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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
How to please undead fans (yes they need love too and I know a way)
Marzzo
Member, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Thanks to @Nagash I noticed that there is no love for undead fans. The only exceptions being skins and I really hope you understand why skins are a horrible solution for skeletal loving players 
.
I do understand that giving the option to create an undead from character creation from scratch may collide with IS vision of the lore and feel of the game, but I think I have a solution that can either be done in a lazy way or a deep way. Both are effective and will evolve the game for atleast a minority of the player base while not ruining the experience or lore for others.
Enter: "Insert edgy undead clan/guild name"
When you start the game you choose one of the regular races. From my understanding the game offers different NPC guilds, clans and groups for you to explore content with.
What you could do is create an undead clan. Once you progress enough in this clan, either by grinding, or following a story or doing specific tasks you will be given the choice to become one of them. They will then tranfsorm your current race through a ritual to become an undead version of your desired race.
The lazy way
The undead ritual only changes your visuals. It gives no abilities or gameplay differences. In this way, you will please a group of players that love to play as undeads while not affecting the game in any way except for the better. It is up to you intrepid to design the lore about this in a way you like.
The deep way
Races that go through with the ritual change the very nature of their being. A Ren'kai, that usually has difficulties controlling their rage and having acces to abilities that increase damage with the weakness being more damage taken will no longer have this ability.
Instead, all races that become undead are unified under the same "special ability" group. This could for example be infinite underwater breath, resistance to poison or whatever you name it.
Summary
To please the undead race fanbase, offer a way to turn our races to undead versions of that race. Either only visualy, or with special abilities unique for undead.
.I do understand that giving the option to create an undead from character creation from scratch may collide with IS vision of the lore and feel of the game, but I think I have a solution that can either be done in a lazy way or a deep way. Both are effective and will evolve the game for atleast a minority of the player base while not ruining the experience or lore for others.
Enter: "Insert edgy undead clan/guild name"
When you start the game you choose one of the regular races. From my understanding the game offers different NPC guilds, clans and groups for you to explore content with.
What you could do is create an undead clan. Once you progress enough in this clan, either by grinding, or following a story or doing specific tasks you will be given the choice to become one of them. They will then tranfsorm your current race through a ritual to become an undead version of your desired race.
The lazy way
The undead ritual only changes your visuals. It gives no abilities or gameplay differences. In this way, you will please a group of players that love to play as undeads while not affecting the game in any way except for the better. It is up to you intrepid to design the lore about this in a way you like.
The deep way
Races that go through with the ritual change the very nature of their being. A Ren'kai, that usually has difficulties controlling their rage and having acces to abilities that increase damage with the weakness being more damage taken will no longer have this ability.
Instead, all races that become undead are unified under the same "special ability" group. This could for example be infinite underwater breath, resistance to poison or whatever you name it.
Summary
To please the undead race fanbase, offer a way to turn our races to undead versions of that race. Either only visualy, or with special abilities unique for undead.
1
Comments
WoW player have wanted an Ogre race for like... 10 years.
Do you remember where you heard them talk about it? To be honest, in a fantasy game, making a microtweak to the lore to accomondate undead characters is a piece of cake. You dont even have to change anything, just add a line of text to the lore, for example "With dark magic togheter with corruption, a being can distance themselves from the world of flesh etc..."
p.s steven if you do read this please help a morally challenged guy out
There are seven organized religions in the Verra, of which we have seen only five loosely described:
Goddess of Love.
God/Goddess of Creation.
Goddess of Fate (Norlan).
God of Hope (Resna).
God of Truth (Shol).
So there is still room for a God of Death (Entropy) and the various rituals and advancements for a "true believer" could include some form of undeath, and who knows maybe somewhere in Verra there are still cults to the other three of the original ten.
and I bet they are the "bad guys" *sigh*
That would seem somewhat out of place if they were the bad guys.
I can't see how they would be any more bad than a god of truth or fate. I can see them having a dark visual theme to them, and I can see people in general being somewhat scared when dealing with them, but I am always disappointed any time a game presents a god as actually evil unless the gods are purely alignment based.
Ancient Nagash comes to me
Speaking words of shadow, let’s zombie
And as I’m bringing darkness
He is floating right in front of me
Speaking words of shadow, let’s zombie
Let’s zombie, let’s zombie
Let’s zombie, let’s zombie
Whisper words of shadow, let’s zombie
But why should undead or necromancers be considered bad or evil, perhaps the cultures of Verra consider a corpse nothing more than an empty vessel to be reused. Now if you go around making those vessels empty by your own hand perhaps there might be some corruption involved, or perhaps not.
did you mean for that to come across in the rhythm of the Cranberries Zombie?
It’s a Beatles song you Philistine!
Okay,
Adding an undead racial skin is fine (at least for me), but that doesn't really make you of an undead race in a sense that would matter - it's just cosmetic.
I don't specifically recall when the undead race topic was brought up but it was in a stream probably from 2018.
IMO, just adding a single sentence for the existence of an entire race in the lore is a bit cheap. I don't think changing the Lore in such a wayt is something anyone would want and the DEVS would want just so they justify an Udead race. You might argue that it could be more than a single sentence but then again, if their vision for the game is to have undead creatures as something outside of the playable set of races, i wouldn't bust their balls to jeopardize their vision of the game.
For example. We have lore about all races including the Tulnar. What they are, why they are like that and what led to that. If undeads come from another source that is integral to the game's story then it doesn't make sense to change that. 'But it's not even released yet', doesn't matter.
It's sort of a circular topic where one side wants something and the other side doesn't and there isn't really a solution to.
I'm not sure on the Verra culture thing, but i am pretty sure the culture is what the 5 races have developed in the time they were in the Sanctuary world.
Necromancy and necromancers are generally described as something that is not necessarily good. They work with dark magic and wield dark forces to further their plans. The game might not label Necromancers and Necromancy generally as something bad or evil, but it certainly won't push it to the good guys side. I, personally, don't see Intrepid doing Necros the "Oh, i use black magic and dark rituals to enslave souls and use them as puppets, BUT i am the good guy and instead of plagues i spead flower fields"
We don't have a big portion of the Lore which is purposefully so - so people can discover that in-game.
We could also look at this from the other side of the coin. Rather than Necromancers, perhaps they are the agents of Entropy that use the powers given them to reverse the great imbalance between Creation and Entropy. Their tools could be Revenant's, literally The Returned, summoned for the sole purpose of tracking down and destroying a target selected by the summoner. The target may have performed some injustice that skews this balance; the Revenant tracks down and destroys said target to restore it. If the Revenant completes its task it is released and entropy claims it, otherwise it returns and starts tracking the target again - until the deed is done.
Perhaps lesser "undead" or to remove the stigma associated with that term perhaps we should call them animated cadavers, could be useful in performing one of the more unsavory tasks such as collecting and disposing of corpses, especially "corrupted corpses" which could spread their corruption through touch. An animated cadavar could safely dispose of such corpses by stacking them up so they can be burned to ash.
I am sure @Nagash can come up with other equally useful ways these summoned servants and their lesser kin can be used, the above is just food-for-thought.
well undead do a great job at mining and building plus dave is a Fantastic cook
Skeletons don’t have the thick skin to deal with adversity.
Ghosts lack substance.
Mummies are always wrapped up in themselves.
Ghouls just won’t let things stay buried.
Vampires suck.
No, undead are not good employees.
It's something new to add to the mix and is def lined up with the necro class.
and liches are *******
All undead are just tools of the corruptions machinations.
Thats undeadist
if that's true then why is the final form for a mortal death?
But the final form of death is life?
that's where necromancers come in ^^
not like the dead care