Quickleaf
Legend
I was trying to get a grasp of how various undead come to be in 5e, according to the MM.
Skeletons & zombies I get that they're animated by a spellcasters or ambient "dark" energies.
If you die with serious unfinished business, you return as a ghost bound to some site, creature, or object,
But apparently if your fate was especially cruel and undeserving, you rise from death as a revenant obsessed with revenge instead. The implication being you're they're to administer "divine justice", which even though the text doesn't directly state it implies some higher power is involved in creating the revenant.
If you're evil and you perished in anguish or misery wandering a forsaken land permeated with magic (seriously, it's more common than you'd think!), then congrats, you come back as a will-o-wisp.
Of course, if you happened to be an evil elven female who was especially vain, you don't become a ghost or a will-o-wisp. You become a banshee instead. Because banshees are metal.
This is not toe confused with wights, who are evil mortals driven by vanity and dark desires, who call out to Orcus (or some vile underworld god) upon their deaths. If you've seen the TV show Legend of the Seeker based on the Wheel of Time books, they remind me of those banelings who return from death after making a deal with the Keeper. Oh, and according the MM art you get to look like KISS, which is a bonus...maybe.
Liches and demiliches are an exclusive undead club for arcane spellcasters. Clerics need not apply, but they do get their own mummy lord club.
Flameskulls are created by wizards from the corpses of other wizards to guard their stuff.
Ghouls seems to come into being if you are a cannibal and die. So don't be a cannibal. Also don't worship Doresain the first ghoul who serves Orcus, because then you're ghast-bait.
Mummies are being punished by the cults of dark gods, and usually guard tombs. A mummy lord, on the other hand, is the high priest of a dark god, and the implication is that he/she is (probably) not being punished but awaiting the time to rise again. With evil laughter.
Vampires beget other vampires, and we all know what a vampire is.
Wraiths are interesting. Everyone knows "don't make a deal with a fiend", but hey it happens. Sometimes, however, a particularly debased mortal who makes a deal with a fiend doesn't have their soul sent to the Lower Planes. Instead they become a wraith. Why? No explanation is given. Rings of power definitely are not involved.
But hey, wraiths make specters! Can a specter come into being in any other way? Well, maybe. In 5e specters are humanoids who've been prevented from passing to the afterlife. Apparently this is really traumatizing, cause in the afterlife there are hot babes/dudes and Viking ale (YMMV), and all specters become Chaotic Evil.
Pure conjecture, but maybe if you cast raise dead on a creature that has been dead longer than 10 days but their soul hasn't yet reached the afterlife, you turn the creature into a specter? In 5e raise dead *is* a form of necromancy after all, so it should have some kind of creepy side, right?
And last but not least: Shadows! Traditionally, shadows make shadows, and that's true in 5e. But where do those first shadows come from? You may ask. No answer is given, so it's left up to the DM. I go with the Nameless One. One cool thing about shadows is that if a creature from whom a shadow is created is returned to life, that shadow will seek to vex/slay its "parent." Well, now we know the real story about Neverland - Peter Pan was turned into a shadow, and the party cleric rezzed him. Or, you could just summon a Gebbeth like Sparrowhawk did.
And that concludes with all the undead in the MM.
Skeletons & zombies I get that they're animated by a spellcasters or ambient "dark" energies.
If you die with serious unfinished business, you return as a ghost bound to some site, creature, or object,
But apparently if your fate was especially cruel and undeserving, you rise from death as a revenant obsessed with revenge instead. The implication being you're they're to administer "divine justice", which even though the text doesn't directly state it implies some higher power is involved in creating the revenant.
If you're evil and you perished in anguish or misery wandering a forsaken land permeated with magic (seriously, it's more common than you'd think!), then congrats, you come back as a will-o-wisp.
Of course, if you happened to be an evil elven female who was especially vain, you don't become a ghost or a will-o-wisp. You become a banshee instead. Because banshees are metal.
This is not toe confused with wights, who are evil mortals driven by vanity and dark desires, who call out to Orcus (or some vile underworld god) upon their deaths. If you've seen the TV show Legend of the Seeker based on the Wheel of Time books, they remind me of those banelings who return from death after making a deal with the Keeper. Oh, and according the MM art you get to look like KISS, which is a bonus...maybe.
Liches and demiliches are an exclusive undead club for arcane spellcasters. Clerics need not apply, but they do get their own mummy lord club.
Flameskulls are created by wizards from the corpses of other wizards to guard their stuff.
Ghouls seems to come into being if you are a cannibal and die. So don't be a cannibal. Also don't worship Doresain the first ghoul who serves Orcus, because then you're ghast-bait.
Mummies are being punished by the cults of dark gods, and usually guard tombs. A mummy lord, on the other hand, is the high priest of a dark god, and the implication is that he/she is (probably) not being punished but awaiting the time to rise again. With evil laughter.
Vampires beget other vampires, and we all know what a vampire is.
Wraiths are interesting. Everyone knows "don't make a deal with a fiend", but hey it happens. Sometimes, however, a particularly debased mortal who makes a deal with a fiend doesn't have their soul sent to the Lower Planes. Instead they become a wraith. Why? No explanation is given. Rings of power definitely are not involved.
But hey, wraiths make specters! Can a specter come into being in any other way? Well, maybe. In 5e specters are humanoids who've been prevented from passing to the afterlife. Apparently this is really traumatizing, cause in the afterlife there are hot babes/dudes and Viking ale (YMMV), and all specters become Chaotic Evil.
Pure conjecture, but maybe if you cast raise dead on a creature that has been dead longer than 10 days but their soul hasn't yet reached the afterlife, you turn the creature into a specter? In 5e raise dead *is* a form of necromancy after all, so it should have some kind of creepy side, right?
And last but not least: Shadows! Traditionally, shadows make shadows, and that's true in 5e. But where do those first shadows come from? You may ask. No answer is given, so it's left up to the DM. I go with the Nameless One. One cool thing about shadows is that if a creature from whom a shadow is created is returned to life, that shadow will seek to vex/slay its "parent." Well, now we know the real story about Neverland - Peter Pan was turned into a shadow, and the party cleric rezzed him. Or, you could just summon a Gebbeth like Sparrowhawk did.
And that concludes with all the undead in the MM.
