Alright, time for a classic monster here, the Zombie! This one has a twist, though, while you still hunger for brains, you aren't witted or incapable of thought. You are a bringer of blight and slow creeping death, sure and tenacious.
Zombie art is still being worked on but this was pretty Spooky
Rotting and still rearing to go. You got lucky; as long as you don't lose your head, you'll always be around. You are a zombie, grubby all around but mostly grubbing for brains, your body, while falling apart, surges with strength and power. Contrary to popular belief, you aren't mindless either, just occasionally have some difficulty putting together a string of too many words. Mostly it's the tongue rot, though.
Zombies have a tendency to have certain soft organs rot to the point of none use. Things like tongues would then prevent speech, for some reason, unlike skeletons, zombies require soft tissues to do many functions normally. This commonality between Zombies eventually resulted in Zombies adopting various forms of sign language from across different cultures and regions. Formalizing it under the black veil church was a Zombie from Eastern European countries in the 1800s. This led to a boom in communication for all undead, as some lacked the capacity to speak and now have a full language. Eventually, dialects and specific words were reflected in each undead's specific culture.
Zombies engage in much of the labor around the black veils churchs, taking pride in carpentry, stonecutting, lumbering, metallurgy, and glass work. Zombies study the techniques of cultures and people from all across the globe as often as they can to get close to a legendary, perfect creation for their religious leaders. They also created guilds that act as unions. Zombies, while deeply indebted to the church, understand and want to make sure that the lower undead are represented in their labours and have formed unions with representatives from each of the lower undead. Organizing these with the demands of the church in mind is difficult, considering all the wants that the undead have, but since the late 1600s, anywhere the Zombie Labour Guilds have operated, there has been an increase in the overall satisfaction of the Lower undead workers. This was instituted after several large-scale riots and revolts in undead cities led by lower undead. The church asked some of their siblings of the veil how best to pacify the workers, and the guilds were put into effect, each one being led by a church member whom the local authority feels is trustworthy.
🧟♂️Key Attribute: Strength (+1)
💀 Undead Boon — Don't lose your head: Critical Injuries other than losing a limb or your head do not affect you
🌙 Starting Banes: Silver, Target (Head)
🤢 What a rotter: As each day passes, you degrade a little more. Lose one life force at the start of each day. You can heal as normal.
🩸 Healing — Thinking food: Once per new dawn, you can consume brains from a dead human and recover 1d6 life force. If this is a living human brain, you heal 2d6 or a critical injury.
⚰️Post-Mortem Questions:
What is the most embarrassing thing you've done to show your worth to someone? How was this rewarded?
What was the first thing to rot off? Did it fill you with dread, and what did you do to get it fixed, if you tried to fix it?
Do you trust other low undead? If you do what relationships do you have to other low undead? If not, what justification do you use to feed this mistrust?
Were you ever devoted to the black veil church? If so, how deep does this devotion go? If not, what jaded you to them, and how do you deal with the disapproval of your fellow zombies?
What tools were you taught to work with? What sort of artisan did you become?
When you eat brains, do you ever feel like this is connecting you to something greater than yourself? That nourishing yourself off the physical soul so to speak, of another make an impact on yourself?
Zombies' abilities expand to Grafting, rotting others, and making themselves even tougher! Tomorrow we cover the masters of Magic Wights!
