Has it occured to anyone else that if there is any truth to the idea of Morgathian temples storing up hordes of Gulmorvin, that actually using most/all of them at once would basically be a zombie apocalyse scenario?

Obviously a few problems actually doing this in play. Still, the idea stands.

The biggest problem is that the shadow is so fricken nasty. In mass, don't even want to think about it. Another big problem is that even if the zombie hordes do get beaten back, the face of harn, especially Western harn would be radically changed. Lot of work for a GM. However, given a few GM designed holy weapons, might be a great way to end a campaign on an epic note:)

I am surprised you still live having revealed the Gurim's grand plan...

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

I should have known!!

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Leave the gun, take the cannolli.

Of course, the apocalypse scenario assumes that the other faiths are powerless against them. I think it self-evident that for every powerful weapon there must be a powerful - and more accessible - counter to it. If there isn't, then the social and political structure should reflect that.

For example, in D&D, the fact that a wand of fireballs is fairly easily purchased in any sizable port city tell me that every ship of any size is protected in some way from fireballs. The omission of any mention of this in the books simply tells me that the game designers are still stuck in the dungeon.

In a lot of ways, HarnMaster is also stuck in a dungeon. There are surely hundreds of undocumented rituals, formulae, and spells that provide protection from such hazards as the Bukrai, arcane energy, psionicists, and so on. Defensive spells should outnumber offensive spells by several times, and generally be more accessible. Or, the canon should be rewritten to indicate that the spellcasters and Bukrai-masters rule the world.

I kind of figured the Balshan Jihad as being such a Zombie Apocalypse.
It had wide spread popular support, but it was driven by cadres of Amorivin Priests controling Gulmorvin shock troops.
Losses would be replaced with those newly claimed souls.

What is very pernicious about the situation in Harn Prime, is that the Agrikans are Aligned with the Morgathians.
A future attempt might achieve better results.

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Leave the gun, take the cannolli.

Balsha was a heretic!!!!!

The fact that the morgathian church uses what power it does in a subtle fashion can indicate many things. Here is my list of reasons; (outside of it balances the world/game of course) which are interchangeable and accumalative if you wish, I do not ahere to ALL of them in my P-Harn.

1) It is Morgath's will. He is insane so we cannot guess his reasons.
2) Morgathian clergy are conservative by nature; they are waiting for the right moment.
3) Morgathian clergy are not conservative by nature; but this Gurim is..and he has been at the reins for a long while.
4) Meokolis commands that the right moment be chosen.
5) The general political situation is ripe, but the tools are not. Either schism in the church or an undersupply of 'Gulmovrin' lead to a rational assessment of failure of Harnic domination.
6) The general political situation is ripe, the tools are good, but book-keeping is bad ('C'mon..you forget where you put stuff when you are a thousand years old). This leads to an incorrect assessmnet of success/failure.
7) Fear of failure; The Other nations/gods are too strong at the moment. This could be reasonable (i.e they have effective countermeasures) or paranoia: (i.e. the Gurim believes they have effective countermeasures.)
8 It all sorted; it is happening TOMORROW
9) Zombie apocolypse is not the goal of the church. It is in fact an arcane fraternity concerned with keeping a few corrupt individuals living the thirteen lives of riley. Drawing attention to this is not a good idea.
10) The shadow/zombies does not exist as Canon. The church is a faith community (albeit a bit dark) which encourages the concept of the mystical undead (perhaps with zombie practices similiar to Terran ones..it is not voodoo is it..whatever it is called). half a dozen stoned guys in tattered clothes might struggle to take over the world.
11) Zombie apocolypse is happening...but not on Harn. Perhaps in Dalkesh, Kamerand, Mernat etc the church is covering the world in darkness..with Golotha as a supply port.
12) Waiting for an 'auspicious' moment. The real stuff is ready...just waiting for that comet
13) The 'zombie' apocolypse is an 'amovrin' apocolypse. The kings of all the nations and guildmasters are all secretly undead...

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

..and so are certain GMs.

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"You're gonna cut off the Dragon's what?"

Actually, thats my thought too. If I was running such a scenario, the 'holy weapons' I suggested would be straight from Larani, Sarajin, etc...

While my topic has a nice silly side, it IS hinted at, repeatly, in canon, sometimes more than hinted at.

The rethem module is pretty explicit on page 35, but does leave open the question of just how many gulmorvin are 'in storage'. The side bar on page 35 even mentions Sir Jasyph (Chancellor of the Exchequer) trying to get a reasonably accurate answer to that EXACT question.

So....

What is NOT tied down in Canon, either way, is if vast hordes are stored in secret crypts, or more modest numbers.

My own take:

Outside of Rethem, but on Harn, there are few stashes of gulmorvin, and those stashes are "mostly" probably not especially large.

Surprisingly, I'd increase numbers only slightly inside Rethem EXCEPT for Golotha.

My logic is that in crisis, they get used, and thus only exist in numbers where the Morgathian church has been long term secure. Exceptions would be if an morgathian priest who had a stock of gulmorvin was killed before he or his fellow priests could bring them out.

Likewise, even one murder a day in city of 3650 will kill off 10% of the population annually. Having said that, in Golotha, if one assumes the church has been making gulmorvin out of already dead bodies (adherents or otherwise), then a good chunk of natural deaths would eventually result in a gulmorvin. If a GM wanted only limited numbers available, a good start would be to rule that you need a live person to make a gulmorvin (I think this is suggested in canon, but don't see the reference at the moment, so i could be wrong).

Exactly. Individual GMs are free to decide according to their taste for such things, and those with a penchant for calculations can work out the details for themselves. ("The number of undead in storage? First, assume a perfectly spherical morvrin...")

IMO, the "zombie apocalypse" scenario has more potential for fun when it is limited to a local level.

Peter forgot the simplest and most reasonable explanation - that the existence of a horde of Gulmorvrin waiting to be unleashed is nothing more than LIES told to keep an unruly populace (or unruly competitors) at bay.

IMpH, the rituals used to create Amorvrin are difficult and unreliable, and the only way a Gulmorvrus is created is when an Amorvrus has lived its last half-life (though the Wreaker is sometimes a little lax in his counting, and sometimes reincarnation might use two or more half-lives. Should have read the fine print before making the bargain). Furthermore, Gulmorvrin are devoid of free will and exist only to serve the Wreaker. That's not to say that they don't go about doing nefarious things, just that they don't necessarily do them at the behest of the clergy. And the rituals used to bind a Gulmorvrus to one's will, even temporarily, are extremely difficult and unreliable. They are as likely to end up with the Gulmorvrus turning on the priest as they are to result in the priest being able to effectively command the shade. And there is always a cost.

So while there may be a decent number of Amorvrin kicking around, true Gulmorvrin are very rare, very dangerous, and very difficult to control. Which is as it should be, IMHO.

Awe is one of the ones that would work well for this off the top of my head, a ritual every priest of sufficient rank owns.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

Not a problem I have IMPH, since it's mostly based on canon, meaning the earliest publications, where the gulmorvrin were rare super undead demons rather than numerous plodding zombies. Also, there is no known way to make a morgathan undead from an already dead body, as the shadow is generally too weak to provide enough animus.

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«Fair is what we see, Fairer what we have perceived, Fairest what is still in veil.»
—Nicolaus Stenonius

Peace and Protection (both HM1/HMG rituals) are also worthy to consider in this application.

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«Fair is what we see, Fairer what we have perceived, Fairest what is still in veil.»
—Nicolaus Stenonius

What are the most recent rules for attacking Gulmorvin?

From what I remember they are the same as any human, other than they take would levels equal to endurance and do not suffer stun or KO rolls, they just fight at no pnealty until IL's equal endurance IIRC.

The shadow though was real real tough in HM1, I don't know if it's been modified to be a bit easier to combat.

They don't seem overly tough to defeat though - so I would not think a bunch of special spells or invocations would be needed to fight them - mundane weapons seem to work fine.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

Well now everybody knows!!! Sheesh! (I also wanted 13 points....)

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

I actually did this in a campaign I ran a few years ago.

The Morgathian Primate used an ancient relic (I displaced the 'Orb of Guiang' from Selvos to Golotha) to put all of Golotha under the influence of the Shadow in one fell swoop - a 'Shadow shockwave' if yow will. I assumed that most of the populace would reject the shadow and become Gulmorvrin. The relic also allowed the primate to control Gulmorvrin with greater ease. The result was about 6000 Gulmorvrin shock troops. All of Rethem quickly fell, with the exception of a few pockets of survivors, and the steadily-growing undead army soon turned its sights to Kanday and the Thardic Republic.

I'll mention too, that I made Gulmorvrin EXTREMELY hard to kill. Basically, only complete destruction of the body kills the morvrus, which means they can soak a lot of damage.

How did it go down in the Jihad?
There are some references (Dyrisa, et al), but you had to figure Balsha's message, as powerful as it was, had it's enemies.

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Leave the gun, take the cannolli.

I'd expect that controlling the undead armies is the main problem.
It may be a solvable problem to control a conquering Gulmorvin army fighting a visible opponent or just trying to kill everyone in a single sweep of the land, but maintaining control of the land or defeating a foe that pursues guerilla tactics will certainly be unfeasible. You would need lots of capable Morgathian priests/Amorvins controlling the Gulmorvin villains to achieve this.

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Ich mag den kleinen blauen Elephanten!

I've always envisioned that Gulmorvin were autonomous and (probably) highly competitive among themselves. Think World of Darkness style vampires, the thing they fear the most is each other. While the Gurim can force them to work together, the attrition level is MUCH higher than it should be.

Result? Even with a force large enough to do the job, the chances of they (and their Amorvin) cooperating long enough to achieve victory is far from guaranteed.

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...and I'm not dead yet...

I've always envisioned that Gulmorvin were autonomous and (probably) highly competitive among themselves. Think World of Darkness style vampires, the thing they fear the most is each other. While the Gurim can force them to work together, the attrition level is MUCH higher than it should be.

Result? Even with a force large enough to do the job, the chances of they (and their Amorvin) cooperating long enough to achieve victory is far from guaranteed.

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...and I'm not dead yet...

I picture Gulmorvrin as zombies except that they are animated by the Shadow rather than by magic. As such, an army of Gulmorvrin aren't an 'army' per se, but rather a mob of Aura-seeking corpses. I envision this mob not being 'commanded', but rather 'steered' by the Morgathian commanders. This seems fitting for the Master of Chaos...