D&D General have we had a player race of undead?

[Mind of tempest]

I do not mean in the sense of a prestage class or something nor that is an undead of another sapient population.

a life form that is undead from birth to death that is effectively an undead species?

as that seems sufficiently out there and fantasy for it to be worth a shot?

 

[Vaalingrade]

There was an Unearth Arcana with a Revenant type. Reborn?

And 4e had a feat that let you be a Revenant and like four ways to be a Vampire.

 

[Clint_L]

I do not mean in the sense of a prestage class or something nor that is an undead of another sapient population.

a life form that is undead from birth to death that is effectively an undead species?

as that seems sufficiently out there and fantasy for it to be worth a shot?

I'm not sure how a life form could be undead from birth to death - isn't that contradictory?

Explorer's Guide to Wildemount added Hollow Ones as an official D&D race. They are people who have been killed and subsequently become "beings whose souls have left for the afterlife, yet whose bodies still retain a fragment of their former selves." Marisha Rey's current character on Critical Role, Laudna, is a Hollow One. I like the concept a lot, especially the Unsettling Presence ability: "As an action, you can unsettle a creature you can see within 15 feet of you. The target has disadvantage on the next saving throw it makes within the next minute. Constructs, undead, and creatures that can’t be frightened are immune to this feature. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest."

I don't know how you would have undead that is not derived from a formerly living being. Isn't the whole concept of undeath something that lived, died, and then came back but without all of its previous biological functions intact? If something was born, grew up, etc. how would it differ from a living being?

 

[Seramus]

Wouldn't that just be Negative Energy Elementals?

 

[Clint_L]

Wouldn't that just be Negative Energy Elementals?

Yeah, you can have creatures that have totally different biologies, like oozes and stuff, not mention all the extra-planar beings, and constructs. But for me the concept of undeath requires, well, death. In pop culture the closest I can think of is something like Bella's baby in Twilight, which I think is supposed to be born a vampire that will reach maturity in a few years? But that doesn't seem like it can be undead, by definition. Just a different kind of life.

Anyhow, would Hollow Ones work for what you are looking for? They are official WotC material, so even if you don't buy the whole Explorer's Guide you can just buy that species off DnDBeyond for a few bucks.

 

[Steampunkette]

I kinda love the idea of a city of the dead within the Bleak Gate populated by beings born to and of death... Not "Undead" in the standard parlance, that of a creature that perished and was reanimated, but functionally undead.

 

[aco175]

There is the Dhampier from Van Richten's Guide, but they might be listed as humanoid and not undead.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I kinda love the idea of a city of the dead within the Bleak Gate populated by beings born to and of death... Not "Undead" in the standard parlance, that of a creature that perished and was reanimated, but functionally undead.

Did you ever see the Ghostwalk setting?

 

[Andvari]

Libris Mortis: The Book of Undead (3e) has some race and class options for undead PCs, I believe. Though I don't know about life forms that are "undead from birth." That seems like a bit of an oxymoron. Perhaps death forms?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The Dhampir, Reborn, and possibly Hollow Ones (although they're a supernatural gift, not a race) could all work from 5e.

 

[Steampunkette]

Did you ever see the Ghostwalk setting?

I did. It made me sad. There was so much more to be done with it and they did just -so- little....

 

[Burnside]

For 5E, the Dhampir is not mechanically undead (their creature type is "Humanoid"). They are certainly undead-flavored (the text says "tied to the undead"), but it specifically says they "retain their grip on life."

The Reborn from the same book (Van Richten's) are generally more like Frankenstein's monster, but they are also Humanoids and not Undead.

The Hollow One from Explorer's Guide to Wildemount is in even more of a grey area. The book says "You retain your creature type, yet you register as undead to spells and other effects that detect the presence of the undead creature type."

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

in 4e there were the Vryloka and the Shades that were playable undead, IIRC.

KP's Midgard has the ghoul, IIRC.

 

[Hriston]

There was an Unearth Arcana with a Revenant type.

It was in the Gothic Heroes UA. It's a subrace.

 

[Hriston]

Wouldn't that just be Negative Energy Elementals?

I think that's what Ungoliant is.

 

[the Jester]

I haven't encountered exactly what you are looking for. Not sure what kind of undead fits your niche- most undead start alive and become undead after, well, dying, but some are created wholesale.

I've written up 5e style pc ancestry/race/species treatments for the necropolitan (from 3e), which is undead, but isn't born that way, and the pseudo-undead (from 1e), which aren't actually undead but act like it.

 

[Kurotowa]

Undead from birth is a contradiction. Two of the fundamental traits of the undead is that they are the remnants of formerly living creatures, reanimated by negative energy, and that they don't produce new life. It's fairly definitional.

That being the case, rather than a creature that's born undead, would you accept a species with an innate affinity for negative energy and the Shadowfell? Because from a character flavor perspective, the shadar-kai may be your closest hit. They're your gothiest of goths when it comes to PC species aesthetic.

 

[Tonguez]

The Reborn from the same book (Van Richten's) are generally more like Frankenstein's monster, but they are also Humanoids and not Undead.

Frankensteisn monster was only one example, in play they were more like The Crow, revenants and mummy also fit the Reborn type.

to op do Shades count as undead? Shadows as a whole have always had a funny status in being undead but of uncertain origin - where they ever alive?

 

[haakon1]

Not really the OP topic, but once at PaizoCon, I saw someone play an undead PC. They were quickly injured and surprised no one could heal them.

 

[Seramus]

Undead is what happens when Negative Energy gets into once living things. If we remove the "once living things" qualifier, we just end up with Negative Energy (hence my Negative Energy Elemental comment from earlier). I mean, even the Xeg-yi and Trillochs are said to come from somewhere else than the Negative Elemental Plane.

But I suppose it's possible to have some blob of sentient negative energy that is not strictly an elemental. You could animate a pile of debris in a cruel mockery of life. You could even do possession by a malevolent force and have it be from the negative energy plane slowly draining you away and corrupting you. You are bound to end up undead, but the possessing energy would not be undead by itself.