Skeletons are the backbone of the information age. While the majority are not sapient, their ability to both store information and follow simple commands means that no library or government office would be able to function without a properly installed and maintained skull array.

Corpse Bride-esque undead, that are more vibrant than most living, to the point of actually performing musicals and singing most of the time.

One of them MUST be named Bim Turton.

>>16168978
Lich Head Librarian as the mainframe?

>>16168978
>>16168997
Skeletal computing is basically what Deep Rot was all about.

>>16168997
More IT support

Skull fffb255 needs its right bicuspid replacing as its causing errors in the chattering algorithms

>>16168943

Sentient skeletons living inside all of us, subtly controlling our behaviour to further their convoluted schemes!

>>16168978
didn't we have a whole thread about the necrocompurter a while back?

also: skeleton helocopters

>>16168943
Skele-copters.

Because skeletons don't have friction!

Then we can have sky ships powered by the dead.

>>16169015

>also: skeleton helocopters

damn, you beat me to it.

Well played.

>>16169013

I'm pretty sure I've heard that one before, but it was more of a joke than anything.


A postapocalyptic setting where everyone is undead?

>>16169013
...fuck, that's a creepy idea... skeletons wearing people like people wear clothes...

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/12936417/

How about a lich that has completely done away with its physical form and composed itself completely out of magical essence?

>>16169015
>>16169029
>>16169031

>>16169039
Already mentioned Deep Rot, yes.

Animated skeletons are envious of anything that lives and tirelessly hunt them down to kill them. It's sheer spiteful envy.

Skeletons don't eat, breathe or tire, making them excellent vermin hunters. Throw some terrier skeletons into the sewers (or your store rooms) and seal the doors: no more rat problem. Need to be in there? Take along a level 1 cleric...

(not novelty for the sake of it: see the Harryhausen dragon's teeth skeletons in Jason & the Argonauts)

>>16168943
Walking cities on enormous, skeletal legs. They could walk through some sort of swamp or lava field, and the only thing keeping its residents alive was the tireless work of the noble liches who controlled this monstrous way of locomotion.

Sort of opposite of what its usually like, really.

>>16169034
Players don't have hitpoints, only the conditions of their body. They won't die, they will just fall part and if they get cut up into a thousand small pieces, they can't do shit about it.

Cue players fixing themselves with ductape, bolting armour onto their bodies and giant blenders being the most terrible device know to all survivors. Who wants to possess a spear liquidated body?

>>16168979

Gilbert & Skullivan present: The Zombies of Penzance

>>16169094

Also stealing other people's limbs.

The epic lich rap battle.

>>16169136
Pic semi-related?

>>16169139

Fuck yeah

>state-sanctioned-and-regulated necromancy

I remember like a year or more ago we had a massive thread discussing a world where the undead were the state and becoming undead was like a lordship or something like that.

It was pretty ballin'

A theme park run by the undead. Their magic activates when a sentiant being walks by, as they rise up from their bile of bones, and offer them cotton candy, a ride on the roller coaster (powered by constantly running undead) or a go at a carnival game. And it's all dirt cheap, as the undead don't need paying, only the liches!

>>16169172
But those liches love their money. I can't see that being cheap at all.

>>16169136
No way, you can still control your limb, no matter how far away you are from it! Stealing limbs will just mean you've got some other guys arm, and he's beating you with it.

Skele-copters then advent the idea of utrning skeletons into mechanical parts. These parts add together to build various machines. Take skeletons and assemble mass production lines, each doing a simple, unskilled (but very hazardous) task to slowly build anything.

Other uses, skeletons could be commanded to create mining work forces that don't care about suffocation. One set of skeletons mines, another gathers various ore types, then another set take the ores to the smelters/ refiners for each ore type found.

Eventually you can create a lateral assembly line out of skeleton workers. And the workers don't eat/ suffocate/ mind blazing heat/ care about loud noises and are cheap enough to replace at the rate of ore mining.

>>16169245
Or you could make them the working pieces of a giant mecha.

>>16169245
So then you have a skeletal assembly machine.

Now actual hard ware. You could make a skeleton powered engine, and use it to rotate axels or other things. And with a simple start stop commands, you can get your vehicle anywhere quickly.

You will easily replace the cost of steam powered boats by using skeletal power (a rotating skeleton team against a set of gears, with a damage reduction enchant to reduce wear of the skeletons over time).

Other uses, garbage processors! All the trash and wase in the city can be sorted, then blended down with the use to skeletons and skele-blenders (see skele-copters).

With poper application of skeletons, you can perform practically any task endlessly at high efficiency.

Need a house built? Skeleton work squads, just release them with their building tools and supplies with one simple task each, and BOOM a house/ or a castle, or anything you need built.

Even normal city maintenance could be done by skeletons, like repaving roads (get one row of skeletons to pick up old pavement, and another to lay new pavement). i mentioned the recycling/ sorting.

You can use a skeleton for anything!

>>16169341
Yes you could, and for tanks!

If you design your skeletons with piston like bone parts, or build in gears (though these both take time unless you have a factory of skeletons working for you), you can make any modern or scifi machine you can think of (out of enchanted bones).

> Capcha: thank icalizh
> All hail Icalizh, lich of industry!

>>16169341
Oh god. Mecha anime where necromancers create giant bone constructs which are really just team of undead linked together.

Brief sidenote - a lich who keeps his phylactery in an adamantine box inside his own skull, but wears a rather gaudy amulet which his pretends is his phylactery, presuming the enemy will attempt to destroy the obvious amulet first rather than his skull - clever or not clever?

>>16168979

That was pitched as a game on /tg/ once: a jazz age bohemia of skeletons living beneath the graveyard, and sipping on the mortified essence of the flesh of pre-skeletal corpses, filtered down through the soil.

Until bam, mole-like flesheating ghouls show up and institute an essence-prohibition as they begin looting the graveyard of the fleshie corpses to feed themselves.

Are you a bad enough jazz pianist skeleton to run bootleg essence and dodge the ghoul coppers?

We also decided that a skeleton's main distinguishing feature was his or her headwear.

>>16169341

Inspiration!

Well /tg/ came up with a way to make a computer using skeletons and some time manipulation magic.

>>16168943
Upon the death of a family member as part of a ritual the flesh is cremated and a charm is placed on the bones. During times of strife the skeleton will animate and protect the family members. Protect is used loosely as they will not only fight off intruders, but rescue people from burning buildings or go out and collect fire wood in times of extreme cold.

>>16170058
I appreciate the effort to make the Bible seem literally historically accurate, but due to the square-cube law, that's physically impossible.

>>16170732
>claim square-cube law prohibits creatures from being bigger then they are now
>ignore hoards of evidence for the existence of all sorts of animals that were larger in prehistoric times.

A walking skeleton, the basic frame of the human body, can inspire more fear in the common man than an excessively armed soldier or knight.
The dead make good soldiers. They can't disobey orders, never surrender, and don't stop fighting when a random body part falls off.

>>16170774

>think that law implies that no animal can be that save
>doesn't realize that it is more a law of body types depending very much on the relative size, hence no bigger than man spiders doing shit, and no longer then 10 feet humies.

>>16170732
That doesn't make it impossible.
It just means the giant would be physically forced to be a worthless lazy bastard who can't really move.

>>16170705

Yes, it was a hoax.

>>16170705

Mammoth (or elephant) bones incorrectly reassembled into humanoid form.

There was a whole body of literature on ancient Greek temples scamming people that fossilised bones found in the area were those of Titans and ancient heroes. It almost seems to have turned into a relic trade.

>>16170794
1. maybe they had altered musculoskeletal systems.
2. are you attempting to use a law that proves that increasing the size of a creature to much would create a strain on its existence to declare that humans can only go up to 10 feet not 10 feet 6 inches?

>>16170856

nope, I was just throwing numbers together.

And unless you have evidence of "whatever" to either prove or require such a system to account for other evidence of big as fuck human-likes, then you are just speculating without due cause.

>>16169013
>>16169035

>>16170816
>>16170876
>nope, I was just throwing numbers together.
>you are just speculating without due cause.
indeed.

Since we're talking about necromancy in a fantasy world anyway, how about we discuss skeletons and zombies assembled from a number of different creatures?

What combinations would be interesting/effective?

Assume these basic rules-

Forms must have a roughly realistic functionality. An extra arm stuck onto a torso won't work. An entire new shoulder system would have to be worked into the original body.

Since it is relatively easy to create or find bones of appropriate size, we can ignore the *actual* size restrictions of mixing two creatures. We could put an elephant head on a mouse body as long as we had a tiny elephant or a giant mouse.

Exoskeletons and endoskeletons can be mixed, provided they can be anchored to each other in some way. This may require building an endoskeleton inside an exoskeleton for proper structural support.

Necromantic Russian Matryoshka Doll-

Assume you animate a skeleton.

Then you take another body and carefully de-bone it, opening it all up like a clothing pattern.

Then you have your skeleton lay down on top of the de-boned body and you carefully sew/heal/mend/whatever all the meat back around the skeletons bones.

Now you have a magically animated skeleton wearing a non-magical meat suit.

Then you animate the meat as a zombie. (Don't argue, there's really no reason this can't work)

Then you take a ghost anchored to a suit of armor, the classic "floating suit of armor" and you put it onto your zombie/skeleton.

Finally, you take a mummy able to become a swarm of scarabs or flies or something like that and you have them burrow into the zombie, using it as a hive.

Mechanically, what have we created? How would something like this behave?

Discuss?

>>16171706

Depending on how smart ghosts, skeletons and zombies are in the setting, it could be anywhere from a three-mind collective inside an undead soldier, or an unholy ragdoll-ing clusterfuck of steel, flesh and bone.

>>16171706
It's an undead turducken!

>>16171706

If you had fully sentient liche inside, it could be like some kind of magical armour. You can't launch a spell at the liche without it going through the armour spirit, and then through the zombie. Could affect line of sight from all angles?

It's generally understood that the older a lich is, the more powerful it is. It's also generally understood that liches continue (or begin as the case may be) to decay upon achieving lich-hood.

What about a lich that doesn't jive with the whole idea of decaying (he loves his coffee) so he makes a spell that preserves his flesh. As a side effect, everyone thinks that he, an ancient horror of strength untold, is a weakling. Hilarity ensues.

For bonus points make him sound like the Monarch.

>>16171706
Greatest necromancy EVER.

>>16171706
Could the caster not add another skeleton on top of that, possibly using True Creation or some other spell to get a perfect fit, and repeat until the undead abomination is too large to keep working on?

Liches colonizing your campaigns orbital bodies. They don't require air, are held together by magic, and implying spell casting levels, can fly or teleport themselves there. Imagine your PC's faces when they try to scry and die the BBEG this time!

>>16172146
Where would it go?

>bones
>meat
>metal

Metal's the top layer. Nothing else to add.

>>16172146
With a troll skeleton, a troll, and a suit of troll-sized armor, and work your way up the size chain?

I LIKE IT

>>16172172
As >>16172174 said,

Start with a human skeleton. Add human flesh. Add human-sized armor. Find larger skeleton. Find flesh. Find larger armor. Find XBOX HUEG skeleton. Add XBOX HUEG flesh. Add XBOX HUEG armor. Continue until 5,000,000 or become god.

>>16172212
That's making one, then making a second one that's bigger. they way it was worded, it made it sound like the bigger one would somehow be added as extra layers to the smaller one.

>>16172167
I like it!

Put the litch in a skeletal castle on the moon, and try to trick the players into using the locate city nuke trick/exploit.

The next set of sessions is dealing with the post apocalyptic setting of having the moon crash into the fantasy world.

>>16172241
I'm not wording this too well, am I.

It's a Matryoshka Doll, or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matryoshka_doll .

You fit the smaller skeleflesharmormummylich into the larger skeleflesharmormummylich, as extra layers, working your way up, so that for every X layers you go down a size, and go through the layers again.

>>16172244
Or just have the Lich's Big Bad Evil Plan be to push the moon into said earth using huge amounts of force based spells or whatever.

>>16172212

So, smaller Necroturducken wearing larger Necroturducken like powerarmor inside a necroturducken mech, all the way up to necroturduken megazord scale.

What the hell do we call this thing?

>>16172303
Victorious.

>>16172303
Not a clue. Drive it through a village of commoners, asking for them to shout out suggestions?

>>16172289

The problem is that the larger layers have to be relatively hollow to fit the smaller ones in.

You might be able to wrap the thing in a larger meat sack, but you couldn't do a skeleton over the top of the armor without some serious re-design of the bones.

It's a good idea in theory, but I'd worry that the bigger it got the more floppy it would get due to lack of a decent internal support system.

>>16172355
You're already using MAGIC to animate the thing, it's not too implausible to suggest that MAGIC could reshape the bones into the correct shape, though the larger layers would be harder to construct that way.

I'm picturing a lich using this thing like battlemech.

The undead are all mentally controlled, and have their own unique actions, so the lich could even still cast spells and act normally. Same way it could if it was riding a horse.

The trick is to have lots of undead that have things like auras, resistances, spell-like abilities, and crap like that, since the smaller corporeal ones would essentially be trapped in the larger ones and not really capable of physical actions.

>>16172355
Then just pack a bunch of smaller ones into the internal organ area of a much larger one.
The outer layers act as ablative armor for a cluster bomb of necromantic attackers.

Then you make the big ones explode when they die, healing or supercharging all the undead in the area with a wave of negative energy.

>>16172355

If you skipped the "wrapping bones around armor" stages, you could just put layer upon layer of slightly larger, possessed armor on top. Either find different sized humanoid species and steal their armor, of make your own if you're rich and powerful.

Liche -> Zombie Skin -> Armor -> Armor -> Armor -> Armor -> Armor -> Armor -> Armor -> Armor -> Armor -> Armor ->

= Giant Sentient Robot Suit.

Actually, rather than making some sort of ghoulish battlemech, I was picturing this bizarre creation as something more akin to (forgive the reference) the Black Knight battle in Wrath of the Lich King.

In that one, you fight the fully armored Knight, then his flesh melts off and you fight his skeleton, then when that crumbles, his vengeful ghost is the last stage.

This could work near-identically here, as some sort of epic "boss battle" at or near the end of a campaign:

First you fight a wickedly armored knight, then once his armor is broken away, you face his stitched-up zombie form, and once that mass of meat is hacked away, his stout bones are the final obstacle to your victory.

>>16172505
I think there's a divine herald in pathfinder that's a big iron golem, and when it dies a smaller golem pops out and starts growing to full size, repeating ad infinitum.

>>16172482

What's that feat from Libris Mortis that makes undead blow up when they die?

Just give the lich creator that. Every time a layer breaks, it blows up healing everything inside it and hammering the good guys.

I know we're supposed to be talking about skeletons but lets switch to zombies for a moment.

Lets take a big flying thing, a Roc for example. Now a skeletal roc isn't going to fly, it's just going to have bones where wings were. Zombie on the other hand...

The next step is to attach a flintstone-esque cargo top or a travel basket to said flying undead creature. What do we get? Something that can fly without getting tired for as long as the necro-pilot wants.

I don't think fly speeds are reduced either, but I'm not 100% on that.

Just start with the initial skele and just alternate flesh and armor until you run out of bigger creatures.

>>16172636
It WOULD eventually rot away, so you'd need to magic that away. And there's the smell.

But after that, it's Magic Airlines time.

>>16172636
Why can't a skeletal roc fly? Magic is magic.

>>16171706
This idea, you really don't even need multiple bodies to pull it off...

Take an enemy soldier, kill him, and trap his soul in his armor. Take his body, carefully flaying the flesh from bone. Animate the skeleton, stitch the flesh back on and zombify it, then put it all back in the armor. Repeat as necessary.

Voila, there you have it. And since each "layer" is a separate form of undead, it can take a few hits from "Turn Undead" and othersuch nasty little spells and still have some of it able to keep on going!

>>16172744
>repeat as necessary
In this case meaning you can do it to a whole bunch of enemy soldier, making one "matryosha ghoul" for each one, without parts left over!

>>16172505
I like this idea. How about this: Lich with its phylactery in an Adamantium box inside its skull, who wears a zombie flesh suit, and over that, a posessed armor. He then climbs inside a titan skeleton wrapped in zombie titan flesh suit with a posessed titan-sized armor, controlling it like some sort of undead mecha.
And then you have a dozen mummies or so turning into an unholy amount of beetles/scorpions/insects that makes the undead mecha (and the lich) as their host. Also possible is integrating as much haunted or posessed artifacts or trinkets into the titanzombiefleshsuit.

There you have it, an Undead Gundam ready to take on Tarrasques. Well, maybe Tarrasque-sized creatures.

>>16172832
If we didn't have an awesome reason to do so before, this settles it - we MUST archive this thread now.

>>16169044
Its so nice to see stuff you post on a board be reused.

For OP:
Computers
Buildings
Flying Machines
Energy/Manpower

AND

Since they all were of once living things, as long as there are living things there will always be a never ending supplies of bones. So technically they can be seen as self replicating.

Dare I start thinking of skeletons in space..?

Aslo: Original Skelecopter drawing.

>>16172928
would someone Vocaroo the THIBBBBB sound effect?

>>16172744
>Take an enemy soldier, kill him, and trap his soul in his armor.
And that way the entire time the players are fighting the Lich-Zoid, dozens of faces pop out of the armor and insult them the entire time, while one or two try to ineffectually warn the players what the Lich-Zoid will do next.

>>16172744

There's a necromantic kingdom in my D&D setting that does something similar, though it's not a single layered creature.

They take a person (often a volunteer, but captives work too), strip the soul from it and create a ghost-like entity; then they flay the body carefully, restitching the skin up and fill it with sand, reanimating that; then they strip the muscle from the bone, attach them to a metal skeleton, reanimate that; then extract the brain from the skull and reanimate that (Brain in a Jar); and then reanimate the bones as a regular skeleton.

They're very frugal necromancers.

>>16172984
grotesque yet brilliant.

Thread Archived.

You gotta give Dark Soul's credit, it's got nice Lich design.

I've got a setting with an odd super-religious nation. The thing that's odd about it is that it's all religions, not just one. Evil and good are acceptable, so long as they obey the laws and keep shit behind closed doors. Ruled by a council of High Priests, with a Head figure voted in by the council, who rules for life. Which is a law that's been rather twisted as late, as the High Priest who became the First (as in Among Equals) has since ascended to Lichdom and has ruled for a few centuries. But, since he cares more about keeping the law then anything particularly evil, he's a tolerated ruler. Not all that well-liked, but it's not a democracy.

>>16172832
>Implying the undead Tarresque isn't the final piece of the puzzle

>state-sanctioned-and-regulated necromancy

Look at the deadlands origin. Thou you will have to create a log in to see it. I could copy pasta it if you want.

http://www.dragontavern.com/
there all fixed

>>16173242
Isn't The Tarrasque supposed to be the spirit of the earth manifested or some shit?
I mean, killing it is fine, because that just destroys the vessel, and even if you wish it to permadeath it just removes that portion of Gaia power.
But what would the ramifications be for turning it Undead? Is it even possible?

I can see the Tarrasque essentially being a Kingdom Hearts Keyhole (sorry, it's all I got) analog to the DnD worlds.

Allrighty guys, got an almost-relevant thread over at /co/:
>>>/co/29350728

Apparently someone made a furfag doll, with a human skeleton in it (okay, so it was made of wood and plastic).

And the thread went into nightmare fuel mode soon after.

>>16173445
Oh sweet motherfucker I'm not sleeping tonight.

>>16173445
For those not wanting to wander to /co/ to see it...

The doll.

>>16173555
The doll standing up.

>>16173562

OH GOD WHAT THE FUCK

>>16173445
Necromancers that disguise their skeletons with robes, hoods, etc.
Or mascot costumes.
I am never fucking going to disneyland after thinking about this.

An insane necromancer using animated skeletons in costumes as his companions, talking to them and inventing voices for them like a child at a teaparty with her teddybears...

That's what that doll makes me think of.

I've always wanted to do a setting where everything was made from bones.

Houses, weapons, armor, bouquets, braces. EVERYTHING.

But its hard to make it serious and not METAL.

>>16173568
I can't tell if that's a genuine skeleton or a replica.

>>16173611
the bones seem made of multiple materials. Is one of them actual bone? Who knows.

>>16173671
one bone taken from every victim.

Room for a few more..

>>16173688
Skeleton with all the power of a usual skeleton per bone.
Awesome.

Animated skulls used as audio books.

I pity the bastard that has to recite pages of twilight until the end of time

>>16168943
>Ghost Rider, or rather, Ghost Riders, Ghost Riders EVERYWHERE!

>>16173734
Not if you picked the right victim.
For an authentic experience, have it be the skull of Stephanie Meyer.

>>16173608
Ever heard of the darksun campaign setting? There is almost no metal. Check it out if you want serious without metal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Sun

>>16173755
Also, Robo-Ghost Riders.

>>16173765
Imagine, in a necromantic society, we would never lose talent such as the voice of Don LaFontaine!

>>16173786
Between this and the earlier idea involving forcing Meyer's disembodied skull to recite her own trash for etrnity, I now fully embrace the idea of necromancy as a Very Good Thing.

>>16173804
What about a necromantic think-tank of world leaders?

>>16173804
Until you realize that every furry fanfiction author will insist on doing the same thing for themselves.

>>16173568
You now realized that the only reason one would need such anatomical correctness... is if they planned to somehow necromantically bestow it with unlife as their inhuman bride...

>>16173838

I would resurrect likes of Nixon, Bush, Reagan (When they finally kick the fucking bucket for comedic purposes.

That and skullfucking Palin.

Skeleton Boy approves of this thread.

There was a D&D 3.5 Supplement called Dragonmech that introduced a Steampunk element to D&D.

Four mech types were introduced: Steam Powered, Man Powered, Animated and Necro.

Necromechs were basically just dozens of undead bolted, lashed and stuck together into one large undead that a Necromancer commanded from the inside.

The Millenia King was the best.

/thread

/r/ing those really fuckwin looking manuscripts about undead creatures. I forget the artist but one of the creatures was like a horse mutated by chernobyl and had like nine legs at weird angles with like four jawbones in fucked up places.

>>16176509

TOM SOMETHING FUCK I FORGOT.

>>16176509

http://www.keiththompsonart.com/

>>16176305
Get the fuck out.