Werecorpse - Dungeons and Dragons Lore, Forgotten Realms 

So its like that Pirates of the Caribbean Curse?

Werecorpse? I don’t know. You had him last.

Of all the were-creatures I have encountered and dreamed of, a were-corpse has never occurred to me. Well done. Compliments to the chef.

I like how he says that it isn't just him who gets hurt on his adventures as if he doesn't burn through caravan guards like firewood every other story.

"Oh no! Dave's been biten by a corpse! He's going to turn into a were-corpse!" "....you mean a zombie!?" "..... no... shut up. This is worse, ok!?"

Oh, that must be a really powerful curse if it requires a wish to remove. Every night you get the Pirates of the Caribbean cursed gold treatment until like a werewolf curse it becomes a permanent change. The worst thing is that you can’t really die because the curse keeps you as a zombie like creature permanently at that point.

I did not expect something so well made and different from my expectation of an inside joke.

'Could have been worse. He could have become a were-multilevel marketer. >;) Good story. :)

Learned something new today. Thanks, AJ!

Werecorpse sounds like the most metal name of a band I've ever heard.

This is the actual feeling of saying "I'm dead inside"

we're getting silly now, but thanks for the video AJ

The name immediately had me intrigued. Excellent job as always, Mr. AJ Pickett.

I imagine the Narrator is a silver dragon with that opening.

Scout: "Ha Ha look you shape shifted into a dead guy!"

That was a very somber video. To have Bartel, a spirited beacon of good and hope laid low, not by a heroic battle, but by a slow, centuries-long wasting-disease of mind, body, and soul. Fiction or not, it was rather demoralizing. Even though Bartel was finally able to move on in the end, it did not feel like a victory that one would make one celebrate. Rather, it was a victory to bring relief and closure. You've a great gift for writing and reading, AJ. Thank you for the video.

This is interesting. It’s similar to the hungry corpse curse in my games, but yours cause the victims to revert back to human regularly. In mine, they are aware of their deeds when grasped by the curse, but unable to withstand the hunger long enough to rot away to nothing. The victims know that feeding on the living flesh of others is the only thing that restores their flesh. Feeding the their flesh destroys their souls over many years. This curse was created when a lich tried making sentient regenerating undead minions. The ghoul blood in the casting exerted too much control in the curse. The hunger made the first of them slip from the control of their master and use their intelligence to escape from confinement to go and feed. The Hungry Dead suffer from a withering intelligence. The curse causes them to make a save against a loss of intelligence every 24 hours. The DC increases by 1 every day they go without feeding. They lose control of themselves when their intelligence reaches 3. They go into a form of hibernation if they reach a 0 intelligence that can be ended if living flesh touches them in any way, so great care must be exercised in disposing of the hibernating dead. An active, well-fed Hungry Dead can exert its will over others of its kind, to a limited degree. For every point of intelligence one has, it will attract four points of intelligence to form a horde. This is not limited, so any controlled will also control others, turning small hordes into massive hordes as solitary Hungry Dead are scooped up by a passing horde. This effect also stalls hibernation, so there may be many in a horde that would otherwise simply fall idle. Clerics and paladins can’t turn the Hungry Dead. It is a curse, not true undeath. Remove Curse and Dispel Magic can work to break the curse, but it requires daily castings and only works if the save against the hunger was passed on that day. After a full turn of the moon without a failed save, the curse is permanently broken. I created this in response to a friend wanting a Walking Dead campaign. He was a big fan of the show and didn’t know how to go about making the Walkers in that for D&D. This isn’t perfect, but it fits the bill narratively. The Hungry Dead pass on the curse to their victims, because as life ebbs from them, the Hungry Dead stop eating and the curse restores life to the previous victim of the Hungry Dead. That previous meal rises, fully aware and remembering being eaten, with a hunger for living flesh. No one fully recovers from the curse, even if it can be broken. They will always remember being eaten alive.

I love stories with happy endings.

Oh neat, magic made horrors beyond my comprehension.

Love these types of stories

Excellent as always AJ. Heart wrenching and inspiring

Excellent storytelling Mr A J Sir! 🌟🌟🌟 👏👍👏👍👏👍👏 THAT tale for the next D&D movie! 😁 (with you as narrator!)

If I didn't know any better, half of this was written by GPT 3.5. Still a good story and concept.

awesome story AJ

Don't take another man's burden as your own. We all make our own choices. Don't dare to steal that from the fallen by taking the weight of those choices upon yourself. All you can do is let others make their choice and honor it. What you think? In character for the story?

Mister Pickett, Good job sir!

Alas, poor Bartel, I knew him well.

You are a really exceptional storyteller and I'm very much enjoying you leaning into that. ✌️🙂

I always wanted to play an undead character that was a Skeleton. Like a undead version of a Warforged. A character that doesn't emit the normal miasma/evil aura of typical undead. But instead it's brought to un life by nature or even the holy power of a long dead or forgotten god. (character back story hook). The undead character left as a undying guardian of a tomb or temple long forgotten and lost to time. But never driven by evil that's typical of nearly all other undead, or by good found among the living. But something between.

Terrific job, man. Terrific!

Early and excited to watch another lore video! I hope you’ve been keeping well in whatever tower or cavern befits a multiverse scholar!

That was a awesome short story can’t wait to here the next tale in The Realms😎👍🏼👍🏼💯

I send you a few bucks but it pales compared to how much I love you and your work! Thank you my good man; for making the world better with your soothing Kiwi voice silver lining the oft grey world cheers mate

So that's what a werecorpse is. Absolutely horrifying. Further amplified by your amazing storytelling.

That threat of a fate worst than death. This is it.

Extremely wonderful!! This is one of the best ones you've ever done.

2 things mister aj Frist Keep making awesome vids like this, 2nd im going to bet that this were-curse is very popular in the Domains of dread.

Amazing! AJ has such a rich imagination, it’s an acolyte treat to listen to his stories. These are the best!

That was terrifying, and well told.

A were-what now?

Thank you for another beautiful story AJ

Well done!

PANR has tuned in. (Seamus)

10 out of 10

Loved this. Thank you for sharing.

thanks for the video. nicely narrated and i enjoyed the story of that nobel character

I'm scared.

Wow this sounds more like a curse than some new form of lycanthropy. Though I do like that evil beings would create their own custom curses to turn beings into monsters

Thanks AJ.

One of the worst curse one can have, That lore was cool AF

Ty more undead plz u do such a good job and very eloquently ur voice has a soothing tone ty 😊

I like this one. You could definitely have gone with Shar instead. That when darkness of night falls, so arises the curse. Kellemvor. I get the impression he’s mostly interested in his own affairs, and mortals will come to him one way or another.

Thank you. Though some scoff at the appellation "Storyteller", your gifts show it's true value. Well told.

So, I want to start this off by saying it eas a very nice video, and a really cool story/tale; I often really enjoy when they are told in-character. However, this does bring up a quandary for me, leaving me to wonder hiw you might handle this, and your opinion, in general? I've had players get mad at me for this kind of thing, and the expected question would be "Why can't Remove Curse break this? That's literally what the spell is for." So, I personally like having some "curse" effects that a simple, low-level spell can't break; when I ran Ravenloft, it kind of became a trend, where more curse effects weren't broken by RC; it either allowed them to make another save, and MAYBE break it, or just do nothing, while more undead had turn resistance, or outright immunity. I felt that it fir with Ravenloft's theming, but they thought I was just arbitrarily making things harder, or trivializing their choices, such as actually playing something that could cast said spell. This Paladin was being accompanied by a number if priests; the class that is good for shattering curses, so why does this one somehow require the most powerful magic, AND crafting an object to use that magic, instead of just the simple spell designed to do this? Again, I personally like these things, but for the people who might expect an easier time, or nor want to have to work, how would you explain the extra impact this particular effect carries, and would it work the same in a mechanical game? Upon a player character? Thanks for your time, and another wonderful video! 😊

now that is a curse of lycanthropy.

Great narraration very 👍

Very well done.

Wow, what a hell of an episode man, great delivery! Got me a lil emotional 😭

Perfect timing AJ I’ve had a shit week hahaha

110th like!👍 Awesome video!🤘 Keep up the awesome work!🤘😎🤘

Thank you so much for such a fun and touching story

Holy smokes I did something like this to 2 of my players a couple months back

why not Wish your buddy back to life? Plenty of time for Celestia when the work is done.

This is my favourite episode yet The writing is so good

Amazing, you took s silly concept and ran with it telling something great

Bleu

How about Were-Humans or Were-Elfs?

Unexpected!

There corpse.

I'm sorry were what?

awesome

Awesome video. Could you do Neanderthals from 3e ?

You don’t just risk your life when adventuring you even risk your afterlife people use the term “a fate worse than death” to describe many things but few things are as true to that saying as what persists after death

oh...like Pirates of the caribbean: the curse of the black pearl?

Though I really love this, I am a bit upset as until I read the description your title gives the perception this is canon. Please, keep doing what your doing but add something to the title that reflects it is homebrew

Something i wrote a few years ago... Erylyn She felt like she had been elsewhere, someplace awful. She remembered a bright tunnel, and then the light turned red and streaked with smoke. Burning still seared across her mind. Wood gave away, and there was soil. Erylyn was in the soil. Her limbs flailed upwards, it was almost like swimming, but the control was not hers. She exerted all the will she could to stop her movements. Why? She was in the ground, she should have suffocated. She was not breathing. Fel darkness was creeping across her mind, quenching her heart and soul. The same power that was moving her limbs was replacing her personality. Erylyn redoubled the efforts of her will. She had deserved her death, she had been an uncaring bitch to all and sundry, vile and wicked, and so her slaves had eaten her alive. She had not deserved hell. The fire and the smoke was the weakest of torments, trotted out to frighten children, but the truth was far far worse. Each hour her soul was used as toilet, or a weapon of torment, or raped by a score of fiends. Never allowed rest, never respite. Time became meaningless, and she learned at last to have empathy for the other lost souls. Only then, once she had learned goodness, did the real torments begin. But something had called her back. For a fraction of a second she felt anger, and the fel darkness charged across her mind. Erylyn fought back. She held onto the empathy that she had learned. She prayed, not to any god, but to the only spark of goodness in her own spirit. The ground had become loose, she knew she was less than a foot from the surface, but she had stopped her limbs from moving, the fel darkness cleared from her mind. She heard a voice from above. "One has failed to rise", it mused. It uttered an incantation, and within a minute she became aware of other disturbances in the ground, other bodies reached for the surface. "This will do", it said, and the bodies walked away. Erylyn lay in the ground for some time. She wasn't sure for how long, maybe an hour or more. She didn't need to breathe, and it was fairly cool down here. It was certainly nicer than hell. Then again, anything is nicer than having an horrifically barbed and acidic cock rammed into your right eye every morning whilst imps pull out your fingernails, all while being set on fire and having nails drilled into your kneecaps. And that was just the alarm clock, the demons really picked up their game after lunch. But she decided it was time to move, if she could. The magic that was trying to overtake her soul had also been animating her body, obviously the work of a necromancer. Erylyn tried to move her left arm. Success! She would have breathed a sigh of relief, if she still breathed, and didn't have soil in her mouth and an earthworm up her nose. Her soul now had arcane control of her body. It wasn't biological control, all her organs and parts were dead, and she mused she would probably have to start eating people (dead or alive) if any part of her got damaged. "Holy Cow", she exclaimed, which she regretted immediately as soil filled her non-functioning lungs. As a reflex she flailed upwards with her limbs, like a drowning man might do from under the waves. Erylyn broke the surface and spat and coughed bits of ground all about her. "I'm a revenant", she said, completing her previous 'holy cow' sentence. Erylyn climbed clear of the ground and stood up. At least they'd buried her in her favorite horse riding gear, jodhpurs, leather boots, and a nice blouse. However, she had been somewhat eaten to death, and was missing her heart, parts of her leg muscles, and her right buttock. The skin was also in a shabby condition, taut and decayed. She carefully retrieved the worm from her nose and placed it gently back in the hole she had made in the ground. The graveyard was on the edge of town, a town full of thieves, assassins, brigands, pirates, and bank managers, and Erylyn had body parts to replace. Time to go eat some villains.

This is quite interesting. So, if I understand correctly, you said the poor guy at some point retreated to the chapel, where he recieved this curse? So I take it, that he was aware of it? Also, did I get this right: this curse kept him alive for centuries? Imagine, if some poor soul was not aware of being affected by this curse. Or one being decieved to get it. I can well imagine someone being terribly sick with an affliction, that will claim their life, looking for a cure, or an individual that for any other reason doesn't want to die, falling in the clutches of a member of such a group, and being told, that they can heal them, only to be unknowingly infected. And now they live, but turn undead at night, only to wake up the next day with no recollection of the night, and while they may live a happy life now, this curse over time slowly erodes away any and all emotion, leaving them feeling increasingly hollow and unsatisfied. Knowing a bit about the human psyche, I could even see the possibility of someone being afflicted mistaking it for (a form of) vampirism, believing this so strongly, that they start to behave and show some physical characteristics of it, like believing the sunlight would burn them, and having a physical reaction to it. Also, this reminds me of some rumours I heard. For example, about there existing weretrolls, though I think those are just stories and tall tales. I mean, according to one of these stories, there is a mercenary, or maybe it was a vigilante, in one of the big cities, that is a weretroll. One side effect is apparently, that, while the infected has the trolls increadible healing ability, they turn rather unsightly. This one case mentioned is also said to be a loudmouth and mildly insane, though it's hard to tell if that's also a side effect, or if that's just a character flaw of that individual. I also heard of cases, where the curse of therianthropy was transmitted not by a bite, but via a cursed item. Like, in one case, a man recieved the curse through a belt, which turned him into a werewolf. Why do I bring this up? Well, I heard two tales, which I initially dismissed as pure fiction because they sounded so strange, so incredible. But in the light of this new Insight, the knowledge of the existance of a werecorpse, they don't sound quite so unbelievable anymore. One Story was about a Duke, that owned a painting, a Portrait of himself, and it was said, that through some circumstance, possibly an infernal pact, he stayed young and beautiful for decades, looking not a day older than twenty, with his Portrait aging and recieving wounds in his stead, but the moment he would look at this Portrait again, the spell would instantly end. Over time, he felt increasingly hollow, and trying to fill the emptiness inside him, he grew more and more decadent. But, according to some, at night, the Portrait would switch places with him, so some servants or passersby would spot a haunting figure walk through the estate, or lovers of his would wake up laying next to a decaying corpse. In the other story, a young fisherman found a ring, and fled into the mountains, where he lived as a hermit, after he killed his cousin one night. From then on, travellers would vanish, or tell of encounters with a being, especially at night, that looked like a walking corpse, with such reports existing for a span of at least 500 years. Maybe it is mere coincidence, and the curses only sound similar, but I think there's at least a chance of these tales telling of the same kind of curse.

Would you re do the wyvern your old video is almost 10 years old?

W

"I can turn into corpse! [casts Bullet]." "okay, but can you turn back?" [casts Unbullet]

What an unusual name, considering how "were-" means "man". Werecorpse literally means man corpse.

I thought it would be a goofy video nope pretty terrible! 💀😮 Remind me not to get a lich curse! 😢

That was suitably horrible.

I think I saw one if these during the US presidential debates.

Very terrible well written story and creature

Please, never write the "werepolitician"😮