Methods of Spontaneous Undeath

[CockroachTeaParty]

Hello! I've been putting together a stupid list in my spare time, and it's just about finished.

In the fluff descriptions of many types of undead, they mention how they return to hideous unlife to take vengeance on the living. Some of them are vague, others rather specific, but I figured I would go through all of the undead that mention such a thing and make a list.

This list ought to show us how a person living on Golarion should live their life to avoid the risk of becoming an undead after dying. As you will see, the type of person you are, your age and gender, and whether or not you are a mariner all effect your chances of returning to haunt the living as an angry haint.

I tried to keep this list to 1st party Paizo stuff, although some others might have slipped through. I did not include undead that are only created through dark rituals, both through spells and more vague things like lichdom. I was only looking for undead that arise from some circumstances around their life and death.

Non-unique, spontaneous undeath


Go insane and kill yourself - Allip
Die from a psychic injury - Animus Shade
Die in an accident - Apparition
Drown in a flash flood - Floodslain
Lonely or neglected child died - Attic Whisperer
Die tragically while refusing to part with valuable treasure or immense wealth - Aurosrath
Get hopelessly lost in the woods and die - Autumn Death
Be an elven woman, commit a heinous betrayal or else get betrayed yourself right before dying - Banshee
Be an obsessed hunter but perish before you can capture and kill your quarry - Baykok
Be angry about injustice or being unable to finish important business after getting murdered or dying horribly in a natural setting - Bhuta
Die in a magical catastrophe (likely blown up) - Blast Shadow
Witness true cosmic evil like whoa - Bodak
Be part of a sailing crew that dies in a horrific catastrophe - Bone Ship
Be wrathful and unable to accept defeat then die in a big battle - Bonestorm
Get buried alive or improperly buried - Cadaver
Have psychic sensitivity then die a violent death - Caller in Darkness
Die where the fabric of time is unstable? - Chronogeist
Burn to death in magical fire - Cinder Ghoul
Die in the cinderplains of the elemental plane of fire - Cinderghost
Spontaneously combust - Combusted
Mass death, sprinkle in some irony or revenge maybe? - Danse Macabre
Be an evil spellcaster, get lost beyond the farthest reaches of the multiverse - Devourer
Get lost at sea and drown in a haunted or cursed area - Draugr
Be a child, die in a plague - Drekavac
Death on a massive scale again - Drocha Swarm
Be a cruel and brutal sailor, get killed on land, unable to receive a proper burial at sea - Duppy
Die or kill yourself but elude judgement somehow - Dybbuk
Die, but not be cool enough to become a ghost or specter, or just be really unlucky - Ectoplasmic Creature
Be a member of an evil organization but get exiled or cast out and killed - Exiled Shade
Be a righteous crusader and die; nobody performs last rites - Fallen
Die in lava or magma - Fellsig
Be an *******, get put in a mass grave - Festering Spirit
Get killed by a massive amount of negative energy, then get mutilated by something else such as scavenging wild animals - Festrog
Die in a shipwreck - Flotsam Terror
Have something bad happen while under temporal stasis - Fluxwraith
Die from exposure in extreme cold - Frostfallen
Be a greedy or jealous jerk, die - Gaki
Mass starvation - Gashadokuro
Be a thief and get killed by a wicked trap - Gearghost
Be a real d-bag, get killed by a haunt - Geist
Die with a great unresolved injustice - Ghost
Get buried alive - Gravebound
Execute an evil criminal, burn the remains, and scatter them in the wild - Guecubu
Be an innocent woman, get murdered in an unspeakable fashion - Harionago
Be a cleric, but blaspheme and renounce your deity before you die - Huecuva
Die but yearn to live again? - Hupia
Be a monk, die under circumstances that violate the precepts of your training - Kurobozu
Either accidentally drown a child or do it on purpose, then feel shame and sorrow - Liorona
Die after love takes a tragic turn - Lovelorn
Large group of people die with no warning - Melacage
Be a mass murderer and get publicly executed before you get the chance to atone - Mohrg
Be a gunslinger, get killed by your most hated enemy or before you can get revenge - Pale Stranger
Have your grave accidentally desecrated by building over it - Poltergeist
Be a psychic spell caster, die an unexpectedly violent death - Psychic Stalker
Be an arsonist, die in your own fire - Pyrogeist
Get murdered, desire vengeance - Revenant
Die at sea - Sea Bonze
Be a glutton, miser, or thief, die alone or reprehensibly - Shadow
Get skinned alive or have your lower half destroyed horribly - Shredskin
Be evil or get murdered - Spectre
Be a young child, die near a place tainted with potent evil - Tiyanak
Be a sinner and die - Totenmaske
Be a seasoned traveler, get lost and die from exposure - Trailgaunt
Large number of people drown - Sodden Drauger Troop
Be a wicked and vengeful person denied basic burial rites - Vrykolakas
Die after getting walled-in or sealed in a chamber - Walcofinde
A bunch of people die in a battle - Warsworn
Die violently or just have a toxic personality - Wight
Be a hag or witch, die with an incomplete malicious scheme - Witchfire
Be a woman, freeze to death in the snow and never get a proper burial - Yuki-onna
Die a violent death in the grip of extreme emotion - Yurei




BONUS NON-HUMAN ZONE


Be a whale that escapes from whalers but dies from harpoon wounds or whatever - Bakekujira
Be a crow or carrion bird, eat ghoul flesh - Carrionstorm
Be a tree, die of a magical or supernatural blight - Copsewight
Mummify a cat - Grave Lynx
Be some plants poisoned by blood in a war-torn forest - Leechroot
Be a fey, die of a virulent disease - Nachzehrer
Be a fiend, go visit the edge of nothingness doom zone - Nightshade
Be a ningyo, die - Undead Ningyo
Be a dryad, your tree dies and falls into water - Tidewretch
Be a particularly savage werewolf and die - Vilkacis
Be a worg or other wolf-like monster, eat undead flesh in desperation - Vukodlak
Be a powerful dragon, refuse to accept death - Wyrmwraith




BONUS CREATE SPAWN ZONE


Get killed by an apparition - Apparition
Get killed by a floodslain creature - Floodslain
Get killed by a rawhead? - Bloody Bones
Get killed by a brykolakas - Lacedon
Be a child, die of a drekavac's disease ability - Drekavac (1 in 6 chance)
Get killed by a festering spirit - Festering Spirit
Die of ghoul fever - Ghoul or Ghast
Get killed by a saxra - Skeletal Champion
Get all your blood drained by a sayona - unique Ghast
Get all your strength drained by a shadow -Shadow
Get killed by a spectre - Spectre
Get killed by a trailgaunt, unburied and out of sight of a road - Trailgaunt
Get killed by energy drain or blood drain by a vampire - Vampire or Vampire Spawn
Get killed by a wight - Wight
Get killed by a wraith - Wraith



I'll look into doing some color-coding on those lists to help sort through the data. Apparently being a sailor is 100% guaranteed to turn you into some manner of undead; clearly the ocean is lousy with ghost ships and draugr.

It seems as a general rule, you want to be a decent person, avoid getting murdered or dying suddenly, violently, or strangely. Be sure to have a proper burial! AVOID SAILING. If you are a child or a woman, you have a slightly higher chance of turning into some manner of undead, implying some ugly truths about ancient superstitions.

[Psyren]

I really enjoy this index, but not for the reason you made it; rather, it shows the massive variety in ways for innocent (and not-so-innocent) people to become undead horrors without a necromancer specifically animating them, and how difficult it is to avoid that fate if there is a bunch of negative energy lying around the material.

[Anxe]

Ghouls are supposed to be unremorseful cannibals. That's another one.

[hamishspence]

Ghouls are supposed to be unremorseful cannibals. That's another one.
Innocent people who die of Ghoul Fever also become ghouls - and that bit is in the OP's list under "Bonus Create Spawn Zone".

[Anxe]

Innocent people who die of Ghoul Fever also become ghouls - and that bit is in the OP's list under "Bonus Create Spawn Zone".
I saw that one, but I didn't see the "natural" method when i searched for it. Both are good, but ghoul fever is basically another spawn creation method while cannibalism is for everyone.

[Psyren]

cannibalism is for everyone.

Quoting out of context ftw :smallbiggrin:

[CockroachTeaParty]

I saw that one, but I didn't see the "natural" method when i searched for it. Both are good, but ghoul fever is basically another spawn creation method while cannibalism is for everyone.

Ah, I did look to see if ghouls spawned 'naturally,' and as far as I could find, at least in Golarion lore, nobody is sure how the original ghouls came to be. This implied that most 'modern' ghouls are either victims of disease or created via spells.

However, I didn't do an especially deep dive, so ghouls might very well just rise from those forced into cannibalism out of desperation. I should check the Monster Codex; I believe it has a whole section on ghouls.

[hamishspence]

Might depend on if 3e-era Dragon Magazine content is allowed (as a Paizo-published magazine) - that goes into depth on what makes ghouls, what makes ghasts, and so forth, in issue 336 (October 2005, Birth of the Dead article).

[Efrate]

The half dead city AP has several desert themed undead. I will have to look them up since a pulse of necromantic energy from an artifact causes a lot of them but some arise from other things.

[CockroachTeaParty]

I really enjoy this index, but not for the reason you made it; rather, it shows the massive variety in ways for innocent (and not-so-innocent) people to become undead horrors without a necromancer specifically animating them, and how difficult it is to avoid that fate if there is a bunch of negative energy lying around the material.


I figure this list might be a good resource for someone playing an undead hunter that wants to be thorough in 'prevention.' Carry around a shovel, give every corpse a proper burial, etc.

[RedMage125]

Might depend on if 3e-era Dragon Magazine content is allowed (as a Paizo-published magazine) - that goes into depth on what makes ghouls, what makes ghasts, and so forth, in issue 336 (October 2005, Birth of the Dead article).

I'm so glad someone mentioned this. I was thinking of that issue, but didn't remember the issue number. That article is a good, creepy article and I loved it.

The only ones I distinctly remember are:
Famine Spirit-starve to death still unsatisfied and yearning for more
Shadow-Be killed violently while one's strenght is unnaturaly sapped
Nightshade- Fiend killed by Negative Energy damage or Energy Drain

I remember there was one for a wight that was some kind of serial strangler that gets kiled by the watch, but had intended to continue his spree. I think the same applies to Morhgs that are hanged, they have to want to continue murdering.

A lot of the rest that have parallels in 3.5e are the same.

Except that I think a Yuki-Onna in 3.5e is a Fey, not Undead.

[Arkain]

Ah, I did look to see if ghouls spawned 'naturally,' and as far as I could find, at least in Golarion lore, nobody is sure how the original ghouls came to be. This implied that most 'modern' ghouls are either victims of disease or created via spells.

However, I didn't do an especially deep dive, so ghouls might very well just rise from those forced into cannibalism out of desperation. I should check the Monster Codex; I believe it has a whole section on ghouls.

There is a demon lord, Kabriri, who may have been the first ghoul (vague, as so often) and who besides possibly serving as an origin to ghouls as such also offers the option to rise as a ghoul after death as his ultimate boon (https://aonprd.com/DeityDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Kabriri). Besides a brief entry in Lords of Chaos, he and ghouls in general are touched upon in Classic Horrors Revisited, so maybe that's a place to look. The latter also mentions lazurite, which creates ghouls and ghasts from corpses left close enough through "magical radiation".

[Psyren]

Isn't Doresain the ghoulish head-honcho? If we're looking for an entity that could fit the bill as "first ghoul" I'd nominate him.

[Arkain]

Doresain is D&D I think, whereas the thread's tagged as Pathfinder. But yeah, might as well look at that one, too.

[Psyren]

Doresain is D&D I think, whereas the thread's tagged as Pathfinder. But yeah, might as well look at that one, too.

If it's Golarion specifically we're talking about, the first undead creature was Urgathoa, and she created ghouls as the embodiment of all three of her main spheres of influence - undeath, disease, and gluttony. So the answer to the question there either "there wasn't one" or "it was her."

[Aldrakan]

Awesome list and checking through for undead encounter ideas. One addition for the create spawn zone:

Get killed by a mohrg - Fast Zombie

[Segev]

Libris Mortis has the Slaymate, which is spawned when a child dies of neglect or betrayal by an adult caretaker.

I also like to think of these as guides for a necromancer who wants to create theses kinds of undead: find a corpse that does that way and cast create undead on it. Or the greater version.

[RedMage125]

Libris Mortis has the Slaymate, which is spawned when a child dies of neglect or betrayal by an adult caretaker.

I also like to think of these as guides for a necromancer who wants to create theses kinds of undead: find a corpse that does that way and cast create undead on it. Or the greater version.

I'm with you, Segev, but as has been said, this thread is marked for Pathfinder, and the OP covered PF's version:

Lonely or neglected child died - Attic Whisperer

[Segev]

I'm with you, Segev, but as has been said, this thread is marked for Pathfinder, and the OP covered PF's version:

Lonely or neglected child died - Attic Whisperer

Other than the "lonely/neglected child" source (which isn't quite the same as "dead-due-to-neglect/guardian's betrayal" source), they're almost completely different from each other. I'll acknowledge that the slaymate isn't PF, but I don't think "attic whisperers" fill the niche in the slightest. Specters and Ghosts are more similar to each other.

[legomaster00156]

I just want to thank you for compiling this surprisingly comprehensive and useful list.

[Efrate]

Dug out modules have 2 more.

Sun-baked zombies: corpses that die in the desert but are not eaten by scavengers or buried by sand. Usually near pyramids. As normal zombies with a fiery gaze attack and death throes which cause you yo be staggered. Empty graves AP page 88.

Tekenu: swarm like undead made from cast off organs of the mummified process. Get better if they absorb the intestines, stomach, liver or lungs of a living being or magically preserved organs. Arising from improper mummification processes, often from having criminals or laborers do the mummifucation. Empty graves AP pg. 90.

Empty graves is pf ap #80.

[Conradine]

Something I searched for and never found is some kind of statistic / rule system that told exactly how much the spontaneous animation is likely to occur.

[Psyren]

Something I searched for and never found is some kind of statistic / rule system that told exactly how much the spontaneous animation is likely to occur.

Even if they tried to come up with something like that, it would almost certainly just be used to game the system. Your character could certainly be trying to research that in-game though.

[Efrate]

I think there was something like that in 2e dnd. I have a vague memory of seeing it but I never played 2e. Grognards?