Wraiths

Wraiths have a strong visual identity: hooded, faceless black figures. They are the Grim Reaper, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, the Nazgul, even the Dementors (if you must). They look scary. Everyone knows the empty cowl means death. 

My own drawing

D&D doesn't know what to do with them. Are they corporeal? Do they paralyze or Energy Drain? Are they Nazgul or is that Spectres? It all depends on which edition you prefer. Delta has a great round-up. 

With their intimidating visages, wraiths should advance the thesis that I've explicated in previous posts (skeletons, zombies, ghouls, wights) that each undead type ought to be uniquely terrifying. 

My wraiths are of the semi-corporeal, black mist mode of wraithdom. They'll look solid enough, but your glaive-guisarme passes clean through. Unlike wights, wraiths don't have names or personalities. They are anti-life voids, avatars of nihilistic hatred. They just want to snuff all the candles. 

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Death Spirals Revisited

These guys are brutal. They've got auto-hit life drain (don't worry, I won't make you deduct levels), dissolution at 0hp (no save, no res) and escalating damage that snowballs like a motherfucker.

This monster sets up tactical puzzle-fights and is a bit more mechanically complex than my previous undead. They can float over obstacles and flow between people, so fight positioning will be unusual.

Instead of the canonical level-drain, I've given the wraith an area-of-effect aura. Wraiths deal damage to all adjacent creatures, with no roll and the monster gains the hit points taken. This damage increases every round. The party needs to win fast or it will get out of hand. 

The goal here is for the players to fear them. For their arrival to be an "Oh, shit!" moment, without having to resort to level drain.

Muppets

Wights

As the appellation Wight once referred to men, so too the creatures thus called were once mortal lords. Now they are bitter undead, who loathe and envy the living. Their visages are bleached and their personalities eroded by time, until nothing remains but fierce hostility and simmering resentment. 

They were lords and still believe they should be. 

My own post-it drawing, referencing this one by Vance Kelly

A Boss Suitable for Low-Level Parties

The wights in my game are an undead boss monster. I want something that can stand on its own thematically, not just a stronger zombie with "No. Appearing 2-16" and level-drain. 

A wight should have a name and a story.

In my version, I hope to bring back the dread and vindictiveness of the Tolkien original and evoke the draugr sagas they were based on (e.g. Grettir, Hrómundar and Hervör's saga, perhaps the barrow-dragon from Beowulf). Fun fact: the original use of the term "barrow-wight" was by William Morris in his Grettir's saga translation. I also thought of M.R. James' "A Warning to the Curious" and its BBC adaptation. 

Wights haunt the vicinity of their own tombs and must return to them during the day, unless they are deep underground. 

They'll gain the ability Shuttered Room suggested in their comments section, "undead being vulnerable to weapons that were made while they were still alive, so that rusty old broadsword is of use while that specially imported custom rapier is not." You can reduce them to zero hit points, but they'll dissolve and reform until they're finally dispatched with a suitably ancient implement.

They can track treasure stolen from them, with dire consequences for anyone paid with it. 

You'll think you've defeated one only to have it show up at your campfire a night or two later.

Cairn in Snow (1807) by Caspar David Friedrich 

All Hail the Ultra Bastard

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Ultra Bastard, my homemade franken-creature of a ruleset is now available for your perusal. 

Download Now 

It's a compact (16 pages for core) distillation of the rules I actually play at my table. 

I've previously described myself as a heterodox, universal harvester and that ethos is evident throughout this project. This is a love letter to the hobby, not a product

I am a big believer in the ethos of DIY and the notion that every DM with the inclination to do so, should make their own D&D. I hope you'll chop it up for parts, excise the sections that aren't a perfect fit and re-combine the remaining bits with your favorite house-rules to make a bespoke ruleset that's perfect for the campaign you're running right now.

A few distinctives:

• Classless core with optional, simple-to-implement classes
• Cast as many spells as you like, but they cost HP
• Hit points are capped at the higher of Strength or Constitution score so they never over-inflate.
• Speed Sandwich initiative (per Dwiz)
• Optional Wounds table
• Wisdom is replaced with Alertness. One stat for perception instead of two for mindfulness.
• Familiar, old-fashioned D&D chassis but with Advantage/Disadvantage, slot-based encumbrance and critical hits.

I'm proud of this and I hope you'll tear it apart and make something you're proud of. 

Waxen Shambler

 

My own drawing, referencing this.

The Waxen Shambler (or Candle Golem) is an idea I came up with for a haunted chapel. It's essentially a Shambling Mound, comprising the waxy mass of hundreds of melted together liturgical candles rather than vegetation. 

Waxen Shambler

Armor Class: 10 - a slow moving blob isn't hard to hit

Damage Immunity / Resistances: Immune to normal missiles & bludgeoning attacks. Other weapons deal half damage.

Vulnerabilities: If it takes cold damage, it will move at half speed and only take one attack. If it is set on fire, it will take double the normal recurring damage but will act as if under the effects of a Haste spell until the fire burns out.

Hit Dice: 8d8 (36HP) + Regenerates 5hp / round

Attacks: 

• 2x bludgeoning limbs, +2 to hit, d12 damage
• Engulf - if both limbs hit, the target is swept into the mass of the shambler and will suffocate in 3 rounds unless freed.  

Move: Half human speed

Saves: 12+ 

Morale: Implaccable

Encounter Design

This thing is very hard to kill but pretty easy to flee. It won't chase beyond the church building.

My hope is that it pursues the party around the church area, maintaining pressure but they're smart enough not to stand against it toe-to-toe.

If they set it on fire... characters are likely to die. 

Loot

You'll undoubtedly find the oddments of previous victims lodged amid the mass.

Big inspiration for my design

Ghouls

Dekades8 on Devinatart

I feel a little silly including ghouls in my series of Undead revisions, since my model for this project, Arnold K's Monstrome, contains an extensive entry and my vision for this monster overlaps significantly with his. Nevertheless, ghouls are one of my all-time favorite classic D&D monsters and I want to crystalize my ideas in text (for my own use if for no other purpose).

Ghouls are an excellent utility monster that I find myself reaching for again and again while stocking my dungeons. With their multiple attacks and paralyzing touch, they are an absolute nightmare for players and remain a real challenge even for parties well above their level. 

Paralysis Death Spiral

I play in an OSE Arden Vul campaign and we recently encountered a mixed pack of ghouls and ghasts. Being a mid-level party and filled with hubris, we foolishly believed we could tank our way through. In one round, we were utterly thrashed, our best fighters paralyzed and several characters killed. We fled with half our number still living and a burning desire for vengeance. We came back, better prepared, and they kicked our asses again. This seems typical.

Ghoul's combat prowess borders on the unfair. A lot of people, both players and DMs don't like the brutality of Ghouls. Arnold removed their paralysis effect replacing it with a fear mechanic, saying "I don’t like how paralysis can disable half the party in a single turn, creating an instant death spiral (especially when surprise is involved), so I think this is a good change."  I disagree.

Ghoul's overwhelming abilities creates a fear and hatred of them that emotionally impacts the players in a way that few other monsters do. Having just experienced this, the frustration of rapidly losing characters that we'd spent months advancing, is fresh in my mind. When (on the third attempt) we finally beat them with an elaborate barbed-wire, tower-defense style ambush the sense of victory was incredible. 

A ridiculously overpowered, perhaps even un-fun, enemy from time to time adds something special to the game. It's exciting to have something to really fear.

Hot Springs Island

Weaknesses

For all their lethality, ghouls are not that tough themselves. They typically don't have armor and with just two hit-dice, they fall pretty quickly once attacked. On average, they have single digit hit points. 

According to the 1e Monster Manual: "These creatures are subject to all attack forms except sleep and charm spells. They can be turned by clerics. The magic circle of protection from evil keeps these monsters completely at bay." 

In a different game I play in (in Stonehell) we encountered a ghoul infested area with a 7th level cleric and a paladin in the party. They melted like snow. 

Skeletons

Van Gogh

Of all the monsters in D&D, skeletons are the one most often depicted in art (of the non-game related sort). They are a constant theme. Drawn, painted and sculpted throughout history. A reminder of the inevitability of our own deaths and the monster that lives inside each of us, hidden behind a mask of meat and skin. 

William Blake

So of course I want to make them into a goofy cartoon monster. I want puppets and stop motion aesthetics. 

When you fight skeletons in my game, I want you to almost see the marionette strings. When you strike a mighty blow, they should burst apart with a clatter of scattering bones.

Disney

If you're going to take an easy, low-level undead fight for granted... these are the ones.

And yet... we still need them to be at least a little challenging to fight. They can't just be a very small stack of hit points.

Harryhausen

Strengths

Unlike the classic skeleton (BX/OSE and 5e), my skeletons are immune to slings and arrows (an outrageous fortune) and take half damage from piercing weapon. This makes them difficult to fight at range or if they are behind bars or a grate. This sets up lots of opportunities for adventurers to be harassed by weak monster that are difficult to get at. The challenge of the fight isn't rolling bigger numbers, it's figuring out how to get from here to there.

A complimentary feature is skeletons' ability to see in the dark and shoot further than torchlight extends. Arrows out of the darkness terrify players. This can be used to good effect to emphasize the importance of light.

Finally, skeletons have time on their side. They don't get hungry. They don't need a pee break or a nap. You can put them in a cage and hang them from the ceiling or brick them up behind an arrow slit. They can be a trap or an environmental hazard.

Weaknesses

In addition to being flimsy, skeletons are incredibly stupid. They are easily tricked. 

Zombies

Maybe it's a fools errand, but I want to make the zombies in my game a little more interesting and threatening. I want my players to be genuinely scared of the undead.

I tried an iteration of this last year that fell bit flat so I've tweaked the recipe a bit.

Justin Moll

Sponge Monster

Zombies should shrug off weak hits and soak up a lot of damage before collapsing. On the flip side, in keeping with the tropes, one really big hit should take a zombie out. 

Instead of giving them a ton of HP, they'll get damage resistance (reduce the damage of each incoming hit by 4).  This will make them very resistant to arrows and small hand weapons. You'll want to hit these things with two-handed swords and polearms.

Deadly Infection

A zombie will first attempt to grab victims. Once grabbed, zombies will make bite attacks with advantage.

Any character bit by a zombie will contract grave rot, a deadly wasting disease that most low-level parties will not be able to cure. Getting bit by a zombie usually means death. 

Grave Rot: Every hour, lose 1/4 of your max HP. Hit points lost in this way can't be healed until the disease is cured. If you die while under the effect of Grave Rot, you'll return as a zombie (or occasionally some other undead). Grave Rot spreads from the point of infection. If it's on a limb, quick amputation can be a viable cure.

In B/X, 2HD crab spiders have save-or-die poison, so this doesn't feel too punitive.

Weaknesses

Zombies are slow and stupid. They always lose initiative and move at half normal human speed. If you can get out of their sight for one combat round, they'll forget you exist.

If a victim is brought down, zombies may stop fighting to consume it, ignoring anyone nearby unless directly attacked.

They are nearly always unarmored and make no attempt to avoid being hit.