Expanded Dead (3.5e Monster)
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Evil is an undiscriminating force that can grip the hearts of any creature. Not just humans and humanoids stand to be endangered by its influence. Wherever such an evil force prevails, all suffer in its wake. The curse of the living dead is no difference. That said, it's not particularly realistic for a dog or a bird to rise as a humanoid Dead, nor does every Dead spawned from a human body bear the same set of characteristics. Sometimes, the form of the newly risen Dead mirrors some of the base creature's traits or its behaviour in life.
This article intends to expand on the varying types of Dead, categorizing each of them into one of five basic tiers of power and introducing yet more new strands of Dead to further hound the beleaguered survivors of any zombie apocalypse. A further documentation of the process of Dead infestation may also be given at a later date.
Like with the original article found here, the Expanded Dead are most geared to low-to-mid level games with a survival or horror theme (Epic 8 or Epic 10 for example), though they can be loosely fitted in pretty much any type of setting. Certain classes or ability sets may be more capable at countering them than others, and as such some balancing may be needed. Notes on this will follow.
The Dead
Corpses sustained in unlife by the blackest of magic, Dead have wandered the realms for ages untold, and were thought to be a form of divine punishment for the hubris of Man, though many scholars believe that the first Dead had been created by an unrecorded group of ancient necromancers to bolster their armies. There was, after all, nothing quite like dread corpses that would slay the living and multiply themselves almost without limit. Although the emergence of the Dead was eventually halted by a great crusade that spanned the realm and their numbers had been all but eradicated, the curse of the living dead is nothing if not tenacious, and within the deepest and darkest cracks of the world it still persists.
Outbreaks of Dead usually occur in intervals across time, where sudden expansions of Dead numbers is eventually met with a joint venture to stamp them out. After several centuries go by and the Dead once again pass out of general memory, they often make their unexpected return as if guided by a clockwork instinct. It is thought by some that the Dead are guided by necromancers of immense power right to this day, owing to their uncanny ability to resurface when the world seems to be least prepared for it, and it is also theorized that the Dead themselves awaken during times of great conflict. During the High Tide of Dead, it is not uncommon to find decade-old battlegrounds infested with Dead, and burial places will come to fester with their great number.
Combat
While Dead are both physically and mentally diverse, all of them have the following traits and abilities in common. In addition to these, all Dead have the usual undead traits, as well as a varying amount of damage reduction/slashing, often in conjunction with other types of damage reduction. A Dead whose head is severed or destroyed will cease to function, though some rare high level Dead may recover from a lost head.
Aim for the Head (Ex): An attacking creature may target the head of a Dead by taking a called shot to the head at a -4 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack is successful, the damage bypasses any damage reduction/slashing it has.
The Dead are divided in three main categories, each with their own subcategories. The division is based on general power level per individual Dead.
Lesser Dead
The lesser Dead are the shamblers, the swarmers and the fodder amongst the Dead. They are typically slow, always mindless, and have little to no instinct to speak of beyond chasing after everything within the range of their limited perception at (at best) brisk walking pace. However, their great strength lies in their overwhelming number. An infested city may play host to thousands of lesser dead, and with so many of them swarming the streets people are bound to be swept up by them. Despite their generally slow movement speed and very lackluster defenses however, the lesser Dead are actually the main disseminators of the Curse. As a person infected by a lesser Dead's curse will generally be able to travel a fairly substantial distance before falling ill and dying, an unwitting survivor can easily spread the Curse to neighboring cities, and even across the borders of Kingdoms. Lesser dead are themselves divided into the minor lesser dead and the major lesser dead.
Minor
Easily three quarters of Dead are comprised of minor lesser Dead. The curse runs so thinly through their lifeless veins that their bodies usually lack all but the most rudimentary forms of movement ability. Minor lesser Dead have 1 Hit Die and a challenge rating of less than 1. A minor lesser dead is the kind of zombie that, by itself, a commoner can easily defeat by throwing mouldy potatoes at it until it falls over. These Dead are often misshapen, broken and battered, and falling apart at the seams. They may miss parts of their anatomy that would be considered vital if they were still alive, and move around with a combination of uncoordinated shuffling, staggering, hopping and crawling. For example, birds that become minor lesser dead will lose all of their flying ability; they simply do not have the motor functions to do anything other than peck away - and often uselessly - at adventurer shins. They are fairly easily dispatched even in numbers by any well-coordinated party, though their relentless advance will eventually drain the resources of even the most stalwart heroes.
Diluted Curse: The faint presence of the Curse within a minor lesser Dead may save their targets from an ill fate; curse-carrying attacks made by a minor lesser dead only have a 50% chance to transmit the curse to the target.
Single Actions Only: Like a headless chicken can only either run around in circles or bump into stuff, a minor lesser dead can make only a single move-equivalent or standard action per turn. A minor lesser dead can move up to its speed and attack in the same round, but only if it attempts a charge.
Major
While still mindless and uncoordinated, the major lesser Dead are strong enough to be actually individually threatening to early-level characters and NPCs, and have more fleshed out instincts that allow them to attack more effectively. Armed with the limited ability to detect the life force of nearby living creatures, these undead horrors will give haphazard chase to any living creature entering their range of perception, though they may still be occasionally stumped by any solid obstacles between themselves and their targets. Major lesser Dead are almost always physically complete or at least function at that level, and their increased physical strength and ability to run short spurts makes them a lot more challenging. Their general challenge rating ranges from 1 to 3, and these are the first tier of Dead that may show individual characteristics beyond basic species.
Lifesight (Su): Major lesser Dead can automatically detect living creatures within 15 feet of their location, and automatically learn of their physical condition.
The Curse of the Living Dead
The curse itself is, ironically, almost a living thing. At time it seems capable of feeling what is in a specific creature's heart and physically manifesting such traits through the baleful transformation into one of the Dead. Even if in most recorded cases the transition to a Dead strips a creature of its intelligence, leaving only an instinct-driven shell behind, the resulting creature wears its past sins like armour, and its long-forgotten emotions become lethal weapons. A Dead that was an avid hunter in life may stop at nothing to stalk its pray in a sadistic simulacrum of its forgotten craft, and a vicious killer risen as Dead may find his facility of murder more than intact. In fact, there have been recorded cases of serial killers rising from the dead and continuing their ritual killings as if they were still alive; like the grim knowledge has been ingrained within their dead flesh itself. And, in some rare cases, a particularly strong consciousness may preserve itself even against the eroding dark abyss of death itself.
The Curse of the Living Dead causes the transition of a living creature into one of the Dead. The curse is contained within the viscera of most Dead, and is usually transmitted by means of physical injury. By far the most common method of infection is through exposure of a living creature's bloodstream to the saliva of a Dead; an occurrence most often facilitated by a Dead's bite attack. Some powerful Dead however are capable of infecting creatures through supernatural means, and the worst of them erode a living creature's physical health with their presence alone. After a creature has been exposed to the curse it becomes infected, and must make Fortitude saves at a regular interval that is usually preceded by an incubation time.
More powerful Dead have a higher concentration of the Curse within them, lowering incubation time and requiring a creature to save far more often (see below table).
| Curse Details | Lesser Dead | Greater Dead | Ascended Dead1 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minor | Major | Minor | Major | ||
| Incubation2 | 48 hrs | 12 hrs | 4 hrs | 2 hrs | Immediate |
| Save Interval | 8 hrs | 4 hrs | 2 hrs | 1 hr | 1 minute |
| HD | Type of Dead a creature becomes (d%) | ||||
| 1 | 1-95 | 96-100 | — | — | — |
| 2 | 1-75 | 76-100 | — | — | — |
| 3 | 1-50 | 51-95 | 96-100 | — | — |
| 4 | 1-25 | 26-75 | 76-100 | — | — |
| 5 | — | 1-50 | 51-95 | 96-100 | — |
| 6 | — | 1-25 | 26-75 | 76-100 | — |
| 7 | — | — | 1-50 | 51-95 | 96-100 |
| 8 | — | — | 1-25 | 26-75 | 76-100 |
| 9 | — | — | — | 1-50 | 51-100 |
| 10 | — | — | — | 1-25 | 26-100 |
| 11+ | — | — | — | — | 1-100 |
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Only a select few types of living creatures resist the Curse fully. Because the curse does not affect a creature's immortal soul, single-constituent creatures like elementals and non-native outsiders, whose physical and spiritual bodies are one and the same, are immune to the Curse. Likewise, creatures that are not flesh and blood (plants and most oozes), as well as creatures without a physical body (incorporeals) cannot be infected.
| Size/Type: | SRD: Type |
|---|---|
| Hit Dice: | ( hp) |
| Initiative: | |
| Speed: | |
| Armor Class: | , touch , flat-footed |
| Base Attack/Grapple: | / |
| Attack: | |
| Full Attack: | |
| Space/Reach: | / |
| Special Attacks: | |
| Special Qualities: | |
| Saves: | Fort , Ref , Will |
| Abilities: | Str , Dex , Con , Int , Wis , Cha |
| Skills: | |
| Feats: | |
| Environment: | |
| Organization: | |
| Challenge Rating: | |
| Treasure: | |
| Alignment: | |
| Advancement: | |
| Level Adjustment: |
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