Campagin as Undead Do-Gooders (Idea)

[Leliel]

To put it in question form...

How would you, the forumites, go about creating a non-evil campaign where all the party is intelligent undead (NOT DEATHLESS) for a significant majority? How did they become undead? Who should the main villains be? What should be their goals be? How should I keep the inevitable intelligent shadow character from breaking the game, other than removing the Create Spawn ability? How many times should you kill the unoriginal idiot who tries to play an "Angsty Vampire" wannabe?

Few rules:

1) Of course this takes the whole "Undeath, and by extension Negative Energy" rule and runs with it. If you want to argue this point, do not, I repeat DO NOT do it on this thread!

2) Before the whole "What about Positive Energy healing/resurrection" issue comes up, I have already designed an artifact that turns them into "Negative" versions of themselves. Don't need your help with it.

Begin!

[TheLogman]

It has potential as a Comedic campaign, I mean really, there are umpteen rotting zombie jokes out there. However, I would play it differently. I would play it as the characters are a Modified form of the Ganados Ganados are otherwise normal Spanish Farmers/Monks, they live normally, farm, pray, go to Church, everything in a normal Rural Spanish life. That is, until they are commanded to do otherwise. I would run the campaign as follows: Players are somehow exposed to the fossils/spores of Las Plagas. They get sick, dizzy, and finally die. However, they are brought back by the Las Plagas. Their life is now sustained by the Negative Energy produced by the Las Plagas (Which makes sense, Las Plagas are a parasite, and would do a lot to keep their host alive. The players are now out for revenge, after discovering these parasites in their body, and eventually would work to get these things out of their bodies, die, and then get brought back to life as regulars again.

The Ganados template would make them a little smarter, a little Stronger, and a little faster, but at a price. Whenever in the presence of or commanded by a carrier of a Master Plagas, the players would have to attempt a Will save. If they fail, they are under the command of the Plagas for a short time, or until they leave the area of the Plagas command. It would be good for the players to kill off Master Carriers in order to gain info, but if they risk it too often, they fall under the control of the carrier.

[Rolaran]

Well here's the obvious formulation:

The PCs are murdered, then rise as undead intent on avenging their wrongful deaths. The BBEGs are the people who killed them.

Their first goal is to find the BBEGs and enact violent retribution, and as they track these guys down, you may want to have the PCs stumble upon the BBEGs having some sort of Evil Plan (perhaps one where killing large amounts of people is necessary to further the plan; this explains why the PCs were killed).

Savage Species or Libris Mortis contain a number of good progressions to help avoid balance issues; if that issue concerns you, try sticking to those monsters.

Finally, I'd consider adding a team of "undead slayers" who refuse to believe that the party has a right to seek justice, and try to chase them down (this gives you the chance to work some interesting roleplaying in, as the players deal with "racial profiling").

One last bit of advice, running an undead campaign is tricky, undead have some weaknesses you need to take into account (in particular, be careful with Turn/Rebuke Undead- a no save effect that can cause fear, domination or even instant death will quickly frustrate the players if it is overused.)

[Azerian Kelimon]

Or, you can go the Malconvoker route and say "evil things are only REALLY evil if used by bad people. Undead are only evil if they DON'T fight their evil inside". Hmm, undead could make great shadow sun ninjas.

[Stormcrow]

mmrm. Its a concept thats got merit thats for sure. :)
Undead are tireless, sleepless, foodless. Fantastic "Defenders of the _____" for that reason. mmrm. Will think more?

Leliel, does the name Malus Dominus mean anything to you?

[PsyBlade]

First, are you planning on making this PbP? If you are, then I'm interested.

Second: Does becoming a vampire make you evil? I can understand it making you non-good, but if it doesn't make you evil then that is one way to make them undead. And being a vampire has perks that may balance out the downsides of being undead.

[Doresain]

Well here's the obvious formulation:

The PCs are murdered, then rise as undead intent on avenging their wrongful deaths. The BBEGs are the people who killed them.

Their first goal is to find the BBEGs and enact violent retribution, and as they track these guys down, you may want to have the PCs stumble upon the BBEGs having some sort of Evil Plan (perhaps one where killing large amounts of people is necessary to further the plan; this explains why the PCs were killed)

i smell the crow

anyways, an interesting route would be to make them necropolitans of some small undead town on in the middle of nowhere...the place is known as a "haunted necropolis" and thus, paladins and clerics are sent to wipe it out...the party members are the only citizens that survived...

just figured id toss in my 2 cents

[AslanCross]

Libris Mortis has some ideas about dealing with the cravings and diet dependencies of the undead. Those would definitely be a good story element here as your PCs struggle with these despicable but inescapable aspects of their un-being.

I do agree that this has a lot of comedic potential as well---the mere appearance of the mohrg barbarian in Libris Mortis makes me giggle a bit.

[Ganurath]

Question: When you say do-gooders, do you mean it with a capital G or as in the sense that they're the protagonists and can be whatever alignment they want, including evil?

[de-trick]

a cheesy but effective way is to try and avenge their deaths eg kill the head vampire

or a group of good undead cleric of a sun god try to make sure the brother's(other undead) are behaving

[Fishy]

Unless you already have a BBEG in mind for your campaign, why not start with disgustingly powerful Lich, Vampire Lord, Monk with the Lasting Life feat from LM, or just Joe McEvilwizard with the artifact the PC's will use later. He commits various atrocities/reins of terror, but flees from justice by jumping through a portal into the Negative Energy Plane. He needs to be caught, and sent to justice, at any price.

On secret orders from (insert church here), with the cooperation of LN McNecromancer, Our Heroes voluntarily give their lives and get turned into undead abominations- the only creatures that can survive being chucked into the Negative Energy Plane. It's risky, it's morally suspect, and it's icky, but someone needs to do it, and True Resurrections/Miracles will be dispensed on completion of the mission.

The PC's go in, fight some mooks, explore the secret fortress... and it's completely abandoned. They go back through the portal and into the real world (taking the artifact with them) and... everyone's dead. The good guys' necromancer is missing, anyone who could have justified their existence to the church is dead, the cleric that was going to undo their undeath is in several gory pieces, and the BBEG is on the rampage again. Oops.

Now, the PCs are set free to find the necromancer, work out wether or not they were double-crossed, report back to the church about a mission that they don't actually know about, find a cleric that *won't* try to destroy them on sight, or stop the BBEG and save the world.

[Doresain]

Unless you already have a BBEG in mind for your campaign, why not start with disgustingly powerful Lich, Vampire Lord, Monk with the Lasting Life feat from LM, or just Joe McEvilwizard with the artifact the PC's will use later. He commits various atrocities/reins of terror, but flees from justice by jumping through a portal into the Negative Energy Plane. He needs to be caught, and sent to justice, at any price.

On secret orders from (insert church here), with the cooperation of LN McNecromancer, Our Heroes voluntarily give their lives and get turned into undead abominations- the only creatures that can survive being chucked into the Negative Energy Plane. It's risky, it's morally suspect, and it's icky, but someone needs to do it, and True Resurrections/Miracles will be dispensed on completion of the mission.

The PC's go in, fight some mooks, explore the secret fortress... and it's completely abandoned. They go back through the portal and into the real world (taking the artifact with them) and... everyone's dead. The good guys' necromancer is missing, anyone who could have justified their existence to the church is dead, the cleric that was going to undo their undeath is in several gory pieces, and the BBEG is on the rampage again. Oops.

Now, the PCs are set free to find the necromancer, work out wether or not they were double-crossed, report back to the church about a mission that they don't actually know about, find a cleric that *won't* try to destroy them on sight, or stop the BBEG and save the world.

did you just make this up on the spot, because its a really cool idea

[Rolaran]

Wow. Fishy, that is awesome. I want to play that campaign now.

"Commandos of Undeath"... catchy.

[Icewalker]

Well here's the obvious formulation:

The PCs are murdered, then rise as undead intent on avenging their wrongful deaths. The BBEGs are the people who killed them.

Their first goal is to find the BBEGs and enact violent retribution, and as they track these guys down, you may want to have the PCs stumble upon the BBEGs having some sort of Evil Plan (perhaps one where killing large amounts of people is necessary to further the plan; this explains why the PCs were killed).

Savage Species or Libris Mortis contain a number of good progressions to help avoid balance issues; if that issue concerns you, try sticking to those monsters.

Finally, I'd consider adding a team of "undead slayers" who refuse to believe that the party has a right to seek justice, and try to chase them down (this gives you the chance to work some interesting roleplaying in, as the players deal with "racial profiling").

One last bit of advice, running an undead campaign is tricky, undead have some weaknesses you need to take into account (in particular, be careful with Turn/Rebuke Undead- a no save effect that can cause fear, domination or even instant death will quickly frustrate the players if it is overused.)

I like it (also fishy's) but one interesting idea for further adventuring for either or any plan: after the BBEG (who killed the PCs) is killed in revenge, he, ironically, comes back as undead

Also, I would like to second the notion that if this is pbp, I'd totally play it.



A DM I know actually ran an undead group. In the end they filtered out through the rest of the pool of characters, and are basically pretty normal guys. We've got some cool ones.

[Fishy]

I should probably stop posting my ideas and just run a game. :P If only I knew anything about CR...

[Yami]

Well, on a variant of one of my favorite dungoens, you could have the players be curst. An almost undying template, the players would be able to die time and again, and as long as the party wasn't completely wiped, would be able to comeback without any exp or level loss.

This can make for a rather vicious game by the way, and may make the players love the template a bit too much.

Now, as for the campiagn idea. My dungoen was a temple full of undead as usual guarding treasure. The fabled Tome of Wishes was said to be kept somewhere in the nearby mountain range, but few who set out returned.

The plot was that a greater devil was kept imprisoned there, and that the undead and constructs were placed as guardians who could survive though time immortal. The players enter, fight the undead, race against other potential looters, release the Devil disguised as Efreeti for thier wishes, and then the true campaign begins as they get chased out of the dungoen by all manner of evil.

So, we tweak the plot and say that this was the hundreds of years ago, when some mage-king tried to summon devils to build himself an empire. Now we have the PC's as heros slain in battle by the evil horde and raise them as undead. If you want, they don't even need to be curst, but could be wraiths, ghouls, whatever. But as curst you could have a two-fold plot. First, they have been geased to encapture this demon, and then they could turn upon the necromancer who raised them and curst them to an eternity of undeath. A fate undone only by slaying the caster. (or, you know, a low level cleric spell. But meh, just don't tell them about that part.)

There are of course lower level options for the campaign, but I honestly think curst might be the template for this.

[Karma Guard]

There's always the Mummy.

When a king bites it, not only does he get buried, but so does a whole palace's worth of servants. Cooks, valets, musicians, the works. Them, his wife(s), his favorite pets, you name it. They all get mummified and buried. This includes some good strong royal guards. These fellows get kitted out, and warded to 'wake up' in case someone fusses with his grave.

A few hundred years pass, and the spell...wanders. It weakens, but spreads out. Some fool does sneaks in and makes with the robbing of the sacred crown of the king (which is how his spirit finds it's way back to his corpse to rest at night; it is very important), but the spell goes wrong. It wakes up a guard or two (A Fighter and a Ranger), but then it goes on to awaken some noncombatants; a musician and a valet (Bard and Rogue). Not only has the spell mistakenly animated the wrong undead, it has also woken them up too late: the thief is long-gone, and with it, the crown.

All the party of undead has is a charm that points in the direction of the crown, the cranky sleep-deprived spirit of the king (possibly a Ghost), and a hope that maybe people these days can recognize unevil undead on a sacred mission. (they can't.) They can't remember clearly what their living life was like (hence starting at level 1), and instead of 'gaining experience', they are regaining their memories.

----

For LA's sake, you could use the Necropolitan with reflavoring and maybe a few bonus abilities to make them more...mummy-esque. Don't let them take Modern Common, and let their death-masks give them a minor bonus to disguise. Make life hard on them. They're on the lam, trying to keep low while finding a peaceful way to re-obtain the crown.

[hamishspence]

Can an Undead be of Good Alignment? Yes, sort of. Do Always Neutral undead templates exist? yes, revenant, and the Always Chaotic neutral, nearly unkillable curst who can get knocked out, but will get up again later.

Would Killing said undead always be good? no, not if undead is dedicated to doing good + fighting evil. Might the whole thing be fun? Yes, done right.

GhostWalk campaign setting is for those who want the idea but do not like the negative energy-ness. Ghosts are a template, outsiders, have generic Ghost Classes for people to level up in. You may not want this.

For Undead, assume you will never be Exalted but can be Good if you work hard at it. Pick your favourite monster, template if possible, and get ready to rock and roll.

[WrstDmEvr]

PC's start out as farmers/workers/etc. One day, they came home to find a family member dead. They shrug off the misery and bind together to overcome their grief. Next day/week/month/year, the same thing happens. This time, they all try to get an army to go eradicate the killer, but get rejected. The PC's try and fight the killer, get killed. They are animated by a cleric, and are told of the evil plan for world domination. They rebel and escape to the living world to warn the rest of the world about the evil and find out nobody trusts them, due to their undead appearance. Goals are to warn the nation of danger, avert that danger, avenge their deaths and those of their family. They then find out that there is a large organization of evildoers planning something big. They try getting support for killing the evildoers, get it, kill the evildoers, and the BBEG tells the soldiers they really killed a bunch of good people. The soldiers leave/fight the PC's and the BBEg disappears.

Major campaign-wide elements might be danger of getting caught by minions sent by the BBEG, being distrusted of most/all living creatures, being ordered around by clerics, mistaken as undead soldiers for BBEG, etc. Probably all bad ideas but that's my two cents.

[Leliel]

Leliel, does the name Malus Dominus mean anything to you?

No. Explain.

[Stormcrow]

Nothing serious. Just reminded me of someone I knew a long time ago with similar ideas.