D&D General The abandoned core monsters of D&D

[Paul Farquhar]

a philosophical point: can something be undead if it was not a living being previously, or is it it’s mechanical properties (e.g. repelled by clerics) that matter?

 

[Mannahnin]

a philosophical point: can something be undead if it was not a living being previously, or is it it’s mechanical properties (e.g. repelled by clerics) that matter?

Other things have been able to be Turned, depending on the edition.

I'm trying to think if there are any undead across the various editions and cosmologies of D&D which weren't once living creatures.

 

[ilgatto]

Other things have been able to be Turned, depending on the edition.

I'm trying to think if there are any undead across the various editions and cosmologies of D&D which weren't once living creatures.

Interesting thought. I guess the word "undead" automatically implies that something must be dead first before it can be undead.

Hmm...

It's a bit nitpickey, but one might consider what a "living creature" is. For example, is a dryad a "living creature"? If not, then there's always the birch spirit, although that's not an official monster (White Dwarf 28).

Hmm...

Any undead plants?


EDIT: The vestige from Return to the Tomb of Horrors? The apodalypse from Night of the Shark? The blood warriors from FR2 Moonshae? The yeshoms of the Savage Coast Monstrous Compendium Appendix? The blood pudding from Dragon 259?

 

[Tonguez]

Other things have been able to be Turned, depending on the edition.

I'm trying to think if there are any undead across the various editions and cosmologies of D&D which weren't once living creatures.

devourers were listed as undead in 3e and 4e, though in 5e are now fiends. They were always servants of Orcus and never living
The various forms of Nightshade were also undead beings composed of Evil and Darkness

As for plants there have been undead Treants and dryads, and 4e had its Rotvine

 

[the Jester]

devourers were listed as undead in 3e and 4e, though in 5e are now fiends.

They were not undead in 2e. The 5e typing is sort of a reversion to the OG take on them.

I have a few more possible never-alive undead types, depending on how you look at them:

Were winter-wights ever alive (Return to the Tomb of Horrors and later in the 3e ELH)?

A corpse gatherer is sort of a composite of dead creatures and the soil and gravestones around them; it might count, depending on how you look at it.

Some Kyuss-related undead worms, such as the overworm, don't seem to have a living version.

The ragewind/sword spirit was considered undead in 3e, at least; not sure of the lore about it, but I believe it's another sort of composite undead.

5e's eidolon is a spirit but doesn't seem to be the spirit of a specific dead creature.

4e's various types of deathtritus (the osteopede, etc) are made up of basically garbage bits animated by necrotic energy. I think 3e's tomb motes are similar.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Finishing up Basic D&D with its epic finale... the Rules Cyclopedia.

• Grab grass

Grab grass is in 4e as a Trap/Hazard. Dunno if that counts.

 

[Tonguez]

They were not undead in 2e. The 5e typing is sort of a reversion to the OG take on them.

I have a few more possible never-alive undead types, depending on how you look at them:

Were winter-wights ever alive (Return to the Tomb of Horrors and later in the 3e ELH)?

A corpse gatherer is sort of a composite of dead creatures and the soil and gravestones around them; it might count, depending on how you look at it.

Some Kyuss-related undead worms, such as the overworm, don't seem to have a living version.

The ragewind/sword spirit was considered undead in 3e, at least; not sure of the lore about it, but I believe it's another sort of composite undead.

5e's eidolon is a spirit but doesn't seem to be the spirit of a specific dead creature.

4e's various types of deathtritus (the osteopede, etc) are made up of basically garbage bits animated by necrotic energy. I think 3e's tomb motes are similar.

Winter Wights and Eidolon are both called Undead in 2e write ups.

 

[Voadam]

The Avatar of Death/Lesser Death from the Deck of many things is explicitly undead in 5e and a couple other editions and more a spirit of death and not a former living thing.

 

[Voadam]

It is not clear to me what exactly the origins of the explicitly undead spirits in BECMI/RC are. The Druj and Odic are spirits that possess dead body parts and trees, they are not the spirits of the dead body parts or the tree but something else.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It is not clear to me what exactly the origins of the explicitly undead spirits in BECMI/RC are. The Druj and Odic are spirits that possess dead body parts and trees, they are not the spirits of the dead body parts or the tree but something else.

This is one of the reasons I wish that TSR/WotC had figured out how undead and the afterlife work in a single unified way. As decades of Planescape products have shown, once those sorts of structures are even roughly sketched out (like in the multiverse appendix of the 1E Players Handbook), that provides the basis for lots of gameable material for years.

In this case, it would give us an idea of how these never-living "undead" work and would likely tie into the mechanics of resurrection, reincarnation, planar travel and more.