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Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Why not just Villain?

Villain's classy.

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Serf
May 5, 2011


Just call them paladins. They're basically the same thing.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Serf posted:

Just call them paladins. They're basically the same thing.

A heavily armed psychopath with a scanner device from their God that designates targets that need to be eliminated, and an unlimited license to kill?

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Hell, I still remember when paladins were only a) humans and b) champions of gods of good.

You see followers of other gods and non-humans couldn't be paladins because

Serf
May 5, 2011


Actually I suppose you could call the whole "warriors for the divine" classification crusaders. That comes without the paladin baggage and is more generally applicable.

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


Evil Mastermind posted:

They did at one point, but it never stuck.

Why not?

Mors Rattus posted:

Given that the term 'paladin' just means 'one of the special knights of Charlemagne' we're already dealing with weird naming.

See in that context an anti-Paladin would be one of the finest warriors of the Emirate of Cordoba, charged with defending the Caliphate's border from the Christians and being pillars of Islamic virtue.

The Sin of Onan
Oct 11, 2012

And below,
watched by eyes of steel
we dreamt

Night10194 posted:

Why not just Villain?

Villain's classy.

Yeah, but a villain could be anybody, not just a dark knight type.

Just "Paladin" is fine IMO.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Kavak posted:

See in that context an anti-Paladin would be one of the finest warriors of the Emirate of Cordoba, charged with defending the Caliphate's border from the Christians and being pillars of Islamic virtue.

Which would be extremely good.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Serf posted:

Actually I suppose you could call the whole "warriors for the divine" classification crusaders. That comes without the paladin baggage and is more generally applicable.

Or just call the evil ones Crusaders, given all the baggage that comes with that word. 13th Age may have beaten us to that, in a sense.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
The way it worked in 3.5 was that Paladins were lawful good, Blackguards were a prestige class that you could theoretically get into by being a fallen paladin but usually were just fighter/evil cleric, and "Anti-Paladins" were a full 20 level chaotic evil paladin replacement class. there were paladin replacements for all of the other 8 alignments.

In 4e they just let paladins be whatever alignment they wanted with a caveat that if they were actually being evil the DM could let them swap out radiant for necrotic, but to be careful about doing that due to balancing reasons (which is weird because radiant is SO much easier to optimize)

In 5e paladins don't have alignment restrictions but there's still an "Evil" oath in the DMG.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

What does the True Neutral Paladin do

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Death to alignments, obviously.

Ratoslov
Feb 15, 2012

Now prepare yourselves! You're the guests of honor at the Greatest Kung Fu Cannibal BBQ Ever!

Mors Rattus posted:

What does the True Neutral Paladin do

Holy war for or against ideologies that are neither ethically aligned nor aligned with law or chaos?

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
Smites the extreme alignments, tosses bolts of (middling) elemetnal damage instead of channeling, gets energy resistance, rebukes outsiders, summons an elemental minion instead of a special mount, and communes with nature. Code of conduct is to "Maintain the balance and never endanger the natural balance" and hates going to other planes that aren't the elemental planes since they're so strongly devoted to alignments or something.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Mors Rattus posted:

What does the True Neutral Paladin do

Drink, mostly.

Barudak
May 7, 2007

Mors Rattus posted:

What does the True Neutral Paladin do

Works to develop a magic spell that collapses all the planes into a the only truly neutral thing, absolute nothingness. A quest for parties of 15th-20th level.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
In Basic D&D, high-level Fighters would transition into Paladins if they Lawful, or Knights if they were Neutral, or Avengers if they were Chaotic

AD&D 1e had an Antipaladin class designed to be used with NPCs in Dragon Magazine #39, Jul 1980.

Dragon Magazine #106, Feb 1986 then had an article describing different alternate-alignment Paladins:
Myrikhan: Neutral Good
Garath: Chaotic Good
Lyan: Lawful Neutral
Paramander: True Neutral
Fantra: Chaotic Neutral
Illrigger: Lawful Evil
Arrikhan: Neutral Evil

AD&D 2e had the Complete Paladin's Handbook, with a number of different Paladin "kits", but it did not allow for alignments besides Lawful Good, in fact further upholding that it was a central tenet of Paladinhood. There is an option for the Paladin to leave their current church/deity once they have found it to no longer be Lawful Good, but then the Paladin must still follow their own personal code and find a new Lawful Good church to attach themselves to.

As a digression, there is a passage in the book suggesting that a Paladin is not supposed to attack all Evil NPCs on sight, as distilling every interaction down to an instantly hostile confrontation could be counterproductive to the Paladin and their associates. Something to keep in mind as a practical play consideration.

In 3rd Edition, Paladins had to be Lawful Good
There was a Blackguard Prestige Class in the DMG, but since it's a Prestige Class this is something more like what an Evil Fighter would transition into.

There was also in Unearthed Arcana alternate Paladins for different alignments:
Paladin of Freedom for Chaotic Good
Paladin of Tyranny for Lawful Evil
Paladin of Slaughter for Chaotic Evil

Dragon Magazine #310, from Aug 2003, also had alternate-alignment Paladins:
Sentinel for Neutral Good
Avenger for Chaotic Good
Enforcer for Lawful Neutral
Incarnate for Neutral
Anarch for Chaotic Neutral

And finally Dragon Magazine #312, from Oct 2003 had the Evil Paladins:
Despots for Lawful Evil
Corrupters for Neutral Evil
Anti-Paladins for Chaotic Evil

Pathfinder also has the Antipaladin class. Note that the Dragon Magazine issues that carried the 3.5 Anti-Paladin was published by Paizo, whereas Unearted Arcana with the Paladin of Slaughter was a WOTC production, which may explain why Pathfinder continued to use the Antipaladin terminology.

In 4th Edition, the game softened on the alignment requirements and even implied that some Paladins worshipped evil deities, with a definition change to merely suggest Paladins were simply warriors imbued with divine might. Later, the Essentials line carried a Blackguard base class which tried to make the Paladin into more of a Striker type.

In 5th Edition, the definition backslid a little - there's no more code of conduct and Paladins don't need to be explicitly Lawful Good, but they're still described as do-gooders that are always hunting down evil, and the flexibility in alignment is excused by saying they're simply pursuing different aspects or facets of justice and righteousness.

There is an Oathbreaker archetype in the DMG that's supposed to represent evil Paladins, but this is in a section reserved for "Villainous NPCs" and the sidebar describing atonement for Oathbreakers implies that they're not "true Paladins"

gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 06:12 on Nov 7, 2016

Mover
Jun 30, 2008


If a dish isn't sufficiently filling but still meets the deliciousness requirements to be a tasty part of a meal, it falls, becoming an Antipasto.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
IIRC, the Blackguard PrC of 3e specifically was also be an advancement path for fallen Paladins where they got special bonuses to make partly up for losing all their Paladin powers.

OvermanXAN
Nov 14, 2014

Mors Rattus posted:

What does the True Neutral Paladin do

Be a druid and thus superior to a Lawful Good Paladin in every way?

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

IIRC, the Blackguard PrC of 3e specifically was also be an advancement path for fallen Paladins where they got special bonuses to make partly up for losing all their Paladin powers.

they do, yeah:

quote:

Fallen Paladins

Blackguards who have levels in the paladin class (that is to say, are now ex-paladins) gain extra abilities the more levels of paladin they have.

A fallen paladin who becomes a blackguard gains all of the following abilities that apply, according to the number of paladin levels the character has.
1-2

Smite good 1/day. (This is in addition to the ability granted to all blackguards at 2nd level.
3-4

Lay on hands. Once per day, the blackguard can use this supernatural ability to cure himself or his fiendish servant of damage equal to his Charisma bonus × his level.
5-6

Sneak attack damage increased by +1d6. Smite good 2/day.
7-8

Fiendish summoning. Once per day, the blackguard can use a summon monster I spell to call forth an evil creature. For this spell, the caster level is double the blackguard’s class level.
9-10

Undead companion. In addition to the fiendish servant, the blackguard gains (at 5th level) a Medium-size skeleton or zombie as a companion. This companion cannot be turned or rebuked and gains all special bonuses as a fiendish servant when the blackguard gains levels. Smite good 3/day.
11 or more

A fallen paladin of this stature immediately gains a blackguard level for each level of paladin he trades in.

The character level of the character does not change. With the loss of paladin levels, the character no longer gains as many extra abilities for being a fallen paladin.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Alien Rope Burn posted:

IIRC, the Blackguard PrC of 3e specifically was also be an advancement path for fallen Paladins where they got special bonuses to make partly up for losing all their Paladin powers.

Good call. I missed that, and stand corrected.

Isn't it going to be somewhat of an odd transition, though? Earliest entry into the Blackguard PrC is level 6 because of the BAB requirement, so if you become an Ex-Paladin at any time before that, you're just some lovely Fighter with fewer feats (as what always happens with Fallen Paladins).

There'd have to be close and significant DM and player buy-in and coordination to engineer a situation where the character gets to shift from Paladin to Blackguard with minimal time as an Ex-Paladin, unless the player is down with playing a crippled version of their character for a while.

ZeroCount
Aug 12, 2013


rpg morality mechanics are rarely kind and always bad. D&D's not even the worst of them somehow.

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Good call. I missed that, and stand corrected.

Isn't it going to be somewhat of an odd transition, though? Earliest entry into the Blackguard PrC is level 6 because of the BAB requirement, so if you become an Ex-Paladin at any time before that, you're just some lovely Fighter with fewer feats (as what always happens with Fallen Paladins).

There'd have to be close and significant DM and player buy-in and coordination to engineer a situation where the character gets to shift from Paladin to Blackguard with minimal time as an Ex-Paladin, unless the player is down with playing a crippled version of their character for a while.

The 3e designers must've agreed that the blackguard was bunk, too. They introduced another paladin prestige class in Complete Scoundrel called the Gray Guard, which let paladins play Dirty Harry for a bit and then atone easily, thereby regaining their paladin powers without going through a giant sidequest. Later on they never fall for breaking the code of conduct.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Nuns with Guns posted:

The 3e designers must've agreed that the blackguard was bunk, too. They introduced another paladin prestige class in Complete Scoundrel called the Gray Guard, which let paladins play Dirty Harry for a bit and then atone easily, thereby regaining their paladin powers without going through a giant sidequest. Later on they never fall for breaking the code of conduct.

Hey that is pretty cool:

quote:

Sacrament of the True Faith: At 10th level, you gain your order’s full confdence You are granted the freedom to act on behalf of your faith as you deem necessary. Thus, you never risk losing your class abilities in the pursuit of a just cause and never need to atone for violating your code of conduct

This trust does not grant you the freedom to act as violently or immorally as you wish, however. Release from your code of conduct depends on your acting as an exemplar of your order’s ideals If you violate this trust by habitually acting in an immoral or corrupt manner, the leaders or deity of your faith might revoke their blessing and banish you from the ranks of the faithful (see Ex-Gray Guards, below)

And on the topic of "villains", there is a Dungeon Lord Prestige Class in Dungeonscape which lets you walk through traps without setting them off, walk at normal speed through all terrain in your dungeon (and without needing to see!), and know if anything at all has been disturbed inside the dungeon.

Later levels let the character teleport anywhere within the dungeon, have omniscience with regards to anywhere within the dungeon, close and open doors as free actions no matter the strength of the lock or material of the door (but only for the Lord!), have Minions to command, gain the Leadership feat, and then pass on all these bonuses to the minions.

In a way, it's very cool as far as directly evoking and codifying the kind of powers a Dungeon Lord should have, but it's also d20 as gently caress for an NPC to need class levels within this PrC to be able to pull off stuff that we always kinda sorta assumed the bad guy should be capable of, because they're the bad guy and you're in their dungeon.

Count Chocula
Dec 25, 2011

WE HAVE TO CONTROL OUR ENVIRONMENT
IF YOU SEE ME POSTING OUTSIDE OF THE AUSPOL THREAD PLEASE TELL ME THAT I'M MISSED AND TO START POSTING AGAIN

Mors Rattus posted:

What does the True Neutral Paladin do

Hang out in Michael Moorcock novels being cryptic to Elric and try to restore the Balance between Law and Chaos, like Prince Gaynor the Damned. In later novels 'Balance' kinda becomes the good thing, as Moorcock mellows out.

Seriously, Law and Chaos are the only real Alignments.

Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 07:36 on Nov 7, 2016

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.



CHAPTER SIX: Worlds In Hell

Deadworlds! I love Deadworlds! Deadworlds are basically settings that provide a little bit of in-setting fluff, a history of the setting, what's currently going on and plot hooks for your GM to run games in them. I won't be sharing the fluff. Not all Deadworlds are suitable for long-term play and in fact many of them work as one-shots, but it all depends on the GM and the group. There are 11 Deadworlds presented in this game and some of them are recognizably inspired/based on certain movies or books and given a zombie twist. In fact, a lot of Deadworlds throughout the line are the generic sort of "this is probably what your GM would come up with as a basic framework with X and Y in mind". That's not to say that they're all derivative and blandly generic, but it's like buying a 40K mini. Can you play the built mini right out of the box, unpainted? Sure. Can you make it your own with paint and other accoutrements? Absolutely.

Before we get into the Deadworlds proper, there's a little bit of info about Intraparty Conflict. Basically good roleplaying deserves a bonus and this paragraph is the summation of all of it, followed by advice.



Rise of the Walking Dead



Argos, NY, is a rural community with a whole lot of natural cave systems and little else. Thirty years ago, the US government decided that natural caves are a good place to bury nuclear waste and depleted uranium resulting from building up nuclear weapons and science experimentation. So they bought the cave system (or eminent domain'd it, more likely), filled them with radioactive materials and sealed the caves. They didn't exactly expect the material to leech through the caves into the local soil and water table, slowly spreading over the next 30 years.

In the real world, Argos would have joined such towns as Love Canal and Times Beach as an EPA nightmare requiring the government to turn the area into a Superfund and compensate the victims. Instead, everything within 50 miles of the caves fell under the thrall of a strange radiation that eventually caused the dead to walk. It's hard to tell exactly how this happened; radiation, as we all know, is straight-up magic that only sometimes causes cancer but it also could have been the fact that the caves were a desecrated sacred American Indian site. The true cause is unknown and kind of irrelevant because this is based on Night of the Living Dead (with shades of The Crazies). What is important is that everything, no matter how old and skeletal, got up in the Lutheran church's graveyard and started attacking the town. The sheriff managed to get a call to Albany, the state troopers never came back and now the entire town is under quarantine by the US military.







The undead of Argos are stupid and slow, but the threat isn't the zombie so much as the transmissibility of the virus. The dead have the ability to see life force and they're not picky about their meals, biting cats and dogs and cows and bears and transmitting the virus to animals as well. If you get bitten, it's only a matter of time before you turn unless you can get a full-body blood transfusion. So the survivors of Argos are at the mercy of a hoard of undead people and animals that will only die from a headshot. They're safe, but the numbers of zombies are only growing and their supplies are running low. The CDC, EPA and Army haven't entered the town's perimeter yet and are trying to figure out their plan of approach, but the quarantine has already been broken thanks to undead animals sneaking past the soldiers.

Story Ideas

Escape From Argos:
The classic heartwarming story of a bunch of screwed people banding together to probably die or escape just to get shot to death by the military. The roads are clogged with the undead and abandoned cars and the longer it takes to figure out a plan of attack, the more zombies there are converging on the hideout thanks to their life sense. Waiting for the military to come is as much of a gamble as making a break for the quarantine line, and even then the quarantine isn't necessarily safe. Plus, the quarantine has already been penetrated and other towns are starting to have issues with the walking dead, meaning that the surviving characters are now the defacto experts on dealing with this nonsense.




Into the Fire: The grass is always greener on the other side of the barricades and the military want to get into Argos to save survivors and bring back a zombie for analysis. The players are scientists and soldiers trying to find the cause of the outbreak and figure out a possible cure, leading them through the countryside into the ruined town down to the caves full of the undead. As an optional complication, the line can be overrun to a degree that they can no longer get help from the military and are on their own to survive.



PHADE to Black



16 year old Philip Harrison had a massive crush on 15 year old Jenna Filipachi. If you think they got together against all odds, you'd be wrong; Jenna barely knew Philip existed and was more into recreational use of cocaine, heroin and unprotected sex. And one night Jenna died and Phillip was faced with a decision. Should he mourn her death? Or should he decide to conquer death and bring Jenna back to life? Well, months of obsessive internet research on voodoo and reanimation of the dead later, the crazed Philip dug up Jenna's decaying corpse, raised her from the dead in a dark ceremony in his bedroom and had, uh. Had sex with her zombie.

Yep.

In the morning, Philip had immediate regrets and destroyed the undead Jenna then promptly moved on with his life. He went to college and came out of his shell and he didn't use condoms. He went to Amsterdam for spring break and he also didn't use condoms there either. By the time Philip died at age 20, thinking with his dick had caused millions of people worldwide to contract the disease he picked up from the undead Jenna: PHADE.

The thing is, if Jenna was more inclined to take care of herself and be knowledgeable of her health, Jenna would have known that unsafe fooling lead to her contracting HIV. By the time Jenna died, the HIV had been untreated and become AIDS. By the time Jenna's zombie rose up, the dark energy used to animate her body had influenced the AIDS virus and transformed it into PHADE. By the time Jeremy died, the PHADE infectees had started to die as well and PHADE had become a full-blown health crisis. PHADE is sinisterly effective: no side effects at all until you die 4-6 years after you contract it. After a few months of mass deaths, mankind finds out that there's a second stage of infection: the bodies of the dead infected get back up and hunt the living in packs.



The world is currently in a state of decline. There are millions of undead worldwide and they're frighteningly smart, disabling infrastructure when they're not hunting humans for food. As long as their heart can still beat tainted blood through their veins, they'll continue to hunt and move to the best of their abilities. Amputation/limb severing doesn't do anything (the wound instantly closes over once the limb is off, fire takes too long and decapitating them means it'll keep going. The scientists of the world are desperately working on a cure or a vaccine and they're running low on time. Governments had moved infected into containment centers and now they're hotbeds of PHADE zombies killing other infected and making the numbers grow. The only "upside" of this whole scenario is that PHADE takes months, maybe years, to kill you. You can try to hold out for a cure or help the untainted while you still can, but your own salvation isn't a guarantee.

Story Ideas

Fighting for Home:
Safe zones are a main concern across the world and they've been established as best as they can be in the cities. This hasn't panned out too well and this campaign reflects that. This campaign starts off with the beginning of the outbreak, the governments calling for a curfew and advising civilians to create safe zones and the collapse of the government, the loss of power, the riots and fighting in the streets. The focus of the campaign is the characters' attempts to fortify a region of the city, take back control and survive. Alternately, they can make things better to prep for an escape to a safer environment; the zombies are smart enough to have figured out the ways out of the city and are watching them for easy meals.

The PHADE Vaccine: Or maybe you can push the clock ahead. A vaccine has been created and the characters have to test it somehow, but at least they have some military backing. Do they inject themselves and expose themselves to a PHADE zombie to see if it works? Do they hunt the cities for volunteers, give them the shot and whisk them away to a containment site? The bigger question is, if it works, what then? If it does work, the campaign can be the characters setting up a clinic, fortifying it, fighting back PHADE zombies and inoculating survivors, helping protect mankind one needle at a time before the militaries of the world regroup to bring the fight proper to the zombies.

Grave Impact



Deep in space, millions of years ago, aliens experimented with necrotic energies in experiments that went horribly wrong. In an attempt to save their species, they launched a gigantic chunk off into space with all of the corruption on it, the mistake consigned to the cold black void. Millions of years later and worn down by light years of hard traveling, American scientists detected a gigantic asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Taking a cue from Armageddon, the nations of the world pooled their nuclear weapons and modified them to survive going into space and rocked the asteroid with explosions. Fortunately, the millions of years of travel and innumerable impacts with other heavenly bodies caused the asteroid to explode into harmless fragments that burned up in orbit. A triumphant United States celebrated Memorial Day in the year 2000 with a mind free of worry and the world rested easy, enjoying the beautiful sight of the rocks burning as they fell to Earth.

Regrettably, the dust ended up being a lot less pretty when it blanketed every inch of the Earth and the alien energies started stirring the dead. Skeletons and recently interred alike clawed their ways out of their graves, the Arlington Cemetery's Memorial Day celebration derailed by 200,000 undead from the Civil War forward attacking everyone on live TV. The march of the dead was immune to guns and knives and explosions, but not fire. The downside of the discovery that the zombies were weak to fire lead to mass catastrophe as walking torches caused cities, buildings, forests and more to burn. As the zombies crumbled into dust and ash, the people killed in the fires got right up and took their place.

Today (2000whenever), the cities are still burning and the US is in dire straits. The infrastructure is collapsing and many parts of the US are without power, water or communications. The military is trying its hand at airstrikes, which are a little effective except for the damage to buildings, and the President has declared martial law. There's fear that as more zones fall to the undead, the US might try to burn them away with nuclear fire. For now, everyone is desperately stockpiling gasoline and retreating to more rural locales with less of a zombie presence, preparing incendiary weapons for war.



The zombies are stupid but they're strong and they can't be stopped with anything short of fire. They don't need to eat anything, but they just feel compelled to bite at their trapped victims until they die. The other big issue with the zombies themselves is that it's drat near impossible to get someone free when they're grabbed; their grips are unbreakable and fire destroys them, but the living victim is now attached to a flaming corpse. The issue that's bigger than the zombies themselves is the fact that it's the dust that revives the dead. The only safe place to die is in a clean room devoid of any trace of the dust, and even then if your corpse is removed from the room it'll reanimate.

Story Ideas:

We Are the World:
I'm not a fan of this one so much. The main idea is that you make fictionalized versions of yourself and play as yourself pre-impact, then on the day of the rise and then letting the players drive the narrative for what they want to do when faced with the walking dead. Mostly the thing I dislike is the "play yourself" aspect.

The President's Daughter: A more action-oriented campaign, the characters are all soldiers on a mission to save the President's daughter (or someone else really, the GM can adapt this however). They've got flamethrowers, white phosphorous grenades and other weapons to cut a fiery swathe through the undead, save the target and escape alive and with the target in tow. Then the GM should really feel free to twist the game as they see fit; maybe the President is undead when they return, maybe the Army is being overrun, maybe they just want to go AWOL with the target and make their own way, maybe a nuke is threatening the city where they were and they can't get the Air Force to stand down and prove they're alive and clear.

Sacred Soil



The OrganoCore corporation was legitimately, sincerely dedicated to helping promote safe and organic agricultural practices. Their first attempt at a product was...okay. The pesticides and fertilizer weren't as good as, say, Monsanto's and they actually cost more than a regular product, meaning that organic farming continued to have less of a crop yield and more of a high price of product. So OrganoCore decided to get alternative with their research, tapping into herbs and plants of Indonesia and the Caribbean along with folk remedies and native recipes. The second generation of products managed to do everything they promised with zero impact on the planet, providing bountiful harvests and zero harmful agents. In no time at all, OrganoCore was rich beyond measure and countries all over the world started contracts with the company to get deals on OrganoCore 2.0.

OrganoCore 2.0 wasn't really the problem in the long run. Despite incredibly dubious and sinister origins, it really did everything it promised to. Both OrganoCore 1.0 and 2.0 are completely safe and harmless and effective (though 2.0 is still more effective than 1.0). The problem came from something the company ultimately didn't account for: was it safe to mix both products? It wasn't an immediate concern or point of worry due to the fact that 1.0 was discontinued, but some land that had been treated with 1.0's pesticides and fertilizers still held a trace of it and some farmers still had some of it. On its own, 1.0 and 2.0 are safe. Mix them together and they unlock a terrible power some consider to either be Gaia's Wrath or a dangerous mutation.

The fact of the matter is that the plant matter affected by the mixing of the products created a predatory, sapient flora that grew rapidly and sunk its roots into the dead, replacing old nervous systems and veins with plant matter linking walking corpses to the controls of the plants. What they want, if they could "want" anything, is to undo everything mankind has created and return the planet to its natural form. Rural places worldwide were slowly and quietly snatched up by the walking dead and mutant plants before anyone knew something was wrong. Then the poo poo hit the fan when graveyards in cities, tended to with OrganoCore products, started disgorging plant-ridden undead hell-bent on tearing down man's works.



As things currently stand, the cities are the only safe places left in America and things aren't much better in the rest of the world. The mutant plants run wild and terraform the Earth according to their design, a world where undead dogs and cows and humans live in harmony thanks to a root in their brain. Destroying the brain or exposing them to strong chemicals and herbicides are the only way to deal with the undead or the plants, and the militaries of the world are working on whipping up strong defoliant agents to fight back. The zombies are busy working on burying corpses in tainted soil to make more helpers and are working their way across the world, tainting virgin soil simply by laying down on it and extending their brain tentacles into the ground. As it stands, both man and plant are in a stalemate that mankind can't win. The threat isn't "the zombies get into the cities and everyone gets transformed", the threat is starvation because without access to all the old infrastructure now buried under roots and leaves there's no way to get new food.

Story Ideas:

Bastions of Life:
The players are citizens of a city that's still safe and being cleaned out, but the threat of starvation and lack of food is making survivors turn on each other in a nasty way. Push comes to shove, they'll probably have to venture outside of the city and into a world being transformed into a primordial jungle, braving the dangers of the plants to survive or maybe find food to bring back.

Thank God for DDT: The players are tasked with recovering a new, stronger batch of defoliant from a military base outside of their city. They can be military or civilians, but either way the base has already been overrun and turned into a particularly fecund burying ground to make more zombies. The mission is to fight your way in and return with a highly dangerous defoliant that'll give mankind a fighting chance against these photosynthetic bastards.



NEXT TIME: alien invaders, wasteland raiders, zombie troops and French Crusaders.

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.

Mors Rattus posted:

What does the True Neutral Paladin do

Kill their friends who drunk the Law and Chaos kool-aid in order to save Post-Apocalyptic Tokyo.

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


AFMBE oneshot idea: It's Halloween Night, 2077. Just about a week ago the world ended, and your little town was "lucky" enough to be upwind of the nearest big city when the missiles hit. You've been jarred out of the shock by the news the town's lone policeman brought back from his scouting trip. There's a flight of refugees coming down the highway- horribly irradiated, vicious, and occasionally glowing refugees. Fight back or end up as a minor dungeon in Fallout 5!

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
The Deadworlds are pretty great, some of them are clearly homages to other fiction, but still well-executed.

I also notice that the Blackguard PrC gets a skeleton buddy, but no holy mount like real Paladins do. So now I'm imagining this black-clad, spiky-armoured villain riding piggyback on a zombie or skeleton.

echopapa
Jun 2, 2005

El Presidente smiles upon this thread.

Evil Mastermind posted:

"Anti-Paladin" is still one of the dumbest terms ever. I can't believe that after 30 or so years we haven't come up with a better term for "champion of evil gods".

I yearn for the day that this principle is extended to other classes and we get Anti-Barbarians who spend their days arranging flowers and drinking tea.

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


What's an Anti-Cleric, Dick Dorkins? Better yet, what's an Anti-Bard?

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Kavak posted:

Better yet, what's an Anti-Bard?

Country "music"

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


gradenko_2000 posted:

Country "music"

You better be separating that from Western or I will introduce you to the Big Iron on my hip. :colbert:

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.

Kavak posted:

What's an Anti-Cleric, Dick Dorkins? Better yet, what's an Anti-Bard?

A politician.

Ratoslov
Feb 15, 2012

Now prepare yourselves! You're the guests of honor at the Greatest Kung Fu Cannibal BBQ Ever!

Nah, anti-bards compose and perform multi-day atonal musical compositions that are only recognizable as music to those of exceedingly rarified tastes and other anti-bards.

megane
Jun 20, 2008



Ratoslov posted:

Nah, anti-bards compose and perform multi-day atonal musical compositions that are only recognizable as music to those of exceedingly rarified tastes and other anti-bards.

John Cage?

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer

echopapa posted:

I yearn for the day that this principle is extended to other classes and we get Anti-Barbarians who spend their days arranging flowers and drinking tea.

Uncle Iroh!

megane posted:

John Cage?

My Silence 15' radius lasts four and a half minutes.

LongDarkNight
Oct 25, 2010

It's like watching the collapse of Western civilization in fast forward.
Oven Wrangler

senrath posted:

I'll admit I haven't read or played through it, but the bits I've heard from others who have played through it indicated a good portion of Way of the Wicked is "Do EEEEEEVIL things because you're EEEEEEVIL and that's what EEEEEEVIL people do for no other reason than to do EEEEEEVIL." What's your opinion on that?

I would mostly disagree with that impression. The DM advice, which I'll be covering in the next installment, is very clear that the PCs should not be doing evil for it's own sake spreading mayhem where ever they go. If you murder a guy and burn down his house it should be in furtherance of your plot to destroy the Kingdom not just because you can. The PCs do engage in heinous deeds over the course of the AP and the DM advice recommends a fade to black rather loving descriptions of torture and violence.

quote:

Anti-Paladin Chat
I prefer Blackguard but only if it's pronounced "Blagard".

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senrath
Nov 4, 2009

Look Professor, a destruct switch!


Yeah, I'm willing to believe that the people I talked with had negative impressions on that front due to how their GM ran things rather than how the material was actually laid out in the books. Looking forwards to seeing more about this, since "well done evil" is hard to do.

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