Favorite Undead.
I told my wife the subject of today's post and she didn't even hesitate, when she told me "You can let out your inner Necromancer" She's right of course, I have a weird fascination with undead. I could be because Mary Shelly's Original Frankenstein is one of my favorite books.
A short diversion ... In case anyone is wondering, among my favorite books are...
Moon of Mutiny by Lester Del Rey
Men of Iron by Howard Pyle
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Simarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Darkover books by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Dragonriders of Pern books by Anne McCaffrey
The Caverns of Socrates by Dennis L. McKiernan
These books I encourage you to read. Not only are they good, they may inspire ideas. We all need a little spark every once in a while.
Back to our regularly scheduled blog post.
Of all the undead creatures available for use in games, I'd have to go with intelligent undead. A Lich. There is something about a creature that has eons to plot and scheme. A creature so powerful it will ignore a small relatively weak party of adventurers. What I like most about a Lich, the phylactery. Most players already know a Lich's greatest weakness. You can't stop them from metagaming, you never will. Once they destroy the physical body, they are going to start looking for the phylactery. Just accept it. You can't change it, don't bother trying.
With this in mind, look at phylacteries. There are so many ways to make it harder for characters to identify and consequently destroy one. A quick search on Wikipedia for "Phylactery" renders two ideas right off the bat. The first is Speech Scrolls. If you look at the pictures of speech scrolls, picture a giant mural on the wall of a crypt. All the figures in the mural have speech scrolls as if they're talking. Now if the speech scrolls are all the incantations needed as a phylactery, the PCs are going to have a time trying to destroy it. The other thing I saw on the Wikipedia entry was "Tefillin" These are small wooden boxes containing Torah verses, often they are worn. Look up the word and you're bound to see a picture of one. Nothing jumped out of my brain while looking at any of the pictures, however the word itself could be used to obfuscate the phylactery or it's location. I've tucked the information away in a back corner of the DM reptilian brain, and may find a use for it one day.
In the big campaign I've been writing, the BBEG is a Lich, and the PCs have to work their way through each of his children before getting to him. Blatantly stealing ideas from both Harry Potter and the tv show Supernatural, I designed his phylactery to be well hidden. I decided it would be five jeweled rings. Each child would have a different gem stone, and not necessarily be found on the child in question. For instance the first ring is found after the PCs defeat an Attic Whisperer. In the pile of detritus from the disintegrating Attic whisperer will be a platinum ring inset with either a black pearl or a ruby (can't remember, and can't get up to go look #mylifeasacatmattress) The child they are supposed to defeat is a Scribbling Allip. The attic whisperer is her daughter. ... ... Enough about the campaign, I don't want to spoil it. If the PCs use detect magic on the ring, it will radiate magic, and I'll let the clue of necromantic magic drop. They will have to roll really well in order to detect the faint aura of underlying necromancy. There are many more effects if they put on the ring. It will be of a small benefit to the character wearing it, but there will also be an almost undetectable curse associated with them.
Yes I'm a tad enamored with the Lich's phylactery. I admit it. I have many issues, both in and out of game. But a Lich can be re-skinned so many different ways as to render it unrecognizable as a Lich. I could go into more, but I'd need more time to brainstorm for ideas, along with lots more booze. IF anyone wants help including a Lich into a game, let me know and I'll break out the idea file and shoot cha some ideas. Until then...
Happy Gaming!
No comments:
Post a Comment