Need help finding interesting/unusual undead!

[NRSASD]

In D&D, zombies, skeletons, ghouls, wraiths, vampires, and liches are pretty standard. While there is nothing wrong with these classics and their close cousins (spectres, shadows, wights, ghasts, etc.), I was hoping the Playground could help me find some more exotic forms of undead. I'm not looking for hard numbers, just ideas at this point. Please let me know of any intriguing undead you've seen, read about, or played with, whether they be an unusual variant or unique creature; published or homebrew; from D&D or fiction.

I'm trying to stock a vampire necromancer's manor who has had 500 years of boredom and a township worth of bodies. My players just recently concluded an 8 year 2E campaign that involved retaking an undead infested city block by block, so I'm trying to give them something new to tackle in the undead department.

As always, thanks for your help!

[RazorChain]

In D&D, zombies, skeletons, ghouls, wraiths, vampires, and liches are pretty standard. While there is nothing wrong with these classics and their close cousins (spectres, shadows, wights, ghasts, etc.), I was hoping the Playground could help me find some more exotic forms of undead. I'm not looking for hard numbers, just ideas at this point. Please let me know of any intriguing undead you've seen, read about, or played with, whether they be an unusual variant or unique creature; published or homebrew; from D&D or fiction.

I'm trying to stock a vampire necromancer's manor who has had 500 years of boredom and a township worth of bodies. My players just recently concluded an 8 year 2E campaign that involved retaking an undead infested city block by block, so I'm trying to give them something new to tackle in the undead department.

As always, thanks for your help!

Mummies
Banshees
Revenant
Draugur?

[RickAllison]

Never forget to pillage popular works. Left 4 Dead gives a variety of spooky, unique, if rather dumb undead. The Last of Us has three forms that are rather unique for undead.

[TeChameleon]

As soon as I saw the thread title, I immediately thought 'Jiangshi'- the Chinese hopping vampire. Weird, offbeat, and silly-looking enough to seem harmless (the less-decomposed varieties basically just look like some stiff, pale guy playing pogo-stick)... right up until they've lunged onto your players and ripped out their life force :smallamused:

For added fun, you could have them gradually turn into the funky 'ninja zombies' that you see in some media (the Indiana Jones & the Emperor's Tomb game, for example) once they've absorbed enough qi.

If I think of any more, I'll be back, but I figured I'd toss that one out there.

[NRSASD]

@RickAllison: I hadn't considered Left for Dead, I'll have to look into that and see what I can swipe. The Last of Us always reminded me of more yellow musk creeper zombie than true undead.

@TeChameleon: The Jiangshi look amazing! The hilariousness mixed with the deadliness is excellent. I might not use them this time, but I'm definitely hanging on to them for later. Thanks for the tip!

[Geddy2112]

Pathfinder has the Siabrae (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/siabrae-cr-2) which is an undead druid and a very interesting twist on undeath in general. Lantern goats (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/lantern-goat) andbaykoks (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/baykok) are also strange nature themed undead.

You have all sorts of interesting ghosts: Japan brings us the Kuchisake-onna (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuchisake-onna) and the Yuki-onna (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuki-onna). In America,there is bloody mary, the ghost in the mirrors. The vanishing hitchiker (http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/ghoststories/fl/The-Vanishing-Hitchhiker.htm), the headless horseman of sleepy hollow(although it could be corporeal depending on the legend), all sorts of spook lights, ghosts of battles(particularly of the civil war) and most recently Slender Man.
There are will-of-the-wisps, witchfires (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary2/witchfire.html), wraiths, poltergeists, shadows, specters, etc. My personal favorite is the /danse-macabre (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/danse-macabre)which comes with its own super creepy theme music.

Also with ghosts, you can often DIY one-they become ghosts and haunt places for a reason, so each one is unique. It provides a very interesting story and players can figure out why vs just "here is undead fight these". Most ghosts can't simply be killed, their spirits have to be set at ease and whatever is tying them to the material world made right or something else.

[kraftcheese]

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LPejQ3lF31s/VvmO8jqhnBI/AAAAAAAAB-g/3y90Uo6trj8oVDns5um56DPqJCNhV5TtA/s640/necrophidius.png
Necrophidius aren't the most original undead (I mean, a snake with a skull for a head? Come on...) but they're fun, and they like to bite and hypnotize people, so you've got that connection to vampires I guess?

(Also, I love the Dungeons and Drawings image of it I linked; they do some really cool stuff)

[RickAllison]

@RickAllison: I hadn't considered Left for Dead, I'll have to look into that and see what I can swipe. The Last of Us always reminded me of more yellow musk creeper zombie than true undead.

Fluff can be changed (change cordyceps infection to more standard zombie fare, have the eyes going first due to being more susceptible to decay and scavenging, etc.), but the mechanics of how those Last of Us creatures work is more what I consider interesting.

[TeChameleon]

If you do use the Jiangshi, you'll have to post here how it goes- they're just such utterly weird things that I'm rather curious to see your players' reactions.


You have all sorts of interesting ghosts: Japan brings us the Kuchisake-onna (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuchisake-onna) and the Yuki-onna (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuki-onna). In America,there is bloody mary, the ghost in the mirrors. The vanishing hitchiker (http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/ghoststories/fl/The-Vanishing-Hitchhiker.htm), the headless horseman of sleepy hollow(although it could be corporeal depending on the legend), all sorts of spook lights, ghosts of battles(particularly of the civil war) and most recently Slender Man.

If you do use Bloody Mary, be aware that people, especially players, can be real smart-alecks (http://www.rhjunior.com/eng/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/nt00972.png) :smalltongue: And for that matter, not just tricks like that- I'm not sure I'd be able to resist the urge to have my PC stand between two mirrors and try the chant in a game that featured her >.>

[Blapnk]

Animated skin: one from dwarf fortress due to the way the game handles undeath and simulates creatures down to the nervous tissue. Not too dangerous but freaky and could drop from ceilings to try and suffocate people.

Bone/flesh golem: yeah, probably falls under the standard d&d lot but details are in how creative a bored vampire stitches them together...

Skull catapult: More warhammer scale than d&d which is precisely why if you can fit it into d&d it could make a fresh tactical challenge. Or just an objective that needs smashing.

Brain in a jar: Pretty sure these can fall under the undead. Could be a harmless sentient undead to provide exposion or could use magic. Letting it hover and shoot rays probably slides too much into the sci-fi.

[Cernor]

Animated skin: one from dwarf fortress due to the way the game handles undeath and simulates creatures down to the nervous tissue. Not too dangerous but freaky and could drop from ceilings to try and suffocate people.

D&D 4E actually had a really cool monster along those lines called the Forsaken Shell: I'm not certain as to its origin, but it's the skin and fleshy layer of a corpse, reanimated and deadly. The thing which makes it particularly nasty is that when it kills someone (by engulfing them then suffocating them and/or draining their life force), the dead person's skin rises as a new Forsaken Shell.

With high Stealth and blistering speed, a single Shell could destroy a village overnight, then the infestation just keeps spreading...

There's an awesome image of one here: http://m.imgur.com/ABWIVpE?r

[Pronounceable]

Gelatinous cube ghost. Rust monster ghoul. Go all the way in.

[MrStabby]

A few I have used:

Brine mummies. Essentially mummies pickled by salt water (so drowned sailors reanimated by a curse). Used to guard the wrecks of ships. No fire vulnerability but instead lightening vulnerability. Had a nasty ability to begin to drown their enemies.

Rot Druid. A reanimated druid that brings decay everywhere and reanimates dead plants. Particularly amusing if players are using wooden weaponry or are in an area with wooden furniture or books. Lives in a grove of trees that sprout hanged corpses as fruit.

Bell Child. When an evil person dies there is a chance that their spirit will be pulled back to the plane where they dies by the sound of their funeral bells. The Bell Children are malevolent, invisible but always can be heard faintly echoing the sound of their own funeral bells. They can channel this dolorous sound into an attack that can drive their victims mad or kill them with fright.


In addition there is the whole sticking an undead template on anything else type routine. A vampire chickens (for a less serious campaign) and vampire mimics or the skeleton of a farmhorse of you want to bring home a creepy dead landscape type feel.

[RickAllison]

How about ripping off Pokemon? Shedinja swarms could be troublesome as they appear to shake everything off, Cubone becomes like a revenant, a child who watched a loved one killed before his own death and so rises as a lost soul wearing the skull and carrying a bone of the deceased. A bit of refluffing takes a ridiculous 'mon to terrifying undead.

[Telesto]

I highly enjoyed and would suggest picking up The Vampire Hunter's Field Guide to the Undead, lots and lots and lots of good undead in it (from legends and myths). There is a wolf that drinks the blood of the moon in there, pretty cool beast.

Anyway, some of my favorite undead are the ones which are objects or other creatures, composed of undead bodies. You may not notice until you're close, but they'll grab you.

Warhammet Fantasy had (before it stopped existing and GW decided to betray the fanbase dramatically) a bunch of cool undead in the Vampire Counts books, mostly just feral monsters and some ghost carriage. But the corpse cart and black coach were always cool.

Going off the forsaken shell, imagine if the cardiovasvular system or nervous system were animate and tried hiding in things like jewelry boxes, cloaks, umbrellas, etc, then when something living came near they'd begin merging themselves into the creature, trying to take over it's body.

You could even go a level further and have it take over their body, then propel their decaying remains toward some end, like necrotic rites.

Or maybe the combination of nerves, blood system, skin, and a couple other bits would come together and become some horrifying beast that would bring an undead god into being.

[Pugwampy]

Brain in a jar .