You're Doing Undead Wrong

Undead are more than acceptable targets for any kind of adventurer. We should not let this terrifying force of un-nature be just a different flavoured sack of HP that maybe is susceptible to holy water. It’s totally unfair towards the pure distillate of terror those monsters can be, if only you let them be as scary and invincible as they deserve!

Yummy.
Zombie from Resident Evil 2 Remake.

Ok, maybe I played too much Resident Evil 2. But that rant is not that far from the truth. I think that, rather than just have a weakness to holy damage or fire damage or the such, each kind of creature should fundamentally be unique, and understanding them to defeat them or work around them is a challenge all on its own and worth exploring. And once the threat is understood, seeing players interact with it in different kind of ways and seeing them find solutions to outsmart, avoid or use it makes for an hell of an interesting game. That’s an extremely valuable lesson I took from comparing RE2 to other zombie games. Did I already say I liked RE2?
Anyway, that’s how I plan to revamp undead at my table. I don’t plan to use all those rules at once, except when I will because I want players to hate me. Mix and match always makes for a good time.

Arise, my warrios!
Settra the Unperishable from Warhammer Fantasy.

The Restless
Some undead don’t die. That’s a fact. Whatever inhabits that weapon of putrescent flesh that’s shambling towards you can’t be just shanked out of this world. They are not like you.
After being defeated, Restless Undead come back up after d4*10 minutes to try and eat you again. They are the reason corpses keep disappearing from the dungeon.
Each Character can spend 10 minutes keeping them down, sitting on their shambling remains and hitting whatever tries to rise again. Up to 3 Restless per Character can be kept down, preventing them from coming back.
Each Character can spend d4*10 minutes to utterly dismember a single undead, destroying it for good. Alternatively, it can always take 10 minutes if you use something appropriate, like oil to burn it down, nails to crucify it somewhere, or a chainsaw to make sure it is appropriately scattered all around the room.

"I live... again!"
Tchernobog model used in Blood development by Monolith.

The Recreated
Some undead did die. And somebody around them was not happy with that turn of events. The scuttling claws and broken bones, gathered by madmen, found unlife anew. Hulking horrors stitched together and grafted to each other, in a perennial state of walking destruction, held in one piece by thin wires and threads of hate.
Recreated Undead have 3d4 limbs attached to their grotesque bodies. Half of them can be used to attack everything in range with a single Action. They gather 1d4 more each time they kill something and spend 10 minutes tearing the corpse apart. They can only do so with the corpses they kill themselves.
Instead of dying, they make a Save. On a successful Save, they lose 1d4 limbs. On a failed Save, their flimsily put together bodies fall apart like they were always meant to.

I've waited waaaaay too long to find an excuse to use this one.
The Curse from Dorohedoro by Q Hayashida. GO READ DOROHEDORO PLEASE.

The Revengeful
Some undead are simply dead. They linger on, and the violence that unmade their lives lingers on too. Ghosts of murders past and future, stealers of killing intent.
The Revengeful are incorporeal. They won’t attack unless they sense a killing intent, regardless of who it is directed to, in their area of action. This area extends 10 feet around them, and a faint glowing mist hoovers in it, like a stagelight.
When they sense the intent, they start audibly screaming. The mist becomes blood red. Your hands are actually covered in blood. You are actually covered in blood. The screams come from you now. They start haunting and attacking all those involved in the current conflict, inflicting constant damage as they ravage their victims with spectral teeth, claws and broken bones. They follow everyone involved until something drops dead. Those killed strengthen the Revengeful and sate its bloodlust for a day, giving it peace for a few hours.
They are spitefully condemned by themselves to relieve the key moments in their violent end. During this theatrical dance of death, they disappear every d4 rounds of reenacted suffering and silent screams, to reappear in the next spot of this macabre play. There are usually no more than 3 key spots/moments, that are forced to relive in loops for all eternity.
This ghastly, continuous rehash of their violent deaths can and should give out some important features and information on the dungeon, of course.

That's gonna take some time to clean up.
Screenshot from DAYZ.

HP, Speed and whatever else
Just make them fuckin’ slow and avoidable. One thing that the latest incarnation of RE2 taught me is that the undead are a fuckin’ phenomenal trap, and a not so great straight up fight. Fighting them is unreliable. Or at least, make most of them so. Exceptions are always a good time.
I make them move 10 feet per turn, inflict a good amount of damage (3 Afflictions, which is roughly a d6/d8 in B/X terms, probably not outright lethal but very scary) with a pretty high bonus (they reliably anything that’s not armored), and they go down as soon as they receive an Injury ignoring Afflictions (so they would have, like 1-2HD, but ignore all the damage that’s less than 4).
Being so slow and damaging, they are dangerous in numbers or in close quarters with little space of maneuver, which is pretty much how I think undead should work as interesting elements in a dungeon anyway.
I think I’ll have fun running them. I can’t really tell for my players, however I hope their screams and improvised plans to salvage the situation will be entertaining.

2d6 Deadly Mech Failures

The Ballad of JJ Bangaroo
The flames erupting from the steel carcass over the dune. While the green blood from the giant was spilling on the dune in a fountain of fire, the red blood from the gunslinger was staining the sands of the outbacks.
"4 holes, punctured lung, pulverized femur. Looks like you're a goner this time, JJ."
Gurgles of pain, covered by the words of the flaming thunder, as the Doc's hairy paws checked underneath the bloody clothes.
The battle was over. The merchant's Bull was gone, but it's cargo container was not. The Bangaroos' stayed undefeated. Their spirits were not.
"We can't just let him die like that Doc! You gotta do something!"
JJ's gun was there. One bullet left. Fate's last laugh, in the face of burning hellfire and the bloodiest victory to date, underneath the shadow of the Flying Englishman's bovine head.
"I can't do shit. JJ gotta decide how he's gonna go. There you are sonny. What shall we tell her?"
The gun was cocked and put in JJ's bloody hand. A deep breath, a last gurgle before the flash.
"Kill... that fuckin' hoe..."

PEW PEW PEW
Random Lego Mechas from the Internet.

What's This Bullshit, Anyway?
This was made for a campaign (actually a test drive for a whole new game) which was started and enjoyed for about 6 sessions if I recall correctly.
The campaign/game was called Raging Bulls. Set in an alternative 1890, where England never lost colonies due to giant mechas and super bio-fuels (yep, the mechas had bovine heads and I think you all can easily guess how they were called). So, basically, America is a giant farm for PowerGreen (the fuel) and an industrialized colony choke-full of mutants, Europe except for England has gone to shit due to an ecological disaster and became a toxic jungle, African colonies became full of refugees from Europe trying (and partially succeeding) at rebuilding their nations there, Asia was under Chinese hegemony and nobody knows what the fuck is happening there, and Australia is a toxic deforested desert ruled by convicts and mostly abandoned by both God and the Queen (but this could change pretty fast).
So, it was today's world with bovine-headed mechas called Raging Bulls, because they are fuckin' rad and we wanted to be that rad without doing meth (yeah, we're posers).

Mooooooo.
Raging Bulls Concept Art by Luca Coppola.

That Didn't Explain Shit!
Ok, ruley stuff: Raging Bulls were like small characters, so they had their own sheets with stats, equip and so on. Most of that is totally useless right now, so important stuff only:
-Size: bigger Bulls hosted more people, consumed more PowerGreen (aka were more costly to refill), and were sturdier;
-Speed: how fast the Bull goes with a Piloting Action (which took as many turns as the Size of the Bull, forcing people to plan ahead).
-Armor: extra Structural Integrity (which was HP and was kinda strange because we actually used an Ammo Dice for health of characters), and extra defense for people inside. It could easily be hacked together from scrap, so Bulls had like a sort of "buffer HP" that wasn't that costly to repair (which was extremely important, since they were Australian rednecks running around the desert like hungry Warboys and never had enough food for the whole week, so they never really had the resources to repair anything);
-Fuel: how much PowerGreen there was left (pretty interesting since it was pretty scarce, and anybody who could get a supply line of the stuff basically became a warlord on its own, since Australia had little to no industry and most of it was coming from outside or scavenged from abandoned English deposits and other less-than-savory resources), represented by an Ammo Dice with variable consumption rate (based on how much you wanted to get stuff done, so it was kinda risk-vs-reward but I'm not too sure it was a good idea overall).

MORE PEW PEW PEW.
Lego Mech designs for Mobile Frame Zero from the Internet.

The Actual Table

Whenever a Raging Bull reaches 0 Structural Integrity, roll 2d6 to see what happens with the broken machinery:
2-3: The Bull stops dead in it's track, the engine is broken but not beyond repair. Any excess damage goes to the occupants but can be negated with an Armor check.
4-5: The Bull's weapon get hit. Any ammo inside is broken and inflicts 1 point of damage to the occupants. Roll a d6 for each weapon, it's has 3-in-6 chances of being broken beyond repair.
6-7-8: The Bull's frame is bent and broken, with whole pieces of it coming down. Armor is immediately set to 0. For each extra damage, roll 1d6: there is a 4-in-6 chance that the Bull falls down, and any excess damage goes to the occupants.
9-10: The Bull's legs take the hit, unbalancing it and inflicting 1 damage to the occupants. The Bull permanently loses 1 point of Speed.
11-12: The Bull's engine is teared apart, releasing the toxic, flammable hell in its tank. Everyone inside dies, the Bull is destroyed and it erupts in a giant column of flames, which lasts 10 minutes per Fuel remaining.

This random table in a nutshell.
"Da Bulls" sketch from SNL.

d6 Early Symptoms and Terrible Complications

This post was born as an effort to make diseases more interesting, like I wanted to do with creatures. Random symptoms, common cure, guess between the diseases you know have those symptoms to guess the right cure.
Between the forced quarantine, overbearing workloads and a general sense of tiredness, writing "d20 cures to your just-deadly-enough disease" didn't feel too appropriate.

The spirit is nothing more than twitching, trembling meat.
The Town on Gorkon from Pathologic 2.

The Eastern Plague Has Arrived in the Town on the Tiber

Roll 1d6 every month to unleash an ever changing Plague upon your games.

1. A Mouthful of Ash

A cough, ever present, dry as picked bones. Sooth in the back of your throat, breeding with itself like waterless fungi. Just over a week, and the sooth starts to become sand, that stops you cold for a few instants each time you cough, leaving your throat like a dead desert. The simple act of breathing becomes an hardship. Air turns to dust until lungs become abandoned pyramids, stony monuments in remembrance of Death. After 1d8 days from the first symptoms, lose 1d4 point of Brawn per day. After another 1d8 day, Save or be Paralyzed for 24 hours each day.

2. The Red Masque of Flesh

Starts as a slight irritation, an itch just underneath the outermost layer of your body. Scratch, scratch, scratch until bare flesh is visible, and then scratch again. It's always just underneath the place you can reach. Touching anywhere spreads it. Wooden towers loose just an handful of sawdust every day, until they are no more; your friends' handshakes become rattling of bones; your wives' kisses become a meeting of minced meat. After 1 day from the first symptoms, lose 1 of EVERYTHING each day.

3. A Frailty of the Blood

At first, small cuts take longer to heal; little cracks on your hand, where the cold crepts up to bones, pop up and the bleeding from them seems to be just a little too much than expected. After a while, wounds stop healing but they never stop bleeding, and the blood seems to get thinner and thinner and thinner and thinner, until only unending water comes out of every pore of your drained, battered self. The water brought it. The water is taking itself back. After 1d4 days from the first symptoms, you don't heal from just resting anymore. After another 1d4 day, you get a new Affliction every day.

My body won't let me forget it.
Worm dialogue from Pathologic 2.

4. Join Us

Silent whispers in the back of your skull suggest where we are headed. We, not you. You are one of many. Hints at first, voiceless hints that have always been there, maybe. An infectious though spreading through the community itself. The community is the purpose of the one. You might just crave companionship at first, but Many will be One sooner or later. After 1d6 days from the first symptoms, you crave companionship, and must make a Smarts save to resist to urge to go to the nearest meeting places. After another 1d6 days, you feel as if you are an extension of the community itself, you must spend your time with others, and you must make a Smarts save to take any action against the community.

5. The Cancerous Rocks

Small, hard bumps of flesh. Muscle that doesn't respond. Muscle that is stony, hungry and tired. Muscle that isn't muscle. Minuscule, black spores in heavy clouds that make breathing impossible, and that deposit themselves on the skin. Where they land, they grow, becoming part of the host and eating it. Scabs on the walls. Bumps on the skin. After 1d8 days, lose 1d4 points of Finesse every day, and halve your movement speed as the hard, black spots on your muscle grow in size and slothfulness.

6. The Play is Man

Outbreaks of humanity, like flowers in the sun. Small, voracious for all, ever growing, ever taller, eating space for themselves. Hollow, to be filled by that which is outside. Such is a man: a miserable little pile of emptiness. Hunger, greed, lust. After 1d4 days, you consume twice as much and must make a Brawn saving throw to avoid stealing from others and hoarding. After another 1d8 days, you consume thrice as much.

I might take them one by one, I might them all at once.
The Executors from Pathologic 2.

What is What

BRAWN: Constitution and Strength.

FINESSE: Dexterity and Intelligence.

SMARTS: Charisma and Wisdom.

INJURIES: 2d6 Damage.

AFFLICTIONS: 1d4 Damage.

Stay safe. Please.

Weaponized Weather, a Crash Course

Christmas hit us hard. Ok, life hit us hard. My PC died and I did not have a working one until, like, a month ago (I actually still have issues, Radeon GPUs be damned). Anyway, now we’re back and we plan to write lots of bullshit this year, so brace yourselves!

The Importance of Weather in Real Life:

Just get out in the rain if you need examples.
Jokes aside, while real life is a great inspiration and all, realism is not always that good in games (unless you’re playing DayZ), so...

You better believe that this would have not been the same in a sunny day.
Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer, by Caspar Friedrich.

The Importance of Weather in Games:

Weather is a potential important condition with the possibility to modify and completely change behaviour for everyone by adding (big or small) temporary effects and modifiers to every creature and action subject to it. It is dynamism incarnated: creatures act radically different in the rain than in the sun, actions can be harder or easier, terrain can become dangerous or impassable.
Having a good weather table is a reliable way to bake chaos and danger in your games. It is a fundamental game-shaker in play, especially outdoor/hexcrawl play, that can (and will) force players to make interesting decisions (both long-term and short-term) to face, manipulate, discover and make use of weather (both dangerous and calm). It is an almost guaranteed way to make potential downtime (as hexcrawling can sometimes be) into a mildly eventful, potentially dangerous and definitely thrilling activity, and a surefire way to spice up action with dynamic conditions.
It is a way to make travel preparations slightly more interesting: it is an interesting factor to research before an adventure beside the destination itself:
Ok, The Halls of the Dark God are dangerous, we need to know what we’re getting into to face it, but we also need to actually reach it: so, what terrain and what weather can we expect? Do we need to bring heavy blankets because we’re getting ourselves into places known for chilling weather? What about snow boots? I like my feet above freezing temperatures, y’know.
Also, weather can be an extremely important element during actual play: like all environmental hazards, they are something to be used by and against the players, depending on how smart they are in their approach to the situation: knowing that the weather can kill your enemy for you can turn a chase into an attrition war (especially interesting if you play some hunters looking for unusual preys like dragons), knowing that the slippery slope becomes basically a deathtrap that can keep an opponent out of a fight without killing them thanks to mud is a major game changer, and so on.
Weather is a major candidate for unusual spells and esoteric effects: not only boosting its importance makes weather-changing spell actually useful and justifies their relatively high level, but having it affect spells in some way can be extremely important (for example, doubling the effect of spells that rely on cold during snowstorms).

Systemic Warfare:

Let’s get a little into details. We’re using our Dungeons and Dummies system for reference, which is getting a new coat of dirty paint as we’re re-writing stuff and preparing a nice and tidy PDF for ease of access.
If you want to convert our terrible examples in standard D&Desque terms:
-Afflictions are roughly equal to 1-2 points of damage;
-Injuries are roughly equal to 1d8-1d10 of damage;
-1 Difficulty is roughly equal to +2/-2 in 3-18 roll-unders, and +4/-4 in 3.x-esque terms;
-10 minutes is whatever the duration of your Exploration Turn is;
-4 hours is an adventuring turn in hexcrawl play;
-8 hours is the classic adventuring day.

Our examples are going to suck hard, since we have clearly no idea how to write stuff despite trying way too hard. Please make better ones in your games: look at the moon, not at our fingers pointing at it.

The sky is partaking in the Great Dance.
Pathologic 2 Concept Art.

Climatic Warfare:

2 main kinds of Weather: Good or Bad. Each lasts 8 hours, 50% chance of each.

Good Weather has no additional effect. Vaguely sunny, light rain that does not make the road more dangerous. Nice and easy.
Bad Weather is dangerous. Doing anything in Bad Weather gives +1 Difficulty to every Check, and it also prevents rest and ruins food and equipment. Also, there are various kind of Bad Weather, each with additional complications.
Here is an example table that incorporates both Good Weather and Bad Weather in it. Please note that, if that suits your taste, Good Weather can be expanded just like Bad Weather; we preferred not to do that because we simply find complications more interesting than bonuses in game, especially if they come from outside the character sheet.

MOUNTAIN
1-10: Good Weather, 11-14: Heavy Rain (+1 Difficulty to Navigation Checks, on failures the group gets stuck in mud and slippery slopes), 15-17: Snap Freeze (1 Affliction for every 4 hours of activity outside), 18-19: Strong Winds (+1 Difficulty to Foraging Checks), 20: Snow Torment (3 Afflictions for every 4 hours of activity outside, +1 Difficulty to Navigation Checks, cannot see past 30’)

Counterspelling Weather:

Equipment and abilities can counter at least some of the effects of Bad Weather.
Proper (biome-appropriate, maybe?) tents can allow rest without too many complications.
Heavy clothes reduce afflictions from cold weather by 1 (minimum 0), but maybe give worse armor maluses (for example, wearing it always makes armor malus step up by 1 category).
Goggles and baggy clothes protect from the bad effects of sandstorms, but don’t last forever.
There’s the potential for at least a few spells, like one forcing weather change or one setting some unusual, infernal weather.

IT'S RAINING BLOOOD
Raining Blood by INeedMyAngel.

Pluvium Sanguinis:
The caster sets his eyes to the middle of the sky, and follows the Unseen Veins of the Heavens with his gaze, tearing them apart with his will and unholy utterances. For the next day, the weather of the current hex (and of every hex in a 3-hex radius) becomes Good Weather: Blood Rain, as blood from unknown creatures rains down from the sky in reddish drops:
-Lights are snuffed out: the sun cannot penetrate through the wounded Heavens anymore, and every lightsource has its radius halved;
-nothing truly dies during a Blood Rain: every creature that dies comes back wrong, with 1d4 (d20/4) random mutations and full Ability Scores in d20 hours; there’s also a 5% chance that the soul receives irreparable damage, leading to permanent insanity;
-every 4 hours there is a 50% that anyone under the blood rain will receive a random spell cast upon him.
Must be cast as a Ritual. For each extra Spell Level invested into it, it lasts one more day.

Sorry this is not very good 

Life as a dumb programmer and as a starving artist hit us hard. The little spare time we had is being used to prepare the PDF of our heartbreaker (which is probably becoming a little better, in terms of both writing and organization). We are thinking about pretentious latin titles because they sound cool. Something something descend in the dark, a low fantasy game by Bad Whiskey Games.