Who/what are the major intelligent undead monsters?

[Brian Perlis]

In the world of the undead... who rules supreme?

We have the obvious intelligent and powerful undead which to me are the Lich and its subspecies such as the Draco-Lich. Vampires have always been powerful and intelligent rulers.

Voadam has been extremely helpful and recommended Mummy's as well as knowing that in Ravenloft there is a ghost Dark Lord. There is a Ghoul King in Scarred Lands.

In a world of undead who/what would rise to the top to have their own kingdoms and lands? Who commands the armies of the undead? Besides just the rulers all armies need officers and sergeants so there is an obvious hierarchy among the undead legions.

What would rise to the top of the undead hierarchy?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Liches and Dracoliches definitely would be up there. But I think some of the undead alien lifeforms, like Ghost Beholders and Ilithiliches, would have a great degree of power and intelligence, and would be worthy of command...if perhaps just below ground.

 

[Brian Perlis]

oh man! That sure brings up some scary possibilities! I could see them deep underground but manipulating the masses of undead from far below for their own evil purposes.

An Illithid Lich


A Beholder Lich


A Ghost Beholder

 

[warushiru]

Night Hags are extremely dangerous and intelligent foes that would definitely make my top five.

 

[Celebrim]

The level X traditional Undead powers are liches (including variants), spellcasting vampires, greater mummies, death knights, and spellcasting ghosts.

Or really, pretty much anything than can cast 5th level spells or higher, which means pretty much anything that can have PC classes. Shades for example might qualify here.

Below that, on the tier of powerful lieutenants or chieftains, you probably have ghoul/ghast kings, zombie lords, shadow lords, skeletal warriors, huecuva, and brains-in-a-jar. None could stand up to one of the level X undead, but each has the intelligence and abilities to rule over other lesser undead. They've also created a ton of undead over the years, not all of which I'm familiar with, so that's probably not a definitive list.

 

[Celebrim]

Night Hags are extremely dangerous and intelligent foes that would definitely make my top five.

Well, if you go that route, you end up needing to mention powers like Orcus or Mictlantecuhtli as the one that reigns supreme over the undead.

 

[TarionzCousin]

These two would definitely be among my top five intelligent undead:

[sblock]

Patton Oswalt and Brian Posehn.[/sblock]

 

[Voadam]

A Brain in a Jar is a good hidden leader who is undead, but they are not a great leader of undead as their powers are often all mind-affecting of the sort that does not affect most undead.

I'll recommend nightshades again as sort of the planar undead big players.

 

[Celebrim]

A Brain in a Jar is a good hidden leader who is undead, but they are not a great leader of undead as their powers are often all mind-affecting of the sort that does not affect most undead.

I don't have any books with me, but I thought they could rebuke undead like an evil cleric or otherwise had some sort of undead control.

I'll recommend nightshades again as sort of the planar undead big players.

Nightshades always felt rather gamist to me, in that they mainly seem to exist to fill a slot for 'high CR undead' while not actually having the general backstory of 'once alive, but now not quite dead' we normally associate with undead.

 

[Li Shenron]

For a complete undead kingdom ruler I would go with a Death Knight.

I know this is probably just my own take/twist of the concept, but IMO the Death Knight is more an "undead leader" than a Lich or a Vampire.

I rather see a Lich as someone thoroughly devoted to his own agenda, who embraced undeath as a mean to prolong his earthly presence. Since this implied probably a plenty of necromantic knowledge, while at it he might use necromancy to create an army for himself, but probably it wouldn't make a difference whether his army is made of undead or orcs or humans or whatever. The typical Lich just doesn't care IMO, he choses whatever works best, although that might eventually also be a whole undead nation.

As for a Vampire, I wouldn't be so sure he even likes other undead... Vampires are by definitions exploiters of mortals, and I fancy they would not be amused one bit by ruling zombies. They'd rather want to mingle with the living, for better purposes!

I am not wholly aware of the original concept behind a Death Knight, so it's possible that I am just making it up, but it's the only undead monster that I would really see fit in becoming a champion of the undead, and of undeath.

Otherwise I guess also a Ghoul King would work, but strictly as a leader of a ghoul nation, not undead in general.

So in a nutshell:
- Death Knight -> loves (un)death, loves undead
- Lich -> exploits undeath, exploits undead but couldn't care less
- Vampire -> maybe loves his own undeath maybe not (could be a tragic figure), dislikes/detest other undead
- Ghoul King -> loves ghouls and being a ghoul, dislikes everyone else

Ghosts and revenants usually have their own very unique stories, too individual to be a people, or leaders of their own kind.

A special snowflake Wight or Wraith on the other hand could also work...