How quickly does fire kill them? Is it like you throw a torch at a zombie and it stiffens up and falls over? Or would you need to wait for the flesh to burn away, which gives it time to keep attacking you?
No stiffening up and falling over, they have to burn away - making flaming zombies a thing one might have to fight. Of course, the more intense the flames the quicker the work. Depending on how juicy vs dried out they are, the flames may work more quickly.
Evil Dead rules sounds like bad news for archers. But good to know, so the general strategy then I guess is that when the dead rise and you can't get behind high walls, the first thing you should do is draw a sword. One comes at you, you hack off its arms so he can't grab you, then take out one of the legs so he can't follow you anywhere. Same way King Arthur defeated the Black Knight.
Essentially lol, best way to deal with them - if you can't dispatch them permanently - is just to disable them enough to flee. Archers can be invaluable with pitch and flame, however - except for skeletons.
I suppose if you've got an axe or mace you could also try just smashing the shoulder joint so the arm is dislocated and useless. Then break one hip I guess, so it can no longer stand.
But the first rule for surviving a long night should be to shelter in place, I wager. Have a stockpile of food, bar the doors (and the city gates), and wait it out.
What other kinds of monsters do we frequently see?
Aye - I think for a great many that could work, though those raised through more direct magic may be able to ignore such grievous injuries, animated by more potent magic.
Yes, shelter in place if you can, escape and evasion to shelter if unable. The cities are largely safe in the Long Night, as are most walled townships and villages to an extent, out in the wilds or beyond the walls is the real threat.
It's largely situational depending on regional and local geography. Thankfully nothing that flies - yet. In the north, there is a higher concentration of lycanthropes (the three primary varieties being werewolves, werebears, and wereboars) and primarily all of the Possessed, save for those that range beyond on the dragonships. The undead occur all over, but have a stronger concentration to the west. Beastfolk, Kobold, and various beasts twisted by proximity to the profane (mutated/wrong animals, undead animals, chimeras and other fell things) stalk the forests and hills, but come out en masse in the Long Night, free to wreak havoc unimpeded.
I should probably figure something out for the local fauna. It's not terribly dissimilar to Earth so there's no crazy hurdles we have to get through there. Perhaps a bit more primordial compared to us but nothing extreme.
(otto you're a hero for making them)
Oh man don't indulge the part of me that wants to make maps - I won't get any work done lol - but thank you!
also the deadite likeness is exciting, i'm a campbell/raimi fan so that the evil dead is reference material is just making me happy
Evil Dead is criminally underrated, vies for my top spot for old school zombies with Return of the Living Dead. I'm mightily tempted to sneak in Army of Darkness references down the line.
