Night Rider

Night riders are undead made by the god of the dead, a few liches, and some evil priests, usually as guards or servants. Most resemble zombies, some skeletons or partly fleshed bones, but they outclass both and their wits make them deadlier. They move soundlessly, yet laugh or shout gleefully on landing a hit. So evil are they that a 10-foot-radius protection from good surrounds them whenever they wish. Turn them as shadows.

Any weapon serves them, though clumsiness costs -1 with missiles, and unlike zombies they need not act last, taking only -1 on initiative. The god's servants often wield scythes of wounding +1 (as a sword of wounding), 2-8+1 damage. They can call up 15-foot-radius darkness at will, and their icy touch deals 1d4 to the living and saps 1 Strength for an hour, stacking.

Spells, potions, and items needing a living user are beyond them. Blades and points do half damage; sleep, charm, hold, and cold magic fail. Healing harms them for the amount it would cure (1-2 from a potion splash), and holy water burns for 2d4 per vial.

Built for a task, they go where sent and form no society, often accompanied by gaunts, zombies, and skeletons. Retaining some living intellect, they drift toward places they knew in life.

They eat nothing and fill no niche, serving the god of the dead or greater undead.

Gaunts, or deadmounts, are rare skeletal horses, often a night rider's sole companion; some credit only the god of the dead and the fallen tyrant god with making them. Some keep manes, tails, or dry scraps of hide. Brittle-boned but supple-jointed, they run and leap like live horses. Turn them as ghouls.

A gaunt attacks whatever its rider does, or as ordered, kicking with hooves for 1d4 each. Its icy breath forces every living creature within 10 feet to make a Constitution check each round or take 1d4 and lose 1 Strength for an hour, cumulatively. A living creature foolish enough to mount one saves vs. paralyzation every round or is paralyzed, starting at -6 and improving by 1 each round, and a later successful save is the only way to break free. Each paralyzed round deals 2 points of chill damage, and helpless riders usually get carried over a cliff, though anyone who can reach them can easily pull them off.

Like their riders, gaunts halve damage from blades and points, shrug off sleep, charm, hold, and cold, and suffer 2d4 per vial of holy water. Riderless gaunts far from any master roam the wilds singly or in small herds, sometimes among wild horses that shun or ignore them.