Dungeons And Dragons: 10 Most Powerful Undead, Ranked | TheGamer – TheGamer

A rotted hand lurches from the ground beneath the mercenary Erik's feet, grasping for an ankle. Motes of light float between blackened trees, disappearing behind them for a moment; then, reappearing like fireflies flashing intermittently in the night. Liandra of Muckborough walks into ahaunted housewhere a lone candle burns on the dining room table. There's a chill in the air, and her hair bristles. The candle goes out.

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Undead take on a variety of forms. All of them are horrifying. Man has always feared death, so it only makes sense that he would fear those who deny it. But denying death isn't an achievement any simple-minded mortal can attain, thoughsuch low-lives make perfectly good undead thralls. Only the cruelest and craftiest harness the powers of undeath. Accordingly, the deadliest of undead retain the intelligence and strength they cultivated while still among the living.

Eidolons are created from the souls of humanoids who demonstrated an unwavering devotion to their chosen god. As a reward for their fervent service, gods can turn these souls into eidolons: ghostly spirits with an oath to protect a place of sacred importance to their god. Eidolons work alongside the sacred statues in such places, inhabiting them and then using the animated statues to crush unwanted trespassers.

The eidolon's ability to inhabit another statue recharges on a d6 die roll of 5-6, so a single eidolon is capable of providing a handful of opponents. Their divine dread feature also causes any creature that looks upon their ghostly visage to make a DC 15 wisdom saving throw or suffer the frightened condition, forcing the target to take the dash action on its turn.

While most fantasy interpretations of vampires see the curse spread any time a vampire feeds on a victim and the victim lives,Dungeons and Dragons vampires are a little bit more complicated. A vampire that doesn't kill a humanoid from which it feeds sees that humanoid turned into a vampire spawn under the control of the vampire who turned it. The spawn can only become a true vampire if it feeds on its master's blood or its master perishes.

While incredibly dangerous in combat, vampires have a number of weaknesses: running water, sunlight, and the inability to enter a house unless invited. The most important thing to know is a vampire is never truly dead until killedwhile inside its resting place.

A death tyrant is the result of a beholder who dreamsof a reality where it lives beyond death. A beholder's dreams are so powerful that when one indulges in this idea for too long, its skin falls from its body and it becomes an undead death tyrant. The skull is illuminated by a large floating eye in the center of its mass alongside ten other lights that circle its body, each light taking the place of an eye stalk.

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The biggest difference between a death tyrant and a beholder is its eye cone. Whereas a normal beholder emits an antimagic ray, a death tyrant's central eye emits a negative energy cone. Any creature in its view cannot regain hit points and immediately becomes a zombie if it dies while in the tyrant's view.

Unlike regular mummies, mummy lords remember their past lives and maintain the same personality as when they were living. The ritual that creates a mummy lord requires the humanoid's heart to be removed from the body and stored in a jar. The heart works like a lich's phylactery, preventing the mummy lord from truly being destroyed until the heart is destroyed as well.

The mummy lord has too many legendary and normal actions to list here, but know that it has a frightening glare that can paralyze, a melee attack capable of turning targets into finely ground dust, the ability to turn into a whirlwind of sand immune to all damage, and a 10-foot area of effect stun.

The thought of dying doesn't exactly sit well with beings who live for millenia. That being said, when a dragon becomes a dracolich it leaves behind any connection it once had to its kin: including the dragon gods. Dracoliches maintain all of the abilities they had in life, even their breath weapon. How a dragon without lungs has a breath weapon is a bit of a mystery, but let's just chalk it up to magic.

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Dracoliches also gain resistance to necrotic damage, immunity to poison damage, and, most importantly, magic resistance.

Death knights are paladins who fell from grace and never sought out their redemption. However, paladins like this don't always become death knights. Instead, their deeds must be so wretched that dark powers seek their corpses out and transform them into evil warriors.

Paladins who become death knights lose the ability to cast healing spells, but gain an affinity for necrotic magic. Death knights can cast a number of powerful spells, but will usually default to swinging their longsword three times for an outstanding amount of single target damage. They can also parry as a reaction, making their AC 26 against a single attack. Lastly, death knights can unleash a hellfire orb once per daywhich functions as a fireball that deals 10d6 fire and 10d6 necrotic damage.

Liches become demiliches if they fail to feed their phylacteries with the proper amount of souls. When a lich transforms into a demilich, its entire body disintegrates leaving behind only its skull. The skull is only imbued with a partial amount of the lich's life force and subsequently falls to the ground. However, if any creature approaches the skull, it will animate and seek to destroy whatever disturbed its eternal rest.

While demiliches lose all of the spells they knew as a lich, they gain a number of powerful abilities in their place. The most dangerous of them is howl which recharges on a d6 roll of 5-6. Howl causes all creatures within 30 feet of the demilich that can hear to succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or instantly drop to 0 hit points.

Nightwalkers cross over from the negative plane: a place unfit for the living. Creatures can reach the negative plane from the shadowfell, but almost all who enter its borders are instantly annihilated by the plane's malevolent energies. Those who aren't immediately destroyed are either incredibly lucky or very gifted spellcasters. When a creature passes over to the negative plane and survives, a nightwalker emerges from the plane to take its place.

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Nightwalkers have resistance to just about every damage type. A nightwalker's offensive kit consists of an aura around itself that deals passive damage, a melee attack that drains total hit points, and a ranged attack that paralyzes on a failed DC 21 Wisdom save. Most importantly, any creature reduced to 0 hit points by the nightwalker dies and cannot be revived excepting the use of a wish spell.

Liches were once living spellcasters that unlocked the secrets to undeath and performed a horrid ritual to unnaturally extend their lifetimes. To become a lich, a spellcaster rends their soul from their body and stores it in a small container called a phylactery. This device can then be fed the souls of other beings in order to increase the lich's life span.

Due to their long lives, liches have mastered the most dangerous spells both known and unkknown to arcane societies. Additionally, they can paralyze a living creature with a touch and usually carry one or more items of great magical power.

The only thing that could be worse than an immortal plane traveling wizard is an immortal plane traveling wizard with psychic powers and brain-eating tentacles hanging from its face. The path to lichdom isn't something that most mind flayers find intriguing due to their hive-mind like existence alongside an elder brain.

However, a mind flayer who has been cast out or otherwise deprived of its social bonds might devote itself to becoming a spellcaster, and eventually a lich, to carry out its revenge against those responsible.

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Chris Stomberg is an avid gamer of all kinds. Board games, card games, tabletop games, video games: if its a game, it will pique his interest. Chris has written anchor stories for news broadcasts, modules for his D&D group, and is currently working on his first novel. His hobbies outside of gaming include yoga, reading, bar hopping, and spending time with friends old and new.

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Dungeons And Dragons: 10 Most Powerful Undead, Ranked | TheGamer - TheGamer

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