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By Zombieland I mean undead everywhere, not necessarily all zombies.
I know all the reasons this is unlikely, but the question is what series of events would it take for zombieland to become a Golarion (or whatever fantasy setting) reality?
I envision a setting where the living and undead percentages effectively swap. Making far more undead than living. I picture high level casters who were able to save a percentage of the living population, but not everyone. It all happened too fast.
Perhaps there would be a few bastions of humanoids left ranging from necromancers to holy churches that were consecrated fast enough to provide protection or had been so before the change.
My thought is that something happens. The heroes' didn't save the day and "X" occurred. Epic spell, reawaken demigod, whatever. At that moment things changed.
Here's the list of things that changed i've compiled so far:
1) For whatever cosmic law the gods cannot overtly prevent it. Gods skew this too much. For whatever reason the goodly gods can't make sweeping gestures directly. They must act through their mortal agents. Besides, I hate cosmic hand-waving.
2) Everyone who dies is auto-raised as undead. This should scale with HD. Basically the more levels you have the more likely you'll raise as a more powerful and/or intelligent undead. Most people are low level and most will simply raise as zombies/skeletons. Could be a fun chart to make. The exception being spells that specifically prevent it, being buried on holy ground, or completely destroying a corpse
3) All currently dead bodies with sufficient remains auto-res into undead per #2
4) The planet becomes mildly negatively aligned. Not strictly necessary, but it adds the right vibe. Either the alignment came because of the undead or the undead came because of the alignment. Either way it's flavorful.
Can you think of anything else that may need to be added?
Like half a dozen shadows in a crowded marketplace will do it, honestly. Strength drain a commoner to 0 Str and get a new incorporeal monster that can do the same thing moments later.
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This sounds like a fun setting. Carrion crown on steroids.
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The Aspis Consortium, always looking for the fast and easy power, had a brilliant plan. The Consortim began gathering Pukwudgies from all over Golarion. Through various alchemical and magical means, they managed to modify the base toxin from the shapechangers into a toxin that when ingested, would cause the victim to raise from the dead and continue on with his Aspis mission, or at the very least, prevent the Pathfinders from being able to swoop in and steal the results of the Aspis agents' work.
The toxin went virulent. Those who had volunteered became carriers until death. Those they infected became carriers until death. The toxin had mutated (or so the Aspis now claims) and was being excreted through sweat, blood, and worst of all, through naturally excreted pheromones. Every agent infected everyone who passed within 50 feet of him. Each of those did the same, and so on, and so on. The time it took the toxin to metastasize shrunk dramatically. At first, it took days. Near the end, it took only hours. A single individual could contaminate every single citizen in a city the size of Absolom in under a week.
The first wave was almost invisible. No one really paid attention to a couple dozen extra undead in the world. Most of the carriers were still alive. Slowly, in bits and pieces, reports began trickling in. It had become apparent that everyone who died was coming back. By then, it was too late.
EDIT: Of course, it could well be that the Whispering Way finally managed to get its agents into the Aspis to cause such a plague based on the research of Tar-Baphon among others.
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I'd probably do something similar to Marvel Zombies, and set it as an alternate-universe Golarion, along with a follow-up campaign in the "real" Golarion where the heroes have to stop the alternate universe zombie versions of themselves from breaking through ;)
Sounds like the eventual end result of Carrion Crown's potential conclusion.
Which would be:
Perhaps this could be an effect of Tar-Baphon breaking out of his prison at Gallowspire.
^That.
Powerful, almost demi-god status lich pops up, riles up the lich population of Geb, and gets...creative.
I could see them creating something like a cross between JuJu Zombies and Apocalypse Zombies as initial carriers, perhaps.
Make enough high HD, powerful fighters with that combination of templates, and you begin to have a problem. Powerful adventurers get sent in to deal with them, and one slip up means there are now MORE powerful, skilled, intelligent and CONTAGIOUS zombies running around, all the while being able to mow through civilian populations like they're not there.
Soon, the entire world is undead, bar pockets of survivors powerful casters moved to demiplanes, other planets, or just protected bunkers.
I'm sure Aerylinth will be here soon to talk about the wraithpocalypse and why it should have happened already.
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Eh, wraithpocalypse is EASY. It just needs a wraith and a small, isolated town to begin.
Zombies are harder to apocalypse-ize in Pathfinder, which is why it's more fun. =)
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I'm sure Aerylinth will be here soon to talk about the wraithpocalypse and why it should have happened already.
I actually came here looking for that.
To TLDR that wonderful explanation, Wraiths(and Shadows for that matter) are totally intelligent and have absolutely no reason not to float into towns and kill children, turning them into Wraiths and drift on to their next victim.
Instant ghost town within maybe an hour considering how exponential the Wraith forces get.
But really all an undead apocalypse causes is the uplifting of Goblinkind with our clearly superior skills at Stealth and Scavenging.
I've actually been working on a campaign like this for years. Basically, a badass split-personality (one fallen good/one evil) Mystic Theurge is working for Charon to kill and capture as many souls to empower Charon enough to seize the 'death' portfolio from Pharasma. He would ascend to become God of the Dead, however, as a newly seized portfolio, it's unstable and Pharasma still has enough claim to weaken him.
In the meantime, he forces the dead to rise in many forms and PCs need to stop him. With the aid of Pharasma, they delve into Abaddon to take on Charon.
I stole the idea from "The Walking Dead" that everyone was infected in a game I had. Cultist had worked over several decades to set up contamination so that it occurred all over the world at the same time. They also triggered a few mass killings in strategic points to get things going.
One thing that I believe you would have to resolve is why is it that good clerics can't stop undead, or at least slow their spread. I agree with Pharisma being incapicitsted would be a good start then couldn't the souls simply be destroyed by clerics?
There's just too many. And some of the more intelligent/powerful undead are coordinating some of the effort to keep the clerics held back. This would/could vary from bastion (of humanity) to bastion. Vampirelord here wants this particular church of Cuthbert annihilated so he's arranging the situation as such, Lich over there wants something under that consecrated ground, etc.
I stole the idea from "The Walking Dead" that everyone was infected in a game I had. Cultist had worked over several decades to set up contamination so that it occurred all over the world at the same time. They also triggered a few mass killings in strategic points to get things going.
I like that.
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So, I actually asked myself this question recently. My players are going through the Carrion Crown Path, and only 2 of the party even have all the info. (Others have died, moved on to other adventures, or retired) So, I've decided that if the party fails to defeat Andivion Andrissant, he will raise Tar-Baphon from Gallowspire. If this were to happen I'd even have an invasion event at the end of Kingmaker, where Tar-Baphon's undead legions assault the party's kingdom.
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Some person or group, maybe with the best of intentions, decides they are done with gods and other outsiders meddling in their affairs. So, in a great magical ritual, they sever their world's connection with all other planes. Great! Now fiends, fey, etc can't meddle in anyone's affairs, and suddenly many self-righteous priesthoods are cut off from the source of their divine power!
Except, Severing the connections between planes works both ways. Now dead can't continue on to the afterlife. Anything that dies auto resurrects as zombie/skeleton. And if you destroy the corpse, the spirit simply becomes some form of incorporeal dead. Wouldn't take long under those circumstances for the living to become vanishingly rare.
Dark Souls anyone?
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Aroden returns... in the wrong way!
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There was a 1st Edition undead called the Sons of Kyuss from the Fiend Folio. Every now and again, as you meleed with them, a worm would jump from their bodies onto you, and if you didn't make your saving throws or get your Cure Disease Timely, you'd become a Son, yourself. Then again, lots of Undead procreate.
How about a planet with a 90 degree axial tilt? Execept for an unusually temperate tropical zone, half the world would be in 60 months of night and the other 6 months of day. It would be an extreme desert/tundra, and the Undead would run wild with the seasons.
The age of worms adventure path from dragon magazine is based on this concept, the possible return of Kyuss and coming undead invasion. There is even one particular adventure that could easily turn into undead apaucolypse in city of greyhawk if players fail.
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Also the Obsidian Apocalypse setting by LPJ design does exactly what this thread is asking by slamming the world with an asteroid charged with negative energy. The resulting destruction kills most people cuts off the planet from the gods because of the cloud of negatively charged dust and raises most dead as undead.
I have often thought that a tidal locked world would make a good campaign setting.
One half of the world is in permanent freezing night. The other half in permanent blazing day. Only an narrow band of permanent dawn/twilight is suitable for permanent inhabitation.
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Let's see how a PC would do this.
The obvious answer is Cursed Earth.
At best cursed earth covers an area of 3.14 square miles.
Actually... forgive me here, but I'm going to use metric.
8.13 km2
The earth has a land surface area of 148940000 km2
Therefore if golarion and earth are similar, and circles could be optimally overlapped we'd be looking at 18319803 or more castings.
Now at 7 spells per day this would take about 7165 years
and cost (at 10000gp of onyx per casting) about 18 billion gps worth of powdered onyx.
But, let's say we build an item that can cast the spell an unlimited number of times per day.
roughly 1800*17*9+10000*50=275400+500000=775400gp. Creations cost is 623930 if you take hedge magician. Now there was a time 600+K gp seemed like a lot, but that was before we had a material component cost so high we had to start calculating whether the elemental plane of earth actually contained enough onyx to do this.
so 624K gp and you have a lovely zombieapocalypse... thing. A hat? Seems like a hat.
Casting time is 10 minutes. If we assume travel time is negligible then without sleep this whole thing is now doable in just 348 years.
With four of these (and some ruthless accomplices) and about 2.5 million gp you could do the whole thing in less than a century. That's about the wealth by level of 4 19th level PCs, so once you murder, loot and raise the other three members of your adventuring party you're in!
For those aspiring armegeddonizers who seek to do this at a slightly lower level I direct you to the Soul Trade. Even a commoners soul is worth about 100gp of material component, which means 20000 commoners souls and you're in! Possibly at the cost of rendering you zombieapocalypse hat into a sentient and very, very evil item.
While a century to do the world does sound like a lot, remember that with 4 of these you can do about 1800 square miles a day. About a 24 mile radius in a day - though there will be some very short gaps in that.
Guesstimating that means you could do everything north of the inner sea in about a year. Another year for everything south.
And you needn't stop at just one world. These beauties can be lent to madmen on other worlds as well!
If you can get enough people on side you may even be able to form a cult (cough whispering way), allowing for more items, so faster dispersal. Further, such a cult would allow you to use the oncoming 'wave' to strike at the clerics most likely to cause a problem, desecrate the graveyards, and spread rumours of the effect being undispellable.
Sadly this effect can be dispelled, and doesn't get round the consecration effect upon many graveyards.
Let's see how a PC would do this.
The obvious answer is Cursed Earth.
At best cursed earth *snip8...Maths...
I like that idea. However, if I were an evil undead worshiping nutjub I'd make an item that does that same thing, only it expands it's own radius over time. Perhaps the same surface area as though it were casting itself every ten minutes. The circle would expand quickly then get slower the larger it got. I can't do the math, but it seems like a good way to go.
Of course if you used multiple of these devices on lets say the 6 equidistant points of the globe you'd have your very own zombieland in no time. Simply protect (with a massive undead army perhaps) or hide the devices and you're good to go.
As a point of efficiency i'd recommend starting the device in a heavily populated area.
First one to cause the zombie apocalypse wins?
Also, there's a question about whether it might be possible to get a mythic ascendant spell. Potentially that might just increase the area. That'd be ST discretion though.
I vaguely recall there was a power somewhere that meant if a target was under the effect of a spell of yours you could infect someone else.
maybe a temporary intersection with the negative plane, and then a botched attempt to fix things, like wizards failing at some big ritual to mass resurrect all the people who died in the weird calamity?
in thrones of ascension one of the nations dabbled with magic too much and accidentally opened a permanent gate to the afterlife in the capital city. aka, people who die end up in the afterlife, but then just wander through the gate like the rest.
By Zombieland I mean undead everywhere, not necessarily all zombies.
I know all the reasons this is unlikely, but the question is what series of events would it take for zombieland to become a Golarion (or whatever fantasy setting) reality?
Kyuss wins?
There are so many undead that create their own progeny and like in seconds. Shadows, ghouls, vampires, wraiths, etc. With a little GM ingenuity you could create a zombie disease template that makes a zombie CR +1 and allows their bite to infect a victim failing a save; said victim eventually becomes a zombie.
By Zombieland I mean undead everywhere, not necessarily all zombies.
I know all the reasons this is unlikely, but the question is what series of events would it take for zombieland to become a Golarion (or whatever fantasy setting) reality?
Kyuss wins?
There are so many undead that create their own progeny and like in seconds. Shadows, ghouls, vampires, wraiths, etc. With a little GM ingenuity you could create a zombie disease template that makes a zombie CR +1 and allows their bite to infect a victim failing a save; said victim eventually becomes a zombie.
Oooh.... you mean like this one?
Or this one?
An artifact I made a while back for a world I was working on, created a 10 mile quarter circle negative energy where everything within took 4d8+20 damage those who died animated as ghouls. Could easily be changed to Apocalypse Zombies.
Really, the only thing you would have to do would be to rigidly enforce the RAW on every spawn-creating undead. The world would be overrun with wraiths, spectres, shadows, etc., spawned from small animals within a week.
There's a planet full of undead in the Golarion Solar System called Eox.
Perhaps the players could be transported to this world by a demon who gives them ability to breathe in Eox's atmosphere and promises to teleport them back if the party does something for him.
Maybe some celestial-magic-wonkiery happens and the planets merge create basically Eox on Golarion. The Gods are too busy fighting the source and keeping Rovagug in place to fix the damage to the planet which leaves their worshipers on their own.
Maybe what happened to Eox starts happening on Golarion and the PCs have to stop it in time to save the world.
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By Zombieland I mean undead everywhere, not necessarily all zombies.
I know all the reasons this is unlikely, but the question is what series of events would it take for zombieland to become a Golarion (or whatever fantasy setting) reality?
Kyuss wins?
There are so many undead that create their own progeny and like in seconds. Shadows, ghouls, vampires, wraiths, etc. With a little GM ingenuity you could create a zombie disease template that makes a zombie CR +1 and allows their bite to infect a victim failing a save; said victim eventually becomes a zombie.
Oooh.... you mean like this one?
Or this one?
Wow. There's no way to get rid of the apocalypse zombie infection after being bitten. It's not a disease, nor a curse, it's supernatural which means it cannot be dispelled, and it gives no listed method of removing it, only a trigger for when it is applied with no specific duration.
If you're bitten by one at 1st level, and then later at 20th level die, I hope someone remembers that first adventure...
By Zombieland I mean undead everywhere, not necessarily all zombies.
I know all the reasons this is unlikely, but the question is what series of events would it take for zombieland to become a Golarion (or whatever fantasy setting) reality?
Kyuss wins?
There are so many undead that create their own progeny and like in seconds. Shadows, ghouls, vampires, wraiths, etc. With a little GM ingenuity you could create a zombie disease template that makes a zombie CR +1 and allows their bite to infect a victim failing a save; said victim eventually becomes a zombie.
Oooh.... you mean like this one?
Or this one?
Wow. There's no way to get rid of the apocalypse zombie infection after being bitten. It's not a disease, nor a curse, it's supernatural which means it cannot be dispelled, and it gives no listed method of removing it, only a trigger for when it is applied with no specific duration.
If you're bitten by one at 1st level, and then later at 20th level die, I hope someone remembers that first adventure...
I'm guessing the 'blessed or similar measures taken' refers to the bless spell or spells like sanctify corpse, or buried in a concecrated area.
I'm guessing the 'blessed or similar measures taken' refers to the bless spell or spells like sanctify corpse, or buried in a concecrated area.By Zombieland I mean undead everywhere, not necessarily all zombies.
I know all the reasons this is unlikely, but the question is what series of events would it take for zombieland to become a Golarion (or whatever fantasy setting) reality?
Kyuss wins?
There are so many undead that create their own progeny and like in seconds. Shadows, ghouls, vampires, wraiths, etc. With a little GM ingenuity you could create a zombie disease template that makes a zombie CR +1 and allows their bite to infect a victim failing a save; said victim eventually becomes a zombie.
Oooh.... you mean like this one?
Or this one?
Wow. There's no way to get rid of the apocalypse zombie infection after being bitten. It's not a disease, nor a curse, it's supernatural which means it cannot be dispelled, and it gives no listed method of removing it, only a trigger for when it is applied with no specific duration.
If you're bitten by one at 1st level, and then later at 20th level die, I hope someone remembers that first adventure...
Yeah, but that's only do-able once you're dead. I was commenting on the fact that the effect on the person is pretty much permanently tacked on.
See, it's a Supernatural effect, that affects anyone/thing bitten by the apocalypse zombie. The effect offers no saving throw or duration, merely once you've been bitten the effect is now lingering on your PC. There's method of removing it without you being dead, though it doesn't do anything until you die. It cannot be dispelled (supernatural), it could be suppressed but not removed (antimagic field), and it doesn't allow things like remove curse, remove disease, break enchantment, and similar things remove it.
In essence, once you've been bitten, you are going to carry it with you forever. So if you get bit back at 1st level and over the course of the campaign you guys forget about it, and then you snuff it, and nobody does any funny stuff to the corpse, bam, apocalypse zombie.
I'm guessing the 'blessed or similar measures taken' refers to the bless spell or spells like sanctify corpse, or buried in a concecrated area.By Zombieland I mean undead everywhere, not necessarily all zombies.
I know all the reasons this is unlikely, but the question is what series of events would it take for zombieland to become a Golarion (or whatever fantasy setting) reality?
Kyuss wins?
There are so many undead that create their own progeny and like in seconds. Shadows, ghouls, vampires, wraiths, etc. With a little GM ingenuity you could create a zombie disease template that makes a zombie CR +1 and allows their bite to infect a victim failing a save; said victim eventually becomes a zombie.
Oooh.... you mean like this one?
Or this one?
Wow. There's no way to get rid of the apocalypse zombie infection after being bitten. It's not a disease, nor a curse, it's supernatural which means it cannot be dispelled, and it gives no listed method of removing it, only a trigger for when it is applied with no specific duration.
If you're bitten by one at 1st level, and then later at 20th level die, I hope someone remembers that first adventure...
Yeah, but that's only do-able once you're dead. I was commenting on the fact that the effect on the person is pretty much permanently tacked on.
See, it's a Supernatural effect, that affects anyone/thing bitten by the apocalypse zombie. The effect offers no saving throw or duration, merely once you've been bitten the effect is now lingering on your PC. There's method of removing it without...
You say that like it's a bad thing though... :D
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It is pretty amusing, and could produce a zombie apocalypse unexpectedly. If anyone had ever been bitten by any of these zombies they are a ticking time bomb. You could have your cult snatch up some commoners, drug them, have the zombie bite them, heal them, and then drop them off in the city somewhere. Some drunks or something would probably be ideal.
Then later, they die, and problems arise. There's no way to detect the condition, so you could put the fear into any society, knowing that at any moment their citizens could spontaneously turn into apocalypse zombies.
Oooh, Ashiel, that is clever. You'd need people who would spread out and not die though.
I'd been looking into Animate or Possess Object.
3d10+20 HP and, importantly, completely immune to positive energy.
You'd need some way of extending it, and passing it onto something that could then possess bodies for Possess Object.
This would actually make it possible to animate partial corpses, which is nice.
Probably give it an additional attack and grab.
Would also mean you'd have to completely destroy the body.
Oooh, Ashiel, that is clever. You'd need people who would spread out and not die though.
I'd been looking into Animate or Possess Object.
3d10+20 HP and, importantly, completely immune to positive energy.
You'd need some way of extending it, and passing it onto something that could then possess bodies for Possess Object.
This would actually make it possible to animate partial corpses, which is nice.
Probably give it an additional attack and grab.
Would also mean you'd have to completely destroy the body.
Well one of the potentially epic things about it is that if you've got time to kill (such as if you're an evil elf, or just any undead necromancer with nefarious goals) you could plant the seeds early and wait for most of them to die of old age, or plant a few "sleepers" in a settlement then start a plague (bubonic plague is highly contagious and deadly to commoners), and then when random people started dying, BAM, the sleepers "awaken" and begin terrorizing the survivors.
Well one of the potentially epic things about it is that if you've got time to kill (such as if you're an evil elf, or just any undead necromancer with nefarious goals) you could plant the seeds early and wait for most of them to die of old age, or plant a few "sleepers" in a settlement then start a plague (bubonic plague is highly contagious and deadly to commoners), and then when random people started dying, BAM, the sleepers "awaken" and begin terrorizing the survivors.Oooh, Ashiel, that is clever. You'd need people who would spread out and not die though.
I'd been looking into Animate or Possess Object.
3d10+20 HP and, importantly, completely immune to positive energy.
You'd need some way of extending it, and passing it onto something that could then possess bodies for Possess Object.
This would actually make it possible to animate partial corpses, which is nice.
Probably give it an additional attack and grab.
Would also mean you'd have to completely destroy the body.
You know, for some reason, I see your Undead Nation that lives in the desert in your homebrew world having exactly that. Seriously dangerous sleeper agents in enemy territories.
If someone were to attack them, they might just have an undercover agent release a plague to not only kill, but start turning massive amounts of people within the enemies very own city(s)!
Well one of the potentially epic things about it is that if you've got time to kill (such as if you're an evil elf, or just any undead necromancer with nefarious goals) you could plant the seeds early and wait for most of them to die of old age, or plant a few "sleepers" in a settlement then start a plague (bubonic plague is highly contagious and deadly to commoners), and then when random people started dying, BAM, the sleepers "awaken" and begin terrorizing the survivors.Oooh, Ashiel, that is clever. You'd need people who would spread out and not die though.
I'd been looking into Animate or Possess Object.
3d10+20 HP and, importantly, completely immune to positive energy.
You'd need some way of extending it, and passing it onto something that could then possess bodies for Possess Object.
This would actually make it possible to animate partial corpses, which is nice.
Probably give it an additional attack and grab.
Would also mean you'd have to completely destroy the body.You know, for some reason, I see your Undead Nation that lives in the desert in your homebrew world having exactly that. Seriously dangerous sleeper agents in enemy territories.
If someone were to attack them, they might just have an undercover agent release a plague to not only kill, but start turning massive amounts of people within the enemies very own city(s)!
Yeah, it's a good thing that the pro-undead nation is interested in peace, because if you got them really riled up, it'd look like the plagues of Egypt. I mean, their entire workforce is essentially a standing army, their citizens are spellcasters (adepts, mostly), and their leaders are classed mummies and liches. You most definitely do not want to **** with them in earnest.
At the moment one of their colonies in the campaign is having border skirmishes with some anti-undead religious knights from a neighboring country, and the colony governess is getting kind of pissed about it, so they might break out into open war in the future, but given that they are there trying to spread their empress' influence by spreading examples of their great society, she is hesitant to declare war, especially against the much larger country (though a third neighboring country would likely have a great interest in casting their lot in with the colonists since they have a longstanding rivalry with the anti-undead country and import a lot of things from the undead-colonies).