Mythic Zombie

The Mythic Zombie
What does it mean to be Alive? What does it mean to be Dead? What lies beyond the boundaries, the misty veil of permanent, unreclaimable death? Where do we come from? Where do we go? What becomes of our dreams, our hopes, all those things that separate us from rank and file faceless drones, fighting to be king of the hill for the flicker of time that is our lives?

The answer is not so simple to be put into words. “Life” is an incredibly complex and multilayered miracle, one of an uncountable number of processes and beings working in tandem to maintain the careful balance necessary to sustain life. The remains of the Titans, the Gods, and even The Far-Plane, an intiricate, unspoken bond working to keep things as they are. And for much of time, that was all they did, maintain life as a passive job that none thought to challenge. And then the God-Spear was born, and the first thing died, and the careful process was shaken.

Now, there was an entirely new variable to take into account. When does a creature die? Who balances the scales in that regard? Whose decision is on what should and should not be dead? Who decides where the dead go? And what about when entropy consumes that place as well? While such decisions were being iron out, the entire delicate process tweaked and edited to allow for the possibility of not-life, there was a period of time. A period when The Abomination lived without life. And from this tragedy was born three pillars of his story, echoes of what the Abomination was, in life.

First of the new born-dead aspects was Structure. Structure was an aspect of that which was born of solid, definitive form. Structure sat upon a throne deep below, forging away at bones and designs from which they could be shaped. Then came The Husk. The Husk was the resonance of the flesh that draped the Abominations body, both in life and beyond. By his hands were the designs of his elder given cover, protection from the outside, and a definitive identity in its appearance. And third of the three was the sister, Purpose, an echo of the abominations will to live, both before and after his death. Purpose did little for the creature in the short term, but for the needs of the process did she infuse her brothers creations with a driving force, something to discern between what was alive, and what was dead, a feasible, measurable life-force, to be channeled elsewhere when its shell broke, to be passed into the next cycle.

And so they remained, as war waged around them, shutting down all outside stimulae besides their work. And after numerous failures did they create the first truly mortal life. And to some, the design seemed inane and pointless, and creature that was alive but to do. But to others, the Gods most notably, the concept was novel. It appealed to them at a base level, and they commissioned of the siblings untold amounts of their works. And, true to their word, as the war reached its wane, the siblings were the last of the dying to fall.

Not all their creations were three part creations, however. For those built only of structure, creatures without covering or protection, they are the Skeletons of this world, only a framework of a living thing. For those built only of Purpose, with no a way to draw from the Omphalos, they are the Spirits of the World, the driving force of life with little way to channel it. And those born only from the Husk. Pity them, for their tale is the saddest of all, creatures without drive or structure or understanding. They know only the basest desires, without a way to make them known, and rawest emotions, with no way to express them. Saddest of these are those who once knew life, but have since lost purpose and lived on despite. These creatures, these dejected and disheveled creatures of purposeless wandering hunger. They are the Zombies.

NEW FEAT: Legacy of Marching Aeons
Prerequsite: A Corporeal Form

Benefits: Beyond the boundary of death, but before reaching the waiting arms of the afterlife, something went wrong. Your Soul and Body have been split, but not severed. You are neither alive nor dead, your soul staying with you, but not a part of you. This development does not go unnoticed.

You do not gain the effects of this feat immediately. Rather, the next you die, you experience the chilling and life changing shell shock that comes from revival without your soul, even just for a moment. While your soul does return to you within moments of your rebirth, for one instance, you were both alive and dead.

Within 24d4 hours of your death, you return to life, taking all the normal penalties for being affected with “Raise Dead”, with the following alterations. (If you body is ravaged by wolves to the point of non-recognition, or your friends actually DO cast Raise Dead upon you, this effect is negated (If the former, you are well and truly dead, and If the latter, the effect will come into play when next you die.) Of some note is that a characters body is in a temporary state of "Reboot" upon being woken up. Certain biological functions (Breathing, Blinking, Fear of being in a little wooden box 6 feet underground), can take a bit of time to come back to the body, usually until the body becomes fully exposed to sunlight again.

The next time you gain a character level, making up the difference between what you are and what you were before death, you must take a level of a Mythos class. When you do, you gain the effects of this Feat.

Choose one Mythos-granting class that you have levels in. You may treat the following Mythos as if they belonged to that class. You now heal from Negative Energy, rather than Positive Energy, if you did not previously, and count as Undead for purposes of meeting prerequisites. This counts as Tomb-Tainted Soul for purposes of prerequisites. You may also develop a penchant for never quite closing your mouth.

The Walking Dead:

Of course, sometimes the call of life is too strong to worry about whether you have taken the necessary precautions or not. If you already possessed levels in a mythos class, and a Mythic Archetype Feat, when you die, if you meet the above prerequisites, you may cash in that archetype feat for this one, replacing any mythos granted by that feat with mythos granted by this one.

If you are Undead, you may take this feat at any point, and gain the associated benefits. If you had the Single Action Only special quality, you lose it when you take this feat. If a specific feat is forced upon you from your undead template (Such as Toughness), you may trade it for another feat you meet the prerequisites. If you are forced to have specific ability scores, you may remake them, as per the rules of ability score construction for your group, and you gain an intelligence score, if you did not have one already.

Bleak Lifeless Synapse Acceptance
Prerequisites: -

You gain Improved Toughness as Bonus Feats.

Your skin tightens, your muscles swell, your bones stretch. The sense that you are something not entirely of this world becomes all the more evident. You gain a bonus to your natural armor equal to your constitution modifier. If you do not have a constitution modifier (as many undead don’t), you may use your strength modifier in its place.

You become immune to all non-magical diseases and poisons, as your circulatory system slows and eventually stops, leaving the impure blood to fester in your system. So long as you are suffering from at least one point of hit point damage, you may rub your weapon all along your wound, covering it in your blood. When you do so, select one poison or disease you have been exposed to since taking this mythos. Your weapon inflicts that poison/disease as it would normally on a living creature. Such a toxin remains active in open air for (class level) rounds before becoming inert. You must take a new wound before you can poison another weapon.

Creatures that bite you must make the save against such a toxin as well, and take a -10 circumstance bonus on the saving throw.

Advanced

Festering Sanguine Synthesis: When you apply your blood toxin to a weapon, you may choose both a disease and a poison you have been afflicted with to apply to your weapon.

Involuntary Steel-Transfusion: The difficulty class for saving throws against a poison or disease drawn from your blood become as a mythos, not static.

Multiplicative Afterlife Crowding: (Requires “Viral Tyrant Legacy”) You may choose Walking Death (or its' equivalent) as a Disease you can poison your weapons with.

Occult Infection Diffusion: You can choose to let Magical Diseases and Poisons be absorbed into your bloodstream, afflicting you as normal (if possible), but allowing them to be spread as well through use of this mythos.

Ignoble Bloodlust-Satiating Banquet
Prerequisites: -

You gain a Bite attack as a primary natural weapon. This bite deals 1d6 damage for a medium creature, or 1d4 for a small creature, plus 1.5x your strength modifier. You may attack with weapons and your bite in the same round, but your bite attacks are treated as secondary weapons: The attacks are made with a -5 penalty on the attack roll, and you add only your Strength bonus to the damage roll. You do not take the normal -4 penalty to attacks made with your Bite attack while in a grapple.

When you land a successful bite attack against a creature in a grapple, you heal two hit points, in addition to the usual effects. In addition, you may feast on the corpse of a creature that has been dead no longer than one minute per class level. For each round you spend feeding, you heal a single hit point. You can heal a number of points off one corpse in this way equal to the creatures constitution score. This also provides one days’ worth of food for you.

Consumption of a living creatures Brain is especially effective. By spending a full-round action feasting on a creature whose brain is exposed, and that has an intelligence of higher than three, you heal a number of hit-points equal to the creatures hit-dice, and have one of the following effects lifted from you: Fatigue, Exhaustion, Sickened, Nauseated, Dehydrated, Shaken, Frightened, or Confused.

Relentless Fleshon Onslaught
Prerequisites: -

You gain Endurance and Diehard as Bonus Feats, and may charge even over difficult terrain without taking a penalty to your movement speed. You take half the numerical penalties from being fatigued or exhausted. Any penalties you would take from missing or broken limbs is reduced by your strength modifier, down to one.

When you make an attack with a natural weapon or unarmed strike, you can choose to deal additional damage up to your class level, taking the same damage in return, as you bite with the force to shatter your teeth or punch with the force to snap to your wrist. This must be announced before the damage roll is made. This damage ignores any damage reduction you would possess.

Finally, you are immune to Bleed effects and effects based on the feeling of Pain.

Viral Tyrant Legacy
Prerequisites: The “Corpse-Body Resilience” Mythos or the Undead type [Undeath]

The ecosystem of a living body is vast and intricate, with numerous specialized cells for fighting off disease and infection from the blood, digestion, or airborne particles. All of these are now largely vestigial to you, but the necrotic energies that have come to sustain your body may have another use for them. These phagocytes, intestinal flora, and other creatures may be slain and raised as a mockery of what they were, becoming a virulent undead plague upon living things.

This disease can be called many things, but is referred to here as Walking Death. Its method of delivery is via transfer of a host's bodily fluids into a victim's bloodstream. This may be done through a natural bite attack, or by a creature without a natural bite attack by succeeding on a grapple check against a pinned target. Other ways are possible, but the disease loses its virulency one round after the host's fluids leave its body. The DC to resist Walking Death is (10 + 1/2 host's hit dice + host's Strength modifier). Its Incubation period is 1 hour, and it deals 1d4 Strength and 1 Constitution damage.

When a creature dies while afflicted with Walking Death, they rise as a Zombie one minute later, with an insatiable urge to consume flesh and spread their disease, for they continue to host its tyranny even in death. They instinctively do not consume or mutilate a body to the extent that it would not rise as a functional Zombie.

Advanced

Mutant Necrosis Proliferation: When a creature rises as a Zombie due to the Walking Death, there is a 10% chance that they will become mutated, gaining a new ability. If, in life, their highest ability score was Strength, they become a Big Zombie, gaining the Powerful Build quality and Toughness as a bonus feat (in additional to the first purchase of Toughness granted by the Zombie template). If their highest ability score was Dexterity, they become a Fast Zombie, losing the "Single Action Only" special quality granted by the Zombie template. If their highest ability score with Constitution, they become a Carrier Zombie; upon their destruction, they release a specialized airborne variant of Walking Death, which forces living creatures within 30ft to save against being infected, before dying out. If multiple ability scores are tied for highest, choose randomly among them for which mutation takes precedence.

Noble Plaguefather Authority: Zombies created by the Walking Death never attack you, ignoring even magically enforced orders to do so. In addition, as a standard action, you may assert your authority over every Zombie created by the Walking Death that can hear you, and spur them to rampage in a direction of your choosing. Any commands more intricate than "Rampage that way." are too much for them to understand. Zombies that are already hunting prey, or are under the direct control of another being, ignore you.

Slavering Horror Malformity: After a Zombie is created by the Walking Death, the necrotic disease polluting their body begins to develop them towards becoming an even more effective scourge on the living world. Over the next day, bits of bone and flesh are broken down and repurposed to give the Zombie an oversized, gaping maw filled with sharp too-large fangs. This weakens them structurally, reducing the Natural Armor they gain from the Zombie template by 1, but granting them "Deformity: Teeth" as a bonus feat (HoH).

Tyrannical Progenitor Inheritance: When the Walking Death is transferred to a new creature, that creature uses the DC of their infector's version of the Walking Death, minus 1, if it would be higher than calculating it from their own Strength and Hit Dice.

(For example, if you have 18 Strength and 4 Hit Dice, the DC of your Walking Death is 16. If you infect a level 1 Commoner with 10 Strength, the DC of their Walking Death would normally be 10, but is instead 15. If they infect another level 1 Commoner, that Commoner's DC would be 14. And so on.)

Godless Animative Restoration-Presence
Prerequisites: One Mythos granted by “Legacy of Marching Aeons”

You gain Necromantic Presence and Necromantic Might as Bonus Feats. These abilities affect Zombies you raise through Mythos as well as any undead you may control. Furthermore, you may speak with dead and undead creatures as easily as you could a flesh-and-blood being, though mindless undead often have very little of importance to say.

You gain an Aura of Unlife out to 60 feet. You suffer a permanent -2 penalty to Charisma based checks against living creatures, but a +2 on such checks made against the Undead (Certain living creatures, such as worshipers of Nerull or members of the Dread Necromancer class may be excluded, at your DMs discretion.) This bonus Doubles against Zombies, and Zombies will never attack you of their own will unless provoked. Living creatures within your Aura (other than yourself) take a -1 penalty to saving throws against the special abilities of Undead.

When a humanoid or animal creature within your Aura of Unlife dies from hit point damage, disease, ability damage/drain, or poison, you may, as a standard action, will them into Undeath. With a Symbolic Gesture, usually a raising of the hand, the corpse rises back to life with the Zombie template. Mindless Undead (as most zombies are) instinctively treat you as "Friendly", while intelligent undead have a disposition towards you one step friendlier than they normally would have. Along with you raising the creature, you may make a suggestion of 10 words or less, as per the spell of the same name.

You may only raise (Twice your Level) in Hit-Dice of Undead in this way each day, and each instance deals one point of damage to you, as you substitute some of your life energy for theirs. Zombies raised by this mythos effect take one point of damage per hit dice, which ignores damage reduction, each hour they are more than 100 feet from you.

Advanced

Awakening Sleeping Angels: You may raise dead Humanoids or Animals that did not pass away in your Aura of Unlife, so long as they have been dead no less than one day per class level. You take damage equal to the number of days they have been dead (rounded down), but are otherwise raised as normal.

Expanding the Mausoleum: You may raise zombies of Giants, Monstrous Humanoids, or Vermin as zombies in addition to the usual Humanoids or Animals. Zombies you raise with this mythos lose the “Partial Actions Only” Special Quality.

Fantastic Undeath Expanditure: You may raise Abberations, Fey, Magical Beasts as zombies in addition to the usual Humanoids or Animals. Zombies you raise with this mythos retain any special attacks they had in life.

Growing the Garden of the Afterlife: You grow a layer of thick spores and roots along your non-dominant arm, which can be used to grant you a shield bonus to armor class equal to (2 + 1/3 your class level, up to 7 at level 15). Your taint and corruption of this plant life, augmented by the touch of undeath that is your story, allows you to, quite literally, plant a seed of undeath into a corpse. The seed hatches from the corpses head and grows into a fully mature Yellow Musk Creeper within 1 min. due to the unnatural vigor of the undead taint (costing 6HD of your daily animation limit). You may provide the Creeper with a Suggestion as per Godless Animative Restoration-Presence and that suggestion is applied to any Yellow Musk Zombie it creates as well as any future generations of Creeper grown from its Zombies. Both Yellow Musk Creepers and Yellow Musk Zombies created as a result of this manifestation are treated as both Undead and Zombies for the purposes of any mythos requiring the "Legacy of Marching Aeons" feat and may exist further than 100 feet away from you without taking damage from this mythos.

Macabre Hate-Monger Factory: Zombies you create are automatically proficient in Light Armor and Simple Weapons, if they weren’t already. You gain a +3 bonus to your Natural Armor. In addition, by paying 25 mythos points per hit dice of a creature, and assuming it meets all other prerequisites, you may raise a zombie as a Juju Zombie, rather than a standard Zombie.

Unflinching Single-Minded Obstinence
Prerequisites: One Mythos granted by “Legacy of Marching Aeons”

You gain Damage Reduction, as well as Fire, Cold, Electricity, and Acid Resistance, equal to your class level. Your damage reduction is beaten out by Good and Slashing. Note that your energy resistances do not prevent the elements from affecting you, merely preventing your body from realizing that the effect is going on at all.

If your Energy Resistance successfully reduces the amount of Fire damage you take, you automatically Catch on Fire. If it reduces the amount of Cold damage you take, your body becomes covered in a thin layer of frost and ice, granting you a natural armor bonus equal to your half level for 1d4 rounds. If it reduces the amount of Electricity damage you take, the electricity jolts and bounces along your dying nerves, granting the effects of Haste for 1d4 rounds. If it reduces the amount of Acid damage you take, the acid seeps into your muscles, letting you deal 1d6 bonus acid damage on all your natural and unarmed attacks for 5 rounds.

Advanced

Corrosive Dread Revenant: The duration of your Acid soaked body doubles. While there is Acid in your muscles and body, your natural and unarmed attacks ignore hardness possessed by metal and stone items, and are treated as having the Sundering weapon enchantment.

Frozen Waste-Walker: The duration of your ice armor doubles. While coated in Ice Armor, any living creature or inanimate object within 10 feet takes 1d6 cold damage each round. Creatures that come into direct contact with you take 2d6 cold damage, and liquids free solid for one minute.

Scorched-Earth Soldier: While you are on fire, any living creature or flammable inanimate object within 10 feet takes 1d6 fire damage each round. Your unarmed strikes and natural weapons also risk catching their target on fire. You also give off light as a torch.

Voltaic Grave Visitant: While you are hasted by the effects of this mythos, you gain a +2 Dodge bonus to armor class, a +2 bonus to reflex saves, an additional attack of opportunity per round, and your unarmed strikes and natural attacks deal 1d6 points of electricity damage.

Blightful Unsanctified Hordechief
Prerequisites: Two Mythos granted by the “Legacy of Marching Aeons” Feat

You gain the ability to Rebuke Undead as a Cleric of your class level. You may Rebuke Undead a number of times per day equal to 3+Your Charisma Modifier (Minimum 3). You may only use the Command and Bolster aspects of Rebuke Undead on Zombies, Juju Zombies, or Yellow Musk Zombies, hereby referred to jointly as “Zombies”. (In case there was any confusion) To compensate for this fact, you may Command as many as Four Times the usual amount of Zombies you normally would have. If you create a Zombie (through the effects of a spell or mythos), you may add it to your control without need of a Rebuke Check, so long as you are present when it rises.

Any Zombie you command, or that you create by effects of mythos granted by “Legacy of Marching Aeons” gain +4 to Strength and Dexterity, 2 Hit-Points per Hit dice, +2 Natural Armor and a +5 Unholy bonus to all saving throws. They also gain Improved Toughness, Improved Critical, and Eviscerator as Bonus Feats.

Finally, so powerful is your necrotic ability, so strong is your hunger for the living, your very presence yearns to feast. You radiate an aura out to 50 feet. The area of this feat replicates the Unhallow and Deathwatch spells. More interestingly, the aura siphons the life from all things around you. Every round, you deal 1d6 negative energy damage to everything within your aura, including plant-life. This energy heals undead and other creatures who heal from negative energy as normal. Within 10 feet, this damage becomes Vile Damage, ignoring typical negative energy resistance, and damaging even undead, save for Zombies, who instead heal an additional 2 hit-points. When you deal Negative Energy or Vile damage to an intelligent creature within this aura, you heal hit point damage equal to the amount of damage you dealt, up to your class level.

Any creature that you could normally animate with "Godless Animative Restoration-Presence" killed while in your Aura will rise as a Zombie, as if by its effects, in 1d4 minutes, and do not count against the number of undead that you can normally animate per day.

As a full-round action, you can choke down your hunger and the gnawing void that lies within you. This suppresses the Aura granted by this mythos until such a time that you reactivate it as a swift action. As long as your aura is suppressed, you are not fully yourself, eating yourself from the inside out as you hunger longs to be sated. You are treated as "Sickened" for as long as your aura is suppressed, even if you would normally be immune to the condition. This does not stack with other sources of the Sickened condition.

Finally, Zombies will never attack you, even when magically inclined to do so.

Advanced

Building a Better Horde: You gain Graft Flesh (Undead) as a Bonus Feat. You are always treated as having the proper spell for creating a Graft. You may substitute Mythos Points for XP when crafting your Graft, and need only pay half price for the material needed to create these grafts. Undead you command never risk rejecting the Graft. You develop undead grafts at twice the speed of a normal Grafter. Any save offered by an Undead Graft is treated as a Mythos you possess, rather than the original save. Undead you command gain +1 to Hit and Damage for each grafts they possess, or for every two that you possess.

Elite Undead Enforcers: When a creature raises as a Zombie as per an effect of this mythos, it has a 25% chance of becoming a “Special” Zombie. If it’s highest ability score was Strength, it becomes a Tank, growing in size one category, gaining Toughness as a Bonus Feat, and Damage Reduction equal to half its Hit Dice. If it’s highest ability score was Dexterity, it becomes a Blitzer, gaining the Pounce Special Ability, Powerful Charge as a Bonus Feat, and 20 feet bonus movement speed. If its highest ability score was Constitution, it becomes a Tyrant. Tyrants gain any three fighter bonus feats it meets the prerequisites for. Whenever a Tyrant would be killed by hit point damage, roll 1d20. If the result is 11 or Higher, it remains alive at 1 Hit Point.

If a creature does not rise as a "Special" Zombie, initially, you can still augment and rework it to a state in which it can. By paying 30 Mythos Points per Hit-Dice of the creature, you can suffuse it with extraordinary necrotic power, transforming it into the Special Zombie it qualifies for. This must be done at the time the Zombie is raised.

By paying 3,000 Mythos Points and 5,000 XP, you may undergo a specialized right, which takes 24 hours. At the end of the ritual, you rise anew. You now count as a Zombie for all intents and purposes related to your mythos, and gain the "Special" Zombie trait you most qualify for.

Specialized Afterlife Mutation: When a creature raises as a Zombie as per an effect of this Mythos, is has a 25% chance to become a “Special” Zombie.

If it’s highest ability score was Intelligence, it becomes a Smart Zombie, gaining proficiency with all simple and martial weapons, and retaining all feats it had in life. If it’s highest ability score was Wisdom, it becomes a Sentinel, gaining Lifesense as a Bonus Feat, and a bonus to Spot and Listen checks equal to its hit-dice. As a standard action, a Sentinel can Shriek, blocking out any other sounds within 30 feet of the Sentinel and, forcing any intelligent living creature (other than yourself) within 30 feet to make a Fortitude saving throw (DC 10 + Half the Sentinels Hit dice + Your Charisma) or be Paralyzed and Deafened for 1d3 rounds. If it’s highest ability score was Charisma, it becomes a Dread Lord. Dread Lords have an Aura of Fear out to ten feet (DC 10 + Half the Dread Lord’s Hit dice + Your Charisma or be shaken), and gain a +20 Bonus to Disguise Checks made to look human (And alive) and to Bluff checks made to appear in distress/in need of help. Special Zombies raised by this manifestation retain their highest mental ability score they had in life.

If a creature does not rise as a "Special" Zombie, initially, you can still augment and rework it to a state in which it can. By paying 30 Mythos Points per Hit-Dice of the creature, you can suffuse it with extraordinary. necrotic power, transforming it into the Special Zombie it qualifies for. This must be done at the time the Zombie is raised

By paying 3,000 Mythos Points and 5,000 XP, you may undergo a specialized right, which takes 24 hours. At the end of the ritual, you rise anew. You now count as a Zombie for all intents and purposes related to your mythos, and gain the "Special" Zombie trait you most qualify for.

Village Razing Mob Mentality Your Zombies Natural Attacks ignore hardness possessed by Stone or Wood inanimate objects. As a standard action, you can call out an individual living creature of structure. All your Zombies gain a +5 Morale Bonus on Attack Rolls (If a living creature) or Damage Rolls (If a structure) against that target, until such a time that you declare a new target. Any Zombies you created within a 300 foot radius automatically become hostile towards the target you've pointed out. Any creature that Zombies under your command kill has a 20% chance of rising as Zombies in 1d4 Hours.