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<blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 7452306" data-attributes="member: 2209"><p><strong>Monster Vault</strong></p><p></p><p><a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/158946/Dungeons--Dragons-Essentials-Monster-Vault-4e?affiliate_id=17596" target="_blank">Monster Vault</a></p><p>4e</p><p><strong>Death Knight:</strong> Among the most powerful of undead humanoids, death knights are warriors who chose to embrace undeath rather than pass on to the afterlife. They bind their souls into their weapons, fueling their necrotic powers as they marshal armies of undead.</p><p>Gifted with undeath as a result of a ritual, a death knight is like the martial equivalent of a lich.</p><p>A humanoid becomes a death knight through a profane ritual that strips away the emotional bond of one’s life, replacing them with cruelty and a perverse sense of honor. This ritual is often bestowed as a gift from high-ranking followers of Orcus, the Demon Prince of the Undead. When a warrior reaches a certain state of notoriety, Orcus’s adherents approach the individual and try to tempt him or her with the promise of immortality. A warrior who accepts the offer turns into a dark reflection in the shattered mirror of undeath. Its armor becomes blackened and scarred, and its flesh becomes as withered and twisted as the person’s corrupted soul.</p><p>The ritual that transforms a warrior into a death knight binds part of the subject’s soul to one of his or her weapons. This weapon is not only a symbol of an individual’s transformation, it is also the source of a death knight’s power.</p><p><strong>Death Knight Blackguard:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Dragon Deathbringer Dracolich:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Ghoul:</strong> They were once cannibalistic humanoids, but their actions caused them to be cursed in death with ravenous appetites that cannot be sated.</p><p>When an intelligent humanoid resorts to cannibalism or lives a life of gluttony and greed, it can be cursed to transform into a ghoul upon its death. Unlike a zombie or a skeleton, a ghoul retains sentience and many of the memories of its life. The creature’s perspective is twisted by its death, though, and as a result, it recalls with torment a time when it was not driven by a gnawing hunger for living flesh.</p><p><strong>Ghoul Ravenous Ghoul:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Ghoul Abyssal Ghoul:</strong> The so-called Ghoul King commands his servants to empower some ghouls with additional strength, speed, and durability. The ghouls that receive these abyssal blessings are more powerful and are beholden to Doresain and his demonic master.</p><p><strong>Ghoul Abyssal Ghoul Devourer:</strong> The so-called Ghoul King commands his servants to empower some ghouls with additional strength, speed, and durability. The ghouls that receive these abyssal blessings are more powerful and are beholden to Doresain and his demonic master.</p><p><strong>Ghoul Abyssal Ghoul Hungerer:</strong> The so-called Ghoul King commands his servants to empower some ghouls with additional strength, speed, and durability. The ghouls that receive these abyssal blessings are more powerful and are beholden to Doresain and his demonic master.</p><p><strong>Lich:</strong> A dark spellcaster who covets immortality and spend his or her life in pursuit of necromantic power might gain the ability to become a lich. A lich ties its life force to a phylactery, ensuring that its body will coalesce in a hidden location even if some creature were to slay it.</p><p>To become a lich, a spellcaster must be devoted to evil and adept at performing unspeakable acts of violence. Few spellcasters have a shred of morality remaining after their transformations into liches. The process of attaining lichdom bends the mortal mind in unnatural and crippling ways. Many liches rise up insane, but even they enact cunning plans; they just do so for incomprehensible reasons.</p><p>A spellcaster must travel far—even across the planes—to collect the scraps of lore and esoteric components needed to enact the ritual to transform into a lich.</p><p>The act of becoming a lich encases a mortal’s life force in a specially prepared item called a phylactery. The most common type is a metal box that contains strips of parchment with arcane writing. Any small item, such as a gemstone, a ring, or a statue, can be a phylactery.</p><p><strong>Lich Necromancer:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Lich Remnant:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Lich Soulreaver:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Mummy:</strong> Whether created in the dry desert heat, the sucking moisture of a desolate bog, or the frozen heights of a lofty mountain, a mummy exists for vengeance. A number of sins can awaken a mummy, from disturbing its tomb, despoiling a place sacred to it in life, or the theft of a prized object. Some mummies seek to avenge less material offenses, such as a loved one marrying someone the mummy loathes or an unwelcome alliance of the mummy’s enemies in life. Sometimes, a dead master’s servants awaken it to continue its life’s frustrated ambitions. Great kings and queens of malign power have returned as mummies to extend their reigns in undeath.</p><p>Albeit rare, some mummies arise spontaneously from dry corpses when a particularly provocative transgression touches their souls in the afterlife. Most mummies, however, possess the power to act after death because someone wanted them to have it. The long rituals of burial that accompany a mummy’s entombment help protect its body from rot. Soft organs are removed and placed in special jars, and the corpse is created with preserving oils, herbs, and wrappings. Less common means of preservation include freezing a body, baking it in dry heat, or using magic.</p><p><strong>Mummy Shambling Mummy:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Mummy Moldering Mummy:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Mummy Tomb Guardian:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Mummy Royal Mummy:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Skeleton:</strong> Necromancy grants violent motion to these fleshless bones, letting them defy death and deliver it to others.</p><p>“ Nothing holds them together but magic, a necromantic binding that knits bone with scraps of soul and the merest hint of will.”—Kalarel, scion of Orcus</p><p>A skeleton’s creation is considered a vile act, though, for it requires disturbing a creature’s bones in the most profane way. A skeleton raised into undeath moves through the power of a soul’s discarded animus; it is a primal force that binds the soul and body to make life possible. Without an animus, a skeleton cannot exist.</p><p>Many powers can cause a skeleton to rise from the grave: holy power, necrotic energy, a dark ritual, a necromantic spell or hex, a curse from the lips of a dying person.</p><p><strong>Skeleton Decrepit Skeleton:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Skeleton Blazing Skeleton:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Skeleton Skeletal Legionary:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Skeleton Skeletal Tomb Guardian:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Stirge Death Husk Stirge:</strong> Necromancers trap stirges in the cavernous bodies of giant undead. When the undead opens its maw, famished stirges come pouring out to attack the nearest warm-blooded creature.</p><p><strong>Treant Blackroot Treant:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Troll Ghost Troll Render:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Vampire:</strong> Anyone who survives an attack from a vampire might fall prey to the vampire’s curse, entering into a deep, deathlike sleep. A person under this curse is often assumed dead and ushered through funeral rites. When that person awakes at the next sunset, he or she is a vampire. If confined within a coffin, this vampire might already be buried or could be awaiting burial in a temple or a family member’s home. Most vampires awaken as slavering spawn, but a few retain enough of themselves to emerge from death as true vampires.</p><p><strong>Vampire Elder Vampire Spawn:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Vampire Night Witch:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Vampire Master Vampire:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Wraith:</strong> When a person dies and his or her spirit departs, the animus can remain, clinging to a vestige of life. The animus can become a wraith, an insubstantial creature that emerges amid the vanishing memories of a person’s life; it becomes trapped in an endless afterlife, tortured by remembered sensations and driven mad by a hunger to reclaim the life it once had.</p><p>Life consists of three parts: body, spirit, and will. Without will, the body ceases to function and the spirit leaves. Sages call the will the animus, and they regard it as the shadow of the soul. When a body dies or a spirit departs, sometimes the animus remains in the world. Without the spirit, though, the animus has no purpose, and it runs amok. Like many undead, a wraith is the result of an unfettered animus.</p><p>When the wraith kills a humanoid, that humanoid becomes a wraith figment at the start of this wraith’s next turn. The new wraith appears in the space where the humanoid died or in the nearest unoccupied square, and it rolls a new initiative check. </p><p>When a wraith slays a living humanoid, another wraith emerges from that person’s body within a few minutes, or within a few seconds in areas of intense necrotic energy. Even when powerful magic returns a person to life, his or her wraith remains. A restored cadaver regains its soul and heals fatal wounds, but rather than it regaining its former animus, a new one forms to close the gap between body and spirit.</p><p>When a mad wraith slays a living humanoid, another wraith emerges from that person’s body within a few minutes, or within a few seconds in areas of intense necrotic energy. Even when powerful magic returns a person to life, his or her wraith remains. A restored cadaver regains its soul and heals fatal wounds, but rather than it regaining its former animus, a new one forms to close the gap between body and spirit.</p><p><strong>Wraith Mad Wraith:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Wraith Wraith Figment:</strong> When the sovereign wraith kills a humanoid, that humanoid becomes a wraith figment at the start of this wraith’s next turn. The new wraith appears in the space where the humanoid died or in the nearest unoccupied square, and it rolls a new initiative check. The new wraith acts under the Dungeon Master’s control.</p><p><strong>Wraith Sovereign Wraith:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Zombie:</strong> Fueled by dark magic, malevolent forces, dire curses, or angry spirits, zombies are animate corpses. Any corpse with flesh suffices to make a zombie. It might be a dead warrior from a battlefield, distended from days in the sun, guts trailing from a mortal wound. It might be a muddy cadaver of a woman recently buried and risen again, leaving maggots and worms in her wake. A zombie could wash ashore or rise from a marsh, swollen and reeking from weeks in the water. A zombie could instead appear alive, crafted from a recently deceased corpse.</p><p>A zombie need not be the size of a normal humanoid, or even humanoid in form. When a necromancer or a natural phenomenon causes a corpse to rise, the corpse could belong to the smallest beast or the largest giant. When a zombie plague infects a city, any size or kind of creature can be affected—horses, dogs, children, cats—anything that has a pulse.</p><p>For a zombie to be animated, a body’s soul must have departed. What remains in the corpse is an animus, a vital spark that drives the body without thought or conscience. Without a soul or memories, a zombie has no more humanity or intelligence than a simple animal.</p><p>In most cases, a zombie serves its creator or rises in response to the defilement of a sacred location. At rare times, zombies arise in the hundreds. These zombie plagues are provoked by cosmic, magical, or divine events. A zombie plague might be the result of an angry god, a magical experiment gone wrong, a powerful ritual, or a falling star. When the event occurs, the bodies of the dead claw out of their graves and attack the living. Anyone who dies as a result of such an assault soon becomes a zombie after acquiring the disease or curse that the zombies carry. These terrifying plagues can consume an entire civilization if left unchecked.</p><p><strong>Zombie Grasping Zombie:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Zombie Hulking Zombie:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Zombie Flesh-Crazed Zombie:</strong> ?</p><p><strong>Zombie Zombie Shambler:</strong> ?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Voadam, post: 7452306, member: 2209"] [b]Monster Vault[/b] [URL=http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/158946/Dungeons--Dragons-Essentials-Monster-Vault-4e?affiliate_id=17596]Monster Vault[/URL] 4e [b]Death Knight:[/b] Among the most powerful of undead humanoids, death knights are warriors who chose to embrace undeath rather than pass on to the afterlife. They bind their souls into their weapons, fueling their necrotic powers as they marshal armies of undead. Gifted with undeath as a result of a ritual, a death knight is like the martial equivalent of a lich. A humanoid becomes a death knight through a profane ritual that strips away the emotional bond of one’s life, replacing them with cruelty and a perverse sense of honor. This ritual is often bestowed as a gift from high-ranking followers of Orcus, the Demon Prince of the Undead. When a warrior reaches a certain state of notoriety, Orcus’s adherents approach the individual and try to tempt him or her with the promise of immortality. A warrior who accepts the offer turns into a dark reflection in the shattered mirror of undeath. Its armor becomes blackened and scarred, and its flesh becomes as withered and twisted as the person’s corrupted soul. The ritual that transforms a warrior into a death knight binds part of the subject’s soul to one of his or her weapons. This weapon is not only a symbol of an individual’s transformation, it is also the source of a death knight’s power. [b]Death Knight Blackguard:[/b] ? [b]Dragon Deathbringer Dracolich:[/b] ? [b]Ghoul:[/b] They were once cannibalistic humanoids, but their actions caused them to be cursed in death with ravenous appetites that cannot be sated. When an intelligent humanoid resorts to cannibalism or lives a life of gluttony and greed, it can be cursed to transform into a ghoul upon its death. Unlike a zombie or a skeleton, a ghoul retains sentience and many of the memories of its life. The creature’s perspective is twisted by its death, though, and as a result, it recalls with torment a time when it was not driven by a gnawing hunger for living flesh. [b]Ghoul Ravenous Ghoul:[/b] ? [b]Ghoul Abyssal Ghoul:[/b] The so-called Ghoul King commands his servants to empower some ghouls with additional strength, speed, and durability. The ghouls that receive these abyssal blessings are more powerful and are beholden to Doresain and his demonic master. [b]Ghoul Abyssal Ghoul Devourer:[/b] The so-called Ghoul King commands his servants to empower some ghouls with additional strength, speed, and durability. The ghouls that receive these abyssal blessings are more powerful and are beholden to Doresain and his demonic master. [b]Ghoul Abyssal Ghoul Hungerer:[/b] The so-called Ghoul King commands his servants to empower some ghouls with additional strength, speed, and durability. The ghouls that receive these abyssal blessings are more powerful and are beholden to Doresain and his demonic master. [b]Lich:[/b] A dark spellcaster who covets immortality and spend his or her life in pursuit of necromantic power might gain the ability to become a lich. A lich ties its life force to a phylactery, ensuring that its body will coalesce in a hidden location even if some creature were to slay it. To become a lich, a spellcaster must be devoted to evil and adept at performing unspeakable acts of violence. Few spellcasters have a shred of morality remaining after their transformations into liches. The process of attaining lichdom bends the mortal mind in unnatural and crippling ways. Many liches rise up insane, but even they enact cunning plans; they just do so for incomprehensible reasons. A spellcaster must travel far—even across the planes—to collect the scraps of lore and esoteric components needed to enact the ritual to transform into a lich. The act of becoming a lich encases a mortal’s life force in a specially prepared item called a phylactery. The most common type is a metal box that contains strips of parchment with arcane writing. Any small item, such as a gemstone, a ring, or a statue, can be a phylactery. [b]Lich Necromancer:[/b] ? [b]Lich Remnant:[/b] ? [b]Lich Soulreaver:[/b] ? [b]Mummy:[/b] Whether created in the dry desert heat, the sucking moisture of a desolate bog, or the frozen heights of a lofty mountain, a mummy exists for vengeance. A number of sins can awaken a mummy, from disturbing its tomb, despoiling a place sacred to it in life, or the theft of a prized object. Some mummies seek to avenge less material offenses, such as a loved one marrying someone the mummy loathes or an unwelcome alliance of the mummy’s enemies in life. Sometimes, a dead master’s servants awaken it to continue its life’s frustrated ambitions. Great kings and queens of malign power have returned as mummies to extend their reigns in undeath. Albeit rare, some mummies arise spontaneously from dry corpses when a particularly provocative transgression touches their souls in the afterlife. Most mummies, however, possess the power to act after death because someone wanted them to have it. The long rituals of burial that accompany a mummy’s entombment help protect its body from rot. Soft organs are removed and placed in special jars, and the corpse is created with preserving oils, herbs, and wrappings. Less common means of preservation include freezing a body, baking it in dry heat, or using magic. [b]Mummy Shambling Mummy:[/b] ? [b]Mummy Moldering Mummy:[/b] ? [b]Mummy Tomb Guardian:[/b] ? [b]Mummy Royal Mummy:[/b] ? [b]Skeleton:[/b] Necromancy grants violent motion to these fleshless bones, letting them defy death and deliver it to others. “ Nothing holds them together but magic, a necromantic binding that knits bone with scraps of soul and the merest hint of will.”—Kalarel, scion of Orcus A skeleton’s creation is considered a vile act, though, for it requires disturbing a creature’s bones in the most profane way. A skeleton raised into undeath moves through the power of a soul’s discarded animus; it is a primal force that binds the soul and body to make life possible. Without an animus, a skeleton cannot exist. Many powers can cause a skeleton to rise from the grave: holy power, necrotic energy, a dark ritual, a necromantic spell or hex, a curse from the lips of a dying person. [b]Skeleton Decrepit Skeleton:[/b] ? [b]Skeleton Blazing Skeleton:[/b] ? [b]Skeleton Skeletal Legionary:[/b] ? [b]Skeleton Skeletal Tomb Guardian:[/b] ? [b]Stirge Death Husk Stirge:[/b] Necromancers trap stirges in the cavernous bodies of giant undead. When the undead opens its maw, famished stirges come pouring out to attack the nearest warm-blooded creature. [b]Treant Blackroot Treant:[/b] ? [b]Troll Ghost Troll Render:[/b] ? [b]Vampire:[/b] Anyone who survives an attack from a vampire might fall prey to the vampire’s curse, entering into a deep, deathlike sleep. A person under this curse is often assumed dead and ushered through funeral rites. When that person awakes at the next sunset, he or she is a vampire. If confined within a coffin, this vampire might already be buried or could be awaiting burial in a temple or a family member’s home. Most vampires awaken as slavering spawn, but a few retain enough of themselves to emerge from death as true vampires. [b]Vampire Elder Vampire Spawn:[/b] ? [b]Vampire Night Witch:[/b] ? [b]Vampire Master Vampire:[/b] ? [b]Wraith:[/b] When a person dies and his or her spirit departs, the animus can remain, clinging to a vestige of life. The animus can become a wraith, an insubstantial creature that emerges amid the vanishing memories of a person’s life; it becomes trapped in an endless afterlife, tortured by remembered sensations and driven mad by a hunger to reclaim the life it once had. Life consists of three parts: body, spirit, and will. Without will, the body ceases to function and the spirit leaves. Sages call the will the animus, and they regard it as the shadow of the soul. When a body dies or a spirit departs, sometimes the animus remains in the world. Without the spirit, though, the animus has no purpose, and it runs amok. Like many undead, a wraith is the result of an unfettered animus. When the wraith kills a humanoid, that humanoid becomes a wraith figment at the start of this wraith’s next turn. The new wraith appears in the space where the humanoid died or in the nearest unoccupied square, and it rolls a new initiative check. When a wraith slays a living humanoid, another wraith emerges from that person’s body within a few minutes, or within a few seconds in areas of intense necrotic energy. Even when powerful magic returns a person to life, his or her wraith remains. A restored cadaver regains its soul and heals fatal wounds, but rather than it regaining its former animus, a new one forms to close the gap between body and spirit. When a mad wraith slays a living humanoid, another wraith emerges from that person’s body within a few minutes, or within a few seconds in areas of intense necrotic energy. Even when powerful magic returns a person to life, his or her wraith remains. A restored cadaver regains its soul and heals fatal wounds, but rather than it regaining its former animus, a new one forms to close the gap between body and spirit. [b]Wraith Mad Wraith:[/b] ? [b]Wraith Wraith Figment:[/b] When the sovereign wraith kills a humanoid, that humanoid becomes a wraith figment at the start of this wraith’s next turn. The new wraith appears in the space where the humanoid died or in the nearest unoccupied square, and it rolls a new initiative check. The new wraith acts under the Dungeon Master’s control. [b]Wraith Sovereign Wraith:[/b] ? [b]Zombie:[/b] Fueled by dark magic, malevolent forces, dire curses, or angry spirits, zombies are animate corpses. Any corpse with flesh suffices to make a zombie. It might be a dead warrior from a battlefield, distended from days in the sun, guts trailing from a mortal wound. It might be a muddy cadaver of a woman recently buried and risen again, leaving maggots and worms in her wake. A zombie could wash ashore or rise from a marsh, swollen and reeking from weeks in the water. A zombie could instead appear alive, crafted from a recently deceased corpse. A zombie need not be the size of a normal humanoid, or even humanoid in form. When a necromancer or a natural phenomenon causes a corpse to rise, the corpse could belong to the smallest beast or the largest giant. When a zombie plague infects a city, any size or kind of creature can be affected—horses, dogs, children, cats—anything that has a pulse. For a zombie to be animated, a body’s soul must have departed. What remains in the corpse is an animus, a vital spark that drives the body without thought or conscience. Without a soul or memories, a zombie has no more humanity or intelligence than a simple animal. In most cases, a zombie serves its creator or rises in response to the defilement of a sacred location. At rare times, zombies arise in the hundreds. These zombie plagues are provoked by cosmic, magical, or divine events. A zombie plague might be the result of an angry god, a magical experiment gone wrong, a powerful ritual, or a falling star. When the event occurs, the bodies of the dead claw out of their graves and attack the living. Anyone who dies as a result of such an assault soon becomes a zombie after acquiring the disease or curse that the zombies carry. These terrifying plagues can consume an entire civilization if left unchecked. [b]Zombie Grasping Zombie:[/b] ? [b]Zombie Hulking Zombie:[/b] ? [b]Zombie Flesh-Crazed Zombie:[/b] ? [b]Zombie Zombie Shambler:[/b] ? [/QUOTE]
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