The Dread Codex
The Dread Codex
3.5
Akyanzi: Akyanzi are the heads of spellcasters who are slain by a fire-enchanted weapon. After slain (and likely beheaded) by victorious warriors, negative energy wells from the caster’s anger at being defeated by a non-spellcaster and animates the head only.
Perhaps akyanzi come from spellcasters slain by drow weapons, or slain by weapons forged in a specific geographic area.
Barrow Wight: “Barrow wight” is a template that can be added to any sentient creature with an organic body and a culture with death rituals and has recently died either by a barrow wight’s energy drain ability or naturally; if naturally, the creature must be raised as a barrow wight by some magical force (referred to hereafter as the “base creature”). The creature’s possession of a soul is a determination for the GM to make, but in most campaigns it includes any dragon, giant, humanoid, or monstrous humanoid. Fey, elementals, and other such creatures depend on the campaign’s cosmology; creatures that are a type of spirit are not subject to being raised as a barrow wight.
Any sentient creature with a soul and death rituals slain by a barrow wight’s energy drain rises as a barrow wight the next night, as per this template.
Annis Hag Barrow Wight Manx: ?
Blighted One: Born of pestilence, the blighted one is the incorporeal manifestation of creatures that have died from a disease. For only a shadow of the deceased’s essence remains on the Material Plane. When enough creatures die in a general area from the same disease, their shadowy soul remnants band together to form a blighted one (usually 20 creatures to a blighted one).
Bloodwraith: The bloodwraith rises from a site of much bloodshed to hunt the creatures that bled, yet did not die, there. Battlefields are, naturally, the most common areas of bloodwraith origin. But if the slain creatures are strong enough (i.e. high-level), then not much blood is required to birth a bloodwraith. The creature’s mind may have come from different entities, but the bloodwraith is nonetheless an individual.
Bog Slain: The bog slain is essentially a better version of a zombie. Created by a water mage of little repute (her name is not even remembered today), the only corpses the woman had to work with were ones found in the bog nearby her home.
Cadaver: Cadavers are the undead skeletal remains of people who have been buried alive or given an improper burial (an unmarked grave or mass grave for example).
Furthermore, perhaps the initial animating process does not occur until a priest of the rebirth deity casts a spell over the ill-buried corpse. Such ability could be a special one granted by the evil god whenever a follower casts animate dead or similar magics.
A creature slain by a cadaver lord rises in 1d4 minutes as a cadaver.
Canine Skulker: The first skulkers were actual hunting dogs buried with their master. When a lich was slain atop their burial ground, the creature’s necromantic energies seeped into the ground and animated the dogs as skulkers.
An afflicted canine that dies of a canine skulker's ghoul fever rises as a canine skulker at the next midnight.
Carcaetan: A carcaetan is created by magic designed to remove a creature from the cycle of life. The ritual is sometimes used as punishment or a powerful curse, but some evil individuals undergo it intentionally.
Cinder Ghoul: A creature that is burned to death by magical fire may rise again as a fiery undead being called a cinder ghoul.
Crucifixion Spirit: Crucifixion spirits are the ghostly remains of living beings executed through crucifixion. Their soul having not entirely departed the Material Plane, has risen to seek vengeance on the living, particularly clerics or other divine spellcasters whom they blame for forsaking them and allowing them to die in such a ghastly manner.
Dark Voyeur: A dark voyeur is the spirit of someone who died in its reflection. The slain individual must have had some familiarity with the mirror; which can be as simple as it being in his home or possession for more than five years. The spirit of the slain is unwilling to leave this life and retreats to the mirror in order to watch life as it happens after his death.
If its mirror is shattered, the voyeur instantly returns to the broken glass, its body transforming 1d6 shards into exact copies of itself, but of Diminutive size and with only 1 hit point. These copies must all be destroyed to kill the dark voyeur, otherwise they each flee to anther mirror of their home mirror’s original size or larger and reappear at full size and with normal hit points in 1d4 days.
Deadwood Tree: It is thought by some elven sages that the deadwood trees were created when the dark elves broke away from the surface world and descended into the underearth, leaving behind a taint on the land which infected random treants throughout the lands. Most scholars scoff at this grandiose theory, but none have been able to disprove it so the myth remains.
Death Crab Swarm: When ghouls and other lesser intelligent undead types are destroyed, what is left of their spirits is automatically stored between the material and negative energy planes. When 300 or so of these twice-slain souls are amassed, they reenter the material plane near a coastal area as death crabs. The swarm represents the final effort by the spirits to hold onto life itself as their energy drain power indicates.
Death Roach: As soon as one death roach is slain, two more seem to take its place. In living roaches, this is due to rapid birthing from multiple egg batches. But for the death roaches, the reason is a bit more mysterious. When a death roach is killed, its necromantic energy is released and wanders the world like a stale breeze. After one month per hit die of the slain death roach has passed, the energy somehow finds a living roach and inhabits it. When that roach then dies, it immediately animates as a death roach.
There are some primitive tribes of humans who believe that death roaches are not a world-wide infestation. Rather, death roaches are confined to a certain country and are all part of the same soul. An ancient legend says that Gritztaa, deity of vermin, was attacked and nearly slain by a rival god. So weakened was the deity, that Gritztaa wove his essence into several thousand roaches in order to survive and eventually to regain strength to reassemble as a single entity in the future. Sages prompted for evidence of this theory point to the death roach’s collective mind ability.
Death Squid: Some sages believe they are the souls of sailors who drowned beneath the waves. Others are convinced that there are necromantically-charged stones from a long-submerged undead kingdom which turn large aquatic lifeforms into death squids on contact.
In fact, sahuagin are actually the creators of the death squid, despite the more prominent origin theories bandied about (mentioned above). The ritual used to create them was unique to the evil sea humanoids, but has since been sold to land cultures in exchange for other magics.
Dread Sphere: In an ancient magical struggle, the dread spheres were created to perpetuate undead forces for all time.
Dreadwraith: The spirits of soldiers who flee from their post in fear return after death as dreadwraiths.
Fear Guard: Fear guards embody evil in its blackest incarnation. They are summoned from some unknown place by evil wizards and clerics to guard prized possessions or a valued location.
Any living creature reduced to Wisdom 0 by a fear guard becomes a fear guard under the control of its killer within 2d6 hours.
As for where fear guards truly come from, it could be as simple as guards who take a blood oath to a necromancer to serve them in exchange for eternal life. But in this case, it may not be the existence the guards planned.
Filth Croc: Sages speculate that these creatures are the result of necromantic experimentation by an ancient sahuagin lich named Klek-tiim. The extensive marshes were the only buffer zone between Klek-tiim’s burgeoning kingdom and the mainland civilization. The lich wanted to stock the marshy borderland with creatures that would deter those who wished to destroy it. As one of the most numerable types of creatures in the marsh, the crocs became the target of undead transformation.
Fire Phantom: When a creature dies on the Elemental Plane of Fire, its soul often melds with part of the fiery plane and reforms as a fire phantom; a humanoid creature composed of rotted and burnt flesh swathed in elemental fire.
Chill Phantom: Chill Phantom originate from an icy region on the Elemental Plane of Water.
Flame Servant: Born from dark necromancy, flame servants are tools of violence and hatred. Every flame servant is created by a spellcaster to complete a particular task.
The creation of a flame servant is a long and taxing process and must begin no later than seven nights after the host body’s death. The body is prepared by replacing its innards with leaves and wet mud, stuffing its throat with dried insect larvae, pouring fresh blood into its mouth, painting it with runes, and soaking it in oils. These special materials cost 500 gp. Preparing the body requires a DC 13 Craft (leatherworking) or Heal check, and can be done by the spellcaster or another party. After the body is readied, it must be animated through an extended magical ritual that requires a specially prepared laboratory similar to an embalmer’s workshop and costing 200 gp to establish. If personally preparing the body, the creator can perform the preparations and ritual together.
The cost to create listed below includes the cost of all the materials and spell components that are consumed or become a permanent part of the flame servant.
A flame servant with more than 8 Hit Dice can be created, but each additional Hit Die adds 4,000 gp to the base price and another 50 gp to the market price. The price increases by 20,000 gp if the creature’s size increases to Large, or 50,000 gp if the creature’s size increases to Huge. The cost to create is modified accordingly.
CL 14th; Craft Construct, Spell Focus (necromancy), burning hands, create undead, fire shield, caster must be at least 14th level; Price 60,900 gp; Cost to Create 30,900 gp + 2,400 XP.
Arguably more expensive and costly than a standard golem, the flame servant is the necromancer’s answer to constructs. Unfortunately, it is a very poor answer. Used only by those infatuated with death and/or fire, the flame servant requires a high level caster, can only perform a single task, and is not universally effective in any terrain like standard golems. While a flame servant is cheaper in terms of raw materials, the price increases dramatically due to the necessary spells.
Chill Servant: Born from dark necromancy, chill servants are tools of violence and hatred. Every chill servant is created by a spellcaster to complete a particular task.
The creation of a chill servant is a long and taxing process and must begin no later than seven nights after the host body’s death. The body is prepared by replacing its innards with leaves and wet snow, stuffing its throat with dried insect larvae, pouring fresh blood into its mouth, painting it with runes, and soaking it in oils. These special materials cost 500 gp. Preparing the body requires a DC 13 Craft (leatherworking) or Heal check, and can be done by the spellcaster or another party. After the body is readied, it must be animated through an extended magical ritual that requires a specially prepared laboratory similar to an embalmer’s workshop and costing 200 gp to establish. If personally preparing the body, the creator can perform the preparations and ritual together.
The cost to create listed below includes the cost of all the materials and spell components that are consumed or become a permanent part of the chill servant.
A chill servant with more than 8 Hit Dice can be created, but each additional Hit Die adds 4,000 gp to the base price and another 50 gp to the market price. The price increases by 20,000 gp if the creature’s size increases to Large, or 50,000 gp if the creature’s size increases to Huge. The cost to create is modified accordingly.
CL 14th; Craft Construct, Spell Focus (necromancy), torpor, create undead, fire shield, caster must be at least 14th level; Price 60,900 gp; Cost to Create 30,900 gp + 2,400 XP.
Flying Abomination: These monsters are created by the spell of the same name.
A spellcaster creates these skeletal body parts to have as “handy” servants and to act as guardians of low priority treasures or places.
Fog Spirit: Whether fire slew the creature in life or was just its terrible phobia, the emotion was intense enough at the time of unnatural death to reform its essence as a fog spirit.
Frozen Horror: The frozen northern landscape is a sea of ice and snow amidst tranquil snow-packed mountains. But amidst this beauty is a veritable graveyard of creatures that die in that dangerous beauty. Harsh elements and starvation take the lives of so many creatures that are not native to the north. Those that lay dead for over a year, however, gather the power to return. If a living creature being walks over the grave spot of a creature that died in the elements, there is a 10% chance per Hit Die of the living creature that the corpse animates as a frozen horror.
Ghostly Slasher: Every region in a campaign world has its handful of crazed killers and other evil creatures whose only joy in life is to inflict fear and death on others. When these creatures are eventually hunted down and slain (commonly by brave adventurers), not all of their souls descend into the realm of the damned. The forces in charge of the hells decide to wad many of these murdering, irredeemable spirits together and then send them back onto the Material Plane as one creature—a ghostly slasher—to continue their evil work.
As many as a dozen former murderers inhabit a ghostly slasher.
Ghoul Template: “Ghoul” is a template that can be added to any sentient creature with an organic body and a soul who was killed by a ghoul and affected by its Create Spawn ability, or who ate the flesh of creatures of its type in life and recently died (referred to hereafter as the “base creature”). In most campaigns, this will include any dragon, giant, humanoid, monstrous humanoid, or shapechanger. Fey, elementals, and other such creatures depend on the campaign’s cosmology; creatures that are a type of spirit are not subject to undead raising as a ghoul.
An afflicted humanoid who dies of a ghoul creature's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight.
Ogre Ghoul: This ogre succumbed to a ravenous pack of ghouls many years ago.
Ghast Prestige Class: Ghouls who adapt to their degenerate undead state and thrive become fearsome predators called ghasts. While they can no longer follow the classes of civilization, cunning ghasts can progressively build upon the powers of their cursed state and travel down darker paths, increasing their connection to the Negative Energy Plane and becoming ever more deadly threats to those they encounter.
Ichor Ghoul: Created to spread disease and general revulsion, the ichor ghoul can be found in any environment where living creatures dwell. Ichor ghouls are found infrequently on their own. They are most often acting on the directives of their creator, a being of some power known as the Dripping Darkness.
Primal Ghoul: Sometimes when a spellcaster wants to build a better monster, the result is not always what he expected. The primal ghoul was developed originally as a more powerful version of a ghoul.
Grave Risen: They are created from a normal corpse in an area where the blood of a spellcaster is spilled and permeates the ground. The blood fuses with a corpse which sometimes animates as a grave risen.
Gray Death: Born from a creature that was burned alive, the gray death seeks to destroy all living creatures in revenge for its current state. When this creature dies, its spirit gathers up the elemental force which slew it. The soul then drifts slowly and invisibly for 1d4 days before reforming up to a mile from the place of its death. The gray death’s “birth” is a spectacular display of fiery explosions contained within a 10-foot area.
When a gray death is born in its fiery explosion, it is actually triggered by a tiny pinprick which links the Elemental Plane of Fire to the Material Plane. When the soul which powers this undead dies in a fire, it then searches for a more permanent source of fire to power itself. The soul spark drifts for a time because it unconsciously is looking for a “weak” area where the Fire Plane can be accessed. When it finds such an area, the resulting birth explosion inflicts 4d6 points of fire damage to any creatures within the 10-foot by 10-foot area.
Hoar Spirit: Believed to be the spirits of humanoids that freeze to death either because of their own mistakes or because of some ritualistic exile into the icy wastes by their culture, hoar spirits haunt the icy wastelands of the world seeking warm-blooded living creatures to share their icy hell.
The fact that no hoar spirits are encountered on their own can point to a more unusual cause than is stated above. Instead of attributing it to like minds, perhaps hoar spirits are the result of a magical device hidden in the icy wastes of the spirits’ home. While calling to these undead to unearth itself, the gem might also have a “hive mind” effect on the spirits.
The unifying factor might not be a magic item, but could be the lost fragments of a forgotten ice deity. The godling was thought destroyed in a long-ago struggle and the pieces of its body were flung to the ends of the campaign world. However, the pieces which landed in the godling’s native environment (arctic cold) are still powerful enough to animate and call upon the hoar spirits to find them.
Inscriber: Every inscriber was once a living scholar who obsessed over a certain field of study. Some inscribers devoted their lives to particulars of occult lore, while others strove to catalog every species of plant in existence, or to learn the secrets of creating perfect wine.
Regardless of their missions, they shared the same end: after death, their lust for knowledge overcame the laws of nature, driving them to search the world for further information.
It is said that, centuries ago, a trickster god convinced a young man to devote his life to researching the other gods. The minor deity wished to learn his greaters’ weaknesses and knew that only a lowly mortal might succeed at the task (the trickster was forbidden to even speak of such knowledge). That young man became so involved with the cosmic directive that he died and became the first inscriber.
Jikini: Fashioned from common vipers, jikini were created for a good purpose—to dispose of dead bodies after a plague swept through the region. Unfortunately, their undead nature turned these snakes to evil, mutating their poisonous bite into a disease and increasing their mental attributes to dangerous levels.
Perhaps the jikini are the result of one tribe of humanoids being cursed into this form.
Lector: It is not entirely known how a lector forms, though it is believed that a lector is created when an ordinary skeletal undead creature comes into contact with a powerful evil object. When such an event occurs, the skeleton is endowed with a powerful intelligence and a desire to seek out and find other such items and absorb them into itself.
Murder Born: Spawned of hatred when both mother and child are murdered, the rapacious soul of the unborn sometimes rises as a foul and corrupt spirit.
Ndalawo: Also known as a shadow leopard, the ndalawo is a leopard that has been transformed into an undead shadow of its former self. Though they prefer to prey on other leopards, perpetuating their foul species, they occasionally attack humanoids as well.
A leopard reduced to 0 Strength by a ndalawo becomes a new shadow leopard within 1d6 rounds.
Necroling: The necroling is the heritage of all necromancers. Each student of the black arts is required to create a necroling of his own before more potent spells and powers are available to him. The necroling, commonly forgotten by the caster, is then used to guard his laboratory or other precious possessions. Designed so the necromancer can experience the feelings associated with death and rebirth as undead, the necroling is created with the spark of a soul who died unnaturally. The necromancer essentially puts a sliver of the angry soul inside its own tiny sarcophagus (in this case an ink bottle) after imbibing the emotions it experienced at death by way of dreams.
Let’s look a little closer at necroling construction. A spellcaster requires the following: Craft Wondrous Item feat, a corpse of someone who died unnaturally no longer than a day ago, a vial filled with black ink, consecutive casting of sleep, gaseous form, dimension door, and detect thoughts on the ink vial, and finally the drawing of the necromantic glyph of undeath on the corpse’s forehead (requires a DC 12 Knowledge (arcana) check).
Once the spells have been cast and the glyph drawn, the necromancer must sleep next to the body for 8 hours with the enspelled ink vial on the other side. During the slumber, the necromancer imbibes the thoughts and feelings the corpse’s soul endured at the point of death. The spellcaster learns in vivid mind-wrenching detail what it means to cross the barrier from life into death. At the same time, the ink vial absorbs the last wisp of spirit before it leaves the corpse. This wisp becomes the necroling’s mind while the ink is used when the creature manifests a physical body.
Necromancer and necroling are not bonded, as such, when he awakens but there is a definite connection between the two. The necroling intuitively recognizes the necromancer as having touched a piece of its former mind and desires to remain close to that presence. The necromancer gains a permanent black stain right below the back of his neck. What this stain does is mark him as a true necromancer. He has experienced what it is to die and understands the very nature of undeath in the creature he has created. The mark also identifies him to other “true” necromancers, perhaps thereby gaining access to secretive cults or information. Undertaking necroling creation is a wholly evil act since the character is ripping part of a person’s soul from its rightful rest and forcing it into eternal servitude.
Necrotic Entrailer: The ritual that creates an entrailer not only causes its insides to reorganize into the monster’s tethers, but actually fuses the entrails from other creatures into its matrix. These entrails occupy the entire interior of the entrailer except the brain. As a result, a necrotic entrailer has many densely packed miles of tethers available to it.
Orc Death Lord: Powerful orc commanders, if they worship the right god, are returned to the world soon after their usually bloody demise as death lord orcs.
Orphan of the Night: Many children are pranksters that, as they mature, repress those childish impulses to the point that they vanish from the adult mind. Those repressed thoughts do actually disappear and reform on the Plane of Shadow as orphans of the night.
Orphan of the Light: Unfortunately, for every person who leaves their childish ways behind, there two more who do not. Some of these individuals actually move in the opposite direction, leaving behind caring and innocence. These cast off emotions could theoretically coalesce into “orphans of the light”.
Phantasm: Phantasms are malevolent and sinister spirits that delight
in the destruction of good-aligned creatures. While many undead creatures are the undead form of once living creatures, phantasms have no real material connection to living creatures; they are spirits born of pure evil.
Quick-Shard Cavalier: The origins of the quickshards lie in ambitious, militant necromancer-kings. Not merely content to craft spells which slay others and animate them, these necromancers of some forgotten continent cooperated to create the quick-shard ritual. The ability to create many quick-shards at one time is a well-guarded secret today. To create even one, however, requires magic en par with create greater undead.
The bones of slain creatures are gathered together (enough to make a Large creature) and, as long as a humanoid head is amongst the ivory pile, a quick-shard cavalier can be fashioned. The other bone shards fuse together to create the core skeleton while other bits are left to form the creature’s spurs.
Red Jester: Red jesters are thought to be the remains of court jesters put to death for telling bad puns, making fun of the local ruler, or dying in an untimely manner (which could be attributed to one or both of the first two). Another tale speaks of the red jesters as being the court jesters of a god of undeath, sent to the Material Plane to “entertain” those the deity has taken a liking to. The actual truth to their origin remains a mystery.
Rom: The rom are a race of ghostly stone giants. As living giants, they once ruled over the population of a great mountain chain. However, these giants’ brutality eventually met with revolution spearheaded by a tribe of dwarves known as the Skull Splitters. During their retreat, the giants’ shaman took matter into his own hands and laid a curse on the region—every giant who died in the war would one day rise again as undead to take back what was once theirs. Unfortunately for the ancestors of that war’s victors, for it is now a century later, the curse appears to be coming true. Several dozen rom (named for the shaman who laid the curse) have been spotted around the northern mountains and all attempts to parlay with them have met with the diplomats’ own deaths.
Well, perhaps the Rom were cursed to exist in this form before their natural deaths.
Persistent Soldier: Whether or not their respective units were victorious, persistent
soldiers are those inevitable casualties of any war who perished on the battlefield. It is because of these monsters that visitors to a known battlefield site often speak in hushed reverent tones. For it is said that those who mock the fallen military risk their eternal ire. Although they can be centuries perished, some wisp of the persistent soldier’s soul still remains tied to his corporeal body. Accusations against the soldiers, be they in jest or truly malicious, have a chance of rousing that soul to action once again. The fractured personality and memories call their old body which crawls from the earth in the same condition it was in just moments after it died.
Sacred Guardian: The sacred guardian is a ghostly tiger of great size which keeps eternal watch over very special graveyards and other burial sites. Whether the guardian is summoned or created for its task is not known; the only certainty being that it is the stuff of powerful magic. The one commonality that sages have discovered amongst the sites protected is that they all have something to do with famous (or infamous) adventurers.
Perhaps the sacred guardian doesn’t guard the dead at all. Perhaps really great adventurers are asked to serve on another plane of existence before their deaths. If they agree to serve the beings that contact them, these unknown creatures help to fake the adventurer’s death, provide an elaborate burial site, and then bring the adventurers out of this world. To ensure that no one discovers the portal to that other plane which is left in the graveyard or site, the sacred guardian is summoned to duty there.
Black Skeleton: Black skeletons are the remnants of living creatures slain in an area where the ground is soaked with evil. The bodies of fallen humanoids are contaminated and polluted by such evil and within days after their death, the slain creatures rise as black skeletons, leaving their former lives and bodies behind.
Black skeletons are patterned after the evil dark elves because of that race’s distinctive two-handed fighting style (not to mention the black bones).
Shock troops of a deity of fear and/or darkness.
After a fighter wielding two blades fell in battle, an enterprising necromancer attempted to add the fighter to his undead force. But the necromancy became somehow contaminated and the fallen fighter rose as a free-willed skeleton, its bones blackened by the evil which birthed it. The two-handed fighting style was retained and passed to all victims of this original black skeleton. Those humanoids slain by a black skeleton become black skeletons themselves within 1d4 days unless their corpses are burned.
In numerous prophecies, the End Times are heralded by the appearance of “coal black bones wielding the twin blades of pestilence and fear.” When a planar portal opens not far from a major city and pours forth dozens of black skeletons at irregular intervals, could prophecy be coming true? More likely it is just a plot by a necromancer using the prophecies and black skeletons to his advantage.
Soulless One: Soulless ones are powerful undead spirits driven by lament and hatred of the living.
Soulless ones are the products of unbearable lament, the spirits of stillborn children who were taken by darkness. These spirits are raised by evil entities, learning to hate the living and grant strength to undead.
The origins of the soulless one lie with a young woman who once carried the child of a purportedly-celibate priest. Angry that his sin might be exposed to his superiors, the priest attacked and nearly killed the young woman. Days later, she gave premature birth to a stillborn child, who was taken by the “Dark Ones” to become the very first soulless one.
Spellgorged Zombie: Created with the use of a create greater undead spell, a spellgorged zombie is a programmed being, which appears much like a normal zombie. It must be made from a corpse that was in life an arcane or divine spellcaster.
“Spellgorged Zombie” is an acquired template that can be added to any character capable of casting arcane or divine spells.
Sample Spellgorged Zombie: This spellgorged zombie was slain by a more powerful rival for some blackmail the former caster threatened to employ. In retribution, the wizard decided to use the slain caster as a spellgorged guardian.
Spirit of Hate: Creatures that are slain just before a pleasingly anticipated event return to this plane within 1d4 days as a spirit of hate.
In elven mythology, spirits of hate (or “pec’zaah” in the Elven tongue) originated in the time just after the split between surface and dark elves. After centuries of discontent, those elves who would become the black-skinned menaces of today finally broke tradition with their surface cousins in an organized protest (the specifics are not known to non-elves). When it seemed these elves were lost to the darkness, a few dozen of their number returned to the forest as part of a ruse. When their surface brothers emerged from their protected community to welcome them home, the dark elves turned on them in a bloody massacre. The deaths of so many elves filled with glad tidings of their fellows’ return supposedly gave birth to the first spirits of hate. There may indeed be some truth to this legend because drow elves are documented as attacking these spirits on sight.
The spirit of hate can spontaneously emerge from a person who was wrongly slain in sight of her would-be rescuers. The energy of an anticipated rescue becomes the force for undying revenge as the spirit of hate then shadows the failed rescuers until their deaths.
Tavern Prowler: All adventurers see the barflies that inhabit every location of drunkenness and revelry in each community. Some of these wretched drunkards were former adventurers themselves. But too many waste their lives away on the barstool, waiting for some kind of emotional pain to dissipate or for good paying work to materialize out of thin air. It is no surprise that these men (and some women) die either inside or on their way to/from the tavern. These are the souls that become tavern prowlers.
A spirit returns to the same tavern it frequented one month to the day after its death.
For whatever reason, the same powers which gave the prowler life also gave it a purpose—protect its former home.
Terkow: “Terkow” is a template that can be added to any humanoid creature.
Any creature reduced to a 0 Constitution score by the terkow’s blood draining attack and then skinned by the creature returns as a terkow if it had 5 or more HD.
Sample Terkow: This terkow sorcerer was just beginning a promising career in the arcane academy before an expedition to the southern jungles turned his life into unlife. A terkow slaughtered the spellcaster’s companions before feeding on him last.
Thanatos: Spawned by evil, the thanatos is a great undead fish which exists only to spread that evil. As often as great wars tear apart the land, there are just as many that wage across the ocean depths. Thanatos are one of the earliest attempted at an aquatic doomsday weapon. Created by ancient magic held by sahuagin clerics, the gargantuan versions of these undead fish were sent against all good-aligned aquatic creatures, slaying hundred if not thousands of souls before the assault was countered. And while the sahuagin were obviously unsuccessful in their bid for total domination, dozens of gargantuan thanatos remain today as a chilling reminder of that time; warning all aquatic races that not all stories of the past are fiction.
The sahuagin have no direct method of creating more thanatos in modern times, but secret rituals known only to the high clerics enable those who can find a thanatos to command it. Other rituals allow the mutation of whales into large thanatos, but not gargantuan ones.
Tortured: Tortured undead are those poor creatures who are unfairly tortured to death. The desperate fevered emotions running through the creature at the time of death are enough to push it to the attention of the dread gods responsible for raising undead creatures. But those emotions are just barely enough to grant it an undead status, for the tortured has no intelligence and is only barely aware of itself.
Undead Lord: For every type of undead, there exists an undead lord, a being of great power that commands the lesser of its kind.
“Undead Lord” is an inherited template that can be applied to any undead creature.
It could be chalked up to a favorable brush with an undead deity, the accidental discovery of a magical pool, or a complex ritual which sacrifices many creatures to enhance a chosen one.
Cadaver Lord: ?
Vohrahn: Created by spellcasters by binding dead spirits to the bodies of fallen warriors, vohrahn are lost souls trapped within corpses, whose distress over their predicament only furthers their masters’ goals.
Webbed Sentinel: Webbed sentinels were created by dark elves soon after their retreat into the subterranean world. To deter pursuit by surface elves (and attack by other underearth races), drow necromancers fashioned these creatures made from the most common element they encountered—spiders and their webs. Webbed sentinels patrolled the areas surrounding drow camps and, eventually, fledgling drow cities. After the dark elves managed to establish a firm hold in the underearth, the webbed sentinels were released from servitude to roam the subterranean world, inflicting fear and death on all they met. Dwarves and underearth gnomes each share similar tales about the sentinels and teach them to their children as dreaded nursery rhymes.
Wraithlight: Theologians, historians, and hunters of the undead are unsure of wraithlights’ true origins. Their actions suggest that they be earthbound spirits who refuse to pass into the afterlife, but some spellcasters claim that they are the ghosts of a strange and ancient race from another plane, tapped in a foreign world after theirs was destroyed and trying to continue their existence.
These undead creatures are the losers in a battle between two ancient races. The gods punished both races for their insolence at destroying much of the lands during their war. The victors were changed into will-o’-wisps. The losing race, who had been subjected to massive necromantic energies from the victors, was changed into today’s wraithlights.
True Zombi: A true zombi can only be created by a Zombi cultist or through the use of magical zombi powder.
“True Zombi” is a template that can be added to any humanoid creature.
Any creature reduced to a 0 Constitution score by the terkow’s blood draining attack and then skinned by the creature returns as a true zombie if it had 4 or fewer HD, and a terkow if it had 5 or more HD.
Some sages believe that deep within the world’s largest jungle there exists an ancient magical well of zombi-making. Living creatures partaking of its waters are stricken with the “curse of the true zombi” and become a free-willed undead of this type within 24 hours.
Sample True Zombi: An arrogant leader of his own group of bandits, the half-orc led his soldiers into an ambush set by the sinister cult of Zombi. It remembers a brief clash of metal and then a magical powder being blown at it.
Ghoul: An afflicted humanoid that dies of a canine Skulker's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight.
An afflicted humanoid who dies of an ichor ghoul's ghoul fever rises as a normal ghoul at the next midnight.
An afflicted humanoid who dies of a primal ghoul's ghoul fever rises as a normal ghoul at the next midnight.
Any corpse of a humanoid with 2 or 3 class levels within range of a tree of woe's foul influence that remains in contact with the ground for 1 full round is turned into a ghoul.
Change Zombie spell.
Ghast: An afflicted humanoid 4 Hit Dice or more who dies of a ghoul creature's ghoul fever rises as a ghast at the next midnight.
Any corpse of a humanoid with 4 or more class levels within range of a tree of woe's foul influence that remains in contact with the ground for 1 full round is animated into a ghast.
Shadow: Any humanoid reduced to a Strength score of 0 by a ndalawo shadow leopard becomes a shadow under control of its killer within 1d4 rounds.
Skeleton: If a victim dies while engulfed by a bone slime, it becomes a skeleton.
Any animal, giant, humanoid, or monstrous humanoid corpse within range of a tree of woe's foul influence that remains in contact with the ground for 1 full round is animated into a skeleton or zombie.
My Life for Yours spell.
Undead: Undead are once-living creatures animated by spiritual or supernatural forces.
Over the course of a few years, every plant and animal that dies within a mile of the rupture to the negative energy plane left after a bone slime is destroyed would rise as some kind of minor undead.
Any corpse (be it fleshy or skeletal) within a death sphere's aura of undeath or that the sphere casts its shadow upon as it flies overhead may rise up as some type of undead.
A creature slain by an undead lord rises in 1d4 minutes as an undead creature of the same type as the undead lord.
Wight: After decades or centuries of existence, the animating magics of a vohrahn with 7 HD or more and the spirit of undeath power have worn a hole between the realms of life and death. The vohrahn’s passion is gone, but its power causes creatures slain by its claw attacks to rise as wights under the vohrahn’s control after 1d4 rounds.
Zombie: Living creatures killed by a deadwood tree rise in 16 rounds as zombies.
Living creatures killed by a thanatos' energy drain rise in 1d4 rounds as zombies.
Any animal, giant, humanoid, or monstrous humanoid corpse within range of a tree of woe's foul influence that remains in contact with the ground for 1 full round is animated into a skeleton or zombie.
After decades or centuries of existence, the animating magics of a vohrahn with the spirit of undeath power have worn a hole between the realms of life and death. The vohrahn’s passion is gone, but its power causes creatures slain by its claw attacks to rise as zombies under the vohrahn’s control after 1d4 rounds.
My Life for Yours spell.
Flying Abominations
Necromancy [Evil]
Level: Clr 5, Evil 5, Sor/Wiz 7
Components: V, S, M/DF
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 10 ft.
Target: One or more body parts within range
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
With this grotesque spell, you animate one or more body parts, imbuing them with the ability to fly and to follow simple verbal commands. The body parts must be relatively fresh (no more than a week old) and cannot be larger than Medium. Any creature that can be affected by animate dead can have a body part subjected to this spell.
You can animate one HD worth of flying abomination per caster level. These HD can be divided among different body parts as required. A 14th-level wizard could, for example, animate seven 2 HD body parts, or one 10 HD body part and four 1 HD body parts, etc. All body parts to be animated must be within 10 feet of you during casting.
The characteristics of a flying abomination are determined by the creature’s original size. See the Flying Abominations monster entry above for each creature’s characteristics based on size. The body part does retain the special attacks of the original creature, but only those that could be delivered with only the part in question. Thus, an animated red dragon’s head could bite but could not breathe fire. A dragon’s breath weapon is not a power of its head. An animated giant scorpion stinger, however, would retain the ability to inject poison. Supernatural and spell-like abilities may never be retained.
Flying abominations obey simple verbal commands in the same manner as a zombie or skeleton and the body parts remain animated until destroyed. They can be turned or rebuked normally.
Arcane Material Component: The body parts to be animated and a vial of unholy water which is sprinkled over the fragments during casting.
Change Zombie
Necromancy [Evil]
Level: Sor/Wiz 6
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 full round
Range: Touch
Target: One zombie touched
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates
Spell Resistance: Yes
You touch a single zombie, which must then attempt a Fortitude save to avoid the spell’s effects. If the zombie fails its save, it becomes a ghoul. Controlled zombies transformed by this spell remain under their controller’s command and still count against controlled undead HD limits, as do spawn created by the controlled ghouls.
Material Component: A bone from a ghoul and a black onyx gem worth at least 100 gp.
My Life For Yours
Necromancy [Evil]
Level: Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Touch
Target: One corpse touched
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
You draw forth a part of your own life force and (if you are not an undead) corrupt it into negative energy, which you can use to animate one corpse as a skeleton or zombie. Because the process of infusing the corpse with the negative energy is inefficient, you must draw forth twice as much of your life energy as what the undead would actually use. Therefore, you lose twice the number of hit points the undead creature would have when finished (so creating a normal Medium skeleton with 6 hit points costs you 12 hit points). Any skeleton or zombie created with this spell is treated as if it had been created with animate dead for the purpose of how many undead you can control. These hit points can be recovered normally (rest, magical healing, etc.)
If you cannot lose these hit points for any reason (such as if you are protected by a spell that prevents you from taking damage or converts normal damage to subdual or any other kind of damage) the spell fails. If you have no life force, whether positive or negative (for example, if you are a construct) the spell fails.
Material Component: A black onyx gem worth at least 50 gp with iron and silver wires wrapped around it, which must be placed in the mouth or eye socket of the corpse.
