Anyone ever heard of an undead fiend?

[Jeremy16]

Hey all. I am brainstorm ideas for next year's QTR and struck upon the idea of creating an undead demon. Has anyone ever attempted such a thing before? The backstory is that there is an exorcist type cleric running around battling various fiendish incursions (via transpositions and summoning rituals) and one of the fiends he vanquished has returned from the dead and wants revenge. You know, the usual... Anyway, any suggestions or pointers on how I could actually meld these two monster types together?

[Rock of the Fraternity]

I know Milavana recently drew a succubus lich, which reminded me of Hel of the Norse pantheon.
I had myself given some thought to Imogen Schlosser creating an emergency backup phylactery to turn herself into a lich if anything ever happened to her primary phylactery, but I don't have any mechanics prepared.

[alhoon]

I don't remember exactly where, perhaps in the Abyss book of 3e, but yes, I have heard of undead fiends. They can become undead. Or some of them can. Or can be created as undead, not sure.
On the other hand, I am not fond of the idea. Why? Because a fiend that "dies" does not die in the way humanoids do. It's either banished back to its plane or its ephemeral matter, what for humans is the soul, goes back to the plane or something. It is not judged the way dead mortals are.

[IanFordam]

I agree with alhoon in that I see the nature of fiends of being at odds with the nature of undeath. Of course, that just means I have to work a little harder to find a loophole that would satisfy me.

I see the most likely approach to an undead fiend would be an incomplete transpossession. The victim's mortal nature has not yet been completely subsumed by the transpossessor's fiendish nature, which means there's still something left to become undead.

[Jeremy16]

On the other hand, I am not fond of the idea. Why? Because a fiend that "dies" does not die in the way humanoids do. It's either banished back to its plane or its ephemeral matter, what for humans is the soul, goes back to the plane or something. It is not judged the way dead mortals are.

I tend to agree. I generally avoid "stacking" monster types just because something sounds cool, but I'm trying to see how I could make it work.

My first inclination is to tweak the origin of shadow fiends. Instead of being it's own thing, a shadow fiend is what happens after a demon "dies" within Ravenloft and its essence can't return to its home plane. Instead it gets reabsorbed into the shadow stuff that makes up the Demiplane. But, if a demon's personality (or hatred) is strong enough, it can "reassemble" it's body out of that very same substance... Then, voila! You got yourself a shadow fiend!

[SkiBird]

It might be a neat angle to explore if you ruled that a fiend who found their way to undeath sort of 'removed' themselves from a more normal fiendish ecology.

So like, normally, a fiend not-on-its-home-plane dies ... and it gets to reform (and, most likely, seek sweet sweet revenge).

But maybe, upon being cursed with undeath ... the fiend finds that it no longer enjoys the carousel-nature of the cosmos, and the undead fiend learns that it's undeath or nothing. There is no coming back, there is no reforming back on one's home plane.

It sort of follows a weird logic too. So like, for mortals, becoming undead 'interrupts' what happens to their soul upon their passing. A lich does not leave the mortal plane, and can stay on for hundreds of years, etc. Maybe something similar could happen to a fiend?

A neat thought experiment might be: Knowing this, what sort of fiend/devil might willingly seek out undeath? Is there some advantage, perhaps, to being removed from the never-ending blood war of the Abyss, or the rigid hierarchies of the hells? A one-way ticket, to be sure ... but maybe there could be a cool story-reason behind a devil wanting to undergo such a transformation?

[Jeremy16]

I like Ian and SkiBird's ideas! So much so that my mind is trying to combine them...

1) We start with a fairly advanced case of transposition (Stage 4) that was interrupted by an exorcist. Unfortunately the transfer subject was so far gone that they were killed during the exorcism ritual.
2) Even though the fiend technically existed on two planes at once, its physical shell was destroyed, leaving only a tiny portion of its essense in the outer planes.
3) Because of this link, the fiend had a thin tether to the the physical world, which allowed it to reform itself, using the only means availalbe to it - the shadow stuff of the Demiplane.
4) This causes it to first appear like a shadow fiend, but the story doesn't end there...
5) Beause of its failed transpossesion it also incorporated parts of its victim into its new body is well, these parts do not jive well with the demon's make-up, and are slowly degrading and possibly disintegrating as time goes on.
6) This leads the demon to stalk and kill others to assimilate their body parts into its own in order to stabillize its physical shell.
7) Naturally, it wants revenge on the person it feels is responsible for its current condition and will hunt down the exorcist, leaving a trail of dead and maimed victims in its wake.

If I really wanted to throw a curve ball into the mix, I could have the demon discover the other fiends that are running around Ravenloft and start hunting them, figuring if it consumes fiendish body parts it will become completely whole and stable. Plus, it can justify those actions by saying it is further contributing to the Blood War. So now I have a fiend that hunts other fiends, that is slowlying falling apart (so it is not quite as powerful as the other fiends we know), and wants revenge.

Thinking more about it, the undead part isn't really integral to this story. I just need a plausible way to bring it back from the dead, and this seems like a more elegant way of doing that.

[The Lesser Evil]

Planescape introduced the visage, a type of undead fiend specifically created by Orcus:
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Visage

[Rock of the Fraternity]

If a sufficiently powerful spellcaster got their hands on a fiend's phylactery, they could probably introduce undeath into the fiend's essence.
The phylactery would eventually wither and die as the fiend's essence succumbed to undeath, trapping it whole inside their now corrupted body. No chance of being reborn if they're destroyed now... but on the other hand, no phylactery that can be held over them as a threat.

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

Planescape introduced the visage, a type of undead fiend specifically created by Orcus:
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Visage

The visage can be found in Libris Mortis for 3.5. The Fiend Folio also has the blood fiend, which is to demons what a vampire is to mortals.

[alhoon]

Planescape introduced the visage, a type of undead fiend specifically created by Orcus:
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Visage

The visage can be found in Libris Mortis for 3.5. The Fiend Folio also has the blood fiend, which is to demons what a vampire is to mortals.

I think there is something else in the Abyss book about undead fiends. Or the one from Baator. But I think it was for Abyss.

[The Lesser Evil]

An alternative way to have a more Ravenloft specific undead fiend origin might be to have it be the result of a failed power ritual that killed the fiend, as these effectively bind fiends to the demiplane.

Another interesting variant is if the fiend had blood rituals binding mortals to it, but the deceased fiend somehow leaked its foul essence into their bodies, effectively creating fiendishly created undead like bodaks.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Or perhaps a fiend could attempt a Power Ritual in Necropolis or in Estrangia, and find itself unexpectedly afflicted with undeath.

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

Planescape introduced the visage, a type of undead fiend specifically created by Orcus:
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Visage

The visage can be found in Libris Mortis for 3.5. The Fiend Folio also has the blood fiend, which is to demons what a vampire is to mortals.

I think there is something else in the Abyss book about undead fiends. Or the one from Baator. But I think it was for Abyss.

I forgot, there is also mention of a "lichfiend" among the variant liches in Libris Mortis, which just outlines the minor rules variation of allowing fiends to get the lich template.

[Pizza]

In DnD? No, but the novel Ex-Heroes had a zombie demon. A wizard had put a spell on a demon so he could transform into him like the Incredible Hulk. Then there was a zombie apocalypse, and the wizard got bit in human form and transformed into the demon hoping its immune system could fight off the virus. Dying on demon form left a mindless demon zombie roaming around.