Longdead

Type

Undead

Base HD

1

Terror

0

Height (cm)

Varies

As the name implies, Longdead are the remains of long-dead individuals who have been reanimated either by active necromancy or by ambient saturation of the surroundings with magical power. Since they are skeletal in appearance (and are in fact distinguished from Soulless mostly by their skeletal appearance) they are also often simply called skeletons. They are always soulless and almost always mindless. 

Longdead are fast and strong and unlike soulless can pose a real threat to living mortals. They lack initiative just like soulless, however, and generally either lie completely unmoving despite their theoretical ability to move (in this state being nearly indistinguishable from a pile of mundane bone) or wander about aimlessly, sometimes repeating the tasks the body once did in life. However, longdead are quite efficient in terms of necromantic power and are easily controlled in large quantities by experienced necromancers. They are difficult to animate but much easier to reanimate than soulless, and they can reform themselves even in the absence of a necromancer simply by being surrounded by large quantities of undead. In large quantities a horde of skeletons can endlessly reanimate themselves simply by virtue of the existence of other skeletons nearby.

Since they are no longer burdened by the useless flesh of soulless, skeletons are shockingly swift and much more agile than soulless. They are also strangely durable: being made of bone means they are extremely difficult to damage, although their lack of flesh also means that a solid blow which they cannot simply shrug off is likely to severely damage or destroy them outright.