Café de Nuit

I'll put it out there: When it comes to computers and it's related online technicalities, I'm lazy. I like to believe I have the intelligence to figure the stuff out, but I don't care to. Couple that with the fact that I do sixteen hours shifts for sometimes weeks on end (the shite we do to support our families, yeah?), I don't have the time to figure out wiki-type stuff. But I can find the time to throw some food for thought. So to keep my thoughts pure (and to justify my laziness), I've created this thread as a brainstorm for Mourning Pyre.

That said, here we go:

The Church of the Midnight Sun was created some ago by two childhood friends that managed to survive the Creeping Death. Initially it was set up as a haven to other survivors in the form of survival caches: spare equipment left at marked locations (much like the rangers of old), along with basic handwritten survival manuals (what was edible in that specific area and what was not, hunting/trapping techniques, shelter construction, etc.) along with instructions on how to contact and locate other Church of the Midnight Sun members. The efforts of the Church's founding members was a gradual payoff: soon enough the organisation's membership swelled. People from all walks of life join the ranks and continued the work of finding and sheltering other survivors. But in a land like Mourning Pyre, circumstances oftentimes dictate moral north, and the first crack appeared in the Church of the Midnight Sun.

One of the founders, a man now known only as "Church", became more interested in the strength of the Church of the Midnight Sun. Over time he became dictatorial, even tyrannical. His vision of the Church became more and more militant while the other founding member, a man later to become known as "the Wanderer", held fast to the original idea of the Church: to help those in need survive and rebuild. Inevitably, the two idealists clashed. Some sided with the Wanderer, many sided with Church, and so the Wanderer was outed. Exiled. But Church is not a man of small victories. Fearing what every tyrant fears, he sent out his best scouts to find the Wanderer under the false pretense of mending their friendship for the betterment of the Church of the Midnight Sun. Wary but hopefull (the Wanderer knew his split with Church wasn't so cut and dry, that fear voted more often than heart), he returned to reconcile...only to find Church and his elite waiting in ambush.

Left for dead, arrows sticking from him like a pin cushion, the Wanderer sank to his knees and prepared to die. Church and his brutes walked away with smirks and laughter. Death was creeping. Claiming...

I have more, but not time. Maybe later I'll also throw out the list of key figures (there's about a dozen of them, and any one of them can take the backseat to YOUR ideas) that I have for the Church of the Midnight Sun. In the meantime, feel free to "wiki" any or all of this as you see fit. By that I mean hack, cut, carve, glue, whatever. It's just one organisation in a lawless land, so it should be easy enough to include everybody's ideas.

Kept simple for simple tinkering.

Cheers.

With their leader dead, the rest of the Wanderer's Renegades (as they were known), were hunted down and given the choice: join, die, or become living death. The self-annointed warlord Church would later rename the Church of the Midnight Sun to "the Midnight Riders", named both for their nocturnal activities and the fearsome steeds his elite ride during such "outings". Survival of the fittest indeed.

Over time, legend of the Wanderer became more myth than anything. A lone man looking for a cure, a warlord opposed to the salvation offered by the Midnight Riders, an outlaw, a nobody. Eventually, all but a few forgot. The Midnight Riders rode, scavenged, plundered, and "saved". A neccessary evil when facing the Creeping Death.

More recently, rumours broke through the Riders' laydowns. Somebody was again building survival caches and leaving behind handwritten bills detailing survival techniques and signing them "The Church of the Midnight Sun". Church is said to be fuming. His scouts are looking for more than supplies and "recruits", and some aren't reporting back. Independant communities are being interrogated, but are offering up no leads. The Midnight Riders are quietly preparing for war, fully expecting an opponent imbued with self-righteous wrath.

And hordes of ravenous undead roam the countryside, oblivious to the schemes of men...


And that's the sun-bleached bones of the Church of the Midnight Sun. Simple to read, easy to change. Names are left out for the purpose of expansion, as are the actual numbers of members. I was thinking less than a hundred personally; they're just bigger in their own heads, as a sort of subconscious distraction from what's really out there. The split between the two founders is more symbolic than anything. Two sides of the same coin. Both are right, both are wrong. Divided they fail. More on those thoughts later.

Next up, cast of characters (and where their heads are at).

I like the start. It has a slight "Resident Evil" feel but not so much that it feels like a copy.

I'm curious about the Creeping Death though, specifically it's curse. It's a living spell, sentient but not intelligent (if I remember Eberron correctly), so what would work for its curse. Clearly we can't deprive it of bodies, otherwise the whole "all dead rise" principle wouldn't work. But nothing else I can think of seems to work.

Also, what would a living Animate Dead spell look like? I'm envisioning a shroud of ghostly grey mist, which would definitely help it when it came to hiding (since it could blend in with normal mist and fog, something that all good zombie stories need.

I'll see I can slip the above into the wiki sometime.
(It's actually pretty easy to do. Make a login, and click the edit tab at the top then write, with buttons helping format. Not much harder than using a forum.)

devilfox wrote:I like the start. It has a slight "Resident Evil" feel but not so much that it feels like a copy.

I'm curious about the Creeping Death though, specifically it's curse. It's a living spell, sentient but not intelligent (if I remember Eberron correctly), so what would work for its curse. Clearly we can't deprive it of bodies, otherwise the whole "all dead rise" principle wouldn't work. But nothing else I can think of seems to work.

That's a good question. I'm open to ideas as well. My initial thought was "the more it knows the more it realizes it doesn't know." It wants to gain as many minds as possible, but also knows that once all the humans are dead it will have reached its limit.
There's also an element of impotence. The Dark Powers have given it intelligence (to augment its sentience) but it is impotent and can only watch.

devilfox wrote:Also, what would a living Animate Dead spell look like? I'm envisioning a shroud of ghostly grey mist, which would definitely help it when it came to hiding (since it could blend in with normal mist and fog, something that all good zombie stories need.

A grey mist works. Perhaps with a tinge of sickly green.

I was thinking about this Darklord today. It would be afraid of losing its power and intelligence. Any walking dead that are destroyed would weaken it. There could be fodder for a curse there.

In order to gain more power, it needs an influx of living creatures. It must be intelligent enough to know that the number of living creatures within its influence is dwindling. If the Creeping Death discovered a pathway from other domains, it would try to lure the living to its domain. Heroes could be drawn by these rumors into Mourning Pyre and have to battle their way out.

The Creeping Death may have a hatred for the Warforged. I believe that Warforged cannot be animated dead in the normal sense. This would put them outside of the Darklord's influence and a possible thorn in its side. The curse could be connected to these Warforged. Perhaps, the Creeping Death can never remove the Warforged presence in its domain regardless of the power of its hordes of dead.

Jester of the FoS wrote:That's a good question. I'm open to ideas as well. My initial thought was "the more it knows the more it realizes it doesn't know." It wants to gain as many minds as possible, but also knows that once all the humans are dead it will have reached its limit.
There's also an element of impotence. The Dark Powers have given it intelligence (to augment its sentience) but it is impotent and can only watch.

So, basically, it doesn't just animate dead, it also absorbs the minds of those it animates? Perhaps in addition to the potential of running out of bodies to raise, it could also be haunted by the memories of those it has absorbed. This could be especially fun if it, for instance, absorbed the mind of a wizard and thus knew the wizard's spells but was powerless to cast them.

Watch out: some of these ideas seem to be reminiscent of Toben the Many. (not a dealbreaker. There's room for both, IMHO, I would just recommend being wary of getting too similar.)

Gonzoron of the FoS wrote:Watch out: some of these ideas seem to be reminiscent of Toben the Many. (not a dealbreaker. There's room for both, IMHO, I would just recommend being wary of getting too similar.)

Yea, I thought that myself.

That being said, Toben is able to inhabit numerous bodies at a time. Personally, I would definitely keep the Creeping Death confined to a single body and single consciousness. In that sense, perhaps it would be a good idea to move away from the concept of the Creeping Death absorbing minds. It is a spell, after all, and thus a unique darklord - surely we can find a curse unique enough to suit it without any overlap with Tobin.

I just happen to be drawing a blank atm.


Edit:

Just read over the description for the Animate Dead spell (from the SRD since I'm at work) thinking perhaps we could draw part of the curse from there. The spell states that a black onyx must be placed in the mouth or eye-socket of each corpse to be animated.

Now, I don't have my Eberron Campaign Guide with me, but how would a living spell work in that regard? Could we, perhaps, make black onyx a rare commidity in Mourning Pyre? And if that's the case, perhaps the majority of the onyx trade is controlled by another party (Five's "Redeemer" perhaps). The CD would therefore be wanting control, but would realise that it couldn't just throw waves and waves of undead against its enemy - since without the onyxes, it has no way of replenishing its ranks.

(See, this is how my brains works when I'm at work. Government job, and I spend my time thinking about throwing waves of zombies and skeletons at my problems.)

devilfox wrote:

Gonzoron of the FoS wrote:Watch out: some of these ideas seem to be reminiscent of Toben the Many. (not a dealbreaker. There's room for both, IMHO, I would just recommend being wary of getting too similar.)

Yea, I thought that myself.

That being said, Toben is able to inhabit numerous bodies at a time. Personally, I would definitely keep the Creeping Death confined to a single body and single consciousness. In that sense, perhaps it would be a good idea to move away from the concept of the Creeping Death absorbing minds. It is a spell, after all, and thus a unique darklord - surely we can find a curse unique enough to suit it without any overlap with Tobin.

I just happen to be drawing a blank atm.


Edit:

Just read over the description for the Animate Dead spell (from the SRD since I'm at work) thinking perhaps we could draw part of the curse from there. The spell states that a black onyx must be placed in the mouth or eye-socket of each corpse to be animated.

Now, I don't have my Eberron Campaign Guide with me, but how would a living spell work in that regard? Could we, perhaps, make black onyx a rare commidity in Mourning Pyre? And if that's the case, perhaps the majority of the onyx trade is controlled by another party (Five's "Redeemer" perhaps). The CD would therefore be wanting control, but would realise that it couldn't just throw waves and waves of undead against its enemy - since without the onyxes, it has no way of replenishing its ranks.

(See, this is how my brains works when I'm at work. Government job, and I spend my time thinking about throwing waves of zombies and skeletons at my problems.)

That fits the idea of the zombie apocalypse less, which is the theme of the domain. The dead just rise.

Jester of the FoS wrote:That fits the idea of the zombie apocalypse less, which is the theme of the domain. The dead just rise.

Oh yea. Hadn't thought of that.

*back to the drawing board*

Okay, curse idea.
I like the idea that it can take over a body of one of the dead in the land at any time. Perhaps limited to corporeal dead.
But the Creeping Death is still technically alive. It's a living spell. In a land of the dead that can only act through the dead. As it has grown in size and intelligence (and since it has been grabbed by the Mists) it has learned of other ideas only living minds create: art, civilization, community, family. But all it has are the dead and the living kill its husks as soon as they are seen. Part of it longs for the company of the living, to truly experience life.

Oh, and:
http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/wiki ... ght_Riders

Jester of the FoS wrote:Okay, curse idea.
I like the idea that it can take over a body of one of the dead in the land at any time. Perhaps limited to corporeal dead.
But the Creeping Death is still technically alive. It's a living spell. In a land of the dead that can only act through the dead. As it has grown in size and intelligence (and since it has been grabbed by the Mists) it has learned of other ideas only living minds create: art, civilization, community, family. But all it has are the dead and the living kill its husks as soon as they are seen. Part of it longs for the company of the living, to truly experience life.

I like this idea for the curse, and it adds a nice element of "human" to a very inhuman entity.

Also, the Animate Dead spell only creates corporeal undead (skeletons and zombies, primarily) so limiting the Creeping Death's control to corporeal body makes sense. I can't imagine that there'd be too many non-corporeal dead in the realm anyway.

devilfox wrote:Also, the Animate Dead spell only creates corporeal undead (skeletons and zombies, primarily) so limiting the Creeping Death's control to corporeal body makes sense. I can't imagine that there'd be too many non-corporeal dead in the realm anyway.

Actually, I could imagine it... if the zombie apocalypse theme is done with actual zombies and not "contagious" zombies (Romero-style ghouls, or Resident evil-style disease-borne zombies) then many of of the victims of the zombies wouldn't become zombies themselves and probably die in just the sort of violent, emotional conditions that would spawn ghosts. I could see the ghosts actually being somewhat benevolent in this setting: siding with the living and guiding them, to prevent others from sharing their fate.

I guess that's a question to be decided: Does the zombie plague spread by biting/killing, or does the Creeping Death have to actively animate corpses of the victims?

I propose that the latter might be an interesting spin. Opens up possibilities like rushing to save a dead body before the living spell gets there. (I'd imagine there would be a cultural fear of raising/resurrection magic in this domain, so it might not be to save the person, but just to prevent them from joining the zombies. I assume from the name of the domain that the dead are usually burnt instead of buried, so it might just be a race to give a fallen friend a proper cremation.)

But then again, I'm not a real expert on Zombie Apocalypse stories, so if you think it should be more hopeless, it could go the other way.

Gonzoron of the FoS wrote:

devilfox wrote:Also, the Animate Dead spell only creates corporeal undead (skeletons and zombies, primarily) so limiting the Creeping Death's control to corporeal body makes sense. I can't imagine that there'd be too many non-corporeal dead in the realm anyway.

Actually, I could imagine it... if the zombie apocalypse theme is done with actual zombies and not "contagious" zombies (Romero-style ghouls, or Resident evil-style disease-borne zombies) then many of of the victims of the zombies wouldn't become zombies themselves and probably die in just the sort of violent, emotional conditions that would spawn ghosts. I could see the ghosts actually being somewhat benevolent in this setting: siding with the living and guiding them, to prevent others from sharing their fate.

I guess that's a question to be decided: Does the zombie plague spread by biting/killing, or does the Creeping Death have to actively animate corpses of the victims?

I propose that the latter might be an interesting spin. Opens up possibilities like rushing to save a dead body before the living spell gets there. (I'd imagine there would be a cultural fear of raising/resurrection magic in this domain, so it might not be to save the person, but just to prevent them from joining the zombies. I assume from the name of the domain that the dead are usually burnt instead of buried, so it might just be a race to give a fallen friend a proper cremation.)

But then again, I'm not a real expert on Zombie Apocalypse stories, so if you think it should be more hopeless, it could go the other way.

I'd do both. More akin to Walking Dead.
If you're bitten you get sick and likely die, but if you die any other way you still come back. The dead just rise, as an effect of the Creeping Death's presence.