The Restless Dead

[venger]

Hello

I don't know of any relevant info from Middle Earth stories regarding the Restless Dead as found in the House rules supplement in TOR resources,

Would they be regarded as typical zombies that are slow, or otherwise?
We are at a pinch point in our campaign, and it matters, depending on their speed.

[Stormcrow]

I haven't read the Restless Dead rules, but I can comment on such beings in Tolkien.

The "undead" are typically of two kinds: spirits of dead people that hang around, like the Dead Men of Dunharrow; and alien spirits that inhabit dead bodies, like the barrow-wights. The latter are corporeal; the former are not.

Based on the crawling, grasping barrow-wight hand we see in The Lord of the Rings, I'd expect zombie-shuffling from them, though certainly not moans of "brains, brains!" (They'd be more likely to say, "life, life!") The barrow-wight in LR speaks an incantation, so they're intelligent. They can't stand light. They remain anchored in their stolen bodies and in their barrows because of the spells laid on them and their hoards; Bombadil lets in the sunlight and scatters the hoard to break the spell. Once the spell is broken, the spirit in the barrow is driven away.

[venger]

Thanks for the reply Stormcrow.
Those were the only things I could think of from Tolkien's most common writings. I am not aware of anything more from other texts.

They are listed with Sword and Claw attacks so they would be corporeal.

The Sword attack leads me to assume at least a fundamental intellect, at least enough to swing a sword.
It begs the question whether I could also assume there may be some individuals with average or above average intellect, capable of making decisions to accomplish a goal.

From that I extrapolate they may possibly move as normal.
We don't have a precedent, and I know this is a small issue and will use them how it will suite the adventure, but I was hoping for a consensus as to their general abilities.

[venger]

Just to share a bit of fun, I have not used much undead up until now, just a wight once for the scare factor.

When the Fellowship first encountered the Restless Dead, they were about to enter old dead woods.
Three gibbets could be seen swaying before the mouth of the old dead wood and the company rushed forward to possibly rescue victims.

To their surprise and shock, as it turned out, the "victims" were Restless Dead, and the gibbets had every sign of being placed there as a warning against any who might trespass these woods.

The woods took on a whole new foreboding after that.
Sometimes its a game of psychology

[Glorelendil]

Just to share a bit of fun, I have not used much undead up until now, just a wight once for the scare factor.

When the Fellowship first encountered the Restless Dead, they were about to enter old dead woods.
Three gibbets could be seen swaying before the mouth of the old dead wood and the company rushed forward to possibly rescue victims.

To their surprise and shock, as it turned out, the "victims" were Restless Dead, and the gibbets had every sign of being placed there as a warning against any who might trespass these woods.

The woods took on a whole new foreboding after that.
Sometimes its a game of psychology

Oh, I love that. It creeped me out just reading your post.

[venger]

Thanks Elfcrusher! It had the same effect on my players
Feel free to use that for your game!

[Mim]

Elfcrusher's right Venger - I still have goose bumps. Well played!

As long as we use the Restless Dead sparingly & play up the horror factor (similar to Stormcrow's post about the Barrow-wight) we can rattle our player-heroes.

I usually describe the dead in terms of some deeper shadow against the darkness, perhaps with the cold orbs leering from the shadows, rather than saying "It's a Barrow-wight", followed by telling the heroes that their breath mists as the temp drops (the monsters absorb the warmth), etc. By the time anyone actually swings a blade, they're wondering if they can run fast enough to escape...

[Stormcrow]

By the way, when Tolkien used the term barrow-wight, he was using wight in its old sense: a living person. A barrow-wight is simply a barrow-person. It was Dungeons & Dragons that made wight mean undead corpse.

[Glorelendil]

By the way, when Tolkien used the term barrow-wight, he was using wight in its old sense: a living person. A barrow-wight is simply a barrow-person. It was Dungeons & Dragons that made wight mean undead corpse.

I disagree with that claim. He may have used it in the sense of a "person", but assuredly not a "living person". I think the Wikipedia definition (which I'm assuming you just read) uses the modifier "living" to distinguish the meaning from the present day one. That is, the definition in Tolkien's day simply meant "person" or "creature", perhaps even with an implicit modifier of "unfortunate".

So "barrow wight" means "graveyard creature". He wouldn't have used the word "undead" because it wasn't common usage then.

EDIT: Oh, and this is interesting: vampire, wight, zombie, and undead usage.

[Stormcrow]

Yes, I was making the same distinction as Wikipedia: it means person, and oh, by the way, that doesn't mean an undead like you may think.