Wherever I go, no matter who I game with, one subject is always a topic of discussion and debate: game balance. A thorny issue, game balance consists of a player character's ability to be heroic and powerful placed against the player's ability to wantonly abuse that power. We all have stories of PCs that grew so immense that they enslaved Thor or some such nonsense, and GMs live in fear that their games will sink to such unplayable depths.

I was leery of TSR's Requiem: The Grim Harvest for this very reason. Half the printed material in the box consist of rules on creating an undead character. Those interested in fairly-run games have probably already run screaming from the room, but I'll try and coax them back. I was pleasantly surprised and you may be too.

There are three books in the box. The first, Requiem, deals with undead PCs. Game balance strains in places (witness the half-orc zombie with a potential Strength of 21), but is largely maintained. The supernatural powers of the undead are transformed into new non-weapon proficiencies, which the players may pick and choose from as they advance in level. The sort of powers a given characters receives and must take are determined by the type of undead he or she has become. Fighter and rogue characters can range from skeletons to vampires, which priests and wizards are limited to becoming mummies and liches, respectively.

If, as a GM, the notion of a party of vampires and liches scares the pants off you, have no fear. The constant pull of the negative material plane (the dimension from which the undead draw power) slowly erodes the personality and alignment of an undead PC, until the character has reached a point of irredeemable evil. At this stage, control of the character relinquishes to the GM, effectively ensuring the PC's end. At the conclusion of every adventure (or whenever the GM sees fit), all players must check against their alignment to see if it continues to slide towards the dreaded Chaotic Evil. Lawful Good characters may be able to stave off this corruption for some time, but characters of other alignment won't have much time at all before the negative energy infusing their beings works its unholy magic. No game mechanics are given for reversing the process ("Once you start down the dark path"...). In this manner, Requiem is a lot like White Wolf's World of Darkness, which uses similar systems to achieve the same effect.

The other two books, Death Triumphant and Necropolis, deal with the application of the Requiem rules to the Ravenloft domain of Darkon. Death Triumphant is an adventure dealing with a huge life-force experiment performed by the lich Azalin. I don't want to give anything away, so I will simply say that characters who aren't careful will get a chance to use the Requiem rules whether they want to or not. While not as frightening as it could be, it's sure to provide characters with a good jolt of adrenaline.

The Necropolis book details how the rest of Darkon adapts to the awful results of Azalin's experiments, and it is here where the set's truly unsettling concepts can be found. Again, too much detail here would be wrong, but GMs looking to add some fright to their games will find possibilities aplenty here. Requiem: The Grim Harvest was a pleasant surprise. The authors deserve a lot of credit for taking a potentially ridiculous concept and making it workable. If you need something to spring on unsuspecting players, you need look no further.

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Requiem: The Grim Harvest (AD&D)
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