Making Undead Scarier
Part 2: Mindless undead:
Zombies, Skeletons, & more
By:
Jesse C Cohoon
Part One of this series appears on http://stuffershack.com/
Mindless undead such
as zombies and skeletons are common threats found in many types of RPG games.
Unfortunately, it’s far too easy for the GM to roleplay them in a simplistic
manner, as simple monsters to vanquish, giving them no backstory or interest,
and an opportunity for world building is lost. But by increasing their power,
intelligence, and giving them smart allies, they can truly become the threats
they should be.
In real life, human zombies are corpses said to be
revived by witchcraft, especially in certain African and Caribbean religions. There’s
also the theory that zombie-ism is caused by the administration of a combination
of drugs that allow a living person to be controlled. Others theories
contribute it to being the victim's own belief system, possibly leading to the
victim complying with voodoo priest’s will, causing psychogenic ("quasi-hysterical")
amnesia, catatonia, and other psychological symptoms which are later
misinterpreted as a return from the dead.
In the natural world there are many more examples of
zombies, and with some adaptation could be used for your campaign:
In RPGs, pop culture, they are dead creatures who are
able to move because of oftentimes evil magic, such as a curse or spells. Many
of these creatures eat human flesh. In some video games zombies are caused by
viruses, as in the Resident Evil series, or fungi, as in The Last of Us game.
Skeletons, on the other hand, are just the internal
animated structure of the creature, without the flesh. Most of the time
skeletons are immune or take partial damage from piercing weapons due to
there’s no flesh for such weapons to sink into. Humanoid skeletons will often
wield a sword and shield.
A deadlier version of skeletal remains are a cloud of
bones which looks like bone fragments and rise up and cyclonically attack its
enemies. Such an undead can only be destroyed by area of effect magic, magic “burst”
weapons, holy water, or turning. If the GM wants to mix things up the cloud of
bones could be something that’s not undead, but the result of errant magical
energies.
The Flayed are the opposite. They are the remnants of
a person who was flayed alive and now mindlessly seek to deprive others of
their skin. The way PCs will know they’re around is that they’ll feel something
wet drop on them – and that fluid will turn out to be blood.
D20 Ways of
Increasing Mindless Undead’s Power & Intelligence
1.
Increase
their hit dice. By simply being harder to kill, they become more powerful.
2.
Have them
attack when the PCs are at their most vulnerable. Even low-level threats
suddenly become a serious problem when PC’s resources are stretched to their
limits.
3.
Have them
disease carriers: even if the PCs don’t die immediately from their attack(s), them
becoming a carrier of some sort of disease can become problematic over time, if
it’s not easily treated or cured. The disease doesn’t necessarily mean the PCs
death to become a similar type of undead. It could be something that attacks
their health over time, making them more susceptible to other threats down the
line.
4.
Give them
abilities they would not normally have by piecing them together something like
Frankenstein’s monster. A similar idea is to allow them to combine into bigger
creatures. An entire graveyard of skeletal bones might come up with some
interesting (and deadly) combinations.
5.
Make them
completely immune to normal weapons. Mindless undead that can only be harmed by
magical weapons or those of a unique material such as jade or crystal suddenly
become a threat when you don’t have any that can harm them on hand. A similar
idea is to let their destruction be only by special means. For instance “destruction”
on the Turn Undead table (in games that have such things). In video games
zombies are often only shown to be destroyed by a direct headshot.
6.
Let them
create others of their kind. A classic horror movie and TV show trope is being
bitten by a zombie will eventually create another zombie. But things don’t have
to be quite that cut and dry. Maybe there’s a cure, but it has to be
administered within a certain time frame. This echoes back to the Resident Evil
series which the health item appears to be a plant of some sort.
7.
Let them
regenerate their health by doing damage as in a zombie eating the flesh of a
fallen victim or over time by draining their enemy’s health. Likewise, the
attack of The Flayed strips off skin off of its opponents, thus replenishing
its health
8.
Let their
mere presence be corrupting. Maybe even living things start to take on the
characteristics of undead in a world filled with them, and the line between
alive and dead / undead is blurred, and the PCs have to be careful not to be
around them too much or become the very thing they’re fighting.
9.
Let them
reappear after their apparent destruction. In many platforming and/ or video
game RPGs, if you leave a screen and return, the enemies that you vanquished
are back.
10. Let them appear from nowhere. For instance, you might
have a field of bones and as the PCs approach, they suddenly clatter together
and come alive. Or if you’re crossing a field at night the ground could heave
up under them as the zombies force their way to the surface. In either case the
PCs lose a turn because they’re unprepared for the threat.
11. Give them an unsettling or horrific appearance, which
may have the PCs unable to act until the shock wears off. The unsettling nature
could include the fact that the undead they’re facing are actually former
friends and loved ones that they have to put down.
12. Allow them to retain at least some of their abilities
as if they were alive.
a. Allow them to retain many of the features as if they
were alive. For instance a zombified dragon might be able to use its breath
weapon and fly. An elfin skeleton might be able to detect secret doors.
b. Muscle memory is a powerful thing. But so the PCs
think that this is a standard mindless undead, their movements don’t belie that
fact. Maybe it can even sneak about as if it were a rogue, or have the multiple
attacks of a monk.
13. Increase their options:
a. Give them enough smarts to flank enemies or fight in
formation; furthermore, them different weapons, particularly reach weapons or
ranged ones.
b. Allow them to grapple and trip their opponents
c. Let them able to be given magic items and different
equipment – as well as the ability to use said equipment. Maybe they can be
loaded onto a trebuchet and launched at the PCs, and if it survives the force
of impact, it gets up and starts fighting them.
14. Allow them to be given complex instructions for
dealing with different types of enemies.
15. Have them show up in unexpected locations. Because
undead don’t need to breathe, they can fight underwater without that worry. An
entire wall could be made of zombified or skeletal flesh, and the more
creatures that die by it would increase the number (and damage) of the attacks
it has.
16. Make them able to go into “overdrive,” doing more
damage, increasing speed, gaining new abilities once their HP get below a
certain point.
17. Don’t limit them to humanoid creatures. Even common
animals should be subjected to being raised. Skeletal dogs, cats, and rats
could be a common occurrence.
18. Allow them to learn from others’ experiences. Maybe
the undead have a “hive mind” thing going on and as others of their type get
destroyed they learn the PCs’ tactics. Or perhaps a few of them can hang back
and observe the battle, joining in once they’ve seen the PCs fight.
19. Nothing says that mindless undead needs slow. In fact,
in the Resident Evil series, quite a few of the monsters are very fast and if
you’re not quick on the draw you’ll be dead before you can blink.
20. Let them go out in a blaze of glory. Maybe when they
die, they explode and cause the PCs damage, or get one unavoidable final attack
at full damage on the enemy that caused its demise.
Mindless
Undead allies
Mindless undead
needn’t appear by themselves. A smart enemy will combine the strengths of
living creatures with the undead vs. leaving them to guard a place unattended.
Even though it’d most
likely be a bumpy ride, an alive rider atop a skeletal or zombified horse would
be able to cover more distance than a similar rider on an alive horse, as the
living horse would have to stop and rest.
Maybe roaming
skeletons and zombies attract scavengers such as wolf packs or ravens (which
become zombified versions of the same creature upon their death from eating the
flesh or gnawing on the bones of them).
The undead allies could be “self-contained” within the
undead itself. Perhaps the undead are a home to a swarm of rats (perhaps also undead),
a colony of normal bees, or slimes.
In an environment as a necropolis, there might be
undead of various types all around: incorporeal, mindless, and intelligent all
working together towards a common goal: protecting their home from invaders.
Necromancers are probably the most common ally for
mindless undead, as they typically use them as shock troops for their invading
armies. The reason why is they’re the easiest to make and there’s typically
plenty of corpses to make more. They’re also pretty easy to bolster with vile
magics, if the need arises.
Now you know more about mindless undead creatures,
potential ways of making them more powerful and intelligent, as well as their
allies there’s no excuse to ever run another boring encounter with them
again.
Part three will be hosted on http://stuffershack.com/
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