Gardens & Goblins
First Post
It's an interesting part of the puzzle. While we know the total number of folks that have ever lived and died far outnumbers those that are currently alive, the questions are density and logistics. Something like a battlefield could work, if it's been the sight of many battles throughout history - but even then, unless we're talking many many battles of a long long time - or some crazy amount of folks dying (for cookies, no doubt) then the number of viable dead bodies is going to be, compared to say the nations army, a fair bit less. At least for the animate dead spell, which I am assuming is the back bone of our necro lord's undead warmachine, we're going to need bones or meat (skele/zombie) to get things going. Sure, bones last for aaaaaggeeess, like, 500 years (cheers Uncle Google!) so that certainly plays in our Necro Lords favour - again tho, this assumes that the battlefield has since repeated conflicts over years.
Assuming we hit our jackpot of bones, we still need to get them up and moving - which is going to require several minion necromancers, one mega necromancer working full time or some fancy artifact. This is where logistics comes in to play. Does our necro lord outsource his undead animation to cronies? Do they instead rely on undead that can create spawn,though even these have had their capacity for creation capped, removing the snowball of undead doom such undead could create from earlier editions. Something else? These sources of undead recruitment still have to get from our necro ruler's homeland to our jackpot of bones. And if that jack pot of bones is in enemy territory, that could prove tricky, especially if our enemy is aware of the value such a jackpot of bones is to our necro ruler. Then, outside of mass graves, at least in our campaign world, folks bury their dead - that means digging up the coffins and cracking them open to get to those sweet sweet bones/ embalmed meaty bits. That's another layer of effort out poor necro ruler needs to consider on their quest for undead glory!
And of course, after all that, we need to get our newly recruited undead minions to where they're needed. Let's hope the battlefield is close to where we need to restock our forces/focus our forces, else we'll have to trek them all the way to where ever they're going to be!
Of course, if we're talking ghosts, spiritis or what have you then oooh yes. The living are serious f..
On a short 100 year war, my money's on the army of the dead. Longer term though, like dynasty versus dynasty, I'm betting on the living unless, as I mention, our necro lord has some fancy way of mustering all the dead from far and wide.
