Our Undying Neighbors: Re-design of Undead for OD&D

[talysman]

waysoftheearth suggested in the Zombies and Skeletons thread that I start a separate topic on my undead re-design project, which I call Our Undying Neighbors (to match a similar re-design I did for demons and devils called Our Infernal Neighbors.)

This was originally a series of posts inspired by a story @gronanofsimmerya told on a couple different forums, including here in this thread: We Made Up Some $hit We Thought Would Be Fun... I Tease You. Short version: he played in a game where undead started as 1 HD skeletons and became zombies at 2nd level, wights at 3rd, and so on.

In my blog posts, originally called "Ranks of the Undead", I stuck with the idea of undead levels, but sorted them into classes: corporeal, skeletal, spectral, and mummified. I filled in new varieties for "missing" levels, making some tweaks to the originals, either to make the level progression smoother or to fit my own vision of what the undead should be like. I also used a different explanation of the way death and the undead work: humans have both a spirit and a soul, which leave the body at death, but if a spirit is trapped by curse inside its soulless remains, it becomes undead. The undead have limited access to old memories, but aren't the original person, just a twisted copy driven by hate and instinct.

In the rewrite currently in progress, I'm changing more things. Splitting vampiric undead off into a separate track, for example. Rotting undead (previously corporeal undead) gain limited power over time, but they keep rotting until they are skeletal unless they make a bargain with the powers of darkness to become vampiric. Similarly, skeletal undead crumble into dust and miasma unless they start on the path to become liches. Ghosts are spirits bound to their remains or fragments thereof, and spectral undead are clouds of bone dust and miasma.

Here's a WIP chart showing the relationships.



I'm adding a lot of other little rules, too. For example, random tables for vampiric gifts from the Dark Bargain, as well as their Dark Price. The rules I alluded to in the other thread where animated dead break free of their masters and become true undead. Plans for various new types, like spectral liches and murdered dead. I'm probably about 15-20% done right now and still shuffling things around, but it's getting there.

[Finarvyn]

I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops. I had a similar idea of "leveling up undead" years ago and tried it as a PC class, but I never really got it working the way I like. Nice to see how you are approaching this!

[talysman]

Jun 2, 2019 16:33:07 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops. I had a similar idea of "leveling up undead" years ago and tried it as a PC class, but I never really got it working the way I like. Nice to see how you are approaching this!

It's funny, but I'm not even primarily interested in the idea of players being able to level up as undead, although there will be a chapter on this as an option. I was mainly interested in the idea of adding layers to a undead creature's history. Maybe one low-level vampire waited a bit long before taking the Dark Bargain and shows worse effects of rot. Or another sacrificed more to the powers of darkness and has more Dark Gifts and a heavy price to pay.

There's also a lot of behavorial notes I included in the early blogposts about how each class of undead develops. They all start as angry, life-hating, destructive monsters. But vampires are struggling to look more human and establish dominance over human society, while skeletal undead survive intact by obsessing over arcane lore. Spectral undead retreat from the living world and jealously guard their solitude. Mummies are obsessed with ritual and are all bound to service by some god.

[Deleted]

What's the in-game explanation for this evolution? - I'm a friend of an old adventure path for 1e that - IIRC - was called "The Night Gallery", and featured adventures for each undead type. Maybe one could beef it up with this progression table?

[doublejig2]

Jun 2, 2019 17:25:15 GMT -6 talysman said:

Jun 2, 2019 16:33:07 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops. I had a similar idea of "leveling up undead" years ago and tried it as a PC class, but I never really got it working the way I like. Nice to see how you are approaching this!

It's funny, but I'm not even primarily interested in the idea of players being able to level up as undead, although there will be a chapter on this as an option. I was mainly interested in the idea of adding layers to a undead creature's history. Maybe one low-level vampire waited a bit long before taking the Dark Bargain and shows worse effects of rot. Or another sacrificed more to the powers of darkness and has more Dark Gifts and a heavy price to pay.

There's also a lot of behavorial notes I included in the early blogposts about how each class of undead develops. They all start as angry, life-hating, destructive monsters. But vampires are struggling to look more human and establish dominance over human society, while skeletal undead survive intact by obsessing over arcane lore. Spectral undead retreat from the living world and jealously guard their solitude. Mummies are obsessed with ritual and are all bound to service by some god.

I've got necromancers messing with undead, upping their rank, eliminating their turn liability. For these necromancers and their baleful cult the higher the rank of the victimized corpse in life, the greater the undead can be fashioned by way of artifact or hideous alchemy. There is a reason the city Necropolis and other grave yards are under guard, ward, and ritual.

[talysman]

Jun 2, 2019 18:33:56 GMT -6 @rafael said:

What's the in-game explanation for this evolution? - I'm a friend of an old adventure path for 1e that - IIRC - was called "The Night Gallery", and featured adventures for each undead type. Maybe one could beef it up with this progression table?

For the transformation from zombie to skeleton to phantasm, it's decay.

For the transformation into mummified dead or vampiric/liche types, there's a specific process: ceremonial binding, both literally and figuratively, for mummies, a pact with dark powers, for vampires, and arcane research, for liches.

For increasing hit dice within a given track, it's XP for undead PCs, or new undead created, for monsters. So if a party goes into a tomb, flees after a couple henchmen get offed by 1 HD skeletal undead, and returns, they may find that the skeleton is now 2 HD and has some 1 HD zombie friends. I'm either going to make it a 5+ on 1d6 chance or use some kind of reaction roll, modified by number of undead created. Haven't decided which yet.

[Deleted]

Jun 2, 2019 18:50:43 GMT -6 talysman said:

Jun 2, 2019 18:33:56 GMT -6 @rafael said:

What's the in-game explanation for this evolution? - I'm a friend of an old adventure path for 1e that - IIRC - was called "The Night Gallery", and featured adventures for each undead type. Maybe one could beef it up with this progression table?

For the transformation from zombie to skeleton to phantasm, it's decay.

For the transformation into mummified dead or vampiric/liche types, there's a specific process: ceremonial binding, both literally and figuratively, for mummies, a pact with dark powers, for vampires, and arcane research, for liches.

For increasing hit dice within a given track, it's XP for undead PCs, or new undead created, for monsters. So if a party goes into a tomb, flees after a couple henchmen get offed by 1 HD skeletal undead, and returns, they may find that the skeleton is now 2 HD and has some 1 HD zombie friends. I'm either going to make it a 5+ on 1d6 chance or use some kind of reaction roll, modified by number of undead created. Haven't decided which yet.

Thank you! Is there a centralized myth, though, that you explain to the players? Say, is there a specific region in your campaign world where this sort of evolution is particularly well-known? A temple or a cult that emphasizes this sort of process? - Not that this was missing, in any way; I'm just interested to hear how you worked this out. Myself, I'm still very MERPian in my approach to undead creatures, so I would never even remotely have thought of this. - It reminds me a bit of the undead ecology from "Artesia"/Mark Smylie's fantasy novels. Very interesting.

[talysman]

Jun 3, 2019 0:26:03 GMT -6 @rafael said:

Thank you! Is there a centralized myth, though, that you explain to the players? Say, is there a specific region in your campaign world where this sort of evolution is particularly well-known? A temple or a cult that emphasizes this sort of process? - Not that this was missing, in any way; I'm just interested to hear how you worked this out.

Not really. My usual explanation is "All the typical myths and legends of Earth are things you've heard here, but you don't know how much of each legend is true." So, I don't really explain what the undead are like... Players should just assume that if they encounter undead, they shouldn't expect things to work exactly like undead in a particular published source.

If they ask around or hire a sage, they might find out some things. Any priest should be able to talk about the difference between spirits and souls, and how that works. (I got the basic idea for that from the Egyptian ba and ka.)

I'm probably going to tone down my skeletons from the ones I used for one adventure. Those only had the 1d6/2 hit die, but if they are "killed", the players had to smash the skull afterwards or they would stand up again in one round. That resulted in a TPK from just a few skeletons.

[talysman]

Other sources of inspiration that may become more important as I write more details:

1. The TV series Supernatural. Those ghosts -- "vengeful spirits" -- become more insane if they remain trapped on earth. Their ghosts also kind of behave more like smoke or fog instead of like something ethereal. That influenced my image of spectral undead. They more or less use "spirit" and "soul" interchangeably, though... although they do show that a living being that loses a soul becomes driven more by urges and animal instincts than things like compassion. I kind of drift things even more in that direction.

2. The Carnacki stories by William Hope Hodgson. Carnacki's ghosts infect and corrupt material objects, which was an influence on how I thought of spirits bound by a curse. There was a shareware tabletop RPG based more directly on the Carnacki stories, but I've forgotten what it was called.

3. "The Hills of the Dead" by Robert E. Howard. A Solomon Kane story, where Kane discovers a city of vampires in Africa. One feature of the undead in this story is that vultures and other scavengers see vampires as corpses, whether they move or not, and attack them. I'm considering making this more of a feature.

[waysoftheearth]

Great work talysman; you've caused me to dig out my old notes too

My attempt is kinda-similar, albeit not so pretty. I had four "streams" (I guess "sub-types" of undead) and tried to work within the normal/heroic/superheroic tiers rather than specific HD bands.

Jun 2, 2019 16:33:07 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I had a similar idea of "leveling up undead" years ago and tried it as a PC class, but I never really got it working the way I like.

FWIW, my sub-type progressions are:

Incorporeal Undead:
1/2 HD Poltergeist (FF)
2 HD Shadow (GH/MM)
4 HD Wraith
6 HD Banshee (MM)
8 HD Spectre
* HD Revenant (includes MM Ghost and FF Apparition; start at 9 HD and progress by age).

Rotting Undead:
1 HD Zombie
2 HD Huecuva (diseased zombie; FF)
3 HD Juju Zombie (super zombie; MM2)
4 HD Son of Kyuss (rot grub infested Zombie; FF)
6 HD Mummy
8 HD Mummy Lord
10HD Mummy, PriestKing (upward progress by age)

Preserved Undead:
These figures persist unnaturally beyond life by fell curses/enchantments or by their own malign will. Possibly a good choice for player-types, since the progression essentially mirrors that of fighters and M-Us:

Fighters
3 HD Emaciate Hero
7 HD Emaciate Lord (see FF; skeletal warrior)
9 HD Death Knight (FF)

Magic Users
3 HD Emaciate Enchanter, 7th M-U (suggested by FF; Crypt Thing)
7 HD Emaciate Necromancer, 10th M-U
10 HD Liche (12th M-U)
12 HD Liche (18th M-U)
13 HD Liche (21st M-U)
* HD Demiliche (MM2) Eventually, even a liche must sublime


Gorging Undead
2 HD Ghoul
3 HD Ghast (MM)
4 HD Wight (MM)
6 HD Wight Lord
7 HD Vampire, Neonate
8 HD Vampire, Ancillae
9 HD Vampire, Eldar
10 HD Vampire, Methuselah
* Penanggalan (FF) A suitably monstrous end to a vampire's career?


It's not perfect, but perhaps something to work with?

[talysman]

Jun 9, 2019 6:50:59 GMT -6 Piper said:

Interesting discussion. May I ask, is this intended as an actual progression (a lá PC class progressions) for undead? Or is it merely a way of categorizing these monsters into broad groups.

Yes.

There will be some rules for the progression of undead PCs. But the primary intention is to create broad groups of undead and describe transitional phases and late stages for the groups where they are missing. So, if ghouls are a low-level form of vampire, what do the in-between stages look like? What powers would a mummy lord gain?

[Punkrabbitt]

This just popped a thought into my head: in my Ancient Egypt themed canpaign, maybe death of a PC is just a new beginning. After the PC is mummified,they continue adventuring and questing in the afterlife.

[talysman]

Jun 12, 2019 11:52:00 GMT -6 Punkrabbitt said:

This just popped a thought into my head: in my Ancient Egypt themed canpaign, maybe death of a PC is just a new beginning. After the PC is mummified,they continue adventuring and questing in the afterlife.

There's a whole relevant sidequest I'm working on for the book. My mummies are based on the Kharis mummy from The Mummy's Hand (1940) and its various sequels and reboots, pretty much the same as D&D. But mummies can become revenants, which I base on the Imhotep mummy from Boris Karloff's The Mummy (1932). That kind of "mummy" is driven by memories of human life and can pass as human from time to time.