Promptober Day 30: Undead. (WOOT!)

The challenge of using Undead in a fantasy tabletop roleplaying game is coming up with something new.

We’ve seen vampires: Strahd Von Zarovich.
We’ve seen Liches: Azalin, Acererak, Szass Tam, Draegoth, Vecna.
There are Dracoliches.
Knight of the Black Rose (Death Knight.)
There’s also Orcus, who is the demon Lord of the Undead.
The list goes on a ways, depending on setting and even game system. We love undead as a #ttrpg culture. But it’s been done A LOT.

So, how do we spruce up Undead for a homebrew campaign?

1. New flavors of old favorites. Sure, human vampires are cool. But what about a gnome? Pixie? Frost Giant? What about the infamous elven lich? What about a dwarven lich? We have dracoliches, sure. But what about a gold dracolich or a faerie dracolich?
2. Another demon knocks Orcus off his throne and takes his scepter as a precursor to an attack on the material realms.
3. Zombies: Maybe instead of just mindless flesh eating slow moving zombies, they’re working for/with a more intelligent zombie? Yes, I appropriated this idea from George Romero. It’s still good.
4. Broken hierarchy: We’re all probably familiar with the pecking order amongst the undead masses. Skeletons at the bottom, then Wight, then Wraith, then higher intelligent undead. What if Skeletons were the top of the food chain. What if ghouls or wraiths were at the bottom?
5. Ghosts: What if every character had a ghost following them around. It never attacks, but it does whisper advice, stories, and so on all the time. What if characters constantly picked up the ghosts of fallen enemies?
   

Much more to come. Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate you.

Author: Jeff Craigmile

I'm a tabletop role-playing game writer and designer from Des Moines, Iowa. I'm the father of four boys and human to three cats. View all posts by Jeff Craigmile