Zombie

Kvasir of Midgarth calls zombies the living dead: dragged back from the grave by necromancy, with no mind, conscience or will, existing only to obey as servants of darkness. They are corpses given a mockery of life by Black Magic, and each must follow the orders of the caster who raised it.

They are dreadful to look at, showing rot like any body left in the grave, with long filthy hair and long, twisted yellow nails. Their overwhelming stench draws flies and maggots, and within ten feet the sight and smell often sicken the living.

Lifeless as they seem, zombies are surprisingly strong and feel no pain. Illusion and influence spells do not work on them, though practitioners of Divine Magic, Mysticism or Black Magic can turn them. They are extremely slow and can be destroyed by fire or steel (though the appendix has edged weapons do only half damage), but blunt weapons, so good against skeletal warriors, barely harm them. Too clumsy to use weapons, they mostly try to strangle their foes or beat them with hands and arms.

A necromancer or witch doctor can put zombies to many sly uses, but the range of control depends on the caster's skill, and careless or inexperienced masters sometimes lose them. A freed zombie tends to wander by instinct to a graveyard or barrow, and in some lands bands of runaway zombies huddle in crypts or roam the countryside at night.

Almost any creature can be made into a zombie. The change always holds SPD and DEX to 5 at most and drops INT, WILL and CHA to 1, while STR usually rises by 1-4 points, and a zombie's level is typically a quarter of what it was in life.