Why don't spawning undead take over the world?

Lazybones · Jan 25, 2002

Just a quick question, provoked by an encounter I'm developing for my story hour (and flashbacks to a few old George Romero movies).

In D&D 3e, there are a number of undead that can create spawn fairly easy. For example, say a cleric creates a shadow, and sends it into a quiet fishing village in the middle of the night. Wouldn't it be likely to expect that within a few hours, there would be a few hundred shadows milling about? What if they head down-river to the big city, where say 10,000 people are living. Wouldn't this create a domino effect of sorts? All the extra-turning in the world's not going to help you against a few thousand or more shadows.

Anybody face this issue in their campaigns?

Lazybones

GrimJesta · Jan 25, 2002

Heh, thats why I make all spawning undead rare, the process to spawn difficult and prone to failure, and also have clerics of death take an active hand in making sure these creatures do not get out of hand (th God of Death wouldnt be too happy if all of the souls were undead instead on hanging about in the underworld).

Just adding my 2 coppers,

-=grim=-

Dieter · Jan 25, 2002

Unfortunately, the characters in the George Romero movies didn't have the luxury of having clerics or paladins in their parties.

As for why it doesn't happen...I believe the greater good deities
would have some "divine intervention" in the matter. It's just a matter of the delicate balance of good/evil in the world.

However, a plot based on undead/necromancers taking over the world is quite interesting. Make sure you let everyone know when your story hour starts up.

BenBrown · Jan 25, 2002

Lazybones said:
In D&D 3e, there are a number of undead that can create spawn fairly easy. For example, say a cleric creates a shadow, and sends it into a quiet fishing village in the middle of the night. Wouldn't it be likely to expect that within a few hours, there would be a few hundred shadows milling about? What if they head down-river to the big city, where say 10,000 people are living. Wouldn't this create a domino effect of sorts? All the extra-turning in the world's not going to help you against a few thousand or more shadows.

Except that there's always a helpful party of adventurers around, ready to fight the shadows.

The question is: why would the cleric do this in the first place? Presumably if he's powerful enough to create a shadow, he can just thunder into the village himself and do whatever he pleases--or else use some minion not quite so volatile. If you can't turn a few hundred shadows, you also can't control them.

If he is trying to create an army of shadows (whether because he's insane, or commanded to by his deity) then it's a major plot point and the start of a shadow-hunting campaign.

Furn_Darkside · Jan 25, 2002

Salutations,

Some reasons off the top of my head:

1) Where these creatures tend to originate isn't usually in heavily populated areas.

2) Most of these creatures that can spawn don't have the motivation/drive/intelligence to seek out heavily populated areas to reproduce.

3) These creatures do not exist is a power vacuum.

FD

Tom Cashel · Jan 25, 2002

Doesn't sunlight dispel shadows? There's your time limit. Could be wrong on that one.

Also...that little fishing village has got to have a church. How much of the village gets "spawned" before the alarm is raised?

Once the Army of 1000 Shadows heads out to take over the world, it's safe to say the Gods themselves will get involved. Champions will be sent bearing 9th lvl Divine magics, celestials will be summoned, high level adventurers will get involved, and most likely the God of the Undead will find a lot of good Gods knocking on his door of bones wondering what in the Hells he thinks he's doing down there.

Just seems to me there's too many powerful beings in the world to allow something like that to happen.

Assuming of course, that the shadow doesn't cause anyone to let out a blood-curdling shriek in the very first house he attacks, thus alerting everyone in the vicinity that evil has descended upon them. Get the Cleric! Someone! Help! Murder! O, help!

Jezrael · Jan 25, 2002

Good point. As there is no Hedge Magic in D&D (a line of salt on doors and windows stops ghosts, etc., etc.) this puts all the burden on Clerics (esp. of Death), Paladins, and non-evil Necromancers. A goodly amount of undead could be created before any of the "exterminators" got wind of it. It could take some time to mobilize enough people able to deal with that kind of menace, in the meantime the undead could have time to multiply, making it too much of a burden to stop. This would work best in mid/low magic worlds. In FR where everyone's at least 10th level in an adventuring class

p), it shouldn't be a problem.

Sounds like a good case for "All Flesh Must Be Eaten d20"

Cloudgatherer · Jan 25, 2002

Even if I were an evil cleric and wanted to make an undead army to take over the world, I can only control 2HD worth of undead per level. Additional undead become uncontrolled, which makes a "cohesive" strategy on the part of the undead difficult.

Lazybones · Jan 25, 2002

Cloudgatherer said:
Even if I were an evil cleric and wanted to make an undead army to take over the world, I can only control 2HD worth of undead per level. Additional undead become uncontrolled, which makes a "cohesive" strategy on the part of the undead difficult.

Yes, but aren't spawn under the control of their creator? Wouldn't you just need to control the original shadow/wight/whatever to direct the whole hierarchy?

Thanks everybody for the feedback--now we just need to find a way to make clerics of Pelor spawn faster...

Lazybones

BenBrown · Jan 25, 2002

Lazybones said:
Yes, but aren't spawn under the control of their creator? Wouldn't you just need to control the original shadow/wight/whatever to direct the whole hierarchy?

That works just fine, as long as the original critter is still around.

But suppose someone manages to get rid of the first shadow. Then our evil cleric finds himself in the midst of an army of uncontrolled shadows.

He might as well be in a den of lions wearing a steak waistcoat.