Undead

[darjr]

Zombies are usually my favorite.

I've been thinking of a halfling zombie swarm to throw around.

I like ghouls as well.

I think though that my tops now is the monster or idea of a monster from Kobold Quarterly that is a zombie with a hornets nest in it's chest. Undead nasty hornets, with necrotic honey dripping from the slavering zombie.

Yes, I know, hornets don't have honey, but it to cool not to include.

Little undead swarms like this sound cool. I made a skeleton that when you bloodied it it broke into piles of bone shard swarms that hopped around and attacked.

 

[Aeolius]

I made a skeleton that when you bloodied it it broke into piles of bone shard swarms that hopped around and attacked.

My chumm is an amorphous mass of bloodied water with sharks teeth swirling within. And let's not even discuss the globster . Great idea for a beastie, there.

 

[Stormonu]

I've become enthralled with both the mohrg and devourer. With the mohrg being the animated remains of a mass murderer, I've longed to create a "hannibal lecter" or "California nightstalker"-type mohrg adventure.

I also like devourers because they seem like such a horrible way for a wizard to "die"; again, I think an excellent adventure might be for characters to be hunting down what they think is a lich, only to discover it's a poor wizard whose had his essence drained by a devourer.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I am going to have to say that I like Corporeal Undead over Incorporeal Undead. I just find monsters like Ghouls and Zombies creepier than Ghosts or Spectres (although Allips are pretty creepy). I think this is because Incorporeal Undead lack a physical body, and come across as less creepy because they do not look like a dried out husk of what they once were. To me, a Ghost of a person you knew in life is not as scary as their rotting corpse trying to eat you.

 

[Jhaelen]

Reading further in this thread reminded me that ghosts are my favorite undead. They have two big advantages over the rest:

1) They can be of any alignment allowing them to be used in any role.

2) Destroying / Releasing them requires investing some thought/roleplaying. They represent an ideal adventure/quest hook.

 

[Rechan]

There's an undead I've been wanting to use for a long time.

The idea is an intelligent skeleton animated by some freak magical accident (preferably that the PCs caused, resulting in his initial death).

The skeleton can basically "phases into" a corpse, making his bones now the corpse's. So he can wear a humanoid like a "flesh suit". The "suit" functions as a form of damage resistance, it lets him pass as alive*, and he can "play dead" if he thinks the suit has taken enough damage (letting him be a recurring villain).

So he continually encounters the PCs. Likely the PCs think he is different NPCs, because he is wearing a different suit each time, but he likely would have the same signature weapon/type of weapon/fighting style.

*He might look alive, but he's limited by his own height; if he crawls into a tall man's body, the flesh hangs around him in loose bags, if he crawls into a short body, the skin is stretched taut across his bones.

 

[Celebrim]

I also am a big fan of undead, and generally use them as a stock monster. They have enormous thematic advantages compared to most monsters:

1) No life support requirements: You can put them anywhere without worrying about how they manage to sustain themselves.
2) No moral ambiguity: With most intelligent creatures, there is at least a small amount of moral ambiguity around the question of, "Is it heroic of me to kill them and take there stuff?" Unnatural creatures animated by evil spirits who are already dead don't raise this issue.
3) They are scary: Primal fear stuff here.

I like all types, but typically you will encounter skeletons, zombies, ghouls, wights, zombie lords, wight lords, shadows, phantasms, haunts, restless spirits, coffer corpses, apparitions, crawling claws, animated skulls, brains in jars, allips, mewlips (homebrew), sons of kyuss, tombwardens (homebrew), skeleton warriors, juju zombies, crypt things, poltergeists, mummies, greater mummies, bone spirits (homebrew), spellwights (homebrew), ghosts, vampire spawn, vampires, boneclaws, morgh and errr... well, like I said, I like all types.

 

[Rechan]

On the topic of zombies, I want to do a big shout-out to the "Dead by Dawn" adventure by Blackdirge, this month in Dungeon. DAYUM.

I think though that my tops now is the monster or idea of a monster from Kobold Quarterly that is a zombie with a hornets nest in it's chest. Undead nasty hornets, with necrotic honey dripping from the slavering zombie.

Was a ghoul, not a zombie.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Trivia note: I wouldn't be surprised to find that that was inspired by the passage in the Bible about "the bees made honey in the lion's skull"- part of the story of Samson- which is also the name of a song and album by drone metal band, Earth.

 

[Leatherhead]

Skeletons. Especially when armed. They aren't there to eat you, turn you into one of their kind, make out with you, or do anything other than stand around until something important needs to be done, like killing intruders. They can even make for good comic relief.

Also, liches. Mostly because they are willingly undead.