D&D: Five Surprisingly Fun Monsters that make Undead Feel Spooky and Cool
D&D is full of all sorts of undead, so the next time you reach for the same dozen skeletons and/or zombies, try one these instead.
Undead monsters are a staple of fantasy fiction, and doubly so in D&D where there’s a powerful need to have cannon fodder creatures to guard rooms full of weird gems and rune-inscribed idols. And yet. Without variety–the spice of life second only to the spice melange, which extends life, expands consciousness and is vital to space travel–you run into the same old skeletons and zombies and eventually ghouls and it’s all fine. But boring.
But this doesn’t have to be the case. Because D&D is riddled with all sorts of fun and interesting undead that you can use the next time you need guards, lieutenants, or henches for your Necromancer’s lair. Here are five surprisingly fun undead you won’t find in the Monster Manual.
Undead Soldier
Skeletons are a classic for a reason. They’re brittle, if you bash them, and they sort of skitter around everywhere. But an Undead Soldier, out of Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen is a different beast altogether. This is the kind of skeletal warrior that you would expect to find in a Necromancer’s army.
Undead Soldiers have two big things working for them: they’re resistant to nonmagical damage, and they can make multiple attacks, one of which can be a life-draining attack. An Undead Soldier that kills a humanoid with this life-draining attack turns their victim into a zombie, so they keep making more as they go. Perfect to sic on an unsuspecting town.
Plague Zombies
Zombies in D&D are big, shambling bags of hit points whose one trick is that they might come back up when you kill them. They’re harder to kill, but they don’t necessarily hit hard or have any special offensive capabilities.
Not so with the Plague Spreading Zombie out of Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. These Plague Zombies have a viral aura around them that can weaken creatures, making them take the Poisoned Condition. And on top of that, they can emit a virulent miasma, which is a cloud of gas that damages and potentially infects those it kills, turning them into more zombies. Whether or not they also spread the plague is up to you entirely.
But if you want zombie apocalypse-style zombies, these are the way to go.
Vampirates
Vampirates are as fun in the game as they are to say. They’re vampire pirates, as the name suggests. And typically, they prey on Spelljammers, since they’re found in Boo’s Astral Menagerie, but you can use them anywhere, really.
What makes these little undead weirdos especially fun is that they come in a variety of flavors, all of them can spider climb, so they can be on the walls or the ceiling and still swash your buckle, and when they die, they explode. What’s not to love? These are the perfect undead.
Harrow Hound/Hawk
Why should humanoid undead get all the fun, though? Especially when there are undead hunters like the Harrow Hound and Harrow Hawk (not to be confused with everyone’s favorite lesbian space necromancer, Harrowhark). Harrow Hounds are undead hounds that can shift through shadows and are able to supernaturally track a creature anywhere in the multiverse, even across other planes of existence.
And Harrow Hawks are shadow birbs who can teleport through shadow and who can also cast Plane Shift on
Death’s Head
This list wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t have at least one weird little undead guy. And Death’s Heads are exactly that. These are undead heads, literally. They come in three flavors: Aberrant Head, Gnashing Head, and Petrifying Head, and each one is capable of delivering a thematically appropriate bite while they fly around, chasing you like you’re trying to make it through a particularly challenging dungeon in Breath of the Wild.
Petrifying Heads might turn you to stone with their bite, Aberrant Heads deliver a mind-bending bite that makes it hard to fight, and Gnashing Heads just do a lot of damage. All in all, a fun time.
What are some of your favorite undead in D&D?
