In a magical world where undead are relatively common..........how often do ghosts, ghouls, wights, vampires....etc spontaneously form from deaths not given some form of last rights or ritual "burial"?
Also vacant bodies available for possession by fey, incorporeal demons, abberations and such?
I'm thinking of running a campaign where how the dead are handled (or not) has consequences....
wondering about others thoughts on this?
In a magical world where undead are relatively common..........how often do ghosts, ghouls, wights, vampires....etc spontaneously form from deaths not given some form of last rights or ritual "burial"?
Also vacant bodies available for possession by fey, incorporeal demons, abberations and such?I'm thinking of running a campaign where how the dead are handled (or not) has consequences....
wondering about others thoughts on this?
Eh, historical methods of the Undead rising should be one of your main inspirations, Ghosts rising from unfair deaths or powerful willed people refusing to accept their deaths.
Ghouls traditionally rose from people who devoured the flesh of their own kind in life, or could also arise from those who died of starvation in real life.
Wights were, I believe, those who died full of hatred and envy, people of incredibly evil and selfish desires.
I'll do some research and see what I can do to help.
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In a magical world where undead are relatively common..........how often do ghosts, ghouls, wights, vampires....etc spontaneously form from deaths not given some form of last rights or ritual "burial"?
Also vacant bodies available for possession by fey, incorporeal demons, abberations and such?I'm thinking of running a campaign where how the dead are handled (or not) has consequences....
wondering about others thoughts on this?Eh, historical methods of the Undead rising should be one of your main inspirations, Ghosts rising from unfair deaths or powerful willed people refusing to accept their deaths.
Ghouls traditionally rose from people who devoured the flesh of their own kind in life, or could also arise from those who died of starvation in real life.
Wights were, I believe, those who died full of hatred and envy, people of incredibly evil and selfish desires.
I'll do some research and see what I can do to help.
In that spirit, vampires were people who cursed their faith or god(s) and were cursed back as soulless immortals.
Zombies were the dead treated with a special witch doctor dust that would kill the target (or medically appear dead) and then rise from the grave a few days later. [OR] Zombies are a sign of the end times/apocalypse/Ragnarok etc. and all who die become zombies.
Skeletons...well...i got nothing. Saw them in the original clash of the titans i think.
Possessions are typically considered to be done by demons/devils and the like, although references to "evil spirits" have also been made.
Mummies are the old dead who have failed their passage in the after life, and are cursed to attempt to fulfill that duty again in life. [or] you could go with the classic movie version of the mummy who is merely a disturbed tomb or such.
Honestly, I think not enough of this is done in campaigns. People dump bodies everywhere, or just assume a priest somewhere will tidy up the mess they've made. Worse, cleric players don't generally bother to make Knowledge Religion checks to figure out what's being done wrong with the funerary rites that the dead are lying uneasy. Stuff as stupid as forgetting to put coins on the eyes of the dead so they have money for the ferryman. Hello, the dead are rising because you were too cheap to spare two silverpieces.
Honestly, I think not enough of this is done in campaigns. People dump bodies everywhere, or just assume a priest somewhere will tidy up the mess they've made. Worse, cleric players don't generally bother to make Knowledge Religion checks to figure out what's being done wrong with the funerary rites that the dead are lying uneasy. Stuff as stupid as forgetting to put coins on the eyes of the dead so they have money for the ferryman. Hello, the dead are rising because you were too cheap to spare two silverpieces.
this is the kind of reasoning i'm coming from.....
also appreciate the mummy comment, never realized that part of the story, much more interesting than just tomb furniture.
In my campaign the players have long accepted the idea of undead rising spontaneously. They rarely ever kill enemies (they're agents of the king and have the ability to arrest enemies) and when they do they either make a religion check to lay the body to rest or the paladin spends a channel.
If you inform players ahead of time about the consequences of leaving corpes lying around they'll take precautions.
Now if there is mass or random carnage: war resulting in mass battlefields of bodies, gate that lets demons in, serial killer, a remote village without a replaement priest for the one that just died, etc... there would be detective work in cleaning up the messes too as improperly laid to rest creatures have greater potential to become threats, I am thinking a world where there is a slight shift toward the negative energy planes or where the deities of care taking the souls of the dead (similar to Wee Jass of Greyhawk) are somehow blocked or perhaps near a particular place on the world, like the World Wound in Golarion............
Wights were, I believe, those who died full of hatred and envy, people of incredibly evil and selfish desires.
Actually, to my knowledge, Wight meant non-human person, such as a fairy or some other unusual intelligent humanoid. Prof. Tolkein kind of appropriated the word for his Barrow-Wights and D&D re-appropriated it for a "species" of undead.
Wight originally simply meant Man, Barrow wights were warriors buried in celtic barrows to guard the king and his treasure for all eternity.
That reminds me of a game I heard of once where the PCs learn they are going to have to fight a "wight" dragon, but didn't think to ask about the spelling. They prepped themselves to face cold attacks.
Which reminds me of the time the pcs were trying to retrieve the 'eggs' of a local lizardman tribe from an outpost with a small army of mercenary scum. They had been looking for this bloody 'axe' all over the place, never considering to look into the well.. afterall why would a valuable weapon be in a well.. ? In their defense the lizardfolk shaman speech was a bit odd.. ish.