The undead are one of the most versatile creature types to incorporate into any 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons campaign. It's hard to find a campaign that doesn't include at least one encounter with some form of undead, even if they aren't the focal point for the adventure in question.

Related
168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Dungeons & Dragons♍: Ho✃w To Run A Maze

Learn how to ༺run mazes in D&D with our tips a❀nd strategies.

However, hundreds of campaigns play it safe and stick with the same zombies, skeletons, vampires, and liches. It's enough to make 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:any self-respecting necromancer scream at the lack of creativity. If you're looking for official Fifth Edition undead that are just a little more quirky, try some of these suggestions instead.

10 ℱ Crawling Claw ꧒

Crawling Claw D&D Monster Image
Crawling Claw via Wizards of the Coast
  • Challenge Rating: 0
  • Source: Monster Manual

It's a bit unclear why crawling claws are so underused. Maybe it's because an animated severed hand is impossible to take seriously when your players are constantly reminded of Thing from The Addams Family. With a challenge rating of zero, it's also clear that crawling claws are meant to be Baby's First Science Project for necromancers.

It's almost impossible to make the crawling claw a serious threat, so try incorporating them into your campaign in areas besides combat. You can make them a unique option for a necromancer's familiar. They also make for good dungeon dressing as undead janitors, servants, and other lackeys.

9 ♚ Flameskull

flameskull from Dungeons & Dragons
Flameskull by Conceptopolis
  • Challenge Rating: 4
  • Source: Monster Manual

Hopefully, you realize the benefits of using a monster that's a cool-looking skull that is constantly on fire. This creature belongs on a metal album cover, which is more than enough reason to throw it into your campaign. With a fire-based multiattack and a surprisingly diverse array of spells, the flameskull can easily lay waste to a low-level party if you're not careful.

Tℱhe lore surrounding flameskulls is just vague enough to allow you toꦜ create your own homebrew while still being cohesive enough not to lose direction. Powerful mages use a secret ritual to create the flameskull, which then serves as a guardian or lackey to their master. Maybe deceased NPCs your players met earlier in the campaign return, their skulls disrespected in such a manner.

8 ꦍ Vampiric Mist

vampiric mist from Dungeons & Dragons
Art via Wizards of the Coast
  • Challenge Rating: 3
  • Source: Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

When a vampire drops to zero hit points in D&D, it turns into a fine mist and a𝐆ttempts to make its way to its coffin, where it can recuperate to come back again the next night. Should the vampire be unable to return in time, however, it becomes stuck as a cloud of mist. This is especially the case if its coffin ends up destroyed.

Related
Dungeons & Drago🃏ns: 8 Questಌions To Ask Yourself If You Want To Become A DM

To roll or not to roll, that is the question

Incorporating the vampiric mist into your game in a way that doesn't feel totally random is a challenge, but it's absolutely doable. It would, however, be extremely funny if 168澳洲幸运5开💙奖网:a vampire your players previously defeated returned as a blob of mist, especially if it's because of your players' negligence.

7 ꩲ Brain In A Jar

a dramatic and stylized Brain In A Jar
Brain In A Jar by David Rene Christensen
  • Challenge Rating: 3
  • Source: Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden

Sometimes a great intellectual dies, and the world rushes to preserve their mind at all costs. The product of such efforts is the brain in a jar, which looks like exactly what you'd expect. The brain in a jar has a variety of powerful psionic abilities, even if its physical capabilities are just plain terrible.

This is a great monster to put in your campaign if you regularly head into sci-fi territory or if you make a foray 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:into a mind flayer colony. It can also make for a great plot twist for your players, where they travel to meet an NPC to seek information from them and find that🎃 only gray matter remains.

6 Bodak

Bodak in D&D
Bodak via Wizards of the Coast
  • Challenge Rating: 6
  • Source: Volo's Guide to Monsters

The Fifth Edition art for the bodak is more than a little goofy, being reminiscent of a sad, medieval Ghostface. Don't underestimate it, however; its stat block gives it a powerful aura that saps the life out of your PCs, as well as a stare that can easily lead to at least one player death.

Fifth Edition lore claims that bodaks are the remains of cultists to the demon lord Orcus, which is a perfectly good origin story if you don't feel like homebrewing your own lore. That being said, they're also able to be found in the Shadowfell, so keep that in mind if your campaign ever ventures there.

5 Allip

Allip in D&D
Allip via Wizards of the Coast
  • Challenge Rating: 5
  • Source: Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

The 𓆉allip had some potentially problematic lore in editions prior, but the lore surrounding them in Fifth Edition is both compelling and full of narrative hooks. When someone dies carrying a powerful secret ripe with forbidden knowledge, their soul remains in a state of restlessness and obsession until that knowledge is shared.

Related
Dungeons & Dragons: The 11 Best Adve♛ntures For Short Campaigns

Running a short 🥃D&D campaign? Try one of these adventures.

That alone gives the allip a treasure trove of narrative opportunities for your campaign. It's easy to imagine a scenario where your players break into an abandoned archive to search for information on how to defeat the campaign's main villain, only to find that info from the mouth of an allip.

4 𒁏 Skull Lord ꦜ

a skull lord from Dungeons & Dragons
Art via Wizards of the Coast
  • Challenge Rating: 15
  • Source: Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

Skull Lords might be underused because of the lack of clarity regarding their lore. They're said to have ties to the Shadowfell and be formed from the deaths of powerful necromancers, but none of this adequately answers the question of why it has three heads. This is a shame for a creature that looks like it belongs on the cover of a death metal album.

If you want to use Skull Lords in your campaign, you're going to have to write your own lore. Perhaps a powerful necromancer took to altering their form Frankenstein-style after they embraced the curse of undeath. Or maybe they're formed from an assortment of bones in the Shadowfell, animated by the sheer concentration of negative energy.

3 Lacedon

a lacedon from Dungeons & Dragons
Lacedon by Jake Masbruch
  • Challenge Rating: 1 for regular lacedons, 2 for deep lacedons
  • Source: Tales from the Yawning Portal

Lacedons are aquatic ghouls. While this is a simple concept on its face, there are a few twists that make the lacedon more than the sum of its parts. Among this is the ﷺfact that while paralysis is a mere inconvenience on land, it can potentially lead to ch🍸aracter death by drowning in the water.

Using lacedons in your campaign is a breeze as long as you set your encounter in aquatic environs. Perhaps your players stumble across a shipwreck while traveling by sea and are forced to fight what remains of its ill-fated crew. It's not a complicated monster, but every game needs mindless hordes to cleave through.

2 ♚ Spawn Of Kyuss

spawn of kyuss in D&D
Spawn of Kyuss via Wizards of the Coast
  • Challenge Rating: 5
  • Source: Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

The Spawn of Kyuss has its origins in the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Age of Worms adventure for 3.5 edition, but its Fifth Edition lore is somewhat sparse. They're still tied to the Far Realm entity that is Kyuss, but with less power than their previous incarnation. Still, you can't deny that seeing an undead creature made up of writhing maggots is unsettling.

Using the Spawn of Kyuss in your campaign can be a bit tricky if you don't want to go with the standard lore. However, the monster can easily be reflavored to have different origins. Perhaps the spawn can be the product of a curse, with the bugs that feast on a festering corpse being infused with the curse's essence.

1 𓆏 Lichen Lich 🐼

A lichen lich from Dungeons & Dragons
Lichen Lich by April Prime
  • Challenge Rating: 18
  • Source: Candlekeep Mysteries

If becoming a mummified, fossilized bog body isn't in a druid's books, they can instead opt to become a lichen lich. Lichen liches resemble liches in most respects, although their skeletal bodies incorporate mushrooms, vines, and other natural features fused with the undead form.

You should have a well-developed character in mind if you choose to put this creature in your campaign, but don't forget to flesh out the details. A lich's phylactery is typically a manmade object. However, since the lichen lich is an undead druid, it's likely their phylactery is a natural object or even a location.

Next
Dungeons & Dragons: Mos🀅t Underus𓄧ed 5e Rules

Create a more dynamic🗹 𝔍campaign with these mechanics.