Yavathol
Explorer
My imagination was fired by an idea I read for a campaign (https://samhaine.wordpress.com/2017/08/14/assorted-game-seeds/) :
The end of days is happening, and the gates of the afterlife have closed. Any souled creature that dies soon rises again as an undead of potency based on its power in life, and attempting to preemptively dismember or restrain the corpse tends to just have it come back as an incorporeal spirit.
Unfortunately, most of the rest of the world doesn’t seem to have figured this out quite as readily as you have. Can you work your way through the usual high fantasy tropes to try to save the world while trying really, really hard not to kill any of your living opposition? Every slaughtered goblin is just a zombie you’ll have to deal with in a moment, so it’s worthwhile to see if you can just talk out your problems before the walking dead truly outnumber the living.
I'm trying to think about how to take this idea a stage further, and would love to hear your thoughts! I can see three general situations:
1) Predators such as lions, owlbears and dragons will figure out to stop attacking certain species and prey on non-souled creatures, the more intelligent ones figuring it out quicker. There will certainly be a reduction in predator numbers and Druids will not be happy about the unnatural situation.
2) Intelligent savage tribe members such as goblins, human barbarians, bugbears etc will have to drastically change their culture in order to adapt. They may well be smart enough to try dismembering a body and then not be powerful enough to fight off the resultant Wight or Wraith. Seems like they would take serious losses and be the source of most of the new undead threat?
3) Intelligent city dwellers may take some initial losses but tend to have more clerics and holy water, consecrated ground etc. They would be organised enough to figure out what the situation is and communicate that where necessary. Since a reasonable proportion of the population is armed, I don't think things would be catastrophic, several cities might survive by letting victims come back as zombies and then slaying them..
Any opportunistic necromancers or lich may try to exacerbate the situation by assassinating prominent leaders and clerics..
What do you all think?
The end of days is happening, and the gates of the afterlife have closed. Any souled creature that dies soon rises again as an undead of potency based on its power in life, and attempting to preemptively dismember or restrain the corpse tends to just have it come back as an incorporeal spirit.
Unfortunately, most of the rest of the world doesn’t seem to have figured this out quite as readily as you have. Can you work your way through the usual high fantasy tropes to try to save the world while trying really, really hard not to kill any of your living opposition? Every slaughtered goblin is just a zombie you’ll have to deal with in a moment, so it’s worthwhile to see if you can just talk out your problems before the walking dead truly outnumber the living.
I'm trying to think about how to take this idea a stage further, and would love to hear your thoughts! I can see three general situations:
1) Predators such as lions, owlbears and dragons will figure out to stop attacking certain species and prey on non-souled creatures, the more intelligent ones figuring it out quicker. There will certainly be a reduction in predator numbers and Druids will not be happy about the unnatural situation.
2) Intelligent savage tribe members such as goblins, human barbarians, bugbears etc will have to drastically change their culture in order to adapt. They may well be smart enough to try dismembering a body and then not be powerful enough to fight off the resultant Wight or Wraith. Seems like they would take serious losses and be the source of most of the new undead threat?
3) Intelligent city dwellers may take some initial losses but tend to have more clerics and holy water, consecrated ground etc. They would be organised enough to figure out what the situation is and communicate that where necessary. Since a reasonable proportion of the population is armed, I don't think things would be catastrophic, several cities might survive by letting victims come back as zombies and then slaying them..
Any opportunistic necromancers or lich may try to exacerbate the situation by assassinating prominent leaders and clerics..
What do you all think?
