RotRL is giant oriented and themed, but running it with undead. My players had a sit down and hashed out some background to flesh out the nibble-y bits.
One recommendation was a better variety of roles for Undead. I pidgeon-holed Vampires as 'Gluttony' personified and took a seat as a 'co-GM' ran a pride episode using Vampires! She was incredible and is due to run a second bit in a few sessions to cap the first one.
What I come here for are ideas for sin-Undead Combos and Ideas. She has already dropped hints of Sloth oriented undead for summer and my brain is still hammered by her take on Pride with vampiric knights!
|
Envy would be a logical place for spectral or incorporeal undead, trapping in an eternal state of envying the living for being able to eat, drink, enjoy sex, etc. (obviously shades of Gluttony and Lust work here, too).
Greed would fit undead focused on material possessions or grave goods, perhaps mummies, often associated with guarding the treasures buried with kings? Or a haunt or ghost of a miser who has remained behind because he couldn't bear to depart his hoard, and might be able to possess either his treasure as some sort of animated hoard of coins, or a garish statue or façade of himself in his tomb. If he was, in life, a priest of Mammon, that might be thematically perfect.
Revenants and manufactured undead like liches and worm-that-walks could be based on Pride, since the living creature refuses to give up their hold on their old lives.
Sloth might be any type of creature willing to wait around in a tomb for something to show - skeletons and the like - although you could possibly use it as a motivation like Lust to go against type for another form of undead.
Wrath can be a catch-all for just about any type of undead, but specifically banshees, spectres, and the aforementioned revenants.
Envy: Shadows -- based upon the above-posted arguments about these Undead being envious of those who still have bodies, and upon the precedent set by Shadow Demons being Demons of Envy
Sloth: Zombies -- self-explanatory
Lust: Vampires -- based upon all those movies with seductive vampires
Wrath: Revenants, Spectres, Guecubus, and Mohrgs -- the first are self-explanatory, and the rest are described as being more generally wrathful spirits
Pride: Huecuva -- these have the pride that led to their downfall, and that enables them to cloak themselves in the illusion of life
Gluttony: Ghouls and Ghasts -- based upon the description of these as ravenously hungry monsters
Greed: Mummies and Wights -- these are the ones who guard riches