Tome of Necromancy (3.5e Sourcebook)/New Rules

= New Rules =

The interaction of Undead with the rest of the rules is often less than satisfactory. Part of this is that the undead type itself is extremely overzealous in the game effects it provides. The fact that all undead don't need sleep means that vampires don't have to sleep in their coffins. The fact that undead don't have a Constitution score means that Ghouls can run for exactly zero rounds before they have to make a Con check (that they automatically fail) to continue (and also says it can "run on indefinitely", a base contradiction that makes us sad). The fact that undead are immune to critical hits means that a vampire can't be staked through the heart (even if it was sleeping, which it isn't). But even beyond that fundamental error, the multitude of authors that compromise the Dungeons and Dragons design staff never seemed to get on the same page as to exactly what being undead means – so a surprisingly large number of contradictory statements pepper the products.

And I'm not just talking about how they made an entire Deathless Type when there's already Ghosts (Alignment: Any) right in the core rules.

Subtypes
The obvious, and slickest, way to handle the excesses of the Undead type would be to simply rewrite the Undead type with a lot less in it and throw down a number of subtypes (mindless for skeletons, amorphous for shadows, and ponderous for zombies) to put in the abilities that each type of undead is supposed to have. But polls have shown that people aren't willing to play with optional rules that do that – but perversely they are willing to add new subtypes to monsters to remove rules instituted by the base template. I don't know why, but DMs are honestly more likely to use an additional subtype that removes an inappropriate game effect from a monster than they are to use a modified base type that doesn't have the inappropriate effect in the first place. So that's how we're going to do it here.

Dark Minded (Subtype)
Undead creatures with an intelligence score have an intelligence that can be influenced, though they are dead and cannot be influenced by appeals to emotion. A dark minded creature has the following traits:


 * Not immune to mind affecting affects.
 * Immune to morale and fear effects.
 * Heals normally
 * Any Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate attempts to influence a dark minded creature are made with a -10 penalty.
 * A Dark Minded creature continues to advance in age categories, growing older and wiser over time. It does not accrue any penalties to its attributes for advancing in age categories, and a Dark Minded creature has no maximum age.

Unliving (Subtype)
An Unliving creature is an undead that mimics many of the capacities of a living creature without truly being alive. An unliving creature has the following game effects:


 * Unliving creatures have a metabolism of sorts, and thus have a Constitution score.
 * Unliving creatures require food (often blood or flesh) and sleep, and are vulnerable to magical sleep effects even if they are otherwise immune to mind affecting effects.
 * Unliving creatures have at least one vital organ, and are subject to critical hits from attackers with at least one rank in Knowledge (Religion).
 * Not destroyed upon reaching 0 it points, though its existence still ends if it reaches -10 as normal.
 * Subject to subdual damage, but can benefit from the Regeneration ability as normal.

Sample creatures with the [Dark Minded] subtype:
 * Liches
 * Nightshades
 * Vampires

Sample creatures with the [Unliving] subtype:
 * Ghouls
 * Necropolitan
 * Vampires

Undead and Aging
Undead don't age. They don't get any older or more decrepit over time, that's the whole point. A creature with the undead type does not grow older at all, unless further modified by the Dark Minded subtype. This probably should have been in the Monster Manual.

Becoming Undead
The basic rules for transforming into Undead were never intended to be playable by player characters. And thus it is unsurprising that the legions of the damned are not only unsatisfying, but actually unplayable when placed in a game. The following are templates that can be added to a character to make them into an Undead without actually changing their Level Adjustment. If a player wants to explore the legendary powers available to some of these creatures, they are encouraged to take Prestige Classes available to undead or to take one or more [Undead] feats that can grant the character these abilities within the normal level progression context. Each undead creature type has access to a special class that characters may take to advance their special abilities.

Locations of Necromantic Importance
Rules for locations that have interesting effects upon the dead are scattered throughout various published sourcebooks. Of primary interest is Black Sand (from It's Hot Outside ) which heals undead and can be grown by killing creatures on it (no necromancer should be without a portable hole bottomed with this stuff), and Black Water (from It's Wet Outside ) that acts as a desecration effect and is available with a Wizard spell (thereby breaking the stranglehold monopoly of Clerics on getting bonus hit points for their skeletons). But none of those locations are necromantically important. They are essentially quasi-mobile magic items that necromancers like to put in their pants. What follows are some locations that Necromancers will care about for more than a single mining session.

Necromantic Intelligence
Great and terrible crimes are often committed, sometimes causing the dead to rise. When enough dead rise in a single place, or a single act of murder or slaughter is so great as to create dozens of the undead, a Necromantic Intelligence can be born in a location central to the event. In such a place, trees and undergrowth wither and animals die, the sun no longer shines as brightly as mists obscure the sky and evil descends on the land. In such a place, all of those who die become undead and lose their free will. Ghoul or shadow infestations, vampire massacres, sites of great battles or disasters, or even the combined works of cabals of necromancers can create Necromantic Intelligences.

In the area of a Necromantic Intelligence, the land is either shadowy during the day as dark clouds obscure the sky, or misty (treat as an obscuring mist, even though it may be composed of dust, ashes, or some other substance). Any living creature killed in the area becomes an undead creature with a CR equal to its former CR (DM's choice, unless the Necromantic Intelligence is Aspected) when the sun next sets.

The most terrifying facet of a Necromantic Intelligence is that it has a purpose and a will, and it coordinates the undead that compose it. Assume that it is a creature that can see anything that any of its undead can see. Often it will coordinate fiendishly clever tactics using masses of undead to fulfill its purpose. Like a ghost, if it should ever attain its purpose, it will be destroyed. Knowing this, some clever heroes have helped Necromantic Intelligences in an effort to destroy them. A legend lore or bardic knowledge check is often needed to discover an Intelligence’s purpose.

The Necromantic Intelligence commands the activities of a great number of undead of varying powers. As a rough guide, the Necromantic Intelligence controls undead with CRs equal to the levels of followers attractable by a character with a Leadership score of 35 or more (using the Epic Leadership rules). Challenging the entire Necromantic Intelligence is an EL 11 adventure.

Aspected Necromantic Intelligence
While most Intelligences are random manifestations of negative energy, creating many different kinds of undead, some places are Aspected. These places only create one kind of undead. For example, a Necromantic Intelligence created in a ghoul warren may only create ghouls, while an Intelligence created during a plague may only create plague zombies. Decrease the EL of such an Intelligence by at least 1 as players will prepare tactics suited to that specific kind of undead.

Cleansing the Focus
Every Necromantic Intelligence has a Focus. This is an area that is the symbolic center of the undead infestation. If anyone can perform a hallow spell at the site of the Focus, the Necromantic Intelligence will be destroyed; however, once the ritual is started, the Necromantic Intelligence will be alerted and it will send all available undead to destroy the caster.

Tombs
While most tombs are merely places of rest for remains, some tombs become focal points for Negative Energy as hundred of years pass in the presence of the dead. Also, years of habitation by undead creatures in an enclosed space can also wear at the boundaries of the Negative Energy Plane. Some Necromancy effects can create or exploit this property. The game effect of a Tomb is that all undead inside it gain fast healing 1 and cannot be Turned or Rebuked, and spells with the [Tomb] subtype can be cast within it. Undead cannot be created within the confines of a Tomb, and creatures slain by undead do not become spawn.

Tombs are always enclosed places, and if they should ever be exposed to sunlight (by smashing in the roof, for example), they lose all special properties and no longer confer effects to undead creatures.

Forsaken Graveyards
The number of deaths is one per person even without the intercession of powerful magic. And once spells like raise dead are taken into account, it is clear that in Dungeons and Dragons there are significantly more deaths than people. So the locations where the most deaths occurred are simply the locations where the most living people live. The sites with the greatest death count are aspected to life and trade, not to death and destruction. But there are places that are inexorably linked with death, where the dead rise to slay the living. Creating a land of horror such as this requires more than killing a bunch of people (although that certainly helps), the deaths themselves must be meaningless and cruel, the ends coming about through betrayal.

A Forsaken Graveyard is a dangerous place, even for a necromancer. Creatures within a Forsaken Graveyard have Turning Resistance of +3. This makes both turning and rebuking more difficult, and throws salt in the game of both the necromancer and the hunter of the dead. Corpses left within a forsaken graveyard have a tendency to rise up and slay the living from time to time. Every sunset, a number of undead creatures are created and go on a rampage. These undead creatures fall back to death when the sun rises. A body left within a Forsaken Graveyard for more than an hour can be turned into an undead creature even if it had previously been an undead creature and been destroyed. Undead creatures created within a Forsaken Graveyard have an extra 2 hit points per hit die.

A Forsaken Graveyard can be cleansed with four castings of consecrate or desecrate (one at each corner of the area), or a single casting of Tasha's tomb tainting (in the middle). Unfortunately, these spells can only affect it during the nighttime (as during the day, there is literally nothing to cleanse). Once cleansed, any undead created by the Forsaken Graveyard lose their bonuses, but are also not recalled at sunrise. Such undead creatures will continue their rampage until slain. Unlike a necromantic intelligence, the Forsaken Graveyard has no ability to direct the undead against specific targets.

Cleansing a Forsaken Graveyard is normally an appropriate adventure for a 6th level party, and the location itself spawns one CR 7 creature, one CR 6 creature, two CR 5 creatures, and six CR 4 creatures every night. These creatures are undirected in their assaults on the living, and travel individually or in groups of two. A Forsaken Graveyard adventure can be scaled up or down for adventurers of differing power by changing the power levels of the creatures within it, or simply changing the parameters of the encounter. If a standard graveyard is itself small enough that every creature is encountered simultaneously, that would be an EL 11 encounter.

Pools of Deep Shadow
Veteran players of Dungeons and Dragons often ask "Why don't Shadows just take over the whole world?" Certainly, there are very few residents of the worlds of D&D that can fight against a Shadow at all, and their victims rise from the dead as Shadow Spawn, so it doesn't take a lot of imagination to see where this is going. However, there are a few things limiting the growth of Shadow armies that are not mentioned in the core books at all.

The first is that only intelligent creatures slain by Shadows turn into spawn. That's important, as it means that Shadows cannot simply hunt frogs in the swamp until they number in the tens of thousands before they roll over cities and dragon caves like a fog of Death Incarnate.

But perhaps even more importantly is that almost any time you see a Shadow, or for that matter any incorporeal undead creature, you are looking at a summoned creature. When the Shadow's summoning ends, all of its spawn vanish. Most of the time, an incorporeal undead is summoned forth from the Negative Energy Plane by an object that looks much like a puddle of very oily water, called a Pool of Deep Shadow. Whenever light falls directly upon the pool, or the sun rises high enough in the sky that there are no shadows (about half an hour before and after noon), the summoning effect ends and the Shadow vanishes. When the shadows grow long and darkness has fallen upon the pool, a Shadow is again summoned.

This means that an individual Shadow or Wraith has a very difficult time destroying the whole world, as there is no particular way for them to get more than a day's float from their pool. It also means, however, that areas inhabited by Shadows are extremely dangerous – for even if such a creature is destroyed it will return again the following day. And on every day it will return until those charged with exterminating it are caught unlucky or unaware. In order to permanently destroy such a pool, a flask of Holy Water (or Unholy Water) need simply be poured into it, causing the blackness to depart and the water to become quite clear and drinkable.

Finality
Finality is a planar metropolis in the Infernal Battlefield of Acheron. Its harsh laws are kept in rigid and uncompromising order by the will of powerful pit fiends, and the city serves as a marketplace for the lucrative trade in souls. Magic items can be bought or sold here, but the currency is always souls (as a planar metropolis, Finality has a gp limit of 600,000 gp). Souls are valued at their CR squared, multiplied by 100 gp. Many items purchased from this location radiate evil, buyer beware. Lodging may be purchased at flat rate of one soul per day per person. The section of Acheron that Finality rests in has the Timeless trait and is mildly Lawfully aligned. The population of The City is about 100,000 people (with uncounted millions of souls), most of whom are Baatezu.

The rules in Finality are uncompromising and bizarre, and the punishments for breaking them are vindictively carried out to the letter by powerful devils. But there is no warfare allowed in the city, and even Celestials and Tanar'ri come to participate in the great mercantile dance of soul collection. Characters must make a Knowledge (Local: Finality) check everyday with a DC of 10 + 2 per day they've been in the city or unknowingly break one of the city's many inscrutable laws (knowingly breaking the law by starting fights or stealing goods is a whole different thing). Punishments range from perplexing to fatal. Characters who stay away from Finality for more than a month are no longer subject to the baroque residency rules and their DCs are returned to 10 the next time they visit.

Boneblades
Boneblades are alchemically and necromantically hardened blades made from the bones of intelligent creatures, and the material can only be created by craftsmen with the Boneblade Master feat. For an unknown reason, they only retain their special properties if they are made into light slashing or piercing weapons. Boneblades used in melee combat ignore the damage reduction of any undead creature and can hit incorporeal creatures as if they were magic weapons with the Ghost Touch property.

Boneblades made from dragon bones can be combined with the Dragoncrafter feat to produce items with both properties.

Cost: 1,000 gp per lb.

Blood Steel
Blood steel is steel that has been mixed with the blood of certain powerful creatures, making it redder than normal steel and with unusual properties. Weapons made of blood steel do 2 additional points of damage on a successful hit and any armor made of blood steel has an armor bonus two higher. These effects only manifest if the blood steel is allowed to hungrily latch onto its user's flesh, at which point it reduces the bearer’s Constitution by two points. Treat blood steel as normal steel for creatures with no Constitution or creatures protected from this effect.

Cost: 2,000 gp for a weapon, 1,000 gp for armor or shield.

Black Steel
Black steel is steel that has been mixed with necromantically charged obsidian, making it as sharp as adamantine and as dangerous as obsidian. Weapons made of black steel count as Adamantine for all effects, but perform as if enhanced with the Ghost Touch and Wounding properties (without additional cost). Characters using items made of Black Steel suffer one point of Wisdom drain for every day they are held, worn or carried.

Cost: 15,000 gp for a weapon, 24,000 gp for light armor, 28,000 gp for medium armor, 32,000 gp for heavy armor.

Tainted Obsidian
While normal obsidian often has interesting necromantic properties, tainted obsidian is an actual source of necromantic energy. When a magic item has is made of tainted obsidian, it can provide uses or charges of its Necromancy effects in exchange for doing wisdom drain.

Cost: +10,000.