New, (and maybe Improved) Undead

[merrja666]

Basically, I'm designing an Undead campaign, and I have the idea that a festering undead horde could spawn a piece of Greater Undead from lots of little undead.

Imagine; a band of mind-PCs get attacked by 25 or so small undead - rats and the like - which then swarm up into a large pulsating grey mound, which slowly forms a 15HD or so undead. I'm thinking that there has to be 20% more HD of undead than the one that will spawn, and it gets DR 7-ish /magic, silver and holy whilst in the spawning stage.

Another idea is that of Dark Motes. Put simply, they are Fine dust motes with 1/4 of a HD, 1 HP, and are utterly black, like Negative Energy Planes black, for that is where they come from. They need a DC25 spot check to see them, and this increases by 5 for each level of darkness there is (total illumination - total darkness). It takes 1 full-round action to combine to spawn a creature, and this can either be an undead, or an elemental from the Negative Energy or Shadow planes.

....meh. What do you think of it?

[smart thog]

It sounds sweet.

[Stycotl]

i like both ideas, but i think that the motes have a lot of potential in particular.

i do think that you ought to reword the spot dc. say, in twilight the dc is 25, and it goes up for every grade darker than twilight, until they gain invisibility in perfect darkness, and the dc goes down for every shade lighter than twilight, and maybe make them subject to the (numeric, not the spell itself, just the idea...) effects of faerie fire when in bright natural sunlight since utter, neg-plane darkness would tend to stand out at midday.

[Mewtarthio]

Another idea is that of Dark Motes. Put simply, they are Fine dust motes with 1/4 of a HD, 1 HP, and are utterly black, like Negative Energy Planes black, for that is where they come from. They need a DC25 spot check to see them, and this increases by 5 for each level of darkness there is (total illumination - total darkness). It takes 1 full-round action to combine to spawn a creature, and this can either be an undead, or an elemental from the Negative Energy or Shadow planes.

Nice. I'm getting a visual image of Dark Samus reforming in the second Metroid Prime. If you wanted to be really nasty, you could have undead break apart into Dark Motes upon death (4 per HD), which then reform into slightly weaker undead (or, worse, all the Motes from all the undead you've been killing merge into one super-undead).

[Maldraugedhen]

Or have them amass after you kill 16 Colossal undead, and reform into a Shadow Colossal undead.

Wait. Never mind. That's been done.

[merrja666]

The 25DC +5 after Twilight seems good, and so it decreases by 5 for every level of illuminatiion brighter than twilight.

They can also break apart as a standard action, as the motes form the creature, they can also spilt apart. They split apart automatically on death, and only 1/5th of the moptes remain. But when a mote-spawned creature de-motes (?) a number of motes = to 1/2 the spawned creature's HD come out again.

If there is any damage taken, then a number of motes dies = 1/2 the damage taken (rounded down).

Basically, you have about 25 or so 2HD creatures, which then de-mote to form a big 25HD creature, or 2 12HD creatures and a few spare motes.

Seems better?

[wadledo]

The whole split thingy should only be allowed every ?3? rounds, to make it a bit fair.

[merrja666]

How about 1 move/standard action per 3HD the spawned creature has? So 6HD undead need a full-round action, 9 is 1 round + attack, 12 is 2 rounds. Of course, increase it from 3HD up to 4HD, and then to 5HD and 6HD for every 7 levels the PCs have, so a level 21 party could have monsters below 6HD spawning as a free action, and things with 24 HD is only 2 rounds! (Because an Epic Party would kill it in 3 and a 1/2)

[Rowanomicon]

I suggest using zombies and then having them amass into a Charnal Hound (I think that´s the name). It´s big (not sure of size) undead hound made up out of human(oid) corpses.

It´s an idea I once had, but never used.

[Pronounceable]

Make it Shadow Anopheles and you're golden. Or Dark Butterflies for a tad more creepiness. But anopheles are better with the possibility of a level draining sting.

[merrja666]

Level draining sounds good, but it would be a little too overpowered.

And anyway, what are these "Dark Butterflies"?

[Pronounceable]

Fancy name for semi sentient shreds of negative energy making up the undead. Dark motes mentioned above, but butterfly shaped.