Dissecting the 5E D&D Undead Creature Type

February 14, 2022

Salutations, nerds! Today I’m going to be taking a look beyond the grave into the realm of necromancy and necrotic damage in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Undead creatures are the bad guys you can reach for when you don’t want your heroes to have to think too hard about the monsters they’re killing.

Death Pit explores the tenuous relationship between the town of Blackwood, the nearby Necropolis and the Death Pit between them. This work in progress cover image captures the dark, foreboding atmosphere inside. [Art by Ashkan Ghanbari]

Undead creatures in 5E D&D

It’s dead but it still moves. It’s dead…but “un.” The undead type in 5E D&D includes monsters like zombies, skeletons, mummies and liches. And ghosts too, by the way — they don’t need a corporeal form to count. Basically if it comes from beyond the grave these are the monsters I’m dealing with and it makes for a pretty broad category.

While a lot of these monsters are going to be mindless shamblers, a lot of them are still intelligent and some are even attractive (vampires, anyone?)

“Undead are once-living creatures brought to a horrifying state of undeath through the practice of necromantic magic or some unholy curse. Undead include walking corpses, such as vampires and zombies, as well as bodiless spirits, such as ghosts and specters.” — from the 5E D&D Monster Manual

Things Undead Do

Undead creatures can do a lot in 5E D&D but it mostly depends on the kind of undead in question. Many of them deal necrotic damage. Some deal damage that can’t be healed naturally or by conventional means. Some do things like possess you in the case of ghosts.

Lower challenge rating undead are probably just going to shamble at you and swing their arms plus whatever they happen to be holding in them. Higher level undead like liches can just straight up fling spells at you and sometimes kill you flat out if you’re particularly unlucky.

Five Undead of Note

Ghost. They’re noncorporeal and possess people. There’s a whole bunch of other things like it but ghosts are ghosts and are going to be the original recipe no matter how you turn it because everyone has heard of them. Beware of things that go woooo in the night!
Lich. If you study very hard as a wizard and sacrifice a whole bunch of people you can leave your mortal life behind you and become a powerful undead wizard with a phylactery that won’t allow you to stay dead even when the heroes kill you. Liches give stitches.
Mummy. Has interesting lore behind it, are extremely underrated have two tiers — mummies and mummy lords. The mummy lord can come back after you kill it, which makes it particularly interesting. They also have the potential to give you mummy rot, which no one wants.
Vampire. Exactly what it says on the tin. Sexy blood suckers you probably do not want to play baseball with. Good examples include the Strahd man himself.
Skeleton. This is a staple. If you have a necromancer with a legion of dead things you can bet a chunk of them are going to be spooky scary skeletons.

I know, I know, this one was shorter than the others but honestly what else are you going to do with undead? You don’t get more straightforward than this. I want to hear about your undead stories though, if you want to leave them in the comments and of course, stay nerdy!

*Featured image — A selection of undead creatures from 5E D&D. [Composite images courtesy Wizards of the Coast]