Undead war engines

P

Persell

Ten Thousand Club
I'm working on a military campaign where the players go up against Mask of Winters and his undead legions. I'm asking you guys for ideas for cool undead war machines to pepper the zombie hordes with. Please, nobody say "a catapult... made of BONE!" or "ballistae... that shoot BONES." I've obviously already thought up the obvious ones, for obvious reasons. I'm looking more for stuff in the order of Weapon of Mephitic Desolation's weird effects.


The setting is the normal Exalted one, but I want to use Mask of Winters' legions to make the militarily-inclined Solar players go "Damn! I want one! Perhaps with less bone and mutilated children. Or perhaps not." So I'm going to assume he has high-enough order production facilities to create any weapon I decide to include in the campaign.


In short, go crazy. Don't hold back on suggestions because you feel that MoW isn't that militarily inclined. Ideas for crazy things to do with Juggernaut are also welcome.
 
How about a catapult that shoots rotting cadavers that splatter their decaying flesh as they land, spreading disease to any living person close to their point of impact?


How about an undead battering ram, a huge and multi-legged skeletal monstrocity, huge and heavy and topped by an enormous thick skull or boney spike that drives itself into castle walls and, incidentally, carry troops in its hollow, ribbed belly?


And maybe even a huge, skeletal dragon, crafted of stitched flesh and bone and soulsteel with wings of manskin leather, capable of devouring one's own undead servants for their necromantic energy and spewing it out in a huge, life destroying blast... the Underworld's dark mirror of a Thousand-forged Dragon?
 
Wights.


A step up from Jukashi's idea and far more devastating. I thank Myth for giving me this idea.


Bloated corpses that meander about the battlefield, so bloated and overflowing with pus and internal gases that when hit---explode. Probably enough power in that to kill a cluster of mortals and wound an Exalt. Nasty little fuckers. Bitch of it all, they don't really look that off from a normal zombie aside the ponderous bloating.
 
Running with the explodey corpses idea: How about a large siege wagon "armored" with bloated corpses, that when ruptured, burst forth into a horde of giant undead spiders?
 
Look at Bone and Ebony.  You have undead symbiotic gunzosha armor for mortal troops.  You have undead Warstriders for nemissaries.  You have the Maelstrom Barges, vast undead airships made from a thousand soulforged ghosts.  There are lots of disturbing examples.
 
Theres always the Engines of Annilation for Book of Bone and Ebony. Thousand corpse frames, battle snakes, Dread Brachial Sapping Array, is nice: 50-100 arms joined at the shoulder with iron claws that dig tunnels. The best being the Weapon of Mephitic Desolation. Ritually slay ten children and connet their ribs and lungs, engrave the 97 glyphs of annilation on thier teeth and let them sing small pox onto everyone in half a mile. The song also chokes out prayer. Wicked cool.
 
Look at Bone and Ebony.
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jeriausx said:
Theres always the Engines of Annilation for Book of Bone and Ebony.  [...] The best being the Weapon of Mephitic Desolation.
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O rly? I've RTFM, thx.

BurningPalm said:
I'm looking more for stuff in the order of Weapon of Mephitic Desolation's weird effects.
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I am conversant with existing evil. I DESIRE MORE EVOL!
 
One weapon I've used with some success is to take an armored Spine Chain with an assortment of nasty hooks and spikes, have it roll up like a pill bug, and then launch it into the opposing forces from a catapult.  It hits with the force of a cannonball, then pops open and starts running amok in the middle of the nice, neat formation, breaking it up from within and behind the shield-pikewall.


Weapons that inflict corruption and decay.  Nemessaries controling gigantic masses of flesh that has been pieced together.  Hollowed out behemoths that act as siege towers, tanks, and armored personel carriers rolled into one.  Grafting wings onto bodies to form aireal attacks.
 
I'm going to pack the spine chains in giant bladders of rotting flesh to cushion their impact.


FAT GOLEMS!
 
Make sure you get as graphic as possible in describing the loud <squish> they make upon impact for full effect... with a spray of corruption in all directions as it pops like the biggest zit in the world.
 
Don't forget the always-fun Maggot Caster.


Having a giant maggot squeeze through a crack in your armor and then start eating you from the inside out is always a fun staple of the undead armies.


How about a Maggot Caster Scatter Cannon (like a bazooka)?


Or mini-maggots?


Fast acting undead chest-bursters that turn the corpses into zombies as they fall?


UNDEAD FACE-HUGGER CANNON!!!


(but after say ten rounds in creation out of their egg-bullet the face-huggers kick it and the chest bursters are like nemesaries)


*running off with my own idea for my new game*


Poor little Dragon-Bloods will watch their friends and family die in slow horrible ways. :cry:
 
Let's face it, every necromancer worth his money has an undead fire spitting war mammoth of doom ridden by an abyssal archer and his ghostly entourage of banshee concubines. Really.
 
Safim said:
Let's face it, every necromancer worth his money has an undead fire spitting war mammoth of doom ridden by an abyssal archer and his ghostly entourage of banshee concubines. Really.
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Hell, i know I do...
 
I remember rading something on Exalted Wiki about small dead animals (rats, cats, ect) that are ritually dipped in salt and risen as undead.  On top of being able to get into just about anywhere, they're also possesed with an unquenchable thirst.  They'll find their way into a fortification and dunk their diseased bodies into whatever water they can find.  


It's not as flashy as a spine chain or flaming baby catapult, but it'll wreak havoc on mortal defenders morale and health.


If I can find the link, I'll update.
 
I let the undead army use a sort of moving fortification in a my campaign. They were large worms, two to three meters in diameter with rusty spines protruding from one end (mostly to scare attackers of, they didn't have much practical effect). Basically they would follow the army around and provide cover when needed. Cover that could roll towards the enemy and easily absorb most direct fire such as bows, spears, lances and even larger missiles. Simple and cheap to produce, if you have the meat. And you do : )
 
The most frightening undead weapons are nemissaries in TRVs that are designed.  A level five TRV, which can be created through just gradually improving a base TRV throughout the years, could have the modifications of Appearance 4 [8 TRV points], Decay Immunity [5 TRV points], Eat/Drink [5 TRV points], Essence Parasite [10 TRV points] and Lifelike [10 TRV points].  Of course, even better TRVs will exist, modifications past 40 TRV points might as well be considered N/A artifacts for all calculations, though they are pretty pathetic N/A artifacts.  Such TRV would be suitable for a nemissary who is an infiltration expert that masquerades as a living courtesan.  They would be the first in scouts, seemlessly infiltrating the living world, and subtly feeding off of the life energies of mortals until they are required to act.  


A fang of such nemissaries could stay in a small city for years without being noticed, as they could sup off of the blood spilt at the slaughterhouses to regenerate Essence.  Large cities such as Nexus might have hundreds or even thousands of such nemissaries working as a mercenary company for whomever can afford them, with a number of them owning slaughterhouses that are run by secret ancestors cults that sacrifice the blood of the animals to any allied nemissary that is present.  In that situation, there would be several types of nemissaries with TRVs, each fitted for their own specialty.
 
Very true. I think those and the Winter's Mimics were what unsettled me about Bone and Ebony. Then that's saying nothing of the Underworld fauna...
 
i always liked the idea of a Great Terror, zombiefied, and treated over with soultsteel plating. Its hollowd chest a reservoir of pyreflame, allowing it to spit gouts of this stuff, the whole thing could be animated by a nemessiray who using the Savage Ghost Tamer Art, could have the hungry ghost of that little beasty along for the ride...not to mention the abyssal rider/ necromancer wrecking all sorts of chaos from the mobile four legged Terror Tank of DOOOM!


...Neverborn Pimp My Ride!! haha!
 
The most frightening undead weapons are nemissaries in TRVs that are designed.
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Forgive my ignorance, but what's a TRV? Is it some sort of body that a nemissary can use that doesn't fall apart? That's what it sounds like, in any event. But enlightenment would be appreciated.
 
Transcendent Revenant Vessels


They're necromagically enhanced artifact corpses for Nemessaries to ride around.


They're in Bone & Ebony.
 
For anyone who doesn't have Bone and Ebony, I'll give you a short rundown.  A transcendent revenant vessel, TRV for short, is an artifact body for a nemissary.  The creator of a TRV selects a superior corpse, better looks, more muscle, etc, and uses alchemy and enchantment to transform it into something more than a corpse.  A level one TRV has a Strength and Stamina of 3, an Appearance and Dexterity of 2, never count as extras, soaks both lethal and bashing damage with full Stamina, is decay resistant and has seven health level.  Every level above one, the TRV gets 10 points to buy special powers.  In general, a power is an attribute boost, a physical merit or a mutation.  They cost as many points as they would BP.  There are some powers that don't quite fit that formula or allow the TRV to simulate life functions, but it is a good estimate to work with if you want to use them and you can't get B&E or if you have B&E and wish to add to the augmentation list, as it says on the TRV section that their list is only the smallest sampling of the truly massive variety of TRVs.


For example, let's say you would want your heroic ghost character to take a four armed winged giant as a TRV.  Well, it wouldn't qualify as a level one TRV, that's for sure, and none of the standard enhancements fit, so you work out with your ST to determine the TRV cost.  I would say that the Extra Arms would cost 6 points, the Wings would cost 6 points and the Giant would cost 6 point, as all three would cost 6 BP in character creation.  The TRV would be, therefore, a minimum of level three, as that would give one 20 points to work with.


TRVs are more an honorary artifact than anything else.  They don't have any magical materials in them, expect with certain modifications, and rely on the alchemy and enchantment of necrosurgery as opposed to mortal thaumaturgy.  They can be improved after creation and can be improved with little difficulty, for a Resourse cost equal to (Point Value/2).  A heroic ghost who was a skilled necrosurgeon could do it on the fly.  I would have them make a Dexterity+Craft (Necrosurgery) roll, difficulty equal to Point Value/2, with a number of days of work equal to the Point Value.  As a level one TRV is effectively a 10 point enhancement, I would require a difficulty five Dexterity+Craft (Necrosurgery) roll and ten days of work to make a TRV.  After all, they aren't turning any magical materials into artifacts here.
 
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