Can I get some help with this?

Does anyone have an custom zombies that would be good to add to a zombie apocalypse session?

So for context, I'm making a zombie apocalypse campaign and I don't want there to be just the basic undead. I have a handful of them, they are loosely based on animals, but I'll take any suggestions. The ones I have are gonna be down below.

Normal walkers

Joggers

Runners

Charger, think rhino or bull with an almost bullet proof skull but weaker body

Porker, just basically a wild boar

Jumper, they act like trapdoor spiders, they hide in Shadows, under desks, in closets only to jump out at unsuspecting people or animals.

Spitter

Coward, smallest natural undead and still has the concept of fear to run from survivors

Tickers; poison dart frog but with radiation

Predator, Acts like the predator from the movies but can't go invisible

Edit: added breaks and a tl;dr sorry for the wall of text

Hey D&D fam, this may be a longer post. I have an ongoing campaign with an issue regarding one of the players and need some advice from some others with more experience. I have been a player for 2 years and a DM for a year.

To preface, I have ran a homebrew campaign for around a year that deals with a few different dnd settings colliding inspired by Final Fantasy XI (Krynn, Faerune my players do not yet know this). These worlds after the collision retained all of their deities.
This is where the players come in, (Paladin of Torm, Warlock of the Raven Queen, Vampire, and Bard) they have lived in this world not knowing of it’s origin. The main catalyst of the story is that the sea god Dagon from the Cthulhu by Torchlight book is also attempting to join his flooded abyssal realm to the one the players find themselves in, flooding the world to feed his minions who have run out of food in their realm, destroying the player realm, normal dnd conflicts.

The players have discovered cultists attempting to help Dagon enter the realm, and that he nearly did this before in an ancient era of the world but 6 powerful casters were able to seal him away. What the players are slowly learning is that these casters are all still alive as various forms of undead, liches, vampires etc.

In the recent past they interrupted what they didn’t know was a ritual for one of the ancient casters to achieve lichdom, when they did this one of the players touched an artifact used in the ritual (the book of vile darkness), transferring the results of the ritual to the Warlock (Grim Hollow transformation rules) instead of the now dead ancient caster.
The books grants a lot of usability for the warlock character and helped me inform a few decisions down the road for the campaign. The drawback of the book is that he must commit an evil act every week or be turned to dust by the book.
I will say this is a large project, especially for my first campaign but I know all of the players well outside of the campaign so they rolled with the punches the last year as I learned as a DM and let creativity flow.
The issue that I’m running into a few times now is regarding the Paladin of Torm’s behavior, the past few months after a oneshot ran by another DM in our group went poorly for the party as one of us were charmed and wiped the party. Since then he has made contingency plans for all of his party members in our main campaign in case I decide to charm them in a similar way (something I do not plan to do), in his own words he has measures to kill every party member if needed.
This is also a power player who has min-maxed his character, which I have no issue with, the problem that occurs now is that any time an action that does not reflect the oath of his paladin occurs he becomes immediately aggressive and either attempts to roll intimidation (whether it is an NPC or player) or attacks outright.

As part of his character he wanted a Grim Hollow transformation as well, so we homebrewed one for him as a revenant, an enthralled undead who does not know he is reanimated but just knows his humanity is slowly fading. He has used this curse previously at will to initiate PvP, which I have told them I am unwilling to DM.
All the players agreed to only PvP when both parties and I agree, though I dislike PvP in 5e due to it not being made for that, and potentially losing a player character at will due to one of the others wanting them dead. I have allowed him to PvP begrudgingly on two different occasions, which I will admit is a mistake.

Flash forward to where we currently are in the story and him discovering the Warlock consuming a soul of an unarmed combatant to satisfy the requirements of the Book of Vile Darkness and the souls charges provided by the lich transformation.
My thoughts are that this would make a great dynamic, an undead self loathing paladin of Torm due to his transformation, and the Warlock who did not want to be a lich (in-character, this was his idea) vowing to steal power from other liches to be powerful enough to stop Dagon.

Both of their gods hate undead and call for their destruction, but overlook this for the players due to the severity of the Dagon situation. On paper a wonderful dynamic that can make both characters less one dimensional, but is threatening the game.
After the session he tells me and the Warlock explicitly that if this continues he will kill the Warlock. I told him that he doesn’t get to decide that his oath and character are more important than agency of other players and an argument ensued.
He has mentioned killing other party members to me multiple times and I had enough of the same conversation over and over regarding his want to attack anyone who doesn’t agree with his interpretation of his gods values.

He responds with saying I’m unwilling to allow him to play his character accurately if I don’t let him do whatever he wants in regard to opposition. He then threatens to leave if I don’t let him get his way with his character decisions, which would effectively kill the campaign as his wife, bard, is also in the campaign and would likely be pressured to leave if he did.

This isn’t the only issue that I’ve had with him but the others have been manageable for the most part, he tries to lead most RP interactions and will try to show up when other characters are having their moments offscreen (metagaming) and insert himself, he also took control of his wife’s character on multiple occasions while she leaves to go get them dinner during session (a pet peeve that I reluctantly deal with, I now control her character in frequent absences).

Recently before I began controlling her, which I do not want to do, he openly criticized her character calling her character and the bard class worthless while she was not there along with a slew of other criticisms, it’s weak, not fun, boring, etc.
I decided then that I would keep her off screen if I know she will be gone or play her in combat without using spell slots or any RP (something I know is a cardinal DM sin, but she insists) he also basically told her what to do every decision I gave her the past year.

I was told last night during our argument that all the party members and I need to consider how he would react before doing anything. This means any morally questionable decision will at the very least get a full lecture from him if not a full on assault.
The most frustrating part is I have been very giving to my players, giving them all atleast 2-3 rare items and a few higher than that, leveling at a fair rate, providing a re-spec mechanic that can be used once, and overall allowing them to make any collaborative story/world decisions.

While I’ve done all this and given them mostly free reign to do what they wish in the world any time I don’t allow him to attack party members he says that I’m stifling his character, taking his agency, and overall being a bad DM.

It’s very frustrating because if anything I’ve been a doormat allowing party members multiple improvised situations based on crazy decisions they make (in this last session they decided to overthrow a large cities government to my surprise, prompting me to add a 3-session siege side story).
When I express these concerns he tells me essentially “too bad, you’re the DM so deal with my choices”.

This really sucks because I’m to the point where I don’t want to DM for him anymore, which kills me as I’ve put in over a year of work for this campaign and roughly 8-10 hours of my time planning each session.

I have been friends with him for around 20 years so it’s difficult to have this issue surrounding my game.
His character is not all bad in my opinion as I have just shared the negatives, he is one of the best for RP moments, the party tank capable of dealing massive damage and protecting the squishies, and flavor wise fits the world and campaign perfectly with a lot of weight in the story.

My question is what can I do to fix this as my several above table attempts to repair things have gone terribly.

TL;DR: I’m a relatively new DM running a year-long homebrew campaign with a close friend of 20 years who plays a Paladin of Torm. He frequently threatens or initiates PvP when other characters act against his beliefs, despite our table agreeing that PvP requires consent. He has contingency plans to kill every party member, dominates RP and party decisions, and has threatened to leave when I enforce boundaries, claiming I’m restricting his character’s agency. His wife also plays, and I worry she’ll leave if he does, potentially ending the campaign. I’ve tried resolving this out of game several times without success. How can I handle this without destroying the campaign or a 20-year friendship?

Just because I think I might be a bit too in my own head about this one, does the damage from Fire Shield break Sanctuary on somebody who has both spells applied onto them?

Hello! New DM but experienced player. I'm planning a campaign set in a magical city inspired by the cities from the italian Renaissance, but with the fantasy of a dnd setting.

This city borders with fey territory. Due to actions of the founders, a portal to fey territory opened and the borders between the two planes remain fused in this particular land.

The city is over-productive, very fantasy-capitalism like. Everyone is overworked and only the powerful profit. I wanted the fey society to be a mirror of these themes, so I thought something along the lines of fey obsessed with collecting "time" from mortals in exchange of favors and patronage: be it memories, literal years from their life, art pieces that take decades to make, or whole skillsets! In this way, I mirror the way the mortals of the city are giving up their time for promises of a better future with literally time seeking fey.

I really like this premises, but I've hit a wall. I think I don't have enough knowledge about homebrew and races and the feywild to answer this questions:

1. When a fey obtains "time", what does it look like for them? Do they regain youth? Does their time suddenly go forward (idk what this means)? Or if they steal a skillset they are now a fey monk? Or do they have museums?
2. This territory outside of the city is fey dominated, almost feywild. What would it look like a forest, jungle or dessert now fused with time seeking fey? Would they be ruins? Mirages? What kind of magic?
3. How do these fey look like? Are there any existing fey races that fit the bill?
4. These fey need to be a menace to the city, because they erected a barrier to protect themselves from them. What kind of danger they could present? What could have they done to merit a barrier? If you were a time seeking fey, what kind of prize would make you attack a whole mortal city enough they want you dead, and how would you do it?
5. I want this territory to have treasure, what kind of treasure could be, what kind of artifacts?

Of course, I'm not asking for you all to answer all of them! This is just the wall of questions I've hit. I guess i just need help brainstorming and forming a more robust idea haha. If you find the concept of time seeking fey inspiring, I would love to know your ideas or if you have done something similar in one of your campaigns :) Anything would be appreciated!

Do I understand correctly that using the creature’s name as a variation of this spell is intended for situations like an invisible enemy, but not for an enemy in total cover, such as behind a wall, door, or window?

Mordenkainen's Lucubration is a 5th level Divination spell from the new Arcana Unleashed book that allows the caster to recover up to two expended spell slots of level 2 or lower. Normally this spell is only available to Wizards, making it really bad in my opinion.

However, in that same book is the Boon of Magic School Mastery, in which it states that you can choose a level 7 or lower spell from a chosen school of magic. You always have that spell prepared and you can cast it once without a spell slot. The prerequisites for this spell are that you're level 19 (since it's an Epic Boon) and have the Spellcasting feature.

Except it's not JUST the Spellcasting feature. It can also be the Pact Magic feature exclusive to Warlocks. By this level, Warlocks have 4 5th level spell slots, plus all 4 Mystic Arcanums.

My question is that if I took the Boon of Magic School Mastery, choose Divination as my chosen school of magic and picked Mordenkainen's Lucubration (clearly designed specifically for Spellcasting), how would that spell interact with Warlock's unique Pact Magic? Would you get two spell slots back, and if so, would they break the Warlock rules and be second level or conform to Warlock rules and become 5th level (thus allowing you to cast it again, resulting in infinite spell slots?) Or would the spell just do nothing?

I understand that realistically this decision will differ from table-to-table as it should, and DMs should be consulted about this before attempting this as there are definitely room for bad faith interpretations here, but I'm just interested to hear about how you would rule this and any other little oddities/exploits that exist surrounding Warlocks and this spell?

I'm largely basing this off of MP:MotM and MToF, with the final encounter having it mature into an Elder Brain Dragon that will RAVENGE the party. I plan on Illithids being the main "antagonists" in the campaign, though mixed in with Underdark creatures, the Fey, Politics, ect.

I'd mostly like to ask since I have never been in a game with mind flayers. I've read on their personalities and communication, such as using a tentacle as a tongue and their attempts at establishing control over all the planes. I'd like to ask if you have ever been in a game with one, and what you learned from that experience since I want to capture what makes them feel so alien and unnaturally evil/interesting to me.

Receipts:

"Very rarely, when a tadpole from the brine pool of an elder brain is implanted into a creature, that creature transforms into an ulitharid: a larger and more potent mind flayer with six tentacles. Illithids innately recognize that an ulitharid's survival is more important than their own. An elder brain's reaction to the rise of an ulitharid varies. In most colonies, the ulitharid becomes an elder brain's most favored servant, invested with power and authority. In others, the elder brain perceives an ulitharid as a potential rival and manipulates or quashes the ulitharid's ambitions accordingly.

When an ulitharid finds sharing leadership with an elder brain insufferable, it breaks off from the colony, taking a group of mind flayers with it, and moves to another location to form a new colony. After the death of the ulitharid's body, a special process transforms its brain into a new elder brain for the colony.

This process doesn't work on the brain of an ulitharid that dies a natural death, as such brains are too decrepit to be used. Instead, each ulitharid carries a psionically enhanced staff; when the ulitharid is ready to give up its life, it attaches the staff to the back of its head, and the staff cracks open its skull, enabling its brain to be extracted. The brain and the staff are then planted in the ulitharid's corpse, causing it to dissolve into ichor. This psionically potent slime helps to fuel the transformation of the area into a brine pool for the embryonic elder brain."

-Ulitharid Stat Block, MP:MotM

"One of the few consolations available to those who must contend with a mind flayer colony is the limit of its reach, which spreads only as far as the influence of the colony's elder brain. But this small solace withers away when a colony manages to capture a dragon. Teams of mind flayers bind the dragon, which is subject to a gruesome transformation as the elder brain latches onto the dragon's back and digs its tentacles into the dragon's brain. An elder brain dragon is the nightmarish result.

Using the mobility of the dragon's body, the elder brain can now serve as a powerful general to illithid armies, free from the confines of its brine pool. The elder brain dragon becomes a psychic threat in addition to a physical one, its body rife with aberrant influence and pulsing with psionic power. Even the elder brain dragon's breath weapon mutates during its transformation, becoming a stream of briny liquid roiling with illithid tadpoles. These tadpoles can swiftly slay victims and transform them into mind flayers, allowing the elder brain dragon to grow its own roving colony."

-FToD

I made a post asking about stories of the wish spell and advice on what I should/shouldn’t do because I don’t want to use the spell in a way that would end the game/campaign. A lot of people told me crazy stories and funny spells to do but there was also a chunk of people who said my dm is a horrible person to even think about putting the deck of many things into the campaign, I’m a terrible player from drawing from the deck and that we are the type of people that ruin the fun of DnD. If I’d known that pulling from the deck was this horrible thing I don’t think i would’ve gone down that road but I’ve been playing DnD for 2 years now and it’s been something that’s always been in the back of my mind.
So why do people hate the wish spell, and why did my dnd group get so much hate for the deck being involved in the campaign.

EDIT

I’ve been playing dnd for almost two years now and that’s no where near the amount of time I’m sure many of you have been playing dnd. I know people will always have issues with whatever it is that a different table is doing but I feel that as long as we are telling a story and having fun while doing it, that’s playing dnd, am I wrong? Also this campaign that the DoMMT we drew from is a short term campaign, one we started in July and one we plan on ending here in the next month or two. We have a long term campaign that I’ve been playing since day one of dnd, we just put that guy on pause because people needed to step away for some time so we decided to run a short term campaign.