Homebrew Awakened Undead Species Details

You may not remember the moment when your bleached bones or rotting flesh were suffused with the Blight.  You may not remember the sound of chanting or feeling the cold, blistering blood sinking into your limbs and lifting you off the ground.  You may have remembered clawing your way through several feet of dirt, or rising once more from the cracked and broken earth, surrounded by bodies hacked to bits and then left to rot, the cold decay of another forsaken battlefield.  

You may remember walking or shambling for miles, or standing in a room or corridor, remembering only to kill whatever you saw that wasn't your master.  You may remember doing this for countless eons, standing, alone or perhaps beside other Blighted cadavers, waiting, just waiting, the whispered words of your master the only important thoughts in your head.  Maybe you remember marching onto another field of battle, or charging down another overflowing catacomb.  Maybe you remember nothing at all, until you noticed that you were swinging your axe at a creature much like you.  Perhaps it was at this moment that you noticed yourself noticing yourself, and you became aware of your own existence; you had Awakened.

There are other creatures like you, corpses or skeletons sown with the Blight, and now walk again.  The Awakened understand the world, they actively participate in it and make complex decisions based on past experience and personal preference.  Other Undead are just mindless machines, waiting for the next order to follow. Sometimes when you speak to others who have Awakened, some of them remember the lives they led, on continents across the sea.  Perhaps you might remember the days that you were alive too.

One way or another, you found yourself aware of your consciousness and your decisions.  Maybe you joined the army of a general you most admired, or maybe you were never given that option.  Perhaps you aren't even aware that this decision is available to you.  None of this matters now though: you have died, you will fight, then you will die again, and then you will fight again.  Sometimes you wonder if you've already done this before...

Awakened Undead Traits

Your awakened undead character has the following traits. A few of the traits give you a choice; consider how your choice reflects the purpose for which your character was meant to fulfill.

Ability Score Increase.

The undead aren't born - they are made, and they are made to fulfill their master's purpose.  As a raised servant, you must be unnaturally resilient and hardy, yet able to address the specific needs of your master.  Your Constitution score increases by 2, and one other ability score of your choice increases by 1.

Age.

As an awakened undead, age is irrelevant to you.  You may have been constructed from several corpses, or one.  You may have died of old age, or were murdered for your "promising frame."  Either way,  you do not age and are unaffected from the passage of time on your body.  You are immune to magical aging effects.

Size.

Your size is Medium.  Your height and weight is similar to a human's, with one quarter of an adult's weight.

Undead Resilience.

As an undead creature, you have remarkable fortitude, represented by the following benefits:

• You have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned, and you have resistance to poison damage. 
• You are resistant to cold and necrotic damage. 
• You don't need to eat, drink, or breathe. 
• You are immune to disease. 
• You don't need to sleep, and magic can't put you to sleep.

Repose Of The Dead.

When you take a long rest, you must spend at least six hours in an inanimate, motionless state, rather than sleeping.  In this sate, you appear as a corpse or pile of bones, but it doesn't render you unconscious, and you can see and hear as normal.

Necromantic Body.

As an undead creature, you are not an eligible recipient for spells and abilities like cure wounds or lay on hands.  You are also affected by a cleric's turn undead ability, as well as areas which have been consecrated or desecrated, or otherwise affect the undead.  You gain hit dice as any other character, and can spend them to gain hit points as a normal character.

You also know the Siphon Life cantrip. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for it.

Unholy Task.

Raised by unholy powers, you have knowledge of ancient magic secrets, secrets which you must protect with your unlife.  You are proficient in the Arcana skill, and one martial weapon of your choice.

Languages.

You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice.