Voadam
Legend
Pathfinder 1e Paizo
Pathfinder 1e Paizo
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Pathfinder Bestiary
Bestiary 2
Bestiary 3
Bestiary 4
Bestiary 5
Bonus Bestiary
Inner Sea Bestiary
Undead Revisited
Classic Horrors Revisited
Beginner's Box
Game Mastery Guide
Inner Sea Gods
Inner Sea Races
Inner Sea World Guide
Monster Codex
Mythic Adventures
Mythic Realms
Occult Adventures
Osirion Legacy of Pharaohs
Pathfinder Unchained
Player's Companion: Dwarves of Golarion
Starfinder Core Rulebook
Ultimate Intrigue
Villain Codex
Undead: Undead are once-living creatures animated by spiritual or supernatural forces.
Those tragic souls transformed by evil from beyond the mortal world or cursed by their actions in life to rise again after death. (Undead Revisited)
The spells animate dead, create undead, and create greater undead account for methods by which spellcasters can create a wide range of undead creatures—but the options granted by these spells are limited. With the GM’s permission, these can be adjusted to allow for the creation of additional types of undead. Doing so requires additional material components and spells (additional spells are cast as part of the casting time of the undead creation spell, but do not extend that spell’s casting time). (Undead Revisited)
Driven by all-encompassing hunger and murderous intent, spectral dead are corrupted souls that refuse to release their hold on the mortal world. (Undead Revisited)
No one knows what plants the seeds of darkness and decay that utterly corrupt the souls of mortals. Some speculate that the prenatal soul, like fruit left too long to ripen on the vine, can sour to malignancy long before its binding to a mortal shell, dooming the creature from birth to a troubled life of anger and deceit and, eventually, to undeath. Others theorize that mortal action alone allows this malignancy to take root, and lives spent unwisely in the service of dark powers corrupt the intangible sparks of divinity that rest in mortal hearts. Still others note that despair and madness—afflictions capable of bringing even the most pious and good-natured people to their knees, through no fault of their own—can lead to the unnatural shackling of a spirit to the mortal world. (Undead Revisited)
Once this metaphorical disease has festered within a soul, it becomes contagious, and some undead are able to pass their despicable gift on to the living, regardless of their victim’s former valor. While the positive energy of mortal humanoids can fight off the curse of undeath while they are still living, those slain by these powerful spirits sometimes have their souls instantaneously consumed by darkness, their corrupted spirits sloughing off their mortal shells to rise as the ghostly spawn of their slayers. (Undead Revisited)
Most undead began as living beings that were animated after death, arose again spontaneously after death because of some great emotion or unfinished business, or, while still living, willingly embraced undeath to stave off the looming hand of oblivion. (Undead Revisited)
For most people, death is a release, a passage into the just rewards of the afterlife. Yet not everyone who dies rests easy. Legends and campfire tales tell of those individuals too evil to die, or too twisted by pride or occult knowledge to cross over to the other side. These lost souls become the undead, plaguing the dark crypts or silent streets of cities and farm towns alike, feasting on the innocent or spreading their immortal contagion like a plague. (Undead Revisited)
A dead body or spirit animated by an evil power. (Beginner's Box)
Whether from an ancient curse or fell necromancy, one of the most terrifying of all supernatural disasters is the undead uprising—the dead emerging from their graves to claim the living. This disaster can strike any area where the dead have been laid to rest, not just towns and cities. More than one blood-soaked battlefield has given rise to a legion of desiccated undead warriors.
Heroes who perished in the battle against the uprising return as fearsome undead generals. (Game Mastery Guide)
Powerful witches are able to leave lasting imprints upon the land with their final breaths, transforming themselves into powerful, incorporeal undead through extreme hatred and emotional distress. (Alternate Dungeons: Haunted House)
When a creature dies, any intense emotions it experiences at the time of death are often left behind as a psychic footprint. Fear, anger, hatred and sorrow are by far the most powerful of these emotions and often causes the most dangerous and destructive haunts to manifest. It should come as no surprise an act as evil as murder, which often comprises all three of these emotions and more, is a leading cause of the creation of powerful supernatural entities. Ghosts, spectres, wraiths and poltergeists are all commonly created in this manner, and when created they seldom stray far from the place where they were murdered. (Alternate Dungeons: Haunted House)
In many ways, a haunted house is created by suicide in the same way it is created by murder, though sorrow and self‐loathing often fuel the supernatural entities born from suicide rather than fear, anger or hatred as is true with murder. (Alternate Dungeons: Haunted House)
Any event causing a suitable amount of negative emotion can create a haunt, whether this tragedy is a massive fire at an orphanage, the demise of a family or the deaths of an entire neighbourhood from an epidemic. (Alternate Dungeons: Haunted House)
As a mortal woman, Cevnia was fascinated with arcane magic and studied amongst the elves to broaden her knowledge. Unfortunately, she chose to use this knowledge to control others by playing on their weaknesses. The elves eventually discovered her network of spies and blackmailers, but not before she was able to steal many secrets from the ancient elven libraries. She was exiled from the elven homelands, but set up her own college of magic, carefully building up her influence and extending her control. At the height of her powers, she began to study the nature of death. She perfected the art of necromancy, created the first undead and ultimately transformed herself into a vampire. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
Then came calamity… In the fertile jungles of the north, a sun goddess called Tlaneci arose, whilst in the ice flows of the south, where life was harsh, and night lasted for weeks, the god of darkness, Taggarik, came into being. Not content with ruling his portion of the Inner and Outer Worlds, he sought to gain complete control of the Inner World, which he considered to be his rightful domain. When the other deities refused to grant him sole dominion of the Inner World, he conspired with the powerful vampire wizard, Cevnia, who had stolen secret magics from the elves. Together they wrought a spell that shattered the Inner World, scattering the beings who lived there. The cycle of the Double Realm was broken, the Inner World replaced with the half-planes of the Ethereal Realm and the Shadow Realm. Taggarik made the Shadow Realm his own, and infected it with his evil power, although he was not able to realise his plan of creating a physical realm, powered by negative energy. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
The spirits of those who had dwelt in the Inner World could no longer be reborn into the Outer World. Some accepted Taggarik’s offer of a place in the Shadow Realm, and ended up trapped in a tormented half-life, partly physical and partly spirit. Some fled to the Ethereal Realm, eschewing any hope of a physical existence, although most were eventually given refuge in the planar abodes belonging to the deities. The least fortunate were transformed into undead creatures by Taggarik and Cevnia and forced into their service. The clerics of Taggarik specialise in creating undead, and many wizards seek the path of the necromancer, guided by the teachings of Cevnia, who achieved deity-hood herself as a result of the Shattering, as it became known. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
Cevnia continued her research, refining her methods and learning to create other types of undead. She made progress but was always hampered by the lack of suitable negative energy spirits. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
Once the Inner World was shattered, the barriers that prevented negative spirits from crossing back over into the Inner World before their time were severely weakened. This meant that undead could be more easily created, without the need for ghosts. Taggarik and Cevnia created armies of undead between them. When they began to lose the war, they hatched a desperate plan to increase the number of undead. They infected many of their minions with a curse which meant that when they slew a living being, the victim’s spirit was automatically drawn back, and its body would rise up as another undead. As the living fell, so they became part of the army of evil undead. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
Since the War of Life ended, the creation of undead is tightly controlled. This is part of the armistice agreement between the warring deities. Only a certain number of undead can be created, or brought into the Outer World, and their creation is more difficult and costlier. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
When the War of Life began, that great battle between life and undeath, the dwarves sided with Tlaneci, the goddess of the sun, and marched into battle on the central plains of the Jing Empire. This area was devasted by necromantic magic and became the Narwahr Expanse. Even now, the tortured bodies of dwarven warriors can be encountered as undead, shambling through the shattered terrain of the Expanse. (Atarashia Gazeteer – A Dwarven Guide)
The witch goddess Talakasha is rumored to be the source of all true evil and undeath in the realm. (Cerulean Seas Indigo Ice)
Of course, if they do happen to die in the night on Pellatarrum, there is an increased chance the victim will return as an undead.
Battles at night on Pellatarrum will carry greater casualties for both sides, with the increased possibility of the dead coming back as undead.
Only an idiot fights the undead at night on Pellatarrum. They are stronger, do more damage, and have increased chances of turning you and your friends into abominations. (Claw Claw Bite 18)
Ghost Water is a vile drug, each dose being made from the life essence of an elf or other long-lived being, which wastes away during the process of creating the dose, usually becoming an undead creature.
When a soul fouled by anger and fear leaves its broken corpse, if it is strong enough, that soul may return as a ghost, a wraith or some worse form of undead. (Dangers & Discoveries)
Once per day, a feast materializes on a table in a communal room. Depending on the temple’s alignment, the food provides the benefits of the heroes’ feast spell or acts as create undead should a PC eating the food die within 24 hours of consuming it. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Inside the corpse’s stomach is a half‐digested monster. The essence of this undead creature still lingers within the cadaver. The undead creature can be reanimated or restored with a DC 25 Knowledge (religion) check and onyx gems worth 25 gp per HD of the creature. (GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing)
Knowledge (arcana, DC 30) Recalls that certain cabals of necromancers create necrotic pools to aid them in the creation of undead minions. The creation of such pools is difficult and complex and requires the binding of countless souls to the pool. (GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing)
An old lizardfolk tells younger lizardfolk scary stories about how dead lizardfolk who aren't properly eaten become vengeful undead. (GM's Miscellany: Village Backdrops V)
Needlebriar’s citizens toss anything they don’t consume into a field they loosely refer to as the Bone Pit. Occasionally these remains arise as horrid undead creatures. The creatures never attack the halflings, instead roaming the nearby countryside. (GM's Miscellany: Village Backdrops V)
Other forgotten tunnels host the undead remnants of prisoners trapped when the castle fell. (GM's Miscellany: Places of Power)
Cremating corpses to keep them from rising as undead. (Knowledge Check: Last Rites)
Some religions include the need to anoint the corpse as part of the funeral rites. The anointing is usually done by a priest or other religious leader, and involves placing oil, incense, perfume, or other holy liquids on various parts of the body, usually while saying a prayer. These anointing rites are usually to protect or cleanse the corpse after death, and in some areas serve as proof against reanimation as undead. (In an ironic twist, very similar rites are usually used to create undead). (Knowledge Check: Last Rites)
Simply put, cremation is burning a body until there is nothing left to burn. There are several ways to accomplish this, but in a typical medieval setting the most common is to build a pyre of some sort, place the corpse on top, and set it alight. Cremation is the funeral rite of choice for religions heavy on fire symbolism, while a few instead use it to free the spirit by removing the body it was attached to. As a side benefit, it also tends to keep them from coming back as undead. (Knowledge Check: Last Rites)
The restless spirits of the shattering. (Legendary Worlds: Carsis)
Hidden deep within its depths is Ghostcaller, an absurdly powerful lute whose music has the power to create undead. (Legendary Worlds: Jowchit)
Those who die beneath the surface of Terminus have a much higher chance of spontaneously rising as undead. This may be another side effect of the strange mineral known as nightglass. Wandering skeletons and zombies are common, and those that die of starvation within the bowels of Terminus often rise as ghouls, as do those who practice cannibalism regularly. The most vicious and violent of prisoners have been known to return as mohrgs. This increase in undead activity is limited to corporeal undead. Incorporeal undead are no more likely to arise than on any other planet. (Legendary Worlds: Terminus)
A deadwood’s power over the undead is awe-inspiring. Its influence over a forest is so strong that the body of any animal or person who falls dead within miles of a deadwood rises as undead creatures, which will most likely spend the rest of their existences guarding the deadwood. (Malevolent and Benign)
Few mortal creatures have ever attempted to eat an entire deadwood fruit, and none who has is known to have survived. Tales of what might happen to those who “live” through such an attempt vary. Some believe they would gain permanent command over the dead and others that they would be transformed into strange, powerful, and unique undead. (Malevolent and Benign)
The PCs’ subsequent delve into the bog enters a haunted realm populated by shambling corpses, vengeful undead creatures, and pathetic spirits borne from Hamish’s genocide. (Marshes of Malice)
The serpents in the hills around the valley offer a deadly hazard to those wishing to find the garden. Grandmother's magic has made the snakes' venom particularly deadly; those suffering a bite from these enchanted snakes typically die within hours of being injected. To make matters worse, the bodies of those who die from the poison sometimes return as foul undead monstrosities. (Midgard Worldbook for 5th Edition and Pathfinder)
The fire lords make their home in a range of volcanoes called the Blodejord (“Crib of Earth’s Blood,” in the Jotun tongue), rising around the charred and desolate remains of what once was a stunningly fertile valley. Fire and ash erupt into the air, and any who die covered by the Crib’s enchanted ashes rise again as twisted undead. (Midgard Worldbook for 5th Edition and Pathfinder)
Fire giant necromancers of Sengajordensblod are using the Crib-ash to raise an undead horde and to forge Surtalogi, the great weapon of Ragnarok. (Midgard Worldbook for 5th Edition and Pathfinder)
She tells the PCs that she fears that the individuals plundering the burial mound may be disturbing the final resting place of Gurdkin Feycleaver, an ancient dwarf thane with a reputation for savagery and evil. Myths and legends claim that the covetous royal vowed to defend his earthly treasures even after he departed this world. Naturally, she is very worried that Gurdkin may fulfill his promise and return to the land of the living as an undead horror. (Mountains of Madness)
For Thanopsis, the act of dying irreparably corrupts the individual, regardless of whether the soul embarks on an eternal journey into the afterlife or not, or the body or spirit is reanimated by an arcane or divine force. (Mountains of Madness)
The building’s current resident transformed some of his former colleagues into his undead servants.(Mountains of Madness)
The Kingdom of Arcady’s human subjects never died. Instead, they retreated into a great necropolis, where they were mummified and transformed into a variety of undead monsters. (This is a false rumor.) (Mountains of Madness)
The Khemitites, the library’s builders, were obsessed with the afterlife. Those unwilling to pass onto the next world were sometimes transformed into undead monstrosities. Mummification was also a common practice, and it was not uncommon for the dead to arise from their coffins and terrorize the living. (Mountains of Madness)
Undead raise due to the necromantic energy in the meteor. (Obsidian Apocalypse)
The new Obsidian Veil bars all divine traffic of souls and prayer, preventing any deity from seeing or hearing a thing, and cutting them off from gaining power from their followers. The souls of the departed do not pass the Obsidian Veil into other worlds; they either dissipate into the ravaged world-aura of the planet or become infused with negative energy and return as the motivating forces for yet more undead. (Obsidian Apocalypse)
Abaddon is a world of final destinations, from which even the souls of the dead cannot escape. Those who fall are doomed to rise and join the ever-swelling ranks of the undead. (Obsidian Apocalypse)
Agent of Chaos Creature's Chaos field power mishap number 50. (Pathways Bestiary)
Undead are once-living creatures animated by spiritual or supernatural forces. (Pathways Bestiary)
Vampiric Sorcerer Bloodline Ruler of the Night power. (Ponyfinder Campaign Setting)
Every attempt to march an army on the city of Tramplevania had been met with mountain trained pegasi harassing from all angles, using the terrain they knew so well to wear down invading armies before they could reach the city gates. The frequent violence has given rise to restless spirits of those same invaders lurking in the trails leading to the city, seeking revenge on the living. (Ponyfinder Campaign Setting)
Sun-Dead feat. (The Book of Many Things Volume 2: Shattered Worlds)
Many chirurgical procedures are damaging to the patient's psyche and the natural balance of their mental processes. This imbalance extends into the spiritual plane, and creatures who recently underwent mind-altering chirurgical procedures might have a greater than normal chance of arising as unquiet dead, perhaps haunts that spread madness and torment, or as actual undead creatures such as allips or, more rarely, ghosts or spectres. (The Mad Doctor's Formulary)
In folklore, almost all undead creatures arise from some sort of break in the normal life cycle as that culture defines the life cycle (and that’s not always the same in all cultures). Some ceremony wasn’t performed – often burial or last rites, or some action taken by the undead person during his life represented a breach of the natural order of things. (Tome of Adventure Design)
Table 2-64: Basic Types of Undead Creatures
Die Roll
Undead Type
01-04
Corporeal, genius, non-reproductive
05-08
Corporeal, genius, reproduces through prey
09-12
Corporeal, non-intelligent, non-reproductive
13-16
Corporeal, non-intelligent, reproduces through prey
17-20
Corporeal, semi-intelligent, non-reproductive
21-24
Corporeal, semi-intelligent, reproduces through prey
25-28
Incorporeal, genius, non-reproductive
29-32
Incorporeal, genius, reproduces through prey
33-36
Incorporeal, non-intelligent, non-reproductive
37-40
Incorporeal, non-intelligent, reproduces through prey
41-44
Incorporeal, semi-intelligent, non-reproductive
45-48
Incorporeal, semi-intelligent, reproduces through prey
49-52
Non-human corporeal, intelligent, non-reproductive
53-56
Non-human, corporeal, intelligent, contagious Undeath
57-60
Non-human, corporeal, non-intelligent, contagious Undeath
61-64
Non-human, corporeal, non-intelligent, non-reproductive
65-68
Non-human, corporeal, semi-intelligent, contagious Undeath
69-72
Non-human, corporeal, semi-intelligent, non-reproductive
73-76
Non-human, incorporeal, intelligent, contagious Undeath
77-80
Semi-corporeal, genius, non-reproductive
81-84
Semi-corporeal, genius, reproduces through prey
85-88
Semi-corporeal, non-intelligent, non-reproductive
89-92
Semi-corporeal, non-intelligent, reproduces through prey
93-96
Semi-corporeal, semi-intelligent, non-reproductive
97-00
Semi-corporeal, semi-intelligent, reproduces through prey
(Tome of Adventure Design)
Table 2-65: Causes of Intelligent Undeath
Die Roll
Cause of Intelligent Undeath
01-10
Cursed by enemy
11-20
Cursed by gods
21-30
Disease such as vampirism
31-40
Prepared by others for Undeath, at or before death (unwillingly)
41-50
Prepared by others for Undeath, at or before death (willingly)
51-60
Prepared self for Undeath, during life
61-70
Rejected from underworld for some reason
71-80
Returned partially by actions of others
81-90
Returned to gain vengeance for own killing
91-00
Returned to guard location or item important to self during life
(Tome of Adventure Design)
Table 2-66: Preparations for Intelligent Undeath
Note that some of these preparations might be voluntary on the part of the person being prepared for intelligent Undeath. Other preparations described on this table would be the activity of someone else, with or without the consent of the person being prepared.
Die Roll
Preparation
01-10
Actions are taken to ensure that a god will curse the soul with intelligent undeath
11-20
Corpse/body is preserved/prepared in such a way that the soul (or life force) cannot depart
21-30
Living body parts incorporated into corpse keep it “alive”
31-40
New soul brought into dead body
41-50
Pact with gods/powers of afterlife to reject soul
51-60
Physical preparation raises body with echo of former intelligence
61-70
Physical preparation raises body with full former intelligence
71-80
Ritual binds soul to a place
81-90
Soul captured by ritual, kept in the wrong plane of existence
91-00
Soul captured in item to prevent completion of the death cycle
(Tome of Adventure Design)
Table 2-67: Breaks in the Life Cycle
As mentioned above, most Undeath traditionally results from a break in the natural order of the victim’s life cycle. Looking through the following wide assortment of such “breaks” may give you some good ideas for specific details about your undead creature.
Die Roll
Nature of the Break (d100)
01
Deliberately cursed at death by others for actions during lifetime
02
Died after committing crime: Arson
03
Died after committing crime: Assault
04
Died after committing crime: Bankruptcy
05
Died after committing crime: Battery
06
Died after committing crime: Begging
07
Died after committing crime: Blackmail
08
Died after committing crime: Blasphemy
09
Died after committing crime: Breach of contract
10
Died after committing crime: Breach of financial duty
11
Died after committing crime: Breaking and entering
12
Died after committing crime: Bribery
13
Died after committing crime: Burglary
14
Died after committing crime: Cattle theft or rustling
15
Died after committing crime: Consorting with demons
16
Died after committing crime: Counterfeiting
17
Died after committing crime: Cowardice or desertion
18
Died after committing crime: Demonic possession
19
Died after committing crime: Desecration
20
Died after committing crime: Disrespect to clergy
21
Died after committing crime: Disrespect to nobility
22
Died after committing crime: Drug possession
23
Died after committing crime: Drug smuggling
24
Died after committing crime: Drunkenness
25
Died after committing crime: Embezzlement
26
Died after committing crime: Escaped slave
27
Died after committing crime: Extortion
28
Died after committing crime: False imprisonment
29
Died after committing crime: Fleeing crime scene
Die Roll
Nature of the Break (d100)
30
Died after committing crime: Forgery
31
Died after committing crime: Forsaking an oath
32
Died after committing crime: Gambling
33
Died after committing crime: Grave robbery
34
Died after committing crime: Harboring a criminal
35
Died after committing crime: Harboring a slave
36
Died after committing crime: Heresy
37
Died after committing crime: Horse theft
38
Died after committing crime: Incest
39
Died after committing crime: Inciting to riot
40
Died after committing crime: Insanity
41
Died after committing crime: Kidnapping
42
Died after committing crime: Lewdness, private
43
Died after committing crime: Lewdness, public
44
Died after committing crime: Libel
45
Died after committing crime: Manslaughter
46
Died after committing crime: Misuse of public funds
47
Died after committing crime: Murder
48
Died after committing crime: Mutiny
49
Died after committing crime: Necromancy
50
Died after committing crime: Participating in forbidden meeting
51
Died after committing crime: Perjury
52
Died after committing crime: Pickpocket
53
Died after committing crime: Piracy
54
Died after committing crime: Poisoning
55
Died after committing crime: Possession of forbidden weapon
56
Died after committing crime: Prison escape
57
Died after committing crime: Prostitution
Die Roll
Nature of the Break (d100)
58
Died after committing crime: Public recklessness
59
Died after committing crime: Racketeering
60
Died after committing crime: Rape
61
Died after committing crime: Receiving stolen goods (fencing)
62
Died after committing crime: Robbery
63
Died after committing crime: Sabotage
64
Died after committing crime: Sale of shoddy goods
65
Died after committing crime: Sedition
66
Died after committing crime: Slander
67
Died after committing crime: Smuggling
68
Died after committing crime: Soliciting
69
Died after committing crime: Swindling
70
Died after committing crime: Theft
71
Died after committing crime: Treason
72
Died after committing crime: Trespass
73
Died after committing crime: Using false measures
74
Died after committing crime: Witchcraft
75
Died after violating taboo: dietary
76
Died after violating taboo: loyalty
77
Died after violating taboo: marriage
78
Died after violating taboo: sexual
Die Roll
Nature of the Break (d100)
79
Died as a glutton
80
Died as a miser
81
Died as coward
82
Died deliberately
83
Died unloved and unmourned
84
Died while a slave
85
Died while owning slaves
86
Died without children
87
Died without dying (I don’t know, but it sounds good)
88
Died without fulfilling contract
89
Died without fulfilling oath
90
Died without honor (marriage or parenthood)
91
Died without honor (traitor)
92
Died without manhood/womanhood rites
93
Died without marrying
94
Died without proper preparations for death
95
Died without properly honoring ancestors
96
Died without tribal initiation
97
Eaten after death
98
Not buried/burned
99
Not given proper death ceremonies
100
Not given proper preparations for afterlife
(Tome of Adventure Design)
Table 2-68: Manner of Death
The manner in which an undead creature might have died can give rise to good ideas about the nature of the creature’s abilities, appearance, and motivations (if it is an intelligent form of undead).
Die Roll
Manner of Death
01
Burned in fire
02
Burned in lava
03
Cooked and eaten
04
Crushed
05
Defeated in dishonorable combat
06
Defeated in honorable combat
07
Died during a storm
08
Died during harvest time
09
Died during peacetime
10
Died in a swamp
11
Died in particular ancient ruins
12
Died in the hills
13
Died in the mountains
14
Died near particular type of flower
15
Died near particular type of tree
16
Died of disease
17
Died of fright
18
Died of natural causes
19
Died of thirst
20
Died while carrying particular weapon
Die Roll
Manner of Death
21
Died while carrying stolen goods
22
Died while wearing particular garment
23
Died while wearing particular piece of jewelry
24
Drowned
25
Executed by asphyxiation
26
Executed by cold
27
Executed by drowning
28
Executed by exposure to elements
29
Executed by fire
30
Executed by hanging
31
Executed by live burial
32
Executed by starvation
33
Executed by strangulation
34
Executed by thirst
35
Executed despite having been pardoned
36
Fell from great height
37
Frozen/hypothermia
38
Heart failure
39
In the saddle
40
Killed by a creature that injects eggs
Die Roll
Manner of Death
41
Killed by a deception
42
Killed by a jealous spouse
43
Killed by a jester
44
Killed by a lover
45
Killed by a lynch mob
46
Killed by a traitor
47
Killed by a trap
48
Killed by accident
49
Killed by ancient curse
50
Killed by birds
51
Killed by blood poisoning
52
Killed by demon
53
Killed by dogs/jackals
54
Killed by gluttony
55
Killed by insect(s)
56
Killed by inter-dimensional creature
57
Killed by magic
58
Killed by magic weapon
59
Killed by metal
60
Killed by mistake
61
Killed by own child
62
Killed by own parent
63
Killed by particular type of person
64
Killed by poisonous fungus
65
Killed by poisonous plant
66
Killed by pride
67
Killed by priest
68
Killed by relative
69
Killed by soldiers during battle
70
Killed by some particular monster
71
Killed by strange aliens
Die Roll
Manner of Death
72
Killed by undead
73
Killed by wine or drunkenness
74
Killed by wooden object
75
Killed for a particular reason
76
Killed in a castle
77
Killed in a particular place
78
Killed in a tavern
79
Killed in particular ritual
80
Killed in tournament or joust
81
Killed near a particular thing
82
Killed on particular day of year
83
Killed under a particular zodiacal sign (i.e., a particular month or time)
84
Killed under moonlight
85
Killed underground
86
Killed while exploring
87
Killed while fishing
88
Killed while fleeing
89
Killed while hunting
90
Killed while leading others badly
91
Killed while leading others well
92
Murdered
93
Sacrificed to a demon
94
Sacrificed to a god
95
Sacrificed to ancient horror
96
Starved to death
97
Strangled
98
Struck by lightning
99
Struck down by gods
100
Tortured to death
(Tome of Adventure Design)
Dexterity Loss. The attack drains one or more points of dexterity from the victim. The attacker may or may not gain a benefit from the drain (additional hit points, to-hit bonuses, etc) depending upon whether it seems to fit well with the concept. If the victim reaches a dexterity of 0, one of several things might happen: the victim might die and become a creature similar to the attacker (this is common with undead, but a bit weird when dexterity is the attribute score being drained). One explanation for death at 0 dexterity is that the body’s internal systems (circulatory, etc) are no longer working in time with each other. (Tome of Adventure Design)
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. (Tome of Horrors 4)
When a soul fouled by anger and fear leaves its broken corpse, if it is strong enough, that soul may return as a ghost, a wraith or some worse form of undead. If it is strong enough….. (Two Dozen Dangers: Haunts)
The unburied dead are not only a vector for mundane disease, but may become hosts to undead maladies. (Westbound)
From out of the dark and forbidding heavens a great meteor, black as night itself, carved through Abaddon’s atmosphere, calved into massive sections and rained down upon the world in great shards. It obliterated cities, shattered the living rock, sent tidal waves swamping over islands and drowning the coasts, ignited volcanoes and set the ground quaking for more than a year. (World of Obsidian Twilight (PFRPG) Preview)
Over 85% of the sentient population of Abaddon was killed in moments and no sorcery, no prayer, no force of arms nor cunning with the builder’s craft could stand against the destruction. Those who survived found themselves in the ruins of civilization, surrounded by the corpses of their nations, overwhelmed by death and living beneath a soot-black sky. (World of Obsidian Twilight (PFRPG) Preview)
Their suffering did not end there. The meteor was a black, hellish thing, infused with vast amounts of necrotic energy. The survivors watched in horror as the power of the meteors fragments and its dust began to raise the dead and few of the remaining cities survived the onslaught of their own deceased. (World of Obsidian Twilight (PFRPG) Preview)
A character suffering from the curse Death’s Disrespect has made the terrible mistake of speaking too soon the name of one who has recently died—a terrible sign of disrespect. The curse manifests via the body or spirit of the dead returning as an undead and attacking the victim of the curse. (Pathways 23)
At 20th level, the bone witch completes her transformation into a creature of unlife. She turns into an animate skeleton and gains the undead type. (Wayfinder 7)
Mythic Create Undead spell. (Mythic Magic Core Spells)
Mythic Create Greater Undead spell. (Mythic Magic Core Spells)
Mythic Soulreaver spell. (Mythic Magic Expanded Spells I)
Obliterate Soul spell. (Book of Lost Spells)
Dance of the Dead feat. (Undefeatable 3: Bards)
Dance of the Dead feat. (Undefeatable: The Collected Feats Sourcebook)
Pitiless Economies feat. (Intrigue Archetypes)
Undead Familiar feat. (Lords of the Night)
Ghostwater Drug creation. (Two Dozen Dangers: Drugs)
Devourer: Devourers are the undead remnants of fiends and evil spellcasters who became lost beyond the farthest reaches of the multiverse. Returning with warped bodies, alien sentience, and a hunger for life, devourers threaten all souls with a terrifying, tormented annihilation.
Only the bravest and most powerful adventurers dare step beyond the boundaries of the known planes, into whatever darkness lies beyond. Most who do so never return—yet some, especially the evil ones, come back changed and twisted. (Undead Revisited)
Information about this otherness is almost completely unavailable, with even the gods seemingly deaf to most questions, yet there are always a few who to decide to see for themselves. When powerful fiends and evil spellcasters undertake this quest, some come back and report nothing but vast expanses of ... well, nothing. Others don’t return at all. Yet some—the foulest ones, or those who become lost beyond the multiverse’s reaches—find something out there that changes them. (Undead Revisited)
Though devourers never discuss just who or what they’re talking to, many suspect their madness rises from a lingering connection to whatever sinister, alien entity or force made them what they are, and the devourers themselves sometimes let apparent titles slip, with appellations like the Dire Shepherd or the Wanderer Upon the Stair. (Undead Revisited)
Devourers’ origins are shrouded in mystery. While spellcasters may create them through the usage of create greater undead spells, exactly what occurs during these rituals is unclear, and it’s possible that devourers are more called into being than physically created—certainly it’s more than just a simple matter of animating a corpse. (Undead Revisited)
Unlike many other forms of undead, devourers do not form spontaneously, nor do they breed or spawn. Rather, they begin as either one of two creatures: a terribly evil mortal spellcaster or an actual fiend. Those of either category who find themselves lost in the hinterlands of the cosmos sometimes return as devourers. (Undead Revisited)
They do not find their rebirth, their unholy transfiguration, in a specific place or plane. Rather, far beyond the knowledge and sight of mortals or outsiders, they experience some sort of transformative gnosis, realizing some infectious idea that simultaneously destroys and recreates them with a new form and a new hunger. Whether or not there might be something out there that actively calls to them, compulsively drawing them to its presence and making them into what they are, is anyone’s guess, yet it would explain why only evil outsiders and spellcasters seem to be susceptible, and also potentially why the strange mannerisms of the devourers who return to the planes seem more than simple madness. (Undead Revisited)
Those devourers created (or potentially called from elsewhere) by magic share all the traits and madness of their transformed kin, a fact that has confused spellcasters for generations. Some scholars have pointed out that specific details of these magical rituals have certain traits in common across all schools of magic and faith, leading some to believe that the ability to create devourers may have been introduced long ago as a single spell, perhaps provided by whatever malign forces lurk beyond the planes. (Undead Revisited)
Devourers, who form from the spirits of powerful spellcasters and fiends that venture into the darkness beyond the planes and come back forever tainted. (Undead Revisited)
Devourers are the husks creatures that have been shattered and remade by forces beyond the ends of the multiverse. (Advanced Bestiary)
Undeterred, Thozzaggard used his magic to transport himself into the cavern behind the door. This time, the wily sorcerer would not escape the god particle’s grasp. Madness overcame him shortly before the alien substance sucked the last vestiges of life from him and hurled his ravaged soul into the void beyond reality. What later rose where his corpse now lay was an undead monstrosity that longed to spread its curse to every living creature. (Dunes of Desolation)
Countless millennia ago, Thozzaggard also found the watery star; however he succumbed to its power and became an undead abomination. (Dunes of Desolation)
In time, the watery star’s extradimensional properties and his own madness got the better of him transforming him into the undead abomination on the other side of the door. (Dunes of Desolation)
This onyx‐encrusted sarcophagus casts create greater undead on the body within to create a devourer when a certain prophesy is completed. This effect works once before the sarcophagus’ magic is consumed. The onyx crumbles to dust if removed from the sarcophagus. (GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing)
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 20th or higher.
Raise Undeath spell word, boosted, caster level 20th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Ghost: When a soul is not allowed to rest due to some great injustice, either real or perceived, it sometimes comes back as a ghost.
"Ghost" is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature that has a Charisma score of at least 6.
Interestingly, a great number of ghosts and revenants owe their undead existence to the depredations of mortal killers who later became mohrgs, and it’s not unheard of for a revenant to hunt a mohrg, or for a ghost to assist adventurers in tracking down the unholy reanimation of its killer. (Undead Revisited)
More than merely wayward souls cast from the cycle of eternity by random chance, the vast majority of ghosts manifest for a purpose—whether one of their own desires or born from the method of their deaths. So-called “ghost stories” often tell of souls lingering upon the mortal world in an attempt to put right some injustice—typically whatever evil led to their deaths—or to prevent some terrible fate. Yet the circumstances leading to the appearance of a ghost need not be so iconic. Although the mysteries of death may never be fully understood by mortals, the most significant requisite in a ghost’s appearance seems to be extraordinary circumstances of trauma surrounding its death. Such a condition need not be a torturous murder or a violent betrayal—the knowledge of a great responsibility or the jeopardized life of a loved one can potentially prove sufficient cause to compel a soul to linger on past its physical capacity. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Aside from personal determination, extreme circumstances might also lead to the formation of ghosts. Tales of unquiet battlefields, ghostly ships, and whole haunted cities typically arise from some manner of terrible collective ordeal. Such conditions must be exceptionally painful or damaging to the mortal mind, as not every fallen fortress or disaster-scoured community results in some mass haunting. While individual ghosts typically require some measure of personal connection, suffering, or desire to bind them to the land of the living, such is lessened for ghosts created en masse. The shared experience of multitudinous lesser horrors are seemingly significant enough to match the singular distress of a lone spirit, allowing large groups of spirits to manifest due to an incident of extreme shared emotion or disturbance that might not provoke the ghostly manifestation of an individual. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Ghosts are the undead souls of dead people so filled with rage and hate that they refuse to stay dead. (Beginner's Box)
As the uprising gathers strength, the unquiet souls of bodies long since turned to dust awaken as well. Ghosts, shadows, wraiths, and even spectres arise to prey upon the living. (Game Mastery Guide)
Powerful witches are able to leave lasting imprints upon the land with their final breaths, transforming themselves into powerful, incorporeal undead through extreme hatred and emotional distress. Often manifesting as ghosts, spectres or wraiths, these witches blight the land and cause strange murders and ill fortunate to beset the locals until they move away from the site of the curse. (Alternate Dungeons: Haunted House)
When a creature dies, any intense emotions it experiences at the time of death are often left behind as a psychic footprint. Fear, anger, hatred and sorrow are by far the most powerful of these emotions and often causes the most dangerous and destructive haunts to manifest. It should come as no surprise an act as evil as murder, which often comprises all three of these emotions and more, is a leading cause of the creation of powerful supernatural entities. Ghosts, spectres, wraiths and poltergeists are all commonly created in this manner, and when created they seldom stray far from the place where they were murdered. (Alternate Dungeons: Haunted House)
Ghosts are created from the residual psychic energy of creatures unable or unwilling to depart to the outer planes to receive judgment. Ghosts often haunt the places where they died or the homes they once lived in. (Alternate Dungeons: Haunted House)
Before the events that led up to the Shattering, ghosts were the only type of undead. A ghost is a spirit that does not pass on to the Inner World, as it was known then, or the Ethereal Realm, as it is now. When a being in the Outer World dies, its positive energy spirit is naturally transformed into negative energy as it passes on to the next plane of existence. However, in rare circumstances, this process can be disrupted. This occurs either due to a powerful act of will on the part of the recently deceased, or when the spirit has undergone a great psychic trauma, such as being murdered. Although ghosts are not intrinsically evil, they are beings of negative energy and suffer greatly in the Outer World, which is confusing and alien to their nature. This often causes the ghost to become malevolent, if it wasn’t already. A negative spirit in the Inner World would have spent its lifetime resolving psychological issues, before being reborn into the material Outer World as a positive energy spirit in a new body. Scholars speculate that ghosts are created when some of these psychological issues can only be resolved in the Outer World. For example, the spirit might need to protect loved ones, or to exact revenge upon its killer. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
She attempted to create ghosts by killing living beings in horrendous ways, so as to precipitate the necessary psychological trauma. However, the success rate of this was low as, more often than not, the spirit would simply cross over into the Inner World and remain beyond her reach. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
On a related note, if you're caught outdoors at night, don't bang on the door asking to be let in. You won't be, because you're clearly an undead who wants to feast on the souls of those indoors. If you're still alive in the morning, they'll take you to the local church for healing, because if they take you in, and you die later that night, you might return as a ghost and blame them for your death. (Claw Claw Bite 18)
When a soul fouled by anger and fear leaves its broken corpse, if it is strong enough, that soul may return as a ghost, a wraith or some worse form of undead. (Dangers & Discoveries)
The zither player is named Ceruth, a beggar that solicited donations by playing his zither during Iljanna’s decline. After death, the bitter musician refused to depart and became a ghost cursed to forever haunt the dollhouse. (Dunes of Desolation)
The Sea Lord’s Guard chose this night to begin their war and swept through the Eastern District, rounding up anyone they suspected of being affiliated with the Guild. As the sounds of screams and fighting broke out all around, Melanie fled to her home on the edge of Scurvytown, only to find her house in flames and her friends fighting for their lives against a band of Guardsmen. Melanie grabbed the knife from the pouch and threw herself into the combat, terrified and desperate to get to her boys. She lashed out with the blade, unaware that it slew everyone it touched, her eyes fixed only on the small, smoking shapes on her porch. She nearly reached the bodies of her children when a steel-tipped quarrel punched through her middle, piercing her heart. She fell within an arm’s reach of her children’s bodies, and as she lay dying, she whispered that she’d get her vengeance, make the bastards pay. (Freeport Companion Pathfinder RPG Edition)
A strange thing happened. The knife flared with sickly green light, growing brighter even as the light in her eyes faded. Melanie Crump’s body died, but somehow her spirit lived on, trapped within the accursed knife, bound by her vow until she gets her revenge. (Freeport Companion Pathfinder RPG Edition)
Clergy who feel they had unfinished business or wish to see their temples restored remain to haunt these locations. Fully restoring the temple or destroying it puts these undead to rest. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Lonesome spirits, mere shades of what they once were. What better place for a ghost to haunt than a place so keenly reminiscent of its own tragic existence? Almost any undead creature might identify with the ruination of a once-warm and lively place, but ghosts—with their tendency to linger over unfinished business—are more likely than any other kind to haunt the places they knew best in life. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Powerful witches are able to leave lasting imprints upon the land with their final breaths, transforming themselves into powerful, incorporeal undead through extreme hatred and emotional distress. Often manifesting as ghosts, spectres or wraiths, these witches blight the land and cause strange murders and ill fortunate to beset the locals until they move away from the site of the curse. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
When a creature dies, any intense emotions it experiences at the time of death are often left behind as a psychic footprint. Fear, anger, hatred and sorrow are by far the most powerful of these emotions and often causes the most dangerous and destructive haunts to manifest. It should come as no surprise an act as evil as murder, which often comprises all three of these emotions and more, is a leading cause of the creation of powerful supernatural entities. Ghosts, spectres, wraiths and poltergeists are all commonly created in this manner, and when created they seldom stray far from the place where they were murdered. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
When Chernobog walks the earth in the dark of the moon and during eclipses, winds rise and howl, animals grow skittish and dogs bite, and ghosts rise from every grave. (Midgard Worldbook for 5th Edition and Pathfinder)
The necrotic energy of the meteor combined with the huge number of casualties from the impact and its aftermath has meant an enormous amount of spiritual energy has encompassed Abaddon. This, in turn, means a tremendous number of ghosts arisen over time. (Races of Obsidian Twilight)
Those who have died in more recent times are not the confused and sorrowful dead of the cataclysm. Those who have died in this new age are the victims of the undead lords and, while dead themselves, they have little or no sympathy for the liches, vampires, ghasts and other dead that form the new aristocracy. What has caused these dead to linger on in the world is their mistreatment at the hands of the powers that be and their desire for bloody and violent revenge, goals that they share with many of the living. (Races of Obsidian Twilight)
The position of the Osirians as the favored of the gods did not spare them from the cataclysm that turned Abaddon upside down, already giving way to some of the other species the Osirians were struck a hammer blow by the fall of the meteor and their ancestral homelands were some of the worst affected by the necromantic miasma and negative energies released by the impact. (Races of Obsidian Twilight: Osirian)
The Osirians died in droves from the impact, from its aftermath and from the lingering effects of the necromantic radiation, subverting their bodies day by agonizing day and raising so many of them as zombies, skeletons and ghosts that the Osirians rapidly learned harsh lessons in dismemberment before burial and the building of secure and warded tombs. (Races of Obsidian Twilight: Osirian)
The necrotic energy of the meteor combined with the huge number of casualties from the impact and its aftermath has meant an enormous amount of spiritual energy has encompassed Abaddon. This, in turn, means a tremendous number of ghosts arisen over time. In the beginning many of these were mindless spectres, the traumatised dead from what seemed like the end of the world but over time these have been winnowed down and replaced with the new dead. (Races of Obsidian Twilight: Raijin)
Those who have died in more recent times are not the confused and sorrowful dead of the cataclysm. Those who have died in this new age are the victims of the undead lords and, while dead themselves, they have little or no sympathy for the liches, vampires, ghasts and other dead that form the new aristocracy. What has caused these dead to linger on in the world is their mistreatment at the hands of the powers that be and their desire for bloody and violent revenge, goals that they share with many of the living. (Races of Obsidian Twilight: Raijin)
The souls of the dead, unable to pass on, arise as ghosts or other forms of terrible, incorporeal undead.
Ghosts represent one of the most tragic forms of undead. Tied to the material plane with unfinished business, they find themselves bound to a specific area, usually associated with their death. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Ghosts are powerfully psychological creatures to face bound by strong emotions of anger, fear, love, and resentment. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Any creature suffering from a negative level inflicted by the hammer of the unworthy when it dies immediately rises as Belial’s choice of a ghost, a lich, or a vampire. In the case of a lich, it treats the hammer of the unworthy as its phylactery. If a creature that would rise as an undead as a result of this ability would also return to life as a pit fiend as a result of the edge of the forsaken’s ability, that creature becomes a pit fiend with the chosen template. (The Deluxe Guide to Fiend Summoning and Faustian Bargains)
Many chirurgical procedures are damaging to the patient's psyche and the natural balance of their mental processes. This imbalance extends into the spiritual plane, and creatures who recently underwent mind-altering chirurgical procedures might have a greater than normal chance of arising as unquiet dead, perhaps haunts that spread madness and torment, or as actual undead creatures such as allips or, more rarely, ghosts or spectres. (The Mad Doctor's Formulary)
When a soul fouled by anger and fear leaves its broken corpse, if it is strong enough, that soul may return as a ghost, a wraith or some worse form of undead. If it is strong enough….. (Two Dozen Dangers: Haunts)
The spirits released during the cataclysm were scared, confused, barely sentient, an outpouring of pain and suffering that would lash out at anything that came close to them, little more than necromantic energy themselves, free and wild to animate the dead. In the years since the cataclysm however, the character of the dead has changed. Those who die today die with hatred for the lords on their minds, with revenge and cries of freedom on their lips. The ghosts of today are the spirits of vengeance, no allies to the lords or to Calix Sabinus. Even the dead themselves are turning against the powers that be. (World of Obsidian Twilight (PFRPG) Preview)
Ghost Human Aristocrat 7: ?
Ghoul: A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid who becomes a ghoul in this way retains none of the abilities it possessed in life. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast.
As a free action once per day per growth point (minimum of 1/day), a nabasu can activate its death-stealing gaze for a full round. All living creatures within 30 feet must succeed on a DC 18 Fortitude save or gain a negative level. A humanoid slain in this manner immediately transforms into a ghoul under the nabasu's control. A nabasu's gaze can only create one ghoul per round—if multiple humans perish from the gaze in a round, the nabasu picks which human becomes a ghoul. The save DC is Charisma-based.
When a sayona kills a humanoid or fey of Medium or Small size with its absorb blood or blood drain ability, the victim rises 24 hours later as a ghoul with the advanced creature simple template and the blood drain ability. (Pathfinder Bestiary 4)
A humanoid that succumbs to Leng ghoul fever becomes a normal ghoul unless in life it had 12 or more Hit Dice, in which case it rises from death as a Leng ghoul. (Bestiary 5)
Myth holds that the first man to feed upon the flesh of his brother was seized by a most uncommon malady of the intestinal tract, and after lingering for days in the throes of this painful inflammation of the belly, he died, only to rise on the Abyss as Kabriri, the first ghoul. Whether the demon lord of graves and ghouls was indeed the first remains the subject of debate among scholars of necromancy, but certainly the methods by which bodies can rise as the hungry dead are myriad. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Necromancers have long known the secrets of infusing a dead body with this vile animating force. With the spell create undead, a spellcaster can waken a body’s hunger and transform it into a ravenous ghoul. Stories abound as well of spontaneous transformations when a man or woman, driven by bleakest desperation or blackest madness, resorts to cannibalism as a means of survival. Whether the expiration that follows rises from further starvation or the death of the will to carry on in light of such atrocity matters not, for when death occurs after such a choice, a hideous rebirth as a ghoul may occur. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Yet the most common route to transformation is through violent contact with other ghouls. Called by a wide variety of regional names (such as gnaw pangs, belly blight, or Kabriri’s curse), this contagion is known in most circles simply as “ghoul fever.” Transmitted by a ghoul’s bite (or, more rarely, through the consumption of ghoulish flesh), ghoul fever causes the victim to grow increasingly hungry and manic, yet makes it impossible to keep down any food or water. The horrific hunger pangs caused by the sickness rob the victim of coordination and cause increasingly painful spasms, and eventually the victim starves to death, only to rise soon thereafter as a ghoul. That those who perish from ghoul fever invariably animate as undead at midnight has long intrigued scholars of necromancy—the general thought is that only at the dead of night can such a hideous transformation complete its course. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
A humanoid who dies of Kortash Khain's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight; a humanoid with 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Mythic Realms)
The first ghouls were humans who rose as undead because they had indulged in unwholesome pleasures in life. The original ghasts rose as undead for similar reasons, but their sins were of vaster scale. A man who broke a taboo by consuming dead bodies to avoid starvation might rise as a ghoul, but a man who murdered his wife and children, then cooked them up as a delicious meal for himself and his mistress would instead rise as a ghast. (Advanced Bestiary)
Eaters of the dead that hunger for the living, the first ghouls were the undead remains of humans who had, in life, indulged in unwholesome pleasures, such as cannibalism or necrophilia. (Advanced Bestiary)
Cevnia was not put off by the limited success of her early experiments. She used the information gathered in the creation of mindless undead and began to refine the process. She discovered new, more controlled methods of binding the negative spirit back to its body that did not interfere with the mental faculties of the resulting undead. However, these intelligent undead still suffered constant pain from the unnatural state their spirits were in, which quickly descended into jealous hatred of the living. In addition to this, there were other side effects… The first undead she created using the new method were ghouls, who were driven by a desire to consume the dead flesh of sentient beings, thus gaining momentary relief from their ever-present feeling of starvation. She tried again, using more powerful magic, and made mohrgs, who were motivated by the unappeasable psychological need to commit murder. She called these the Hungry Dead, as they were driven to destroy the living by all-consuming urges. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A slain humanoid of 4 or more Hit Dice rises as a ghast. (Campaign Backdrops: Caves and Caverns)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul (or ghast if it had more than 4 HD) at the next midnight. (Campaign Backdrops: Forests & Woodlands)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A slain humanoid of 4 or more Hit Dice rises as a ghast. (Campaign Backdrops: Hills & Mountains)
A small adventuring party once got trapped within and starved to death. Risen as ghouls, the undead lurk in the crypt creeping forth when released by the hermit to dine up on his guests. (Campaign Backdrops: Hills & Mountains)
Creatures below 5 HD within the cone of a plague dragon's deathless breath instantly die, and reanimate as ghouls under the dragon's control. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
Any humanoid that is two weeks or less dead within the sovereign ghoul's aura rise as a ghoul under its complete command in one round. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
Any humanoid killed by a corpsehanger's energy drain or constrict attack becomes an undead creature within 1d4 rounds, unless it is cut down and the corpse blessed. A zombie will be created 70% of the time, a ghoul 20% of the time, and a wight 10% of the time. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
A humanoid who dies of a bone gorger’s wasting rot and is not given a proper burial rises as a standard ghoul 24 hours after the disease consumes them. (Fat Goblin Travel Guide to Horrible Horrors and Macabre Monsters)
The negative energy surrounding the temple’s demise either brings unholy life to the corpses interred at the temples or draws mindless undead to them. While skeletons and zombies are the most common undead, ghouls, spectres and vampires also lair in deserted temples. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A slain humanoid of 4 or more Hit Dice rises as a ghast. (GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing)
Eventually, Hagruk grew old and settled down in Red Talon village, but would still sail forth on occasional raids. One fateful night in a furious storm, his ship struck the reef known as Devil’s Shoulder as he returned to the village. Hagruk and his crew abandoned ship as the galleon started to sink beneath the waves, but they were too slow, and their drowned bodies were washed up on the beach. But the dark power of their cannibal god saved the pirates—Ukre’kon’ala brought some of the crew back from death to unlife as ghouls; Hagruk Stormrider became a ghast. (GM's Miscellany: Village Backdrops III)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A slain humanoid of 4 or more Hit Dice rises as a ghast. (GM's Miscellany: Village Backdrops III)
Dying while infected with Darakhul Fever. (Imperial Gazeteer The Principality of Morgau and Doresh and Realms Subterranean)
A humanoid who dies of an imperial ghoul's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul or darakhul at the next midnight. (Imperial Gazeteer The Principality of Morgau and Doresh and Realms Subterranean)
A humanoid who dies of a legionnaire ghoul's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul or darakhul at the next midnight. (Imperial Gazeteer The Principality of Morgau and Doresh and Realms Subterranean)
A humanoid who dies of an iron ghoul's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul or darakhul at the next midnight. (Imperial Gazeteer The Principality of Morgau and Doresh and Realms Subterranean)
A humanoid who dies of an iron ghoul captain's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul or darakhul at the next midnight. (Imperial Gazeteer The Principality of Morgau and Doresh and Realms Subterranean)
Those who die beneath the surface of Terminus have a much higher chance of spontaneously rising as undead. This may be another side effect of the strange mineral known as nightglass. Wandering skeletons and zombies are common, and those that die of starvation within the bowels of Terminus often rise as ghouls, as do those who practice cannibalism regularly. (Legendary Worlds: Terminus)
The deadwood exerts its foul influence to a radius of 300 feet for every 2 HD of the tree. Any animal, giant, humanoid, or monstrous humanoid corpse within this range that remains in contact with the ground for 1 full round is animated into a zombie or skeleton. Corpses of humanoids with 2 or 3 class levels are instead turned into ghouls, while those with 4 or more class levels are instead turned into ghasts. (Malevolent and Benign)
A ghoul’s bite carries a terrible disease that can rot flesh and dull the reflexes. Those who die from it become a ghoul themselves. (Monster Focus: Ghouls)
A humanoid that dies from ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. Those that possess 4 HD or more instead rise as a ghast. (Monster Focus: Ghouls)
The sickness of vanity that consumed the soul of the fukuranbou now manifests itself as a powerful wasting curse that it can inflict with its claws. Several small villages have been lost to this curse. Victims who die this way sometimes come back from the dead as ghouls. (Monsters of Porphyra)
As a free action once per day per growth point (minimum of 1/day), a mythic nabasu can activate its death-stealing gaze for a full round. All living creatures within 30 feet must succeed on a DC 19 Fortitude save or gain a negative level. A humanoid slain in this manner immediately transforms into a ghoul under the mythic nabasu’s control. A mythic nabasu’s gaze can only create one ghoul per round—if multiple humans perish from the gaze in a round, the mythic nabasu picks which human becomes a ghoul. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Whenever a mythic nabasu creates a ghoul with its gaze attack, it can expend one use of mythic power. If it does, the ghoul that is created is a mythic ghoul. Mythic ghouls created in this way are unstable, and their mythic power fades with time if it is not maintained: each day, the mythic nabasu must expend uses of mythic power each day to maintain the mythic status of ghouls under its control. Each use of mythic power it expends in this way is enough to maintain up to three mythic ghouls. Mythic ghouls that are not maintained become non-mythic ghouls, but remain under the mythic nabasu’s control. (Mythic Mastery Mythic Nabasu and Shadow Demons)
A humanoid who dies of a mythic ghoul's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. A humanoid with a mythic rank or mythic tier of 1 or higher rises as a mythic ghoul.
There are several ways for mythic ghouls to come about. A mythic character that succumbs to ghoul fever rises as a mythic ghoul more often than as a normal ghoul, although both outcomes are possible. (Mythic Mastery Mythic Nabasu and Shadow Demons)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
Once per day as a full round action, a conqueror worm can expend one use of mythic power to vomit a glob of slime onto ground containing dead humanoid remains (typically a graveyard). One round later, 1d10+8 ghouls and a single mythic ghast emerge from the ground and follow the conqueror worm’s commands unerringly. (Mythic Monsters 23: Worms)
Ghouls roam the countryside in vast numbers, increasing their kind with ghoul fever. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
As citizens turn to cannibalism, new ghouls are born even within the safest walls. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Cannibalistic undead who can turn the living into one of their kind, ghouls increasingly menace the lands of Ina’oth.
The sweeping plagues that leave behind ravaged towns force desperate survivors to consume one another to stay alive. When these survivors, in turn, succumb to disease or murder, they arise again with an insatiable hunger. The increasing foulness of the Old Ones aids in this transformation and finds fertile ground in plague infested Ina’oth where the ghoul problem is the worst in Vathak. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Although official church doctrine suggests ghouls are the product of the Old Ones’ interference, few ghouls bend knee to those powers. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Experts in the occult and undeath, particularly reanimators, believe ghoul fever can arise spontaneously in cases of cannibalism. However, they’ve yet to find a natural explanation for the increasing number, variety, and intelligence of Inaothian ghouls. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Related to (and possibly the origin of) lesser creatures such as ghouls and ghasts, ghuls are a powerful form of undead caused by starvation after turning to cannibalism and grave robbing. (The Genius Guide to Simple Monster Templates)
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. (Tome of Horrors 4)
A target reduced to 0 Dexterity by the Necromancer's Lethargy curse suffocates, and returns to unlife as a ghoul. (Two Dozen Dangers: Curses)
Necrotic Fever (Ex) Bite—injury; save Fort DC 19; onset 1 day; frequency 1 day; effect 1d4 Con damage; cure 2 consecutive saves. A victim who dies of a necrowurm's necrotic fever transforms into a ghoul 10 minutes after death (a creature with 4 or more Hit Dice becomes a ghast). (Pathways 18)
To the living, the most frightening aspect of the necrowurm is the disease it carries, a necrotic fever more virulent than ghoul fever, but with the same eventual result. (Pathways 18)
A humanoid who dies of Mallir Halswain's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Pathways 55)
A humanoid who dies of Paul Malaise's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Wayfinder 8)
A humanoid who dies of a devourer ghoul's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Wayfiner 9)
Create Undead spell, caster level 11th or lower.
Animate Ghoul spell. (Monster Focus: Ghouls)
Ghoul Army spell. (Shadows Over Vathak Player's Guide to Vathak)
Raise Undeath spell word. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Transform Dead spell. (Ultimate Spell Decks: Obsidian Twilight Spell cards (PFRPG))
Transform Zombie spell. (Book of Lost Spells)
Necrotic Arrow feat, Arcane Archer level 7 (Undefeatable 12: Arcane Archer)
Necrotic Arrow feat, Arcane Archer level 7 (Undefeatable: The Collected Feats Sourcebook)
Pitiless Economies feat. (Intrigue Archetypes)
Cursed disease. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Ghoul Ghast: A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid who becomes a ghoul in this way retains none of the abilities it possessed in life. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast.
In the Darklands, yet another route to ghoulishness exists—lazurite. This strange, magical ore, thought to be the remnant of a dead god who staggered through the Darklands and left behind black bloodstains upon the caverns of the Cold Hell, appears as a thin black crust where it is exposed. The white veins of rock in which it often forms are known as marrowstone. Lazurite itself exudes a magical radiation that gives off a strong aura of necromancy. Any intact corpse left within a few paces of a significant lazurite deposit for a day is likely to rise as a ghoul or ghast, often retaining any abilities it had in life.
It should be noted that not all who begin the transformation into ghoul become actual ghouls. Particularly hearty humanoids (often those with racial Hit Dice, or who in life were already gluttons or cannibals by choice) often become ghasts. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Bugbear, Lizardfolk, Troglodyte: These races always spawn into ghasts. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
A humanoid who dies of Kortash Khain's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight; a humanoid with 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Mythic Realms)
The first ghouls were humans who rose as undead because they had indulged in unwholesome pleasures in life. The original ghasts rose as undead for similar reasons, but their sins were of vaster scale. A man who broke a taboo by consuming dead bodies to avoid starvation might rise as a ghoul, but a man who murdered his wife and children, then cooked them up as a delicious meal for himself and his mistress would instead rise as a ghast. (Advanced Bestiary)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A slain humanoid of 4 or more Hit Dice rises as a ghast. (Campaign Backdrops: Caves and Caverns)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul (or ghast if it had more than 4 HD) at the next midnight. (Campaign Backdrops: Forests & Woodlands)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A slain humanoid of 4 or more Hit Dice rises as a ghast. (Campaign Backdrops: Hills & Mountains)
After three zombies are slain, the remaining creatures receive a burst of power from the pillars, and are transformed into ghasts. (GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A slain humanoid of 4 or more Hit Dice rises as a ghast. (GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A slain humanoid of 4 or more Hit Dice rises as a ghast. (GM's Miscellany: Village Backdrops III)
The deadwood exerts its foul influence to a radius of 300 feet for every 2 HD of the tree. Any animal, giant, humanoid, or monstrous humanoid corpse within this range that remains in contact with the ground for 1 full round is animated into a zombie or skeleton. Corpses of humanoids with 2 or 3 class levels are instead turned into ghouls, while those with 4 or more class levels are instead turned into ghasts. (Malevolent and Benign)
A humanoid that dies from ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. Those that possess 4 HD or more instead rise as a ghast. (Monster Focus: Ghouls)
A humanoid who dies of a mythic ghoul's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. A humanoid with a mythic rank or mythic tier of 1 or higher rises as a mythic ghoul. (Mythic Mastery Mythic Nabasu and Shadow Demons)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
Creatures killed by a conqueror worm's slime, or killed while suffering damage from the slime, are immediately transformed into an undead creature under the conqueror worm’s control. A humanoid who becomes undead in this way retains none of the abilities it possessed in life.
A humanoid of less than 3 Hit Dice rises as a ghast.
A humanoid of 3–9 Hit Dice rises as a wight.
A humanoid of 10 HD or more rises as a morhg.
There is no limit to the number of undead a conqueror worm can create with its slime. (Mythic Monsters 23: Worms)
Related to (and possibly the origin of) lesser creatures such as ghouls and ghasts, ghuls are a powerful form of undead caused by starvation after turning to cannibalism and grave robbing. (The Genius Guide to Simple Monster Templates)
A creature killed while under the effects of a ghul's exhalation of death becomes a ghast (if humanoid) or zombie (if not humanoid) if it had 5 or fewer Hit Dice, and a ghul if it had 6 or more. It rises in undeath 1d6 hours after being slain. A remove curse, neutralize poison, or similar spell cast on its body during this incubation period might prevent the corpse from becoming undead. The caster of such a spell must make a caster level check (DC 10 + HD of ghul that affected the target with exhalation of death), and on a successful check the corpse does not become an undead. (The Genius Guide to Simple Monster Templates)
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. (Tome of Horrors 4)
Necrotic Fever (Ex) Bite—injury; save Fort DC 19; onset 1 day; frequency 1 day; effect 1d4 Con damage; cure 2 consecutive saves. A victim who dies of a necrowurm's necrotic fever transforms into a ghoul 10 minutes after death (a creature with 4 or more Hit Dice becomes a ghast). (Pathways 18)
To the living, the most frightening aspect of the necrowurm is the disease it carries, a necrotic fever more virulent than ghoul fever, but with the same eventual result. (Pathways 18)
Eaters of the dead that hunger for the living, the first ghouls were the undead remains of humans who had, in life, indulged in unwholesome pleasures, such as cannibalism or necrophilia. (Advanced Bestiary)
A humanoid who dies of Mallir Halswain's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Pathways 55)
A humanoid who dies of Paul Malaise's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Wayfinder 8)
A humanoid who dies of a devourer ghoul's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Wayfinder 9)
Create Undead spell, caster level 12th to 14th.
Ghoul Army spell. (Shadows Over Vathak Player's Guide to Vathak)
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 12th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Necrotic Arrow feat, Arcane Archer level 9 (Undefeatable 12: Arcane Archer)
Necrotic Arrow feat, Arcane Archer level 9 (Undefeatable: The Collected Feats Sourcebook)
Ghast Tooth alchemical item. (Monster Focus: Ghouls)
Cursed disease. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Ghoul Lacedon: ?
Lacedons are another variant, ghouls who rise from the bodies of starving humanoids who died from drowning, often as a result of a shipwreck. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Boggard, Merfolk: These races always spawn into lacedons. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Any humanoid killed by a cihuateotl's energy drain ability rises as a lacedon under her control in 1d3 rounds. (Cerulean Seas beasts of the Boundless Blue)
Creatures reduced to 0 levels by a toothwraith emerge as lacedons (aquatic ghouls) at the next high tide. (Monster Menagerie Oceans of Blood)
Lich: The pinnacle of necromantic art, the lich is a spellcaster who has chosen to shed his life as a method to cheat death by becoming undead. While many who reach such heights of power stop at nothing to achieve immortality, the idea of becoming a lich is abhorrent to most creatures. The process involves the extraction of the spellcaster's life-force and its imprisonment in a specially prepared phylactery—the spellcaster gives up life, but in trapping life he also traps his death, and as long as his phylactery remains intact he can continue on in his research and work without fear of the passage of time.
The quest to become a lich is a lengthy one. While construction of the magical phylactery to contain the spellcaster's soul is a critical component, a prospective lich must also learn the secrets of transferring his soul into the receptacle and of preparing his body for the transformation into undeath, neither of which are simple tasks. Further complicating the ritual is the fact that no two bodies or souls are exactly alike—a ritual that works for one spellcaster might simply kill another or drive him insane. The exact methods for each spellcaster's transformation are left to the GM's discretion, but should involve expenditures of hundreds of thousands of gold pieces, numerous deadly adventures, and a large number of difficult skill checks over the course of months, years, or decades.
An integral part of becoming a lich is the creation of the phylactery in which the character stores his soul. The only way to get rid of a lich for sure is to destroy its phylactery.
Each lich must create its own phylactery by using the Craft Woundrous Item feat. The character must be able to cast spells and have a caster level of 11th or higher. The phylactery costs 120,000 gp to create and has a caster level equal to that of its creator at the time of creation.
The most common form of phylactery is a sealed metal box containing strips of parchment on which magical phrases have been transcribed. The box is Tiny and has 40 hit points, hardness 20, and a break DC of 40.
Other forms of phylacteries can exist, such as rings, amulets, or similar items.
"Lich" is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature, provided it can create the required phylactery.
Powerful spellcasters who bind their souls into valuable artifacts called phylacteries. (Undead Revisited)
Liches are spellcasters who bind their souls into special receptacles called phylacteries. (Undead Revisited)
Drawing on the powers of their faith or dark knowledge, the greatest spellcasters of the world transcend the boundaries of life through mysterious techniques unknown to the living. (Undead Revisited)
One does not become a lich by accident or stumble into this form of undeath through misadventure. A lich is not a puppet, a blood-mad monster, or an accident of rage or despair. The lich is instead a creature of design and ultimate will, carefully and rationally planning its transition from life into undead immortality. (Undead Revisited)
It is not merely force of will that propels one to lichdom, nor is it the simple desire to avoid death, though these are certainly factors in the mindset of the would-be lich. Instead, those who would follow the path of the undying mind must seek out tomes of forbidden magic and lost lore. Though the initiates might not be evil when they begin, the process under which they become liches drives them slowly into the arms of corruption—the focus they must develop drives out all other concerns, including the civilized needs of friendship and love. (Undead Revisited)
The final and most important aspect of a lich’s transformation involves creating a new home for its soul called a phylactery—this is often something strong and impressive, such as a gem or box of unparalleled quality, though almost any object can serve. (Undead Revisited)
Liches, the twisted spellcasters who lock away their souls so death may never claim them. (Undead Revisited)
The pinnacle of necromantic art, the lich is a spellcaster who has chosen to shed his life as a method to cheat death by becoming undead. While many who reach such heights of power stop at nothing to achieve immortality, the idea of becoming a lich is abhorrent to most creatures. The process involves the extraction of the spellcaster’s life‐force and its imprisonment in a specially prepared phylactery—the spellcaster gives up life, but in trapping life he also traps his death. (100% Crunch Liches)
The quest to become a lich is a lengthy one. While construction of the magical phylactery to contain the spellcaster’s soul is a critical component, a prospective lich must also learn the secrets of transferring his soul into the receptacle and of preparing his body for the transformation into undeath, neither of which are simple tasks. Further complicating the ritual is the fact that no two bodies or souls are exactly alike—a ritual that works for one spellcaster might simply kill another or drive him insane. The exact methods for each spellcaster’s transformation are left to the GM’s discretion, but should involve expenditures of hundreds of thousands of gold pieces, numerous deadly adventures, and a large number of difficult skill checks over the course of months, years, or decades. (100% Crunch Liches)
An integral part of becoming a lich is the creation of the phylactery in which the character stores his soul. (100% Crunch Liches)
Each lich must create its own phylactery by using the Craft Wondrous Item feat. The character must be able to cast spells and have a caster level of 11th or higher. The phylactery costs 120,000 gp to create and has a caster level equal to that of its creator at the time of creation. (100% Crunch Liches)
“Lich” is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature, provided it can create the required phylactery. (100% Crunch Liches)
In the end, though, she fights to the death, hoping perhaps her necromantic pursuits and experimentations will see her resurrected into the lich form she’s long sought. (GM's Miscellany: Places of Power II)
If Erlgamm is killed during the PCs’ stay, she could transform into a lich thanks to her many years of necromantic experiments. (GM's Miscellany: Places of Power II)
Any creature suffering from a negative level inflicted by the hammer of the unworthy when it dies immediately rises as Belial’s choice of a ghost, a lich, or a vampire. In the case of a lich, it treats the hammer of the unworthy as its phylactery. If a creature that would rise as an undead as a result of this ability would also return to life as a pit fiend as a result of the edge of the forsaken’s ability, that creature becomes a pit fiend with the chosen template. (The Deluxe Guide to Fiend Summoning and Faustian Bargains)
Lich Human Necromancer 11: ?
Mohrg: Those who slay many over the course of their lifetimes, be they serial killers, mass-murderers, warmongering soldiers, or battle-driven berserkers, become marked and tainted by the sheer weight of their murderous deeds. When such killers are brought to justice and publicly executed for their heinous crimes before they have a chance to atone, the remains sometimes return to unlife to continue their dark work as a mohrg.
The spirits of serial killers and those who exult in the taking of life. (Undead Revisited)
Those who exult in the needless taking of life sometimes return to the world after death as mohrgs. (Undead Revisited)
Some mohrgs were bloodthirsty warriors who slew as many as they could on the battlefield, others cold and calculating murders who selected their victims with delicate care, but nearly all mohrgs lived and died as mortal humanoids who delighted in the deaths of their fellow beings. A few mohrgs, however, are created from the remains of innocents by spellcasters (using the create undead spell), who are driven mad by being deprived of a peaceful death and then watching the transformation and slow decay of their own bodies. (Undead Revisited)
There are two means of becoming a mohrg: by spell or by deed. A dead creature subject to a create undead spell might find herself transformed into a mohrg. Likewise, a humanoid who has killed many over the course of his life—or even just a few, if he is particularly unrepentant about the lives he’s taken—could awaken to discover that he has not yet passed to the afterlife, but arisen to undeath. (Undead Revisited)
A mohrg is as much a product of the method of its execution as it is an undead manifestation of one who, in life, was a murderous criminal or warmonger. At times, unusual methods of execution can trigger equally unusual mohrgs. The extreme nature of these executions are such that these variant mohrgs are only rarely created by accident—more often, they are deliberate creations by officials who themselves dabble in necromancy and may in fact be as vile as those they put to death. (Undead Revisited)
Once per day, a mohrg-mother can choose to animate a recently slain victim as another mohrg instead of as a fast zombie. (Undead Revisited)
Sages’ opinions differ on the origins of mohrgs, and on the specific conditions that result in the existence of individual specimens of their undead type. One prevailing theory among those who study the unliving maintains that Urgathoa selects a number of the darkest souls awaiting sorting and judgment by Pharasma and takes them as her due, corrupting them with a touch and returning them to the world to spread the seed of undeath in an inexorable plague over the Material Plane. While some claim that the souls that become mohrgs are so abhorrent that the Lady of Graves actually rejects them, wiser heads understand that such is not the nature of Pharasma’s judgment, and suspect that it’s either the work of the Pallid Princess or some terrible process that occurs before the souls ever leave their corpses (as is the case with many other forms of undead). (Undead Revisited)
All mohrgs have been cursed into their condition—either by the gods or by a spellcaster. (Undead Revisited)
Mohrgs, the undead murders who rise after death to stalk the streets. (Undead Revisited)
Those who die beneath the surface of Terminus have a much higher chance of spontaneously rising as undead. This may be another side effect of the strange mineral known as nightglass. Wandering skeletons and zombies are common, and those that die of starvation within the bowels of Terminus often rise as ghouls, as do those who practice cannibalism regularly. The most vicious and violent of prisoners have been known to return as mohrgs. (Legendary Worlds: Terminus)
Creatures killed by a conqueror worm's slime, or killed while suffering damage from the slime, are immediately transformed into an undead creature under the conqueror worm’s control. A humanoid who becomes undead in this way retains none of the abilities it possessed in life.
A humanoid of less than 3 Hit Dice rises as a ghast.
A humanoid of 3–9 Hit Dice rises as a wight.
A humanoid of 10 HD or more rises as a morhg.
There is no limit to the number of undead a conqueror worm can create with its slime. (Mythic Monsters 23: Worms)
Create Undead spell, caster level 18th or higher.
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 18th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Mummy: Mummies are created through a rather lengthy and gruesome embalming process, during which all of the body's major organs are removed and replaced with dried herbs and flowers. After this process, the flesh is anointed with sacred oils and wrapped in purified linens. The creator then finishes the ritual with a create undead spell.
Although most mummies are created merely as guardians and remain loyal to their charge until their destruction, certain powerful mummies have much more free will. The majority are at least 10th-level clerics, and are often kings or pharaohs who have called upon dark gods or sinister necromancers to bind their souls to their bodies after death—usually as a means to extend their rule beyond the grave, but at times simply to escape what they fear will be an eternity of torment in their own afterlife.
Like all sentient undead, mummies possess a chthonic vice, one that proves so powerful that it might stretch beyond the veil of natural death. In this case: covetousness. This might seem like a strange distinction, for what undead creature is not possessed by powers or obsessions that act beyond death? Yet in numerous cases involving mummies, the uncovered corpses were not animate upon discovery. No mere trickery, in such situations not only were the remains not animate, but they were not undead before being disturbed. Although research into dark lore reveals that mummies might be created through necromantic magics, those that spontaneously manifest do so as a result of some outside influence—typically the desecration of a burial place, violation of physical remains, or conveyance of some terrible revelation. As such, the attachment between a departed soul and its immortally coveted remains, possessions, or—most intriguingly—philosophies proves so strong that the undermining of these fundaments draws the spirit back across the gulf of mortality to defend that from which its life and death took meaning. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
What might provoke a mummy’s resurrection varies widely, though cultural generalities exist. The most important requisite appears to be a lifelong preoccupation with death, typically held by an individual and compounded by his society. Populations who believe in the finality of death or the dissolution of the mortal spirit rarely produce mummies. Even believers in more traditional myths of the afterlife and the one-way progression of souls to a final reward or punishment infrequently breed such horrors. Those societies who tie their eternal rewards to the state of their physical remains or other monuments to their lives and believe that departed spirits might return to interact with the living unwittingly inflict a self-fulfilling curse upon themselves. Should one spend an entire life convinced that death does not sever his connection to the mortal realm, a belief compounded by his survivors who seek to elaborately placate his spirit, events that compromise the individual’s interests in the living world make it possible for the soul to return to seek retribution.
Aside from mummies obsessed with their past lives, a second classification exists: the cursed. Not drawn back to the world by their own vices, these beings have their undead state forced upon them. In the most basic form, necromantic magics empower a corpse with the traits of a mummy, granting such a creature the abilities of such ancient dead but without the fanaticism that make the most legendary examples so deadly. These creatures prove hate-filled but bestial, knowing only the will to destroy and the whims of their masters. Other cursed mummies typically spawn from excruciating deaths, curses of immortal suffering, and the wrath of ancient deities. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
While mummies notoriously haunt the hidden pyramids and buried necropolises of ancient cultures, such locations are not requisite to their resurrection. Most mummies created by powers other than foul magic possess connections to their resting places, perceiving such places as sanctuaries or prisons granted to them by their descendants. The form of such places means little; it is the spiritual connection and the importance the deceased places on such locations that hold significance. Thus, mummies are just as likely to rise from hidden barrow mounds, ancient catacombs, or acres of holy mud as from more majestic tombs. That being said, cultures that place such importance on the dead as to monumentalize the resting places of the deceased predispose themselves to the curse of mummies. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Not just any corpse can spontaneously manifest as a mummy GMs interested in creating mummies resurrected “naturally” (rather than by spells like create undead) should consider the passion and force of will of the would-be mummy. By and large, a corpse should be of a creature with a Charisma of 15 or higher and possessing at least 8 Hit Dice. In addition, it should have a reason for caring about the eternal sanctity of its remains in excess of normal mortal concern. As such, priests of deities with the Death or Repose domains, heroes expecting a champion’s burial, lords of cultures preoccupied with the afterlife, or individuals otherwise obsessed with death or their worldly possessions all make suitable candidates for resurrection as mummies—though countless other potential reasons for resurrection exist. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Created to guard the tombs of the honored dead. (Beginner's Box)
Made from a desiccated and preserved corpse, wrapped in sacred bandages, this undead creature is known as a mummy. (Monster Focus: Mummies)
Although the majority of mummies are created through special ritual, some arise spontaneously, usually based on the location of their death. If such a location—be it bog or arid desert—has sufficient latent necromantic auras, the person who died there may rise as a mummy. (Southlands Campaign Setting)
Some cult members request burial in a particular way and involving a special ceremony that echoes that used to create mummies. The cults regard this method of burial (always while still living) as a way to immortality. (Southlands Campaign Setting)
Some orders and religions believe that the mummy is created to watch over her reincarnated kin and that they animate when they are called by those kin, often subliminally and sometimes centuries later. These mummies seek out their kin to protect them from harm—often something the kinsman is totally unaware of and may be horrified by. In darker cases, the mummy sees in that person the image of a dead lover and wishes to rekindle that love once more.
Rarely, some mummies are created either through a voluntary death pact between lovers because the pair wish to continue even into undeath, or through two lovers who are forced as a punishment to endure rebirth as undead. (Southlands Campaign Setting)
Create Undead spell, caster level 15th to 17th.
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 15th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Shadow: A humanoid creature killed by a shadow's Strength damage becomes a shadow under the control of its killer in 1d4 rounds.
Greedy spirits whose own mean-spirited miserliness shrinks their souls, bringing them back after death as some of the most despicable undead monstrosities. (Undead Revisited)
Not even the grave can stop the greed of some people. Driven by envy and covetousness, those misers and thieves led to evil by their avaricious natures sometimes fade away or return after death as shadows, dark reflections of their former selves. (Undead Revisited)
Rampant covetousness and grasping greed lead some people down the dark path of evil and betrayal, eventually ending in a reprehensible death scene or a lonely expiration. While most such petty and despicable souls travel on to their final rewards the same way everyone else does, in some cases gluttons, misers, and thieves waste away into nothing but shadows—undead things that reach and grab, but cannot hold. (Undead Revisited)
As the victim of a shadow’s touch expires, its own shadow detaches from the corpse, taking on the same half-life as its killer. (Undead Revisited)
On their own, shadows arise from the souls of greedy but lackluster evildoers—those whose crimes are heinous, but who lack the rage of a spectre or the exultation in evil often found in wraiths. The bandit who unemotionally slits her victims’ throats because it’s convenient, the petty diplomat who orders a witch burning to cover up his adulterous affair, and the miserly headmaster who lets orphans starve to save a few coppers all make good candidates for becoming shadows. Yet while such spontaneous transformations do occur, the vast majority of shadows are instead created by magic. Necromancers have long seen the value of relatively weak, pliable, and unambitious undead servants—especially incorporeal ones—and most shadows currently in existence were originally called to undeath by the spell create undead (or else by the life-draining attacks of other shadows created in this manner). (Undead Revisited)
Death at the hands of a shadow means becoming one. (Undead Revisited)
Also fortunate for the living is that although shadows can and sometimes do drain energy from animals or even vermin found in their lairs, only humanoid creatures that fall victim to their touch become shadows themselves. This is because of the nature of the humanoid spirit or soul and the magical similarity between the shadow and its prey. (Undead Revisited)
Years ago, a young noblewoman lost in the woodlands beheld a holy vision on a hilltop and founded a small abbey there, whose sisterhood cared for all lost souls who came to its doors. Their kindness proved their undoing when a lost mercenary unit took advantage of their hospitality, only to rob and set fire to the abbey’s great hall with the sisters trapped inside. But the shadows that danced in the hellish light of the flames visited upon the soldiers all of the pain they had inflicted, and left none alive. (Undead Revisited)
Historically, it’s known that the runelords of ancient Thassilon sometimes employed shadows, taking those traitors or servants who displeased the runelords and ripping their shadows away, killing these mortal subjects and turning their shadows into phantasmal servitors and spies capable of serving for eternity. These shadows subsisted on the life force of their victims, in turn stealing the victims’ shadows to create new servitors for their vile masters. While the records are unclear about which runelord was the first to harness the undead in this manor, various reports cite Zutha (Runelord of Gluttony, and a powerful necromancer), Belimarius (Runelord of Envy), and Karzoug (Runelord of Greed), and many of the lesser necromancers in the empire embraced the practice as well. (Undead Revisited)
Shadows were well known in ancient Osirion as well—drawings and hieroglyphs concerning them decorate ancient tombs buried in the desert. Many of those same tombs are haunted by hungry shadows, awaiting tomb-robbers and explorers. Some of these shadows are guardians and protectors against those who would defile the dead, who owe their horrible existences to decadent nobles who commanded that their retinues be entombed alive with them. In other tombs, however, the resident shadows are the soul-shells of greedy and grasping pharaohs and viziers, unable to let go of what they held in life and determined to guard it forever after death. Either way, the result is the same for unfortunate tomb-raiders and archaeologists. (Undead Revisited)
While undead in general are the work of Urgathoa, shadows are often also associated with Norgorber, the god of greed, secrecy, and murder. Indeed, some worshipers of Norgorber refer to shadows as “emissaries of the Gray Master” or “Blackfinger’s claws,” and believe the god takes the shadows of the faithful after death and makes them his proxies in the mortal world, infused with a measure of his killing power. (Undead Revisited)
Any creature that is drained to 0 Strength by the Risen Lord dies. One round later, the creature’s body spawns a shadow (if the creature had 8 or fewer Hit Dice) or a greater shadow (if the creature had 9 Hit Dice or more). (Undead Revisited)
Shadows, those souls too covetous and miserly to relinquish their grasp on life. (Undead Revisited)
Little more than impressions of wickedness, shadows are the souls of petty villains too fearful of their eternal punishments to pass on to the outer planes, yet too weak-willed to manifest as greater undead. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
As the uprising gathers strength, the unquiet souls of bodies long since turned to dust awaken as well. Ghosts, shadows, wraiths, and even spectres arise to prey upon the living. (Game Mastery Guide)
The dread greater shadow creature’s create spawn ability creates only shadows, greater shadows, and dread shadows. (Advanced Bestiary)
A creature killed by a shadow’s incorporeal touch becomes a shadow under the control of its killer in 1d4 rounds. (Book of Beasts Monsters of the Shadow Plane)
The vengeful Ankehaton slew two of his killers, turning them into 2 shadows. (Mountains of Madness)
This weapon’s dark origins were steeped in blood; foul necromantic rituals gave it the power to tear forth the souls of men, turning them into ghostly specters that hungered for the living. (Treasure of NeoExodus: Claw of Xon)
Then, testing a new process using his disturbing necromantic magic, he extracted the iron from the blood of hundreds of slaves and prisoners to forge a new weapon for his new general, befitting his power. Weaving even darker and fouler magic into this weapon he imparted it the power to not just tear flesh and pulp bone, but also rend the very soul from a body to serve the weapon’s wielder before passing on. (Treasure of NeoExodus: Claw of Xon)
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 15th or lower.
Raise Undeath spell word, boosted. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Spawn of the Shadows feat. (Undefeatable 20: Shadowdancer)
Spawn of the Shadows feat. (Undefeatable: The Collected Feats Sourcebook)
Cursed disease. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Shadow Greater: Greater shadows are those undead shadows that have come to be particularly infused with negative energy, such as those that have spent vast lengths of time in areas of the Plane of Shadow awash in negative energy, or those that have drained the lives of thousands of victims
A shadow that has fed on the lives of many victims, or that dwells long enough in a place suffused with sufficient negative energies, may grow in power, becoming a greater shadow. (Undead Revisited)
Any creature that is drained to 0 Strength by the Risen Lord dies. One round later, the creature’s body spawns a shadow (if the creature had 8 or fewer Hit Dice) or a greater shadow (if the creature had 9 Hit Dice or more). (Undead Revisited)
Greater shadows are those undead shadows that have come to be particularly infused with negative energy, such as those that have spent vast lengths of time in areas of the Plane of Shadow awash in negative energy, or those that have drained the lives of thousands of victims. (Advanced Bestiary)
The dread greater shadow creature’s create spawn ability creates only shadows, greater shadows, and dread shadows. (Advanced Bestiary)
If a creature is slain by a shadow of the void’s blightfire, icy fragments of the creature remain and it rises as a greater shadow. (Book of Beasts Legendary Foes)
A living creature slain by a shadow of the void becomes a greater shadow in 1d4 rounds. (Book of Beasts Legendary Foes)
At first glance, it appears that the skeleton resting atop the larger slab was an unfortunate soul who died at an inopportune time. However, further inspection reveals that the person was in fact alive for at least part of the procedure. A successful DC 20 Perception check reveals portions of his fingernails embedded into the stone surface and deep scratches on the bones corresponding with the fingertips. The skeleton belongs to Ankehaton, the only priest who refused to turn his back on Aten and worship Ahriman, the wicked lord of the divs. Atumshutsep and four other clerics horrifically murdered their fellow priest, but the ghastly act and the presence of a dark entity infused Ankehaton’s soul with evil and rage. His spirit survived and transformed into a greater shadow. (Mountains of Madness)
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 19 with Shadow Walk spell. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, boosted, caster level 20th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Skeletal Champion: "Skeletal Champion" is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than an undead) that has a skeletal system and a minimum Intelligence of 3.
A skeletal champion cannot be created with animate dead—these potent undead only arise under rare conditions similar to those that cause the manifestation of ghosts or via rare and highly evil rituals.
Any creature that dies within 60 feet of a saxra must succeed at a DC 30 Will save or rise as a skeleton (or skeletal champion if it has an Intelligence score of 3 or more) in 1d4 rounds. (Bestiary 5)
As the uprising progresses, older and older corpses join the shambling ranks of the undead. Skeletons wearing traces of long-rotted funeral garb claw their way out of graveyards and crypts, and act with a malevolence and organization rarely encountered among their ilk. The undead remain mindless, but the magical power behind the incursion gives them the efficiency and tactical acumen of a living army. The skeletons seek out weapons and armor to gird themselves for battle. Elite skeletal champions lead the troops, wielding magic items scavenged from abandoned graves. (Game Mastery Guide)
While most skeletons are mindless automatons, some skeletons retain their intelligence and cunning, making them formidable warriors. (100% Crunch Skeletal Champions)
“Skeletal Champion” is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than an undead) that has a skeletal system and a minimum Intelligence of 3. (100% Crunch Skeletal Champions)
Create Undead spell, caster level 11 with Enervation or Energy Drain spell. (Undead Revisited)
Revenancer's Rage spell. (Gothic Grimoires To Serve a Prince Undying)
Raise Undeath spell word. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Skeletal Champion Human Warrior 1: ?
Skeleton: Skeletons are the animated bones of the dead, brought to unlife through foul magic.
"Skeleton" is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than an undead) that has a skeletal system.
Any creature that dies within 60 feet of a saxra must succeed at a DC 30 Will save or rise as a skeleton (or skeletal champion if it has an Intelligence score of 3 or more) in 1d4 rounds. (Bestiary 5)
Dead bodies animated through foul necromantic rituals. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
The walking dead normally serve as the simple tools of evil priests and wizards who have animated cadavers through the use of spells such as animate dead. While most skeletons and zombies are the products of such necromantic magics, other methods of creating the walking dead have been recorded. Rare alchemical concoctions can rot the flesh or melt it from bone, and give the corpse some semblance of life. Certain powerful curses can also cause a person to rise as a zombie upon death, often to take revenge on those still living. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
However, skeletons and zombies have also been known to arise spontaneously, usually as a result of another powerful undead creature nearby. Certain areas with a strong necromantic aura or a history of killing—such as battlefields and long-forgotten sacrificial altars—or places where a significant number of people have died violently, as with a mass grave or the sites of massacre, can spontaneously produce the living dead as well. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Occasionally, a large mixed group of skeletons or zombies spontaneously arises, usually at the site of a particularly bloody battle or other scene of carnage. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Skeletons are the animated bones of the dead, brought to unlife through foul magic. While they are mindless automatons, the magic that created them gave them evil cunning and an instinctive hatred of the living. (Beginner's Box)
As the uprising progresses, older and older corpses join the shambling ranks of the undead. Skeletons wearing traces of long-rotted funeral garb claw their way out of graveyards and crypts, and act with a malevolence and organization rarely encountered among their ilk. (Game Mastery Guide)
Skeletons are the animated bones of the dead, brought to unlife through foul magic. (100% Crunch Skeletal Champions)
Skeletons are the animated bones of the dead, brought to unlife through foul magic. (100% Crunch Skeletons)
“Skeleton” is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature that has a skeletal system. (100% Crunch Skeletons)
Skeletons are normally created with animate dead. Of course, wizards and priests both have access to the animate dead spell, and depending on their power may animate any kind of creature (assuming they have its skeleton). Devourers (Bestiary 1), night hag covens (Bestiary 1), sepids (div) (Bestiary 3) and thanadaemons (Bestiary 2) are extraplanar creatures with animate dead as a spell‐like ability. Such creatures could easily scour the sites of battles on the fiendish planes, and animate the dead bodies of celestials and fiends. Material Plane creatures with the animate dead spell‐like ability include hag covens (Bestiary 1), pukwudgies (Bestiary 3), tzitzimitl (Bestiary 3) and zuvembies (Bestiary 3). (100% Crunch Skeletons)
This skeleton is an undead creature animated by magic to perform single-minded tasks. (Behind the Monsters Omnibus)
A bone druid may animate the corpses of animals with but a touch, raising them as zombies or skeletons, depending on the condition of the body. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
The negative energy surrounding the temple’s demise either brings unholy life to the corpses interred at the temples or draws mindless undead to them. While skeletons and zombies are the most common undead, ghouls, spectres and vampires also lair in deserted temples. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
As a standard action, a bone sovereign can create any number of skeletal monsters from its body.
The deadwood exerts its foul influence to a radius of 300 feet for every 2 HD of the tree. Any animal, giant, humanoid, or monstrous humanoid corpse within this range that remains in contact with the ground for 1 full round is animated into a zombie or skeleton. Corpses of humanoids with 2 or 3 class levels are instead turned into ghouls, while those with 4 or more class levels are instead turned into ghasts. (Malevolent and Benign)
The creature is a skeleton, an undead abomination created from the bones of a dead creature. (Monster Focus: Skeletons)
A rot giant can take a full round action to gape its jaws like a snake and consume the corpse of a Medium or smaller target. On the next round, as a standard action it can disgorge a skeleton with HD equal to the consumed victim. (Monster Menagerie Kingdom of Graves)
Xiled clerics then animate their lifeless corpses and compel these skeletons and zombies to serve their new masters for the remainder of their undead existence. (Mountains of Madness)
Each morning, the desperate necromancer animates his former tests subjects and other dead humanoids from the grounds around the library and sends them into battle against the dwarven garrison how guarding the Southern Pass. (Mountains of Madness)
The position of the Osirians as the favored of the gods did not spare them from the cataclysm that turned Abaddon upside down, already giving way to some of the other species the Osirians were struck a hammer blow by the fall of the meteor and their ancestral homelands were some of the worst affected by the necromantic miasma and negative energies released by the impact. (Races of Obsidian Twilight: Osirian)
The Osirians died in droves from the impact, from its aftermath and from the lingering effects of the necromantic radiation, subverting their bodies day by agonizing day and raising so many of them as zombies, skeletons and ghosts that the Osirians rapidly learned harsh lessons in dismemberment before burial and the building of secure and warded tombs. (Races of Obsidian Twilight: Osirian)
With a ritual requiring 8 hours, a master of death can animate a single skeleton or zombie whose Hit Dice do not exceed her arcanist level. (Shadows Over Vathak Player's Guide to Vathak)
Animate Dead spell.
Animate Dead Lesser spell. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
Animate Dead Minor spell. (Monster Focus: Skeletons)
Call the Dead spell. (Monster Focus: Skeletons)
Bone Sword magic item. (Monster Focus: Skeletons)
Release From Flesh spell. (Shadows Over Vathak: Hauntlings – Enhanced Racial Guide)
Torpid Reanimation spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Undead Crew spell. (Ultimate Spell Decks: Obsidian Twilight Spell cards (PFRPG))
Animation by Touch feat. (Obsidian Apocalypse)
Murderous Necromancy feat. (Undefeatable 13: Assassin)
Murderous Necromancy feat. (Undefeatable: The Collected Feats Sourcebook)
Necrotic Arrow feat, Arcane Archer level 3 (Undefeatable 12: Arcane Archer)
Necrotic Arrow feat, Arcane Archer level 3 (Undefeatable: The Collected Feats Sourcebook)
Bonewarped Eternity disease. (Pathways 51)
Skeleton Human Warrior 1: ?
Skeleton Bloody: These variant skeletons can be created using animate dead, but they count as twice their normal number of Hit Dice per casting.
Call the Dead spell. (Monster Focus: Skeletons)
Skeleton Burning: These variant skeletons can be created using animate dead, but they count as twice their normal number of Hit Dice per casting.
Spawn created by a desert mohrg rise as burning skeletons rather than fast zombies. (Undead Revisited)
Call the Dead spell. (Monster Focus: Skeletons)
Spectre: Any humanoids slain by a spectre become spectres themselves in 1d4 rounds.
Most are the remnants of murdered or evil humans, their anger preventing them from entering the afterlife.
Spectres are creatures of insatiable anger, their undeath the result of evil lives and a rage too great to allow them to let go of the mortal world. Arrogant egomaniacs enraged by the insult of their own deaths and murder victims seeking revenge on their captors are prime candidates for transformation into spectres, though such transformations is far more common if the mortals were actively evil. (Undead Revisited)
Areas infested with the foul followers of Zyphus are often prime locations for spectres, as the cultists’ souls tend to linger on the mortal plane after death, rewarded with undeath and allowed to continue their dark deeds on Golarion. Other gods also command the respect of these undead, however, and the creatures’ spawning ability means spectral clerics in the service of Urgathoa quickly rise within her clergy, the dark spirits’ endless hunger for life force and control of an army of spawn a fitting homage to the Pallid Princess. Geb’s ruling class contains several powerful spectres, some of which host decadent, energy-draining banquets in their unhallowed halls, feasting on buffets of sentient souls, with the victims rising as spawn to expand the nation’s legions of incorporeal spies and infiltrators. (Undead Revisited)
Instances of extreme violence and hatred often give rise to a lesser form of spirit: spectres. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
As the uprising gathers strength, the unquiet souls of bodies long since turned to dust awaken as well. Ghosts, shadows, wraiths, and even spectres arise to prey upon the living. (Game Mastery Guide)
Jenovaria was a hate-filled barbarian in life. He died tormented and ashamed for not discovering his lover’s killer and avenging the murder. (Book of Beasts Monsters of the Shadow Plane)
Creatures from 13+ HD within the cone of a plague dragon's deathless breath must make a Fortitude save or die and reanimate as spectres. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
The negative energy surrounding the temple’s demise either brings unholy life to the corpses interred at the temples or draws mindless undead to them. While skeletons and zombies are the most common undead, ghouls, spectres and vampires also lair in deserted temples. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Powerful witches are able to leave lasting imprints upon the land with their final breaths, transforming themselves into powerful, incorporeal undead through extreme hatred and emotional distress. Often manifesting as ghosts, spectres or wraiths, these witches blight the land and cause strange murders and ill fortunate to beset the locals until they move away from the site of the curse. When a creature dies, any intense emotions it experiences at the time of death are often left behind as a psychic footprint. Fear, anger, hatred and sorrow are by far the most powerful of these emotions and often causes the most dangerous and destructive haunts to manifest. It should come as no surprise an act as evil as murder, which often comprises all three of these emotions and more, is a leading cause of the creation of powerful supernatural entities. Ghosts, spectres, wraiths and poltergeists are all commonly created in this manner, and when created they seldom stray far from the place where they were murdered. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Any humanoids slain by a mythic spectre become nonmythic spectres themselves in one round. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
Several decades ago the inhabitants of Saltspray, a small coastal village, were all but wiped from existence by the appetites of a band of sahuagin. Although the monsters were eventually repelled, over half the villagers were murdered, their half-devoured corpses left to rot in a grotto built atop a nobleman’s summer home. In the following years, the manor has become a haunt filled with dozens of lost spirits, the most notable of which is the manor’s former owner. Now a powerful spectre, it is said the owner’s wailing can be heard long into the night once a month as the full moon rises. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Humanoids Lillian slays become spectres (with a –2 penalty on all d20 rolls, –2 hp per HD and only drain one level on a touch) in 1d4 rounds. (Scions of Evil)
Many chirurgical procedures are damaging to the patient's psyche and the natural balance of their mental processes. This imbalance extends into the spiritual plane, and creatures who recently underwent mind-altering chirurgical procedures might have a greater than normal chance of arising as unquiet dead, perhaps haunts that spread madness and torment, or as actual undead creatures such as allips or, more rarely, ghosts or spectres. (The Mad Doctor's Formulary)
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 18th to 19th.
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 20th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Vampire: “Vampire” is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature with 5 or more Hit Dice.
A vampire can create spawn out of those it slays with blood drain or energy drain, provided that the slain creature is of the same creature type as the vampire's base creature type. The victim rises from death as a vampire in 1d4 days.
The ultimate fear of vampires rises from their storied kiss, the bite and telltale marks that spread death and the dark curse of unlife. As the most discussed and feared power of these unliving hunters, vampires’ pronounced fangs draw the blood of the living, allowing the vampire both to feed upon the vital fluid and, more terrifyingly, to create more of its kind from its victims. Though this is not an uncommon trait of the undead, in vampires such corruption finds refinement, affording them the choice of slaying their victims outright or resurrecting them, as either deathless thralls or true vampires. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Dread vampires can create spawn only if their victims are kept in coffin homes until they rise. A coffin home can be any container capable of accommodating the corpse. Under these conditions, a creature slain by a dread vampire’s energy drain attack rises as a standard vampire 24 hours after death. (Advanced Bestiary)
Calix Sabinus can create spawn out of those he slays with blood drain or energy drain, provided that the slain creature is humanoid. The victim rises from death as a vampire in 1d4 days. (Fallen Of Obsidian Twilight: Calix Sabinus)
The negative energy surrounding the temple’s demise either brings unholy life to the corpses interred at the temples or draws mindless undead to them. While skeletons and zombies are the most common undead, ghouls, spectres and vampires also lair in deserted temples. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Vampire myths are as old as time, and it seems that for every myth there is a different way in which one becomes a vampire. Many vampires spread their affliction through their bite, either indiscriminately, or only when they choose to “embrace” their target. Others spread vampirism as a literal disease, which can be inflicted in a number of ways. In other tales, there is no way to “spread” vampirism, and each person who rises as one of the undead does so because of some grave sin that he connected in life. Below are some popular legends about what can cause a person to rise as a vampire. Note that these are just guidelines, and GMs should feel free to pick and choose which of these will work in a given game, and which are simply myth. Some GMs might determine that anyone who is subject to a certain number of these conditions will rise as a vampire, but any one condition is not enough. Others might determine that some or all of these can cause a corpse to rise as a vampire, unless simple steps are taken to prevent that from happening, etc. A corpse might rise as a vampire if…
• …the corpse is jumped over by an animal.
• …the body bore a wound which had not been treated with boiling water.
• …the corpse was an enemy of the church in life.
• …the corpse was a mage in life.
• …the corpse was born a bastard.
• …the corpse converted away from a “true” faith (historically, the Eastern Orthodox Church).
On the other hand, these countermeasures are supposed to prevent a corpse from rising as a vampire:
• A good person need not fear rising as a vampire.
• Crossing oneself before initiating sex spares any resulting children from becoming a vampire.
• Certain blessings performed over the body can prevent the corpse from rising as a vampire.
• Burying the corpse face-down may not prevent the corpse from becoming a vampire, but supposedly prevents him from rising out of his grave. (Liber Vampyr)
A bloodknight can create spawn out of those it slays with its blood drain or energy drain, provided that the slain creature is of the same creature type as the vampire’s base creature type. The victim rises from death as a vampire in 1d4 days, under the command of the bloodknight. A bloodknight may have enslaved spawn totaling no more then twice it’s own hit dice; any spawn it creates that exceeds this limit are free-willed undead. The bloodknight may free enslaved spawn to create new spawn, but can never regain control over the freed undead again. The bloodknight can elect to create a full fledged bloodknight in place of a spawn, but rarely do so, viewing them as dangerous rivals. At most, a bloodknight may create a single of its own kind to serve as a squire. (Monster Menagerie Kingdom of Graves)
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. (Tome of Horrors 4)
Calix can create spawn out of those he slays with blood drain or energy drain, provided that the slain creature is humanoid. The victim rises from death as a vampire in 1d4 days. (Obsidian Apocalypse)
Any creature suffering from a negative level inflicted by the hammer of the unworthy when it dies immediately rises as Belial’s choice of a ghost, a lich, or a vampire. In the case of a lich, it treats the hammer of the unworthy as its phylactery. If a creature that would rise as an undead as a result of this ability would also return to life as a pit fiend as a result of the edge of the forsaken’s ability, that creature becomes a pit fiend with the chosen template. (The Deluxe Guide to Fiend Summoning and Faustian Bargains)
After they rise from the grave, a vampire spirit will haunt a community for 40 nights. After 40 nights, the obour returns to the soil where it regenerates its original physical form. The next night, its transformation complete, the creature rises from the grave as a true, free-willed vampire. (Wayfinder 5)
Vampire human sorcerer 8: ?
Vampire Spawn: A vampire can elect to create a vampire spawn instead of a full-fledged vampire when she uses her create spawn ability on a humanoid creature only. This decision must be made as a free action whenever a vampire slays an appropriate creature by using blood drain or energy drain.
The ultimate fear of vampires rises from their storied kiss, the bite and telltale marks that spread death and the dark curse of unlife. As the most discussed and feared power of these unliving hunters, vampires’ pronounced fangs draw the blood of the living, allowing the vampire both to feed upon the vital fluid and, more terrifyingly, to create more of its kind from its victims. Though this is not an uncommon trait of the undead, in vampires such corruption finds refinement, affording them the choice of slaying their victims outright or resurrecting them, as either deathless thralls or true vampires.
While most vampires visit their victims night after night, draining them of their vitality little by little, some gorge themselves, drinking away an entire life in a single feast. It is from such deaths that new vampires might arise—though victims physically unfit for the transformation might still resurrect as mere vampire spawn. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Draining blood is not the only way new vampires are created, however. Little known is the fact that the very touch of the vampire can drain one’s power and weaken one’s resolve—a condition that seems to be more a manner of fundamental deterioration than mere physical draining. Rarely used by vampires except in desperate conflicts, as it supplies them with no vital blood, their energy-sapping touch can easily extinguish a life, and from such withering deaths new vampires arise, cursing even the most exceptional souls to an existence as undead slaves. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
While most vampires visit their victims night after night, draining them of their vitality little by little, some gorge themselves, drinking away an entire life in a single feast. It is from such deaths that new vampires might arise—though victims physically unfit for the transformation might still resurrect as mere vampire spawn. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
A creature slain by Amelya’s blood drain or energy drain rises as a vampire spawn in 1d4 days. (GM's Miscellany: Places of Power)
Gahlgax can create a spawn when he slays a creature with blood drain or energy drain. (Scions of Evil)
Vilran can create a spawn when he slays a creature with blood drain or energy drain. (Scions of Evil)
Tregereth can create a spawn when she slays a creature with blood drain or energy drain. (Scions of Evil)
Daveth can create a spawn when he slays a creature with blood drain or energy drain. (Scions of Evil)
Margh can create a spawn when he slays a creature with blood drain or energy drain. (Scions of Evil)
Terl can create a spawn when he slays a creature with blood drain or energy drain. (Scions of Evil)
Vampires can create spawn of the same type (humanoid, monstrous humanoid and so on), from those it slays with its blood drain or energy drain attacks. The victim rises in 1d4 days. (Scions of Evil)
Cadan can create a spawn when he slays a creature with blood drain or energy drain. (Scions of Evil)
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. (Tome of Horrors 4)
Wight: Any humanoid creature that is slain by a wight becomes a wight itself in only 1d4 rounds.
Wights are humanoids who rise as undead due to necromancy, a violent death, or an extremely malevolent personality. In some cases, a wight arises when an evil undead spirit permanently bonds with a corpse, often the corpse of a slain warrior.
Broken corpses hungry for the souls of the living, doomed to their lonely existences through a wide variety of tragedies, malevolence, or unwilling possession. (Undead Revisited)
The origins of wights are highly varied. Some are created through obscure necromantic rites (usually create undead) and bound to the service of necromancers or evil priests. More commonly, wights are simply the unfortunate victims of other wights, the light of their lives turned to a corrupted mockery by the undead’s touch. (Undead Revisited)
Every touch of a wight draws the target farther from life and deeper into death, until the last of its life force ebbs and the target is transformed in an instant into a dreadful thing of suffering and hate, leavened with a tormented enslavement to the will of its creator. (Undead Revisited)
More tragically, wights can also arise spontaneously. (Undead Revisited)
Scholars of the undead use the term “wights of anguish” to describe those whose birth into unlife occurred following a horrible trauma, often both mental and physical, that leaves their bodies broken, their psyches shattered, and their spirits consumed with hate and revenge. The depth of their suffering and the lingering shock are so intense that these unfortunates become enthralled to their own pain, clinging to it with every fiber of their being, crucifying themselves across the threshold of death’s door, unable to truly live but unwilling to truly die. (Undead Revisited)
More sinister are “wights of malevolence,” those who through the depravity of their own benighted souls have earned an eternity of roaming the world, cursed with an eternal hunger that can never be slaked and a ragged weariness unable to ever find rest. Popular legend says those sentenced to such an existence are the truly damned, so vile that Hell itself spat them up rather than take them to its bosom. (Undead Revisited)
But perhaps most frightening are those known as “wights of possession.” These are wights created when an evil undead spirit bonds with a corpse in order to animate it, often choosing its host based on convenience or strength of body. Though the original spirits of these bodies may have long since fled to their just rewards, few things are more horrible for their grieving friends than to see their loved ones’ corpses suddenly come to life and begin slaughtering the mourners. (Undead Revisited)
Wherever humanoids die in utter anguish or are entombed in infamy (or even buried alive as punishment), wights may arise, and once they establish a foothold, they begin to spawn and proliferate. (Undead Revisited)
Wights of malevolence sometimes arise from the unquiet remains of the exceptionally evil. Warlords of unspeakable cruelty may be sealed within barrows in the hope that, should their evil linger and stir even in death, they will be trapped and contained. (Undead Revisited)
Old legends suggest that the treasures of a wight of malevolence are themselves tainted with the wight’s foulness, causing a darkening of spirit and a growing psychosis, leading to murderous paranoia that consumes the victims, and causes them to become wights themselves. Depending on the legend, this fate can be averted by freely giving the wight’s treasures away to others; having them blessed by one of the fey (at whatever price the fey demands); or scattering them in the sunlight for 3 days, allowing anyone to take a portion, and then collecting whatever fate has decreed will remain. Only by breaking the cycle of greed can the wight’s treasure be safely recovered. (Undead Revisited)
A wight’s treasure can become infused with its dark spirit, creating a gnawing, obsessive greed that saps the spirit and life of any creature that claims it. A character that possesses accursed wight treasure gains a number of negative levels equal to the total gp value of the stolen treasure divided by 10,000 (minimum of one negative level). These negative levels remain as long as the creature retains ownership of the treasure (even if this treasure is not carried)—they disappear as soon as the stolen treasure is destroyed, stolen, freely given away, or returned to the wight’s lair. If the treasure is merely sold, the negative levels become permanent negative levels that can then be removed via means like restoration. (Undead Revisited)
A creature whose negative levels equal its Hit Dice perishes and rises as a wight. If the wight whose treasure it stole still exists, it becomes a wight spawn bound to that wight. If not, it becomes a free-willed wight. Removing these negative levels does not end the curse, but remove curse or break enchantment does, with a caster level check against a DC equal to the wight’s energy drain save DC. A wight’s treasure does not confer negative levels while in the area of a hallow spell. (Undead Revisited)
Any humanoid creature that is slain by a wight lord becomes a wight itself in only 1d4 rounds. (Undead Revisited)
Wights can be found nearly anywhere on Golarion, though they are encountered most frequently in areas that have seen a long history of war and strife, especially in and around the battlegrounds and burial grounds of fallen empires. Places like the River Kingdoms and western Iobaria with their innumerable failed settlements and petty battlefields are fertile breeding grounds for wights, as are war-torn frontiers like those between Taldor and Qadira, and lands tainted with prolonged suffering like Galt and Nidal. Wights are most associated with humans, but evil dwarves have a long tradition of creating loyal tomb guardians to ward their mausoleums, while the ancient exodus of the elves (and the terrible fates suffered by those who remained) make wights a recurring plague in reclaimed elven holdings. And of course, like most undead, they’re more common in areas where cults of Urgathoa operate. (Undead Revisited)
Wights are less common in Garund than elsewhere, as the funerary practices and necromantic traditions there have long favored mummification for the preservation of the honored dead and for guardianship of tombs. Wights are prevalent, however, in the flooded ruin and innumerable shipwrecks of the Sodden Lands, the Shackles, and the rain-lashed coasts around the Eye of Abendego. These desperate wights sometimes live in a perverse mockery of life, seeing themselves as the last survivors of their villages (or voyages), not realizing that they are truly dead. (Undead Revisited)
Far to the east, the cruel rakshasas of Jalmeray exult in the temptation and corruption of the unwary into the kind of unspeakable vileness that leads these unfortunates to become wights in death, serving the rakshasas as loyal bodyguards and assassins. (Undead Revisited)
Packs of wights are a long-standing menace at the triune borderland of Ustalav, Lastwall, and the Hold of Belkzen. The Virlych dead lands surrounding the ruins of Gallowspire, steeped in horror, are haunted by the tormented remnants of those harrowed an age ago by the Whispering Tyrant’s magics, bodies shredded and spirits flensed until nothing but pain and deathless rage remained. Patrols from Vigil exterminate these wights whenever they are found, but on more than one occasion a patrol has simply disappeared, until a later patrol suffered a tragic encounter with the corrupted remains of the righteous fallen. (Undead Revisited)
Across the border in Belkzen, honor is for the living, and wherever the warriors fall is where they rot. On rare occasions, notable leaders are buried in lone cairns, but more often when burial is required (such as when an army dies on land the victors wish to inhabit), all of the fallen from a single battle are interred in a mass barrow with their leader. These funerary rites often awaken one or more wights that embrace the charge of leading the dead. Unusually powerful orc priests, shamans, or witches may also travel at times through the Hold visiting the various tribes to create guardian wights or take control of those that arise spontaneously. (Undead Revisited)
Of all these lands, however, the ones most associated with wights are the cold Kellid and Hallit lands of the north, from long-lost Sarkoris in the east to the Lands of the Linnorm Kings in the west. No strangers to suffering and misery, nor to war and cruelty, these realms are liberally scattered with barrows, dolmens, and cairns. Some are haunted by wights of their own, but legend tells of the White Legion, an army of frost wights gathered beyond the Crown of the World, culled from the lost and the dead of all the cold lands. Their purpose is a mystery, but enemies of Irrisen fear they may be in league with Baba Yaga and her witch daughters. (Undead Revisited)
Any humanoid creature that is slain by a negative energy-charged wight becomes a wight itself in only 1d4 rounds. (Advanced Bestiary)
Creatures killed by a barrow wight’s energy drain rise as ordinary wights that also possess DR 5/magic or silver and have a chilling glare (range 10 feet) equivalent to that of the barrow wight. (Beasts of Legend Coldwood Codex)
Creatures from 6-12 HD within the cone of a plague dragon's deathless breath must make a Fort save or die and reanimate as wights. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
Any humanoid killed by a corpsehanger's energy drain or constrict attack becomes an undead creature within 1d4 rounds, unless it is cut down and the corpse blessed. A zombie will be created 70% of the time, a ghoul 20% of the time, and a wight 10% of the time. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
Any humanoid slain by a marquis wight's slam attacks, or its aura become a wight in 1d4 rounds. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
Any humanoid creature that is slain by Trevor Catalan becomes a wight itself in only 1d4 rounds. (Enemies of NeoExodus: Folding Circle)
Any humanoid creature that is slain by a black glass wight becomes a wight itself in only 1d4 rounds. (Mor Aldenn Creature Compendium)
Any humanoids slain by a mythic wight become nonmythic wights themselves in one round. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
Creatures killed by a conqueror worm's slime, or killed while suffering damage from the slime, are immediately transformed into an undead creature under the conqueror worm’s control. A humanoid who becomes undead in this way retains none of the abilities it possessed in life.
A humanoid of less than 3 Hit Dice rises as a ghast.
A humanoid of 3–9 Hit Dice rises as a wight.
A humanoid of 10 HD or more rises as a morhg.
There is no limit to the number of undead a conqueror worm can create with its slime. (Mythic Monsters 23: Worms)
Any humanoid creature that is slain by a ferrywight becomes a wight in 1d4 rounds. (Wayfinder 15)
Create Undead spell, caster level 14 with Enervation spell. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 15th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Cursed disease. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Wight Brute: Giants that are killed by wights become hunchbacked, simple-minded undead.
Wight Cairn: Some societies deliberately create these specialized wights to serve as guardians for barrows or other burial sites.
Wight Frost: Wights created in cold environments sometimes become pale undead with blue-white eyes and ice in their hair.
Wraith: A humanoid slain by a wraith becomes a wraith in 1d4 rounds.
Wraiths are undead creatures born of evil and darkness.
Wraiths, much like spectres, arise from souls tainted by evil lives. (Undead Revisited)
Creatures slain by white wraiths rise as normal wraith spawn in 1d4 rounds. (Undead Revisited)
The souls of exceptionally malevolent individuals, wraiths are manifestations of true evil. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
As the uprising gathers strength, the unquiet souls of bodies long since turned to dust awaken as well. Ghosts, shadows, wraiths, and even spectres arise to prey upon the living. (Game Mastery Guide)
The dread wraith creature's create spawn ability creates only wraiths. (Advanced Bestiary)
The wraith creature's create spawn ability creates only wraiths. (Advanced Bestiary)
Powerful witches are able to leave lasting imprints upon the land with their final breaths, transforming themselves into powerful, incorporeal undead through extreme hatred and emotional distress. Often manifesting as ghosts, spectres or wraiths, these witches blight the land and cause strange murders and ill fortunate to beset the locals until they move away from the site of the curse. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
When a creature dies, any intense emotions it experiences at the time of death are often left behind as a psychic footprint. Fear, anger, hatred and sorrow are by far the most powerful of these emotions and often causes the most dangerous and destructive haunts to manifest. It should come as no surprise an act as evil as murder, which often comprises all three of these emotions and more, is a leading cause of the creation of powerful supernatural entities. Ghosts, spectres, wraiths and poltergeists are all commonly created in this manner, and when created they seldom stray far from the place where they were murdered. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
A humanoid slain by a mythic wraith becomes a wraith in 1 round. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
When a soul fouled by anger and fear leaves its broken corpse, if it is strong enough, that soul may return as a ghost, a wraith or some worse form of undead. If it is strong enough….. (Two Dozen Dangers: Haunts)
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 16th to 17th.
Raise Undeath spell word, boosted, caster level 16th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Cursed disease. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Wraith Dread: A wraith that exists for long enough and feeds on enough life force undergoes an unholy transformation, becoming a creature known as a dread wraith.
Any humanoids slain by a wyrmwraith become dread wraiths in 1d4 rounds. (Bestiary 5)
Any creature slain by a dread wraith sovereign’s Constitution drain or incorporeal touch attack rises as a dread wraith in 1d4 rounds. (Advanced Bestiary)
Individual Curse Death Magic. (Tome of Adventure Design)
Any male humanoid slain by a banshee’s death wail or energy drain rises to become a dread wraith in 1d4 rounds. (Tome of Horrors 4)
Zombie: Zombies are the animated corpses of dead creatures, forced into foul unlife via necromantic magic like animate dead.
"Zombie" is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than an undead).
Dead bodies animated through foul necromantic rituals. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
The walking dead normally serve as the simple tools of evil priests and wizards who have animated cadavers through the use of spells such as animate dead. While most skeletons and zombies are the products of such necromantic magics, other methods of creating the walking dead have been recorded. Rare alchemical concoctions can rot the flesh or melt it from bone, and give the corpse some semblance of life. Certain powerful curses can also cause a person to rise as a zombie upon death, often to take revenge on those still living. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
However, skeletons and zombies have also been known to arise spontaneously, usually as a result of another powerful undead creature nearby. Certain areas with a strong necromantic aura or a history of killing—such as battlefields and long-forgotten sacrificial altars—or places where a significant number of people have died violently, as with a mass grave or the sites of massacre, can spontaneously produce the living dead as well. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Occasionally, a large mixed group of skeletons or zombies spontaneously arises, usually at the site of a particularly bloody battle or other scene of carnage. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Zombies are the animated corpses of dead creatures. (Beginner's Box)
On the first nights of an undead uprising, the bodies of the recently dead rise as zombies. Those interred in consecrated ground remain at rest, but bodies left unburied or in mass graves lurch out into the streets, wreaking havoc. (Game Mastery Guide)
Zombies are the animated corpses of dead creatures, forced into foul unlife via necromantic magic like animate dead. (100% Crunch Zombie Lords)
Zombies are the animated corpses of dead creatures, forced into foul unlife via necromantic magic like animate dead. (100% Crunch Zombies)
“Zombie” is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature. (100% Crunch Zombies)
Devourers (Bestiary 1), night hag covens (Bestiary 1), sepids (div) (Bestiary 3), and thanadaemons (Bestiary 2) are extraplanar creatures with animate dead as a spell‐like ability. (100% Crunch Zombies)
Material Plane creatures with the animate dead ability include hag covens (Bestiary 1), pukwudgies (Bestiary 3), tzitzimitl (Bestiary 3), and zuvembies (Bestiary 3). Of course, wizards and priests also have access to animate dead, and depending on their power may animate any kind of creature. (100% Crunch Zombies)
A single humanoid creature killed by a spell with the death descriptor incorporating a wight’s ichor arises as a zombie 1d4 rounds later. (Creature Components Volume 1)
A bone druid may animate the corpses of animals with but a touch, raising them as zombies or skeletons, depending on the condition of the body. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
Any creature reduced to 0 Wisdom by a gibbering terror's babble rises as a zombie under its control in 1d3 rounds.
Any humanoid killed by a corpsehanger's energy drain or constrict attack becomes an undead creature within 1d4 rounds, unless it is cut down and the corpse blessed. A zombie will be created 70% of the time, a ghoul 20% of the time, and a wight 10% of the time. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
In the absence of fresh meat, the dire rats that frightened Lakta back into her hiding space underwent the transition from life to undeath becoming dire rat zombies. (Dunes of Desolation)
Living creatures reduced to 0 Constitution by a flayed man’s flense or lifedrain attack gain the zombie template after 1d4 rounds. (Freeport Companion Pathfinder RPG Edition)
The negative energy surrounding the temple’s demise either brings unholy life to the corpses interred at the temples or draws mindless undead to them. While skeletons and zombies are the most common undead, ghouls, spectres and vampires also lair in deserted temples. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Any creature slain by a nosferatu’s energy drain attack immediately rises as a zombie. (Liber Vampyr)
The deadwood exerts its foul influence to a radius of 300 feet for every 2 HD of the tree. Any animal, giant, humanoid, or monstrous humanoid corpse within this range that remains in contact with the ground for 1 full round is animated into a zombie or skeleton. Corpses of humanoids with 2 or 3 class levels are instead turned into ghouls, while those with 4 or more class levels are instead turned into ghasts. (Malevolent and Benign)
When he’s not indulging his foul appetites for blood and sex, the Lord Mayor likes to spend time nurturing the necrotic ticks he is breeding in the laboratory beneath his mansion. He uses them to create zombies to fight in the gladiatorial arena close to the city’s central Hangman’s Square. (Midgard Worldbook for 5th Edition and Pathfinder)
Xiled clerics then animate their lifeless corpses and compel these skeletons and zombies to serve their new masters for the remainder of their undead existence. (Mountains of Madness)
Each morning, the desperate necromancer animates his former tests subjects and other dead humanoids from the grounds around the library and sends them into battle against the dwarven garrison how guarding the Southern Pass. (Mountains of Madness)
Any creature slain by a pukwudgie’s poisonous quills rises in 24 hours as a zombie. (Mythic Monsters 16: Monstrous Humanoids)
The position of the Osirians as the favored of the gods did not spare them from the cataclysm that turned Abaddon upside down, already giving way to some of the other species the Osirians were struck a hammer blow by the fall of the meteor and their ancestral homelands were some of the worst affected by the necromantic miasma and negative energies released by the impact. (Races of Obsidian Twilight: Osirian)
The Osirians died in droves from the impact, from its aftermath and from the lingering effects of the necromantic radiation, subverting their bodies day by agonizing day and raising so many of them as zombies, skeletons and ghosts that the Osirians rapidly learned harsh lessons in dismemberment before burial and the building of secure and warded tombs. (Races of Obsidian Twilight: Osirian)
With a ritual requiring 8 hours, a master of death can animate a single skeleton or zombie whose Hit Dice do not exceed her arcanist level. (Shadows Over Vathak Player's Guide to Vathak)
A creature killed while under the effects of a ghul's exhalation of death becomes a ghast (if humanoid) or zombie (if not humanoid) if it had 5 or fewer Hit Dice, and a ghul if it had 6 or more. It rises in undeath 1d6 hours after being slain. A remove curse, neutralize poison, or similar spell cast on its body during this incubation period might prevent the corpse from becoming undead. The caster of such a spell must make a caster level check (DC 10 + HD of ghul that affected the target with exhalation of death), and on a successful check the corpse does not become an undead. (The Genius Guide to Simple Monster Templates)
Animated bodies need not be the result of black magic (which is the case for, say, the standard zombie). (Tome of Adventure Design)
Individual Curse Death Magic. (Tome of Adventure Design)
Animate Dead spell.
Animate Dead Lesser spell. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
Animate Dead Minor spell. (Monster Focus: Skeletons)
Flesh Rot spell. (Monster Focus: Zombies)
Mythic Flesh Puppet spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Mythic Flesh Puppet Horde spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Mythic Flesh Wall spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Torpid Reanimation spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Animation by Touch feat. (Obsidian Apocalypse)
Murderous Necromancy feat. (Undefeatable 13: Assassin)
Murderous Necromancy feat. (Undefeatable: The Collected Feats Sourcebook)
Necrotic Arrow feat, Arcane Archer level 5 (Undefeatable 12: Arcane Archer)
Necrotic Arrow feat, Arcane Archer level 5 (Undefeatable: The Collected Feats Sourcebook)
Ash Pendant magic item. (Monster Focus: Zombies)
Invader's Bugle magic item. (Treasury of Winter)
Necrotic Pool. (GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing)
Cursed disease. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Zombie Rot disease. (GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing)
Zombie Human: ?
Zombie Fast: Humanoid creatures killed by a mohrg rise immediately as fast zombies under the mohrg's control.
Anyone who dies from juju fever rises as a fast zombie at the next midnight. (30 Variant Dragons)
Vermin killed by a cave fisher mohrg rise immediately as fast zombies. (Advanced Bestiary)
Any creatures killed by a spell with the death descriptor incorporating a mohrg’s saliva arise as a zombie (fast zombie variant) 1d4 rounds later. (Creature Components Volume 1)
A puppet spider can enter a corpse and animate it while residing within. This effectively transforms the corpse into a fast zombie. (Fell Beasts Volume 2)
Humanoid creatures killed by a pumpkin stalker mohrg rise immediately as fast zombies. (Monster Menagerie Pumpkin Stalker)
Whenever a non-mythic creature with fewer than 10 Hit Dice dies within 30 feet of a mythic zombie titan, that creature rises again 1 round later as a fast zombie (DC 15 Fortitude negates). These zombies are uncontrolled but do not attack the zombie titan. If a mythic titan zombie expends one use of mythic power as an immediate action when a creature dies within 30 feet, the save DC increases to 20 and it can affect mythic creatures and creatures with 10 or more Hit Dice. Mythic creatures add their mythic rank or tier as a bonus on this saving throw. (Mythic Monsters 27: COLOSSAL)
Zombie Plague: Anyone who dies while infected with zombie rot rises as a plague zombie in 2d6 hours.
Anyone who dies while infected with zombie rot disease rises as a plague zombie in 2d6 hours. (100% Crunch Zombie Lords)
Anyone who dies while infected by a plague zombie's zombie rot rises as a plague zombie in 2d6 hours. (Book of Beasts Monsters of the Shadow Plane)
Anyone who dies while infected with zombie rot rises as a plague zombie in 2d6 hours. (Monster Focus: Zombies)
Those tragic souls transformed by evil from beyond the mortal world or cursed by their actions in life to rise again after death. (Undead Revisited)
The spells animate dead, create undead, and create greater undead account for methods by which spellcasters can create a wide range of undead creatures—but the options granted by these spells are limited. With the GM’s permission, these can be adjusted to allow for the creation of additional types of undead. Doing so requires additional material components and spells (additional spells are cast as part of the casting time of the undead creation spell, but do not extend that spell’s casting time). (Undead Revisited)
Driven by all-encompassing hunger and murderous intent, spectral dead are corrupted souls that refuse to release their hold on the mortal world. (Undead Revisited)
No one knows what plants the seeds of darkness and decay that utterly corrupt the souls of mortals. Some speculate that the prenatal soul, like fruit left too long to ripen on the vine, can sour to malignancy long before its binding to a mortal shell, dooming the creature from birth to a troubled life of anger and deceit and, eventually, to undeath. Others theorize that mortal action alone allows this malignancy to take root, and lives spent unwisely in the service of dark powers corrupt the intangible sparks of divinity that rest in mortal hearts. Still others note that despair and madness—afflictions capable of bringing even the most pious and good-natured people to their knees, through no fault of their own—can lead to the unnatural shackling of a spirit to the mortal world. (Undead Revisited)
Once this metaphorical disease has festered within a soul, it becomes contagious, and some undead are able to pass their despicable gift on to the living, regardless of their victim’s former valor. While the positive energy of mortal humanoids can fight off the curse of undeath while they are still living, those slain by these powerful spirits sometimes have their souls instantaneously consumed by darkness, their corrupted spirits sloughing off their mortal shells to rise as the ghostly spawn of their slayers. (Undead Revisited)
Most undead began as living beings that were animated after death, arose again spontaneously after death because of some great emotion or unfinished business, or, while still living, willingly embraced undeath to stave off the looming hand of oblivion. (Undead Revisited)
For most people, death is a release, a passage into the just rewards of the afterlife. Yet not everyone who dies rests easy. Legends and campfire tales tell of those individuals too evil to die, or too twisted by pride or occult knowledge to cross over to the other side. These lost souls become the undead, plaguing the dark crypts or silent streets of cities and farm towns alike, feasting on the innocent or spreading their immortal contagion like a plague. (Undead Revisited)
A dead body or spirit animated by an evil power. (Beginner's Box)
Whether from an ancient curse or fell necromancy, one of the most terrifying of all supernatural disasters is the undead uprising—the dead emerging from their graves to claim the living. This disaster can strike any area where the dead have been laid to rest, not just towns and cities. More than one blood-soaked battlefield has given rise to a legion of desiccated undead warriors.
Heroes who perished in the battle against the uprising return as fearsome undead generals. (Game Mastery Guide)
Powerful witches are able to leave lasting imprints upon the land with their final breaths, transforming themselves into powerful, incorporeal undead through extreme hatred and emotional distress. (Alternate Dungeons: Haunted House)
When a creature dies, any intense emotions it experiences at the time of death are often left behind as a psychic footprint. Fear, anger, hatred and sorrow are by far the most powerful of these emotions and often causes the most dangerous and destructive haunts to manifest. It should come as no surprise an act as evil as murder, which often comprises all three of these emotions and more, is a leading cause of the creation of powerful supernatural entities. Ghosts, spectres, wraiths and poltergeists are all commonly created in this manner, and when created they seldom stray far from the place where they were murdered. (Alternate Dungeons: Haunted House)
In many ways, a haunted house is created by suicide in the same way it is created by murder, though sorrow and self‐loathing often fuel the supernatural entities born from suicide rather than fear, anger or hatred as is true with murder. (Alternate Dungeons: Haunted House)
Any event causing a suitable amount of negative emotion can create a haunt, whether this tragedy is a massive fire at an orphanage, the demise of a family or the deaths of an entire neighbourhood from an epidemic. (Alternate Dungeons: Haunted House)
As a mortal woman, Cevnia was fascinated with arcane magic and studied amongst the elves to broaden her knowledge. Unfortunately, she chose to use this knowledge to control others by playing on their weaknesses. The elves eventually discovered her network of spies and blackmailers, but not before she was able to steal many secrets from the ancient elven libraries. She was exiled from the elven homelands, but set up her own college of magic, carefully building up her influence and extending her control. At the height of her powers, she began to study the nature of death. She perfected the art of necromancy, created the first undead and ultimately transformed herself into a vampire. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
Then came calamity… In the fertile jungles of the north, a sun goddess called Tlaneci arose, whilst in the ice flows of the south, where life was harsh, and night lasted for weeks, the god of darkness, Taggarik, came into being. Not content with ruling his portion of the Inner and Outer Worlds, he sought to gain complete control of the Inner World, which he considered to be his rightful domain. When the other deities refused to grant him sole dominion of the Inner World, he conspired with the powerful vampire wizard, Cevnia, who had stolen secret magics from the elves. Together they wrought a spell that shattered the Inner World, scattering the beings who lived there. The cycle of the Double Realm was broken, the Inner World replaced with the half-planes of the Ethereal Realm and the Shadow Realm. Taggarik made the Shadow Realm his own, and infected it with his evil power, although he was not able to realise his plan of creating a physical realm, powered by negative energy. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
The spirits of those who had dwelt in the Inner World could no longer be reborn into the Outer World. Some accepted Taggarik’s offer of a place in the Shadow Realm, and ended up trapped in a tormented half-life, partly physical and partly spirit. Some fled to the Ethereal Realm, eschewing any hope of a physical existence, although most were eventually given refuge in the planar abodes belonging to the deities. The least fortunate were transformed into undead creatures by Taggarik and Cevnia and forced into their service. The clerics of Taggarik specialise in creating undead, and many wizards seek the path of the necromancer, guided by the teachings of Cevnia, who achieved deity-hood herself as a result of the Shattering, as it became known. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
Cevnia continued her research, refining her methods and learning to create other types of undead. She made progress but was always hampered by the lack of suitable negative energy spirits. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
Once the Inner World was shattered, the barriers that prevented negative spirits from crossing back over into the Inner World before their time were severely weakened. This meant that undead could be more easily created, without the need for ghosts. Taggarik and Cevnia created armies of undead between them. When they began to lose the war, they hatched a desperate plan to increase the number of undead. They infected many of their minions with a curse which meant that when they slew a living being, the victim’s spirit was automatically drawn back, and its body would rise up as another undead. As the living fell, so they became part of the army of evil undead. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
Since the War of Life ended, the creation of undead is tightly controlled. This is part of the armistice agreement between the warring deities. Only a certain number of undead can be created, or brought into the Outer World, and their creation is more difficult and costlier. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
When the War of Life began, that great battle between life and undeath, the dwarves sided with Tlaneci, the goddess of the sun, and marched into battle on the central plains of the Jing Empire. This area was devasted by necromantic magic and became the Narwahr Expanse. Even now, the tortured bodies of dwarven warriors can be encountered as undead, shambling through the shattered terrain of the Expanse. (Atarashia Gazeteer – A Dwarven Guide)
The witch goddess Talakasha is rumored to be the source of all true evil and undeath in the realm. (Cerulean Seas Indigo Ice)
Of course, if they do happen to die in the night on Pellatarrum, there is an increased chance the victim will return as an undead.
Battles at night on Pellatarrum will carry greater casualties for both sides, with the increased possibility of the dead coming back as undead.
Only an idiot fights the undead at night on Pellatarrum. They are stronger, do more damage, and have increased chances of turning you and your friends into abominations. (Claw Claw Bite 18)
Ghost Water is a vile drug, each dose being made from the life essence of an elf or other long-lived being, which wastes away during the process of creating the dose, usually becoming an undead creature.
When a soul fouled by anger and fear leaves its broken corpse, if it is strong enough, that soul may return as a ghost, a wraith or some worse form of undead. (Dangers & Discoveries)
Once per day, a feast materializes on a table in a communal room. Depending on the temple’s alignment, the food provides the benefits of the heroes’ feast spell or acts as create undead should a PC eating the food die within 24 hours of consuming it. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Inside the corpse’s stomach is a half‐digested monster. The essence of this undead creature still lingers within the cadaver. The undead creature can be reanimated or restored with a DC 25 Knowledge (religion) check and onyx gems worth 25 gp per HD of the creature. (GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing)
Knowledge (arcana, DC 30) Recalls that certain cabals of necromancers create necrotic pools to aid them in the creation of undead minions. The creation of such pools is difficult and complex and requires the binding of countless souls to the pool. (GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing)
An old lizardfolk tells younger lizardfolk scary stories about how dead lizardfolk who aren't properly eaten become vengeful undead. (GM's Miscellany: Village Backdrops V)
Needlebriar’s citizens toss anything they don’t consume into a field they loosely refer to as the Bone Pit. Occasionally these remains arise as horrid undead creatures. The creatures never attack the halflings, instead roaming the nearby countryside. (GM's Miscellany: Village Backdrops V)
Other forgotten tunnels host the undead remnants of prisoners trapped when the castle fell. (GM's Miscellany: Places of Power)
Cremating corpses to keep them from rising as undead. (Knowledge Check: Last Rites)
Some religions include the need to anoint the corpse as part of the funeral rites. The anointing is usually done by a priest or other religious leader, and involves placing oil, incense, perfume, or other holy liquids on various parts of the body, usually while saying a prayer. These anointing rites are usually to protect or cleanse the corpse after death, and in some areas serve as proof against reanimation as undead. (In an ironic twist, very similar rites are usually used to create undead). (Knowledge Check: Last Rites)
Simply put, cremation is burning a body until there is nothing left to burn. There are several ways to accomplish this, but in a typical medieval setting the most common is to build a pyre of some sort, place the corpse on top, and set it alight. Cremation is the funeral rite of choice for religions heavy on fire symbolism, while a few instead use it to free the spirit by removing the body it was attached to. As a side benefit, it also tends to keep them from coming back as undead. (Knowledge Check: Last Rites)
The restless spirits of the shattering. (Legendary Worlds: Carsis)
Hidden deep within its depths is Ghostcaller, an absurdly powerful lute whose music has the power to create undead. (Legendary Worlds: Jowchit)
Those who die beneath the surface of Terminus have a much higher chance of spontaneously rising as undead. This may be another side effect of the strange mineral known as nightglass. Wandering skeletons and zombies are common, and those that die of starvation within the bowels of Terminus often rise as ghouls, as do those who practice cannibalism regularly. The most vicious and violent of prisoners have been known to return as mohrgs. This increase in undead activity is limited to corporeal undead. Incorporeal undead are no more likely to arise than on any other planet. (Legendary Worlds: Terminus)
A deadwood’s power over the undead is awe-inspiring. Its influence over a forest is so strong that the body of any animal or person who falls dead within miles of a deadwood rises as undead creatures, which will most likely spend the rest of their existences guarding the deadwood. (Malevolent and Benign)
Few mortal creatures have ever attempted to eat an entire deadwood fruit, and none who has is known to have survived. Tales of what might happen to those who “live” through such an attempt vary. Some believe they would gain permanent command over the dead and others that they would be transformed into strange, powerful, and unique undead. (Malevolent and Benign)
The PCs’ subsequent delve into the bog enters a haunted realm populated by shambling corpses, vengeful undead creatures, and pathetic spirits borne from Hamish’s genocide. (Marshes of Malice)
The serpents in the hills around the valley offer a deadly hazard to those wishing to find the garden. Grandmother's magic has made the snakes' venom particularly deadly; those suffering a bite from these enchanted snakes typically die within hours of being injected. To make matters worse, the bodies of those who die from the poison sometimes return as foul undead monstrosities. (Midgard Worldbook for 5th Edition and Pathfinder)
The fire lords make their home in a range of volcanoes called the Blodejord (“Crib of Earth’s Blood,” in the Jotun tongue), rising around the charred and desolate remains of what once was a stunningly fertile valley. Fire and ash erupt into the air, and any who die covered by the Crib’s enchanted ashes rise again as twisted undead. (Midgard Worldbook for 5th Edition and Pathfinder)
Fire giant necromancers of Sengajordensblod are using the Crib-ash to raise an undead horde and to forge Surtalogi, the great weapon of Ragnarok. (Midgard Worldbook for 5th Edition and Pathfinder)
She tells the PCs that she fears that the individuals plundering the burial mound may be disturbing the final resting place of Gurdkin Feycleaver, an ancient dwarf thane with a reputation for savagery and evil. Myths and legends claim that the covetous royal vowed to defend his earthly treasures even after he departed this world. Naturally, she is very worried that Gurdkin may fulfill his promise and return to the land of the living as an undead horror. (Mountains of Madness)
For Thanopsis, the act of dying irreparably corrupts the individual, regardless of whether the soul embarks on an eternal journey into the afterlife or not, or the body or spirit is reanimated by an arcane or divine force. (Mountains of Madness)
The building’s current resident transformed some of his former colleagues into his undead servants.(Mountains of Madness)
The Kingdom of Arcady’s human subjects never died. Instead, they retreated into a great necropolis, where they were mummified and transformed into a variety of undead monsters. (This is a false rumor.) (Mountains of Madness)
The Khemitites, the library’s builders, were obsessed with the afterlife. Those unwilling to pass onto the next world were sometimes transformed into undead monstrosities. Mummification was also a common practice, and it was not uncommon for the dead to arise from their coffins and terrorize the living. (Mountains of Madness)
Undead raise due to the necromantic energy in the meteor. (Obsidian Apocalypse)
The new Obsidian Veil bars all divine traffic of souls and prayer, preventing any deity from seeing or hearing a thing, and cutting them off from gaining power from their followers. The souls of the departed do not pass the Obsidian Veil into other worlds; they either dissipate into the ravaged world-aura of the planet or become infused with negative energy and return as the motivating forces for yet more undead. (Obsidian Apocalypse)
Abaddon is a world of final destinations, from which even the souls of the dead cannot escape. Those who fall are doomed to rise and join the ever-swelling ranks of the undead. (Obsidian Apocalypse)
Agent of Chaos Creature's Chaos field power mishap number 50. (Pathways Bestiary)
Undead are once-living creatures animated by spiritual or supernatural forces. (Pathways Bestiary)
Vampiric Sorcerer Bloodline Ruler of the Night power. (Ponyfinder Campaign Setting)
Every attempt to march an army on the city of Tramplevania had been met with mountain trained pegasi harassing from all angles, using the terrain they knew so well to wear down invading armies before they could reach the city gates. The frequent violence has given rise to restless spirits of those same invaders lurking in the trails leading to the city, seeking revenge on the living. (Ponyfinder Campaign Setting)
Sun-Dead feat. (The Book of Many Things Volume 2: Shattered Worlds)
Many chirurgical procedures are damaging to the patient's psyche and the natural balance of their mental processes. This imbalance extends into the spiritual plane, and creatures who recently underwent mind-altering chirurgical procedures might have a greater than normal chance of arising as unquiet dead, perhaps haunts that spread madness and torment, or as actual undead creatures such as allips or, more rarely, ghosts or spectres. (The Mad Doctor's Formulary)
In folklore, almost all undead creatures arise from some sort of break in the normal life cycle as that culture defines the life cycle (and that’s not always the same in all cultures). Some ceremony wasn’t performed – often burial or last rites, or some action taken by the undead person during his life represented a breach of the natural order of things. (Tome of Adventure Design)
Table 2-64: Basic Types of Undead Creatures
Die Roll
Undead Type
01-04
Corporeal, genius, non-reproductive
05-08
Corporeal, genius, reproduces through prey
09-12
Corporeal, non-intelligent, non-reproductive
13-16
Corporeal, non-intelligent, reproduces through prey
17-20
Corporeal, semi-intelligent, non-reproductive
21-24
Corporeal, semi-intelligent, reproduces through prey
25-28
Incorporeal, genius, non-reproductive
29-32
Incorporeal, genius, reproduces through prey
33-36
Incorporeal, non-intelligent, non-reproductive
37-40
Incorporeal, non-intelligent, reproduces through prey
41-44
Incorporeal, semi-intelligent, non-reproductive
45-48
Incorporeal, semi-intelligent, reproduces through prey
49-52
Non-human corporeal, intelligent, non-reproductive
53-56
Non-human, corporeal, intelligent, contagious Undeath
57-60
Non-human, corporeal, non-intelligent, contagious Undeath
61-64
Non-human, corporeal, non-intelligent, non-reproductive
65-68
Non-human, corporeal, semi-intelligent, contagious Undeath
69-72
Non-human, corporeal, semi-intelligent, non-reproductive
73-76
Non-human, incorporeal, intelligent, contagious Undeath
77-80
Semi-corporeal, genius, non-reproductive
81-84
Semi-corporeal, genius, reproduces through prey
85-88
Semi-corporeal, non-intelligent, non-reproductive
89-92
Semi-corporeal, non-intelligent, reproduces through prey
93-96
Semi-corporeal, semi-intelligent, non-reproductive
97-00
Semi-corporeal, semi-intelligent, reproduces through prey
(Tome of Adventure Design)
Table 2-65: Causes of Intelligent Undeath
Die Roll
Cause of Intelligent Undeath
01-10
Cursed by enemy
11-20
Cursed by gods
21-30
Disease such as vampirism
31-40
Prepared by others for Undeath, at or before death (unwillingly)
41-50
Prepared by others for Undeath, at or before death (willingly)
51-60
Prepared self for Undeath, during life
61-70
Rejected from underworld for some reason
71-80
Returned partially by actions of others
81-90
Returned to gain vengeance for own killing
91-00
Returned to guard location or item important to self during life
(Tome of Adventure Design)
Table 2-66: Preparations for Intelligent Undeath
Note that some of these preparations might be voluntary on the part of the person being prepared for intelligent Undeath. Other preparations described on this table would be the activity of someone else, with or without the consent of the person being prepared.
Die Roll
Preparation
01-10
Actions are taken to ensure that a god will curse the soul with intelligent undeath
11-20
Corpse/body is preserved/prepared in such a way that the soul (or life force) cannot depart
21-30
Living body parts incorporated into corpse keep it “alive”
31-40
New soul brought into dead body
41-50
Pact with gods/powers of afterlife to reject soul
51-60
Physical preparation raises body with echo of former intelligence
61-70
Physical preparation raises body with full former intelligence
71-80
Ritual binds soul to a place
81-90
Soul captured by ritual, kept in the wrong plane of existence
91-00
Soul captured in item to prevent completion of the death cycle
(Tome of Adventure Design)
Table 2-67: Breaks in the Life Cycle
As mentioned above, most Undeath traditionally results from a break in the natural order of the victim’s life cycle. Looking through the following wide assortment of such “breaks” may give you some good ideas for specific details about your undead creature.
Die Roll
Nature of the Break (d100)
01
Deliberately cursed at death by others for actions during lifetime
02
Died after committing crime: Arson
03
Died after committing crime: Assault
04
Died after committing crime: Bankruptcy
05
Died after committing crime: Battery
06
Died after committing crime: Begging
07
Died after committing crime: Blackmail
08
Died after committing crime: Blasphemy
09
Died after committing crime: Breach of contract
10
Died after committing crime: Breach of financial duty
11
Died after committing crime: Breaking and entering
12
Died after committing crime: Bribery
13
Died after committing crime: Burglary
14
Died after committing crime: Cattle theft or rustling
15
Died after committing crime: Consorting with demons
16
Died after committing crime: Counterfeiting
17
Died after committing crime: Cowardice or desertion
18
Died after committing crime: Demonic possession
19
Died after committing crime: Desecration
20
Died after committing crime: Disrespect to clergy
21
Died after committing crime: Disrespect to nobility
22
Died after committing crime: Drug possession
23
Died after committing crime: Drug smuggling
24
Died after committing crime: Drunkenness
25
Died after committing crime: Embezzlement
26
Died after committing crime: Escaped slave
27
Died after committing crime: Extortion
28
Died after committing crime: False imprisonment
29
Died after committing crime: Fleeing crime scene
Die Roll
Nature of the Break (d100)
30
Died after committing crime: Forgery
31
Died after committing crime: Forsaking an oath
32
Died after committing crime: Gambling
33
Died after committing crime: Grave robbery
34
Died after committing crime: Harboring a criminal
35
Died after committing crime: Harboring a slave
36
Died after committing crime: Heresy
37
Died after committing crime: Horse theft
38
Died after committing crime: Incest
39
Died after committing crime: Inciting to riot
40
Died after committing crime: Insanity
41
Died after committing crime: Kidnapping
42
Died after committing crime: Lewdness, private
43
Died after committing crime: Lewdness, public
44
Died after committing crime: Libel
45
Died after committing crime: Manslaughter
46
Died after committing crime: Misuse of public funds
47
Died after committing crime: Murder
48
Died after committing crime: Mutiny
49
Died after committing crime: Necromancy
50
Died after committing crime: Participating in forbidden meeting
51
Died after committing crime: Perjury
52
Died after committing crime: Pickpocket
53
Died after committing crime: Piracy
54
Died after committing crime: Poisoning
55
Died after committing crime: Possession of forbidden weapon
56
Died after committing crime: Prison escape
57
Died after committing crime: Prostitution
Die Roll
Nature of the Break (d100)
58
Died after committing crime: Public recklessness
59
Died after committing crime: Racketeering
60
Died after committing crime: Rape
61
Died after committing crime: Receiving stolen goods (fencing)
62
Died after committing crime: Robbery
63
Died after committing crime: Sabotage
64
Died after committing crime: Sale of shoddy goods
65
Died after committing crime: Sedition
66
Died after committing crime: Slander
67
Died after committing crime: Smuggling
68
Died after committing crime: Soliciting
69
Died after committing crime: Swindling
70
Died after committing crime: Theft
71
Died after committing crime: Treason
72
Died after committing crime: Trespass
73
Died after committing crime: Using false measures
74
Died after committing crime: Witchcraft
75
Died after violating taboo: dietary
76
Died after violating taboo: loyalty
77
Died after violating taboo: marriage
78
Died after violating taboo: sexual
Die Roll
Nature of the Break (d100)
79
Died as a glutton
80
Died as a miser
81
Died as coward
82
Died deliberately
83
Died unloved and unmourned
84
Died while a slave
85
Died while owning slaves
86
Died without children
87
Died without dying (I don’t know, but it sounds good)
88
Died without fulfilling contract
89
Died without fulfilling oath
90
Died without honor (marriage or parenthood)
91
Died without honor (traitor)
92
Died without manhood/womanhood rites
93
Died without marrying
94
Died without proper preparations for death
95
Died without properly honoring ancestors
96
Died without tribal initiation
97
Eaten after death
98
Not buried/burned
99
Not given proper death ceremonies
100
Not given proper preparations for afterlife
(Tome of Adventure Design)
Table 2-68: Manner of Death
The manner in which an undead creature might have died can give rise to good ideas about the nature of the creature’s abilities, appearance, and motivations (if it is an intelligent form of undead).
Die Roll
Manner of Death
01
Burned in fire
02
Burned in lava
03
Cooked and eaten
04
Crushed
05
Defeated in dishonorable combat
06
Defeated in honorable combat
07
Died during a storm
08
Died during harvest time
09
Died during peacetime
10
Died in a swamp
11
Died in particular ancient ruins
12
Died in the hills
13
Died in the mountains
14
Died near particular type of flower
15
Died near particular type of tree
16
Died of disease
17
Died of fright
18
Died of natural causes
19
Died of thirst
20
Died while carrying particular weapon
Die Roll
Manner of Death
21
Died while carrying stolen goods
22
Died while wearing particular garment
23
Died while wearing particular piece of jewelry
24
Drowned
25
Executed by asphyxiation
26
Executed by cold
27
Executed by drowning
28
Executed by exposure to elements
29
Executed by fire
30
Executed by hanging
31
Executed by live burial
32
Executed by starvation
33
Executed by strangulation
34
Executed by thirst
35
Executed despite having been pardoned
36
Fell from great height
37
Frozen/hypothermia
38
Heart failure
39
In the saddle
40
Killed by a creature that injects eggs
Die Roll
Manner of Death
41
Killed by a deception
42
Killed by a jealous spouse
43
Killed by a jester
44
Killed by a lover
45
Killed by a lynch mob
46
Killed by a traitor
47
Killed by a trap
48
Killed by accident
49
Killed by ancient curse
50
Killed by birds
51
Killed by blood poisoning
52
Killed by demon
53
Killed by dogs/jackals
54
Killed by gluttony
55
Killed by insect(s)
56
Killed by inter-dimensional creature
57
Killed by magic
58
Killed by magic weapon
59
Killed by metal
60
Killed by mistake
61
Killed by own child
62
Killed by own parent
63
Killed by particular type of person
64
Killed by poisonous fungus
65
Killed by poisonous plant
66
Killed by pride
67
Killed by priest
68
Killed by relative
69
Killed by soldiers during battle
70
Killed by some particular monster
71
Killed by strange aliens
Die Roll
Manner of Death
72
Killed by undead
73
Killed by wine or drunkenness
74
Killed by wooden object
75
Killed for a particular reason
76
Killed in a castle
77
Killed in a particular place
78
Killed in a tavern
79
Killed in particular ritual
80
Killed in tournament or joust
81
Killed near a particular thing
82
Killed on particular day of year
83
Killed under a particular zodiacal sign (i.e., a particular month or time)
84
Killed under moonlight
85
Killed underground
86
Killed while exploring
87
Killed while fishing
88
Killed while fleeing
89
Killed while hunting
90
Killed while leading others badly
91
Killed while leading others well
92
Murdered
93
Sacrificed to a demon
94
Sacrificed to a god
95
Sacrificed to ancient horror
96
Starved to death
97
Strangled
98
Struck by lightning
99
Struck down by gods
100
Tortured to death
(Tome of Adventure Design)
Dexterity Loss. The attack drains one or more points of dexterity from the victim. The attacker may or may not gain a benefit from the drain (additional hit points, to-hit bonuses, etc) depending upon whether it seems to fit well with the concept. If the victim reaches a dexterity of 0, one of several things might happen: the victim might die and become a creature similar to the attacker (this is common with undead, but a bit weird when dexterity is the attribute score being drained). One explanation for death at 0 dexterity is that the body’s internal systems (circulatory, etc) are no longer working in time with each other. (Tome of Adventure Design)
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. (Tome of Horrors 4)
When a soul fouled by anger and fear leaves its broken corpse, if it is strong enough, that soul may return as a ghost, a wraith or some worse form of undead. If it is strong enough….. (Two Dozen Dangers: Haunts)
The unburied dead are not only a vector for mundane disease, but may become hosts to undead maladies. (Westbound)
From out of the dark and forbidding heavens a great meteor, black as night itself, carved through Abaddon’s atmosphere, calved into massive sections and rained down upon the world in great shards. It obliterated cities, shattered the living rock, sent tidal waves swamping over islands and drowning the coasts, ignited volcanoes and set the ground quaking for more than a year. (World of Obsidian Twilight (PFRPG) Preview)
Over 85% of the sentient population of Abaddon was killed in moments and no sorcery, no prayer, no force of arms nor cunning with the builder’s craft could stand against the destruction. Those who survived found themselves in the ruins of civilization, surrounded by the corpses of their nations, overwhelmed by death and living beneath a soot-black sky. (World of Obsidian Twilight (PFRPG) Preview)
Their suffering did not end there. The meteor was a black, hellish thing, infused with vast amounts of necrotic energy. The survivors watched in horror as the power of the meteors fragments and its dust began to raise the dead and few of the remaining cities survived the onslaught of their own deceased. (World of Obsidian Twilight (PFRPG) Preview)
A character suffering from the curse Death’s Disrespect has made the terrible mistake of speaking too soon the name of one who has recently died—a terrible sign of disrespect. The curse manifests via the body or spirit of the dead returning as an undead and attacking the victim of the curse. (Pathways 23)
At 20th level, the bone witch completes her transformation into a creature of unlife. She turns into an animate skeleton and gains the undead type. (Wayfinder 7)
Mythic Create Undead spell. (Mythic Magic Core Spells)
Mythic Create Greater Undead spell. (Mythic Magic Core Spells)
Mythic Soulreaver spell. (Mythic Magic Expanded Spells I)
Obliterate Soul spell. (Book of Lost Spells)
Dance of the Dead feat. (Undefeatable 3: Bards)
Dance of the Dead feat. (Undefeatable: The Collected Feats Sourcebook)
Pitiless Economies feat. (Intrigue Archetypes)
Undead Familiar feat. (Lords of the Night)
Ghostwater Drug creation. (Two Dozen Dangers: Drugs)
Devourer: Devourers are the undead remnants of fiends and evil spellcasters who became lost beyond the farthest reaches of the multiverse. Returning with warped bodies, alien sentience, and a hunger for life, devourers threaten all souls with a terrifying, tormented annihilation.
Only the bravest and most powerful adventurers dare step beyond the boundaries of the known planes, into whatever darkness lies beyond. Most who do so never return—yet some, especially the evil ones, come back changed and twisted. (Undead Revisited)
Information about this otherness is almost completely unavailable, with even the gods seemingly deaf to most questions, yet there are always a few who to decide to see for themselves. When powerful fiends and evil spellcasters undertake this quest, some come back and report nothing but vast expanses of ... well, nothing. Others don’t return at all. Yet some—the foulest ones, or those who become lost beyond the multiverse’s reaches—find something out there that changes them. (Undead Revisited)
Though devourers never discuss just who or what they’re talking to, many suspect their madness rises from a lingering connection to whatever sinister, alien entity or force made them what they are, and the devourers themselves sometimes let apparent titles slip, with appellations like the Dire Shepherd or the Wanderer Upon the Stair. (Undead Revisited)
Devourers’ origins are shrouded in mystery. While spellcasters may create them through the usage of create greater undead spells, exactly what occurs during these rituals is unclear, and it’s possible that devourers are more called into being than physically created—certainly it’s more than just a simple matter of animating a corpse. (Undead Revisited)
Unlike many other forms of undead, devourers do not form spontaneously, nor do they breed or spawn. Rather, they begin as either one of two creatures: a terribly evil mortal spellcaster or an actual fiend. Those of either category who find themselves lost in the hinterlands of the cosmos sometimes return as devourers. (Undead Revisited)
They do not find their rebirth, their unholy transfiguration, in a specific place or plane. Rather, far beyond the knowledge and sight of mortals or outsiders, they experience some sort of transformative gnosis, realizing some infectious idea that simultaneously destroys and recreates them with a new form and a new hunger. Whether or not there might be something out there that actively calls to them, compulsively drawing them to its presence and making them into what they are, is anyone’s guess, yet it would explain why only evil outsiders and spellcasters seem to be susceptible, and also potentially why the strange mannerisms of the devourers who return to the planes seem more than simple madness. (Undead Revisited)
Those devourers created (or potentially called from elsewhere) by magic share all the traits and madness of their transformed kin, a fact that has confused spellcasters for generations. Some scholars have pointed out that specific details of these magical rituals have certain traits in common across all schools of magic and faith, leading some to believe that the ability to create devourers may have been introduced long ago as a single spell, perhaps provided by whatever malign forces lurk beyond the planes. (Undead Revisited)
Devourers, who form from the spirits of powerful spellcasters and fiends that venture into the darkness beyond the planes and come back forever tainted. (Undead Revisited)
Devourers are the husks creatures that have been shattered and remade by forces beyond the ends of the multiverse. (Advanced Bestiary)
Undeterred, Thozzaggard used his magic to transport himself into the cavern behind the door. This time, the wily sorcerer would not escape the god particle’s grasp. Madness overcame him shortly before the alien substance sucked the last vestiges of life from him and hurled his ravaged soul into the void beyond reality. What later rose where his corpse now lay was an undead monstrosity that longed to spread its curse to every living creature. (Dunes of Desolation)
Countless millennia ago, Thozzaggard also found the watery star; however he succumbed to its power and became an undead abomination. (Dunes of Desolation)
In time, the watery star’s extradimensional properties and his own madness got the better of him transforming him into the undead abomination on the other side of the door. (Dunes of Desolation)
This onyx‐encrusted sarcophagus casts create greater undead on the body within to create a devourer when a certain prophesy is completed. This effect works once before the sarcophagus’ magic is consumed. The onyx crumbles to dust if removed from the sarcophagus. (GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing)
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 20th or higher.
Raise Undeath spell word, boosted, caster level 20th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Ghost: When a soul is not allowed to rest due to some great injustice, either real or perceived, it sometimes comes back as a ghost.
"Ghost" is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature that has a Charisma score of at least 6.
Interestingly, a great number of ghosts and revenants owe their undead existence to the depredations of mortal killers who later became mohrgs, and it’s not unheard of for a revenant to hunt a mohrg, or for a ghost to assist adventurers in tracking down the unholy reanimation of its killer. (Undead Revisited)
More than merely wayward souls cast from the cycle of eternity by random chance, the vast majority of ghosts manifest for a purpose—whether one of their own desires or born from the method of their deaths. So-called “ghost stories” often tell of souls lingering upon the mortal world in an attempt to put right some injustice—typically whatever evil led to their deaths—or to prevent some terrible fate. Yet the circumstances leading to the appearance of a ghost need not be so iconic. Although the mysteries of death may never be fully understood by mortals, the most significant requisite in a ghost’s appearance seems to be extraordinary circumstances of trauma surrounding its death. Such a condition need not be a torturous murder or a violent betrayal—the knowledge of a great responsibility or the jeopardized life of a loved one can potentially prove sufficient cause to compel a soul to linger on past its physical capacity. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Aside from personal determination, extreme circumstances might also lead to the formation of ghosts. Tales of unquiet battlefields, ghostly ships, and whole haunted cities typically arise from some manner of terrible collective ordeal. Such conditions must be exceptionally painful or damaging to the mortal mind, as not every fallen fortress or disaster-scoured community results in some mass haunting. While individual ghosts typically require some measure of personal connection, suffering, or desire to bind them to the land of the living, such is lessened for ghosts created en masse. The shared experience of multitudinous lesser horrors are seemingly significant enough to match the singular distress of a lone spirit, allowing large groups of spirits to manifest due to an incident of extreme shared emotion or disturbance that might not provoke the ghostly manifestation of an individual. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Ghosts are the undead souls of dead people so filled with rage and hate that they refuse to stay dead. (Beginner's Box)
As the uprising gathers strength, the unquiet souls of bodies long since turned to dust awaken as well. Ghosts, shadows, wraiths, and even spectres arise to prey upon the living. (Game Mastery Guide)
Powerful witches are able to leave lasting imprints upon the land with their final breaths, transforming themselves into powerful, incorporeal undead through extreme hatred and emotional distress. Often manifesting as ghosts, spectres or wraiths, these witches blight the land and cause strange murders and ill fortunate to beset the locals until they move away from the site of the curse. (Alternate Dungeons: Haunted House)
When a creature dies, any intense emotions it experiences at the time of death are often left behind as a psychic footprint. Fear, anger, hatred and sorrow are by far the most powerful of these emotions and often causes the most dangerous and destructive haunts to manifest. It should come as no surprise an act as evil as murder, which often comprises all three of these emotions and more, is a leading cause of the creation of powerful supernatural entities. Ghosts, spectres, wraiths and poltergeists are all commonly created in this manner, and when created they seldom stray far from the place where they were murdered. (Alternate Dungeons: Haunted House)
Ghosts are created from the residual psychic energy of creatures unable or unwilling to depart to the outer planes to receive judgment. Ghosts often haunt the places where they died or the homes they once lived in. (Alternate Dungeons: Haunted House)
Before the events that led up to the Shattering, ghosts were the only type of undead. A ghost is a spirit that does not pass on to the Inner World, as it was known then, or the Ethereal Realm, as it is now. When a being in the Outer World dies, its positive energy spirit is naturally transformed into negative energy as it passes on to the next plane of existence. However, in rare circumstances, this process can be disrupted. This occurs either due to a powerful act of will on the part of the recently deceased, or when the spirit has undergone a great psychic trauma, such as being murdered. Although ghosts are not intrinsically evil, they are beings of negative energy and suffer greatly in the Outer World, which is confusing and alien to their nature. This often causes the ghost to become malevolent, if it wasn’t already. A negative spirit in the Inner World would have spent its lifetime resolving psychological issues, before being reborn into the material Outer World as a positive energy spirit in a new body. Scholars speculate that ghosts are created when some of these psychological issues can only be resolved in the Outer World. For example, the spirit might need to protect loved ones, or to exact revenge upon its killer. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
She attempted to create ghosts by killing living beings in horrendous ways, so as to precipitate the necessary psychological trauma. However, the success rate of this was low as, more often than not, the spirit would simply cross over into the Inner World and remain beyond her reach. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
On a related note, if you're caught outdoors at night, don't bang on the door asking to be let in. You won't be, because you're clearly an undead who wants to feast on the souls of those indoors. If you're still alive in the morning, they'll take you to the local church for healing, because if they take you in, and you die later that night, you might return as a ghost and blame them for your death. (Claw Claw Bite 18)
When a soul fouled by anger and fear leaves its broken corpse, if it is strong enough, that soul may return as a ghost, a wraith or some worse form of undead. (Dangers & Discoveries)
The zither player is named Ceruth, a beggar that solicited donations by playing his zither during Iljanna’s decline. After death, the bitter musician refused to depart and became a ghost cursed to forever haunt the dollhouse. (Dunes of Desolation)
The Sea Lord’s Guard chose this night to begin their war and swept through the Eastern District, rounding up anyone they suspected of being affiliated with the Guild. As the sounds of screams and fighting broke out all around, Melanie fled to her home on the edge of Scurvytown, only to find her house in flames and her friends fighting for their lives against a band of Guardsmen. Melanie grabbed the knife from the pouch and threw herself into the combat, terrified and desperate to get to her boys. She lashed out with the blade, unaware that it slew everyone it touched, her eyes fixed only on the small, smoking shapes on her porch. She nearly reached the bodies of her children when a steel-tipped quarrel punched through her middle, piercing her heart. She fell within an arm’s reach of her children’s bodies, and as she lay dying, she whispered that she’d get her vengeance, make the bastards pay. (Freeport Companion Pathfinder RPG Edition)
A strange thing happened. The knife flared with sickly green light, growing brighter even as the light in her eyes faded. Melanie Crump’s body died, but somehow her spirit lived on, trapped within the accursed knife, bound by her vow until she gets her revenge. (Freeport Companion Pathfinder RPG Edition)
Clergy who feel they had unfinished business or wish to see their temples restored remain to haunt these locations. Fully restoring the temple or destroying it puts these undead to rest. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Lonesome spirits, mere shades of what they once were. What better place for a ghost to haunt than a place so keenly reminiscent of its own tragic existence? Almost any undead creature might identify with the ruination of a once-warm and lively place, but ghosts—with their tendency to linger over unfinished business—are more likely than any other kind to haunt the places they knew best in life. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Powerful witches are able to leave lasting imprints upon the land with their final breaths, transforming themselves into powerful, incorporeal undead through extreme hatred and emotional distress. Often manifesting as ghosts, spectres or wraiths, these witches blight the land and cause strange murders and ill fortunate to beset the locals until they move away from the site of the curse. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
When a creature dies, any intense emotions it experiences at the time of death are often left behind as a psychic footprint. Fear, anger, hatred and sorrow are by far the most powerful of these emotions and often causes the most dangerous and destructive haunts to manifest. It should come as no surprise an act as evil as murder, which often comprises all three of these emotions and more, is a leading cause of the creation of powerful supernatural entities. Ghosts, spectres, wraiths and poltergeists are all commonly created in this manner, and when created they seldom stray far from the place where they were murdered. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
When Chernobog walks the earth in the dark of the moon and during eclipses, winds rise and howl, animals grow skittish and dogs bite, and ghosts rise from every grave. (Midgard Worldbook for 5th Edition and Pathfinder)
The necrotic energy of the meteor combined with the huge number of casualties from the impact and its aftermath has meant an enormous amount of spiritual energy has encompassed Abaddon. This, in turn, means a tremendous number of ghosts arisen over time. (Races of Obsidian Twilight)
Those who have died in more recent times are not the confused and sorrowful dead of the cataclysm. Those who have died in this new age are the victims of the undead lords and, while dead themselves, they have little or no sympathy for the liches, vampires, ghasts and other dead that form the new aristocracy. What has caused these dead to linger on in the world is their mistreatment at the hands of the powers that be and their desire for bloody and violent revenge, goals that they share with many of the living. (Races of Obsidian Twilight)
The position of the Osirians as the favored of the gods did not spare them from the cataclysm that turned Abaddon upside down, already giving way to some of the other species the Osirians were struck a hammer blow by the fall of the meteor and their ancestral homelands were some of the worst affected by the necromantic miasma and negative energies released by the impact. (Races of Obsidian Twilight: Osirian)
The Osirians died in droves from the impact, from its aftermath and from the lingering effects of the necromantic radiation, subverting their bodies day by agonizing day and raising so many of them as zombies, skeletons and ghosts that the Osirians rapidly learned harsh lessons in dismemberment before burial and the building of secure and warded tombs. (Races of Obsidian Twilight: Osirian)
The necrotic energy of the meteor combined with the huge number of casualties from the impact and its aftermath has meant an enormous amount of spiritual energy has encompassed Abaddon. This, in turn, means a tremendous number of ghosts arisen over time. In the beginning many of these were mindless spectres, the traumatised dead from what seemed like the end of the world but over time these have been winnowed down and replaced with the new dead. (Races of Obsidian Twilight: Raijin)
Those who have died in more recent times are not the confused and sorrowful dead of the cataclysm. Those who have died in this new age are the victims of the undead lords and, while dead themselves, they have little or no sympathy for the liches, vampires, ghasts and other dead that form the new aristocracy. What has caused these dead to linger on in the world is their mistreatment at the hands of the powers that be and their desire for bloody and violent revenge, goals that they share with many of the living. (Races of Obsidian Twilight: Raijin)
The souls of the dead, unable to pass on, arise as ghosts or other forms of terrible, incorporeal undead.
Ghosts represent one of the most tragic forms of undead. Tied to the material plane with unfinished business, they find themselves bound to a specific area, usually associated with their death. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Ghosts are powerfully psychological creatures to face bound by strong emotions of anger, fear, love, and resentment. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Any creature suffering from a negative level inflicted by the hammer of the unworthy when it dies immediately rises as Belial’s choice of a ghost, a lich, or a vampire. In the case of a lich, it treats the hammer of the unworthy as its phylactery. If a creature that would rise as an undead as a result of this ability would also return to life as a pit fiend as a result of the edge of the forsaken’s ability, that creature becomes a pit fiend with the chosen template. (The Deluxe Guide to Fiend Summoning and Faustian Bargains)
Many chirurgical procedures are damaging to the patient's psyche and the natural balance of their mental processes. This imbalance extends into the spiritual plane, and creatures who recently underwent mind-altering chirurgical procedures might have a greater than normal chance of arising as unquiet dead, perhaps haunts that spread madness and torment, or as actual undead creatures such as allips or, more rarely, ghosts or spectres. (The Mad Doctor's Formulary)
When a soul fouled by anger and fear leaves its broken corpse, if it is strong enough, that soul may return as a ghost, a wraith or some worse form of undead. If it is strong enough….. (Two Dozen Dangers: Haunts)
The spirits released during the cataclysm were scared, confused, barely sentient, an outpouring of pain and suffering that would lash out at anything that came close to them, little more than necromantic energy themselves, free and wild to animate the dead. In the years since the cataclysm however, the character of the dead has changed. Those who die today die with hatred for the lords on their minds, with revenge and cries of freedom on their lips. The ghosts of today are the spirits of vengeance, no allies to the lords or to Calix Sabinus. Even the dead themselves are turning against the powers that be. (World of Obsidian Twilight (PFRPG) Preview)
Ghost Human Aristocrat 7: ?
Ghoul: A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid who becomes a ghoul in this way retains none of the abilities it possessed in life. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast.
As a free action once per day per growth point (minimum of 1/day), a nabasu can activate its death-stealing gaze for a full round. All living creatures within 30 feet must succeed on a DC 18 Fortitude save or gain a negative level. A humanoid slain in this manner immediately transforms into a ghoul under the nabasu's control. A nabasu's gaze can only create one ghoul per round—if multiple humans perish from the gaze in a round, the nabasu picks which human becomes a ghoul. The save DC is Charisma-based.
When a sayona kills a humanoid or fey of Medium or Small size with its absorb blood or blood drain ability, the victim rises 24 hours later as a ghoul with the advanced creature simple template and the blood drain ability. (Pathfinder Bestiary 4)
A humanoid that succumbs to Leng ghoul fever becomes a normal ghoul unless in life it had 12 or more Hit Dice, in which case it rises from death as a Leng ghoul. (Bestiary 5)
Myth holds that the first man to feed upon the flesh of his brother was seized by a most uncommon malady of the intestinal tract, and after lingering for days in the throes of this painful inflammation of the belly, he died, only to rise on the Abyss as Kabriri, the first ghoul. Whether the demon lord of graves and ghouls was indeed the first remains the subject of debate among scholars of necromancy, but certainly the methods by which bodies can rise as the hungry dead are myriad. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Necromancers have long known the secrets of infusing a dead body with this vile animating force. With the spell create undead, a spellcaster can waken a body’s hunger and transform it into a ravenous ghoul. Stories abound as well of spontaneous transformations when a man or woman, driven by bleakest desperation or blackest madness, resorts to cannibalism as a means of survival. Whether the expiration that follows rises from further starvation or the death of the will to carry on in light of such atrocity matters not, for when death occurs after such a choice, a hideous rebirth as a ghoul may occur. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Yet the most common route to transformation is through violent contact with other ghouls. Called by a wide variety of regional names (such as gnaw pangs, belly blight, or Kabriri’s curse), this contagion is known in most circles simply as “ghoul fever.” Transmitted by a ghoul’s bite (or, more rarely, through the consumption of ghoulish flesh), ghoul fever causes the victim to grow increasingly hungry and manic, yet makes it impossible to keep down any food or water. The horrific hunger pangs caused by the sickness rob the victim of coordination and cause increasingly painful spasms, and eventually the victim starves to death, only to rise soon thereafter as a ghoul. That those who perish from ghoul fever invariably animate as undead at midnight has long intrigued scholars of necromancy—the general thought is that only at the dead of night can such a hideous transformation complete its course. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
A humanoid who dies of Kortash Khain's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight; a humanoid with 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Mythic Realms)
The first ghouls were humans who rose as undead because they had indulged in unwholesome pleasures in life. The original ghasts rose as undead for similar reasons, but their sins were of vaster scale. A man who broke a taboo by consuming dead bodies to avoid starvation might rise as a ghoul, but a man who murdered his wife and children, then cooked them up as a delicious meal for himself and his mistress would instead rise as a ghast. (Advanced Bestiary)
Eaters of the dead that hunger for the living, the first ghouls were the undead remains of humans who had, in life, indulged in unwholesome pleasures, such as cannibalism or necrophilia. (Advanced Bestiary)
Cevnia was not put off by the limited success of her early experiments. She used the information gathered in the creation of mindless undead and began to refine the process. She discovered new, more controlled methods of binding the negative spirit back to its body that did not interfere with the mental faculties of the resulting undead. However, these intelligent undead still suffered constant pain from the unnatural state their spirits were in, which quickly descended into jealous hatred of the living. In addition to this, there were other side effects… The first undead she created using the new method were ghouls, who were driven by a desire to consume the dead flesh of sentient beings, thus gaining momentary relief from their ever-present feeling of starvation. She tried again, using more powerful magic, and made mohrgs, who were motivated by the unappeasable psychological need to commit murder. She called these the Hungry Dead, as they were driven to destroy the living by all-consuming urges. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A slain humanoid of 4 or more Hit Dice rises as a ghast. (Campaign Backdrops: Caves and Caverns)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul (or ghast if it had more than 4 HD) at the next midnight. (Campaign Backdrops: Forests & Woodlands)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A slain humanoid of 4 or more Hit Dice rises as a ghast. (Campaign Backdrops: Hills & Mountains)
A small adventuring party once got trapped within and starved to death. Risen as ghouls, the undead lurk in the crypt creeping forth when released by the hermit to dine up on his guests. (Campaign Backdrops: Hills & Mountains)
Creatures below 5 HD within the cone of a plague dragon's deathless breath instantly die, and reanimate as ghouls under the dragon's control. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
Any humanoid that is two weeks or less dead within the sovereign ghoul's aura rise as a ghoul under its complete command in one round. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
Any humanoid killed by a corpsehanger's energy drain or constrict attack becomes an undead creature within 1d4 rounds, unless it is cut down and the corpse blessed. A zombie will be created 70% of the time, a ghoul 20% of the time, and a wight 10% of the time. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
A humanoid who dies of a bone gorger’s wasting rot and is not given a proper burial rises as a standard ghoul 24 hours after the disease consumes them. (Fat Goblin Travel Guide to Horrible Horrors and Macabre Monsters)
The negative energy surrounding the temple’s demise either brings unholy life to the corpses interred at the temples or draws mindless undead to them. While skeletons and zombies are the most common undead, ghouls, spectres and vampires also lair in deserted temples. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A slain humanoid of 4 or more Hit Dice rises as a ghast. (GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing)
Eventually, Hagruk grew old and settled down in Red Talon village, but would still sail forth on occasional raids. One fateful night in a furious storm, his ship struck the reef known as Devil’s Shoulder as he returned to the village. Hagruk and his crew abandoned ship as the galleon started to sink beneath the waves, but they were too slow, and their drowned bodies were washed up on the beach. But the dark power of their cannibal god saved the pirates—Ukre’kon’ala brought some of the crew back from death to unlife as ghouls; Hagruk Stormrider became a ghast. (GM's Miscellany: Village Backdrops III)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A slain humanoid of 4 or more Hit Dice rises as a ghast. (GM's Miscellany: Village Backdrops III)
Dying while infected with Darakhul Fever. (Imperial Gazeteer The Principality of Morgau and Doresh and Realms Subterranean)
A humanoid who dies of an imperial ghoul's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul or darakhul at the next midnight. (Imperial Gazeteer The Principality of Morgau and Doresh and Realms Subterranean)
A humanoid who dies of a legionnaire ghoul's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul or darakhul at the next midnight. (Imperial Gazeteer The Principality of Morgau and Doresh and Realms Subterranean)
A humanoid who dies of an iron ghoul's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul or darakhul at the next midnight. (Imperial Gazeteer The Principality of Morgau and Doresh and Realms Subterranean)
A humanoid who dies of an iron ghoul captain's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul or darakhul at the next midnight. (Imperial Gazeteer The Principality of Morgau and Doresh and Realms Subterranean)
Those who die beneath the surface of Terminus have a much higher chance of spontaneously rising as undead. This may be another side effect of the strange mineral known as nightglass. Wandering skeletons and zombies are common, and those that die of starvation within the bowels of Terminus often rise as ghouls, as do those who practice cannibalism regularly. (Legendary Worlds: Terminus)
The deadwood exerts its foul influence to a radius of 300 feet for every 2 HD of the tree. Any animal, giant, humanoid, or monstrous humanoid corpse within this range that remains in contact with the ground for 1 full round is animated into a zombie or skeleton. Corpses of humanoids with 2 or 3 class levels are instead turned into ghouls, while those with 4 or more class levels are instead turned into ghasts. (Malevolent and Benign)
A ghoul’s bite carries a terrible disease that can rot flesh and dull the reflexes. Those who die from it become a ghoul themselves. (Monster Focus: Ghouls)
A humanoid that dies from ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. Those that possess 4 HD or more instead rise as a ghast. (Monster Focus: Ghouls)
The sickness of vanity that consumed the soul of the fukuranbou now manifests itself as a powerful wasting curse that it can inflict with its claws. Several small villages have been lost to this curse. Victims who die this way sometimes come back from the dead as ghouls. (Monsters of Porphyra)
As a free action once per day per growth point (minimum of 1/day), a mythic nabasu can activate its death-stealing gaze for a full round. All living creatures within 30 feet must succeed on a DC 19 Fortitude save or gain a negative level. A humanoid slain in this manner immediately transforms into a ghoul under the mythic nabasu’s control. A mythic nabasu’s gaze can only create one ghoul per round—if multiple humans perish from the gaze in a round, the mythic nabasu picks which human becomes a ghoul. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Whenever a mythic nabasu creates a ghoul with its gaze attack, it can expend one use of mythic power. If it does, the ghoul that is created is a mythic ghoul. Mythic ghouls created in this way are unstable, and their mythic power fades with time if it is not maintained: each day, the mythic nabasu must expend uses of mythic power each day to maintain the mythic status of ghouls under its control. Each use of mythic power it expends in this way is enough to maintain up to three mythic ghouls. Mythic ghouls that are not maintained become non-mythic ghouls, but remain under the mythic nabasu’s control. (Mythic Mastery Mythic Nabasu and Shadow Demons)
A humanoid who dies of a mythic ghoul's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. A humanoid with a mythic rank or mythic tier of 1 or higher rises as a mythic ghoul.
There are several ways for mythic ghouls to come about. A mythic character that succumbs to ghoul fever rises as a mythic ghoul more often than as a normal ghoul, although both outcomes are possible. (Mythic Mastery Mythic Nabasu and Shadow Demons)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
Once per day as a full round action, a conqueror worm can expend one use of mythic power to vomit a glob of slime onto ground containing dead humanoid remains (typically a graveyard). One round later, 1d10+8 ghouls and a single mythic ghast emerge from the ground and follow the conqueror worm’s commands unerringly. (Mythic Monsters 23: Worms)
Ghouls roam the countryside in vast numbers, increasing their kind with ghoul fever. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
As citizens turn to cannibalism, new ghouls are born even within the safest walls. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Cannibalistic undead who can turn the living into one of their kind, ghouls increasingly menace the lands of Ina’oth.
The sweeping plagues that leave behind ravaged towns force desperate survivors to consume one another to stay alive. When these survivors, in turn, succumb to disease or murder, they arise again with an insatiable hunger. The increasing foulness of the Old Ones aids in this transformation and finds fertile ground in plague infested Ina’oth where the ghoul problem is the worst in Vathak. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Although official church doctrine suggests ghouls are the product of the Old Ones’ interference, few ghouls bend knee to those powers. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Experts in the occult and undeath, particularly reanimators, believe ghoul fever can arise spontaneously in cases of cannibalism. However, they’ve yet to find a natural explanation for the increasing number, variety, and intelligence of Inaothian ghouls. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Related to (and possibly the origin of) lesser creatures such as ghouls and ghasts, ghuls are a powerful form of undead caused by starvation after turning to cannibalism and grave robbing. (The Genius Guide to Simple Monster Templates)
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. (Tome of Horrors 4)
A target reduced to 0 Dexterity by the Necromancer's Lethargy curse suffocates, and returns to unlife as a ghoul. (Two Dozen Dangers: Curses)
Necrotic Fever (Ex) Bite—injury; save Fort DC 19; onset 1 day; frequency 1 day; effect 1d4 Con damage; cure 2 consecutive saves. A victim who dies of a necrowurm's necrotic fever transforms into a ghoul 10 minutes after death (a creature with 4 or more Hit Dice becomes a ghast). (Pathways 18)
To the living, the most frightening aspect of the necrowurm is the disease it carries, a necrotic fever more virulent than ghoul fever, but with the same eventual result. (Pathways 18)
A humanoid who dies of Mallir Halswain's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Pathways 55)
A humanoid who dies of Paul Malaise's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Wayfinder 8)
A humanoid who dies of a devourer ghoul's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Wayfiner 9)
Create Undead spell, caster level 11th or lower.
Animate Ghoul spell. (Monster Focus: Ghouls)
Ghoul Army spell. (Shadows Over Vathak Player's Guide to Vathak)
Raise Undeath spell word. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Transform Dead spell. (Ultimate Spell Decks: Obsidian Twilight Spell cards (PFRPG))
Transform Zombie spell. (Book of Lost Spells)
Necrotic Arrow feat, Arcane Archer level 7 (Undefeatable 12: Arcane Archer)
Necrotic Arrow feat, Arcane Archer level 7 (Undefeatable: The Collected Feats Sourcebook)
Pitiless Economies feat. (Intrigue Archetypes)
Cursed disease. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Ghoul Ghast: A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid who becomes a ghoul in this way retains none of the abilities it possessed in life. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast.
In the Darklands, yet another route to ghoulishness exists—lazurite. This strange, magical ore, thought to be the remnant of a dead god who staggered through the Darklands and left behind black bloodstains upon the caverns of the Cold Hell, appears as a thin black crust where it is exposed. The white veins of rock in which it often forms are known as marrowstone. Lazurite itself exudes a magical radiation that gives off a strong aura of necromancy. Any intact corpse left within a few paces of a significant lazurite deposit for a day is likely to rise as a ghoul or ghast, often retaining any abilities it had in life.
It should be noted that not all who begin the transformation into ghoul become actual ghouls. Particularly hearty humanoids (often those with racial Hit Dice, or who in life were already gluttons or cannibals by choice) often become ghasts. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Bugbear, Lizardfolk, Troglodyte: These races always spawn into ghasts. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
A humanoid who dies of Kortash Khain's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight; a humanoid with 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Mythic Realms)
The first ghouls were humans who rose as undead because they had indulged in unwholesome pleasures in life. The original ghasts rose as undead for similar reasons, but their sins were of vaster scale. A man who broke a taboo by consuming dead bodies to avoid starvation might rise as a ghoul, but a man who murdered his wife and children, then cooked them up as a delicious meal for himself and his mistress would instead rise as a ghast. (Advanced Bestiary)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Atarashia – A Gazeteer)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A slain humanoid of 4 or more Hit Dice rises as a ghast. (Campaign Backdrops: Caves and Caverns)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul (or ghast if it had more than 4 HD) at the next midnight. (Campaign Backdrops: Forests & Woodlands)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A slain humanoid of 4 or more Hit Dice rises as a ghast. (Campaign Backdrops: Hills & Mountains)
After three zombies are slain, the remaining creatures receive a burst of power from the pillars, and are transformed into ghasts. (GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A slain humanoid of 4 or more Hit Dice rises as a ghast. (GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A slain humanoid of 4 or more Hit Dice rises as a ghast. (GM's Miscellany: Village Backdrops III)
The deadwood exerts its foul influence to a radius of 300 feet for every 2 HD of the tree. Any animal, giant, humanoid, or monstrous humanoid corpse within this range that remains in contact with the ground for 1 full round is animated into a zombie or skeleton. Corpses of humanoids with 2 or 3 class levels are instead turned into ghouls, while those with 4 or more class levels are instead turned into ghasts. (Malevolent and Benign)
A humanoid that dies from ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. Those that possess 4 HD or more instead rise as a ghast. (Monster Focus: Ghouls)
A humanoid who dies of a mythic ghoul's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. A humanoid with a mythic rank or mythic tier of 1 or higher rises as a mythic ghoul. (Mythic Mastery Mythic Nabasu and Shadow Demons)
A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
Creatures killed by a conqueror worm's slime, or killed while suffering damage from the slime, are immediately transformed into an undead creature under the conqueror worm’s control. A humanoid who becomes undead in this way retains none of the abilities it possessed in life.
A humanoid of less than 3 Hit Dice rises as a ghast.
A humanoid of 3–9 Hit Dice rises as a wight.
A humanoid of 10 HD or more rises as a morhg.
There is no limit to the number of undead a conqueror worm can create with its slime. (Mythic Monsters 23: Worms)
Related to (and possibly the origin of) lesser creatures such as ghouls and ghasts, ghuls are a powerful form of undead caused by starvation after turning to cannibalism and grave robbing. (The Genius Guide to Simple Monster Templates)
A creature killed while under the effects of a ghul's exhalation of death becomes a ghast (if humanoid) or zombie (if not humanoid) if it had 5 or fewer Hit Dice, and a ghul if it had 6 or more. It rises in undeath 1d6 hours after being slain. A remove curse, neutralize poison, or similar spell cast on its body during this incubation period might prevent the corpse from becoming undead. The caster of such a spell must make a caster level check (DC 10 + HD of ghul that affected the target with exhalation of death), and on a successful check the corpse does not become an undead. (The Genius Guide to Simple Monster Templates)
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. (Tome of Horrors 4)
Necrotic Fever (Ex) Bite—injury; save Fort DC 19; onset 1 day; frequency 1 day; effect 1d4 Con damage; cure 2 consecutive saves. A victim who dies of a necrowurm's necrotic fever transforms into a ghoul 10 minutes after death (a creature with 4 or more Hit Dice becomes a ghast). (Pathways 18)
To the living, the most frightening aspect of the necrowurm is the disease it carries, a necrotic fever more virulent than ghoul fever, but with the same eventual result. (Pathways 18)
Eaters of the dead that hunger for the living, the first ghouls were the undead remains of humans who had, in life, indulged in unwholesome pleasures, such as cannibalism or necrophilia. (Advanced Bestiary)
A humanoid who dies of Mallir Halswain's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Pathways 55)
A humanoid who dies of Paul Malaise's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Wayfinder 8)
A humanoid who dies of a devourer ghoul's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. (Wayfinder 9)
Create Undead spell, caster level 12th to 14th.
Ghoul Army spell. (Shadows Over Vathak Player's Guide to Vathak)
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 12th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Necrotic Arrow feat, Arcane Archer level 9 (Undefeatable 12: Arcane Archer)
Necrotic Arrow feat, Arcane Archer level 9 (Undefeatable: The Collected Feats Sourcebook)
Ghast Tooth alchemical item. (Monster Focus: Ghouls)
Cursed disease. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Ghoul Lacedon: ?
Lacedons are another variant, ghouls who rise from the bodies of starving humanoids who died from drowning, often as a result of a shipwreck. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Boggard, Merfolk: These races always spawn into lacedons. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Any humanoid killed by a cihuateotl's energy drain ability rises as a lacedon under her control in 1d3 rounds. (Cerulean Seas beasts of the Boundless Blue)
Creatures reduced to 0 levels by a toothwraith emerge as lacedons (aquatic ghouls) at the next high tide. (Monster Menagerie Oceans of Blood)
Lich: The pinnacle of necromantic art, the lich is a spellcaster who has chosen to shed his life as a method to cheat death by becoming undead. While many who reach such heights of power stop at nothing to achieve immortality, the idea of becoming a lich is abhorrent to most creatures. The process involves the extraction of the spellcaster's life-force and its imprisonment in a specially prepared phylactery—the spellcaster gives up life, but in trapping life he also traps his death, and as long as his phylactery remains intact he can continue on in his research and work without fear of the passage of time.
The quest to become a lich is a lengthy one. While construction of the magical phylactery to contain the spellcaster's soul is a critical component, a prospective lich must also learn the secrets of transferring his soul into the receptacle and of preparing his body for the transformation into undeath, neither of which are simple tasks. Further complicating the ritual is the fact that no two bodies or souls are exactly alike—a ritual that works for one spellcaster might simply kill another or drive him insane. The exact methods for each spellcaster's transformation are left to the GM's discretion, but should involve expenditures of hundreds of thousands of gold pieces, numerous deadly adventures, and a large number of difficult skill checks over the course of months, years, or decades.
An integral part of becoming a lich is the creation of the phylactery in which the character stores his soul. The only way to get rid of a lich for sure is to destroy its phylactery.
Each lich must create its own phylactery by using the Craft Woundrous Item feat. The character must be able to cast spells and have a caster level of 11th or higher. The phylactery costs 120,000 gp to create and has a caster level equal to that of its creator at the time of creation.
The most common form of phylactery is a sealed metal box containing strips of parchment on which magical phrases have been transcribed. The box is Tiny and has 40 hit points, hardness 20, and a break DC of 40.
Other forms of phylacteries can exist, such as rings, amulets, or similar items.
"Lich" is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature, provided it can create the required phylactery.
Powerful spellcasters who bind their souls into valuable artifacts called phylacteries. (Undead Revisited)
Liches are spellcasters who bind their souls into special receptacles called phylacteries. (Undead Revisited)
Drawing on the powers of their faith or dark knowledge, the greatest spellcasters of the world transcend the boundaries of life through mysterious techniques unknown to the living. (Undead Revisited)
One does not become a lich by accident or stumble into this form of undeath through misadventure. A lich is not a puppet, a blood-mad monster, or an accident of rage or despair. The lich is instead a creature of design and ultimate will, carefully and rationally planning its transition from life into undead immortality. (Undead Revisited)
It is not merely force of will that propels one to lichdom, nor is it the simple desire to avoid death, though these are certainly factors in the mindset of the would-be lich. Instead, those who would follow the path of the undying mind must seek out tomes of forbidden magic and lost lore. Though the initiates might not be evil when they begin, the process under which they become liches drives them slowly into the arms of corruption—the focus they must develop drives out all other concerns, including the civilized needs of friendship and love. (Undead Revisited)
The final and most important aspect of a lich’s transformation involves creating a new home for its soul called a phylactery—this is often something strong and impressive, such as a gem or box of unparalleled quality, though almost any object can serve. (Undead Revisited)
Liches, the twisted spellcasters who lock away their souls so death may never claim them. (Undead Revisited)
The pinnacle of necromantic art, the lich is a spellcaster who has chosen to shed his life as a method to cheat death by becoming undead. While many who reach such heights of power stop at nothing to achieve immortality, the idea of becoming a lich is abhorrent to most creatures. The process involves the extraction of the spellcaster’s life‐force and its imprisonment in a specially prepared phylactery—the spellcaster gives up life, but in trapping life he also traps his death. (100% Crunch Liches)
The quest to become a lich is a lengthy one. While construction of the magical phylactery to contain the spellcaster’s soul is a critical component, a prospective lich must also learn the secrets of transferring his soul into the receptacle and of preparing his body for the transformation into undeath, neither of which are simple tasks. Further complicating the ritual is the fact that no two bodies or souls are exactly alike—a ritual that works for one spellcaster might simply kill another or drive him insane. The exact methods for each spellcaster’s transformation are left to the GM’s discretion, but should involve expenditures of hundreds of thousands of gold pieces, numerous deadly adventures, and a large number of difficult skill checks over the course of months, years, or decades. (100% Crunch Liches)
An integral part of becoming a lich is the creation of the phylactery in which the character stores his soul. (100% Crunch Liches)
Each lich must create its own phylactery by using the Craft Wondrous Item feat. The character must be able to cast spells and have a caster level of 11th or higher. The phylactery costs 120,000 gp to create and has a caster level equal to that of its creator at the time of creation. (100% Crunch Liches)
“Lich” is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature, provided it can create the required phylactery. (100% Crunch Liches)
In the end, though, she fights to the death, hoping perhaps her necromantic pursuits and experimentations will see her resurrected into the lich form she’s long sought. (GM's Miscellany: Places of Power II)
If Erlgamm is killed during the PCs’ stay, she could transform into a lich thanks to her many years of necromantic experiments. (GM's Miscellany: Places of Power II)
Any creature suffering from a negative level inflicted by the hammer of the unworthy when it dies immediately rises as Belial’s choice of a ghost, a lich, or a vampire. In the case of a lich, it treats the hammer of the unworthy as its phylactery. If a creature that would rise as an undead as a result of this ability would also return to life as a pit fiend as a result of the edge of the forsaken’s ability, that creature becomes a pit fiend with the chosen template. (The Deluxe Guide to Fiend Summoning and Faustian Bargains)
Lich Human Necromancer 11: ?
Mohrg: Those who slay many over the course of their lifetimes, be they serial killers, mass-murderers, warmongering soldiers, or battle-driven berserkers, become marked and tainted by the sheer weight of their murderous deeds. When such killers are brought to justice and publicly executed for their heinous crimes before they have a chance to atone, the remains sometimes return to unlife to continue their dark work as a mohrg.
The spirits of serial killers and those who exult in the taking of life. (Undead Revisited)
Those who exult in the needless taking of life sometimes return to the world after death as mohrgs. (Undead Revisited)
Some mohrgs were bloodthirsty warriors who slew as many as they could on the battlefield, others cold and calculating murders who selected their victims with delicate care, but nearly all mohrgs lived and died as mortal humanoids who delighted in the deaths of their fellow beings. A few mohrgs, however, are created from the remains of innocents by spellcasters (using the create undead spell), who are driven mad by being deprived of a peaceful death and then watching the transformation and slow decay of their own bodies. (Undead Revisited)
There are two means of becoming a mohrg: by spell or by deed. A dead creature subject to a create undead spell might find herself transformed into a mohrg. Likewise, a humanoid who has killed many over the course of his life—or even just a few, if he is particularly unrepentant about the lives he’s taken—could awaken to discover that he has not yet passed to the afterlife, but arisen to undeath. (Undead Revisited)
A mohrg is as much a product of the method of its execution as it is an undead manifestation of one who, in life, was a murderous criminal or warmonger. At times, unusual methods of execution can trigger equally unusual mohrgs. The extreme nature of these executions are such that these variant mohrgs are only rarely created by accident—more often, they are deliberate creations by officials who themselves dabble in necromancy and may in fact be as vile as those they put to death. (Undead Revisited)
Once per day, a mohrg-mother can choose to animate a recently slain victim as another mohrg instead of as a fast zombie. (Undead Revisited)
Sages’ opinions differ on the origins of mohrgs, and on the specific conditions that result in the existence of individual specimens of their undead type. One prevailing theory among those who study the unliving maintains that Urgathoa selects a number of the darkest souls awaiting sorting and judgment by Pharasma and takes them as her due, corrupting them with a touch and returning them to the world to spread the seed of undeath in an inexorable plague over the Material Plane. While some claim that the souls that become mohrgs are so abhorrent that the Lady of Graves actually rejects them, wiser heads understand that such is not the nature of Pharasma’s judgment, and suspect that it’s either the work of the Pallid Princess or some terrible process that occurs before the souls ever leave their corpses (as is the case with many other forms of undead). (Undead Revisited)
All mohrgs have been cursed into their condition—either by the gods or by a spellcaster. (Undead Revisited)
Mohrgs, the undead murders who rise after death to stalk the streets. (Undead Revisited)
Those who die beneath the surface of Terminus have a much higher chance of spontaneously rising as undead. This may be another side effect of the strange mineral known as nightglass. Wandering skeletons and zombies are common, and those that die of starvation within the bowels of Terminus often rise as ghouls, as do those who practice cannibalism regularly. The most vicious and violent of prisoners have been known to return as mohrgs. (Legendary Worlds: Terminus)
Creatures killed by a conqueror worm's slime, or killed while suffering damage from the slime, are immediately transformed into an undead creature under the conqueror worm’s control. A humanoid who becomes undead in this way retains none of the abilities it possessed in life.
A humanoid of less than 3 Hit Dice rises as a ghast.
A humanoid of 3–9 Hit Dice rises as a wight.
A humanoid of 10 HD or more rises as a morhg.
There is no limit to the number of undead a conqueror worm can create with its slime. (Mythic Monsters 23: Worms)
Create Undead spell, caster level 18th or higher.
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 18th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Mummy: Mummies are created through a rather lengthy and gruesome embalming process, during which all of the body's major organs are removed and replaced with dried herbs and flowers. After this process, the flesh is anointed with sacred oils and wrapped in purified linens. The creator then finishes the ritual with a create undead spell.
Although most mummies are created merely as guardians and remain loyal to their charge until their destruction, certain powerful mummies have much more free will. The majority are at least 10th-level clerics, and are often kings or pharaohs who have called upon dark gods or sinister necromancers to bind their souls to their bodies after death—usually as a means to extend their rule beyond the grave, but at times simply to escape what they fear will be an eternity of torment in their own afterlife.
Like all sentient undead, mummies possess a chthonic vice, one that proves so powerful that it might stretch beyond the veil of natural death. In this case: covetousness. This might seem like a strange distinction, for what undead creature is not possessed by powers or obsessions that act beyond death? Yet in numerous cases involving mummies, the uncovered corpses were not animate upon discovery. No mere trickery, in such situations not only were the remains not animate, but they were not undead before being disturbed. Although research into dark lore reveals that mummies might be created through necromantic magics, those that spontaneously manifest do so as a result of some outside influence—typically the desecration of a burial place, violation of physical remains, or conveyance of some terrible revelation. As such, the attachment between a departed soul and its immortally coveted remains, possessions, or—most intriguingly—philosophies proves so strong that the undermining of these fundaments draws the spirit back across the gulf of mortality to defend that from which its life and death took meaning. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
What might provoke a mummy’s resurrection varies widely, though cultural generalities exist. The most important requisite appears to be a lifelong preoccupation with death, typically held by an individual and compounded by his society. Populations who believe in the finality of death or the dissolution of the mortal spirit rarely produce mummies. Even believers in more traditional myths of the afterlife and the one-way progression of souls to a final reward or punishment infrequently breed such horrors. Those societies who tie their eternal rewards to the state of their physical remains or other monuments to their lives and believe that departed spirits might return to interact with the living unwittingly inflict a self-fulfilling curse upon themselves. Should one spend an entire life convinced that death does not sever his connection to the mortal realm, a belief compounded by his survivors who seek to elaborately placate his spirit, events that compromise the individual’s interests in the living world make it possible for the soul to return to seek retribution.
Aside from mummies obsessed with their past lives, a second classification exists: the cursed. Not drawn back to the world by their own vices, these beings have their undead state forced upon them. In the most basic form, necromantic magics empower a corpse with the traits of a mummy, granting such a creature the abilities of such ancient dead but without the fanaticism that make the most legendary examples so deadly. These creatures prove hate-filled but bestial, knowing only the will to destroy and the whims of their masters. Other cursed mummies typically spawn from excruciating deaths, curses of immortal suffering, and the wrath of ancient deities. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
While mummies notoriously haunt the hidden pyramids and buried necropolises of ancient cultures, such locations are not requisite to their resurrection. Most mummies created by powers other than foul magic possess connections to their resting places, perceiving such places as sanctuaries or prisons granted to them by their descendants. The form of such places means little; it is the spiritual connection and the importance the deceased places on such locations that hold significance. Thus, mummies are just as likely to rise from hidden barrow mounds, ancient catacombs, or acres of holy mud as from more majestic tombs. That being said, cultures that place such importance on the dead as to monumentalize the resting places of the deceased predispose themselves to the curse of mummies. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Not just any corpse can spontaneously manifest as a mummy GMs interested in creating mummies resurrected “naturally” (rather than by spells like create undead) should consider the passion and force of will of the would-be mummy. By and large, a corpse should be of a creature with a Charisma of 15 or higher and possessing at least 8 Hit Dice. In addition, it should have a reason for caring about the eternal sanctity of its remains in excess of normal mortal concern. As such, priests of deities with the Death or Repose domains, heroes expecting a champion’s burial, lords of cultures preoccupied with the afterlife, or individuals otherwise obsessed with death or their worldly possessions all make suitable candidates for resurrection as mummies—though countless other potential reasons for resurrection exist. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Created to guard the tombs of the honored dead. (Beginner's Box)
Made from a desiccated and preserved corpse, wrapped in sacred bandages, this undead creature is known as a mummy. (Monster Focus: Mummies)
Although the majority of mummies are created through special ritual, some arise spontaneously, usually based on the location of their death. If such a location—be it bog or arid desert—has sufficient latent necromantic auras, the person who died there may rise as a mummy. (Southlands Campaign Setting)
Some cult members request burial in a particular way and involving a special ceremony that echoes that used to create mummies. The cults regard this method of burial (always while still living) as a way to immortality. (Southlands Campaign Setting)
Some orders and religions believe that the mummy is created to watch over her reincarnated kin and that they animate when they are called by those kin, often subliminally and sometimes centuries later. These mummies seek out their kin to protect them from harm—often something the kinsman is totally unaware of and may be horrified by. In darker cases, the mummy sees in that person the image of a dead lover and wishes to rekindle that love once more.
Rarely, some mummies are created either through a voluntary death pact between lovers because the pair wish to continue even into undeath, or through two lovers who are forced as a punishment to endure rebirth as undead. (Southlands Campaign Setting)
Create Undead spell, caster level 15th to 17th.
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 15th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Shadow: A humanoid creature killed by a shadow's Strength damage becomes a shadow under the control of its killer in 1d4 rounds.
Greedy spirits whose own mean-spirited miserliness shrinks their souls, bringing them back after death as some of the most despicable undead monstrosities. (Undead Revisited)
Not even the grave can stop the greed of some people. Driven by envy and covetousness, those misers and thieves led to evil by their avaricious natures sometimes fade away or return after death as shadows, dark reflections of their former selves. (Undead Revisited)
Rampant covetousness and grasping greed lead some people down the dark path of evil and betrayal, eventually ending in a reprehensible death scene or a lonely expiration. While most such petty and despicable souls travel on to their final rewards the same way everyone else does, in some cases gluttons, misers, and thieves waste away into nothing but shadows—undead things that reach and grab, but cannot hold. (Undead Revisited)
As the victim of a shadow’s touch expires, its own shadow detaches from the corpse, taking on the same half-life as its killer. (Undead Revisited)
On their own, shadows arise from the souls of greedy but lackluster evildoers—those whose crimes are heinous, but who lack the rage of a spectre or the exultation in evil often found in wraiths. The bandit who unemotionally slits her victims’ throats because it’s convenient, the petty diplomat who orders a witch burning to cover up his adulterous affair, and the miserly headmaster who lets orphans starve to save a few coppers all make good candidates for becoming shadows. Yet while such spontaneous transformations do occur, the vast majority of shadows are instead created by magic. Necromancers have long seen the value of relatively weak, pliable, and unambitious undead servants—especially incorporeal ones—and most shadows currently in existence were originally called to undeath by the spell create undead (or else by the life-draining attacks of other shadows created in this manner). (Undead Revisited)
Death at the hands of a shadow means becoming one. (Undead Revisited)
Also fortunate for the living is that although shadows can and sometimes do drain energy from animals or even vermin found in their lairs, only humanoid creatures that fall victim to their touch become shadows themselves. This is because of the nature of the humanoid spirit or soul and the magical similarity between the shadow and its prey. (Undead Revisited)
Years ago, a young noblewoman lost in the woodlands beheld a holy vision on a hilltop and founded a small abbey there, whose sisterhood cared for all lost souls who came to its doors. Their kindness proved their undoing when a lost mercenary unit took advantage of their hospitality, only to rob and set fire to the abbey’s great hall with the sisters trapped inside. But the shadows that danced in the hellish light of the flames visited upon the soldiers all of the pain they had inflicted, and left none alive. (Undead Revisited)
Historically, it’s known that the runelords of ancient Thassilon sometimes employed shadows, taking those traitors or servants who displeased the runelords and ripping their shadows away, killing these mortal subjects and turning their shadows into phantasmal servitors and spies capable of serving for eternity. These shadows subsisted on the life force of their victims, in turn stealing the victims’ shadows to create new servitors for their vile masters. While the records are unclear about which runelord was the first to harness the undead in this manor, various reports cite Zutha (Runelord of Gluttony, and a powerful necromancer), Belimarius (Runelord of Envy), and Karzoug (Runelord of Greed), and many of the lesser necromancers in the empire embraced the practice as well. (Undead Revisited)
Shadows were well known in ancient Osirion as well—drawings and hieroglyphs concerning them decorate ancient tombs buried in the desert. Many of those same tombs are haunted by hungry shadows, awaiting tomb-robbers and explorers. Some of these shadows are guardians and protectors against those who would defile the dead, who owe their horrible existences to decadent nobles who commanded that their retinues be entombed alive with them. In other tombs, however, the resident shadows are the soul-shells of greedy and grasping pharaohs and viziers, unable to let go of what they held in life and determined to guard it forever after death. Either way, the result is the same for unfortunate tomb-raiders and archaeologists. (Undead Revisited)
While undead in general are the work of Urgathoa, shadows are often also associated with Norgorber, the god of greed, secrecy, and murder. Indeed, some worshipers of Norgorber refer to shadows as “emissaries of the Gray Master” or “Blackfinger’s claws,” and believe the god takes the shadows of the faithful after death and makes them his proxies in the mortal world, infused with a measure of his killing power. (Undead Revisited)
Any creature that is drained to 0 Strength by the Risen Lord dies. One round later, the creature’s body spawns a shadow (if the creature had 8 or fewer Hit Dice) or a greater shadow (if the creature had 9 Hit Dice or more). (Undead Revisited)
Shadows, those souls too covetous and miserly to relinquish their grasp on life. (Undead Revisited)
Little more than impressions of wickedness, shadows are the souls of petty villains too fearful of their eternal punishments to pass on to the outer planes, yet too weak-willed to manifest as greater undead. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
As the uprising gathers strength, the unquiet souls of bodies long since turned to dust awaken as well. Ghosts, shadows, wraiths, and even spectres arise to prey upon the living. (Game Mastery Guide)
The dread greater shadow creature’s create spawn ability creates only shadows, greater shadows, and dread shadows. (Advanced Bestiary)
A creature killed by a shadow’s incorporeal touch becomes a shadow under the control of its killer in 1d4 rounds. (Book of Beasts Monsters of the Shadow Plane)
The vengeful Ankehaton slew two of his killers, turning them into 2 shadows. (Mountains of Madness)
This weapon’s dark origins were steeped in blood; foul necromantic rituals gave it the power to tear forth the souls of men, turning them into ghostly specters that hungered for the living. (Treasure of NeoExodus: Claw of Xon)
Then, testing a new process using his disturbing necromantic magic, he extracted the iron from the blood of hundreds of slaves and prisoners to forge a new weapon for his new general, befitting his power. Weaving even darker and fouler magic into this weapon he imparted it the power to not just tear flesh and pulp bone, but also rend the very soul from a body to serve the weapon’s wielder before passing on. (Treasure of NeoExodus: Claw of Xon)
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 15th or lower.
Raise Undeath spell word, boosted. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Spawn of the Shadows feat. (Undefeatable 20: Shadowdancer)
Spawn of the Shadows feat. (Undefeatable: The Collected Feats Sourcebook)
Cursed disease. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Shadow Greater: Greater shadows are those undead shadows that have come to be particularly infused with negative energy, such as those that have spent vast lengths of time in areas of the Plane of Shadow awash in negative energy, or those that have drained the lives of thousands of victims
A shadow that has fed on the lives of many victims, or that dwells long enough in a place suffused with sufficient negative energies, may grow in power, becoming a greater shadow. (Undead Revisited)
Any creature that is drained to 0 Strength by the Risen Lord dies. One round later, the creature’s body spawns a shadow (if the creature had 8 or fewer Hit Dice) or a greater shadow (if the creature had 9 Hit Dice or more). (Undead Revisited)
Greater shadows are those undead shadows that have come to be particularly infused with negative energy, such as those that have spent vast lengths of time in areas of the Plane of Shadow awash in negative energy, or those that have drained the lives of thousands of victims. (Advanced Bestiary)
The dread greater shadow creature’s create spawn ability creates only shadows, greater shadows, and dread shadows. (Advanced Bestiary)
If a creature is slain by a shadow of the void’s blightfire, icy fragments of the creature remain and it rises as a greater shadow. (Book of Beasts Legendary Foes)
A living creature slain by a shadow of the void becomes a greater shadow in 1d4 rounds. (Book of Beasts Legendary Foes)
At first glance, it appears that the skeleton resting atop the larger slab was an unfortunate soul who died at an inopportune time. However, further inspection reveals that the person was in fact alive for at least part of the procedure. A successful DC 20 Perception check reveals portions of his fingernails embedded into the stone surface and deep scratches on the bones corresponding with the fingertips. The skeleton belongs to Ankehaton, the only priest who refused to turn his back on Aten and worship Ahriman, the wicked lord of the divs. Atumshutsep and four other clerics horrifically murdered their fellow priest, but the ghastly act and the presence of a dark entity infused Ankehaton’s soul with evil and rage. His spirit survived and transformed into a greater shadow. (Mountains of Madness)
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 19 with Shadow Walk spell. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, boosted, caster level 20th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Skeletal Champion: "Skeletal Champion" is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than an undead) that has a skeletal system and a minimum Intelligence of 3.
A skeletal champion cannot be created with animate dead—these potent undead only arise under rare conditions similar to those that cause the manifestation of ghosts or via rare and highly evil rituals.
Any creature that dies within 60 feet of a saxra must succeed at a DC 30 Will save or rise as a skeleton (or skeletal champion if it has an Intelligence score of 3 or more) in 1d4 rounds. (Bestiary 5)
As the uprising progresses, older and older corpses join the shambling ranks of the undead. Skeletons wearing traces of long-rotted funeral garb claw their way out of graveyards and crypts, and act with a malevolence and organization rarely encountered among their ilk. The undead remain mindless, but the magical power behind the incursion gives them the efficiency and tactical acumen of a living army. The skeletons seek out weapons and armor to gird themselves for battle. Elite skeletal champions lead the troops, wielding magic items scavenged from abandoned graves. (Game Mastery Guide)
While most skeletons are mindless automatons, some skeletons retain their intelligence and cunning, making them formidable warriors. (100% Crunch Skeletal Champions)
“Skeletal Champion” is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than an undead) that has a skeletal system and a minimum Intelligence of 3. (100% Crunch Skeletal Champions)
Create Undead spell, caster level 11 with Enervation or Energy Drain spell. (Undead Revisited)
Revenancer's Rage spell. (Gothic Grimoires To Serve a Prince Undying)
Raise Undeath spell word. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Skeletal Champion Human Warrior 1: ?
Skeleton: Skeletons are the animated bones of the dead, brought to unlife through foul magic.
"Skeleton" is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than an undead) that has a skeletal system.
Any creature that dies within 60 feet of a saxra must succeed at a DC 30 Will save or rise as a skeleton (or skeletal champion if it has an Intelligence score of 3 or more) in 1d4 rounds. (Bestiary 5)
Dead bodies animated through foul necromantic rituals. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
The walking dead normally serve as the simple tools of evil priests and wizards who have animated cadavers through the use of spells such as animate dead. While most skeletons and zombies are the products of such necromantic magics, other methods of creating the walking dead have been recorded. Rare alchemical concoctions can rot the flesh or melt it from bone, and give the corpse some semblance of life. Certain powerful curses can also cause a person to rise as a zombie upon death, often to take revenge on those still living. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
However, skeletons and zombies have also been known to arise spontaneously, usually as a result of another powerful undead creature nearby. Certain areas with a strong necromantic aura or a history of killing—such as battlefields and long-forgotten sacrificial altars—or places where a significant number of people have died violently, as with a mass grave or the sites of massacre, can spontaneously produce the living dead as well. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Occasionally, a large mixed group of skeletons or zombies spontaneously arises, usually at the site of a particularly bloody battle or other scene of carnage. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Skeletons are the animated bones of the dead, brought to unlife through foul magic. While they are mindless automatons, the magic that created them gave them evil cunning and an instinctive hatred of the living. (Beginner's Box)
As the uprising progresses, older and older corpses join the shambling ranks of the undead. Skeletons wearing traces of long-rotted funeral garb claw their way out of graveyards and crypts, and act with a malevolence and organization rarely encountered among their ilk. (Game Mastery Guide)
Skeletons are the animated bones of the dead, brought to unlife through foul magic. (100% Crunch Skeletal Champions)
Skeletons are the animated bones of the dead, brought to unlife through foul magic. (100% Crunch Skeletons)
“Skeleton” is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature that has a skeletal system. (100% Crunch Skeletons)
Skeletons are normally created with animate dead. Of course, wizards and priests both have access to the animate dead spell, and depending on their power may animate any kind of creature (assuming they have its skeleton). Devourers (Bestiary 1), night hag covens (Bestiary 1), sepids (div) (Bestiary 3) and thanadaemons (Bestiary 2) are extraplanar creatures with animate dead as a spell‐like ability. Such creatures could easily scour the sites of battles on the fiendish planes, and animate the dead bodies of celestials and fiends. Material Plane creatures with the animate dead spell‐like ability include hag covens (Bestiary 1), pukwudgies (Bestiary 3), tzitzimitl (Bestiary 3) and zuvembies (Bestiary 3). (100% Crunch Skeletons)
This skeleton is an undead creature animated by magic to perform single-minded tasks. (Behind the Monsters Omnibus)
A bone druid may animate the corpses of animals with but a touch, raising them as zombies or skeletons, depending on the condition of the body. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
The negative energy surrounding the temple’s demise either brings unholy life to the corpses interred at the temples or draws mindless undead to them. While skeletons and zombies are the most common undead, ghouls, spectres and vampires also lair in deserted temples. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
As a standard action, a bone sovereign can create any number of skeletal monsters from its body.
The deadwood exerts its foul influence to a radius of 300 feet for every 2 HD of the tree. Any animal, giant, humanoid, or monstrous humanoid corpse within this range that remains in contact with the ground for 1 full round is animated into a zombie or skeleton. Corpses of humanoids with 2 or 3 class levels are instead turned into ghouls, while those with 4 or more class levels are instead turned into ghasts. (Malevolent and Benign)
The creature is a skeleton, an undead abomination created from the bones of a dead creature. (Monster Focus: Skeletons)
A rot giant can take a full round action to gape its jaws like a snake and consume the corpse of a Medium or smaller target. On the next round, as a standard action it can disgorge a skeleton with HD equal to the consumed victim. (Monster Menagerie Kingdom of Graves)
Xiled clerics then animate their lifeless corpses and compel these skeletons and zombies to serve their new masters for the remainder of their undead existence. (Mountains of Madness)
Each morning, the desperate necromancer animates his former tests subjects and other dead humanoids from the grounds around the library and sends them into battle against the dwarven garrison how guarding the Southern Pass. (Mountains of Madness)
The position of the Osirians as the favored of the gods did not spare them from the cataclysm that turned Abaddon upside down, already giving way to some of the other species the Osirians were struck a hammer blow by the fall of the meteor and their ancestral homelands were some of the worst affected by the necromantic miasma and negative energies released by the impact. (Races of Obsidian Twilight: Osirian)
The Osirians died in droves from the impact, from its aftermath and from the lingering effects of the necromantic radiation, subverting their bodies day by agonizing day and raising so many of them as zombies, skeletons and ghosts that the Osirians rapidly learned harsh lessons in dismemberment before burial and the building of secure and warded tombs. (Races of Obsidian Twilight: Osirian)
With a ritual requiring 8 hours, a master of death can animate a single skeleton or zombie whose Hit Dice do not exceed her arcanist level. (Shadows Over Vathak Player's Guide to Vathak)
Animate Dead spell.
Animate Dead Lesser spell. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
Animate Dead Minor spell. (Monster Focus: Skeletons)
Call the Dead spell. (Monster Focus: Skeletons)
Bone Sword magic item. (Monster Focus: Skeletons)
Release From Flesh spell. (Shadows Over Vathak: Hauntlings – Enhanced Racial Guide)
Torpid Reanimation spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Undead Crew spell. (Ultimate Spell Decks: Obsidian Twilight Spell cards (PFRPG))
Animation by Touch feat. (Obsidian Apocalypse)
Murderous Necromancy feat. (Undefeatable 13: Assassin)
Murderous Necromancy feat. (Undefeatable: The Collected Feats Sourcebook)
Necrotic Arrow feat, Arcane Archer level 3 (Undefeatable 12: Arcane Archer)
Necrotic Arrow feat, Arcane Archer level 3 (Undefeatable: The Collected Feats Sourcebook)
Bonewarped Eternity disease. (Pathways 51)
Skeleton Human Warrior 1: ?
Skeleton Bloody: These variant skeletons can be created using animate dead, but they count as twice their normal number of Hit Dice per casting.
Call the Dead spell. (Monster Focus: Skeletons)
Skeleton Burning: These variant skeletons can be created using animate dead, but they count as twice their normal number of Hit Dice per casting.
Spawn created by a desert mohrg rise as burning skeletons rather than fast zombies. (Undead Revisited)
Call the Dead spell. (Monster Focus: Skeletons)
Spectre: Any humanoids slain by a spectre become spectres themselves in 1d4 rounds.
Most are the remnants of murdered or evil humans, their anger preventing them from entering the afterlife.
Spectres are creatures of insatiable anger, their undeath the result of evil lives and a rage too great to allow them to let go of the mortal world. Arrogant egomaniacs enraged by the insult of their own deaths and murder victims seeking revenge on their captors are prime candidates for transformation into spectres, though such transformations is far more common if the mortals were actively evil. (Undead Revisited)
Areas infested with the foul followers of Zyphus are often prime locations for spectres, as the cultists’ souls tend to linger on the mortal plane after death, rewarded with undeath and allowed to continue their dark deeds on Golarion. Other gods also command the respect of these undead, however, and the creatures’ spawning ability means spectral clerics in the service of Urgathoa quickly rise within her clergy, the dark spirits’ endless hunger for life force and control of an army of spawn a fitting homage to the Pallid Princess. Geb’s ruling class contains several powerful spectres, some of which host decadent, energy-draining banquets in their unhallowed halls, feasting on buffets of sentient souls, with the victims rising as spawn to expand the nation’s legions of incorporeal spies and infiltrators. (Undead Revisited)
Instances of extreme violence and hatred often give rise to a lesser form of spirit: spectres. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
As the uprising gathers strength, the unquiet souls of bodies long since turned to dust awaken as well. Ghosts, shadows, wraiths, and even spectres arise to prey upon the living. (Game Mastery Guide)
Jenovaria was a hate-filled barbarian in life. He died tormented and ashamed for not discovering his lover’s killer and avenging the murder. (Book of Beasts Monsters of the Shadow Plane)
Creatures from 13+ HD within the cone of a plague dragon's deathless breath must make a Fortitude save or die and reanimate as spectres. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
The negative energy surrounding the temple’s demise either brings unholy life to the corpses interred at the temples or draws mindless undead to them. While skeletons and zombies are the most common undead, ghouls, spectres and vampires also lair in deserted temples. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Powerful witches are able to leave lasting imprints upon the land with their final breaths, transforming themselves into powerful, incorporeal undead through extreme hatred and emotional distress. Often manifesting as ghosts, spectres or wraiths, these witches blight the land and cause strange murders and ill fortunate to beset the locals until they move away from the site of the curse. When a creature dies, any intense emotions it experiences at the time of death are often left behind as a psychic footprint. Fear, anger, hatred and sorrow are by far the most powerful of these emotions and often causes the most dangerous and destructive haunts to manifest. It should come as no surprise an act as evil as murder, which often comprises all three of these emotions and more, is a leading cause of the creation of powerful supernatural entities. Ghosts, spectres, wraiths and poltergeists are all commonly created in this manner, and when created they seldom stray far from the place where they were murdered. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Any humanoids slain by a mythic spectre become nonmythic spectres themselves in one round. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
Several decades ago the inhabitants of Saltspray, a small coastal village, were all but wiped from existence by the appetites of a band of sahuagin. Although the monsters were eventually repelled, over half the villagers were murdered, their half-devoured corpses left to rot in a grotto built atop a nobleman’s summer home. In the following years, the manor has become a haunt filled with dozens of lost spirits, the most notable of which is the manor’s former owner. Now a powerful spectre, it is said the owner’s wailing can be heard long into the night once a month as the full moon rises. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Humanoids Lillian slays become spectres (with a –2 penalty on all d20 rolls, –2 hp per HD and only drain one level on a touch) in 1d4 rounds. (Scions of Evil)
Many chirurgical procedures are damaging to the patient's psyche and the natural balance of their mental processes. This imbalance extends into the spiritual plane, and creatures who recently underwent mind-altering chirurgical procedures might have a greater than normal chance of arising as unquiet dead, perhaps haunts that spread madness and torment, or as actual undead creatures such as allips or, more rarely, ghosts or spectres. (The Mad Doctor's Formulary)
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 18th to 19th.
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 20th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Vampire: “Vampire” is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature with 5 or more Hit Dice.
A vampire can create spawn out of those it slays with blood drain or energy drain, provided that the slain creature is of the same creature type as the vampire's base creature type. The victim rises from death as a vampire in 1d4 days.
The ultimate fear of vampires rises from their storied kiss, the bite and telltale marks that spread death and the dark curse of unlife. As the most discussed and feared power of these unliving hunters, vampires’ pronounced fangs draw the blood of the living, allowing the vampire both to feed upon the vital fluid and, more terrifyingly, to create more of its kind from its victims. Though this is not an uncommon trait of the undead, in vampires such corruption finds refinement, affording them the choice of slaying their victims outright or resurrecting them, as either deathless thralls or true vampires. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Dread vampires can create spawn only if their victims are kept in coffin homes until they rise. A coffin home can be any container capable of accommodating the corpse. Under these conditions, a creature slain by a dread vampire’s energy drain attack rises as a standard vampire 24 hours after death. (Advanced Bestiary)
Calix Sabinus can create spawn out of those he slays with blood drain or energy drain, provided that the slain creature is humanoid. The victim rises from death as a vampire in 1d4 days. (Fallen Of Obsidian Twilight: Calix Sabinus)
The negative energy surrounding the temple’s demise either brings unholy life to the corpses interred at the temples or draws mindless undead to them. While skeletons and zombies are the most common undead, ghouls, spectres and vampires also lair in deserted temples. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Vampire myths are as old as time, and it seems that for every myth there is a different way in which one becomes a vampire. Many vampires spread their affliction through their bite, either indiscriminately, or only when they choose to “embrace” their target. Others spread vampirism as a literal disease, which can be inflicted in a number of ways. In other tales, there is no way to “spread” vampirism, and each person who rises as one of the undead does so because of some grave sin that he connected in life. Below are some popular legends about what can cause a person to rise as a vampire. Note that these are just guidelines, and GMs should feel free to pick and choose which of these will work in a given game, and which are simply myth. Some GMs might determine that anyone who is subject to a certain number of these conditions will rise as a vampire, but any one condition is not enough. Others might determine that some or all of these can cause a corpse to rise as a vampire, unless simple steps are taken to prevent that from happening, etc. A corpse might rise as a vampire if…
• …the corpse is jumped over by an animal.
• …the body bore a wound which had not been treated with boiling water.
• …the corpse was an enemy of the church in life.
• …the corpse was a mage in life.
• …the corpse was born a bastard.
• …the corpse converted away from a “true” faith (historically, the Eastern Orthodox Church).
On the other hand, these countermeasures are supposed to prevent a corpse from rising as a vampire:
• A good person need not fear rising as a vampire.
• Crossing oneself before initiating sex spares any resulting children from becoming a vampire.
• Certain blessings performed over the body can prevent the corpse from rising as a vampire.
• Burying the corpse face-down may not prevent the corpse from becoming a vampire, but supposedly prevents him from rising out of his grave. (Liber Vampyr)
A bloodknight can create spawn out of those it slays with its blood drain or energy drain, provided that the slain creature is of the same creature type as the vampire’s base creature type. The victim rises from death as a vampire in 1d4 days, under the command of the bloodknight. A bloodknight may have enslaved spawn totaling no more then twice it’s own hit dice; any spawn it creates that exceeds this limit are free-willed undead. The bloodknight may free enslaved spawn to create new spawn, but can never regain control over the freed undead again. The bloodknight can elect to create a full fledged bloodknight in place of a spawn, but rarely do so, viewing them as dangerous rivals. At most, a bloodknight may create a single of its own kind to serve as a squire. (Monster Menagerie Kingdom of Graves)
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. (Tome of Horrors 4)
Calix can create spawn out of those he slays with blood drain or energy drain, provided that the slain creature is humanoid. The victim rises from death as a vampire in 1d4 days. (Obsidian Apocalypse)
Any creature suffering from a negative level inflicted by the hammer of the unworthy when it dies immediately rises as Belial’s choice of a ghost, a lich, or a vampire. In the case of a lich, it treats the hammer of the unworthy as its phylactery. If a creature that would rise as an undead as a result of this ability would also return to life as a pit fiend as a result of the edge of the forsaken’s ability, that creature becomes a pit fiend with the chosen template. (The Deluxe Guide to Fiend Summoning and Faustian Bargains)
After they rise from the grave, a vampire spirit will haunt a community for 40 nights. After 40 nights, the obour returns to the soil where it regenerates its original physical form. The next night, its transformation complete, the creature rises from the grave as a true, free-willed vampire. (Wayfinder 5)
Vampire human sorcerer 8: ?
Vampire Spawn: A vampire can elect to create a vampire spawn instead of a full-fledged vampire when she uses her create spawn ability on a humanoid creature only. This decision must be made as a free action whenever a vampire slays an appropriate creature by using blood drain or energy drain.
The ultimate fear of vampires rises from their storied kiss, the bite and telltale marks that spread death and the dark curse of unlife. As the most discussed and feared power of these unliving hunters, vampires’ pronounced fangs draw the blood of the living, allowing the vampire both to feed upon the vital fluid and, more terrifyingly, to create more of its kind from its victims. Though this is not an uncommon trait of the undead, in vampires such corruption finds refinement, affording them the choice of slaying their victims outright or resurrecting them, as either deathless thralls or true vampires.
While most vampires visit their victims night after night, draining them of their vitality little by little, some gorge themselves, drinking away an entire life in a single feast. It is from such deaths that new vampires might arise—though victims physically unfit for the transformation might still resurrect as mere vampire spawn. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Draining blood is not the only way new vampires are created, however. Little known is the fact that the very touch of the vampire can drain one’s power and weaken one’s resolve—a condition that seems to be more a manner of fundamental deterioration than mere physical draining. Rarely used by vampires except in desperate conflicts, as it supplies them with no vital blood, their energy-sapping touch can easily extinguish a life, and from such withering deaths new vampires arise, cursing even the most exceptional souls to an existence as undead slaves. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
While most vampires visit their victims night after night, draining them of their vitality little by little, some gorge themselves, drinking away an entire life in a single feast. It is from such deaths that new vampires might arise—though victims physically unfit for the transformation might still resurrect as mere vampire spawn. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
A creature slain by Amelya’s blood drain or energy drain rises as a vampire spawn in 1d4 days. (GM's Miscellany: Places of Power)
Gahlgax can create a spawn when he slays a creature with blood drain or energy drain. (Scions of Evil)
Vilran can create a spawn when he slays a creature with blood drain or energy drain. (Scions of Evil)
Tregereth can create a spawn when she slays a creature with blood drain or energy drain. (Scions of Evil)
Daveth can create a spawn when he slays a creature with blood drain or energy drain. (Scions of Evil)
Margh can create a spawn when he slays a creature with blood drain or energy drain. (Scions of Evil)
Terl can create a spawn when he slays a creature with blood drain or energy drain. (Scions of Evil)
Vampires can create spawn of the same type (humanoid, monstrous humanoid and so on), from those it slays with its blood drain or energy drain attacks. The victim rises in 1d4 days. (Scions of Evil)
Cadan can create a spawn when he slays a creature with blood drain or energy drain. (Scions of Evil)
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. (Tome of Horrors 4)
Wight: Any humanoid creature that is slain by a wight becomes a wight itself in only 1d4 rounds.
Wights are humanoids who rise as undead due to necromancy, a violent death, or an extremely malevolent personality. In some cases, a wight arises when an evil undead spirit permanently bonds with a corpse, often the corpse of a slain warrior.
Broken corpses hungry for the souls of the living, doomed to their lonely existences through a wide variety of tragedies, malevolence, or unwilling possession. (Undead Revisited)
The origins of wights are highly varied. Some are created through obscure necromantic rites (usually create undead) and bound to the service of necromancers or evil priests. More commonly, wights are simply the unfortunate victims of other wights, the light of their lives turned to a corrupted mockery by the undead’s touch. (Undead Revisited)
Every touch of a wight draws the target farther from life and deeper into death, until the last of its life force ebbs and the target is transformed in an instant into a dreadful thing of suffering and hate, leavened with a tormented enslavement to the will of its creator. (Undead Revisited)
More tragically, wights can also arise spontaneously. (Undead Revisited)
Scholars of the undead use the term “wights of anguish” to describe those whose birth into unlife occurred following a horrible trauma, often both mental and physical, that leaves their bodies broken, their psyches shattered, and their spirits consumed with hate and revenge. The depth of their suffering and the lingering shock are so intense that these unfortunates become enthralled to their own pain, clinging to it with every fiber of their being, crucifying themselves across the threshold of death’s door, unable to truly live but unwilling to truly die. (Undead Revisited)
More sinister are “wights of malevolence,” those who through the depravity of their own benighted souls have earned an eternity of roaming the world, cursed with an eternal hunger that can never be slaked and a ragged weariness unable to ever find rest. Popular legend says those sentenced to such an existence are the truly damned, so vile that Hell itself spat them up rather than take them to its bosom. (Undead Revisited)
But perhaps most frightening are those known as “wights of possession.” These are wights created when an evil undead spirit bonds with a corpse in order to animate it, often choosing its host based on convenience or strength of body. Though the original spirits of these bodies may have long since fled to their just rewards, few things are more horrible for their grieving friends than to see their loved ones’ corpses suddenly come to life and begin slaughtering the mourners. (Undead Revisited)
Wherever humanoids die in utter anguish or are entombed in infamy (or even buried alive as punishment), wights may arise, and once they establish a foothold, they begin to spawn and proliferate. (Undead Revisited)
Wights of malevolence sometimes arise from the unquiet remains of the exceptionally evil. Warlords of unspeakable cruelty may be sealed within barrows in the hope that, should their evil linger and stir even in death, they will be trapped and contained. (Undead Revisited)
Old legends suggest that the treasures of a wight of malevolence are themselves tainted with the wight’s foulness, causing a darkening of spirit and a growing psychosis, leading to murderous paranoia that consumes the victims, and causes them to become wights themselves. Depending on the legend, this fate can be averted by freely giving the wight’s treasures away to others; having them blessed by one of the fey (at whatever price the fey demands); or scattering them in the sunlight for 3 days, allowing anyone to take a portion, and then collecting whatever fate has decreed will remain. Only by breaking the cycle of greed can the wight’s treasure be safely recovered. (Undead Revisited)
A wight’s treasure can become infused with its dark spirit, creating a gnawing, obsessive greed that saps the spirit and life of any creature that claims it. A character that possesses accursed wight treasure gains a number of negative levels equal to the total gp value of the stolen treasure divided by 10,000 (minimum of one negative level). These negative levels remain as long as the creature retains ownership of the treasure (even if this treasure is not carried)—they disappear as soon as the stolen treasure is destroyed, stolen, freely given away, or returned to the wight’s lair. If the treasure is merely sold, the negative levels become permanent negative levels that can then be removed via means like restoration. (Undead Revisited)
A creature whose negative levels equal its Hit Dice perishes and rises as a wight. If the wight whose treasure it stole still exists, it becomes a wight spawn bound to that wight. If not, it becomes a free-willed wight. Removing these negative levels does not end the curse, but remove curse or break enchantment does, with a caster level check against a DC equal to the wight’s energy drain save DC. A wight’s treasure does not confer negative levels while in the area of a hallow spell. (Undead Revisited)
Any humanoid creature that is slain by a wight lord becomes a wight itself in only 1d4 rounds. (Undead Revisited)
Wights can be found nearly anywhere on Golarion, though they are encountered most frequently in areas that have seen a long history of war and strife, especially in and around the battlegrounds and burial grounds of fallen empires. Places like the River Kingdoms and western Iobaria with their innumerable failed settlements and petty battlefields are fertile breeding grounds for wights, as are war-torn frontiers like those between Taldor and Qadira, and lands tainted with prolonged suffering like Galt and Nidal. Wights are most associated with humans, but evil dwarves have a long tradition of creating loyal tomb guardians to ward their mausoleums, while the ancient exodus of the elves (and the terrible fates suffered by those who remained) make wights a recurring plague in reclaimed elven holdings. And of course, like most undead, they’re more common in areas where cults of Urgathoa operate. (Undead Revisited)
Wights are less common in Garund than elsewhere, as the funerary practices and necromantic traditions there have long favored mummification for the preservation of the honored dead and for guardianship of tombs. Wights are prevalent, however, in the flooded ruin and innumerable shipwrecks of the Sodden Lands, the Shackles, and the rain-lashed coasts around the Eye of Abendego. These desperate wights sometimes live in a perverse mockery of life, seeing themselves as the last survivors of their villages (or voyages), not realizing that they are truly dead. (Undead Revisited)
Far to the east, the cruel rakshasas of Jalmeray exult in the temptation and corruption of the unwary into the kind of unspeakable vileness that leads these unfortunates to become wights in death, serving the rakshasas as loyal bodyguards and assassins. (Undead Revisited)
Packs of wights are a long-standing menace at the triune borderland of Ustalav, Lastwall, and the Hold of Belkzen. The Virlych dead lands surrounding the ruins of Gallowspire, steeped in horror, are haunted by the tormented remnants of those harrowed an age ago by the Whispering Tyrant’s magics, bodies shredded and spirits flensed until nothing but pain and deathless rage remained. Patrols from Vigil exterminate these wights whenever they are found, but on more than one occasion a patrol has simply disappeared, until a later patrol suffered a tragic encounter with the corrupted remains of the righteous fallen. (Undead Revisited)
Across the border in Belkzen, honor is for the living, and wherever the warriors fall is where they rot. On rare occasions, notable leaders are buried in lone cairns, but more often when burial is required (such as when an army dies on land the victors wish to inhabit), all of the fallen from a single battle are interred in a mass barrow with their leader. These funerary rites often awaken one or more wights that embrace the charge of leading the dead. Unusually powerful orc priests, shamans, or witches may also travel at times through the Hold visiting the various tribes to create guardian wights or take control of those that arise spontaneously. (Undead Revisited)
Of all these lands, however, the ones most associated with wights are the cold Kellid and Hallit lands of the north, from long-lost Sarkoris in the east to the Lands of the Linnorm Kings in the west. No strangers to suffering and misery, nor to war and cruelty, these realms are liberally scattered with barrows, dolmens, and cairns. Some are haunted by wights of their own, but legend tells of the White Legion, an army of frost wights gathered beyond the Crown of the World, culled from the lost and the dead of all the cold lands. Their purpose is a mystery, but enemies of Irrisen fear they may be in league with Baba Yaga and her witch daughters. (Undead Revisited)
Any humanoid creature that is slain by a negative energy-charged wight becomes a wight itself in only 1d4 rounds. (Advanced Bestiary)
Creatures killed by a barrow wight’s energy drain rise as ordinary wights that also possess DR 5/magic or silver and have a chilling glare (range 10 feet) equivalent to that of the barrow wight. (Beasts of Legend Coldwood Codex)
Creatures from 6-12 HD within the cone of a plague dragon's deathless breath must make a Fort save or die and reanimate as wights. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
Any humanoid killed by a corpsehanger's energy drain or constrict attack becomes an undead creature within 1d4 rounds, unless it is cut down and the corpse blessed. A zombie will be created 70% of the time, a ghoul 20% of the time, and a wight 10% of the time. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
Any humanoid slain by a marquis wight's slam attacks, or its aura become a wight in 1d4 rounds. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
Any humanoid creature that is slain by Trevor Catalan becomes a wight itself in only 1d4 rounds. (Enemies of NeoExodus: Folding Circle)
Any humanoid creature that is slain by a black glass wight becomes a wight itself in only 1d4 rounds. (Mor Aldenn Creature Compendium)
Any humanoids slain by a mythic wight become nonmythic wights themselves in one round. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
Creatures killed by a conqueror worm's slime, or killed while suffering damage from the slime, are immediately transformed into an undead creature under the conqueror worm’s control. A humanoid who becomes undead in this way retains none of the abilities it possessed in life.
A humanoid of less than 3 Hit Dice rises as a ghast.
A humanoid of 3–9 Hit Dice rises as a wight.
A humanoid of 10 HD or more rises as a morhg.
There is no limit to the number of undead a conqueror worm can create with its slime. (Mythic Monsters 23: Worms)
Any humanoid creature that is slain by a ferrywight becomes a wight in 1d4 rounds. (Wayfinder 15)
Create Undead spell, caster level 14 with Enervation spell. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 15th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Cursed disease. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Wight Brute: Giants that are killed by wights become hunchbacked, simple-minded undead.
Wight Cairn: Some societies deliberately create these specialized wights to serve as guardians for barrows or other burial sites.
Wight Frost: Wights created in cold environments sometimes become pale undead with blue-white eyes and ice in their hair.
Wraith: A humanoid slain by a wraith becomes a wraith in 1d4 rounds.
Wraiths are undead creatures born of evil and darkness.
Wraiths, much like spectres, arise from souls tainted by evil lives. (Undead Revisited)
Creatures slain by white wraiths rise as normal wraith spawn in 1d4 rounds. (Undead Revisited)
The souls of exceptionally malevolent individuals, wraiths are manifestations of true evil. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
As the uprising gathers strength, the unquiet souls of bodies long since turned to dust awaken as well. Ghosts, shadows, wraiths, and even spectres arise to prey upon the living. (Game Mastery Guide)
The dread wraith creature's create spawn ability creates only wraiths. (Advanced Bestiary)
The wraith creature's create spawn ability creates only wraiths. (Advanced Bestiary)
Powerful witches are able to leave lasting imprints upon the land with their final breaths, transforming themselves into powerful, incorporeal undead through extreme hatred and emotional distress. Often manifesting as ghosts, spectres or wraiths, these witches blight the land and cause strange murders and ill fortunate to beset the locals until they move away from the site of the curse. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
When a creature dies, any intense emotions it experiences at the time of death are often left behind as a psychic footprint. Fear, anger, hatred and sorrow are by far the most powerful of these emotions and often causes the most dangerous and destructive haunts to manifest. It should come as no surprise an act as evil as murder, which often comprises all three of these emotions and more, is a leading cause of the creation of powerful supernatural entities. Ghosts, spectres, wraiths and poltergeists are all commonly created in this manner, and when created they seldom stray far from the place where they were murdered. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
A humanoid slain by a mythic wraith becomes a wraith in 1 round. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
When a soul fouled by anger and fear leaves its broken corpse, if it is strong enough, that soul may return as a ghost, a wraith or some worse form of undead. If it is strong enough….. (Two Dozen Dangers: Haunts)
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 16th to 17th.
Raise Undeath spell word, boosted, caster level 16th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Cursed disease. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Wraith Dread: A wraith that exists for long enough and feeds on enough life force undergoes an unholy transformation, becoming a creature known as a dread wraith.
Any humanoids slain by a wyrmwraith become dread wraiths in 1d4 rounds. (Bestiary 5)
Any creature slain by a dread wraith sovereign’s Constitution drain or incorporeal touch attack rises as a dread wraith in 1d4 rounds. (Advanced Bestiary)
Individual Curse Death Magic. (Tome of Adventure Design)
Any male humanoid slain by a banshee’s death wail or energy drain rises to become a dread wraith in 1d4 rounds. (Tome of Horrors 4)
Zombie: Zombies are the animated corpses of dead creatures, forced into foul unlife via necromantic magic like animate dead.
"Zombie" is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than an undead).
Dead bodies animated through foul necromantic rituals. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
The walking dead normally serve as the simple tools of evil priests and wizards who have animated cadavers through the use of spells such as animate dead. While most skeletons and zombies are the products of such necromantic magics, other methods of creating the walking dead have been recorded. Rare alchemical concoctions can rot the flesh or melt it from bone, and give the corpse some semblance of life. Certain powerful curses can also cause a person to rise as a zombie upon death, often to take revenge on those still living. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
However, skeletons and zombies have also been known to arise spontaneously, usually as a result of another powerful undead creature nearby. Certain areas with a strong necromantic aura or a history of killing—such as battlefields and long-forgotten sacrificial altars—or places where a significant number of people have died violently, as with a mass grave or the sites of massacre, can spontaneously produce the living dead as well. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Occasionally, a large mixed group of skeletons or zombies spontaneously arises, usually at the site of a particularly bloody battle or other scene of carnage. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
Zombies are the animated corpses of dead creatures. (Beginner's Box)
On the first nights of an undead uprising, the bodies of the recently dead rise as zombies. Those interred in consecrated ground remain at rest, but bodies left unburied or in mass graves lurch out into the streets, wreaking havoc. (Game Mastery Guide)
Zombies are the animated corpses of dead creatures, forced into foul unlife via necromantic magic like animate dead. (100% Crunch Zombie Lords)
Zombies are the animated corpses of dead creatures, forced into foul unlife via necromantic magic like animate dead. (100% Crunch Zombies)
“Zombie” is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature. (100% Crunch Zombies)
Devourers (Bestiary 1), night hag covens (Bestiary 1), sepids (div) (Bestiary 3), and thanadaemons (Bestiary 2) are extraplanar creatures with animate dead as a spell‐like ability. (100% Crunch Zombies)
Material Plane creatures with the animate dead ability include hag covens (Bestiary 1), pukwudgies (Bestiary 3), tzitzimitl (Bestiary 3), and zuvembies (Bestiary 3). Of course, wizards and priests also have access to animate dead, and depending on their power may animate any kind of creature. (100% Crunch Zombies)
A single humanoid creature killed by a spell with the death descriptor incorporating a wight’s ichor arises as a zombie 1d4 rounds later. (Creature Components Volume 1)
A bone druid may animate the corpses of animals with but a touch, raising them as zombies or skeletons, depending on the condition of the body. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
Any creature reduced to 0 Wisdom by a gibbering terror's babble rises as a zombie under its control in 1d3 rounds.
Any humanoid killed by a corpsehanger's energy drain or constrict attack becomes an undead creature within 1d4 rounds, unless it is cut down and the corpse blessed. A zombie will be created 70% of the time, a ghoul 20% of the time, and a wight 10% of the time. (Creepy Creatures Bestiary of the Bizarre)
In the absence of fresh meat, the dire rats that frightened Lakta back into her hiding space underwent the transition from life to undeath becoming dire rat zombies. (Dunes of Desolation)
Living creatures reduced to 0 Constitution by a flayed man’s flense or lifedrain attack gain the zombie template after 1d4 rounds. (Freeport Companion Pathfinder RPG Edition)
The negative energy surrounding the temple’s demise either brings unholy life to the corpses interred at the temples or draws mindless undead to them. While skeletons and zombies are the most common undead, ghouls, spectres and vampires also lair in deserted temples. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Any creature slain by a nosferatu’s energy drain attack immediately rises as a zombie. (Liber Vampyr)
The deadwood exerts its foul influence to a radius of 300 feet for every 2 HD of the tree. Any animal, giant, humanoid, or monstrous humanoid corpse within this range that remains in contact with the ground for 1 full round is animated into a zombie or skeleton. Corpses of humanoids with 2 or 3 class levels are instead turned into ghouls, while those with 4 or more class levels are instead turned into ghasts. (Malevolent and Benign)
When he’s not indulging his foul appetites for blood and sex, the Lord Mayor likes to spend time nurturing the necrotic ticks he is breeding in the laboratory beneath his mansion. He uses them to create zombies to fight in the gladiatorial arena close to the city’s central Hangman’s Square. (Midgard Worldbook for 5th Edition and Pathfinder)
Xiled clerics then animate their lifeless corpses and compel these skeletons and zombies to serve their new masters for the remainder of their undead existence. (Mountains of Madness)
Each morning, the desperate necromancer animates his former tests subjects and other dead humanoids from the grounds around the library and sends them into battle against the dwarven garrison how guarding the Southern Pass. (Mountains of Madness)
Any creature slain by a pukwudgie’s poisonous quills rises in 24 hours as a zombie. (Mythic Monsters 16: Monstrous Humanoids)
The position of the Osirians as the favored of the gods did not spare them from the cataclysm that turned Abaddon upside down, already giving way to some of the other species the Osirians were struck a hammer blow by the fall of the meteor and their ancestral homelands were some of the worst affected by the necromantic miasma and negative energies released by the impact. (Races of Obsidian Twilight: Osirian)
The Osirians died in droves from the impact, from its aftermath and from the lingering effects of the necromantic radiation, subverting their bodies day by agonizing day and raising so many of them as zombies, skeletons and ghosts that the Osirians rapidly learned harsh lessons in dismemberment before burial and the building of secure and warded tombs. (Races of Obsidian Twilight: Osirian)
With a ritual requiring 8 hours, a master of death can animate a single skeleton or zombie whose Hit Dice do not exceed her arcanist level. (Shadows Over Vathak Player's Guide to Vathak)
A creature killed while under the effects of a ghul's exhalation of death becomes a ghast (if humanoid) or zombie (if not humanoid) if it had 5 or fewer Hit Dice, and a ghul if it had 6 or more. It rises in undeath 1d6 hours after being slain. A remove curse, neutralize poison, or similar spell cast on its body during this incubation period might prevent the corpse from becoming undead. The caster of such a spell must make a caster level check (DC 10 + HD of ghul that affected the target with exhalation of death), and on a successful check the corpse does not become an undead. (The Genius Guide to Simple Monster Templates)
Animated bodies need not be the result of black magic (which is the case for, say, the standard zombie). (Tome of Adventure Design)
Individual Curse Death Magic. (Tome of Adventure Design)
Animate Dead spell.
Animate Dead Lesser spell. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
Animate Dead Minor spell. (Monster Focus: Skeletons)
Flesh Rot spell. (Monster Focus: Zombies)
Mythic Flesh Puppet spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Mythic Flesh Puppet Horde spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Mythic Flesh Wall spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Torpid Reanimation spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Animation by Touch feat. (Obsidian Apocalypse)
Murderous Necromancy feat. (Undefeatable 13: Assassin)
Murderous Necromancy feat. (Undefeatable: The Collected Feats Sourcebook)
Necrotic Arrow feat, Arcane Archer level 5 (Undefeatable 12: Arcane Archer)
Necrotic Arrow feat, Arcane Archer level 5 (Undefeatable: The Collected Feats Sourcebook)
Ash Pendant magic item. (Monster Focus: Zombies)
Invader's Bugle magic item. (Treasury of Winter)
Necrotic Pool. (GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing)
Cursed disease. (Shadows Over Vathak Ina'oth Gamemaster's Guide)
Zombie Rot disease. (GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing)
Zombie Human: ?
Zombie Fast: Humanoid creatures killed by a mohrg rise immediately as fast zombies under the mohrg's control.
Anyone who dies from juju fever rises as a fast zombie at the next midnight. (30 Variant Dragons)
Vermin killed by a cave fisher mohrg rise immediately as fast zombies. (Advanced Bestiary)
Any creatures killed by a spell with the death descriptor incorporating a mohrg’s saliva arise as a zombie (fast zombie variant) 1d4 rounds later. (Creature Components Volume 1)
A puppet spider can enter a corpse and animate it while residing within. This effectively transforms the corpse into a fast zombie. (Fell Beasts Volume 2)
Humanoid creatures killed by a pumpkin stalker mohrg rise immediately as fast zombies. (Monster Menagerie Pumpkin Stalker)
Whenever a non-mythic creature with fewer than 10 Hit Dice dies within 30 feet of a mythic zombie titan, that creature rises again 1 round later as a fast zombie (DC 15 Fortitude negates). These zombies are uncontrolled but do not attack the zombie titan. If a mythic titan zombie expends one use of mythic power as an immediate action when a creature dies within 30 feet, the save DC increases to 20 and it can affect mythic creatures and creatures with 10 or more Hit Dice. Mythic creatures add their mythic rank or tier as a bonus on this saving throw. (Mythic Monsters 27: COLOSSAL)
Zombie Plague: Anyone who dies while infected with zombie rot rises as a plague zombie in 2d6 hours.
Anyone who dies while infected with zombie rot disease rises as a plague zombie in 2d6 hours. (100% Crunch Zombie Lords)
Anyone who dies while infected by a plague zombie's zombie rot rises as a plague zombie in 2d6 hours. (Book of Beasts Monsters of the Shadow Plane)
Anyone who dies while infected with zombie rot rises as a plague zombie in 2d6 hours. (Monster Focus: Zombies)
Bestiary 2
Attic Whisperer: An attic whisperer spawns as the result of a lonely or neglected child's death. Rather than animating the body of the dead youth, the creature rises from an amalgam of old toys, clothing, dust, and other objects associated with the departed—icons of the child's neglect.
An attic whisperer is the spirit of a small child who met his or her end as a result of neglect. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Create Undead spell, caster level 13 with Crushing Depair and Fear spells and corpse of a child. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 12th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Banshee: A banshee is the enraged spirit of an elven woman who either betrayed those she loved or was herself betrayed.
Whether created through vile misdeeds in her last moments, a terrible and torturous demise, or some wretched betrayal by her loved ones, a banshee is the vengeful undead spirit of an elven female that seeks only to destroy all those who still tread the mortal realm. (Undead Revisited)
In the Darklands, the perpetual betrayals of drow society typically lack the sympathetic tragedy required to create banshees, although a new breed of exceptionally clever young noble daughters have learned to intricately manipulate their treacheries to give rise to the creatures, whether born from the betrayal of a matron mother, the mutiny of a favored daughter, or the gradual winning and then dashing of an underling’s trust. (Undead Revisited)
Bloody Bonnie is the spirit of an elven woman who was murdered by her philandering noble husband. When she violently confronted him about his infidelity, he clawed out her eyes and threw her from the highest tower of his castle. Three nights later, on the eve of the lord’s hasty marriage to his latest mistress, Bonnie’s spirit rose from the grave and slaughtered him, his bride, and his entire court. (Book of Beasts Legendary Foes)
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. (Tome of Horrors 4)
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 20 with Fear and Wail of the Banshee spells and the corpse of a female elf. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, boosted, caster level 20th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Bat Skaveling: Skavelings are the hideous result of necromantic manipulation by urdefhans, who create them from mobats specially raised on diets of fungus and humanoid flesh. Upon reaching maturity, urdefhans ritually slay the bats using necrotic poisons, then raise the corpses to serve as mounts and guardians.
Bodak: A humanoid slain by a bodak's death gaze rises as a bodak 24 hours later.
When mortal humanoids find themselves exposed to profound, supernatural evil, a horrific, occult transformation can strip them of their souls and damn them to the tortured existence of a bodak.
A 20th-level spellcaster can use create greater undead to create a bodak, but only if the spell is cast while the spellcaster is located on one of the evil outer planes (traditionally the Abyss). (Undead Revisited)
Unfortunate creatures who witness acts of unspeakable planar evil and have their bodies destroyed and remade by the experience. (Undead Revisited)
When mortals venture to the utmost depths of unforgiving planes, they sometimes come across knowledge so terrible or witness events so horrifying that their very souls are consumed, killing them and then reanimating them as the weird, smoke-eyed creations called bodaks. (Undead Revisited)
Yet for some, bearing witness to true horror and supernatural evil does more than twist their minds—it ravages their souls to such a degree that they are themselves transformed. Requiring evil far beyond that normally found among mortals, this rare transformation occurs when unprepared mortals venture deep into those extraplanar spaces where humanity was not meant to tread—the deepest hiding holes of the evil planes. In these repositories of unholy knowledge, things are seen that cannot be unseen, and which indelibly stain the souls of the foolish. The creatures that emerge from these places are mortal no longer. (Undead Revisited)
If a victim lacks the will to break a bodak's gaze, he is quickly overwhelmed by its power and dies shortly thereafter—the transformation into another bodak begins immediately. (Undead Revisited)
Scholars and theologians have long debated the exact nature of these strange undead, positing that it’s the very act that creates a bodak—witnessing some evil and hideous occurrence beyond all mortal capacity for understanding—that gives unholy life and purpose to these creatures. In some sense, the bodak is the very manifestation of such an act, a curse upon the living, its life force scarred to such a degree that only causing others to gaze into its eyes and share its agony gives it some sort of relief. Most researchers believe that mundane evil is not enough, arguing that only traumatic deaths in the darkest pits of the planes are pure enough to form a bodak, with the creature’s animating energy being drawn from the evil Outer Planes where it met its fate. Yet others insist that it’s not the place that causes the transformation, but rather the purity of the evil and horror involved, thus making it possible for an ordinary human (or, more likely, a summoned demon) to spark the transformation, provided the horrors it shows to the victim are heinous enough. (Undead Revisited)
Thanks to its Abyssal taint, the Worldwound hosts the largest population of bodaks in the Inner Sea region. Moreover, the Abyssal nature of the land itself makes it one of the few places—perhaps the only place—on Golarion where bodaks can form spontaneously in the same way they do on the Abyss, as the result of witnessing horrible extraplanar evil and depredations beyond mortal ken. (Undead Revisited)
The diabolists favored by the aristocracy of Cheliax require large numbers of unwitting victims to perform their rites. While most of their dungeons and torture rooms are mundane, filled with wretched prisoners who bear witness to unspeakable things on a nearly daily basis, some of these spellcasters prefer to take victims to Hell itself, making their offerings to the plane in person. Few of these victims (and not all of the diabolists) survive these offerings, but a tiny fraction end up exposed to greater horrors than initially expected, with either the master or prisoner undergoing the transformation into a bodak. (Undead Revisited)
The strange religions found in the Mwangi Expanse sometimes demand sacrifices and dark rituals. Explorers and adventurers unlucky enough to be caught by these more sinister tribes, particularly the zealots of Angazhan living in the ape city of Usaro, are sometimes transformed by bizarre and terrifying demonic rites. These bodaks roam the jungles of the Mwangi Expanse, terrorizing the inhabitants and sometimes transforming entire villages into their own kind. (Undead Revisited)
Bodaks, the eyeless horrors twisted by sights no one was meant to see. (Undead Revisited)
Bodaks are extraplanar undead created when living beings are touched by great evil. (Advanced Bestiary)
The bodak is the physical remnants of a humanoid slain in an encounter with absolute evil. (Forgotten Foes)
Bodaks are evil undead created when a humanoid dies in the presence of absolute evil. (Forgotten Foes)
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 20 corpse must be cast in the Abyss. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, boosted, caster level 20th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Crawling Hand: Some say the origins of the crawling hand lie in the experiments of demented necromancers contracted to construct tiny assassins. Other tales tell of gruesome prosthetics sparked to life by evil magic, which then developed primitive sentience and vengefully strangled their hosts.
Create Undead spell, caster level 11 severed hand of a medium or smaller humanoid. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Crawling Hand Giant: ?
Create Undead spell, caster level 14 with Enlarge Person spell and severed hand of a large or larger humanoid. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 15th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Crypt Thing: Necromancers and other spellcasters create them.
A 15th-level spellcaster can create a crypt thing using create undead. The spell also requires the creator or an assistant to be able to cast teleport, greater teleport, or word of recall (or provide this magic from a scroll or other source).
They are created by spellcasters to guard such areas and they neither leave their assigned area nor can be compelled to do so. (Forgotten Foes)
Create Undead spell, caster level 16 with Teleport spell (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 15th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Draugr: These foul beings are usually created when humanoid creatures are lost at sea in regions haunted by evil spirits or necromantic effects.
The force of her will and the corruption of her soul were so great that four unfortunate men that drowned countless ages ago also rose from the mire as 4 draugrs. (Dunes of Desolation)
Unfortunately the horrible circumstances surrounding the deaths of these ships’ sailors left some of them hungry for revenge. A draugr captain with his remaining crewmembers serving as his 2 draugr mates hide within the wreckage of the Flighty Amalie, emerging to attack encroaching humanoids. (Marshes of Malice)
Any humanoid slain by a mythic draugr crew’s energy drain rises as a draugr (or draugr captain, if it has at least 5 Hit Dice) 1d4 rounds later. This draugr is assimilated into the crew, healing damage equal to twice the creature’s Hit Dice. Any creature slain by the crew while on board its ship, even if not slain by energy drain, also rises in this fashion if it fails a DC 19 Will save. (Mythic Monsters 10: Sea Monsters)
Any humanoid slain by a doomed derelict becomes a draugr. (Wayfinder 8)
Create Undead spell, caster level 12. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 12th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Draugr Captain: ?
Any humanoid slain by a mythic draugr crew’s energy drain rises as a draugr (or draugr captain, if it has at least 5 Hit Dice) 1d4 rounds later. This draugr is assimilated into the crew, healing damage equal to twice the creature’s Hit Dice. Any creature slain by the crew while on board its ship, even if not slain by energy drain, also rises in this fashion if it fails a DC 19 Will save. (Mythic Monsters 10: Sea Monsters)
Dullahan: Terrifying reapers of souls, dullahans are created by powerful fiends from the souls of particularly cruel generals, watch-captains, or other military commanders.
Create Undead spell, caster level 17 with decapitated humanoid corpse. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 18th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Dullahan Greater: ?
Nightshade: Nightshades originate in the deepest voids at the planar juncture of the Plane of Shadow and the Negative Energy Plane, where reality itself ends. Here lies a vast adumbral gulf where the weight of infinite existence compresses the null-stuff of unlife and the tenebrous webs of shadow-reality into matte, crystalline plates and shards of condensed entropy. Many fiends seeking the power of ultimate destruction have sought this place, hoping to harness its power for their own ends, but the majority discover the power of distilled entropy is far greater than they bargained for. Their petty designs are washed away as they become one with the nothing, with first their minds and then their bodies being remade, forged no longer of living flesh but of the lifeless, deathless matter of pure darkness incarnate. Recast into one of a handful of perfected entropic forms (some whisper, forged by a dark being long imprisoned at the uttermost end of reality), these immortal fiendish spirits still burn with the freezing fire of insensate evil, but are now distilled and refined through the turning of ages to serve entropy alone. To say that nightshades form from the necrotic flesh and transformed souls of powerful fiends is technically correct, but the transformation that these foolish paragons of evil undergo is even more hideous than such words might suggest.
While the majority of nightshades are the product of such fiendish arrogance, this is by no means the only source for these powerful undead creatures. Many nightshades commit themselves to the harvesting of immortal souls of every race and loyalty, casting their broken and shattered bodies into the negative voidspace, where the residue of their divine essence slowly precipitates and congeals in the nighted gulf. Whatever their origin, in this heart of darkness all souls embrace destruction. When a critical mass of immortal soul energy is reached, a new nightshade is spawned. The souls of mortals lost to the negative plane are drawn up and reborn as undead long before becoming co-opted within the gulf; mortal spirits are the servants of the nightshades, but only the essence of immortality can provide the spiritual fuel to ignite the fire of their unlife.
Colossi formed in the lightless spaces where the Shadow Plane and Negative Energy Plane meet. (Undead Revisited)
Where the Shadow Plane meets the Negative Energy Plane, evil and darkness hold sway in vast and lightless gulfs. When a fiend succumbs to the ravages of this environment, the ensuing death can be the catalyst for creating one of the most powerful undead. (Undead Revisited)
Nightshades are creatures beyond categorization, things made from darkness and malice, yet not truly natives of either the Shadow Plane or the Void. Born of a corruption of both planes in the lightless reaches where the planar boundaries break down, they are twisted and warped by evil. (Undead Revisited)
They form from the twisted souls of those fiends and outsiders who, seeking greater mastery over negative energy and the dreaming gulfs of darkness where the Shadow Plane and Negative Energy Plane meet, are themselves overcome and twisted beyond recognition, turned into servants of the planes’ own nihilistic ends. (Undead Revisited)
Nightshades are born when one or more outsiders—typically fiends—are lost or cast down into the adumbral depths where the Shadow Plane and Negative Energy Plane become a void like the darkest ocean trench, one of the places where reality ends. The death of the immortal becomes a catalyst for a reaction in which the planes seem not to twist the original creature so much as birth a new entity in its place. (Undead Revisited)
The creation of something as powerful and dire as a nightshade requires the spirit of an immortal being. (Undead Revisited)
Although four primary types of nightshades are known to exist, some sages speculate that they might all be the same species of creature in different life stages. Other scholars instead hold that they are distinct subtypes of the same creature, formed in the same manner but differing according to the specific component fiends from which they were created. According to this theory, the older and more powerful the fiend or fiends were—their exact species or alignment does not appear to matter—the more powerful the form of nightshade produced, though the combined deaths of multiple fiends produce a nightshade of a type otherwise reserved for the death of a much more powerful one on its own. Even the proponents of this theory, however, have no idea of the exact formulae involved, and the few casters capable of controlling a nightshade are generally more concerned with maintaining their tenuous hold over the undead juggernauts than with such unpragmatic musings. (Undead Revisited)
Nightshades are monstrous undead composed of shadow and evil. (Pathways Bestiary)
Nightshade Nightcrawler: ?
Nightshade Nightwalker: ?
Nightshade Nightwave: ?
Nightshade Nightwing: ?
Poltergeist: A poltergeist is an angry spirit that forms from the soul of a creature that, for whatever reason, becomes unable to leave the site of its death. Sometimes, this might be due to an unfinished task—other times, it might be due to a powerful necromantic effect. Desecrating a grave site by building a structure over the body below is the most common method of accidentally creating a poltergeist.
It is haunted by 4 poltergeists that are the undead spirits of those rare individuals that nearly discovered the house’s concealed basement and inner workings. (Dunes of Desolation)
When a creature dies, any intense emotions it experiences at the time of death are often left behind as a psychic footprint. Fear, anger, hatred and sorrow are by far the most powerful of these emotions and often causes the most dangerous and destructive haunts to manifest. It should come as no surprise an act as evil as murder, which often comprises all three of these emotions and more, is a leading cause of the creation of powerful supernatural entities. Ghosts, spectres, wraiths and poltergeists are all commonly created in this manner, and when created they seldom stray far from the place where they were murdered. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
The rock fall is old – few use this trail – but as fate would have it, the fall did crush and kill a small group of lost travellers. Most of them were killed instantly, but an unlucky few survived the initial rock fall and were buried alive. These unlucky few died slowly of suffocation, unquenchable thirst or from slow blood loss from their shattered bodies. Of these, two had a maniacal, almost unshakeable grip on life, and death could not wholly claim them. (Pathways 22)
A few days after their death, these two rose again as poltergeists and have lurked in the rock fall’s vicinity ever since. (Pathways 22)
Ravener: Most evil dragons spend their lifetimes coveting and amassing wealth, but when the end draws near, some come to realize that all the wealth in the world cannot forestall death. Faced with this truth, most dragons vent their frustration on the countryside, ravaging the world before their passing. Yet some seek a greater solution to the problem and decide instead to linger on, hoarding life as they once hoarded gold. These foul wyrms attract the attention of dark powers, and through the blackest of necromantic rituals are transformed into undead dragons known as raveners.
"Ravener" is an acquired template that can be added to any evil true dragon of an age category of ancient or older.
The circumstances that give rise to a ravener are as unique as their appearances. Some barter their very sanity to the madness beyond the Dark Tapestry, others forge bargains with demon lords or the Horsemen of Abaddon, and still others beseech malevolent gods. (Strangely, even lawful dragons make pacts with the lords of Hell only rarely—perhaps raveners find the strings attached to diabolical contracts too convoluted and numerous for comfort.) Yet not all raveners seek aid from more powerful creatures—in fact, doing so often conf licts with the same arrogance that leads dragons to become raveners in the first place. This second group instead finds immortality in much the same way liches do, researching rare and forbidden necromantic spells to create rituals of transformation unique to each dragon. (Undead Revisited)
While some raveners achieve their status through arcane study and necromantic power, others are born of a combination of blasphemous rituals and the malign influence of dark powers. Raveners of this latter group must each seek out an evil patron to feed his or her necromantic rebirth. Each patron requires sacrifices and tribute pleasing to its debased desires. The aspiring ravener must first further the patron’s schemes upon her home world and perhaps others. The dragon might be sent against the patron’s foes, tasked with obtaining lost relics, or made a general among the patron’s mortal followers. In addition, the dragon must show the depth of her resolve. For some dragons, this means slaying their parents, mates, or children; the sacrifice of their most prized treasures; the annihilation of their life’s work; or some other show of commitment. Finally, the ravener must amass sufficient eldritch power to shatter natural laws or the barriers between planes and become the conduit for her patron’s might. Should the dragon falter in her tasks or prove an unworthy vessel for the power of her patron, what remains of her shattered soul languishes in servitude to her patron until the end of days. (Undead Revisited)
Raveners are self-made undead, not created or generated spontaneously in the fashion of weaker undead. (Undead Revisited)
The process by which a dragon becomes a ravener typically involves recruiting dark powers and undertaking necromantic rituals. Some of these rituals incorporate unusual stages that can alter the resulting ravener’s powers. (Undead Revisited)
Considered by other dragons to be insane to the point of being unhinged, Jaliktaj is given a wide berth by his living kin. In life he was a powerful spellcaster and devourer of all that lived in his lands. When a group of adventurers came prepared to bring him to an end, he released an imprisoned lich on the condition that it would turn him into a ravener. (Book of Beasts Legendary Foes)
Ravener Red Wyrm: ?
Revenant: Fueled by hatred and a need for vengeance, a revenant rises from the grave to hunt and kill its murderer.
Interestingly, a great number of ghosts and revenants owe their undead existence to the depredations of mortal killers who later became mohrgs, and it’s not unheard of for a revenant to hunt a mohrg, or for a ghost to assist adventurers in tracking down the unholy reanimation of its killer. (Undead Revisited)
Revenancer's Rage spell. (Gothic Grimoires To Serve a Prince Undying)
Totenmaske: Consumed by the same lusts and excesses that led them in life, the souls of some sinners rise as totenmaskes, drinking the flesh and memories of living creatures and even stepping into their lives to once more pursue their base desires.
A totenmaske can be created from the corpse of a sinful mortal by a cleric of at least 18th level using the create greater undead spell.
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 18 caster must be a cleric. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, boosted, caster level 18th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Winterwight: The winterwight is an undead horror born from the coldest depths of the negative energy plane. Infused with the dark, cold magic that permeates this realm of death, the winterwight takes the form of a skeleton coated in armor of jagged ice.
Witchfire: When an exceptionally vile hag or witch dies with some malicious plot left incomplete, or proves too horridly tenacious to succumb to the call of death, the foul energies of these wicked old crones sometimes spawn incorporeal undead known as witchfires.
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 19 with corpse of a hag. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, boosted, caster level 20th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Zombie Juju: A juju zombie is an animated corpse of a creature, created to serve as an undead minion, that retains the skills and abilities it possessed in life.
"Juju zombie" is an acquired template that can be added to any living corporeal creature.
A juju zombie is an animated corpse of a creature, created to serve as an undead minion. (100% Crunch Zombies)
“Juju zombie” is an acquired template that can be added to any living corporeal creature. (100% Crunch Zombies)
A creature killed by a dread mummy’s breath of death ability rises as a juju zombie or dread zombie in 1d4 rounds. (Advanced Bestiary)
Tza’doran and the dark cleric Razalia were lovers, serving their blasphemous demi-god together. When a group of adventurers put Tza’doran to the sword, Razalia escaped with the dust that was once her lover’s body and raised her as her servant. (Book of Beasts Legendary Foes)
Fazzellon ceded his land to Eyegouger in life; however he is unwilling to relinquish his claim so easily. His burning desire to rule over his fiefdom fueled his transformation into something unnatural. After his destruction at Eyegouger’s claws, Fazzellon rose from death as a juju zombie desert giant. (Dunes of Desolation)
Any creature charmed by an immortal ichor takes 1d6 points of Wisdom damage per day. When a charmed creature’s Wisdom damage equals its Wisdom score, it becomes completely subservient to the immortal ichor (as dominate monster, except it even obeys self-destructive orders) and loses the Wisdom damage it has taken from this ability. A subservient ally who is killed rises the next round as a juju zombie under the immortal ichor’s control. (Mythic Monsters 22: Emissaries of Evil)
Create Undead spell, caster level 11 with Enervation or Energy Drain spell. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Zombie Juju Human: ?
Zombie Void: An infected creature who dies from an Akata's void death rises as a void zombie 2d4 hours later.
A humanoid killed by void death becomes a void zombie.
A void zombie is created when a humanoid is bitten by an akata and dies as a result of becoming infected with the void death disease. (100% Crunch Zombies)
An attic whisperer is the spirit of a small child who met his or her end as a result of neglect. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Create Undead spell, caster level 13 with Crushing Depair and Fear spells and corpse of a child. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 12th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Banshee: A banshee is the enraged spirit of an elven woman who either betrayed those she loved or was herself betrayed.
Whether created through vile misdeeds in her last moments, a terrible and torturous demise, or some wretched betrayal by her loved ones, a banshee is the vengeful undead spirit of an elven female that seeks only to destroy all those who still tread the mortal realm. (Undead Revisited)
In the Darklands, the perpetual betrayals of drow society typically lack the sympathetic tragedy required to create banshees, although a new breed of exceptionally clever young noble daughters have learned to intricately manipulate their treacheries to give rise to the creatures, whether born from the betrayal of a matron mother, the mutiny of a favored daughter, or the gradual winning and then dashing of an underling’s trust. (Undead Revisited)
Bloody Bonnie is the spirit of an elven woman who was murdered by her philandering noble husband. When she violently confronted him about his infidelity, he clawed out her eyes and threw her from the highest tower of his castle. Three nights later, on the eve of the lord’s hasty marriage to his latest mistress, Bonnie’s spirit rose from the grave and slaughtered him, his bride, and his entire court. (Book of Beasts Legendary Foes)
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. (Tome of Horrors 4)
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 20 with Fear and Wail of the Banshee spells and the corpse of a female elf. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, boosted, caster level 20th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Bat Skaveling: Skavelings are the hideous result of necromantic manipulation by urdefhans, who create them from mobats specially raised on diets of fungus and humanoid flesh. Upon reaching maturity, urdefhans ritually slay the bats using necrotic poisons, then raise the corpses to serve as mounts and guardians.
Bodak: A humanoid slain by a bodak's death gaze rises as a bodak 24 hours later.
When mortal humanoids find themselves exposed to profound, supernatural evil, a horrific, occult transformation can strip them of their souls and damn them to the tortured existence of a bodak.
A 20th-level spellcaster can use create greater undead to create a bodak, but only if the spell is cast while the spellcaster is located on one of the evil outer planes (traditionally the Abyss). (Undead Revisited)
Unfortunate creatures who witness acts of unspeakable planar evil and have their bodies destroyed and remade by the experience. (Undead Revisited)
When mortals venture to the utmost depths of unforgiving planes, they sometimes come across knowledge so terrible or witness events so horrifying that their very souls are consumed, killing them and then reanimating them as the weird, smoke-eyed creations called bodaks. (Undead Revisited)
Yet for some, bearing witness to true horror and supernatural evil does more than twist their minds—it ravages their souls to such a degree that they are themselves transformed. Requiring evil far beyond that normally found among mortals, this rare transformation occurs when unprepared mortals venture deep into those extraplanar spaces where humanity was not meant to tread—the deepest hiding holes of the evil planes. In these repositories of unholy knowledge, things are seen that cannot be unseen, and which indelibly stain the souls of the foolish. The creatures that emerge from these places are mortal no longer. (Undead Revisited)
If a victim lacks the will to break a bodak's gaze, he is quickly overwhelmed by its power and dies shortly thereafter—the transformation into another bodak begins immediately. (Undead Revisited)
Scholars and theologians have long debated the exact nature of these strange undead, positing that it’s the very act that creates a bodak—witnessing some evil and hideous occurrence beyond all mortal capacity for understanding—that gives unholy life and purpose to these creatures. In some sense, the bodak is the very manifestation of such an act, a curse upon the living, its life force scarred to such a degree that only causing others to gaze into its eyes and share its agony gives it some sort of relief. Most researchers believe that mundane evil is not enough, arguing that only traumatic deaths in the darkest pits of the planes are pure enough to form a bodak, with the creature’s animating energy being drawn from the evil Outer Planes where it met its fate. Yet others insist that it’s not the place that causes the transformation, but rather the purity of the evil and horror involved, thus making it possible for an ordinary human (or, more likely, a summoned demon) to spark the transformation, provided the horrors it shows to the victim are heinous enough. (Undead Revisited)
Thanks to its Abyssal taint, the Worldwound hosts the largest population of bodaks in the Inner Sea region. Moreover, the Abyssal nature of the land itself makes it one of the few places—perhaps the only place—on Golarion where bodaks can form spontaneously in the same way they do on the Abyss, as the result of witnessing horrible extraplanar evil and depredations beyond mortal ken. (Undead Revisited)
The diabolists favored by the aristocracy of Cheliax require large numbers of unwitting victims to perform their rites. While most of their dungeons and torture rooms are mundane, filled with wretched prisoners who bear witness to unspeakable things on a nearly daily basis, some of these spellcasters prefer to take victims to Hell itself, making their offerings to the plane in person. Few of these victims (and not all of the diabolists) survive these offerings, but a tiny fraction end up exposed to greater horrors than initially expected, with either the master or prisoner undergoing the transformation into a bodak. (Undead Revisited)
The strange religions found in the Mwangi Expanse sometimes demand sacrifices and dark rituals. Explorers and adventurers unlucky enough to be caught by these more sinister tribes, particularly the zealots of Angazhan living in the ape city of Usaro, are sometimes transformed by bizarre and terrifying demonic rites. These bodaks roam the jungles of the Mwangi Expanse, terrorizing the inhabitants and sometimes transforming entire villages into their own kind. (Undead Revisited)
Bodaks, the eyeless horrors twisted by sights no one was meant to see. (Undead Revisited)
Bodaks are extraplanar undead created when living beings are touched by great evil. (Advanced Bestiary)
The bodak is the physical remnants of a humanoid slain in an encounter with absolute evil. (Forgotten Foes)
Bodaks are evil undead created when a humanoid dies in the presence of absolute evil. (Forgotten Foes)
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 20 corpse must be cast in the Abyss. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, boosted, caster level 20th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Crawling Hand: Some say the origins of the crawling hand lie in the experiments of demented necromancers contracted to construct tiny assassins. Other tales tell of gruesome prosthetics sparked to life by evil magic, which then developed primitive sentience and vengefully strangled their hosts.
Create Undead spell, caster level 11 severed hand of a medium or smaller humanoid. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Crawling Hand Giant: ?
Create Undead spell, caster level 14 with Enlarge Person spell and severed hand of a large or larger humanoid. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 15th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Crypt Thing: Necromancers and other spellcasters create them.
A 15th-level spellcaster can create a crypt thing using create undead. The spell also requires the creator or an assistant to be able to cast teleport, greater teleport, or word of recall (or provide this magic from a scroll or other source).
They are created by spellcasters to guard such areas and they neither leave their assigned area nor can be compelled to do so. (Forgotten Foes)
Create Undead spell, caster level 16 with Teleport spell (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 15th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Draugr: These foul beings are usually created when humanoid creatures are lost at sea in regions haunted by evil spirits or necromantic effects.
The force of her will and the corruption of her soul were so great that four unfortunate men that drowned countless ages ago also rose from the mire as 4 draugrs. (Dunes of Desolation)
Unfortunately the horrible circumstances surrounding the deaths of these ships’ sailors left some of them hungry for revenge. A draugr captain with his remaining crewmembers serving as his 2 draugr mates hide within the wreckage of the Flighty Amalie, emerging to attack encroaching humanoids. (Marshes of Malice)
Any humanoid slain by a mythic draugr crew’s energy drain rises as a draugr (or draugr captain, if it has at least 5 Hit Dice) 1d4 rounds later. This draugr is assimilated into the crew, healing damage equal to twice the creature’s Hit Dice. Any creature slain by the crew while on board its ship, even if not slain by energy drain, also rises in this fashion if it fails a DC 19 Will save. (Mythic Monsters 10: Sea Monsters)
Any humanoid slain by a doomed derelict becomes a draugr. (Wayfinder 8)
Create Undead spell, caster level 12. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 12th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Draugr Captain: ?
Any humanoid slain by a mythic draugr crew’s energy drain rises as a draugr (or draugr captain, if it has at least 5 Hit Dice) 1d4 rounds later. This draugr is assimilated into the crew, healing damage equal to twice the creature’s Hit Dice. Any creature slain by the crew while on board its ship, even if not slain by energy drain, also rises in this fashion if it fails a DC 19 Will save. (Mythic Monsters 10: Sea Monsters)
Dullahan: Terrifying reapers of souls, dullahans are created by powerful fiends from the souls of particularly cruel generals, watch-captains, or other military commanders.
Create Undead spell, caster level 17 with decapitated humanoid corpse. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, caster level 18th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Dullahan Greater: ?
Nightshade: Nightshades originate in the deepest voids at the planar juncture of the Plane of Shadow and the Negative Energy Plane, where reality itself ends. Here lies a vast adumbral gulf where the weight of infinite existence compresses the null-stuff of unlife and the tenebrous webs of shadow-reality into matte, crystalline plates and shards of condensed entropy. Many fiends seeking the power of ultimate destruction have sought this place, hoping to harness its power for their own ends, but the majority discover the power of distilled entropy is far greater than they bargained for. Their petty designs are washed away as they become one with the nothing, with first their minds and then their bodies being remade, forged no longer of living flesh but of the lifeless, deathless matter of pure darkness incarnate. Recast into one of a handful of perfected entropic forms (some whisper, forged by a dark being long imprisoned at the uttermost end of reality), these immortal fiendish spirits still burn with the freezing fire of insensate evil, but are now distilled and refined through the turning of ages to serve entropy alone. To say that nightshades form from the necrotic flesh and transformed souls of powerful fiends is technically correct, but the transformation that these foolish paragons of evil undergo is even more hideous than such words might suggest.
While the majority of nightshades are the product of such fiendish arrogance, this is by no means the only source for these powerful undead creatures. Many nightshades commit themselves to the harvesting of immortal souls of every race and loyalty, casting their broken and shattered bodies into the negative voidspace, where the residue of their divine essence slowly precipitates and congeals in the nighted gulf. Whatever their origin, in this heart of darkness all souls embrace destruction. When a critical mass of immortal soul energy is reached, a new nightshade is spawned. The souls of mortals lost to the negative plane are drawn up and reborn as undead long before becoming co-opted within the gulf; mortal spirits are the servants of the nightshades, but only the essence of immortality can provide the spiritual fuel to ignite the fire of their unlife.
Colossi formed in the lightless spaces where the Shadow Plane and Negative Energy Plane meet. (Undead Revisited)
Where the Shadow Plane meets the Negative Energy Plane, evil and darkness hold sway in vast and lightless gulfs. When a fiend succumbs to the ravages of this environment, the ensuing death can be the catalyst for creating one of the most powerful undead. (Undead Revisited)
Nightshades are creatures beyond categorization, things made from darkness and malice, yet not truly natives of either the Shadow Plane or the Void. Born of a corruption of both planes in the lightless reaches where the planar boundaries break down, they are twisted and warped by evil. (Undead Revisited)
They form from the twisted souls of those fiends and outsiders who, seeking greater mastery over negative energy and the dreaming gulfs of darkness where the Shadow Plane and Negative Energy Plane meet, are themselves overcome and twisted beyond recognition, turned into servants of the planes’ own nihilistic ends. (Undead Revisited)
Nightshades are born when one or more outsiders—typically fiends—are lost or cast down into the adumbral depths where the Shadow Plane and Negative Energy Plane become a void like the darkest ocean trench, one of the places where reality ends. The death of the immortal becomes a catalyst for a reaction in which the planes seem not to twist the original creature so much as birth a new entity in its place. (Undead Revisited)
The creation of something as powerful and dire as a nightshade requires the spirit of an immortal being. (Undead Revisited)
Although four primary types of nightshades are known to exist, some sages speculate that they might all be the same species of creature in different life stages. Other scholars instead hold that they are distinct subtypes of the same creature, formed in the same manner but differing according to the specific component fiends from which they were created. According to this theory, the older and more powerful the fiend or fiends were—their exact species or alignment does not appear to matter—the more powerful the form of nightshade produced, though the combined deaths of multiple fiends produce a nightshade of a type otherwise reserved for the death of a much more powerful one on its own. Even the proponents of this theory, however, have no idea of the exact formulae involved, and the few casters capable of controlling a nightshade are generally more concerned with maintaining their tenuous hold over the undead juggernauts than with such unpragmatic musings. (Undead Revisited)
Nightshades are monstrous undead composed of shadow and evil. (Pathways Bestiary)
Nightshade Nightcrawler: ?
Nightshade Nightwalker: ?
Nightshade Nightwave: ?
Nightshade Nightwing: ?
Poltergeist: A poltergeist is an angry spirit that forms from the soul of a creature that, for whatever reason, becomes unable to leave the site of its death. Sometimes, this might be due to an unfinished task—other times, it might be due to a powerful necromantic effect. Desecrating a grave site by building a structure over the body below is the most common method of accidentally creating a poltergeist.
It is haunted by 4 poltergeists that are the undead spirits of those rare individuals that nearly discovered the house’s concealed basement and inner workings. (Dunes of Desolation)
When a creature dies, any intense emotions it experiences at the time of death are often left behind as a psychic footprint. Fear, anger, hatred and sorrow are by far the most powerful of these emotions and often causes the most dangerous and destructive haunts to manifest. It should come as no surprise an act as evil as murder, which often comprises all three of these emotions and more, is a leading cause of the creation of powerful supernatural entities. Ghosts, spectres, wraiths and poltergeists are all commonly created in this manner, and when created they seldom stray far from the place where they were murdered. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
The rock fall is old – few use this trail – but as fate would have it, the fall did crush and kill a small group of lost travellers. Most of them were killed instantly, but an unlucky few survived the initial rock fall and were buried alive. These unlucky few died slowly of suffocation, unquenchable thirst or from slow blood loss from their shattered bodies. Of these, two had a maniacal, almost unshakeable grip on life, and death could not wholly claim them. (Pathways 22)
A few days after their death, these two rose again as poltergeists and have lurked in the rock fall’s vicinity ever since. (Pathways 22)
Ravener: Most evil dragons spend their lifetimes coveting and amassing wealth, but when the end draws near, some come to realize that all the wealth in the world cannot forestall death. Faced with this truth, most dragons vent their frustration on the countryside, ravaging the world before their passing. Yet some seek a greater solution to the problem and decide instead to linger on, hoarding life as they once hoarded gold. These foul wyrms attract the attention of dark powers, and through the blackest of necromantic rituals are transformed into undead dragons known as raveners.
"Ravener" is an acquired template that can be added to any evil true dragon of an age category of ancient or older.
The circumstances that give rise to a ravener are as unique as their appearances. Some barter their very sanity to the madness beyond the Dark Tapestry, others forge bargains with demon lords or the Horsemen of Abaddon, and still others beseech malevolent gods. (Strangely, even lawful dragons make pacts with the lords of Hell only rarely—perhaps raveners find the strings attached to diabolical contracts too convoluted and numerous for comfort.) Yet not all raveners seek aid from more powerful creatures—in fact, doing so often conf licts with the same arrogance that leads dragons to become raveners in the first place. This second group instead finds immortality in much the same way liches do, researching rare and forbidden necromantic spells to create rituals of transformation unique to each dragon. (Undead Revisited)
While some raveners achieve their status through arcane study and necromantic power, others are born of a combination of blasphemous rituals and the malign influence of dark powers. Raveners of this latter group must each seek out an evil patron to feed his or her necromantic rebirth. Each patron requires sacrifices and tribute pleasing to its debased desires. The aspiring ravener must first further the patron’s schemes upon her home world and perhaps others. The dragon might be sent against the patron’s foes, tasked with obtaining lost relics, or made a general among the patron’s mortal followers. In addition, the dragon must show the depth of her resolve. For some dragons, this means slaying their parents, mates, or children; the sacrifice of their most prized treasures; the annihilation of their life’s work; or some other show of commitment. Finally, the ravener must amass sufficient eldritch power to shatter natural laws or the barriers between planes and become the conduit for her patron’s might. Should the dragon falter in her tasks or prove an unworthy vessel for the power of her patron, what remains of her shattered soul languishes in servitude to her patron until the end of days. (Undead Revisited)
Raveners are self-made undead, not created or generated spontaneously in the fashion of weaker undead. (Undead Revisited)
The process by which a dragon becomes a ravener typically involves recruiting dark powers and undertaking necromantic rituals. Some of these rituals incorporate unusual stages that can alter the resulting ravener’s powers. (Undead Revisited)
Considered by other dragons to be insane to the point of being unhinged, Jaliktaj is given a wide berth by his living kin. In life he was a powerful spellcaster and devourer of all that lived in his lands. When a group of adventurers came prepared to bring him to an end, he released an imprisoned lich on the condition that it would turn him into a ravener. (Book of Beasts Legendary Foes)
Ravener Red Wyrm: ?
Revenant: Fueled by hatred and a need for vengeance, a revenant rises from the grave to hunt and kill its murderer.
Interestingly, a great number of ghosts and revenants owe their undead existence to the depredations of mortal killers who later became mohrgs, and it’s not unheard of for a revenant to hunt a mohrg, or for a ghost to assist adventurers in tracking down the unholy reanimation of its killer. (Undead Revisited)
Revenancer's Rage spell. (Gothic Grimoires To Serve a Prince Undying)
Totenmaske: Consumed by the same lusts and excesses that led them in life, the souls of some sinners rise as totenmaskes, drinking the flesh and memories of living creatures and even stepping into their lives to once more pursue their base desires.
A totenmaske can be created from the corpse of a sinful mortal by a cleric of at least 18th level using the create greater undead spell.
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 18 caster must be a cleric. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, boosted, caster level 18th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Winterwight: The winterwight is an undead horror born from the coldest depths of the negative energy plane. Infused with the dark, cold magic that permeates this realm of death, the winterwight takes the form of a skeleton coated in armor of jagged ice.
Witchfire: When an exceptionally vile hag or witch dies with some malicious plot left incomplete, or proves too horridly tenacious to succumb to the call of death, the foul energies of these wicked old crones sometimes spawn incorporeal undead known as witchfires.
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 19 with corpse of a hag. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, boosted, caster level 20th or higher. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Zombie Juju: A juju zombie is an animated corpse of a creature, created to serve as an undead minion, that retains the skills and abilities it possessed in life.
"Juju zombie" is an acquired template that can be added to any living corporeal creature.
A juju zombie is an animated corpse of a creature, created to serve as an undead minion. (100% Crunch Zombies)
“Juju zombie” is an acquired template that can be added to any living corporeal creature. (100% Crunch Zombies)
A creature killed by a dread mummy’s breath of death ability rises as a juju zombie or dread zombie in 1d4 rounds. (Advanced Bestiary)
Tza’doran and the dark cleric Razalia were lovers, serving their blasphemous demi-god together. When a group of adventurers put Tza’doran to the sword, Razalia escaped with the dust that was once her lover’s body and raised her as her servant. (Book of Beasts Legendary Foes)
Fazzellon ceded his land to Eyegouger in life; however he is unwilling to relinquish his claim so easily. His burning desire to rule over his fiefdom fueled his transformation into something unnatural. After his destruction at Eyegouger’s claws, Fazzellon rose from death as a juju zombie desert giant. (Dunes of Desolation)
Any creature charmed by an immortal ichor takes 1d6 points of Wisdom damage per day. When a charmed creature’s Wisdom damage equals its Wisdom score, it becomes completely subservient to the immortal ichor (as dominate monster, except it even obeys self-destructive orders) and loses the Wisdom damage it has taken from this ability. A subservient ally who is killed rises the next round as a juju zombie under the immortal ichor’s control. (Mythic Monsters 22: Emissaries of Evil)
Create Undead spell, caster level 11 with Enervation or Energy Drain spell. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Zombie Juju Human: ?
Zombie Void: An infected creature who dies from an Akata's void death rises as a void zombie 2d4 hours later.
A humanoid killed by void death becomes a void zombie.
A void zombie is created when a humanoid is bitten by an akata and dies as a result of becoming infected with the void death disease. (100% Crunch Zombies)
Bestiary 3
Allip: Those who fall prey to madness and take their own lives sometimes find themselves lost on the path to the afterlife, trapped in a state between life and death.
Allips are the undead souls of those who took their own lives out of madness and insanity. (Undead Revisited)
While rarer than those arising from more mundane insanity, some allips in Golarion start out in life as priests of the Old Cults who delve too deeply into the maddening secrets of their faith, taking their own lives when mysteries better left unrevealed spark a consuming darkness in their souls. The corrupting demon Sifkesh revels in driving mortals toward insanity and eventual suicide, and regions harboring her cults often have significant populations of the babbling spirits. The city of Westcrown, in particular, owes its high concentration of allips to the demon, particularly during the period known as the White Plague. The city’s elite had made something of a game of corrupting souls and driving them toward madness, and the militant order known as the Hellknights was formed to put an end to their murder spree and combat the plague of allips that resulted from it. (Undead Revisited)
Souls of the insane too hate-crazed and vicious to find their ways to the afterlife. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
One of the many types of undead creatures that can arise in abandoned temples, allips were insane humanoids under the care of the temples’ priests who succumbed to their madness. The creatures also may have once been priests driven mad by the circumstances that led to the temple’s abandonment. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Many chirurgical procedures are damaging to the patient's psyche and the natural balance of their mental processes. This imbalance extends into the spiritual plane, and creatures who recently underwent mind-altering chirurgical procedures might have a greater than normal chance of arising as unquiet dead, perhaps haunts that spread madness and torment, or as actual undead creatures such as allips or, more rarely, ghosts or spectres. (The Mad Doctor's Formulary)
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 15 with Insanity spell. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, boostedc. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Baykok: When hunters become utterly obsessed with the chase and indulge excessively in the savagery of the kill, their souls become progressively tainted. When such remorseless hunters perish before they can capture and kill their quarry, they sometimes rise from death as baykoks.
Berbalang: ?
Bhuta: A bhuta is a ghostlike undead creature born of horrible death or murder in a natural setting. It is a manifestation of rage at the injustice of a death that interrupted important business or unsated desires.
Deathweb: A deathweb is the undead exoskeleton of a massive spider animated with the vilest necromancy. The spells that create this monstrosity bind to it thousands of normal spiders, which together form the mind of the undead beast like an arachnid hive.
Demilich: In their endless years of unlife, some liches lose themselves in introspection, and can no longer rouse themselves to face the endless march of days. Still others cast their consciousness far from their bodies, wandering planes and realities far beyond mortal ken. Absent the vitality of the soul, such a lich's physical form succumbs to decay over the centuries. In time, only the lich's skull remains intact. Yet the bonds of undeath keep the lich's remains from final dissolution. Vestiges of the lich's intellect remain within the skull, and wake to terrible wrath should it be disturbed. Traces of the lich's will to live strengthen the skull, rendering it harder than any steel. The lich's greed and lust for power manifest in the growth of gems in its skull. Lastly, though only the barest remnants of the lich's eldritch might survive, a demilich aroused to anger still retains enough power to flense the very soul from any defiling its final rest.
Most demiliches achieved their state through apathy, not volition. For each decade that a demilich fails to stir itself to meaningful action, there is a 1% cumulative chance that its corporeal body decays into dust, save for the skull. Any return to activity resets the chance of transformation to 0%. Once the lich's body decays, the lich's intellect returns to its phylactery as normal. However, the skull rejects the return of the lich's consciousness, keeping the lich trapped in its deteriorating phylactery for 1d10 years. If during that time the lich's remains are destroyed or scattered (for example, by wandering adventurers), the lich's phylactery forms a new body and the intellect leaves the phylactery as normal, returning the lich to life. But if the lich's remains survive unperturbed, the phylactery's magic fails catastrophically, releasing the lich's soul and causing 5d10 points of damage to the phylactery. Regardless of whether or not the phylactery physically survives, the energies released by its failure channel into the lifeless skull of the lich, allowing the last remnants of the lich's soul to transform it into a demilich. The lich's soul itself either is utterly destroyed, reaches its final reward or punishment, or is condemned to wander the edges of the multiverse forever.
For wandering liches, the process is similar, but based on the number of decades the lich spends without its intellect returning to its body. While the lich's body still decays, its mind remains at large, only becoming trapped in the phylactery if the lich tries to return during the period in which its body has failed, but it has not yet become a demilich. Should the lich's phylactery fail before the wandering lich returns, the skull becomes a demilich, and the lich's mind is doomed to wander until the end of days.
In their endless years of unlife, some liches lose themselves in introspection, and can no longer rouse themselves to face the endless march of days. Still others cast their consciousness far from their bodies, wandering planes and realities far beyond mortal ken. Absent the vitality of the soul, such a lich’s physical form succumbs to decay over the centuries. In time, only the lich’s skull remains intact. Yet the bonds of undeath keep the lich’s remains from final dissolution. Vestiges of the lich’s intellect remain within the skull, and wake to terrible wrath should it be disturbed. Traces of the lich’s will to live strengthen the skull, rendering it harder than any steel. The lich’s greed and lust for power manifest in the growth of gems in its skull. Lastly, though only the barest remnants of the lich’s eldritch might survive, a demilich aroused to anger still retains enough power to flense the very soul from any defiling its final rest. (100% Crunch Liches)
Most demiliches achieved their state through apathy, not volition. For each decade that a demilich fails to stir itself to meaningful action, there is a 1% cumulative chance that its corporeal body decays into dust, save for the skull. Any return to activity resets the chance of transformation to 0%. Once the lich’s body decays, the lich’s intellect returns to its phylactery as normal. However, the skull rejects the return of the lich’s consciousness, keeping the lich trapped in its deteriorating phylactery for 1d10 years. If during that time the lich’s remains are destroyed or scattered (for example, by wandering adventurers), the lich’s phylactery forms a new body and the intellect leaves the phylactery as normal, returning the lich to life. But if the lich’s remains survive unperturbed, the phylactery’s magic fails catastrophically, releasing the lich’s soul and causing 5d10 points of damage to the phylactery. Regardless of whether or not the phylactery physically survives, the energies released by its failure channel into the lifeless skull of the lich, allowing the last remnants of the lich’s soul to transform it into a demilich. (100% Crunch Liches)
For wandering liches, the process is similar, but based on the number of decades the lich spends without its intellect returning to its body. While the lich’s body still decays, its mind remains at large, only becoming trapped in the phylactery if the lich tries to return during the period in which its body has failed, but it has not yet become a demilich. Should the lich’s phylactery fail before the wandering lich returns, the skull becomes a demilich, and the lich’s mind is doomed to wander until the end of days. (100% Crunch Liches)
Demilich Awakened: Under exceptional conditions, a lich's full consciousness survives its transformation into a demilich, or a lich's wandering intellect manages to return to its jeweled skull.
Dybbuk: A dybbuk is a misplaced soul who has eluded judgment because of a some great transgression or a pitiful suicide.
Ecorche: ?
Festrog: A festrog is an undead abomination spawned when a creature is killed by a massive release of negative energy (perhaps due to planar bleeding, the destruction of a potent artifact, or even certain magical attacks by powerful undead), and then mutilated by an outside force, such as the scavenging of wild animals.
Ghul: Ghuls are undead jann whose eternal existence was twisted by fate and wrought through the displeasure of Ahriman, Lord of the Divs.
Graveknight: Undying tyrants and eternal champions of the undead, graveknights arise from the corpses of the most nefarious warlords and disgraced heroes—villains too merciless to submit to the shackles of death.
"Graveknight" is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature with 5 or more Hit Dice.
Battlefield champions of ultimate cruelty whose depraved acts bind them to their armor for all eternity.
Some warriors are too arrogant to die. (Undead Revisited)
The lust for battle and sheer will to win allow some truly evil and vile warriors to shrug off their final defeat. Through methods that remain poorly understood, the vengeful spirit of such a fearsome combatant sometimes forms a bond with its armor that permits it to simply refuse death, its spirit lingering long past when it should have gone on to its eternal punishment in the afterlife. (Undead Revisited)
Unlike liches, graveknights almost never plan this return from their last battle. It happens, seemingly spontaneously and at random, to people totally unprepared for an undead existence. (Undead Revisited)
Graveknights are born of defeat, and it is their rage at such an end that allows them to return, attempting to erase their failure through greater triumphs and atrocities. (Undead Revisited)
While most graveknights arise spontaneously from the armor of sadistic warlords and fallen champions, there are methods by which evil men and women can deliberately transform themselves into these powerful undead lords, in much the same way some spellcasters seek to become liches. The process by which a hopeful graveknight makes the deliberate transformation is neither simple nor cheap. The character must first live and lead a life of wanton cruelty, winning great glory and power over the course of several violent conflicts (and achieving a minimum of 9th level in any character class, with an evil alignment for all 9 levels). When he achieves this goal, he may craft the suit of armor that will serve him in his
afterlife as his graveknight armor—this must be heavy armor, although its exact type is irrelevant. The creator must also be proficient in the armor’s use. The armor itself must be of exceptional quality and crafting, requiring the finest of materials and artisans. Even the forge upon which the armor is to be crafted must be of exceptional quality. The overall cost of these components is 25,000 gp—this amount is over and above any additional costs incurred in making the armor magical. An existing suit of armor (including magic armor) can serve as the base suit upon which these 25,000 gp of enhancements are built. (Undead Revisited)
Once the armor is complete, the hopeful graveknight must don the armor and then seek out a powerful evil patron to sponsor his cruelties—this patron can be a mortal tyrant, a hateful monster, a demonic god, or similar power. Once the graveknight-to-be secures a patron, he must engage upon a crusade in that patron’s name. This crusade must last long enough for the graveknight to achieve two additional levels of experience, during which he must wear his armor whenever possible. (Undead Revisited)
Upon completing this final stage of his quest for undeath (and a minimum character level of 11th), the sadist has finally neared the end of his long path to eternal undeath. The last stage in becoming a graveknight is to construct a pool, pit, or other large concavity, into which the graveknight must place 13 helpless, good-aligned creatures of his own race, who must be sacrificed by the graveknight or his patron using acid, cold, electricity, or fire. The graveknight must wear his armor during these sacrifices, and within a minute of the last sacrifice, the graveknight must take his own life using the same form of energy, after which his body and armor must be destroyed by that form of energy. The pit within which the entire ritual took place must then be filled with soil taken from graves that have spawned undead creatures. (Undead Revisited)
Once this final step is taken, the graveknight-to-be has a 75% chance of rising as a graveknight. This chance rises by 1% per point of Charisma possessed by the graveknight-to-be at the time of his death. Additional factors can increase this chance as well, at the GM’s discretion.
Whenever sufficiently evil warriors or similar sorts of beings die at the hands of a foe, there is a chance that they might return as graveknights.
Heavily armored warriors are most likely to arise as graveknights, perhaps because the complete shell of metal or other materials assists in trapping the soul. (Undead Revisited)
Urgathoa claims graveknights as her children just as she does all undead. Her priests and other high servants maintain that she is the mysterious agency that actually calls them back from the grave, while the goddess herself gives more confusing and potentially contradictory answers. (Undead Revisited)
Graveknights, whose lust for battle knows no end—not even in death. (Undead Revisited)
Graveknight Human Fighter 10: ?
Guecubu: Often when a particularly evil criminal is executed, suspicious folk fear that the criminal's remains might rise from death to continue to plague the living. To combat this possibility, many mobs or rural justices take to the practice of burning the bodies, grinding the bones, and scattering the remains in the wild. Yet in the case of particularly evil criminals, even these steps are in vain, for their will is enough to reassemble a body from earth, stone, roots, and plants drawn from the region into which the remains were scattered.
Hollow Serpent: Crafted from the shed skins of great snakes by serpentfolk necromancers and other foul spellcasters.
A hollow serpent is a difficult undead to create—most of them were crafted by a long-forgotten god of the serpentfolk and not by mortal spellcasters at all. The exact methods by which a mortal might create a hollow serpent are obscure, but most scholars have come to the conclusion that the use of powerful artifacts or the aid of a demigod may be required for such a feat.
Huecuva: Huecuvas are the risen corpses of heretical clerics who blasphemed and renounced their deities before meeting death.
While most huecuvas arise when a god rejects a heretic priest's soul, forcing the slain to rise as horrible undead, a huecuva can also be created with create undead. The caster must be at least 11th level, and the body to be transformed must have been an evil cleric in life. The spell can be used to create a huecuva using the body of a nonevil cleric, but doing so requires a DC 20 caster level check.
Many times, a religion fails due to betrayal by its supposed leaders, or a cleric may do something that is anathema to his or her deity to spite those forcing out worship of the deity. In such cases, the fallen return as huecuvas that infest the temples in which they used to minister. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Create Undead spell, caster level 11 with corpse of a cleric. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Manananggal: ?
Pale Stranger: Sometimes death itself cannot come between a gunslinger and its final revenge. When a gunslinger is slain by a hated enemy, or murdered before it can achieve vengeance against a hated foe, the anger and wrath can animate its remains as a vengeful undead monstrosity.
Penanggalen: Unlike most undead, the penanggalen is more akin to the lich in that she willfully abandons both her mortality and morality to become a hideous undead monster. While penanggalens are traditionally female spellcasters, any creature capable of performing the vile ritual of transformation can become one.
Similar to a lich, a creature works toward becoming a penanggalen. More than one such transformation ritual exists, but all require heinous acts that symbolize the casting aside of kindness, benevolence, and any semblance of feelings other than cruelty. Many of these rituals call for the repeated consumption of blood, bile, tears, and other fluids drawn from captured and tortured innocents.
"Penanggalen" is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature with 5 or more Hit Dice
When a penanggalen slays a female humanoid via blood drain, and if that slain humanoid had at least 10 Hit Dice in life, that slain humanoid rises as a manananggal at the next sunset.
Penanggalen Human Witch 5: ?
Sea Bonze: Sea bonzes are formed from the combined despair and horror of death at sea, such as when a ship sinks and its entire crew drowns. No single restless soul empowers a sea bonze—it combines the anger and doom of all who die in such close proximity.
Tzitzimitl: Some claim ancient and forgotten deities of death and destruction created the first tzitzimitls as instruments of apocalypse, while others speculate they come from faraway worlds where immense planets teem with creatures of this scale, and that the immortal dead of these dark globes are banished to other worlds to spread devastation.
Vampire Jiang-Shi: A jiang-shi is created when a restless spirit does not leave its corpse at the time of death, and is instead allowed to fester and putrefy within. At some point during the body's decomposition, the thing rises in its grotesque form and seeks living creatures to feed upon.
"Jiang-shi" is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature with 5 or more Hit Dice.
Most jiang-shis were once humans, but any creature that undergoes specific rites can acquire the template.
Vampire Jiang-Shi Human Monk 5: ?
Yukki-Onna: A yuki-onna is the restless spirit of a woman who froze to death in the snow and was never given a proper burial.
Zuvembie: Most zuvembies willingly performed the vile rituals to attain vengeance through unlife, but the transformation can also be wrought upon a helpless victim. The method of transforming into a zuvembie involves the creation and consumption of a vial of oil of animate dead, plus the performance of additional dark rites that take a day to perform and cost 3,000 gp. The ritual kills the target, who must make a DC 20 Will save. Failure results in the victim's death, while success means it reanimates as a free-willed zuvembie.
Allips are the undead souls of those who took their own lives out of madness and insanity. (Undead Revisited)
While rarer than those arising from more mundane insanity, some allips in Golarion start out in life as priests of the Old Cults who delve too deeply into the maddening secrets of their faith, taking their own lives when mysteries better left unrevealed spark a consuming darkness in their souls. The corrupting demon Sifkesh revels in driving mortals toward insanity and eventual suicide, and regions harboring her cults often have significant populations of the babbling spirits. The city of Westcrown, in particular, owes its high concentration of allips to the demon, particularly during the period known as the White Plague. The city’s elite had made something of a game of corrupting souls and driving them toward madness, and the militant order known as the Hellknights was formed to put an end to their murder spree and combat the plague of allips that resulted from it. (Undead Revisited)
Souls of the insane too hate-crazed and vicious to find their ways to the afterlife. (Classic Horrors Revisited)
One of the many types of undead creatures that can arise in abandoned temples, allips were insane humanoids under the care of the temples’ priests who succumbed to their madness. The creatures also may have once been priests driven mad by the circumstances that led to the temple’s abandonment. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Many chirurgical procedures are damaging to the patient's psyche and the natural balance of their mental processes. This imbalance extends into the spiritual plane, and creatures who recently underwent mind-altering chirurgical procedures might have a greater than normal chance of arising as unquiet dead, perhaps haunts that spread madness and torment, or as actual undead creatures such as allips or, more rarely, ghosts or spectres. (The Mad Doctor's Formulary)
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 15 with Insanity spell. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word, boostedc. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Baykok: When hunters become utterly obsessed with the chase and indulge excessively in the savagery of the kill, their souls become progressively tainted. When such remorseless hunters perish before they can capture and kill their quarry, they sometimes rise from death as baykoks.
Berbalang: ?
Bhuta: A bhuta is a ghostlike undead creature born of horrible death or murder in a natural setting. It is a manifestation of rage at the injustice of a death that interrupted important business or unsated desires.
Deathweb: A deathweb is the undead exoskeleton of a massive spider animated with the vilest necromancy. The spells that create this monstrosity bind to it thousands of normal spiders, which together form the mind of the undead beast like an arachnid hive.
Demilich: In their endless years of unlife, some liches lose themselves in introspection, and can no longer rouse themselves to face the endless march of days. Still others cast their consciousness far from their bodies, wandering planes and realities far beyond mortal ken. Absent the vitality of the soul, such a lich's physical form succumbs to decay over the centuries. In time, only the lich's skull remains intact. Yet the bonds of undeath keep the lich's remains from final dissolution. Vestiges of the lich's intellect remain within the skull, and wake to terrible wrath should it be disturbed. Traces of the lich's will to live strengthen the skull, rendering it harder than any steel. The lich's greed and lust for power manifest in the growth of gems in its skull. Lastly, though only the barest remnants of the lich's eldritch might survive, a demilich aroused to anger still retains enough power to flense the very soul from any defiling its final rest.
Most demiliches achieved their state through apathy, not volition. For each decade that a demilich fails to stir itself to meaningful action, there is a 1% cumulative chance that its corporeal body decays into dust, save for the skull. Any return to activity resets the chance of transformation to 0%. Once the lich's body decays, the lich's intellect returns to its phylactery as normal. However, the skull rejects the return of the lich's consciousness, keeping the lich trapped in its deteriorating phylactery for 1d10 years. If during that time the lich's remains are destroyed or scattered (for example, by wandering adventurers), the lich's phylactery forms a new body and the intellect leaves the phylactery as normal, returning the lich to life. But if the lich's remains survive unperturbed, the phylactery's magic fails catastrophically, releasing the lich's soul and causing 5d10 points of damage to the phylactery. Regardless of whether or not the phylactery physically survives, the energies released by its failure channel into the lifeless skull of the lich, allowing the last remnants of the lich's soul to transform it into a demilich. The lich's soul itself either is utterly destroyed, reaches its final reward or punishment, or is condemned to wander the edges of the multiverse forever.
For wandering liches, the process is similar, but based on the number of decades the lich spends without its intellect returning to its body. While the lich's body still decays, its mind remains at large, only becoming trapped in the phylactery if the lich tries to return during the period in which its body has failed, but it has not yet become a demilich. Should the lich's phylactery fail before the wandering lich returns, the skull becomes a demilich, and the lich's mind is doomed to wander until the end of days.
In their endless years of unlife, some liches lose themselves in introspection, and can no longer rouse themselves to face the endless march of days. Still others cast their consciousness far from their bodies, wandering planes and realities far beyond mortal ken. Absent the vitality of the soul, such a lich’s physical form succumbs to decay over the centuries. In time, only the lich’s skull remains intact. Yet the bonds of undeath keep the lich’s remains from final dissolution. Vestiges of the lich’s intellect remain within the skull, and wake to terrible wrath should it be disturbed. Traces of the lich’s will to live strengthen the skull, rendering it harder than any steel. The lich’s greed and lust for power manifest in the growth of gems in its skull. Lastly, though only the barest remnants of the lich’s eldritch might survive, a demilich aroused to anger still retains enough power to flense the very soul from any defiling its final rest. (100% Crunch Liches)
Most demiliches achieved their state through apathy, not volition. For each decade that a demilich fails to stir itself to meaningful action, there is a 1% cumulative chance that its corporeal body decays into dust, save for the skull. Any return to activity resets the chance of transformation to 0%. Once the lich’s body decays, the lich’s intellect returns to its phylactery as normal. However, the skull rejects the return of the lich’s consciousness, keeping the lich trapped in its deteriorating phylactery for 1d10 years. If during that time the lich’s remains are destroyed or scattered (for example, by wandering adventurers), the lich’s phylactery forms a new body and the intellect leaves the phylactery as normal, returning the lich to life. But if the lich’s remains survive unperturbed, the phylactery’s magic fails catastrophically, releasing the lich’s soul and causing 5d10 points of damage to the phylactery. Regardless of whether or not the phylactery physically survives, the energies released by its failure channel into the lifeless skull of the lich, allowing the last remnants of the lich’s soul to transform it into a demilich. (100% Crunch Liches)
For wandering liches, the process is similar, but based on the number of decades the lich spends without its intellect returning to its body. While the lich’s body still decays, its mind remains at large, only becoming trapped in the phylactery if the lich tries to return during the period in which its body has failed, but it has not yet become a demilich. Should the lich’s phylactery fail before the wandering lich returns, the skull becomes a demilich, and the lich’s mind is doomed to wander until the end of days. (100% Crunch Liches)
Demilich Awakened: Under exceptional conditions, a lich's full consciousness survives its transformation into a demilich, or a lich's wandering intellect manages to return to its jeweled skull.
Dybbuk: A dybbuk is a misplaced soul who has eluded judgment because of a some great transgression or a pitiful suicide.
Ecorche: ?
Festrog: A festrog is an undead abomination spawned when a creature is killed by a massive release of negative energy (perhaps due to planar bleeding, the destruction of a potent artifact, or even certain magical attacks by powerful undead), and then mutilated by an outside force, such as the scavenging of wild animals.
Ghul: Ghuls are undead jann whose eternal existence was twisted by fate and wrought through the displeasure of Ahriman, Lord of the Divs.
Graveknight: Undying tyrants and eternal champions of the undead, graveknights arise from the corpses of the most nefarious warlords and disgraced heroes—villains too merciless to submit to the shackles of death.
"Graveknight" is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature with 5 or more Hit Dice.
Battlefield champions of ultimate cruelty whose depraved acts bind them to their armor for all eternity.
Some warriors are too arrogant to die. (Undead Revisited)
The lust for battle and sheer will to win allow some truly evil and vile warriors to shrug off their final defeat. Through methods that remain poorly understood, the vengeful spirit of such a fearsome combatant sometimes forms a bond with its armor that permits it to simply refuse death, its spirit lingering long past when it should have gone on to its eternal punishment in the afterlife. (Undead Revisited)
Unlike liches, graveknights almost never plan this return from their last battle. It happens, seemingly spontaneously and at random, to people totally unprepared for an undead existence. (Undead Revisited)
Graveknights are born of defeat, and it is their rage at such an end that allows them to return, attempting to erase their failure through greater triumphs and atrocities. (Undead Revisited)
While most graveknights arise spontaneously from the armor of sadistic warlords and fallen champions, there are methods by which evil men and women can deliberately transform themselves into these powerful undead lords, in much the same way some spellcasters seek to become liches. The process by which a hopeful graveknight makes the deliberate transformation is neither simple nor cheap. The character must first live and lead a life of wanton cruelty, winning great glory and power over the course of several violent conflicts (and achieving a minimum of 9th level in any character class, with an evil alignment for all 9 levels). When he achieves this goal, he may craft the suit of armor that will serve him in his
afterlife as his graveknight armor—this must be heavy armor, although its exact type is irrelevant. The creator must also be proficient in the armor’s use. The armor itself must be of exceptional quality and crafting, requiring the finest of materials and artisans. Even the forge upon which the armor is to be crafted must be of exceptional quality. The overall cost of these components is 25,000 gp—this amount is over and above any additional costs incurred in making the armor magical. An existing suit of armor (including magic armor) can serve as the base suit upon which these 25,000 gp of enhancements are built. (Undead Revisited)
Once the armor is complete, the hopeful graveknight must don the armor and then seek out a powerful evil patron to sponsor his cruelties—this patron can be a mortal tyrant, a hateful monster, a demonic god, or similar power. Once the graveknight-to-be secures a patron, he must engage upon a crusade in that patron’s name. This crusade must last long enough for the graveknight to achieve two additional levels of experience, during which he must wear his armor whenever possible. (Undead Revisited)
Upon completing this final stage of his quest for undeath (and a minimum character level of 11th), the sadist has finally neared the end of his long path to eternal undeath. The last stage in becoming a graveknight is to construct a pool, pit, or other large concavity, into which the graveknight must place 13 helpless, good-aligned creatures of his own race, who must be sacrificed by the graveknight or his patron using acid, cold, electricity, or fire. The graveknight must wear his armor during these sacrifices, and within a minute of the last sacrifice, the graveknight must take his own life using the same form of energy, after which his body and armor must be destroyed by that form of energy. The pit within which the entire ritual took place must then be filled with soil taken from graves that have spawned undead creatures. (Undead Revisited)
Once this final step is taken, the graveknight-to-be has a 75% chance of rising as a graveknight. This chance rises by 1% per point of Charisma possessed by the graveknight-to-be at the time of his death. Additional factors can increase this chance as well, at the GM’s discretion.
Whenever sufficiently evil warriors or similar sorts of beings die at the hands of a foe, there is a chance that they might return as graveknights.
Heavily armored warriors are most likely to arise as graveknights, perhaps because the complete shell of metal or other materials assists in trapping the soul. (Undead Revisited)
Urgathoa claims graveknights as her children just as she does all undead. Her priests and other high servants maintain that she is the mysterious agency that actually calls them back from the grave, while the goddess herself gives more confusing and potentially contradictory answers. (Undead Revisited)
Graveknights, whose lust for battle knows no end—not even in death. (Undead Revisited)
Graveknight Human Fighter 10: ?
Guecubu: Often when a particularly evil criminal is executed, suspicious folk fear that the criminal's remains might rise from death to continue to plague the living. To combat this possibility, many mobs or rural justices take to the practice of burning the bodies, grinding the bones, and scattering the remains in the wild. Yet in the case of particularly evil criminals, even these steps are in vain, for their will is enough to reassemble a body from earth, stone, roots, and plants drawn from the region into which the remains were scattered.
Hollow Serpent: Crafted from the shed skins of great snakes by serpentfolk necromancers and other foul spellcasters.
A hollow serpent is a difficult undead to create—most of them were crafted by a long-forgotten god of the serpentfolk and not by mortal spellcasters at all. The exact methods by which a mortal might create a hollow serpent are obscure, but most scholars have come to the conclusion that the use of powerful artifacts or the aid of a demigod may be required for such a feat.
Huecuva: Huecuvas are the risen corpses of heretical clerics who blasphemed and renounced their deities before meeting death.
While most huecuvas arise when a god rejects a heretic priest's soul, forcing the slain to rise as horrible undead, a huecuva can also be created with create undead. The caster must be at least 11th level, and the body to be transformed must have been an evil cleric in life. The spell can be used to create a huecuva using the body of a nonevil cleric, but doing so requires a DC 20 caster level check.
Many times, a religion fails due to betrayal by its supposed leaders, or a cleric may do something that is anathema to his or her deity to spite those forcing out worship of the deity. In such cases, the fallen return as huecuvas that infest the temples in which they used to minister. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Create Undead spell, caster level 11 with corpse of a cleric. (Undead Revisited)
Raise Undeath spell word. (Book of Magic 10 Undead Spell Words)
Manananggal: ?
Pale Stranger: Sometimes death itself cannot come between a gunslinger and its final revenge. When a gunslinger is slain by a hated enemy, or murdered before it can achieve vengeance against a hated foe, the anger and wrath can animate its remains as a vengeful undead monstrosity.
Penanggalen: Unlike most undead, the penanggalen is more akin to the lich in that she willfully abandons both her mortality and morality to become a hideous undead monster. While penanggalens are traditionally female spellcasters, any creature capable of performing the vile ritual of transformation can become one.
Similar to a lich, a creature works toward becoming a penanggalen. More than one such transformation ritual exists, but all require heinous acts that symbolize the casting aside of kindness, benevolence, and any semblance of feelings other than cruelty. Many of these rituals call for the repeated consumption of blood, bile, tears, and other fluids drawn from captured and tortured innocents.
"Penanggalen" is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature with 5 or more Hit Dice
When a penanggalen slays a female humanoid via blood drain, and if that slain humanoid had at least 10 Hit Dice in life, that slain humanoid rises as a manananggal at the next sunset.
Penanggalen Human Witch 5: ?
Sea Bonze: Sea bonzes are formed from the combined despair and horror of death at sea, such as when a ship sinks and its entire crew drowns. No single restless soul empowers a sea bonze—it combines the anger and doom of all who die in such close proximity.
Tzitzimitl: Some claim ancient and forgotten deities of death and destruction created the first tzitzimitls as instruments of apocalypse, while others speculate they come from faraway worlds where immense planets teem with creatures of this scale, and that the immortal dead of these dark globes are banished to other worlds to spread devastation.
Vampire Jiang-Shi: A jiang-shi is created when a restless spirit does not leave its corpse at the time of death, and is instead allowed to fester and putrefy within. At some point during the body's decomposition, the thing rises in its grotesque form and seeks living creatures to feed upon.
"Jiang-shi" is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature with 5 or more Hit Dice.
Most jiang-shis were once humans, but any creature that undergoes specific rites can acquire the template.
Vampire Jiang-Shi Human Monk 5: ?
Yukki-Onna: A yuki-onna is the restless spirit of a woman who froze to death in the snow and was never given a proper burial.
Zuvembie: Most zuvembies willingly performed the vile rituals to attain vengeance through unlife, but the transformation can also be wrought upon a helpless victim. The method of transforming into a zuvembie involves the creation and consumption of a vial of oil of animate dead, plus the performance of additional dark rites that take a day to perform and cost 3,000 gp. The ritual kills the target, who must make a DC 20 Will save. Failure results in the victim's death, while success means it reanimates as a free-willed zuvembie.
Bestiary 4
Bakekujira: Sometimes, a whale that dies after days of anger and pain arises as an undead monstrosity known as a bakekujira.
Beheaded: A beheaded is a severed head or skull animated as a mindless undead sentinel that silently floats at eye level as it lies in wait for living prey or is sent out into the lands of the living to terrorize everyone it finds.
A spellcaster can create a beheaded with animate dead. Each beheaded created requires two onyx gems worth 100 gp and the casting of one air walk or fly spell. Beheaded can be created with additional abilities from the list below. Creating a variant beheaded counts as 1 additional Hit Die toward the caster's maximum Hit Dice of controlled undead.
Ectoplasmic Creature: Once a spirit has passed to the afterlife, it seldom wishes to return at all, let alone in a disfigured ectoplasmic body. Spirits that aren't powerful enough to come back as ghosts or spectres sometimes return as ectoplasmic monsters, particularly when there are no remains of the creature's original body for its soul to inhabit in the form of a skeleton or zombie.
"Ectoplasmic" is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than an undead)
Ectoplasmic Human: ?
Festering Spirit: A humanoid creature killed by a festering spirit's Constitution damage becomes a festering spirit under the control of its killer in 1d4 days. Giving the corpse a proper burial (or cremation) prevents it from becoming a festering spirit.
A festering spirit arises when a vile person's corpse is put in a mass grave, or when such a person is buried, exhumed, and placed in a charnel house or ossuary. The lingering hatred and evil of the dead mixes with the worst remnants of dozens of other people, creating a frustrated incorporeal shade of sickness, hate, and rot. Powerful mortals might arise as multiple festering spirits, each spawned from a different aspect of the original creature's personality.
Gaki: When an especially jealous or greedy evil person dies, it sometimes returns as a gaki.
Gallowdead: Some tyrants execute criminals, traitors, or those who dare insurrection on the end of hooked and spiked chains. Leaving the criminal to painfully hang and rot sends a message to those who would dare commit the same crimes. Sometimes such savage deaths have a strange and terrible consequence: the victim rises, grabs the instrument of its execution, and becomes a servant of those who condemned it.
Gashadokuro: Gashadokuros are enormous skeletons that come into being as a result of mass starvation. The victims of such a tragedy fuse together into an undead colossus that continues to hunger even in death.
Gearghost: Formed from the unquiet soul of a thief wrenched from life by a wicked trap
Geist: A geist is formed when an exceptionally evil humanoid is killed by a haunt and proves too tenacious to submit to death's call.
Gholdako: A gholdako is a dreadful undead cyclops created by the foul priests and necromancers of a fallen cyclops empire thousands of years ago.
Gholdako Greater: ?
Harionago: A harionago is formed when an innocent woman is murdered in some unspeakable fashion. She rises, twisted by the injustice of the crime against her, into an unnatural and bloodthirsty horror that hunts unsuspecting victims while trying to sate an everlasting lust for revenge.
Isitoq: A spellcaster can create an isitoq from the head of a Small or Medium corpse that has at least one intact eye. The head must be animated as a 1 Hit Die undead using animate dead (this counts toward the total HD animated by the spell and the total HD the caster can control), followed by casting clairaudience/clairvoyance or locate object to establish the sensory connection, and air walk, fly, levitate, or wind wall to give it the ability to fly. When these spells are finished, one of the head's eyes pulls itself free of its socket and becomes an isitoq. The rest of the head remains part of a corpse.
Mummified Creature: Many ancient cultures mummify their dead, preserving the bodies of the deceased through lengthy and complex funerary and embalming processes. While the vast majority of these corpses are mummified simply to preserve the bodies in the tombs where they are interred, some are mummified with the help of magic to live on after death as mummified creatures.
To create a mummified creature, a corpse must be prepared through embalming, with its internal organs replaced with dried herbs and flowers and its dead skin preserved through the application of sacred oils. Unlike with standard mummies, a mummified creature's brain is not removed from its skull after death. Injected with strange chemicals and tattooed with mystical hieroglyphs, a mummified creature's brain retains the base creature's mind and abilities, though the process does result in the loss of some mental faculties. Once this process is complete, the body is wrapped in special purified linens marked with hieroglyphs that grant the mummified creature its new abilities (as well as its weakness). Finally, the creator must cast a create greater undead spell to give the mummified creature its unlife.
"Mummified creature" is an acquired template that can be added to any living corporeal creature.
Mummified Gynosphinx: ?
Necrocraft: A necrocraft is a medley of undead body parts and corpses grafted together with dark magic to create a single animated undead creature with abilities based on its component pieces and the surgical and necromantic talents of its creator.
The details of the ritual to create a necrocraft vary greatly, and depend on the particular undead parts used and the intended size of the resulting creature.
In order to create a necrocraft, a spellcaster must use at least five undead creatures (or their corpses), all of which must be under the creator's control, helpless, or slain. A larger undead or corpse can be used in place of two that are one size smaller. The creator must stitch, glue, or otherwise bind the parts together in the desired configuration, then cast animate dead and make whole to complete the construction (the material component cost of animate dead is 50 gp per Hit Die of the final necrocraft). The creator can't create a necrocraft with more Hit Dice than her caster level. As with animate dead, the necrocraft is under the creator's control when created. Note that creating a necrocraft requires casting a spell with the evil descriptor.
Size HD CP CR Number of Undead Required
Medium 4d8 2 3 5
Large 7d8 3 5 10
Huge 10d8 4 7 25
Gargantuan 14d8 5 9 50
Colossal 18d8 6 11 100
Phantom Armor: Created from blood-spattered armor infused with the souls of betrayed knights or fallen soldiers.
Phantom armors are created using the spell create undead. Creating a phantom armor requires a corpse wearing a suit of heavy armor. The corpse is destroyed in the phantom armor's creation. A magic-user must be at least caster level 12th to create a guardian phantom armor.
Phantom Armor Giant: Arising from the armored remains of towering humanoids.
Phantom armors are created using the spell create undead. Creating a phantom armor requires a corpse wearing a suit of heavy armor. The corpse is destroyed in the phantom armor's creation. A magic-user must be at least caster level 15th to create a giant phantom armor.
Pickled Punk: Grotesque curiosities, pickled punks are deformed, often-humanoid fetuses raised by necromancers and stored in jars of embalming fluid.
The body of a humanoid creature killed by a mythic pickled punk shrinks, contorts, and rises as a nonmythic pickled punk 1d6 rounds later. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
Sayona: Stories of their origins claim that the first sayona was a vain woman who grew old and whose lover left her for a younger paramour; the woman avenged herself by bathing in the blood of her lover's children, then killed herself.
Shredskin: A shredskin is a wretched undead creature created either when a humanoid is skinned alive to be preserved as a trophy or otherwise killed in a terrifying way that leaves much of its upper half unharmed, such as being dissolved feet-first in acid. A fragment of the creature's soul animates the skin and seeks vengeance on those who created it, all the while trying to find a comfortable body for it to use as it did when it was alive.
Vampire Nosferatu: Unable to create others of their kind, as they somehow lost that ability long ago.
"Nosferatu" is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature with 5 or more Hit Dice.
Vamire Nosferatu Human Rogue 9: ?
Warsworn: Warsworns are massive undead amalgams, their ever-shifting, chaotic bodies composed of countless slain soldiers and their armor and weapons.
A warsworn forms by the will of a god or goddess of undeath or war, or spontaneously from the bloodlust and wrath of a battlefield of dead soldiers.
Zombie Lord: "Zombie lord" is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than undead) that has a minimum Intelligence of 3.
Some zombies retain their intelligence and cunning, making them formidable warriors. (100% Crunch Zombie Lords)
“Zombie Lord” is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than an undead) that has a minimum Intelligence of 3. (100% Crunch Zombie Lords)
Zombie Lord Human Monk 3: ?
Ghoul: When a sayona kills a humanoid or fey of Medium or Small size with its absorb blood or blood drain ability, the victim rises 24 hours later as a ghoul with the advanced creature simple template and the blood drain ability.
Beheaded: A beheaded is a severed head or skull animated as a mindless undead sentinel that silently floats at eye level as it lies in wait for living prey or is sent out into the lands of the living to terrorize everyone it finds.
A spellcaster can create a beheaded with animate dead. Each beheaded created requires two onyx gems worth 100 gp and the casting of one air walk or fly spell. Beheaded can be created with additional abilities from the list below. Creating a variant beheaded counts as 1 additional Hit Die toward the caster's maximum Hit Dice of controlled undead.
Ectoplasmic Creature: Once a spirit has passed to the afterlife, it seldom wishes to return at all, let alone in a disfigured ectoplasmic body. Spirits that aren't powerful enough to come back as ghosts or spectres sometimes return as ectoplasmic monsters, particularly when there are no remains of the creature's original body for its soul to inhabit in the form of a skeleton or zombie.
"Ectoplasmic" is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than an undead)
Ectoplasmic Human: ?
Festering Spirit: A humanoid creature killed by a festering spirit's Constitution damage becomes a festering spirit under the control of its killer in 1d4 days. Giving the corpse a proper burial (or cremation) prevents it from becoming a festering spirit.
A festering spirit arises when a vile person's corpse is put in a mass grave, or when such a person is buried, exhumed, and placed in a charnel house or ossuary. The lingering hatred and evil of the dead mixes with the worst remnants of dozens of other people, creating a frustrated incorporeal shade of sickness, hate, and rot. Powerful mortals might arise as multiple festering spirits, each spawned from a different aspect of the original creature's personality.
Gaki: When an especially jealous or greedy evil person dies, it sometimes returns as a gaki.
Gallowdead: Some tyrants execute criminals, traitors, or those who dare insurrection on the end of hooked and spiked chains. Leaving the criminal to painfully hang and rot sends a message to those who would dare commit the same crimes. Sometimes such savage deaths have a strange and terrible consequence: the victim rises, grabs the instrument of its execution, and becomes a servant of those who condemned it.
Gashadokuro: Gashadokuros are enormous skeletons that come into being as a result of mass starvation. The victims of such a tragedy fuse together into an undead colossus that continues to hunger even in death.
Gearghost: Formed from the unquiet soul of a thief wrenched from life by a wicked trap
Geist: A geist is formed when an exceptionally evil humanoid is killed by a haunt and proves too tenacious to submit to death's call.
Gholdako: A gholdako is a dreadful undead cyclops created by the foul priests and necromancers of a fallen cyclops empire thousands of years ago.
Gholdako Greater: ?
Harionago: A harionago is formed when an innocent woman is murdered in some unspeakable fashion. She rises, twisted by the injustice of the crime against her, into an unnatural and bloodthirsty horror that hunts unsuspecting victims while trying to sate an everlasting lust for revenge.
Isitoq: A spellcaster can create an isitoq from the head of a Small or Medium corpse that has at least one intact eye. The head must be animated as a 1 Hit Die undead using animate dead (this counts toward the total HD animated by the spell and the total HD the caster can control), followed by casting clairaudience/clairvoyance or locate object to establish the sensory connection, and air walk, fly, levitate, or wind wall to give it the ability to fly. When these spells are finished, one of the head's eyes pulls itself free of its socket and becomes an isitoq. The rest of the head remains part of a corpse.
Mummified Creature: Many ancient cultures mummify their dead, preserving the bodies of the deceased through lengthy and complex funerary and embalming processes. While the vast majority of these corpses are mummified simply to preserve the bodies in the tombs where they are interred, some are mummified with the help of magic to live on after death as mummified creatures.
To create a mummified creature, a corpse must be prepared through embalming, with its internal organs replaced with dried herbs and flowers and its dead skin preserved through the application of sacred oils. Unlike with standard mummies, a mummified creature's brain is not removed from its skull after death. Injected with strange chemicals and tattooed with mystical hieroglyphs, a mummified creature's brain retains the base creature's mind and abilities, though the process does result in the loss of some mental faculties. Once this process is complete, the body is wrapped in special purified linens marked with hieroglyphs that grant the mummified creature its new abilities (as well as its weakness). Finally, the creator must cast a create greater undead spell to give the mummified creature its unlife.
"Mummified creature" is an acquired template that can be added to any living corporeal creature.
Mummified Gynosphinx: ?
Necrocraft: A necrocraft is a medley of undead body parts and corpses grafted together with dark magic to create a single animated undead creature with abilities based on its component pieces and the surgical and necromantic talents of its creator.
The details of the ritual to create a necrocraft vary greatly, and depend on the particular undead parts used and the intended size of the resulting creature.
In order to create a necrocraft, a spellcaster must use at least five undead creatures (or their corpses), all of which must be under the creator's control, helpless, or slain. A larger undead or corpse can be used in place of two that are one size smaller. The creator must stitch, glue, or otherwise bind the parts together in the desired configuration, then cast animate dead and make whole to complete the construction (the material component cost of animate dead is 50 gp per Hit Die of the final necrocraft). The creator can't create a necrocraft with more Hit Dice than her caster level. As with animate dead, the necrocraft is under the creator's control when created. Note that creating a necrocraft requires casting a spell with the evil descriptor.
Size HD CP CR Number of Undead Required
Medium 4d8 2 3 5
Large 7d8 3 5 10
Huge 10d8 4 7 25
Gargantuan 14d8 5 9 50
Colossal 18d8 6 11 100
Phantom Armor: Created from blood-spattered armor infused with the souls of betrayed knights or fallen soldiers.
Phantom armors are created using the spell create undead. Creating a phantom armor requires a corpse wearing a suit of heavy armor. The corpse is destroyed in the phantom armor's creation. A magic-user must be at least caster level 12th to create a guardian phantom armor.
Phantom Armor Giant: Arising from the armored remains of towering humanoids.
Phantom armors are created using the spell create undead. Creating a phantom armor requires a corpse wearing a suit of heavy armor. The corpse is destroyed in the phantom armor's creation. A magic-user must be at least caster level 15th to create a giant phantom armor.
Pickled Punk: Grotesque curiosities, pickled punks are deformed, often-humanoid fetuses raised by necromancers and stored in jars of embalming fluid.
The body of a humanoid creature killed by a mythic pickled punk shrinks, contorts, and rises as a nonmythic pickled punk 1d6 rounds later. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
Sayona: Stories of their origins claim that the first sayona was a vain woman who grew old and whose lover left her for a younger paramour; the woman avenged herself by bathing in the blood of her lover's children, then killed herself.
Shredskin: A shredskin is a wretched undead creature created either when a humanoid is skinned alive to be preserved as a trophy or otherwise killed in a terrifying way that leaves much of its upper half unharmed, such as being dissolved feet-first in acid. A fragment of the creature's soul animates the skin and seeks vengeance on those who created it, all the while trying to find a comfortable body for it to use as it did when it was alive.
Vampire Nosferatu: Unable to create others of their kind, as they somehow lost that ability long ago.
"Nosferatu" is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature with 5 or more Hit Dice.
Vamire Nosferatu Human Rogue 9: ?
Warsworn: Warsworns are massive undead amalgams, their ever-shifting, chaotic bodies composed of countless slain soldiers and their armor and weapons.
A warsworn forms by the will of a god or goddess of undeath or war, or spontaneously from the bloodlust and wrath of a battlefield of dead soldiers.
Zombie Lord: "Zombie lord" is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than undead) that has a minimum Intelligence of 3.
Some zombies retain their intelligence and cunning, making them formidable warriors. (100% Crunch Zombie Lords)
“Zombie Lord” is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than an undead) that has a minimum Intelligence of 3. (100% Crunch Zombie Lords)
Zombie Lord Human Monk 3: ?
Ghoul: When a sayona kills a humanoid or fey of Medium or Small size with its absorb blood or blood drain ability, the victim rises 24 hours later as a ghoul with the advanced creature simple template and the blood drain ability.
Bestiary 5
Bone Ship: Formed from the collective consciousnesses of dead sailors bound within the bleached bones of giant aquatic creatures.
The creation of a bone ship can occur in many different ways. Some bone ships arise as servants of evil gods, pawns to their vile wills. Certain powerful necromantic rituals can also create bone ships. Such rituals typically require those performing them to sacrifice dozens of humanoid creatures and trap the victims' souls. Other bone ships result from ships being destroyed in horrific and catastrophic events. The souls of the sailors who died in such a disaster, unable to find peace, slowly form a bone ship on the ocean's bottom before rising to the surface to take vengeance on the living.
Caller in Darkness: A caller in darkness grows from the psychic remains of a creature with psychic sensitivity that died a violent death, its restless spirit compelled to visit upon others the horrors that it suffered before dying.
Crone Queen: Crone queens are unique and deadly creatures formed from the frozen remains of Baba Yaga's daughters.
Cursed King: Pharaohs punish disloyal subjects in horrific ways, especially usurpers, rebel leaders, and false prophets who attempt to subvert the order of the nation and the loyalty of the ruler's other followers. After torture and decapitation, the rebels' souls are bound back into their mutilated bodies, transforming them into mummified mockeries of ambition and authority that exist for eternity in unliving agony.
Death Coach: ?
Duppy: A duppy is the spirit of a cruel and brutal sailor who died by violence on land, away from his ship and crew, and thus was unable to receive a proper burial at sea.
Fext: ?
Ghoul Leng: A humanoid that succumbs to Leng ghoul fever becomes a normal ghoul unless in life it had 12 or more Hit Dice, in which case it rises from death as a Leng ghoul.
Gravebound: Gravebound are hateful creatures formed when the souls of people who were buried alive return, animating grave dirt to form new bodies.
Grim Reaper: As silent as the grave and as inevitable as time, grim reapers are more akin to forces of nature than individual beings, being nothing less than personifications of grim, violent death.
Grim Reaper Lesser Death: It is whispered among dark cabals and occult fellowships that the first soul unshackled from its mortal coil faced its final judgment with scorn and defiance. This creature was so outraged by the metaphysical order of the multiverse that it became a kind of rogue deity dedicated to the ending of all other lives. Particularly powerful creatures killed by this unforgiving deity become the servants of their slayer, spreading death wherever they wander. The least powerful of these lethal servants are called lesser deaths.
Kurobozu: Kurobozus, also called black monks, are jealous undead that arise when a monk dies under circumstances that violate the precepts of his or her monastic training.
Leechroot: Leechroots emerge from the remains of plants poisoned by the blood-drenched soils of war-torn forests. Chaotic intertwinings of rotten roots, these monstrosities quickly spread their curse, soaking other dead plants in their sap to spawn horrid offspring.
Leechroot Hivemind: Sometimes a network of leechroots can reach a state of sentience, creating a creature called a leechroot hivemind.
Mummy Lord Human Cleric 9: ?
Mummy Lord: Many cultures practice the sacred art of mummification, though the sinister magical techniques used to imbue corpses with undead vitality are far less widespread. In certain ancient lands, such blasphemous techniques have been refined through centuries of ceremony and countless deaths, giving rise to mummies of terrible power. On rare occasions, if the deceased was of great rank and exceeding malevolence, he might undergo such elaborate rituals, rising from his tomb as a fearful mummy lord. Similarly, a ruler known for his malice or who died in a moment of great rage might spontaneously arise as such a vengeful despot.
"Mummy lord" is an acquired template that can be added to any living corporeal creature (referred to hereafter as the base creature) that has at least 8 Hit Dice. The process of creating a mummy lord requires 50,000 gp worth of rare herbs, oils,and other mummification materials.
Mummy Swamp: Strangled into unlife in the filth and muck of the deep mire, swamp mummies haunt the festering depths of isolated, desolate fenlands.
Some swamp mummies are cursed by dark powers to return to unlife, while others are the victims of sacrifices or criminal executions in which the bodies were thrown into a peat bog. The nature of the death and the emotional power of the victim are both contributing factors as to whether or not the victim crawls from its swampy grave as a swamp mummy.
Nemhain: A nemhain is formed when a soul deliberately assumes undead status as a means of protecting a person, object, place, or ideal. Often, a devoted priest or ally volunteers herself and her (often unwitting) kin for transformation into a nemhain in order to continue protecting her home even beyond her death. The blasphemous rituals used to create nemhains are often believed to have been lost.
Pharaonic Guardian: Created only by the most evil and egotistical pharaohs, pharaonic guardians are elite protectors of tombs and other monuments. Much like the grand buildings they inhabit, pharaonic guardians are the product of fear and sweat wrung from slaves and other servants. To make one, a pharaoh uses rare arcane processes to draw out the souls of obedient servants, capturing both their fear of death and fear of eternal damnation should they disobey their god-rulers. The pharaoh then blends these essences together into towering, animal-headed warriors whose only purpose is guarding a royal location for eternity.
Plagued Horse:
Plagued Beast: Created only by the most evil and egotistical pharaohs, pharaonic guardians are elite protectors of tombs and other monuments. Much like the grand buildings they inhabit, pharaonic guardians are the product of fear and sweat wrung from slaves and other servants. To make one, a pharaoh uses rare arcane processes to draw out the souls of obedient servants, capturing both their fear of death and fear of eternal damnation should they disobey their god-rulers. The pharaoh then blends these essences together into towering, animal-headed warriors whose only purpose is guarding a royal location for eternity.
When animals are stricken with demon plague, they may arise as undead and further spread the disease.
"Plagued beast" is an acquired template that can be added to a living, corporeal creature with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2.
Polong: Polongs are the spirits of murderers who have been magically bound to a bottle.
Saxra: ?
Tiyanak: Born of tragedy and sorrow that have warped into hatred and fury, tiyanaks are formed from the souls of infants or young children that died near locales tainted with strong necromantic energies or demonic presences. The young soul blends with the corrupted energies, birthing a stunted and mocking apparition of the deceased, obsessed with devouring nearby sentient life.
Undigested: Undigested are the animate slurry of the indigestible parts of a humanoid creature. They come into being when a giant beast that swallowed its prey alive is slain by unspeakable necromantic arts. A primal shard of the beast's sentience is ripped from it during the agonizing moments of its death, animating the gelatinous humanoid remains within its stomach into an ooze-like undead creature which hungers to inflict its digestive fate upon others. If the beast was digesting multiple creatures, this phenomenon results in undigested swarms instead.
Undigested Swarm: Undigested are the animate slurry of the indigestible parts of a humanoid creature. They come into being when a giant beast that swallowed its prey alive is slain by unspeakable necromantic arts. A primal shard of the beast's sentience is ripped from it during the agonizing moments of its death, animating the gelatinous humanoid remains within its stomach into an ooze-like undead creature which hungers to inflict its digestive fate upon others. If the beast was digesting multiple creatures, this phenomenon results in undigested swarms instead.
Vukodlak: Vukodlaks spawn from the malignant spirits of powerful, intelligent, wolflike creatures such as worgs, winter wolves, or werewolves. Often they arise from such creatures that—through desperation or depravity—fed on undead flesh or drank the blood of a vampiric creature. Their blackened souls arise after death, twisting their bodies into monstrous shapes.
Wyrmwraith: Wyrmwraiths arise from the souls of powerful dragons who refuse to accept death or have an irrational fear of moving on to an afterlife.
Ghoul: A humanoid that succumbs to Leng ghoul fever becomes a normal ghoul unless in life it had 12 or more Hit Dice, in which case it rises from death as a Leng ghoul.
Skeletal Champion: Any creature that dies within 60 feet of a saxra must succeed at a DC 30 Will save or rise as a skeleton (or skeletal champion if it has an Intelligence score of 3 or more) in 1d4 rounds.
Skeleton: Any creature that dies within 60 feet of a saxra must succeed at a DC 30 Will save or rise as a skeleton (or skeletal champion if it has an Intelligence score of 3 or more) in 1d4 rounds.
Wraith Dread: Any humanoids slain by a wyrmwraith become dread wraiths in 1d4 rounds.
The creation of a bone ship can occur in many different ways. Some bone ships arise as servants of evil gods, pawns to their vile wills. Certain powerful necromantic rituals can also create bone ships. Such rituals typically require those performing them to sacrifice dozens of humanoid creatures and trap the victims' souls. Other bone ships result from ships being destroyed in horrific and catastrophic events. The souls of the sailors who died in such a disaster, unable to find peace, slowly form a bone ship on the ocean's bottom before rising to the surface to take vengeance on the living.
Caller in Darkness: A caller in darkness grows from the psychic remains of a creature with psychic sensitivity that died a violent death, its restless spirit compelled to visit upon others the horrors that it suffered before dying.
Crone Queen: Crone queens are unique and deadly creatures formed from the frozen remains of Baba Yaga's daughters.
Cursed King: Pharaohs punish disloyal subjects in horrific ways, especially usurpers, rebel leaders, and false prophets who attempt to subvert the order of the nation and the loyalty of the ruler's other followers. After torture and decapitation, the rebels' souls are bound back into their mutilated bodies, transforming them into mummified mockeries of ambition and authority that exist for eternity in unliving agony.
Death Coach: ?
Duppy: A duppy is the spirit of a cruel and brutal sailor who died by violence on land, away from his ship and crew, and thus was unable to receive a proper burial at sea.
Fext: ?
Ghoul Leng: A humanoid that succumbs to Leng ghoul fever becomes a normal ghoul unless in life it had 12 or more Hit Dice, in which case it rises from death as a Leng ghoul.
Gravebound: Gravebound are hateful creatures formed when the souls of people who were buried alive return, animating grave dirt to form new bodies.
Grim Reaper: As silent as the grave and as inevitable as time, grim reapers are more akin to forces of nature than individual beings, being nothing less than personifications of grim, violent death.
Grim Reaper Lesser Death: It is whispered among dark cabals and occult fellowships that the first soul unshackled from its mortal coil faced its final judgment with scorn and defiance. This creature was so outraged by the metaphysical order of the multiverse that it became a kind of rogue deity dedicated to the ending of all other lives. Particularly powerful creatures killed by this unforgiving deity become the servants of their slayer, spreading death wherever they wander. The least powerful of these lethal servants are called lesser deaths.
Kurobozu: Kurobozus, also called black monks, are jealous undead that arise when a monk dies under circumstances that violate the precepts of his or her monastic training.
Leechroot: Leechroots emerge from the remains of plants poisoned by the blood-drenched soils of war-torn forests. Chaotic intertwinings of rotten roots, these monstrosities quickly spread their curse, soaking other dead plants in their sap to spawn horrid offspring.
Leechroot Hivemind: Sometimes a network of leechroots can reach a state of sentience, creating a creature called a leechroot hivemind.
Mummy Lord Human Cleric 9: ?
Mummy Lord: Many cultures practice the sacred art of mummification, though the sinister magical techniques used to imbue corpses with undead vitality are far less widespread. In certain ancient lands, such blasphemous techniques have been refined through centuries of ceremony and countless deaths, giving rise to mummies of terrible power. On rare occasions, if the deceased was of great rank and exceeding malevolence, he might undergo such elaborate rituals, rising from his tomb as a fearful mummy lord. Similarly, a ruler known for his malice or who died in a moment of great rage might spontaneously arise as such a vengeful despot.
"Mummy lord" is an acquired template that can be added to any living corporeal creature (referred to hereafter as the base creature) that has at least 8 Hit Dice. The process of creating a mummy lord requires 50,000 gp worth of rare herbs, oils,and other mummification materials.
Mummy Swamp: Strangled into unlife in the filth and muck of the deep mire, swamp mummies haunt the festering depths of isolated, desolate fenlands.
Some swamp mummies are cursed by dark powers to return to unlife, while others are the victims of sacrifices or criminal executions in which the bodies were thrown into a peat bog. The nature of the death and the emotional power of the victim are both contributing factors as to whether or not the victim crawls from its swampy grave as a swamp mummy.
Nemhain: A nemhain is formed when a soul deliberately assumes undead status as a means of protecting a person, object, place, or ideal. Often, a devoted priest or ally volunteers herself and her (often unwitting) kin for transformation into a nemhain in order to continue protecting her home even beyond her death. The blasphemous rituals used to create nemhains are often believed to have been lost.
Pharaonic Guardian: Created only by the most evil and egotistical pharaohs, pharaonic guardians are elite protectors of tombs and other monuments. Much like the grand buildings they inhabit, pharaonic guardians are the product of fear and sweat wrung from slaves and other servants. To make one, a pharaoh uses rare arcane processes to draw out the souls of obedient servants, capturing both their fear of death and fear of eternal damnation should they disobey their god-rulers. The pharaoh then blends these essences together into towering, animal-headed warriors whose only purpose is guarding a royal location for eternity.
Plagued Horse:
Plagued Beast: Created only by the most evil and egotistical pharaohs, pharaonic guardians are elite protectors of tombs and other monuments. Much like the grand buildings they inhabit, pharaonic guardians are the product of fear and sweat wrung from slaves and other servants. To make one, a pharaoh uses rare arcane processes to draw out the souls of obedient servants, capturing both their fear of death and fear of eternal damnation should they disobey their god-rulers. The pharaoh then blends these essences together into towering, animal-headed warriors whose only purpose is guarding a royal location for eternity.
When animals are stricken with demon plague, they may arise as undead and further spread the disease.
"Plagued beast" is an acquired template that can be added to a living, corporeal creature with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2.
Polong: Polongs are the spirits of murderers who have been magically bound to a bottle.
Saxra: ?
Tiyanak: Born of tragedy and sorrow that have warped into hatred and fury, tiyanaks are formed from the souls of infants or young children that died near locales tainted with strong necromantic energies or demonic presences. The young soul blends with the corrupted energies, birthing a stunted and mocking apparition of the deceased, obsessed with devouring nearby sentient life.
Undigested: Undigested are the animate slurry of the indigestible parts of a humanoid creature. They come into being when a giant beast that swallowed its prey alive is slain by unspeakable necromantic arts. A primal shard of the beast's sentience is ripped from it during the agonizing moments of its death, animating the gelatinous humanoid remains within its stomach into an ooze-like undead creature which hungers to inflict its digestive fate upon others. If the beast was digesting multiple creatures, this phenomenon results in undigested swarms instead.
Undigested Swarm: Undigested are the animate slurry of the indigestible parts of a humanoid creature. They come into being when a giant beast that swallowed its prey alive is slain by unspeakable necromantic arts. A primal shard of the beast's sentience is ripped from it during the agonizing moments of its death, animating the gelatinous humanoid remains within its stomach into an ooze-like undead creature which hungers to inflict its digestive fate upon others. If the beast was digesting multiple creatures, this phenomenon results in undigested swarms instead.
Vukodlak: Vukodlaks spawn from the malignant spirits of powerful, intelligent, wolflike creatures such as worgs, winter wolves, or werewolves. Often they arise from such creatures that—through desperation or depravity—fed on undead flesh or drank the blood of a vampiric creature. Their blackened souls arise after death, twisting their bodies into monstrous shapes.
Wyrmwraith: Wyrmwraiths arise from the souls of powerful dragons who refuse to accept death or have an irrational fear of moving on to an afterlife.
Ghoul: A humanoid that succumbs to Leng ghoul fever becomes a normal ghoul unless in life it had 12 or more Hit Dice, in which case it rises from death as a Leng ghoul.
Skeletal Champion: Any creature that dies within 60 feet of a saxra must succeed at a DC 30 Will save or rise as a skeleton (or skeletal champion if it has an Intelligence score of 3 or more) in 1d4 rounds.
Skeleton: Any creature that dies within 60 feet of a saxra must succeed at a DC 30 Will save or rise as a skeleton (or skeletal champion if it has an Intelligence score of 3 or more) in 1d4 rounds.
Wraith Dread: Any humanoids slain by a wyrmwraith become dread wraiths in 1d4 rounds.
Bonus Bestiary
Allip: Those who fall prey to madness and take their own lives sometimes find themselves lost on the paths to the afterlife, trapped in a state between life and death.
Huecuva: Huecuvas are the risen corpses of heretical clerics who blasphemed and renounced their deities before meeting death.
Most huecuvas arise when a god rejects a heretic priest’s soul, forcing the slain to rise as horrible undead, but this is not the only way a huecuva can come into being. A huecuva can be created using create undead. The caster must be at least 11th level and the spell normally uses the body of an evil cleric. The spell can be used to create a huecuva using the body of a good cleric, but this requires a DC 20 caster level check. Creating a huecuva in this way is considered to be one of the most heinous things that can be done to a cleric that has passed away. The faithless aura of huecuvas created from the bodies of good clerics in this way grants a +4 profane bonus on Will saves to resist channeled energy and any effects based off that ability.
Huecuva: Huecuvas are the risen corpses of heretical clerics who blasphemed and renounced their deities before meeting death.
Most huecuvas arise when a god rejects a heretic priest’s soul, forcing the slain to rise as horrible undead, but this is not the only way a huecuva can come into being. A huecuva can be created using create undead. The caster must be at least 11th level and the spell normally uses the body of an evil cleric. The spell can be used to create a huecuva using the body of a good cleric, but this requires a DC 20 caster level check. Creating a huecuva in this way is considered to be one of the most heinous things that can be done to a cleric that has passed away. The faithless aura of huecuvas created from the bodies of good clerics in this way grants a +4 profane bonus on Will saves to resist channeled energy and any effects based off that ability.
Inner Sea Bestiary
Apostasy Wraith: When the souls of the followers of the Living God Razmir reach Pharasma’s Court, most are bound for the Inner Court, where their ultimate fate as believers of a false god is decided. These mortal souls are so traumatized by the knowledge of the falseness of their faith that they know only the desire to avenge themselves upon those who so duped them in life. These souls disavow the legitimacy of all gods, and return to the Material Plane to sow their vengeance.
Charnel Colossus: A charnel colossus is an amalgam of scores, even hundreds, of individuals who, upon death, chose to be interred under special ritual circumstances with others of like mind. This allowed them to feed their individual life experiences into an undying corporation of the collective whole.
Petrified Maiden: Petrified maidens are the remains of the army of warrior women led by the pirate queen Mastrien Slash in her failed invasion of southern Geb. The wizard king Geb himself cursed the warriors, turning them to stone and creating what is now known as the Field of Maidens. While a petrified maiden appears at first glance to be a construct, it has in fact been animated by the restless undead spirit of the warrior maiden it once was. The nature of Geb’s curse remains mysterious even today—it is simply known that occasionally the spirits of the slain inhabit their stony corpses and lurch to vengeful unlife.
Spellscarred Fext: The abominable undead known as Spellscar fexts are formed by wayward spellcasters who perish in the sprawling badlands of the Mana Wastes, their bodies and souls perverted by the unpredictable primal energies that surge throughout the Spellscar Desert.
The unnatural and corruptive transformations a fallen victim undergoes as it turns into a Spellscar fext render its body hard and especially resilient to the magical energies of most spellcasters. In a peculiar twist, the same corruptive energy that causes spells to bounce off of Spellscar fexts’ hides also strangely renders them susceptible to glass and glass-based weapons.
Vampire Vetala: Vetalas are said to be the spirits of children “born evil,” who never received burial rites upon their deaths. Sometimes one of these evil spirits takes hold of a corpse—not necessarily its own—which becomes its anchor to the mortal world.
“Vetala” is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature with 5 or more Hit Dice (referred to hereafter as the base creature).
Charnel Colossus: A charnel colossus is an amalgam of scores, even hundreds, of individuals who, upon death, chose to be interred under special ritual circumstances with others of like mind. This allowed them to feed their individual life experiences into an undying corporation of the collective whole.
Petrified Maiden: Petrified maidens are the remains of the army of warrior women led by the pirate queen Mastrien Slash in her failed invasion of southern Geb. The wizard king Geb himself cursed the warriors, turning them to stone and creating what is now known as the Field of Maidens. While a petrified maiden appears at first glance to be a construct, it has in fact been animated by the restless undead spirit of the warrior maiden it once was. The nature of Geb’s curse remains mysterious even today—it is simply known that occasionally the spirits of the slain inhabit their stony corpses and lurch to vengeful unlife.
Spellscarred Fext: The abominable undead known as Spellscar fexts are formed by wayward spellcasters who perish in the sprawling badlands of the Mana Wastes, their bodies and souls perverted by the unpredictable primal energies that surge throughout the Spellscar Desert.
The unnatural and corruptive transformations a fallen victim undergoes as it turns into a Spellscar fext render its body hard and especially resilient to the magical energies of most spellcasters. In a peculiar twist, the same corruptive energy that causes spells to bounce off of Spellscar fexts’ hides also strangely renders them susceptible to glass and glass-based weapons.
Vampire Vetala: Vetalas are said to be the spirits of children “born evil,” who never received burial rites upon their deaths. Sometimes one of these evil spirits takes hold of a corpse—not necessarily its own—which becomes its anchor to the mortal world.
“Vetala” is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature with 5 or more Hit Dice (referred to hereafter as the base creature).
Undead Revisited
Larger Bodak: A giant that falls prey to a bodak’s deadly gaze.
Smaller Bodak: Small humanoids that become bodaks.
Bodak Multiple Heads: A bodak created from a creature with multiple heads, such as an ettin, becomes deadlier because it has more eyes with which to project its horrific stare.
Desert Mohrg: A desert mohrg rises from a violent criminal who has been executed via torturous means in arid, hot environments, typically methods designed to kill through exposure and draw out the criminal’s expiration. Being affixed to a rock, tree, or other object and being buried up to the neck and left to bake in the sun are both methods that can result in the creation of desert mohrgs.
Fleshwalker Mohrg: When a criminal is executed through methods that leave no physical mark upon the body (such as by poison or a death effect), and then the corpse is preserved via a gentle repose spell, a fleshwalker mohrg is the result.
Frost Mohrg: A frost mohrg’s genesis is similar to that of a desert mohrg—a violent criminal that is executed via lingering exposure to the elements, only in this case, in a cold environment.
Mohrg-Mother: Perhaps among the most perverse category of mohrg arises when the executed murderer is also pregnant with child.
Demonic Mohrg: In a few tragic cases, a mass murderer or serial killer pursues his vile compulsions not due to psychological reasons, but because he is possessed by a demonic spirit that forces him into the role of a killer. Disembodied demonic spirits like these are fond of using mortals as hosts in this way, for if the host is captured and publicly executed while still being possessed by the demon, it can arise from beyond the grave as something more than a mere mohrg—these creatures return as demonic mohrgs
Nightshade Nightskitter: ?
Ravener Nightmare: The ritual to become a nightmare ravener requires bargaining with powerful entities from the nightmare dimension of Leng or with deities of nightmares like Lamashtu.
Ravener Thassilonian: The runelords of Thassilon, particularly the necromancer Zutha, often traded their powerful magical secrets to dragons in return for a period of servitude while the dragons lived. When this period ended, the runelord would aid the dragons in making the transition from living to undead. The methods for these rituals still exist in certain Thassilonian ruins, and are invariably guarded by the raveners who used the rituals to transcend their own mortality.
Shadow Distorted: ?
Shadow Hidden One: ?
Shadow Plague: Victims of this supernatural disease, shadow blight, quickly weaken and die, at which point they spawn new plague shadows to further spread the contagion.
Upon death, the victim of shadow blight becomes a plague shadow.
Shadow Shadetouch: ?
Shadow Vanishing: Shadows dwelling in a place of strong negative energy or with a connection to the Shadow Plane can develop the ability to shadow slip through the Shadow Plane.
Allip Scribbling: ?
Spectre Corpulent: Ancient spectres that are able to satisfy their all-consuming rage by engaging in perpetual, gluttonous feasts upon the living undergo a startling transformation, growing in size and strength as their incorporeal bulk oozes and writhes around them in miasmal folds, appearing as an obese, ghostly humanoid.
Wraith White: Created by fiends from the distilled and corrupted souls of holy crusading knights who succumbed to temptation and died as sinners and blasphemers, white wraiths are composed of blinding white light rather than darkness.
Wight Dust: Just as wights that rise from the dead in frozen environments can become infused with the dangerous qualities of their harsh environs, dust wights carry in their desiccated, crumbling frames the scorching punishment of the searing desert.
Wight Mist: ?
Wight Lord: Where typical wights rise from a wide variety of individuals, wight lords rise from the bodies of despotic rulers or ruthless generals.
A wight lord can rise from the remains of any cruel or sadistic leader, but those who were higher than 11th level when they perished retain some of their previous life’s knowledge—although not all of it. When this occurs, subtract 11 from the creature’s previous number of class levels to determine the total number of class levels the wight lord possesses.
Undead: Those tragic souls transformed by evil from beyond the mortal world or cursed by their actions in life to rise again after death.
The spells animate dead, create undead, and create greater undead account for methods by which spellcasters can create a wide range of undead creatures—but the options granted by these spells are limited. With the GM’s permission, these can be adjusted to allow for the creation of additional types of undead. Doing so requires additional material components and spells (additional spells are cast as part of the casting time of the undead creation spell, but do not extend that spell’s casting time).
Bodak: Unfortunate creatures who witness acts of unspeakable planar evil and have their bodies destroyed and remade by the experience.
When mortals venture to the utmost depths of unforgiving planes, they sometimes come across knowledge so terrible or witness events so horrifying that their very souls are consumed, killing them and then reanimating them as the weird, smoke-eyed creations called bodaks.
Yet for some, bearing witness to true horror and supernatural evil does more than twist their minds—it ravages their souls to such a degree that they are themselves transformed. Requiring evil far beyond that normally found among mortals, this rare transformation occurs when unprepared mortals venture deep into those extraplanar spaces where humanity was not meant to tread—the deepest hiding holes of the evil planes. In these repositories of unholy knowledge, things are seen that cannot be unseen, and which indelibly stain the souls of the foolish. The creatures that emerge from these places are mortal no longer.
If a victim lacks the will to break a bodak's gaze, he is quickly overwhelmed by its power and dies shortly thereafter—the transformation into another bodak begins immediately.
Scholars and theologians have long debated the exact nature of these strange undead, positing that it’s the very act that creates a bodak—witnessing some evil and hideous occurrence beyond all mortal capacity for understanding—that gives unholy life and purpose to these creatures. In some sense, the bodak is the very manifestation of such an act, a curse upon the living, its life force scarred to such a degree that only causing others to gaze into its eyes and share its agony gives it some sort of relief. Most researchers believe that mundane evil is not enough, arguing that only traumatic deaths in the darkest pits of the planes are pure enough to form a bodak, with the creature’s animating energy being drawn from the evil Outer Planes where it met its fate. Yet others insist that it’s not the place that causes the transformation, but rather the purity of the evil and horror involved, thus making it possible for an ordinary human (or, more likely, a summoned demon) to spark the transformation, provided the horrors it shows to the victim are heinous enough.
Thanks to its Abyssal taint, the Worldwound hosts the largest population of bodaks in the Inner Sea region. Moreover, the Abyssal nature of the land itself makes it one of the few places—perhaps the only place—on Golarion where bodaks can form spontaneously in the same way they do on the Abyss, as the result of witnessing horrible extraplanar evil and depredations beyond mortal ken.
The diabolists favored by the aristocracy of Cheliax require large numbers of unwitting victims to perform their rites. While most of their dungeons and torture rooms are mundane, filled with wretched prisoners who bear witness to unspeakable things on a nearly daily basis, some of these spellcasters prefer to take victims to Hell itself, making their offerings to the plane in person. Few of these victims (and not all of the diabolists) survive these offerings, but a tiny fraction end up exposed to greater horrors than initially expected, with either the master or prisoner undergoing the transformation into a bodak.
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 20 corpse must be cast in the Abyss.
Devourer: Only the bravest and most powerful adventurers dare step beyond the boundaries of the known planes, into whatever darkness lies beyond. Most who do so never return—yet some, especially the evil ones, come back changed and twisted.
Information about this otherness is almost completely unavailable, with even the gods seemingly deaf to most questions, yet there are always a few who to decide to see for themselves. When powerful fiends and evil spellcasters undertake this quest, some come back and report nothing but vast expanses of ... well, nothing. Others don’t return at all. Yet some—the foulest ones, or those who become lost beyond the multiverse’s reaches—find something out there that changes them.
Though devourers never discuss just who or what they’re talking to, many suspect their madness rises from a lingering connection to whatever sinister, alien entity or force made them what they are, and the devourers themselves sometimes let apparent titles slip, with appellations like the Dire Shepherd or the Wanderer Upon the Stair.
Devourers’ origins are shrouded in mystery. While spellcasters may create them through the usage of create greater undead spells, exactly what occurs during these rituals is unclear, and it’s possible that devourers are more called into being than physically created—certainly it’s more than just a simple matter of animating a corpse.
Unlike many other forms of undead, devourers do not form spontaneously, nor do they breed or spawn. Rather, they begin as either one of two creatures: a terribly evil mortal spellcaster or an actual fiend. Those of either category who find themselves lost in the hinterlands of the cosmos sometimes return as devourers.
They do not find their rebirth, their unholy transfiguration, in a specific place or plane. Rather, far beyond the knowledge and sight of mortals or outsiders, they experience some sort of transformative gnosis, realizing some infectious idea that simultaneously destroys and recreates them with a new form and a new hunger. Whether or not there might be something out there that actively calls to them, compulsively drawing them to its presence and making them into what they are, is anyone’s guess, yet it would explain why only evil outsiders and spellcasters seem to be susceptible, and also potentially why the strange mannerisms of the devourers who return to the planes seem more than simple madness.
Those devourers created (or potentially called from elsewhere) by magic share all the traits and madness of their transformed kin, a fact that has confused spellcasters for generations. Some scholars have pointed out that specific details of these magical rituals have certain traits in common across all schools of magic and faith, leading some to believe that the ability to create devourers may have been introduced long ago as a single spell, perhaps provided by whatever malign forces lurk beyond the planes.
Graveknight: Battlefield champions of ultimate cruelty whose depraved acts bind them to their armor for all eternity.
Some warriors are too arrogant to die.
The lust for battle and sheer will to win allow some truly evil and vile warriors to shrug off their final defeat. Through methods that remain poorly understood, the vengeful spirit of such a fearsome combatant sometimes forms a bond with its armor that permits it to simply refuse death, its spirit lingering long past when it should have gone on to its eternal punishment in the afterlife.
Unlike liches, graveknights almost never plan this return from their last battle. It happens, seemingly spontaneously and at random, to people totally unprepared for an undead existence.
Graveknights are born of defeat, and it is their rage at such an end that allows them to return, attempting to erase their failure through greater triumphs and atrocities.
While most graveknights arise spontaneously from the armor of sadistic warlords and fallen champions, there are methods by which evil men and women can deliberately transform themselves into these powerful undead lords, in much the same way some spellcasters seek to become liches. The process by which a hopeful graveknight makes the deliberate transformation is neither simple nor cheap. The character must first live and lead a life of wanton cruelty, winning great glory and power over the course of several violent conflicts (and achieving a minimum of 9th level in any character class, with an evil alignment for all 9 levels). When he achieves this goal, he may craft the suit of armor that will serve him in his
afterlife as his graveknight armor—this must be heavy armor, although its exact type is irrelevant. The creator must also be proficient in the armor’s use. The armor itself must be of exceptional quality and crafting, requiring the finest of materials and artisans. Even the forge upon which the armor is to be crafted must be of exceptional quality. The overall cost of these components is 25,000 gp—this amount is over and above any additional costs incurred in making the armor magical. An existing suit of armor (including magic armor) can serve as the base suit upon which these 25,000 gp of enhancements are built.
Once the armor is complete, the hopeful graveknight must don the armor and then seek out a powerful evil patron to sponsor his cruelties—this patron can be a mortal tyrant, a hateful monster, a demonic god, or similar power. Once the graveknight-to-be secures a patron, he must engage upon a crusade in that patron’s name. This crusade must last long enough for the graveknight to achieve two additional levels of experience, during which he must wear his armor whenever possible.
Upon completing this final stage of his quest for undeath (and a minimum character level of 11th), the sadist has finally neared the end of his long path to eternal undeath. The last stage in becoming a graveknight is to construct a pool, pit, or other large concavity, into which the graveknight must place 13 helpless, good-aligned creatures of his own race, who must be sacrificed by the graveknight or his patron using acid, cold, electricity, or fire. The graveknight must wear his armor during these sacrifices, and within a minute of the last sacrifice, the graveknight must take his own life using the same form of energy, after which his body and armor must be destroyed by that form of energy. The pit within which the entire ritual took place must then be filled with soil taken from graves that have spawned undead creatures.
Once this final step is taken, the graveknight-to-be has a 75% chance of rising as a graveknight. This chance rises by 1% per point of Charisma possessed by the graveknight-to-be at the time of his death. Additional factors can increase this chance as well, at the GM’s discretion.
Whenever sufficiently evil warriors or similar sorts of beings die at the hands of a foe, there is a chance that they might return as graveknights.
Heavily armored warriors are most likely to arise as graveknights, perhaps because the complete shell of metal or other materials assists in trapping the soul.
Urgathoa claims graveknights as her children just as she does all undead. Her priests and other high servants maintain that she is the mysterious agency that actually calls them back from the grave, while the goddess herself gives more confusing and potentially contradictory answers.
Lich: Powerful spellcasters who bind their souls into valuable artifacts called phylacteries.
Liches are spellcasters who bind their souls into special receptacles called phylacteries.
Drawing on the powers of their faith or dark knowledge, the greatest spellcasters of the world transcend the boundaries of life through mysterious techniques unknown to the living.
One does not become a lich by accident or stumble into this form of undeath through misadventure. A lich is not a puppet, a blood-mad monster, or an accident of rage or despair. The lich is instead a creature of design and ultimate will, carefully and rationally planning its transition from life into undead immortality.
It is not merely force of will that propels one to lichdom, nor is it the simple desire to avoid death, though these are certainly factors in the mindset of the would-be lich. Instead, those who would follow the path of the undying mind must seek out tomes of forbidden magic and lost lore. Though the initiates might not be evil when they begin, the process under which they become liches drives them slowly into the arms of corruption—the focus they must develop drives out all other concerns, including the civilized needs of friendship and love.
The final and most important aspect of a lich’s transformation involves creating a new home for its soul called a phylactery—this is often something strong and impressive, such as a gem or box of unparalleled quality, though almost any object can serve.
Mohrg: The spirits of serial killers and those who exult in the taking of life.
Those who exult in the needless taking of life sometimes return to the world after death as mohrgs.
Some mohrgs were bloodthirsty warriors who slew as many as they could on the battlefield, others cold and calculating murders who selected their victims with delicate care, but nearly all mohrgs lived and died as mortal humanoids who delighted in the deaths of their fellow beings. A few mohrgs, however, are created from the remains of innocents by spellcasters (using the create undead spell), who are driven mad by being deprived of a peaceful death and then watching the transformation and slow decay of their own bodies.
There are two means of becoming a mohrg: by spell or by deed. A dead creature subject to a create undead spell might find herself transformed into a mohrg. Likewise, a humanoid who has killed many over the course of his life—or even just a few, if he is particularly unrepentant about the lives he’s taken—could awaken to discover that he has not yet passed to the afterlife, but arisen to undeath.
A mohrg is as much a product of the method of its execution as it is an undead manifestation of one who, in life, was a murderous criminal or warmonger. At times, unusual methods of execution can trigger equally unusual mohrgs. The extreme nature of these executions are such that these variant mohrgs are only rarely created by accident—more often, they are deliberate creations by officials who themselves dabble in necromancy and may in fact be as vile as those they put to death.
Once per day, a mohrg-mother can choose to animate a recently slain victim as another mohrg instead of as a fast zombie.
Sages’ opinions differ on the origins of mohrgs, and on the specific conditions that result in the existence of individual specimens of their undead type. One prevailing theory among those who study the unliving maintains that Urgathoa selects a number of the darkest souls awaiting sorting and judgment by Pharasma and takes them as her due, corrupting them with a touch and returning them to the world to spread the seed of undeath in an inexorable plague over the Material Plane. While some claim that the souls that become mohrgs are so abhorrent that the Lady of Graves actually rejects them, wiser heads understand that such is not the nature of Pharasma’s judgment, and suspect that it’s either the work of the Pallid Princess or some terrible process that occurs before the souls ever leave their corpses (as is the case with many other forms of undead).
All mohrgs have been cursed into their condition—either by the gods or by a spellcaster.
Nightshade: Colossi formed in the lightless spaces where the Shadow Plane and Negative Energy Plane meet.
Where the Shadow Plane meets the Negative Energy Plane, evil and darkness hold sway in vast and lightless gulfs. When a fiend succumbs to the ravages of this environment, the ensuing death can be the catalyst for creating one of the most powerful undead.
Nightshades are creatures beyond categorization, things made from darkness and malice, yet not truly natives of either the Shadow Plane or the Void. Born of a corruption of both planes in the lightless reaches where the planar boundaries break down, they are twisted and warped by evil.
They form from the twisted souls of those fiends and outsiders who, seeking greater mastery over negative energy and the dreaming gulfs of darkness where the Shadow Plane and Negative Energy Plane meet, are themselves overcome and twisted beyond recognition, turned into servants of the planes’ own nihilistic ends.
Nightshades are born when one or more outsiders—typically fiends—are lost or cast down into the adumbral depths where the Shadow Plane and Negative Energy Plane become a void like the darkest ocean trench, one of the places where reality ends. The death of the immortal becomes a catalyst for a reaction in which the planes seem not to twist the original creature so much as birth a new entity in its place.
The creation of something as powerful and dire as a nightshade requires the spirit of an immortal being.
Although four primary types of nightshades are known to exist, some sages speculate that they might all be the same species of creature in different life stages. Other scholars instead hold that they are distinct subtypes of the same creature, formed in the same manner but differing according to the specific component fiends from which they were created. According to this theory, the older and more powerful the fiend or fiends were—their exact species or alignment does not appear to matter—the more powerful the form of nightshade produced, though the combined deaths of multiple fiends produce a nightshade of a type otherwise reserved for the death of a much more powerful one on its own. Even the proponents of this theory, however, have no idea of the exact formulae involved, and the few casters capable of controlling a nightshade are generally more concerned with maintaining their tenuous hold over the undead juggernauts than with such unpragmatic musings.
Ravener: The circumstances that give rise to a ravener are as unique as their appearances. Some barter their very sanity to the madness beyond the Dark Tapestry, others forge bargains with demon lords or the Horsemen of Abaddon, and still others beseech malevolent gods. (Strangely, even lawful dragons make pacts with the lords of Hell only rarely—perhaps raveners find the strings attached to diabolical contracts too convoluted and numerous for comfort.) Yet not all raveners seek aid from more powerful creatures—in fact, doing so often conf licts with the same arrogance that leads dragons to become raveners in the first place. This second group instead finds immortality in much the same way liches do, researching rare and forbidden necromantic spells to create rituals of transformation unique to each dragon.
While some raveners achieve their status through arcane study and necromantic power, others are born of a combination of blasphemous rituals and the malign influence of dark powers. Raveners of this latter group must each seek out an evil patron to feed his or her necromantic rebirth. Each patron requires sacrifices and tribute pleasing to its debased desires. The aspiring ravener must first further the patron’s schemes upon her home world and perhaps others. The dragon might be sent against the patron’s foes, tasked with obtaining lost relics, or made a general among the patron’s mortal followers. In addition, the dragon must show the depth of her resolve. For some dragons, this means slaying their parents, mates, or children; the sacrifice of their most prized treasures; the annihilation of their life’s work; or some other show of commitment. Finally, the ravener must amass sufficient eldritch power to shatter natural laws or the barriers between planes and become the conduit for her patron’s might. Should the dragon falter in her tasks or prove an unworthy vessel for the power of her patron, what remains of her shattered soul languishes in servitude to her patron until the end of days.
Raveners are self-made undead, not created or generated spontaneously in the fashion of weaker undead.
The process by which a dragon becomes a ravener typically involves recruiting dark powers and undertaking necromantic rituals. Some of these rituals incorporate unusual stages that can alter the resulting ravener’s powers.
Shadow: Greedy spirits whose own mean-spirited miserliness shrinks their souls, bringing them back after death as some of the most despicable undead monstrosities.
Not even the grave can stop the greed of some people. Driven by envy and covetousness, those misers and thieves led to evil by their avaricious natures sometimes fade away or return after death as shadows, dark reflections of their former selves.
Rampant covetousness and grasping greed lead some people down the dark path of evil and betrayal, eventually ending in a reprehensible death scene or a lonely expiration. While most such petty and despicable souls travel on to their final rewards the same way everyone else does, in some cases gluttons, misers, and thieves waste away into nothing but shadows—undead things that reach and grab, but cannot hold.
As the victim of a shadow’s touch expires, its own shadow detaches from the corpse, taking on the same half-life as its killer.
On their own, shadows arise from the souls of greedy but lackluster evildoers—those whose crimes are heinous, but who lack the rage of a spectre or the exultation in evil often found in wraiths. The bandit who unemotionally slits her victims’ throats because it’s convenient, the petty diplomat who orders a witch burning to cover up his adulterous affair, and the miserly headmaster who lets orphans starve to save a few coppers all make good candidates for becoming shadows. Yet while such spontaneous transformations do occur, the vast majority of shadows are instead created by magic. Necromancers have long seen the value of relatively weak, pliable, and unambitious undead servants—especially incorporeal ones—and most shadows currently in existence were originally called to undeath by the spell create undead (or else by the life-draining attacks of other shadows created in this manner).
Death at the hands of a shadow means becoming one.
Also fortunate for the living is that although shadows can and sometimes do drain energy from animals or even vermin found in their lairs, only humanoid creatures that fall victim to their touch become shadows themselves. This is because of the nature of the humanoid spirit or soul and the magical similarity between the shadow and its prey.
Shadow Greater: A shadow that has fed on the lives of many victims, or that dwells long enough in a place suffused with sufficient negative energies, may grow in power, becoming a greater shadow.
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 19 with Shadow Walk spell.
Spectral Dead: Driven by all-encompassing hunger and murderous intent, spectral dead are corrupted souls that refuse to release their hold on the mortal world.
No one knows what plants the seeds of darkness and decay that utterly corrupt the souls of mortals. Some speculate that the prenatal soul, like fruit left too long to ripen on the vine, can sour to malignancy long before its binding to a mortal shell, dooming the creature from birth to a troubled life of anger and deceit and, eventually, to undeath. Others theorize that mortal action alone allows this malignancy to take root, and lives spent unwisely in the service of dark powers corrupt the intangible sparks of divinity that rest in mortal hearts. Still others note that despair and madness—afflictions capable of bringing even the most pious and good-natured people to their knees, through no fault of their own—can lead to the unnatural shackling of a spirit to the mortal world.
Once this metaphorical disease has festered within a soul, it becomes contagious, and some undead are able to pass their despicable gift on to the living, regardless of their victim’s former valor. While the positive energy of mortal humanoids can fight off the curse of undeath while they are still living, those slain by these powerful spirits sometimes have their souls instantaneously consumed by darkness, their corrupted spirits sloughing off their mortal shells to rise as the ghostly spawn of their slayers.
Allip: Allips are the undead souls of those who took their own lives out of madness and insanity.
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 15 with Insanity spell.
Banshee: Whether created through vile misdeeds in her last moments, a terrible and torturous demise, or some wretched betrayal by her loved ones, a banshee is the vengeful undead spirit of an elven female that seeks only to destroy all those who still tread the mortal realm.
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 20 with Fear and Wail of the Banshee spells and the corpse of a female elf.
Spectre: Spectres are creatures of insatiable anger, their undeath the result of evil lives and a rage too great to allow them to let go of the mortal world. Arrogant egomaniacs enraged by the insult of their own deaths and murder victims seeking revenge on their captors are prime candidates for transformation into spectres, though such transformations is far more common if the mortals were actively evil.
Wraith: Wraiths, much like spectres, arise from souls tainted by evil lives.
Creatures slain by white wraiths rise as normal wraith spawn in 1d4 rounds.
Wight: Broken corpses hungry for the souls of the living, doomed to their lonely existences through a wide variety of tragedies, malevolence, or unwilling possession.
The origins of wights are highly varied. Some are created through obscure necromantic rites (usually create undead) and bound to the service of necromancers or evil priests. More commonly, wights are simply the unfortunate victims of other wights, the light of their lives turned to a corrupted mockery by the undead’s touch.
Every touch of a wight draws the target farther from life and deeper into death, until the last of its life force ebbs and the target is transformed in an instant into a dreadful thing of suffering and hate, leavened with a tormented enslavement to the will of its creator.
More tragically, wights can also arise spontaneously.
Scholars of the undead use the term “wights of anguish” to describe those whose birth into unlife occurred following a horrible trauma, often both mental and physical, that leaves their bodies broken, their psyches shattered, and their spirits consumed with hate and revenge. The depth of their suffering and the lingering shock are so intense that these unfortunates become enthralled to their own pain, clinging to it with every fiber of their being, crucifying themselves across the threshold of death’s door, unable to truly live but unwilling to truly die.
More sinister are “wights of malevolence,” those who through the depravity of their own benighted souls have earned an eternity of roaming the world, cursed with an eternal hunger that can never be slaked and a ragged weariness unable to ever find rest. Popular legend says those sentenced to such an existence are the truly damned, so vile that Hell itself spat them up rather than take them to its bosom.
But perhaps most frightening are those known as “wights of possession.” These are wights created when an evil undead spirit bonds with a corpse in order to animate it, often choosing its host based on convenience or strength of body. Though the original spirits of these bodies may have long since fled to their just rewards, few things are more horrible for their grieving friends than to see their loved ones’ corpses suddenly come to life and begin slaughtering the mourners.
Wherever humanoids die in utter anguish or are entombed in infamy (or even buried alive as punishment), wights may arise, and once they establish a foothold, they begin to spawn and proliferate.
Wights of malevolence sometimes arise from the unquiet remains of the exceptionally evil. Warlords of unspeakable cruelty may be sealed within barrows in the hope that, should their evil linger and stir even in death, they will be trapped and contained.
Old legends suggest that the treasures of a wight of malevolence are themselves tainted with the wight’s foulness, causing a darkening of spirit and a growing psychosis, leading to murderous paranoia that consumes the victims, and causes them to become wights themselves. Depending on the legend, this fate can be averted by freely giving the wight’s treasures away to others; having them blessed by one of the fey (at whatever price the fey demands); or scattering them in the sunlight for 3 days, allowing anyone to take a portion, and then collecting whatever fate has decreed will remain. Only by breaking the cycle of greed can the wight’s treasure be safely recovered.
A wight’s treasure can become infused with its dark spirit, creating a gnawing, obsessive greed that saps the spirit and life of any creature that claims it. A character that possesses accursed wight treasure gains a number of negative levels equal to the total gp value of the stolen treasure divided by 10,000 (minimum of one negative level). These negative levels remain as long as the creature retains ownership of the treasure (even if this treasure is not carried)—they disappear as soon as the stolen treasure is destroyed, stolen, freely given away, or returned to the wight’s lair. If the treasure is merely sold, the negative levels become permanent negative levels that can then be removed via means like restoration.
A creature whose negative levels equal its Hit Dice perishes and rises as a wight. If the wight whose treasure it stole still exists, it becomes a wight spawn bound to that wight. If not, it becomes a free-willed wight. Removing these negative levels does not end the curse, but remove curse or break enchantment does, with a caster level check against a DC equal to the wight’s energy drain save DC. A wight’s treasure does not confer negative levels while in the area of a hallow spell.
Any humanoid creature that is slain by a wight lord becomes a wight itself in only 1d4 rounds.
Create Undead spell, caster level 14 with Enervation spell.
Attic Whisperer: Create Undead spell, caster level 13 with Crushing Depair and Fear spells and corpse of a child.
Crawling Hand: Create Undead spell, caster level 11 severed hand of a medium or smaller humanoid.
Crawling Hand Giant: Create Undead spell, caster level 14 with Enlarge Person spell and severed hand of a large or larger humanoid.
Crypt Thing: Create Undead spell, caster level 16 with Teleport spell
Draugr: Create Undead spell, caster level 12.
Dullahan: Create Undead spell, caster level 17 with decapitated humanoid corpse.
Huecuva: Create Undead spell, caster level 11 with corpse of a cleric.
Zombie Juju: Create Undead spell, caster level 11 with Enervation or Energy Drain spell.
Skeletal Champion: Create Undead spell, caster level 11 with Enervation or Energy Drain spell.
Totenmaske: Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 18 caster must be a cleric.
Witchfire: Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 19 with corpse of a hag.
Skeleton Burning: Spawn created by a desert mohrg rise as burning skeletons rather than fast zombies.
Smaller Bodak: Small humanoids that become bodaks.
Bodak Multiple Heads: A bodak created from a creature with multiple heads, such as an ettin, becomes deadlier because it has more eyes with which to project its horrific stare.
Desert Mohrg: A desert mohrg rises from a violent criminal who has been executed via torturous means in arid, hot environments, typically methods designed to kill through exposure and draw out the criminal’s expiration. Being affixed to a rock, tree, or other object and being buried up to the neck and left to bake in the sun are both methods that can result in the creation of desert mohrgs.
Fleshwalker Mohrg: When a criminal is executed through methods that leave no physical mark upon the body (such as by poison or a death effect), and then the corpse is preserved via a gentle repose spell, a fleshwalker mohrg is the result.
Frost Mohrg: A frost mohrg’s genesis is similar to that of a desert mohrg—a violent criminal that is executed via lingering exposure to the elements, only in this case, in a cold environment.
Mohrg-Mother: Perhaps among the most perverse category of mohrg arises when the executed murderer is also pregnant with child.
Demonic Mohrg: In a few tragic cases, a mass murderer or serial killer pursues his vile compulsions not due to psychological reasons, but because he is possessed by a demonic spirit that forces him into the role of a killer. Disembodied demonic spirits like these are fond of using mortals as hosts in this way, for if the host is captured and publicly executed while still being possessed by the demon, it can arise from beyond the grave as something more than a mere mohrg—these creatures return as demonic mohrgs
Nightshade Nightskitter: ?
Ravener Nightmare: The ritual to become a nightmare ravener requires bargaining with powerful entities from the nightmare dimension of Leng or with deities of nightmares like Lamashtu.
Ravener Thassilonian: The runelords of Thassilon, particularly the necromancer Zutha, often traded their powerful magical secrets to dragons in return for a period of servitude while the dragons lived. When this period ended, the runelord would aid the dragons in making the transition from living to undead. The methods for these rituals still exist in certain Thassilonian ruins, and are invariably guarded by the raveners who used the rituals to transcend their own mortality.
Shadow Distorted: ?
Shadow Hidden One: ?
Shadow Plague: Victims of this supernatural disease, shadow blight, quickly weaken and die, at which point they spawn new plague shadows to further spread the contagion.
Upon death, the victim of shadow blight becomes a plague shadow.
Shadow Shadetouch: ?
Shadow Vanishing: Shadows dwelling in a place of strong negative energy or with a connection to the Shadow Plane can develop the ability to shadow slip through the Shadow Plane.
Allip Scribbling: ?
Spectre Corpulent: Ancient spectres that are able to satisfy their all-consuming rage by engaging in perpetual, gluttonous feasts upon the living undergo a startling transformation, growing in size and strength as their incorporeal bulk oozes and writhes around them in miasmal folds, appearing as an obese, ghostly humanoid.
Wraith White: Created by fiends from the distilled and corrupted souls of holy crusading knights who succumbed to temptation and died as sinners and blasphemers, white wraiths are composed of blinding white light rather than darkness.
Wight Dust: Just as wights that rise from the dead in frozen environments can become infused with the dangerous qualities of their harsh environs, dust wights carry in their desiccated, crumbling frames the scorching punishment of the searing desert.
Wight Mist: ?
Wight Lord: Where typical wights rise from a wide variety of individuals, wight lords rise from the bodies of despotic rulers or ruthless generals.
A wight lord can rise from the remains of any cruel or sadistic leader, but those who were higher than 11th level when they perished retain some of their previous life’s knowledge—although not all of it. When this occurs, subtract 11 from the creature’s previous number of class levels to determine the total number of class levels the wight lord possesses.
Undead: Those tragic souls transformed by evil from beyond the mortal world or cursed by their actions in life to rise again after death.
The spells animate dead, create undead, and create greater undead account for methods by which spellcasters can create a wide range of undead creatures—but the options granted by these spells are limited. With the GM’s permission, these can be adjusted to allow for the creation of additional types of undead. Doing so requires additional material components and spells (additional spells are cast as part of the casting time of the undead creation spell, but do not extend that spell’s casting time).
Bodak: Unfortunate creatures who witness acts of unspeakable planar evil and have their bodies destroyed and remade by the experience.
When mortals venture to the utmost depths of unforgiving planes, they sometimes come across knowledge so terrible or witness events so horrifying that their very souls are consumed, killing them and then reanimating them as the weird, smoke-eyed creations called bodaks.
Yet for some, bearing witness to true horror and supernatural evil does more than twist their minds—it ravages their souls to such a degree that they are themselves transformed. Requiring evil far beyond that normally found among mortals, this rare transformation occurs when unprepared mortals venture deep into those extraplanar spaces where humanity was not meant to tread—the deepest hiding holes of the evil planes. In these repositories of unholy knowledge, things are seen that cannot be unseen, and which indelibly stain the souls of the foolish. The creatures that emerge from these places are mortal no longer.
If a victim lacks the will to break a bodak's gaze, he is quickly overwhelmed by its power and dies shortly thereafter—the transformation into another bodak begins immediately.
Scholars and theologians have long debated the exact nature of these strange undead, positing that it’s the very act that creates a bodak—witnessing some evil and hideous occurrence beyond all mortal capacity for understanding—that gives unholy life and purpose to these creatures. In some sense, the bodak is the very manifestation of such an act, a curse upon the living, its life force scarred to such a degree that only causing others to gaze into its eyes and share its agony gives it some sort of relief. Most researchers believe that mundane evil is not enough, arguing that only traumatic deaths in the darkest pits of the planes are pure enough to form a bodak, with the creature’s animating energy being drawn from the evil Outer Planes where it met its fate. Yet others insist that it’s not the place that causes the transformation, but rather the purity of the evil and horror involved, thus making it possible for an ordinary human (or, more likely, a summoned demon) to spark the transformation, provided the horrors it shows to the victim are heinous enough.
Thanks to its Abyssal taint, the Worldwound hosts the largest population of bodaks in the Inner Sea region. Moreover, the Abyssal nature of the land itself makes it one of the few places—perhaps the only place—on Golarion where bodaks can form spontaneously in the same way they do on the Abyss, as the result of witnessing horrible extraplanar evil and depredations beyond mortal ken.
The diabolists favored by the aristocracy of Cheliax require large numbers of unwitting victims to perform their rites. While most of their dungeons and torture rooms are mundane, filled with wretched prisoners who bear witness to unspeakable things on a nearly daily basis, some of these spellcasters prefer to take victims to Hell itself, making their offerings to the plane in person. Few of these victims (and not all of the diabolists) survive these offerings, but a tiny fraction end up exposed to greater horrors than initially expected, with either the master or prisoner undergoing the transformation into a bodak.
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 20 corpse must be cast in the Abyss.
Devourer: Only the bravest and most powerful adventurers dare step beyond the boundaries of the known planes, into whatever darkness lies beyond. Most who do so never return—yet some, especially the evil ones, come back changed and twisted.
Information about this otherness is almost completely unavailable, with even the gods seemingly deaf to most questions, yet there are always a few who to decide to see for themselves. When powerful fiends and evil spellcasters undertake this quest, some come back and report nothing but vast expanses of ... well, nothing. Others don’t return at all. Yet some—the foulest ones, or those who become lost beyond the multiverse’s reaches—find something out there that changes them.
Though devourers never discuss just who or what they’re talking to, many suspect their madness rises from a lingering connection to whatever sinister, alien entity or force made them what they are, and the devourers themselves sometimes let apparent titles slip, with appellations like the Dire Shepherd or the Wanderer Upon the Stair.
Devourers’ origins are shrouded in mystery. While spellcasters may create them through the usage of create greater undead spells, exactly what occurs during these rituals is unclear, and it’s possible that devourers are more called into being than physically created—certainly it’s more than just a simple matter of animating a corpse.
Unlike many other forms of undead, devourers do not form spontaneously, nor do they breed or spawn. Rather, they begin as either one of two creatures: a terribly evil mortal spellcaster or an actual fiend. Those of either category who find themselves lost in the hinterlands of the cosmos sometimes return as devourers.
They do not find their rebirth, their unholy transfiguration, in a specific place or plane. Rather, far beyond the knowledge and sight of mortals or outsiders, they experience some sort of transformative gnosis, realizing some infectious idea that simultaneously destroys and recreates them with a new form and a new hunger. Whether or not there might be something out there that actively calls to them, compulsively drawing them to its presence and making them into what they are, is anyone’s guess, yet it would explain why only evil outsiders and spellcasters seem to be susceptible, and also potentially why the strange mannerisms of the devourers who return to the planes seem more than simple madness.
Those devourers created (or potentially called from elsewhere) by magic share all the traits and madness of their transformed kin, a fact that has confused spellcasters for generations. Some scholars have pointed out that specific details of these magical rituals have certain traits in common across all schools of magic and faith, leading some to believe that the ability to create devourers may have been introduced long ago as a single spell, perhaps provided by whatever malign forces lurk beyond the planes.
Graveknight: Battlefield champions of ultimate cruelty whose depraved acts bind them to their armor for all eternity.
Some warriors are too arrogant to die.
The lust for battle and sheer will to win allow some truly evil and vile warriors to shrug off their final defeat. Through methods that remain poorly understood, the vengeful spirit of such a fearsome combatant sometimes forms a bond with its armor that permits it to simply refuse death, its spirit lingering long past when it should have gone on to its eternal punishment in the afterlife.
Unlike liches, graveknights almost never plan this return from their last battle. It happens, seemingly spontaneously and at random, to people totally unprepared for an undead existence.
Graveknights are born of defeat, and it is their rage at such an end that allows them to return, attempting to erase their failure through greater triumphs and atrocities.
While most graveknights arise spontaneously from the armor of sadistic warlords and fallen champions, there are methods by which evil men and women can deliberately transform themselves into these powerful undead lords, in much the same way some spellcasters seek to become liches. The process by which a hopeful graveknight makes the deliberate transformation is neither simple nor cheap. The character must first live and lead a life of wanton cruelty, winning great glory and power over the course of several violent conflicts (and achieving a minimum of 9th level in any character class, with an evil alignment for all 9 levels). When he achieves this goal, he may craft the suit of armor that will serve him in his
afterlife as his graveknight armor—this must be heavy armor, although its exact type is irrelevant. The creator must also be proficient in the armor’s use. The armor itself must be of exceptional quality and crafting, requiring the finest of materials and artisans. Even the forge upon which the armor is to be crafted must be of exceptional quality. The overall cost of these components is 25,000 gp—this amount is over and above any additional costs incurred in making the armor magical. An existing suit of armor (including magic armor) can serve as the base suit upon which these 25,000 gp of enhancements are built.
Once the armor is complete, the hopeful graveknight must don the armor and then seek out a powerful evil patron to sponsor his cruelties—this patron can be a mortal tyrant, a hateful monster, a demonic god, or similar power. Once the graveknight-to-be secures a patron, he must engage upon a crusade in that patron’s name. This crusade must last long enough for the graveknight to achieve two additional levels of experience, during which he must wear his armor whenever possible.
Upon completing this final stage of his quest for undeath (and a minimum character level of 11th), the sadist has finally neared the end of his long path to eternal undeath. The last stage in becoming a graveknight is to construct a pool, pit, or other large concavity, into which the graveknight must place 13 helpless, good-aligned creatures of his own race, who must be sacrificed by the graveknight or his patron using acid, cold, electricity, or fire. The graveknight must wear his armor during these sacrifices, and within a minute of the last sacrifice, the graveknight must take his own life using the same form of energy, after which his body and armor must be destroyed by that form of energy. The pit within which the entire ritual took place must then be filled with soil taken from graves that have spawned undead creatures.
Once this final step is taken, the graveknight-to-be has a 75% chance of rising as a graveknight. This chance rises by 1% per point of Charisma possessed by the graveknight-to-be at the time of his death. Additional factors can increase this chance as well, at the GM’s discretion.
Whenever sufficiently evil warriors or similar sorts of beings die at the hands of a foe, there is a chance that they might return as graveknights.
Heavily armored warriors are most likely to arise as graveknights, perhaps because the complete shell of metal or other materials assists in trapping the soul.
Urgathoa claims graveknights as her children just as she does all undead. Her priests and other high servants maintain that she is the mysterious agency that actually calls them back from the grave, while the goddess herself gives more confusing and potentially contradictory answers.
Lich: Powerful spellcasters who bind their souls into valuable artifacts called phylacteries.
Liches are spellcasters who bind their souls into special receptacles called phylacteries.
Drawing on the powers of their faith or dark knowledge, the greatest spellcasters of the world transcend the boundaries of life through mysterious techniques unknown to the living.
One does not become a lich by accident or stumble into this form of undeath through misadventure. A lich is not a puppet, a blood-mad monster, or an accident of rage or despair. The lich is instead a creature of design and ultimate will, carefully and rationally planning its transition from life into undead immortality.
It is not merely force of will that propels one to lichdom, nor is it the simple desire to avoid death, though these are certainly factors in the mindset of the would-be lich. Instead, those who would follow the path of the undying mind must seek out tomes of forbidden magic and lost lore. Though the initiates might not be evil when they begin, the process under which they become liches drives them slowly into the arms of corruption—the focus they must develop drives out all other concerns, including the civilized needs of friendship and love.
The final and most important aspect of a lich’s transformation involves creating a new home for its soul called a phylactery—this is often something strong and impressive, such as a gem or box of unparalleled quality, though almost any object can serve.
Mohrg: The spirits of serial killers and those who exult in the taking of life.
Those who exult in the needless taking of life sometimes return to the world after death as mohrgs.
Some mohrgs were bloodthirsty warriors who slew as many as they could on the battlefield, others cold and calculating murders who selected their victims with delicate care, but nearly all mohrgs lived and died as mortal humanoids who delighted in the deaths of their fellow beings. A few mohrgs, however, are created from the remains of innocents by spellcasters (using the create undead spell), who are driven mad by being deprived of a peaceful death and then watching the transformation and slow decay of their own bodies.
There are two means of becoming a mohrg: by spell or by deed. A dead creature subject to a create undead spell might find herself transformed into a mohrg. Likewise, a humanoid who has killed many over the course of his life—or even just a few, if he is particularly unrepentant about the lives he’s taken—could awaken to discover that he has not yet passed to the afterlife, but arisen to undeath.
A mohrg is as much a product of the method of its execution as it is an undead manifestation of one who, in life, was a murderous criminal or warmonger. At times, unusual methods of execution can trigger equally unusual mohrgs. The extreme nature of these executions are such that these variant mohrgs are only rarely created by accident—more often, they are deliberate creations by officials who themselves dabble in necromancy and may in fact be as vile as those they put to death.
Once per day, a mohrg-mother can choose to animate a recently slain victim as another mohrg instead of as a fast zombie.
Sages’ opinions differ on the origins of mohrgs, and on the specific conditions that result in the existence of individual specimens of their undead type. One prevailing theory among those who study the unliving maintains that Urgathoa selects a number of the darkest souls awaiting sorting and judgment by Pharasma and takes them as her due, corrupting them with a touch and returning them to the world to spread the seed of undeath in an inexorable plague over the Material Plane. While some claim that the souls that become mohrgs are so abhorrent that the Lady of Graves actually rejects them, wiser heads understand that such is not the nature of Pharasma’s judgment, and suspect that it’s either the work of the Pallid Princess or some terrible process that occurs before the souls ever leave their corpses (as is the case with many other forms of undead).
All mohrgs have been cursed into their condition—either by the gods or by a spellcaster.
Nightshade: Colossi formed in the lightless spaces where the Shadow Plane and Negative Energy Plane meet.
Where the Shadow Plane meets the Negative Energy Plane, evil and darkness hold sway in vast and lightless gulfs. When a fiend succumbs to the ravages of this environment, the ensuing death can be the catalyst for creating one of the most powerful undead.
Nightshades are creatures beyond categorization, things made from darkness and malice, yet not truly natives of either the Shadow Plane or the Void. Born of a corruption of both planes in the lightless reaches where the planar boundaries break down, they are twisted and warped by evil.
They form from the twisted souls of those fiends and outsiders who, seeking greater mastery over negative energy and the dreaming gulfs of darkness where the Shadow Plane and Negative Energy Plane meet, are themselves overcome and twisted beyond recognition, turned into servants of the planes’ own nihilistic ends.
Nightshades are born when one or more outsiders—typically fiends—are lost or cast down into the adumbral depths where the Shadow Plane and Negative Energy Plane become a void like the darkest ocean trench, one of the places where reality ends. The death of the immortal becomes a catalyst for a reaction in which the planes seem not to twist the original creature so much as birth a new entity in its place.
The creation of something as powerful and dire as a nightshade requires the spirit of an immortal being.
Although four primary types of nightshades are known to exist, some sages speculate that they might all be the same species of creature in different life stages. Other scholars instead hold that they are distinct subtypes of the same creature, formed in the same manner but differing according to the specific component fiends from which they were created. According to this theory, the older and more powerful the fiend or fiends were—their exact species or alignment does not appear to matter—the more powerful the form of nightshade produced, though the combined deaths of multiple fiends produce a nightshade of a type otherwise reserved for the death of a much more powerful one on its own. Even the proponents of this theory, however, have no idea of the exact formulae involved, and the few casters capable of controlling a nightshade are generally more concerned with maintaining their tenuous hold over the undead juggernauts than with such unpragmatic musings.
Ravener: The circumstances that give rise to a ravener are as unique as their appearances. Some barter their very sanity to the madness beyond the Dark Tapestry, others forge bargains with demon lords or the Horsemen of Abaddon, and still others beseech malevolent gods. (Strangely, even lawful dragons make pacts with the lords of Hell only rarely—perhaps raveners find the strings attached to diabolical contracts too convoluted and numerous for comfort.) Yet not all raveners seek aid from more powerful creatures—in fact, doing so often conf licts with the same arrogance that leads dragons to become raveners in the first place. This second group instead finds immortality in much the same way liches do, researching rare and forbidden necromantic spells to create rituals of transformation unique to each dragon.
While some raveners achieve their status through arcane study and necromantic power, others are born of a combination of blasphemous rituals and the malign influence of dark powers. Raveners of this latter group must each seek out an evil patron to feed his or her necromantic rebirth. Each patron requires sacrifices and tribute pleasing to its debased desires. The aspiring ravener must first further the patron’s schemes upon her home world and perhaps others. The dragon might be sent against the patron’s foes, tasked with obtaining lost relics, or made a general among the patron’s mortal followers. In addition, the dragon must show the depth of her resolve. For some dragons, this means slaying their parents, mates, or children; the sacrifice of their most prized treasures; the annihilation of their life’s work; or some other show of commitment. Finally, the ravener must amass sufficient eldritch power to shatter natural laws or the barriers between planes and become the conduit for her patron’s might. Should the dragon falter in her tasks or prove an unworthy vessel for the power of her patron, what remains of her shattered soul languishes in servitude to her patron until the end of days.
Raveners are self-made undead, not created or generated spontaneously in the fashion of weaker undead.
The process by which a dragon becomes a ravener typically involves recruiting dark powers and undertaking necromantic rituals. Some of these rituals incorporate unusual stages that can alter the resulting ravener’s powers.
Shadow: Greedy spirits whose own mean-spirited miserliness shrinks their souls, bringing them back after death as some of the most despicable undead monstrosities.
Not even the grave can stop the greed of some people. Driven by envy and covetousness, those misers and thieves led to evil by their avaricious natures sometimes fade away or return after death as shadows, dark reflections of their former selves.
Rampant covetousness and grasping greed lead some people down the dark path of evil and betrayal, eventually ending in a reprehensible death scene or a lonely expiration. While most such petty and despicable souls travel on to their final rewards the same way everyone else does, in some cases gluttons, misers, and thieves waste away into nothing but shadows—undead things that reach and grab, but cannot hold.
As the victim of a shadow’s touch expires, its own shadow detaches from the corpse, taking on the same half-life as its killer.
On their own, shadows arise from the souls of greedy but lackluster evildoers—those whose crimes are heinous, but who lack the rage of a spectre or the exultation in evil often found in wraiths. The bandit who unemotionally slits her victims’ throats because it’s convenient, the petty diplomat who orders a witch burning to cover up his adulterous affair, and the miserly headmaster who lets orphans starve to save a few coppers all make good candidates for becoming shadows. Yet while such spontaneous transformations do occur, the vast majority of shadows are instead created by magic. Necromancers have long seen the value of relatively weak, pliable, and unambitious undead servants—especially incorporeal ones—and most shadows currently in existence were originally called to undeath by the spell create undead (or else by the life-draining attacks of other shadows created in this manner).
Death at the hands of a shadow means becoming one.
Also fortunate for the living is that although shadows can and sometimes do drain energy from animals or even vermin found in their lairs, only humanoid creatures that fall victim to their touch become shadows themselves. This is because of the nature of the humanoid spirit or soul and the magical similarity between the shadow and its prey.
Shadow Greater: A shadow that has fed on the lives of many victims, or that dwells long enough in a place suffused with sufficient negative energies, may grow in power, becoming a greater shadow.
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 19 with Shadow Walk spell.
Spectral Dead: Driven by all-encompassing hunger and murderous intent, spectral dead are corrupted souls that refuse to release their hold on the mortal world.
No one knows what plants the seeds of darkness and decay that utterly corrupt the souls of mortals. Some speculate that the prenatal soul, like fruit left too long to ripen on the vine, can sour to malignancy long before its binding to a mortal shell, dooming the creature from birth to a troubled life of anger and deceit and, eventually, to undeath. Others theorize that mortal action alone allows this malignancy to take root, and lives spent unwisely in the service of dark powers corrupt the intangible sparks of divinity that rest in mortal hearts. Still others note that despair and madness—afflictions capable of bringing even the most pious and good-natured people to their knees, through no fault of their own—can lead to the unnatural shackling of a spirit to the mortal world.
Once this metaphorical disease has festered within a soul, it becomes contagious, and some undead are able to pass their despicable gift on to the living, regardless of their victim’s former valor. While the positive energy of mortal humanoids can fight off the curse of undeath while they are still living, those slain by these powerful spirits sometimes have their souls instantaneously consumed by darkness, their corrupted spirits sloughing off their mortal shells to rise as the ghostly spawn of their slayers.
Allip: Allips are the undead souls of those who took their own lives out of madness and insanity.
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 15 with Insanity spell.
Banshee: Whether created through vile misdeeds in her last moments, a terrible and torturous demise, or some wretched betrayal by her loved ones, a banshee is the vengeful undead spirit of an elven female that seeks only to destroy all those who still tread the mortal realm.
Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 20 with Fear and Wail of the Banshee spells and the corpse of a female elf.
Spectre: Spectres are creatures of insatiable anger, their undeath the result of evil lives and a rage too great to allow them to let go of the mortal world. Arrogant egomaniacs enraged by the insult of their own deaths and murder victims seeking revenge on their captors are prime candidates for transformation into spectres, though such transformations is far more common if the mortals were actively evil.
Wraith: Wraiths, much like spectres, arise from souls tainted by evil lives.
Creatures slain by white wraiths rise as normal wraith spawn in 1d4 rounds.
Wight: Broken corpses hungry for the souls of the living, doomed to their lonely existences through a wide variety of tragedies, malevolence, or unwilling possession.
The origins of wights are highly varied. Some are created through obscure necromantic rites (usually create undead) and bound to the service of necromancers or evil priests. More commonly, wights are simply the unfortunate victims of other wights, the light of their lives turned to a corrupted mockery by the undead’s touch.
Every touch of a wight draws the target farther from life and deeper into death, until the last of its life force ebbs and the target is transformed in an instant into a dreadful thing of suffering and hate, leavened with a tormented enslavement to the will of its creator.
More tragically, wights can also arise spontaneously.
Scholars of the undead use the term “wights of anguish” to describe those whose birth into unlife occurred following a horrible trauma, often both mental and physical, that leaves their bodies broken, their psyches shattered, and their spirits consumed with hate and revenge. The depth of their suffering and the lingering shock are so intense that these unfortunates become enthralled to their own pain, clinging to it with every fiber of their being, crucifying themselves across the threshold of death’s door, unable to truly live but unwilling to truly die.
More sinister are “wights of malevolence,” those who through the depravity of their own benighted souls have earned an eternity of roaming the world, cursed with an eternal hunger that can never be slaked and a ragged weariness unable to ever find rest. Popular legend says those sentenced to such an existence are the truly damned, so vile that Hell itself spat them up rather than take them to its bosom.
But perhaps most frightening are those known as “wights of possession.” These are wights created when an evil undead spirit bonds with a corpse in order to animate it, often choosing its host based on convenience or strength of body. Though the original spirits of these bodies may have long since fled to their just rewards, few things are more horrible for their grieving friends than to see their loved ones’ corpses suddenly come to life and begin slaughtering the mourners.
Wherever humanoids die in utter anguish or are entombed in infamy (or even buried alive as punishment), wights may arise, and once they establish a foothold, they begin to spawn and proliferate.
Wights of malevolence sometimes arise from the unquiet remains of the exceptionally evil. Warlords of unspeakable cruelty may be sealed within barrows in the hope that, should their evil linger and stir even in death, they will be trapped and contained.
Old legends suggest that the treasures of a wight of malevolence are themselves tainted with the wight’s foulness, causing a darkening of spirit and a growing psychosis, leading to murderous paranoia that consumes the victims, and causes them to become wights themselves. Depending on the legend, this fate can be averted by freely giving the wight’s treasures away to others; having them blessed by one of the fey (at whatever price the fey demands); or scattering them in the sunlight for 3 days, allowing anyone to take a portion, and then collecting whatever fate has decreed will remain. Only by breaking the cycle of greed can the wight’s treasure be safely recovered.
A wight’s treasure can become infused with its dark spirit, creating a gnawing, obsessive greed that saps the spirit and life of any creature that claims it. A character that possesses accursed wight treasure gains a number of negative levels equal to the total gp value of the stolen treasure divided by 10,000 (minimum of one negative level). These negative levels remain as long as the creature retains ownership of the treasure (even if this treasure is not carried)—they disappear as soon as the stolen treasure is destroyed, stolen, freely given away, or returned to the wight’s lair. If the treasure is merely sold, the negative levels become permanent negative levels that can then be removed via means like restoration.
A creature whose negative levels equal its Hit Dice perishes and rises as a wight. If the wight whose treasure it stole still exists, it becomes a wight spawn bound to that wight. If not, it becomes a free-willed wight. Removing these negative levels does not end the curse, but remove curse or break enchantment does, with a caster level check against a DC equal to the wight’s energy drain save DC. A wight’s treasure does not confer negative levels while in the area of a hallow spell.
Any humanoid creature that is slain by a wight lord becomes a wight itself in only 1d4 rounds.
Create Undead spell, caster level 14 with Enervation spell.
Attic Whisperer: Create Undead spell, caster level 13 with Crushing Depair and Fear spells and corpse of a child.
Crawling Hand: Create Undead spell, caster level 11 severed hand of a medium or smaller humanoid.
Crawling Hand Giant: Create Undead spell, caster level 14 with Enlarge Person spell and severed hand of a large or larger humanoid.
Crypt Thing: Create Undead spell, caster level 16 with Teleport spell
Draugr: Create Undead spell, caster level 12.
Dullahan: Create Undead spell, caster level 17 with decapitated humanoid corpse.
Huecuva: Create Undead spell, caster level 11 with corpse of a cleric.
Zombie Juju: Create Undead spell, caster level 11 with Enervation or Energy Drain spell.
Skeletal Champion: Create Undead spell, caster level 11 with Enervation or Energy Drain spell.
Totenmaske: Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 18 caster must be a cleric.
Witchfire: Create Greater Undead spell, caster level 19 with corpse of a hag.
Skeleton Burning: Spawn created by a desert mohrg rise as burning skeletons rather than fast zombies.
Classic Horrors Revisited
Ghoul Larger: A giant that succumbs to ghoul fever.
Ghoul Smaller: Small humanoids who become ghouls.
Ghoul Fire Giant: A fire giant ghoul.
Ghoul Frost Giant: A frost giant ghoul.
Ghoul Lycanthrope: While a ghoul cannot become a lycanthrope, a living lycanthrope who succumbs to ghoul fever could rise as a ghoul. In most cases, this transformation removes the lycanthropic curse, resulting in a standard ghoul, but in rare events the resulting monster is a true ghoul lycanthrope.
Skeleton Acid: ?
Skeleton Electric: ?
Skeleton Frost:
Skeleton Exploding: ?
Skeleton Host Corpse: ?
Skeleton Mudra: ?
Skeleton Multiplying: ?
Skeleton Archer: ?
Vampire Aswang: A terrifying breed of vampire typically haunting lands of the distant east, aswangs only arise from female victims.
Vampire Vyrkolakas: ?
Zombie Alchemical: This zombie has been created through alchemical processes rather than necromantic magic.
This zombie has been created through alchemical processes rather than necromantic magic. (100% Crunch Zombie Lords)
This zombie has been created through alchemical processes rather than necromantic magic. (100% Crunch Zombies)
Zombie Brain-Eating: Anyone killed after being bitten by a brain-eating zombie rises as a brain-eating zombie in 2d6 hours unless the corpse is blessed or similar preventative measures are taken.
Anyone killed after being bitten by a brain‐eating zombie rises as a brain‐eating zombie in 2d6 hours unless the corpse is blessed or similar preventative measures are taken. (100% Crunch Zombie Lords)
Anyone killed after being bitten by a brain‐eating zombie rises as a brain‐eating zombie in 2d6 hours unless the corpse is blessed or similar preventative measures are taken. (100% Crunch Zombies)
Zombie Cursed: Created as the result of a powerful curse rather than through necromantic spells.
Created as the result of a powerful curse rather than through necromantic spells. (100% Crunch Zombie Lords)
Created as the result of a powerful curse rather than through necromantic spells. (100% Crunch Zombies)
Zombie Gasburst: ?
Zombie Host Corpse: ?
Zombie Relentless: ?
Ghost: More than merely wayward souls cast from the cycle of eternity by random chance, the vast majority of ghosts manifest for a purpose—whether one of their own desires or born from the method of their deaths. So-called “ghost stories” often tell of souls lingering upon the mortal world in an attempt to put right some injustice—typically whatever evil led to their deaths—or to prevent some terrible fate. Yet the circumstances leading to the appearance of a ghost need not be so iconic. Although the mysteries of death may never be fully understood by mortals, the most significant requisite in a ghost’s appearance seems to be extraordinary circumstances of trauma surrounding its death. Such a condition need not be a torturous murder or a violent betrayal—the knowledge of a great responsibility or the jeopardized life of a loved one can potentially prove sufficient cause to compel a soul to linger on past its physical capacity.
Aside from personal determination, extreme circumstances might also lead to the formation of ghosts. Tales of unquiet battlefields, ghostly ships, and whole haunted cities typically arise from some manner of terrible collective ordeal. Such conditions must be exceptionally painful or damaging to the mortal mind, as not every fallen fortress or disaster-scoured community results in some mass haunting. While individual ghosts typically require some measure of personal connection, suffering, or desire to bind them to the land of the living, such is lessened for ghosts created en masse. The shared experience of multitudinous lesser horrors are seemingly significant enough to match the singular distress of a lone spirit, allowing large groups of spirits to manifest due to an incident of extreme shared emotion or disturbance that might not provoke the ghostly manifestation of an individual.
Allip: Souls of the insane too hate-crazed and vicious to find their ways to the afterlife.
Shadow: Little more than impressions of wickedness, shadows are the souls of petty villains too fearful of their eternal punishments to pass on to the outer planes, yet too weak-willed to manifest as greater undead.
Spectre: Instances of extreme violence and hatred often give rise to a lesser form of spirit: spectres.
Wraith: The souls of exceptionally malevolent individuals, wraiths are manifestations of true evil.
Ghoul: Myth holds that the first man to feed upon the flesh of his brother was seized by a most uncommon malady of the intestinal tract, and after lingering for days in the throes of this painful inflammation of the belly, he died, only to rise on the Abyss as Kabriri, the first ghoul. Whether the demon lord of graves and ghouls was indeed the first remains the subject of debate among scholars of necromancy, but certainly the methods by which bodies can rise as the hungry dead are myriad.
Necromancers have long known the secrets of infusing a dead body with this vile animating force. With the spell create undead, a spellcaster can waken a body’s hunger and transform it into a ravenous ghoul. Stories abound as well of spontaneous transformations when a man or woman, driven by bleakest desperation or blackest madness, resorts to cannibalism as a means of survival. Whether the expiration that follows rises from further starvation or the death of the will to carry on in light of such atrocity matters not, for when death occurs after such a choice, a hideous rebirth as a ghoul may occur.
Yet the most common route to transformation is through violent contact with other ghouls. Called by a wide variety of regional names (such as gnaw pangs, belly blight, or Kabriri’s curse), this contagion is known in most circles simply as “ghoul fever.” Transmitted by a ghoul’s bite (or, more rarely, through the consumption of ghoulish flesh), ghoul fever causes the victim to grow increasingly hungry and manic, yet makes it impossible to keep down any food or water. The horrific hunger pangs caused by the sickness rob the victim of coordination and cause increasingly painful spasms, and eventually the victim starves to death, only to rise soon thereafter as a ghoul. That those who perish from ghoul fever invariably animate as undead at midnight has long intrigued scholars of necromancy—the general thought is that only at the dead of night can such a hideous transformation complete its course.
Ghoul Ghast: In the Darklands, yet another route to ghoulishness exists—lazurite. This strange, magical ore, thought to be the remnant of a dead god who staggered through the Darklands and left behind black bloodstains upon the caverns of the Cold Hell, appears as a thin black crust where it is exposed. The white veins of rock in which it often forms are known as marrowstone. Lazurite itself exudes a magical radiation that gives off a strong aura of necromancy. Any intact corpse left within a few paces of a significant lazurite deposit for a day is likely to rise as a ghoul or ghast, often retaining any abilities it had in life.
It should be noted that not all who begin the transformation into ghoul become actual ghouls. Particularly hearty humanoids (often those with racial Hit Dice, or who in life were already gluttons or cannibals by choice) often become ghasts.
Bugbear, Lizardfolk, Troglodyte: These races always spawn into ghasts.
Ghoul Lacedon: Lacedons are another variant, ghouls who rise from the bodies of starving humanoids who died from drowning, often as a result of a shipwreck.
Boggard, Merfolk: These races always spawn into lacedons.
Mummy: Like all sentient undead, mummies possess a chthonic vice, one that proves so powerful that it might stretch beyond the veil of natural death. In this case: covetousness. This might seem like a strange distinction, for what undead creature is not possessed by powers or obsessions that act beyond death? Yet in numerous cases involving mummies, the uncovered corpses were not animate upon discovery. No mere trickery, in such situations not only were the remains not animate, but they were not undead before being disturbed. Although research into dark lore reveals that mummies might be created through necromantic magics, those that spontaneously manifest do so as a result of some outside influence—typically the desecration of a burial place, violation of physical remains, or conveyance of some terrible revelation. As such, the attachment between a departed soul and its immortally coveted remains, possessions, or—most intriguingly—philosophies proves so strong that the undermining of these fundaments draws the spirit back across the gulf of mortality to defend that from which its life and death took meaning.
What might provoke a mummy’s resurrection varies widely, though cultural generalities exist. The most important requisite appears to be a lifelong preoccupation with death, typically held by an individual and compounded by his society. Populations who believe in the finality of death or the dissolution of the mortal spirit rarely produce mummies. Even believers in more traditional myths of the afterlife and the one-way progression of souls to a final reward or punishment infrequently breed such horrors. Those societies who tie their eternal rewards to the state of their physical remains or other monuments to their lives and believe that departed spirits might return to interact with the living unwittingly inflict a self-fulfilling curse upon themselves. Should one spend an entire life convinced that death does not sever his connection to the mortal realm, a belief compounded by his survivors who seek to elaborately placate his spirit, events that compromise the individual’s interests in the living world make it possible for the soul to return to seek retribution.
Aside from mummies obsessed with their past lives, a second classification exists: the cursed. Not drawn back to the world by their own vices, these beings have their undead state forced upon them. In the most basic form, necromantic magics empower a corpse with the traits of a mummy,
granting such a creature the abilities of such ancient dead but without the fanaticism that make the most legendary examples so deadly. These creatures prove hate-filled but bestial, knowing only the will to destroy and the whims of their masters. Other cursed mummies typically spawn from excruciating deaths, curses of immortal suffering, and the wrath of ancient deities.
While mummies notoriously haunt the hidden pyramids and buried necropolises of ancient cultures, such locations are not requisite to their resurrection. Most mummies created by powers other than foul magic possess connections to their resting places, perceiving such places as sanctuaries or prisons granted to them by their descendants. The form of such places means little; it is the spiritual connection and the importance the deceased places on such locations that hold significance. Thus, mummies are just as likely to rise from hidden barrow mounds, ancient catacombs, or acres of holy mud as from more majestic tombs. That being said, cultures that place such importance on the dead as to monumentalize the resting places of the deceased predispose themselves to the curse of mummies.
Not just any corpse can spontaneously manifest as a mummy GMs interested in creating mummies resurrected “naturally” (rather than by spells like create undead) should consider the passion and force of will of the would-be mummy. By and large, a corpse should be of a creature with a Charisma of 15 or higher and possessing at least 8 Hit Dice. In addition, it should have a reason for caring about the eternal sanctity of its remains in excess of normal mortal concern. As such, priests of deities with the Death or Repose domains, heroes expecting a champion’s burial, lords of cultures preoccupied with the afterlife, or individuals otherwise obsessed with death or their worldly possessions all make suitable candidates for resurrection as mummies—though countless other potential reasons for resurrection exist.
Vampire: The ultimate fear of vampires rises from their storied kiss, the bite and telltale marks that spread death and the dark curse of unlife. As the most discussed and feared power of these unliving hunters, vampires’ pronounced fangs draw the blood of the living, allowing the vampire both to feed upon the vital fluid and, more terrifyingly, to create more of its kind from its victims. Though this is not an uncommon trait of the undead, in vampires such corruption finds refinement, affording them the choice of slaying their victims outright or resurrecting them, as either deathless thralls or true vampires.
While most vampires visit their victims night after night, draining them of their vitality little by little, some gorge themselves, drinking away an entire life in a single feast. It is from such deaths that new vampires might arise—though victims physically unfit for the transformation might still resurrect as mere vampire spawn.
Vampire Spawn: The ultimate fear of vampires rises from their storied kiss, the bite and telltale marks that spread death and the dark curse of unlife. As the most discussed and feared power of these unliving hunters, vampires’ pronounced fangs draw the blood of the living, allowing the vampire both to feed upon the vital fluid and, more terrifyingly, to create more of its kind from its victims. Though this is not an uncommon trait of the undead, in vampires such corruption finds refinement, affording them the choice of slaying their victims outright or resurrecting them, as either deathless thralls or true vampires.
While most vampires visit their victims night after night, draining them of their vitality little by little, some gorge themselves, drinking away an entire life in a single feast. It is from such deaths that new vampires might arise—though victims physically unfit for the transformation might still resurrect as mere vampire spawn.
Draining blood is not the only way new vampires are created, however. Little known is the fact that the very touch of the vampire can drain one’s power and weaken one’s resolve—a condition that seems to be more a manner of fundamental deterioration than mere physical draining. Rarely used by vampires except in desperate conflicts, as it supplies them with no vital blood, their energy-sapping touch can easily extinguish a life, and from such withering deaths new vampires arise, cursing even the most exceptional souls to an existence as undead slaves.
Vampire Nosferatu: ?
Skeleton: Dead bodies animated through foul necromantic rituals.
The walking dead normally serve as the simple tools of evil priests and wizards who have animated cadavers through the use of spells such as animate dead. While most skeletons and zombies are the products of such necromantic magics, other methods of creating the walking dead have been recorded. Rare alchemical concoctions can rot the flesh or melt it from bone, and give the corpse some semblance of life. Certain powerful curses can also cause a person to rise as a zombie upon death, often to take revenge on those still living.
However, skeletons and zombies have also been known to arise spontaneously, usually as a result of another powerful undead creature nearby. Certain areas with a strong necromantic aura or a history of killing—such as battlefields and long-forgotten sacrificial altars—or places where a significant number of people have died violently, as with a mass grave or the sites of massacre, can spontaneously produce the living dead as well.
Occasionally, a large mixed group of skeletons or zombies spontaneously arises, usually at the site of a particularly bloody battle or other scene of carnage.
Skeleton Champion Magus: ?
Zombie: Dead bodies animated through foul necromantic rituals.
The walking dead normally serve as the simple tools of evil priests and wizards who have animated cadavers through the use of spells such as animate dead. While most skeletons and zombies are the products of such necromantic magics, other methods of creating the walking dead have been recorded. Rare alchemical concoctions can rot the flesh or melt it from bone, and give the corpse some semblance of life. Certain powerful curses can also cause a person to rise as a zombie upon death, often to take revenge on those still living.
However, skeletons and zombies have also been known to arise spontaneously, usually as a result of another powerful undead creature nearby. Certain areas with a strong necromantic aura or a history of killing—such as battlefields and long-forgotten sacrificial altars—or places where a significant number of people have died violently, as with a mass grave or the sites of massacre, can spontaneously produce the living dead as well.
Occasionally, a large mixed group of skeletons or zombies spontaneously arises, usually at the site of a particularly bloody battle or other scene of carnage.
Zombie Lord: ?
Zombie Lord Magus: ?
Ghoul Smaller: Small humanoids who become ghouls.
Ghoul Fire Giant: A fire giant ghoul.
Ghoul Frost Giant: A frost giant ghoul.
Ghoul Lycanthrope: While a ghoul cannot become a lycanthrope, a living lycanthrope who succumbs to ghoul fever could rise as a ghoul. In most cases, this transformation removes the lycanthropic curse, resulting in a standard ghoul, but in rare events the resulting monster is a true ghoul lycanthrope.
Skeleton Acid: ?
Skeleton Electric: ?
Skeleton Frost:
Skeleton Exploding: ?
Skeleton Host Corpse: ?
Skeleton Mudra: ?
Skeleton Multiplying: ?
Skeleton Archer: ?
Vampire Aswang: A terrifying breed of vampire typically haunting lands of the distant east, aswangs only arise from female victims.
Vampire Vyrkolakas: ?
Zombie Alchemical: This zombie has been created through alchemical processes rather than necromantic magic.
This zombie has been created through alchemical processes rather than necromantic magic. (100% Crunch Zombie Lords)
This zombie has been created through alchemical processes rather than necromantic magic. (100% Crunch Zombies)
Zombie Brain-Eating: Anyone killed after being bitten by a brain-eating zombie rises as a brain-eating zombie in 2d6 hours unless the corpse is blessed or similar preventative measures are taken.
Anyone killed after being bitten by a brain‐eating zombie rises as a brain‐eating zombie in 2d6 hours unless the corpse is blessed or similar preventative measures are taken. (100% Crunch Zombie Lords)
Anyone killed after being bitten by a brain‐eating zombie rises as a brain‐eating zombie in 2d6 hours unless the corpse is blessed or similar preventative measures are taken. (100% Crunch Zombies)
Zombie Cursed: Created as the result of a powerful curse rather than through necromantic spells.
Created as the result of a powerful curse rather than through necromantic spells. (100% Crunch Zombie Lords)
Created as the result of a powerful curse rather than through necromantic spells. (100% Crunch Zombies)
Zombie Gasburst: ?
Zombie Host Corpse: ?
Zombie Relentless: ?
Ghost: More than merely wayward souls cast from the cycle of eternity by random chance, the vast majority of ghosts manifest for a purpose—whether one of their own desires or born from the method of their deaths. So-called “ghost stories” often tell of souls lingering upon the mortal world in an attempt to put right some injustice—typically whatever evil led to their deaths—or to prevent some terrible fate. Yet the circumstances leading to the appearance of a ghost need not be so iconic. Although the mysteries of death may never be fully understood by mortals, the most significant requisite in a ghost’s appearance seems to be extraordinary circumstances of trauma surrounding its death. Such a condition need not be a torturous murder or a violent betrayal—the knowledge of a great responsibility or the jeopardized life of a loved one can potentially prove sufficient cause to compel a soul to linger on past its physical capacity.
Aside from personal determination, extreme circumstances might also lead to the formation of ghosts. Tales of unquiet battlefields, ghostly ships, and whole haunted cities typically arise from some manner of terrible collective ordeal. Such conditions must be exceptionally painful or damaging to the mortal mind, as not every fallen fortress or disaster-scoured community results in some mass haunting. While individual ghosts typically require some measure of personal connection, suffering, or desire to bind them to the land of the living, such is lessened for ghosts created en masse. The shared experience of multitudinous lesser horrors are seemingly significant enough to match the singular distress of a lone spirit, allowing large groups of spirits to manifest due to an incident of extreme shared emotion or disturbance that might not provoke the ghostly manifestation of an individual.
Allip: Souls of the insane too hate-crazed and vicious to find their ways to the afterlife.
Shadow: Little more than impressions of wickedness, shadows are the souls of petty villains too fearful of their eternal punishments to pass on to the outer planes, yet too weak-willed to manifest as greater undead.
Spectre: Instances of extreme violence and hatred often give rise to a lesser form of spirit: spectres.
Wraith: The souls of exceptionally malevolent individuals, wraiths are manifestations of true evil.
Ghoul: Myth holds that the first man to feed upon the flesh of his brother was seized by a most uncommon malady of the intestinal tract, and after lingering for days in the throes of this painful inflammation of the belly, he died, only to rise on the Abyss as Kabriri, the first ghoul. Whether the demon lord of graves and ghouls was indeed the first remains the subject of debate among scholars of necromancy, but certainly the methods by which bodies can rise as the hungry dead are myriad.
Necromancers have long known the secrets of infusing a dead body with this vile animating force. With the spell create undead, a spellcaster can waken a body’s hunger and transform it into a ravenous ghoul. Stories abound as well of spontaneous transformations when a man or woman, driven by bleakest desperation or blackest madness, resorts to cannibalism as a means of survival. Whether the expiration that follows rises from further starvation or the death of the will to carry on in light of such atrocity matters not, for when death occurs after such a choice, a hideous rebirth as a ghoul may occur.
Yet the most common route to transformation is through violent contact with other ghouls. Called by a wide variety of regional names (such as gnaw pangs, belly blight, or Kabriri’s curse), this contagion is known in most circles simply as “ghoul fever.” Transmitted by a ghoul’s bite (or, more rarely, through the consumption of ghoulish flesh), ghoul fever causes the victim to grow increasingly hungry and manic, yet makes it impossible to keep down any food or water. The horrific hunger pangs caused by the sickness rob the victim of coordination and cause increasingly painful spasms, and eventually the victim starves to death, only to rise soon thereafter as a ghoul. That those who perish from ghoul fever invariably animate as undead at midnight has long intrigued scholars of necromancy—the general thought is that only at the dead of night can such a hideous transformation complete its course.
Ghoul Ghast: In the Darklands, yet another route to ghoulishness exists—lazurite. This strange, magical ore, thought to be the remnant of a dead god who staggered through the Darklands and left behind black bloodstains upon the caverns of the Cold Hell, appears as a thin black crust where it is exposed. The white veins of rock in which it often forms are known as marrowstone. Lazurite itself exudes a magical radiation that gives off a strong aura of necromancy. Any intact corpse left within a few paces of a significant lazurite deposit for a day is likely to rise as a ghoul or ghast, often retaining any abilities it had in life.
It should be noted that not all who begin the transformation into ghoul become actual ghouls. Particularly hearty humanoids (often those with racial Hit Dice, or who in life were already gluttons or cannibals by choice) often become ghasts.
Bugbear, Lizardfolk, Troglodyte: These races always spawn into ghasts.
Ghoul Lacedon: Lacedons are another variant, ghouls who rise from the bodies of starving humanoids who died from drowning, often as a result of a shipwreck.
Boggard, Merfolk: These races always spawn into lacedons.
Mummy: Like all sentient undead, mummies possess a chthonic vice, one that proves so powerful that it might stretch beyond the veil of natural death. In this case: covetousness. This might seem like a strange distinction, for what undead creature is not possessed by powers or obsessions that act beyond death? Yet in numerous cases involving mummies, the uncovered corpses were not animate upon discovery. No mere trickery, in such situations not only were the remains not animate, but they were not undead before being disturbed. Although research into dark lore reveals that mummies might be created through necromantic magics, those that spontaneously manifest do so as a result of some outside influence—typically the desecration of a burial place, violation of physical remains, or conveyance of some terrible revelation. As such, the attachment between a departed soul and its immortally coveted remains, possessions, or—most intriguingly—philosophies proves so strong that the undermining of these fundaments draws the spirit back across the gulf of mortality to defend that from which its life and death took meaning.
What might provoke a mummy’s resurrection varies widely, though cultural generalities exist. The most important requisite appears to be a lifelong preoccupation with death, typically held by an individual and compounded by his society. Populations who believe in the finality of death or the dissolution of the mortal spirit rarely produce mummies. Even believers in more traditional myths of the afterlife and the one-way progression of souls to a final reward or punishment infrequently breed such horrors. Those societies who tie their eternal rewards to the state of their physical remains or other monuments to their lives and believe that departed spirits might return to interact with the living unwittingly inflict a self-fulfilling curse upon themselves. Should one spend an entire life convinced that death does not sever his connection to the mortal realm, a belief compounded by his survivors who seek to elaborately placate his spirit, events that compromise the individual’s interests in the living world make it possible for the soul to return to seek retribution.
Aside from mummies obsessed with their past lives, a second classification exists: the cursed. Not drawn back to the world by their own vices, these beings have their undead state forced upon them. In the most basic form, necromantic magics empower a corpse with the traits of a mummy,
granting such a creature the abilities of such ancient dead but without the fanaticism that make the most legendary examples so deadly. These creatures prove hate-filled but bestial, knowing only the will to destroy and the whims of their masters. Other cursed mummies typically spawn from excruciating deaths, curses of immortal suffering, and the wrath of ancient deities.
While mummies notoriously haunt the hidden pyramids and buried necropolises of ancient cultures, such locations are not requisite to their resurrection. Most mummies created by powers other than foul magic possess connections to their resting places, perceiving such places as sanctuaries or prisons granted to them by their descendants. The form of such places means little; it is the spiritual connection and the importance the deceased places on such locations that hold significance. Thus, mummies are just as likely to rise from hidden barrow mounds, ancient catacombs, or acres of holy mud as from more majestic tombs. That being said, cultures that place such importance on the dead as to monumentalize the resting places of the deceased predispose themselves to the curse of mummies.
Not just any corpse can spontaneously manifest as a mummy GMs interested in creating mummies resurrected “naturally” (rather than by spells like create undead) should consider the passion and force of will of the would-be mummy. By and large, a corpse should be of a creature with a Charisma of 15 or higher and possessing at least 8 Hit Dice. In addition, it should have a reason for caring about the eternal sanctity of its remains in excess of normal mortal concern. As such, priests of deities with the Death or Repose domains, heroes expecting a champion’s burial, lords of cultures preoccupied with the afterlife, or individuals otherwise obsessed with death or their worldly possessions all make suitable candidates for resurrection as mummies—though countless other potential reasons for resurrection exist.
Vampire: The ultimate fear of vampires rises from their storied kiss, the bite and telltale marks that spread death and the dark curse of unlife. As the most discussed and feared power of these unliving hunters, vampires’ pronounced fangs draw the blood of the living, allowing the vampire both to feed upon the vital fluid and, more terrifyingly, to create more of its kind from its victims. Though this is not an uncommon trait of the undead, in vampires such corruption finds refinement, affording them the choice of slaying their victims outright or resurrecting them, as either deathless thralls or true vampires.
While most vampires visit their victims night after night, draining them of their vitality little by little, some gorge themselves, drinking away an entire life in a single feast. It is from such deaths that new vampires might arise—though victims physically unfit for the transformation might still resurrect as mere vampire spawn.
Vampire Spawn: The ultimate fear of vampires rises from their storied kiss, the bite and telltale marks that spread death and the dark curse of unlife. As the most discussed and feared power of these unliving hunters, vampires’ pronounced fangs draw the blood of the living, allowing the vampire both to feed upon the vital fluid and, more terrifyingly, to create more of its kind from its victims. Though this is not an uncommon trait of the undead, in vampires such corruption finds refinement, affording them the choice of slaying their victims outright or resurrecting them, as either deathless thralls or true vampires.
While most vampires visit their victims night after night, draining them of their vitality little by little, some gorge themselves, drinking away an entire life in a single feast. It is from such deaths that new vampires might arise—though victims physically unfit for the transformation might still resurrect as mere vampire spawn.
Draining blood is not the only way new vampires are created, however. Little known is the fact that the very touch of the vampire can drain one’s power and weaken one’s resolve—a condition that seems to be more a manner of fundamental deterioration than mere physical draining. Rarely used by vampires except in desperate conflicts, as it supplies them with no vital blood, their energy-sapping touch can easily extinguish a life, and from such withering deaths new vampires arise, cursing even the most exceptional souls to an existence as undead slaves.
Vampire Nosferatu: ?
Skeleton: Dead bodies animated through foul necromantic rituals.
The walking dead normally serve as the simple tools of evil priests and wizards who have animated cadavers through the use of spells such as animate dead. While most skeletons and zombies are the products of such necromantic magics, other methods of creating the walking dead have been recorded. Rare alchemical concoctions can rot the flesh or melt it from bone, and give the corpse some semblance of life. Certain powerful curses can also cause a person to rise as a zombie upon death, often to take revenge on those still living.
However, skeletons and zombies have also been known to arise spontaneously, usually as a result of another powerful undead creature nearby. Certain areas with a strong necromantic aura or a history of killing—such as battlefields and long-forgotten sacrificial altars—or places where a significant number of people have died violently, as with a mass grave or the sites of massacre, can spontaneously produce the living dead as well.
Occasionally, a large mixed group of skeletons or zombies spontaneously arises, usually at the site of a particularly bloody battle or other scene of carnage.
Skeleton Champion Magus: ?
Zombie: Dead bodies animated through foul necromantic rituals.
The walking dead normally serve as the simple tools of evil priests and wizards who have animated cadavers through the use of spells such as animate dead. While most skeletons and zombies are the products of such necromantic magics, other methods of creating the walking dead have been recorded. Rare alchemical concoctions can rot the flesh or melt it from bone, and give the corpse some semblance of life. Certain powerful curses can also cause a person to rise as a zombie upon death, often to take revenge on those still living.
However, skeletons and zombies have also been known to arise spontaneously, usually as a result of another powerful undead creature nearby. Certain areas with a strong necromantic aura or a history of killing—such as battlefields and long-forgotten sacrificial altars—or places where a significant number of people have died violently, as with a mass grave or the sites of massacre, can spontaneously produce the living dead as well.
Occasionally, a large mixed group of skeletons or zombies spontaneously arises, usually at the site of a particularly bloody battle or other scene of carnage.
Zombie Lord: ?
Zombie Lord Magus: ?
Beginner's Box
Undead: A dead body or spirit animated by an evil power.
Ghost: Ghosts are the undead souls of dead people so filled with rage and hate that they refuse to stay dead.
Ghoul: ?
Mummy: Created to guard the tombs of the honored dead.
Skeletal Champion: ?
Skeleton: Skeletons are the animated bones of the dead, brought to unlife through foul magic. While they are mindless automatons, the magic that created them gave them evil cunning and an instinctive hatred of the living.
Zombie: Zombies are the animated corpses of dead creatures.
Ghost: Ghosts are the undead souls of dead people so filled with rage and hate that they refuse to stay dead.
Ghoul: ?
Mummy: Created to guard the tombs of the honored dead.
Skeletal Champion: ?
Skeleton: Skeletons are the animated bones of the dead, brought to unlife through foul magic. While they are mindless automatons, the magic that created them gave them evil cunning and an instinctive hatred of the living.
Zombie: Zombies are the animated corpses of dead creatures.
Game Mastery Guide
Haunt: The distinction between a trap and an undead creature blurs when you introduce a haunt—a hazardous region created by unquiet spirits that react violently to the presence of the living. The exact conditions that cause a haunt to manifest vary from case to case—but haunts always arise from a source of terrific mental or physical anguish endured by living, tormented creatures. A single, source of suffering can create multiple haunts, or multiple sources could consolidate into a single haunt. The relative power of the source has little bearing on the strength of the resulting haunt—it’s the magnitude of the suffering or despair that created the haunt that decides its power. Often, undead inhabit regions infested with haunts—it’s even possible for a person who dies to rise as a ghost (or other undead) and trigger the creation of numerous haunts. A haunt infuses a specific area, and often multiple haunted areas exist within a single structure.
Temples deserted under negative circumstances, or those that carried out vile rites, attract spirits that cannot manifest as incorporeal undead. This makes them no less dangerous. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
If tragedy befell the village, undead citizenry might haunt the adventure site. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Haunts are typically created by restless souls or pervading evil, but an abandoned village can almost have a “spirit” of its own. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Powerful witches are able to leave lasting imprints upon the land with their final breaths, transforming themselves into powerful, incorporeal undead through extreme hatred and emotional distress. Often manifesting as ghosts, spectres or wraiths, these witches blight the land and cause strange murders and ill fortunate to beset the locals until they move away from the site of the curse. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Manors are often at the apex of these death knell curses because a witch’s vengeance is directed at an individual or specific group of people, who quickly perish from her supernatural vengeance or flee from their homes for fear of a grisly demise. Products of a witch’s death knell curse last for hundreds of years and typically are not stopped until someone is able to find the spirit and slay it, destroying its strange hold upon the building and the surrounding region. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
When a creature dies, any intense emotions it experiences at the time of death are often left behind as a psychic footprint. Fear, anger, hatred and sorrow are by far the most powerful of these emotions and often causes the most dangerous and destructive haunts to manifest. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
In many ways, a haunted house is created by suicide in the same way it is created by murder, though sorrow and self-loathing often fuel the supernatural entities born from suicide rather than fear, anger or hatred as is true with murder. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
When it comes to planar magic, mages are often tinkering with forces they scarcely comprehend, let alone control. A single misspoken word or a stray line within a magic circle can cause a spell to backfire with tremendous force, calling an outsider into the mortal realm. In rare circumstances, the outsider may be physically unable to leave the place it was summoned within for reasons even it is unlikely to understand. Perhaps the mage’s home is inscribed with warding runes as a fail-safe or the magic is unstable, preventing the creature from straying far from its point of summoning. Even more horrifying are the outsiders who possess unfettered access to the Material Plane, retreating to abandoned structures by daylight only to prey again on mortal flesh come dusk. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Any event causing a suitable amount of negative emotion can create a haunt, whether this tragedy is a massive fire at an orphanage, the demise of a family or the deaths of an entire neighbourhood from an epidemic. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Several decades ago the inhabitants of Saltspray, a small coastal village, were all but wiped from existence by the appetites of a band of sahuagin. Although the monsters were eventually repelled, over half the villagers were murdered, their half-devoured corpses left to rot in a grotto built atop a nobleman’s summer home. In the following years, the manor has become a haunt filled with dozens of lost spirits, the most notable of which is the manor’s former owner. Now a powerful spectre, it is said the owner’s wailing can be heard long into the night once a month as the full moon rises. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Fifty years ago, a vile witch attempted to summon a powerful demon by offering it the soul of a local baker’s girl. Although the witch was caught, tried and hanged thanks to the efforts of a party of adventurers, with her final breath she scorned the city and its people, promising to return to drag all of their souls to the depths of the Abyss. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
On the night of the first full moon after the witch’s death, eerie lights and sounds began to plague her victim’s home. In fear, the family left the city and moved into the hamlet of Greenborough to escape the horror. Unfortunately, the haunting followed the family and they all died in their newly constructed manor within one moon of their arrival. Local legends claim the witch’s angry spirit now holds the family’s souls captive within the manor with the assistance of a malevolent force from outside the mortal realms. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
When a soul fouled by anger and fear leaves its broken corpse, if it is strong enough, that soul may return as a ghost, a wraith or some worse form of undead. If it is strong enough….. (Two Dozen Dangers: Haunts)
Souls lacking the metaphysical vigor to retain their own identity after death may also return… as something else, something lesser, a ghostly presence that blurs the line between a magical trap and a true undead. (Two Dozen Dangers: Haunts)
Bleeding Walls: ?
This haunt occurs when a victim is murdered and their corpse is boarded up within the walls of the haunted house. (Alternate Dungeons: Haunted House)
Undead: Whether from an ancient curse or fell necromancy, one of the most terrifying of all supernatural disasters is the undead uprising—the dead emerging from their graves to claim the living. This disaster can strike any area where the dead have been laid to rest, not just towns and cities. More than one blood-soaked battlefield has given rise to a legion of desiccated undead warriors.
Heroes who perished in the battle against the uprising return as fearsome undead generals.
Zombie: On the first nights of an undead uprising, the bodies of the recently dead rise as zombies. Those interred in consecrated ground remain at rest, but bodies left unburied or in mass graves lurch out into the streets, wreaking havoc.
Skeleton: As the uprising progresses, older and older corpses join the shambling ranks of the undead. Skeletons wearing traces of long-rotted funeral garb claw their way out of graveyards and crypts, and act with a malevolence and organization rarely encountered among their ilk.
Skeletal Champion: As the uprising progresses, older and older corpses join the shambling ranks of the undead. Skeletons wearing traces of long-rotted funeral garb claw their way out of graveyards and crypts, and act with a malevolence and organization rarely encountered among their ilk. The undead remain mindless, but the magical power behind the incursion gives them the efficiency and tactical acumen of a living army. The skeletons seek out weapons and armor to gird themselves for battle. Elite skeletal champions lead the troops, wielding magic items scavenged from abandoned graves.
Ghoul: ?
Wight: ?
Ghost: As the uprising gathers strength, the unquiet souls of bodies long since turned to dust awaken as well. Ghosts, shadows, wraiths, and even spectres arise to prey upon the living.
Shadow: As the uprising gathers strength, the unquiet souls of bodies long since turned to dust awaken as well. Ghosts, shadows, wraiths, and even spectres arise to prey upon the living.
Wraith: As the uprising gathers strength, the unquiet souls of bodies long since turned to dust awaken as well. Ghosts, shadows, wraiths, and even spectres arise to prey upon the living.
Spectre: As the uprising gathers strength, the unquiet souls of bodies long since turned to dust awaken as well. Ghosts, shadows, wraiths, and even spectres arise to prey upon the living.
Lich: ?
Dread Wraith: ?
Vampire: ?
Mummy: ?
Greater Shadow: ?
Mohrg: ?
Ghast: ?
Vampire Spawn: ?
Temples deserted under negative circumstances, or those that carried out vile rites, attract spirits that cannot manifest as incorporeal undead. This makes them no less dangerous. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
If tragedy befell the village, undead citizenry might haunt the adventure site. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Haunts are typically created by restless souls or pervading evil, but an abandoned village can almost have a “spirit” of its own. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Powerful witches are able to leave lasting imprints upon the land with their final breaths, transforming themselves into powerful, incorporeal undead through extreme hatred and emotional distress. Often manifesting as ghosts, spectres or wraiths, these witches blight the land and cause strange murders and ill fortunate to beset the locals until they move away from the site of the curse. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Manors are often at the apex of these death knell curses because a witch’s vengeance is directed at an individual or specific group of people, who quickly perish from her supernatural vengeance or flee from their homes for fear of a grisly demise. Products of a witch’s death knell curse last for hundreds of years and typically are not stopped until someone is able to find the spirit and slay it, destroying its strange hold upon the building and the surrounding region. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
When a creature dies, any intense emotions it experiences at the time of death are often left behind as a psychic footprint. Fear, anger, hatred and sorrow are by far the most powerful of these emotions and often causes the most dangerous and destructive haunts to manifest. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
In many ways, a haunted house is created by suicide in the same way it is created by murder, though sorrow and self-loathing often fuel the supernatural entities born from suicide rather than fear, anger or hatred as is true with murder. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
When it comes to planar magic, mages are often tinkering with forces they scarcely comprehend, let alone control. A single misspoken word or a stray line within a magic circle can cause a spell to backfire with tremendous force, calling an outsider into the mortal realm. In rare circumstances, the outsider may be physically unable to leave the place it was summoned within for reasons even it is unlikely to understand. Perhaps the mage’s home is inscribed with warding runes as a fail-safe or the magic is unstable, preventing the creature from straying far from its point of summoning. Even more horrifying are the outsiders who possess unfettered access to the Material Plane, retreating to abandoned structures by daylight only to prey again on mortal flesh come dusk. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Any event causing a suitable amount of negative emotion can create a haunt, whether this tragedy is a massive fire at an orphanage, the demise of a family or the deaths of an entire neighbourhood from an epidemic. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Several decades ago the inhabitants of Saltspray, a small coastal village, were all but wiped from existence by the appetites of a band of sahuagin. Although the monsters were eventually repelled, over half the villagers were murdered, their half-devoured corpses left to rot in a grotto built atop a nobleman’s summer home. In the following years, the manor has become a haunt filled with dozens of lost spirits, the most notable of which is the manor’s former owner. Now a powerful spectre, it is said the owner’s wailing can be heard long into the night once a month as the full moon rises. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
Fifty years ago, a vile witch attempted to summon a powerful demon by offering it the soul of a local baker’s girl. Although the witch was caught, tried and hanged thanks to the efforts of a party of adventurers, with her final breath she scorned the city and its people, promising to return to drag all of their souls to the depths of the Abyss. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
On the night of the first full moon after the witch’s death, eerie lights and sounds began to plague her victim’s home. In fear, the family left the city and moved into the hamlet of Greenborough to escape the horror. Unfortunately, the haunting followed the family and they all died in their newly constructed manor within one moon of their arrival. Local legends claim the witch’s angry spirit now holds the family’s souls captive within the manor with the assistance of a malevolent force from outside the mortal realms. (GM's Miscellany: Alternate Dungeons)
When a soul fouled by anger and fear leaves its broken corpse, if it is strong enough, that soul may return as a ghost, a wraith or some worse form of undead. If it is strong enough….. (Two Dozen Dangers: Haunts)
Souls lacking the metaphysical vigor to retain their own identity after death may also return… as something else, something lesser, a ghostly presence that blurs the line between a magical trap and a true undead. (Two Dozen Dangers: Haunts)
Bleeding Walls: ?
This haunt occurs when a victim is murdered and their corpse is boarded up within the walls of the haunted house. (Alternate Dungeons: Haunted House)
Undead: Whether from an ancient curse or fell necromancy, one of the most terrifying of all supernatural disasters is the undead uprising—the dead emerging from their graves to claim the living. This disaster can strike any area where the dead have been laid to rest, not just towns and cities. More than one blood-soaked battlefield has given rise to a legion of desiccated undead warriors.
Heroes who perished in the battle against the uprising return as fearsome undead generals.
Zombie: On the first nights of an undead uprising, the bodies of the recently dead rise as zombies. Those interred in consecrated ground remain at rest, but bodies left unburied or in mass graves lurch out into the streets, wreaking havoc.
Skeleton: As the uprising progresses, older and older corpses join the shambling ranks of the undead. Skeletons wearing traces of long-rotted funeral garb claw their way out of graveyards and crypts, and act with a malevolence and organization rarely encountered among their ilk.
Skeletal Champion: As the uprising progresses, older and older corpses join the shambling ranks of the undead. Skeletons wearing traces of long-rotted funeral garb claw their way out of graveyards and crypts, and act with a malevolence and organization rarely encountered among their ilk. The undead remain mindless, but the magical power behind the incursion gives them the efficiency and tactical acumen of a living army. The skeletons seek out weapons and armor to gird themselves for battle. Elite skeletal champions lead the troops, wielding magic items scavenged from abandoned graves.
Ghoul: ?
Wight: ?
Ghost: As the uprising gathers strength, the unquiet souls of bodies long since turned to dust awaken as well. Ghosts, shadows, wraiths, and even spectres arise to prey upon the living.
Shadow: As the uprising gathers strength, the unquiet souls of bodies long since turned to dust awaken as well. Ghosts, shadows, wraiths, and even spectres arise to prey upon the living.
Wraith: As the uprising gathers strength, the unquiet souls of bodies long since turned to dust awaken as well. Ghosts, shadows, wraiths, and even spectres arise to prey upon the living.
Spectre: As the uprising gathers strength, the unquiet souls of bodies long since turned to dust awaken as well. Ghosts, shadows, wraiths, and even spectres arise to prey upon the living.
Lich: ?
Dread Wraith: ?
Vampire: ?
Mummy: ?
Greater Shadow: ?
Mohrg: ?
Ghast: ?
Vampire Spawn: ?
Inner Sea Gods
Mother's Maw: Created from the skull of a fallen titan.
Inner Sea Races
Undead: Alien in the truest sense of the word, androids are sophisticated constructs that blur the boundaries between living beings and machines. Though their bodies are synthetic, they have souls, they respond to healing and other spells as if they were organic creatures, and they can even become undead, though they are also susceptible to effects that affect constructs.
Ghoul: ?
Vampire: ?
Nosferatu: ?
Jiang-Shi: ?
Vetala: ?
Zombie: ?
Wight: ?
Ghoul: ?
Vampire: ?
Nosferatu: ?
Jiang-Shi: ?
Vetala: ?
Zombie: ?
Wight: ?
Inner Sea World Guide
Daughter of Urgathoa: Within the church of the goddess of undeath, few more coveted stations exist than daughter of Urgathoa, yet no high priest can bestow the title, and no living worshiper can take the role. Rather, daughters of Urgathoa are selected by the fickle goddess herself, chosen from her most zealous and accomplished priestesses only at the moment of their deaths.
Monster Codex
Frightful Haunter: Occasionally, the desire to cause fear and misery survives even when a bugbear dies.
Ghoul Huntsmaster, Ghoul Ranger 6: ?
Corpse Cat: ?
Ghoul Commander, Ghoul Antipaladin 7: ?
Masked Murderer, Ghoul Bard 8: ?
Ancient Gravedigger, Ghoul Oracle 10: ?
Ghoul Monarch, Ghoul Sorcerer 12: ?
Skaveling: ?
Sootwing Bat: ?
Ghoul Hound: ?
Grathkoll: ?
Ghoul Creeper, Ghoul Rogue 3: ?
Ghoul Stalker, Ghoul Rogue 6: ?
Vampire Seducer, Human Vampire Bard 5: ?
Vampire Warrior, Vishkanya Jiang-Shi Vampire Fighter 7: When this vishkanya was alive, she pursued the path of the samurai, but wasn’t allowed to join their honorable ranks. Her restless spirit remained trapped in her flesh after death, and eventually she animated her own rotting body and sought out those who had wronged her.
Vampire Savage, Half-Orc Barbarian 9: ?
Enlightened Vampire, Human Vampire Monk 11: ?
Vampire Lord, Half-Elf Vampire Magus 14: ?
Vampire Spawn Human Rogue 2: ?
Vampire Spawn Template: “Vampire spawn” is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature with 4 or more Hit Dice.
Ghoul: Always searching for the flesh of humanoids, ghouls thrive where people live, and their domains steadily expand as the creatures infect new victims with ghoul fever.
Potential victims have good reason to fear ghouls, as dying of ghoul fever is a horrifying fate. From the onset of the disease, an insatiable hunger overcomes the victim, yet her body begins to reject all normal food and drink. If denied food, the victim becomes increasingly desperate and violent as her hunger grows. Feeding the victim flesh from a corpse temporarily alleviates her cravings, but does not slow the onset of the disease. Eventually, the victim’s mortal body fails entirely. After the victim finally dies, she wakes up at the next stroke of midnight, obsessed with the hunger for flesh.
Vampire, Moroi: Beyond their mortal minions, vampires can drain the blood or life energy from a victim to create spawn enslaved to their will—either full-fledged vampires or weaker vampire spawn.
Other types of vampire exist, some of them arising from rare or even unique circumstances, but the following are the most notable types. Haunt: A frightful haunter has so much rage and desire to create fear that it can actually create a haunt once per hour. Each haunt has a CR no greater than the frightful haunter’s CR – 2, and often takes a form either tied to the location the frightful haunter selects for it or inspired by the victims the frightful haunter hopes to frighten.
Occasionally, the desire to cause fear and misery survives even when a bugbear dies. Such a creature can detach part of its vile nature to create frightening spiritual traps in the form of haunts.
Ghast: ?
Lich: ?
Lacedon: ?
Undead: Corpse Companion feat.
Vampiric Companion feat.
Ravener: ?
Vampire Spawn: Beyond their mortal minions, vampires can drain the blood or life energy from a victim to create spawn enslaved to their will—either full-fledged vampires or weaker vampire spawn.
Jiang-Shi: Created when a restless spirit does not leave its corpse at the time of death, a jiang-shi more closely resembles a rotting corpse than other vampires do.
Nosferatu: Nosferatu cannot create others of their kind, thus their numbers are dwindling.
Corpse Companion
You have an undead animal companion.
Prerequisites: Animal companion class feature, ghoul.
Benefit: Your animal companion’s type changes to undead, but its Hit Dice, base attack bonus, saving throws, skills, and tricks are retained from the base creature. The creature loses its Constitution score and its Charisma score becomes 12. If your companion is destroyed, your new companion is undead as well, using these same modifications.
Vampiric Companion
Just as your undead existence mocks nature, so too does your twisted companion reflect the vile nature of vampirism.
Prerequisites: Dhampir or vampire, nongood alignment, 10th level in a class that grants a familiar or animal companion.
Benefit: Your animal companion or familiar’s type changes to “undead.” The creature gains fast healing 5 as well as your vampire or dhampir weaknesses. If you are a vampire, the creature also gains the following abilities, depending on what type of vampire you are.
Jiang-Shi: While the creature is adjacent to or in your square, it gains the benefit of your prayer scroll ability. The creature crumbles into dust if destroyed ( just like a jiang-shi), but is not permanently destroyed unless measures are taken that would destroy a jiang-shi.
Moroi: If the creature is adjacent to or in your square when you assume gaseous form, it transforms with you and follows you; its transformation ends when yours does. If reduced to 0 hit points, it’s forced into gaseous form and must return to your coffin to reform (or the foot of your coffin if it cannot fit within it).
Nosferatu: If the creature is adjacent to or in your square when you assume swarm form, it transforms with you and follows you; its transformation ends when yours does. The creature can climb as if using the spider climb vampire ability, even if its anatomy is not suitable for climbing (such as a horse).
Special: If your animal companion or familiar is destroyed, dismissed, or lost, you can apply the effects of this feat to the replacement creature. If you are destroyed, the creature retains its undead type but loses all other special abilities from this feat. If you have more than one animal companion or familiar, choose one of them when you select this feat and apply its effects to that creature.
You can select this feat more than once. Each time you select the feat, it applies to a different animal companion or familiar.
Ghoul Huntsmaster, Ghoul Ranger 6: ?
Corpse Cat: ?
Ghoul Commander, Ghoul Antipaladin 7: ?
Masked Murderer, Ghoul Bard 8: ?
Ancient Gravedigger, Ghoul Oracle 10: ?
Ghoul Monarch, Ghoul Sorcerer 12: ?
Skaveling: ?
Sootwing Bat: ?
Ghoul Hound: ?
Grathkoll: ?
Ghoul Creeper, Ghoul Rogue 3: ?
Ghoul Stalker, Ghoul Rogue 6: ?
Vampire Seducer, Human Vampire Bard 5: ?
Vampire Warrior, Vishkanya Jiang-Shi Vampire Fighter 7: When this vishkanya was alive, she pursued the path of the samurai, but wasn’t allowed to join their honorable ranks. Her restless spirit remained trapped in her flesh after death, and eventually she animated her own rotting body and sought out those who had wronged her.
Vampire Savage, Half-Orc Barbarian 9: ?
Enlightened Vampire, Human Vampire Monk 11: ?
Vampire Lord, Half-Elf Vampire Magus 14: ?
Vampire Spawn Human Rogue 2: ?
Vampire Spawn Template: “Vampire spawn” is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature with 4 or more Hit Dice.
Ghoul: Always searching for the flesh of humanoids, ghouls thrive where people live, and their domains steadily expand as the creatures infect new victims with ghoul fever.
Potential victims have good reason to fear ghouls, as dying of ghoul fever is a horrifying fate. From the onset of the disease, an insatiable hunger overcomes the victim, yet her body begins to reject all normal food and drink. If denied food, the victim becomes increasingly desperate and violent as her hunger grows. Feeding the victim flesh from a corpse temporarily alleviates her cravings, but does not slow the onset of the disease. Eventually, the victim’s mortal body fails entirely. After the victim finally dies, she wakes up at the next stroke of midnight, obsessed with the hunger for flesh.
Vampire, Moroi: Beyond their mortal minions, vampires can drain the blood or life energy from a victim to create spawn enslaved to their will—either full-fledged vampires or weaker vampire spawn.
Other types of vampire exist, some of them arising from rare or even unique circumstances, but the following are the most notable types. Haunt: A frightful haunter has so much rage and desire to create fear that it can actually create a haunt once per hour. Each haunt has a CR no greater than the frightful haunter’s CR – 2, and often takes a form either tied to the location the frightful haunter selects for it or inspired by the victims the frightful haunter hopes to frighten.
Occasionally, the desire to cause fear and misery survives even when a bugbear dies. Such a creature can detach part of its vile nature to create frightening spiritual traps in the form of haunts.
Ghast: ?
Lich: ?
Lacedon: ?
Undead: Corpse Companion feat.
Vampiric Companion feat.
Ravener: ?
Vampire Spawn: Beyond their mortal minions, vampires can drain the blood or life energy from a victim to create spawn enslaved to their will—either full-fledged vampires or weaker vampire spawn.
Jiang-Shi: Created when a restless spirit does not leave its corpse at the time of death, a jiang-shi more closely resembles a rotting corpse than other vampires do.
Nosferatu: Nosferatu cannot create others of their kind, thus their numbers are dwindling.
Corpse Companion
You have an undead animal companion.
Prerequisites: Animal companion class feature, ghoul.
Benefit: Your animal companion’s type changes to undead, but its Hit Dice, base attack bonus, saving throws, skills, and tricks are retained from the base creature. The creature loses its Constitution score and its Charisma score becomes 12. If your companion is destroyed, your new companion is undead as well, using these same modifications.
Vampiric Companion
Just as your undead existence mocks nature, so too does your twisted companion reflect the vile nature of vampirism.
Prerequisites: Dhampir or vampire, nongood alignment, 10th level in a class that grants a familiar or animal companion.
Benefit: Your animal companion or familiar’s type changes to “undead.” The creature gains fast healing 5 as well as your vampire or dhampir weaknesses. If you are a vampire, the creature also gains the following abilities, depending on what type of vampire you are.
Jiang-Shi: While the creature is adjacent to or in your square, it gains the benefit of your prayer scroll ability. The creature crumbles into dust if destroyed ( just like a jiang-shi), but is not permanently destroyed unless measures are taken that would destroy a jiang-shi.
Moroi: If the creature is adjacent to or in your square when you assume gaseous form, it transforms with you and follows you; its transformation ends when yours does. If reduced to 0 hit points, it’s forced into gaseous form and must return to your coffin to reform (or the foot of your coffin if it cannot fit within it).
Nosferatu: If the creature is adjacent to or in your square when you assume swarm form, it transforms with you and follows you; its transformation ends when yours does. The creature can climb as if using the spider climb vampire ability, even if its anatomy is not suitable for climbing (such as a horse).
Special: If your animal companion or familiar is destroyed, dismissed, or lost, you can apply the effects of this feat to the replacement creature. If you are destroyed, the creature retains its undead type but loses all other special abilities from this feat. If you have more than one animal companion or familiar, choose one of them when you select this feat and apply its effects to that creature.
You can select this feat more than once. Each time you select the feat, it applies to a different animal companion or familiar.
Mythic Adventures
Mythic Lich Human Lich Cleric 13: ?
Mythic Lich: “Mythic lich” is an acquired template that can be added to any creature with the lich template.
Magic often plays a hand in the creation of the undead, of course, from those created as slaves like a mythic skeleton to turning that mighty magic upon themselves like a mythic lich. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
Mythic Mummy: A mythic mummy is the preserved and animated remains of royalty—the honored dead a common mummy is compelled to protect.
Advanced Mummy: As a swift action, a mythic mummy can expend one use of mythic power to transform a slain opponent into a non-mythic mummy with the advanced simple template.
Mythic Human Skeleton: ?
Mythic Skeleton: A mythic skeleton is an animated corpse created with mythic magic such as mythic animate dead.
“Mythic skeleton” is an acquired template that can be added to any creature with the skeleton template.
Magic often plays a hand in the creation of the undead, of course, from those created as slaves like a mythic skeleton to turning that mighty magic upon themselves like a mythic lich. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
Mythic Animate Dead spell.
Torpid Reanimation spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Mythic Bloody Skeleton: ?
Mythic Burning Skeleton: ?
Mythic Skeletal Champion: ?
Mythic Vampire Human Vampire Fighter 7: ?
Mythic Vampire: A mythic vampire has ties to the earliest of its kind, being either one of the first vampires or the offspring of such ancient creatures.
“Mythic vampire” is an acquired template that can be added to any creature with the vampire template.
At 8th rank, a mythic vampire can expend one use of mythic power when using create spawn to cause the victim to rise as undead in 1 hour instead of 1d4 days. The mythic vampire can expend two uses of mythic power when using create spawn to create a mythic vampire instead of a vampire spawn or non-mythic vampire.
Mythic Agile Skeleton: Mythic Animate Dead spell.
Torpid Reanimation spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Mythic Savage Skeleton: Mythic Animate Dead spell.
Torpid Reanimation spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Mythic Agile Zombie: Mythic Animate Dead spell.
Torpid Reanimation spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Mythic Savage Zombie: Mythic Animate Dead spell.
Torpid Reanimation spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Ghoul: ?
Shadow: ?
Wraith: ?
Mohrg: ?
Vampire: ?
Vampire Spawn: ?
ANIMATE DEAD Add your tier to your caster level when determining how many Hit Dice of undead you can animate with a single casting of this spell. This doesn’t increase the total number of Hit Dice worth of undead you can control. By expending a second use of mythic power, you can ignore the spell’s material component cost. Augmented (6th): If you expend two uses of mythic power, any skeletons or zombies you create gain either the agile or savage mythic template. This template lasts for a number of days equal to your tier. Alternatively, if you’re 8th tier and expend 10 uses of mythic power, any skeletons you create permanently gain the mythic skeleton template.
Mythic Lich: “Mythic lich” is an acquired template that can be added to any creature with the lich template.
Magic often plays a hand in the creation of the undead, of course, from those created as slaves like a mythic skeleton to turning that mighty magic upon themselves like a mythic lich. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
Mythic Mummy: A mythic mummy is the preserved and animated remains of royalty—the honored dead a common mummy is compelled to protect.
Advanced Mummy: As a swift action, a mythic mummy can expend one use of mythic power to transform a slain opponent into a non-mythic mummy with the advanced simple template.
Mythic Human Skeleton: ?
Mythic Skeleton: A mythic skeleton is an animated corpse created with mythic magic such as mythic animate dead.
“Mythic skeleton” is an acquired template that can be added to any creature with the skeleton template.
Magic often plays a hand in the creation of the undead, of course, from those created as slaves like a mythic skeleton to turning that mighty magic upon themselves like a mythic lich. (Mythic Monsters 9: Undead)
Mythic Animate Dead spell.
Torpid Reanimation spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Mythic Bloody Skeleton: ?
Mythic Burning Skeleton: ?
Mythic Skeletal Champion: ?
Mythic Vampire Human Vampire Fighter 7: ?
Mythic Vampire: A mythic vampire has ties to the earliest of its kind, being either one of the first vampires or the offspring of such ancient creatures.
“Mythic vampire” is an acquired template that can be added to any creature with the vampire template.
At 8th rank, a mythic vampire can expend one use of mythic power when using create spawn to cause the victim to rise as undead in 1 hour instead of 1d4 days. The mythic vampire can expend two uses of mythic power when using create spawn to create a mythic vampire instead of a vampire spawn or non-mythic vampire.
Mythic Agile Skeleton: Mythic Animate Dead spell.
Torpid Reanimation spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Mythic Savage Skeleton: Mythic Animate Dead spell.
Torpid Reanimation spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Mythic Agile Zombie: Mythic Animate Dead spell.
Torpid Reanimation spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Mythic Savage Zombie: Mythic Animate Dead spell.
Torpid Reanimation spell. (Mythic Magic: Horror Spells)
Ghoul: ?
Shadow: ?
Wraith: ?
Mohrg: ?
Vampire: ?
Vampire Spawn: ?
ANIMATE DEAD Add your tier to your caster level when determining how many Hit Dice of undead you can animate with a single casting of this spell. This doesn’t increase the total number of Hit Dice worth of undead you can control. By expending a second use of mythic power, you can ignore the spell’s material component cost. Augmented (6th): If you expend two uses of mythic power, any skeletons or zombies you create gain either the agile or savage mythic template. This template lasts for a number of days equal to your tier. Alternatively, if you’re 8th tier and expend 10 uses of mythic power, any skeletons you create permanently gain the mythic skeleton template.
Mythic Realms
Agmazar the Star Titan: After his destruction at the claws of the kaiju King Mogaro, Agmazar rose as an undead behemoth.
In a cataclysmic battle that wiped out every living creature for miles, King Mogaru slew the invader from the stars and left the body burned and broken, after which he returned to his deep lake lair for a long rest.
King Mogaru, however, didn’t know the alien powers engrafted within the Star Titan—fail-safes created long ago by the Balance, its makers upon the planet Verces, who created it as an ultimate weapon against undead invaders from Eox. If Agmazar were killed, these unholy energies would raise it, not to life that might once again be snuffed out by the undead, but to titanic unlife that would make it an invincible weapon.
Its death activated its failsafe programming.
Arazni: Once the virtuous herald of the god Aroden, the wizard Arazni was raised as a lich by the necromancer Geb.
But even in death Arazni found no comfort. She lay in rest only 67 years before the overzealous Knights of Ozem provoked the witch-king Geb, who raised some of the fallen knights as grave knights and sent them to bring Arazni’s revered remains to him. Not content with her corpse, he infused deathless vitality into her and bound her spirit up in her bones, making her his Harlot Queen.
Kortash Khain: ?
Whispering Tyrant: Slain by a god and risen as a lich.
Tar-Baphon had intended to die by Aroden’s hand all along. His studies had revealed to him that his only true path to immortality lay in undeath. For Tar-Baphon’s last step in becoming a lich beyond compare, he needed to be killed by a god, and Aroden served this purpose. The process sparked by Aroden took time, however, and for 2,307 years Tar-Baphon’s body laid dead in the ground before he returned to grim unlife. The Whispering Tyrant was born.
Ghoul: A humanoid who dies of Kortash Khain's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight; a humanoid with 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast.
Ghoul Ghast: A humanoid who dies of Kortash Khain's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight; a humanoid with 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast.
In a cataclysmic battle that wiped out every living creature for miles, King Mogaru slew the invader from the stars and left the body burned and broken, after which he returned to his deep lake lair for a long rest.
King Mogaru, however, didn’t know the alien powers engrafted within the Star Titan—fail-safes created long ago by the Balance, its makers upon the planet Verces, who created it as an ultimate weapon against undead invaders from Eox. If Agmazar were killed, these unholy energies would raise it, not to life that might once again be snuffed out by the undead, but to titanic unlife that would make it an invincible weapon.
Its death activated its failsafe programming.
Arazni: Once the virtuous herald of the god Aroden, the wizard Arazni was raised as a lich by the necromancer Geb.
But even in death Arazni found no comfort. She lay in rest only 67 years before the overzealous Knights of Ozem provoked the witch-king Geb, who raised some of the fallen knights as grave knights and sent them to bring Arazni’s revered remains to him. Not content with her corpse, he infused deathless vitality into her and bound her spirit up in her bones, making her his Harlot Queen.
Kortash Khain: ?
Whispering Tyrant: Slain by a god and risen as a lich.
Tar-Baphon had intended to die by Aroden’s hand all along. His studies had revealed to him that his only true path to immortality lay in undeath. For Tar-Baphon’s last step in becoming a lich beyond compare, he needed to be killed by a god, and Aroden served this purpose. The process sparked by Aroden took time, however, and for 2,307 years Tar-Baphon’s body laid dead in the ground before he returned to grim unlife. The Whispering Tyrant was born.
Ghoul: A humanoid who dies of Kortash Khain's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight; a humanoid with 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast.
Ghoul Ghast: A humanoid who dies of Kortash Khain's ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight; a humanoid with 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast.
Occult Adventures
Human Skeleton: Occultist Necromancy Implement Necromantic Servant focus power.
Human Zombie: Occultist Necromancy Implement Necromantic Servant focus power.
Bloody Human Skeleton: Occultist Necromancy Implement Necromantic Servant focus power level 9.
Burning Human Skeleton: Occultist Necromancy Implement Necromantic Servant focus power level 9.
Fast Human Zombie: Occultist Necromancy Implement Necromantic Servant focus power level 9.
Haunt: ?
Ghost: ?
Necromantic Servant (Sp): As a standard action, you can expend 1 point of mental focus to raise a single human skeleton (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 250) or human zombie (Bestiary 288) from the ground to serve you for 10 minutes per occultist level you possess or until it is destroyed, whichever comes first. This servant has a number of hit points equal to 1/2 your maximum hit point total (not adjusted for temporary hit points or other temporary increases). It also uses your base attack bonus and gains a bonus on damage rolls equal to 1/2 your occultist level. At 5th level, whenever the necromantic servant would be destroyed, if you are within medium range (100 feet + 10 feet per level) of the servant, you can expend 1 point of mental focus as an immediate action to cause the servant to return to full hit points. At 9th level, you can choose to give the servant the bloody or burning simple template (if it’s a skeleton) or the fast simple template (if it’s a zombie). At 13th level, when you take an immediate action to restore your servant, it splits into two servants. You can have a maximum number of servants in existence equal to 1/2 your occultist level. At 17th level, the servant gains a teamwork feat of your choice.
Human Zombie: Occultist Necromancy Implement Necromantic Servant focus power.
Bloody Human Skeleton: Occultist Necromancy Implement Necromantic Servant focus power level 9.
Burning Human Skeleton: Occultist Necromancy Implement Necromantic Servant focus power level 9.
Fast Human Zombie: Occultist Necromancy Implement Necromantic Servant focus power level 9.
Haunt: ?
Ghost: ?
Necromantic Servant (Sp): As a standard action, you can expend 1 point of mental focus to raise a single human skeleton (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 250) or human zombie (Bestiary 288) from the ground to serve you for 10 minutes per occultist level you possess or until it is destroyed, whichever comes first. This servant has a number of hit points equal to 1/2 your maximum hit point total (not adjusted for temporary hit points or other temporary increases). It also uses your base attack bonus and gains a bonus on damage rolls equal to 1/2 your occultist level. At 5th level, whenever the necromantic servant would be destroyed, if you are within medium range (100 feet + 10 feet per level) of the servant, you can expend 1 point of mental focus as an immediate action to cause the servant to return to full hit points. At 9th level, you can choose to give the servant the bloody or burning simple template (if it’s a skeleton) or the fast simple template (if it’s a zombie). At 13th level, when you take an immediate action to restore your servant, it splits into two servants. You can have a maximum number of servants in existence equal to 1/2 your occultist level. At 17th level, the servant gains a teamwork feat of your choice.
Osirion Legacy of Pharaohs
Pharaonic Guardian: Pharaonic guardians were created when an egotistical Osirian pharaoh used now-lost techniques to ritually draw upon the fear of the countless slaves and servants who built her monuments. When enough of these minions were driven into self-destruction trying to provide for the pharaoh’s decadent demands, she knitted their souls together to create the first pharaonic guardians.
Pathfinder Unchained
Ghost Graft: A soul unable to rest becomes a spectral undead creature.
Graveknight Graft: ?
Lich Graft: This spellcaster retained its magical powers after it died and rose again in undeath.
Skeleton Graft: The animated bones of the dead attack as a skeleton—a mindless soldier in an army of the dead.
Vampire Graft: ?
Zombie Graft: A reanimated corpse can become a sluggish and unthinking zombie.
Zombie Minotaur: ?
Vampire Cleric: ?
Undead: Undead are once-living creatures that have been reanimated by spiritual or supernatural forces.
Ghoul: ?
Graveknight Graft: ?
Lich Graft: This spellcaster retained its magical powers after it died and rose again in undeath.
Skeleton Graft: The animated bones of the dead attack as a skeleton—a mindless soldier in an army of the dead.
Vampire Graft: ?
Zombie Graft: A reanimated corpse can become a sluggish and unthinking zombie.
Zombie Minotaur: ?
Vampire Cleric: ?
Undead: Undead are once-living creatures that have been reanimated by spiritual or supernatural forces.
Ghoul: ?
Player's Companion: Dwarves of Golarion
Undead: ?
Zombie: ?
Wight: ?
Ghost: ?
Zombie: ?
Wight: ?
Ghost: ?
Starfinder Core Rulebook
Urgathoa: Urgathoa was once a mortal with a hunger for life so tremendous that she rebelled against the notion of being judged by Pharasma when she died, instead tearing herself away from the Lady of Graves’s endless line of souls and returning from the Great Beyond as the universe’s first undead creature.
Undead: The Positive Energy Plane and its dark twin, the Negative Energy Plane, exist to create and destroy life, respectively. While the Negative Energy Plane drains life and creates strange mockeries of it (and is responsible for animating undead creatures), the Positive Energy Plane is no safer, as its pure vitality overwhelms and consumes mortal bodies.
Animate Dead spell.
Skeleton: ?
Zombie: ?
Shadow: Urgathoa’s existence is a corruption of the natural order; some say her first divine footprints upon the soil of the Material Plane birthed plague and infection and that the first undead shadows and wraiths were born of her breath.
Wraith: Urgathoa’s existence is a corruption of the natural order; some say her first divine footprints upon the soil of the Material Plane birthed plague and infection and that the first undead shadows and wraiths were born of her breath.
ANIMATE DEAD 4 4
School necromancy
Casting Time 1 standard action
Range touch
Targets one or more corpses
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
This spell turns corpses into undead creatures that obey your spoken commands. The undead can be made to follow you, or they can be made to remain in place and attack any creature (or a specific kind of creature) entering the area. They remain animated until they are destroyed. A destroyed undead can’t be animated again.
You can create one or more undead creatures with a total CR of no more than half your caster level. You can only create one type of undead with each casting of this spell. Creating undead requires special materials worth 1,000 credits × the total CR of the undead created; these materials are consumed as part of casting the spell.
The undead you create remain under your control indefinitely. No matter how many times you use this spell, however, you can control only a number of undead whose total CR is no greater than your caster level. If you exceed this number, all the newly created creatures fall under your control and any excess undead from previous castings become uncontrolled. You choose which creatures are released. Once released, such undead have no particular feelings of loyalty to you, and in time they may grow in power beyond the undead you can create.
The corpses you use must be as intact as the typical undead of the type you choose to create. For example, a skeleton can be created only from a mostly intact corpse (that has bones) or skeleton. A zombie can be created only from a creature with a physical anatomy.
Undead: The Positive Energy Plane and its dark twin, the Negative Energy Plane, exist to create and destroy life, respectively. While the Negative Energy Plane drains life and creates strange mockeries of it (and is responsible for animating undead creatures), the Positive Energy Plane is no safer, as its pure vitality overwhelms and consumes mortal bodies.
Animate Dead spell.
Skeleton: ?
Zombie: ?
Shadow: Urgathoa’s existence is a corruption of the natural order; some say her first divine footprints upon the soil of the Material Plane birthed plague and infection and that the first undead shadows and wraiths were born of her breath.
Wraith: Urgathoa’s existence is a corruption of the natural order; some say her first divine footprints upon the soil of the Material Plane birthed plague and infection and that the first undead shadows and wraiths were born of her breath.
ANIMATE DEAD 4 4
School necromancy
Casting Time 1 standard action
Range touch
Targets one or more corpses
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
This spell turns corpses into undead creatures that obey your spoken commands. The undead can be made to follow you, or they can be made to remain in place and attack any creature (or a specific kind of creature) entering the area. They remain animated until they are destroyed. A destroyed undead can’t be animated again.
You can create one or more undead creatures with a total CR of no more than half your caster level. You can only create one type of undead with each casting of this spell. Creating undead requires special materials worth 1,000 credits × the total CR of the undead created; these materials are consumed as part of casting the spell.
The undead you create remain under your control indefinitely. No matter how many times you use this spell, however, you can control only a number of undead whose total CR is no greater than your caster level. If you exceed this number, all the newly created creatures fall under your control and any excess undead from previous castings become uncontrolled. You choose which creatures are released. Once released, such undead have no particular feelings of loyalty to you, and in time they may grow in power beyond the undead you can create.
The corpses you use must be as intact as the typical undead of the type you choose to create. For example, a skeleton can be created only from a mostly intact corpse (that has bones) or skeleton. A zombie can be created only from a creature with a physical anatomy.
Ultimate Intrigue
Ghost: The PCs have killed their nemesis, but his obsession causes him to rise from death as a ghost with the unfinished business of defeating the PCs. His spirit rises 1d4 days after his death, and his ghost is tied to his possessions from life.
Revenant: The PCs kill a fanatic follower of the nemesis, who returns from death as a revenant.
Witchfire: Long ago, a powerful hag led a wicked coven that sought to destroy the kingdom of Gaheris. Seeking to turn enemies into allies, the king of Gaheris convinced the two weaker sisters to break their coven and betray their leader. In exchange, he used magic to reincarnate them into humans and married them to two of his most powerful dukes. The hags sealed their elder sister in her shack and burned her alive, only to see her to rise as a powerful witchfire.
Draugr: ?
Dullahan: ?
Ghoul: ?
Ghul: ?
Huecuva: ?
Skeletal Champion: ?
Skeleton: Animate Dead spell.
Zombie: Animate Dead spell.
Revenant: The PCs kill a fanatic follower of the nemesis, who returns from death as a revenant.
Witchfire: Long ago, a powerful hag led a wicked coven that sought to destroy the kingdom of Gaheris. Seeking to turn enemies into allies, the king of Gaheris convinced the two weaker sisters to break their coven and betray their leader. In exchange, he used magic to reincarnate them into humans and married them to two of his most powerful dukes. The hags sealed their elder sister in her shack and burned her alive, only to see her to rise as a powerful witchfire.
Draugr: ?
Dullahan: ?
Ghoul: ?
Ghul: ?
Huecuva: ?
Skeletal Champion: ?
Skeleton: Animate Dead spell.
Zombie: Animate Dead spell.
Villain Codex
The Eminent Spellqueen, Human Lich Sorcerer 12: ?
Fevered Ravener, Ghast Slayer 4: ?
Undead Apostle, Dwarf Graveknight Fighter 8: Before his death and rise as a graveknight, the undead apostle belonged to the adventuring company that slew the Reaper. In the final assault on her stronghold, the apostle became separated from his companions and the cult defeated him, hoping to learn who had sent the adventurers or else to turn him against his former allies and send him out to undermine and dishearten them. The cult initially kept him alive, but he ultimately burned to death in the fire his allies set to destroy the Reaper. Believing their comrade dead, they left him behind. He rose from the ashes with the fire still alive in his soul, burning with hatred for those who had left him to die.
“You, of all people, have the gall to ask me ‘why?’ After everything we went through, after all the times we fought side by side, you left me there. You left me surrounded by walking corpses and murderers. You left me to die in darkness and disease, and you made damn sure I did when you burned it all down around me just to save your own skin. You didn’t even have the kindness to dispatch me quickly—you didn’t even bother to see if whether was possible to save me. Oh no, you were all too ready to let me suffer before I died. Yet I suppose I should thank you, in the end, because it opened my eyes to the truth of this wretched existence. After the ashes cooled and I arose, I realized that life is the real plague, old friend, and the Reaper and her undead followers are the cure. Now it is time for me to return the favor and help you embrace real power.”
—The undead apostle, in a last conversation with an old companion
The newest addition to the cult’s leadership, the undead apostle, is a dwarven graveknight who perished and rose again when he and his adventuring company attempted—successfully—to slay the Reaper.
The Reaper, Human Ghost Cleric 9:
Ghost Captain, Human Ghost Psychic 8: ?
Juju Zombie Pirate Thug: ?
Undead: Followers of Urgathoa revere all sicknesses as worldly expressions of her divine will, but none more so than the pallid gift, which opens its victims’ fevered minds to the glory of the Pallid Princess. Creatures that die while afflicted with the disease rise as undead, but some creatures form a symbiotic bond with it and become pallid vectors.
Plague Zombie: When a pallid vector dies, it rises as a plague zombie 1 round later. Instead of zombie rot, it spreads pallid gift. Sprinkling holy water on the body (a standard action) before it rises prevents this. A humanoid pallid vector that kills itself ritualistically or dies within a desecrate effect or other area that promotes undeath rises as a more powerful undead instead, as if it had died from pallid gift.
A nonhumanoid pallid gift-infected creature that dies rises as a plague zombie in 2d6 hours, and spreads pallid curse instead of zombie rot.
A humanoid pallid gift-infected creature with 1-3 HD that dies rises as a plague zombie.
Ghast: A humanoid pallid gift-infected creature with 4-5 HD that dies rises as a ghast.
Wight: A humanoid pallid gift-infected creature with 6-7 HD that dies rises as a wight.
Vampire: A humanoid pallid gift-infected creature with 8+ HD that dies rises as a vampire.
Draugr: ?
Pallid Gift: melee attacks; save Fort DC = 10 + 1/2 the pallid vector’s Hit Dice + its Con modifier; onset immediate; frequency 1/day; effect 1d6 Constitution damage and 1d6 Wisdom damage, the infected creature is fatigued, the ability damage can’t be healed, and the fatigue can’t be removed while the creature is infected; cure 2 consecutive saves. A nonhumanoid infected creature that dies rises as a plague zombie in 2d6 hours, and spreads pallid curse instead of zombie rot. A humanoid infected creature that dies rises as an undead according to its HD.
Hit Dice Monster
1–3 Plague zombie
4–5 Ghast
6–7 Wight
8+ Vampire
Fevered Ravener, Ghast Slayer 4: ?
Undead Apostle, Dwarf Graveknight Fighter 8: Before his death and rise as a graveknight, the undead apostle belonged to the adventuring company that slew the Reaper. In the final assault on her stronghold, the apostle became separated from his companions and the cult defeated him, hoping to learn who had sent the adventurers or else to turn him against his former allies and send him out to undermine and dishearten them. The cult initially kept him alive, but he ultimately burned to death in the fire his allies set to destroy the Reaper. Believing their comrade dead, they left him behind. He rose from the ashes with the fire still alive in his soul, burning with hatred for those who had left him to die.
“You, of all people, have the gall to ask me ‘why?’ After everything we went through, after all the times we fought side by side, you left me there. You left me surrounded by walking corpses and murderers. You left me to die in darkness and disease, and you made damn sure I did when you burned it all down around me just to save your own skin. You didn’t even have the kindness to dispatch me quickly—you didn’t even bother to see if whether was possible to save me. Oh no, you were all too ready to let me suffer before I died. Yet I suppose I should thank you, in the end, because it opened my eyes to the truth of this wretched existence. After the ashes cooled and I arose, I realized that life is the real plague, old friend, and the Reaper and her undead followers are the cure. Now it is time for me to return the favor and help you embrace real power.”
—The undead apostle, in a last conversation with an old companion
The newest addition to the cult’s leadership, the undead apostle, is a dwarven graveknight who perished and rose again when he and his adventuring company attempted—successfully—to slay the Reaper.
The Reaper, Human Ghost Cleric 9:
Ghost Captain, Human Ghost Psychic 8: ?
Juju Zombie Pirate Thug: ?
Undead: Followers of Urgathoa revere all sicknesses as worldly expressions of her divine will, but none more so than the pallid gift, which opens its victims’ fevered minds to the glory of the Pallid Princess. Creatures that die while afflicted with the disease rise as undead, but some creatures form a symbiotic bond with it and become pallid vectors.
Plague Zombie: When a pallid vector dies, it rises as a plague zombie 1 round later. Instead of zombie rot, it spreads pallid gift. Sprinkling holy water on the body (a standard action) before it rises prevents this. A humanoid pallid vector that kills itself ritualistically or dies within a desecrate effect or other area that promotes undeath rises as a more powerful undead instead, as if it had died from pallid gift.
A nonhumanoid pallid gift-infected creature that dies rises as a plague zombie in 2d6 hours, and spreads pallid curse instead of zombie rot.
A humanoid pallid gift-infected creature with 1-3 HD that dies rises as a plague zombie.
Ghast: A humanoid pallid gift-infected creature with 4-5 HD that dies rises as a ghast.
Wight: A humanoid pallid gift-infected creature with 6-7 HD that dies rises as a wight.
Vampire: A humanoid pallid gift-infected creature with 8+ HD that dies rises as a vampire.
Draugr: ?
Pallid Gift: melee attacks; save Fort DC = 10 + 1/2 the pallid vector’s Hit Dice + its Con modifier; onset immediate; frequency 1/day; effect 1d6 Constitution damage and 1d6 Wisdom damage, the infected creature is fatigued, the ability damage can’t be healed, and the fatigue can’t be removed while the creature is infected; cure 2 consecutive saves. A nonhumanoid infected creature that dies rises as a plague zombie in 2d6 hours, and spreads pallid curse instead of zombie rot. A humanoid infected creature that dies rises as an undead according to its HD.
Hit Dice Monster
1–3 Plague zombie
4–5 Ghast
6–7 Wight
8+ Vampire
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