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Last edited by Dead on Thu, Dec 10 2015, 12:52 PM, edited 15 times in total.

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== Undead Varieties ==
With additions of Lucius Blackwater

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Ghoul and Ghast
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- Minor Sentient
- Corporeal
- Feeding

Ghouls and Ghasts are created after a particulary vile cannibal
dies and is then cursed or blessed rather to walk the earth as
a ghoul or the greater variant, the ghast. They require the taste
of mortal flesh to sustain themselves and make cunning opponents
and devious allies if they can be trusted. More times than not a
ghoul or ghast is not even the result of cannibalism but of being
infected by a different ghoul or ghast. Ghouls and Ghasts are also
contagious so after dealing with these, wash your hands and sanitize
yourself, or use a cleric to purge yourself after the contact, unless you
want to become a ghoul, which is of course up to you.

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Mummy
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- Moderate to powerful Sentient
- Corporeal
- Non-feeding

I have a great respect for mummies, as they have patience and discipline.
They are orderly to a fault and guard their allotted tombs with such a
passion that they would attack even the most powerful friend of undeath.
These types of undead you will find yourself battling as you spread the
ways of undeath, becouse they guard valuable tombs where we attain parts.
Mummies, when convinced to leave their tomb make valuable companions
who will stick with the one they guard to the very end. Don't expect any
subtlety from them: they prefer a frontal assault which will result in either
their own or their opponent's destruction. They possess a rott that affects
anything not strong enough to resist it and they are horrors that will make
the weak willed run in fear.

======================
Wight
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- Moderate Sentient
- Corporeal
- Feeding

Wights are near and dear to the author's heart, so my writing might not be
as subjective as it should be. Wights are incarnations of violence and
destruction, with a severe hatred of all things living, which in part gives them
sentience. They are powerful allies and they will follow the pale master who
they think will bring death and destruction. Mind: They are always jealous of
those who are not filled with their hate, even of the necromancer who won
their respect. Wights feed on the life force of others and when someone is
drained empty to the point of death, they become wight themselves. The
writer suggest you therefore defeat any hostile wight you encounter.

======================
Vampire
-----------------------------

- Varied Sentient
- Corporeal
- Feeding, blood

Vampires are the most commonly known type of sentient undead, being popular
in folk lore and romanticized. These undead possess some semblence of their
passed humanity, generally after gorging themselves on blood, and they are
nothing but glorified hunters. Vampires are cunning and are easy enough to get
along with when compared to other types of undead, if you stay of their way
when they are thirsty. Be warned of this path of vampirism: it looks an easy way
to live forever but it has a large amount of drawbacks that make it a poor limitation
of what immortality can be.

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Allip
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- ...
- Incorporeal
- Feeding, spirit

Allip is a spirit which remained, driven to madness after the suicide. This undead only wants revenge,
and constantly chases those who have contributed to their death. This creation looks like in life, but
his face is a contorted grimace of madness. Lips are often bent in a groan of agony, and its eyes
burning with horror. From the waist down allip melts in the mist of nothingness. When moving this
undead leaves a hazy footprint. Allip is not able to do physical harm, although it is usually not aware
of it. He attacks opponents hands, but do not put them to injury.

======================
Bodak
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- Sentient
- Corporeal
- Non-feeding

A Bodak is an undead creature that comes from the infinite Layers of the Abyss. A
bodak is humanoid in shape, with smooth grayish-black skin and a featureless face.
Its gaze kills living creatures and may turn them undead. It is said that humanoids
who die in some of the most evil places of the Abyss return as bodaks.

======================
Mohrg
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- Moderate Sentient
- Corporeal
- Non-feeding

Mohrgs are former mass muderers, serial killers, or other bad apples
who have been brought back from the dead as a punishment for their
actions in life. They exist with an all-consuming hatred of the living,
and they are at best insane being of pure evil and slaughter. This can
make them valuable allies to those who can acquire them, but they
also have little hesitence of attacking any living being. A point of note
is their tongue which contains a poison that can paralyze living creatures.

======================
Death Knight
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- Sentient
- Corporeal
- Non-feeding

A death knight (also known as a doom knight or demon knight) is a mighty
warrior animated as an undead creature by the gods of death, evil deities,
demon lords, or other malevolent forces. These evil undead warriors are most
commonly raised from the ranks of blackguards, fighters, rangers, and barbarians,
but a paladin who falls from grace near the moment of death may also become
a death knight. Death knights are rare but may be found in any environment.
They often choose fortified lairs such as old castles and towers. A death knight's
physical form is that of its decayed body. The face is a blackened skull with
patches of rotting flesh with two pinpoints of orange light in the eye sockets.
The voice of a death knight is chilling, seeming to echo from deep within. Death
knights were powerful people in life, and so they often wear expensive or magic
clothing and armor. They are fond of wearing flowing capes to mark them as
figures of importance.

======================
Skeleton
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- Non-Sentient
- Corporeal
- Non-feeding

Skeletons are simply that, mindless walking skeletal figures nearly always
controlled by a necromancer of some sort. They can be harmed by blunt
weapons while piercing do moderate damage.

======================
Zombie
-----------------------------

- Non-Sentient
- Corporeal
- Non-feeding, I repeat: they do not eat brains!

Zombies are little better than a golem, unthinking, weak and slow, and usually
only used as fodder in large amounts. These rotting corpses don't even make
good butlers. They can be harmed greatly by slashing weapons and fire.

======================
Lich and lich
subsets
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- Powerful to extremely powerful sentient
- Corporeal
- Non-feeding, although the dracolich has
been known to feed on life essence

Liches are the pinnacle of the undead condition, gaining immortality after
centuries of research. They are the most powerful of all undead, and
easiest to negotiate with. Be warned that some will not want to become
allies and are easy to anger and difficult to battle, especially demiliches.
All liches have a phylactery where their soul is kept. This phylactery must
be destroyed after slaying a lich, for they shall return until their soul is
destroyed. They are usually not controlled by another being, but tend to be
a controlling factor instead. Some liches can spend eons walled up in study,
while others exist hiding in plain sight to garner research among mortals.
They are for the most part arcane casters and best compared to a living arch
mage that has had eons of study with all the benefits of undeath to boot.

Lich subtypes include but are not limited to: Dracoliches (Dragons that become
liches), Archliches (more powerful variant of the standard lich non-evil Liches)
and Demiliches (the most powerful type of undead, usually just a floating skull that
travels the planes at will).

======================
Wraith
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- Sentient
- Incorporeal
- Feeds on the life force

A wraith is an incorporeal creature born of evil and darkness, despising light
and all living things. A wraith drains the constitution from living creatures, turning
them into new wraiths upon death. A wraith is powerless in natural sunlight and
will flee from it. It appears as a sinister, spectral figure robed in darkness. It has
no visual features or appendages, except for its glowing red eyes.

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Ghost
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- Sentient
- Incorporeal
- Non-feeding

Ghost is an undead being who committed the foul deeds of life, or her death was accompanied by
such a huge emotional charge that the result was cursed with a curse of undeath. They appear in
the night or in the areas stricken by darkness. Most hate the life and well-being, seeking to drain
living beings of their life essence. Less commonly, their existence is the completion of some
unresolved issues in life. They appear usually like creatures, which they were for life, alas their shape
is blurry and the colors are faded. Spirit can penetrate the unprepared body, taking the control of it.
It can also enter a semi-permanent form, but it is vulnerable to silver or magical weapons. Most
ghosts are assigned to small areas they haunt. Often the appearance of the spirit has something to
do with life, for example, of an abandoned lover, who committed suicide in grief at the house. Also,
the lack of a decent burial may be the cause of the emergence of spirit, which asks for finding and
burying his body, becoming over time more and more embittered and hostile. Less frequently
encountered objects haunted by several ghosts, for example, ships.

======================
Angel of Decay
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- Powerful Sentient
- Corporeal
- Unknown

The Angel of Decay is an undead monstrosity — an avatar, the very essence of rot.
Standing 9-feet tall and weighing 500–700 lbs with wings and claws, their putrid bodies constantly
decompose, and pools of filth dribble around their feet. In battle they are ferocious, using their
ogre-like size and strength to pummel the opponents who have not already succumbed to their aura
of corruption. An Angel of Decay prefers to wade into combat, literally, since when it touches down,
it produces a constantly renewing pool of liquid corruption. When they speak they do so with a
slurred, muddy voice. A mockery of a true angel, an angel of decay may appear similar to an angelic
outsider only by happenstance, not design. It is an undead creature that is powered by decay. When
a healthy creature softens, crumbles, and liquefies in death, an indefinable essence wafts away like
potrid steam off stagnant beach sand. This decomposing flesh radiates an essential energy in its
dissipation, and an angel of decay can extract the power resident therein. Angels of Decay speak
Common and Abyssal. Angels of Decay are extremely intelligent, perhaps second only to the liches.

Addition: I have discovered the rites of creation and successfully created one of these. creatures.

======================
Winterwight
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- Varied Sentient
- Corporeal
- Feeding

Winterwights are horrors of death wrapped in ice. They appear as humanoid skeletons covered with a
thick skin of ice. The ice serves a winterwight as frigid "fles" and does not hamper its movement in
any way. Huge shards of jagged ice depend from each finger, serving as claws. Only the skull of a
winterwight is free of ice; a corona of ebony flame lingers there like a crown. Winterwights are the
creation of a legendary demilich who sought the limits of nercomantic power. Winterwights are few,
and generally trapped in forgotten citadels decaying on the Astral Plane or the Negative Energy
Plane. Extremely powerful liches, vampires, demiliches and sometimes even the most commited of the
palemasters gain winterwights as temporary allies. Winterwights speak Common and Infernal. These
vicious undead are surrounded by a 10-foot-radius aura of cold, which offers some additional
protection from turning to the undead, and harming the other creatures trough frostbite. Originally,
the Winterwights were created by a creature known as Shadow of the Void, though Winterwight have
also been created artificially by powerful demiliches. Thus, whenever a Shadow of the Void discovers
an artificially created Winterwight, the shadow attempts to slay it.

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Blaspheme
Written by Laura Jarshall
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- Low sentience
- Corporeal
- Feeding

Long ago in ancient times, there were power-mad mages and priests seeking to create a perfect
undead guardian, thus the Blaspheme was created. Some of these creations still roam the lands to
this day, typically among the ruins of long-forgotten civilisations where magic was more valued than
morality, and rightfully so. Blasphemes are inherently evil creatures, seeking constantly to undo any
non-evil creature that is unfortunate enough to encounter them in the wild. Among their greatest
weapons is their bite; more specifically their teeth. Upon being bitten the victim will suffer heavy
damage to their physical strength. As a secondary-effect, the bite also leaves the victim dazed
and vulnerable.

Multiple cadavers make up one Blaspheme, typically three to four cadavers is required to create the
body. The strongest limb off each cadaver grafted through necromancy or even surgical stitching on
to the body, creating the Blaspheme as it is seen above. Their teeth are specifically harvested from
sacrifices during an excruciatingly painful ritual - the full process is detailed in the Scroll of Blaspheme
Creation. Despite their size, they are not your typical hulking, slow-moving undead, they are, in fact,
very lithe and agile, making them even more deadly to unprepared adventurers and travelers. They are
sentient, but unintelligent, they are aware of their surroundings but have the mental capacity of the
average troll. They stand roughly two hundred and fifteen centimeters in height, roughly seven feet
tall.

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[Tarkuul] Undead Varieties

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