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You should have legal battles over undead rights. Is it murder to kill/destroy an undead person? Do undead have property rights over stuff they owned while alive? The latter can make for some seriously disgruntled heirs, if not immediately then when they get middle-aged and then old and the undead property owner is still around (i.e. usual social problems with infinite longevity). Can undead hold public office? Can an undead be a monarch? Civil wars get fought over this kind of thing. Different countries will settle legal things differently, you don't need to provide homogeneous solutions.
How to deal with unintelligent undead. How are they considered by the population? They still used to be their families...
Consider having "second chance" undead (those are all intellligent, right?) be the only kind of undead. It'll make your world's uniqueness stand out more.
Is necromancy good for bringing them back to their loved ones, or is it evil for bringing in more negative energy that will (in time) cause more harm to the world than good?
This should be a matter of active philosophical/theological debate in-world, not something the GM settles.
How common should being raised as undead be? What percentage of the population should be undead?
Enough that while not everyone has an undead in their family, everyone knows someone who has an undead in their family. That should make it reasonably personal for everybody w/o totally screwing with the economy and so on.
What would make a good enemy? A secret cult kept alive in abandoned churches or cellars, that fights them guerrilla-style? An entire different nation that sends crusades against them? An alliance between life-oriented creatures? Or what else?
A public cult that tries to persuade undead to have themselves destroyed for the good of the community/world. They have a remarkable success rate. But are they operating honestly, or using subtle undead-specific mind-control techniques? If and only if the PCs can prove the latter they can get rid of the entire cult---it's not a crime to persuade the undead to commit suicide, if it's honest persuasion.
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For the sake of more originality I would make the newfound undead somewhere in the middle of skeleton and zombie so that your pcs dont go through the usual 'its a skeleton so it has DR' type deal or hell make a new type of undead for the campaign.
A great enemy are paladins and clerics of Pharasma as it states that that god specifically hates undead as they are unnatural.
Im also curious as to how you will handle other undead, such as vampires, grave knights etc due to them being inherently evil and intelligent however you could just simply not have them.
Last question is can people only pray for other intelligent beings? What if someones pet dies, could they pray to bring them back?
I really love the idea of this scenario and hope to see more ideas out of you from the future
For the alignment thing, I was mostly concerned about it because if a player raises undead with a spell, I kinda need to know what alignment that spell is. But I guess I could go with neutral, and then based on their actions with it assign it an alignment.
Oh, right, those spells normally have alignment tags! Yeah, I'd just dump those and leave it to people to bicker about ingame.
I could consider them a minority, it could work well.
You'd been thinking of them as a majority? That could easily happen after a while, if the maintenance rituals are low-cost enough; but I figured if the mere presence of undead makes everything deteriorate, something has to put a cap on their population or the living won't be able to survive.
For a minority undead population, I suggest that the rituals are more difficult/costly the longer they've been undead, and/or that neither the rituals nor anything else repairs damage the undead take after being raised, so the older ones are kinda falling apart from accumulated damage and might not want to stay around indefinitely.
For a majority undead population, hmm. It seems like most of the undead would have to be kept away from cities and farms or everything would fall apart. Of course, an isolated community of undead is an invitation to crusaders, so a lot depends on how well they can defend themselves. Do the undead-maintenance rites require the participation of living persons, or are the undead potentially self-sufficient?
I have an idea and I need your help to develop it further.
I want to build a campaign where my players are the heroes who fight FOR the undead scourge, instead of against it. They will begin in a part of the world where undead are common, and fight against people and creatures that want to get rid of it.
- What would make a good enemy? A secret cult kept alive in abandoned churches or cellars, that fights them guerrilla-style? An entire different nation that sends crusades against them? An alliance between life-oriented creatures? Or what else?
How about a zealous Angel of some sort decides that the negative energy is a scourge; those that follow this angel are given a message. You now have a Big Bad who happens to be a shiny angel dude, which is fun. You get to fight Clerics and Paladins and stuff, which are healing oriented and whatnot. You can be Smited; which is brutal.
Then yeah, maybe life-oriented things like Treants and whatnot don't appreciate the undead either.
Also, consider people who are just not happy about the undead also causing unrest. Possibly attacking undead in the street. There can be "no-go" zones for undead simply due to being extremely unwelcome.
You might consider going with 3 types of undead.
Mindless undead: Pretty much everyone considers them a scourge and needing to be destroyed. ALthough they may superficially resemble a loved one, they aren't that person at all, and they are destructive. You increased negative energy in the world could make the spontaneous creation of these more common, or at least easier to create by choice.
Normal Undead: The vast bulk of the undead population and the group that the conflict of good vs evil in your world is centered. Although they have the undead type, and the associated traits, otherwise they are normal people. This also makes them suitable for a PC race if you desire (all the PCs being undead might make an interesting addition to this campaign. Other than causing ecological damage and requiring negative energy enhancing rituals they behave morally just like living people, and have all their personalities, memories and abilities. I would probably have options for several 'types' with either minor or no mechanical effects that would made them resemble different kinds of undead physically. 'Zombie Type,' 'Skeleton Type', and 'Mummy Type' for example.
Evil Masters: Hidden and Secret from the world (believed to be normal undead) these creatures are evil and unlike the normal undead they have to consume life to sustain themselves. They are largely behind the normal undead and either have plans for them and or are just encouraging their existence to better be able to move around in society. All of them having the ability to command undead would be fitting. Traditional Vampires, Liches and other powerful undead would work well for this category. This would probably only come out as a 'twist' in the late game.
You might look at the real world struggle for gay rights for interesting parallels. I'm not saying that gays are like undead that cause ecological damage, but whatever your opinion on gay rights, it is obvious that the gay rights movement has had considerable success in gaining rights and acceptance for a once reviled group. And there are some obvious places for parallels. Marriage is until Death do you part! The undead shouldn't be able to adopt living children!
I'd also consider the effect on society of people that aren't going to die of old age. If the King is undead, the crown prince can't ever expect to inherit.
I'd also certainly have a class component. While their may be a lottery, it is hard to imagine that their won't be any corruption in the process. While some poor may 'win' and make it, I would expect most of the rich that want to would be able to pull string and become undead. This could add additional conflict and questions to the world (and if you go with the Hidden Masters concept, they would have obvious reasons for wanting rich undead that they could control.)
A great enemy are paladins and clerics of Pharasma as it states that that god specifically hates undead as they are unnatural.I'll make sure to give it a look! They could be the most violent group of those against the Undead!
I see a problem with Pharasma as she is in Golarion for you; as goddess of birth and fate as well as death, I believe she's very highly respected even by those who aren't worshipers. Her abhorrence of all undead will therefore have a huge impact on public opinion that I think you don't want.
I would consider replacing her with / changing her to a Death-Deity that is actually the one responsible for the "second chance" undead, the one to whom all those prayers/rituals are directed. They would still abhor whatever other undead exist---those that didn't rise with the deity's own blessing. If this deity is [still] the deity of birth as well, the "second chance" undead could be referred to as the Reborn.
While I'm thinking of deities and clerics, here's a random one: maybe clerics and paladins can't become "second chance" undead because when they die, their deity (by hypothesis) snatches their soul to their bosom and won't give it back. That means there are some inherently undead-free but not inherently anti-undead institutions. Whether to make the death-deity's clergy an exception should be given some thought, and might depend on whether the PCs are supposed to be followers/clerics/paladins of the death-deity or are fighting for undead rights for some other reason---you certainly want the PCs able to come back once, at least.
If things like vampires and liches exist, clerics and paladins could still become those, because the soul doesn't leave the body at any point in that process so their deity doesn't have a chance to grab it.
Last question is can people only pray for other intelligent beings? What if someones pet dies, could they pray to bring them back?That's a good question. I guess they could, but the animal mind might not be able to handle it very well. It would be risky to have an undead dog for example.
I would make having a soul a prerequisite for a "second chance."
For a minority undead population, I suggest that the rituals are more difficult/costly the longer they've been undead, and/or that neither the rituals nor anything else repairs damage the undead take after being raised, so the older ones are kinda falling apart from accumulated damage and might not want to stay around indefinitely.That could work well. Turning someone into undead would make it a temporary fix to have them back, not a long term solution (unlike resurrection).
Are you sure resurrection magics exist? It might be more interesting if undeath is the only way to come back.
Do the undead-maintenance rites require the participation of living persons, or are the undead potentially self-sufficient?I would say they do require living people, both for the ritual and for protection.
Ok, then any "leper colonies" have to be staffed by a small nearby group of the living, probably clergy of whatever deity give second chances. That means there'll be witnesses if crusaders wipe out the undead... unless they're bloodthirsty enough to kill the staff too. But that would definitely be murder, no matter what country they're in.
I was thinking about something that resembles racial segregation, since it's an aspect of yourself you can't hide in any way.
Are you sure about that? I'd think an intact undead (or one wearing clothes over its gaping wounds) wearing the proper makeup and faking breathing (or wearing loose clothes) could pass for living, as long as their presence doesn't immediately sicken everybody.
I might have to change something so that the Undead don't have a decay effect on people. I'm fine with withering plants and making animals sick, but it's hard to explain why people would keep them around if they get sick or depressed...
There could be a cheap amulet or ring that protects you from it? Or a spell cast on the entire village, that prevents that from happening, but if you go outside you're not protected anymore?
Keep it simple. Say that a brief daily prayer to the deity responsible for second-chance undead (Pharasma replacement or otherwise) protects you from their direct effects, though it doesn't protect your property, family, etc. Then the undead must still be kept away from animals and small children, who can't pray, but can be safely interacted with by anyone older. Unless they refuse to say the daily prayer on principle, of course.
There are optional rules for removing alignment from the game if you're interested, see here.