New Undead Monsters

Angel of Thanatar

Angels are created only by the High Priest of Dark Truths (and even then, only if they have mastered the secret of their creation!). They can be made only on the High Holy Day of Thanatar (limiting their creation to one a year) by means of the Rune Spell Create Angel of Thanatar. Given that they require an acolyte to sacrifice themselves, they are rarely made.

Angels of Thanatar look like zombies, but obviously more agile, faster, and with a glint of intelligence in their eye. They generally use their powers of flight to hover and move around, except in a combat situation where locomotion by their legs is faster (although acolytes who lose the use of their legs are the favourite victims of the ritual to make angels!). They generally hang out inside walls and roofs, and spring out to garotte passersby. Angels can never leave temples to Thanatar, should this somehow occur (by being dominated, or their temple is destroyed around them) they take 1d6 hit points per round until they return to the temple.

Angels are rare, utilised only be the most powerful temples. In one temple in the Tunnelled Hills there are so many Angels of Thanatar that have accumulated over the years, that when the High Priest dies the Angels get to decide who takes his place, creating a formal hierarchy and a more stable structure than most other Thanatari temples.

New Spell

Create Angel of Thanatar (Rune Spell)
3 points
ritual ceremony, nonstackable, reusable
This spell can only be cast once a year on the High Holy Day to Thanatar, in a temple to Thanatar. It takes a six hour ritual, during which time the victim (who must be an acolyte, willing or otherwise) is annointed with the blood of a worshipper from each of the cults of Humakt, Chalana Arroy, Lhankor Mhy and Yelm. At the caster expends 3 POW. If the ritual is successful an Angel of Thanatar is made. If the roll is a fail, the POW is expended and no angel is made (but you still have one dead acolyte on your table). If the roll is a fumble the High Priest of Dark Truths falls into a coma for 1d6 days.

RuneQuest:

Upon their demise an Angel of Thanatar has x1.5 STR and DEX. They lose all POW (and subsequently the ability to cast spirit magic spells) but retain any rune magic and/or sorcery they may have had. They have the magic points they had when they died. The only way for an Angel to gain magic points is for other Thanatari to sacrifice POW to them. Each POW sacrificed to them means they receive 1 magic point. They no longer heal naturally, and must have Repair spells cast upon them to recover damage. Like vampires and liches, Angels can continue to increase their skills, but can never progress past the status of Acolyte. Indeed, should they ever lose that status (say by breaking a geas), they are destroyed immediately.

Angels gain various abilities. First, they can fly, but only slowly at Move rate 2. Secondly, they can enter and leave the spirit plane at will, allowing them to bypass material objects, and hide inside walls and other stuctures ready to ambush passers by. They must elect at the start of each round whether they are on the spirit plane or the mundane plane, and so can't blip in and out of existence to avoid swinging weapons. Whilst on the Spirit Plane they are invisible unless someone has cast Visibility on them. Any and all equipment they may have does not travel with them to the spirit plane, so Angels are invariably naked and unarmed. Angels do gain two new attack methods upon their demise. First they gain two claw attacks, which inflict 1d6 damage plus their damage bonus. Secondly the sinew of their muscles can be pulled from their arms and used as a garotte, which is their normal favoured attack method. Angels are immune to Turn Undead spells, protected by the will of Thanatar itself (technically this lasts only as long as they are within a temple, but given they never leave this shouldn't really matter).

Anyone killed by an Angel via the use of their garotte must resist against the magic points of the Angel or their soul is ripped from their body. The Angel will then take it to the temple center and send it to Thanatari Hell. Such victims not only cannot be ressurected, but are tortured for eternity! Angels cannot leave a temple to Thanatar. Additionally, should sunlight ever touch an Angel they take 1d6 hit points per round of exposure. The Sunbright spell has the same effect.

Ghouloid

During the early ages of the world there was a place called the Circus of Clowns and Milk. Here lived the more playful of the illusion spirits that Ratslaff has reared, lacking in even the childish irresponsibility of boggles the spirits that resided there did little more than seek to entertain and make others laugh. When the Spike was destroyed by the Devil, the Horde of Ghouls (from which all other ghouls come from) descended upon the Circus. They frightened most of the audience to death, and when they made their bodies rise from the dead they slew the other half. The Children of Ratslaff ran and hid, but the ghouls found them and made them their plaything, all except one young spirit, who had only just become a clown. When they came for this little spirit she wiped her face not in dyes but in rotten flesh, and covered her hands not in gaudy red gloves but in the nails of the dead, and did not put on a suit of joy and merry, but a cadaver was hers to wear. The Horde never discovered her masquerade and she escaped in the dead body she had found.

When the People of the World found out, they were repulsed. The Trickster came to speak on her behalf, and said that she had only done it for her own safety, had only sought to make the dead walk to avoid becoming one of them, but the People of the World would not listen. She may have survived the ghouls, but had become like them, making the dead bodies walk and wander the world, which was against the will of the gods and nature itself. They cast her out. The Trickster said he would ensure that if the people did not want her, they could not harm her either. The spirit-girl fled, sobbing and lonely, and hid. She later had children, and they became known as the Ghouloids. When the People of the World sought to chase her and her kin down, the Trickster's curse made them think otherwise.

Nowadays Ghouloids can still be found, although normally they are mistaken as ghouls as so few can tell the difference, so no real idea of their numbers is known. They look like ghouls, but this resemblance is only cosmetic. Ghouloids are, like ghouls, spirits that possess the recently deceased. However they do not devour human flesh, have no fear of sunlight, can no poisonous bite or magical howl, and unlike ghouls have POW. Moreover, ghouloids are generally not malicious or malevolent and will seek to avoid combat, and will not intentionally harm people unless threatened.

Ghouloids desperately seek to inhabit dead bodies, for whilst they roam the spirit plane they are in deadly danger from ghoul-spirits. If a disembodied ghoul spirit defeats a disembodied ghouloid spirit in spirit combat the ghouloid is annhiliated and sent to oblivion, destroyed by chaos, and the ghoul receives magic points equal to the Ghouloids POW as they devour the spirit.

The Tricksters curse is still in effect, however. Anyone who slays a Ghouloid receives a curse, a cumulative penalty to their resistance to Trickster spells. Every Ghouloid someone kills means they resist the effects of Trickster magic with one less effective magic point (it can even go negative meaning it actually reduces the effectiveness of spells to increase resistance!). The only way to alleviate this curse is some sort of penance to the Trickster, which invariably includes looking after some Ghouloids and keeping them safe! Since such things are beyond the thought of any Humakti, any worshipper of the Sword God who is unusually susceptible to Trickster magic or oft the butt of a Tricksters magical joke, is known as a 'Ghouloid Killer' in some areas.

RuneQuest:

Notes: See above for details about the curse and special vulnerabilities to ghouls on the spirit plane. Ghouloids have none of the special abilities that ghouls have, do not need to eat flesh, do not lose magic points and lose no magic points in the sunlight.

Broken Hearted

The Broken Hearted are an example of non-malevolent undead. People who die as a result of the betrayl of a loved one, be they a wife, husband, lover or child, sometimes return to the world, unable to walk the path of the dead with so much on their mind. Rather than bein tormented souls, becoming twisted like many undead do, those of the Broken Hearted try to stop others falling foul to what brought them back to the mundane world. They appear on the spirit plane as they did in life, but always with some rag or other covering across their eyes.

Broken Hearted will possess people who are prone to love, prone to love too much in fact! They will attack the target whilst they are asleep, although once the spirit combat begins the target will wake up, probably thinking the whole experience to be just a nightmare once it is over (whether they are possessed by the spirit or not). Because the Broken Hearted are non-malevolent they might covertly possess their victim undetected for a long time. Whilst possessed the Broken Hearteds only effect is that the target cannot cry.

Not only can a Broken Hearted be freed with a Free Ghost spell or the appropriate success with the Turn Undead spell, they can also be freed if the person who betrayed them in life is taken to the possessed and they apologise. At that point the Broken Hearted will take over the person they are covertly possessing and the two parties can try and sort things out. Of course, this final method is not always successful (indeed, sometimes it just means the Broken Hearted leaps hosts! Or, worse still, sometimes goes from being a non-malevolent spirit to becoming a malevolent ghost!), but quite often is. Whenever they are freed they always leave behind a small rag or piece of clothing with which they used to cover their eyes and prevent their tears whilst they were in the spirit world.

RuneQuest:

INT 3d6 Move =POW
POW 3d6 (Broken Hearted are usually spiritually powerful, a reflection of the will required to leave the path of the dead, so when rolling their POW reroll all 1's)

Skeleton of Than

I am of the firm opinion that not every skeleton should be the same. I recommend that you replace the Create Skeleton spell of the Than subcult of Thanatar with Create Skeleton of Than. First of all it is cheaper (just like the Create Zorak Zorani Zombie is a cheaper version of Create Zombie, see Book of Drastic Resoltuions #3 p. 94). I've always thought that Create Skeleton was extortiant considering that the skeleton you produced could be cleaved to pieces by three average warriors with little hastle. So to create a unit of skeletons that might actually pose a threat might be in the region of twenty POW! Why in Vivamorts name a necromancer would invest that much POW in undead rather than putting it into a hefty matrix I don't know! Plus the introduction of Sandy Petersens 'Animate Dead' spell makes Create Skeleton look just silly. Secondly, the spell creates a Skeleton of Than, almost exactly the same as a normal skeleton with one small twist.

A Skeleton of Than is exactly like a normal skeleton except that it has no head. Use exactly the same rules as for normal skeletons, but keep 'Head' as a hit location on their chart. If an attack ever results in a Head hit then it passes harmlessly though the skeleton for no damage. If one looks on the Spirit Plane they can see the head of the dead skeleton mistily formed above it's shoulder blade.

New Spell

Create Skeleton of Than (Rune Spell)
2 points
ritual enchant, reusable
This spell can only be cast on the headless corpses of the victim of the ritual for acolytehood. It causes the body to rise up as a Skeleton of Than, that will obey the orders of its creator or the High Priest of Dark Truths (it will obey the orders of its creator above that of the High Priest). It costs 1 POW to cast for every 20 SIZ of the target.

Firebound

Criminals and the vice-filled betrayers of the Suns holy light can stray off the path of the dead when they go to be judged by the Emperor of the Cosmos. Such souls attempt to return to life, or try to lose themselves in the underworld, hoping that they will remain unfound. Should the day come, however, that they are returned then some, rather than being smited by the Holy Light of the Emperor, they are given to Seelth Capersane, the Guardian of the Firebound. Captured by fire, and bound by flame, those undead monstrosities who are shown something less than the Emperors wrath become the Firebound.

The Firebound are flamming skeletal humanoids, tatters of flesh hang loosely, burning, from their ribs, and whilst they carry no weapon their hands are dangerous enough for their burn brighter than the rest of their body. The Firebound are only ever sent as a retribution from the gods for the most heinous of crimes such as consorting with unwholesome enemy gods, or killing the nobility. They are also invariably sent as a communual punishment for even when the offender(s) has died the Firebound remain until they are destroyed and, eventually, go to the Oblivion they deserved in the first place.

RuneQuest:

Notes: Firebound have whatever magic points they had when they died, and are unable to regenerate their magic points. They never suffer from fatigue and fatigue related effects. Firebound get two attacks per round, both with their claws, with the second attack coming 3 SR after the first. Their attack inflicts 3d6 fire damage, possibly setting things alight, plus their damage bonus. Everything within 3m of a Firebound is caught by the licking flames of their flame aura, of 1d6 fire intensity, that come into effect at the end of every round. Firebound are immune to fire, electricity, sunlight, sunbright and other such spells. They are unable to attack worshippers of Yelm, even if they themselves are attacked (but such worshippers of Yelm are nevertheless caught by the flame aura). As a sidenote, Firebound may look like skeletons but are not, but can take damage just like a zombie (and so cannot die or be incapacitated, and only deactivate when their head is destroyed) and have the same protection against damage as zombies (impaling weapons do half damage, and arrows and quarrels do one point of damage, or two if they impale).

Forgotten Cities

It is not just the dead of mortal folk who can return to haunt the material world, even the gods themselves can fall afoul to the corruption of undeath. Some are well known, such as Vivamort, others are less well known and among these are the Forgotten Cities, the undead souls of City Gods long passed. Exceedingly rare a Forgotten City exists normally on the spirit plane, but when circumstances are right they can manifest themselves in the physical world. The Forgotten Cities yearn for citizens to walk their streets as they did in years past, and lure the unwitting into themselves, to live in their buildings, to worship in their temples, and then entrapping them.

Only two Forgotten Cities have ever been recorded, one by a God Learner lucky escape and another by the earlier Outer Atomic Explorers who followed one across the Spirit Plane for some time. Both were of cities destroyed in the Greater Darkness and, presumably, all other Forgotten Cities will be likewise. When they appear they do so as normal cities, but devoid of life, but full of all the grandeur and wonder that they had before. The Forgotten City will remain for as long as possible, to lure in as many people as possible, before vanishing back to the depths of the spirit plane, where they can entrap their victims and force them to worship them again (which is pointless, for the Forgotten City is now undead, and will never again return to the position of a god) until they pass over to the otherside themselves, most becoming undead citizens.

Statistics are, clearly, pointless. A Forgotten City can act, however. When people attempt to leave it will change street layouts, move walls, collapse buildings, summon the undead citizens from their hidey-holes to hamper their escape etc...

Hanged Prisoners

A result of Zzaburi magics are the Hanged Prisoners. They are created by sorcerous means, generally as a punishment, where the magic doubles for creating guards. Whilst the magic is known still by some Zzaburi, notably those of Sog City where the punishment is still used today, but like many Brithini secrets have leaked out and are known by certain necromancers and more disreputable sorcerors of mainstream Malkioni religions.

A Hanged Prisoner is an enchanted painting. The victim is ritually slain, and their spirit locked in a diorama, their portait appearing in it by magic upon their ritualistic death. The victim remains, fully conscious and alive (and contactable even via mindspeech and other such spells) although given that they cannot act or talk (beyond their special powers, detailed below) nor even sleep they very quickly go insane (any Hanged Prisoner past about fifty years is utterly bonkers and beyond any form of sensible conversation). Whilst bound into the painting, a Hanged Prisoner cannot be ressurected (but can if the painting is destroyed as this instantly frees the bound spirit).

Hanged Prisoners can also attack those who lie within the confines of any building they are hung in. The attack is psychic in nature and takes place over the course of many nights of sleep. At the end of it, the victim passes away, and they themselves are trapped in the painting alongside the Hanged Prisoner (but themselves are merely trapped, not also a Hanged Prisoner). However they only appear in the painting in a very tiny detail, for instance their face will appear on the spine of one book, of their reflection appears in the eye of the Hanged Prisoner, their face on the tip of a pen, or that sort of thing. Not being easily noticeable it takes a successful Search to notice them (assuming one is just Searching an area around the painting, if one is specifically examining the painting they require no roll to find the trapped victim).

Hanged Prisoners can only attack certain people, as specified by the caster upon their creation, and so are often used as a type of assassin, sometimes a guard (back in the old days it would take enemies many days to mine into Brithini castles and they would often rest within the boundraries of the building and thus be susceptible to an attack) and sometimes solely as a punishment for some poor soul who has offended a sorceror.

RuneQuest:

INT 2d6+6 Move 0
POW 3d6

Magic: Hanged Prisoners can only use one form of magic, even if they knew other magic previously (any magic they previously knew is lost, so you cannot use mindspeech on a Hanged Prisoner to get a cheap 'Thanatari head substitute'). Their magical attack is psychic in nature and can be used once per day only on a sleeping target who lies within the boundraries of the building they are hung in (a Hanged Prisoner that is not hanging cannot attack!). They can only attack certain targets, as determined by their creator at the time the ritual is used to make them. Each night the Hanged Prisoner matches their magic points versus the magic points of the target. Each success inflicts a different effect, depending upon how many times they have been successful:

Each whole day that a character spends outside the house reduces the 'successes' by one. So if a character was hit two nights in a row, then went on holiday for a week, the Hanged Prisoner would have to start all over again upon their return.

Victims trapped in the painting cannot be ressurected whilst they are trapped there. They cannot be contacted by any means (including mindspeech and mindlink) and can only be released upon the destruction of the painting. If the painting is ever destroyed the Hanged Prisoner and all of those he has captured are released to their appropriate afterlives. A Free Ghost spell or Turn Undead spell cast at the painting immediately destroys the painting (although most people would just hack it to bits, but some Brithini choose to enchant defences into the frames!).

New Spell

Create Hanged Prisoner (Sorcery Ritual Spell)
ritual enchant
This spell creates a Hanged Prisoner. The ritual takes six hours, and must be cast over night. The sorceror must have created a painting (with a successful craft skill to make it!) of a background (say a study, or a hillside) with no other people in it. The victim is then sacrificed, and if the ritual is successful they are trapped in the painting, and appear in it as a prominent painted figure. At the time of casting the caster must determine what type of victims the Hanged Prisoner can attack. The Hanged Prisoner will then attempt to meet these restrictions as best it can (but cannot magically determine whether it has met them! So if you ask it to attack only dwarves, it can't attack a dwarf shapechanged to look like a human, but can attack a human shapechanged as a dwarf!). The ritual costs 2 POW to cast whether successful or not. If unsuccessful the painting is destroyed.

Unholy Young

Rarely, a pregnant woman is turned into a vampire. Sometimes the child itself survives the ritual, infused with the kiss of Vivamorts bliss. When born they are small, innocent looking children, but in reality they are the Unholy Young.

Unholy Young age normally until they are in late childhood (around thirteen or fourteen) at which point they stop aging forever. Whilst their hearts pump blood, and their skin blemishes, and they require air to breath, in many way marks of the living, they are undead, lacking souls as much as their mother does. They are all thoroughly corrupt, riddled with evil, and make excellent worshippers of Vivamort, socially on par with any vampire although, lacking a soul, an Unholy Young can not themselves become a vampire. Whilst they are eligible to become familiars the concept is very bizarre, they are treated much the same as vampires by cultists, and the same cult retribution befalls any Vivamorti who attempts to harm them, so such a degrading status is rare.

They have many features that vampires possess. They are stronger and faster than their parent race, require blood to survive and suffer the deletrious effects of crosses. They cannot shapechange, and are immune to the effects of running water and styx water, but are undead and so prime targets for the Turn Undead spell. Whilst they do cast reflections, the reflection is a shadowy mass of indistinct features - clearly abnormal and perhaps more alarming than the vampires natural lack of any such reflection. The child of any virgin who willingly sleeps with an Unholy Young will be one of their kind, although impregnation is rare.

Unholy Young are most valued for the powers they have to circumvent the debilitating geases of vampires. They can invite their masters into abodes, steal reflections for short periods of time and stop running water.

As they are highly regarded cultists, Unholy Young are often loaded down with the very best in enchantments, magical items and sorcerous lore, making them formidable foes indeed.

RuneQuest:

All stats are based upon the race of their parents.

Base Skills: Touch Attack 50, Bite Attack 25, Hide 50, Sneak 50, Listen 35, Scan 35, Search 40, Track 15.

Notes: Unholy Young do not lose fatigue normally. Instead they lose a number of fatigue points equal to their magic points every morning. They have the abilities of a vampire with regard to touch attacks and bite attacks. They are also affected just as a vampire is by crosses.

An Unholy Young who enters, illicitly or not, a property can invite a vampire over the threshold. Unholy Young can also steal the reflections of other mortals and give them to vampires! An victim of a sentient race connected to the Man rune that is drained entirely of magic points must resist their POW against the magic points of the Unholy Young. If it fails they lose their reflection. The reflection can be given by the Unholy Young to any vampire they wish by touching them and passing it on - the reflection will look like the vampire in question (not the victim), mirroring the shoddy remains of whatever it is that its left behind after a soul is destroyed by chaos. The vampire has the reflection for a number of days equal to the victims POW at which time it disappears, after growing gradually more hazy and indistinct. The victim loses his reflection permanently unless he kills the Unholy Young whilst it has it, or the vampire who takes it. Unholy Young cannot give reflections to themselves to replace the shadowy reflections they cast.

If an Unholy Young touches water it becomes stagnant and unmoving at the rate of 1m radius for every magic point expended, for a duration of one full turn per additional magic point expended. Unholy Young can thus allow the passage of their vampric masters.

Dead Eyes

In those parts of the world, such as Kralorela and the Lunar Empire, where blinding is a punishment (such as for looking upon the naked form of a nobles wife), there will be Dead Eyes. Victim who die during the blinding, either from blood loss, shock, infirmity or abuse sometimes return to wreak vengeance.

Dead Eyes are spirits. Like ghosts they can manifest visibly. All Dead Eyes are warded off by any form of holy ground. Dead Eyes can also be placated by using ritual incantations and placing the head of an officer of the law on a spike, at which point the Dead Eye will return to the Spirit Plane for a good length of time (often years, and even then they don't always return to the same place). As Dead Eyes do not engage in spirit combat, they are exceedingly difficult to get rid of without the intervention of a priest specialising in exorcism, or shaman, which leads many village folk to, well, ensure officers of the law meet unfortunate accidents...

Dead Eyes appear in the Inner World as two floating eyeballs, optic nerves dangling, blood puckered protrusions on their sides. On the Spirit Plane they can be seen for what they are, humanoid ghosts, holding the aforesaid eyeballs in their hands.

RuneQuest:

INT 2d6+6 Move Equal to POW
POW 4d6

Magic: Dead Eyes possess any magic they knew in life. They can use Visibility on themselves at will.

Notes: Once per round, on SR 10, they can use their attack method on any target within POW metres. If they fail a mp vs. mp then the target takes 1 point of damage to their head as blood squirts from their eye sockets. Anyone reduced to 0 hit points in the head is permanently blinded. Dead Eyes cannot cause anyone to go below zero hit points by this method. So whilst they can't kill anyone, they can blind entire villages in just under an hour, although normally they attack a few times and withdraw hoping that the appropriate sacrifice will be made. The Divine Spell Restore Vision returns vision to one eye, two castings are required for both eyes.

Festered Ones

When Mallia and Vivamort came together in an alliance, Mallia sent one of her children to stand at the vampires side. His name was Fester. He was present at the Sacking of the Living Wood, he killed the children at Condor Palace and was the secret that the vampires gave to the people of Alanchia when they sued for peace.

Near the end of the Darkness, when chaos fell in upon itself, the Devil came to devour the vampires, and Fester along with them. Trapped in a far off part of the world, which no longer exists for it was one of the Forgotten Places that Kajaboor took with him when he went to Hell, Fester and a handful of vampires sought to escape. Knowing that only one or two at most would manage to escape the wrath of the Devil Fester summoned up all hs knowledge and magic and did what no disease has managed before or since. He infected the dead. Fester did escape, the Devil could not kill all of the infected hosts. The result were the Festered Ones, undead creatures driven by the Festering Disease.

The Festering Disease is a rare disease that turns someone into a Festered One upon death. The Festered Ones are rotting cadavers, and in many ways simply resemble fast moving zombies. They are driven only by a need to carry on the infection of the disease, which is spread only by the Festered Ones themselves. However they do spread very fast, and like wildfire can devastate communities.

Disease Mistresses sometimes contact Fester on the HeroPlane, and learn how to control Festered Ones, although this is rare and the geases for such a secret said to be terrible.

RuneQuest:

The Festering Disease

The Festering Disease is transmissible only as an infection by Festered Ones. The only Festering Disease spirit is Fester himself, who is rarely encountered. The disease causes one's body to slowly waste away and internal organs to become necrotic. The infection increases the amount of damage one takes from weapons (once armour is penetrated), as the maleable, pliant tissue that festering disease leaves one with is easily damaged, and it also increases the difficulty of healing. Dependent upon the severity of the disease all healing spells are reduced in effectiveness, so at serious infection a Heal 4 will heal only 1 point of damaged.

Lastly, any who die whilst suffering from the Festering Disease will return as Festered Ones. The length of time that elapses between death and return is depdendent upon the severity of infection. Bodies that are destroyed before then obviously do not return as Festered Ones.

Zombie Worms

In the Darkness, in the time before our Mother spoke to the Spider, in the time when the Burning Evil had taken our world from us, the Awful Place was where we lived, and live today. In the Awful Place lived Awful things, that could see in the Darkness as well as us, and which were as cold as beauty. But they were Bad things, evil things, worse than fire. They were Kukabai, what the Tender Pale Skinned ones call 'undead'. The Kukabai roamed all the world, plaguing all the people. But we knew of special Kukabai, we fought such monsters that no Tender Pale Skinned one knew they existed, that no Plant Food on Legs had ever heard about, that none of the Burning Demons from the Sky World had ever seen. They roamed the earth, burrowing monsters that would return every day after they died. We fought many of them. We did not defeat them all.

Some Kukabai would chase the children to Swem, the Lady of all Worms. One of her daughters fell to the evil, and her body devoured. From the defecated mass of her divine corpse came Zombie Worms, horrible beasts. Even when Ormanga Kukaballaster killed all the Burrowing Kukabai, the Zombie Worms remain. That is where they come from.

-- from the Dehori Shamaness Ferok, 1422 ST

Zombie Worms are thick maggots, about the size of a large, meaty thumb. They are undead creatures that surface from time to time across Glorantha (and sometimes in the mudden depths of the ocean). They appear rotten, sometimes missing chunks of flesh. In themselves they are harmless, unable to attack or damage any but the most incapacitated of foes. However, when they are left near corpses (or the incapacitated living) they will devour the flesh and organs, and the bones that are left will arise as a skeleton. The process takes some time, a pack of about fifty zombie worms will take 1 day per SIZ of creature to devour the flesh. Once all is devoured, the next day the creature will walk again as a skeleton, with a number of magic points equal to its previous SIZ. The skeletons are not under anyones control, attacking living creatures randomly, and so can be quite a problem even for evil and chaotic entities that use zombie worms as a source of undead.

Zombie Worms cannot raise the body of a creature that has decomposed beyond repair (in other words any entity who has lost any stat below 0 because of decomposition). They are usually found in chaos pits, with between twenty and a thousand. They are easy to kill, however when attacked the zombie worms will tend to burrow away. They have a rudimentary intelligence (INT 2) and if attacked repeatedly they will not return to that location. They have 1d3 magic points each. Other statistics are meangingless. In Krjalki Bog the chaos there know the locations of many of the Zombie Worm lairs and will feed their enemies, bound tightly in cloth except for five holes to let the worms get in, to let them die slowly as they are eaten by the creatures.