What is the end game of undead? I mean once you conquer the kingdom or world what's next...

I miss the Warcraft Lore threads. ;_;

To be honest it can depend on the setting.

In Warhammer, Nagash was an example of bringing total order to a chaotic world. The tomb kings wanted a return to the world they once knew, and willingly left behind on the promise of a departure to something greater, while Nagash sought an answer to escape death permanently. Having succeeded in that quest, and being killed and brought back to life several times, there's only one real way to go from there. Take over the world, wipe the slate clean of Everything, and rule eternal an undying empire from the seat of your throne at Nagashizar.

No Orks, no Chaos gods, no lizard deities, no rat filth or man things. Just the undead.

To a degree he even disliked the vampires, both from khemri and those that escaped to found their own legacies in the Empire. they were a remnant of the past he left behind, and are a mistaken escape from death.

Vampires require blood, true undead do not. And while might seek to rule over the living, he sought to rule over the dead.

A dead world. One can only imagine.

Impose eternal order.

Utilize huge power base to create Ziggurats / Pyramids / Monuments to amplify your power.

Continue to expand and learn more magic / necromancy and grow in power.

How about Jaina?

Show any setting with undead faction that doesn't conquer.

Actually happened in the comics, technically. It isn't touched on long since, as I recall, it's a vision in the Emerald Nightmare, but apparently she was able to do it.

I suppose it depends on how you view the question "what next?"

Remove the time restraint, eternity being an indescribably long time, and you could achieve anything. It would really come down to whatever your personal desires are.

Alexander the Great, before he died, returned to Macedonia and began planning his next conquest, West. Which would, had he survived, led to a very interesting situation with the Greek Empire under Alexander bumping into a proto Roman city state.

Once you've conquered the known world, its not beyond reason to see the next move as conquering the Unknown world.

With a planet of dead behind you, what's to stop moving to other planes of existence to wipe those out. Infinitely.

>letting woman in charge of anything

lmao if Lich King was a Lich Queen Scourge would cease to exist the moment they meet a drunk thug with a knife

>Implying Jaina "DON'T BE A PUSSY VARIAN" Proudmoore is the typical woman

She has bigger balls than the current King of Stormwind.

>Alliance is a bunch of pussies

woah call the press

I mean at least the Alliance has proper leaders. How many Warchiefs have you gone through? And how fast is Sylvanas getting shoved to the door?

You could get whiplash with how quickly the Warcraft lore plummeted once the Scourge were defeated

The fucking scene where Arthas thanks Kel'thuzad for being a good undead friend in TFT alone shoots them above the scowling and inscrutable pieces of shit villains to follow

>Your subjects are mostly mindless you just rule over a fucking wasteland

Most countries on Earth, basically.

Nah, just America, Billy-bob.

The Thunder King and Gul'dan were really cool, at least, but everything else was just crap.

But on OP's Topic, how exactly would a scenario in which the Lich wins and everything is dead continue? Would he invest in a Space Program to go and make Alien Zombies?

It's fucking easy. HoMM (from V onward), Pathfinder (Geb), Ravenloft, Warhammer (Tomb Kings), WoD. Hell, even LotR. Now that I think of it, undead tend towards sitting where they originally died and minding their own business.

>Tomb Kings

o you mean guys ruled by Settra who was a fucking conqueror to begin with? Also no one gives a fuck about garbage HOMM VI and VII

Why would a dreadlord want to become the Lich King?

Existance is a pain and they will do anything to stop the pain.

Mr House from New Vegas answers all these questions. He argues (fairly correctly) that under him there will be less violence, more prosperity, and that humans will be back in space in 40 years. His servants aren't even mostly mindless drones. Those only act to keep his allies in check and push the frontline. The reason he does all this is due to his narcissisoum. He is the SUPER GENIUS who prepared for the end of the world, he should inherit it.

Why the fuck are you retards discussing WoW? This is Veeky Forums not /v/. No shit games here.

>you mean guys ruled by Settra who was a fucking conqueror to begin with?
He seemed to be perfectly content to sit in his desert and guard his gold from the raiders.
>But he was totally gonna steamroll the Old World!
Too bad he never did anything of the kind.

>nothing of the kind

Except attack and destroy Nagashizar, and force the vampire counts out into the Old World.

Hell, the tomb kings would wage war to return worthless trinkets that were stolen. Launching an invasion just to, oh I don't know, wipe out the last of the Vampiric filth from the world isn't out of the question.

Perhaps liches are severely depressed from their unnaturally long and solitary life and their awareness of how hollow is whatever they have achieved and will ever achieve, and wage wars against the mortals in spite and to keep themselves busy, fixating themselves ossessively on one goal to pretend they don't see the abyss of meaninglessness that lies beyond.

While depression is finite, eternal life is infinite. Why would a lich fall into despair, when what Would have plagued them during their mortal life, the fear of dying, has been removed?

They have achieved immortality. Anything from that point forwards is only testament to the fact that they are alive, when by all accounts they should have died.

Varian is out fampire.

>She has bigger balls than the current King of Stormwind
Still applies though.

I think part of this issue, is the presumption that after all life on the planet has been removed, a Lich would not then seek to create the world in their own image.

With total domination over every undead creature, they could twist sentient life into their creations. If a skeleton is not able to provide you with ample conversation, change it. Likewise, if they desired a harem of zombie waifus, they would make it so. I do not know how, as I am not a Lich with a sufficient amount of time being immortal and therefore all knowing, but I can imagine that they would find a way.

After all, if by your will you can destroy the world, why not recreate it?

>Except attack and destroy Nagashizar, and force the vampire counts out into the Old World.
Uhm, he was deadity dead when that happened

Eating, sleeping and breathing are inconvenient as fuck and I'd rather not waste magic item/spell slots dealing with such mundane concerns.

>Wanting to kill yourself
Neck yourself.

>neck yourself
well that is his plan

One of the things I like about the Necrons is that despite seeming to be the most grimdark faction in a grimdark world (soulless undead skeleton robots that will destroy all life and impose an eternity of tyrrany!), they actually have a pretty uplifiting motivation. After the Silent King sold his people's souls to dwell eternally in lifeless metal husks, he put them to sleep through the aeons not just to get revenge on all life and to engage in the conquest that is all his people still remember, but also to acquire new flesh hosts and the knowledge needed to transfer their selves into them and regain the warmth of life and the souls the cruel star gods tricked them out of. Which still sounds pretty grimdark, especially for everyone who isn't a Necron, but instead of shambing dead things seeking eternal conquest because why not, it's a redemption story and salvation motivation you can sympathise with and potentially even root for.

You have them build. It's ideal for a space program; no pesky non-undead to interfere, and you only need life support for heating and sound conduction for the commands.

I say death is a sacred sickness. Try eating old food and having a day to rest

Agriculture.

Don't kill all the living to convert them into more undead until they breed more living.

>gets laid by darrion
>has a wiley necromancer by the name of frostblood that teaches her minor necromancy "to better control the undead"
>get's anub'arak as a chef
>cute undead doggo
>still haunted by arthas soul

Kill the gods, unmake reality, and free the world from the eternal cycle of death and rebirth, allowing humanity to ascend to a higher plane of existence.

Sandro sucks at SKELTAL

t: Vidomina

That depends very heavily on not only the setting, but also the type of undead and their history.

Nonsapient non-eating undead just kill stuff that gets close.

Ravenous undead like the zombies from Marvel Zombies want to stuff their bellies.

Slightly less hungry undead like vampires would want to create a global bloodbank/cattle farm.

Undead who were alive recently may want revengeance. Undead who were alive a long time ago may want to restore an old status quo.

D&D Liches are prone to obsession and insanity. It's possible a few want to conquer the world just because they can and others are having trouble distinguishing the end of their territory and want those damn kids off their lawn.

I read a book where a god was attempting this. The Half Orcs series, I believe.

The god had been an okay dude of order at one point, but was imprisoned and lost his mind. The visions he shows his followers of his ideal world are endless hordes of undead marching across a barren landscape praising his name eternally, which is what he considers true order.

That's a pretty good argument for world domination for a lich actually.

Imagine how much knowledge exists in a typical fantasy kitchen sink setting like Forgotten Realms or Golarion. If you took over the world you would control every library, every temple, every ruin, every treasure horde. And you have endless legions of tireless undead to delve into every dungeon/crypt and the above to bring every scrap of information to you, and you have eternity to read every single bit of it.

Over time, you would absorb everything. You would be not just the world's greatest necromancer or wizard in general, you would be the combination of all previous best wizards and necromancers after cannibalizing their notes. On top of that after reading every cook book, fairy tale, art of war, history book, or anything else, you would simply know how to do literally everything. The best chef, storyteller, alchemist, general, tailor, engineer, etc. You would probably know of a way to have eternal life outside of lichdom at that point, and could create your entire own new world with you as the ubermensch and god of it.

I might make something like this for a planet/planes hopping setting.

Here's the page, for those wondering.

What's Death ever done for you?

Unlike your gender, suicide is a choice m8

sounds a lot like "not conquering the world" to me
sounds more like "stop stealing my shit and oh yeah fuck vampires!"

The problem is that mortality might be the only thing that motivates us to stop procrastinating and get shit done. If you knew you had an eternity to write that novel you're "totally gonna do someday" you'd fuck around on the internet and masturbate until the heat death of the universe.

The great yawning pit of despair that is meaningless, purposeless nihilism is far more depressing than death. I mean it comes with the minor benefit of not having any responsibility since "nothing matters" but that's a pretty shit consolation prize

>I might make something like this for a planet/planes hopping setting.
The god of the setting has this as their backstory?

I had a lich character who thought that life, in and of itself, had no meaning & was a hell, that being a thinking entity did have its own meaning--and and the afterlife was actually a metaphysical prison/labour camp used by the gods (which he believed were evil). Undeath was seen as the ideal compromise between "saving" minds from life and an eternal prison.

How can life be hell yet also have no meaning?

This was all in the delusion disadvantage. He was crazy long before becoming a lich.

I see people talking about Warcraft in here and it got me thinking, you know who's a goddamn great /v/ undead? This faggot right here.

Don't let his skin fool you, he dies pretty early on and resurrects himself purely out of his strong desire to bring the world to heel. After dying, when you bump into him again he remarks "Death is a sweet slumber, all the pain of life is gently swept away. Ah, yes. ...if all life were to end... all suffering would end."

He had a pretty shitty life full of suffering. He was willing to do some skeevey things to try to break the spiral, but only caused more pain. After he died though he no longer felt that suffering, and so sees it as a blessing; to free people from the spiral of death and fear and pain. His end game is essentially a mass mercy killing. Twisted, but still probably one of the better Final Fantasy villains when it comes to motivation (under Kefka's 'fuck shit up just because I can').

Final Fantasy 10 was full of cool dead guys, in retrospect. Auron was also a neat dead guy who reanimated himself just because he still had shit to do, and only pussies let death stop them.

>
Final Fantasy 10 was full of cool dead guys, in retrospect. Auron was also a neat dead guy who reanimated himself just because he still had shit to do, and only pussies let death stop them.

This is why I prefer settings where undeath is not inherently evil. I might run a game where there is no default after life save for using magic (i.e. have souls,on their own without magical preservation/transference, be temporary and die when the body does).

>probably one of the better Final Fantasy villains when it comes to motivation (under Kefka's 'fuck shit up just because I can')
Absolutely. Kefka is a top tier villain. FF6 was all about finding the meaning of life (or, finding meaning in life). As a villain, Kefka fits the part like a glove.

Could not agree more.
he stared into the abyss and when the abyss stared back Kefka said fuck it, i guess i'll try to become a god, it's not like LITERALLY ANYONE, has anything better to do, otherwise we're all just meat anyway

In a Fantasy crossover with Scify, I'd turn into a Lich and use the hordes of restless undead to build the mighty techno magical armada that would keep my world safe from the clutches of the otherworldly threats I had devined in life.

>Party burst into the throneroom of the Lich
>He's painting a beautiful picture
>He welcomes them and tells them to take a seat at a nearby table, there's health potions if they're injured
>"We'll not fall for your tricks, undead fiend! We're here to kill you and stop your evil plans!"
>Tells them he has no evil plans. He's successfully became immortal and now is gonna just pursue interests and fancies until he gets bored of existing and finds something else. Maybe godhood, maybe suicide, maybe changing himself completely and utterly
>He hasn't actually done anything evil yet beyond becoming a lich, just built a dungeon and filled it with monsters to protect himself. Only folks dead are the idiots who broke into his SKULL DUNGEON. Only themselves to blame, honestly.

Kefka was not that good of a villain, take off your nostalgia goggles.
>i guess i'll try to become a god
Kefka had absolutely no idea what he was doing when he became a god, all he knew was that moving the Warring Triad out of position was a bad idea. So he did.
It's sheer chance that he became a god and not Shadow who was also pushing the triad around. Or that they both didn't explode in a wave of magical power.

holy shit, i may use that.

To exist forever or as long as possible.

>Awaken the Dead
>5th level necromancy spell
>Same description as the 5th level awaken spell but only works on mindless undead.
>It does not bring back the memories of your life before death.

What would you do if you became aware that you are a skeleton or a zombie Veeky Forums?

Is he being milked?

Since you have no memories, you'd never have known anything else...

Bionic heart.

>A planet/planes hopping setting.

>
>I wish there was a system that actually supported the bullshit high power level Immortal's Handbook showed off.

>I want to punch the Elemental Plane of Fire, make a sword out of planets, fight weird alternate dimension versions of myself, and smack down monsters like these.

>Unfortunately while you would need weapon's grade autism to actually run this using it's weird bastardized version of 3.5, the big numbers and retardedly lethal abilities are part of the fun.

Violent does not equal ballsy. Varian could see that if they killed the horde at its weakest moment out of betrayal they would be no better than Garrosh was in his madness (rest his soul). And I will always respect him for that.

Probably. I mean Ner'zhul was the one betrayed by the legion and stuck in the armour, he probably has a grudge against them, so it was likely the step after azeroth was to make giant spaceships manned by undead crew then fuck up the legion. Maybe they would've recruited Illidan.

>rest his soul
Fuck Garrosh, he was an abandoned child and it showed. He acted just as demented as his father... should never have been trusted

Pretty much like muslims. They don't think about the future. They just want to be the only ones.

...

There's a plenty of motivation to become undead even in a setting with after life.
>you hate religion
>you want to stay in the material world
>you know you're not going to a good place after death

1) Obtain immortality.
1.1) Optional: Conquer whatever feels safe to prevent smarmy fucks from ruining this
2) Regain sweet-ass fleshy body but permanently youthful and immortal
3) Revive/create/breed/gather hot naked bitches
4) Permanent orgy

Pretty much exactly what the Pharaohs were trying to do, except imagine it actually worked.

Best post

Didn't Settra set a goal on ruling the world? GW didn't give him much attention, sadly, but still his ambition is out of charts
Remind me of UbiHoMM undead, what's their deal?
Nagashizzar is a fortress

Stay #woke, senpai.

Now that you mention it this is exactly the plan of Imhotep in The Mummy.

Once you annihilate all competing civilizations, yours can take their stuff and is safe from their deciding to annihilate your civilization so they can take your stuff. The logic is sound.

"Muh balance" true neutral cunts.
They also hate demons more than any other faction.

Thanks.

But if you don't annihilate them hard enough your people will start to feel sorry for what remains. Hence the classic "You gotta smite ALL the evil, boy"

>"That guy has skin. Am I supposed to have skin?"

The Lich in my game is just trying to kill the world as a fuck you to every god. He's hoping to also find a way to kill them also but he'll settle for just destroying all of their creations.

Cold be hand and heart and bone,
and cold be sleep under stone:
never more to wake on stony bed,
never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
In the black wind the stars shall die,
and still on gold here let them lie,
till the dark lord lifts his hand
over dead sea and withered land.

Its important to remember that your typical lich isn't, in fact, an undead *necromancer*. He's an undead *wizard*. He does whatever he want, he doesn't necessarily have an obsession with killing everything.

A magic skellington who wears bone armor and leads an army of skellingtons and has a skull staff is a bit like a magic human who wears armor that looks like a naked human and has an army of naked humans that looks like him with a staff that has his own face on it... undead necromancers are a bit too on the nose for my tastes.

I prefer liches having as their minions the most powerful, hard hitting magical minions around -- demons, golems, elementals, etc. If that's an undead, ok fine, but he aint picky.

Thrall is a horrible judge of character in general, and this led to all the mistakes he made with Garrosh.

Anyone who actually trusts Sylvanas or Gallywix with anything clearly has no clue how to read people.

Generally we assume that people who have the dedication/time/power to become a lich are more dedicated/determined than the average Veeky Forums poster.

The mummies are guards. The pyramid is enchanted so any dead bodies inside it will reanimate as new guardians. The bodies can't die as long as they're inside the tomb, but they can be damaged or decay, so they act to preserve each other through mummification to keep functioning as long as possible.

By the time the tomb was rediscovered, most of the mummies had degraded into immobility and/or been damaged doing their job so that despite their best efforts at self-repair, the security they were supposed to provide was failing. They needed to start trying to kill anyone who got in the tomb to boost their forces so that they could continue their task. It was vital. Contrary to what everyone thought, they weren't supposed to keep tomb robbers and archaeologists out.

There was no treasure in the tomb. No historic leader had been buried there. Those warnings everywhere weren't intended to warn of a tomb robber's curse. It wasn't a place of honor. The mummies were intended as undying, eternal prison guards to keep Something sealed in the center of the tomb from getting out.

...

...

>magic human who wears armor that looks like a naked human and has an army of naked humans that looks like him with a staff that has his own face on it
My next BBG