Undead Bodies

An undead is a dead body animated by magic. It produces no red mana, so Harvest and the Partage cannot reach it. A mage who becomes undead loses the mana he held while living and never recovers any.

Scipion's unusually stable formulas allow many undead to last forever.

Necromancy creates undead and partial undead.

The Undead

When the brain is gone, magic drives the entire corpse.

• No Fortitude. An undead has no Constitution or Fortitude Save. It is immune to poison, disease, exhaustion, suffocation, extreme temperatures, and bleeding. It does not eat.

• No mind to reach. It is immune to magic that acts on a mind—fear, charm, domination, sleep. Against magic that reshapes its body, it uses the spell DC of the necromancer who raised it in place of a Will Save.

  Undead Resurrection and Create Undead King instead preserve the mind. Their subjects resist mental magic with their own Will Save.

• Borrowed senses. Magical sensors replace its eyes and ears.

• A stronger body. It feels no pain and is generally stronger and better armored than it was in life.

The Partial Undead

Faint Current runs just enough negative energy through a fresh, whole corpse to preserve what its body and brain could already do.

The corpse can be dead for no more days than the necromancer's caster level.

• It keeps its memories, its skills, and its way of fighting.
• It eats and drinks.
• It keeps its Constitution, its Fortitude Save, and its own Will Save.
• It produces no mana.
• It stands permanently at +2 to all six attributes. The current running through it is the same filament as Graveworld Boost, never switched off.
• Both energies burn it, and neither one heals it.

A partial undead recovers HP only through rest and regeneration magic. Potions do not work, and Heal damages it.

What Destroys an Undead

An undead is destroyed at 0 HP, with no dying state or negative margin.

A partial undead goes down and dying at 0 HP, follows the usual dying and stabilization rules, and can be stabilized by hand. No spell can heal it while it is down.

Either kind also falls when the spell animating it is dispelled.

Spells Requiring Two Saves

When a spell calls for both Will and Fortitude, an undead missing one of those Saves has no defense against that part of the spell. An undead can resist the Will effect of Telekinesis, but not its Fortitude effect.

Dispelling an Undead

Gold seals an undead like any enchantment (see 16). A gem, usually an emerald at 200 gp, attracts negative energy and makes it 25% harder to dispel once set during creation.

Setting an emerald into a partial undead increases its Dispel DC by 25%.

The Lich

A lich keeps its vital organs alive inside a vessel of solid gold, hidden elsewhere. They produce red mana, which it draws into its undead body; if they are destroyed, it can no longer cast.

A lich recovers slots through meditation (see 11). It uses the bestiary entry for its body and keeps its mind, caster level, and learned formulas.

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