Yet Another Effort, You Toiling Dead, If You Would Become Free

The Dead danced once before, and they might yet dance again.

 

[Edit 2020-08-23: A 12 page mini zine including the class is now available on DriveThruRPG.]

 

Why, you ask, are so many of the corpses you find while vandalizing the sepulchers of the Twin Canals gagged and shackled? Today it is mostly an empty tradition fueled by bad conscience, but once it was a matter of life and death. Listen: 

In the Great Disorder following the reign of the Maggot Empress A*****, cursed be her name, more than one local potentate turned to Necromancy as a workaround to labour shortages and unruly Nature. Where sufficient quantities of slaves proved hard to feed and clothe, a timely hecatomb followed by deals with forces beyond human ken ensured that the fields were tilled, aristocrats catered for and estates protected. And all was good: The dead worked for the living, while the graves of the poor yawned empty. But in time, in that Uncanny Valley of eternal servitude, working stiffs grew dimly conscious of their unhappy fate.

”While Skeletons delved and Ghouls span, what use of the lord, the burgher, the gentleman?”, the argument went. All wealth seemed to flow from the labour of the dead; by rights, should it not belong to them? The infamous Midnight Feast of Liris became the spark that lit up a hundred mansions, and revenant jacqueries spread along the Canals. A civil war pitted the toiling dead against their living betters. And, long story short, the latter won. Necromancers became shunned. The weak emperors of the Ever-Younger Dynasty merely put a legal stamp on the fait accompli when they outlawed the practice in their often cited, rarely read Vermilion Code. 

The insurgents were buried and sealed away. Yet, as long as one dead person still stands, the Restless Republic lives on. The battle hymns can be heard through the cracks of dry soil, from the detention crypts far below.

Class: Born Again Agitator 

It’s not your revolution if you’re not allowed to dance macabre
Languages: Common sprinkled with age-old phrases 
Armor and weapons: Any 
Levels, Saves, Attacks, HD: As Halfling
 

And a good day to you, Fellow Corpses! May I rouse you for a moment from your dreamless slumber?

Abilities:
Level 1: 
Eating habit: Not needed on a daily basis, but you can only digest: 1. Blood, 2. Brains, 3-5. Flesh of the living, 6. Withered, ancient foodstuffs. 
HP: Only regain HP when levelling up or (once per day) when eating.
Sleep: When you want to dream, otherwise not really necessary.
Poisons: Ineffective against the dead. Sickness: No effect on you, but potential Typhoid Mary.
Speak with dead:  Not that they necessarily want to speak with you: Roll reaction!


Level 2: 
Incite undead. The agitator can hold a rousing speech for groups of undead lvl times per day. Particularly reactionary undead (royal mummies, remains of saints) might be granted a ST.
Roll 2d6 for the audience's reaction [I guess it could be modelled more closely on the Turn undead table if preferred?]:
2 Shut her up! All undead focus their attacks on the Agitator. they will never listen to reason. 
3-5 Don’t want to be seen chatting with the trouble maker. Can’t be incited this fight.
6 Seems unrealistic; best to stick with the shackles one knows. 
7 Confused. The audience is indecisive; 2d6 + Cha-modifier HD worth of undead won't attack this turn.
8 Not worth undying for. 2d6 + CHA-modifier HD worth of undead walk away from the fight, looking for purpose in death 
9-11 Come dungeons dark or gallows grim. 2d6 + CHA-modifier HD worth of undead join you for the remainder of the battle, then spread the gospel on their own
12 Better dead on your feet than alive on your knees: 2d6 HD worth of undead join you for remainder of battle, one sticks around as retainer (roll loyalty etc)

Level 4: 
Scary. Instead of attacking, you can play on your obscene semblance of life to force a morale check. Once per battle. 

Level 5: 
Build the movement. Downtime activity. Dig up a 1HD comrade (roll for loyalty). Cumulative 10% risk that you draw the attention of authorities, churches or would-be despots of the dead for every new comrade exhumed in the area. 

Level 7:
Animate Dead: As per the Magic-User spell, minus the obedience. Once per day.

Level 8: 
Stronghold: The Born Again Agitator may form a fledgling Free Tomb, attracting 5d6 x 10 1HD undead followers and the enmity of all neighboring settlements.