Doing an Undead Apocalypse in D&D


3.5/d20/OGL


There is already a discussion thread about having this in a D20 modern setting, but what about doing it in D&D? Would this be impossible given the existence of spellcasters and magical items? How might it work?


Simple. A god got bored/p1ssed off.
Sounds cool, I call Necromancer7/Cleric3/Mst10!

Or paladin5/Necromancer5/Spellsword10...

Liberty's Edge

I'm fond of meteors pulsing with eerie green or purple light myself.

Silver Crusade

I think it's possible, but obviously, not with D&D zombies. It might be easier to get the right effect at lower level on a smaller scale, such as a village or small town. Ghouls and ghasts are your best core villains of choice. If you have access, spawn of Kyuss are a fun variation of infectious undead. Divine PCs are very powerful versus undead, so a DM might want to goad them into blowing all their turn attempts early in a scenario, and then throw the advanced monsters at them. Even high level NPCs can only do so much when the whole town is getting infected.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

There are some very fecund undead. Wraiths, Shadows and similar can quickly cause an exponential growth that can fatigue out even much higher-level opponents. And as if that was not enough, consider some new strain of (say... wights) which do not start off as blank slates when they rise, but retain their class levels and abilities.

In case you know Age of Worms, think of a certain failure scenario in a certain city. That kind can grow worse, especially if the infection spreads.

Remember... "we can't fight them. There is too many of them, and each of our dead rises as strong as she was, only devoid of moral, infatiguable, a horror."

Liberty's Edge

I like wights. They have some "oomph" to them.


MrFish wrote:
Would this be impossible given the existence of spellcasters and magical items?

It's definitely possible. As mentioned, AoW-AP was entirely based around this concept.

MrFish wrote:
How might it work?

Again, use AoW as your guide. We need a deity or epic-level "mastermind" behind the plot. We need several subsidiary organizations or cults or whatever in on the plot. Zombie-cults at low levels, cabals of necromancers, vampire coteries, and ultimately the "church" of the mastermind.

Obviously, not all of these organizations will know they are working together and all controlled by the same ultimate power.

"Disease-like" spread of undead is necessary, or at least helpful. 3rd Edition distinctly differentiated between "undead" and "spawn" to avoid a lot of the "undead/lycanthropes expand their numbers with every kill and take over the world" game-break problem. You need something that overcomes this. "Worm-infestation" from AoW was a good idea. Anyway, find some 28 Days Later tactic that fits into your world and overwhelms the churches before they can cure-disease/remove-curse/heal it.

Anyway, those are just the first off-the-top-of-my-head ideas.

HTH,

Rez


The gods stop granting spells.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Maybe look at the various types and sub-types of big blast spells (acid, cold, electricity, fire, force, light, sonic, etc.) and create a easy to apply template based on each of them, and also give all undead the re-animating quality, so a few rounds/minutes/hours/nights after they're destroyed, they rise from the un-undead and apply the template corresponding to the method of magic that killed them. The only way to keep undead down is to destroy them with positive energy, be it from Turning or conjuration-healing spells. That also places a premium on healing, because a spell used to heal a comrade can't be used to kill an undead.


You could have the undead plague be magical or natural (virus-based) rather than spiritual (evil reanimation). Boy, would that throw the cleric off...

Depending on how much conspiracy you want in the campaign, you could make an intelligent Son of Kyuss-type undead with shapechanging abilities (or parasitic) that relies on something other than random chance for infection (deliberately planning who the next victims will be).

Go will Resident Evil-type zombies, that require called shots to take down and are infectious.

Just my 2 cp's...

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

In 3.0, I played in a very low-magic campaign in a world where everything that died came back as undead. We were kind of primitive villagers (a shortsword was kind of high-tech for us) that had a tradition of burning our dead. No biggie. But a colonizing force of high-tech folk (quasi-gunpowder and maybe even laser technology) just built mausoleums and shut in their undead.

Actually, I think I played a 3.5 ranger w/o spells. Very awesome for that kind of campaign. It was slow going, and I think I had to quit it when we were still level 3. We also used a variant magic system, which non-spellcasting players didn't even know the rules to, which was really cool. So my ranger didn't know anything about spells, and my own rules-lawyer self didn't know anything about spells either. It really helped with the role-playing. I think it was a point-based magic system, and the magician was able to add templates to spells at higher levels, because at 3rd level he was able to cast something like Mass Cure Light Wounds when were fighting undead, so it healed me and hurt the skeletons I was fighting.


I like the idea of various undead, but Kyuss and the Age of Worms has always kind of interested me. I'm wondering how adaptable is it, or are there just plain good ideas to possibly be lifted from it?

It strikes me that (in summation of the good advice I've been offered) there are several things to consider:

1. That powerful spells and even some magical items have charges or limitations--if there are truly hordes of undead these effects will run out, need to be recharged, remomorized, re-prayed for, etc.

2. That some undead are not merely spiritual opponents. (Sons of Kyuss for example)

3. That some undead are extremely infectious anyway.


The 3.5 Book Elder Evils, a fantastic supplement of the last days of 3.5, had an Elder Evil which came to kill the world. It was literally a dead moon which would sap the life of a world and pour undead onto it from its tortured surface. It had a number of interesting ways to boost undead over the course of a campaign, and had a great set of high-level undead baddies.

Consider setting your characters in the end result of this apocolypse. It would explain why the world was overrun, give you an excuse to kill any high-level characters, and allow you to start scaling your game. Eventually the characters can go to drive away the dead moon and restore life to their world.


Hm...another fascinating suggestion. It sounds a little simpler than The Age of Worms too...I'll have to decide which to focus on. Thoughts from others?

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

It would help to know what you are shooting for. If you want to run a "survival horror" type of scenario with low-level characters, you probably do not need a huge amount of whys. Just drop them into the city as it devours itself with infectious undead. If you want so >>save<< the world from a zombie apocalpyse, it helps to have a goal that can be achieved.

I am not too familiar with the Elder Evils scenario, but have run the larger part of Age of Worms. It is excellent material, make no mistake, but not too focussed on hordes of the undead. For good reasons, too. Keep in mind that if you run too many undead (and AoW is very close to too much on several occasions), rogues will hate you.

For a one-shot, I'd prefer relatively low levels, and a good mix of zombies, closet napoleons tearing into the bands of survivors, and so forth. Stay close to the source. :)


As a huge fan of zombie movies/video games/whatever, I've often thought of how to pull this off myself. The way I figure it, if undead started spreading exponentially, people would flock to cities and barricade themselves inside. The countryside would become a no-mans land, with uncountable hamlets and villages being deserted or massacred.

One important issue to consider would be how cities would supply food and water to the citizens. Also, assuming you're playing in a typical D&D setting, how would the more powerful creatures of the world react to this? Dragons would probably be annoyed at best, while humanoids such as ogres and hobgoblins would be put in almost as bad a situation as humans.

Over time, I think the individual cities that managed to survive (thanks to thick walls, martial law, and some way to feed the people) would quickly be reduced to very primitive states. Forget about luxuries like silk and spices; people would be hard-pressed to even find adequate tools like hammers or barrels. The "outside" would become a dark, mysterious place, where rumors of other cities are dismissed as nonsense. High-level characters would still be able to move from city to city (especially with magic), but they'd be regarded with deep suspicion.

Just some thoughts.


I actually don't think people would flock to the cities. This is because, while the cities may have hardened defenses, it will be the first target of the undead. The undead will follow the people to the cities and in short order, someone infected will get in. The same defenses that these cities relied on will instead trap them within, leading to slaughter and feast for the undead.

I think people will rather become much more nomadic, intent on staying one step ahead of the horde. When faced with much more powerful undead variants, these groups may band together temporarily to take it down, and then disperse.

Society would probably break down with all this happening, making relatively cheap things like food or water highly valuable. The few existing strongholds, impervious to infection either because of the sheer difficulty in reaching or xenophobia, might very well experience a temporary boon.

Take for example a mountain of dwarves. Even if they encounter undead in their tunnels, they could easily collapse them to ensure no threat. Add to this the harrowing mountain path one has to use to reach their home, and the undead will have lots of trouble reaching them. However. let's say the remnants of the nearby human kingdom travel to the dwarves seeking add. Now any lord will know that it would be foolish to take in so many, so he regretfully turns them aside. He grants them a mercy though, and offers them the choice to exchange their possessions for supplies. The meager refugee's except and not much longer than that are on their way westward, perhaps due to the incoming winter. While they are traveling, they spread word of the dwarve's kindness, and soon many small groups are traveling to the dwarven stronghold to barter for supplies. The dwarves, having the upper hand in the trades, profit.


See, you do this: Someone plants a bomb in the heart of the Negative plane, and when it blows, it somehow suffuses the material plane with negative energy.

Now everyone who dies rises as an undead, according to their personal power.

And all of Urgathoa's clerics commit ritual sucide, just to be raised as powerful undead to lead the assault on the living.

Scarab Sages

If I remember correctly, the end of the Age of Worms had some "what if" ideas in case the PC's did not succeed in defeating a certain worm-infested deity.

Or...You could just have the world invaded by a uber-powerful undead monstrosity. I'd name it Aberzombie, but that's just me.


Ha, yes...aberzombie...

So my plan I think is to do this: borrow an element of Age of Worms or two (Ebon Triad for example) and have this major difference: the following kinds of undead exist.

1. Liches. These are among the only undead that choose to be undead. Typical liches.

2. Zombies. These unfortunates are the dead who are restless; they inhabit their own living shell, barely able to function, tormented by their limited senses and abilities, desperately craving the flesh of the living without knowing why. They are tools for those who rule the undead.

3. The demon inhabited. I've hinted before in my game that there is something really sinister about ghouls, ghasts and wights. So this is it: otherwise formless outsiders in the service of the dark triumvirate inhabit souls of the dead when they can, turning them to evil purpose. The bodies need to have been violated in some manner (usually through some kind of awful death) in order to pave the way for another evil spirit to come into them.

4. Sometimes the evil spirits are able to come through to the world as shadows, the closest thing to a form they really have.

5. shades/ghosts/phantoms etc; in this context these are the disembodied of the restless dead--they do not truly rest.

Another thing I am going to do is this: in order to prevent a body from rising again a priest/priestess needs to do proper blessings (as per the spell, not a mere rite) on hallowed ground or else the body needs to be completely destroyed.


HeroicHerald wrote:

people would [not] flock to the cities ... undead will follow the people to the cities and in short order, someone infected will get in. The same defenses that these cities relied on will instead trap them

SNIP
I think people will rather become much more nomadic, intent on staying one step ahead of the horde
SNIP
Society would probably break down with all this happening, making relatively cheap things like food or water highly valuable.

Initially, I think people would retreat to urban centers out of fear and habit as the undead increasingly canvas the countryside, but then the infection gets in and runs rampant. Those with somewhere to go then flee the city while the majority remaining within turn to block-by-block paranoid isolationists. The city structure breaks down into independent districts that attempt to preserve themselves.

I suggest you consider the example of London during the Black Plagues.

I do not think people will turn nomadic, but it depends upon your world-geography. If there is large open space they might, but probably not in a typical northern-Europe-type heavily-wooded hills setting. Fear of the unknown will cause people to avoid roaming into unfamiliar lands, and instead they will hide out and defend themselves in small knots.

Some small bastions of civilization will hold out, perhaps the ones who saw this coming. Read When Worlds Collide.

FWIW,

Rez


Aberzombie wrote:

If I remember correctly, the end of the Age of Worms had some "what if" ideas in case the PC's did not succeed in defeating a certain worm-infested deity.

Or...You could just have the world invaded by a uber-powerful undead monstrosity. I'd name it Aberzombie, but that's just me.

Nah, you'd have to change the name to Uberzombie! :P

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

I think eventually, an enterprising wizard will invent magical control collars, and the zombie hordes will be domesticated and used as a work force to support idyllic suburban life.

And Trinity will be a housewife to a two-armed version of Doc Connor.

Propriety!!!


Heres how my DM did this type of run.
We were in the realms, Shar,Velsharoon(human undead and magic),Kiransellee(drow undead and revenge)and one or two other gods all decided to have their followers attack in a coordinated effort. It was a surprise night time attack agaisnt the main bastions of law and goodness. The undead were powered by two gods that were themselves being powered by major gods. Naturally there were a few places such as Halruaa that were left completely alone(velsharoon was already openly whorshipped there so why punish them) and a few places like Waterdeep and The entire Moonshea Island chain that were simply too strong to be taken by surprise.

All in all the adventure was alotta fun.

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