Undead Army Gatherer

D&D 3e (3.0/3.5) Rules

by Sothus

History

After the Cataclysm, the Dark Queen began plotting her new attempt to enter the world and conquer it. It is widely known her stealing of the eggs from the Good Dragons, but other plans have been lost in the River of Time. One of them is Chemosh's Undead Army Gatherer.

As soon as the Undead Lord agreeed to join her, he plotted the creation of an artifact that would greatly raise the odds in favor of the Army of Evil. In every war, dead fall on each side. If the dead would rise again the Army of Darkness would know no defeat. So he would make the dead rise and fight again.

The first steps toward this goal took him to the faraway continent of Taladas: he needed to imbue life to a specific undead he had designed for the occasion, a feat that only a true follower of Mishakal could accomplish, and only in there he could find one. So when in a remote town of Thenol a plague of rats killed some of its population, the secret followers of Mislaxa wasted no resource to discover what was happening there and what to do to help. And as soon as the dead walked again their worries grew even more.

It was soon discovered that the root of the plague was not the rats; they were merely transmitting something they had also contracted but seemed to be immune to. The rats were followed and in an unknown cave under the town an undead being was found. The thing was stuck in a stony wall, immobile. The followers of the Healing Hand attacked the being and tore it to pieces, only to see how the lost limbs grew again. They attacked it with their spells, only to see it return from the brink of destruction. Finally, a sage helped them destroy the creature – or so they thought.

Chemosh knew that positive energy would not do the trick he wished, so he surreptitiously kept the thing in one peace. Having plotted for this day, the Undead Lord had raised a woman from childhood to be known as a wise and holy sage in the region. Mearedithia was the adviser of the town leaders, and so was consulted by the followers of Mislaxa. And it was she who told them what Chemosh had taught her to say: the only way of stopping the thing was turn it back to life. So the holy women prepared one of their most sacred rituals, one designed only for the most dire occasions, just like the one then.

During the casting of the powerful spell something went wrong. The thing seemed not only to receive the Positive Energy channeled by the priestesses, but also seemed to leech theirs. And only then, too late, did Mislaxa notice what was really taking place. She sought Chemosh in order to stop the process, but it was too late. The five women's life force was drained and their bodies fused with the undead, who had truly returned to life, granting the Gift of Undeath to the women in exchange for his life. Mislaxa the Gentle raged at being fooled this way and tried to destroy the thing, but Chemosh was quick enough to snatch his creation away, hiding it for a century so the Healer would forget it.

As soon as the war began, Chemosh put his invention to use. In the first battle, the price of its use was discovered. It was tested in a minor skirmish fought in Nordmaar, and even though all dead rose to fight, the bearers of the artifact died, their life essence drained irrevocably by the original undead part of the half living, half undead thing. The Dark Queen's rage for Chemosh's perceived betrayal was great, but the Undead Lord was able to calm her down and propose the solution to this unforeseen drawback: the use of prisoners and slaves, so the real army would not be affected.

Fortunately, this first skirmish was one of the few in which the Undead Army Gatherer would be used. A band of adventurers had seen the battle from afar. These mercenaries in the payroll of the Dark Queen's army decided that they would make better use of the thing than the army itself. So they used their positions inside the army to gather as much information as possible from the thing until they discovered who was in charge of it. They planted the seed of discord among Chemosh's clerics and made them turn on each other. As the tension grew among them, so did the tension among their patron gods, so the Undead Army Gatherer felt its connection to Chemosh decrease, until it finally broke free of the clerics' control. With the help of the mercenaries, it learned to control its undead half and escaped the Dark Queen's army, leaving a trail of undead behind, until finally it felt safe enough to kill its interested helpers. For a time it hid in the Taman Busuk but it was eventually found out and forced to flee, and is presumably still on the run.

Mishakal became aware of the resurgence of the Undead Army Gatherer as soon as it was used for the first time, but her efforts were being channeled in Paladine's plan to bring the Light again through a band of chosen heroes, so she kept an eye on it but did not act. As soon as it escaped she became very worried due to the sorrow it could bring, so as soon as the True Clerics were brought back one of their first errands was to find it and give it final rest.

And with both the followers of Good and Evil on his trail, the Undead Army Gatherer fled and plotted...

Powers

The Undead Army Gatherer has a single and very powerful power: when someone dies a violent death in its area of effect, the dead is risen again, at its command. The Undead Army Gatherer must channel negative energy to use its power. Its living component needs positive energy to stay alive, but as a partially undead being it cannot access the Positive Energy Plane, so it must feed on nearby living beings.

In game terms, whenever someone is killed (i.e. slain by another being) within 300 ft. of the Undead Army Collector, the being must make a DC 25 Fortitude save or raise as a corporeal undead of 5 HD or less, of a type chosen by the DM. This is a negative energy effect.

Also, the creatures closest to the newly-raised being are drained of Hit Dice equal to what the being had in life. The closest creature is affected first – if it is reduced to 0 Hit Dice, continue with the second-nearest creature, and so on. For example, a 6-HD creature dies next to three friends (a 4-HD fighter, a 3-HD rogue, and a 2-HD cleric). The fighter is closest so he is drained of 4 Hit Dice (and dies), leaving 2 more Hit Dice to drain. The rogue is next-closest so he is drained of the final 2 Hit Dice, and barely survives. (The cleric was far enough away that it was unaffected.) This is a positive energy effect.

Appearance

The Undead Army Gatherer is six beings in one. The five zombie-like undead priestesses, with their tattered, rotted blue clothes look straight out, with their backs all turned to the central being, the former undead, now alive again, whose black eyes show the madness that has crawled to his mind, due to the eternal life he is trapped into. It is always in the company of a small band of undead, usually zombies and skeletons, that protect it.

Means of Destruction

This is a holy artifact created with the power of two gods. Do not expect anything less than an Epic spell cast by a cleric of Chemosh or Mishakal (its creators) to destroy it.

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