Zombies

Zombies in the land of the dead are very rarely of human corpses. Large and exotic zombie beasts are seen in herds or alone on occasion. These creatures are passing fads among the Lords of the Underworld. Now it may be a status symbol to have the largest herd of zombie stegasauri, but next week it may be more fashionable to have a single large zombie tiger, trained to perform tricks.

Among the Lords of the Underworld, as in the World We Know, there are those who cling to yesterday's fashions.

Hobgoblins

Hobgoblins are goblins who have been forced to wear shoes. This contains their wickedness and they grow to be larger than a man. Some particularly wicked goblins will continue growing until they are quite corpulent. Hobgoblins are not capable of removing their shoes.

Hobgoblins who serve evil wizards or witches may be found to have black ooze inside them if they are killed.

Hobgoblins are not often found in the Land of the Dead, to encounter them there is a sinister auspice.

The Shadow Realm III

Eating and sleeping is not necessary in the land of the Dead, but having a meal may heal wounds here. Eating the food of goblins may be healing, but it may also have other queer effects.

The Sea of the Dead III

Hazards on the Sea of the Dead include the Mists, the nightmare creatures born from them, and Wraithwind, particularly if controlled by someone skilled.
Falling into the Sea is near certain death-the Dead are eager for company.
Madness is also an affliction that is common among the few living ceatures found in the Shadow Realm. Clerics of neutral gods with the gift of speaking to the Dead are particularly prone to the Madness.

Bandits and Pirates

Revenge, love, and unhealthy curriosity all may drive men and women from the World We Know into the World of the Dead, but for those who take to piracy on the Darkest Sea, greed is what keeps them in the Shadow Realm.

It is dangerous to be a pirate on the Unliving Sea, but the wealth of the Lords of the Underworld and of the Dead Gods is beyond compare in the World We Know.

Bandits in the world we know are as heartless and foul as pirates of the dark sea, just without a ship and a far reaching ambition.

Pirate Ships in the Underworld are strange kingdoms where men an women from the World We Know may work alongside undead or creatures from the Mist.

Lords of the Underworld

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

To The Dark Sea Again

The Dark Sea setting that I started sketching a while back has been percolating in my mind again.  I stopped working on it because I realized how bleak it was, a sea of the dead, no light, Underworld with a capital U.  I set it up as dungeon/hex crawl treasure grab in the finest of old school traditions, but that started to feel wrong.  I saw it as a campaign setting unto itself, but now I think it could function really well as a diversion from a regular D&D game.  Here's how it would work:  Say a PC dies.  the DM can hint that there are ways to get them back.  Clerics that can cast Raise Dead.  But there's a hitch.  They need to find the soul  before they can cast the spell.  The surviving characters get go on an adventure into the Underworld!  I'm not sure why it took me so long to come up with that.

You could say that the recently deceased don't immediately become a part of the Sea, maybe they first go to the Black Citadel where they might get sold or traded to lesser nobles of the Underworld.  (Yep, I read Wraith: The Oblivion in high school.  Don't think it ever got played though.  Now maybe my D&D game can benefit from that finally.)  This is setting up a wheel-and-deal scenario rather than a straight fight, which makes sense since it's probably pretty tough to go toe-to-toe with a lord of the Underworld.

Any way, I've added a picture/link on the right to gather these posts.

Speaking of pictures here are some that inspire the Sead of the Dead:

Centipedes & Spiders

Centipedes and Spiders are from the Fey Realm, but were long ago banished to the Underworld. Most of the Centipedes and Spiders, while larger than in the World We Know, are still merely beasts. There are some of these creatures who are ancient, and these have grown huge over the countless years since they were cast into the Shadow Realm and their intelect has grown with their size.

The many-legged centipedes accepted their place in the Shadow Realm and sometimes even sell whatever information they can gather about the Lords of the Underworld and the Court of the Black Citadel to the highest bidder, which is often the Kings and Queens of the Fey.

The centipedes eight legged cousins, however, have not forgotten their banishment from the shadows of the Green Realm and they hate all fey creatures with an unquenchable seething and malicious passion.

Giant Rats

The giant rats were once the favored pets and messengers of the God of the Underworld. They have been replaced by the crows in this respect and have been banished to the edges of the Dark Sea.
These rats possess a keen animal inteligence and are capable of mimicing speech. They were once able to swim short distances in the sea of the dead, and to facilitate their movement from island to island ancient stones were errected. Many of these stones are still in place.

Orcs

Orcs are the simplest and most fundamental tool that evil gods and demons have to wreak their machinizations upon the World We Know. They enter the World We Know through the waters of brackish fens, dark pools under moonlight, or the sea. They can be found in the Shadow Realm as well, awaiting direction from their masters.

While goblins have pebbled skin which is often bright, striped and be-spiked like a lizzard, orcs are mottled, dark and smooth like an eel.

While goblins are maniacal inventors, orcs are patient builders, constructing monoliths and monuments.

While goblins often sing, orcs do not, though on moonless nights a low inhuman chanting may be heard coming from Orchenges.

Orcs are dutiful in the work they do for their masters, however, this work is merely vocational. The gods that orcs truly worship are much, much older and long since vanished from any world known to orcs or men.

Orcs are fascinated by human women.

Skeletons

Skeletons are the most common creature to coalesce in the mists over the dark sea from the dreams of the dead. The dead often dream of themselves it seems. These skeletons are almost always violent, angry and mindless. There are stories, however, of skeletons capable of thought and speech and with memories of their past life.

Sorcerers are capable of learning a certain unholy and ancient runic language. By carving a particular rune  on the inside of a skeleton's breastbone and carving a complimentary rune into his own flesh a sorcerer may bind the skeleton to his command.  Wizards, rulers of aberrant empires of long ago bound countless skeletal warriors in this way and fought wars amongst each other.  In the Southern Wastes there are tombs full of these silent armies and magical scrolls made from the skin of sorcerers preserve the runes of command.

Goblins

Goblins sprout from the wounds of devils or ooze forth from the blood of demons. When a demon is killed a ritual must be performed to prevent a horde of goblins from pouring forth from the corpse.  Long have the demons and devils attempted to control goblins for their own demonic ends. They have had little success. Goblins certainly make mischief in the world, but it is their own mischief, not anyone else's.

Goblins love making things, inventing things, and breaking things to reshape them for their own pernicious ends. In the songs of goblins are the secrets to making vile constructs, contraptions and machines.

In the Shadow Realm goblins can be found fishing, usually with a box made of thick copper wire and glass, with one side that may be opened. They affix this box to the end of a line and toss it into the Sea of the Dead. When they haul in the line the box is filled with a memory, stolen from the dead and rendered in physical form: a live chicken, a worn boot, creek water on a warm summers day or a birthday cake.

Goblins never wear shoes.

Kobolds

Kobolds come from their own realm which is not the World We Know, nor the Shadow Realm. Some kobolds say that their world is of a slightly different shape than ours, and other kobolds say that it is shaped exactly the same but is at a slightly different angle. Kobolds apparently can travel to and from their world as long as they are not touching iron, but if they are cut by an iron blade they loose this power forever. When they travel this was they appear or disappear in a puff of smoke. Kobolds revere knowledge above all worldly things. They are especially fond of the written world and will bargain, beg, command or cajole to get a book they have not seen or read. There are groups of kobolds, sundered from their home who live in caves in the walls of black stone that surround the Sea of the Dead. Some say they tunnel to and from the world we know, stealing books and amassing secret libraries.

The Sea of the Dead II

There are islands in the dark sea. Some islands are the foundations of castles of lords of the underworld. Some of these castles are abandoned, and some are the seat of strange power.

The Black Citadel I

The Black Citadel is in the center of the Sea of the Dead. In the highest levels of the Citadel the God of the Underworld holds court and devils and lesser gods vie for power. The base of the Black Citadel is a tangled mass of viaducts, cisterns, colonades, butresses, and crumbling towers. It is here where gods who are no longer worshiped in the World We Know are entombed. These tombs of forgotten gods and the fabled treasure within is what most often draws foolhardy adventures away from the sunlit world and in to the Shadow Realm.

The Mist II

When the mists descend the dead dream. These dreams coalesce in the mists and form monsters who stalk the Shadow Realm. Sometimes these monsters are then brought into the World We Know via nightmares.

The Mist I

Mists descend upon the Sea of the Dead in the same way that night falls on the World We Know.

Wraithwind I

The unsettling quiet and calm of the dark sea is only rarely broken by Wraithwind. This ill wind may be summoned by a murderer from the World We Know. Filling sails with Wraithwind is the favored method of travel of pirates and smugglers on the dark sea.

The Shadow Realm II

Some say there are many paths to the Shadow Realm, and that in the back of every cavern, cellar, cairn and closet there is a door you may pass through, if only you know the secret word, the secret knock, or have a silver key.

Others say there is but one path and only the dead know the way.

There is a city in the East with a pool in a temple and the priests of that temple claim that by diving in to the pool you may reach the Shadow Realm.

In the forests they whisper that to reach the Shadow Realm you must first travel to the moon.

The Sea of the Dead I

The Living must have a vessel to cross the Sea of the Dead. Any craft intended for our waters will do, from a simple coracle, a flat-bottomed river boat, or a sailing ship. The trick is getting the vessel to the Dark Sea.

Some find wind to fill sails on the dark sea, but this wind is rare and fickle.

The easiest way to move a vessel across the dark sea is to hold a light aloft at the bow. The hands of the sea will slowly pass the craft from one to the other. Light may draw eyes from out of the darkness however.

Holding aloft the holy symbol of the god of the underworld will similarly move able craft through the sea, but it is said He will seek payment for this favor.