Pathfinder Bestiary 2
Pathfinder 2e
Attic Whisperer: Beware the haunting sobs of the attic whisperer, for they carry the pained wrath of an abandoned child who perished due to the neglect or absence of their caretakers. Animated by loneliness, the embittered spirit binds itself to the material world in a body made of bits and oddments of a lost childhood—wooden blocks, scraps of blankets, ratty dolls, buttons, carved trinkets, and glass marbles. To give themselves the semblance of a head, they top their patchwork bodies with a small animal’s skull.
Bodak: When a living, sentient humanoid is exposed to an extreme expression of supernatural evil, the experience can irrevocably damn the victim, crushing their mind and ripping out their soul in an appalling, unholy transformation that results in a creature that’s anathema to life—the bodak.
The rarity of the events that create bodaks ensure that most of these abominations were humanoids slain by another bodak’s gaze. Yet bodaks can also be brought into being by a rare version of the create undead ritual. This horrific ritual emulates an encounter of absolute, supernatural evil, and so the spell must begin when the subject is alive and located on one of the evil Outer Planes.
Fragmented memories of a prior existence filtered through a vengeful hatred of the living lead the bodak to try to return to those places it once knew. If successful, it assaults former friends, acquaintances, and loved ones with its murderous gaze and an incomprehensible torrent of gibberish laced with vile curses, accusations, and threats—an assault that often leads to the victims rising as newly formed bodaks themselves.
Any humanoid who dies while drained or doomed by a bodak rises as an autonomous bodak 24 hours after its death.
Crawling Hand: Typically, crawling hands are formed when severed appendages are endowed with a crude sentience by evil necromantic energies that turn them into tireless killers. Yet crawling hands can also arise spontaneously, usually when a creature loses an appendage in a place rife with necromantic energy or with a connection to the Negative Energy Plane.
A crawling hand formed from the appendage of a Medium creature is quick and agile, skittering in the shadows until it can strike its prey.
A popular tale among necromancers tells of an ancient wizard who trafficked in evil magic. During a summoning ritual gone wrong, the wizard’s hand became possessed and later strangled them while they slept. The hand dragged the corpse across the wizard’s rooms to their workbench, propped up a knife in a vise, and severed itself from the rest of the body. According to the story, the hand went on to commit several more murders and disappeared into the sewers of a major metropolis, never to be seen again. Some necromancers believe that this original crawling hand still creeps through the shadows of that city, killing as it pleases.
Giant Crawling Hand: A giant crawling hand is the appendage of a very large creature, such as a giant.
Devourer: When fiends and powerful evil spellcasters are lost beyond the farthest reaches of the multiverse, they sometimes return as horrific undead called devourers that consume the souls of the living to fuel their arcane machinations. Their bodies are ruined and rebuilt, hollow and twisted, even as their minds undergo a spiritual transformation.
Draugr: Risen corpses of sailors who died at sea, draugr reek of the rot and decay of the briny deep.
Draugr rise in the haunted places of the sea, where restless spirits, swells of negative energy, or supernatural storms deliver death. A corpse might rest at the bottom of the sea for some time before awakening as a draugr. Collecting detritus and organisms, a corpse becomes increasingly disgusting before it finally rises. Proximity to intelligent life can expedite this process, and an underwater explorer who happens upon a shipwreck might cause a body to snap to unlife as a draugr suddenly.
When an entire ship’s crew dies in one calamity, they might rise simultaneously, bound together in death.
Draugr Captain: ?
Mohrg: The weight of murder wears heavy on the soul. With souls marked by a lifetime of dealing death, these killers, whether mass murderers, bloodthirsty soldiers, or sadistic executioners, sometimes do not let judgment and lawful execution stanch their slaying sprees. When such individuals are brought to justice, they may rise after death as mohrgs to continue their ruinous work.
While it’s true that most mohrgs seem to rise from the corpses of humanoid killers, the capacity to murder is not limited to humanoids. Mohrgs of other sorts could certainly exist—as long as they come from a society that has the capacity not only to judge and execute, but also to harbor murder within their hearts.
Mohrg Spawn: When a creature returns after death as a mohrg spawn, its flesh decays away save for its entrails, and it grows a long, awful tongue.
Since those slain by a mohrg rise soon thereafter as mohrg spawn, the murders of a mohrg rarely go unnoticed for long, even when they take extra care to prey only on a society’s dregs.
A living creature slain by a mohrg that had a lower level than the mohrg rises as a mohrg spawn after 1d4 rounds, on its turn.
Bog Mummy, Peat Mummy, Mire Mummy: Less powerful than their more notorious artificially preserved kin, bog mummies are preserved not by agents introduced during rituals but by the natural elements present in the airless, acidic morass of a peat bog or muddy swamp. While corpses preserved in this manner can certainly rise from the mire as bog mummies as the result of a curse by fell powers or the directed influence of a necromancer, the vast majority of them animate from a seething need for vengeance or to pursue some dire agenda left unfinished at the time of death—often because the creature was slain or otherwise betrayed. The nature of this emotional tie to life and the emotional power of the deceased compel unlife beyond death, while the preservative qualities of the bog within which the body was disposed of does the rest.
Ravener: Though their lifespans can measure in millennia, all dragons must eventually perish. While many do so on the blades or under the spells of dragonslayers, some manage to outlast their enemies and must, in time, face the truth that awaits all living creatures at the end of their natural lifespan. As with many other creatures, some dragons respond to such looming reminders of their own mortality poorly, and the particularly prideful or wrathful of their kind often lash out in anger when confronted by this grim truth. Peace and acceptance may find some dragons, but the most stubborn of their ilk (and invariably the most wicked) may pursue a different answer to the problem. These dragons seek out sinister rites that can transform them into undead creatures known as raveners.
A ravener’s flesh is stripped away as part of the transformation, leaving only their skeleton. What they lose in flesh, however, the dragon gains in soul-rending power, as their raw spiritual energy forms a protective barrier around their skeleton, keeping it intact and allowing flight with now-skeletal wings.
Any evil dragon of at least level 13 can become a ravener, although it is exceedingly rare for a dragon younger than an ancient true dragon (such as a chromatic, primal, or metallic dragon) to do so. Typically, the dragon must perform a rare ritual called ravenous reanimation, but this requirement can be waived if the prospective ravener has the aid of a powerful patron. In certain unique conditions, such as the intervention of a vile god of undeath, a dragon can transform into a ravener after death without the use of this rite at all.
While most dragons are too prideful to turn to anyone, even the gods, for help, a few who seek to become raveners are so desperate to stave off death that they might turn to powerful patrons for aid, such as demon lords, evil deities, or powerful necromancers, offering service in exchange for their transformation.
Ravenous Reanimation ritual.
Ravenous Repast Ravenous Husk power.
Ravener Husk:Raveners require a steady diet of souls, and a ravener that’s unable to feed for too long eventually cannibalizes their own soul. Should a ravener’s soul ward ever be reduced to 0 Hit Points by hunger while the ravener has more than 1 Hit Point, they lose all traces of their former identity and descend into a feral, nearly mindless state.
A ravener may depopulate whole regions at a time in order to sate their endless hunger for souls, lest they lose much of their power and become a ravener husk.
Revenant: Revenants are obsessed, undead stalkers who arise from their own murders and are driven by only one thing: revenge against their killers. The common wisdom is that revenants arise only from individuals who have been utterly betrayed or abandoned to die a grueling death, but even then such victims might not rise from their graves. In other cases, revenants might even rise from what might legitimately be considered an accident if the revenant doesn’t understand the full circumstances of their demise. In such cases, it doesn’t matter that the “murderer” may not have intended to kill, for revenants understands no pity and can never forgive.
While most undead are evil, revenants are not—these unusual stalkers rise not out of a sense of cruelty or hatred of the living, but spontaneously from the need for vengeance following a deep betrayal.
Skaveling, Ghoul Bat: Hideous necromantic rituals give rise to skavelings, or ghoul bats, monstrosities that are not true ghouls but instead are specifically crafted undead creatures. Their creators are the bloodsucking urdefhans of the Darklands, who create skavelings from giant bats specially raised on diets of toxic fungus and the flesh of ghouls—especially brains harvested from these undead. Upon reaching maturity, these giant bats are ritually slain via the use of cytillesh oil. While this poison simply rots away the flesh of most creatures, one of these specially prepared bats will immediately rise from death as a skaveling after succumbing to its effects.
Specter: When an evil mortal creature dies, it sometimes returns to haunt the area of its death as a specter, a hateful remnant, always seeking to slay others—particularly humanoids—in an attempt to distribute its pain among as many souls as it can.
Totenmaske: Spawned by the same unnatural and self-destructive obsessions that drove them when they were alive, totenmaskes are the undead remnants of the most self-indulgent and sinful among us.
Totenmaskes’ specific longings vary—one might be obsessed with food or drink, while another might be vain and desirous of an attractive form to marvel at in a mirror, while yet another could simply long for the scent of blood. Whatever the sensation the totenmaske seeks, it is always a vice taken to extreme, for this sin is what helped condemn it to unlife in the first place.
Vampire Vrykolakas: Wicked and vengeful souls denied even the most basic burial rites can rise again as vrykolakas, blood-drinking and plague-bearing reanimated corpses.
Like vampires, vrykolakas can infect victims with their twisted form of vampirism, transforming practically any living monster into one of these undead horrors.
Vrykolakas Master: Creatures of 9th level or higher can become a vrykolakas master, while those of 12th level or higher who have survived for centuries might become a vrykolakas ancient.
Vrykolakas Ancient: Creatures of 9th level or higher can become a vrykolakas master, while those of 12th level or higher who have survived for centuries might become a vrykolakas ancient.
Vrykolakas Spawn: Particularly powerful vrykolakas can create spawn from the bodies of their victims.
If a creature dies after being reduced to 0 HP by Drink Blood, a vrykolakas master can turn this creature into a vrykolakas spawn by donating some of its own blood to the creature and burying it in earth for 3 nights.
Void Zombie, Typical Void Zombie, Void Dead, Akata Spawn, Bloodwalker: A void zombie arises when a humanoid dies from an akata’s void death affliction. This walking corpse is animated by a larval akata attached to the deceased creature’s brain, using a grotesque feeding tendril that emerges from the corpse’s mouth to drink blood from its victims.
The name “void zombie” is something of a misnomer; though still compelled by necromantic energies, a void zombie is a host in the life cycle of a parasitic alien, not a mindless, reanimated corpse (despite their similar appearances).
Void zombies are unusual in that their animating negative force is provided by a living parasite that survives within their corpses, controlling their nervous systems for defense and to hunt food. As such, the soul of a person who succumbs to an akata’s void death is not bound to its rotting corpse at all and travels on to judgment in the Boneyard unimpeded.
When food is scarce, an akata secretes a resin from its pores that forms into a sturdy cocoon of pale green crystal—the skymetal noqual. An akata can hibernate in this cocoon without needing to eat or drink for centuries, though it retains a rudimentary sense of its surroundings and can break out in only a few minutes’ time. These cocoons allow the creatures to travel through the void of space, seeking new worlds where they can infect suitable humanoid hosts with their larval young. Once a victim succumbs to this infection, the offspring fight among themselves until one proves the strongest. The surviving akata then animates the corpse—now a void zombie—which shambles about of its own accord.
Void Death disease.
Cairn Wight, Full-Fledged Autonomous Cairn Wight: Jealous guardians of tombs, barrows, and sepulchers, cairn wights usually spawn from necromantic rituals. For those mortals who cannot abide the thought of separation from their earthly possessions, the undead existence offered by transformation into a cairn wight can be tempting. Perhaps as frequently, particularly avaricious and wealthy royalty or merchants seek out victims to transform into cairn wights to guard their precious wealth for all time.
Only in the rarest instances is the greed of a mortal strong enough to spontaneously transform them into a cairn wight without a dark ritual or the intercession of a powerful divine being. On those occasions, however, the resultant wight exhibits unmatched viciousness and likely owns rare treasure indeed.
As guardians of material possessions, cairn wights are supernaturally bound to the armaments they wore during the ritual used to create them.
If its creator dies, the spawned wight becomes a full-fledged, autonomous cairn wight.
Spawned Wight: Cairn Wight Spawn Cairn Wight power.
Witchfire: Manifesting as a sinuous form wreathed in sickly green flames, this incorporeal undead forms when a powerful hag or witch dies in agony or rage.
Dread Wraith: These menacing spiritual remnants of wicked warlords or bloodthirsty generals are towering specters of shadow and death.
The most unusual dread wraiths are those that coalesce from an amalgamation of evil spirits, often in regions where such spirits are shredded from their consciousnesses and churned in foci of negative energy, such as the Negative Energy Plane or on the Isle of Terror.
Wraith Spawn: A living humanoid slain by a [dread] wraith’s spectral hand Strike rises as a wraith spawn after 1d4 rounds.
Attic Whisperer, Embittered Spirit: ?
Attic Whisperer, Abandoned Child Who Perished Due to the Neglect of their Caretakers: ?
Attic Whisperer, Abandoned Child Who Perished Due to the Absence of their Caretakers: ?
Bodak, Creature Thats Anathema to Life, Abomination: ?
Crawling Hand, Tireless Killer: ?
Giant Crawling Hand, Appendage of a Very Large Creature: ?
Giant Crawling Hand, Appendage of a Giant: ?
Devourer, Horrific Undead, Soul Swallower: ?
Draugr, Risen Corpse of a Sailor Who Died at Sea: ?
Draugr Captain, More Powerful Draugr With Burning Red Eyes: ?
Draugr Raider: ?
Ghouligut, Frightening Undead Hodag: ?
Mohrg, Inhuman Murderer: ?
Ravener, Powerful Creature: ?
Ravener Spellcaster: ?
Revenant, Obsessessed Undead Stalker, Unusual Stalker: ?
Skaveling, Monstrosity: ?
Specter, Hateful Remnant: ?
Totenmaske, Undead Remnants of the Most Self-Indulgent and Sinful, Foul Undead: ?
Vampire Vrykolakas, Blood-Drinking Plague-Bearing Reanimated Corpse, Undead Horror, Revenant: ?
Vrykolakas Master, Sinister Shapeshifter: ?
Vrykolakas Ancient, Sinister Overlord: ?
Void Zombie, Walking Corpse, Non-Evil Undead: ?
Cairn Wight, Guardian of Material Possessions: ?
Cairn Wight, Jealous Guardian of a Tomb: ?
Cairn Wight, Jealous Guardian of a Barrow: ?
Cairn Wight, Jealous Guardian of a Sepulcher: ?
Witchfire, Sinuous Form Wreathed in Sickly Green Flames, Incorporeal Undead: ?
Dread Wraith, Towering Specter of Shadow and Death: ?
Dread Wraith, Menacing Spiritual Remnants of a Wicked Warlord: ?
Dread Wraith, Menacing Spiritual Remnants of a Bloodthirsty General: ?
Undead, Undead Creature, Undead Monster: Once living, these creatures were infused after death with negative energy and soul-corrupting evil magic.
Notorious Undead: ?
Shambling Undead: ?
Weaker Free-Willed Undead: ?
Mindless Undead Creature: ?
Incorporeal Undead: ?
Vampiric Undead: ?
Ghost: ?
Ghost, Creature That Rejuvenates, Incorporeal Undead: ?
Ghoul, True Ghoul: A creature that dies while suffering drain from a nabasu’s death-stealing gaze rises as a ghoul (Pathfinder Bestiary 168) the next midnight.
Ghoul Fever disease.
Ghoul, Vile Undead Creature That Feasts on Flesh: ?
The Grim Reaper: ?
Lich: ?
Lich, One Who Sought Undeath, Creature That Rejuvenates, One Who Has Unnaturally Extended Their Lifespan: ?
Mummy: A mummy is an undead creature created from a preserved corpse.
Shadow, Weaker-Willed Undead: ?
Skeleton: The speakers for the dead known as bone prophets hold an esteemed place as voices for their decapitated god. Burial rites, necromantic rituals, and the delivery of cryptic utterances supposedly whispered to them by Ydersius all fall under the dominion of these priests. Bone prophets often raise fallen aapophs as skeletons.
Skeleton, Crude Simple Minion: ?
Skeletal Giant: Raise Serpent Bone Prophet power.
Skeletal Champion: Raise Serpent Bone Prophet power.
Skeletal Minion: Raise Serpent Bone Prophet power.
Vampire, One Who Sought Undeath: ?
Particularly Reckless Vampire: ?
Vampire: ?
Moroi Vampire: ?
Feral Form of Vampire: ?
Vampire, Undead Creature Who Thirsts for Blood: ?
Wight, Weaker Free-Willed Undead, Undead Creature That Drains Life and Stands Vigil Over its Burial Site: ?
Wight, Typical Wight: ?
Zombie, Crude Simple Minion: ?
Zombie With Missing Jaws: ?
Zombie That Moves Faster: ?
Cairn Wight Spawn (divine, necromancy) A living humanoid slain by a cairn wight’s weapon or claw Strike rises as a spawned wight after 1d4 rounds. This spawned wight is under the command of the cairn wight that killed it. It doesn’t have drain life or cairn wight spawn and is clumsy 2 for as long as it is a spawned wight. If its creator dies, the spawned wight becomes a full-fledged, autonomous cairn wight; it regains its free will, gains drain life and cairn wight spawn, and is no longer clumsy.
Raise Serpent [three-actions] (divine, necromancy) Frequency once per day; Effect The bone prophet animates corpses of snakes, serpentfolk, or similar serpentine creatures within a 30-foot emanation. Any flesh on the bodies sloughs off, and they rise as skeletons. The bone prophet can raise one Large creature as a skeletal giant or up to three Medium creatures as skeletal champions; the equipment and attacks might be different depending on the corpses’ possessions (Bestiary 298). These skeletons have the minion trait and are under the bone prophet’s control; the bone prophet can give all these minions the same command with a single action that has the concentrate trait. Any skeletal minions that still remain after 10 minutes crumble to dust.
Ravenous Repast [three-actions] (divine, necromancy) Frequency once per day; Effect The ravener husk makes a jaws Strike against a deceased creature that has been dead no longer than 1 minute, was good aligned, and was at least level 15 in life. The ravener attempts a DC 5 flat check; if successful, they transform back into a ravener with 1 Hit Point in their soul ward.
RAVENOUS REANIMATION RITUAL 7
Rare Evil Necromancy
Cast 1 day; Cost valuable treasures from the target dragon’s hoard worth a total value of 50,000 gp
Primary Check Arcana (master), Occultism (master), or Religion (master)
Requirements You must be an evil dragon.
You destroy the gathered treasures with your breath weapon or other powerful magic, then invoke necromantic energies before you feed upon the charred and melted remains. As you do so, negative energy courses through your flesh, automatically killing you. Each individual ravener’s ravenous reanimation requires three to five unique additional components. Whether or not you return as a ravener depends on the success of the ritual.
Critical Success You immediately transform into a ravener upon finishing the ritual; your soul ward starts at full Hit Points (equal to 5 × your level).
Success You rise as a ravener 24 hours after completing the ritual, as long as your body remains relatively intact. When you rise as a ravener, your soul ward starts at 1 Hit Point.
Failure You rise as a ravener husk 24 hours after completing the ritual.
Critical Failure You die.
Ghoul Fever (disease) Saving Throw DC 22 Fortitude; Stage 1 carrier with no ill effect (1 day); Stage 2 2d6 negative damage and regains half as many Hit Points from all healing (1 day); Stage 3 as stage 2 (1 day); Stage 4 2d6 negative damage and gains no benefit from healing (1 day); Stage 5 as stage 4 (1 day); Stage 6 dead, and rises as a ghoul the next midnight.
Void Death (disease) An akata implants its parasitic larval young into any creature it bites, but only Medium or Small humanoids make suitable hosts; all other creatures are immune to this disease; Saving Throw DC 17 Fortitude; Stage 1 carrier with no ill effect 1 (1 day); Stage 2 drained 1 (1 day); Stage 3 as stage 2 (1 day); Stage 4 drained 2 and fatigued (1 day); Stage 5 as stage 4 (1 day); Stage 6 dead and corpse rises as a void zombie (page 288) in 2d4 hours.
