A report on every type of corporeal undead?!
Alright then, he'll get his damned comprehensive survey and then some!Skeletons: These are made when a collection of bones is reanimated through use of negative energy.
There are some variants such as the mohrg (a skeleton with guts) which are made through cursed life decisions if one is an exceptionally vile individual. Skeleton lords, huecuvas and skeleton priests (the middle one is what happens if you are an especially wicked or hypocritical cleric in life) are more intelligent than your average skeleton and retain some degree of the skills they had in life. Rank and file skeletal warriors and archers are fast but not terribly intelligent.
Zombies: These are most commonly made through necromancy spells, voodoo and the like. Not the most intelligent of undead but they can relentlessly pursue a target since they do not need to eat, breathe or rest. Some zombies will spontaneously arise from corpses raised improperly or which are interred on unhallowed ground too.
Zombie lord: This is a more intelligent form of zombie capable of flinging some spells and commanding lesser zombies. As in life, so in death
(this last bit is intended somewhat as a joke by the author).Juju zombies: A more powerful form of zombie created through voodan rituals.
Ghouls: Scavenging undead. Can be created through necromancy or beget more of themselves through an infectious bite. If the quarry dies of wounds gained during combat with a ghoul they can rise up as one. As is well known a ghoul can also arise from the result of a curse which befalls humans and demihumans which resort to the vile act of carrion eating in graveyards. Ghouls are driven by an insatiable psychological hunger.
The agarat is a variant of the ghoul which has most of the stock standard same abilities as its regular cousin but looks a little bit different and has hair. Also some share the stink attack ability of a ghast. Agarats are opportunistic scavenging predators. They primarily feed on dead bodies but do enjoy live prey when it is available.
Ghoul lords and feral ghouls are more intelligent than regular ghouls.
Ghast: More aggressive relative of the ghoul. It can do its own version of stinking cloud from releasing clouds of its bodily funk at will.
Vampires: These can arise from curse but also from other vampires via the exchange of blood. There are two types of note: Vampire spawn are people who have had their blood fully drained by a proper vampire and are his or her thrall. Full vampires oddly enough only become a thing when the victim has consumed a certain amount of the vampire's blood on near death. One is exactly not sure how the dhampir or half vampire comes into being since though it obviously has one vampire parent and one living parent most of the time vampires do not reproduce sexually (we think!). Try not to confuse a vampire with its living analogous "cousin" the vampyre.
Note: The older a vampire is, the more powerful but also more insane it can be.
Wights: Tomb guardians and magic flinging undead. They are infamous for their draining touch which weakens foes. Believed to not need to eat. A staple feature of ancient burial grounds. Wights hate the living with an irrational burning passion. Barrow wights at least serve a function as guardians. The way they propagate is via physical contact; Anyone who dies from wounds inflicted on them by a wight may too themselves become a wight.
Mummies: Smarter undead these, like the vampire, upon reaching a certain more experienced advanced stage (the mummy lord, ancient mummy, etc.) are capable of commanding lesser undead. Often they are created through complex holy and unholy rites. Steeling your will against fear is recommended when facing these as mummies can be especially terrifying. They can also spread disease via their touch. Most but not all mummies are swaddled in strips of linen. Their hallmark physical feature is having leathery skin.
Cursts: A special type of intelligent and agile undead which retains and furthers all the fighting skills with weapons it had in life, is fireproof and highly dangerous. They are as the name indicates created by people being caught in a stray killing curse. Note their dark, pupiless eyes.
Blasphemes: Nobody knows exactly how these composite undead are made anymore since the techniques used by the ancient necromancy masters have been lost to the ages. We do know that they are assembled and not made in the organic sense of the word and from observing those that have survived they were originally intended as guardians of catacomb complexes. Again, these are big unnatural creatures which have been expertly corpse crafted.
Hulking corpse: This one can be an ogre zombie but doesn't need to be. It's very strong like an ogre, and can bull rush at you with a monstrous tackle. Its fists are capable of cracking stone too.
Revenant: If the desire for revenge is great enough and transcends death, a revenant is born. This particularly angry form of corporeal undead is obsessed with getting even to the point it will try to slay descendents of the original people who wronged them during original life many generations later. This is also why holding on to grudges too much is an inherently bad thing.
Eye of Fear and Flame: A particularly powerful type of corporeal undead along the same lines as a huecuva but created through old rites by ancient gods or so people say. It has mismatched gems in the eye sockets and delights in wickedness.
Liches and vassaliches are created through complex arcane ritual.
A vassalich is a form of lesser lich that a lich creates through a variant of the ritual which created it in the first place because it desires an equally immortal servant. Both are required to fill their phylacteries with souls. It is the phylactery which allows a lich or vassalich to come back from "death" time and time again... So destroy the phylactery and you truly destroy a lich.
Liches and vassaliches can be made from any arcane caster subject; wizard, sorcerer or bard.
Crawling claws: The severed limb of a soon to die or already dead convict (this detail doesn't actually matter too much) can be animated via a bizarre rite to produce these "handy" little assistants one at a time.
They don't need to eat and they don't beget more of themselves.
Alhoon: Also known sometimes as an illithilich, this is an undead mindflayer. They are fairly rare and from what we can tell regarded as horribly insane even among other mindflayers. This explains why aside from their creations and minions an alhoon generally tends to "live" alone.
