Poison only works on the living right?

[hanez]

Just checking about this plan in zombie feast. It presents no problem to the majority of the population in the players home city because their undead and don't eat right? Or am I missing something here.

Wondering if this came up with any tables as most of my players will likely be undead and may root for the plan. I guess they will still jump the hoops as requested by Berline but i wonder if there's a way to change this

Is there a way for the plot to effect the undead? Anyone think about changing this?

[StarlingSweeter]

AFAIK the whole point of the plot is that it doesn't really effect undead. However, the consequences of this decision are far reaching. Killing all the quick will leave the hungry dead with nothing to eat. It will destabilize the entire system. Geb has a good quote on this from Book of the Dead.

Geb in BOTD wrote:

These puerile fools believe it’s a moral imperative to target my feeding facilities and free the mortals within. Being short-lived mortals themselves, they fail to realize that a stable and orderly supply chain is much safer for everyone in the long term than wandering hordes of hungry and erratic undead.

If you look forward to Book 2: Graveclaw there's a good example of what happens when a poisoning attempt is successful. Despite the towns death and mass reanimation, Pagked is falling apart. Barely able to keep itself running.

As for why undead PCs may care about the overarching plot to poison neighboring countries, Geb cannot afford to go to war with all of its former trade partners at once nor does it want to. The Adventure Path states that it is in Geb's best interest to maintain its economy and station amongst its piers and the mass poison plot goes directly against this goal.

The adventure path solidly recommends more lawful leaning characters and the mass poisoning is solidly a very chaotic evil move. Personally I don't think I will have to change anything with the plot but everyone has a different version of Geb.

[NECR0G1ANT]

The dead won't be directly affected, but if all the quick die then there's nobody to prey on. So the mass poisoning affects the food supply of the living and the dead.

[hanez]

Thanks for the explanations I'll definitely use this in the campaign.

I just had another thought. One of my players will definitely want to find out if he can utilize the poison to raise and command mass undead. I'd like to pursue this a bit if he wants. Is it possible the players can find out how to make the poison and use the spells themselves? I've only read book one.

I often start these aps as wriyten and then veer a bit off script anyway. But is it feasible for a player to eventually follow through on this plan (in a different nation)

[StarlingSweeter]

Eventually you get the statistics for the actual poison and shadow ash which gives a very potent buff to dead animated with it as a catalyst.

It’s repeatedly stated that the ash is extreme hard to get in the quantity that Kemnebi needs but for personal use it may be easier.

Books 4 and 5 have this info I think and I would hold off on giving them access to this stuff until then. The downtime activities in books 4 may prove to be perfect for this sort of thing.

[Purplefixer]

The problem here is NOT that the poison kills Quick in the nation of Geb! The problem is that the grain is EXPORTED, and kills thousands of Quick *outside* the nation. Half the nations on the Inner Sea rely on grain from Geb to subsidize their own food requirements, and no one can compete with Geb's cheap as dirt grain grown for free by tireless laborers who work for years upon years, with minimal maintenance.

Severing the income the nation receives from its trading partners destabilizes the balance of power between Blood Lords, allowing Kemnebi to sweep up many of his rivals and reorganize the balance of power between factions. It's a shameless power grab that damages Geb to profit a single Blood Lord. This is one of the reasons why 'lawful good characters who ceaselessly love and serve their people and their nation despite the imbalances in power and class' are okay (not ideal, but okay) for the AP.