Undead Origins

[Voadam]

Dragon 185

Dragon 185
2e
Undead Watroach: Typically, an adult watroach is sought out in the desert, surrounded, and killed. A psionic kill is preferred, leaving the corpse unmarred for future construction. Once taken back to a city (usually on a large wagon behind two or more mekillots or driks), the watroach .s carcass is prepared. The brain and guts are removed, as is much of the honeycombed hive material. The drones are smoked out over large fires, and the dormant proto-adult is discarded. Usually, the top of the hive chamber is then opened and a platform installed, and a variety of other individual weapons positions are cut into all of the three body sections. Once finished, the beast is raised from the dead by templar magic.
Alhoun, Illithilich: Alhoon are very rare, magic-using outcasts from mind-flayer society who have defied elder-brains to achieve lichdom, becoming “illithiliches.”

 

[Voadam]

Dragon 186

Dragon 186
2e
Cariad Ysbryd: A cariad ysbryd, or “ghost lover,” is the spirit of a decidedly good female (usually sylvan) elf who has chosen to remain among the living after death so that she may continue to perform good deeds.
Memento Mori: A memento mori is created by a priest's spell (see below) to serve as an everlasting remembrance of a dead person, and as an evervigilant guardian over its body.
Tymher-Hyaid: When powerful evil people or creatures are slain, there is a chance that they will return to plague the living as undead, such as wights, spectres, and ghosts. Weaker and less evil creatures usually do not suffer this fate, but if a large number of them are killed at one time and place, and if they don't receive proper funerary rites, they may return as an exceedingly minor form of undead, called collectively a tymher-haid, or “ghost-swarm.”


Wight: When powerful evil people or creatures are slain, there is a chance that they will return to plague the living as undead, such as wights, spectres, and ghosts. Weaker and less evil creatures usually do not suffer this fate.
Spectre: When powerful evil people or creatures are slain, there is a chance that they will return to plague the living as undead, such as wights, spectres, and ghosts. Weaker and less evil creatures usually do not suffer this fate.
Ghost: When powerful evil people or creatures are slain, there is a chance that they will return to plague the living as undead, such as wights, spectres, and ghosts. Weaker and less evil creatures usually do not suffer this fate.

Create memento mori (Necromantic)
Priest 3
Sphere: Necromantic
Range: Touch
Components: V, S, M
Duration: Permanent
Casting Time: 2 hours, plus 1 hour for
every die of energy imparted
Area of Effect: Body touched
Saving Throw: See below
The casting of this spell on a dead body causes a sliver of the soul that once inhabited the body to return to the Prime Material plane and become a memento mori, standing guard over its body. Only one memento mori can be made from each person's soul, as a loss of a greater number of soul-slivers would be detrimental to the soul wherever it now rests. In addition, a memento mori cannot be created if the body of the deceased is not present, nor if the body or soul of the deceased has already been turned into some other form of undead. Unlike other spells that create undead, this use of create memento mori is not considered evil if, when he was alive, the person who becomes the memento mori was part of a culture believing in this practice as an accepted custom.
Each memento mori is able to cause a mild, static-electric effect that they use to defend their bodies against cowardly pests, and most are also imbued with electrical energy they can use in combat.
The material component for this spell is a collection of herbs, spices, oils, and precious substances that are placed in or about the body as it is prepared for internment. The cost of these stuffs is 500 gp, with an additional 25 gp worth of these things being required for every hit die of electrical energy the memento mori is to be imbued with (e.g., a memento mori to be imbued with two hit dice worth of energy would cost 550 gp, while 1,000 gp would produce a memento mori with 20 hit dice available to it). These oils and such are all incorporated into the body when the spell is cast and are not recoverable.

 

[Voadam]

Dragon 188

Dragon 188
2e
Flying Fingers: These flying hands are specially enchanted crawling claws (from MC3, the first FORGOTTEN REALMS supplement to the Monstrous Compendium) that have been imbued with the power of flight.
Skeleton Champion: These rare undead are simply normal undead skeletons treated with secret necromantic spells so as to have extra powers.

Skeleton: Double Spell spell.
Zombie: Double Spell spell.

Double spell
(Necromancy)
Level: 3
Comp.: V,S,M
CT: 1 rnd.
AE: Special
Range: Touch
Dur.: Special
ST None
This rare spell affects only simple undead (basic zombies and skeletons from humans, demihumans, humanoids, and animals, but not the variants based on these body forms, such as crawling claws, ju-ju zombies, and baneguards). To take effect, this spell must be cast on newly created undead or remains that are to be immediately animated, within three rounds before or after the casting of the animate dead spell that creates the undead. It operates only if triggered, and the triggering can be one of two sorts, of which one must be chosen during casting.
The most commonly chosen trigger is magic. If any magic (including a dispel magic spell!) is cast on the undead or cast to include the undead in its area of effect, the undead vanishes, and two full-hit-point replacements appear in its place. Replacements appear at the beginning of the round after the one in which the original vanished. This is a one-time-only occurrence; multiple double spells won't work on the same undead, so “doubling” can't be made an ongoing process.
A separate double spell is required for each undead to be affected. This spell only creates duplicates of the targeted undead, not other sorts of undead. Any equipment carried by the original undead vanishes, consumed by the activated spell, and is not duplicated for either of the replacements (magical items are teleported away to a random location, not destroyed).
The second trigger is clerical turning or disruption. When these are used against the guarded undead, it vanishes and is replaced by two full-hit-point, identical replacements that are immune to turning or disruption! (The same restrictions on undead type, occurrence, and equipment apply as for the spell's other triggering.) The material components of this spell are a drop of blood, a small glass prism, two hairs (from any source) and the undead or remains to be affected.

 

[Voadam]

Dragon 191

Dragon 191
2e
Animus: Slaughtered by the Overking and resurrected by Hextor's priests as undead monstrosities.

 

[Voadam]

Dragon 194

Dragon 194
2e
Zombie Juju: Humans or humanoids slain by negative energy weapons can be animated as juju zombies, but unless the spell-caster is also the one who wielded the killing weapon, they will be free-willed.
Undead: If a negative energy weapon is used against energy-draining undead, the wielder loses 1-4 of his own hit points, as the weapon's dweomer interacts with the “energy vacuum” inside wights, wraiths, etc. A character who uses this weapon against undead can turn himself into an undead monster, even if the monster doesn't fight back!

 

[Voadam]

Dragon 197

Dragon 197
2e
Flameskull: These magically powered flying skulls are fashioned from human heads soon after death, by a magical process first developed in long-lost Netheril and still practiced by a few evil priesthoods (such as that of Bane) and magical societies (such as those based in Zhentil Keep and Thay).

 

[Eltab]

Is there a way to search this list - when you know an origin, but not the name of the resulting undead?

(I'm too lazy and time-limited to read 19 pages of good material.)

 

[Voadam]

Is there a way to search this list - when you know an origin, but not the name of the resulting undead?

(I'm too lazy and time-limited to read 19 pages of good material.)

Page 33 (at 10 entries per page [now page 17 at 20 entries per page]) has 10 entries comprehensively collected cumulatively by edition and that would probably be the best bet for searching.

But you would still need to open the individual sblocked sources you want to search. Once you have done that you could then use control F to search by a term like drowning or drowned and hope to hit the exact phrasing used in the descriptions.

 

[Voadam]

Dragon 198

Dragon 198
2e
Ka: Once, the ka was a noble, king, or pharaoh. After death, the mummified body continued to live on in the tomb as an undead monster.
Angreden: An angreden is the walking corpse of an individual who died under a curse, or who was so filled with hatred and anger in life that he refused to lie still in his grave.
King-Wight: A king-wight was once a powerful evil king. When he died, he became undead, continuing to rule the ranks of the walking dead. His death is often voluntary, a self-sacrifice made to gain a prolonged existence.
Wraith King: Wraith-kings were once powerful individuals who so feared death that they made unholy bargains with an evil god. Each individual believed he was gaining immortality, but was instead turned into an undead monster.
A wraith-king became undead as the act of an evil god.
Vartha: ?

Wight: Any victim completely drained of life points by the king-wight becomes a full-strength wight.
Wraith: A wraith-king can drain life levels by gaze alone at the rate of one level per round for any one victim within clear view in a 30. range (the victim must save vs. death ray each round to avoid this effect). Any victim completely drained of life levels becomes a full-strength wraith under the control of the wraith-king.

GURPS
Undead: Victims of the Mad Lands gods who are denied proper funeral services may be resurrected as undead spawn.

 

[Voadam]

Dragon 200

Dragon 200
2e
Undead: The curse of refusal. Death has refused to allow the Bokor entry to the realm of the dead, so all Bokor become undead upon their deaths. The exact form that an undead Bokor assumes depends on the level that the Bokor attained in life. Convert the character's level to hit dice and consult the table for turning undead for the appropriate form. For example, a 6th-level Bokor would become a ghast or wraith when he dies. If the Bokor is 12th level or higher when he dies (the “Special” category on the table), the character becomes an Orish-Nla (an African demon resembling a shadow fiend). The Bokor loses his spell-casting abilities upon death, unless the undead form taken is normally capable of casting spells.