A bit of (undead) help...

[Quickleaf]

But, make him a lich, is also a possibility. Back in 2e Ravenloft liches could be any spell casting class: cleric, bard, psionicit, wizard... so the precedence is there, just tweak the existing lich to accomodate bards, put his soul into a masterwork musical instrument to represent his phylactery, and play him as a lich. A lich isn't really 'cold storage', but as a possible undead version of the bard, it works.

That's just a cool image, a haunting lute which houses the soul of a lich.

It seems to me he should still have his in-life stat block with an undead template applied - immune to sleep/charm, turnable by Clerics, maybe an energy-drain attack etc.

I almost never use undead that are not templates. Our party is at 10th level. All of our undead have class levels, none are just undead monsters, and are just as often spell casters as any other class. You can almost count on one undead opponent being a caster, every time.

Yeah I intend for him to retain some of his Bardic class abilities. Even though we play 4e I'm going to steal some of the Bardic masteries from PFSRD and tweak them for an undead caster.

Sounds like a norse ghost. They're like ghosts, except they're not incorporeal since the norse had no concept of the separation of body and mind/soul.

Draugr - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cool! I didn't know about the draugr, and that's actually a really good wiki article. Plus it would fit since the othe NPC is a daughter of the Norns so it's the same mythos. The draugr fights described - where the draugr has to be pushed back into the grave and rebound - sound perfect for a game.


Good suggestions all around. Thanks guys! I've narrowed the list of possibilities to bodak, lich, eastern style embodied ghost, or draugr. And whichever one I use will have Bardic abilities modeled after the dirgesinger/dirge bard.

 

[Aramax]

Pathfinder has Sin spawn which in his case would be lust incarnated(I dont think they are undead though)

 

[Quickleaf]

Pathfinder has Sin spawn which in his case would be lust incarnated(I dont think they are undead though)

Well that misses the point of the character. What's tragic (in a comedic kind of way) is that he was no longer a rake and just a writer, but he was curse-killed for what he wrote as if it was how he lived.

 

[howandwhy99]

Here's the thing, unless this really has to be a D&D undead type, you can just make up your own.

Undead in D&D really does mean not alive and not some super creature which doesn't need to breathe, eat, or sleep anymore.

Most undead are either mindless or incorporeal. Liches have killed themselves to retain a possible eternal half-life. Vampires are a corpse made functional again by a parasitic primordial evil controlling their desires. Mummies are greatly diminished and seek to destroy any living thing they meet. A ghost could work seeing the character is cursed, but then they would not be corporeal. Spellcasting requires reliable contact with the material realm in almost all cases, but Druidic (the bardic spell source) beyond any other.

Death simply does not have a positive side in D&D, undeath even more so.

 

[gamerprinter]

Also to possibly help disguise your undead bard, here's a haunted object from Rite Publishing #30 Haunts for Kaidan... (my Japanese horror setting)

The Peony Lantern CR 6
XP 3200
NE Haunt (one lantern); persistent
CL 6
Notice Perception DC 18 (to notice the creature's undead nature when lantern is lit)
hp 27; weaknesses; Trigger proximity; Reset 1/day
Effect in the lantern's light, undead creatures resemble, smell and feel the way they did in life, as the spell *Major Image (Will DC 14 to disbelieve, if interacted with). Those who knew the undead creature when it was alive react favorably towards it, as if affected by a *Charm Spell (Will DC 11 negates). This haunt is persistent and continues for as long as it shines on the undead creature.
Destruction casting Consecrate on the lantern and burying it in an old grave destroys the haunt.

Perhaps change it from a Peony Lantern to some other kind of lantern, better suited for your setting (bulleyes lantern, for example).