Zombie lord

Zombie lords were undead creatures that resembled regular zombies with greater intelligence and powers. They were a rare occurrence, usually created from a living humanoid via a raise dead gone wrong.

Description
Most zombie lords retained the features they had in life but appeared deathly grey, with their flesh decaying. They reeked of rot and corruption, attracting carrion feeders and insects.

Abilities
These undead creatures could establish a telepathic connection to other undead creatures, freely communicating with them. Zombie lords could freely speak with dead with only a touch. Zombie lords' telepathic, or possibly arcane, connection allowed them to control all other types of zombies within their line of sight. Zombie lords could use the senses of the zombies they controlled, allowing them to be aware of everything happening within their territory. This mental connection could reach up to.

Zombie lords could animate a dead body once a day, creating a subservient zombie. The same ability could be used on living creatures weaker than the zombie lord.

Zombie lords were affected by turn undead similarly to vampires.

Zombie lords had immunity to certain spells and abilities. They could not be affected by sleep, charm, hold undead, death magic, diseases, life and ability drain, paralysis, and poison. Some individual zombie lords had the innate ability to cast spell mantle and stoneskin spells. They were susceptible to being damaged by holy water and holy symbols.

Behavior
Even though they were intelligent, as much as any average humanoid, zombie lords' minds were razor-focused on death, killing, and growing their zombie hordes.

Combat
In battle, zombie lords primarily used their brutal strength. The lords usually retained weapon skills and abilities they had in life. The main danger, however, was the putrid stench that surrounded these creatures. Any living creature within from a zombie lord was affected by the poisonous odor with various effects on their wellbeing. These effects could result in weakness, constitution drain, a contagion spell-like effect, catching a disease, nausea, and vomiting for 1–4 minutes. Some very unlucky living beings could die instantly under the effects of the poisonous stench and immediately become zombies under the lord's control.

Society
Zombie lords were intelligent and could speak all the languages they knew when they were living beings.

Ecology
Zombie lords preferred to make lairs in places stained with death. Such areas as mass graves, graveyards, battlegrounds littered with the dead, plagued areas, attracted zombie lords, giving them plenty of carrion to feed on and servants to reanimate.

Their lairs could be easily spotted thanks to the abundance of rotting gnawed carcasses littered around them. The bodies could be of older deceased and freshly slain, partially consumed adventurers and intruders.

There were several ways for zombie lords to come into being. There was a small chance that a foul and evil humanoid killed by undead would be reanimated as a zombie lord when attempted to be raised. With a blessing from an evil deity and a botched resurrection attempt, the zombie lord came into existence within a week after the failed spell. This was significantly more common when creatures were resurrected within the Domains of Dread. This led many sages to believe that zombie lords could be created only in the Domains of Dread, but this was proven false as these undead creatures have been encountered in other realms.

Faluzure's curse, a divine spell granted to his devotees by the dragon god of death and decay, could create zombie lords 24 hours after the target creature's death.

History
During the Weeping War, the surviving defenders of the Dwarven Dungeons opened the Nightmare Gate to the Negative Energy plane in a desperate attempt to fend off the Army of Darkness. The gate was never sealed as the city of Myth Drannor fell to the invaders. The gate remained open until 1369 DR, flooding the ruins with undead creatures, many of which were zombie lords.

Circa 1372 DR, multiple zombie lords were spotted in death-filled areas, graveyards, and ancient tombs of the Sword Coast North, such as in Neverwinter and Daggerford.

Appearances

 * Video Games
 * Icewind Dale &bull; Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor &bull; Neverwinter Nights &bull; Neverwinter Nights: Darkness over Daggerford