You imbue a cup, chalice, or drinking vessel of some other kind with foul, necromantic potential. The curse bleeds into any liquid that fills the cup, waiting to pass like an infection into the first creature that drinks from it.
The first humanoid creature to drink from the cup must succeed on a Charisma saving throw or fall into a state of apparent death. They are considered unconscious, but appear dead to any onlooker. After 2d4 days, the victim awakens as an undead creature, taking on the behaviours, abilities and weaknesses, and adopting the stat block of an undead creature. The specific stat block and creature the target emulates is dependent on the level of the spell slot used to cast the spell.
A cursed creature can be awoken early with a greater restoration spell. If a creature succeeds its saving throw by less than 5, it falls unconscious for half as many days, showing obvious signs of life. In either of these instances, the curse is unable to take full effect, and the creature gains one randomly selected feature from the Undead Trait list below. If it succeeds its save by 5 or more, the spell is spent without effect.
Once the transformation is complete, the target creature loses most of its former identity, its personality and its memories, and it functions as the undead creature it emulates. If a player character is affected by this curse, the DM may rule that the character is no longer playable. If the creature dies and is resurrected, they return to their former selves, having no memory of what happened while they were cursed. There is no other way to break this curse short of a wish spell.
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Spell level
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Creature stat block
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Undead Trait - roll 1d4 to determine outcome
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5th
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Ghoul
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- Gains a pallid complexion.
- Gains a pallid complexion and a persistent craving for rotting flesh, but does not gain immunity to poison damage or the poisoned condition. Eating rotting flesh has a 25% chance of poisoning the target for 1d6 days.
- Gains a pallid complexion and a persistent craving for rotting flesh, and gains immunity to poison damage and the poisoned condition.
- Gains immunity to exhaustion and cannot sleep or be made to sleep by any means. For each day the target remains awake, they must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or suffer a cumulative -1 reduction to their Intelligence score. If the target's Intelligence score drops to 5 or lower, they lose the ability to speak and understand any language or to use tools. This reduction lasts until this trait is removed by a greater restoration spell and the target sleeps for at least 24 consecutive hours.
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7th
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Mummy
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- Their skin turns leathery, and they feel the need to drink more liquid than normal.
- Their skin turns leathery, cracked and dry. They must drink twice the normal amount of liquid each day, and they gain vulnerability to fire damage.
- Gains a persistent, easily detectable smell of decay and suffers disadvantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made against creatures capable of smell. Also, unarmed attacks deal an extra 1d6 necrotic damage.
- Gains the Mummy’s Dreadful Glare ability.
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9th
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Vampire Spawn
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- Gains the vampire’s Forbiddance weakness.
- Gains a nagging craving for blood and a vampire’s Sunlight Hypersensitivity weakness.
- Gains darkvision to a range of 60 feet, or to a range of 120 feet if it already has darkvision, and gains the vampire’s Sunlight Hypersensitivity weakness.
- Gains an almost irresistible craving for blood and a vampire’s regeneration ability. When the target smells blood, they must succeed on a DC 10 Wisdom saving throw or do everything they can to get closer to and consume that blood for 1 minute. They may not take any action that does not bring them closer to this goal.
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* - (a cup or similar drinking vessel, and a drop of the caster's blood put into the cup.)
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