The Undead

Necromancers create undead by taking formerly living beings and infusing them with dread particles. They follow the same process to make golems - using dead bodies is just a grosser way of doing it. For most, the unpleasantness of handling a corpse puts them right off. For others, it does quite the opposite.


Reanimated skeletons putting on an evil jigUndead can be created in two key ways. The first is creepy, but the second is chilling. Chilling and creepy.

The primary method of creating undead will be covered here. You can consider these entities the 'classic undead' and their counterparts the 'viral dead'. They differ in that undead are essentially just golems by grizzly means, whereas the viral dead may retain some degree of personality. 

Necromancers can legally resurrect animals but not sentient beings. Lawmakers had the good sense to ban this dark practice some time ago, although drunk teens do still carry out the odd reanimation. Often this will end with them taking a corpse for a piggyback joyride or sending a skeleton through a teacher's catflap for a laugh.

Healers have an exception to the no-people rule, as having medical cadavers that can put their own guts back in saves a lot of time and money.

If you're wondering what happens when you reanimate a monster, the answer is you get a doubly bad monster - a hideous creature with the malevolence of a fiend and the stamina of a zombie. Teenagers will often try this at some point - the vast majority of necromancy being carried out by bored young people. They mainly do it behind the penny farthing sheds on their lunch breaks. Little weirdos.

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List of the Undead

This isn't a list of every living entity that can be brought back in undeath, because that would be a list of every animal, plant, and mushroom in existence. Instead, this will cover the broad types of undead that a necromancer can create.

Blood Golems

The simple way of creating an undead is to get a corpse and do some magick on it. Those who enjoy a little challenge with their depravity create entities known as 'blood golems'.

Creating a blood golem requires a great deal of blood - more than you'd find in most individual entities. A necromancer will put this blood in a cauldron and subject it to a series of spells and enchantments. Once done, the gore will become shapable. This results in a golem that can change form on command.

Although listed as 'blood' golems here, they can be created with any tissue - blood just requires the least liquidising. Similar creations include flesh golems, spleen golems, and $%£@ golems.

Floralich

As plants and funguses live and die, that means they can also be brought back in undeath. Being fairly immobile entities, you often can't tell. People do it mostly to create spoopy Gallow's Eve pumpkins that can pull faces and utter curses.
Undead dandelion. Spooky, right?
Reanimates

A reanimate is a corpse that some seedy necromancer has brought back to life. Whether people or animals, reanimates are notable for having a decent amount of flesh left. A talented necromancer will treat this flesh to prevent it smelling. The untalented ones - i.e. most of them - simply make do with the stink.


Teenage necromancers on horseback looking to cause trouble
Skeletons


It requires far more skill to reanimate a skeleton because they have nothing connecting all the bits. In the old days they'd put puppet shows on using animated skeletons. In the modern era, they use synthetic ones. Or they would if people still put puppet shows on, anyway.
A reanimated skeleton escorting a threesome of teenage necrmancers
Wolperdingers 

So-called 'wolperdingers' have different names depending on the region - names like 'jackalope' or 'rasselbock'. People create them by taking a bunch of dead animal parts, stitching them altogether, and animating the results.
Wolperdinger by Zuza GruzlewskaZoats

An oddity among all the animals you can bring back as undead are goats (or 'zoats' as people refer to the reanimated versions). For some reason, when you infuse a goat corpse with dread particles, it comes back pretty much normal. The only difference is they have glowing, blue eyes and the milk they produce is black, unholy, and cursed. 

Necromancers use zoat milk to produce a variety of heinous cheeses like the dreaded zorgonzola or the blasphemous uncheddar. While no one normal would eat these depraved dairy products, people who play around with dead animals already have some experience ignoring social norms.

According to necromancers, eating it helps them focus their dark energies. According to the sorcologists who've studied these sinful cheeses, any 'dark energies' coming out of them are more than likely the result of a noxious bile reflex.


See Also
Bestiary Monsters
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