Tome of Horrors 4
Tome of Horrors 4
Pathfinder 1e
Aswang: ?
Banshee Lesser: Lesser banshees are the spirits of departed women (especially of elven heritage) that were cruel and evil in life.
Shadow Dire Bear: Its origin lies in the strange result of a shadow’s create spawn ability affecting an animal. How such an outcome occurred is anyone’s guess, but sages in the lore of undeath have been unable to recreate it since.
Bone Delver: Bone delvers were in life graverobbers that died whilst performing their nefarious tasks. Some may have inadvertently awoken undead creatures in their graves, others were outwitted by cunning traps placed in well protected mausoleums.
Burning Ghat: The burning ghat is a rare form of undead created in areas of unusually high negative energy when a living creature is put to death by fire for a crime it did not commit.
Cimota: Cimota are the physical manifestations of evil thoughts and actions. They exist on the Negative Material Plane, manifesting in the Prime Material as cloaked figures. Their existence is always tied to a specific area or artifact that is imbued with ancient and highly malevolent evil. A cimota is able to manifest itself anywhere within an accursed locale that has given it life, or within 300 feet of an evil artifact to which it is attached.
Cimota are created by evil energy.
Guardian Cimota: Cimota are the physical manifestations of evil thoughts and actions. They exist on the Negative Material Plane, manifesting in the Prime Material as cloaked figures. Their existence is always tied to a specific area or artifact that is imbued with ancient and highly malevolent evil. A cimota is able to manifest itself anywhere within an accursed locale that has given it life, or within 300 feet of an evil artifact to which it is attached.
Cimota are created by evil energy.
High Cimota: Cimota are the physical manifestations of evil thoughts and actions. They exist on the Negative Material Plane, manifesting in the Prime Material as cloaked figures. Their existence is always tied to a specific area or artifact that is imbued with ancient and highly malevolent evil. A cimota is able to manifest itself anywhere within an accursed locale that has given it life, or within 300 feet of an evil artifact to which it is attached.
Cimota are created by evil energy.
Dark Custodian: Dark custodians are the undead remains of evil clerics tasked to remain behind after death and guard the sacred places of their vile worship.
Devouring Mist: Spawned of the dreams of the Bloodwraith, devouring mists are undead composed of equal parts blood and malice, wedded together by negative energy.
Ekimmu: An ekimmu is the evil ghost of one who has been denied entrance to the underworld and is doomed to wander the earth.
Flayed Angel: On some rare occasions when an extremely powerful angel is captured, tortured to death and subjected to particularly vile rituals, dark gods of evil will intervene and prevent that being’s essence from returning to its celestial home, instead trapping it within the mutilated corpse as a horrifyingly profane undead abomination.
A flayed angel is horribly mutilated, its skin flayed away, its wings crippled, and its head removed. The preparation ritual also involves the introduction of an acidic embalming fluid that mingles with the blood left in its body as a continually-leaking, caustic brew.
Galley Beggar: Galley beggars are the ghostly remains of travelers who met their demise before their journey was complete.
Ghirru: Ghirru are undead efreet, returned to the land of the living by efreeti necromancers through foul and dark magic.
Glacial Haunt: The icy wastes sometimes grant unlife to those who freeze to death at her unforgiving hands. The result is a glacial haunt.
Gloom Haunt: Gloom haunts are vile evil creatures, who seem to have no ties to the living (i.e., scholars cannot find any reasonable explanation as to why they exist), though a few learned sages believe gloom haunts to be the spiritual remains of paladins who were sacrificed by evil clerics to their vile and dark gods.
Grave Mount: The grave mount is the insult to all that is good and holy when a paladin’s steed is returned from the dead to wreak havoc upon the world. These undead creatures are rare and usually created when a death knight rises from the grave to ride the steed he owned in his former life, though a few necromancers are also able to raise a grave mount given time and study.
Grey Spirit: Many a sailor who ventures out into the trackless sea is destined never to look again on the loved ones he left behind. Either death or the lure of foreign lands keeps them from returning to those who wait patiently for them. A grey spirit, usually female, is the shade of someone who died heartbroken and alone, pining away on shore and ultimately dying of a broken heart while waiting for the return of a loved one from across the sea.
Grimshrike: Grimshrikes are native to a dark demiplane about which little is known other than its terrible history. The place was once vibrant and full of life every bit as diverse and beautiful as the Material Plane. Centuries ago, however, all that changed. Something rent the boundaries between that placid demiplane and the Negative Energy Plane. Dark energies spilled forth unchecked, fouling the very essence of which the demiplane was created. In a matter of hours, all life in that plane ceased to exist. The primary inhabitants of the demiplane, a race of twin-tailed gargoyles, were reanimated as the tortured servants of the nightshades.
Hooded Horror: A hooded horror is an undead creature believed to have been created by Orcus in order to subjugate and corrupt paladins and good-aligned priests. Though often found wandering the Undead Lord’s great abyssal palace, the hooded horror itself is not native to that plane, as Orcus created and unleashed them on the Material Plane (if the legends are to be believed).
Zombie Horde: Zombies are one of the most used and abused of the mindless undead. Singly, a zombie may be dealt with by experienced adventurers. When gathered together in a horde, these mindless creatures are a terror to behold.
Kamarupa: Kamarupa are the distorted souls of evil priests betrayed and sacrificed to their deity.
Knight Gaunt: A knight gaunt is an undead creature created when a paladin falls in battle.
Lurker Wraith: ?
Mimic Undead: Undead mimics are believed to be the result of experimentation on mimics by insane necromancers. What possessed them to create an undead version of a truly horrid creature is beyond most scholars’ comprehension.
Ghoul Monkey: These monkeys often appear in jungle areas where there is great residue of evil and chaos, such as forgotten temples or altars where dead monkeys might rise in this vile form of undeath.
Mordnaissant: Occasionally when a gravid woman dies violently in a place infused with unholy or negative energies, the unborn child within her does not perish, but instead continues to grow, vitalized by dark power, until it is capable of clawing its way free from its dead mother.
Mummy Asp: Similar in many respects to standard mummies, asp mummies are created to guard tombs of regal kings and nobles. Some believe these creatures even have a spark of the divine mixed in with their creation and are appointed by the gods themselves to watch over their favored followers. Asp mummies are known to be favored as guardians among the followers of Set.
The creation of an asp mummy follows the same procedure as a standard mummy, save that many small asps are placed into the hollowed corpse along with the herbs and flowers.
Naga Death: Death nagas are what remains of dark or spirit nagas slain by powerful negative energy. It is unknown why or how these nagas return as undead versions of their former selves.
Necro-Phantom: A creature that dies (either of its own accord or one that is killed) in an area poisoned by necromantic magic sometimes returns to the land of the living as a necro-phantom.
Oozeanderthals: Undead creatures created from a lost form of magic.
Rat-Ghoul: The foulest form of common vermin, rat-ghouls are abnormally large rats that have been infused with necrotic energy, either from proximity to a source of foulness, or feasting upon necrotic flesh.
The rat-ghoul is created when normal or dire rats feast on undead flesh, or being inundated with black magic or necrotic forces.
Screamer: These terrible undead are the remnant of soldiers who have fallen to the horrors of mass conflict and warfare. Whether each of these creatures is the remains of a single fallen soldier or a conglomerate of the scarred psyches of several such casualties remains up for debate
Shattered Soul Impaled Spirit: Shattered souls are the ghostly spirits of living beings executed through brutal torture: impalement, disembowelment, or worse. Their souls having not entirely departed the Material Plane, they have risen to seek vengeance on the living, particularly clerics or other divine spellcasters whom they blame for having forsaken them and allowed them to die in such a ghastly manner.
Impaled spirits are the ghostly remains of living beings executed through impalement; a brutally slow and extremely painful form of execution.
Skin Feaster: When a humanoid dies as a result of being skinned alive, it often returns to the land of the living as a skin feaster.
Skull Child: A juvenile humanoid slain by a skull child rises the following night as a free-willed skull child. A bless spell cast on the body before that time ceases the transformation. Adults and non-humanoids killed by a skull child do not rise as undead.
Soul Knight: A soul knight is a suit of armor animated by the lingering soul of an evil knight, cursed to undeath as punishment for having committed betrayal, murder or other crimes.
Spider Lich: The true origin of the spider lich is shrouded in mystery. Scholars argue constantly about its origins and how it came into existence. Some stand by the theory that intelligent giant spiders, perhaps phase spiders or some offshoot race of that dreaded creature, discovered the path to lichdom. Others contend a spider lich is the byproduct of a failed sorcerer’s attempt at lichdom. Still others argue that the spider lich is simply a spellcaster’s chosen form once it achieved lichhood.
An integral part of becoming a spider lich is the creation of the phylactery in which the creature stores its spirit. The only way to get rid of a spider lich for sure is to destroy its phylactery. Unless its phylactery is located and destroyed, a spider lich can rejuvenate after it is killed.
The typical spider lich phylactery is a gemstone of not less than 1,000 gp value. The spider lich hides the gemstone in a safe place and wraps it securely in a complex mesh of super strong webbing (DR 10/—, 24 hp).
Swarm Bone: A bone swarm is created when multiple animated skeletons are destroyed more or less simultaneously, either through a single powerful area attack or by simply being smashed to pieces in melee. The bones of the skeletons are scattered and smashed, but the necromantic magic that animated them lingers on, pulling the bones back together in a mass of clattering fragments.
Swarm Skeletal: Skeletal swarms are the remains of pieces cast off of whole skeletons collected together and animated en mass.
Troll Undead: Sometimes when a troll dies, the evilness within the creature raises it as an undead troll; a mockery of life and even more evil than it was before (if such is possible).
Undead Elemental Fire: Occasionally a horrible tragedy befalls a summoned fire elemental such that it is destroyed but is not permitted to return to its plane of origin. When this happens, what can eventually form is a horrendous creature composed of its original element infused with raw negative energy.
Vampire Spawn Feral: Sometimes when vampires create minions something horrible happens to the creature causing a fate worse than even that of a typical vampire spawn. On these occasions whether by accident or design, upon waking to its new undead existence the newly created spawn finds itself trapped within its coffin or tomb and unable to free itself even in gaseous form. In these instances the spawn rages and struggles to escape as it slowly goes insane, a victim of its all-consuming hunger. When the master vampire finally deigns to release its new spawn or it finally manages to break free — sometimes years after its creation — the spawn is feral and nearly mindless, though with a much greater strength due to its incessant rage.
Wight Sword: These wicked and depraved creatures lived and died by the sword, and now, their dark taint passes through their weapons to tear at your soul.
Zombie Pyre: Pyre zombies are the sad, tortured remains of those who were killed just before being burned alive. When the soul departed, their body was taken over by some malignant spirit. The spirit fortified the body from destruction by the fire, and the undead form escape the pyre to wreak its vengeance on the living.
Zombyre: A zombyre is a living creature that drowned in the River Styx, reanimated by the magic of the Stygian waters for some unknown purpose.
Death Knight: “Death knight” is an acquired template that can be applied to any lawful humanoid or monstrous humanoid with 5 or more Hit Dice.
Doomed to devastate the world they once cherished and sought to protect, death knights are the result of damning curses visited upon once noble knights who fell from grace at the moment of death.
Human Death Knight Cavalier 9: ?
Undead Horse Mount: ?
Meat Puppet: Meat puppets are boneless, skinless corpses reanimated after being exposed to necromantic energies.
“Meat puppet” is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than an undead) that had a skeletal system at one point, but had its bones extracted or completely crushed.
Human Meat Puppet: ?
Otyugh Meat Puppet: ?
Zombie Hungry: Zombies are the animated corpses of dead creatures, forced into foul unlife via necromantic magic like animate dead.
Human Zombie Hungry: ?
Undead: Cemeteries and graveyards are well known for their concentration of negative energy and it is this, rather than the mere presence of the buried dead, that can cause all manner of creatures to rise from their graves to haunt the living.
Ghoul: A humanoid slain by either a lurker wraith’s Constitution drain or smother attack becomes a ghoul in 1d4 rounds. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast, not a ghoul.
Ghoul Ghast: A humanoid slain by either a lurker wraith’s Constitution drain or smother attack becomes a ghoul in 1d4 rounds. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast, not a ghoul.
Vampire: Any creature slain by a devouring mist rises as a vampire spawn in 1d4 days, unless the remains are blessed. If the victim had more than 5 hit dice, there is a 1% chance per hit die that it arises as a full-fledged vampire instead, or a 5% chance per hit die if the victim was of the humanoid type.
Vampire Spawn: Any creature slain by a devouring mist rises as a vampire spawn in 1d4 days, unless the remains are blessed. If the victim had more than 5 hit dice, there is a 1% chance per hit die that it arises as a full-fledged vampire instead, or a 5% chance per hit die if the victim was of the humanoid type.
Dread Wraith: Any male humanoid slain by a banshee’s death wail or energy drain rises to become a dread wraith in 1d4 rounds.
Banshee: The spirit of any female humanoid that is slain by a lesser banshee’s death wail or energy drain rises to become a banshee in 1d4 rounds.
Shadow Animal: Any animal reduced to Strength 0 by a shadow dire bear becomes a shadow animal within 1d4 rounds.
