Unusual Sorts of Intelligent Undead?

[Remedy]

Great authors don't try to avoid ever using things that have been used before in order to be original, for that is a fool's errand. Instead, great writers use old concepts in inventive and interesting ways and combinations, deriving originality from the execution rather than the basic concepts.

I, however, am not a great writer. Matter of fact, I'm downright lazy. So in order to motivate myself to do something new, I think I actually need to be using something I haven't worked with.

I'm making a 3.5 setting, and want to make some sort of intelligent undead a major part of the world. But if I make it vampires or liches or the common, iconic sort of thing, I'll just lazily slap on what I know and be done with it. Give me conceptually neat undead in the 3.5 canon that most people haven't worked with, so I'm forced out of my cliche comfort zone.

kthx

[Malimar]

First thing that springs to mind: I think many people don't realize wights are fully intelligent. I've never seen anybody put a wight civilization in their world.

[Milo v3]

I've seen ghouls used well. They can be rather creepy, sentient but predatory, and can represent a corpse possessed and transformed by disease spirits.

[SkipSandwich]

Mummies and Ghouls are intelligent as well, I can't think of the last game I played that featured mummies in any sort of significant part of the world.

:Edit: Ninja'd!

[Raven777]

Brains in Jars, maybe?

[DrMotives]

Ghouls definately. Libris Mortis even has a ghoul deity, you can pull that church up and make a whole city / culture around it. Otherwise, I had a long running villain in my 2e campaign who was a Heucuva. I know I've seen them in a 3.x book, but I can't recall which one. Basically a skeleton of a priest who abandoned their vows in life.

[Milo v3]

If you're willing to backport creatures from PF to 3.5e, you can also use Ghul or Penanggalan.

[DrMotives]

If you're willing to backport creatures from PF to 3.5e, you can also use Ghul or Penanggalan.

Penanggalan is also in Oriental Adventures.

[Remedy]

Thanks a bunch for the help here guys! I think I'll probably go with ghouls for now, simply because I looked through Libris Mortis and couldn't really think of a better option. I'll probably mess with them a bit so there can be a generational cycle and they won't just be a rapidly-multiplying death horde, since I don't intend for them to be overt antagonists. Of course, if I decide what I want to do with them and realize a different sort of undead already fits, I can switch with minimal trouble.

[Jay R]

A single lich with a magic jar spell and a bunch of zombies. Only one of the zombies is intelligent at a time, but the lich can keep switching which one it is. That's got to confuse the PCs.

[nedz]

Kyuss would make for a mad world — but you need to use the Scion of Kyuss (DR321 p43) and Spawn of Kyuss, Favored (DR336 p64) templates to make this work best.

[Segev]

The nightshades (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/nightshade.htm) are rarely-mentioned, high-CR monsters that could make for very effective BBEGs with deep and menacing plans. They're powerful, huge, and brilliant. They're also core!

They are kind-of odd as "undead," though; you may want to give some careful fluff-building to them if you use them, to establish why they're "undead" and not outsiders. The undead usually have some aspect of once having been alive to them, for one thing; where do nightshades come from?

[sovin_ndore]

Or you could go simple and build a society around the Necropolitan template... then they could be as varied in archetype as the races that they are made from.

[TheifofZ]

Ghouls are always fun, I agree. Shadows are, amusingly enough, also intelligent.

Of course, Awaken Undead means that theoretically, all undead can be Intelligent, and there's also the Boneclaw, Bone-drinker, and the Bone- and Corpse-creature templates.
The Defacer is an intelligent undead spawned from the corpses of creatures capable of changing shape, so they make interesting one-offs, and the Spectral Rider is an interesting flavor of ghost.

As well, the Skull Lord from MM5 is all kinds of interesting with tons of flavor, and as a CR 7 with specific mechanics involved, it's one heck of a gimmicky low level boss, and potential BBEG.

[ekarney]

I think Bleakborn actually have a decent intelligence score if I'm not mistaken.

[squiggit]

First thing that springs to mind: I think many people don't realize wights are fully intelligent. I've never seen anybody put a wight civilization in their world.

I like this one. Everyone talks about the Wightocalypse, but they always treat it like a zombie outbreak and there's a lot more you can do with fully intelligent, contagious LE undead. Especially if you're also using the templated version from D300, which ends up being a lot more flexible and can be applied to anything that isn't a construct, undead, ooze or incorporeal. Though I'm not sure how since create spawn still only works on humanoids.

[SMWallace]

I like this one. Everyone talks about the Wightocalypse, but they always treat it like a zombie outbreak and there's a lot more you can do with fully intelligent, contagious LE undead. Especially if you're also using the templated version from D300, which ends up being a lot more flexible and can be applied to anything that isn't a construct, undead, ooze or incorporeal. Though I'm not sure how since create spawn still only works on humanoids.
Normal wights killing such a creature with negative levels? If I had to venture a guess.

[Milo v3]

Though I'm not sure how since create spawn still only works on humanoids.
Because you can create wights without create spawn:

A character with negative levels at least equal to her current level, or drained below 1st level, is instantly slain. Depending on the creature that killed her, she may rise the next night as a monster of that kind. If not, she rises as a wight.

[Thurbane]

I like the Gravetouched Ghoul, Necropolitan, Bone Creature and Corpse Creature templates. You can use a wide variety of creatures as the base to keep them unique and interesting.

[TheifofZ]

Honestly, the biggest reason I don't like Necropolitan is because it feels generic.
It's just a guy who happens to be undead... and that's all. Nothing cool or flavorful, nothing interesting.
He doesn't explode in disease clouds or drink blood or exude an aura of ominousness or anything else.
Though I suppose if you're building an actual civilization of the recently arisen, they make for solid generic NPCs for that exact reason.

[Milo v3]

Honestly, the biggest reason I don't like Necropolitan is because it feels generic.
It's just a guy who happens to be undead... and that's all. Nothing cool or flavorful, nothing interesting.
He doesn't explode in disease clouds or drink blood or exude an aura of ominousness or anything else.
Though I suppose if you're building an actual civilization of the recently arisen, they make for solid generic NPCs for that exact reason.

Don't you have to trade a level for necropolitian? Wouldn't that make it doing a cult ritual that trades away your memories for immortality.

[ekarney]

Don't you have to trade a level for necropolitian? Wouldn't that make it doing a cult ritual that trades away your memories for immortality.

You drop back a level and 1,000xp
But I think that's all

[Thurbane]

I agree that Necropolitans (and also Bone Creature and Corpse Creature) are a little bland.

[HolyDraconus]

Necrocarnum. Keeps int. Soooooo.....

[Nifft]

http://i.imgur.com/rnzRL4G.jpg

Actually, not sure I've seen another floating skull with an upgrade-able magic bite attack in game or fiction since Morte.

[Milo v3]

You drop back a level and 1,000xp
But I think that's all

Yeah, so you trade your recent memories, skills, and talents.

[Vrock_Summoner]

Necrocarnum. Keeps int. Soooooo.....
As an extremely avid fan of all things Incarnum, I'd normally agree wholesale with this, but sadly despite their alternative source they're fairly generic and, perhaps more importantly, a little too dependent on live Incarnates to be effective in an independent civilization. In a world with magic other than Incarnum, anyway.

[TheifofZ]

Yeah, so you trade your recent memories, skills, and talents.

The level is actually explicitly the dying and coming back. As per Resurrection, though instead of life, unlife is the result.
Meanwhile, the 1000 exp is the whole 'being ritually murdered in a torturous manner'.
These are both stated in the fluff attached to the template.

[Lord of Shadows]

My 2 cents into the coffer...

Another source of ideas might be the progression described on the main page for Undead at the Pathfinder D20SRD, Bestiary by Type, Undead (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead). Scroll about halfway down on the right side and there is a description of how undead can take over an entire area, resulting in the creation of a Necropolis, Undead Uprising!

It may also help develop some backstory of how the undead became a "major part of the world."
.

[TheifofZ]

The Libris Mortis, the book of Bad Latin, is also a great place for jogging your thoughts on how the situation might work and what kind of place a Necropolis would be.