Greywander
2020-02-24, 06:23 AM
A while back I posted a thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?597357-An-undead-civilization-how-does-each-type-of-undead-fit-in) talking about a homebrew undead race I was working on, how what sort of society they would have. I've been tinkering some more on that particular homebrew, and thought it might be a good idea to develop some setting elements to use them in. It's occurred to me that I might eventually want to flesh this homebrew out into a full-on supplement, so setting material would be a very good thing to include in that.
Rather than creating an entire setting, I thought I might just create a few specific set pieces that can then be dropped into an existing setting. Not only does this save me a lot of work, but it also allows this homebrew to be compatible with existing settings. There's one particular set piece I'd like to focus on, but I thought it might also be good to do a quick overview of several setting concepts. A fairly important one is the time period; specifically, how long this undead civilization has existed and what that implies about the rest of the setting. I think we can break this down into four different "eras".
The Proto Era
This is more of a non-setting than a setting. Basically, the undead civilization doesn't exist yet. You might be the only undead of your kind in the world. No changes need to be made to the setting you're playing in, the only thing being introduced is literally just your character. For those wanting to play an undead with all the roleplay that is implied, this is probably what they're looking for.
It's probably not worth spending much time discussing this precisely because there's basically no work involved here: you're just using the existing setting as-is and adding your character into it. It would probably merit a small section in an eventual supplement, however, particularly because some of the social interactions your character would have would likely carry over to the next era. In this era, you most likely must hide your undead nature, as people will assume you are some other type of undead (and ergo a monster). No one will really be aware of what your abilities are, and will compare you to other types of undead.
The Early Era
This is the one I want to focus on, because, after from the Proto Era, I think this one is the next most interesting. In this setting, the undead civilization has been around for perhaps a hundred years, give or take, and much of that time it has been kept secret. The general populace is still ignorant of the existence of this undead civilization, and thus will react much the same as they would during the Proto Era. However, there are a few groups that know of your existence:
Governments. A number of rulers likely have diplomatic relations of some kind with this undead civilization, either officially or unofficially. Undead embassies may also exist in their cities that can provide support to you while you're there.
Religious Orders. Many of the Good-aligned gods (in D&D, at least) have strict "undead bad kill undead" policies, immediately putting them at odds with an undead civilization, even one that isn't Evil. Even among those orders that have accepted that undead shouldn't immediately be struck down, many more fanatical followers still exist that will not hesitate to smite you.
The Wealthy and Powerful. Individuals that have attained positions of power might come into contact with this undead civilization. This can include anything from merchants to nobles to beings such as dragons.
Among these groups, enough knowledge exists that they can distinguish you from other types of undead (e.g. a stillblood might be initially confused with a vampire, until they observe the stillblood walking around in sunlight). Knowledge of your abilities as an undead will be spotty: some enemies can be surprised, while others will anticipate and prepare countermeasures. On this subject, someone in the previous thread suggested that phantomarions (ghostly undead that can possess and control objects, including machinery) would be kept as a state secret by the undead kingdom because of how useful they are. If the secret isn't out yet, then phantomarion PCs would be required to keep the secret or potentially face strict punishment, but in return no enemies would be able to know what your abilities were. If the secret has already leaked, then you wouldn't be required to keep the secret, but NPCs would know about your abilities (to some degree, at least).
As I said, this is the era I want to focus on, so we'll come back to this after going over the last two eras.
The Middle Era
Perhaps the most boring but also least disruptive setting. At this point, the undead kingdom has been around long enough that everyone knows of their existence and has more less gotten comfortable with them. You might be a skeleton, but to even common peasants, you're just another adventurer. Maybe they've never seen a skeleton, but they've probably never seen a gnome or dragonborn, either. There will still be the loons and fanatics that hate you because of what you are; you'll probably experience more "racism" than a half-orc, but less than a full orc.
If you want to play an undead PC in a game, but without having to worry about hiding your true nature all the time, this is the way to do it.
The Late Era
The Middle Era could extend potentially indefinitely, but all things must come to an end eventually. The Late Era is characterized by decline, making it a somber one. I can see two possible futures: one in which the undead take over the world, and one in which they fade away.
In the first, it's (probably) not on purpose. The undead don't age, and thus even a slow population growth would eventually cause their numbers to overwhelm and push out the living. The undead can't reproduce, though, so this conquest is still somber even for them. They rely on the living to supply them with new people who can become undead, and once all the living die out, that's it. The undead will be all that's left, and one by one they will die off, from accidents, or murder, or lawful execution. A dead world, full of bones.
In the second, perhaps the necromancer and god-king who originally created the undead has disappeared, either finally slain by some misguided fanatic, ascended to proper divinity, or just left everything behind to travel the planes. The secret to creating new undead of this type has been lost. As with the Middle Era, the undead are regarded as just another race, but their numbers are dwindling, their once great kingdom is nothing but ruins, and what remains of their people have been scattered.
The Hub City
Circling back to the Early Era, let's discuss some specific set pieces. Obviously, I'd want to work on fleshing out the capital city (which might be the only city at this point, or perhaps not). However, this isn't the main thing I want to focus on.
I had the idea that it might be interesting to have a city that wasn't part of the undead kingdom, but in which they have some influence over. In this city, you can openly walk around as undead without getting arrested, but at the same time there will still be people that might try to attack you. I feel like this sets the city up as the ideal adventuring hub, offering lots of possible adventuring hooks. Too homogeneous of a city (e.g. all undead, all gnomes, all wizards) is going to have a narrower set of problems that need dealing with, meaning less variety in potential plot hooks. You also don't want the plot getting constantly derailed by having to always hide your undead nature all the time; it's nice to have a place you can come back to where you don't have to worry about such things.
This leads into setting up some of the background details for how this arrangement came to pass. Here's one possibility I had in mind:
The undead cities were built underground in order to conceal and protect them. Each city has secret entrances in various villages on the surface, which are also secretly under control of the undead (though the inhabitants are living, and knowingly serve the undead). Naturally, this presents a problem when you want to "go public" with the existence of your kingdom, as you don't want outsiders using your "secret" entrances to travel to and from your cities. So it was decided that a fortress city would be built on the surface with the only "public" entrance to the capital. So far, the undead have kept mostly hidden, so this city on the surface will be the face of their kingdom.
While the city is being constructed, the church of a particular god with a strong dislike for undead hears of it. Holy warriors gather at the main cathedral to their god in the capital city of a nearby human kingdom, and from there embark on a crusade to destroy the undead. Their attack catches the undead by surprise, destroying many of their number and pushing them back into the undercity. However, the undead reorganize, and their ruler, the King of Skulls, a monstrous lich with a flaming skull, leads the counterattack. The crusade is completely destroyed, and the warriors are raised as undead and sent to work as slaves for all eternity as punishment.
Seeking revenge (and, more importantly, to send a message that such unprovoked aggression will not be tolerated), the King of Skulls leads his entire army in a direct march toward the city from which the crusade came, covering the distance in a fraction of the time (exhaustion immunity is great, folks). As the army approached the city, it did not stop. The gates opened seemingly of their own accord (later revealed to be the aid of infiltrators going ahead of the army), and the army makes a beeline for the cathedral, cutting down everything and everyone in their path. But this battle is by no means one-sided; the church still has many clerics and paladins, not to mention the king's soldiers, and not a few wizards, adventurers, and others living within the city. Angels and elementals are summoned, fireballs fly, and arrows by the thousands rain down on both sides. Heck, let's throw in some dragons, 'cause why not?
In the end, the cathedral is captured, the fantasy pope is executed, and the rest of the city is secured. The highest ranking surviving cleric is brought forth, and told to deliver an ultimatum to his god: Make the undead kingdom an exception to the "destroy all undead" policy and stop harassing them. If the god refuses, then his cathedral will be desecrated, all his followers in the city executed and reanimated as undead, and basically a declaration of war on the entire church. (Note: Ultimately, Bone Daddy just wants to protect his people, but sometimes you gotta be strict. He really doesn't want to start a holy war, though, as attracting the ire of the gods in general is about the worst thing he could do.)
Here's where I could see things splitting into two timelines: the "light" timeline where the god accepts and makes peace with the undead, and the "dark" timeline where he refuses and the undead make good on their threat. I'm not sure which one is more interesting.
Regardless of the outcome, the king is also executed for not preventing the crusade. His heir succeeds him, but his city is more or less occupied by the undead and it's clear he can't take any action against them. Fearing the undead, the rest of that kingdom declares independence and prepares for war, but the undead have no interest in conquering the kingdom, merely in making an example out of the ones who attacked them. Things settle into an uneasy peace, with many factions still wanting to liberate the capital and drive out the undead, while others are seeing the value in peaceful relations with the undead and certainly don't want to further antagonize them.
It's been a couple of decades since then. Tensions simmer. Many have heard of the horde of undead who conquered the capital, but much of the common folk are still short on the details, and it's beginning to be accepted as the new normal. But some still remember, survivors of that terrible battle, old enough to remember the horrors.
Anyway, how does this sound? Are there ways I could tweak this backstory to make it better to use as a setting? Maybe something I haven't considered that makes it not-so-great? What about the city itself, what sort of details should I put into it (e.g. location, surrounding terrain, local resources, etc.)?
Oh, another point to consider is that the "recent" war depleted the undead population quite a bit, so a bunch of new undead were created. This opens up a lot of plausible backstories for undead PCs to use. As mentioned in the Late Era, undead can live basically forever, so usually the population growth is heavily controlled, making it difficult to justify a backstory, but this circumvents that.
Rather than creating an entire setting, I thought I might just create a few specific set pieces that can then be dropped into an existing setting. Not only does this save me a lot of work, but it also allows this homebrew to be compatible with existing settings. There's one particular set piece I'd like to focus on, but I thought it might also be good to do a quick overview of several setting concepts. A fairly important one is the time period; specifically, how long this undead civilization has existed and what that implies about the rest of the setting. I think we can break this down into four different "eras".
The Proto Era
This is more of a non-setting than a setting. Basically, the undead civilization doesn't exist yet. You might be the only undead of your kind in the world. No changes need to be made to the setting you're playing in, the only thing being introduced is literally just your character. For those wanting to play an undead with all the roleplay that is implied, this is probably what they're looking for.
It's probably not worth spending much time discussing this precisely because there's basically no work involved here: you're just using the existing setting as-is and adding your character into it. It would probably merit a small section in an eventual supplement, however, particularly because some of the social interactions your character would have would likely carry over to the next era. In this era, you most likely must hide your undead nature, as people will assume you are some other type of undead (and ergo a monster). No one will really be aware of what your abilities are, and will compare you to other types of undead.
The Early Era
This is the one I want to focus on, because, after from the Proto Era, I think this one is the next most interesting. In this setting, the undead civilization has been around for perhaps a hundred years, give or take, and much of that time it has been kept secret. The general populace is still ignorant of the existence of this undead civilization, and thus will react much the same as they would during the Proto Era. However, there are a few groups that know of your existence:
Governments. A number of rulers likely have diplomatic relations of some kind with this undead civilization, either officially or unofficially. Undead embassies may also exist in their cities that can provide support to you while you're there.
Religious Orders. Many of the Good-aligned gods (in D&D, at least) have strict "undead bad kill undead" policies, immediately putting them at odds with an undead civilization, even one that isn't Evil. Even among those orders that have accepted that undead shouldn't immediately be struck down, many more fanatical followers still exist that will not hesitate to smite you.
The Wealthy and Powerful. Individuals that have attained positions of power might come into contact with this undead civilization. This can include anything from merchants to nobles to beings such as dragons.
Among these groups, enough knowledge exists that they can distinguish you from other types of undead (e.g. a stillblood might be initially confused with a vampire, until they observe the stillblood walking around in sunlight). Knowledge of your abilities as an undead will be spotty: some enemies can be surprised, while others will anticipate and prepare countermeasures. On this subject, someone in the previous thread suggested that phantomarions (ghostly undead that can possess and control objects, including machinery) would be kept as a state secret by the undead kingdom because of how useful they are. If the secret isn't out yet, then phantomarion PCs would be required to keep the secret or potentially face strict punishment, but in return no enemies would be able to know what your abilities were. If the secret has already leaked, then you wouldn't be required to keep the secret, but NPCs would know about your abilities (to some degree, at least).
As I said, this is the era I want to focus on, so we'll come back to this after going over the last two eras.
The Middle Era
Perhaps the most boring but also least disruptive setting. At this point, the undead kingdom has been around long enough that everyone knows of their existence and has more less gotten comfortable with them. You might be a skeleton, but to even common peasants, you're just another adventurer. Maybe they've never seen a skeleton, but they've probably never seen a gnome or dragonborn, either. There will still be the loons and fanatics that hate you because of what you are; you'll probably experience more "racism" than a half-orc, but less than a full orc.
If you want to play an undead PC in a game, but without having to worry about hiding your true nature all the time, this is the way to do it.
The Late Era
The Middle Era could extend potentially indefinitely, but all things must come to an end eventually. The Late Era is characterized by decline, making it a somber one. I can see two possible futures: one in which the undead take over the world, and one in which they fade away.
In the first, it's (probably) not on purpose. The undead don't age, and thus even a slow population growth would eventually cause their numbers to overwhelm and push out the living. The undead can't reproduce, though, so this conquest is still somber even for them. They rely on the living to supply them with new people who can become undead, and once all the living die out, that's it. The undead will be all that's left, and one by one they will die off, from accidents, or murder, or lawful execution. A dead world, full of bones.
In the second, perhaps the necromancer and god-king who originally created the undead has disappeared, either finally slain by some misguided fanatic, ascended to proper divinity, or just left everything behind to travel the planes. The secret to creating new undead of this type has been lost. As with the Middle Era, the undead are regarded as just another race, but their numbers are dwindling, their once great kingdom is nothing but ruins, and what remains of their people have been scattered.
The Hub City
Circling back to the Early Era, let's discuss some specific set pieces. Obviously, I'd want to work on fleshing out the capital city (which might be the only city at this point, or perhaps not). However, this isn't the main thing I want to focus on.
I had the idea that it might be interesting to have a city that wasn't part of the undead kingdom, but in which they have some influence over. In this city, you can openly walk around as undead without getting arrested, but at the same time there will still be people that might try to attack you. I feel like this sets the city up as the ideal adventuring hub, offering lots of possible adventuring hooks. Too homogeneous of a city (e.g. all undead, all gnomes, all wizards) is going to have a narrower set of problems that need dealing with, meaning less variety in potential plot hooks. You also don't want the plot getting constantly derailed by having to always hide your undead nature all the time; it's nice to have a place you can come back to where you don't have to worry about such things.
This leads into setting up some of the background details for how this arrangement came to pass. Here's one possibility I had in mind:
The undead cities were built underground in order to conceal and protect them. Each city has secret entrances in various villages on the surface, which are also secretly under control of the undead (though the inhabitants are living, and knowingly serve the undead). Naturally, this presents a problem when you want to "go public" with the existence of your kingdom, as you don't want outsiders using your "secret" entrances to travel to and from your cities. So it was decided that a fortress city would be built on the surface with the only "public" entrance to the capital. So far, the undead have kept mostly hidden, so this city on the surface will be the face of their kingdom.
While the city is being constructed, the church of a particular god with a strong dislike for undead hears of it. Holy warriors gather at the main cathedral to their god in the capital city of a nearby human kingdom, and from there embark on a crusade to destroy the undead. Their attack catches the undead by surprise, destroying many of their number and pushing them back into the undercity. However, the undead reorganize, and their ruler, the King of Skulls, a monstrous lich with a flaming skull, leads the counterattack. The crusade is completely destroyed, and the warriors are raised as undead and sent to work as slaves for all eternity as punishment.
Seeking revenge (and, more importantly, to send a message that such unprovoked aggression will not be tolerated), the King of Skulls leads his entire army in a direct march toward the city from which the crusade came, covering the distance in a fraction of the time (exhaustion immunity is great, folks). As the army approached the city, it did not stop. The gates opened seemingly of their own accord (later revealed to be the aid of infiltrators going ahead of the army), and the army makes a beeline for the cathedral, cutting down everything and everyone in their path. But this battle is by no means one-sided; the church still has many clerics and paladins, not to mention the king's soldiers, and not a few wizards, adventurers, and others living within the city. Angels and elementals are summoned, fireballs fly, and arrows by the thousands rain down on both sides. Heck, let's throw in some dragons, 'cause why not?
In the end, the cathedral is captured, the fantasy pope is executed, and the rest of the city is secured. The highest ranking surviving cleric is brought forth, and told to deliver an ultimatum to his god: Make the undead kingdom an exception to the "destroy all undead" policy and stop harassing them. If the god refuses, then his cathedral will be desecrated, all his followers in the city executed and reanimated as undead, and basically a declaration of war on the entire church. (Note: Ultimately, Bone Daddy just wants to protect his people, but sometimes you gotta be strict. He really doesn't want to start a holy war, though, as attracting the ire of the gods in general is about the worst thing he could do.)
Here's where I could see things splitting into two timelines: the "light" timeline where the god accepts and makes peace with the undead, and the "dark" timeline where he refuses and the undead make good on their threat. I'm not sure which one is more interesting.
Regardless of the outcome, the king is also executed for not preventing the crusade. His heir succeeds him, but his city is more or less occupied by the undead and it's clear he can't take any action against them. Fearing the undead, the rest of that kingdom declares independence and prepares for war, but the undead have no interest in conquering the kingdom, merely in making an example out of the ones who attacked them. Things settle into an uneasy peace, with many factions still wanting to liberate the capital and drive out the undead, while others are seeing the value in peaceful relations with the undead and certainly don't want to further antagonize them.
It's been a couple of decades since then. Tensions simmer. Many have heard of the horde of undead who conquered the capital, but much of the common folk are still short on the details, and it's beginning to be accepted as the new normal. But some still remember, survivors of that terrible battle, old enough to remember the horrors.
Anyway, how does this sound? Are there ways I could tweak this backstory to make it better to use as a setting? Maybe something I haven't considered that makes it not-so-great? What about the city itself, what sort of details should I put into it (e.g. location, surrounding terrain, local resources, etc.)?
Oh, another point to consider is that the "recent" war depleted the undead population quite a bit, so a bunch of new undead were created. This opens up a lot of plausible backstories for undead PCs to use. As mentioned in the Late Era, undead can live basically forever, so usually the population growth is heavily controlled, making it difficult to justify a backstory, but this circumvents that.