Death Valley - A Horror Western TTRPG

Howdy Yall!

Welp, here we are, the final undead form, and frankly, my personal favorite (see Rattlesnake Roberts in the Actual Play). I guess it comes from how undeniably UNDEAD the skeleton is. In a lot of games, it's the underdog starter undead, the first thing a necromancer learns to raise, and it never stands a chance against the big guys.  In Death Valley, though, they do their darndest. 

You are no longer a bag of bones; you lost the bag. With this form, the worldly concerns of water and food are well behind you now. You are just brittle, clack, and rattle. While you don't have much in the way of muscles moving seems almost easier, you don't know what allows your motion, but at this point, you don't have a brain either, so you're pretty sure you don't need to think too hard about it. 

Skeletons are, among the undead, considered the bottom of the barrel. The furthest from connecting to the monad as they lack the blood and flesh of life. In religious circles, they represent the “dust” as many of the other lower undead do. Many skeletons don't even get to keep their sanity as the experience of their existence scratches against too many knowns of the person who once lived in the bones of the skeleton. This undead, more than any, are prone to losing pieces of themself and having to rebuild from the ground up. Many struggle with the philosophy of “the ship of Theseus" as they replace a femur there or a rib here.

In the realm of religion, many skeletons look disfavorably on the church of the black veil for the hand that fate “dealt” them. In skeleton culture, devout followers of the black veil are referred to as broken Basilars or broken skulls. They are seen as lost members of the family, too broken to know they are betraying their family, helping their oppressors, breaking even themselves to fit the mold the church places on them. While most skeletons feel this way, few speak out against the church lest they have their own skulls broken. Solo skeletons who are not zealots of the church are just seen as oddballs who are less traditional. 

Skeletons' communal nature and lack of rest have led to them spending a great deal of time learning how to pass the time. Skeletons make games usually involving bones or rolling implements like dice.  The spirit of the skeleton lies in its ability to keep itself looking for something to live for. The lack of things that would keep most folk going, the separation of their experience from their body, and its constant reminder that they are some strange entity make it difficult to hold one's mind together. With family, good humor(s), and a purpose, a skeleton can hold it together.

🦴Key Attribute: Agility (+1)

💀 Undead Boon — Hard Target: The space between your bones means all attacks against you that are not short range are made at -2 modifier

🌙 Starting Banes: Silver, Blunt Damage

🪇 Rattle of Bones: They can hear you coming. -2 die on sneak checks when near other beings, living or Undead

🩸 Healing — Bones of Theseus: once per dawn, you can use the bones of any dead Humanoid to repair your own and recover 1d6 life force. If the bones are from a living Humanoid, they can heal critical injuries or 2d6 life force.

⚰️Post-Mortem Questions:

Whats next? Well I figure we can talk about some mechanics and see where to go from there. The campaign is nearing its end. Im excited to see how it ends. 

Yee-haw,
Aaron

Howdy Yall!!

Today, we are talking about Ghouls. In many legends, ghouls are stalkers and terrorizers, grave yard creepers, and consumers of dead flesh. That holds up true here!



Pale grey hunger wrapped up in tooth and claw. You aren't smart in the classic way, but your mind is more cunning than ever. Your instincts are keener than a razor's edge, and all those tasty warmblood smells, you are not just some slavering dog scrounging for any meat you can sink your grizzly fangs into, no, no, no. You are a gourmand of earthly delights, and you'll be damned before you are told otherwise. 

The existence of a Ghoul is difficult; many go feral from the sheer pain of the hunger breaking down any psychological barriers they have and evoking the memories of their past life as their mind consumes itself for something, anything to take away a drop of the unending, ceaseless pit within them. Those who have held on to their minds and made peace with themselves have a strong tether to their past lives 

Those in the highest seats of society have elaborate dinner parties with a live guest who serves as the main course, slowly being devoured in pieces over the evening, and using horrid magiks to keep them alive. The less privileged in ghoul society make do with non-human fare, the best they can. Grading human meat has become a practice in ghoulish culture as well.  Rating live humans near the top and within that rating, 5 sub ratings based on health and heft of the human. Dead humans are rated based on the freshness of the human, preservation of the body, and the body itself, like any slab of beef. 

🍖Key Attribute: Wits (+1)

💀 Undead Boon — Flesh Prince of foul air: You can sniff out living and undead with your keen nose. Drift checks to track things are made at +3.

🌙 Starting Banes: Silver, Starvation

🤤 Eternal hunger: Your stomach speaks almost as much as you do, and your eyes don't hide it too well. If you are under starvation, -3 to pokerface checks until you eat.  

🩸 Healing — Ghoulash Dinning: Once per new dawn, you can consume the flesh of a dead human to heal 1d6 life force. If the human was alive, recover 2d6 or a critical injury instead! 

⚰️Post-Mortem Questions:

Hungry for more? Ghouls will be built in the vein of ambush predators who gain power from the food they eat. While starvation may seem very "mortal," I felt that bane was tied deeply to the mythology surrounding the Ghouls. Only one more, I hope you've got a bone to pick, cause we are going to Skeletons!!!

Yee-Haw,
Aaron

We made it to 200% pardners! Spread this around and get the rest of your crew on the train! I am so happy we made it here! Ill see you on the other side with some updates and information! For those of you on the fence I promise you its better down where we are deader!

Howdy Yall!


Aaron here! SO I GUESS YOU GUYS DONT LIKE ALETERATION! Fools gold won in the poll and my partners being smug so now i gotta deal with that, but they are cute so its fine. Im excited to start writing it now that its got a name and a theme and all the skeleton setup. Lets get to the undead.


Alright, today is a real treat. The mages of the Undead world and the spinners of life force within the undead ranks. The Wight! Think lich like vibes and you'll be close



A conduit of the dark necrosis you now inhabit, paler than eggshells and eyes dark and black. You feel the energy, your new corrupted life, swirling in you, begging to reach out and touch others, if only temporarily. 

Where hellhounds are the flames of rebellion, wights are the chill of oppression. Mortals experiencing the presence of a wight have stated that the sensation is what they imagined the 9th ring of hell to be. Those who travelled in winter months and nearly froze to death scream in the remembrance of its chilled embrace. While this is true of Wights, the beings themselves do not make the area around them colder; it just feels this way. Wights do naturally have more innate manipulation of life force over other undead. This has at times throughout the black veil Church's history made a power struggle between vampires and wights. Vampires won that struggle out through diplomacy over the long run, but wights have always been “above” the other high undead, at least in their minds. 

Wights view themselves as the bridge of understanding that most undead will have to cross at some point. Their entire existence revolves around the one thing every undead has in common. That being corrupted life force. With their powers, they can help calm emotions and keep the newly unbirthed from immediately going feral. Most wights believe it is the duty of their people to offer guidance to those who are new. 

Necromancers of the church and wights in general have come together over the singular concept that no sentient undead may be created; they are only birthed through the process of death, missing the window. They study this conundrum and carefully consider it philosophically and morally against the teachings of the church. As they are the most powerful manipulators and their energy can make such simple undead there is talk among some of the more daring wights that the first was actually a wight and not a vampire. Though that is not recognized as canon among religious leaders in any way. Those who are even more brazen can and do take part in the cultish sects of the black veil church.

🔮Key Attribute: Wits (+1)

💀 Undead Boon — Corrupted: You start the game with Rank 1 Corruption magic. Magic ranks cost 7 experience to learn as opposed to the normal 10.

🌙 Starting Banes: Silver, Magic (purification)

🫥 Purity is Pain: You are incapable of learning Purification magic. (reworking)

🩸 Healing — life drain: Once per new dawn, you may drain the life force of a Human to deal 1d6 life force of damage at short range and heal that much. If you roll a 6 or they die from the damage, you may cast a spell out of turn order. If the human is broken, you may heal 2d6 life force or recover a critical injury; this kills the human. 

⚰️Post-Mortem Questions:

My hope with wights is to illicit a sense that you can play the necromancer so many people wanna play at a lot of tables. A lot of their abilities let them make cooler and more impressive undead as they gain more and more power. Any way the Backerkit is almost done! You should go bug your friends about it and get them on here!!!

Yee-HAW!
Aaron

Howdy Yall!

Alright, time for a classic monster here, the Zombie! This one has a twist, though, while you still hunger for brains, you aren't witted or incapable of thought. You are a bringer of blight and slow creeping death, sure and tenacious.



Rotting and still rearing to go. You got lucky; as long as you don't lose your head, you'll always be around. You are a zombie, grubby all around but mostly grubbing for brains, your body, while falling apart, surges with strength and power. Contrary to popular belief, you aren't mindless either, just occasionally have some difficulty putting together a string of too many words. Mostly it's the tongue rot, though.  

Zombies have a tendency to have certain soft organs rot to the point of none use. Things like tongues would then prevent speech, for some reason, unlike skeletons, zombies require soft tissues to do many functions normally. This commonality between Zombies eventually resulted in Zombies adopting various forms of sign language from across different cultures and regions. Formalizing it under the black veil church was a Zombie from Eastern European countries in the 1800s. This led to a boom in communication for all undead, as some lacked the capacity to speak and now have a full language. Eventually, dialects and specific words were reflected in each undead's specific culture. 

Zombies engage in much of the labor around the black veils churchs, taking pride in carpentry, stonecutting, lumbering, metallurgy, and glass work. Zombies study the techniques of cultures and people from all across the globe as often as they can to get close to a legendary, perfect creation for their religious leaders. They also created guilds that act as unions. Zombies, while deeply indebted to the church, understand and want to make sure that the lower undead are represented in their labours and have formed unions with representatives from each of the lower undead. Organizing these with the demands of the church in mind is difficult, considering all the wants that the undead have, but since the late 1600s, anywhere the Zombie Labour Guilds have operated, there has been an increase in the overall satisfaction of the Lower undead workers. This was instituted after several large-scale riots and revolts in undead cities led by lower undead. The church asked some of their siblings of the veil how best to pacify the workers, and the guilds were put into effect, each one being led by a church member whom the local authority feels is trustworthy. 

🧟‍♂️Key Attribute: Strength (+1)

💀 Undead Boon — Don't lose your head: Critical Injuries other than losing a limb or your head do not affect you

🌙 Starting Banes: Silver, Target (Head)

🤢 What a rotter: As each day passes, you degrade a little more. Lose one life force at the start of each day. You can heal as normal. 

🩸 Healing — Thinking food: Once per new dawn, you can consume brains from a dead human and recover 1d6 life force. If this is a living human brain, you heal 2d6 or a critical injury.

⚰️Post-Mortem Questions:

Zombies' abilities expand to Grafting, rotting others, and making themselves even tougher! Tomorrow we cover the masters of Magic Wights!

Yee-Haw,
Aaron