aware you are carrying suddenly going into overdrive. So many possibilities.

Oh, okay. I thought since you were homebrewing your setting, putting some "twists" into existing monsters could enrich the setting a lot. No problems, though, I'm glad you liked the other suggestions. Overall it looks like a cool setting.

[Stonker]

Tiadoppler
Great stuff. Thanks

Cespenar
Well actually I'm bending the rules loads. It's just that read as an alternate way of saying how trolls become trolls. But maybe I misunderstood you. Anyway I was going to make a massive list of 'mutations' to plug into exisiting creatures. Maybe dust off my old Gamma World books. Plus throw in a load of positive energy and para/quasi/demi elemental mutations creatures could have.

Perhaps a random mutation could occur when a heal spells overheals. As another possible random side effect caused by overloading life magic. I guess it could work a little like warp/chaos energy like in Warhammer, but with less of the dark and spiky aesthetics.

Though as this is a region also under the effects of a negative rift there could be overlap. There will be areas that are Shadowfell and Feywild mixed in amongst the prime and elemental regions that all got tangled up in this pocket realm. So there's quite a wide colour chart of possiibilities for mixing things up. Necrotic fey, elementals made from exotic substances and charged with different energies, resurrected dead, resurrected gods (well just one anyway). The empire that caused this mess had constructs and vehicles, (though magically powered) so that widens the possibilities even more - construct fey, magical Borg, anything's possible.

[Corpsecandle717]

Corpsecandle717
I guess to be 'good' it has to power its undeadness in a way that doesnt harm other living things. Liches have certain powers etc which are generally necrotic and the idea of taking a basic lich and just having it be 'good' isn't quite what I want to do here. Though if I can track down that occurance it might give me some ideas.


Nah, it's 'good' relative to other liches. It's still proper undead. I managed to find a link to another thread (which I'm still to new to post lol) with some of the details on them and a bit of fluff. It's bit closer to not-quite undead elves from eberron than I remember.

Here's the thread number if you decide to throw it in your browser. *47119-Good-Lich-Template

[Stonker]

Nah, it's 'good' relative to other liches. It's still proper undead. I managed to find a link to another thread (which I'm still to new to post lol) with some of the details on them and a bit of fluff. It's bit closer to not-quite undead elves from eberron than I remember.

Here's the thread number if you decide to throw it in your browser. *47119-Good-Lich-Template

Thanks. I had a skim through and will adapt that to suit. I need to do some reading on phylacterys and what makes liches tick. A lot of the effects in the pocket realm are often involuntary due to the exotic energies here, whereas this is a being who conciously makes themselves like they are and its something that isnt easy or quick to do I expect. It's also just one being as opposed to an area or the population of a city as it'll be in this. So they'd maybe fit in better back in a standard D&D world. But it's still interesting and worth closer study.

I visualised my 'good' undead as being a bit like the characters drawn by this guy:

https://www.artstation.com/apterus

Especially like the dude with the doll and the one with the lollipop.