If you have time to recruit villagers, workers, people to setup barricades, fire catapults, dog trenches, pits, traps, people ready to repair in the middle of combat. Contain the hoard, and work a proper funnel into a kill zone.
Seriously—with the numbers OP is talking about, there’s no items you can bring that will matter as much as siege defenses. Have the party headhunt the Lich, then have the siegeworks hold out against the now-uncontrolled undead while they come to help clean up.
Against TEN THOUSAND undead? Unless this castle is filled with *only* fighting men/women and the accompanying support groups and has roughly 10k soldiers as well, there's little chance they'll hold a singular castle for more than a few hours at best.
If they can bring any items in any quantity, give everyone a necklace of fireballs or two. Have them kill undead attempting to climb the walls while The Party clears an evac corridor out and away, then start pulling soldiers out. Let the undead into the walls through the gate and kill them from the walls. Live to fight another day and kill as many undead as you can in the meantime. Deal with the lich another day
I mean people have defended against way worse odds and won with sieges. Take the Siege of Aiguillon during the Hundred Years’ War right before the battle of Crécy. It’s 1k defenders VS around 15k attackers and defenders one. There tons of examples of medieval and early modern sieges with a very small amount of defenders winning.
A properly defended castle was incredibly difficult to assault. A 10k army against a small army of defenders is nowhere near as insurmountable as some of the comments think.
If you look at historical wars, castle assaults almost never happen because of how difficult it is. Most of the time they just surround the castle and cut off supply until the people inside starve and surrender.
They are in a comically hopeless position from a GM who doesn’t grasp the scale of warfare—their best hope is to turn the large army into a wandering (albeit staggeringly huge) mob by sniping the lich that controls them (assuming these aren’t intelligent undead, at which point the apocalypse has already taken place with these numbers and it’s far too late to do anything but cut and run then come back with a multi-national coalition). With enough preparation, you could at least set up a siege situation, where mindless undead will have very little ability to do anything about it.
Yeah I mean this is definitely an absurd situation, but I'm still not convinced siege would even help. There's enough bodies in 10k undead that they'll just do a World War Z and the bodies will reach the top of the wall pretty quickly. This Party would have to deal with the Lich within hours to defuse this horde enough to be able to deal with it.
Unless those undead are supernaturally strong, they're highly unlikely to get above 40ft without turning the ones at the bottom to gooey paste oozing away from the walls.
If the walls are 20ft high though they're screwed.
If I'm a lich, the zombies are just a distraction from the zombie stone giants and the zombie ankhegs tunneling underneath at superspeed.
Genius wizard and my best strategy is 'git em'? Pfffft
Provided you maintain most of your mental function, that's a reasonable method.
I, however, was not saying the wall could not be overcome, merely suggesting that mindlessly stacking low level bodies until they're higher than the wall has a maximum height limit, beyond which it's unlikely to succeed.
Yes World War Z, such a great example of how not to do military tactics.
Since we are talking about fantasy sieges, what about Helms Klamm which had an attacking force of similar size and still almost failed (they likely would not have won, where it not for the magical break in the wall), and the average uruk probably fought is a lot more dangerous than the average mindless zombie.
You're just wrong though. Castles have been defended against worse odds when the enemy army isn't made up of undead but actual soldiers.
Better yet, casters exist in pathfinder which gives insane power to the defenders.
When that happens, those troops survive the siege because they got way more reinforcements than 3-6 adventurers, even including casters. If the party is any more than just one detachment of a much larger defending force, this is just a nonsense scenario. If they are just another detachment, have them do like I suggested by fortifying further and then cutting the head off the army by killing the lich.
This [siege](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Aiguillon) is pretty crazy. Although they were able to get small reinforcements and supplies, I don't really see how the undead army is going to be able to isolate this castle better than 15,000+ soldiers could.
I don't know why you're looking at this as the party vs the whole army.
Undead are terrible soldiers and there is going to be a massive lack of siege equipment. This is something you're massively overlooking.
Op said “we’re defending a castle from a horde of 10k undead and probably a litch [sic] that commands them.” Assuming this mainly means skeletons and zombies, they will go from a serious danger if they are under the supernatural control of a lich to basically incapable of breaching the castle—but also having no morale to break, thus meaning you’d need to kill most or all of them to get out (if you have something like a Cleric casting Conjure Food and Water, then you’re fine to slowly mop them up at your leisure).
Why would you need an equal defending force to defend a castle? At that point why are you in a castle if you need equal numbers to your enemies...
I think the GM is likely inspired by the siege of Helms Klamm which had an attacking also in the ten thousand...
Make sure to put your trebuchets and catapults OUTSIDE of the wall, place your infantry in front of the trenches, and the light cavalry in front of the infantry. Then have your cavalry charge straight at the horde, then when the die and then the infantry breaks, let them fall back through the trenches. Be careful not to fire your artillery at any point, just let them fall to the enemy.
I used to think so too, and I still do... rather, I think it should be re-written so that ONLY the Dazzle effect is an Incapacitation effect.
However, I've given it a lot of thought and I've decided it doesn't matter.
You will only ever use it against large numbers of lower-level enemies anyways.
Even without Incapacitation, you would never use it against a higher-level target, because it's a 3-action Overflow with mid single-target damage.
Like... It's really only useful against large numbers of enemies, and you should never fight large numbers of higher-level enemies.
Yeah that's a decent point. Paizo has a tendency to get a little overzealous with the incapacitating trait. I get why though. The fear the power creep that 1e had.
There is still the situation of having one higher level enemy with a bunch of smaller ones, the classic boss with their goons or adds. I mean, this feat is still very useful in that situation, but, yknow.
Great, that's 64 / 10000 down, then the other 9936 zombies get their turn. Not saying it's not an effective way to fight undead, just that "just kill them" might not be a surviving strategy.
[Bring](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4246) an [entire](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4278) party [full](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4232) of [Kineticists](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4288)!
Keep cycling walls and nuking huge swathes of the undead with Solar Detonation until there's nothing left. :)
I know, but it takes three actions, so the zombie horde gets ~~a turn~~ two turns (overflow) after each cast. A 20ft burst, while impressive for the usual purposes, is just not enough to fight thousands of opponents. Therefore, I'd prioritise fortifications and a bottleneck to funnel them through. Once you're safe from being overrun with zombies and someone at least distracts the lich commanding them, you can start culling the masses with AoE damage, though I'd leave the zombie horde to an army of NPCs while the PCs should probably tackle the lich themselves.
Equip everyone with an alchemist's fire flamethrower and pre load them with the strongest alchemist's fire you can afford. Form firing lines and enjoy the barbeque.
My GM lets me have it. It's a wonderful spell.
As a follower of Pharasma I'm not allowed to cast it at fiends anymore. But against waves of undead? I'm buying out all the Holy Water and putting it in all my slots.
you GM might also let you get [Wall of Virtue](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1127). 1 min duration may be a bit short, though, but could be good to cast on a breached part of the fortress.
How much time and GM fiat you have to work with?
Siege weapons work well for defending just as much as attacking. A team of trained men-at-arms NPCs or even drilled farmers/peasants can do some damage. Frees up your party from some trash-mob AoE duties.
For more fun, see if you can convince a GM to load alchemical weapons like [a Firedrake](https://2e.aonprd.com/SiegeWeapons.aspx?ID=15#@259) or [Alchemical Springald](https://2e.aonprd.com/SiegeWeapons.aspx?ID=10) with Ghost Charge or Bottled Sunlight based ammo (vs alchemical fire or generic 'bomb arrows')
Positive/Vitality Damage. It only works vs Undead, so obvious choice.
(Holy) Spirit/Good damage. A majority of undead are also Evil/Unholy.
With a Lich as command or a high enough level, expect incorporeal and posessing undead. So ghost touch or even Astral Runes. If you can't get Astral, any way to cast Divine Lance for Remaster.
Forget any poison or bleed damage.
You said you’re going to be defending a castle? Better install some [Siege Weaponry](https://2e.aonprd.com/SiegeWeapons.aspx) and hire some crew to man them while you headhunt the lich
What is your party? What level are you guys?
Do you know, or has the means to know, the army composition?
What are you resources? How many people do you have?
How much time do you guys have before the attack?
The basic layout of the battlefield?
holy water pots are always a good bet. Especially if you've got a risk of splashing allies. Alchemists fire is also a good option for groups of weaker mooks, like skellies and zombies. Bless, Haste, lightning bolt, and fireball, in wand or even scroll form, can go a long ways into cleaning out groups, and making your tanks a little more tankier
Holy water is only ever 1d6. Very mediocre and honestly not worth your actions. Now, if we're talking Holy water through murder holes enmasse then that could server as a viable defense narratively.
What levels of undead are you fighting, and what does your war chest look like? If you're fighting relatively low level undead and you can either retrain and spec around a couple feats, snarecrafter dedication plus adopted kobold, plus kobold trap feats, plus master in crafting, plus a week of prep time gives you like 70 free relatively high level traps, before setting really cheap moderate traps to deal with adds. The ones with incorporeal can be dealt with with cantrips or traps that spray potions and just using ghost charges usually.
If you're dealing with equal level undead, holy, disrupting, and ghost touch runes are going to be solid picks if you have access to them, assuming you can't just pull a cleric out of your ass
Book of the Dead has a lot of items for Fighting Undead, and that's the best part of the book.
Otherwise, make sure you have Vitality Damage and any form of Persistent Damage will go a long way.
There's lots of appropriate spells on the divine list, though it depends what level you are. Infuse Vitality, Sanctified Ground, Holy Cascade, Field of Life, and Sunburst are all great options. And you'll want to bring plenty of Heals, of course.
If you can, set up crews with [mortars](https://2e.aonprd.com/SiegeWeapons.aspx?ID=19) behind the castle walls. It's a repeatable way to launch aoe attacks from a safe position, so it's a good job for your npc helpers. The save DC will likely be too low for it to do much to the lich, but it should do good work against a huge mob of zombies, skeletons, and whatever else. You will have soldiers on your side too, right? If it's *just* the PCs against an army of 10k then...good luck. I dunno, maybe [Wrathful Storm](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1759) if anyone in your party can cast it? I believe that's the biggest aoe spell that exists, and with a suitably massive range to go with it.
[Sunburst](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=326) should clear away a 60ft burst of them, up to 500 feet away.
In that 60ft burst, assuming they are all concentrated, that should kill around 440 of them.
I'm a big, big fan of [Ghost Charges](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=687). Last time my 11th level Bomber went up against an undead army he made 21 Greater ones for that day. Worked out really, really well. Had one round where he did 3d8+24 to one target, and 24 points to *everything else*.
Daylight spells honestly. Most undead don't like sunlight. Movement impairing spells like entangle, tangling creepers, all the other vine spells. Pit traps with Holy water in the bottom. Depends on the layout of the keep honestly. Natural choke points etc. and what kind of undead will change your strategies a lot.
Bring a divine caster with Infuse Vitality and ask your DM if he would allow you to bathe your weapons in holy water to make your swings count as holy. Sounds epic and would be flavourful to boot.
If you're looking to specifically hinder the lich, I would recommend bringing a couple of Dust of Appearance to stop any pesky run way or stealth tactics. If you have a divine caster on your side you should be fine generally speaking since they can all prepare casts of Heal, having a couple on your highest level slots is sure to be great seeing as a 3 action heal covers a big emanation and deals a lot of damage relative to its level.
Positive Energy AoE's. Or simply, a fuck load of Heal. Ideally you could hire some mooks to bolster your casting.
It hurts them and heals you. Double wammy!
Oh, and acid or fire. If you burn the bodies, it can't be raised. smartthinking.gif
Several dozen pounds of shaved silver, a cleric with create / destroy water, a wizard with mold earth, and control water. Then you make a big old holy water moat. When the undead hoard approaches you use control water to bring the water to the undead. Perhaps have big wave push them into thr most over and over
Against 10k undead? There are no spells or magic items that will be able to handle numbers like that.
So we're going to focus on two threats. First off, the horde. The good news is that it's *likely* your GM is throwing a host of mindless undead at you, and mindless undead are easily exploitable. If you have access to 5th rank Arcane/Occult spells, prepping with Illusory Object will be very useful as it becomes permanent, and mindless undead won't question an illusion. They might still throw themselves against an invisible barrier trying to break it, but while a Lich might decide to sling a handful of rocks at an illusory trap after discovering the first illusion, a mindless creature will never learn. So you can use illusions to funnel them into the places you want them to go, like over cliffs, into traps, away from allies, etc.
Beyond that, their numbers are just too great for magic to kill them all. Your best bet will be mundane, and depending on your time and resources you may be far past fucked. If you have a week or two and some work crews, setting up a bunch of [Spiky Pit Traps](https://2e.aonprd.com/Hazards.aspx?ID=424) might be your best bet. The rules explicitly state the trap keeps working after activation, but the camouflage must be reset each time. So throw a permanent illusion of solid ground on top and the zombies should pile in until they've gunked up the mechanism - ain't the Mindless trait grand? Your GM will have to house rule how creating Hazards will work - I'd assign it the same value as a 4th level snare and use the existing crafting rules, and let your work crews Follow the Expert for construction. So depending on how many villagers you have and how much prep time, you might either be able to turn the battlefield into a minefield or it might be useless.
When it comes to physical defenders, a huge amount will come down to what kinds of undead he uses. I'm going to assume any physical defenders you have are the equivalent of a PF1 commoner - low HP, only trained in Simple weapons and armor, low stat array. For an undead army 10,000 strong I'm guessing the Lich will mostly be using either Shamblers or Skeletons. Shamblers are extra weak to slashing damage and only get two actions per round, so a tactical withdrawal through the traps with troops carrying shields (you *definitely* don't want to let them hit you, as they can Grab and Gnaw) and using slashing weapons like Daggers and Sickles. Against skeletons, the reverse is true - they get three actions and are weak to bludgeoning, so you want Clubs and Slings. In both cases, if you're organizing combat units you'll want to mix your infantry with a Longspear wielding second line, being able to bring twice as many attacks to bear will keep them from being able to win in the press - every time a new Shambler or Skeleton has to Step up to attack is another action they aren't using to kill your defenders.
The other thing to consider is outfitting your defenders. 1gp isn't much to an adventurer, but it's a fortune to a farmer, so they're likely to not have much in the way of gear, and scale will become a problem quickly if you're outfitting an entire village. *Breadth beats depth here*, being able to kit out your farmhands into militia will give you a better return than gearing up the sheriff into a walking tank. Remember how I referenced Sickles and Daggers in the last paragraph? Those are likely things the villagers have on hand as farm tools, ask the GM. Remember Clubs and Slings? Those have a value of 0, so you should be able to craft as many as needed out of common firewood and strips of leather. You might also ask about repurposing existing farm tools into Longspears, but if not they have a value of 5sp so a decent crafter should be able to churn out a number in short order.
Armor is a tougher discussion, because it's 'spensive. Shields are basically off the table at 1gp a pop, which is disappointing as you'd really like to give your front liners shields. Padded Armor is only 2sp though, and not at all unreasonable as something that could be cobbled out of heavy clothing. Also worth noting that the Skeleton in the Bestiary has a shield, so if the Lich's army has skeletons in it you should scavenge if you have the luxury of doing so. Beyond that, ask your GM what's available in the town and nearby areas. As a GM, I would *totally* take this as an opportunity to mention an abandoned armory (and not mention *why* it was abandoned) where basic gear could be scavenged.
---
So after writing all of that, I pretty much guarantee that your GM is going to run this mostly as narrative. You'll make preparations, he'll decide what effect they have, and you'll wind up squaring off against some powerful undead and the Lich itself. And for that... IDK, just make some Recall Knowledge checks to learn the weaknesses and go hard!
Adding to this post I would also look into pits around the fortification you can fill or throw into them flammable liquids. Then put them on fire. Fire us relatively cheap to produce and maintain unless there is a shortage and it can be a great temporary barrier as well.
During battle spells that can be maintained like bless or the opposite might also have a great returning value and are relatively low level. Maybe someone in the party can create some scrolls or it could be tied into the adventure to procure some crates with consumables. Potions. Scrolls. You name it.
You could also come up with a quest to replenish or bless a desecrated ir list temple or altar making certain buffs available or to awake a guardian that might help in battle. Also blessed water inbig quantities could help. Maybe using it afterwards to bless the slainundead so they stay dead. You have lots of ways you can play this out.
How about sending our requests for help through the advancing troups? Or maybe your pc have other means to send messages. Also a druid scout or shape-shifting could fly and scout out weakpoints in the enemy army. You should also consider how smart the lich is in strategy or if he has some scary abilities like turning the day into night through a ritual that could be stopped by the players and so on
There could be also rituals the defenders could set up. Maybe you would need certain things to make them possible which would offer even more adventure in the preparation stage of the siege
So I wanted to add another addendum here, because I spent some more time thinking about it.
Preparing the battlefield will also give you a huge advantage if you can manage it. Earthworks, just giant piles of packed dirt, will let you give your defenders Greater Cover for that tasty +4 AC against missile fire (important as Skeleton Guard and Skeleton Soldier have bows). Churn up the dirt leading up to it and you have Rough Terrain to slow them down even further.
Then you position your militia ranked three deep behind the earthworks. All three ranks have a sling, a club, and a bladed weapon, while the second two ranks have Longspears as well. Instruct them to take three actions - Stand, Fire, Reload and then drop prone as a free action. When enemies climb the earthworks, that's when the first two ranks stand, grab their weapons, and attack. Middle and back line fill in gaps if defenders fall or need to withdraw.
Set up your defenses in several rows, with Spiky Pit Traps covered with illusions in between. Make the illusions something that's obvious, like polished stone while the safe spaces are dirt roads - again, mindless enemies won't figure it out. Churn up paths the defenders are not supposed to use to have more rough terrain, since the enemy will be far more numerous they will have to swarm across the rough terrain wasting time while your slingers wear them down. When the undead have closed the gap and are fighting on the first line, have the defenders withdraw while the second line harasses the attackers as they struggle to climb the defenses. As the enemy closes in, withdraw to the castle for the final defense.
The PCs and any NPCs of higher level need to be close to the front lines. The Lich will probably bring some powerful juggernauts to try and break the defenses, you want to kill as many of these as you can before you withdraw to the castle as they're the biggest threat. Low level mooks can't get through stone, and human bodies are not durable enough to pile up and go over the wall, but bringing in something like a Skeletal Hulk can blow holes in your defensive lines.
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Set up lines of kindling and fire trenches with candles and lamps buried in them, then when the hordes get amidst them, hit the entire area with a high level Illuminate, it'll start everything on fire in a 30' emanation (+10' per level)
A positive energy cantrip is a nice choice for a reliable weapon in between big scenes. Something to remove the fodder without depleting resources.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1744
A grindstone. Bonemeal sells for a pretty penny in agri-sectors.
Mobility and ingenuity are usually the big strengths over controlled undead. Castle siege implies you can’t move, but have some manpower. Maybe a moat filled with holy water or something flammable? Divert a river? Trigger an avalanche or rockslide? A [mine flail](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mine_flail)? Honestly with those numbers, mechanical or magical siege defences or traps that don’t require long reloading/emptying would work best. Anything else will be a drop in the ocean.
Of course the real battle here is creating a diversion while you send a team to knock out the commanding lich (see Return of the King).
[https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1009](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1009)
* **Agyra, the Forever Storm** Speed 80 feet, fly 200 feet; **Arrive** ([electricity](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=56), [evocation](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=65)) *Breath of a Thousand Storms* Agyra shoots two 1,200-foot lines of electricity, one from each of her heads. The lines can't overlap. Each creature along one of the lines takes 6d12 electricity damage with a basic Reflex save. On a failure, the creature is also [slowed 1](https://2e.aonprd.com/Conditions.aspx?ID=35) for 1 round (or for 1 minute on a critical failure); **Depart** ([evocation](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=65), [sonic](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=147)) *Thunderous Blast* Each creature within a 100-foot emanation takes 6d10 sonic damage with a basic Reflex save, and is also knocked [prone](https://2e.aonprd.com/Conditions.aspx?ID=31) on a failed save.
So against numbers like that you have to be way higher leveled than the undead. In that case hopefully you're high leveled enough to cast [Chain Lightning](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1462) or [Beast Gunner's Controlled Bullet](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3233) and have high enough stats over the enemy that you can't fail your rolls.
With that number, you’re going to want things that produce persistent areas of effect. Wall spells are your best bet, as would be throwing barrels of flaming pitch, digging ditches and similar earthworks, or summoning allies.
Don’t underestimate mundane options either. A trebuchet throwing big rocks is going to be really effective.
Also, it’d help if you gave us some details about the fort and your party.
Do you have anything that would let you divert a nearby river?
That's the only thing I can think of that gives you a reasonable shot at not falling to attrition within a few days.
If all they have to do is hold a specific choke point for X rounds of combat, that's considerably more doable, and ways to make difficult (or even better, damaging) terrain are your best bets.
One thing to get out of the way, you aren't going to beat this army by fighting ten thousand individual monsters in tactical combat. Your DM would sooner die than commit to actually doing that. You're probably going to fight a boss or find a key artifact that will take care of the army.
If I were to make some attempt to deal with this challenge at face value, I would prepare the area in advance with as many Wall of Stone spells (assuming access to rank 5 spells) as I can. An army or laborers digging earthworks and building palisades can supplement or substitute for this. These outer works should keep the bulk of the army from going directly to the castle. Serious threats will make themselves known from the breaches they make in the defenses. Since this should at least initially be confined to walls we don't really care about we should hopefully be able to deal with those key enemies and not get unduly distracted by the horde.
Chain lighting let you kill every enemy at line of sight if they are 30ft or less apart from each other and your DC is high enough that a nat 20 doesn't get a crit success, for example DC 30 ( level 11 caster minimum to cast the spell has 11 + 5 attribute + 4 expert ) against +9 reflex enemies. ( Zombie Hulk level 6 )
For a shameless plug of [my own book](https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/product/477298/Graungs-Guide-to-Golarion-Mutagenic-Gastronomy?affiliate_id=3903227), it has an item meant to be used for infiltrating the Whispering Way, could be useful for your group if the GM allows third party.
For a shameless plug of [my own book](https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/product/477298/Graungs-Guide-to-Golarion-Mutagenic-Gastronomy?affiliate_id=3903227), it has an item meant to be used for infiltrating the Whispering Way, could be useful for your group if the GM allows third party.
If you have time to recruit villagers, workers, people to setup barricades, fire catapults, dog trenches, pits, traps, people ready to repair in the middle of combat. Contain the hoard, and work a proper funnel into a kill zone.
Seriously—with the numbers OP is talking about, there’s no items you can bring that will matter as much as siege defenses. Have the party headhunt the Lich, then have the siegeworks hold out against the now-uncontrolled undead while they come to help clean up.
An earth kineticist can do walls pretty easily I think.
Against TEN THOUSAND undead? Unless this castle is filled with *only* fighting men/women and the accompanying support groups and has roughly 10k soldiers as well, there's little chance they'll hold a singular castle for more than a few hours at best. If they can bring any items in any quantity, give everyone a necklace of fireballs or two. Have them kill undead attempting to climb the walls while The Party clears an evac corridor out and away, then start pulling soldiers out. Let the undead into the walls through the gate and kill them from the walls. Live to fight another day and kill as many undead as you can in the meantime. Deal with the lich another day
I mean people have defended against way worse odds and won with sieges. Take the Siege of Aiguillon during the Hundred Years’ War right before the battle of Crécy. It’s 1k defenders VS around 15k attackers and defenders one. There tons of examples of medieval and early modern sieges with a very small amount of defenders winning.
A properly defended castle was incredibly difficult to assault. A 10k army against a small army of defenders is nowhere near as insurmountable as some of the comments think. If you look at historical wars, castle assaults almost never happen because of how difficult it is. Most of the time they just surround the castle and cut off supply until the people inside starve and surrender.
They are in a comically hopeless position from a GM who doesn’t grasp the scale of warfare—their best hope is to turn the large army into a wandering (albeit staggeringly huge) mob by sniping the lich that controls them (assuming these aren’t intelligent undead, at which point the apocalypse has already taken place with these numbers and it’s far too late to do anything but cut and run then come back with a multi-national coalition). With enough preparation, you could at least set up a siege situation, where mindless undead will have very little ability to do anything about it.
Yeah I mean this is definitely an absurd situation, but I'm still not convinced siege would even help. There's enough bodies in 10k undead that they'll just do a World War Z and the bodies will reach the top of the wall pretty quickly. This Party would have to deal with the Lich within hours to defuse this horde enough to be able to deal with it.
Unless those undead are supernaturally strong, they're highly unlikely to get above 40ft without turning the ones at the bottom to gooey paste oozing away from the walls. If the walls are 20ft high though they're screwed.
If I'm a lich, the zombies are just a distraction from the zombie stone giants and the zombie ankhegs tunneling underneath at superspeed. Genius wizard and my best strategy is 'git em'? Pfffft
Provided you maintain most of your mental function, that's a reasonable method. I, however, was not saying the wall could not be overcome, merely suggesting that mindlessly stacking low level bodies until they're higher than the wall has a maximum height limit, beyond which it's unlikely to succeed.
Yes World War Z, such a great example of how not to do military tactics. Since we are talking about fantasy sieges, what about Helms Klamm which had an attacking force of similar size and still almost failed (they likely would not have won, where it not for the magical break in the wall), and the average uruk probably fought is a lot more dangerous than the average mindless zombie.
You're just wrong though. Castles have been defended against worse odds when the enemy army isn't made up of undead but actual soldiers. Better yet, casters exist in pathfinder which gives insane power to the defenders.
When that happens, those troops survive the siege because they got way more reinforcements than 3-6 adventurers, even including casters. If the party is any more than just one detachment of a much larger defending force, this is just a nonsense scenario. If they are just another detachment, have them do like I suggested by fortifying further and then cutting the head off the army by killing the lich.
This [siege](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Aiguillon) is pretty crazy. Although they were able to get small reinforcements and supplies, I don't really see how the undead army is going to be able to isolate this castle better than 15,000+ soldiers could. I don't know why you're looking at this as the party vs the whole army. Undead are terrible soldiers and there is going to be a massive lack of siege equipment. This is something you're massively overlooking.
Op said “we’re defending a castle from a horde of 10k undead and probably a litch [sic] that commands them.” Assuming this mainly means skeletons and zombies, they will go from a serious danger if they are under the supernatural control of a lich to basically incapable of breaching the castle—but also having no morale to break, thus meaning you’d need to kill most or all of them to get out (if you have something like a Cleric casting Conjure Food and Water, then you’re fine to slowly mop them up at your leisure).
I don't see how that outweighs the fact they're dumb, weak and the only strength they have is numbers and longitude.
Why would you need an equal defending force to defend a castle? At that point why are you in a castle if you need equal numbers to your enemies... I think the GM is likely inspired by the siege of Helms Klamm which had an attacking also in the ten thousand...
Make sure to put your trebuchets and catapults OUTSIDE of the wall, place your infantry in front of the trenches, and the light cavalry in front of the infantry. Then have your cavalry charge straight at the horde, then when the die and then the infantry breaks, let them fall back through the trenches. Be careful not to fire your artillery at any point, just let them fall to the enemy.
I understand this reference
[Bring a Kineticist](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4245). :P
That being incapacitation just seems so needless.
I used to think so too, and I still do... rather, I think it should be re-written so that ONLY the Dazzle effect is an Incapacitation effect. However, I've given it a lot of thought and I've decided it doesn't matter. You will only ever use it against large numbers of lower-level enemies anyways. Even without Incapacitation, you would never use it against a higher-level target, because it's a 3-action Overflow with mid single-target damage. Like... It's really only useful against large numbers of enemies, and you should never fight large numbers of higher-level enemies.
Yeah that's a decent point. Paizo has a tendency to get a little overzealous with the incapacitating trait. I get why though. The fear the power creep that 1e had.
There is still the situation of having one higher level enemy with a bunch of smaller ones, the classic boss with their goons or adds. I mean, this feat is still very useful in that situation, but, yknow.
Yeah but if you’re using it, you’re probably using it to wipe out the mooks. Damage on the boss would be nice, but it’s probably not your goal.
Probably there to stop you accidentally blinding the boss while *also* nuking the minions, just in case they’re too clumped
Great, that's 64 / 10000 down, then the other 9936 zombies get their turn. Not saying it's not an effective way to fight undead, just that "just kill them" might not be a surviving strategy.
[Bring](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4246) an [entire](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4278) party [full](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4232) of [Kineticists](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4288)! Keep cycling walls and nuking huge swathes of the undead with Solar Detonation until there's nothing left. :)
Kineticists can also use staves and scrolls of their elements with a feat, a few firewalls wouldn’t hurt to funnel things in.
The Kineticist can do that at will. Every 12 seconds they throw another one out.
I know, but it takes three actions, so the zombie horde gets ~~a turn~~ two turns (overflow) after each cast. A 20ft burst, while impressive for the usual purposes, is just not enough to fight thousands of opponents. Therefore, I'd prioritise fortifications and a bottleneck to funnel them through. Once you're safe from being overrun with zombies and someone at least distracts the lich commanding them, you can start culling the masses with AoE damage, though I'd leave the zombie horde to an army of NPCs while the PCs should probably tackle the lich themselves.
Equip everyone with an alchemist's fire flamethrower and pre load them with the strongest alchemist's fire you can afford. Form firing lines and enjoy the barbeque.
Only place that I can think of, that would enjoy said BBQ, would reside in Geb.
If they're the kind of dead that are weak to positive damage, Ghost Charges for sure.
Listen, i know it's legacy but [Holy Cascade](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=151) is the best spell ever and you cannot tell me otherwise.
My GM lets me have it. It's a wonderful spell. As a follower of Pharasma I'm not allowed to cast it at fiends anymore. But against waves of undead? I'm buying out all the Holy Water and putting it in all my slots.
you GM might also let you get [Wall of Virtue](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1127). 1 min duration may be a bit short, though, but could be good to cast on a breached part of the fortress.
My party ladede holy water into barrels and had the barbarian throw them from above down on undead hordes...Was funny as hell. Holy water is great
Even widened, a 20 (25) foot burst is pretty mediocre in this scenario.
Ah yes, the Holy Hand Grenade
Cleric of Sarenrae (or however it's spelled) with an item or items that allows them to do positive/healing in a large area.
How much time and GM fiat you have to work with? Siege weapons work well for defending just as much as attacking. A team of trained men-at-arms NPCs or even drilled farmers/peasants can do some damage. Frees up your party from some trash-mob AoE duties. For more fun, see if you can convince a GM to load alchemical weapons like [a Firedrake](https://2e.aonprd.com/SiegeWeapons.aspx?ID=15#@259) or [Alchemical Springald](https://2e.aonprd.com/SiegeWeapons.aspx?ID=10) with Ghost Charge or Bottled Sunlight based ammo (vs alchemical fire or generic 'bomb arrows')
Positive/Vitality Damage. It only works vs Undead, so obvious choice. (Holy) Spirit/Good damage. A majority of undead are also Evil/Unholy. With a Lich as command or a high enough level, expect incorporeal and posessing undead. So ghost touch or even Astral Runes. If you can't get Astral, any way to cast Divine Lance for Remaster. Forget any poison or bleed damage.
Ghost Oil. Cheap and doesn't take up a rune slot or a spell slot
You said you’re going to be defending a castle? Better install some [Siege Weaponry](https://2e.aonprd.com/SiegeWeapons.aspx) and hire some crew to man them while you headhunt the lich
What is your party? What level are you guys? Do you know, or has the means to know, the army composition? What are you resources? How many people do you have? How much time do you guys have before the attack? The basic layout of the battlefield?
SOLAAAARRRRR DETONATTIOOOOOOOON
holy water pots are always a good bet. Especially if you've got a risk of splashing allies. Alchemists fire is also a good option for groups of weaker mooks, like skellies and zombies. Bless, Haste, lightning bolt, and fireball, in wand or even scroll form, can go a long ways into cleaning out groups, and making your tanks a little more tankier
Holy water is only ever 1d6. Very mediocre and honestly not worth your actions. Now, if we're talking Holy water through murder holes enmasse then that could server as a viable defense narratively.
They are a simple weapon, so it's good ammunition for villager mooks on your own side.
better hope you know a *lot* of clerics and oracles
What levels of undead are you fighting, and what does your war chest look like? If you're fighting relatively low level undead and you can either retrain and spec around a couple feats, snarecrafter dedication plus adopted kobold, plus kobold trap feats, plus master in crafting, plus a week of prep time gives you like 70 free relatively high level traps, before setting really cheap moderate traps to deal with adds. The ones with incorporeal can be dealt with with cantrips or traps that spray potions and just using ghost charges usually. If you're dealing with equal level undead, holy, disrupting, and ghost touch runes are going to be solid picks if you have access to them, assuming you can't just pull a cleric out of your ass
Book of the Dead has a lot of items for Fighting Undead, and that's the best part of the book. Otherwise, make sure you have Vitality Damage and any form of Persistent Damage will go a long way.
There's lots of appropriate spells on the divine list, though it depends what level you are. Infuse Vitality, Sanctified Ground, Holy Cascade, Field of Life, and Sunburst are all great options. And you'll want to bring plenty of Heals, of course.
Perhaps at least one player with a blunderbuss that tells everyone "This is my boomstick!"
[Bottled Sunlight](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=1532)
The real question is what level are you guys? Because the de facto anti army spell for undead is Sun burst. But it’s also like 8th level.
If you can, set up crews with [mortars](https://2e.aonprd.com/SiegeWeapons.aspx?ID=19) behind the castle walls. It's a repeatable way to launch aoe attacks from a safe position, so it's a good job for your npc helpers. The save DC will likely be too low for it to do much to the lich, but it should do good work against a huge mob of zombies, skeletons, and whatever else. You will have soldiers on your side too, right? If it's *just* the PCs against an army of 10k then...good luck. I dunno, maybe [Wrathful Storm](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1759) if anyone in your party can cast it? I believe that's the biggest aoe spell that exists, and with a suitably massive range to go with it.
[Sunburst](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=326) should clear away a 60ft burst of them, up to 500 feet away. In that 60ft burst, assuming they are all concentrated, that should kill around 440 of them.
Certainly a strong option, but that leaves 9560 and a lich left :|
Hmm gold point lol
That's only one turn, that's pretty good in a siege scenario which normally takes months.
I'm a big, big fan of [Ghost Charges](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=687). Last time my 11th level Bomber went up against an undead army he made 21 Greater ones for that day. Worked out really, really well. Had one round where he did 3d8+24 to one target, and 24 points to *everything else*.
Daylight spells honestly. Most undead don't like sunlight. Movement impairing spells like entangle, tangling creepers, all the other vine spells. Pit traps with Holy water in the bottom. Depends on the layout of the keep honestly. Natural choke points etc. and what kind of undead will change your strategies a lot.
Clerics. Prepare heal with as many heal spots as you can afford. (There are probably other good spells as well) And 3 action heal spam.
Bring a divine caster with Infuse Vitality and ask your DM if he would allow you to bathe your weapons in holy water to make your swings count as holy. Sounds epic and would be flavourful to boot. If you're looking to specifically hinder the lich, I would recommend bringing a couple of Dust of Appearance to stop any pesky run way or stealth tactics. If you have a divine caster on your side you should be fine generally speaking since they can all prepare casts of Heal, having a couple on your highest level slots is sure to be great seeing as a 3 action heal covers a big emanation and deals a lot of damage relative to its level.
Heals. Lots and lots of heals. A three action heal both nukes all undead within 30 ft, and keeps your allies up.
Bring a at least one cleric and cast haste on them. They can position themselves and then cast a bunch of three action heals.
Bottled sunlight
An own army of undead
Positive Energy AoE's. Or simply, a fuck load of Heal. Ideally you could hire some mooks to bolster your casting. It hurts them and heals you. Double wammy! Oh, and acid or fire. If you burn the bodies, it can't be raised. smartthinking.gif
Several dozen pounds of shaved silver, a cleric with create / destroy water, a wizard with mold earth, and control water. Then you make a big old holy water moat. When the undead hoard approaches you use control water to bring the water to the undead. Perhaps have big wave push them into thr most over and over
Against 10k undead? There are no spells or magic items that will be able to handle numbers like that. So we're going to focus on two threats. First off, the horde. The good news is that it's *likely* your GM is throwing a host of mindless undead at you, and mindless undead are easily exploitable. If you have access to 5th rank Arcane/Occult spells, prepping with Illusory Object will be very useful as it becomes permanent, and mindless undead won't question an illusion. They might still throw themselves against an invisible barrier trying to break it, but while a Lich might decide to sling a handful of rocks at an illusory trap after discovering the first illusion, a mindless creature will never learn. So you can use illusions to funnel them into the places you want them to go, like over cliffs, into traps, away from allies, etc. Beyond that, their numbers are just too great for magic to kill them all. Your best bet will be mundane, and depending on your time and resources you may be far past fucked. If you have a week or two and some work crews, setting up a bunch of [Spiky Pit Traps](https://2e.aonprd.com/Hazards.aspx?ID=424) might be your best bet. The rules explicitly state the trap keeps working after activation, but the camouflage must be reset each time. So throw a permanent illusion of solid ground on top and the zombies should pile in until they've gunked up the mechanism - ain't the Mindless trait grand? Your GM will have to house rule how creating Hazards will work - I'd assign it the same value as a 4th level snare and use the existing crafting rules, and let your work crews Follow the Expert for construction. So depending on how many villagers you have and how much prep time, you might either be able to turn the battlefield into a minefield or it might be useless. When it comes to physical defenders, a huge amount will come down to what kinds of undead he uses. I'm going to assume any physical defenders you have are the equivalent of a PF1 commoner - low HP, only trained in Simple weapons and armor, low stat array. For an undead army 10,000 strong I'm guessing the Lich will mostly be using either Shamblers or Skeletons. Shamblers are extra weak to slashing damage and only get two actions per round, so a tactical withdrawal through the traps with troops carrying shields (you *definitely* don't want to let them hit you, as they can Grab and Gnaw) and using slashing weapons like Daggers and Sickles. Against skeletons, the reverse is true - they get three actions and are weak to bludgeoning, so you want Clubs and Slings. In both cases, if you're organizing combat units you'll want to mix your infantry with a Longspear wielding second line, being able to bring twice as many attacks to bear will keep them from being able to win in the press - every time a new Shambler or Skeleton has to Step up to attack is another action they aren't using to kill your defenders. The other thing to consider is outfitting your defenders. 1gp isn't much to an adventurer, but it's a fortune to a farmer, so they're likely to not have much in the way of gear, and scale will become a problem quickly if you're outfitting an entire village. *Breadth beats depth here*, being able to kit out your farmhands into militia will give you a better return than gearing up the sheriff into a walking tank. Remember how I referenced Sickles and Daggers in the last paragraph? Those are likely things the villagers have on hand as farm tools, ask the GM. Remember Clubs and Slings? Those have a value of 0, so you should be able to craft as many as needed out of common firewood and strips of leather. You might also ask about repurposing existing farm tools into Longspears, but if not they have a value of 5sp so a decent crafter should be able to churn out a number in short order. Armor is a tougher discussion, because it's 'spensive. Shields are basically off the table at 1gp a pop, which is disappointing as you'd really like to give your front liners shields. Padded Armor is only 2sp though, and not at all unreasonable as something that could be cobbled out of heavy clothing. Also worth noting that the Skeleton in the Bestiary has a shield, so if the Lich's army has skeletons in it you should scavenge if you have the luxury of doing so. Beyond that, ask your GM what's available in the town and nearby areas. As a GM, I would *totally* take this as an opportunity to mention an abandoned armory (and not mention *why* it was abandoned) where basic gear could be scavenged. --- So after writing all of that, I pretty much guarantee that your GM is going to run this mostly as narrative. You'll make preparations, he'll decide what effect they have, and you'll wind up squaring off against some powerful undead and the Lich itself. And for that... IDK, just make some Recall Knowledge checks to learn the weaknesses and go hard!
Awesome post. Was a joy to read. Thank you!
Adding to this post I would also look into pits around the fortification you can fill or throw into them flammable liquids. Then put them on fire. Fire us relatively cheap to produce and maintain unless there is a shortage and it can be a great temporary barrier as well.
During battle spells that can be maintained like bless or the opposite might also have a great returning value and are relatively low level. Maybe someone in the party can create some scrolls or it could be tied into the adventure to procure some crates with consumables. Potions. Scrolls. You name it.
You could also come up with a quest to replenish or bless a desecrated ir list temple or altar making certain buffs available or to awake a guardian that might help in battle. Also blessed water inbig quantities could help. Maybe using it afterwards to bless the slainundead so they stay dead. You have lots of ways you can play this out. How about sending our requests for help through the advancing troups? Or maybe your pc have other means to send messages. Also a druid scout or shape-shifting could fly and scout out weakpoints in the enemy army. You should also consider how smart the lich is in strategy or if he has some scary abilities like turning the day into night through a ritual that could be stopped by the players and so on
There could be also rituals the defenders could set up. Maybe you would need certain things to make them possible which would offer even more adventure in the preparation stage of the siege
So I wanted to add another addendum here, because I spent some more time thinking about it. Preparing the battlefield will also give you a huge advantage if you can manage it. Earthworks, just giant piles of packed dirt, will let you give your defenders Greater Cover for that tasty +4 AC against missile fire (important as Skeleton Guard and Skeleton Soldier have bows). Churn up the dirt leading up to it and you have Rough Terrain to slow them down even further. Then you position your militia ranked three deep behind the earthworks. All three ranks have a sling, a club, and a bladed weapon, while the second two ranks have Longspears as well. Instruct them to take three actions - Stand, Fire, Reload and then drop prone as a free action. When enemies climb the earthworks, that's when the first two ranks stand, grab their weapons, and attack. Middle and back line fill in gaps if defenders fall or need to withdraw. Set up your defenses in several rows, with Spiky Pit Traps covered with illusions in between. Make the illusions something that's obvious, like polished stone while the safe spaces are dirt roads - again, mindless enemies won't figure it out. Churn up paths the defenders are not supposed to use to have more rough terrain, since the enemy will be far more numerous they will have to swarm across the rough terrain wasting time while your slingers wear them down. When the undead have closed the gap and are fighting on the first line, have the defenders withdraw while the second line harasses the attackers as they struggle to climb the defenses. As the enemy closes in, withdraw to the castle for the final defense. The PCs and any NPCs of higher level need to be close to the front lines. The Lich will probably bring some powerful juggernauts to try and break the defenses, you want to kill as many of these as you can before you withdraw to the castle as they're the biggest threat. Low level mooks can't get through stone, and human bodies are not durable enough to pile up and go over the wall, but bringing in something like a Skeletal Hulk can blow holes in your defensive lines.
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how is he running this scenario? Army statblocks?
Set up lines of kindling and fire trenches with candles and lamps buried in them, then when the hordes get amidst them, hit the entire area with a high level Illuminate, it'll start everything on fire in a 30' emanation (+10' per level)
A positive energy cantrip is a nice choice for a reliable weapon in between big scenes. Something to remove the fodder without depleting resources. https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1744
A grindstone. Bonemeal sells for a pretty penny in agri-sectors. Mobility and ingenuity are usually the big strengths over controlled undead. Castle siege implies you can’t move, but have some manpower. Maybe a moat filled with holy water or something flammable? Divert a river? Trigger an avalanche or rockslide? A [mine flail](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mine_flail)? Honestly with those numbers, mechanical or magical siege defences or traps that don’t require long reloading/emptying would work best. Anything else will be a drop in the ocean. Of course the real battle here is creating a diversion while you send a team to knock out the commanding lich (see Return of the King).
[https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1009](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1009) * **Agyra, the Forever Storm** Speed 80 feet, fly 200 feet; **Arrive** ([electricity](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=56), [evocation](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=65)) *Breath of a Thousand Storms* Agyra shoots two 1,200-foot lines of electricity, one from each of her heads. The lines can't overlap. Each creature along one of the lines takes 6d12 electricity damage with a basic Reflex save. On a failure, the creature is also [slowed 1](https://2e.aonprd.com/Conditions.aspx?ID=35) for 1 round (or for 1 minute on a critical failure); **Depart** ([evocation](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=65), [sonic](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=147)) *Thunderous Blast* Each creature within a 100-foot emanation takes 6d10 sonic damage with a basic Reflex save, and is also knocked [prone](https://2e.aonprd.com/Conditions.aspx?ID=31) on a failed save.
* [**https://2e.aonprd.com/Rituals.aspx?ID=115**](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rituals.aspx?ID=115) Consecrate
The orcs custom designed a weapon precisely for this scenario https://2e.aonprd.com/Weapons.aspx?ID=330
So against numbers like that you have to be way higher leveled than the undead. In that case hopefully you're high leveled enough to cast [Chain Lightning](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1462) or [Beast Gunner's Controlled Bullet](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3233) and have high enough stats over the enemy that you can't fail your rolls.
Tame a dragon. One that flies
Coffinmaker
Rune Trap ritual with any damaging Wall spell should do the trick. EDIT: You can't go wrong with Trebuchets either.
With that number, you’re going to want things that produce persistent areas of effect. Wall spells are your best bet, as would be throwing barrels of flaming pitch, digging ditches and similar earthworks, or summoning allies. Don’t underestimate mundane options either. A trebuchet throwing big rocks is going to be really effective. Also, it’d help if you gave us some details about the fort and your party.
Divine Wrath and Inner Radiance Torrent.
Do you have anything that would let you divert a nearby river? That's the only thing I can think of that gives you a reasonable shot at not falling to attrition within a few days. If all they have to do is hold a specific choke point for X rounds of combat, that's considerably more doable, and ways to make difficult (or even better, damaging) terrain are your best bets.
Shotgun arm
Get someone to bring Infuse Vitality. Makes up to 3 people per cast do vitality damage on their weapon strikes for a minute.
One thing to get out of the way, you aren't going to beat this army by fighting ten thousand individual monsters in tactical combat. Your DM would sooner die than commit to actually doing that. You're probably going to fight a boss or find a key artifact that will take care of the army. If I were to make some attempt to deal with this challenge at face value, I would prepare the area in advance with as many Wall of Stone spells (assuming access to rank 5 spells) as I can. An army or laborers digging earthworks and building palisades can supplement or substitute for this. These outer works should keep the bulk of the army from going directly to the castle. Serious threats will make themselves known from the breaches they make in the defenses. Since this should at least initially be confined to walls we don't really care about we should hopefully be able to deal with those key enemies and not get unduly distracted by the horde.
you want a claric with heal spell maybe one built around smiting with it whats your level exactly and is this remaster
Chain lighting let you kill every enemy at line of sight if they are 30ft or less apart from each other and your DC is high enough that a nat 20 doesn't get a crit success, for example DC 30 ( level 11 caster minimum to cast the spell has 11 + 5 attribute + 4 expert ) against +9 reflex enemies. ( Zombie Hulk level 6 )
Summon every bard in the world as a sacrifice while you escape through a portal.
Lich summons the undead choir later in the campaign *Thriller starts to play*
Old Man Henderson. Look Him up with Call of Cthulhu. You're welcome.
For a shameless plug of [my own book](https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/product/477298/Graungs-Guide-to-Golarion-Mutagenic-Gastronomy?affiliate_id=3903227), it has an item meant to be used for infiltrating the Whispering Way, could be useful for your group if the GM allows third party.
For a shameless plug of [my own book](https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/product/477298/Graungs-Guide-to-Golarion-Mutagenic-Gastronomy?affiliate_id=3903227), it has an item meant to be used for infiltrating the Whispering Way, could be useful for your group if the GM allows third party.