Coffer Corpse

A coffer corpse looks like an ordinary zombie. It always lingers where its last rites were left unfinished: a funeral barge run aground, a pyre that was never lit, and the like.

About 25% carry the weapon they were meant to be buried with and use it for normal damage. The rest go for the throat with bare hands. A hit locks them in a death grip that chokes for 1d6 each round until the corpse is destroyed or the victim dies, and only Strength 20 can break it loose.

Any nonmagical hit for 6 or more points drops the corpse as if slain, though it takes no actual harm, and a choking victim is dragged down with it, still held. A round later it lurches up and resumes strangling. Witnesses to this resurrection who fail a save vs. spell run in panic for 2-8 rounds.

Enchanted weapons hurt it according to type. Bludgeoning weapons deal full damage. Slashing weapons deal normal damage without Strength or magical bonuses, and piercing weapons deal half damage, also without those bonuses. Being mindless, it is immune to enchantment/charm and illusion/phantasm spells. It is turned as a wraith.

It may wander alone or among other restless dead, and where it lurks depends on how it was to be laid to rest. Its treasure reflects its rank in life: the grander the person, the richer the hoard.

One urge drives it: since it was denied a proper death, others will be denied life. Bitter over the botched rite, it kills for revenge and prefers victims who will get no funeral either, so it often strikes priests first, hoping to leave nobody able to bury the dead. This grudge is also its weakness. If someone works out how its unfinished rite could be completed and does it, the corpse finds release, which ends it for good. What that final ceremony requires is up to the DM.

It needs no light, air, water, or food. It ignores the bodies of humanoids it kills and lets undead carrion-eaters, ghouls and ghasts among them, feed on them. Most undead are tolerated as long as they leave it alone, but any living thing near its unquiet resting place is attacked. Clever monsters sometimes use one as an unwitting rear guard, taking care to stay clear of its lair.