What is the undead equivalent of mutations?

By Emirikol, in WFRP Gamemasters

Regarding advancing undead: The more their soul burns out of them (advancing their undead state), they should obtain the equivalent "corruption" but in something like the undead would get with "more power" or perhaps degeneration, I dunno.

What should I call it that isn't "mutation." Element of undeath?

Any suggestions?

jh

All I can offer is a bit of brainstorming. I've flipped through the Tomb Kings army book and I found these terms, which we can work with here:

1. Tomb Kings themselves are protected by powerful 'curses'.
2. Liche Priests cannot die a natural death and they have to keep ''awakening' nobility and raising the dead for the lesser ranks.
3. Nobility is 'mummified', Tomb Guards are honored with partial 'mummification'.
4. I think most interesting are the 'incantations' of the Liche Priests (p. 34):
"The magic of Nehekhara's Liche Priests is based on long, monotonous enchantments that connect the mortal world to the world beyond. The wording of these arcane spells has been recorded on dusted papyri, written in the mysterious hieroglyphs of Nehekhara's ancient language. These incantations, uttered in rituals unchanged for uncountable millennia, cannot reach the peaks of sheer power achieved by their perverted versions that are the necromatic spells taught by the heretical Nagash to his disciples. On the other hand they are far more reliable and, when relentlessly intoned in unison by several of the unliving Liche Priests, they are almost unstoppable."

For instance, the Liche Priests can use 'Mankara's Incantation of Urgency', speeding up skeletons within 12" (on the WFB battlefield).

So, free-forming on this, I think I'd describe a droning incantation of several raspy undead voices in their head that they can't shut off and that keeps getting louder, imbuing them with a sense of urgency. Or a single necromancer voice, depending on who raised them. This, laid out on a tracker could then increase their physical stats.

AWESOME TIPS. Thanks dude!

jh

I'm going to call them "Necromantic Alterations." They are added to the undead as "bonus mutations." Since I don't have Hero's call yet (blasted Amazon!), the undead can be advanced with things like increased ability scores, insubstantial capability, blood-necessity, claws, mental attacks/psionic, etc..

In tonights session, I'm running the Ravenloft min-campaign "Requieum: Grim Harvest." I'm setting it in Aandau (northern Marienburg Wastes - port population of 4000).

It has a VERY strange 2nd half…for which I needed to inquire about this in the first place ;)

I could have run the first 2 parts to this series, but FUGIT HORA (time is fleeting).

jh

..Did I mention that we get to use these undead in active ways?

jh

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If you have an earlier edition of WFRP, there's a great list of Necromantic related physical and mental disfigurements that a character gains over time.

There are some neat ideas there for fluff, at least.

Necro,

that's exactly what I was hoping for. Which book is it in?

Thanks!

Jay

Hey there: sorry for the late response.

They're found in the 1st edition rulebook for WFRP. In Section 4: Magic, Pages 138 and 139 (Magic Disabilities).

Er… This one:

http://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/43646/warhammer-fantasy-roleplay

There aren't as many as I remember, but here's the list. Many of them have stages that get progressively WORSE as you level up. So Cadaverous Appearance makes the PC look more and more like a corpse as he goes up in rank (even while gaining OTHER disabilities).

Allergy

Animal Aversion

Cadaverous Appearance (Automatically at lvl 1 for Necromancers)

Disfigurement

Insanity

Nocturnal Lifestyle

Palsy

Toughness Loss

Unpleasant Odour

Wound Loss

EDIT: MAN 1st edition was grim. Spells had components, and some of them were… yeesh. For example: the Spell Stop Demonic Instability requires the blood of a new born child, and Summon Lesser Demons requires 6 human or semi human hearts from ritually sacrificed victims. The anti D&D crowd back in the 80s were looking in the wrong place! HAHAH

Necrozius said:

EDIT: MAN 1st edition was grim. Spells had components, and some of them were… yeesh. For example: the Spell Stop Demonic Instability requires the blood of a new born child, and Summon Lesser Demons requires 6 human or semi human hearts from ritually sacrificed victims. The anti D&D crowd back in the 80s were looking in the wrong place! HAHAH

This made me realize I am not being nearly GRIM enough in my adventure. I have sort of lost sight of the edge that Warhammer used to have, but which is not really represented in 3e. I need more excrement in the streets, literally insane religious people and horrible acts comitted by horrible people.

That said, my players have sacrificed most of their trusted companions to a shrine of Tzeentch and had to survive by eating the flesh of a mutated bear. So I might not be doing too bad :P