#RPGaDay2024 Day 14 – Awakening

Day 14 of #RPGaDay2024, continuing with the alternative prompt challenge list by Skala Wyzwania. For more information on RPG a Day, see David Chapman’s Autocratik blog post for 2024.

The RPG challenge theme for today is Awakening. Rolling a 1d10 for the quest. The result is 6: Create a random table.

Restless Slumber

Those cursed by the Auspice of the Nocturnal Potentates (anyone who rolls 2 to 12 on the table presented on #RPGaDay2024 Day 3) not only have their blood made dangerous to the touch of others, but their bodies do not sleep fitfully after death. A dead body left unattended will find that the cursed blood in it putrefies and raises the dead as an undead, called to the wild by the Darkness. Unlike other dark spawns, like some of the changed, the undead are active at any time of the day, but like all servants of the Dark Potentates, they are most powerful after dusk.

A body given the proper funerary rites is less likely to rise as undead, but it is not unheard of. Any layperson can perform the rite of peaceful rest, but those a priest provides are most effective. Even then, most family members who can afford them buy chains and have them sanctified, if possible, to bind the dead until their final fitful rest arrives.

A properly buried dead body will rarely rise if it has not awoken by the dawn of the seventh day. The following table lists what happens when a buried body awakens from death:

1. The deceased finds peaceful rest the first night, and no mishap occurs.
2. The deceased does not awaken but leaves a lingering presence. No plants grow at or near the gravesite, animals avoid the location, and no one can rest fitfully near the burial site because of nightmares or other appropriate effects.
3. The undead awakens on the first night buried, digging out of the grave. They are weak regardless of their capabilities in life and tied by their chains. They will present a minor threat to those who encounter them.
4. The undead awakens on the first night but cannot break from the chains. Rattling and moaning can be heard outside the grave, and it unnerves animals and children.
5. The undead rises on the second night but fails to break the chains breaking apart; the arms claw themselves out of the grave, pulling the head and heart along, trying to crawl away to damn the deceased eternal soul. The pieces fight any attempts to stop them but are not very powerful.
6. The undead moans from the grave for two days; normal animals within earshot grow aggressive and attack. Milk curdles, and food spoils within a few hundred feet of the grave.
7. On the third night, the undead awakens, breaking its chains and digging out of the grave. The body, powered by corrupted blood, remains as powerful as it was in life.
8. The undead moans from the grave for three nights; rolling on this table for any undead buried during these nights cannot result in a 1.
9. The undead awakens on the fourth night, breaking its chains and digging out of the grave. The body is powered by corrupted blood and is more powerful than it was in life.
10. The undead awakens on the fifth night, breaking its chains and digging out of the grave. The body’s corrupted blood powers it, and it is far more powerful than it was in life.
11. On the sixth night, the undead awakens, breaking its chains and digging out of the grave. The body is powered by the corrupted blood; it is far more powerful than it was in life, and its power animates 1d6 minor undead who also crawl out of their graves.
12. A shade of the creature seeps from the grave, the dark powers in the blood, given form, casting a shadow of the deceased former self upon the mortal realm. If unchecked, this shadow will haunt and seek to kill family members, friends, or allies.

If the undead’s head and heart are recovered, purified, and reburied, the eternal spirit of the deceased can find solace in the realms beyond. If not buried correctly in the first place or reburied if awakened, the eternal spirit lingers in the mortal world, serving the Darkness and the Nocturnal Potentates.

I’ve never been one to create random tables for my games, but I have enjoyed doing them for these challenges. I may try to do domes more for my games. Do you create random tables for your games? I’d love to know more about your tables.

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