#5e undead

[zephyrbug]

The Revenant Bride 🥀⚜️🕷️

Here’s a piece I did for @trucbiduleschouettes of their character ‘The Revenant Bride’!! I absolutely love an spooky bride so I HAD to draw her!

[dungeonmalcontent]

Imagine, if you will, a church of powerful clerics. They are incredibly knowledgeable and capable spellcasters and healers and scholars. But they don't train warriors, war and soldiers create conflict. They don't want a holy arms race.

Instead they have the mausoleum vault.

It is a heavily secured crypt of sealed burial chambers where they have locked away countless vampires. Many of them are knowledgeable and powerful, but cannot do much when faces with the order's overbearing holy power. And whenever the church has need of a lone powerful warrior, a durable agent to carry out an important task, they dig up a vampire.

They offer all the undead in their mausoleum a simple offer. Do the job and you might earn your soul back (the monks are quite capable of doing such things as undoing vampirism), or stay in the vault until you're willing to do the job. Try to run mid-job or betray the order and risk being hunted down and being stuffed back in your sealed coffin (which will be placed in a river). Because the order controls their place of regeneration, it's kind of hard to say no.

[raeynbowboi]

Playing a Heroic Necromancer in DnD 5e

Necromancy is one of the most evil-skewed powers in just about any fantasy setting. However, unless you're running a villain campaign, most DnD parties are made up of heroes who won't like having an evil character in their midst. You want to play a necromancer, but you also realize that DnD is a very collaborative game. So, how do you make your party more amicable towards the thought of you raising a family? Here's some possible backstory ideas that can fuel a heroic necromancer for your next campaign.

The Scholar

The taboo, illegal, or forbidden nature of studying necromancy drew your interest. Whether you studied with a secret sect, uncovered a grimoire of necromantic magic, or made a deal with a devil for profane knowledge, you were driven by a desire to study magic. The sparse availability of necromancy forces you to remain mobile, making party formation easy. You may be hunted by law enforcement, clerics of Kelemvor, or other necromancers angry at you for stealing their arcane secrets. And now that you know what so many tried to hide from you, it's your choice how to use it.

The Chronicaller

History is written by the victors, the rich, and the powerful. But every life holds valuable knowledge and secrets. Ancient bones know things lost to time. Knowledge that was never written down. Stories which have not been spoken in centuries. Opinions of the common people during a historical event. Experience with phenomenon that can no longer be encountered. The Chronicaller wishes to unearth the secrets of the past already laid to rest.

The Physician

The Frankenstein of Necromancers wishes to understand the medical and scientific elements of life and death itself. To understand the body by inspecting it and digging into it. They may study how to cure diseases or how to spread them. Try to find a way to slow or even halt the slow decomposition that turns the body elderly and frail.

The Thayan Rebel

Once a Red Wizard of Thay, you have left Thay and the Red Wizards, letting your hair grow back slowly as you seek to expand your arcane talents beyond the limitations of Thayan conquest and oppression. The Red Wizards and Szas Tam become personal antagonists for your character and party as a result.

The Undead

Be they a Revenant, a Dhampir, a Vampire, a Lich, or something else, they are already imbued with undead power. They simply embrace their anti-life energy already flowing through them, channeling a power most others would avoid. You may be undead, but you desire to staunchly defend the living from other undead who are less compassionate.

The General

A wizard with a soldier background and optional martial multiclassing, your undead horde is your army of loyal soldiers, putting their lives on the line again and again to serve their general. An Oathbreaker 7/wizard 6 adds your CHA mod to undead within 10 ft, and proficiency bonus to all undead you control. But the steep dip into paladin locks you out from higher level spell slots for stronger undead minions.

The Noble

Similar to the general, the undead serve you out of loyalty, not fear or force. But where the general commands their soldiers, the Noble may command their staff of servants, their commoner citizens, their knights and soldiers, or their own noble ancestors. The Noble utilizes their horde to fulfil the services and duties of their noble house. They're just as likely to conscript skeletons to pave a road or build a bridge as they are to form a wave of zombies to break up a smuggling ring in their city.

The Immortal Guardian

You have or want to become immortal not out of power hunger or greed, but to protect the innocent forever as an unwavering guardian against evil. Everyday people can't protect themselves, and even legendary heroes die eventually. Only an immortal protector can be an eternal defender of the people.

I hope if nothing else, this gave you some ideas for some good and noble necromancers you could bring to your next table. Did I miss any Heroic concepts that you thought of? Let me know, and help make the world a more morbid place.

[thirdtofifth]

Famine Spirit Medium undead, chaotic evil Armor Class 18 (natural armor) Hit Points 333 (29d8 + 203) Speed 30 ft. Str 16, Dex 11, Con 24, Int 12, Wis 15, Cha 15 Saving Throws Con +9, Wis +7 Damage Immunities poison Damage Resistances necrotic Condition Immunities charmed, frightened, paralyzed, poisoned, stunned, unconscious Senses truesight 60 ft. passive Perception 12 Languages Common Challenge 19 (22000 XP) Aura Of Pain. The famine spirit emits an aura of excruciating hunger. Whenever a creature starts its turn within 60 feet of the famine spirit, that creature must succeed on a DC 22 Constitution saving throw or be incapacitated until the start of its next turn. A creature that succeeds on its save is immune to the Aura of Pain of all famine spirits for 24 hours. Keen Smell. The famine spirit has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell. Actions Multiattack. The famine spirit makes three attacks: two with its claws, and one with its Vorpal Bite. It can use Devour in place of its Vorpal Bite. Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 14 (2d10+3) slashing damage plus 27 (6d8) necrotic damage. Vorpal Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 22 (3d12+3) piercing damage plus 16 (3d10) necrotic damage. If the famine spirit scores a critical hit, it rolls damage dice three times, instead of twice. A humanoid slain by this attack rises 24 hours later as a famine spirit, unless the humanoid is restored to life or its body is destroyed. Devour. The famine spirit devours one Small or Medium corpse that is within 5 feet of it, destroying it. If it does, it regains 30 hit points.

These corpulent undead have bottomless appetites. A famine spirit would be able to consume all of the food in a magnificent mansion and be hungry for more within hours. Some are known to consume a hundred corpses in a single day. Famine spirits, sometimes called ravenous ghouls, can unhinge their jaws in order to swallow particularly large meals. The only creatures a famine spirit will not try to eat are undead, so packs of ghouls sometimes follow in their wake.

Originally from the Monster Manual II.

[5ecardaday]

Commanders of New Capenna

Another weekend, another brand-new release from me. This time it’s back to the schedule as normal, with the results of last month’s Monster Popularity Contest (a monthly patreon poll where supporters vote to see their favorite monsters, NPCs, and other enemies come to life.) These five friendly mugs are the face commanders from the commander decks released alongside Streets of New Cappena. Each one serves a different family, and plays a different role in the glamorous politics of this 30′s-themed fantasy setting.

If you’d like early access to more content like this, the ability to vote in polls like the one mentioned above, and other patron-exclusive releases like monthly subclasses and more, you can sign up to support me for as little as $2/month!

[berrymimes]

Finally made a ref sheet for Leroux! 🩵⚡️

[y-rhywbeth2]

Random fact about vampires: Vampires cannot be affected by spells like polymorph, as they are tagged as shapeshifters and their mutable nature means the spell can't work. Or it can, depending on edition, but shapeshifters can just shrug it off and shift back whenever they want.

Vampire spawn aren't shapeshifters and lack the tag, and in theory should be affected. Technically a disadvantage, but with some creativity it does have some advantages.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Villain: End Without Rest, Outer God of Ceaseless Apocalypse

How many times can a thing break before it can break no more?

The mummified corpse of a titanic dragon defies all laws of scale and destiny to sink its teeth into a bleeding sun, a fleet of ships like clockwork locusts stripmine a world for spare parts, angels gone feral parade down the road while scourging their flesh singing songs of the coming endtimes in a thousand witless tongues. All these things and more are the being known as “End without Rest”, an engine of destruction that wanders the multiverse without aim, a nomadic Armageddon looking to impose itself on the mythologies of other worlds.

End without Rest is a god for those who are convinced that final days are upon them, whether that be doom preaching madmen, the scions of crumbling empire, or religious fanatics convinced they alone will be saved. It is the impulse to ignore your own safety and the safety of others, and to instead heap all the good things of life upon a pyre and watch them burn. End without Rest senses these pyres like signal beacons, and descends on the arsonist’s innocent world to make good on all their fears.

Adventure Hooks: 

Exploring the ruins of a now forgotten city leads the party into conflict with a series of strange, rust-covered automotons that seem to have been haunting the site since its fall. Pushing deeper, they find the machines defending the wreck of a long grounded astral ship, with the surrounding evidence pointing to the city’s inhabitants having died defending against an army of these constructs a thousand years ago.

A few generations ago, a charismatic priest found a book of prophecies, and took his followers out to the badlands where they could be safe from the cleansing fire that was about to destroy their homeland. The apocalypse is now overdue, and the priest’s followers have gone a bit squirly in the meantime, living off the land in pious austerity and attacking travellers and native inhabitants of the badlands for supplies. The most recent head of their congregation has decided to take a more active approach to prophecy, and has begun a series of grisly raids with the intent of triggering the endtimes by orchestrating his own omens.

The stars bleed, the horizon seems to burn, and the party have to run for cover as a falling star makes its way directly towards their camp. Returning to the smoking crater they find a Planetar angel gasping for life, heavenly light bleeding from innumerable battle wounds. With their last breath, they recount their battle with a fallen angel intent on beginning the end of the world by blowing a sacred horn. This plannetar gave its life to avert this crisis, and with their last ounce of strength to knock the horn from their foe’s hands and sent it crashing to earth. Now the party must race to find where the second “falling star” landed before their fallen adversary completes their final mission.

Background: The origins of End without Rest stand as a testament for what happens when gods and mortals meddle with the ineffable nature of fate. It begins with a petty war god watching as a world reached the predestined end of its mythology, it sun devoured by a great beast to usher in the final age of darkness and dissolution that would spell that realm’s end. This wargod was not the type to see a whole world full of people and weep at the futility of all, or rush in to try and set fate onto a different course.... she was the type to see something that could destroy pantheons and start thinking about how it could be weaponized.

End without Rest is the result of all her efforts: The body of an apocalyptic dragon, mummified from its long time in the void, pulled from the dead realms and reawakened with a supernova burning in its belly. Around this monstrosity she set a legion of constructs to maintain, defend, and reign the beast, answerable only to her. She wielded her new weapon with glee and with pride, carving out an empire of worlds that bowed to hear in fear of the apocaylpse she could bring down on them... until she fucked up and brought it down on herself instead.

With its master consumed and her divine fire burning in its furnace of a heart, there was nothing to stop End without Rest from growing, of reaching the critical mass of its own godhood, of moving from world to world ending them based on instinct alone.  This process has repeated so long that the remnants of other apocalypses have got swept up in the apocalypse engine’s wake: routed legions of the endtimes pledging themselves to its service, orphaned harbingers following it in hopes of finding meaning after their task is complete.

Titles: The Apocalypse Engine, Suneater, the unready end

Signs: Confused visions of the enditmes, animals going feral, objects rusting breaking or unraveling before they should.

Symbols: The Jaws of a beast (often black, often skeletal) closing around a red sun. Iron locusts

[foundry-fabrications]

Happy Halloween everyone! It is with immense pleasure and excitement that I present to you a labor of love, the long awaited rework of Flesh & Bone! Originally, I had intended to release this shortly after the absolutely stellar remake of Dead Space, but that obviously wasn't going to happen. So as to not repeat my last mistake with big projects and arbitrary deadlines, I took things nice and slow, took my time to give this work the true love and attention it deserved. Anything for my beloved Dead Space.

And I couldn't be more pleased with the result! Well, I can always be happier. There's always something I wish I could have added or done differently, but I won't dwell on that. "Don't let perfect be the enemy of done".  But it makes me so happy to see it in its full gorey glory after all this time. But that enough preamble, let's get into the changes from the original!

Being the result of a 3-week mad rush to release on time for Halloween, the original brew has a LOT of problems. I forgot a lot of details and made a lot of mistakes just by the nature of not having enough time to do it justice. Having had, what, 2 years, between now and then has given me a lot of time to hone my skills as a creator and figure out exactly what I wanted to do for the eventual rework.

The first and most obvious thing is the aesthetics. Flesh and Bone was the first time I ever tried to make a Homebrewery theme from scratch, so I had a LOT to learn in a very short timeframe. I got it most of the way there for what I wanted to do, but it still had a lot of issues, namely a lack of integrated stat blocks. Formatting was also just awful. I just couldn't get them to work quite right, and they always looked super off, so I elected for images instead. Since then, I've made my Xenomorph supplement which used that initial test as a starting point, and I was able to fix a lot of the issues I ran into. I also want to change the overall look of the theme itself. When I designed it, I was going for a design mix based on the Dead Space wiki and the holographic UI from the games themselves. The result was...not the most legible. I've taken a new approach with the rework, made everything MUCH more readable, and borrowed heavily from the aesthetics of the 2023 remake.

As for the contents themselves, turns out there were a bunch of really cool necromorph variants that I just completely forgot about like the Twitchers, those reanimator swarms from DS3, and the Ubermorph. With that last one in particular, I reworked the old Hunter into the Regenerator with Hunter and Ubermorph variants, like I have with the Slasher, Spitter, and now Twitcher. In general, most of the necromorph forms were in dire need of reworks up in one way or another, especially their descriptions. I pulled almost all of that text directly from the Dead Space wiki, and it showed real bad. Again, 3 weeks, all panic. All the descriptions have been rewritten to be more in line with my other writing.

I also removed that section at the beginning about the Markers. I originally included it to give context for the rest of the brew, and I just really wanted to talk about the Markers, but the more I looked at it that section honestly added very little to the rest of the brew that couldn't be done in other areas. And let's be real, the Markers are SO IMPORTANT to the Dead Space universe that they really need their own dedicated brew. So, I pulled that section out, and it will go in said dedicated brew another time.

And the final change is I actually included some form of boss necromorph this time! I hadn't planned to, but I started thinking more and more about it, and I was also asked by one of my lovely patrons about it, so I gave in and made stats for really the only Dead Space boss worth talking about: The Hive Mind. I actually had fun writing it, working out its abilities from both the original and the remake, as well as taking some creative liberties and giving it some fun new abilities as a result of it being a Nexus necromorph.

So that's everything! I hope this gruesome creation of mine brings you as much joy and terror as it has to me. Stay safe, stay spooky, don't forget to love each other, and m̵̧̈́ͅa̴̜͑̍ḳ̵̍ë̷͍͇́ ̶̖̾̏u̸̪̅͜s̷͙̟̓ ̷̬̩̒w̸͇͘h̶̠̳͆̽o̶̻̺͂̀l̴̛͍̦e̸̡̡͗. See you next time.

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[apraxvalith]

Late night doodle: a chibi Vrykoth before and after The Strigoi Incident™

[failingjester]

My friends character for the same campaign that Thyazzi is in.

A strange little woman,

[honourablejester]

Okay, that’s just cool.

Youtube is throwing random D&D related videos at me, and it recommended this year old video from Esper the Bard talking about cool 3/3.5e undead monsters that didn’t make the transition to 5e (in a lot of cases because they do damage to stats, I’m guessing). And one of them, the Boneyard, from the sourcebook Libris Mortis, is so cool.

Lorewise, it does have some similarities to 5e’s Gallows Speaker, in that it’s an undead that results from the combined dead of mass graves and charnel sites, but instead of a spectral combination, the Boneyard is a physical one. It’s, as it sounds like, a writhing mass of bones animated by the combined spirits of those who died.

And. I might be biased. Because that’s very similar to a Japanese Gashadokuro, and a gashadokuro was the star creature of an absolutely amazing Mushishi/Mononoke crossover fic I read called Dust & Bones by 7PhoenixAshes which made absolutely stunning creepy use of it. But. It’s such a cinematic monster, and one that comes with the story damn near pre-written for you.

The Boneyard is a creature born of massacres and charnel pits, mass graves and the dead left to rot unburied. It’s the dead of famines, the dead of plagues, the dead of genocides, the dead of battlefields left to moulder untended. A lot of undead have their backstory built into the fact of their existence, they’re great that way. And, as a D&D monster, it has an absolutely terrifying ability where if it manages to grapple you, and you’re still grappled next turn, it can start liquifying and absorbing your bones. Make them part of itself. It’s a writhing formless (but often serpentine) mass of bones animated by the massed souls of a great injustice, and it will pin your down and make you part of it.

That’s so easy to set up as an absolutely terrifying and creepy boss battle. (This thing was CR 14). Like. You can set that scene so easily. Twenty years ago there was a massacre in this village, or a famine, or a plague, and their greatest secret and shame was that the dead were never properly buried, whether deliberately, in the case of the massacre, or because there were too few left to be able to bury them, in the case of the famine or plague, and the bodies were instead thrown down a ravine or buried jumbled together in a pit, anything to get them out and away from the survivors. Now, twenty years on, animals and eventually people have started vanishing out by the ravine. People in the village hear bones rattling in the night. And they would get help, they need to get help, but getting help means admitting what happened back then. Admitting what was never laid to rest. So the villagers, at least the older ones, are being cagey with the party. Trying to skirt around it.

And then they get out there, to this strange, mist-shrouded dip in the ground. There’s bones lying scattered on the surface, even twenty years down the line. So many were thrown here that animals couldn’t scavenge them all. The ground is littered with bones.

And then, up ahead, they hear something alive. Someone alive. They hear a faint, reedy voice crying in agony. And it is. It is alive. It’s a person, a poor bastard of a traveller or merchant who no one warned not to come this way, and they’re gravely injured, but they’re frantically waving the party away. Not closer. They’re waving the party away.

And then there’s a rattling, the sound of bones rolling together in the mist around them. The wounded traveller’s eyes widen in raw terror. They attempt to shout out a warning, but a mass of bones shaped almost like a hand suddenly slams down over them from the mist behind them. A vast hulking shape looms out of the fog. Leans down over its pinned prey. And eats its bones.

Roll initiative.

Because. See. You want them to be wary of the bones. You want them to know something’s out here. You want to have that moment of surprise, the sudden horror looming out of the mist. But I think you also want them to know that the bone-eating thing is on the table. You want them to know that risk going in, you want them to know that they absolutely cannot, under any circumstances, let themselves get grabbed. You want that up front, so the fear of it is right there, so it shapes their tactics, and also so they can see it without having to deploy it on your players first. This thing is an absolutely lethal boss monster, and you want them to know that so they can plan accordingly, and also so they can be appropriately terrified of it, without having it feel unfair that the first time they know it can happen is when one of them dies to it.

(In 3/3.5, this did stat damage to all three of your physical stats, so it took a couple of turns to kill you, but it would kill you, and would be absolutely horrific the entire time. You’d have to jig this so it wasn’t doing stat damage for a 5e conversion, but the visuals should convey most of the horror, even if it winds causing less immediate and comprehensively lethal damage).

But. What a cinematic monster. Its backstory is already pre-baked for you, and you have an absolutely terrifying threat of an ability to alert the party to for them to plan around. And, if they’re a bit too low level for this, or just very melee oriented, the plan should absolutely be run. Just nope the fuck out, right now. And maybe go back and have a conversation with the village about what the fuck happened twenty years ago, and maybe you could have warned us, and maybe seek a less combat-oriented way to ease this horrifying creature past the shackles of undeath.

There were ten monsters in that video, and some of the others are cool, but this one just grabbed me. Some of that may be bias, that Mushishi/Mononoke fic made me very very fond of the gashadokuro and similar creatures as a concept, but as a high level undead who’s terrifying but also not some stripe of spellcaster, I do feel like it’s really, really cool.

Not something you could easily use in 5e, given that stat damage isn’t really a thing, and for good reason, Shadows and Intellect Devourers aside, but … something that emphasises ‘do NOT let this thing grab you, you will die’. Something that forces them to work out how to stay the fuck away from it and still bring it down, or makes them fully back out and try to work another way to lay these massed tormented souls to rest.

Also, what a fantastic plot line to have threaded through. What did happen twenty years ago? Was it an isolated incident, confined to a village in a mountain pass that got snowed in and did horrifying things to survive a murderous winter? Or was it a symptom of some much bigger part of your worldbuilding, an event that sowed mass graves across vast swathes of the land, and left thousands of guilty survivors to skirt carefully around the lingering horrors ever since?

Definitely one of the coolest parts of undead as monsters is that their sheer existence has plot and backstory built in. Especially a lot of D&D undead, because they’re so specific. Very specific things had to happen to produce a gallows speaker, or a boneless, or a deathlock, or a coldlight walker. And it does, it does remind me of Mononoke. What is this creature’s Form, Truth, and Regret? And how does the party interact with that?

(I mean. With a fireball. Repeated fireballs. Preferably from like 150ft feet in the air. Nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure. But. In the event you don’t have that option. Turn Undead is also riskier than usual, because it has pretty high mental scores, it’s an intelligent undead, it has a decent chance of making saves. I nearly would pull it on a lower level party, so they can’t fight it outright and have to work with its backstory. Lay it to rest like a normal ghost, by resolving the crime that led to its existence in the first place)

Anyway. That was a long diversion. But. Very cool monster? Thank you, Esper the Bard, for letting me know D&D did a gashadokuro back in the day, and did it in very cool (and rather cruel) fashion.

[dungeonmalcontent]

Halloween 2024!

It's that special time of year where I get to be spooky and no one gives me a side eye about it! October! Yeah baby!

In celebration of October (and Halloween, I guess) I'm putting my spooky and weird titles on sale. The following discounts are effective starting today (October 1st 2024) until October 31st 2024.

Grimdark & Dangerous - a massive player option compendium of flesh ripping, blood magic, occult concepts for use in 5e d&d. Normally $19.99, now only $9.99 (that's 50% off folks, that's the lowest its ever been) when you use the link in this post. Grab this copper best seller while you can!

Grimdark Puzzles - a collection of similarly flesh ripping, blood magic, arcane puzzles to include in 5e d&d. Normally $5, now just $3.

Psionics: Spellcasting and Specialties - a large player option compendium that solves the problems of "why can't I just have psionic spellcasting?" and "what if I want literally any class option to be able to be pyschic somehow?" I am extremely happy with this book. Anyways, normally $9.99, now just $6.

Ranger: Hell Skulker - a 5e player class option for rangers that want to maybe get some fiendish warlock flavor and also kind of just want to survival experts in hell. Normally only 75 cents. Now free.

And that free ranger option brings me to the second bit of this post.

Last year I also had a bunch of halloween class options (which hell skulker was going to be a part of, but never got voted to be made and I really wanted to write it so I did it for myself) . And I'm reviving them here. Not even linking to them, jpgs below the cut, save them to your computer for personal use.

Druid: Circle of Bones

Artificer: Necro-Crafter

Barbarian: Path of Possession

Sorcerer: Vampiric Bloodline

[raeynbowboi]

What Is the Best Party for a Necromancer

With enough time and preparation, a Necromancy Wizard can create a small army of powerful undead, but I got to wondering: what party formation does the best job at supporting the Necromancer's undead horde to reach its maximum potential? So, that's what I'm seeking to do. To create a party of 4-5 characters that best empowers and emboldens the Necromancer's army.

WIZARD SCHOOL OF NECROMANCY

The star and most likely the official team leader of the party, the Necromancy Wizard is the focal point of this team composition. With their 6th level feature: Undead Thralls, the Necromancy Wizard adds their Wizard level (6-20) to each undead's hit points, and their proficiency bonus (3-6) to each undead's weapon attack damage. This means that the Necromancy Wizard makes the strongest possible undead thralls in the game. At 14th level, the Necromancer can place any undead under their control with Command Undead. This gives the Wizard the ability to gain a free Wight, a high CR undead like a Nightwalker, or even notable villains like Acerack, Vecna, Strahd Von Zarovich, or Sylas Briarwood. Intelligent Undead can make saving throws, but a simple Feeblemind can take care of that pesky detail.

PALADIN OATHBREAKER

The Oathbreaker Paladin was chosen because of their 7th level feature: Aura of Hate. Any undead within 10 feet of the Paladin adds the Paladin's Charisma modifier (1-5) to all weapon attack damage. At 15th level, that Aura expands to 30 feet. Not only can this stack with the Necromancy Wizard's Undead Thralls feature, making undead near the paladin stronger, but the Paladin does not need to be the one who created the undead. So the Oathbreaker can lead the undead into battle on the front lines, while the Wizard stands further back sniping enemies with cantrips and low level spells. Unfortunately, only one Aura of Hate can effect a single undead, but in theory, one Necromancy Wizard with 3-4 spaced out oathbreakers each with a 10 or 30 ft aura can effectively organize your undead army into tight formation battalions. But there are other good allies to have in the game.

CLERIC GRAVE DOMAIN

We want the Grave Cleric for many reasons. Firstly, they get a lot of necromancy spells, so while their horde won't be as strong as the Wizard's they too can create a horde of undead, making an even bigger army. Their Channel Divinity: Path to the Grave makes it so that an enemy is vulnerable to the damage of the next attack that hits them, which sets up nicely for the Oathbreaker to lay down a devastating smite, or the Necromancy Wizard to ensure a fresh thrall from their Finger of Death. Sentinel at Death's Door can be used to nullify critical hits, which can keep not only party members, but even undead minions from being obliterated. The wizard's Wight that controls 12 zombies is probably an asset you don't want to risk losing, so having a way to save that valuable asset is useful. And, should the Necromancer forget to reassert control over their horde in time, the Cleric's Destroy Undead feature can help the party mow through the bodies.

DRUID CIRCLE OF THE SHEPHERD

I know, I know. A Shepherd Druid and a Necromancy Wizard in one party is a DM's nightmare, but there's a reason we're choosing this subclass. It's not the animal summoning, it's the Totem Spirit. See, the Totem Spirit radiates an aura in a 30 ft radius. And that aura bolsters as many creatures as you want within that aura. Meaning that not only can the shepherd provide aerial support with swarms of ravens and buzzards, but that aura also applies to the Wizard's undead horde. The Bear totem grants the undead Temporary Hit Points, and the Unicorn Spirit makes it so that when the Druid heals anyone outside the aura, they're also healing every creature inside the aura. While they can't target undead creatures with their healing spells, the aura's healing factor does not exclude undead, allowing the Druid to heal a party member, and in doing so, heal every undead within 30 feet of the totem spirit. The fact that the Druid can summon a stronger horde of animals is just a nice little cherry on top. There's also nothing saying you can't reflavor your animal army as being undead animal corpses with DM approval to fit in with the necromantic themes.

WARLOCK FATHOMLESS PATRON

This is the least useful of the five, but it does have its uses, so while it is the most expendable of the options, there are reasons to use it if you have a five man party. At 6th level, the Fathomless Warlock gains the ability Guardian Coil. Their summoned tentacle can defend a single ally creature, reducing damage the creature takes by 1d8, or 2d8 at level 10. At 14th level, Fathomless Plunge can be used to teleport the Warlock and up to five other creatures to any source of water within 1 mile. The Fathomless Warlock, The Shepherd Druid, and the Grave Cleric can cast Create or Destroy Water, and a puddle is a source of water, letting the warlock teleport fresh undead to the front lines, or move injured undead to the backlines. If the Druid has their Unicorn Totem, this can be a useful way to teleport party members or important undead like Wights to the Totem's aura, and giving the party ways to move important creatures. The teleported creatures also do not need to be near the Warlock, they simply need to be able to see them within 30 feet, allowing the warlock to give the undead horde greater mobility. Make your patron Davy Jones, The Captain of the Flying Dutchman, or the Eldritch Lord of Shipwrecks to keep on brand with the themes of undeath and necromancy within the party, tying yourself to those lost to watery graves.

SPELLS AND SYNERGY

The core spells of Animate Dead, Create Undead, Danse Macabre, and Finger of Death can be used to create undead thralls. Wizards get all four spells, while the Cleric only gets Animate Dead and Create Undead. Oathbreakers also get Animate Dead, but only get up to 5th level spell slots. Warlocks can learn Animate Dead through an Eldritch Invocation, but only once per long rest, and only at 3rd level. Warlocks also learn Danse Macabre and Finger of Death. They also get Create Undead, but can only cast it at 6th level.

Both the Warlock and the Wizard get access to Negative Energy Flood, which can be used to heal an undead, or to damage a living target. Like Finger of Death, a creature killed by Negative Energy Flood rises as a zombie.

Aura of Vitality is a spell for Clerics, Druids, and Paladins that creates a healing aura within 30 ft of the caster. The spell's text does not exclude undead from benefitting from this aura, however only one creature can be healed with a bonus action. While this isn't super useful given it only heals one creature, the Druid using this spell to trigger their Unicorn Totem every turn with a bonus action does make this more useful, as you're able to heal the undead army multiple turns in a row while only using one spell slot. And unlike Healing Spirit, the initial healing can also be applied to an undead. The only caveat is that the healing needs to go a creature outside of the unicorn totem's aura in order to trigger the healing. Luckily, the Totem does not have to be within any given distance of the Druid, which gives the Druid more flexibility in their positioning.

Every creature that can be created with Animate Dead and Create Undead (Skeletons, Zombies, Ghouls, Ghasts, Wights, and Mummies) are immune to Poison damage. As such, AoE spells that deal Poison damage, such as Cloudkill can be dropped on top of your undead horde without harming them, but harming any living enemy near them. Your undead can also attempt to grapple foes, holding them in the Cloudkill, preventing them from leaving as they suffocate. The Necromancy Wizard is the only member of the party that can learn Cloudkill.

Both the Grave Cleric and the Druid can learn Antilife Shell, which pushes living creatures away from the caster, while allowing undead creatures to move through the shell harmlessly. This can be a great way to keep Strength-based enemies at a distance. Unfortunately the shell is not a proper force field, as weapon and spell attacks can still pass through, so this is not a way to protect the Wizard. It only keeps melee-ranged threats at bay.

BALDUR'S GATE III

While we can't recreate this team set-up perfectly in Baldur's Gate III, we can still do a weaker version with four party members: TAV as a Necromancy Wizard, Astarion or Karlach as an Oathbreaker, Shadowheart as really any Cleric subclass, and Wyll as a Fiend Warlock with a Pact of the Tome. The Tome will allow Wyll to cast Animate Dead and Create Undead, Tav and Shadowheart will also be able to create undead, and Astarion or Karlach will be able to use their aura of hate to strengthen those undead thralls. It's not as good as what we built above, but short of mods, it's the best we can do. It doesn't really matter who's what, this is just an example of a party composition. Astarion could just as easily be the necromancer and TAV the Oathbreaker, you could have Gale as the Necromancer, or Lae'zel as the Oathbreaker. What really matters are the classes. The Cleric can still clear any undead that turn on the party, the paladin still bolsters the already stronger undead, and every member of the party is pretty much able to make equally strong undead, the Wizards undead are just juiced up to the max.

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[5ecardaday]

Monster Popularity Contest– Ixalan

If you want to help make decisions on what content I make, get early access to all of my releases, and join my new patron-exclusive discord, you can do so by signing up to support me on Patreon!

Last week my supporters were treated to 5 new monsters, each one from the verdant islands of Magic: the Gathering’s Ixalan setting! Normally my first release of each month is just 3 creatures, but I went a little further this time since I was adhering to some rules about MtG’s color identities.

I’m particularly proud of Beckett Brass, who I think has the most interesting design; but Gishath also turned out really well, given how easy it can be to make a big stompy dinosaur into something boring in D&D. No problems with that here though.