We know Frankenstein’s monster is a bit of an outlier, but hear us out. Even though it was an intelligent and articulate creature, it is still so influential on the modern zombie: it gives us the idea of reanimating the dead via “occult” science which becomes uncontrollable and violent. The monster itself is more like an awakened flesh golem in D&D terms, but it was an important influence on zombies none the less!
Speaking of flesh golems, any chance you could do a video on golems? I've always thought they were interesting but never had any good ideas on interesting ways to use them.
Actually, if anything, I'd argue that Frankenstein's monster has way, way more influence on the genre of robots than zombies. The idea of science creating life, only for it turn on those who attempt to place restrictions on it, was hugely influential on everyone from Karel Čapek to Isaac Asimov, to Philip K. Dick to James Cameron. Without Frankenstein, the entire genre of robotics in science fiction might not even exist. If you want to talk about big zombie influences in fiction, you'd want to obviously mention George Romero, but also the novel (and not the Will Smith vehicle) _I Am Legend,_ which not only arguably created the entire genre of post-apocalypse as we know it today, but also popularized many of the ideas which are now common in zombie fiction, from the survivalist themes to the idea of humans turning into monsters that turn others into monsters via a disease. It was from _I Am Legend_ that Romero was inspired to make _Night of the Living Dead_ .
@@firefly7076 The cool thing about Draugrs in Viking mythology is that the only way to kill it is to lure it back into the ground, which can be tricky when you consider it knows what it is, revels in it, and fights Berzerker like (using it's weapons and fighting prowess, etc......). I created stats for, and used, these monsters decades ago (1st edition A D&D days).
+Dungeon Dudes I haven't played D&D since the 1st edition A D&D days (which is the only rules I'm familiar with), but I ran a zombie apocalypse campaign decades ago (way before zombies were such a huge element of pop culture, the Romero movie series [well, the 1st 3 movies, Land of the Dead wasn't to hit theaters for decades) was about the only well known zombie survival thing. I made stats and rules for a "survival horror with zombies" (way before there were survival horror games and movies like Resident Evil) type campaign. I had various types (not running, fast zombies, which I hate), which kept PCs on their toes. I had Resident Evil type viral zombies, Necromancy zombies created by an evil cult (using their clerics. The cult was the main enemy in the campaign [the cult wasn't discovered until several sessions in] and even had the players stumble upon a zombie creation ritual. They followed some cultist grave robbers several game sessions in, followed them back to where the ritual was taking place, and hid as they watched the ritual. I was very graphic about it, and the zombies' appearances, and the satanic panic of the 1980s made it cooler and added more relevancy to the whole cult thing), I had some that were infected by a modified version of the Ear Seeker, etc...... They were all a bit different, but all were Romero-esque dumb, shambling corpses with some variations based on how they were created. Some could retain traces of memories, some were a bit smarter and or faster the fresher they were (but, again, the zombies didn't run, use weapons, etc......). Some could even kinda learn, or be mesmerized by a Blade Barrier spell, standing and watching the whirling blades when they were expected to walk mindlessly into it (a handful of a horde may do that, as most walked into it). When the magic users got high enough to use fireball, thinking"oh, this'll wipe out that zombie horde chasing us" , some types of zombies would have the ones within a 20-30 foot radius of the epicenter of the blast turned into cinders, while those on the periphery were now more dangerous, flaming zombies (I think it was an extra 2-8 HP fire damage in addition to their normal 1D8 damage until slain or they burned up enough to be immobilized after several turns). I would give the zombies a chance (percentile, using 2D10) to grab anyone they made a successful melee attack on (this gave them a bonus to hit and bite. Anyone bitten by a viral zombie made a save vs poison or be infected. This was curable with a cure disease spell cast within 2 hours of in game time before they would "turn". If turned, it required a special, expensive spell cast by an NPC Cleric or Magic User specially trained in necromancy, which made them human again (they had to be restrained, of course) and such NPCs were hard to find. The zombies were destroyed in typical zombie ways, burned up, blown up, decapitated (or otherwise destroying the brain, which required a called shot or melee attack with a -3 or 4 to hit, and it was the only attack they could make that round). I even had the classic zombie siege and survival, with players having to construct barricades ( with each barricade being assigned a damage capacity based on materials, how much was put into construction, etc......) before having to be repaired/rebuilt. The result was the party running around in a near panic as they fought waves of relentless zombies, healed up, constructed and rebuilt barricades, and so on. I basically ran a zombie survival horror campaign that played like a horror movie, and the afore mentioned elements, combined with others, made a normally easy monster into something to be feared, even by a well equipped party of level 10 plus characters
Consider this. A city where necromancy is not evil, or the risen. When someone passes, they are taken to the nearest church and temporarily raised, or a church designated by something worn/tattooed/branded on the body, where more advanced arrangements have been made to be raised for longer or brought back to life. Short-raised get to say goodbye to their family, or walk to their spell loaded symbol at their home. Medium length raised take up jobs around the city to earn enough to be brought back, most jobs menial, but some specialist jobs like champions in duels among necromancers etc. long length journey to find a way back. Npcs like to move there for the life insurance policy, practitioners for the lack of prosecution. And everyone for the great trade/business. Zombies eat/keep in check wildlife, maybe provide part of army, but don’t attack unless ordered to do so. What other ways can you think of to use them besides scare/evil?
Thank you for the response, feel free to elaborate, as i would be happy to hear more of your (mis)adventures. i might write a sourcebook someday, breaking/explaining common stigmas and racism in dnd, describe the orgins of planets and creatures, ecology, sources of magic, new magic spells, feature moral dilemmas, choice and consequence missions, and try to portray more accurate, realistic strategies.
This is my current campaign but here's some of the lore if you'd like. Necromancy is practiced in many corners of the world although the darker arts have been 'lost to time'. The people who've died, could be brought back momentarily or, should they make a "donation", they could bring them in an undead state with a blood red sigil behind their neck. Those brought back could not return fully unless they manage to pay 20,000 gold through labor which is expensive in my world. In order to discern those who had been close to paying the bill their skin would look more natural and their sigil would start to turn darker in color until its black. The undead have a surprisingly long life span due to their nature which in turn causes some nations to conscript them to their army. The Holy Empire outright banned them from their country and even goes and hunts them down due to their worship of the god of life. There is also a nation created by the undead due to their treatment as slaves, have started to treat normal mortals practically the same . (You know, a reverse kingdom). This has started some tension between many nations as the rights for the undead have been in question for many decades. Right now, the crown prince for the land of Haeldrun has died recently and brought back as an undead (due to my party's thinking). He is the only one in line of the throne and many issues have raised as their nation is allies with the holy empire.
If you're big at all on Magic: the Gathering, check on the lore on the plane of Amonkhet. Probably try to check out what it was like in the Amonkhet set, not post- War of the Spark (War of the Spark being a recent big event in the lore). While not necessarily the same as the setting you described, the citizens of Amonkhet are often turned into mummies (zombies, but the plane is based on Ancient Egypt) that act as soldiers, servants, and laborers. The culture considers mummification to be normal, and even more so, many of their greatest warriors undergo a series of trials to become undead super soldiers when they die. (This army of Super-Mummies became a centerpiece in the BBEG's plan during War of the Spark.)
In the world for the campaign I am currently DMing, I made a pantheon of gods and realized that, while a couple I had originally created as inherently evil, I've gradually realized that each one has at least part of their portfolio that is good The vulture goddess of suffering is also the goddess of alcohol and coping mechanisms The god of war, destruction and natural disasters is also the god of new creating and blacksmithing The god of blood and pain is also the one that all public bathhouses are dedicated to Etc I have one that is basically the god of desertification and inevitability Now I'm pretty sure that it's also the god of undeath because the one I have for death, medicine, etc has a bad opinion of the undead
Even the 5th edition starter set has a different type of zombie you can use, called the Ash Zombie. They use the normal zombie stat block but whenever they take damage for the first time anyone within 5 feet of them has to make a con save or else they get disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws for 1 minute. On to a different topic. I remember the first time i ever played D&D with my uncle and their friends. One of their friends was a necromancer wizard who had a bag of holding full of kobold corpses, and whenever we entered combat he would throw one of the corpses out of the bag and animate it.
There is a 3.5E book called Heroes of Battle that dose a good job of explaining how to create a scenarios in which a group of heroes can turn the tides of war. Aside from a class and some feats, the information is applicable to any addition or game system. PDF's are easy to find for free download. Just Google it.
Just turn the large quanties of enemies into a swarm enemy, much like a swarm of bees. This makes it easier to handle, as you are turning 30 orcs in an army into a single enemy on the gamemat.
Alex Hukill A way I plan on running mass combat is simply it’s in the background, and at the end of each round of combat, I roll a D6 or a D10 during skirmishes further away from fighting. If I roll 6 on that D6 or a 10 on that D10, all characters (friend or foe) must make a dex save of 12, or take collateral damage from stray bullets/artillery from the battle (it’s a post apocalyptic modern fantasy.) The PCs can receive small quests during the battles such as hunting an elusive sniper pinning friendlies down, removing barricades preventing vehicles from moving forward, or rescuing wounded friendlies. The more they succeed at these small tasks, the more the tide of mass combat goes in their favour. The longer they take, the more it turns against them. They don’t have to actually do much killing themselves, only survive the slaughterfest around them and complete these mini side quests during the fighting under a time stress. Just run mass combat as a background and change the narrative of how that battle is playing out based on the PC’s actions as heroes completing key tasks. Saves a lot of dice rolls and makes a really cool scene without taking away the focus from the PC’s and their stories of heroism.
I got a good idea while watching this. A zombie that is a bit faster than normal, and has a leap attack. If it moves 20ft in a straight line, it can leap up to 10ft. If there is a creature on the landing square, it must make a dex save, and on a fail the zombie does a bite attack, but on a success the creature dodges and can make an opportunity attack on the zombie.
I love the idea of a Pet Cemetery scenario. A cursed land where if you bury someone there they will come back from the dead, but what you put in is not what you get out...
The true monster was the author and people like you. Dr. Frankenstein's character was based on the doctors at the time that has to study the human body in secret. Because of them doctors today save many lives.
steve stumpy It’s not a matter of “playing god” that made him a villain, it was his apathy for Adam that did it. Uncaring that Adam would be seen as the monster and shunned by society; to bear the burden that the actual doctors experienced. Or maybe I’m mistaken and in those days it was the patients saved by radical treatments that were hunted by the angry mobs.
Victor Frankestein was a monster in the sense that he represented humanity at it's peak (defeating death using science) bringing untold devastation just because he was irresponsible, self-centered and emotionally immature. He rejected his creature because he felt it was creepy (and arguably because it feared it's overall superhuman status), let him suffer only because he was immature and let a lot of people close to him die because he did not want to face the consequences of his actions. In the end he even took to the grave the secret of his creation. The lesson is not "science bad" but "science op so use it responsibly you childish dorks".
You forget how much of drama queens Necromancers are. They would totally command their minions to lay down and act dead just so they can give the “rise my minions!” command when the players enter.
You dudes are the best! My wife and her family bought the starter set a few months ago (none of us had ever played before except for her dad, back in the 80s) and my wife is acting as DM. We've been bingeing on your videos and they've been so sooo helpful!! You should do more accessory reviews and suggestions as we have no idea what is worthwhile or helpful. Thanks for the time you put into your videos!
while this is cool and all, I think everyone is forgetting that there's an entire tabletop game system designed around zombies. All Flesh Must Be Eaten, baby, so much flexibility, so many kinds of zombie scenarios and a system for using them all.
I miss the older versions elf having protection vs ghouls paralyzing touch, also i suggest having at least 1 or 2 Ghouls with them that Paralyzing touch really drives the fear home as the Zombies shamble towards you
@@Jeromy1986 they only took it out if you let them. :) some of the Older edition abilities i often bring back for the Unique foe of the same name. helps add an air of mystery and Power in your recurring foes.
If I could offer a couple of other inspirations, from Canadian cinema: Fido is a hilarious example of zombies fulfilling a role in society once technology progresses to a place where they can be controlled via remote. Pontypool is also a take on zombie infection where certain words in language become pathogens for the virus to spread, so even just hearing certain words causes people to lose their free will and become mindless, violent husks. Considering TTRPGs are largely verbal-based, that could add a very interesting element to how your players communicate at the table.
Dylan Duval I've wanted to see Fido for a while. That also makes me wonder what else you'd use animated corpses for besides as combatants. Can they be porters (Go fetch!)?
I baught that movie In collage. Love it. Woke up one morning to my 3yo neice watching it.... turns out she loved it also. My sister, less pleased. But to point: great idea. The zombie workforce.
This reminds me of a round table discussion between Mike Mearls, Matt Mercer, Matt Colville, and Adam Koebel where Mike explains how all over the world there's multiple words in many languages which essentially describe the same thing but the development team used them to gives names and slightly different twists to various monster stat blocks.
Nice! For my Halloween one shot we had an evil wizard assaulting the players village throwing zombies filled with rot grubs from volos guide. They had to survive the night and escape. Very fun encounter lots of fire and grease traps from the PCs
If you want to go to older editions the AD&D 2nd edition Ravenloft campaign setting had the cannibal zombie, it was pretty much just like the infectious zombies from the movies.
One of my players favorite NPC I have made is a zombie with sentience. I introduced him kind of as a joke and treated him like Kronk from Emperor's New Groove. The players actually took him in and help him with getting new parts. One of the gnomes even tinkered him a new arm lol. I never saw the character going past the one adventure but I was pleasantly surprised how they latched on him. It is one of my favorite DM things is when I create a character that I don't think is going any where but for whatever reason my players love them. Of course the opposite happens also when I think my players are going to love this guy but then they hate them lol.
darb27 K 😆 Reminds me of an incident while in a Wizards SWars campaign, back during the old 3.5 days. After taking down (but not destroying) an Imperial battle droid, one of our guys repaired & reprogrammed it. Our GM ran with it, giving the thing a twisted personality so we never knew if it would turn on us. The droid referred to us all as “meat-bags”, spent its off time developing more weapons / armor for itself, and when ordered into battle, responded with a gruff, enthusiastic, “THANK YOU, MASTER!”
Please make a video about the most/least used monsters. I'm thinking about being a DM and I keep seeing the same monsters used and it gets old. We need to bring out those monsters no one uses.
White walker game of thrones zombies anyone? When the night king raised all the dead in the one game of thrones episode was one of my favorite moments from the series
We actually had that scene in our notes when filming this episode but never ended up discussing it. One of the best moments IMO in the entire show. So chilling.
I love zombies as enemies for the party, they are so versatile in use. Also that relentlessness is extremely horrifying on low level play, especially against a party without good burst damage options. That idea of implementing the "how the zombie died previously" gave me great inspiration, as did that "recently dead" zombies not smelling - and actually that smell being a potent factor in a fight, like forcing a Con save or suffer from Poisoned condition when within 10ft of that zombie or something.
One possible way to bring in the plague zombie without bogging combat down in saving throws might be to wait until the end of the battle and then have anyone who got in melee with the zombies to make a Dex or Con saving throw to avoid having gotten infected, possibly imposing disadvantage on those who took damage. That would probably increase the challenge rating but it is an option. Another source for inspiration (if you have it) is the 3.5e book Libris Mortis and their subtypes for zombies and skeletons or the bone and corpse templates from the 3e Book of Vile Darkness. Both would add some variety into the mix.
Spawn of Kuss reminds me of these Demon Leeches my DM made. They'd burrow into the victim and the victim would slowly start to hear voices and hallucinate as the leech worked it's way through them. Our rogue got infected with one and he was choking on it, my character was still a warlock at the time and had his Quasit familiar turn into a centipede and go down the rogues throat to rip the leech out of him.
One of the best inspirations for me for running a spawn of kyuss encounter was from the second book in the beyonders trilogy where literally the is a section of the continent that is cut off from the rest of the world by the equivalent of elves guarding its boarders, because a wizard created a worm virus that burrows into the skin and eats all the blood in the host while reproducing turning the now worm controlled host into a walking bag of worms and even slaying them up close is hazardous cause the worms will abandon the host after death and keep coming for you. Great books.
I ran a third party AP called Chapel on the Cliffs that did undead really well. They were skeletons (but could easily be zombies instead) and it used much of these tips. It had the slow reveal of this undead threat, a hive mind mentality with some aspects, the "survive the night" encounter... Solid recommendation if you're looking for a good undead threat to run with your group.
I had a zombie encounter in my campaign where the battle took place in a sewer with running water and the zombie mechanics was actually not a saving throw to resurrect but it's ability to fall over and get carried away by the water when the players figured out what was going on they started using the prone status to easily defeat the zombie without going through that large heath pool
I remember I played a campaign where we were in a small village infested by clone zombie things. They had a brain but they just were super violent all the time. Anyway, we were in a tavern and there were loads of poor common folk all depressed cause they couldn't fight these monsters as everyone who had before had died. You know the usual. So anyway as a paladin, lawfully good. I was outraged that they had given up on the undead winning so I intimidated rolled the entire bar (about 15 low-level commoners), calling them cowards and they should all be ashamed to call themselves men and women. My group was shouting at me "what are you doing!" "we are going to die!". But I rolled a 15 and they rolled a 2. So it was all good, they all had a change of heart and followed us into battle. Including the bartender and maid of the tavern. The DM didn't plan for that so we brushed through the next few monster and boss encounters with numbers on our side. It was a bloodbath, loads of town folk died but our group lived. hahaha Good times.
I threw a awakened zombie ex paladin at my players that wore full plate armor. They never knew he was there former companion and if he died he was just raised again and again.
I found this channel a few days ago and have since spent many hours just watching your videos. They’re so well made and very informative, in my future campaigns I will definitely be showing them all of the class coverage videos. Thanks for these high quality videos and I look forward to everything else to come!!
Yes! I’ve been working on a zombie mini campaign for a few weeks now and then I find you guys and you’re talking about them! You guys are so great, keep cranking out videos please!
One idea I had for zombies is zombies as purchasable muscle. That means that they can be commanded by whoever uses them. Obviously, they can't understand complex commands. But simple commands like attacking or moving to a position work.
One of my first DM'ing experiences was with using the Spawn of Kyuss. Our DM was missing from the regular campaign and we also didn't have enough players for the dungeon crawl I would run in their absence. Instead, I had two players and basically just had their characters fight arena battles against CR appropriate monsters so I picked some undead from Volo's Guide: a Bodak and a couple of Kyuss Spawn. There's something about the mechanics of the Kyuss Spawn that just inspired my creativity when it came to describing the appearance, action and behavior of not just the spawn itself, but especially its worms. Despite this just being a combat oriented arena fight COMPLETELY devoid of story, my two players ended up super creeped out and invested in the fight. At some point, one PC got infected, didn't know how to stop the worm (or what it was even doing) and, eventually, the fight would end with the surviving PC facing off against their reanimated former partner. I even let the "defeated" player take control of their reanimated character. Basically, I wanted to share a memory about how this monster suddenly inspired me, a newbie DM, to make super engaging descriptions and also inspire a story in one shot otherwise completely devoid of it. It might be my favorite monster for this reason. Great design by WotC. The only reservations I have about the monster are concerns about how well it's going to work in an actual campaign. It's a bit of a "puzzle" for players to figure out "Oh, I should brush this thing off me before it starts doing damage". Once the worm starts seeming dangerous, you're already on your way towards not just dying, but having your soul trapped inside your own undead body making resurrection much harder. Furthermore, the lore of the monster encourages the DM to say that if a PC who was turned into a Kyuss Spawn was then later resurrected, then that PC is definitely going to be rolling on the "didn't come back right" table because of the insanity it can cost
Frankenstein's monster was a golem, not a zombie. It was a construct. I've mentioned this on other videos, but felt the need to point it out here, since it is brought up a few times throughout the video. I know it's mentioned in the pinned post, but it needs to be stressed. EDIT: The source for Orcs in Tolkein's world were actually zombies. The term came from Beowulf. Orc-nass means death-corpse. Literally zombies. :)
Our dm created this necromancer npc that uses a high level raise the dead to create zombies that transition into skeletons that gain additional speed, and homebased rule that zombies made from freshly killed creatures still have the strength of their muscles that are decaying over time.
I had a fun idea for "walker" types where the undead fortitude save when they get to 0 has adv or dis depending on where the player strikes or attacks the "walker". dis if they attack the head but adv anywhere else as the walker either way still has debuffs imposed on them depending on if they lose a body part or whatever. something that would reflect that kill the head to beat the zombie feel the walkers from the walking dead has.
Really great video and awesome ideas! It just so happens that my last session ended with the party encountering a zombie hoard. This gave me some great ideas on how to make next session extra cool.
More than a year on, I watched this one because I'm running a d20 Modern campaign in the American south, where some D&D zombies came through from Shadow and are about to encounter "real-world" zombies (drugged laborers) and the people who created them, and the player characters are caught in the middle. Having watched this video, I may stir in some Spawn of Kyuss involved as well. Thanks for the evil idea!
Of all the types of zombies that appear in video games the necromorphs of dead space are far and away my favorites. Absolutely terrifying, horrific enemies.
Until you get reincarnated in the same world that has your favourite zombie types in it. Then i'd rather go to the world where zombies are impossible like our world, the closest thing we have are druggies who use so much drugs that they have necrotizing skin making them appear very zombie like.
Great in a long line of really helpful videos. Really like the structure of consistently covering game mechanics, inspiration from the real world and various forms of fiction and the role playing impact. 25 k subscribers is well deserved.
Great video guys! Zombies were a great place to start, I really liked the part where you explained the origins of zombies in pop culture. Can't wait to see what you do next!
I've been enjoying quite a few books the past few months. One of the book series I finished recently is the Dark Dungeon series, which is a two book series with a healthy portion of Mature content (both books have quite a bit of sex in them), and in that series dungeons are something akin to living entities, they have a "Core" that is a fully sentient mind with access to immense magical energies, which they use to generate monsters, bind monsters, create challenges for all who enter, generate rewards, expand their floors, and even modify their floor plans and encounter settings. Within these books, the reader encounters basic zombies but is later introduced to upgraded versions of zombies referred to as "Undead Warrior" and "Undead Mage" and those can prove quite problematic. Undead Mages are zombies with access to random spells used by arcane spellcasters, pretty easy to surprise the players when the zombie starts chucking Iceballs and lightning at them, while Undead Warriors are described as being more effective in combat scenarios and even tend to wear heavy armor and use shields along with weaponry, seeming to have all those reflexive warrior traits in a single zombie instead of just the last two or three movements they possibly had in their last moments can also terrifying. Continuing the trend of monsters with a spin, Morningwood: Everybody Loves Chests is the first book in a series, the main protagonist is a mimic, one that has actually managed to acquire properties and traits not usually seen in mimics among games, shows, movies, and comics. You want a monster not many people think about as potentially terrifying at higher levels, use the murderous box that is the protagonist of the story. Another story that takes lesser considered monsters and makes them more interesting is the Chronicles of a Royal Pet (Royal Ooze Chronicles), the series actually states openly that while there are numerous different kinds of oozes, which we also know as slimes, in the world the story takes place in nobody really put much effort into studying, until the owner of the main character (the main character is a common ooze when it's purchased from a pet shop that actually sells magical creatures as pets to wealthy patrons) decides to do so as part of her studies for the Mage Academy she is attending. Another story that uses an ooze/slime as the protagonist is the series That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime. That series also plays around with what one can expect from ooze/slime type monsters.
My favorite thing to do with with zombies is roll a die and give them one level of a random player class, making it more obvious that they used to be people. If they drop a player, have the player come back as a zombie with all their player levels and have it be a mini-boss one or two encounters later
Not only does the Lich summon skeletons upon the parties arrival at the graveyard, but those skeletons reach right up from underneath the players gaining automatic (maybe even surprise) grapple checks, holding the players in place as the Lich's henchmen emerge from behind a few tombstones with X-bows. The Lich slowly fades into the ethereal, "mwahahaHAHAHAHA!!, kill them all". The dimly lit crypt awaits off in the background.
In honor of Halloween, I'm about to run a zombie encounter next week. The local halflings have been pushed around long enough; a pair of halfling musicians have killed a Royal Necromancer and stole his spellbook. They started by making crawling claws, now they have found an old cemetery and plan to raise a small army of zombies to wreak vengeance on the human colonists. One halfling plays the fiddle and uses it to command his undead thralls. The song he's playing? A fiddle cover of "Thriller".
My dm once had a zombie be telefragged before being reanimated and when it was reanimated the magical energy fused with the necromantic power so the body parts were being held together by magical tethers the only way to breaking the magic tethers if you hit a body part it would get hit out of the body shape and the tethers would take 2d4 turns to regather it unless a magic weapon hit them or a spell of fire or light hit it
I love zombies, they are great for any sort of game as you mentioned. With a more serious tone at my table, i can think of 2 very particular scenarios, one i ran and the one i'm about to. The first, was several months ago when the party were in a city magocracy where undead were common servants. The most powerful guards were slightly watered down flesh golems. The party split in town as they often do, and i rolled to see what random things they might find (custom random encounters cause nothing is ever wasted) and the paladin found a butcher shop that was closed without notice. Curious the paladin decided to investigate further, and found that inside there was a dull thumping noise repeating in the cellar. Heading down the stairs, she found ripped corpses all over the room, a set of ripped open plate armor too large for a normal man. In the far end, she saw a large figure with one hand holding a corpse without a head against the wall and the other slowly, methodically punching the space where there once was a face, but now only a red stain. Combat began, and when she easily slew exhausted looking monster. She looked at the gruesome scene of a hand lopped off, and several huge slashes across its chest. But then, its hands started to crawl towards her, and its head exploded revealing a intellect devourer. It was close, she barely made her save, and finished it off, but everyone was horrified that it kept coming, despite its lethal wounds. The townsfolk including the butcher had stolen a decommissioned flesh golem, and not knowing what they were doing, got themselves killed.
The one i'm about to run is for a bunch of low level adventurers, who have their course set to head through the valley in the frozen north. Now the season is summer, which the players don't know is a bad thing yet. Because the valley is actually a frozen lake, and ice is thinnest in the summer. In the lake is an old lich's lair who has long been defeated, but his stain on the world still exists. The party are going to make a fair way across before the ice starts to crack, and all thier footsteps are like the beating of a drum, waking all the sunken zombies up. Cause undead, don't need to breath. >:)
"And the dead shall outnumber the living" is actually a line in the Sumerian myth dealing with the goddess Innana's descent into the underworld. Iirc the full declaration (translated, obviously) is "If you do not open the gate that I may enter, I will break down the door, I will smash the bolt, I will break down the frame, I will topple the doors. I will raise up the dead to devour the living, and the dead will outnumber the living.".
I played as a warlock in a solo game module a while back. Not only was not having a party to back me, deeply unnerving. I had a TERRIFYING encounter with a zombie in which I could NOT kill it. With my mere cantrips available and dwindling hit points as it ceaslessly clawed at me, my character had to retreat into the woods to get away.
I will put gibbering mouthers, Flame skulls, zombies, spawn of kyuss, scarecrows, and mummies. In a cursed, cultist farm with a corn maze. The farm is run by a necromancer cultist.
Two games with really good zombiequese themes/mechanics. Halo with the flood, similar to half life, but the flood mutate dependant on the host, and their memories are added to the hive mind, like the Borg i guess. And dead island, the idea that the heroea are immune, the zombies that are fresh are fast and strong, the contiminate was a indigenous blood pathogen that was incorporated into the society. Greats vid lads.
I hope you guys decide to do more of these detailed monster videos! I would love to see your opinions on things like beholders and mindflayers, and hear the crazy stories you have about them Xp
Awesome shirt, Kelly! We have gone up against various undead in all the versions of d&d throughout the years. I think the last litche we faced at 2nd level was the toughest one.
Thanks for the inspiration, we are currently playing starter set + essential kit and I think I will turn the thundertree zombies Into fungus type zombies that pop a spore cloud instead of ash on death Probably turned by the green/poison/swamp (and I guess now necrotic) Dragon
Hopefully this doesn't seem long winded. My players are in the middle of this campaign that centers around a cannibalistic tribe of orcs. One of the lead war-chief orcs eats specifically magical creatures and wizards, consuming their power and becoming a powerful necromancer. He's covered head to toe in the bones of these magic creatures and has unicorn skulls as pauldrons. The party is from a wood elf society that has a sacred forest. They cremate the ashes of their dead and plant trees over them. Over centuries, this has grown into a mystical forest/graveyard that they call the Wispwood. The trees here glow a faint green glow at night and all wildlife within are neutral unless provoked. Wisps can often be seen floating in the distance. One of their early quests was for the party to investigate the felling of these trees. Some bandits have been cutting them down and using the wood in forges to magically imbue their weapons with soul energy. The weapons would glow and explode on impact, dealing extra damage and deafening whoever gets hit, as the weapons explode with the sound of a bunch of people screaming. After they succeeded in stopping the bandits, some of the wisps gathered around the party and formed into the ghosts of their own ancestors, which thanked the party for their deeds. Now, the party hasn't gotten this far in the story yet, but eventually the orc necromancer will enter these woods and burn the whole thing to the ground, harnessing all the soul energy within. He will create a 'soul-nado' of power and start ravaging everything. When the party goes to face him, he will now be summing ghosts and specters instead of skeletons and zombies. The party will literally have to fight the ghosts of their own elvan ancestors to get to the orc himself. Pretty fucking metal, right?
Well, with an intelligence of 3 and wisdom of 8, DM's can easily justify them acting close animals with problem solving capabilities. great video guys.
Would love to see a video from you guys on D&D Vampires! Another great idea for terrifying zombies is from I Am Legend. The Infected are extremely fast and horrifying.
I would like to point out, the spell create undead, only says how many undead you can raise and control with the spell. Given time, a necromancer can keep mass producing them and just let go of their control when the first 24 hours are done. It wouldnt take that many zombies under a necromancers control to urge a herd of them to action.
I would totally let the player expend a higher level spell slot and conjure fewer zombies in order to create a zombie ogre, similar to how the animate objects lets you animate a fewer number of larger objects.
I still need to try and run a tower defense scenario against a zombie horde, kinda like the Resident Evil 4 scenario they had mentioned :> Good stuff, Dudes!
Zombies don't have to be villains in every fantasy story. In the seventh Xanth book, "Dragon on a Pedestal" by Piers Anthony, there is a zombie woman named Zora who became a hero! She was intelligent , friendly and she helped the protagonist on her quest.
Want a low level necromancer boss? Take the cr 2 priest monster card, change caster class as a wizard, wis and int together, change the spells for wizards spells, use glyph of warding with animate dead for 3rd lvl spells and there you go, a by the rules 4 lvl necromancer bbg cr 2
20:10 Fungus-based Zombies are already covered in D&D by the Myconids. I'm not saying you can't do this, but I personally would either use the Myconids in such a case, or define something else about the fungal zombies that would make them distinct from the Myconids.
Geezer here.... Not sure on 5e but it's homebrew anyway. Decades back we decided to include a holy ground/last rights type spell being wide spread in use. Makes the body immune to necro magic. No zombie or resurrections later. Adds a good deal to stabilize a "safe zone".
The modern zombie is more than just a walking symbol of death. The modern infectious zombie represents the loss of one’s individuality; that with a simple wound you would be transformed from a person with memories, opinions, skills, goals, fears and quirks, into an unrecognizable meatbag that conforms with the horde.
Spawn of Cus (spelling?) seems to be an exact copy of the AD&D Brood Gibberling. At least in terms of the rules, not the appearance. And in the featuring module, Gates of Firestorm Peak, there is a horde of over a hundred gibberlings, much to the scale of your typical zombie encounter.
I made a drug with tempting mechanical benefits but leave clues that zombies are related to the drug. Eventually turning a PC who gave in and took it into a zombie.
I'm not familiar with RE4, but RE:DC can show you the idea of the dormant zombie who's only roused by the presence of a living victim (think of the zombie like a computer waiting for the user to wiggle the mouse). 28 Days Later called its zombie virus The Rage (I think?). This, to me, sounds like a virus which would prey specifically upon Barbarians. Putting together your mention of Frankenstein and the later mention of Dead Space really leads into the idea of custom created undead. A humorous reference to throw in here as an example is the video game Mr. Bones, in which your main character could give himself stilts by combining his arm and leg bones. (I know he's a skeleton, but you get the idea 😅)
Prototype, while it doesn't exactly have "Zombies", it's infected have some neat variants like the Hunters in Prototype 1 or the Brawlers in 2, and both have their subvariants like the Spiked Brawler which is just a evolution on the normal one. Some of the other variants are the Hydras which will grab cars and toss them at you (or anything not Infected for that matter), Juggernauts which well they punch things with fists the size of a small car, and fliers which unlike every other infected were mutated from Pigeons instead of people then there is the Goliath... the thing defies physics... Also the Flood from Halo was one that was missed to :P
Also, this video is really helpful! I’m a new DM running a campaign of all the demon lords attacking the material plane, and Orcus is the final one, it’s really helping preparing the last arc, which will be all undead.
Just finished this video and I was especially interested in the section on the Spawn of Kyuss. Monty references a way he used them in a campaign and you mention that the Paladin got infected. Shouldn't the Paladin have been able to use their Lay on Hands ability to cure the disease? The description on the worms reads "If a worm-infested creature is targeted by an effect that cures disease or removes a curse, all the worms infesting it wither away."
Ah, makes sense. On the same note, I've seen a fair amount of discussion on whether a Paladin's Divine Health/Monk Purity of Body would kill the worms in 5E. It seems like the answer is no but with the possibility of house ruling otherwise. I'm curious what your opinions are on the matter. I personally like the idea of the worms taking their first bite of a paladin and bursting in holy light.
We know Frankenstein’s monster is a bit of an outlier, but hear us out. Even though it was an intelligent and articulate creature, it is still so influential on the modern zombie: it gives us the idea of reanimating the dead via “occult” science which becomes uncontrollable and violent. The monster itself is more like an awakened flesh golem in D&D terms, but it was an important influence on zombies none the less!
Speaking of flesh golems, any chance you could do a video on golems? I've always thought they were interesting but never had any good ideas on interesting ways to use them.
Actually, if anything, I'd argue that Frankenstein's monster has way, way more influence on the genre of robots than zombies. The idea of science creating life, only for it turn on those who attempt to place restrictions on it, was hugely influential on everyone from Karel Čapek to Isaac Asimov, to Philip K. Dick to James Cameron. Without Frankenstein, the entire genre of robotics in science fiction might not even exist.
If you want to talk about big zombie influences in fiction, you'd want to obviously mention George Romero, but also the novel (and not the Will Smith vehicle) _I Am Legend,_ which not only arguably created the entire genre of post-apocalypse as we know it today, but also popularized many of the ideas which are now common in zombie fiction, from the survivalist themes to the idea of humans turning into monsters that turn others into monsters via a disease. It was from _I Am Legend_ that Romero was inspired to make _Night of the Living Dead_ .
One word: Draugrs.
They’re Nordic zombies, and are smart, silent, strong and smart.
Edit: why does autocorrect think silent is solvent?
@@firefly7076 The cool thing about Draugrs in Viking mythology is that the only way to kill it is to lure it back into the ground, which can be tricky when you consider it knows what it is, revels in it, and fights Berzerker like (using it's weapons and fighting prowess, etc......). I created stats for, and used, these monsters decades ago (1st edition A D&D days).
+Dungeon Dudes I haven't played D&D since the 1st edition A D&D days (which is the only rules I'm familiar with), but I ran a zombie apocalypse campaign decades ago (way before zombies were such a huge element of pop culture, the Romero movie series [well, the 1st 3 movies, Land of the Dead wasn't to hit theaters for decades) was about the only well known zombie survival thing. I made stats and rules for a "survival horror with zombies" (way before there were survival horror games and movies like Resident Evil) type campaign. I had various types (not running, fast zombies, which I hate), which kept PCs on their toes. I had Resident Evil type viral zombies, Necromancy zombies created by an evil cult (using their clerics. The cult was the main enemy in the campaign [the cult wasn't discovered until several sessions in] and even had the players stumble upon a zombie creation ritual. They followed some cultist grave robbers several game sessions in, followed them back to where the ritual was taking place, and hid as they watched the ritual. I was very graphic about it, and the zombies' appearances, and the satanic panic of the 1980s made it cooler and added more relevancy to the whole cult thing), I had some that were infected by a modified version of the Ear Seeker, etc...... They were all a bit different, but all were Romero-esque dumb, shambling corpses with some variations based on how they were created. Some could retain traces of memories, some were a bit smarter and or faster the fresher they were (but, again, the zombies didn't run, use weapons, etc......). Some could even kinda learn, or be mesmerized by a Blade Barrier spell, standing and watching the whirling blades when they were expected to walk mindlessly into it (a handful of a horde may do that, as most walked into it).
When the magic users got high enough to use fireball, thinking"oh, this'll wipe out that zombie horde chasing us" , some types of zombies would have the ones within a 20-30 foot radius of the epicenter of the blast turned into cinders, while those on the periphery were now more dangerous, flaming zombies (I think it was an extra 2-8 HP fire damage in addition to their normal 1D8 damage until slain or they burned up enough to be immobilized after several turns). I would give the zombies a chance (percentile, using 2D10) to grab anyone they made a successful melee attack on (this gave them a bonus to hit and bite. Anyone bitten by a viral zombie made a save vs poison or be infected. This was curable with a cure disease spell cast within 2 hours of in game time before they would "turn". If turned, it required a special, expensive spell cast by an NPC Cleric or Magic User specially trained in necromancy, which made them human again (they had to be restrained, of course) and such NPCs were hard to find. The zombies were destroyed in typical zombie ways, burned up, blown up, decapitated (or otherwise destroying the brain, which required a called shot or melee attack with a -3 or 4 to hit, and it was the only attack they could make that round). I even had the classic zombie siege and survival, with players having to construct barricades ( with each barricade being assigned a damage capacity based on materials, how much was put into construction, etc......) before having to be repaired/rebuilt. The result was the party running around in a near panic as they fought waves of relentless zombies, healed up, constructed and rebuilt barricades, and so on. I basically ran a zombie survival horror campaign that played like a horror movie, and the afore mentioned elements, combined with others, made a normally easy monster into something to be feared, even by a well equipped party of level 10 plus characters
when I played a circle of spore druid, my dm gave plant type to the undead I reanimated with animate dead, to make them The Last of Us style
YYYEEEEESSSSS!!!! THANK YOU!
Consider this. A city where necromancy is not evil, or the risen. When someone passes, they are taken to the nearest church and temporarily raised, or a church designated by something worn/tattooed/branded on the body, where more advanced arrangements have been made to be raised for longer or brought back to life. Short-raised get to say goodbye to their family, or walk to their spell loaded symbol at their home. Medium length raised take up jobs around the city to earn enough to be brought back, most jobs menial, but some specialist jobs like champions in duels among necromancers etc. long length journey to find a way back. Npcs like to move there for the life insurance policy, practitioners for the lack of prosecution. And everyone for the great trade/business. Zombies eat/keep in check wildlife, maybe provide part of army, but don’t attack unless ordered to do so. What other ways can you think of to use them besides scare/evil?
I actually did that and the party's reaction was glorious
Thank you for the response, feel free to elaborate, as i would be happy to hear more of your (mis)adventures. i might write a sourcebook someday, breaking/explaining common stigmas and racism in dnd, describe the orgins of planets and creatures, ecology, sources of magic, new magic spells, feature moral dilemmas, choice and consequence missions, and try to portray more accurate, realistic strategies.
This is my current campaign but here's some of the lore if you'd like. Necromancy is practiced in many corners of the world although the darker arts have been 'lost to time'. The people who've died, could be brought back momentarily or, should they make a "donation", they could bring them in an undead state with a blood red sigil behind their neck. Those brought back could not return fully unless they manage to pay 20,000 gold through labor which is expensive in my world. In order to discern those who had been close to paying the bill their skin would look more natural and their sigil would start to turn darker in color until its black. The undead have a surprisingly long life span due to their nature which in turn causes some nations to conscript them to their army. The Holy Empire outright banned them from their country and even goes and hunts them down due to their worship of the god of life. There is also a nation created by the undead due to their treatment as slaves, have started to treat normal mortals practically the same . (You know, a reverse kingdom). This has started some tension between many nations as the rights for the undead have been in question for many decades. Right now, the crown prince for the land of Haeldrun has died recently and brought back as an undead (due to my party's thinking). He is the only one in line of the throne and many issues have raised as their nation is allies with the holy empire.
If you're big at all on Magic: the Gathering, check on the lore on the plane of Amonkhet. Probably try to check out what it was like in the Amonkhet set, not post- War of the Spark (War of the Spark being a recent big event in the lore). While not necessarily the same as the setting you described, the citizens of Amonkhet are often turned into mummies (zombies, but the plane is based on Ancient Egypt) that act as soldiers, servants, and laborers. The culture considers mummification to be normal, and even more so, many of their greatest warriors undergo a series of trials to become undead super soldiers when they die. (This army of Super-Mummies became a centerpiece in the BBEG's plan during War of the Spark.)
In the world for the campaign I am currently DMing, I made a pantheon of gods and realized that, while a couple I had originally created as inherently evil, I've gradually realized that each one has at least part of their portfolio that is good
The vulture goddess of suffering is also the goddess of alcohol and coping mechanisms
The god of war, destruction and natural disasters is also the god of new creating and blacksmithing
The god of blood and pain is also the one that all public bathhouses are dedicated to
Etc
I have one that is basically the god of desertification and inevitability
Now I'm pretty sure that it's also the god of undeath because the one I have for death, medicine, etc has a bad opinion of the undead
The Danse Macabre spell in Xanathar's is great for that whole 'rise undead army' moment.
Even the 5th edition starter set has a different type of zombie you can use, called the Ash Zombie. They use the normal zombie stat block but whenever they take damage for the first time anyone within 5 feet of them has to make a con save or else they get disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws for 1 minute.
On to a different topic. I remember the first time i ever played D&D with my uncle and their friends. One of their friends was a necromancer wizard who had a bag of holding full of kobold corpses, and whenever we entered combat he would throw one of the corpses out of the bag and animate it.
I would really like to see a video on how to DM large scale battles. It would be really helpful.
Agreed. Big, mass battles look so cool but the mechanics of running them are tedious
There is a 3.5E book called Heroes of Battle that dose a good job of explaining how to create a scenarios in which a group of heroes can turn the tides of war. Aside from a class and some feats, the information is applicable to any addition or game system. PDF's are easy to find for free download. Just Google it.
Just turn the large quanties of enemies into a swarm enemy, much like a swarm of bees. This makes it easier to handle, as you are turning 30 orcs in an army into a single enemy on the gamemat.
Alex Hukill
A way I plan on running mass combat is simply it’s in the background, and at the end of each round of combat, I roll a D6 or a D10 during skirmishes further away from fighting. If I roll 6 on that D6 or a 10 on that D10, all characters (friend or foe) must make a dex save of 12, or take collateral damage from stray bullets/artillery from the battle (it’s a post apocalyptic modern fantasy.) The PCs can receive small quests during the battles such as hunting an elusive sniper pinning friendlies down, removing barricades preventing vehicles from moving forward, or rescuing wounded friendlies. The more they succeed at these small tasks, the more the tide of mass combat goes in their favour. The longer they take, the more it turns against them. They don’t have to actually do much killing themselves, only survive the slaughterfest around them and complete these mini side quests during the fighting under a time stress.
Just run mass combat as a background and change the narrative of how that battle is playing out based on the PC’s actions as heroes completing key tasks. Saves a lot of dice rolls and makes a really cool scene without taking away the focus from the PC’s and their stories of heroism.
I got a good idea while watching this. A zombie that is a bit faster than normal, and has a leap attack. If it moves 20ft in a straight line, it can leap up to 10ft. If there is a creature on the landing square, it must make a dex save, and on a fail the zombie does a bite attack, but on a success the creature dodges and can make an opportunity attack on the zombie.
I love the idea of a Pet Cemetery scenario. A cursed land where if you bury someone there they will come back from the dead, but what you put in is not what you get out...
I'm surprised this didn't come across my mind thank you for this !
Fans of the Frankenstein story now that Frankenstein is not the monster. True fans though know the monster is Frankenstein
well said!
Intellegence is knowing hes called Frankensteins monster, Wisdom is knowing Frankenstein IS the monster
The true monster was the author and people like you. Dr. Frankenstein's character was based on the doctors at the time that has to study the human body in secret. Because of them doctors today save many lives.
steve stumpy It’s not a matter of “playing god” that made him a villain, it was his apathy for Adam that did it. Uncaring that Adam would be seen as the monster and shunned by society; to bear the burden that the actual doctors experienced. Or maybe I’m mistaken and in those days it was the patients saved by radical treatments that were hunted by the angry mobs.
Victor Frankestein was a monster in the sense that he represented humanity at it's peak (defeating death using science) bringing untold devastation just because he was irresponsible, self-centered and emotionally immature.
He rejected his creature because he felt it was creepy (and arguably because it feared it's overall superhuman status), let him suffer only because he was immature and let a lot of people close to him die because he did not want to face the consequences of his actions.
In the end he even took to the grave the secret of his creation.
The lesson is not "science bad" but "science op so use it responsibly you childish dorks".
You forget how much of drama queens Necromancers are. They would totally command their minions to lay down and act dead just so they can give the “rise my minions!” command when the players enter.
You dudes are the best! My wife and her family bought the starter set a few months ago (none of us had ever played before except for her dad, back in the 80s) and my wife is acting as DM. We've been bingeing on your videos and they've been so sooo helpful!! You should do more accessory reviews and suggestions as we have no idea what is worthwhile or helpful. Thanks for the time you put into your videos!
Also I love watching the dungeons of drakkenheim videos you put out, lots of good inspiration on how to roleplay better
Thank you so much! It’s stories like this that make it easy to keep going. Please let us know how your d&d nights go!
The very 1st story civilized humans made "the epic of Gilgamesh" references zombies
Not *made*. Recorded. That sounds pedantic, but it's a very important distinction.
@@werewolf4358 yes you are correct, congratulations you are pedantic...
Also, Frankenstein's monster would be considered a flesh golem in 5e D&D, not a zombie
@@Dezbood Construct, not undead. It's made of flesh, but it is not an individual raised through necromancy, ergo, not a zombie.
The Dresden Files version of a Zombie and Necromancer is by far my favorite. Which I think would be really cool in D&D you need to kill the drummer.
OK, nice shirt again, Kelly. That shirt really STICKS out.
Lots of great ideas for zombies! Now you got me wanting to throw zombies in my next adventure. LOL Great information, guys, keep it coming!
while this is cool and all, I think everyone is forgetting that there's an entire tabletop game system designed around zombies. All Flesh Must Be Eaten, baby, so much flexibility, so many kinds of zombie scenarios and a system for using them all.
Sasqmo 😍 I must look into this!
21:41 I don't remember which Dead Space it was but I do remember that dealing with the Dead Space zombie babies really messed with me!
I miss the older versions elf having protection vs ghouls paralyzing touch, also i suggest having at least 1 or 2 Ghouls with them that Paralyzing touch really drives the fear home as the Zombies shamble towards you
Gabe Parada I miss Ghoul Fever. I think they took it out of 5e, didn't they?
@@Jeromy1986 they only took it out if you let them. :) some of the Older edition abilities i often bring back for the Unique foe of the same name. helps add an air of mystery and Power in your recurring foes.
Actually, in the Ghoul stat block, it specifies that elves *are* immune to their paralyzing touch.
If I could offer a couple of other inspirations, from Canadian cinema: Fido is a hilarious example of zombies fulfilling a role in society once technology progresses to a place where they can be controlled via remote. Pontypool is also a take on zombie infection where certain words in language become pathogens for the virus to spread, so even just hearing certain words causes people to lose their free will and become mindless, violent husks. Considering TTRPGs are largely verbal-based, that could add a very interesting element to how your players communicate at the table.
Dylan Duval I've wanted to see Fido for a while.
That also makes me wonder what else you'd use animated corpses for besides as combatants. Can they be porters (Go fetch!)?
I baught that movie In collage. Love it.
Woke up one morning to my 3yo neice watching it.... turns out she loved it also. My sister, less pleased.
But to point: great idea. The zombie workforce.
This reminds me of a round table discussion between Mike Mearls, Matt Mercer, Matt Colville, and Adam Koebel where Mike explains how all over the world there's multiple words in many languages which essentially describe the same thing but the development team used them to gives names and slightly different twists to various monster stat blocks.
chainer8686 I'm quite curious what monsters they did this with!
@@Jeromy1986 undead were the ones primarily discussed, but he said so many were used this way
Nice! For my Halloween one shot we had an evil wizard assaulting the players village throwing zombies filled with rot grubs from volos guide. They had to survive the night and escape.
Very fun encounter lots of fire and grease traps from the PCs
If you want to go to older editions the AD&D 2nd edition Ravenloft campaign setting had the cannibal zombie, it was pretty much just like the infectious zombies from the movies.
One of my players favorite NPC I have made is a zombie with sentience. I introduced him kind of as a joke and treated him like Kronk from Emperor's New Groove. The players actually took him in and help him with getting new parts. One of the gnomes even tinkered him a new arm lol. I never saw the character going past the one adventure but I was pleasantly surprised how they latched on him.
It is one of my favorite DM things is when I create a character that I don't think is going any where but for whatever reason my players love them. Of course the opposite happens also when I think my players are going to love this guy but then they hate them lol.
darb27 K 😆 Reminds me of an incident while in a Wizards SWars campaign, back during the old 3.5 days. After taking down (but not destroying) an Imperial battle droid, one of our guys repaired & reprogrammed it. Our GM ran with it, giving the thing a twisted personality so we never knew if it would turn on us. The droid referred to us all as “meat-bags”, spent its off time developing more weapons / armor for itself, and when ordered into battle, responded with a gruff, enthusiastic, “THANK YOU, MASTER!”
Please make a video about the most/least used monsters. I'm thinking about being a DM and I keep seeing the same monsters used and it gets old. We need to bring out those monsters no one uses.
White walker game of thrones zombies anyone? When the night king raised all the dead in the one game of thrones episode was one of my favorite moments from the series
We actually had that scene in our notes when filming this episode but never ended up discussing it. One of the best moments IMO in the entire show. So chilling.
Player necromancers can do something like that aswell, it's a spell called Dance Macabre
The cordiceps style fungus zombie is also spelled out in a recent Ravnica story which is also good inspiration.
I love zombies as enemies for the party, they are so versatile in use. Also that relentlessness is extremely horrifying on low level play, especially against a party without good burst damage options.
That idea of implementing the "how the zombie died previously" gave me great inspiration, as did that "recently dead" zombies not smelling - and actually that smell being a potent factor in a fight, like forcing a Con save or suffer from Poisoned condition when within 10ft of that zombie or something.
One possible way to bring in the plague zombie without bogging combat down in saving throws might be to wait until the end of the battle and then have anyone who got in melee with the zombies to make a Dex or Con saving throw to avoid having gotten infected, possibly imposing disadvantage on those who took damage. That would probably increase the challenge rating but it is an option.
Another source for inspiration (if you have it) is the 3.5e book Libris Mortis and their subtypes for zombies and skeletons or the bone and corpse templates from the 3e Book of Vile Darkness. Both would add some variety into the mix.
Spawn of Kuss reminds me of these Demon Leeches my DM made. They'd burrow into the victim and the victim would slowly start to hear voices and hallucinate as the leech worked it's way through them. Our rogue got infected with one and he was choking on it, my character was still a warlock at the time and had his Quasit familiar turn into a centipede and go down the rogues throat to rip the leech out of him.
'Herbert West, Reanimator' was one of H.P. Lovecraft's best.
One of the best inspirations for me for running a spawn of kyuss encounter was from the second book in the beyonders trilogy where literally the is a section of the continent that is cut off from the rest of the world by the equivalent of elves guarding its boarders, because a wizard created a worm virus that burrows into the skin and eats all the blood in the host while reproducing turning the now worm controlled host into a walking bag of worms and even slaying them up close is hazardous cause the worms will abandon the host after death and keep coming for you. Great books.
Another good thought of zombie. Is the fallout 4 ghouls.. slow at first. Then when they see you they charge. Sometimes falling down.
I ran a third party AP called Chapel on the Cliffs that did undead really well. They were skeletons (but could easily be zombies instead) and it used much of these tips. It had the slow reveal of this undead threat, a hive mind mentality with some aspects, the "survive the night" encounter... Solid recommendation if you're looking for a good undead threat to run with your group.
I had a zombie encounter in my campaign where the battle took place in a sewer with running water and the zombie mechanics was actually not a saving throw to resurrect but it's ability to fall over and get carried away by the water when the players figured out what was going on they started using the prone status to easily defeat the zombie without going through that large heath pool
I remember I played a campaign where we were in a small village infested by clone zombie things. They had a brain but they just were super violent all the time. Anyway, we were in a tavern and there were loads of poor common folk all depressed cause they couldn't fight these monsters as everyone who had before had died. You know the usual. So anyway as a paladin, lawfully good. I was outraged that they had given up on the undead winning so I intimidated rolled the entire bar (about 15 low-level commoners), calling them cowards and they should all be ashamed to call themselves men and women. My group was shouting at me "what are you doing!" "we are going to die!". But I rolled a 15 and they rolled a 2. So it was all good, they all had a change of heart and followed us into battle. Including the bartender and maid of the tavern. The DM didn't plan for that so we brushed through the next few monster and boss encounters with numbers on our side. It was a bloodbath, loads of town folk died but our group lived. hahaha Good times.
I threw a awakened zombie ex paladin at my players that wore full plate armor. They never knew he was there former companion and if he died he was just raised again and again.
I found this channel a few days ago and have since spent many hours just watching your videos. They’re so well made and very informative, in my future campaigns I will definitely be showing them all of the class coverage videos. Thanks for these high quality videos and I look forward to everything else to come!!
Yes! I’ve been working on a zombie mini campaign for a few weeks now and then I find you guys and you’re talking about them! You guys are so great, keep cranking out videos please!
One idea I had for zombies is zombies as purchasable muscle. That means that they can be commanded by whoever uses them. Obviously, they can't understand complex commands. But simple commands like attacking or moving to a position work.
One idea for an undead variant is from the story of Astoshan the Necromancer. They are called the Deathless and are basically intelligent zombies
Spawn of Kyuss + Rotgrubs
have fun!
One of my first DM'ing experiences was with using the Spawn of Kyuss. Our DM was missing from the regular campaign and we also didn't have enough players for the dungeon crawl I would run in their absence. Instead, I had two players and basically just had their characters fight arena battles against CR appropriate monsters so I picked some undead from Volo's Guide: a Bodak and a couple of Kyuss Spawn. There's something about the mechanics of the Kyuss Spawn that just inspired my creativity when it came to describing the appearance, action and behavior of not just the spawn itself, but especially its worms. Despite this just being a combat oriented arena fight COMPLETELY devoid of story, my two players ended up super creeped out and invested in the fight. At some point, one PC got infected, didn't know how to stop the worm (or what it was even doing) and, eventually, the fight would end with the surviving PC facing off against their reanimated former partner. I even let the "defeated" player take control of their reanimated character.
Basically, I wanted to share a memory about how this monster suddenly inspired me, a newbie DM, to make super engaging descriptions and also inspire a story in one shot otherwise completely devoid of it. It might be my favorite monster for this reason. Great design by WotC.
The only reservations I have about the monster are concerns about how well it's going to work in an actual campaign. It's a bit of a "puzzle" for players to figure out "Oh, I should brush this thing off me before it starts doing damage". Once the worm starts seeming dangerous, you're already on your way towards not just dying, but having your soul trapped inside your own undead body making resurrection much harder. Furthermore, the lore of the monster encourages the DM to say that if a PC who was turned into a Kyuss Spawn was then later resurrected, then that PC is definitely going to be rolling on the "didn't come back right" table because of the insanity it can cost
much useful info in here so far, but Frankenstein's monster isn't a good example of inspiration, at least not the original, which was really smart
Frankenstein's monster was a golem, not a zombie. It was a construct.
I've mentioned this on other videos, but felt the need to point it out here, since it is brought up a few times throughout the video. I know it's mentioned in the pinned post, but it needs to be stressed.
EDIT: The source for Orcs in Tolkein's world were actually zombies. The term came from Beowulf. Orc-nass means death-corpse. Literally zombies. :)
Our dm created this necromancer npc that uses a high level raise the dead to create zombies that transition into skeletons that gain additional speed, and homebased rule that zombies made from freshly killed creatures still have the strength of their muscles that are decaying over time.
I had a fun idea for "walker" types where the undead fortitude save when they get to 0 has adv or dis depending on where the player strikes or attacks the "walker". dis if they attack the head but adv anywhere else as the walker either way still has debuffs imposed on them depending on if they lose a body part or whatever. something that would reflect that kill the head to beat the zombie feel the walkers from the walking dead has.
I was watching this and bit into a burger right on the line "lets get into the rotting meat"
Really great video and awesome ideas! It just so happens that my last session ended with the party encountering a zombie hoard. This gave me some great ideas on how to make next session extra cool.
More than a year on, I watched this one because I'm running a d20 Modern campaign in the American south, where some D&D zombies came through from Shadow and are about to encounter "real-world" zombies (drugged laborers) and the people who created them, and the player characters are caught in the middle. Having watched this video, I may stir in some Spawn of Kyuss involved as well.
Thanks for the evil idea!
Of all the types of zombies that appear in video games the necromorphs of dead space are far and away my favorites. Absolutely terrifying, horrific enemies.
Until you get reincarnated in the same world that has your favourite zombie types in it.
Then i'd rather go to the world where zombies are impossible like our world, the closest thing we have are druggies who use so much drugs that they have necrotizing skin making them appear very zombie like.
Great in a long line of really helpful videos. Really like the structure of consistently covering game mechanics, inspiration from the real world and various forms of fiction and the role playing impact. 25 k subscribers is well deserved.
Great video guys! Zombies were a great place to start, I really liked the part where you explained the origins of zombies in pop culture. Can't wait to see what you do next!
I've been enjoying quite a few books the past few months. One of the book series I finished recently is the Dark Dungeon series, which is a two book series with a healthy portion of Mature content (both books have quite a bit of sex in them), and in that series dungeons are something akin to living entities, they have a "Core" that is a fully sentient mind with access to immense magical energies, which they use to generate monsters, bind monsters, create challenges for all who enter, generate rewards, expand their floors, and even modify their floor plans and encounter settings. Within these books, the reader encounters basic zombies but is later introduced to upgraded versions of zombies referred to as "Undead Warrior" and "Undead Mage" and those can prove quite problematic. Undead Mages are zombies with access to random spells used by arcane spellcasters, pretty easy to surprise the players when the zombie starts chucking Iceballs and lightning at them, while Undead Warriors are described as being more effective in combat scenarios and even tend to wear heavy armor and use shields along with weaponry, seeming to have all those reflexive warrior traits in a single zombie instead of just the last two or three movements they possibly had in their last moments can also terrifying.
Continuing the trend of monsters with a spin, Morningwood: Everybody Loves Chests is the first book in a series, the main protagonist is a mimic, one that has actually managed to acquire properties and traits not usually seen in mimics among games, shows, movies, and comics. You want a monster not many people think about as potentially terrifying at higher levels, use the murderous box that is the protagonist of the story.
Another story that takes lesser considered monsters and makes them more interesting is the Chronicles of a Royal Pet (Royal Ooze Chronicles), the series actually states openly that while there are numerous different kinds of oozes, which we also know as slimes, in the world the story takes place in nobody really put much effort into studying, until the owner of the main character (the main character is a common ooze when it's purchased from a pet shop that actually sells magical creatures as pets to wealthy patrons) decides to do so as part of her studies for the Mage Academy she is attending. Another story that uses an ooze/slime as the protagonist is the series That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime. That series also plays around with what one can expect from ooze/slime type monsters.
My favorite thing to do with with zombies is roll a die and give them one level of a random player class, making it more obvious that they used to be people. If they drop a player, have the player come back as a zombie with all their player levels and have it be a mini-boss one or two encounters later
Frankenstein is a Servant - Berserker - summoned by The Holy Grail to fight alongside his Master.
Frankenstein's monster was quite the genius character, you should really read the novel, because no visual adaptation has really done him justice
Not only does the Lich summon skeletons upon the parties arrival at the graveyard, but those skeletons reach right up from underneath the players gaining automatic (maybe even surprise) grapple checks, holding the players in place as the Lich's henchmen emerge from behind a few tombstones with X-bows. The Lich slowly fades into the ethereal, "mwahahaHAHAHAHA!!, kill them all". The dimly lit crypt awaits off in the background.
In honor of Halloween, I'm about to run a zombie encounter next week. The local halflings have been pushed around long enough; a pair of halfling musicians have killed a Royal Necromancer and stole his spellbook. They started by making crawling claws, now they have found an old cemetery and plan to raise a small army of zombies to wreak vengeance on the human colonists. One halfling plays the fiddle and uses it to command his undead thralls. The song he's playing? A fiddle cover of "Thriller".
My dm once had a zombie be telefragged before being reanimated and when it was reanimated the magical energy fused with the necromantic power so the body parts were being held together by magical tethers the only way to breaking the magic tethers if you hit a body part it would get hit out of the body shape and the tethers would take 2d4 turns to regather it unless a magic weapon hit them or a spell of fire or light hit it
I love zombies, they are great for any sort of game as you mentioned. With a more serious tone at my table, i can think of 2 very particular scenarios, one i ran and the one i'm about to.
The first, was several months ago when the party were in a city magocracy where undead were common servants. The most powerful guards were slightly watered down flesh golems.
The party split in town as they often do, and i rolled to see what random things they might find (custom random encounters cause nothing is ever wasted) and the paladin found a butcher shop that was closed without notice. Curious the paladin decided to investigate further, and found that inside there was a dull thumping noise repeating in the cellar. Heading down the stairs, she found ripped corpses all over the room, a set of ripped open plate armor too large for a normal man. In the far end, she saw a large figure with one hand holding a corpse without a head against the wall and the other slowly, methodically punching the space where there once was a face, but now only a red stain.
Combat began, and when she easily slew exhausted looking monster. She looked at the gruesome scene of a hand lopped off, and several huge slashes across its chest. But then, its hands started to crawl towards her, and its head exploded revealing a intellect devourer. It was close, she barely made her save, and finished it off, but everyone was horrified that it kept coming, despite its lethal wounds.
The townsfolk including the butcher had stolen a decommissioned flesh golem, and not knowing what they were doing, got themselves killed.
The one i'm about to run is for a bunch of low level adventurers, who have their course set to head through the valley in the frozen north. Now the season is summer, which the players don't know is a bad thing yet. Because the valley is actually a frozen lake, and ice is thinnest in the summer. In the lake is an old lich's lair who has long been defeated, but his stain on the world still exists. The party are going to make a fair way across before the ice starts to crack, and all thier footsteps are like the beating of a drum, waking all the sunken zombies up. Cause undead, don't need to breath. >:)
"And the dead shall outnumber the living" is actually a line in the Sumerian myth dealing with the goddess Innana's descent into the underworld. Iirc the full declaration (translated, obviously) is "If you do not open the gate that I may enter, I will break down the door, I will smash the bolt,
I will break down the frame, I will topple the doors. I will raise up the dead to devour the living, and the dead will outnumber the living.".
+1000 internet points for nailing the reference!
I played as a warlock in a solo game module a while back. Not only was not having a party to back me, deeply unnerving.
I had a TERRIFYING encounter with a zombie in which I could NOT kill it. With my mere cantrips available and dwindling hit points as it ceaslessly clawed at me, my character had to retreat into the woods to get away.
I will put gibbering mouthers, Flame skulls, zombies, spawn of kyuss, scarecrows, and mummies. In a cursed, cultist farm with a corn maze. The farm is run by a necromancer cultist.
Two games with really good zombiequese themes/mechanics. Halo with the flood, similar to half life, but the flood mutate dependant on the host, and their memories are added to the hive mind, like the Borg i guess. And dead island, the idea that the heroea are immune, the zombies that are fresh are fast and strong, the contiminate was a indigenous blood pathogen that was incorporated into the society.
Greats vid lads.
Nick G Your profile pic also gives us the example of Fallout feral ghouls as a perfect zombie analogue.
I hope you guys decide to do more of these detailed monster videos! I would love to see your opinions on things like beholders and mindflayers, and hear the crazy stories you have about them Xp
Awesome shirt, Kelly! We have gone up against various undead in all the versions of d&d throughout the years. I think the last litche we faced at 2nd level was the toughest one.
In a very appropiated date
I agree that modifying the Zombie is a good idea.
In a Dragon Magazine they had several kinds of new zombies. One was the hungry dead.
Thanks for the inspiration, we are currently playing starter set + essential kit and I think I will turn the thundertree zombies Into fungus type zombies that pop a spore cloud instead of ash on death
Probably turned by the green/poison/swamp (and I guess now necrotic) Dragon
Hopefully this doesn't seem long winded. My players are in the middle of this campaign that centers around a cannibalistic tribe of orcs. One of the lead war-chief orcs eats specifically magical creatures and wizards, consuming their power and becoming a powerful necromancer. He's covered head to toe in the bones of these magic creatures and has unicorn skulls as pauldrons.
The party is from a wood elf society that has a sacred forest. They cremate the ashes of their dead and plant trees over them. Over centuries, this has grown into a mystical forest/graveyard that they call the Wispwood. The trees here glow a faint green glow at night and all wildlife within are neutral unless provoked. Wisps can often be seen floating in the distance. One of their early quests was for the party to investigate the felling of these trees. Some bandits have been cutting them down and using the wood in forges to magically imbue their weapons with soul energy. The weapons would glow and explode on impact, dealing extra damage and deafening whoever gets hit, as the weapons explode with the sound of a bunch of people screaming. After they succeeded in stopping the bandits, some of the wisps gathered around the party and formed into the ghosts of their own ancestors, which thanked the party for their deeds.
Now, the party hasn't gotten this far in the story yet, but eventually the orc necromancer will enter these woods and burn the whole thing to the ground, harnessing all the soul energy within. He will create a 'soul-nado' of power and start ravaging everything. When the party goes to face him, he will now be summing ghosts and specters instead of skeletons and zombies. The party will literally have to fight the ghosts of their own elvan ancestors to get to the orc himself.
Pretty fucking metal, right?
Well, with an intelligence of 3 and wisdom of 8, DM's can easily justify them acting close animals with problem solving capabilities.
great video guys.
Would love to see a video from you guys on D&D Vampires!
Another great idea for terrifying zombies is from I Am Legend. The Infected are extremely fast and horrifying.
"The dead shall outnumber the living."
Actually, there are more people alive then have ever died... though with recent events...
This is incorrect. It is estimated that there have been about 20 billion human beings to have been born. Most of them are long dead.
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A mindless zombie would not be speaking, you're talking about a different kind of zombie.
I would like to point out, the spell create undead, only says how many undead you can raise and control with the spell. Given time, a necromancer can keep mass producing them and just let go of their control when the first 24 hours are done. It wouldnt take that many zombies under a necromancers control to urge a herd of them to action.
I would totally let the player expend a higher level spell slot and conjure fewer zombies in order to create a zombie ogre, similar to how the animate objects lets you animate a fewer number of larger objects.
The army of the death idea from game of thrones is an amazing inspiration for a zombie campaign.
There was also King Aeetes who raised skeletons using hydra teeth on the stop motion movie Jason and the argonauts
I still need to try and run a tower defense scenario against a zombie horde, kinda like the Resident Evil 4 scenario they had mentioned :> Good stuff, Dudes!
Zombies don't have to be villains in every fantasy story. In the seventh Xanth book, "Dragon on a Pedestal" by Piers Anthony, there is a zombie woman named Zora who became a hero! She was intelligent
, friendly and she helped the protagonist on her quest.
In our campaign I play a Witchdoctor (going off of a wizards skill tree) and our DM gave me Animate Dead as a first level spell.
Want a low level necromancer boss? Take the cr 2 priest monster card, change caster class as a wizard, wis and int together, change the spells for wizards spells, use glyph of warding with animate dead for 3rd lvl spells and there you go, a by the rules 4 lvl necromancer bbg cr 2
20:10 Fungus-based Zombies are already covered in D&D by the Myconids. I'm not saying you can't do this, but I personally would either use the Myconids in such a case, or define something else about the fungal zombies that would make them distinct from the Myconids.
Yellow Musk Creeper from old Greyhawk
Geezer here....
Not sure on 5e but it's homebrew anyway.
Decades back we decided to include a holy ground/last rights type spell being wide spread in use. Makes the body immune to necro magic. No zombie or resurrections later. Adds a good deal to stabilize a "safe zone".
technically Mary Shelly's monster was extremely intelligent, he read both stories, poetry and was even waxing philosophically by the end
Yes! I’m excited for this new series.
@Dungeon Dudes - Can you raise a zombie from the corpse any creature? Can you have a swarm of zombie ants?
The modern zombie is more than just a walking symbol of death. The modern infectious zombie represents the loss of one’s individuality; that with a simple wound you would be transformed from a person with memories, opinions, skills, goals, fears and quirks, into an unrecognizable meatbag that conforms with the horde.
Frankenstein's monster was a flesh golem not a zombie, and voodoo zombies are not dead, just drugged.
Great video guys! Definitely going to implement some of your suggestions into my game. Cheers!
Please do Giants! My group is doing SKT and this would be awesome.
Spawn of Cus (spelling?) seems to be an exact copy of the AD&D Brood Gibberling. At least in terms of the rules, not the appearance. And in the featuring module, Gates of Firestorm Peak, there is a horde of over a hundred gibberlings, much to the scale of your typical zombie encounter.
Spawn of Kyuss have been around since 1st Edition AD&D, where they were known as Sons of Kyuss.
I made a drug with tempting mechanical benefits but leave clues that zombies are related to the drug. Eventually turning a PC who gave in and took it into a zombie.
I'm not familiar with RE4, but RE:DC can show you the idea of the dormant zombie who's only roused by the presence of a living victim (think of the zombie like a computer waiting for the user to wiggle the mouse).
28 Days Later called its zombie virus The Rage (I think?). This, to me, sounds like a virus which would prey specifically upon Barbarians.
Putting together your mention of Frankenstein and the later mention of Dead Space really leads into the idea of custom created undead. A humorous reference to throw in here as an example is the video game Mr. Bones, in which your main character could give himself stilts by combining his arm and leg bones. (I know he's a skeleton, but you get the idea 😅)
Prototype, while it doesn't exactly have "Zombies", it's infected have some neat variants like the Hunters in Prototype 1 or the Brawlers in 2, and both have their subvariants like the Spiked Brawler which is just a evolution on the normal one.
Some of the other variants are the Hydras which will grab cars and toss them at you (or anything not Infected for that matter), Juggernauts which well they punch things with fists the size of a small car, and fliers which unlike every other infected were mutated from Pigeons instead of people then there is the Goliath... the thing defies physics...
Also the Flood from Halo was one that was missed to :P
Look! At 8:11 it's Three Crows! Not sure if anyone else pointed that out or not, so I did! (Too lazy to look through all the comments)
Last I checked, you guys had 5k, all of a sudden, it’s 5x that much! Congrats!
Thank you!
Also, this video is really helpful! I’m a new DM running a campaign of all the demon lords attacking the material plane, and Orcus is the final one, it’s really helping preparing the last arc, which will be all undead.
Just finished this video and I was especially interested in the section on the Spawn of Kyuss. Monty references a way he used them in a campaign and you mention that the Paladin got infected. Shouldn't the Paladin have been able to use their Lay on Hands ability to cure the disease? The description on the worms reads "If a worm-infested creature is targeted by an effect that cures disease or removes a curse, all the worms infesting it wither away."
This specific incident occurred about a decade ago under a 3rd Edition rules.
Ah, makes sense. On the same note, I've seen a fair amount of discussion on whether a Paladin's Divine Health/Monk Purity of Body would kill the worms in 5E. It seems like the answer is no but with the possibility of house ruling otherwise. I'm curious what your opinions are on the matter. I personally like the idea of the worms taking their first bite of a paladin and bursting in holy light.