Midgard Bestiary for 4th Edition D&D
Midgard Bestiary for 4th Edition D&D
4e
Bone Collective: Created by necrophagi, the undead mages of the Ghoul Imperium, bone collectives are swarms made up of quick, 10-inch tall skeletons constructed from small bones—often gnomes, bats, and lizards.
Boneguard Skeleton: ?
Bone Colossus: In times of war, posthumes join together into enormous swarms or titans.
Undead Carrion Beetle: After death, the carrion beetles' exoskeletons serve as both animated scouting devices for the ghoul imperium—ghouls hide within the shell to approach hostile territory—and as armored undead platforms for howdahs packed with archers or spellcasters.
Darakhul: Darakhul arise when a particularly strong-willed creature is infected with ghoul fever and its anima refuses to shed its memories and reason along with its soul. Most survive the experience with their personality largely intact. Some necromancers and others claim that one can improve the chances of survival by deliberately infecting oneself and eating only living flesh. Only one person claims to have succeeded with this method, a necromancer named Uldar Ingreval, long since exiled from the Arcane Collegium of Zobeck.
Many believe that the hunger cults or the necrophagi know the secret of transforming imperial ghasts and ghouls into darakhul.
Bonepowder Ghoul: Taking things to the next stage, bonepowder ghouls achieve their powdery form through long starvation. The process invariably takes decades, which is why so few bonepowder ghouls exist. The few ghouls who can show such self-restraint are highly respected among their peers, for all ghouls know the drive of hunger. Indeed, using hunger as a form of torture is considered offensive to the ways of the Imperium. This isn’t to say that it never happens, and thus bonepowder ghouls may rise from unintended circumstances. A starved prisoner or a ghoul trapped in a sealed-off cavern might leave behind most of its remnant flesh and become animated almost purely by hunger, hatred, and the wisdom of long centuries in which to plot the destruction of its enemies.
Darakhul Citizen: ?
Iron Ghoul: ?
Necrophagus Savant: ?
Fellforged: Fellforged are clockwork creatures given foul sentience when their bodies—specially constructed to house the spirits of the dead—come into contact with wraith-like creatures called deathshade wisps that yearn to wreak havoc on the corporeal world. Trapping the wisps in these constructs, though dulling many of their supernatural abilities, gives their terrible anger a physical form.
Deathshade Wisp: Knowing no living shadow fey could fully set aside its own ambition, the court turned to its ancestors. Cemeteries were pillaged and corpses exhumed. Spirits were pulled from the shadows. This fusing of necromancy and shadow essence culminated in the deathshade wisp.
Ghost Riders of Marena: The knights begin as living warriors bound to the service of a vampire, necrophagus, or priestess of Marena. Those providing good service for five to ten years may be “raised up” into the ranks of the undead as a foot soldier in the Ghost Knights of Morgau, roughly equivalent to a squire elsewhere. If they continue to perform admirably, and make the transition through ghoul fever or vampiric bite without undue madness or blood frenzy, they can slowly advance through the grades of the Order of the Red Shield.
Ghost Rider Templar: ?
Ghost Goblin Horror: Some warriors among the Ghost Goblins hold the undead in higher esteem than the living. They strive to honor the zombies through their actions, and through prayers to strange gods. Soon a ghost goblin horror is born, too intelligent to be considered a zombie but too unnatural to be called a living creature.
Imperial Ghast Centurion: Many ghouls are condemned from their creation to scrabble after scraps, while other rise to be masters of the underworld. Only the highly variable course of the disease that creates ghouls—best known as ghoul fever or “the curtain” among ghouls—separates these two groups. The worst-off become ordinary ghouls or ghasts. They remember essentially nothing of their former lives, and their minds sink to a lower state of hunger, rage, and more hunger. The fortunate ones retain some of their memories and skills to become imperial ghasts and ghouls, the Imperium’s middle class.
Ghoul: Many ghouls are condemned from their creation to scrabble after scraps, while other rise to be masters of the underworld. Only the highly variable course of the disease that creates ghouls—best known as ghoul fever or “the curtain” among ghouls—separates these two groups. The worst-off become ordinary ghouls or ghasts. They remember essentially nothing of their former lives, and their minds sink to a lower state of hunger, rage, and more hunger. The fortunate ones retain some of their memories and skills to become imperial ghasts and ghouls, the Imperium’s middle class.
Ghast: Many ghouls are condemned from their creation to scrabble after scraps, while other rise to be masters of the underworld. Only the highly variable course of the disease that creates ghouls—best known as ghoul fever or “the curtain” among ghouls—separates these two groups. The worst-off become ordinary ghouls or ghasts. They remember essentially nothing of their former lives, and their minds sink to a lower state of hunger, rage, and more hunger. The fortunate ones retain some of their memories and skills to become imperial ghasts and ghouls, the Imperium’s middle class.
Imperial Ghoul: Many ghouls are condemned from their creation to scrabble after scraps, while other rise to be masters of the underworld. Only the highly variable course of the disease that creates ghouls—best known as ghoul fever or “the curtain” among ghouls—separates these two groups. The worst-off become ordinary ghouls or ghasts. They remember essentially nothing of their former lives, and their minds sink to a lower state of hunger, rage, and more hunger. The fortunate ones retain some of their memories and skills to become imperial ghasts and ghouls, the Imperium’s middle class.
Lich Hound: Made of necromantic power, these hounds serve ghoul high priests and arch-liches.
Spectral Wolf: As the great hunt continues, the body of the lich hound breaks down and fades away, though this hardly slows the foul beast. They emerge as spectral wolves and, unburdened by physical forms, grow in strength as they learn new tactics.
Putrid Haunt: Putrid haunts are walking corpses infused with moss, mud, and the detritus of the deep swamp. They are the shambling remains of individuals who, either through mishap or misdeed, died while lost within swampland. Their desperate need to escape transformed upon their deaths into hatred of all life.
Putrid Haunt Sweller: ?
Putrid Haunt Retch: ?
Putrid Haunt Choker: ?
