Necromantic Magic

[Daelkyr]

I have the BRP system and was thumbing through it. The magic and sorcery system is very basic and that's fine, but what I didn't see in it was anything pertaining to Necromancy. In the world that I've been making, Necromancy plays a huge part in it. Are there rules on making Zombies/Skeletons and the like, or even lichhood? I don't mind if it goes to either Magician or Sorcerer as I plan on using slightly modified versions of both as it is. I just want there to be Zombies and Skeletons running around messing the day up and having the option for my players to do the same.

[p_clapham]

If you are looking to go with the Sorcery option I would suggest Magic World. It is a complete game using the BRP rules, and has a ton of sorcery spells. Its supplement Advanced Sorcery has a whole section on Necromancy, including Lichedom and raising zombies/skeletons. My only problem with those rules is that you have to spend a permanent point of POW for each zombie or skeleton you have to animate it. If you go that route I'd suggest you make it temporary (until the creature is destroyed) or do away with the POW cost all together.

If you would like to go the generic Magic route I could design a spell for creating zombies and skeletons. Legend and Runequest already have several, it wouldn't be too difficult to modify one of theirs.

[Mankcam]

In my humble opinion the POW cost is valid, it is like giving up a part of your soul to pay for the cost of creating a zombie. There are ways around using your own POW, such as using sacrifice etc I think LEGEND's Blood Magic rules could be useful to assist here perhaps. But I agree that the best route is to start with the BRP MW Advanced Sorcery rules and go from there.

Edited June 24, 2014 by Mankcam

[p_clapham]

My issue with Skeletons and Zombies under the sorcery rules is two-fold. First with the POW expenditure you run into the problem of the minimum POW of 16 needed to cast spells. A sorcerer can't create too many of the undead without crippling himself magically. Second, summoning elementals and demons to do your bidding is such a better option. They cost more magic points to create, but are so much more powerful than say a skeleton that the POW expenditure is actually worthwhile.

[vagabond]

My issue with Skeletons and Zombies under the sorcery rules is two-fold. First with the POW expenditure you run into the problem of the minimum POW of 16 needed to cast spells. A sorcerer can't create too many of the undead without crippling himself magically. Second, summoning elementals and demons to do your bidding is such a better option. They cost more magic points to create, but are so much more powerful than say a skeleton that the POW expenditure is actually worthwhile.

I've always played the old school Stormbringer way - INT+POW >= 32. That way you could have very studious wizards who spend countless hours pouring over tomes, but need to be very careful lest they lose too much POW and thus the ability to cast/summon becomes more and more difficult. Or, you can have characters with raw, unbridled power and ability, but lack the knowledge to grasp the nuances and truly arcane arts. Or, you have the god-like Melniboneans, who have the INT and the POW, and are the source of nightmarish fairy tales and can level whole armies/fleets.

But, that's me ...

[tooley1chris]

Seems to me, and I may be mistaken, but the POW cost is a check n balance restriction that is necessary lest a sorcerer who lacks the discipline, earned thru experience, raise an army of undead over night.

[Mankcam]

I do like the idea of some POW expenditure for any permanent form of magic (not necessarily always the caster's personal supply - hence draining items which contain POW or sacrifice of others etc). However that is a valid point about weighing the balance of skeleton & zombie creation vs summoning and bidding elementals & demons, I will need to have a closer look at the rules again before I throw in any more comments here...

Edited June 26, 2014 by Mankcam

[Simlasa]

I do like the idea of some POW expenditure for any permanent form of magic (not necessarily always the caster's personal supply - hence draining items which contain POW or sacrifice of others etc).

I feel the same way... AND it sets up all the typical evil wizard stuff of doing despicable things to get more power/Power... why a guy with an army of undead probably did something nasty to get it.

My homebrew setting has a lot of technology powered by 'ghosts'... kind of limited AI that can be either natural or man-made. The man-made ones can be of a living person... a recording of a specific moment in time... or they can be made by a group... a kind of gestalt being, a thoughtform. All of them require some amount of Power from some source.

Edited June 28, 2014 by Simlasa

[tooley1chris]

I feel the same way... AND it sets up all the typical evil wizard stuff of doing despicable things to get more power/Power... why a guy with an army of undead probably did something nasty to get it.

My homebrew setting has a lot of technology powered by 'ghosts'... kind of limited AI that can be either natural or man-made. The man-made ones can be of a living person... a recording of a specific moment in time... or they can be made by a group... a kind of gestalt being, a thoughtform. All of them require some amount of Power from some source.

This reminds me of Spell Jammer. Airships fueled by wizards magic source, like a battery.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Seems to me, and I may be mistaken, but the POW cost is a check n balance restriction that is necessary lest a sorcerer who lacks the discipline, earned thru experience, raise an army of undead over night.

That makes it difficult to rationalize the existence of armies of undead in a campaign. Nobody has THAT much POW.

Of course, as a game balance issue in BRP you really don't want armies of undead, especially in fantasy, as they would rapidly overwhelm the PCs. A group of PCs taking on an entire tribe of orcs has the same problem -- take on too many foes, even if they're really lousy, and you're toast regardless of how skilled you are.

[tooley1chris]

That makes it difficult to rationalize the existence of armies of undead in a campaign. Nobody has THAT much POW.

Of course, as a game balance issue in BRP you really don't want armies of undead, especially in fantasy, as they would rapidly overwhelm the PCs. A group of PCs taking on an entire tribe of orcs has the same problem -- take on too many foes, even if they're really lousy, and you're toast regardless of how skilled you are.

Makes it difficult to rationalize a PC having an army of undead, sure. But a Vampire who obtains POW from Blood or a necromancer who becomes a Liche and is basically immortal... and of course, blood sacrifice mentioned earlier...lots of potential for villains to raise an army.

[Simlasa]

Of course, as a game balance issue in BRP you really don't want armies of undead, especially in fantasy, as they would rapidly overwhelm the PCs. A group of PCs taking on an entire tribe of orcs has the same problem -- take on too many foes, even if they're really lousy, and you're toast regardless of how skilled you are.

I think the 'skill' comes in AVOIDING situations where you face a horde of undead/orcs/whatever. "See all those orcs down there? Let's go the other way."

I could totally see playing something like the OSR module Death Frost Doom for Lamentations of the Flame Princess, with BRP, because the core pickle is that you really can't fight your way out of it.

Edited July 1, 2014 by Simlasa

[Michael Hopcroft]

I can easily see PCs as "scouts" in that situation -- "find the orc/zombie/skeleton/trollkin army, get back and report their position to our army, and hope they don't catch you!". Let the King's army deal with them, and hope you general is competent and not some dilettante nobleman who doesn't know a glaive from a roasted whole pig.

[Moonowl67]

I'm thinking that if you really want that army of undead, you can ab-lib that with some form of magical focus like an artifact gifted by or dedicated to an evil power, or perhaps the location of a singularly evil historic event, then the POW sacrifice that transforms corpses to create zombies or skeletons in POWX10 feet or meters.  Or you could change the rule to an area-of-effect.   

To preserve game balance, and avoid a TPK, make sure the good guys have a small army available to them, as well!

[OrdoMonstrum]

One of the neatest mechanics I've seen for this is in a Retro Clone OSR game "Crypts & Things" you have 3 degrees of magic that e veryone has access to (Anyone who has magic that is) White, Grey , and Black.  Common sense can arrange them but when you dabble in the Black, you also lose sanity, sometimes permanently.
Just a fun mechanic and would keep those "darker side" players from becoming game breakers

[Akerbakk]

An easy Magic Spell would be the following:

 

RAISE DEAD

Cost: 1 PP per 3 SIZ of creature to be reanimated, +1 HP from the caster (temporarily) signifying fresh blood to draw pentagram on corpse.

Range: Touch

Duration: (Whatever works for your setting, I'd go with "exists until destroyed")

Note: Caster must win a quick contest of POW vs. target's POW to "force" a fragment of the soul back into the creature.

 

As for Lich-hood, what would you want to be able to do? I'd start with the super powers section and see if I could design an alternate form and make the PP cost 1/2 or 1/3 of the CP cost for the alternate form.

[p_clapham]

Ooo.. I like the POW vs POW aspect of the spell.

[Akerbakk]

Ooo.. I like the POW vs POW aspect of the spell.

 

Thanks Fnord, I think I stole that from the GURPS adaptation of Castle Falkenstein, but in that case it was the caster's IQ vs the average of the target's IQ and ST. POW vs. POW is way easier...

[Robsbot]

I too heartily recommend Magic World and it's supplement Advanced Sorcery for your Necromantic needs. Advanced Sorcery has all the good bits so make sure you pick that up. 

One way I deal with permanent powers in my games is power reservation. I use it whenever I want a caster like a Necromancer or Enchanter that can have lots of permanent spell effects going but I don't want the constant POW donations to become too taxing. Let's say a PC with 16 POW creates a zombie that costs 6 magic points (or whatever your chosen system calls them), the PC then has only 10 magic points he can use. Those points stay spent and do not regenerate for any reason until the spell keeping the zombie alive is dismissed by the caster. Then, they come back at a normal rate. A player does not get an immediate 6 magic points to use when they dismiss the zombie, although you could allow a spell that consumes the corpse and the spark of life to give them the reserved magic used by the corpse immediately, which could be interesting. This reservation system very easily lets you tweak the points cost of spells to be as powerful as you want (most casters will have 16-18 POW early on) so that they can have 1-2 zombies, 3-4 zombies, or even more.
 
The system also balances itself out in the fact that the more of their magic points a PC has reserved the less flexibility they have in spontaneous spell casting. Someone with a small group of zombies probably only has a handful of points to cast with each day making their other options much more limited. You could even add another rule similar to how demons work. Each zombie could cost a certain amount of your INT reservation to keep alive thus lowering the number of spells you could remember if you try to keep a horde of zombies alive. Either of these systems creates an actual trade-off for PC's: Do I have consistent meat shields and sacrifice utility? Do I need more flexibility and less zombies?
 
However, for NPC's, do whatever you like. I plan on having one encounter for my NPC's where three sorcerers head to the site of an ancient battle, erect monoliths and imbue them with power over time, then using each other and the monoliths as a battery they cast a spell that resurrects hundreds of undead in hours slowly scouring the ground and resurrecting each buried corpse it crosses. Just keep it interesting. Advancing the story is more important at this point than balance. Just hand wave it off to corrupt power from dark gods, demons, or an ancient spell they found that they immediately hid when they learned it.

 

Although balance could pretty easily be achieved, I'm not sure PC Necromancers are a good idea. Is this a world where everyone is running around with skeletons? Do they all walk zombies like your average middle class American housing development at 7 am? Are you planning to run combat constantly that PC's would need undead for? Combat is very deadly in BRP and should be used as a last resort. If you're planning for that much combat maybe this isn't the system for you. However Pokemon type battles with undead could be fun...

[p_clapham]

I like this method.  It makes Brazier of Power very useful to necromancers and summoners.

 

I too heartily recommend Magic World and it's supplement Advanced Sorcery for your Necromantic needs. Advanced Sorcery has all the good bits so make sure you pick that up. 

One way I deal with permanent powers in my games is power reservation. I use it whenever I want a caster like a Necromancer or Enchanter that can have lots of permanent spell effects going but I don't want the constant POW donations to become too taxing. Let's say a PC with 16 POW creates a zombie that costs 6 magic points (or whatever your chosen system calls them), the PC then has only 10 magic points he can use. Those points stay spent and do not regenerate for any reason until the spell keeping the zombie alive is dismissed by the caster. Then, they come back at a normal rate. A player does not get an immediate 6 magic points to use when they dismiss the zombie, although you could allow a spell that consumes the corpse and the spark of life to give them the reserved magic used by the corpse immediately, which could be interesting. This reservation system very easily lets you tweak the points cost of spells to be as powerful as you want (most casters will have 16-18 POW early on) so that they can have 1-2 zombies, 3-4 zombies, or even more.
 
The system also balances itself out in the fact that the more of their magic points a PC has reserved the less flexibility they have in spontaneous spell casting. Someone with a small group of zombies probably only has a handful of points to cast with each day making their other options much more limited. You could even add another rule similar to how demons work. Each zombie could cost a certain amount of your INT reservation to keep alive thus lowering the number of spells you could remember if you try to keep a horde of zombies alive. Either of these systems creates an actual trade-off for PC's: Do I have consistent meat shields and sacrifice utility? Do I need more flexibility and less zombies?
 
However, for NPC's, do whatever you like. I plan on having one encounter for my NPC's where three sorcerers head to the site of an ancient battle, erect monoliths and imbue them with power over time, then using each other and the monoliths as a battery they cast a spell that resurrects hundreds of undead in hours slowly scouring the ground and resurrecting each buried corpse it crosses. Just keep it interesting. Advancing the story is more important at this point than balance. Just hand wave it off to corrupt power from dark gods, demons, or an ancient spell they found that they immediately hid when they learned it.

 

Although balance could pretty easily be achieved, I'm not sure PC Necromancers are a good idea. Is this a world where everyone is running around with skeletons? Do they all walk zombies like your average middle class American housing development at 7 am? Are you planning to run combat constantly that PC's would need undead for? Combat is very deadly in BRP and should be used as a last resort. If you're planning for that much combat maybe this isn't the system for you. However Pokemon type battles with undead could be fun...

[Sunwolfe]

It sounds as if few employ the POW gain mechanic (Durnall 92), and I was wondering why this was or what trouble they have experienced with the ruling?

 

I realize much of how we conduct our games has to do with personal taste and vision and with that in mind I offer that magic users in my games have never shied away from burning permanent POW to create such things as artifacts and undead, or to summon, [i use a lightly modified RQ3 Ritual Magic for such actions] because they were actively gaining POW through the rule mentioned above. It always seemed that my PCs had more than enough POW to attempt such magics and did not feel the bite save only for the very short term...shrug.

 

If a Magic User wanted to create such an "army" of zombies, it would be possible with planning, banking and a clever application of their POW points; indeed, that would be an adventure in and of itself. I had a duo of such spell casters build nearly 60 POW between them in only a couple of sessions following a plan they'd devised to accomplish just such. I also like using the BRP mechanic as it gives rule and limitation for how a Necromancer conducts their fell art that the PCs can understand and either take advantage of, or in the case of a PC Magic User, employ themselves.

 

Cheers!

[Robsbot]

For my uses the POW gain is a bit hard because a character has to overcome an enemy with greater POW. This means in a duel they are already at a disadvantage and as we all know combat is already deadly as is. That's fine in my opinion for epic battles fighting strong sorcerers with 20+ power but I don't regularly pit my PC groups against monstrously powerful sorcerers. If you have a group of 2-4 PC's find an enemy sorcerer who's just mildly more powerful than them (say 18-19 POW) he's not going to risk a fight with multiple opponents. PC's can try to deescalate the situation instead. So this leaves the situation where they are fighting a sorcerer that's not too much more powerful than they are but has recruited or raised enough henchmen to make the fight even enough and the reason to fight great enough to risk their lives in the bout. In my campaigns this is just a narrow enough situation that it doesn't come up often enough to give my PC's an overflowing font of POW gains.

As always, YMMV.

That's why I use the magic reservation system for both the enchant spell from RQ6 sorcery and Necromantic activities from Sorcery in my current running campaign. It makes it so I don't feel the need to push my PC's into these narrow situations. When they are I usually tip the favor a bit towards the NPC's so it feels like a reward when they get that POW gain instead of them picking fights solely for the purpose of gaining POW. However I run a rather combat averse campaign mostly centered on the actions of humans. Other humanoid intelligent species are rare and are used as huge plot devices instead of going down to the market and seeing elves, dwarves, and other races. This keeps POW's rather closely matched. If your game has a myriad of species and some of those include very powerful but very frail races then the POW gain could be kept up rather easily without too much risk to PC's.

Like you said, it depends on taste, setting, and vision.

Also, ChtulhuFnord that was one point of the system. I wanted to tie certain users to more magical endowed sources. This forces very cool roleplaying in the form of creating the braziers and wizard staves (from the BGB). This also gives an outlet for POW expenditure and again focuses on the preparatory nature needed for those who choose more permanent casting effects. You don't just use Brazier of Power to prepare for a big demon to summon and bind, you use it as a battery to enhance your limited casting. I still haven't fiddled with allowing PC's to reserve mana from stored sources (again, brazier and wizard staves) because I'm afraid this would cause an imbalance, but I may shortly. We'll see.

[seneschal]

It seems to me that for NPCs you could skip the whole game mechanics thing and just let evil necromancers (anyone heard of a good necromancer?) do what they do.  Being the villain means never having to say you're sorry (or justify your abilities).

 

I can't envision a campaign where you'd have PC necromancers.  I mean, the player-characters are supposed to be the good guys, right?

[Conrad]

It seems to me that for NPCs you could skip the whole game mechanics thing and just let evil necromancers (anyone heard of a good necromancer?) do what they do.  Being the villain means never having to say you're sorry (or justify your abilities).

 

I can't envision a campaign where you'd have PC necromancers.  I mean, the player-characters are supposed to be the good guys, right?

Good is a relative term. And in some cultures a necromancer might be in it to combat what they consider evil. For example, monster hunters may use necromancy against the undead, to protect others against supernatural threats. Mongoose RQ II Necromantic Arts  has some varied reasons why necromancers of various kinds would do what they do.

[seneschal]

The ducks of Dragon Pass might disagree with you.