Undead creatures and encounters
_A repulsive, batlike creature darts from the Stygian darkness. Its body consists entirely of rotting sheets of stolen skin. Though its large eyes are glassy and lifeless, an unmistakably evil intent glimmers within them as a toothless mouth sprea...
_Shrouds appear much like they did in life, only translucent and immaterial. Their voices are weak._ **Bitter Spirits.** Shrouds are transitional creatures: remnants of wicked people who died but refuse to rest in peace, yet have not grown stron...
_This shambling corpse warrior is draped in stained linen wrappings. Green liquid drips from rents in the fabric._ **Servant of the Scorpion Goddess.** These mummies are crafted by Selket’s faithful to guard holy sites and tombs and to serve as ...
_The humanoid form approaches through the murky water, but as it nears, it becomes clear that this is no living thing. It is made entirely of sharks’ jaws, joined together and brought to life with grim magic._ Made from numerous, interlocking sh...
Medium Undead, CR 13. From Tome of Beasts.
_Their howls echoing from another plane, lich hounds always arrive wreathed in mist. Half bone, half purple fire, they are creatures of hunger and the hunt. Nothing makes them happier than taking down creatures larger than themselves—or racing thr...
Vættir are ancestral spirits, sometimes protective and helpful but demanding reverence and wrathful when offended. **Servants of the Land.** Land vættir dwell in barrows while sea vættir live beneath lakes, rivers, or the sea—both wear ancient m...
_These shambling corpses have twigs, branches, and other debris intertwined with their bodies, and their gaping maws often crawl with scrabbling vermin._ **Swamp Undead.** Putrid haunts are walking corpses infused with moss, mud, and the detritu...
_This mass of fused corpses resembles a butterfly with wings of skin, limbs of bone, and a head formed of several different skulls. The dark magic that formed this abomination swirls around it hungrily._ **Bound by Necromancy.** Flutterflesh res...
_Taut dead skin, adorned entirely with tattooed fish scales, covers this woman’s face and hands. She wears scaled armor, sea green like verdigris on copper, and wields a strange sword. Her pale eyes stare, unblinking._ **Undead Warlock Slaves.**...
_A shadowy figure flickers in and out of view. Its indistinct shape betrays a sylvan ancestry, and its eyes are malevolent blue points of light._ **Unnatural Aura.** Animals do not willingly approach within 30 feet of a deathwisp, unless a maste...
_The reeking pile of bodies and bones as large as a giant lurches forward. Corpses that tumble off it rise moments later as undead and follow the determined hill of corruption._ **Rise from Mass Graves.** In times of plague and war, hundreds of ...
_A thick swirl of dust rises, settles, and forms the vague outline of a man—two points of yellow light shine where its eyes should be, staring malevolently._ **Mound Haunter.** A haugbui is an undead spirit tied to its burial mound or barrow. It...
_A skeletal cadaver bedecked in the motley attire of a fool capers about while making jokes that mock mortality._ **Amusing Death.** When a jester on his deathbed moves an evil death god to laughter, the fool sometimes gains a reprieve. becoming...
_An evil wind swirls out of the desert, parching those it touches, whispering evil plans. These winds are the edimmus._ **Bitter Exiles.** Desert and plains tribes often exile their criminals to wander as outcasts. A banished criminal who dies o...
_This dried-out body of a long dead traveler is still clad in the tattered remains of his clothes. Skin as dry as parchment clings to the bones that are clearly distinguishable underneath. A hoarse moaning emanates from the dry, cracked lips._ *...
Medium Undead, CR 5. From Tome of Beasts.
Medium Undead, CR 4. From Tome of Beasts.
Medium Undead, CR 3. From Tome of Beasts.
Medium Undead, CR 6. From Tome of Beasts.
_This twisted humanoid has gray flesh and black claws that drip blood. A bone mask is bound to its head by strips of putrid flesh and a third arm hangs from the right side of the creature’s body, its hand clutching a large sack stained with blood....
_Distilled to nothing but dry, whispering sand and a full set of teeth, a bonepowder ghoul still hungers for flesh and blood. Its dusty mass is perfected corruption, entirely animated by foul energy._ **Starved Into Dust.** The bonepowder ghoul ...
_Dank winds sweep up skeletons, both humanoid and animal. They blow forward, reaching out for living creatures like a clawed hand of bone. A scattering of bones rolls across the ground, then rises into the air, billowing like a sheet._ **Swarms ...
_A bone collective is almost a fluid; its thousands of tiny bones coalesce into a humanoid form only to disperse in a clattering swarm the next moment. Their tiny bones rustle when they move, a quiet sound similar to sand sliding down a dune._ *...