When Arcnus Mortis has truly won... [3.5 Epic Template]

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Dead God Template

The Spectre, former god of Vengeance.

These rules use the Gates of Hell alternate divine entity rules.
See the end of Chapter 9.

When Armageddon comes, it is said that the dead will rise. The dead have risen, but it is not the end times, because when it is said the dead will rise, it is the victims of deicide that will walk the earth to bring about its end. Dead Gods are horrific blasphemies of all life, and avatars of death itself who want nothing more but to corrupt what they used to hold so dear and eventually end all life in existence. Many dead gods when risen, will track down their most beloved family members and companions to rip out their hearts and transform them into more walking deicides. Shortly after, it will seek out and destroy the tatters of its former following.
Dead Gods appear as deathly mockeries of what they did in life. Dead flesh, pale skin, empty eyes, skeletal visages, a loss of all color on their bodies or even their clothes. These are all telltale signs of a walking Dead God. In addition to it's physical changes, the look and feel of all it's abilities change as well. If a dead god of the sun has an ability to fire burning holy light upon its enemies, it's Dead God form now fires unholy, sickly light to drain the life of their bodies instead of burning the flesh from their bones.

Creating a Dead God
"Dead God" is an acquired template that can be added to any creature with at least 15 HD and a divine rank of at least 0, other than an undead creature(referred to hereafter as the base creature).

Size and Type
The creature's The creature’s type changes to undead. It retains any subtypes, with the exception of the Good subtype. Size is unchanged. It uses all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Hit Dice: Convert all current and future HD into d12's

Divine Rank: The Dead God retains a divine rank, but loses the following powers; Grant Spells, Remote Sensing, Block Sensing, Proxies, Godly Realm. They also lose the following Salient Divine Abilities; Banestrike(undead), Divine Paladin, Divine Radiance, Gift of Life.
A special exception is made for deities that were gods of death before becoming a Dead God. They take only a -2 Penalty to their Wisdom(see below) and their divine rank increases by 1. This comes with the inherent abilities and increase in CR that increased divine rank does.
All Dead Gods receive the Rejuvenation Salient Divine Ability, even if they do not qualify for it, though all that would normally not qualify double the time it takes to return. Returning in this way does not purge the deity of their Dead God template.
The Portfolio Sense is not lost, but it is changed. Now all dead gods treat death as if it were the only thing in their portfolio, and act as if they granted the Death domain for all available intents and purposes.
The Call Creatures Salient Divine Ability only works to summon undead creatures, or undead versions of the creatures they would normally call. Same with Control Creatures, Govern the Children and Grow Creatures. A Dead God cannot use its Life and Death Salient Divine Ability to grant a creature life.

Armor Class
A Dead God's natural armor class increases by its divine rank.

Attack
A Dead god has the ability to lay upon its enemies with an attack that embodies death itself. This is the Deathly Touch special quality(see below). A dead god also recieves a slam attack, if it did not already have one.

Damage
The damage dealt by a dead god's slam attack is 2d6+1 1/2 Str modifier, for medium creatures.

Special Attacks
A Dead God retains all of its special attacks it is capable of keeping without a good alignment, and gains the following. The DC of any saving throws against the following abilities are equal to 10+1/2 HD+Cha modifier+DvR.

Deathly Touch (Su): This is a natural touch attack that deals 10d6 points of negative energy damage and forces the victim to make a Fortitude save or die. If the victim saves against this ability, they instead take 1d6 Constitution drain.

Deathly Army (Sp): Dead Gods are capable of using animate dead, create undead and create greater undead all as spell-like abilities at will.

Night of the Unliving (Su): Whenever a living creature dies as a direct result of the Dead God's deliberate actions, it rises again with the gravetouched ghoul template(see Libris Mortis) and an alignment equal to the Dead God that killed them. The risen ghoul is infinitely loyal to the Dead God. When the Dead God is Rejuvenated(see above), as are all of its risen ghouls.
If the Dead God kills a creature with divine ranks, it instead becomes another Dead God and is not loyal to the original, nor does its alignment shift to meet the originals.

Special Qualities
The Dead God retains all of its special qualities it is capable of keeping without a good alignment, and gains the following.

Damage Reduction: Any damage reduction the base creature had before gaining this template now also includes slashing or bludgeoning damage(depending on if the Dead God still has most of its flesh, or if it is mostly skeletal). For example, if a god had DR 30/epic and cold iron as well as most of its flesh, it now has DR 30/epic, cold iron and slashing.

See Life (Su): A Dead God always has its eyes on the pulse of the living, another string that must be cut for the perfection of blackness. It can always tell the difference between living, dead and undead creatures, as well as creatures that are not any of the three, such as golems.

Abilities
A Dead God's gains the following ability boosts and penalties; Str +10, Dex -2, Wis -8. As an undead creature, a Dead God has no Con score.

Feats
A Dead God gains Improved Toughness and Epic Toughness as bonus feats.

Challenge Rating
Same as base creature +6

Treasure
Same as base creature, but all material weapons and armor are transformed into Soulsteel upon their black resurrection and they are capable of wielding it normally even if they are not Abyssal Exalts.

Alignment
Always nongood. Upon its unholy resurrection, a Dead God's alignment comes one closer to evil. Good gods become neutral, and neutral gods become evil.

Advancement
As base creature.

Level Adjustment
-- (Dead Gods are not meant for player use, they are simply engines of destruction and husks of former deities.)

[Real Sorceror]

*whistles* Yowza.

Just for clarification, how does a dead god interact with a living (or naturally undead) deity that has the death or undeath portfolios? Such as Nerull or Anubis, for example.

Nice Black Lantern reference, btw.

[Forever Curious]

First and foremost, this is scary as hell. I love it and may use it in an upcoming campaign...maybe.

Just one thing, though:

A Dead god has the ability to lay upon its enemies with an attack that embodies death itself. This is the Black Hand special quality(see below). A dead god also recieves a slam attack, if it did not already have one.

This is not mentioned anywhere. I assume you meant the Deathly Touch.

[Eleven]

This is beautiful and terrible. Excellent work.

[The Tygre]

Awesome as usual, Krimm. You should totally post this on DF. I think it would make the old boys happy to see some new blood. Does this only apply to deities, or can you apply it to cosmic entities as well?

[Agrippa]

Why is everything you make sublimely and beautifully well-crafted? Oh, and how do like the Dicefreaks Powers (gods, fey lords, eldritch abomination and cosmic entities) Rules and what Epic Destinies do you think would fit the chief devotees of each of the Lords of the Nine?

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Just for clarification, how does a dead god interact with a living (or naturally undead) deity that has the death or undeath portfolios? Such as Nerull or Anubis, for example.

Well, it can't be applied to already undead deities, and I'd say living death gods would... hm... Okay, I think I can add something to the template.

Awesome as usual, Krimm. You should totally post this on DF. I think it would make the old boys happy to see some new blood. Does this only apply to deities, or can you apply it to cosmic entities as well?

Anything with a DvR, really.

Why is everything you make sublimely and beautifully well-crafted? Oh, and how do like the Dicefreaks Powers (gods, fey lords, eldritch abomination and cosmic entities) Rules and what Epic Destinies do you think would fit the chief devotees of each of the Lords of the Nine?

I like their new divine rules much better than those presented in Deities and Demigods for many reasons, like the 20 Outsider HD thing they all had that made no sense. Yeesh.
Anyway, I couldn't tell you about the chief devotees, it's been too long since I've gone through it for anything except the new god rules. I'll skim that later and get back.

[Rhyvurg]

I think I just found how to have the 13 Deathlords in DnD.