Undead Battlemaster

Warcraft III has Undead as a player race. And a lot of other games that I don't play do too! Why not BattleMaster?

Characters

Characters of the Inhuman type would be like ordinary characters. Except for being undead and/or monstrous. They don't care much about families, don't bother with wealth, and generally go around being destructive. Don't tell me that's not fun!

Attributes

Honor: Inhumanity

Well, honor just doesn't synch with being a living corpse or other flesh-eating terror. Honor would be replaced with Inhumanity. Thus, a new character just has a little Inhumanity. He was probably living not so long ago - the clothes he has on are in good shape still, and you can probably tell his eye color if you care to look closely.

Prestige: Infamy

What's the flipside of Prestige? How about Infamy? When you come down to it, it's just popularity. But while Prestige is something Baron Charles would want, Infamy is something the Lich King would prefer. Simple.

Skills

All living human skills are useless, except for three:

• Swordfighting - This now involves claws and teeth. And may not actually involve swords.
• Leadership - Interestingly, the undead and the living prefer the exact same qualities in a leader.
• Infiltration - Shapeshifting, anyone?

But, alas, with all these skills, training is not an option. An Undead Academy? I don't think so.

Classes

Classes for the non-humans should be relatively simple.

• Zombie - The basic undead troopleader, can perform most of the non-human actions in the game. Cannot be killed in battle, though can be partially dismembered. Rotting and smelly.
• Lich - A more advanced undead type. A little more finesse. Gets more Inhumanity in battle. Kind of like a Cavalier, but much more scary-sounding.
• Ghost - Once you turn down this path, there's no going back. Non-corporeal existence is very annoying. You can't do much of anything, but at least you don't need to eat. Gets lots of Infamy and Inhumanity. Kind of like a Hero, minus the heroism.
• Beast - The monster-form of being a Ghost. You're much scarier. You eat more peasants, but you get more Infamy and Inhumanity in battle. Unfortunately, you can only command Monsters and not Undead. (Inhumans are blatantly racist.)
• Shapeshifter - Master of the Infiltration skill.

Realms and Regions

Once the Inhumans take over a Realm, they show an eerie similarity to the patterns of life shown by the human characters. With some notable exceptions, that is.

Government Types

There are two government types: Anarchy and Tyranny. Generally, it doesn't make too much of a difference for the Inhumans. Unlike humans, there's no need for "justice" and certainly not for "banking."

Tyranny

In a Tyranny, there's a Ruler and a General, but a distinct lack of "sir" and "thank you" and "yes milords." Whoever is strongest can probably claim the title through dueling.

But there's not as much to do as an Inhuman Ruler as you might think. No tax settings, no laws, it's all whim and destruction.

Anarchy

There's no Ruler or General, nor is there a capital. But fear not, such things are relatively unimportant to Monsters and Undead (both of whom are inherently anarchistic anyway).

Diplomacy

Diplomacy for an Inhuman Realm is quite simple: Humans are dinner. No alliance, no neutrality, it's war all the time with them. Even other Inhuman Realms are, at best, neutral. It's really quite liberating, as there's much less work for the Inhuman Ambassadors to do.

Regions

Regions are exactly the same, except you can't have an Undead or Monster region lord. Nor can you build things. And instead of Production and Morale being GOOD things, they're BAD. Very BAD. It's like golf now: zero is what you aim for.

Loyalty and Control are important, but you won't be getting them by doing police work. Frightening and dominating the population is the only option here.

Units

In some games, the Undead hordes are as varied as anything else, with service branch specialization, air and anti-air units, production facilities...

Battlemaster isn't other games. Inhuman Units are very simple: Undead and Monsters. And we all know what they're like. Suffice to say, they don't care about gold being paid. Though they might desert you if they can't eat enough peasants under your command.

You can recruit units anywhere, being limited only by the amount of recruits (this depends on random factors for Monsters, and the number of corpses for Undead) and also by your Inhumanity and Infamy ratings.

Looting

Stealing tax gold is no longer an option, since gold doesn't taste good. You can still burn, rape and kill, though! Pillage and Maraud! In addition, Inhumans get their own special type of looting: Eat Peasants. This focuses less on destruction and more on digestion.

Paraphernalia

What paraphernalia?

Economy

The only thing in the undead and monster economy that matters is food. And I'm not talking about food for the population. The population IS the food. Invariably, they die, providing fodder for Undead recruits, or food for both Undead and Monster unit types.

Since generally, this process is harmful to the overall peasant population, an Inhuman realm MUST expand to find more food for dinner.