Cursed Dead and Hungry Body

A curse on a dark-water oasis turns its victims into undead slaves of the place, either cursed dead or hungry bodies. Neither can stray more than a mile from the water, and both are compelled to show themselves to anyone approaching, one kind to drive visitors away, the other to lure them to ruin. Neither has any society or any role in nature.

Cursed dead look like skeletons with human eyes still in their skulls, wrapped in rags and rarely carrying anything resembling a weapon. An endless thirst torments them, and they drink from the oasis constantly without relief.

Seeing newcomers first, they try to shoo them off, wanting no one else to share their fate. Peaceful, they put up no fight against attackers, since destroying their bodies lets them rest at last. Speaking hurts them terribly, sometimes for hours, so they talk only when they must, and then briefly.

They sense at once when someone carrying the black waters scroll arrives, and try to guide that person to Ossevar. Visitors without the scroll may leave freely, but anyone trying to depart with it meets every effort short of murder to keep it there, for it is their only chance of release. They fight only when forced, clawing for 1d4 points of damage.

Hungry bodies are swollen zombies stinking of the grave, set apart from common zombies by the black flames burning in their eye sockets. They wear tatters and carry an odd assortment of weapons.

They crave above all to become mightier undead and believe that luring others to die at the oasis will make it happen. They are wrong: they can never advance, and their suffering will never end. Hating the living, they hunt in groups of 5 to 10, armed with whatever weapons they scavenge around the oasis, plan ambushes for travelers, and often roam the full mile they are allowed in search of prey. They never wear armor, since their clumsy fingers cannot fasten it.