Help: Need somthing that makes lots of Undead (My players stay the fork out!)

[jester47]

I have villan in my campaign that is a paladin that has fallen to Orcus and become a blackgaurd. He is manipulating his order and pretending to be a good paladin (he has some abjuration magic that protects him from the detect evil ability should one of his underlings have any reason to be so rude and use it on him.)

Now the players are currently braveing the Tomb of Abysthor trying to find out the extent of the Orcus Cult's operations.

Now when the players come out of the dungeon with the info that the Abbot-General is in the thrall of Orcus, this turns out to be the point where the Abbot-General puts his plan into motion.

He unleashes some magic/beast/spell on the keep of Vigilance (in Everlund in the Forgotten Realms) that turns the whole keep into undead of assorted types. This does not have to be instantaneous, but rather swift so the people of the city, and the PCs (of course) can see the strange lights and hear the screams.

The wand of Orcus does not do this, but also combinations work.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Aaron.

 

[Darkness]

Shadow: 1d4 rounds. They can multiply pretty quickly, given enough sufficiently weak victims.

 

[Darkness]

If you have Libris Mortis:

Bleakborn: Turn victims into zombies (sometimes bleakborn, DM's discretion) in 1d4 rounds. They're also pretty tough and can easily overpower a lot of people, especially with their heat-draining aura.

Other LM creatures with 1d4 rounds:
Crypt Chanter
Forsaken Shell
Murk
Slaughter Wight
Umbral Creature

 

[Serps]

Isn't there a cauldron thing in the book of vile darkness that manufactures zombies?

 

[der_kluge]

Here's what you need:

 

[Darkness]

Yep, but they must stew in the cauldron for 24 hours so it'd need to be put in motion a day before the PCs come back. You could create a faster one, though, maybe one that's a major artifact instead of a minor one.

 

[jester47]

Well the problem is that the Keep of Vigilance is a Temple of Helm. So you need somthing that is fairly powerful and quick.

AAaaarrrrrrrggggg!

I hate it when I do that...

I just realised that the characters are not going to be in the Keep when this happens, so why does it matter what actually did it? Lots of weird noise, green glows, screams etc. The players are dealing with the aftermath. Thinking along the lines of Event Horizon, but with undead you can see. The whole idea is that Orcus is building an army in the realms starting with the dungeons and the Keep. Varied undead and assorted traces indicate that the agents were many and varied.

Eventually the players might find some evidence of the thing that caused this, but the actual things may be spent, gone or both. All this at some blackgaurd's request for an army worthy of the name of Orcus!

Aaron.

 

[Darkness]

How powerful?

You could use a lich - they can be as powerful as necessary. It could slaughter the inhabitants and create the undead with spells.

Orcus probably has a lot of liches.

 

[jester47]

Hrm a lich and HIS/HER minions working contract for Ocus would be nice. That way I can have evidence of oozes, the lich, and other scary stuff.

Aaron.

 

[dvvega]

I remember a free downloadable adventure somewhere for 3.0 (not WOTC) that had a Soul Painting thing in it. If you stick it on a wall it slowly converts people to undead. It had influenced a whole mansion that was a day's ride away from the nearest town.

Now you could take that idea ... slowly turn them all undead with strategically placed paintings.

D