Copyright 2011 Wizards of the Coast.

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I’m pretty sure I saw these in a 3e supplement somewhere, but there’s a nifty bonus stat block here that ties them to the Nentir Vale.

The Lore

Cadaver Collectors are specialized constructs first built by ancient necromancers to provide them with a supply of corpses. Their metal-plated bodies are covered in long spikes that they use to impale collected corpses for transport and delivery. They were commonly sent to “clear” battlefields after a battle had ended.

Like many other constructs they’re pretty good at performing the job they were designed for and at following instructions related to it, but they can’t do anything else well. This is why no one sent them to fight in those battles. They only follow the orders of their current master, or those of a person who also serves that master.

The original recipe for cadaver collectors was repeatedly lost and rediscovered over the ages. No one in the Nentir Vale knows how to build one in our narrative present, but there are several old ones still around in the wild. Many of them are located somewhere within the Witchlight Fens, a swampy region in the south-central Vale.

When a collector’s master dies it will usually fulfill the last order it was given and then stand by waiting for more. If someone happens to die in their assigned area in the meantime, they will dutifully go out to collect the bodies. If someone manages to convince the collector they work for the collector’s master, the creature will obey their orders.

After enough time waiting for orders that never come, their programming might mutate a bit, giving them a bit more initiative. Some collectors decide to go looking for a new master to serve. Others decide to broaden their mission parameters and consider living creatures valid targets for collection.

There’s a hobgoblin necromancer named Gokof living in the Witchlight Fens who is unusually skilled at convincing ancient cadaver collectors to work for him. He’s nominally a member of the Daggerburg goblin tribe but spends most of his time away from them and in the company of his collectors and undead servants. He rarely has more than two collectors working for him at any one time, but never seems to have trouble finding more to replace them.

The Numbers

We get two stat blocks here, one for a cadaver collector and one for Gokof.

Cadaver Collector

These constructs are Large Natural Animates and Level 9 Elite Soldiers with 200 HP and a speed of 8. They’re immune to charm, disease, and poison, and have Resist Lightning 10. They are somewhat weak to thunder damage: whenever they take thunder damage, they become slowed (save ends).

Collectors attack with Slams that deal physical damage and grab on a hit (escape DC 20). They can grab one Large creature or up to four Small creatures at once. As an elite it can perform Double Slams.

The collector can also spend its action to Impale a grabbed creature. This deals massive damage, pulls them into the collector’s space, restrains them, and inflicts 10 ongoing damage (save ends all). When the collector moves, the creature is pulled along, and when the effect ends, the creature reappears in an adjacent space.

You might have noticed that there’s a limit to how many creatures a collector can grab, but not to how many it can impale. It’s not going to matter much in practice, because it’s highly unlikely a collector will impale the whole party at once. However, if it ever becomes relevant I’m inclined to say their impaling limit is the same as the one for grabs. A fully loaded collector would have four Medium cadavers impaled and another four grabbed. And would probably have more than the two arms depicted in the illustration.

Finally, the collector can Trample once per encounter like the big chungus it is. The rules are as usual: it moves its speed and can cross enemy spaces while doing so, making an attack that deals heavy physical damage and knocks prone against every enemy whose space they cross.

Collectors fight by pretty much applying their programming to the PCs. Grab impale, repeat. When fully loaded, trample to retreat.

Gokof, Hobgoblin Necromancer

Gokof is a Level 9 Controller (Leader). He has speed 6 and low-light vision from being a hobgoblin. He wields a Staff as both weapon and implement, and has an array of necromantic spells at his disposal.

His basic ranged attack is a Necrotic Ray that deals necrotic damage on a hit and slows for a turn as an effect. Anything that happens “as an effect” always happens, regardless of whether the attack hits or not! Less often (recharge 5+) he can cast Sapping Tendrils as a ranged area attack. This is not selective, and on a hit it deals necrotic damage, immobilizes, and inflicts ongoing necrotic damage (save ends).

Instead of casting a spell, Gokof can use Command Animate to order an animate ally to make a melee basic attack as a free action. Cadaver collectors are animates, of course, and so are a lot of undead.

Once per encounter, when an enemy within 5 squares of Gokof regains HP, the necromancer can use Dark Healing to automatically deal them a chunk of necrotic damage and recover 24 HP himself.

Final Impressions

If you think about it, the existence of cadaver collectors shows that necromancy in D&D requires an ideological commitment to the spread of undeath. These constructs are more powerful and have a less ethically questionable nature than most “servant” undead. They also take more skill to build, but their original builders clearly had that skill. And yet chose to task their constructs with collecting corpses for turning into zombies.

I like the addition of Gokof to this entry. It helps establish a concrete situation where cadaver collectors appear in the Nentir Vale. It’s also an example of how a less “ideological” necromancer would come to control these creatures. This is more than even most other setting-specific monster books do. Those usually just say “these monsters exist in this setting”.