Monster Manual
5e
Undead: Undead are once-living creatures brought to a horrifying state of undeath through the practice of necromantic magic or some unholy curse.
Orcus, the Prince of Undeath, has the power to transform manes into undead monsters, most often ghouls and shadows.
Banshee: This woeful spirit is a banshee, a spiteful creature formed from the spirit of a female elf.
Banshees are the undead remnants of elves who, blessed with great beauty, failed to use their gift to bring joy to the world. Instead, they used their beauty to corrupt and control others. Elves afflicted by the banshee's curse experience no gladness, feeling only distress in the presence of the living. As the curse takes its toll, their minds and bodies decay, until death completes their transformation into undead monsters.
A banshee becomes forever bound to the place of its demise, unable to venture more than five miles from there. It is forced to relive every moment of its life with perfect recall, yet always refuses to accept responsibility for its doom.
Beholder Death Tyrant: On rare occasions, a beholder's sleeping mind drifts to places beyond its normal madness, imagining a reality in which it exists beyond death. When such dreams take hold, a beholder can transform, its flesh sloughing away to leave a death tyrant behind.
Crawling Claw: Crawling claws are the severed hands of murderers animated by dark magic so that they can go on killing.
Through dark necromantic rituals, the life force of a murderer is bound to its severed hand, haunting and animating it. If a dead murderer's spirit already manifests as another undead creature, if the murderer is raised from death, or if the spirit has long passed on to another plane, the ritual fails.
The ritual invoked to create a crawling claw works best with a hand recently severed from a murderer. To this end, ritualists and their servants frequent public executions to gain possession of suitable hands, or make bargains with assassins and torturers.
If a crawling claw is animated from the severed hand of a still-living murderer, the ritual binds the claw to the murderer's soul. The disembodied hand can then return to its former limb, its undead flesh knitting to the living arm from which it was severed.
Made whole again, the murderer acts as though the hand had never been severed and the ritual had never taken place. When the crawling claw separates again, the living body falls into a coma. Destroying the crawling claw while it is away from the body kills the murderer. However, killing the murderer has no effect on the crawling claw.
Death Knight: When a paladin that falls from grace dies without seeking atonement, dark powers can transform the once-mortal knight into a hateful undead creature.
Lord Soth, Death Knight: Lord Soth began his fall from grace with an act of heroism, saving an elf named Isolde from an ogre. Soth and Isolde fell in love, but Soth was already married. He had a servant dispose of his wife and was charged with murder, but fled with Isolde. When his castle fell under siege, he prayed for guidance and was told that he must atone for his misdeeds by completing a quest, but growing fears about Isolde's fidelity caused him to abandon his quest. Because his mission was not accomplished, a great cataclysm swept the land. When Isolde gave birth to a son, Soth refused to believe that the child was his and slew them both. All were incinerated in a fire that swept through the castle, yet Soth would find no rest in death, becoming a death knight.
Demilich: The immortality granted to a lich lasts only as long as it feeds mortal souls to its phylactery. If it falters or fails in that task, its bones turn to dust until only its skull remains. This "demilich" contains only a fragment of the lich's malevolent life force-just enough so that if it is disturbed, these remains rise into the air and assume a wraithlike form.
A lich that fails or forgets to maintain its body with sacrificed souls begins to physically fall apart, and might eventually become a demilich.
Acererak, Demilich: The transformation into a demilich isn't a bitter end for all liches that experience it. Made as a conscious choice, the path of the demilich becomes the next step in a dark evolution. The lich Acererak-a powerful wizard and demonologist and the infamous master of the Tomb of Horrors-anticipated his own transformation, preparing for it by setting enchanted gemstones into his skull's eye sockets and teeth. Each of these soul gems possessed the power to capture the souls on which his phylactery would feed.
Acererak abandoned his physical body, accepting that it would molder and dissolve to dust while he traveled the planes as a disembodied consciousness. If the skull that was his last physical remains was ever disturbed, its gems would claim the souls of the insolent intruders to his tomb, magically transferring them to his phylactery.
Acererak Disciple Demilich: The transformation into a demilich isn't a bitter end for all liches that experience it. Made as a conscious choice, the path of the demilich becomes the next step in a dark evolution. The lich Acererak-a powerful wizard and demonologist and the infamous master of the Tomb of Horrors-anticipated his own transformation, preparing for it by setting enchanted gemstones into his skull's eye sockets and teeth. Each of these soul gems possessed the power to capture the souls on which his phylactery would feed.
Acererak abandoned his physical body, accepting that it would molder and dissolve to dust while he traveled the planes as a disembodied consciousness. If the skull that was his last physical remains was ever disturbed, its gems would claim the souls of the insolent intruders to his tomb, magically transferring them to his phylactery.
Liches who follow Acererak's path believe that by becoming free of their bodies, they can continue their quest for power beyond the mortal world. As their patron did, they secure their remains within well-guarded vaults, using soul gems to maintain their phylacteries and destroy the adventurers who disturb their lairs.
Dracolich: Even as long-lived as they are, all dragons must eventually die. This thought doesn't sit well with many dragons, some of which allow themselves to be transformed by necromantic energy and ancient rituals into powerful undead dracoliches. Only the most narcissistic dragons choose this path, knowing that by doing so, they sever all ties to their kin and the dragon gods.
Creating a dracolich requires the cooperation of the dragon and a group of mages or cultists that can perform the proper ritual. During the ritual, the dragon consumes a toxic brew that slays it instantly. The attendant spellcasters then ensnare its spirit and transfer it to a special gemstone that functions like a lich's phylactery. As the dragon's flesh rots away, the spirit inside the gem returns to animate the dragon's bones.
Only an ancient or adult true dragon can be transformed into a dracolich . Younger dragons that attempt to undergo the transformation die, as do other creatures that aren't true dragons but possess the dragon type, such as pseudodragons and wyverns. A shadow dragon can't be transformed into a dracolich, for it has already lost too much of its physical form.
Adult Blue Dracolich: ?
Flameskull: Dark spellcasters fashion flameskulls from the remains of dead wizards. When the ritual is complete, green flames erupt from the skull to complete its ghastly transformation.
Ghost: A ghost is the soul of a once-living creature, bound to haunt a specific location, creature, or object that held significance to it in its life.
A ghost yearns to complete some unresolved task from its life. It might seek to avenge its own death, fulfill an oath, or relay a message to a loved one. A ghost might not realize that it has died and continue the everyday routine of its life. Others are driven by wickedness or spite, as with a ghost that refuses to rest until every member of a certain family or organization is dead.
Ghoul: Ghouls trace their origins to the Abyss. Doresain, the first of their kind, was an elf worshiper of Orcus. Turning against his own people, he feasted on humanoid flesh to honor the Demon Prince of Undeath. As a reward for his service, Orcus transformed Doresain into the first ghoul. Doresain served Orcus faithfully in the Abyss, creating ghouls from the demon lord's other servants until an incursion by Yeenoghu, the demonic Gnoll Lord, robbed Doresain of his abyssal domain. When Orcus would not intervene on his behalf, Doresain turned to the elf gods for salvation, and they took pity on him and helped him escape certain destruction. Since then, elves have been immune to the ghouls' paralytic touch.
Orcus, the Prince of Undeath, has the power to transform manes into undead monsters, most often ghouls and shadows.
Doresain, Ghoul: Ghouls trace their origins to the Abyss. Doresain, the first of their kind, was an elf worshiper of Orcus. Turning against his own people, he feasted on humanoid flesh to honor the Demon Prince of Undeath. As a reward for his service, Orcus transformed Doresain into the first ghoul. Doresain served Orcus faithfully in the Abyss, creating ghouls from the demon lord's other servants until an incursion by Yeenoghu, the demonic Gnoll Lord, robbed Doresain of his abyssal domain. When Orcus would not intervene on his behalf, Doresain turned to the elf gods for salvation, and they took pity on him and helped him escape certain destruction. Since then, elves have been immune to the ghouls' paralytic touch.
Ghast: Orcus sometimes infuses a ghoul with a stronger dose of abyssal energy, making a ghast.
Vlaakith, Lich-Queen, Githyanki: ?
Lich: Liches are the remains of great wizards who embrace undeath as a means of preserving themselves.
No wizard takes up the path to lichdom on a whim, and the process of becoming a lich is a well-guarded secret. Wizards that seek lichdom must make bargains with fiends, evil gods, or other foul entities. Many turn to Orcus, Demon Prince of Undeath, whose power has created countless liches. However, those that control the power of lichdom always demand fealty and service for their knowledge.
A lich is created by an arcane ritual that traps the wizard's soul within a phylactery. Doing so binds the soul to the mortal world, preventing it from traveling to the Outer Planes after death. A phylactery is traditionally an amulet in the shape of a small box, but it can take the form of any item possessing an interior space into which arcane sigils of naming, binding, immortality, and dark magic are scribed in silver.
With its phylactery prepared, the future lich drinks a potion of transformation-a vile concoction of poison mixed with the blood of a sentient creature whose soul is sacrificed to the phylactery. The wizard falls dead, then rises as a lich as its soul is drawn into the phylactery, where it forever remains.
Mummy: Raised by dark funerary rituals, a mummy shambles from the shrouded stillness of a time-lost temple or tomb. Having been awoken from its rest, it punishes transgressors with the power of its unholy curse.
The long burial rituals that accompany a mummy's entombment help protect its body from rot. In the embalming process, the newly dead creature's organs are removed and placed in special jars, and its corpse is treated with preserving oils, herbs, and wrappings. After the body has been prepared, the corpse is typically wrapped in linen bandages.
The Will of Dark Gods. An undead mummy is created when the priest of a death god or other dark deity ritually imbues a prepared corpse with necromantic magic. The mummy's linen wrappings are inscribed with necromantic markings before the burial ritual concludes with an invocation to darkness. As a mummy endures in undeath, it animates in response to conditions specified by the ritual. Most commonly, a transgression against its tomb, treasures, lands, or former loved ones will cause a mummy to rise.
The Punished. Once deceased, an individual has no say in whether or not its body is made into a mummy. Some mummies were powerful individuals who displeased a high priest or pharaoh, or who committed crimes of treason, adultery, or murder. As punishment, they were cursed with eternal undeath, embalmed, mummified, and sealed away. Other times, mummies acting as tomb guardians are created from slaves put to death specifically to serve a greater purpose.
Mummy Lord: In the tombs of the ancients, tyrannical monarchs and the high priests of dark gods lie in dreamless rest, waiting for the time when they might reclaim their thrones and reforge their ancient empires.
Under the direction of the most powerful priests, the ritual that creates a mummy can be increased in potency. The mummy lord that rises from such a ritual retains the memories and personality of its former life, and is gifted with supernatural resilience. Dead emperors wield the same infamous rune-marked blades that they did in legend. Sorcerer lords work the forbidden magic that once controlled a terrified populace, and the dark gods reward dead priest-kings' prayers by imparting divine spells.
Heart of the Mummy Lord. As part of the ritual that creates a mummy lord, the creature's heart and viscera are removed from the corpse and placed in canopic jars. These jars are usually carved from limestone or made of pottery, etched or painted with religious hieroglyphs.
Bone Naga: In response to the long history of conflict between the yuan-ti and the nagas, yuan-ti created a necromantic ritual that could halt a naga's resurrection by transforming the living naga into a skeletal undead servitor.
Vecna, Lich: ?
Revenant: A revenant forms from the soul of a mortal who met a cruel and undeserving fate. It claws its way back into the world to seek revenge against the one who wronged it. The revenant reclaims its mortal body and superficially resembles a zombie. However, instead of lifeless eyes, a revenant's eyes burn with resolve and flare in the presence of its adversary. If the revenant's original body was destroyed or is otherwise unavailable, the spirit of the revenant enters another humanoid corpse.
Shadow: As a shadow drains its victim's strength and physical form, the victim's shadow darkens and begins to move of its own volition. In death, the creature's shadow breaks free, becoming a new undead shadow hungry for more life to consume.
If a non-evil humanoid dies from a shadow's strength drain attack, a new shadow rises from the corpse 1d4 hours later.
A humanoid reduced to 0 hit points by a shadow dragon's shadow breath's damage dies, and an undead shadow rises from its corpse and acts immediately after the dragon in the initiative count. The shadow is under the dragon's control.
A humanoid reduced to 0 hit points by a young red shadow dragon's shadow breath's damage dies, and an undead shadow rises from its corpse and acts immediately after the dragon in the initiative count. The shadow is under the dragon's control.
Orcus, the Prince of Undeath, has the power to transform manes into undead monsters, most often ghouls and shadows.
Skeleton: Skeletons arise when animated by dark magic. They heed the summons of spellcasters who call them from their stony tombs and ancient battlefields, or rise of their own accord in places saturated with death and loss, awakened by stirrings of necromantic energy or the presence of corrupting evil.
Animated Dead. Whatever sinister force awakens a skeleton infuses its bones with a dark vitality, adhering joint to joint and reassembling dismantled limbs. This energy motivates a skeleton to move and think in a rudimentary fashion, though only as a pale imitation of the way it behaved in life. An animated skeleton retains no connection to its past, although resurrecting a skeleton restores it body and soul, banishing the hateful undead spirit that empowers it.
While most skeletons are the animated remains of dead humans and other humanoids, skeletal undead can be created from the bones of other creatures besides humanoids, giving rise to a host of terrifying and unique forms.
Minotaur Skeleton: ?
Warhorse Skeleton: ?
Specter: A specter is the angry, unfettered spirit of a humanoid that has been prevented from passing to the afterlife. Specters no longer possess connections to who or what they were, yet are condemned to walk the world forever. Some a re spawned when dark magic or the touch of a wraith rips a soul from a living body.
A wraith can make an undead servant from the spirit of a humanoid creature that has recently suffered a violent death. Such a fragment of woe becomes a specter, spiteful of all that lives.
Wraith's Create Specter power.
Specter Poltergeist: A poltergeist is a different kind of specter-the confused, invisible spirit of an individual with no sense of how he or she died.
Vampire: Most of a vampire's victims become vampire spawn- ravenous creatures with a vampire's hunger for blood, but under the control of the vampire that created them. If a true vampire allows a spawn to draw blood from its own body, the spawn transforms into a true vampire no longer under its master's control.
Vampire Spawn: Most of a vampire's victims become vampire spawn- ravenous creatures with a vampire's hunger for blood, but under the control of the vampire that created them.
A humanoid slain by a vampire's bite and then buried in the ground rises the following night as a vampire spawn under the vampire's control.
Count Strahd Von Zarovich: In a desperate attempt to win Tatyana's heart, Strahd forged a pact with dark powers that made him immortal. At the wedding of Sergei and Tatyana, he confronted his brother and killed him. Tatyana fled and flung herself from Ravenloft's walls. Strahd's guards, seeing him for a monster, shot him with arrows. But he did not die. He became a vampire-the first vampire, according to many sages.
Vampire Warrior: Some vampires have martial training and battlefield experience.
Vampire Spellcaster: Some vampires are practitioners of the arcane arts.
Wight: The word "wight" meant "person" in days of yore, but the name now refers to evil undead who were once mortals driven by dark desire and great vanity. When death stills such a creature's heart and snuffs its living breath, its spirit cries out to the demon lord Orcus or some vile god of the underworld for a reprieve: undeath in return for eternal war on the living. If a dark power answers the call, the spirit is granted undeath so that it can pursue its own malevolent agenda.
Will-o'-Wisp: Will-o'-wisps are the souls of evil beings that perished in anguish or misery as they wandered forsaken lands permeated with powerful magic.
Wraith: A wraith is malice incarnate, concentrated into an incorporeal form that seeks to quench all life. The creature is suffused with negative energy, and its mere passage through the world leaves nearby plants blackened and withered.
When a mortal humanoid lives a debased life or enters into a fiendish pact, it consigns its soul to eternal damnation in the Lower Planes. However, sometimes the soul becomes so suffused with negative energy that it collapses in on itself and ceases to exist the instant before it can shuffle off to some horrible afterlife. When this occurs, the spirit becomes a soulless wraith-a malevolent void trapped on the plane where it died.
Zombie: Sinister necromantic magic infuses the remains of the dead, causing them to rise as zombies that do their creator's bidding without fear or hesitation.
Most zombies are made from humanoid remains, though the flesh and bones of any formerly living creature can be imbued with a semblance of life. Necromantic magic, usually from spells, animates a zombie. Some zombies rise spontaneously when dark magic saturates an area. Once turned into a zombie, a creature can't be restored to life except by powerful magic, such as a resurrection spell.
The magic animating a zombie imbues it with evil, so left without purpose, it attacks any living creature it encounters.
Moreover, a beholder's ability to quash magical energy with its central eye gives way to a more sinister power in a death tyrant, which can transform former slaves and enemies into undead servants.
Any humanoid that dies in a death tyrant's negative energy cone becomes a zombie under the tyrant's command. The dead humanoid retains its place in the initiative order and animates at the start of its next turn, provided that its body hasn't been completely destroyed.
Humanoids slain by a wight can rise as zombies under its control.
A humanoid slain by a wight's life drain attack rises 24 hours later as a zombie under the wight's control, unless the humanoid is restored to life or its body is destroyed.
Ogre Zombie: ?
Beholder Zombie: ?
Create Specter. The wraith targets a humanoid within 10 feet of it that has been dead for no longer than 1 minute and died violently. The target's spirit rises as a specter in the space of its corpse or in the nearest unoccupied space. The specter is under the wraith's control. The wraith can have no more than seven specters under its control at one time.
