Undead Origins

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Gary vs the Monsters

Gary vs the Monsters
Swords & Wizardry
Dream Stalker: Dream Stalkers are a special kind of ghost of people who have done truly heinous acts during their lives and then came to an unfortunate (and usually violent) end.
Ghost: Ghosts are the tortured souls of mortals who have stuck around because something keeps them anchored to the material world. This could be lots of things from loose ends of a mortal life, a violent or tragic death, trapped by some crazy necromancer, or even trapped by a more powerful and evil ghost.
Mummy: ?
Necroid: The Necroids are evil demon-like beings who enter the real world and possess corpses.
Psycho-Slasher: Some evil won't die. It keeps going and going. It won't stop. Nothing seems to stop it. Ever.
Spirit: While ghosts were once living mortals, spirits have always been, well, spirits.
Vampire Master: ?
Vampire Thrall: A Vampire may attempt to bite a victim. If the attack is successful then the Vampire latches on and begins to drain the victim's blood at a rate of 1d6 damage per round and healing the Vampire for an equal amount. A victim may attempt an opposed Attack Roll to free themselves. A charmed victim will not attempt to break free. If the blood drain kills the victim then the victim attempts a Saving Throw. If the roll is successful then the victim will come back as a Vampire (Thrall) at the next sunset.
Zombie: If a character is bitten by a zombie attempt a Saving Throw. On a failure, the character dies in 1d6 hours and turns into a zombie.
Zombie Upper Torso: A zombie that has been cut in half.

 

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Rantz's Fair Multitude

Rantz's Fair Multitude
Swords & Wizardry
Undead: When the Ebon Contagion swept across the Cairn Lands, not even the Kivulis could stem the tide of soulless evil that followed. The sacred burial grounds guarded by the Kivulis for generations became corrupted, and the cairns themselves cracked open as the hallowed dead within clawed their way to the surface as undead horrors.
Hungry Ghost: A hungry ghost was a person with a passion for some pleasure that ruled his life, leading him to commit all manner of crimes to sate his inordinate desires.
Kummua: ?

 

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Ruins & Ronin

Ruins & Ronin
Swords & Wizardry
Ao-Nyobo, Blue Wife: ?
Azuki-Arai: ?
Banshee: ?
Gaki, Hungry Spirits: Gaki are the undead spirits of the wicked dead turned into horrible monsters for their horrid sins. The precise nature of the crimes committed by the Gaki in life determines their type, 3 kinds are commonly known but they may be more.
Jiki-Ketsu-Gaki: ?
Jiki-Niku-Gaki: ?
Shikki-Gaki: ?
Ghoul: ?
Jikininki, Trash Eating Ghoul: Similar to the Gaki in appearance, these undead originate from greedy, selfish or impious individuals who are cursed after death to seek out and eat human corpses.
Kubi-no-nai-bushi: A Kubi-no-nai-bushi (headless warrior) is a particularly rare and powerful form of undead that is sometimes created when the spirit of a honorable Samurai that was unlawfully or unjustly forced to commit Sepukku returns from the grave in search of vengeance.
Kyonshi, Hopping Vampire: Sometimes when a body is buried improperly or in an inauspicious location, it reanimates with a hunger to kill mortals and consume their lifeforce.
Anyone who suffers damage from a Kyonshi runs the risk of becoming a vampire in turn. Exactly how this occurs is a mystery, but most sages agree it is a form of curse. The percentage chance of turning into a vampire is equal to the amount of hit points lost on a 1d100. Those who succumb to the curse slowly turn into vampires themselves, growing fangs and long fingernails and becoming more and more bestial. The process a number of days equal to the victim’s CON minus 1d6 and usually only becomes evident after a couple of days have passed. To stop the transformation a Remove Curse spell must be cast on the victim.
Lich: Liches are the undead remnants of wizards, either made undead by their own deliberate acts during life, or as the result of other magical forces (possibly including their own magics gone awry).
Mummy: ?
Shadow: A shadow's chill touch drains one point of strength with a successful hit, and if a victim is brought to a strength of 0, he becomes a shadow. Strength points return after 90 minutes (9 turns).
Skeleton: Skeletons are animated bones of the dead, usually under the control of some evil master.
Animate Dead spell.
Spectre: Any being killed (or drained below level 0) by a spectre becomes a spectre himself, a pitiful thrall to its creator.
Vampire: Any human killed by a vampire becomes a vampire under the control of its creator.
Wight: Any human killed or completely drained of levels (1 level per hit) by a wight becomes a wight.
Wraith: ?
Zombie: The standard zombie is simply a corpse animated to do its creator’s bidding.
Animate Dead spell.
Zombie Contagious: If their undeath is contagious, they should be worth a few more experience points than described here, and if a single hit from a zombie causes contagion or any other sort of disease they should be worth considerably more experience.

Animate Dead
Spell Level: Sh5
Range: Referee’s discretion
Duration: Permanent
This spell animates skeletons or zombies from dead bodies. 1d6 undead are animated per Level of the caster above 8th. The corpses remain animated until slain.

 

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Swords & Wizardry Continual Light

Swords & Wizardry Continual Light
Swords & Wizardry
Ghoul: ?
Shadow: ?
Skeleton: Bones of the dead, animated by vile necromancy.
Wight: ?
Zombie: ?

 

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The Cartographer's Guide to the Creatures of Eira

The Cartographer's Guide to the Creatures of Eira
Swords & Wizardry
Bone Spider: Bone Spiders are malign spirits who form their bodies from the bones of the dead and who haunt the ancient barrows, tombs, bone pits and crypts of the world growing and gaining power as they add more bones (fresh and ancient) to their form.
The Chained: No one knows for certain what The Chained is, some say it is the avatar of the Goddess of Pure Death, others a freak magical accident created by a mage with a vengeance streak. The stories are endless, but all end the same way; The Chained comes for bad folks and when it does they die.
Guest: Spirits that cannot rest, cursed by broken oaths, business left undone, or something else. Left in this world and slowly driven mad by it. Guests were never meant to be in the realms of the mortals and every day they do not pass on is yet another day insanity inducing pain.
Unquiet Bodere: The undead remnants of a mortal who looked into the Outside and didn't have enough sense to die immediately. Driven insane by what they saw the mortal went through what remained of their short life muttering and rambling in their madness revealing truths – oh so dark truths – of what existed Outside. Even when death finally claimed them the things they saw and remembered refused to die with them.

 

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The Hero's Journey Fantasy Roleplaying

The Hero's Journey Fantasy Roleplaying
Swords & Wizardry
Banshee: ?
Death Knight: ?
Ghoul: Animate Dead spell.
Liche: Liches are the undead remnants of wizards, either made undead by their own deliberate acts during life or as the result of other magical forces (possibly including their own magics gone awry).
Mummy: ?
Poltergeist: Poltergeists are incorporeal spirits animated by anger.
Sanguine Fog: ?
Shade Lord: ?
Shadow: A shadow's chill touch drains one point of strength with a successful hit, and if a victim is brought to a strength of 0, he becomes a shadow. Strength points return after 90 minutes.
Skeleton: Skeletons are animated bones of the dead and are usually under the control of some evil master.
Animate Dead spell.
Skeleton Flaming: Flaming skeletons have been animated with an unholy fire that radiates from them.
Specter: Any being killed (or drained below level 0) by a specter becomes a specter himself—a pitiful thrall to its creator.
Vampire: Any human killed by a vampire becomes a vampire under the control of its creator.
Wight: Any human killed or completely drained of levels (1 level per hit) by a wight becomes a wight.
Animate Dead spell.
Wraith: ?
Zombie: These are merely animated corpses, not carriers of any sort of undead contagion as ghouls are.
The standard zombie is simply a corpse animated to do its creator’s bidding.
Animate Dead spell.
Zombie Contagious: If their undeath is contagious, they should be worth a few more experience points than described here, and if a single hit from a zombie causes contagion or any other sort of disease they should be worth considerably more experience.

Animate Dead
Spell Level: Wizard 5
Range: Referee’s discretion
Duration: Permanent
This spell animates skeletons, zombies, ghouls or wights from dead bodies. The caster determines which type of creature is animated from the corpse. Each casting of this spell produces either 1d6+1 skeletons, 1d6 zombies, 1d6−3 ghouls, or 1 wight. The corpses remain animated and under the command of the caster until destroyed or banished.

 

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The Witch: Hedgewitch for the Hero's Journey RPG

The Witch: Hedgewitch for the Hero's Journey RPG
Swords & Wizardry
Gloaming: It is the undead creature of a large predatory animal.

 

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The Majestic Wilderlands

The Majestic Wilderlands
Swords & Wizardry
Vampire: Kalis, the blood goddess, has created several monsters using the power of blood. The power of blood can infuse mortals with powerful strength and other arcane abilities. However, that power comes at a price of one’s humanity and deadly weaknesses. Kalis has experimented with many ways of infusing the power of blood but the two most common are the vampires and the werewolves.
Vampires are the first of the Children of Blood. Vampires are undead; their immortality and thirst for blood was passed down from Avernus, the first vampire.

 

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The Rising Dark: An Introduction to Agraphar

The Rising Dark: An Introduction to Agraphar
Swords & Wizardry
Undead: The people of Agraphar believe that when you die, you either reincarnate if your soul has not yet advanced enough to ascend, or you are taken to one of two places. If you have led a good and virtuous life, you are ascended; valkyries of the heavens descend, and you are taken to the cosmic landscape of the Beyond, where the gods dwell, and you are cast in to the role of soldier in the never ending war between the light and chaos. Most often, a man who has proven himself a virtuous or determined soul who is a master of his craft is believed to ascend as such to the heavens. If, however, you are a vile and wicked person, and you revel in misery, then you are most likely cast down, dragged by the shadow demons of the underworld to the underworld below even the subterranean realms of Agraphar, where you are shaped in to one of the nameless demons of the horde of chaos, turned in to an undead being, or worse. A few wicked souls go willingly, and they are often promoted, it is said, to sadistic roles as archdemons and lords of undeath. Some people lose their way, or are so tangled with the affairs of their living self that they come back as ghosts and spirits to haunt the land; some demonic beings have powers so vile that they can cause this to happen to otherwise good souls, severing the celestial cords that bind the soul to the heavens of the afterlife.
Lord of the undead, Maligaunt is an enigmatic being who is said to have been the first mortal of Agraphar to master the existence of undeath.
Lich: The necromancer Crotus perished, but his acolyte Varimoth lived and has stolen his master’s secret cache of lore, allowing himself to become a lich!
Burning Skeleton: ?

 

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Tomb of the Iron God

Tomb of the Iron God
Swords & Wizardry
Skeleton: ?
Zombie: ?
Ghoul: Anyone killed by the Eater of the Dead becomes a ghoul under the Eater's command, rising within one round.
Glowing Skeleton: ?