1d10 Random Encounters With A Revanent or Zombie Horde Table For Your Old School Campaigns

 Its that time of year when the leaves have fallen & death comes swiftly on the suffling feet of undeath. Adventurers seldom expect them but the un dead travel swiftly. They come for the living to feed & feed well indeed. 
“From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent.”
― H.P. Lovecraft, Tales of H.P. Lovecraft

These things lurk around the crypts & forgotten places waiting for their chance to strike down the living. Seldom is the hand that finds or keeps treasure from the undead things at the edges. 

The revanent or  zombie  hordes lay like thick locusts waiting to strike down the living. Powerful magicks & horrid practices of cults often leave energies waffling through cracks in reality. These energies often animate the dead into the mockery of life known as undeath. 
The most frightening & dangerous are those damned souls who forget that they were dead. They have the semblence of life but it seldom lasts for their baser instincts of unnatural hunger & violence take over. 

No adventurer who encounters one of these horrors should take it lightly for the energies that animate these corpses are unnatural & dangerous in the extreme. 

1d10 Random Encounters With A Revanent or  Zombie Horde Table

1.  1d20 former adventurers who have been drawn together with negative planar energies just enough of their minds remain for these things to carry swords, clubs, and swing them in memory of their former lives. AC9 Hit Points 2 
2. 1d10 revanents who pass themselves off as monks but their stench of decay lingers on their cloths. They move three times faster then a normal zombie & their free willed. The horde mentality draws them together. AC7 Hit Points 3 
3. 2 fast zombies that have a hive mind between them AC6 Hit points 2. One will strike while the other sits back an takes a secondary bite attack 
4. A former cleric whose body houses 1d6 smaller dwarf zombies. This thing commands them but with 2 hit points it seems hopeless. 
5. A massive body builder that houses two dwarf revenants that can move up walls & strange surfaces. These things sport AC8 Hit Point 1 
6. 1d50 for this incredbly large horde of zomnies who want to actually take the head off any one they encounter AC7 Hit Points 3 
7. 1d8 former victims of a vampire these things are hungering for the blood of the living. AC6 Hit Points 5. They have recently fed on several near by adventurers. 
8. 1d6 fast moving zombies that are actually former adventurers who went to a local dungeon. The things are now on the hunt for anyone they come across AC4 Hit points 6 
9. A small horde of 1d20 zombies that made their way into a movie that the director is making. These zombies are sharp & intellgent AC7 Hit points 3. 
10. A group of 1d20 former cultists who have been turned into a horde of undead. AC8 Hit points 2 their incredibly juicy. 

New OSR Monster - Giant Alien Skeleton Warriors For Your Old School Campaigns

" "Did you hear that?", The city guard captain spoke quietly to his fellow guardsmen
"Hear what?", the second guard had only seen something out of the corner of his eye for a moment.
'I don't know it sounded like wings or something',the captain was skeptical at best.
That's when the first skull faced freak mounted the wall & blew a cloud of candy coloured gas into the city guard's face!
The guard never had a chance to scream as the gas hardened into a glass like candy consistence on the pool fool's face!
That's when the city guard  heard a series of ram's horns blasts & then the screaming started! The city itself only had but moments to live as the invasion had begun!
In the distance another ram's horn sounded!"


Photo shamelessly stolen from They might be Gazebos blog!
Each year they awaken at the edges of reality, giant alien skeletons of a long forgotten race by gone age entombed with enchanted weapons. These horrors hunger for violence & murder of the living. They come back to reign pumpkin spiced laced violence down upon the heads of adventurers! Lead by a winged skeleton champion these strange skeleton warriors are often found in dungeons guarding treasures or carrying out the instructions of necromancers of the Dread Pumpkin order!

Giant Alien Skeleton Warriors 
Frequency: Rare 
No Appearing 1d6 
Armor Class: 7 
Movement: 12 " 
Hit Dice:4 
% in Lair: 80% 
Treasure Type:B 
No Attacks: 2 
Damage/Attack: 1-6 or by weapon 
Special Attacks: Breath Weapon 
Spell Defenses: Can Only Be Hit By Enchanted Weapons
Stinking Pumpkin Cloud 
Magic Resistance: Standard 
Intelligence: Low but evilly cunning 
Alignment: Chaotic Evil 
Size: L 
Psionic Ability: Nil 
Attack/Defense Modes: Nil 
Level & XP Value: 11/36 per hit point
Where these foul alien undead come from is not certain but necromancers of the Dread Pumpkin order each year summon these foul undead spawn from the deepest corners of the negative material plane or the plane of Shadow each year.These foul beings are three times the size of normal undead but have all of the usual immunities.
Giant Alien Skeleton Warriors are always led by a winged skeleton champion & its aide a being who always carries a horn of summoning. These two beings are always double hit points & the winged champion can fly ( the champion is always a class 'C' flyer at best).
Giant Alien Skeleton Warriors will release a stinking cloud of pumpkin spice before going into battle or during as a defense mechanism. The cloud has a twenty foot radius causing all who breath it to save vs poison or spend the next 1d4 hours gagging & coughing. This attack can be used three times per day. 

The Giant Alien Skeletons also can twice per day breath out within a ten foot radius a sugar coated cloud of candy crystal. The target mus save vs poison or be covered in a fine coating of hot sugary goodness. This is often done in the eyes or mouth of the victims acting with the same effects as a  'silence' spell in addition to acting as a choking hazard!


But this isn't all in addition to carrying an enchanted weapon able to hit victims not effected by normal weapons. These skeleton warriors who take more then six points damage from ordinary weapons will seemingly fall to the ground. It will rise up on the next round to continue the melee! Those who see this with the undead horror must save vs fear or flee in panic.


Giant Alien Skeleton Warriors are often found guarding ancient hoards of treasure that they were summoned to centuries ago. The spells & enchantments bind them to their duties. Other times necromatic cults belonging to the order of the Dread Pumpkin summons hoards of these monsters to raid cities and other areas. There are rumors of them being found with the wrecks of certain alien space craft.

'Why Halloween Never Ends For A Dungeon Master', Monsters Fit The Season Or Simple Seasonal Monster Ecology For Your Old School Campaigns

Well once again Halloween came and went, the various OSR publishers put out their Halloween themed modules, Drivethru & Rpgnow had their various sales, Lulu had their special codes, and now on to thanks giving. And Halloween is over! Adventurers don't have worry about horror, depravity,etc. Bull crap!


Adventurers should be stocking up on arrows, ammo, waxing their leather armor, and buying new shields. According to mythology and legends, the gates of Hell have opened and the evils of Winter are coming! Winter is the domain of the undead and the very time of survival. This is when adventurers would be employed to rid communities of the the evils that have come home to roost.
These are when the 'big evils' come home to call. Local demon & Chaos cults have opened gateways to the Abyss, and the Summoning spells from Lamentations of the Flame Princes  have been cast by jaded rich nobles. Unique horrors are stalking the old ruins and dead relatives, murderers, and whole host of horrors are stalking the landed gentry. The local villagers and probably entire urban centers as well. Now is the time when the Plague comes to call!

Now is the time when those seasonal monsters are going to come to call on various towns & adventurers. Dust off your old AD&D 1st edition Fiend Folio and grab a selection of those Trolls that you never use and customize the crap out of them with a few random mutations. Then set them loose in areas where they don't normally appear. The reason is simple, the local cults have been cutting deals with Hell and erecting altars to ancient gods that generate entire tribes of crazed monsters from the depths of Fairyland or the Outer Darkness. The hard work is done by James Mishler with his bits and pieces on this subject right over HERE

0e/ Swords & Wizardry Monster Book has a ton of zero edition monsters for Swords & Wizardry or OD&D for free. Very well done and ready to drop into a campaign. So the serene seasons of Fall & Winter fun are perfect to drop in your favorite horrors. Fairy, Fey, and fair folk were often associated with the powers of Hell and that alignment has never really gone away. Baby snatching & switching, horrors of bad luck, incredible journeys into strange fairy lands, and more can easily be trimmed in with this sort of an adventure. For Lamentations of the Flame Princess there's the Pale Lady by Zzarchov Kowolski which has the realm, the minor goddess and some great fairy elements to it. This would probably where an NPC

Enchanter Class for Labyrinth Lord and OSR From Weird Realm Games  might either come in handy or could become a major pain in the neck. This class has lots of potential in either direction. Another issue with the Fey and Fairy is the fact that they often create or tempt men with treasures or artifacts of their own creation, this is the perfect snare to lure and destroy murder hobos by the score.

This peaceful Winter scene is about to be interrupted by monsters of your creation! The perfect opportunity for monster exploitation!

Monsters should be customized and the various monster books, manuals,etc. can serve as templates. Orc,goblins,etc are fine but with a bit of flare monstrous minions can be very memorable and can serve as a bridge gap to get the DM's ideas and points across even during and adventure.


When it comes to menaces for AD&D 1st edition, there are two options on the table there's the Monstrous Tome - Volume One (no images)  and  Monstrous Tome 2 - Book of Beings. 

Winter is the time when serpents and their gods supposedly sleep but in a recent adventure that I played in the god's cult were the real menace. Using Obscene Serpent Ritual by Neoplastic Press  the DM came up with murderous cult operating in an a remote Antarctic location that went on a murderous spree to feed their god. The objects of power the party were after aligned with the extinction of the cult. Several other notable mentions include  The Teratic Tome and of course Lusus Naturae. Both of these tomes provide powerful cult centered objects of worship and depravity that can be the center of a seasonal campaign.

Other issues with monsters is that once a source of food is found, these monsters always seem to exploit them over the long haul. This gives the DM all kinds of options on the table to bring a sense of horror and weirdness to their local adventure and campaign areas. So don't let Halloween be the end to your season of horror! Instead let it be the gate way into a winter of discontent and terror! Remember snows conceal bodies, blood freezes, and corpses make great dungeon or ruin set pieces.