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Author Topic: ...Now Apparently Dungeons and Dragons is loaded with Anti-semitic Secret Codes  (Read 15551 times)

Shasarak

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I guess the problem with Dwarves being a Mary Sue in regards to Sauron is that they are not in regards to Dragons, Balrogs and Orcs.
Who da Drow?  U da drow! - hedgehobbit

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look at the good things you've got! -  Jesus

DocJones

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The complaint is, as I see it, why do we have (for example) Vampires based on the novel of Bram Stoker instead of historically authentic sparkling Vampires based on the novel of Stephenie Meyer.
Or more historically accurate, Anne Rice, who published ACTUAL interviews with REAL vampires.

BoxCrayonTales

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The complaint is, as I see it, why do we have (for example) Vampires based on the novel of Bram Stoker instead of historically authentic sparkling Vampires based on the novel of Stephenie Meyer.
Or more historically accurate, Anne Rice, who published ACTUAL interviews with REAL vampires.
"Historically accurate" vampires would be nothing like either. They don't appear to have actually existed, but if we use the folklore of the time for reference... One of the most common manifestations in Eastern Europe was an evil corpse than sent out its spirit in astral form to drain the life from its friends and family. Across the world we have various vampiric monsters like the asanbosam, yara-ma-yha-who, soucouyant, jararaca, and more.

Out for Blood by Bastion Press provides many vampires based on Eastern European folklore descriptions.

Shasarak

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Dont even ask about historically accurate Zombies - you dont want to know.  8)
Who da Drow?  U da drow! - hedgehobbit

There will be poor always,
pathetically struggling,
look at the good things you've got! -  Jesus

Stephen Tannhauser

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Dont even ask about historically accurate Zombies - you dont want to know.  8)

Yeah, it's a dead topic anyway.  ;D
Better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. -- Mark Twain

STR 8 DEX 10 CON 10 INT 11 WIS 6 CHA 3

RandyB

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Dont even ask about historically accurate Zombies - you dont want to know.  8)

Yeah, it's a dead topic anyway.  ;D

Falls apart quickly, too.

BoxCrayonTales

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Aren’t D&D zombies ripped mostly right out of voodoo anyway? They fit the dictionary definition to a T: “a corpse said to be revived by witchcraft, especially in certain African and Caribbean religions.”

Ghostmaker

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Aren’t D&D zombies ripped mostly right out of voodoo anyway? They fit the dictionary definition to a T: “a corpse said to be revived by witchcraft, especially in certain African and Caribbean religions.”
To an extent. Night of the Living Dead hit theaters in 1968 and I think that had just as much influence as voodoo zombies on D&D.

Shasarak

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Aren’t D&D zombies ripped mostly right out of voodoo anyway? They fit the dictionary definition to a T: “a corpse said to be revived by witchcraft, especially in certain African and Caribbean religions.”

You for one should recognise the differences between a DnD Zombie and a Voodoo Zombie.
Who da Drow?  U da drow! - hedgehobbit

There will be poor always,
pathetically struggling,
look at the good things you've got! -  Jesus

BoxCrayonTales

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Aren’t D&D zombies ripped mostly right out of voodoo anyway? They fit the dictionary definition to a T: “a corpse said to be revived by witchcraft, especially in certain African and Caribbean religions.”

You for one should recognise the differences between a DnD Zombie and a Voodoo Zombie.
It depends on what lore you’re working with. The beliefs are not exactly readily shared. Bokors apparently steal the souls of people and place them in jars to create zombies. Salt breaks the spell. Some anthropologists tried to claim that real zombies were created using pufferfish venom, though the veracity of this is disputed.

D&D necromancers appear to be able to animate any corpses they find. Whether this enslaves the soul of the deceased is never explained AFAIK.

It’s a square peg in a round hole situation for sure. Zombies having their souls consciously enslaved is definitely a lot more horrifying than the corpses being soulless puppets.

Ghostmaker

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Aren’t D&D zombies ripped mostly right out of voodoo anyway? They fit the dictionary definition to a T: “a corpse said to be revived by witchcraft, especially in certain African and Caribbean religions.”

You for one should recognise the differences between a DnD Zombie and a Voodoo Zombie.
It depends on what lore you’re working with. The beliefs are not exactly readily shared. Bokors apparently steal the souls of people and place them in jars to create zombies. Salt breaks the spell. Some anthropologists tried to claim that real zombies were created using pufferfish venom, though the veracity of this is disputed.

D&D necromancers appear to be able to animate any corpses they find. Whether this enslaves the soul of the deceased is never explained AFAIK.

It’s a square peg in a round hole situation for sure. Zombies having their souls consciously enslaved is definitely a lot more horrifying than the corpses being soulless puppets.
Nope. In the case of a zombie, it's basically flesh puppeted with necromantic energy. A galvanized corpse. The soul has nothing to do with it (and I recall at least one adventure where an annoyed spirit asks an adventuring party to dispose of his shambling corpse so that it won't hurt anyone).

There are undead along the vein of 'enslaved or mutilated souls', typically evil incorporeal undead, as well as some oddities (like the bodak). But zombies? Nope.

GameDaddy
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To an extent. Night of the Living Dead hit theaters in 1968 and I think that had just as much influence as voodoo zombies on D&D.

My personal favorite was Dawn of the Dead released in 1978. I watched it on TBS shock Theater on a Friday night in like 1980.

 Following an ever-growing epidemic of zombies that have risen from the dead, two Philadelphia S.W.A.T. team members, a traffic reporter, and his television executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall.


The big draw was taking over and living in the local shopping mall, during the horrific post-apocalypse. I did find the slow zombies kind of unbelievable, and really liked the fast moving runners from Resident Evil and World War Z much better!

The Haitian voodoo zombies that would rise in the night from their graves were featured much more in 60's and 70's Hollywood flicks and I enjoyed watching them in the Bond thriller Live and Let Die,  as well as several other early movies including The Last Man on Earth featuring Vincent Price, Orgy of the Dead, The Plague of Zombies, The Frozen Dead, ...which of course, featured nazi zombies, the Astro-Zombies with the beach boys style surfing soundtrack which was voted "the worst picture of all time", and one of my personal favorites City of the Dead which starred Christopher Lee which I watched on a late-night friday night TBS shock Theater presentation in 1974. One of the finest horror movies from the black & White movie era.

Pretty sure this last one was seen by Gary Gygax and left quite the impression since he left some notes in the original edition of D&D on angry mobs. It was movies like this, that added the angry villagers rule to D&D!

Dawn of the Dead
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3hRMzYGygI


The Plague of Zombies Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxjH83cVvUg


Astro-Zombies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_umddRcPBc

City of the Dead
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF7IB3n3UbU

Vintage Toy Commercials 1950's-1970's
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PWnNuWzZ2Y
« Last Edit: February 22, 2021, 07:30:09 AM by GameDaddy »
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Ghostmaker

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The problem with slow, 'Romero' zombies, even if they require headshots, is:

(1) they're still vulnerable to structural damage. Kneecap a zombie and he's gonna be even slower.
(2) they don't duck, or usually wear helmets (zombie soldiers and SWAT members are the exception, obviously).

Romero zombies are also not superhumanly strong. They're just relentless. But relentlessness won't let you punch through brick walls or armor plate.

So yeah. Patiently headshotting them will remove the issue unless you're just completely swarmed under.

jhkim

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It depends on what lore you’re working with. The beliefs are not exactly readily shared. Bokors apparently steal the souls of people and place them in jars to create zombies. Salt breaks the spell. Some anthropologists tried to claim that real zombies were created using pufferfish venom, though the veracity of this is disputed.

Nope. In the case of a zombie, it's basically flesh puppeted with necromantic energy. A galvanized corpse. The soul has nothing to do with it (and I recall at least one adventure where an annoyed spirit asks an adventuring party to dispose of his shambling corpse so that it won't hurt anyone).

BoxCrayonTales is correct about zombies in Vodou. A core of the horror is how the revived person is enslaved by the sorcerer (bokor). This is shown in films like White Zombie (1932) - probably the earliest zombie movie - where the plot revolves around rescuing the woman trapped under the sorcerer's spell. The zombie is still the person they were, with their mind and soul trapped.

That slowly changed in later American zombie movies, leading to the popularization in Night of the Living Dead, where zombies are just mindless puppets.

BoxCrayonTales

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It also make the morality of zombies more confusing than it should be. In folklore, zombies are enslaved innocents*. Using them is slavery and slavery is evil. In D&D the zombie isn’t any more intelligent than a domestic animal (in 5e) or a robot (in 3.x) and are evil in alignment. Why are the zombies evil and why is animating them evil? It feels... arbitrary.

* I recall hearing that sometimes people may actually pay a bokor to turn someone else (usually a person reviled in the family or community) into a zombie, but I don’t know the details.