Lich

 AD&D Lich

The Lich is one of the quintessential Big Bads of fantasy literature and ttrpgs alike. Fictionally, they tend to appear more as 'immortal wizard' than 'immortal skeleton wizard' but whatever, Voldemort is basically a lich, Koschei is basically a lich. Official D&D has more liches than you can shake a stick at.

Liches have AC as plate +3, and a oddly worded immunity to mundane attacks from beings of under 6HD, though this is fairly pointless as creatures of 5HD or under flee in fear with no save anyway. They may touch enemies for 1d10 cold damage+ a save or paralysis effect. Their laundry list of undead immunities is somewhat expanded- Charm, Sleep, enfeeblement, polymorph, cold, electricity, insanity, and death spells/symbols.

Apart from some text describing that they are indeed converted magic-users, no provision for their spell lists is given. Using the spell lists for monster abilities largely misses the point of a monster manual in my mind, for a monster that says "oh just have a bunch of rarely seen high level spells memorized, thoughtfully put together, and used to terrible optimization" doesn't help me much.

Liches are fine villains. I seem to recall reading that while the dragon is the active tyrant of greed, the despot king, the earth-ravaging billionaire, the lich is the soul-crushing villainy of a hidebound and restrictive society. It has a head start in terms of power, influence, and knowledge, so it's nearly impossible to catch up. It turns people who would be your allies into your enemies via the power of necromancy or enchantment (a metaphor for cultural hegemony). It can kill you, but you can't really kill it, it just comes back if it loses a fight, just as killing a single leader doesn't end a country. The quest to find and destroy the phylactery is symbolic of the work required to break a system. You can sorta reason with a Lich, but ultimately it's just the preserved bad takes of some dead guy so you know it's always going to cycle back to the same old awfulness, sooner or later. And it is usually a guy, isn't it? Go figure.

They might also be symbolic of the inability to accept death turned ruinous and destructive, but I digress. While fine as a crafted villain, as far as an entry in a monster manual goes they just kinda suck because you can't actually open up the monster manual and use one, you gotta create a huge spell list, think of strategies to use it, maybe some magic items, probably spend the monetary parts of the treasure on a base or mercenaries or something, or it'll fall flat and just be a spooky skeleton.


Sunset Realm Lich

An old photobash of the Green Necromancer

The defining characteristic of a lich is that their soul is anchored to an item that regenerates a body for them to inhabit, one way or another. But... It's not even that hard to come back from the dead in this setting, so Liches are not necessarily all that impressive, honestly. They're more just... disturbing. They had such conviction in an idea that they bound themselves to the world in a way that they'd come back no matter what, heedless of how everything they knew would crumble away in time, all to pursue something. This conviction is usually deeply uncompelling to people 50 years, a hundred years, a thousand years later, and so liches end up doing their mad schemes in forgotten ruins alone or with hanger-ons at best. Sensible people who come back as undead join the city council as Necropolis Representative, or become a child of M'shesh to return as undead in exchange for pacifism and cult membership, or sign up for the Skeleton War. But not liches, oh no. They have to come back on their own terms, their own power, independent of anything else. It's a form of vanity, in a way.

The most notable Lich in the sunset realms is Magister Verdurus, aka the Green Necromancer. Born in the City of Bells to a noble family, he travelled the world learning magic as his hobby until his money dried up, came home to find out that elvish politicking had usurped his family's claim. He threw a fit and tried to kill everyone involved with dread sorcery, was defeated after leaving a combination grey-goo/zombie plague biohazard known as the Blight, tried to ruin another country to gain political power to come back for round 2, and ended up going mad with forbidden knowledge and seeking 'true' immortality via memorability, perhaps as a cope for his original desired noble position no longer existing. His apprentices, having learned enough for their own goals and recognizing megalomania when they saw it, abandoned him, leaving only his omnicidal cult, which was eventually defeated. He would return several more times, ironically becoming less of a threat each time as the world moved on without him and he lost the thread of how things worked. Being a manifestation of a player setting suggestion, he was always doomed to descend down this road of evil and madness to suit that player's whims, so one can't be too hard on him. He is a plague on the city of Oroboro that resurrects every so often as cackling villain, and believes himself to be the one who will end the last sun and bring about the Age of the Dead, where no life exists and even the planet itself is considered dead, and his death cult thinks this is the age where they can finally live as glorious undead kings of the world. One can sort of see what that world looks like in the M'shesh controlled Fault (5th age onwards) and no one is all too impressed, and so most everyone wishes he'd just try to do something with his unlife over there instead of trying to ruin everything for everyone over here in Oroboro for the 15th time.

The contents of the Green Necromancer's Spellbook in the reign of Samuel Goffnagoff were as follows

1-Floating Disc, Shield, Read Languages
For saving Telekinesis slot, general defense, and general info-gathering

 2-Levitate, Web, Locate Object
For saving your flight slot, capturing people nonlethally, and finding macguffins

3- Flight, Darkvision, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Blight Curse (A useless spell with the blight contained, otherwise basically infecting someone with a zombie plague)
While 'fly high and rain damage from above' isn't rocket science, it is pretty effective.

4-Ice Storm, Massmorph- Elemental AoE coverage, and a good 'ambush someone with camouflaged undead' spell.

5-Animate Dead, Cloudkill, Telekinesis. Telekinesis to do heavy lifting if the minions were gone or for air transport, animate dead because no lich without it can be respected, and cloudkill to get intact corpses for animate dead.

6-Death Of 100 Pits- Reverses gravity off and off in 10' cube forever. 1d6 fall damage each round. Hard to escape without assistance.This was the signature spell, powerful in its own way, needlessly cruel, leaves a lasting impression as the corpse bounces forever, able to create dungeon power sources.

7-Reaper's Haste- Take one action whenever an enemy takes an action. Age 1 year each time. Drawback less penalizing for the immortal. A general 'action economy compensator' spell.

8-Mind Blank-Gotta have this as a defensive option I guess

 9-Forbidden Moon Gate- Opens a gate and draws forth a Moon, bringing the chaos of the Moonlands to the Daylands. A broad spectrum doomsday threat spell. Was ripped out and cast as a scroll so is mostly lost to time.

So the Green Necromancer was basically air support for undead ground troops.

The two apprentices mentioned were Felgraft, who focused on the 'evocation blasty casty' side of Verdurus spellbook and disappeared into the Bowels of the Earth in search of treasure, leaving only Felgraft's Flames as his legacy, a green fireball that comes from the ground up and only burns the living. His spell list was Sleep, Fly, Felgrafts Flames, Dimension Door, and the players rescued him from being walled up in a dungeon sauna once. He had a bodyguard, Loran, hired for purely mercenary goals.

The other was Veiled Kirasu, a very short woman who had a tower in a lake that sought to drill deep into the earth as well but was abandoned due to darkspawn monsters coming up the mineshaft. Her legacy was longer lived, as she continued magical research after parting ways from Verdurus and was the elder student- Spell list was
1- Floating Disc, Shield, Read Langages
2- Levitate, Web, Locate Object
3-Flight, Protection From Normal Missiles
4- Ice Storm, Massmorph
5- Animate Dead, Cloudkill
And she waged a brief war against the hill giants of what is now Fort Fortenfort, before returning to her true goal of defeating the dragon of Mantlehearth that killed her family. She became Necroqueen of Mantlehearth and ruled the island for a time, though necromancy gone wrong led to her losing her necromantic minions to undead whale siren song.

His soul anchor is a black sword, granted to him by a being from Beyond to lead him down the role prescribed by player-suggested campaign suggestion. Like most such things, it can be destroyed only in one way- by the flame of the 7th sun (son?) though it will destroy that in turn, at least according to prophecy. For the most part tho, the black sword is just a +1 longsword that deals its damage as level drain and raises undead from those it kills, eventually resurrecting the Necromancer with enough life force drained. He does not particularly hide the sword, instead letting whatever adventurer find it continue to use it and letting it fall where it may.

His cult uses simple tactics- find a ghul, let it make more ghuls, focus fire unparalyzed targets with Magic Missiles taught to all the novice necromancers. The Blight can be used to infect populations or corrupt wilderness in a scorched earth zombie apocalypse way, and though it answers only to Verdurus, there is also the Red Queen, an extra-invincible stone golem which can grow a body for every soul exposed to its gas, constantly regenerate and mutate those bodies with gas to adapt to what killed them (the life it gives is oft considered a fate worse than death mind you), and control those bodies if need be. He has a few wicked Ifrit that would like to see humanity exterminated as well, bound in Fassulia and forgotten, but sometimes unearthed to seek to further his goals.
His efforts, and that of his cult, are a large part of why Oroboro and Fassulia feud, as Fassulia, ravaged by his efforts, sees him as an Oroboron problem, while Oroboro sees it as a collective calamity they are not responsible for. Politics!

Here's a Lungfungus Dungeon I reskinned into an old lair of the Green Necromancer, an ancient ifrit-operated ghoul-plague missile silo that was never fired, and over the years has been invaded by plant creatures, sickle-clawed giant lizards, bandits, and at some point, a dragon-cult of Arrkohn (another player suggestion)

You gotta click on 'open in a new window' to get a readable version I am sure.

 But all this took a long time to come up with- the Green Necromancer was created to fit the setting suggestion of the Blight and Blight Necromancers a  player called Shin came up with back when Oroboro was created from player suggestions. But Verdurus had three campaigns total to make appearances in, have dungeons created to serve as his old hideouts, have connections drawn between factions, develop counter-measures against threats he faced. Three campaigns is a lot to ask to grant a lich narrative weight, and that's why casually introduced liches are a bit rough to run on the fly-without time to develop their presence, they're just a skeleton with hastily rolled up spells the GM doesn't have time to consider the long-term implications of.

Liches are good- just not as a monster manual entry.

Excerpts From A Second-Hand Necronomicon

pictured: actual real-life selfie of me writing this self-indulgent post about some dead wizards my players stomped in prior campaigns

The Necronomicon, by Abdul Alhrazed, Astronomer-Necromancer (early 3rd sun)
(Corrections Courtesy of  Sarkomand, The Sorcerer-King, The Omnipotent!) (4th Sun)
(test results of queens-consort neroikos) (late 3rd ranging to 4th)
(With advice for a modern audience by Magister Verdurus in the age of the 5th sun)
Introduction
Rejoice, seekre of knowledge, for ye hold in your hands the lyfe's worke of Abdul Alhrazed(or more likelie, a copy of my great work). Belief me when I say I holde no ill wille towardes the race of menne nor womenne nor childrenne, butte sought only to understand lyfe and deathe, and wishe to spread this knowledge to all mortals, and even immortals such as the Alves(poor bastard was writing this before the intersolar war, ignore everything he says about Alves)

Though a broade subject, let it first be said that Necromancy is notte a art of deathe and darkness, but of LYFE and LYGHTE! The Soul is what we speake to, and grant new fleshe, so that the dead may once againne gaze uponne the sunlit realms. Ifn the ruling bodies of a land prove querulous and recalcitrante in accepting our blessinges, remembere that it is notte these foolishe kings and wytches, butte the elements and world, who are your true enemie. Air, Earth, and Water- all seek to expel our SOULS from our bodies, and reclaim our crude materiel bodies to their cold grasps. The ignorance of men may be rectified in time(dubious), butte the enmitie of the elementes is eternal and unrelenting, and to denie deathe, one must assert that LYFE and LIGHTE, the FYRE of the SOUL, is eternallie dominant over the elementes! (again, 3rd-sun scholar, he had never even heard of the purging flame of riikhus)

Before ye proceed, I would firstlie recommende seeking out the Haibane Yazata (he means a Vulch. Bird-person, endemic to Saresare) for though they are filthie and loathesome of aspect, they are mortal psychopomps entrusted with a deep empathie for the soul, and can teach ye muche of calling forth the spirits of the deceased, and perhaps most importantlie, of putting them back to rest. Do notte call up what ye can not putte down....  
Chapter One- Missing Parts
Ye have doubtless hearde of mightie menne and womenne fighting battles after taking fatal wounds, and the simple reasonne for this is that a bodie is merelie a vessel, the lantern holding the lyghte of the soul. A strong soul need not leave its bodie if it can endure painne and impairment. I examine the following issues with missing organs, butte advise ye, my student across time, to use bodies that died peacefullie(Ironic)(irrelevant) and to follow these instructional sketchings to inform ye barber-surgery and confirm all organs are present before proceeding.

1.  The Brainne- This soft cushionne exists so our fierie souls might be comfortable and dreaming in our crude bodies of fartinge mudde. With no brainne, a bodie will be discomfited and confused, unable to differentiate between things within the world. Bodies with no brainnes are suitable onlie for mindless-seeming slaves to obey magickal commandes to the lettere, or as hosts for souls that ye fear would be too powerful to release into the world with a full bodie. (a truly powerful soul has no need for a body at all, but they may want one badly. my queen will have a proper one, soon enough...)The better the brainne, the better the feeling and control of the bodie, and so a certain lust for brainnes may manifeste in undead with withered or damaged brainnes, out of agonizinge desire to heal themselves, not maliciousness. Thinke well before e'er raising a Skeleton, and pay ye embalmers well!
2. The Skull- a Skull is a beacon for appropriate souls to inhabit a bodie. Ye may find yourself infusing headless corpses with the confused souls of wyrmmes of the earth, squiddes of the sea, and snailes of the both, and other boneless blasphemies if ye are luckie, and if unluckie, ye may call forth the dead of the First and Forgotten Sun, the nameless nightmare dreamers of whom i wille not speak(in this text at least)(alluding to later work, Nameless Cults)
3. The Heart, And The Bloode- The power of a bodie resides in the heart and the bloode, and dry bones lacking either will be of limited strength. Rotten bodies and those chopped and hewnwill likewise be of limited power, relying on strength of spirit. A bled bull inhabited by a standard spirit will be of little use as a plow animalle, while a childe's dry bones inhabited by a mightie warrior of ages past will have the strength of ten menne. (small bodies enable flight with a sufficiently strong soul. stitched giants tend to be unable to so much as twitch. souls spontaneously generate and incubate within bodies, however, allowing for artificially gestated souls to be matched to special projects.) (Vampirism of the first-order is a curse that affects the soul itself, second-degree vampirism is the disease spirit offspring of a first-order vampire attaching themselves to living hosts.)
   
4. Liver- Thinke of the liver as a prism for the soul, amplifying desire in the basest senses. Love, hunger, fear... A bodie with no liver is a colde thinge, alienated from humanne desires, and driven onlie by ideologie and logick. (Not necessarily a bad thing for a minion) Alves do notte have livers so do not fret if ye cannot find one. (Wrong, Alves DO have withered vestigial lily livers, as do Elves. It's Snakemen who don't have them at all.)
5. Stomach And Viscera- The lacke of guts allows for spirit-flight more easilie, butte the cold earth, even a sprinkling of sand, will oppress passage of a bodie without them, explaining the popularitie of subterranean graves even in lands where the skull-moon does notte go. Beware the so-called 'purifying saltes' that will strike the gutless bodies like an onager-stone (Feels more like slingstones, I'd say)
   
6. Bladder- A parallel of the guts, butte for water. A bodie with no bladder may not resist the flow of water, making rain paralyzing and even streams impassable without a bridge. The ocean will devour bodies without bladders in a flash! (not so bad in darkness and deep, deep ocean. Unfortunately, there are aquatic grues. Sunken necropoli are rarely worth effort)
7. Lungs- A parallel of the guts and bladder, butte for air. The wind itself will be a bodies' enemie, a thousand invisible daggers on everie breeze, and everie incense burner an impassable wall! (M'shesh breathes the Black Wind and is my personally recommended intermediary)(incense aside, wind is manageable assuming you wear clothes, but this was before the covenant of lightning. Day clouds=almost as bad as sunlight these ages. If your minions start falling apart for no reason, check the lungs)
   

Chapter Two- Species And Souls

1. Humannes-It is important to knowe the culture of a soul, so to avoid offense and reach agreements...(Forget all this, see Appendix B, for 'Boozehound Brigands' whose souls will serve perfectly well in most situations, provided their liver is intact enough to get sozzled and you can understand some archaic Common)
2. Dwarves- I have notte met many of the stubborne folk of stone, butte their own necromantic artes are based on ancestral bloodlines and ornate crypts where the dead remain vigilant, to one day defende the living in a time of ultimate peril. It speakes to their fortitude that their dead can cling to such wounded bodies for so longe... as suche, I would not seek to raise a Dworf for fear of the obstinate ideologie and prior obligations sure to rise up...(induced vampirism excellent at altering priorities. Bizarre inorganic dietary options emerge) (Sounds like Sarkomand accidentally recreated nascent Svarts, though in a mineral-deprived, feral state.)
3. Alves- While one may raise the Bodie of an Alf with a different soul(initial experimentation with soulless, elf-homunculi resulted in the occasional spontaneous possession of the bodies by hyperbolically competent alves when the iron moon passed by. security risk, all elf-clones destroyed.), the Alf-soul will likelie alreadie be departed to a Lunar Mirror and rejoining the circle of lyfe in a new bodie. Alves are an enlightened people who do not mistake the container for the content, and are most tolerant of the so-called 'undeade' so longe as they are not gruesome and abhorrent to their sensitive ears (this is not true of Elves these days, and if it is true you're probably dealing with a post-collapse Alf who should be slain and their dark-stained soul sent back to the Iron Moon.)
4. Haibane Yazata(vulch)-The spirits of the sacrede yazata are very strong, but they scavenge lowlie bodies on their own should they choose to return to lyfe, and compelling them to take a bodie they do not consider abandoned is follie. I found this out the harde way when my instructor, Nasir, took an Arrow to the Gut and slowlie perished despite my offers of assistance, and I hope that his lessons are expressed in this booke...(Ignoring this lengthy eulogy, know that the vulch can set to rest undead with their humming and singing, but not Skull-Moon undead. Also know that the Church of the Bell Exorcist is derived from their songs, and their instruments are both of great use to necromancers, and of terrible danger to the undead.)
5. Ningen- A race of gentle and fishie giants of the sea, their spirits flow like water back to the sea upon deathe, and are most difficulte to call back from the depths, and the sea, being of salt and water and a great profusion of lyfe, is most inhospitable to the long-term condition of the bodie. As such I was unable to restore the fallen princesse of the Ningen despite my best efforts, and have notte heard from the sea-folk again since my unfortunate failure, and so my knowledge is most limited on this subject.
6. Snakes- The great mother of serpents Yg, a friendlie(HA!) black-haired priestess of whom helped editte this booke into the commone tongue, of course discovered necromancie and many other wonders beside in those forgotton Ages, butte has kept their secrets within her libraries and amonge the snakepeoples and their ancient crypts that survived the Age of Dragonnes. Suffice it to say that you should notte meddle with the affairs of serpents, (HA!) butte Dragonnes are fair game in the eyes of Yg. Beware that dragon souls are most unreasonable, and their bodies are large and unwieldie for other Spirits to use, butte rewarding if a suitable match can be found.
7. Beasts- When raising the spirits of beasts, carnivores for savagerie and domestic spirits for obedience are -(Stop reading his ramblings, use queen bee souls!) (Unless you're really into making your minions double as literal honeypots, when it comes to bugs, ant souls are the ideal mix of unthinking obedience and natural cooperation. Don't use Dogs unless you're Yuban, but cat-souls are good if you want a natural predator that you don't have to pay much attention to. Bird souls too, oddly enough.)
8. Plants- It is relativelie easie to raise a plant into a state of preserved stasis, as seen in the eternal forests of the alves, butte nearlie impossible to restore one to any semblance of lyfe. They are too close to the cycle of elementes and the Sun for their souls to be of great use, and a humanne soul within a tree will have greate difficultie moving such heavy limbs. (Also, while they're great to pillage for stashed corpses, do not ever bring undead close to a grave-tree. Those things are near elementals in terms of their hatred for undead) 

• Ghouls- Ghoul Fever is a fundamentally elemental process- life consuming life, as life is wont to do, but only ever consuming and assimilating, not reproducing. Ghouls maintain their organs by devouring the dead, and as such are not found in violation of the elemental covenant. I think, carefully managed, that Ghouls will be the perfect servants for the west fortress, and further proof of how far I have exceeded Abdul's understanding of the opposition of elements to the undead. Also works on Dogs- the Jackal God is displeased, but powerless to oppose me.
• goblins, ogres, and other alfspawn- highly morphogenic bodies proved useful in biomancy, but nearly useless for necromancy, as their souls were suggestions at best, vestigial, embryonic things. I could have taken the time to name them, but compliance was low. all were terminated after security risks grew too high. alf biomancy and abdul's necromancy are increasingly useless in my true task of freeing my queen from this accursed tree and into one of these dozens of bodies that so resemble her
• Blight Fungus(?)- A wonderfully horrid crossbreed between undead fungus, darkness, and disease spirits led to the creation of a virulent life-mimicking corruption that spread via air and contact, and reacted very positively to necromantic energies (and poorly to flame and salt). I suspect all fungus may be a First-Sun life-form, explaining how lightly death touches it. Souls in infected bodies quickly lost morale, sanity, and finally their grip on the mortal realm entirely as their host bodies decayed into festering masses. A side effect arising from second-stage decay of blight itself results in airborne ghul-fever and the subsequent consumption of the infected- an immune response from the elemental covenant, I expect, and a damper on its spread. Though the City of Bells seems unfit for further experimentation, I have met with xxxx-xx-xxxxx who in turn has communed with a being of outer darkness xxxx for further alteration of the stuff. The neighboring desert country and the disgruntled 'Circle of Aldha' therein seem very promising for further collaborative research. 

Chapter Three- On the Dead of the Skull Moon
I belief we whomst've'd necromanced are so reviled for the superficiale resemblence of our art to that of the dread Skull Moon, and its hideous beyeings thereof. While it is true that the soul of a locust within the bodie of a manne, afflicted with confusion, pain, and unnatural hunger, may be a disturbing sight, it is still a living soul within a natural bodie. Butte the 'souls,' such as they are, of the Skull Moon Dead are all extensions of a singular idiot will that seeks to devour all goode sunlit lyfe, and devour our're warm souls to adde to the the pallid glow of the stonie bones of that fell moon. The necromancer reshuffles the cards dealt by lyfe, butte the moon is unlyfe itself! The difference could notte be more clear...

skull-dead- Looking down on the dry city of annu nki, I sometimes am at a loss as to how to continue my work, and I merely note the dead and the dehydrated in hopes of inspiration and a superior catalogue to Aadul's meagre bestiary- the slaughter and progressive stages of undeath I witnessed from the slaughtered brigands who had the temerity to seek shelter at my gates...
day 1-crawling claws, flying heads, gutsnakes, crawlers, skinkites, muscle slugs, skulletons. weak, easily dispatched pieces of the whole. a grotesque necessity of making do with bits and pieces of entire bodies, an emphasis on stealth and assassination. under the light of skull, dismemberment is recruitment.
day 2-drowned, hangmen, butchers, bloatfloats, zoonbies. upper levels of cathedral sealed and warded against fliers with both strength and thumbs, wells sealed to prevent amphibious entrance. the dead are starting to show task-specialization.
day 3-tomb-bursters, plaguehosts, gravemoles, maggoteers. noise and stench absolutely grotesque. the stage is set to pillage the locked-away dead as well as the living now, and poison the land, barren though it be. i have no fear of conspiring disease spirits.
day 4-the winter moon is come, a brief conjunction, skull ascendant. unfrozen, rot oozes, redbogs. decay, frost, the dead raising the dead. i sent forth my own organ-takers and crypt wights, all lost despite cloud cover. The very soil and snow crawl with animated blood and unidentifiable flesh sloughs that extinguish burning oil due to sheer mass- thank my queen for the tree's desiccating roots that destroy these liquid threats.
day 5-devouring cages, coffin-crawlers, skin-flayers, swallowers, red pythons. amalgamation of yesterday's crude masses into singular forms, the accoutrements of crypts repurposed into war machines. my acids are distilled, and poured down the walls en masse. the moonspawn smoke and wither to nothing, but they have no self-preservation and press the accursed stone of the cathedral itself.
day 6- dust wraiths, hair-horrors, smoking ones. even my strongest countermeasures begin failing, as beings reduced to ash and dust simply refuse to stay dead in the glaring light of the will of skull. every gate warded with a hundred knives, and my failed dolls sent out as sacrificial lambs, though they join the horde themselves. even with their twisted forms, they still count as human for the reanimation process. 
day 7-the taker of skulls- gigantic amalgamate skeleton with a hundred skulls & arms 20 feet long with 5 hands on each end. I lured it into the crypts and the roots of the immortal tree that holds my queen prisoner showed the impromptu avatar that without the light of skull it was nothing but bones to be scattered and buried. the sun finally comes and the skull moon flees.

Chapter 4- The Jealous Elementes
The humanne bodie is composed of  a balance of air, water, and earth, with sunlyghte composing the animating lyghte of the soul. While a soul can impose masterie over these elementes, once deathe has occured, the elementes will seek to reclaim the bodie via the forces of decay, and in some cases, via brutishe calamitie of lyghtning, earthquake, tornado, volcano, flood, and so on. It is told to me that these elementals are somehow in service to the sun, and that the dead are in violation of some pact, butte how could this be, when the sun is merely a great lyght wrought of iron and magick and set in the sky by Alves and Dwarves, which is predated by far by the elementes?
That aside, the division of elementes into sunlit and dark, anthropomorphic or formless, is of greate interest to me and I would lyke to return to the subject(he never does, but the academy library on heleologos has various excellent works on the subject of elementals both shadowed and sunlit)  in its own right beyond these simple charms, which should be performed for all bodies set to be raised.
The Warding of Sky-Obtain some pan-pipes, and perform the following piece(a reversed vulch-lullaby) to communicate to the air that the bodie is not dead. Convincing the animated bodie to breathe will aid greatlie in the longevetie of this ward. (speed of the piece should vary based on ambient wind speed.) (Any instrument using breath will do, including singing of sufficient quality) 
The Warding of Sea- Next, or perhaps during the warding of sky, the bodie should be washed thoroughly, and given to drink an elixir of wine, bloode(preferably of a live enemy), and spit(preferably of a live lover), to convince the elemente of water that the bodie is still alive and engaging in drinking, fighting, and loving.
The Warding of Stone-Upon the leg and toe-bones, certain runes should be scrimshawed, with minimal rending of the flesh to access the bones. The runes Stability and Balance aid greatlie in giving a bodie a proper walk, as opposed to an unsightlie shuffle, and a drum should be beaten as the bodie is gifted with a new soul, to beat the cadence of living movement that the bodie should learn as quicklie as possible, and convince the grim and listening earth that the footsteps uponne it are that of a living being, full of vigor and lyfe.
(such trifling wards are of no matter if one commands the elements as easily as the dead, of course)

Appendix A- Undead Categorizations- Naturally, the painless, faithful, and pacifistic undead of M'shesh are not listed here
Skeleton- Barely cognizant due to lacking a brain, but possessed of an indomitable will that refuses to abandon even such a terrible body.
Zombie- Not much better than a skeleton, but stronger, and able to move in dead silence. Angry cat spirits account for the stealth

Ghoul- All consuming hunger for flesh, a paralyzing touch, sane when well fed, bestial otherwise. Would be the perfect soldiers were it not for their distractible nature and corpse-obsession. Dogs extremely dangerous when infected. A grey area between the living and the dead.

White One(long since bastardized to wight)-Similar to a zombie, but death-pale, ice-cold, better preserved and so capable of rational thought. Their soul is too powerful to be driven out save by weapons that can strike the soul directly, and their touch is the touch of a soul trying to devour another soul. Such power! Such force of will! 
Shadows- Reflections, barely alive.Not sure if actually derived from living things or just stupid simulacra that convinced themselves they deserved to be real. (could this be an account of successfully reanimated goblin-kin?)
Wrath(long since bastardized to wraith)-An imprint of incredible ill-will. Not the soul of a person, but an impression of hate, not enough to live on its own, but enough to kill and try to claw its way into full life. I think my retainer Oza casts one of these as her shadow naturally, ha ha!
Ghosts, Spirits, Etc- This is the full soul, of course. As a full soul, it can take bodies for itself. What terrible geas binds the soul to the world even after the body and all else is long gone? That won't happen to me. For I will never die!
Mummy- Somehow related to whatever went wrong in that temple-town of M'shesh, these shambling brutes are helped along by a bound disease spirit aiding their strength. Really, not much more than a dirty, spice-scented zombie. Buried the lot of them under the sand-moon.
Vampires- The curses involved are too elaborate to expound upon in a charity appendix in someone elses book, but a proper viewpoint sees eternal life and a bamboozlement of vengeful elementals as a blessing, not a curse, no matter how M'shesh wails at the thought of her dead devouring the living. A vampire who is depressive and not exuberant is defective.


Appendix B-  Boozehound Brigands
Ruznur Zcun- Mountain bandit of a bygone age who graffiti'd his name in a cave wall. Limited familiarity with modern accoutrements and believes alcohol to be a magic spell. Do not mistake this ignorance for stupidity. My go-to big game hunter.
Admiral Torgrin- Much happier if promised a ship. Allowing him to call forth his own damned crew will inevitably result in a mutiny, but setting him in charge of any other crew results in faster mutinies. Understands dwarvish Boompowder, piracy/privateering, and naval strategy.

Scutty Pyotyr- Vint-Savoth bandit and ex-werewolf. Good at controlling dead with carnivore animal souls. Doesn't mind animal bodies. Will probably escape into the wilderness sooner or later, more effort than it's worth to keep around once he gets wanderlusty.

Tecs Vulsus- Mercian Riikhite- will do any task so long as you twist it into being a holy crusade against heretics and the second coming of the 4th sun. Treats cognitive dissonance with alcohol. Recommendation- Pretend to be a Mokkhus Cleric, ie, somber, lawful, insistent he not stay too long in the living world(and discover, for instance, that Riikhus is dead and Mokkhus has been 'missing' for 200 years)

Failures of Nalil- Moonland berserkers who were not chosen for demonic ascension by their damned and blasted Carnage Moon, and are waiting for a second chance, which you can falsely promise. By now all the names I knew are devoured by their moon, but if you find one name, you should be able to find many more from that one, and simply turn them loose to cause murder and mayhem.

Butler Jeeves- Alf-raised fellow of impeccable service, even when utterly soused. Knows a variety of dead folk who have no outstanding engagements and will serve in a domestic sense without much complaint, due to their servile upbringings and alcoholic inclinations.

As a parting note- always remember that though society spurns our art, you are never alone. We dead masters of bygone times are just a ritual away, and all too willing to return and share our wisdom with neophytes beginning their journeys.

What Are Organs

Souls are probably a thing in your setting, right?
And in the form of undead, these souls can probably puppet around organ-less corpses, right?
And probably, undead don't need their hearts to beat or anything, right?
But if all a body needs to operate is a soul, what are organs good forThe way it works in my setting is that biological life is a way for souls or Wills to interact more easily with the world. Anyone with enough willpower can possess a rock or wander around as a ghost, but most people can't be bothered to do so without a handy biological body. Will is independent of Life, and the undead are really just as alive as anyone else, they're just driving a broken-down piece of junk that most people would rather just toss into a grave and head to an afterlife than deal with. Explains why they're in such foul moods most the time too and why 'killing' them is typically seen as mercy rather than murder, thought the dead may disagree.

Loss of Organ Function almost always means Death, but having one of these shut down due to a really nasty roll on a Death & Dismemberment table are totally possible.

Organ Function

1.  Brain- The brain is a subtle detector of cosmic forces, a tuning fork for the unseen and immaterial. As pretty much everything is, in fact, cosmic forces, brain damage causes wide-range sensory interference, loss of motor control, and apparent madness, while the soul itself may be unfazed. Removal of the brain leaves a body unable to differentiate between elements, law and chaos, existence and nothing, and as such typically encourages a soul to vacate a body. Sticking with it is like driving a car where the windshield and mirrors and headlights are blacked out so you have to hang your head out the driver's window at 80mph to look for road signs at night. Oh and the brain is also the throne of the soul (that's why the top of the head is called the crown, innit) so in this car metaphor your car seat is also missing. Undead tend to be grumpy because their brain-car-seat is all shriveled and gross so even if it's working, it's not pleasant.
2. Skull- If the brain is the throne of the soul, the skull is the throne room. Some say it is skull shape that determines what your children will end up as and what species you count as when it comes to wizards trying to use you for spell components and who you'll be fighting against and alongside once the Skeleton War finally comes. Creatures without skulls, like worms and oozes, are viewed with great suspicion due to their lack of declared skull-allegiance. If your skull is severely broken but your brain intact, you might end up with a chicken head or something as you heal due to altered skull shape, though this is quite rare.
3. Heart- Blood is power. The heart moves blood. The heart is Strength of the Material! With no heart/blood, bodies are like the tinman in wizard of oz, rusted immobile and in desperate need of lubrication. That's why getting stabbed through the heart usually causes souls to give up their body instantly- imagine if moving your body was like trying to manually puppet your own body while standing behind it. It's a lotta dead weight for your noodly spirit arms to lift. That's also why there's two varieties of skeleton- the slow, jerky, animatronic skeletons are spirits too stupid or weak to realize walking a body with absolutely no blood or heart is a lot of work. The skeletons that are fast, skilled, and nimble are basically just ghosts who are good at juggling and have the spiritual stamina to levitate bones manually for long periods.
   
4. Liver- Seat of rage and greed and other 'base' instincts that biological life has in addition to motives of the disembodied Wills. The redder your liver is, the more inflamed your passions are, hence 'lily-livered' people tend to be rather easy-going and some might even say wishy washy and more prone to flee from troublesome situations. Alcohol inflames and reddens the liver, and certain creatures like True Elves do not have livers at all, making them able to drink endlessly and be as exactly as calm and calculating as before.
   
5. Stomach And Viscera- Negotiators of Elemental Earth- Earth enters via eating, provides life and form to the body, then leaves in the form of all solid excretions of the body. With no stomach/viscera, the earth will refuse to move for you, and so even a shallow grave will be a fearsome prison for undead lacking these parts, and as such even halfassed burials can convince the disemboweled undead to pass on rather than linger in a prison. Also, gravity will frequently give the stomachless the cold shoulder, so you can expect anything without guts to be able to fly around, provided it still has Lungs. Holy Earth, more commonly seen as sacred salts, is not as popular as Holy Water but a flung handful of it strikes undead like a hail of bullets.
   
6. Bladder- Negotiator of Elemental Water- Water enters via drinking, provides life and change and purification, then leaves in all the liquid excretions of the body. With no bladder, one cannot intentionally swim or sink, and will be entirely at the mercy of the whims of water. This is why running water is dangerous to undead and there aren't very many undead in the ocean. Dark waters, like stagnant underground lakes and frozen glaciers, aren't as strict about the elemental contact and the undead can exist in them without great issue, and of course Holy Water burns the bladderless like acid. 
7.  Lungs- Souls are ethereal things and require good airflow, or they get stiff, calcified, and/or soggy. Once an undead loses lungs, its probably going to be stuck in that body for a while. The Lungs are also the Elemental Negotiator of Air, and as such are required to speak and breathe. Without the lungs to curry the favor of Air, the wind and its thousand disparate wills devour the body one lick at a time... That's why most undead do a lot better in sheltered tombs rather than overland journeys- the wind will literally cut them to ribbons. Holy Air, more commonly seen in the form of incense, is very unpleasant but not immediately lethal to corporeal undead and is only good to ward them off, but to immaterial undead (disease spirits being the most frequently targeted) it is like a literal wall.

Decay=Elemental Taxes- The dark elements of primordial Earth, Air, and Water compose the material body, and it is light and fire, or the writhing dark of Will that animates it. But the body has a tendency to revert to its constituent parts, falling apart in stench, slime, and bones, releasing the Will within. The Negotiator Organs replace what is lost, eventually failing as interest owed to the elements becomes too great, but if the organs are destroyed prematurely, the body quickly becomes nothing but elemental parts, difficult for a soul to channel its will through.

As such, those souls wishing to hold onto a body and reign eternal in a tomb-palace of their own design rather than a secure standard-issue Afterlife maintained by a Will greater than their own would be well-advised to keep spare organs in canopic jars filled with preservatives for inevitable transplant, or resign oneself to the sacrifice of orphan children and adventurers sent to recover said orphan children, or to abandon all the pleasures of matter and exist as a phantom spirit of disembodied will, OR to turn to rather esoteric sorcerous means to replace organ function and delay entropy.


Undeath=Elemental Racketeering And/Or Tax Evasion

While your Will is your own, your body was a loaner. It's not enough to simply stitch together a bunch of fresh organs or possess some worthy vessel- without negotiation with the primordial elements, your life is not legal, cosmically speaking, and you'll have to turn to crimes against nature (that to be fair, you probably aren't even aware you're committing) to keep your false-life going. Undead that devour the living, commonly called Ghouls and Vampires, consume huge quantities of flesh and blood, wasteful, gluttonous... but by recycling flesh prematurely to their elemental forms, they earn the favor of the otherwise wrathful elementals, avoid decay, and maintain their false lives. The approach favored by the very rich who can afford opulent tombs to spend their afterlives in is of mummification, where convoluted legalese in the language of light, keeping organs outside the body when not in use, and arcane powders, bindings, and so on slow the rapacious elemental collectors of decay such that a thousand years could go by with hardly any loss of mass... provided nothing goes wrong. As for the Lich, their claim to immortal presence in the material realm comes from abilities to manufacture a new bare-bones(hur hur) body for their spirit to claim and occupy soon after the destruction of the old, without interference from psychopomps eager to whisk them off to some afterlife.

Mind you, this high-concept elemental stuff is all about the physical problems with being undead. Afterlives are like gangs, and if you didn't sign up for one during life, you'll have to fend off  'recruiters' in the form of psychopomps, demons, gods, autonomous collectives of human souls, and so on to get a moments peace if you're an unaffiliated soul with no friendly tomb to skulk in. But I've digressed quite enough even for a 3 AM post.

why are these undead such a-holes

So why are undead so prone to attack on sight anyway if they're just dead people?
Well it so happens that the gibbering corpse-puppet in question is...

1. Incredibly racially prejudiced against someone in your party on account of whether their earlobes are attached or not, a form of discrimination quite widespread thousands of years ago
2. consumed by an unholy hunger for flesh/blood/cock/souls/delicious babies which supersedes any desire for rational discourse
3. a Skeleton War recruiter agent, needs to free your skeleton and draft it into the Skeleton War
4. covetous of your treasure, just like you want theirs
5. terrified of the undead it keeps hearing so much about. Has mistaken you for this alleged undead menace in dim dungeon lighting.
6. an eternal nemesis of one of your great-ancestors, whom you superficially resemble
7. grinding for XP souls to level up transcend into a higher form of undead
8. enraged that you've violated the NAP by trespassing on their property
9. bumbling minion of unrelated, possibly already deceased necromancer
10. lonely, wants friends, believes you will rise from the dead as friendly spawn once slain
11. trying to make sure there are no witnesses to its unspeakable crimes
12. possessed by the spirit of an enthusiastic but clumsy puppy trying to be affectionate
13. possessed by the spirit of a territorial and generally unpleasant ancient animal
14. a fanatic who wishes to send you to heaven before your sinful adventuring ways ensure you are hell-bound
15. blind as a bat and deaf as a post, and under the impression they're still fighting in an ancient war 
16. sick of living in a shrivelly old corpse and wants to move into yours
17. only able to derive intellectual satisfaction from high-stakes tactical problem-solving on account of lacking the pleasures of the flesh
18. wishing for true death, but not wanting to die at the hands of anyone who isn't badass enough to defeat them in pitched battle
19. just trying to scare people off from the real terrors deeper in the dungeon/wilderness
20. double the asshole they were in life, and they were assholes back then too

M'shesh

M'shesh- Mother of the Undead, She Who Bars The Way, The Black Wind

An ancient goddess who opposed the creation of Death itself, M'shesh's rebellion against the cycle of life and death led her to be demonized as the 'Mother of The Undead' and cast out from the living world. She cradles the souls of all her dead worshippers in her arms, keeping them safe for rebirth, and her living worshippers can exhale these waiting souls into corpses via the Breath of M'shesh. Her afterlife is essentially just hanging out with all the faithful in a big line for rebirth, and the line is the giant skeletal jungle gym of her immeasurably titanic body as she strides through the grey netherworld, swatting away demons and psychopomps like flies. She tries to convert sympathetic souls as they head to their respective afterlives, offering them second chances at rebirth if they agree to join her cause in favor of whatever afterlife they were aimed at.

M'shesh seeks to create a world without death, where living beings need not kill to eat, where no one dies of old age, a world without pain. A world without life. To make that world a reality, she must break this one. Most other worldviews see this as M'shesh trying to bring about a zombie apocalypse, whereas M'sheshans assert that once everyone is zombies, everyone can focus on being nice instead of killing each other for bread. M'shesh really despises apologists for death and pain. Maybe there's a good reason your setting cosmologically requires death and pain, but she either doesn't know or doesn't care.

M'shesh has no issue with her faithful killing those of faiths that actively oppose her goals (those who stand with death are welcome to it, after all, and excessive pacifism almost led to the extinction of her people once before) but apart from that, her worshippers are strongly discouraged from killing if at all possible, preferring conversion or mercy for subdued foes, and accepting unfavorable outcomes like being robbed if murder is the only possible alternative. She accepts the need for self-defense in the world of death or course, and carnivorous monsters are not deeply mourned. The more pious a worshipper is, the more hardcore vegan they become. Most carry a broom to sweep the ground before them as they walk so they don't trod on insects, and vows of chastity and castration are common so as to not bring any more souls into this world of suffering.

She cannot and will not grant any spells that deal damage, harm, or kill anything.

Extra Miracles of M'shesh
Y'know in addition to D&D cleric spells or whatever
Mend Undead- Any source of healing may be repurposed to heal undead by a faithful. This is the only way M'sheshan undead can heal themselves, save for slowly stiching themselves back together at the rate of 1HP per day (doubled if all day is spend stitching. It is a mirror to Cure Light Wounds, Serious Wounds, and Heal and there are undead healing variants of each spell.

Black Whirlwind- creates a tiny whirlwind by having M'sheshan souls move air as they swirl about. Strong enough to fling rats around, but will be careful not to fling any living being anywhere dangerous, or fling anything dangerous at anyone. It is composed of souls so it can take orders, but it can't talk and is fairly scrambled mentally speaking. Lasts 1 round per level, or [sum] actions.

Mask of the Heathen- Summons a black mist to block daylight. Prevents the sun from penalizing undead, and makes M'sheshan undead harder for enemy clerics to Turn. Lasts an hour per level or [sum] and has a radius of 10*level/sum yards. This was a spell developed to protect her faithful dead from the wrathful gaze of a sun god.

The Breath of M'shesh
Living clerics may also use the Breath of M'shesh on bodies that M'sheshian souls are willing to inhabit (so they must be in decent condition and humanoid, usually. Stuffing faithful souls into a dead mule tends to lower their morale significantly, or have only the nutters sign up for body occupation). This reanimates the corpse as an intelligent undead, the soul of a M'sheshian worshipper from days gone by piloting the corpse. If the corpse was already that of a M'shesh worshipper (cleric or otherwise)they get 'first dibs' on their own body, but otherwise there is a long waiting list of dead souls awaiting reincarnation so treat the risen dead as random NPCs who are generally amicable to the idea of helping out the one who raised them if they don't have their own plans.

Undead clerics/worshippers of M'shesh cannot use the Breath of M'shesh, and cannot benefit from typical living-oriented sources of healing. They tend to prefer sleeping during the day since it's easier to masquerade as one of the living at night, but have no night vision or many undead benefits. If they are killed again, it is assumed their body is really horribly torn to bits to finish them off, but no extra HP or damage resistances are granted. They do not decay if properly embalmed, and while slightly numb, can still feel normal sensation (except for pain and hunger) with their undead bodies.

When it comes to undead one must realize that M'shesh is far from the only creator of undead. Arcane magic animates corpses with dark energy and fragmented animal souls that leaves them mindless and hungry. Still other undead are 'natural' phenomena, forced to walk by curses and grudges. M'shesh is the mother of undeath, but she is by no means the master of all undead. It is immediately apparent to M'shesh worshippers when they are dealing with M'sheshian undead. "Foreign" undead are typically unreasonable and need to be destroyed before they hurt anyone, but if they convert to M'shesh they can be freed from their eternal hunger for life,  but also freed from any undead powers they might have had.

Some Thoughts from play
 M'shesh became the ascendant deity in the last BFRPG campaign I ran thanks to the efforts of a player who ended up as her prophet, and the goddess got suggested as a campaign feature for another campaign so I figured I'd repost the notes on the blog and just link here forever instead of reposting the info in multiple roll20 campaign forums. Anyway.
Having unlimited resurrections in new bodies was fun, but letting players be zombies lets them ignore a lot of typical obstacles- poison, water, and food being the biggest issues. A mixed party is less of a gamechanger than if the entire party is undead.
Option 1- Just go with it, have them walk across lakes and ignore rations and laugh at poison monsters. It's a power boost in terms of strategic options but won't break the campaign. Probably.
Option 2 (What I did in the first campaign)- The player doesn't need to breathe or eat or rest, but if they don't they start going mad and losing their humanity.

Option 3- The player is undead but more like Dark Souls undead than D&D Zombie undead. You still drown, get poisoned, have to eat, etc etc, and 'Undead' is just an aesthetic tag that might affect how supernatural stuff affects you.

In my original campaign she was the bitter survivor of centuries of religious oppression and genocide with about ten thousand dead worshippers for every living one
But this cutesy anime Gravelord Nito is close enough

A Quick Digression About D&D Undead

There's a lot of weird special-case undead you can dig up. I ain't complaining. But ignoring the glut of undead monsters that exist, I wanna look at some OG ones and what they imply.

• Ghost- These are ridiculous. Seeing it sends half the party screaming in save-induced fear unless they're tall enough to ride the Spookycoaster (ie, high level) and if you do actually fight it, it can possess people or wither people to death via the aging tables. BFRPG simplified the withering to be con damage and the appearance of aging, which is honestly less cool, but dang.
• Ghoul- 3 paralyzing attacks and attacking from surprise if they can manage it. Elves are immune to ghoul paralysis, which means they can get ripped apart the old fashioned way while all their buddies are down by packs of 2d12(AD&D) or 1d6 (BFRPG, though lairs still have 2d8). There's no 'cure paralysis' spell so, uh, screw you I guess. I've used ghouls some. They're bad news.
• Mummy-Tough,immune to normal weapons and resistant to magic weapons, nasty heal-denying disease, fear aura (but paralyzing fear not run away fear). Again, yikes, though at least they're relatively easy to kill with fire.
• Wight- Only magic weapons need apply, suck away your levels.
• Wraith- As wight pretty much, but they also float through walls and fly.
• Vampire- A hodgepodge of nasty abilities, mostly eclipsed by level drain in terms of what players fear. Also comes with weaknesses, at least.
• Shadow-Not undead, psych
• Zombie+Skeleton- The only undead that isn't a complete nightmare to fight. 

I think it's pretty clear- Undead were a special, specific category of 'monsters that will fuck you up permanently'  The weird outliers of this list aren't the ridiculous save-or-probably-die energy drainers, it's the Skeletons and Zombies who don't fit. Everything else is sentient. Everything else has a nasty effect.


And y'know, I think this is bad, because it conveys bad info to players by having the weakest undead be totally different from the 'real' undead.

"Careful," some session one NPC says to your new players, there's "Undead in them there crypts!" The players ignore the warning, rob some tombs, and either 2 things would happen
1- They fight some skeletons and zombies and learn that undead are slow, stupid, resistant to certain attack forms, but easily killed, all in all. Maybe the priest uses Turn Undead and gets a little moment to show off.
2- They get totally murdered by Ghouls or worse. Note that 1 naturally leads into 2, because fighting zombies and skeletons teaches you jack shit about the true face of the undead, perhaps the worst lesson being the false hope that turn undead will do diddly squat. Skeltals and Zombos aside, you need to be like 3 levels higher than any undead you're facing to have a hope in hell of Turning them.

Approach 1- Make the greater undead less horrifying.

• Ghoul- Ghouls can do a Claw or Bite for 1d6 damage, OR a lick for 0 damage but a chance of paralysis.
• Wight-- Wights can be chopped up by normal weapons, though they still drain levels. Maybe give a save vs level drain. Maybe change level drain for something else, like cursing or aging you. Personally I'm all for mechanics that scare the players, but level drain has a lot of annoying mechanical problems with it. BFRPG has negative levels as a sort of debuff that I think is a good compromise, but I'm getting distracted.
• Mummy- As is- they are hard to kill, scare the hirelings, and do something nasty if they get you, BUT have a weakness-fire.
• Wraith- As wights, but now regular weapons don't hurt 'em and they can do ethereal things. Maybe give them a possession attack, to warn about vampires and ghosts. Their weakness of becoming powerless in sunlight is harder to exploit but important to remember-BFRPG dropped that from the AD&D description which I think is a hella mistake. If you can't flee to the light of day, anyone who meets a 80 'flyspeed ethereal wraith with no magic weapon doesn't have a lot of options besides going 'well, if I kill myself before I get leveldrained, if I'm raised I'll be in better shape and won't turn into a wraith.'
• Vampire- I got my own thing with vampires but ignoring all that, all the other undead do sort of culminate with this- they can charm(possess) you, you need magic weapons, and they can do permanent damage to your dood, but they have other weaknesses too. Vampires are great because while they'll murder you in a straight brawl, you can come up with plans to defeat them without it coming to that. Maybe.
• Ghost- Honestly, this is a lot like a double-wraith with extra save vs spells style attacks. I'm not a fan. It seems like as the undead get nastier, the possibility of them talking also increases somewhat, so ghosts with unfinished business that can be bargained with (maybe like, possess me and we'll get vengeance on your killer) sounds good to me.

Oh, I forgot Spectres exist. Unlike Ghosts these really are just double wraiths, so whatever. Use 2 wraiths instead of a spectre.

Approach 2- Make the lesser undead MORE horrifying
Zombies- Give them spawn creation and a gross special attack related to how they died. Drowned corpses vomit down your nose to drown you. Flaming zombies spread fire. Zombies slain in battle wield weapons unsheathed from their guts. Zombies dead of plague spread it, old zombies that died peacefully add 1 year of age if they touch you. Zombies so hideous they cause fear. Zombies glowing with runes that cause Paralysis.

Skeletons- Introduce intelligence and speed. Skeletons archers are a thing because trying to return fire doesn't work. Skeletons trigger traps on you. Skeletons can outrun you because they're so light on their feet. Skeletons use their ribcages to store giant poison vermin. Skeletons kill you with bone-puns everyone has heard already.

These approaches make the undead more of a  proper learning curve and less of a learning curve with a pit trap on the 3rd step that drops you off a learning cliff. Also makes zombies and skeletons more interesting so you don't have to be all 'aha u thot this was a skeleton but it's a Huecuva'

Random Undead

I think that making undead fit neatly into 'categories' goes a long way to make them not-scary and yes-boring in terms of encounters. My 'fix' was making every undead a semi-random horrible monstrosity that instills the dread of the unknown.

When generating a random undead, I roll 2d6, with 6s causing another die to be rolled, then divide the final sum by 2 to determine HD, rounding down or up depending on my whim. Fire kills them because fire is magic and burns the evil out of them, not because you can realistically incinerate human flesh so easily, and physical damage kills them because you cut them to pieces. Piercing attacks and blunt attacks do half damage, though against skeletal creatures blunt attacks are fully effective. Cold attacks are effective because the dead tend to be colder than living targets and can be more easily frozen and shattered, even if they won't die of hypothermia.

The Lesser Dead- Gross and hard to kill, but ultimately nothing more than a bunch of creatively murderous physical meat. Up to 4HD.
HD-in-6 chance of human-tier intelligence, otherwise as a rabid animal at best and a mindless murder-husk at worse. 1dHD ghastly powers.

1. Rib cage functions as giant maw. Auto-hitting bite for 1d6 in grapples.
2. Intestines function as whip/tentacle with 20 foot range.
3. Tibia/Ulna function as retractable bone shanks for legs/arms respectively. +4 to hit via surprise the first time they are used.
4. Flesh is green and putrescent. Save v disease on hit. Explodes in wave of pestilence when slain.
5. Tough, mummified, jerky-like flesh, or bloated and corpulent rolls of fat. +2 AC.
6. Crawling hands scuttle like spiders.
7. Spine turns head into extra flail-type attack.
8. Cannibal Integration- devouring body parts adds them to the undead's form, though supernatural abilities are lost.
9. Vomits liquids down nose and into mouth, save or drown each round after the first
10.  Has some vile fungus growing on it. Yellow Mold, Shriekers, whatever.
11. Has some vile insects infesting it- rot grubs, killer bees, a big centipede...
12. Nothing To Lose- AC as unarmored, extra +5 to hit people who have hit it that round. It'll slide down your sword to eat your face.
13. Muscle Slugs- upon "death," muscles crawl free as a swarm of bloodsucking leechlike undead
14. Skeleton- upon "death," bones reassemble into skeletal version, leaving meat behind.
15. Gore- upon "death" viscera and blood become crawling undead ooze that smothers and crawls 
16. Skinless, flayed, bloody. Skin functions as fragile glider of 1HD and a smothering attack, or +1AC while worn. Skin persists after death of main creature.
17. Can bend iron bars, smash through crypt doors, etc, at the cost of 1d4HP as the flesh is deformed by unnatural strength unless Greater Dead
18. Moves at a dead sprint, as unarmored run speed, even if armored. -1d4HP per round of high speed due to body falling apart, unless Greater Dead
19. Undying- HP damage cannot kill this creature, though it is considered immobile at 0HP. 
20. Spits teeth as sling bullets with 50' range. Collects new teeth from victims.

The Greater Dead- Eyes glow. Power on par with typical vampires, ghosts, and other horrible beings. Most create spawn if they kill someone in a particular way. Greater Dead have a HD-in-20 chance of being known to the church or other organizations likely to really dislike the undead. They are all intelligent.
+1 Greater power per 2 HD past 3, in addition to 1d6 lesser powers.

1. Echoes of Death- Can enforce mode of its first death upon people if they fail a save. Examples- Force wings to fail and ropes to snap for death by falling, cause flammable objects carried to ignite for death by fire, cause wounds to bleed without end (-1HP per hit), freeze people, spread plague etc etc. Needs line of sight.
2.  Can turn invisible.
3.  Eye contact or a bite or (gruesome delivery method) causes the living to fly into a berserk fury, unable to tell friend from foe but wishing to slay all, then themselves.
4. Melee attacks also drain damage*10 (or 100, or even 1000, or just a level) XP. Alive with fairy fire.
5. Being within 5' forces a saving throw each round, or 1d10 year of aging. Looks incredibly aged.
6. This creature will return from death in a few months or years regardless of how it is killed, unless its spirit is sought out in the underworld and stopped at the source.
7. Flies around like a meatpuppet on strings.
8.  Alternate swarmform of burning cremation ash, grave dust, swarm of worms, etc
9.  Those in its presence lose 1HP per round, and it heals HP lost this way. Mouth appears to be sucking in light and life, a black moaning pit.
10. Reaper's Tools- Cannot be harmed by weapons. 'impromptu' weapons like rocks and shovels work, axes and swords and fists do not.
11. Mortal beings save or be paralyzed with fear upon viewing the creature for 1d6 rounds. Hirelings check morale each round.
12.  Vampiric, heals self equal to damage dealt with its overgrown fangs.
13. Those damaging it take equal damage themselves. Appears as a dead version of whoever looks at it.
14. Has learned terrible secrets of death. As spellcaster of equivalent level.
15. Can masquerade as a living creature.
16. Doesn't need eyes to see, can detect life within 60 feet.
17. Fossilized- 20 AC. At least 10,000 years old.
18. Ghostly form, passes through physical objects and immune to most forms of attack.
19. Melee attacks force a save or your spirit is knocked out of your body, If struck in spirit form, save or have your soul eaten, body can be coup de graced if no one interrupts. Can repossess your body to come back to life, or someone elses body if it's missing a soul or can be healed of whatever killed that body.
20. On max damage hits, takes off limb which transforms into 1HD monster. Crawling hand, gut snake, etc. Reattaches to the Dead in 1d6 rounds, returning HP, if not destroyed. Applies to own limbs and other people's.

Weaknesses

1. Powerless in sunlight/dormant during day
2. Whatever killed it in life forces a save or die when applied in death. 
3. Cannot set foot over holy grounds/houses/above its grave-level/ships/roads
4. Must check morale when faced with fire/salt/beans/water/silver/whatever, ignites as though it was oil soaked on contact
5. Blind.
6. Missing 1d4 limbs
7. Cannot harm one of- Women, Children, Dogs, Fools, Nobles, Priests
8. Pursued by psychopomps seeking to drag it back to hell, must constantly be on the move

Example Greater Dead
Skratti. 10HD. Fell while climbing into the Great Rot.

High move speed
20 foot attack range via haunted ropes
Infested with mold, save or lose a turn choking on spores striking it in melee. Has a rare and valuable mushroom growing on it.
Can command things to FALL AS I FELL, snapping ropes, ruining flight, crumbling footholds, etc on failed saves.
Uses climbing ropes to swing around like spiderman, can rise up on them to 'fly' up to 50 feet in the air
Can't see things further than 60 feet away

Mounds of the Old Lords

Lungfungus and I were working on similar ideas about miniburialmound dungeons and this is my version.

Barrow mounds of the Old Lords- 1/6 chance of outside guardians each visit and upon exiting
 Outside Guardians

1.  Aspiring Necromancer hoping to take control of dead within
2. Descendants visiting dead elders(eldead?), not fond of grave-robbers
3. Exorcist seeking out Greater Dead to banish them. Could be helpful or meddling
4. Gang of thieves seeking to rob the place. Betrayal inevitable but deferrable. 
5. Random monster from inside barrow mound
6. Random monster from local encounter tables

I shoulda done this visually ages ago

Entry- Chamber behind large stone slab, opens into room 1d4
May be sealed by
1- A lock. Keys can be found in other mounds based on lineage and dynasty.
2- A permanently Wizard Locked door
3- A blood altar that requires 8HP worth of blood to open
4-A skull altar that requires the skull of a random nearby monster
5-Slab is just very heavy
6- Spell-eating Loadstone- gobbles the first spell cast in a 30' radius per day.

Descent- Staircase to room 5
Key to room 7 is located in room 1d6, guarded by trap/monster if applicable

All Mounds have the same 7 rooms, rooms 1-4 on the upper entry level, and rooms 5-7 below.
Upper Layout-
1- Upper Layout Square with rooms on the 'corners,' descent in room opposite of entry
2- Upper Layout 'Plus' shape with rooms on ends, Descent in central intersection.
3- Straight line, with rooms 567 doubling back under 432, descent in room 4
4- Spiral path down 50' pit with spikes and dead people at bottom, rooms separate chambers dug in wall at regular intervals. Lower chambers also in this layout, though 3 is still the 'top' of 6.

Upper Rooms
#1-Lesser caskets and urns of cremated people and preserved skulls. Tripping hazard.
#2-Pillar room holding up roof. Bad rolls in combat tend to dislodge pillars
#3-Room is pit with narrow bridge crossing it and alcoves high on walls, 20' drop to 6.
#4-Altar, provides hints as to nature of curse and method of curse removal.

Lower Rooms. Layout is either a straight line, a triangle, or a L-Bend.
#5-Statue of Lord- a preview of any magical arms/armor they may have
#6-Retainers coffins.
Entry to 7 sealed by locked bronze door.
#7-Lord in/near Sarcophagus + 2 treasures. Has a decorative Central Pillar, Pit, Pedestal, Pool, or Pendulum. Key is in room 1d6.


Room Specifics
Each room has 2 things
1 Monster
2-Nothing
3-trap- defends treasure if there, doorways if otherwise.
4-Treasure


Trap-

1. Hallway Portcullis + Bell- Seals easiest route to exit (or route to deeper inside if there's a tie)
2.  Burning Oil
3.  Summoning Circle- save vs surprise, 1d6 HD random monster(s) appears
4. Unleashed Plague Spirit. Animates corpse if it fails to possess a human. I like the diseases here
5. Inflicted Curse
6. HP Menacing trap- Rolling boulder, Launched Spear, Arrow Hail, spiked pit, scything Blade

Curse of...

1. Pyrophilia- Fire damage taken and dealt deals max damage, if ignited you need water to extinguish it or you'll burn forever and you gotta save vs catching on fire if you take even 1 point of fire damage. Cured by casting a being with more CHA than you into a volcano.
2. Unlife- When killed, you will rise again as an undead. Undead cursed in this way will rise again and again, losing 1HD each time as their body, mind, and soul crumble. Only curable by purifying ritual suicide, sorry.
3. Beasts- Grow hairy, growly, and bestial. +1 physical stats, -2 mental stats for each stacking application of curse. Cursed monsters have +2AC(not v silver) and Damage. Cured by having your hair braided by a city-dwelling prostitute.
4. Elf-Curse- Iron and Steel burn you horribly, for double damage or 1HP per round of skin contact. Cured by being forgiven by a fey creature.
5. Water- You can't swim and will sink like a rock. Cured by kissing a merfolk.
6. Darkness- Grues stalk you, and will devour you in 1d6 rounds if you ever enter pitch blackness. Cured by sunburn. Grues don't eat undead, but lurk in their tombs all the same.
7. Instant death! Or actually 1d4+1 magic missile damage striking the cursed one.
8. Nemesis-  1 Monster per encounter has maxHP per hit die(and max personal treasure if applicable) until you surrender to an enemy.
9. Bats- You can't see lightsources beyond your own lightsource, and can only see half as far with your own light source. Must descend to the bottom of the Lightless Library, with no light, and read the secret braille name of the King of Bats and squeak it aloud to cure.
10. Metamalus- -1 to all your dice rolls (or +1, whichever is most often bad). Stacks. No save. Remove one level of this curse whenever a nat 1 or 20 is rolled.

Treasure-
1- Small Stone Chest of tarnished antique coins worth 1d6x100c.
2-Embalming jar of organs. Mummified or pickled, worth 30 coins to sketchy necromancers.
Eating them acts as random potion that slaps you with dungeon curse on a failed save.
3-Massive Silver-runed pottery tablet the size of a chair. A fragile 'spell scroll' that weighs 100 pounds and is worth 1200c intact.
4-Skeletons in steel jewelry (2d4 each worth 10 coins). Monsters here will also wear jewelry bits!
5-Stone Statue holding magnificent Bone/Stone/Bronze/Iron/Silver/Gold Spear (400coins) in both hands. 1/6 chance of being Cursed and Magical(not necessarily dungeon curse, could be like a Backbiter style spear or summat)
6-Treasure Map to 1-5 Another Mound 6- distant hoard of type H treasure+warning of terrible guardian monster.

Monster-

1. Skeleton Skirmisher- throws bones, rocks, spears, burning oil, flees if menaced. 1hd but immune pierce and resist slash, and pretty speedy.
2. Ghouls- dug up from below to eat corpses here. Hungry again now. Rationality and cowardice proportional to fullness.
3. Tomb Scorpion- Injects acid, save or d20 damage. 1 point of stinger damage. AC 16 but loses 1AC each hit  HD=1d4, # appearing= 1d6-HD (minimum 1) Surprise indicates lurking in burial pot or beneath earth, usually
4. Warrior Zombie- Largish weapon wielded 1 handed to go first hitting for d8 or 2handed to go last & hit for d10, 2hd, ac 13. Less sluggish than most zombies.
5. Barrow Wight- XP drainer and well-armed, accursed weaponry drains XP from those hit and wielder. 4HD, AC 15
6. Cursed X- Reroll, but entity is cursed with dungeons curse and spreads said curse with melee attacks.

Lord Monster of room 7

1. Greater Dead- See below or just use a vampire, or something
2. Lesser Dead- as regular monster, just with fancy gear.
3. Tomb Queen- Giant scorpion that has eaten the corpse and is clad in smaller offspring
4. Regular Dead Guy- No fight, just loot
5. Dreamwraith- Appears as harmless corpse, but appears on future encounter tables as dreamwraith to hunt the living and reclaim gravegoods. Only dies if dreamwraith and corpse simultaneously destroyed, as one reforms the other.
6. Angry Ghost- as Greater Dead but noncorporeal, or just generic ghost. Can't rest easy till the ghosts desires that tether it to the earth are sated. Usually vengeance.

Greater Dead- Wields 1 1/2 handed sword and breastplate (AC15). 8 HD.
1-Dies The Fire- Takes minimum damage from fire. Touch inflicts cold damage, freezes liquids. Fire in melee range saves or is snuffed. An ice-rimed barbarian corpse crackling with every step.
2-Soulrender- Save or be knocked out of body. If struck in spirit form , save or die, body can be coup de graced if no one interrupts. Glows with sickly light and looks half translucent.
3-Dismemento Mori- Every 8 damage takes off limb which transforms into 1HD monster. Crawling hand, gut snake, etc. Reattaches in 1d6 rounds,  returning HP, if not destroyed.
4-Foulblight- Expels gas that explodes light sources in fireballs. Self explodes if hit by fire too. Green, bloated, stinky, corpulent.
5-Flayedlips-Pyromancer Still smokes from failed cremation. Skin like burnt hotdog
6-Skellord- Glowing bones, makes your bones glow and animate before death. Dominate limb on hits as your skeleton rebels against you. Is a glowy skeleton with a scimitar, skeleton damage resists.

Tomb Queen- 8HD scorpion, 1d8 damage, AC 20, -1 per hit taken. Gets -4 to hit unless it attacked the same target last round, chooses to attack whoever hurt  it worst or (if no one did) sticks to one target. When slain, 1d6 baby tomb scorpions begin to eat corpse & defend it. Acid glands powerful and valuable if you can harvest them, armor plates good for shields.

1. Grab- open 1 claw, aim at target. Save to escape if grabbed, 1d4 squeeze damage each round.
2. Twin Shear- Wave two claws furiously- 2 attacks
3. Block- Save to block frontal attacks, up to 1 per claw.
4. Jab-Only used vs Grabbed opponents.  tail injects acid on hit, make 2 saves. If both fail, you melt from the inside. If 1 fails, acid sprayed on you, lose 1d3 AC and inventory slots/items.
5. Acid Jet- Tail bulges like cartoon firehose and it quivers in targets' direction. Save or doused in acid, save again or knocked prone, each round doused lose 1d6 AC of armor, Inventory slots, and HP. Damage doubled if no armor or inventory items,  tripled if neither. Save each round to end acid, or dive into water or something.
6.  Shake off Juvenile- Baby scorpion leaps from back to join melee.

Dreamwraith- Dreaming and dead, their skull, their spirit will hunt those who disturb their body or their treasure as roaming. The spell The Happy Hunt can be learned from the inside of their skull and more details can be found there.
 

Easy Access Polytheism, plus an old incomplete pantheon

This is something I've done in settings with polytheistic pantheons where pretty much everyone attempts to get on the good sides of the gods.

Anyone can cast cleric spells! Hooray! However, you don't automatically get spells- you pay for them with Favor, and don't have 100% certainty of what will happen. You get favor by doing things that specific gods like. Donating 1000 coins, a magic item, or other things of great value to one of their temples or doing a quest for the church is a solid way to get a favor point with most gods, as is converting more people to the religion.

Each point of favor is the equivalent to a spell level. Invoking a miracle involves praying for divine intervention. Make a WIS check or a saving throw or something, maybe with a -1 per spell level of the miracle you're praying for. Maybe you have to roll under Favor-Requested Spell Level if you want it to be hard. Anyway, if it works, burn favor and the gods will bestow an appropriate cleric spell of a level up to the amount of favor burned in response to your request, assuming your request is in-line with their goals. If it fails, you can keep praying for a cumulative +1 bonus per consecutive round spent praying.
NOTE: To prevent this from being an exercise in 'mother may I' with the GM, god motives and methods should be pretty obvious, not super sophisticated character studies , and as usual, saying 'yes' will almost always make for a better game than saying 'no'

If something dreadful would happen to you and you have some banked favor, the god you have the highest favor with has a favor-in-20 chance of them attempting to save your bacon independently, though they'll be the ones choosing how much favor to burn(all of it, typically) and what exactly to do with it in that case. They might just blow favor at a 1-1 ratio to increase your saving throw vs getting owned or similar simple mathematical tweaks in your favor if they don't have any truly appropriate spells to save you.

Doing things they don't like will likely incur loss of favor, and doing things they REALLY don't like will result in Wrath- the turning of any positive favor to negative.  Negative favor is similar to positive favor given to your enemies, to be used against you at inopportune moments.


Anyway, here are some examples from my last campaign. The might be bad examples to steal wholesale because there's a bunch of setting-specific divine politics implied, but having factional conflict and conditional alliances and so on makes religion interesting.

you get angels of Riikhus &Mokkhus, cuz Riikhus is just the sun and Mokkhus is just a big goffik dude

Riikhus- The King in the Sun, the Flames Of War Which Purify All, The Unconquered Light
Mokkhus- Counter of Bones, Gatekeeper of the Dead, The Unmoved
+1 Favor- Smite an undead or demonic creature of more HD than yourself, or an enemy priest
+??? Favor- Subjugate a divine spirit and add them to the slave pantheon of the Brothers
-1 Favor- Gain more favor with a slave god than your current total with the Brothers
-1 Favor- Act against the interests of the Church
Wrath- Intentionally gain favor with M'shesh or Lumar
Common Miracles
Riikhus's Trumpet- Garb allies and self in arms and armor in fanfare of light and angelic wingbeats
Wrath of Riikhus- As Inflict Light Wounds but Holy Fire damage, or in sunlight, as Magic Missile
Underworld Manacle- Strip immunity to nonmagical weapons from one undead.
Ancestor Spirit- As Animate dead, but animated dead are lawful faithful of Mokhus and will return to the underworld after their task
Intervention- Angel dispatched to smite evil or spirit the faithful away to safety.

Slave Gods/Saints of the Brothers Riikhus and Mokkhus
Lady of Gardens- Law, Plants, Domesticity, Society
+1 Favor- slay monsters and mutants
+1 Favor- officiate lawful proceedings such as marriage, peace contracts, etc.
-1 Favor- polymorph, mutate, sow chaos, minor crimes
Wrath- Intentional polymorph, mutation, seriously destabilizing crime
Common Miracle- Entangle, Grow Plants

Jackal God Of Yuba
+1 Favor- Eat the warm hearts of your slain foes. +2 if higher HD, +3 if over double HD.
+1 favor- Save a Canine from peril
Common Miracles- Charm Canine, Scare Animal, Curse: Lycanthropy.

Hefon- Goddess of Bonds
+1 Favor- save a friend or family from certain death
+1 Favor- avenge a wrong done to your kin or ally
-1 Favor-Abandon allies in need
Wrath- Betray blood or bondsman
Common miracle- bless, healing, or reversed spells when pursuing vengeance

M'shesh is a nice goddess if you agree death was a stupid idea and a world of zombies would be better
No pain! No need to kill living creatures to eat! Stable population!

Free Gods
M'shesh- Mother of Undead, She-Who-Bars-The-Way, the Black Wind
M'shesh opposes death and pain and will never grant a spell that inflicts harm.
+1 Favor- Spare your enemies rather than slay them this session. Also, kill nothing to eat.
+1 Favor- Convert or slay a priest of Mokkhus or Riikhus- those who do not oppose death are welcome to it!
-1 Favor- Slay fleeing or surrendered foes, or kill without necessity.
Commonest Miracle- Breathe a dead soul of a M'shesh faithful into a corpse, creating an intelligent zombie hireling or raising a faithful player as undead. Immune to poison, discomfort, disease, but still vulnerable to level drain and feel like they need to breathe and eat and sleep. If they don't, they start going crazy. Also zombie PCs break a lot of inherent assumptions about the game, like food, need to breathe, etc etc, and you should be careful with this at low levels.

You can't comprehend Yg's true majesty because you're not a snake
But if you were this image would be majestic indeed

Mother Yg- She-of-Skins, the Long Librarian, Egg-Keeper, Serpentine Matron
+1 Favor- Complete a task for a snake
+1 Favor- Retrieve knowledge unknown even to her
+1 Favor- Consecrate a monster egg to be born as a monster snake instead
-1 Abandon a snake in mortal peril
Wrath- intentionally harm a snake

Common Miracles- cure poison, sticks to snakes. Snakify Egg, cause poison, speak with snake(but never charm snake, you can hire them as hirelings for the usual half share of gold. It is a mystery what they do with it.)
Getting Raise Dead'd makes you a bit more snakey each time.

This is what carved wooden idols of T'liki look like. Only even more annoying.

T'liki- Coinflipper, Shuffler of Souls, The All-(f)or-Nothing
+1 Favor- gamble your most prized possession as an offering to T'liki with 50/50 odds. If you can fool T'liki, you might be able to fake sacrificing it.
+1 Do something risky and stupid, and pull it off. Adventurers can rack favor up pretty quick...
-1 Be boring. Festivals of masks and wanton revelry are held to amuse T'liki and ward off his attempts to 'spice up' peoples lives.


Common Miracles- as a chaotic trickster god, T'liki grants random spells of illusion and confusion.
T'liki can be called to intervene directly with no loss of favor by drawing from a deck of cards, rolling a die, or similar, but his intervention leans towards making situations more chaotic and random, rather than any reliable aid. Certain players will take great joy in having T'liki be blamed for bad rolls and praised for good ones, others will despise the addition of extra RNG to an already unpredictable game.

Lumar, One From Nowhere, The Unfathomable, Shines-In-Dark, Bliss-In-Ignorance

 A strange and obscure goddess from the mirror realm, which was once a blurred land of reflections in water and ice alone but has expanded with the creation of humans and their mirrors and glass and metal. Riikhites despise her for the creation of the moon, but is imitation not the sincerest form of flattery? No clerical powers reach into the mirror realm save hers, but regardless, she grants imitation miracles to visitors regardless, and they never know the difference.
not even once they've returned to the world of nonreflected light and shadow
Maybe there never really was a Lumar and the real holy spirit was inside you all along, kid
Or maybe the real miracles were the friends you made along the way?
knowledge drowned in the sea, better left alone
Something like that. 
+1 Favor- destroy knowledge of the true nature of the world and its purpose in the plan of the gods
-1 Favor- learn knowledge as to the true nature of the world
wrath- spread the word of the true nature of the world 
Common miracles- mental manipulation, illusion, moonlight and seafog and information, & planeshifting
BUT WHAT ABOUT CLERICS
The above rules are for everyone. Clerics are still clerics, but they're zealots, fanatics, who serve one god and one god alone. Their favor with their chosen god is indicated by their level and typical spells-per-day business, and while negotiating with other gods and spirits is part of their duty as religious icons, gaining favor with gods and spirits beyond their own is closer to 'leverage' than it is to a healthy religious relationship. 

BUT WHAT ABOUT ANIMISM 
Animism is great for this, though creating a pantheon of gods as factions is a lot easier than being prepared to run everything as a potential spiritual entity. Everything can potentially be a source of favor, be it an old ghost, a river, a tree, a stone, another PC, linguistic concepts... it's a rabbit hole that can go infinitely deep. Imagine Dungeon-as-God, where breaking down doors and strewing goblin entrails about infuriates the dungeon, but properly finding keys and arranging goblin entrails neatly may earn the favoritism of a dungeon. But this post is rambly enough as is, so let's call things quits for now.