D&D 5E D&D meets the Walking Dead

[Fabio Andrea Rossi]

A different kind of advice on the mechanical side of things: you could try using zombie "minions" to avoid grind.

This is how I do it: villagers zombies have 1 hit point, so everything kills them, but they do gat a save (unmodified) equal to 5 plus the damage received. Basically I remove the HP from them, it works wonders.

 

[Ahrimon]

The PCs were all part of different adventuring parties (say 3rd level) that went after a mad mage over the years. Unfortunately they were all defeated and the survivors were placed into magic crystals as trophies. Years have passed and the magic has faded, the PCs now awaken from their crystals in an abandoned keep/dungeon/city. When they venture outside they discover the zombie apocalypse going on. Where are they, what happened to the mage, what is going on, what year is it, can they trust each other, and of course being heroes, how do they stop it. Those questions and more should make for a great campaign.

 

[Nachti]

For inspiration read book II and III from the hauted lands saga. http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Undead_(novel)

Thay is ruled by Szass Tam and established an undead society.

 

[Klaus]

During the 4e era, Dungeon Magazine published two adventures that use the zombie apocalypse tropes to great effect.

Chaos Scar: Dead By Dawn: PCs must barricade themselves inside an abandoned church and fend off an overwhelming horde of zombies. http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/duad/20100312

Lord of the Whie Field: The PCs must enter a region afflicted by the hungry dead (ghouls and zombies) and stop the infestation from spreading. http://archive.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/duad/20101116

Another trope of zombie survival horror is the limited availability of resources and safe locations. By limiting the characters' ability to take rests, and having them scavenge food and other supplies, you create an effective tension within the game.

 

[Crothian]

Another idea if the PCs get mobile and explore around so they can learn it is a local event have a large army of some near by kingdom killing everything that gets near their border. They can't take the risk of letting anything through for fear the undead will spread to their areas.

 

[Henrix]

(My players please keep out, spoilers ahead.)



I have similar ideas, really based on when I was running Age of Worms and it all went to pot. (The PCs failed utterly to stop a monstrosity in a huge arena filled with spectators. A wave of negative energy killed most of the bystanders - which in 3e turned them all to wights.)

Wights turn those they kill to zombies. I'm just saying. (In 3e they even turned them to new wights - which really makes for a plague.)

There's no reason, in D&D, to limit it to just zombies.

(Even though a desolate landscape filled with zombies mindlessly trying to go about their old chores without success, only leaving their tasks to attack the living when those are nearby, is very appealing.)

Wights are a good firestarter. Some more advanced wights may well turn their victims to wights still, not just to zombies.

In Age of Worms the main enemy are Spawn of Kyuss*. Spawn of Kyuss have worms that eat living brains and create new worm-filled Spawn.
A very visceral plague.

And what happens when other, more powerful, undead get wind of this. Will not vampires be in on this and use it to get enclaves of loyal humans that they protect by controlling the zombies?

I can see Death Knights or necromancers wanting to take advantage of it and carve out kingdoms, or empires!, of their own.
In my campaign, set in Greyhawk, animuses** left over by the fall of Ivid the Undying and the Great Kingdom will try to use it and plot against each other. At least one animus siding with the living.
Conflicts between evil begins - and perhaps the PCs can use that.

Fanatical paladins fighting the zombie hordes with all means. Perhaps some villages have to be sacrificed for the greater good - in particular if that means not having to cooperate with the Death Knights/evil cultists/necromancers/vampires who actually are trying to limit the damage for their own sake.

And what happens when so many undead congregate? When a city falls to the hordes?
Does not rifts open to the Shadowfell/Ethereal plane/Negative energy plane?


And what is behind it all? Is it Kyuss, trying to become a god? Vecna? Orcus?
Or is it all a mistake, a wizard trying to get more power than she could manage, letting it all loose?


* There was a thread here making 5e stats for the Spawn. I'll get my conversion, based on the AD&D version up some day soon.

** Uh, well, animi really, but I fear that may make it less easy to see what I mean.

 

[Henrix]

After giving the 4e scenarios Klaus linked above a brief glance. (Thanks, Claudio!)


And ghouls - the eaters of dead flesh. Are zombies palatable? Perhaps only if they're fresh.
Or perhaps some become ghouls instead of zombies? With a taste for living brains.

 

[CM]

This brings to mind Arthas Menethil's story from Warcraft. He was a paladin commanding an army forced to fight against an undead horde. It turned out the entire town of Stratholme was infected and the people would soon turn into zombies. Rather than allow that to happen, he ordered the entire city to be purged. This formed a rift in his allies and ultimately led him down the path to essentially becoming an anti-paladin. Arthas Menethil

In an undead plague campaign, military and political leaders will be forced to make all kinds of hard decisions with no real satisfactory answers. It doesn't help that some may begin to crack under pressure. Play up this aspect, with questionable orders coming down from superiors and frequent changes in leadership.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

From elsewhen:

An expanded version of something I proposed to Mitchbones some time ago, based on Larry Niven's "Night on Mispec Moor" (Niven's "Night of the Living Dead"- a soldier finds himself alone on a bloody battlefield...and the dead soldiers around him begin to come back to life when the sun sets), Army of Darkness, and Tremors*:

The Standard of Orcus

A group of travellers (including the PCs) is beset by a group of brigands, and flee across a moor that had once been the site of a major battle a hundred years ago.

The fleeing travellers are surrounded, however, and forced to fight. Despite being outnumbered, they manage to find a small, slightly rocky hillock where they form a circle and drive the brigands back- some using rusted weapons scrounged from the ground- just as the sun sets. As the last brigand flees, will-o'-wisps appear at the edge of the moor to prey on them, forcing the travellers to huddle on the hillock for safety.

However, blood from this skirmish has fallen on a scrap of cloth partially buried in the dirt on the side of the hillock. The cloth is a ragged battle standard devoted to Orcus- the blood reawakens its dire power...and all across the field, dead soldiers claw their way up from the dirt and head for the location of the banner!

And the battle standard is now grasped by an undead commander of no mean skill!

Can the party figure out why the dead have risen up...and can they undo this evil before it kills them?

*The action sequences in Tremors should dictate some of the action: some of the undead should attack from directly below the party, and the battlefield itself should contain other rocky outcroppings similar to the one the party starts on, to replicate elements of the final battle in this movie

 

[Klaus]

In the 3e Fiery Dragon adventure The Ghost Machine (published in To Stand On Hallowed Ground), a group of scholastic monks, the Brotherhood of Form, travels the countryside restoring ruined structures as part of their meditations. The problem is they are about to restore an evil relic called The Ghost Machine, which creates a field of negative energy that animates undead in an ever-expanding circle. If the PCs don't stop the Machine, the whole world could be covered in negative energy.