Undead Origins

[Voadam]

The Doomgrinder (2e)
2e
Undead, Undead Individual, Undead Creature: ?
Powerful Undead Being: ?
Undead Dragon: Finally, perhaps a more obscure evil mastermind was behind the theft; perhaps the mysterious dracolich Dragotha has stolen the magical treasures, and intends to use them to power a wave of necromantic magic that will animate hundreds of forgotten dragon carcasses across the Flanaess. Under Dragotha's aegis, the undead dragons will wreak terrible vengeance on the living.
Maybe Lyzandred is the one trying to raise dragon carcasses across Oerik and Dragotha is trying to stop this heinous act.
Dragotha, Mysterious Dracolich: ?
Banshee: The banshee is the spirit of an elf woman who was captured by the derro and slowly tortured to death after she was forced to watch her beloved husband die.
Banshee, Spirit of an Elf Woman: ?
Ghoul, Ravenous Creature: ?
Lich, Powerful Undead Being: ?
Lyzandred the Mad, Lich, Powerful Individual, Powerful Lich Diviner, Mage, Mad Lich, Surface Dweller, Lich Mage, Odd Wizard: ?
Mummy: ?
Slow Shadow: ?
Skeleton: ?
Derro Skeleton: The skeletons and zombies are derro bodies. While the living derro have not discovered Lyzandred's tunnel to their underground settlements, it passes through a forgotten derro burial cave where on slow days the lich animated the dead dwarves.
Vampire: ?
Willow, Vampire Druid, Vampire, Charge: A few months ago a trio of wandering druids were turned into undead by a vampire. The youngest of the three, a woman named Willow, was corrupted first, and she killed the others before they realized what she had become.
Dannen, Vampire Druid, Vampire, Thrall, Elder Druid: A few months ago a trio of wandering druids were turned into undead by a vampire. The youngest of the three, a woman named Willow, was corrupted first, and she killed the others before they realized what she had become.
Nannen, Vampire Druid, Vampire, Thrall, Charge: A few months ago a trio of wandering druids were turned into undead by a vampire. The youngest of the three, a woman named Willow, was corrupted first, and she killed the others before they realized what she had become.
Wight, Full Wight: Characters killed by the wight's energy-draining power rise again under Its direct control with the powers and abilities of wights, but with half their experience levels, class abilities and Hit Dice; if the first wight is killed, controlled wights are instantly freed of its control, lose their remaining "living" characteristics, and become full wights.
Derro Zombie: The skeletons and zombies are derro bodies. While the living derro have not discovered Lyzandred's tunnel to their underground settlements, it passes through a forgotten derro burial cave where on slow days the lich animated the dead dwarves.

 

[Voadam]

The Eternal Boundary (2e)
2e
Undead: ?
Freewilled Undead: ?
Horrible Undead: ?
Ghast: ?
Ghoul: ?
Skall, Lich Wizard 19, Powerful Lich: ?
Mummy: ?
Skeleton: ?
Monster Skeleton: ?
Giant Skeleton, More Powerful Creature: ?
Skeleton, Laborer: ?
Armored Skeleton: ?
Hill Giant Skeleton, Huge Skeleton: ?
Skeleton Warrior: ?
Skeleton, Guard: ?
Spectre, Restless Spirit of the Dead: ?
Wight, Freewilled Undead: ?
Wraith, Freewilled Undead: ?
Zombie: ?
Monster Zombie, More Powerful Creature: ?
Zombie, Laborer: ?
Juju Zombie: ?

 

[Voadam]

The Factol's Manifesto (2e)
2e
Undead: ?
Walking Dead: ?
Free-Willed Undead: Another corner of the dark concerns Factol Skall. 'Course, Initiates already know he can raise corpses as zombies and skeletons with just a touch. But, he also can create free-willed undead, like wights, through a ceremony only he knows.
Lesser Undead: ?
Undead Guardian: ?
Lesser Free-Willed Undead: ?
Ghost: ?
Ghast, Lesser Free-Willed Undead: ?
Lich: ?
Factol Skall, Lich Wizard 19, Lich of Advanced Years, Being Virtually Without Emotion: ?
Skeleton: He [Factol Skall] animates dead simply by touching a corpse, causing it to rise as a zombie or skeleton.
Another corner of the dark concerns Facto! Skall. 'Course, Initiates already know he can raise corpses as zombies and skeletons with just a touch.
Skeleton, Lesser Undead, Laborer: ?
Spectre: ?
Vampire: ?
Wight, Free-Willed Undead, Lesser Free-Willed Undead: ?
Wight: Another corner of the dark concerns Factol Skall. 'Course, Initiates already know he can raise corpses as zombies and skeletons with just a touch. But, he also can create free-willed undead, like wights, through a ceremony only he knows.
Wraith, Free-Willed Undead, Lesser Free-Willed Undead: ?
Zombie: He [Factol Skall] animates dead simply by touching a corpse, causing it to rise as a zombie or skeleton.
Another corner of the dark concerns Facto! Skall. 'Course, Initiates already know he can raise corpses as zombies and skeletons with just a touch.
Zombie, Lesser Undead, Laborer: ?
Ju-Ju Zombie: ?
Ju-Ju Zombie Guard: ?

 

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The Gates of Firestorm Peak (2e)
2e
Undead, Undead Creature: ?
Unquiet Spirit: ?
Undead Spirit: ?
Crypt Thing: This undead has been created by Grymange, the Duergar high priest of old, and is commanded to attack any living creature which passes its post; from its concealed location, it has a clear view of the corridor.
This crypt thing was created by Grymange (Naentoth's predecessor) to assist in temple services, guard the temple against unlawful intrusion, and to keep the place clean (a stone cabinet behind the stool holds buckets, mops, and sponges).
Crypt Thing, Crypt Thing Servant, Temple Crypt Thing, Temple Custodian: ?
Mummy: ?
Shadow: ?
Shadow of a Tentacled Horror: ?
Giant Skeleton: This chamber is home to undead creatures created by Duergar priestly enchantments in combination with their powers of enlargement. Three giant skeletons (of Duergar warriors slain in combat) lurk in this chamber with orders to kill any who venture within.
Giant Skeleton, Skeleton, Guardian: ?
Wraith, Dangerous Wraith, Wrathful Wraith: ?
Zombie: Nightcaller magic item.

Nightcaller
There is also a glass (nephelium) whistle with the name "Nightcaller" inscribed upon it in Duergarish characters. When blown over a grave in darkness or at night, one corpse below animates, as per animate dead, and claws its way to the surface (if interred in soft earth or under loose stones). This zombie serves the whistler faithfully until destroyed or turned. The whistle can be used once per week. Good-aligned characters are risking a change in alignment if they use this item after learning its unholy purpose.

 

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The Great Modron March (2e)
2e
Undead, Undead Creature: ?
Undead Servant, Fiend: ?
Screaming Banshee: ?
Orcus, Primus, Shadowy Figure, Shadow, Shadowy Creature: ?
Cryvistin, Vampire Mage 8, Guardian Vampire, Vampire: For that purpose he used Cryvistin, an adventuring wizard who became a vampire when he fell victim to a curse in Undermountain.
Zombie: ?
Hobgoblin Zombie, Undead Hobgoblin: ?

 

[Voadam]

The Ivory Triangle (2e)
2e
Zombie Salt: The salt zombie is an undead creature born of hate (and possibly a subtle magic of the Great Ivory Plain). Resembling the common zombie, these animated corpses are much more powerful (and even a little more intelligent) than their purely magical brethren. These creatures are formed when a human or demihuman dies of thirst in the Great Ivory Plain.
There appear to be several areas of the Great Ivory Plain where a person who has died of thirst will become a salt zombie. (A person who dies of thirst through hit point loss does not become a salt zombie.) The sheer force of will of an individual refusing to die seems to somehow reanimate their corpse in these peculiar regions. It is unknown what sort of residual magic may linger in these areas to cause such an effect There is a 5% chance that any person dying of thirst in the Great Ivory Plain will reanimate.
Some believe that these creatures wandered here from the ruins of Bodach, while the nomads believe that those who die of thirst in the Great Ivory Plain return as zombies, adding to the undead population of the region.
Zombie Salt, Animated Corpse: ?
Undead, Undead Creature: Nibenay then raised the dead warriors of Gulg and led the undead force against the survivors of the oba's army.
The dead are all placed on slabs within the chambers, which are then sealed and flooded with water. A cleric of earth or water always presides over the internment in order to protect the body from undeath. Naturally, such precautions do not always work, and visitors are advised not to venture into these areas without the aid of clerical magic.
For centuries slaves were buried in shallow graves in fields set aside for that purpose. A cleric was always paid to conduct the ceremony, for a slave is as susceptible to undeath as a free citizen or noble. Recently, the enterprising abbot of the Temple of the Sun has begun to offer a service to collect and cremate dead slaves for a fee that is somewhat less than the cost of burying them in the fields.
Undead Rezhatta Beetle, Undead War Beetle, Horrific Undead War Machine: ?
Undead Watroach, Horrific Undead War Machine: ?
Wheelock, Undead Ghoul of Extraordinary Cunning, Poisoner, Man So Riddled With Poison That He Walked On the Threshold Between Life and Death, Decrepit Creature, Greatest Poisoner, Human Bard 16: ?
Skeleton, Common Skeleton: ?
Skeleton, Unintelligent Undead: ?
Animated Animal Skeleton, Unintelligent Undead: ?
Monster Skeleton: ?
Zombie, Common Zombie: The salt zombie is an undead creature born of hate (and possibly a subtle magic of the Great Ivory Plain). Resembling the common zombie, these animated corpses are much more powerful (and even a little more intelligent) than their purely magical brethren. These creatures are formed when a human or demihuman dies of thirst in the Great Ivory Plain.
Zombie, Unintelligent Undead: ?
Monster Zombie, Unintelligent Undead: ?
B'rohg Zombie, Unintelligent Undead: ?
Giant Zombie, Unintelligent Undead: ?

 

[Voadam]

The Legend of Spelljammer (2e)
2e
Kasharin, Beholder Mummy, Beholder-Mummy, Undead Beholder-Mummy: The kasharin are those beholders who contracted the Blinding Rot disease and who survived long enough to seemingly die from the disease and not from beholder retaliation. (The Blinding Rot caused the beholders' eye stalks to wither and decay and subsequently fall off, leaving the beholder severely disabled if not dead. At least half of the beholders aboard the Spelljammer acquired the disease, but most of those afflicted were killed by their fellow beholders during the early stages of the disease, so great is the race's xenophobia over any disparity in the eye tyrant race.)
The disease did not actually kill the creatures, but rather placed them in a state of living death.
The kasharin are products of the disease that has transformed them into their present state. They are changed both in body and in mind, yet they retain many of their natural beholder tendencies.
The Blinding Rot was originally developed as an "ultimate unifier" of the beholder race. The philosophy behind its development is that it brings the beholders—every race, subrace, and sub-subrace—together in a single, unifying death. Rising from the ashes of that death is a new race, a single race of beholder-mummies. All creatures of space must fall to the beholders, and now all the undead must fall to the beholder-mummies.
In truth, a number of beholders who contracted the Blinding Rot have been preserved at a barely living level in the heart of the complex. Wrapped in treated bandages, the rotted ones are kept alive with healing magics and given quarter rations to sustain them.
The eye tyrants have been further reduced by a disease that spread through their group, the blinding rot, which robbed the beholders of their magical eyes and debilitated their minds and bodies. The blinding rot turned a healthy, powerful beholder community into a dozen creatures, hanging on for survival. One beholder apparently survived his bout with the rot and recovered, and now lives outside the citadel, as steward of the ship (see Astor).
Gray Eye has let the ship's natives assume that the rotted beholders were dead and burned, but in reality, their embalmed bodies were kept alive in the heart of the ruins.
Gray Eye has led the ship's inhabitants to assume that the corpses of those beholders killed by the Blinding Rot were burned, but in reality their mummified bodies are kept alive in the heart of the ruins.
Kasharin, Blackened Burnt Beholder, Undead Beholder: ?
Kasharin, Rotted One, Invalid: ?
Master Lich: The master lich is a variation of the standard lich developed from a combination of incantations, potions, and promises made to dark, extradimensional powers. An undead creature becomes a master lich until such time as it must pay the price of the promises given to the dark powers.
Since the master lich exists in part because of his eluding some dark bargain, he seeks safety in numbers. In particular he seeks protection from those who might seek to take the master lich to his final death.
The master lich fears the dark powers that helped make him more than anything else in the world, for they are the ones who will prove to be his undoing.
The Fool, Romar the Fool, The Burrower, Master Lich, Undead Lord, Powerful Individual, Rival, More Powerful Undead, Universal Force of Evil, Potential Ally, Necromancer, Creator, Incarnation of Interracial Evil, Clumsy Unthinking Creation, Boogieman, Creature From the Lower Planes, Tool of the Goblins, Goblin, Barghest, Minor Annoyance, Skeletal Worm, Beast, True Master of the Spelljammer, Myth, Greatest Enemy, Bad Owner, Red Herring, Piece of Goblin Agitation, Biggest Mystery, Greatest Foe, Ultimate Lord, Leader, Former Captain, Secret Captain, Force of Elemental Evil, Outlander Fairy Story, Parasite From a Lower Plane: The creature known as the Fool was once a human captain of the Spelljammer named Romar. Romar was a serious, intense young human, driven to conquer any obstacle. However, with the amount of power the Spelljammer possessed, his direct-line approach meant reaching for the ship's dwarven citadels and asteroid ports behind him in the wake of his decisions. As with other dangerous captains, Spelljammer sought to remove and imprison him.
But Romar's drive, determination, and intelligence short-circuited that attempt. He has discovered the fate of those who passed before him, and made alternate arrangements, including deals with various dark forces of other planes. When the shivaks finally broke into the control room, Romar took his own life, intent on his dark allies to rescue him.
However, Romar did not take into account the fact that most extra-planar beings have nothing to do with the Spelljammer, and avoid it where possible. In slaying himself, Romar called into play his old dealings with these beings, but they could not or would not respond by pulling him from the great ship. He was trapped, and his form given an undying life of lichdom.
He believes that the Fool is the incarnation of interracial evil in the world of the Spelljammer, created by all the hatred that has passed above.
The Fool is a creation of the Kovans, and a clumsy, unthinking creation at that—only those bureaucratic metal-heads would think of scaring someone with a boogieman living in the heart of shivak territory.
Finally, ShiCaga has no dealings with the Fool, who she believes was created by the forces of good to blame all evil activities on.
Si Loo does not believe captains exist, nor does he believe in the Fool; both are creations of the outlanders and nonhumans, who need these fictions to prevent them from going mad with the realization that one as radiant as Si Loo, master of the Spelljammer, is among them The Fool is Romar, a former captain who escaped the fate of the other Lost Captains by embracing undead life and becoming a master lich.
[Grand Knight Chaladar] thinks the Fool was created by evil humans.
[Vagner Firespitter] Thinks the Fool was created by the Kovans.
[Father Goat] thinks the Fool was created by violence.
[Leoster IV] Thinks his advisor created the story of the Fool.
[Ollister] believes the Fool was a story created by his grandfather.
[ShiCaga] Believes the Fool is a story created by Good to slander Evil.
The Fool was a story created by his [Ollister's] grandfather.
Fool is story created by good to slander evil.
His [Leoster's] advisor created the story of the Fool.
Fool is created by violence.
The Fool was created by the Kovans.
The Fool was created by evil humans.
Argargaron, The Late King Argargon of the Gnolls, Monster Zombie, Zombie, Undead Gnoll Chieftain, Personal Servant, Bodyguard, Former Gnoll Lord, Gnoll Zombie, Former Gnoll Chieftan: Instead, the gnolls were ambushed by forces of the Fool (q.v.), the undead lord who controls the depths of the Spelljammer. Argargon and his companions were slain and turned into zombies.
Survived the destruction of the gnoll citadel by the giff but was turned into an undead by the Fool.
Survived destruction of the gnoll citadel but then made undead by the Fool.
The Hooded Soldier, Zombie, Recognized Head of the Xenos, Agent, Masked Human, Undead Agent: ?
Undead, Undead Creature: ?
Undead Emissary: ?
Undead Rattlesnake: ?
More Powerful Undead: ?
Less-Powerful Undead: ?
Sentient Undead: ?
Animate Unliving Creature: ?
Creature That Does Not Need to Breathe: ?
Unliving Creature: ?
Banshee, Undead Elf, High-Level Undead: ?
Ghost: ?
Ghoul: ?
Lich, Standard Lich, Normal Lich, Lichling: ?
Arch Lich: ?
Demilich: ?
Skeleton, Regular Skeleton, Undead Skeleton: If he [a master lich] chooses to avoid physical combat, he uses his ability to animate the dead to create an army of undead skeletons and zombies to fight in his stead.
This lich [a mater lich] is not restricted to humans and humanoids when creating undead. Long-dead creatures become skeletons, humans and humanoids become zombies, and all other large creatures become monster zombies.
Spectre, High-Level Undead: ?
Vampire, Creature That is Affected by Sunlight, Sentient Undead: ?
Zombie, Common Zombie, Humanoid Zombie, Regular Zombie, Undead Zombie: In addition to his normal abilities, the Fool possesses an angle-bladed long sword of lifestealing. This weapon functions like the item in the DMG, but in addition, creatures which are drained of their life energy become zombies under the Fool's control.
Captured searchers are turned into zombies (or monster zombies) by the Fool.
There are nearly 200 undead on board the Spelljammer, most of them zombies animated by the Fool.
Monster Zombie: Instead, the gnolls were ambushed by forces of the Fool (q.v.), the undead lord who controls the depths of the Spelljammer. Argargon and his companions were slain and turned into zombies.
Captured searchers are turned into zombies (or monster zombies) by the Fool.
There are nearly 200 undead on board the Spelljammer, most of them zombies animated by the Fool.
Zombie Rat: The Fool has practically eliminated the vermin problem on the ship by reducing most of the rodents to unliving status, where they serve as his eyes and ears throughout the ship.
In addition to his regular zombies and skeletons, the Fool has created a pack of undead rats
Zombie, Intermediate: ?
Zombie, Advance Warning System: ?
Zombie Rat, Advance Warning System: ?
Zombie Rat, Undead Rat: ?
Zombie Rat, Agent: ?
Monster Zombie, High-Level Undead, Larger Zombie: ?
Gnoll Zombie: ?