Life’s a Lich
What are undead?
Undead are creatures that were once living but have been reanimated by magical forces. While a living creature maintains life by the forces of nature, undead creatures rely upon magic and spiritual powers to maintain their semblance of life.
Because of the different forces that cause undeath, the results of undeath are incredibly varied.
Some undead keep their intellect and personality during the transformation as is the case for liches and vampires. In other instances, the creature’s mind is entirely lost during the transformation or the body is the only part that is used, as is the case for skeletons and zombies.
In other cases, a semblance of the mind and soul is retained, but dramatically affected by the processes of death and undeath. This is often the case for ghosts who might be caught in a moment from their life, or struggle for intelligent thought.
Due to their physiological differences, undead creatures are often immune to powers that affect the mind (particularly as many are mindless servants of their creators) as well as powers that cause sleep, poison, disease and death.
Becoming undead
There are believed to be 6 ways in which a creature can become undead:
Intentional, personal reanimation – In some instances, an individual can voluntarily choose undeath such as is the case with liches who undergo a ritual to become undead. Usually, these individuals are evil, with many choosing to undergo such a transformation for purposes of power, immortality or to overcome maladies.
Magically reanimated corpses – Powerful magical and spiritual beings can raise undead servants from the bodies of deceased individuals. These beings become servants to the creator. This form of magic is known as necromancy. Such creatures often include skeletons and zombies.
Atrocities – Sometimes, a person could perform an act so terrible, that upon their death, they would be warped into an undead being. Sometimes such events are caused by a curse, but in other instances, it can seem random whether an atrocity causes undeath.
Unfinished Business – In this instance, no-one purposefully turns the being undead, instead, some overriding desire to see something through to completion causes the creature to become transformed into an undead being when they die. This is often the case for creatures like ghosts or revenants.
Dark Forces – Sometimes, evil forces would simply raise undead creatures through seemingly random events (though some suspect such events to be planned).
Wounds Caused by Undead – Certain undead creatures can create more of their kind simply by killing its victim or causing them to be wounded. This is the case with vampires, whose bite can cause another being to become a vampire or a wraith causing nearby dead to become specters.
Types of Undead
There are many types of undead and these types are usually determined by 2 things; the method used to make a creature undead and the type of creature that has been made undead. For example, a humanoid that goes through the process of lichdom becomes a lich, while a mindflayer that goes through this process becomes an alhoon and a dragon that does this becomes a dracolich.
Similarly, zombification can afflict all manner of creatures from humanoids to beholders. The possibilities are terrifying.
Broadly, undead can be classified into a few distinct groups:
Transformed mortals
Some mortals can become afflicted (or blessed depending on your disposition) with undeath. This can be purposeful, as often happens when a creature performs the rituals that transforms them into a lich. It can also be forced upon them, as can be the case with a vampire’s bite.
Other transformed mortals include deathlocks, bodaks and nightwalkers.
Reanimated corpses
Some undead beings are created from the corpses of already dead creatures. Some of these creatures are simply reanimated organic matter; mindless and soulless. Others, however, retain the memories of their former life. This can include creatures like wights and death knights.
Reanimated corpses also include skeletons, ghouls, mummies and zombies among their ranks.
Incorporeal undead
Some undead are the lingering souls of those once mortal. They are without body, with their soul twisted by the circumstances of their death. Usually this is caused by intense trauma at the point of death, but can also be caused by great acts of evil, the injuries of another undead or some sort of curse or spell.
Incorporeal undead include creatures like banshees, ghosts, specters, revenants and wraiths.
How to use undead in a campaign
Undead make great enemies and villains! Think beings like Vecna the archlich, or Lord Soth the death knight. These are powerful beings granted immortality, but at the cost of dreadful, evil acts.
Not only this, but there’s a huge variety of undead creatures to choose from, and it’s easy to vary up your skeletal horde (or other undead) with homebrewed versions for other creatures. A skeletal t-rex anyone? What about a zombified tarrasque?
Below, I’ve put together some ideas for how you can include undead in your own campaigns:
- Undead minions: Necromancers and many other creatures love having undead minions to perform their will. Corpses are never in short supply and they tend to make mindless servants that don’t answer back. Use undead to guard a villain’s lair or as a meat shield for your BBEG confrontation.
- Unfinished business: Many undead, particularly of the incorporeal kind, have become so because they have unfinished business. Putting such beings to rest can create a natural objective for characters. It might start as a banshee haunting the village well, but why, and how to put the creature to rest can create a puzzle of sorts. This becomes an extra challenge at low levels if players realise the creature they’re facing is more powerful than they are. Not every creature needs to be killed to be gotten rid of; some undead will depart if you can solve their problems.
- Ridding the world of undead BBEGs: Some of the best BBEGs are undead, normally because they’ve done unspeakable things to achieve immortality. Liches must feed their immortality with the souls of mortals. Orcus transforms mortals into undead servants. Strahd Von Zarovich murdered his household when he became the first vampire. Removing these evil beings from the world can only be seen as a service to society, so pit your players against some of the biggest, baddest, evilest guys out there.
- Haunted house: Ghost stories are great and haunted houses offer a chance for multiple beings to have their stories told and their problems resolved (or just destroyed). They’re great ways to have weird and terrifying events happen to players. I love a good haunted house but they can be tricky to create. Consider using the House of Lament scenario in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft as inspiration or to run with your players. It’s an excellent example of how to run a haunted house.
Other monster types
Thinking of including something other than undead in your campaign? We’ve got you covered. Below are our guides for all the different monster types in D&D 5e: