Undead with Attitude!

So, I've been looking through the MM, and I've realised that some of the creatures I usually play as mindless killing machines and what not are actually pretty smart.

My current group of PCs is a little undead focused (Necromancer, Ranger's favored enemy, etc.) so I'm looking to throw some more dead guys at them. They have just arrived at "Rue Castle", the capital city of their Kingdom.

I don't really have much of a plot yet, but I'm wondering if "Undead infultrating the city" is a possible angle to take.

I think the ultimate big bad should be a Dread Wraith (LE, Int 17, old and malevolent, seems fitting). Maybe he's been apearing to key clerics around the city and getting them to hide some skelletons and what not in their closets.

Ghasts and Ghouls are smart enough to follow orders. Maybe the recent disease spreading through the poor quarter is Ghould Fever to help bolster the number of undead soldiers in the city.

I'm just in the "toss ideas around" stage so far. What do you guys think?

Advance a ghoul a few HD (or give him class levels) and set him up in the underbelly of the city. He's utilizing his minions to spread ghoul fever to the lower-class in an attempt to destablize things /just/ enough to take over the criminal sector. Ghouls are cannibals, after all...and what cooler scene could there be than your PCs making it to the BBEG's lair, only to see him sitting in finery at an ornate table, nibbling on the bones of the former guildmaster's tibula?

Vampire would be a little beyond the wraith, but perhaps some vampire spawn?

As a hint to the PCs, and possibly just as a cool little side-bar, you could have skeletal and/or zombie rats, dogs, cats, etc. here and there.

Maybe the wraith is somehow manipulating the clerics... slowly turning them toward the worship of himself and/or evil gods- if you gave the wraith a caster level or two, it's illusions- and the ability to be anywhere but still be hidden would help him in that regard. Or perhaps not even clerics, maybe the head of the town- or various people of influence.

The wraith could also just be dealing in information, there's little better as a spy than something that's incorporeal.. he could be finding out things and using them to.... I dunno, but some purpose- maybe selling them to a theive's guild or crime boss in exchange for corpses to feed to his ghouls? or... something?

Vorp

I'm a big fan of wights. Intelligent, feral, energy draining and spawning.

Wight infestations are the D&D variant of Zombie movies and really scary for the PC's. You can't just wade into them because every hit hurts, unlike classic movie zombies they are clever and fast. The source of a wight infestation can be plentyfull, because many different energy drain effects create them, but one unmonitored wight is enough to turn a whole city ward undead.

Throw in some "Boss" types and create some horror scenaries that such an infestation could create and run the players through a nice little nightmare.

It's hard to go wrong with ghouls. And remember that hungry is not stupid ...

If the city has locking gates between quarters of the city, it wouldn't be hard for the ghouls to stage a distraction (wildfires set throughout the city in the middle of the night simultanteously works) and then lock the gates, preventing the population from escaping as the ghouls boil up from the sewers and out of the necropolis to consume the living in the streets ...

Fortunately, the players are there before this has come to pass, but already, the ghouls (or perhaps mortal clerics of Doresain) are busy, sabotaging the water supply, killing off the fire marshals, slipping in fellow travelers into the guards who control the gates and so on.

Maybe the PCs get a clue when one of the cultists snaps early and begins trying to eat someone in advance of Harvest Night (or whatever) and the players start realizing that something strange is going on ...

A battle in a slaughterhouse is a must.

Wights, Wraiths and ghost make excellent undead shock troops too! Also, if you don;t have the Libris Mortis or the MMII, pick them up. The spell stitched undead (MM2) will really liven things up when your party runs afoul of spell slinging zombies and sekletons (trust me on this) and the Necropolitan makes for a great "commoner" group for your newly founded undead city (those that have not the power to become a lich, but the desire to be undead.) So as things start getting bleak, the meat-bags from above the city that want to switch sides to the "winning" team will likely jump at the chance to become undead without losing all of their "living" qualities.

And speaking of Liches, don't forget to add one or two as either support of this city take-over operation, or maybe included a "power behind the throne" scenario, where the Lich is the true mastermind and the Dread Wraith is a loyal minon being given the chance to "prove" his service to the greater "good". Possibly the Lich has two or three other operations like this going on in other cities, literally an underground uprising. And Death Knights, you have to have Death Knights! (Great bodyguards to the underworld)

It's hard to go wrong with ghouls. And remember that hungry is not stupid ...

If the city has locking gates between quarters of the city, it wouldn't be hard for the ghouls to stage a distraction (wildfires set throughout the city in the middle of the night simultanteously works) and then lock the gates, preventing the population from escaping as the ghouls boil up from the sewers and out of the necropolis to consume the living in the streets ...

Fortunately, the players are there before this has come to pass, but already, the ghouls (or perhaps mortal clerics of Doresain) are busy, sabotaging the water supply, killing off the fire marshals, slipping in fellow travelers into the guards who control the gates and so on.

Maybe the PCs get a clue when one of the cultists snaps early and begins trying to eat someone in advance of Harvest Night (or whatever) and the players start realizing that something strange is going on ...

A battle in a slaughterhouse is a must.

Click to expand...

/notworthy

Whiz, when're you & Pedi going to move to NoCal? I want you as a DM.

In the meantime -- thanks for jotting down the entire adventure for my group's next session! Yoink!

If you're looking for a more obscure undead, you could go with various Penanggalan-templated citizens. Apparently they're disliked by vampires... maybe having a few rival factions of undead would be cool. Of course, having a bunch of undead fighting over one place probably means that there's something that's really valuable to the undead there...

How about an undead controled city. Many forms of undead such as vampires or ghouls are intelligent and feed upon humans as their main food source. It only makes sense to raise them properly in large groups to have that food source and protect it from harm so you can feast off of it in a sustainable way. Vampires and ghouls coudl be running the city along with other undead and corrupted citizens in a way that nobody could really tell. Anyway, it wouldn't be noticable to recent arrivals. Locals wouldn't talk because those who do "disappear".

You have a vampire, necromancer or some other undead ruling the city. They probably use magic to keep most the ruling class in line. Meanwhile they have compromising information, promise of power, or perhaps just greed to keep them in line even if they don't use magic. Some of the ruling class are also undead, degenerate, or evil and have their part in keeping the status quo. Under that would be the ghouls and ghasts who would live in the catacombs under the city. Feasting mostly on the freshly dead, but beggars, criminals, and other undesirables could disappear without anybody in the city really careing. Other people disappear but their disappearance is blamed on something else. Something that lives outside the city. Something that good characters will naturally try and destroy first because it is obvious. Of course, good characters might go to the authorities in search of information or help and the authorities will be more than happy to give it as they will then know who is a threat and where they will go next. The player could go there and if they defeat the vampire (spawn) then they return, are hailed as heroes and sent on their way with reward unless they peice together the clues of what is really going on.

Snapdragyn said:

/notworthy

Whiz, when're you & Pedi going to move to NoCal? I want you as a DM.

In the meantime -- thanks for jotting down the entire adventure for my group's next session! Yoink!

Click to expand...

Ha, let me know how it goes!