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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aloïsius" data-source="post: 6304763" data-attributes="member: 1191">A few advices/ideas...1) Don't use undead as mere critters, especially at low level. They should be either the "end level boss", or a threat the PC are forced to flee. NO SKELETON : those are clean bones golem, they are not frightening. Use zombie, ghouls, ghost, vampire, whatever has a face, but a distorted one.2) No cleric. No turn undead. Or make your undead immune to that for whatever reason you want. Likewise, most magic (illusion, enchantment, cold, electricity spell) don't work, and neither do sneak attack, nor critical hit, nor massive damage. 3) Use hints about their absolute unnatural, horrific nature. The animals (horses, wolf companion...) of the PCs should be panicked even before the PCs can SEE the undead. The temperature drops suddenly. The light goes out (torch, candles, camp fires...). 4) Give the PC easy, tempting means to escape : the walking dead never walk when the sun is in the sky, they don't cross running water, stuff like that. Fear is useless if the PC can't succumb. If they have no choice but to fight, they will suppress their fear. 5) Give the PC demonstrations of the undead horrific strength : have a big scary monster/fighter be eaten alive by a swarm of undeads. Have a mob of panicked villagers being slaghtered by a single wraith/banshee. 6) Regeneration. They are already dead, you can't kill them. A severed hand become an animated claw that grasp your leg and lacerate your flesh. Once the zombi fall prone, he stand up from prone one round latter.7) Contagion. For every undead you use, one way or the other. If they wound you, you become sick, you die, and you rise as an undead. If they don't eat you, they make you one of them.8) NPC who were friend to the PC become undead. Not only they are now very dangerous, animated with the desire to kill and devour, but they are obviously suffering from an inhumane level of pain.  Being an undead is not nice, it's not a power-up, it's not something you may want, unless you are absolutely mad : it's an horrific curse, the worst of all. 9) Only absolute destruction works, but it's absolute : once undead, never alive again. You can't be raised from the dead if you have been undead, even if your undead body has been destroyed. You soul is safe in the afterlife, but that's all. Now, combine :4+5 => the PCS lead the NPC to safety. Everyone is scared, but every one is safe. Then, something very bad happens : a solar eclipse, the river going dry or a bridge opened by some traitor, and everyone is slaughtered, while the PC are forced to flee for whatever plot reason (rather than dying trying to protect the crowd). Use props. Turn literally the light off in the room (just keep the minimum amount necessary to read the dice), and turn it on when the PC are "safe". If it's in winter, open the window so that every one feel the cold. Use creepy music when undead are close, and horrific music when they are there.</blockquote>

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