Mummified Creature

Many ancient cultures mummify their dead, preserving the bodies of the deceased through lengthy and complex funerary and embalming processes. While the vast majority of these corpses are mummified simply to preserve the bodies in the tombs where they are interred, some are mummified with the help of magic to live on after death as mummified creatures. A mummified creature appears much as other mummies do—a dusty corpse, desiccated and withered, swathed in a funeral shroud of linen wrappings adorned with hieroglyphs—but a spark of malign intelligence gleams in its unliving eyes.

Mummified creatures differ from the standard mummy presented in the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary with regard to how and why they are created. Most standard mummies are created as simple tomb guardians; they gain abilities such as an aura of despair and mummy rot, but they usually lose their free will, much of their intelligence, and the abilities they possessed in life. A mummified creature, on the other hand, retains its intelligence, memories, and many of its other abilities. A mummified creature does not spread the curse of mummy rot, nor does the sight of it paralyze the living with fear, but its touch can reduce a living creature to dust and its very presence is frightening. Though slow and clumsy in undeath, a mummified creature is nonetheless capable of surprising bursts of speed and ferocity. Because of its creation process, however, a mummified creature is susceptible to energy damage, though determining an individual mummified creature's vulnerability is not always easy.

Many mummified creatures are created to guard the tombs of important figures, but some powerful beings—rulers, high priests, mighty wizards, or even wealthy aristocrats—arrange to be transformed into mummified creatures upon their deaths. Unwilling to give up their lives and knowledge to the whims of fate, these people bind their souls to the dried husks of their dead bodies, trading oblivion for endless centuries of unlife. The truly wealthy sometimes arrange for their most favored spouses, concubines, servants, or guards to be mummified with them, enabling them to hold court in dusty tombs in an undead mockery of their old lives centuries after they perished.

To create a mummified creature, a corpse must be prepared through embalming, with its internal organs replaced with dried herbs and flowers and its dead skin preserved through the application of sacred oils. Unlike with standard mummies, a mummified creature's brain is not removed from its skull after death. Injected with strange chemicals and tattooed with mystical hieroglyphs, a mummified creature's brain retains the base creature's mind and abilities, though the process does result in the loss of some mental faculties. Once this process is complete, the body is wrapped in special purified linens marked with hieroglyphs that grant the mummified creature its new abilities (as well as its weakness). Finally, the creator must cast a create greater undead spell to give the mummified creature its unlife.

"Mummified creature" is an acquired template that can be added to any living corporeal creature (hereafter referred to as the base creature). A mummified creature uses all of the base creature's statistics except as noted here.

burst of vengeance, dust stroke, pounce, rake (2 claws +19, 3d6+8/19–20)

Alertness, Combat Casting, Hover, Improved Critical (claw), Improved Initiative, Improved Natural AttackB (claw), Iron Will, Toughness

Bluff +12, Diplomacy +12, Fly +2, Intimidate +12, Knowledge (history) +5, Knowledge (religion) +5, Perception +21, Sense Motive +18, Spellcraft +11, Stealth +12