undead Draconians? - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

undead Draconians?

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
HobbitFan
Dec 21, 2003 0:48:29 a friend and I are running our group through a DL campaign. I wanted to use som undead draconians, created from the corpse of a dead dragon. My question is what the board thinks I should do stat wise?

Should I use normal draconians and apply templates like ghosts or skeletons? Or should I try to make something new with different powers to surprise the PCs? I'm leaning towards the second but I didn't want to make some sort of uber-villain that broke the rules too badly.

Any suggestions, gang?
#2
ferratus
Dec 21, 2003 1:08:54
Originally posted by HobbitFan

Should I use normal draconians and apply templates like ghosts or skeletons?

That would be the simplest.

Or should I try to make something new with different powers to surprise the PCs? I'm leaning towards the second but I didn't want to make some sort of uber-villain that broke the rules too badly.

Any suggestions, gang?

There is a .pdf floating around about how to make a monster. It is free, so someone here on the boards might be able to provide you with a link to a website hosting it.

Have you any ideas on what you want to have these powers to do?
#3
darthsylver
Dec 21, 2003 12:06:53 I would just use templates on the standard draconian but possibly change the death effect of the draconians as they are already dead.
#4
Dragonhelm
Dec 21, 2003 13:02:56 Perhaps I'm overlooking something here, but how can one have undead draconians? Wouldn't their death throes work against this?
#5
zombiegleemax
Dec 21, 2003 13:39:12 yeah, i just don't see it happening either... unless they were created by and energy draining undead like a wight or something, but something that needs a physical corpse to reanimate wouldn't work...
#6
zombiegleemax
Dec 21, 2003 13:40:51
Originally posted by Dragonhelm
Perhaps I'm overlooking something here, but how can one have undead draconians? Wouldn't their death throes work against this?

Yes, at least for corporeal undead, with the exception of Sivaks. Depending on how you view Draconian souls, it would be possible for them to return as incorporeal undead as well. That reminds me, a Baaz Golem would be peechy too.
#7
zombiegleemax
Dec 21, 2003 14:23:09 Sigh, read the first post guys, "I wanted to use som undead draconians, created from the corpse of a dead dragon." Now that THAT's out of the way....
#8
zombiegleemax
Dec 21, 2003 14:39:52 Sigh, that's not how you make a draconain. To make a draconan you need eggs not a dragon.
#9
zombiegleemax
Dec 21, 2003 14:44:04 I can make draconian undead out of a dragon's corpse. I can also cast a Fireball and use Fly to power my SUV. Can you do those things? Because if not, I don't think you should be lecturing anyone on the proper use of Necromantic magic!

My point clear?
#10
zombiegleemax
Dec 21, 2003 15:22:53 'Bout as clear as mud.
I guess I sorta see an Inverse Egg=Live Dracoinan Corpse=Undead Draconian sorta thing going on. But that's about it.

PS. If used properly you should only need the Fireball to power the SUV.;)
#11
zombiegleemax
Dec 21, 2003 15:26:19 'Twas a joke, my good man. I was saying that since matgic isn't real, it isn't truly quantifiable in the real world, whose are we to say what can and cannot be done. Using a dragon's body to create Undead Draconians may be impossible, but so may transforming a Kender into a Bronze Dragon, or a Bronze Dragon itself! So really, there's no reason to complain about this method of Draconian creation.

That was my point.
#12
zombiegleemax
Dec 21, 2003 15:29:19 My suggestion would be to make the undead draconians out of dead dragon eggs. This builds off of the original dragonlance premise that draconians are created from dragon eggs, not dragons themselves. That, by the way, is not so much him telling you how he thinks it should work, but rather how it has already been established that the creation of draconians works.

If you use a dead dragon itself, you get strange questions like 'how does a huge dragon become multiple little draconians?' I think it'd be better to use the dead dragon fetus ;) But that's just my suggestion.

I think it's a cool concept, though. I would start by establishing what you want these undead draconians to do, and then go from there with their abilities. Just make sure you test the CR, as that's the only real thing that needs balancing. If they're powerful, they're powerful, just make sure you admit it.

EDIT: About the argument of 'magic is fantasy and fantasy isn't real, therefore governed by no rules' - This is true only to an extent. Even a fantasy setting must be true to itself, as must all writing be true to itself in order to be a believable setting. So if pre-established methods for working magic are established, it's generally a bad idea to nix those. That's all, I believe, he's trying to say here. This is why so many inconsistencies in DL bother people, as most authors have trouble double-checking each other, and the 'truth' of the world gets skewed.
#13
zombiegleemax
Dec 21, 2003 16:00:38 Eww, dead dragon eggs, stinky!
#14
zombiegleemax
Dec 21, 2003 16:35:52 Hello William!
#15
zombiegleemax
Dec 21, 2003 17:00:07
Originally posted by William Coburn
Eww, dead dragon eggs, stinky!

But isn't evil always stinky, ultimately?
#16
lugnut71
Dec 21, 2003 17:15:16 Not when it has on it's axe bodyspray then evil gets all the ladies.
#17
zombiegleemax
Dec 21, 2003 18:08:10 Alternatively, you could try and make an undead draconian from the instant before it died. A bozak, for example, turns into bones before exploding. Animate it before it does, with perhaps a quickened animate dead...

Someone was also talking about having a death knight bozak that was in a continual state of exploding. That was cool.
#18
zombiegleemax
Dec 21, 2003 22:15:44
Originally posted by Primus, the One and Prime
Sigh, read the first post guys, "I wanted to use som undead draconians, created from the corpse of a dead dragon." Now that THAT's out of the way....

That is not the actual point. The point is that Draconian death throes activate when the draconian is dead. If you create an undead draconian (method is irrelevant here) it would automatically trigger its death throe. That's why darthsylver mentioned changing that part in the draconian's description.

Edit: sorry, it was darthsylver, not apocalyp$e, who mentioned it.
#19
baron_the_curse
Dec 22, 2003 3:43:39 Since it was brought up I’m curious as to how an incorporeal draconian would work. The ritual that created the original draconians mentions that the good dragon eggs where infused with the souls of abishai baatezu. So would a ghostly draconian resemble his demonic soul?

It’s hard for me to believe now that draconian souls are actually demonic. How will this work, obviously Kang and his company where not saints, but they truly managed to walk away from the darkness. When Kang or Slith dies where do their souls go? Or are their souls just an abishai demonic force the will return to the Abyss? Do draconians just have a false persona that vanishes at death, leaving behind only their demonic soul?
#20
zombiegleemax
Dec 22, 2003 8:58:19 Maybe they create a second soul, that formed from a part of the dragon which they were created from. Wouldn't that be something? Every draconian suffers from multiple personality disorder, as the 'good' soul wars with the 'evil' one. Just a thought.

Newer draconians, ofcourse, wouldn't be afflicted in this manner, were one to suppose this affliction even existed. They'd just be new souls, draconian souls.
#21
kalanth
Dec 22, 2003 11:41:26 Well, some undead types are formed because of contact and some because the person choses to become that type. So in that aspect, I would not foresee any problems with Wight or Lych type Draconian undead. Maybe a vampire or two, or use magical means to become a Lycanthope (I know the curse of Lycanthropy does not exsist, but I remember hearing that the magical version does exsist). Then there are other beasts, like the Wendigo, which has a curse that can turn a beast into it as well. All in all, the only undead that I can't see a draconian is a skeleton, zombie, or mummy type, since those are amoungst the types that require the target be killed first. Maybe the DM could rule that, though you 'die' by becoming these particular types of undead, the ritual has an unknown side effect of delaying the death throe, and when the throe finally goes off it is stronger than it was in life. Just some ideas on how to make this more reasonable.
#22
darthsylver
Dec 22, 2003 13:43:46 I was kinda curious about a vampire Drac. I mean the Vamp drains all blood, then begins to replace the blood with his own. But the minute that the blood is completely drained the Draconian is officially dead. So would the drac death effect take place when the vampire was replacing the stolen blood?
#23
zombiegleemax
Dec 22, 2003 17:18:15 it probably would trigger a death. Which means...... ooo the possibilities for the stupid vampire. I can see it now. The player characters stumble into a scene of a vampire trying to make an undead army of super-beasts. And unstead finds out his fangs are now stuck in stone!
"HEy... uh... guys... be kind and break me out of this thing? Please? hey, where'd you get that steak? oh no..."
#24
iltharanos
Dec 23, 2003 0:31:02
Originally posted by Magus_Extreme
it probably would trigger a death. Which means...... ooo the possibilities for the stupid vampire. I can see it now. The player characters stumble into a scene of a vampire trying to make an undead army of super-beasts. And unstead finds out his fangs are now stuck in stone!
"HEy... uh... guys... be kind and break me out of this thing? Please? hey, where'd you get that steak? oh no..."

Hehe. I don't see why the vamp would be afraid of a steak. Unless there was some juicy garlic spicing added atop it. ;)

Besides, even if it were a stake, it wouldn't do the vampire hunter/killer any good as vamps have no particular vulnerability to wooden stakes in 3.0 or 3.5 edition. Now if it was a magical silver stake, then he'd be scared. ;)
#25
talinthas
Dec 23, 2003 3:29:46 the real question i have is why? What do you need undead dracs for? It's obviously a stretch to try to even concieve of, so why put yourself to the effort? There are lots of cool undead already out there, and you can always use undead bakali to fill the moldy lizard spot.
#26
HobbitFan
Dec 23, 2003 16:43:14 I'd like to thank everyone for the posts. Plenty to think about,

I hadn't intended for the undead draconians to be reanimated draconiams that have already died and gone through their death throes. If we DO decide to go that route obviously we will have to be careful on what is left physically (for corporeal undead) or spiritually. But with high level clerical magic anything is really possible...

I was really thinking of a sort of magical ritual based loosely upon the one which created the draconains from the dragon eggs initially.

One idea I really liked was using dead dragon infants or even unhatched dead eggs. What about fossilized eggs from the distant past?

To answer a more recent question of why I wanted to do this. The answer is simple: I wanted to do something different my PCs didn't know about. I hoped to lead them astray thinking they were hunting down a sort-of Krynnish equiavalent of Forgotten realm's Cult of the Dragon and then spring the undead Draconians on them to mix things up.
#27
darthsylver
Dec 23, 2003 21:47:01 One route you could go (depending on the type of undead you use) is this. Seeing as how Draconians are a "race" now rather than simply a expendible shock, they have souls. (Not sure if any shoed up in War of teh Souls). So certain dracs come back as undead for whatever reason.

Perhaps (I know, I know it's a cliche) because they have unfinished business. Or maybe they are to correct a crime (The Crow). O rperhaps they are so filled with rage and hate that even Chemosh does not want them in his realm, or even made a deal with them after they had died?

When gods get involved anything can happen.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 HobbitFan Dec 21, 2003 0:48:29	a friend and I are running our group through a DL campaign. I wanted to use som undead draconians, created from the corpse of a dead dragon. My question is what the board thinks I should do stat wise? Should I use normal draconians and apply templates like ghosts or skeletons? Or should I try to make something new with different powers to surprise the PCs? I'm leaning towards the second but I didn't want to make some sort of uber-villain that broke the rules too badly. Any suggestions, gang?
#2 ferratus Dec 21, 2003 1:08:54	Originally posted by HobbitFan Should I use normal draconians and apply templates like ghosts or skeletons? That would be the simplest. Or should I try to make something new with different powers to surprise the PCs? I'm leaning towards the second but I didn't want to make some sort of uber-villain that broke the rules too badly. Any suggestions, gang? There is a .pdf floating around about how to make a monster. It is free, so someone here on the boards might be able to provide you with a link to a website hosting it. Have you any ideas on what you want to have these powers to do?
#3 darthsylver Dec 21, 2003 12:06:53	I would just use templates on the standard draconian but possibly change the death effect of the draconians as they are already dead.
#4 Dragonhelm Dec 21, 2003 13:02:56	Perhaps I'm overlooking something here, but how can one have undead draconians? Wouldn't their death throes work against this?
#5 zombiegleemax Dec 21, 2003 13:39:12	yeah, i just don't see it happening either... unless they were created by and energy draining undead like a wight or something, but something that needs a physical corpse to reanimate wouldn't work...
#6 zombiegleemax Dec 21, 2003 13:40:51	Originally posted by Dragonhelm Perhaps I'm overlooking something here, but how can one have undead draconians? Wouldn't their death throes work against this? Yes, at least for corporeal undead, with the exception of Sivaks. Depending on how you view Draconian souls, it would be possible for them to return as incorporeal undead as well. That reminds me, a Baaz Golem would be peechy too.
#7 zombiegleemax Dec 21, 2003 14:23:09	Sigh, read the first post guys, "I wanted to use som undead draconians, created from the corpse of a dead dragon." Now that THAT's out of the way....
#8 zombiegleemax Dec 21, 2003 14:39:52	Sigh, that's not how you make a draconain. To make a draconan you need eggs not a dragon.
#9 zombiegleemax Dec 21, 2003 14:44:04	I can make draconian undead out of a dragon's corpse. I can also cast a Fireball and use Fly to power my SUV. Can you do those things? Because if not, I don't think you should be lecturing anyone on the proper use of Necromantic magic! My point clear?
#10 zombiegleemax Dec 21, 2003 15:22:53	'Bout as clear as mud. I guess I sorta see an Inverse Egg=Live Dracoinan Corpse=Undead Draconian sorta thing going on. But that's about it. PS. If used properly you should only need the Fireball to power the SUV.;)
#11 zombiegleemax Dec 21, 2003 15:26:19	'Twas a joke, my good man. I was saying that since matgic isn't real, it isn't truly quantifiable in the real world, whose are we to say what can and cannot be done. Using a dragon's body to create Undead Draconians may be impossible, but so may transforming a Kender into a Bronze Dragon, or a Bronze Dragon itself! So really, there's no reason to complain about this method of Draconian creation. That was my point.
#12 zombiegleemax Dec 21, 2003 15:29:19	My suggestion would be to make the undead draconians out of dead dragon eggs. This builds off of the original dragonlance premise that draconians are created from dragon eggs, not dragons themselves. That, by the way, is not so much him telling you how he thinks it should work, but rather how it has already been established that the creation of draconians works. If you use a dead dragon itself, you get strange questions like 'how does a huge dragon become multiple little draconians?' I think it'd be better to use the dead dragon fetus ;) But that's just my suggestion. I think it's a cool concept, though. I would start by establishing what you want these undead draconians to do, and then go from there with their abilities. Just make sure you test the CR, as that's the only real thing that needs balancing. If they're powerful, they're powerful, just make sure you admit it. EDIT: About the argument of 'magic is fantasy and fantasy isn't real, therefore governed by no rules' - This is true only to an extent. Even a fantasy setting must be true to itself, as must all writing be true to itself in order to be a believable setting. So if pre-established methods for working magic are established, it's generally a bad idea to nix those. That's all, I believe, he's trying to say here. This is why so many inconsistencies in DL bother people, as most authors have trouble double-checking each other, and the 'truth' of the world gets skewed.
#13 zombiegleemax Dec 21, 2003 16:00:38	Eww, dead dragon eggs, stinky!
#14 zombiegleemax Dec 21, 2003 16:35:52	Hello William!
#15 zombiegleemax Dec 21, 2003 17:00:07	Originally posted by William Coburn Eww, dead dragon eggs, stinky! But isn't evil always stinky, ultimately?
#16 lugnut71 Dec 21, 2003 17:15:16	Not when it has on it's axe bodyspray then evil gets all the ladies.
#17 zombiegleemax Dec 21, 2003 18:08:10	Alternatively, you could try and make an undead draconian from the instant before it died. A bozak, for example, turns into bones before exploding. Animate it before it does, with perhaps a quickened animate dead... Someone was also talking about having a death knight bozak that was in a continual state of exploding. That was cool.
#18 zombiegleemax Dec 21, 2003 22:15:44	Originally posted by Primus, the One and Prime Sigh, read the first post guys, "I wanted to use som undead draconians, created from the corpse of a dead dragon." Now that THAT's out of the way.... That is not the actual point. The point is that Draconian death throes activate when the draconian is dead. If you create an undead draconian (method is irrelevant here) it would automatically trigger its death throe. That's why darthsylver mentioned changing that part in the draconian's description. Edit: sorry, it was darthsylver, not apocalyp$e, who mentioned it.
#19 baron_the_curse Dec 22, 2003 3:43:39	Since it was brought up I’m curious as to how an incorporeal draconian would work. The ritual that created the original draconians mentions that the good dragon eggs where infused with the souls of abishai baatezu. So would a ghostly draconian resemble his demonic soul? It’s hard for me to believe now that draconian souls are actually demonic. How will this work, obviously Kang and his company where not saints, but they truly managed to walk away from the darkness. When Kang or Slith dies where do their souls go? Or are their souls just an abishai demonic force the will return to the Abyss? Do draconians just have a false persona that vanishes at death, leaving behind only their demonic soul?
#20 zombiegleemax Dec 22, 2003 8:58:19	Maybe they create a second soul, that formed from a part of the dragon which they were created from. Wouldn't that be something? Every draconian suffers from multiple personality disorder, as the 'good' soul wars with the 'evil' one. Just a thought. Newer draconians, ofcourse, wouldn't be afflicted in this manner, were one to suppose this affliction even existed. They'd just be new souls, draconian souls.
#21 kalanth Dec 22, 2003 11:41:26	Well, some undead types are formed because of contact and some because the person choses to become that type. So in that aspect, I would not foresee any problems with Wight or Lych type Draconian undead. Maybe a vampire or two, or use magical means to become a Lycanthope (I know the curse of Lycanthropy does not exsist, but I remember hearing that the magical version does exsist). Then there are other beasts, like the Wendigo, which has a curse that can turn a beast into it as well. All in all, the only undead that I can't see a draconian is a skeleton, zombie, or mummy type, since those are amoungst the types that require the target be killed first. Maybe the DM could rule that, though you 'die' by becoming these particular types of undead, the ritual has an unknown side effect of delaying the death throe, and when the throe finally goes off it is stronger than it was in life. Just some ideas on how to make this more reasonable.
#22 darthsylver Dec 22, 2003 13:43:46	I was kinda curious about a vampire Drac. I mean the Vamp drains all blood, then begins to replace the blood with his own. But the minute that the blood is completely drained the Draconian is officially dead. So would the drac death effect take place when the vampire was replacing the stolen blood?
#23 zombiegleemax Dec 22, 2003 17:18:15	it probably would trigger a death. Which means...... ooo the possibilities for the stupid vampire. I can see it now. The player characters stumble into a scene of a vampire trying to make an undead army of super-beasts. And unstead finds out his fangs are now stuck in stone! "HEy... uh... guys... be kind and break me out of this thing? Please? hey, where'd you get that steak? oh no..."
#24 iltharanos Dec 23, 2003 0:31:02	Originally posted by Magus_Extreme it probably would trigger a death. Which means...... ooo the possibilities for the stupid vampire. I can see it now. The player characters stumble into a scene of a vampire trying to make an undead army of super-beasts. And unstead finds out his fangs are now stuck in stone! "HEy... uh... guys... be kind and break me out of this thing? Please? hey, where'd you get that steak? oh no..." Hehe. I don't see why the vamp would be afraid of a steak. Unless there was some juicy garlic spicing added atop it. ;) Besides, even if it were a stake, it wouldn't do the vampire hunter/killer any good as vamps have no particular vulnerability to wooden stakes in 3.0 or 3.5 edition. Now if it was a magical silver stake, then he'd be scared. ;)
#25 talinthas Dec 23, 2003 3:29:46	the real question i have is why? What do you need undead dracs for? It's obviously a stretch to try to even concieve of, so why put yourself to the effort? There are lots of cool undead already out there, and you can always use undead bakali to fill the moldy lizard spot.
#26 HobbitFan Dec 23, 2003 16:43:14	I'd like to thank everyone for the posts. Plenty to think about, I hadn't intended for the undead draconians to be reanimated draconiams that have already died and gone through their death throes. If we DO decide to go that route obviously we will have to be careful on what is left physically (for corporeal undead) or spiritually. But with high level clerical magic anything is really possible... I was really thinking of a sort of magical ritual based loosely upon the one which created the draconains from the dragon eggs initially. One idea I really liked was using dead dragon infants or even unhatched dead eggs. What about fossilized eggs from the distant past? To answer a more recent question of why I wanted to do this. The answer is simple: I wanted to do something different my PCs didn't know about. I hoped to lead them astray thinking they were hunting down a sort-of Krynnish equiavalent of Forgotten realm's Cult of the Dragon and then spring the undead Draconians on them to mix things up.
#27 darthsylver Dec 23, 2003 21:47:01	One route you could go (depending on the type of undead you use) is this. Seeing as how Draconians are a "race" now rather than simply a expendible shock, they have souls. (Not sure if any shoed up in War of teh Souls). So certain dracs come back as undead for whatever reason. Perhaps (I know, I know it's a cliche) because they have unfinished business. Or maybe they are to correct a crime (The Crow). O rperhaps they are so filled with rage and hate that even Chemosh does not want them in his realm, or even made a deal with them after they had died? When gods get involved anything can happen.