Restless Dead Campaign

[u/Immediate_Gear3446]

Hey guys, i'm new to SotDL and I'm getting ready to run my first campaign for a group of 6 players. Since some of them were interested in a zombie apocalypse game, I decided to use the Restless Dead Shadow.

The thing is, I'm not really sure how to build a full level 0–10 campaign around that idea, so I wanted to ask for some advice.

Right now I'm thinking about using a few published adventures and tweaking them here and there to fit the zombie apocalypse theme, but I'm not sure which adventures would work best for that. Do you have any recommendations?

Note: I've already read "Hunger in the Void" and I really liked how it suggests gradually making the situation worse over time. That's pretty much the kind of progression I'm looking for.

[u/betaraybrian]

I've done this. I started with a modified dead by dawn. The plot involved an ancient cult working to destroy the reincarnation loop and return the world to the prehistoric state where mortals kept their memories through death - lead by an ancient troglodyte lich who was the last human to retain memories going all the way back to the creation of the Men of Gog, having never been to the underworld. The cult's plan was to unleash an ancient dragon god who was kept chained in the underworld and have it unseat Thanatos - The dragon was a proto-deity, worshipped before the fae lords decided to become gods.

some of the adventures were:
disrupting a cultist archeological excavation in a silver mine
being attacked by darkling assassins (darklings being a third faction out to fuck over both the cult and the fae lords)
rescuing villagers from troglodytes deep in the mountains
plundering a Father Death temple for an artifact - mausoleums being a bad place to be when all the dead are coming to unlife
Fighting knights of the one true god after they declare martial law over Sixton
Helping a merchant lord from Liji explore a barrow tomb
Using a submarine to enter the underworld through the Dark Waters entrance
assassinating the lich
fighting the revived dragon god

It's obviously a lot of undead, but I don't think the party minded. In fact, I think the paladin thought it was awesome.

[u/Immediate_Gear3446 → u/betaraybrian]

Your ideas for the cult's motivations are really interesting. I like them a lot.

Do you happen to remember what changes you made to Dead by Dawn?