All About Undead

This section presents the truth about undead⁠—​their origins, habits, physiology, and worldview. Moreover, it attempts to ascertain the nature of undeath itself, presenting several theories concerning the energies that give rise to unlife.

What Is an Undead?

“What lies at the end of a life well lived? Eons of cold servitude, your flesh but a memory, your every tortured thought focused on one thing only: to feed on the living.”

—Academician Drake
Bleak Academy Necromancer

“…uhhhnnsss…”

—Nameless zombie

Among scholars, debates rage about the multitude of forms, bodies, powers, and abilities to be found among the undead. Why are they not all alike? The differences spring from the source of unlife itself, the dark élan that suffuses the necrotic tissue of the dead.

Manifestations of Undeath

Undeath manifests itself in various ways. One need only flip through the pages of a necromancer’s bestiary to see the multitude of forms and states ascribed to the undead.

One unifying element defines most undead creatures: Each must have been alive in the past, no matter how little of the original creature is left, even if just the spirit or memory remains. Although extreme and rare cases have seen small bits of the energy of unlife itself (negative energy) take on terrible form and purpose, almost all undead once had breath in their bodies before gaining their feared title.

Origins of Undeath

Numerous theories exist concerning the nature of undeath, and though some hypotheses compete with or contradict one another, others reinforce or overlap each other. While these conjectures may not agree on the origins of unlife, most of them at least assert that this condition is generally visited upon the bodies of recently deceased creatures. Below are some of the more widely accepted theories about the origins of this affliction.

Atrocity Calls to Unlife: Evil acts can resonate in multiple dimensions, opening cracks in reality and letting the blight creep in. A sufficiently heinous act may attract the attention of malicious spirits, bodiless and seeking to house themselves in flesh, especially recently vacated vessels. Such spirits are often little more than nodes of unquenchable hunger, wishing only to feed. These comprise many of the mindless undead. Sometimes these evil influences also manage to reinvigorate the decaying memories of the body’s former host. Thus, some semblance of the original personality and memories remain, though the newly awakened being is invariably twisted by the inhabiting spirit, resulting in an evil, twisted, and intelligent creature. However, this being is not truly inhabited by the spirit of the original creature, which has left to seek its ultimate destiny in the Outer Planes. This amalgamation is something entirely new.

Other times, atrocious deeds call dark, reanimating spirits into the fleshy form of the newly deceased, leaving the original spirit intact. This might happen if the person was already evil, or was tempted to evil in life. Alternatively, some good spirits might be unnaturally trapped within their bodies, slowly being perverted to evil as the dark spirits convert the body to undead status.

Negative Energy as a Supportive Force: While atrocity may serve as a trigger for unlife, it is not enough to bring about a transformation of this magnitude on its own. It requires the very energy that drives dark spirits and their unquenchable thirst for life. That which is dead has no vitality, so where does the energy of animation come from? Negative energy—a force that is marshaled, stored, and utilized mostly by evil creatures, malign deities, and their servants—provides the power for this metamorphosis. Just as blood suffuses living creatures, negative energy suffuses undead, providing them all their abilities, from mobility to sentience, from flesh-eating to soul-devouring.

Negative Energy as a Draining Force: Some claim that undead exist concurrently on the Material Plane and the Negative Energy Plane. More precisely, they believe that undead on the Material Plane are linked to the Negative Energy Plane via a conduit, just as life itself somehow partakes of positive energy.

The Negative Energy Plane is the heart of darkness⁠—​the hunger that devours souls. It is a barren, empty place, a void without end, and a place of vacant, suffocating night. Worse, it is a needy, greedy plane, sucking the life out of anything vulnerable to its grasp. Heat, fire, and life itself are all drawn into the maw of this plane, which perpetually hungers for more.

The very existence of even the weakest undead produces a constant drain on the energies of the Material Plane, which accounts for sensations of cold often attributed to the unliving. As part of the enchantment of their creation, undead “siphon” a bit of the energy flowing from the Material Plane toward the Negative Energy Plane. This “stolen” energy serves to power their ongoing existence.

More powerful undead have a stronger connection to the Negative Energy Plane and are therefore able to siphon even more Material Plane energy for their own purposes before it is forever lost in the Final Void. This type of animation is known as necromancy, but it could also be called entropic animancy. Wizards speculate that magic might be able to link objects or corpses to the Positive Energy Plane, in this case reversing the flow of energy.

Undeath as Contagion: Many undead have methods of propagating their curse among their previously living victims. For instance, those infected by the diseased bite of a ghoul may contract ghoul fever. Those who perish from this rotting illness rise at the next midnight as ghouls themselves. In this way, some undead recruit the formerly living into their shuffling ranks.

Undead propagate in a sick parody of life’s method of multiplying. Worse yet, undead proliferation is far quicker, easier, and doesn’t require the consent of the creature to be made undead⁠—​only a victim’s inability to drive off the grave-born attacker.

Purposeful Reanimation: Count on the knowledge-seekers to pursue too far the spark of life, and the dark fruits of death. Some seek death’s secrets out of fear, thinking that by overcoming mortality, they will have no more to dread. Mages who tread this road to its conclusion sometimes embrace death completely, though they do not become immortal but simply enduring. Spellcasters who adopt this existence are commonly known as liches. To their sorrow, most find that forsaking all the pleasures of life while continuing to exist is a fate worse than the absolution of true death. Others probe the boundaries between one’s last breath and the final silence solely for the sake of knowledge. Shorn of conscience or any passion other than the need to know the truth, these dabblers have been responsible for plagues of zombies, soul-snuffing winds, and other atrocities.

Sometimes these learned mages also experiment with animation of inert matter that shares many properties with the animation of undead, especially when the inert matter in question is composed of the cast-off body parts of once-living creatures. Such creations are commonly known as flesh golems. However, as similar as a flesh golem (or any other construct) may appear to a zombie, constructs and undead remain separate entities, for two main reasons. First, negative energy is not a requisite power for any common construct, including flesh golems. Negative energy does not energize constructs, nor does negative energy play a part in the methods whereby constructs can afflict foes. Second, constructs are not animated by evil spirits, but rather by elemental spirits. By some people’s estimation, this similarity is too close for comfort, but most feel that the difference is great enough to warrant a clear separation of type.

Variant Rule: Haunting Presences

Sometimes when undead are created, they come into being without a physical form and are merely presences of malign evil. Haunting presences can occur either spontaneously (see Atrocity Calls to Unlife) or as a result of the spell haunt shift. Tied to particular locations or objects, these beings may reveal their unquiet natures only indirectly, at least at first.

As a haunting presence, an undead is impossible to affect or even directly sense. A haunting presence is more fleeting than undead that appear as incorporeal ghosts or wraiths, or even those undead enterprising enough to range the Ethereal Plane. In fact, a haunting presence is tied to an object or location, and only upon the destruction of the object or location is it dispelled. However, despite having no physicality, each haunting presence still possesses the identity of a specific kind of undead. For instance, one haunting presence may be similar to a vampire, while another is more like a wraith.

The Haunting: Whenever an undead appears as a haunting presence, it haunts an unattended, mundane object or location. Using the same decision-making process that he uses to populate a location or area with a standard monster, the DM simply chooses an unattended mundane object or location as the subject of a haunting presence. The DM also determines the variety of undead (skeleton, zombie, wraith, or other kind) that serves as the source of the haunting presence. An undead may haunt a discrete object of at least Tiny size and no larger than Huge size. Items (both magical and mundane) currently in the possession of a character (often referred to as attended items) cannot be haunted. Unattended magic items receive a saving throw as if a spell was being cast upon the item (DC 10 + ½ the undead’s HD + the undead’s Charisma modifier).

A haunting presence becomes a part of the object or location haunted. Haunting presences are always aware of what is going on around the object that they haunt. They can see and hear up to 60 feet away (but do not gain blindsight). A haunting presence cannot be turned, rebuked, or destroyed while the presence remains immaterial (but see Exorcising a Haunting Presence, below). Normal vulnerabilities of a particular kind of undead do not apply to the haunting presence of that undead. For instance, the haunting presence of a vampire haunting a fire poker is not destroyed if brought into sunlight.

Effects of a Haunting: A presence haunting an object may do so in a couple of ways. Undead of fewer than 5 Hit Dice may use only one form of haunting, but undead of 5 or more HD can make their presence known using either of the methods described below (impermanent home or poltergeist). No matter the way the haunting presence makes itself felt, the haunting presence of a sentient undead can always choose to speak to nearby creatures, usually in a whispery or incoherent voice that seems to come from the air. However, haunting presences are usually not much for conversation. Characters may note at times that the object they’ve found or the location they inhabit has a strange air, or the appearance of it is somehow “off” (with a successful DC 15 Intelligence check).

Impermanent Home: An undead presence haunting an object or an area can sometimes become more than a presence, actually taking corporeal or incorporeal form a number of times per week equal to the undead’s Hit Dice (that includes haunting presences that manifest “physically” as incorporeal undead). The presence that takes form does so anywhere within the location it haunts, or in the closest empty space adjacent to the object it haunts. A presence that takes form can remain so for up to a number of minutes equal to its HD. An undead that takes form can always choose to return to its haunting presence status earlier, but it must take a move action to do so.

While in physical form, the undead can take any actions normal for an undead of its kind. It can attack, take damage, and even be destroyed. Unless it is a ghost, lich, or some other sort of undead that is resistant to destruction, the haunting presence is also permanently eradicated, though most attempt to return to their haunting presence status if threatened with such destruction.

Poltergeist: If an object has parts that move, such as a wagon, a clock, or a crossbow, a haunting presence can control the object’s movement, though the object will move no faster than the undead itself could move in its normal form. Thus, a wagon can be made to steer toward a pedestrian on a street or roll out of a stable with no horse pulling it. A clock can slow or run backward. A crossbow can cock and fire (but not aim or load itself).

An undead with at least 10 HD and a Charisma score of 17 or higher can actually force an object with no moving parts to animate (see Animated Object), based on the object’s size. No undead, no matter how many Hit Dice it has or what its Charisma score is, can animate an object that has a higher Challenge Rating than its own.

If a location instead of an object is haunted, the haunting presence can animate a number of objects equal to its HD at one time.

Exorcising a Haunting Presence: No matter how a haunting presence chooses to reveal itself, it is subject to being discovered and destroyed. Unfortunately, a cleric’s turning ability generally has no direct effect on haunting presences, other than to irritate them and focus their attention on the cleric doing the turning. Something more is called for—an exorcist. Exorcism is a special ritual, involving a spoken formula calling upon one or more deities, used with the intention of driving out haunting presences. Exorcism of a haunting presence is essentially a two-step process—forcing a presence to become physical, then destroying the revealed undead in the most expeditious manner possible.

First, the forced revelation can be achieved through the use of a special ritual, which is generally known to anyone with ranks in Knowledge (religion). It must be performed by an exorcist who spends ten consecutive full-round actions chanting or speaking the formula that pertains to exorcism, at the end of which time the exorcist must make a DC 20 Knowledge (religion) check. If the exorcist’s concentration is interrupted, the ritual must begin again. If the ritual is successful, the haunting presence becomes physical and must remain so for 1 full round. The exorcist’s next action can be used to either attempt to turn the revealed undead, or to continue the ritual, with an additional DC 20 Knowledge (religion) check required at the end of each round. Each successful check forces the undead to stay corporeal or incorporeal for 1 additional round.

Even undead of 5 or fewer HD that normally haunt only as poltergeists are forced to take form by the exorcism ritual, as well as haunting presences that have already used up all their chances to take form for the week. Undead forced to take form usually use their actions to attempt to slay the exorcist before they themselves are destroyed, so exorcists generally bring along companions who can physically attack the revealed undead.

Undead Physiology

“Necromantic metabolism and faith are indistinguishable. What is animation of fallow tissue if not faith so pure and undiluted that it can reach past the grave?”

—Gulthias, vampiric head of Ashardalon’s Cult

“I know only this⁠—​I feed to live, and live to feed.”

—Redbone, wight assassin

Barring misfortune or their purposeful destruction, undead can expect to survive in good health (for a given value of “health”) for thousands of years, possibly even a great deal longer. Undead creatures differ from the living in far more ways than just longevity, however. This section expands on the undead traits already noted here.

Undead Metabolism

With rare exceptions, undead have little or no metabolism to speak of. Undead are essentially animated by negative energy, though this animation is sometimes dependent upon the undead’s ability to feed. Still, while biology plays little part in the existence of these creatures, the undead do have some similarities to living beings.

Like ectothermic (cold-blooded) creatures, the unliving lack the ability to produce their own heat and must depend on their environment for warmth. This inability to produce heat is a defining undead characteristic, most remarked upon by scholars and those who encounter them, and often compared to the chill of the grave. To classify undead as cold-blooded creatures would be inaccurate, however, since undead are mostly bloodless. Like ectotherms, undead take on the temperature of their surroundings. However, unlike cold-blooded living creatures, undead are not unduly harmed by particularly low temperatures (unless they become frozen solid) or particularly high temperatures (unless they begin to smolder and burn).

Diet

Some undead exist for centuries without interacting with any living beings, while others seem to require, or at least crave with an unstoppable passion, the flesh, energy, or life force of the still living. However, even undead that do not need to eat may have a preferred morsel. Essentially, some undead can choose to eat if they desire, even if they have no requirement to consume. They could eat even ordinary food, if they desired to appear normal or were interested in trying to tease out some hint of flavor; undead with tongues, such as ghouls and skirrs (see page 120) actually retain their sense of taste.

Some undead glory in their ability to feed off the living. Others, especially the more intelligent, romanticize or even eroticize their need to feed on the living to maintain their strength (or to feed their addiction). Still, despite the fact that this feeding ability is often dangerous (or even deadly) to those who oppose them, the hunger behind it is a major weakness for many undead.

With all of this in mind, undead feeding requirements can be broken into three types: not required, inescapable craving, and diet dependent.

Not Required: Some undead have no feeding requirements, existing solely on negative energy.

Inescapable Craving: Some undead have no “bodily” requirement to feed, and could continue to exist solely on negative energy, but are driven to their diet all the same by inescapable cravings. These cravings, denied too long, could turn even a sentient undead to mindless hunger. Once the feeding is accomplished and the hunger sated, the intensity of the craving drops back to a tolerable level, but it is a cycle doomed to repeat itself.

If a player controls an undead with an inescapable craving, use the Handling Undead Hunger variant rule. Diet Dependent: Some undead must feed on the living to retain either their mobility or some of their other abilities. The link to the Negative Energy Plane for undead of these sort grows increasingly tenuous the longer they are denied the necessary food. At some point, their mobility or one or more specific abilities are suppressed until they can feed again. However, no matter how enervated by lack of feeding, undead cannot be starved to the point of permanent deanimation. A fresh infusion of their preferred food can always bring them back to their full abilities. Most diet-dependent undead can go for 3d6 months before losing all mobility.

If a player controls an undead with a diet-dependent existence, use the Handling Undead Hunger variant rule.

Undead Hunger: Undead that have an inescapable craving do not have the option to not feed; their hellish hunger cannot be denied. Likewise, diet-dependent undead know that they require sustenance as well. Mindless undead do not care if their hunger drives them into the open or into tactically questionable attacks, but intelligent undead prefer to direct their own actions. However, if an intelligent undead is too long denied that which it desires most, its actions may soon drive it into a frenzy, despite its desire to remain hidden or anonymous. Similarly, those that depend on a steady diet to supplement their existence will take steps to see that their ability to feed is not compromised. The DM determines when insatiable hunger may play a role in an undead monster’s or NPC’s motivation.

Variant Rule: Handling Undead Hunger

This variant rule is best applied to undead player characters that are diet dependent or have inescapable cravings. These rules work less well for undead that spend years or more locked away in tombs before getting a chance to feed. However, the DM may decide to use these rules on a case-by-case basis for NPC or monster undead as well.

The hunger felt by an undead with the need for sustenance is akin to an addiction. Like living creatures with an extreme craving for some chemical substance, hungry undead are prone to erratic, violent, and sometimes self-destructive behavior if they are denied their preferred morsels.

Satiation: An undead with an inescapable craving takes ability damage each day unless it makes a successful DC 25 Will save. A diet-dependent undead takes ability damage every three days unless it makes a successful DC 15 Will save. Each time an undead feeds on its preferred morsel, it is satiated and need not make these saving throws for the satiation period noted on the table. After the satiation period wears off, the undead once again grows hungry.

Damage: An undead’s need to feed is like a mental spike boring into its awareness, dealing the indicated damage each day unless the undead succeeds on the saving throw or feeds. An undead immediately gains back all of the ability damage it has taken if it manages to feed.

As the undead goes longer and longer without feeding, potentially losing Wisdom all the while, the undead grows increasingly unbalanced. It mulls over plans that would allow it to feed⁠—​plans it would likely consider too risky were it completely sane. When the undead reaches 0 Wisdom, it retains no volition of its own, no judgment to deter it from seeking its preferred morsel, even if the undead’s utter destruction seems likely thereafter. (A player character who reaches 0 Wisdom from a failure to feed is temporarily remanded to the DM, who plays the undead as a ravening beast until the character has fed.)

An intelligent undead sometimes plans for this eventuality, even arranging to have itself locked away in a self-constructed vault from which it is unable to escape. It will stay there until a prearranged third party provides the undead with its preferred morsel (presumably in a fashion that does not endanger the third party, though accidents do happen).

Undead Healing

A living creature that is lethally hurt may become disabled or dying. During this time, aid or good luck can return the creature back to health and eventually full strength. Undead are not so fortunate. What would disable or render unconscious a living creature destroys an undead creature beyond recall. (In game terms, when an undead is reduced to 0 hit points or less, it is permanently destroyed.) No aid, magical or mundane, is sufficient to restore the undead to its previous state of animation.

Since they are already dead, undead that are destroyed cannot be returned to existence through raise dead or reincarnate. Resurrection and true resurrection can affected undead, but these spells turn undead back into the living creatures they were before they became undead.

Only undead with Intelligence scores can recover lost hit points, usually through necromantic healing (see below) or through the application of negative energy. An undead with the fast healing ability does not require an Intelligence score to benefit from that ability.

Necromantic Healing: With 8 or more consecutive hours of inactivity in any 24-hour period, an undead with an Intelligence score recovers 1 hit point per Hit Die. If such an undead is completely inactive for a full 24-hour period, it recovers 2 hit points per Hit Die.

Magical Healing: The application of negative energy, such as an inflict spell, can restore hit points to an undead. Generally, any spell that would harm a living creature by the application of negative energy heals the same number of lost hit points when cast on an undead.

Healing Ability Damage: Ability damage is temporary, just as is hit point damage. Ability damage returns at the rate of 1 point per 24 hours (although ability damage taken through failure to satiate an undead’s inescapable craving to feed or to satisfy an undead’s diet dependence does not heal naturally in this manner).

Necrotic Reserve: Some undead that have the ability to feed on the living can use this ability to invigorate their bodies on a daily basis, granting them some small reprieve from immediate destruction when they take damage. See the Necrotic Reserve feat for more details.

Sleeping

Undead do not sleep, and they almost never require rest (though some may receive healing benefits from rest, as outlined above). However, undead that cast spells require some time to refresh their consciousness, just as living spellcasters do, before they can prepare or cast new spells.

To regain the ability to cast or prepare daily spells, an undead must have a clear mind. To clear its mind, the undead must experience 8 hours of restful calm—it must refrain from movement, combat, spellcasting, skill use, conversation, or any other demanding physical or mental task during the rest period. If the restful calm is interrupted, each interruption adds 1 hour to the total amount of time the undead has to rest in order to clear its mind.

Undead Propagation

Many undead share at least one characteristic with living creatures⁠—​they possess the means to propagate their own kind. Several varieties of undead can cause their slain victims to rise from the grave, thereby creating new unliving creatures.

Creating Undead Spawn: Many undead have the ability to create spawn (an equal or lesser version of themselves, but under their control) simply by slaying their victims. Presumably, the undead must have drained at least one of the victim’s ability scores or bestowed at least one negative level for this death to occur. (For instance, a wight that pushes a gravestone over on an enemy, killing it, shouldn’t expect to gain a new wight servant from the victim’s remains.)

Taking a broader view, undead propagation might be regarded as an infectious disease: It is nasty, it is easily spread, and it kills its hosts. Of course, the plague of self-propagating undead is far worse than any common disease (especially since normal methods for preserving oneself against disease are useless in this case), but the cure is little different—eliminate the source of infection, and you eliminate the malady itself.

The unliving make use of several different methods to create new undead creatures. These methods, and the creatures that employ them, are summarized in Undead Propagation table.

Prevention of Unlife: Those who hope to escape the curse of undead when their lives end sometimes seek the blessing of a good deity. Those who seek such blessings in city temples or who serve a god directly may ask for a boon⁠—​a blessing that protects the body against rising as a spawn should the unthinkable happen, and the believer fall in battle against undead. (See the spawn screen spell for more details.)

Variant Rule: Forgoing Spawn Creation

In cases where stealth or obfuscation of their presence is necessary, some undead may choose to not create spawn. Any undead that has the ability to create spawn (even those that normally do so automatically) can choose to forgo that creation with a little effort. Each time it is capable of spawning a new creature, an undead can prevent the spawn from coming into existence by making a DC 15 Intelligence check.

Undead Development

Unlike living creatures, which grow and mature throughout their life cycles, undead are usually changeless, frozen in the moment of their creation. Most are cursed to never adopt new philosophies, or change with the uncertainties and lessons of life, or ever find happiness.

An undead that persists for century after century sometimes finds ways to grow in strength and knowledge. Its connection to the Negative Energy Plane, originally a mere trickle, can become an actual current over hundreds of years, and given enough time, a mighty stream.

Gaining Class Levels: Intelligent undead have the option of receiving training and gaining levels in an NPC or PC class. Not all intelligent undead have the mental aptitude necessary for some of the more intellectual endeavors, so less cerebral classes, such as barbarian and fighter, often prove popular among them. Particularly intelligent undead are usually drawn to spellcasting classes. Undead that started as high-level spellcasters and used magic to bridge the gulf separating them from mortality may continue to add spellcasting classes normally.

Evolution: Sometimes undead just become stronger through time. This seasoning of ability takes hundreds of years of existence, and even then, of those undead that persevere for so long, only a handful grow more powerful. This maturity of power is dependent on the undead’s tie to the Negative Energy Plane. As the creature’s existence stretches through the centuries, its connection to this void energy slowly grows more secure, imbuing the monster with strength, vigor, and dark purpose. (See the evolved undead template, Libris Mortis, page 99, for more details.)

Undead Senses

As with other predatory creatures, undead have senses sufficient to reveal their prey, and in some cases, these senses are even enhanced.

Vision (Ex): The energy that animates an undead extends to its organs of sight, giving all undead creatures darkvision out to at least 60 feet. They are never hindered by darkness, and they are able to see even in pitch black conditions, when most living creatures are unable to discern the least visual clue.

Scent and Hearing (Ex): The energy that animates an undead extends to the organs of scent and hearing as well. Thus, undead can smell and hear just as living beings do. As with sight, however, if an undead physically loses a particular organ, it can no longer use that particular ability.

Taste (Ex): The energy of animation also extends to an undead’s organs of taste. However, if an undead physically loses its tongue, it can no longer detect its environment in this fashion. Many undead fall into this category, including skeletons. All incorporeal undead lose the ability to taste (but they can still hear and smell).

Touch: Undead retain a blunt, phantom sense of touch, more mechanical than biological. It is a pale, crude approximation of a real tactile sense. Incorporeal undead have no sense of touch.

Lifesense: Some undead, especially those without the customary organs that grant the ability to sense their environment, sense the world as a great darkness illuminated only by the “light” given off by living creatures. To such an undead, each living creature gives off “light” in a 20-foot radius, illuminating all objects within that radius. (See the Lifesense feat for more details.)