Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Undead Origins
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 7151386" data-attributes="member: 2209"><p><strong>Hell on Earth d20</strong></p><p></p><p><a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/1177/Hell-on-Earth-D20?affiliate_id=17596" target="_blank">Hell on Earth d20</a></p><p>3.0</p><p><strong>Harrowed:</strong> Strong-willed brainers still occasionally claw their way back from the grave possessed by manitous—the same evil spirits that hucksters manipulated to work their hexes.</p><p>Being Harrowed isn’t actually a prestige class—you can’t just decide to be one of these creepy creatures. It’s just something that might happen to particularly lucky characters when they catch a bullet with their name on it.</p><p>When your character dies in Hell on Earth, roll 1d20. Add +1 to the result if your hero is 5th level, +2 if he’s 10th level, or +3 if he’s 15th level or higher. (Those bonuses don’t stack, by the way.) If the total result is 20 or higher, a manitou has latched onto his spirit and forces it back into his body—with an unwanted roommate. The brainer’s coming back from the grave.</p><p>Most Deaders stay in the grave 1d6 days. It takes a while to fight for the hero’s soul and then another 10-12 hours for the stubborn cuss to dig himself out—assuming the body was properly buried six feet under in the first place. Some Deaders come back quicker and some take longer—especially if the body was badly mangled or otherwise in bad shape.</p><p>The manitou needs the human’s psyche, so the victim’s head must be intact. Most major head wounds that kill a person render the body unusable, but that’s not always the case. It’s up to the Marshal if a special effect of some sort has ruined the hero’s brain and made him ineligible to come back as a Deader.</p><p>One side effect of all this Reckoning crap is that folks don’t always stay dead. I’m not talking about plain, old zombies. I’m talking about the Harrowed. We Templars call ’em “deaders.” See, when really tough hombres die, they are occasionally brought back to life by those same manitous I’ve been yapping about.</p><p><strong>Automaton:</strong> Dr. Darius Hellstromme created the first automatons way back in 1870 or so. Most believed they were “clockwork” men, propelled by an extremely complex</p><p>combination of steam and gears. What no one could figure out was how the automatons could think.</p><p>It took Hellstromme’s rivals many years to finally crack the “secret of the automatons.” It was actually dirt simple: the body was made of steam and gears, but the brain was that of the walkin’ dead.</p><p>Where Hellstromme might be now is a mystery to all, but his automated factories in Denver continue to churn out automatons.</p><p>They have the brain of a zombie, wired straight into a high-tech, heavily armed and armored chassis.</p><p>Hellstromme seems to have made most of his money back during the Great Rail Wars. That was definitely when he created the automatons: robots with human brains wired up inside, controlling the whole works.</p><p><strong>Doombringer:</strong> the Doombringers, ugly, mutated creatures more monster than human. They retain a feral human intelligence but are twisted and consumed by their hatred for norms, disloyal mutants, and especially heretics.</p><p>Even Silas doesn’t want many of these wackos around, so he sends the worst of them off into the wastes to hunt down heretics. Even he doesn’t know that the Doombringers have transcended their humanity and become undead abominations.</p><p><strong>Toxic Zombie:</strong> It’s amazing how much illegal dumping took place in the years before the Last War. After the Apocalypse, with no one around to put fresh loads of earth over the megacorporations’ dirty secrets, many of these toxic dumps leaked into nearby ponds or created their own cesspools of deadly ooze.</p><p>Sometimes, desperate travelers in need of water give these ponds a try. Most of them drop dead within minutes of inhaling, touching, or drinking the sludge. Occasionally, they actually fall into the stuff and become toxic zombies.</p><p><strong>Walkin' Dead:</strong> Walkin’ dead are animated corpses temporarily inhabited by manitous. They’re very common in ruined cities, creepy old graveyards, mausoleums, battlefields, or any other large concentration of bodies.</p><p>The first listing is for “civilian” undead.</p><p>What Jo doesn’t know is that anyone killed by a walkin’ dead, who doesn’t come back a Deader, has a 1 in 10 chance of coming back as a walkin’ dead herself.</p><p>If a hero is killed by a walkin’s dead and does not come back Harrowed, secretly roll 1d10. If you roll a 1, the poor brainer rises as one of Death’s walkin’ dead.</p><p>Death’s passage through Phoenix marked it in a way that even the Last War couldn’t. Anyone killed by walkin’ dead in the area of the city rises from the grave on a result 1–5 on a d10.</p><p><strong>Walkin' Dead Veteran:</strong> This one here is for better stock, such as zombies raised from a battlefield, a military cemetery, or the like.</p><p>War rode about the war-torn state on his red charger, and every battlefield he crossed gave up its dead to join his merciless army. Thousands of dead soldiers most still with their arms and armor, spread out from Kansas to devastate the West in their master’s name.</p><p><strong>Faminite:</strong> Famine rode her black steed right on top of the waters of Prosperity Bay. An army of those cursed by her touch followed behind, walking out of Purgatory, the part of the Maze set on fire by the ghost-rock bombs.</p><p>Famine’s most common troops are called “faminites.” I understand these things were encountered many years ago, but they weren’t undead. I don’t know what changed, or if the old legends were just wrong. The way it works—and I’ve seen it plenty now—is that these unfortunate souls get infected with a disease that literally starves them to death. As they’re dying, they become wild and ravenous, but don’t usually try to eat their friends if they can get other food instead. Once they come back as undead, it’s a different story. They aren’t satisfied by anything but human flesh.</p><p>Unfortunately, faminite outbreaks still occur from time to time. Sometimes you can save those infected before it’s too late, but most times the victims die less than a week after being infected, then come back as little more than a voracious monster that only looks like your Aunt Minnie.</p><p>Famine’s undead are hideous faminites. A human infected by their touch wastes slowly, maddeningly, away. He is not under any other creature’s control, nor is he undead, but he is ravenously hungry, and no amount of food can sate him. If no other food presents itself, the victim turns to living flesh.</p><p>When the person eventually dies (about 24 hours later), he rises again as a faminite. Note that these are different from the ones that appear in Deadlands: The Weird West. Those didn’t automatically arise as undead. In Hell on Earth, they do.</p><p><strong>Plague Zombie:</strong> It took a few weeks for anyone to figure out where Pestilence was. (He’s sometimes called the “Conqueror” in the Bible.) I guess “he” had to let some folks waste away before he could raise them as his new army. The bastard finally appeared in Texas on a stark-white horse. I’m told his first “harvest” of dead came from a cemetery outside of Houston, where they’d buried the victims of a recent “tummy twister” outbreak.</p><p>The Horseman known as Pestilence raises those who died from horrid diseases into horrors</p><p><strong>Warbot:</strong> Warbots are a lot like automatons. The factory techs take an undead brain and wire it into the go-box of some massive vehicle or gun.</p><p><strong>Cyborg:</strong> Remember I told you about deaders earlier? Good. Some of them, those who got snagged by the military, became something even more than Harrowed.</p><p>One of the last things to come out of the Last War were cyborgs. Both of the NA and SA had them at about the same time, so the militaries must have been working on them for a while. I don’t know exactly what happens, but they implant bionic parts into the deader’s corpse to make some sort of cross between a Harrowed and an automaton.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Voadam, post: 7151386, member: 2209"] [b]Hell on Earth d20[/b] [URL=http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/1177/Hell-on-Earth-D20?affiliate_id=17596]Hell on Earth d20[/URL] 3.0 [b]Harrowed:[/b] Strong-willed brainers still occasionally claw their way back from the grave possessed by manitous—the same evil spirits that hucksters manipulated to work their hexes. Being Harrowed isn’t actually a prestige class—you can’t just decide to be one of these creepy creatures. It’s just something that might happen to particularly lucky characters when they catch a bullet with their name on it. When your character dies in Hell on Earth, roll 1d20. Add +1 to the result if your hero is 5th level, +2 if he’s 10th level, or +3 if he’s 15th level or higher. (Those bonuses don’t stack, by the way.) If the total result is 20 or higher, a manitou has latched onto his spirit and forces it back into his body—with an unwanted roommate. The brainer’s coming back from the grave. Most Deaders stay in the grave 1d6 days. It takes a while to fight for the hero’s soul and then another 10-12 hours for the stubborn cuss to dig himself out—assuming the body was properly buried six feet under in the first place. Some Deaders come back quicker and some take longer—especially if the body was badly mangled or otherwise in bad shape. The manitou needs the human’s psyche, so the victim’s head must be intact. Most major head wounds that kill a person render the body unusable, but that’s not always the case. It’s up to the Marshal if a special effect of some sort has ruined the hero’s brain and made him ineligible to come back as a Deader. One side effect of all this Reckoning crap is that folks don’t always stay dead. I’m not talking about plain, old zombies. I’m talking about the Harrowed. We Templars call ’em “deaders.” See, when really tough hombres die, they are occasionally brought back to life by those same manitous I’ve been yapping about. [b]Automaton:[/b] Dr. Darius Hellstromme created the first automatons way back in 1870 or so. Most believed they were “clockwork” men, propelled by an extremely complex combination of steam and gears. What no one could figure out was how the automatons could think. It took Hellstromme’s rivals many years to finally crack the “secret of the automatons.” It was actually dirt simple: the body was made of steam and gears, but the brain was that of the walkin’ dead. Where Hellstromme might be now is a mystery to all, but his automated factories in Denver continue to churn out automatons. They have the brain of a zombie, wired straight into a high-tech, heavily armed and armored chassis. Hellstromme seems to have made most of his money back during the Great Rail Wars. That was definitely when he created the automatons: robots with human brains wired up inside, controlling the whole works. [b]Doombringer:[/b] the Doombringers, ugly, mutated creatures more monster than human. They retain a feral human intelligence but are twisted and consumed by their hatred for norms, disloyal mutants, and especially heretics. Even Silas doesn’t want many of these wackos around, so he sends the worst of them off into the wastes to hunt down heretics. Even he doesn’t know that the Doombringers have transcended their humanity and become undead abominations. [b]Toxic Zombie:[/b] It’s amazing how much illegal dumping took place in the years before the Last War. After the Apocalypse, with no one around to put fresh loads of earth over the megacorporations’ dirty secrets, many of these toxic dumps leaked into nearby ponds or created their own cesspools of deadly ooze. Sometimes, desperate travelers in need of water give these ponds a try. Most of them drop dead within minutes of inhaling, touching, or drinking the sludge. Occasionally, they actually fall into the stuff and become toxic zombies. [b]Walkin' Dead:[/b] Walkin’ dead are animated corpses temporarily inhabited by manitous. They’re very common in ruined cities, creepy old graveyards, mausoleums, battlefields, or any other large concentration of bodies. The first listing is for “civilian” undead. What Jo doesn’t know is that anyone killed by a walkin’ dead, who doesn’t come back a Deader, has a 1 in 10 chance of coming back as a walkin’ dead herself. If a hero is killed by a walkin’s dead and does not come back Harrowed, secretly roll 1d10. If you roll a 1, the poor brainer rises as one of Death’s walkin’ dead. Death’s passage through Phoenix marked it in a way that even the Last War couldn’t. Anyone killed by walkin’ dead in the area of the city rises from the grave on a result 1–5 on a d10. [b]Walkin' Dead Veteran:[/b] This one here is for better stock, such as zombies raised from a battlefield, a military cemetery, or the like. War rode about the war-torn state on his red charger, and every battlefield he crossed gave up its dead to join his merciless army. Thousands of dead soldiers most still with their arms and armor, spread out from Kansas to devastate the West in their master’s name. [b]Faminite:[/b] Famine rode her black steed right on top of the waters of Prosperity Bay. An army of those cursed by her touch followed behind, walking out of Purgatory, the part of the Maze set on fire by the ghost-rock bombs. Famine’s most common troops are called “faminites.” I understand these things were encountered many years ago, but they weren’t undead. I don’t know what changed, or if the old legends were just wrong. The way it works—and I’ve seen it plenty now—is that these unfortunate souls get infected with a disease that literally starves them to death. As they’re dying, they become wild and ravenous, but don’t usually try to eat their friends if they can get other food instead. Once they come back as undead, it’s a different story. They aren’t satisfied by anything but human flesh. Unfortunately, faminite outbreaks still occur from time to time. Sometimes you can save those infected before it’s too late, but most times the victims die less than a week after being infected, then come back as little more than a voracious monster that only looks like your Aunt Minnie. Famine’s undead are hideous faminites. A human infected by their touch wastes slowly, maddeningly, away. He is not under any other creature’s control, nor is he undead, but he is ravenously hungry, and no amount of food can sate him. If no other food presents itself, the victim turns to living flesh. When the person eventually dies (about 24 hours later), he rises again as a faminite. Note that these are different from the ones that appear in Deadlands: The Weird West. Those didn’t automatically arise as undead. In Hell on Earth, they do. [b]Plague Zombie:[/b] It took a few weeks for anyone to figure out where Pestilence was. (He’s sometimes called the “Conqueror” in the Bible.) I guess “he” had to let some folks waste away before he could raise them as his new army. The bastard finally appeared in Texas on a stark-white horse. I’m told his first “harvest” of dead came from a cemetery outside of Houston, where they’d buried the victims of a recent “tummy twister” outbreak. The Horseman known as Pestilence raises those who died from horrid diseases into horrors [b]Warbot:[/b] Warbots are a lot like automatons. The factory techs take an undead brain and wire it into the go-box of some massive vehicle or gun. [b]Cyborg:[/b] Remember I told you about deaders earlier? Good. Some of them, those who got snagged by the military, became something even more than Harrowed. One of the last things to come out of the Last War were cyborgs. Both of the NA and SA had them at about the same time, so the militaries must have been working on them for a while. I don’t know exactly what happens, but they implant bionic parts into the deader’s corpse to make some sort of cross between a Harrowed and an automaton. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Undead Origins
Top