Undead Origins

[Voadam]

The Blight: Tome of Blighted Horrors (5e)
5e
Bileborn: The bileborn is an undead creature born of alchemical and necromantic experimentation. Its purpose and the identity of its creator are unknown, but the mistakes of this master have long since been paid for, as the original bileborn ultimately escaped and slew its creator, incorporating his body among the rest.
A bileborn seeks to increase its mass by absorbing creatures into its body. This does not increase the creature’s size or change it in any fundamental way, but the crowd of body parts grows denser at its center. Then at some indeterminate point, the creature reproduces by fission. The fused conglomeration of rotten body parts splits down the middle, forming two bileborns of equal size and power. These instinctively avoid each other as they go their own ways in search of victims to absorb.
Bog Lantern, Typical Bog Lantern: Whether the bog lantern is simply an undead will-o’-wisp raised by some odd negative energy current within the Great Lyme River or a separate creature that is superficially similar is unknown.
Gravid Ghoul: The gravid ghoul is an undead creature of the foulest nature. In the darkest alleys of inner cities, there are humanoids who will pay for the touch and bed of an undead creature. Whether out of fascination, fetish, or illness of the mind, these couplings on occasion have been known to develop into a gravid ghoul. The ghoul harlot typically is unaware of its pregnancy until it is far too late. The fetal ghoul that grows inside the undead mother awakens with blood lust and the hunger of a newborn. The only warning the ghoul mother receives is an increase in its own feeding instinct and a slight swelling of the midsection before the small ghoul-thing bursts from the mother’s abdomen. The newborn creature sits within the gaping cavity of the mother’s broken body, which is folded in half in a backbend to serve as a perch and means of mobility for the offspring. Despite its appearance as vehicle and driver of a sort, the offspring and mother are a single creature and cannot be separated without destroying both.
Ghoul: A humanoid that dies from ghoul fever transforms into a ghoul moments after its death.
Ghoul Harlot: ?
Undead Mother, Ghoul Mother: ?
Undead, Undead Creature: ?
Alchymic Unliving Creature: The alchymic-unliving are creatures tainted by the curse of undeath through exposure to elixir of life.
Any living creature can be transformed into an alchymic-unliving creature that is exposed to elixir of life.
Zombie: The [alchymic-unliving] creature must make a successful DC 15 Wis saving throw every 30 days or its Intelligence is permanently reduced by 1. If its Intelligence declines to 3, it transforms into a zombie.
Lich: ?
Undead Will-o'-Wisp, Will-o'-Wisp: ?
Between Vampire: ?
Revolting Creature: ?
Ball of Pale Yellow Light: ?
Horrid Creature: ?

 

[Voadam]

The Book of Taverns: Vain Robert's Gibbet
5e
Vain Robert, Shade, Ghost: Fifty years before the pub was built, Vain Robert — the dread pirate of the seven seas, the scourge of common decency, and the terror of the 10 tides — was hung by his neck for crimes committed. He swung from the rope until he was good and dead. It took him two days to die, they say. He supposedly had a bull’s neck, thick with tendons and muscles that were impossible to snap even under his own formidable body weight. Two days of hanging there, and he eventually asphyxiated, though not for lack of trying. The story goes that he fell asleep and inadvertently let his muscles relax. When the physicians confirmed the man indeed breathed no more, the city militia wrapped his body in iron chains and hoops, dragged him through the city streets to the docks, and strung him up from a gibbet where he dangled until the ravens picked every scrap of flesh from his bones. He was a warning to others, visible to all ships entering the harbor: Do not even consider following in Vain Robert’s wake or you will suffer the same fate.
Nearly six months to the day of Vain Robert’s hanging, the dock wardens arrived to cut down his bones and give them a proper burial at sea (the man may have been an extraordinary scoundrel, but he was also a child of Mother Ocean). The pirate’s shade materialized out of thin air, decrying his fate and commanding that they leave his bones alone. He also vowed to get revenge, come hell or high water. The dock wardens fled. Afterward, no one had the courage to risk their immortal souls by retrieving Robert’s bones.
Reaper Ghost: The latest shipment of Gutochek’s Blood Mead arrives infected with a nefarious fungus known as reaper moss. Everyone in the pub who drinks the mead must succeed at a DC 13 Constitution save or end up dead. The victims are not an everyday ordinary sort of dead, however. Rather, their corpses slip into a kind of ice-cold torpor and their spirits become disassociated from them. In essence, they become ghosts.

 

[Voadam]

The Book of Taverns Volume Two
5e
Undead Pharaoh: ?
Undead: ?
Zombie Cow, Undead Zombie Cow: For reasons nobody knows, Brazzer fears cattle, and he often goes out of his way to kill the poor beasts. Normally, he throws their carcasses into the sapper’s tunnel (where a few of them return from the grave as undead zombie cows for reasons no one can decipher).
Vampire Lord: ?
Vampire Spawn: A vampire lord exits the portal to feed late at night while everyone sleeps, making the tavern his own personal watering hole. When he finishes, he steps back through the portal, something considered impossible to do. At first, only a few deaths occur each week, but then corpses start piling up. After a few weeks, regular patrons transform into vampire spawn and rampage through the tavern.
Zombie: ?

 

[Voadam]

The Book of Wondrous Magic 5E
5e
Undead, Undead Creature: ?
Ghost: Rod of Remarkable Gifts magic item.
Wight, Form: Mantle of Many Shapes magic item.
Zombie: Cauldron of Melancholy Revival magic item.

Cauldron of Melancholy Revival
Wondrous item, rare (requires attunement)
This small, black cauldron is made of cast iron and has 2d4 + 2 charges when found. When you use an action to place the cauldron over the head of a deceased creature that is Medium or smaller, the cauldron expends a charge and raises the corpse as a zombie. The creature is under your control, obeying any verbal command you give it. When all charges are expended, the cauldron cracks and falls to pieces.

Mantle of Many Shapes
Wonderous item, rare (requires attunement)
This forest-green cloak is richly embroidered with gold thread depicting twelve fantastic creatures. While wearing it, you can use an action to transform yourself into one of these forms:
 Awakened Tree
 Black Pudding
 Chuul
 Ettin
 Gargoyle
 Giant Scorpion
 Grick
 Hell Hound
 Manticore
 Pegasus
 Gold Dragon Wyrmling
 Wight

Rod of Remarkable Gifts
Rod, very rare (requires attunement)
This slender ivory rod has a spiralling crimson stripe painted down its length. It has 3 charges and regains 1 charge daily at dawn. If the rod is reduced to 0 charges, roll a d20. On a 1, the rod shatters.
While holding it, you can use an action to gently strike another creature, who randomly gains one of the following benefits for 1 hour: d20
Benefit
1
The target becomes invisible. Anything it is wearing or carrying is invisible so long as it is on the target’s person.
2
The target regains 5 hit points at the start of each of its turns.
3
If the target takes damage, it can use its reaction to shatter into fine dust and reduce the damage to 0. It reassembles into its original form at the end of its next turn in any unoccupied space within 15 feet of its last position. If there are no unoccupied spaces, it remains dust until a space becomes available.
4
Whenever the target does melee damage, it may choose to reroll the damage and must use the new roll.
5
The target transforms into a couatl. Death, hit points, actions, and equipment are treated as per the polymorph spell.
6
The target has truesight with a radius of 120 feet.
7
The target’s Strength score changes to 25.
8
The target has a flying speed of 60 feet.
9
The target transforms into a ghost. Death, hit points, actions, and equipment are treated as per the polymorph spell.
10
The target’s flesh turns to iron and its AC can’t be less than 21, regardless of what kind of armor it is wearing.

 

[Voadam]

The Brain Gorger's Appetite
5e
Zombie: Once it has its victim underground, the cerebral stalker begins gnawing on the victim’s head, rapidly chewing through bone and tissue, dealing 2d8 + 4 points of piercing damage each round. When the victim dies, the cerebral stalker reaches its goal: the victim’s brain, which it promptly devours. A victim slain in this manner reanimates in 1d4 rounds as a zombie.
Zombie, Newly Undead Friend: Once it has its victim underground, the cerebral stalker begins gnawing on the victim’s head, rapidly chewing through bone and tissue, dealing 2d8 + 4 points of piercing damage each round. When the victim dies, the cerebral stalker reaches its goal: the victim’s brain, which it promptly devours. A victim slain in this manner reanimates in 1d4 rounds as a zombie. Typically, the cerebral stalker “tosses” them back up to the surface of the ground so their traveling companions can witness the reanimation and deal with their newly undead friend.

 

[Voadam]

The Chronicles of Aeres Setting Handbook
5e
Undead: ?
Undead Evil Creature: ?
Non-Living Monster, Undead: ?
Shambling Undead Monster: ?
Hissing Banshee: ?
Banshee: ?
Ardrisyr, Ethereal Ghost: ?
Ghost: ?
Lancathir, Ghost: ?
Grenfir, Ghost: ?
Ghoul: ?
Foul Ghoul: ?
Ravenous Ghoul: ?
Olhogim, The Witch Lord, The Lord of Ashes, The Shadow of the East, The Black Thorn, The Wicked One, Lich, Arch-Lich, Undead Abomination, Unfathomably Powerful Lich: For decades his followers brought him artifacts of magical essence, which were summarily sacrificed before his form to imbue his being with aetherian might. In time, Olhogim’s power was so great that he transcended the necessity of life, becoming an undead abomination vastly more powerful than any single Vulgrak.
Lancathir, Villainous Lich King: ?
Lich: ?
Olhogim, Lich Spirit: ?
Dead-Eyed Skeleton: ?
Specter: ?
Twilight Elf, Mythological Figure, Specter: ?
Vampire: ?
Vampiric Monster: ?
Vampire Lord: ?
Wight: ?
Twilight Elf, Mythological Figure, Wight: ?
Wight, Shambling Horror: ?
Wraith: ?

 

[Voadam]

The Chronicles of Aeres: Shadows of Padfoot Alley
5e
Undead Creature: ?
Ghast, Foul Shambling Minion: ?
Skeleton: The players are to delve into one of the abandoned barrowmounds of that place, encounter whatever undead creatures dwell there (most likely skeletons animated by vagrant aether of the underground,) and return with the bones of the monsters, which he’ll use to ferment tinctures of amazing revivification.

 

[Voadam]

The City That Dripped Blood (5e)
5e
Undead: ?
Ghoul: ?
Shadow: ?

 

[Voadam]

The Curse of Skeleton Cove
5e
Skeleton: Legend tells of an apprentice necromancer who foolishly believed dark magics would bend to his untrained whims. The end result was an undead plague, as skeletons swarmed the land with chaos and abandon.
The altar’s transformation spell.
Every creature in the dungeon, living or dead, is reanimated as a skeleton.
The altar itself is made of the bones of several humans and animals. Its surface is caked with the blood of ancient sacrifices. Three jeweled skulls are on its surface - red, green, and blue. A close inspection reveals all three have spinal cords which reach into the altar. Touching or attacking any of the skulls or attempting to dismantle the altar activates the altar.
Skeleton, Cursed Hero Transformed By Dark Magic: What they won’t realize until it’s too late is these skeletons aren’t simply undead - these are cursed heroes transformed by dark magics.
Hostile Skeleton: ?
Skeleton, Mindless Creature: When any skeleton dies [in Skeleton Cove], it either reanimates at sunset or when the altar is activated. It automatically loses 1 intelligence modifier. Upon reaching zero intelligence or less, it becomes a mindless creature content with destroying all living things.
Skeleton Minotaur: ?
Animated Skeleton: ?
Undead, Undead Being: ?
Undead Participant: ?

 

[Voadam]

The Devil of Murder Cliffs (5e)
5e
Aspdu, Ghost, Spirit, Evil Spirit, Diabolical Spirit: Aspdu is the true Devil of Murder Cliffs. Once a powerful pit fiend in service to Moloch, Aspdu was reduced in power when a wizard king of old attempted to break his contract with the devil. Aspdu’s bones were melded to the mountainside, and the pit fiend’s evil spirit now haunts the cliffs, possessing others as he attempts to reunite with his old bones and return to Hell with the 99 souls his master tasked him to gather.
Wraith: ?
Zombie: ?