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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2011422" data-attributes="member: 18387">"Necromantic Lore" is a compendium of unusual undead to add to any role playing campaign (although written for d20 games).  There are no necromantic spells or feats presented for wizards, just brilliantly conceived undead.  Among the monstrosities presented are the "Atrocity Wight ...  a depraved jigsaw puzzle pieced together out of dozens of hunanoid corpses," the "Bloodpool ...  created when innocents are killed en masse and their blood is allowed collect and merge.  ...  A bloodpool in its natural form resembles a roiling pool of bright crimson liquid, and can be mistaken for a new type of ooze or slime." There are "Dream Phantoms," the souls of those who died in their sleep and now haunt the living, and "Eternal Confessors," undead clerics carrying on the work of their god even after death -- try turning one of those! "Forever Jacks" are thieves who cheated death and now are nearly impossible to destroy (CR 12!).The term of venery for a group of crows is "a murder" -- a murder of crows.  "Necromantic Lore" gives us the "Horrid Murder," a flock of crows possessed by a malignant undead intelligence.  Think of Alfred Hitchcock's "Birds" coming at a party.  Think of a party afraid of every bird call for fear that it is a "Horrid Murder" of crows coming to get them!  In the alternative, think of a group of villagers asking PCs for help against a "Horrid Murder," and the PCs refusing their assistance, then let the ghastly consequences of their refusal come back to haunt them, as they are blamed as cowards "afraid of a bunch of birds," who let some awful fate befall the villagers (there's no reason for other NPCs to necessarily know that the "bunch of birds" itself was the monster).Does the party's wizard think he can handle planar creatures? Let him face a "Necromental" -- an undead elemental -- and watch him run! Malevolent whirlpools, giant apparitions in the sky and troops of wind-swept zombies are enough to make all but the toughest parties tremble.Want something smaller to horrify your players? Try unleashing the "Pale Masker," an undead face-hugger that forms a symbiotic bond with its victim, or the "Shadow Parasite," which merges with its victims shadow.Not ALL of the beasties in "Necromantic Lore" are malevolent.  The "Guiding Spirit" protects its loved ones from beyond the grave.  What might happen if a cleric determined to rid the world of undead decides that a party member's ghostly Grandpa has got to be destroyed?  What should a party do?  Help destroy an undead thing or fight a cleric to protect their ghostly ally?  The "Legends & Lairs" books are great for encouraging "role playing" (as opposed to "roll playing").   Do the PCs regard clerics as just field medics and not as sacred vessel anointed by a divine power?  If a DM gives the local high-level cleric a divine command to destroy all undead creatures as unholy abominations, Grandpa's ghost will stir up some active role playing when the PCs discover that their "Guiding Spirit" is standing between them and their too-often-relied-upon source of "cures," "heals" and "resurrection" spells.   They are going to have to make a choice:  recognize the spiritual authority of the cleric and let him vanquish their Guardian Spirit, or else they are going to have to find another source of medical care (and ignore the state of their souls in the process).   Should they opt for the cleric as their HMO, then I, as a GM, would unleash Granny on them as an avenging CR14 "Grim Stalker," a powerful undead creature which hunts down and kills "those who rely too heavily on healing magic!"  (But that's just me, of course.)  "Necromantic Lore" needn't be just a compendium of undead beasties -- it can be the source of ongoing ROLE PLAYING campaign seeds as the PCs stir up a higher CR undead each time they think they've gotten rid of a lesser one."Necromantic Lore" is filled with terrific undead monsters to unleash on a party or to be placed to plague a location with which the party is familiar.  This is a GREAT addition to any DM's library.  Five stars!</blockquote>

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