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Caolin
Senior Scribe
768 Posts |
 Posted - 26 Feb 2014 : 03:24:08
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Did anyone else back this game (used to be called Project Eternity)? They released an update today with some really cool lore about their undead. I thought the gang here would enjoy it. I hope the guys at Obsidian don't mind me sharing.
All my best ideas are stolen. This one I ripped off from our lead level designer, Bobby Null. It is about the undead.
One of the strengths of the Eternity setting, in my opinion, is its ability to put a new spin on the familiar. Let's be honest, you've seen undead before in a video game or two. I bet you've had a virtual conflict with a skeleton or perhaps even a zombie. But no matter how many times we see them, they're fantasy RPG staples - it'd be weird not to have them, and many people would really miss them were they omitted.
So we did some thinking as to how we could have undead but have them be our own special brand of undead that makes sense in this world.
This is How Undead Work
Let's say you are a wealthy noble who would like to cheat death. There are a variety of options at your disposal, but this offer from a shady animancer sounds the most painless. All he is going to do is bind your soul to your body, so that way when you die, your soul stays put and you still retain all your motor control.
Sign me up, you say. Suck on this, death! The animancer sets up some bizarre tools and machines, has you hold onto some copper wires, and before you know it the whole thing is over. He leaves and takes his fee. A few years later you die in a horrific skiing accident. Not to worry! Your soul isn't going anywhere. You are living large, my friend. But here's the thing. Your soul isn't going anywhere, but your body is. It starts to decompose. Slowly at first. A maggot here, a maggot there. And you are starting to get weird cravings, kind of like a pregnant woman, but instead of peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches, you could really go for some human flesh.
So you eat some guys. And lo and behold, the decomposition stops! You're cured! Except that after a while, you start to rot again. Over time, you find that eating folks and absorbing the essence from their flesh is the only way to stop decomposition. But after a while you run out of neighbor kids and it gets harder and harder to track down a meal. Flesh is dropping off in chunks. And it feels like your IQ has fallen a few points, like that time you used to live next to that industrial solvent factory. In time, your mind goes as well as your body. You become feral, then near-vegetative, then purely mechanical - your body nothing more than a fleshless marionette.
What you have just done is experienced the full continuum of undeath. Corporeal undead in this world all suffer from the same malady, and are merely in different stages of decomposition. How do you get this condition? It's usually something that you would get by commissioning an unscrupulous animancer to help you live forever, or by volunteering for a "harmless clinical trial." These ladies and gentlemen have been studying a certain banned piece of literature known as the Theorems of Padgram and are trying to develop a true path to immortality. But there are supposedly other ways - certain alchemical tinctures, ancient architecturally-embedded machinery, self-pleasure (according to some disapproving Dyrwoodan moms), etc.
You start as a fampyr. (And these names are not different-for-the-sake-of-different - they're just following location-appropriate linguistic rules.) By appearances, you're basically a normal person who is going through a bit of a cannibal phase.
Allow yourself to decompose for a while, and you start to lose control of your urges, and your memory begins to slip away. Your self-consciousness is flimsy. You are now what's called a dargul.
Much more decomposition, and you become bestial. Your hair is gone (if it wasn't already), the flesh sags on your bones, and you live only to feed your hunger. You are a gul, but you don't give it much thought at this point. You just think you are hungry.
Then your mind gets really pretty thoroughly rotted, like what happens if you play a lot of FPSes, and you're only running at the basest level of instinct. You have no memory. You, my friend, are a revenant, and you are not very fun at parties.
After the last bit of flesh falls away, and the last mildly complicated neural synaptic path fires for the final time, you're running on pure reflex. You're not even hungry anymore (no stomach!). Your body is a murderous automaton. You are a skeleton, and your next step is dust.
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 26 Feb 2014 : 04:12:43
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Interesting - thanks for sharing.
I did something similar with my undead in my purely HB setting; different spin though - it has to do with 'bloodlines'. Although the fact they are all interrelated is basically the same (although crossing from one type to another isn't as easy or automatic).
I also connected them to my Shades (which are bad Elves - Mæladrin), which are in-turn connected to the other elves (which are all a type of Lythari/shapeshifters), which are in-turn connected to lycanthropes, so I have the werewolf vs vampire plot device going on as well (it all has to do with how certain 'ancient bloods' react to the various curses/abilities).
So basically it all comes down to necroturges using the Mæladrin ritual to become a shade and it going horribly wrong (which didn't stop them from doing it over and over trying to get it right). The vampire would be the closest thing to a success, with all the other undead being the failures, to various degrees. However, once you become infected from any undead, there is a chance of you becoming any type (CON savings throws apply, amongst other things). Thus, a simple zombie could inadvertently create a vamp.
So a similar train of thought - connecting them all - but I went a different route. |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Caolin
Senior Scribe
768 Posts |
Posted - 01 Mar 2014 : 03:57:29
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Sounds pretty cool. I like to have undead, demons, and devils explained in such a way. Rather than just be plopped down randomly just to fill a space. Have it so that there is a natural like progression that would make some sense.
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Pillars of Eternity
