Undead Family Trees

[Tonguez]

I'm attempting to group the undead into 'families' based on related traits
and then try and strip them down to a few base creatures with undead feats and class abilities used to create the various types

so for instance I'd group
1. Shadow, Wraith, Nightshade
2. Ghost, Spectre, Allip (?)
3. Skeleton, Zombie, Ghoul ...,
3a. Ghoul, Ghast, Wight, Mohrg. Lich
3b. Ghoul, Vampire
3c. Ghoul, Mummy
6. Bodak, Devourer

Any thoughts?

 

[frankthedm]

I prefer descriptors since the undead abilities vary greatly and most don't link up to one another.

Apparition: Incoporeal
free-roaming: Not tied to an area
Full torsoed: It has the top half. If not also an apparition it is either crawling or flying
Full bodied: Whole thing is there.
Repeating: It comes back if destroyed.
Sliming: Covers victims in some sort of ectoplasmic glop.
Spawning: It can make more of it’s own kind.
Vampiric: Has attacks that make it stronger at victim’s expense
Vaporous: You can see through it.


Families

Animated by magic family: Skeleton, Zombie, Mummy, Lich

Vengence driven: Specter, Ghost, Mohrg.

Vampirirc family: Ghoul, Allip, Wight, Wraith, Specter, Vampire, Devourer.

 

[kenobi65]

Skeletons and zombies belong in their own group, since that's what you get from animate dead (and, a skeleton is just a zombie that's not juicy any more).

Ghouls and ghasts belong in their own group, since they're fundamentally just the same monster, with ghasts resulting from tougher creatures dying from being bitten by ghouls / ghasts.

 

[el-remmen]

I have always just broken them up into corporeal, skeletal and non-corporeal.

 

[lukelightning]

I think shadows and wraiths and allips are pretty similar, and slightly distinct from specters. Specters are more recognizable as their original form, wraiths and shadows are more "smears" or "blobs" of darkness.

Liches are special in that they are "self-created" undead, and the only ones with phylacteries. The closest other undead to lich is, in my opinion, a mummy. I was tossing around the idea of having a skull-type demilich whose body is still mostly intact and mobile and has the stats of one of those super-mummies from the ELH.

 

[smootrk]

Animated Dead (skeletal, standard zombies, may have some intelligence (ie.flameskull, juju zombie))
Hungry Dead ('zombie' disease types, ghouls, ghasts, wights, other feral types)
Spectral Undead (ghosts, wraiths, allips, other incorporeals)
Nosferatu or Vampire Spawn (vampires, their variants (pennegalen, etc), and their spawn of various types)
Lichs (standard and variant lichs, powerful outsider 'enpowered' types, powerful self willed or self animated (ie Mummies)).

The Exalted/Good/Deathless types may mirror these types but I would treat them separately because their power comes from other sources (than the Negative Energy plane). Also, there may be types that defy this manner of grouping, or seem to be members of more than one group. The Lich type is one of the more flexible types, which may even draw from lesser types for their heritage... for instance the mummy may be nothing more than a powerful animated undead, or may be intelligent and free willed.

 

[Tonguez]

The Lich type is one of the more flexible types, which may even draw from lesser types for their heritage... for instance the mummy may be nothing more than a powerful animated undead, or may be intelligent and free willed.

This is what I'm aiming for.
To explain it started with me using Ghouls in a game and wanting to make them 'different'. Ghouls already have a 'advanced' form in the Ghast so I thought I may as well extend this and design an 'advanced' ghast but without the stink.

The creature I wanted had claws, could shadow blend (like a shadow mastiff) and spider climb (which I wanted after watching the 'ghouls' in The Mummy movie.

Anyway someone suggested this could be a kind of Ghoul PrC (which I like the idea of and so developed the Stalker PrC (prereq: Ghouls only)

I prefer descriptors since the undead abilities vary greatly and most don't link up to one another.

Apparition: Incoporeal
free-roaming: Not tied to an area
Full torsoed: It has the top half. If not also an apparition it is either crawling or flying
Full bodied: Whole thing is there.
Repeating: It comes back if destroyed.
Sliming: Covers victims in some sort of ectoplasmic glop.
Spawning: It can make more of it’s own kind.
Vampiric: Has attacks that make it stronger at victim’s expense
Vaporous: You can see through it.

This is the direction I want to go with developing these 'Undead PrCs/Templates a list of Undead traits which can be used to enhance the basic model so this list of descriptors might be useful (or might just be fluff).

I think the Ghost template gives a good starting point with its menu of abilities. What I'm thinking is adding a few more selectable qualities which a basic apparition can use to develop itself. So an ancient (ie High Level) apparition may develop its powers and be known as a Spectre

Animated Dead (skeletal, standard zombies, may have some intelligence (ie.flameskull, juju zombie))
Hungry Dead ('zombie' disease types, ghouls, ghasts, wights, other feral types)
Spectral Undead (ghosts, wraiths, allips, other incorporeals)
Nosferatu or Vampire Spawn (vampires, their variants (pennegalen, etc), and their spawn of various types)
Lichs (standard and variant lichs, powerful outsider 'enpowered' types, powerful self willed or self animated (ie Mummies)).

I think
1. Animated Corpses - Skeletons and Zombies (not true undead as they are mindless automatons)

Corporeal Undead
Lesser Ghouls are the base creature for all Coporeal Undead. Like Gghouls but no paralysis power
2a. Ghoulish: Ghouls advance to Juju Zombies or Ghast, Wight, Mohrg etc (Hungry undead)
2b. Lich: Ghouls advanced to Lich or Mummy (Willful undead)
2c. Vampire: Ghouls advance to Nosferatu and then Vampire (Vampiric)

Apparitions (Incorporeal Undead)
3. Ghost: use the menu option to create various forms including Spectre, Allip etc

Not Undead
I'm thinking that these creatures are denizens of the Negative Energy Plane who have never been alive and thus are not true undead (even though they are associated with Death)
4. Shadow, Wraith, Nightshade. (Shadows are the major inhabitants of the plane of negative energy who only rarely manifest in the Prime) When the number of spawned shadows reaches a critical mass they combine to create a Nightshade (thus keeping numbers of Shadows under control))
6. Bodak, Devourer - Devourer is Extraplanar and Bodaks created from 'fragments of memory and absolute evil' so they too are denizens of Negative Energy rather than remnants of dead souls

hmmm now how to structure it...

 

[smootrk]

I think I understand most of your groupings; I might do it a little different but I can see your logic too. One that seems weird is your lich progression. Are you making these ghouls advance to true lichdom? or do you have some special type of 'lich' that you are suggesting? What about standard mages who become lichs, are they skipping some sort of undead progression?

I actually see the Animated Corpses type having the heiriarchy that progresses from Simple Mindless (skeletons/zombies), to more intelligent types (flameskull, juju types), and then on to even more advanced Mummies and true Liches. My rationale is that they all come to being through a deliberate process, either external (animator) or internal (self-willed).

The other corporeal undead types are unnatural forms that somehow occur or spread by themselves, by draining/victimizing/infection (you might say naturally occurring undead). You might even say that the 'hungry dead' type progresses to the vampire state (in a heiriarchy anyhow), as the nosferatu are a little like the hungry group.

Incorporeals and the Bodak types might all be grouped together because of the state of being tied to ethereal or negative energy (or both) or even other planes (like abyssal). Call this group the Ectoplasmic group - either loose (incorporeal), or firm (corporeal, yet extraplanar in nature).

Anyway, just some random thoughts on your subject. Food for thought.

 

[Nightfall]

Yeah tonguez, make sure they all know Orcus is their master!

 

[boredgremlin]

I break them up by thier intelleigence and soul. I'll break them up by the basic MM1 familes.

For instance zombies and skeletons are mindless and are basically crappy golems. They and anything very similar inhabit one family.

Ghouls and vampire spawn fall into the next group. They are intelligent but for the most part are victims of other undead and did not ask for thier fate or deserve it. Most of them feed and are eventually consumed by thier undead state but there is allways the tragic victim in them and the spark of "humanity" that may come out in various ways, some kind and others very twisted.

Next come mummies, vampires and liches. These critters chose thier fate, they sought power or immortality and didnt care about the cost to achieve it. More then any other undead they are Irredeemable and evil. Most undead of this family can also create spawn as servants.

Then come ghosts, allips, and wraiths. These creatures bodies were killed in some terrible way, or they were slain in great pain and fear by creatures who were. They are intelligent and free roaming but also insane to varying degrees. They dont deserve thier fate but are intelligent and are deeply tortured by it. Most have thier insanity and bitterness turn into malice with enough time.

Purely negative energy creatures are not undead even if they can create them, or were given that type (seemingly at random by WOTC). Dark, negative and evil does not automatically mean undead. And some beings like night shades, shadows and bodaks should be classified as outsiders, not undead.