Homebrew Awakened Undead Species Details

“As I entered the tavern every patron either dove under a table to hide or reached for their weapons. Can’t say I blame them though. My ugly mug wasn’t pretty back when I was alive - the whole decomposition process hardly made it easier to look at. But hey, not much to do about it when you’re a walking, talking, corpse.”

— Gilmar the Wanderer, an Awakened Undead.

When most folk around Ozmira hear the word “undead”, imagery of zombies devouring brains and feasting on plague victims are usually among the first images to appear in their minds. While most undead do little to change that perception, some manage to change - reaching a heightened level of sentience and intelligence; an awakening. However, accomplishing this is incredibly difficult and most likely the explanation why there are so few awakened undead that reside in Ozmira. The awakening occurs when an undead overcomes the will of the necromancers or other outside forces that once drove and controlled its actions.

There are only three types of undead who are known to be capable of a true awakening; skeletons, zombies, and ghosts. Whether other such undead exist or not is unknown, although many speculations have been made about entities like revenants, wights and ghouls.

Ghosts. Ghosts are created when a person yearns to complete a task or issue that was left unresolved due to their death. This can be anything from fulfilling an oath to relaying a message to a loved one. All a ghost has to do to awaken is to resist that urge and leave their issues unresolved while staying fully aware of its status as undead, which - at least compared to the others - is an easy thing to accomplish.

Skeletons and Zombies. Skeletons and zombies are some of the most common undead in existence, frequently serving as bound minions to necromancers and liches. However, they can also arise when dark magic seeps through the soil in places where evil and corruption festers. In both of these cases, the undead will either be driven by the commands of the one who caused it to animate or by an inherent will to kill the living. To overcome the control of a necromancer or the corrupting influence of pure evil can be exceptionally difficult, though far from impossible. It is most commonly achieved when a necromancer dies before its minion was returned to its dead state, or when a servant of the divine - such as a cleric or paladin - purges a place of festering evil. A zombie or skeleton who was animated shortly after its death might also awaken on its own accord, as their force of will might still be strong enough to break free.

The appearance of an awakened undead fully depends on what type of undead they are and what race they were a member of in life. A halfling skeleton and a human skeleton will have an obvious height difference, and a zombie tiefling may still possess its horns and its tail.

Creating Your Character

At 1st level, you choose whether your character is a member of the human race or of a fantastical race. If you select a fantastical race, follow these additional rules during character creation.

Ability Score Increases
When determining your character’s ability scores, increase one score by 2 and increase a different score by 1, or increase three different scores by 1. Follow this rule regardless of the method you use to determine the scores, such as rolling or point buy. The “Quick Build” section for your character’s class offers suggestions on which scores to increase. You can follow those suggestions or ignore them, but you can’t raise any of your scores above 20.

Creature Type
Every creature in D&D, including each player character, has a special tag in the rules that identifies the type of creature they are. Most player characters are of the Humanoid type. A race in this chapter tells you what your character’s creature type is.

Here’s a list of the game’s creature types in alphabetical order: Aberration, Beast, Celestial, Construct, Dragon, Elemental, Fey, Fiend, Giant, Humanoid, Monstrosity, Ooze, Plant, Undead. These types don’t have rules themselves, but some rules in the game affect creatures of certain types in different ways. For example, the cure wounds spell doesn’t work on a Construct or an Undead.

Life Span
The typical life span of a player character in the D&D multiverse is about a century, assuming the character doesn’t meet a violent end on an adventure. Members of some races, such as dwarves and elves, can live for centuries. Fairies and harengons, however, have a life span of about a century.

Height and Weight
Player characters, regardless of race, typically fall into the same ranges of height and weight that humans have in our world. If you’d like to determine your character’s height or weight randomly, consult the Random Height and Weight table in the Player’s Handbook, and choose the row in the table that best represents the build you imagine for your character.

Awakened Undead Traits

As an awakened undead, you have the following racial traits:

Creature Type

You are an Undead.

Size

You are Medium or Small. You choose the size when you select this race.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision

You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Undead Resilience

You have resistance to poison damage and advantage on saving throws against being poisoned. In addition, you do not need to eat, drink or breathe.

Restless Dead

You don't need to sleep, and magic can't put you to sleep. To gain the benefits of a long rest, you must spend at least six hours doing light activity, such as strumming an instrument, sharpening a weapon or keeping watch.

Undead Form

As an awakened undead, you have one of the following three forms, which determines certain additional traits you gain; a ghost, a skeleton or a zombie.

Languages

Your character can speak, read, and write Common and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for the character. The Player’s Handbook offers a list of widespread languages to choose from. The DM is free to add or remove languages from that list for a particular campaign.