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• Nov 30, 2025

  Let's Read the 4e Dark Sun Creature Catalog: Andropinis

  

  The Lore

  Andropinis is the Sorcerer-King who rules the city of Balic. His official title is Dictator, and his city has a lot of Greek and Roman elements as we saw in the other thread.

  Here, the book says that Balic is clean, orderly, and mostly run along democratic lines. Its templars, called praetors here, are elected to their posts. Andropinis himself has an excellent reputation among his population, and encourages the region’s tradition of ancestral worship and primal magic, resulting in a remarkably fertile kingdom by Athasian standards.

  Of course, the reasons for all of this are quite selfish. Andropinis has mystically tied himself to the land and its ancestral spirits, and he teaches his disciples to do the same. He encourages his people to love the land and tend to it using primal magic because it increases his own power and makes the area ripe for defiling. And obviously there’s never going to be elections for Dictator if he has anything to say about it.

  His magical ties to the land form the basis of Andropinis’ power, and he also seems to be pursuing a more traditional draconic ascension path as a defiler. While he normally looks like a strong human in late middle age, when angry his features take on a reptilian cast, with golden scales appearing here and there.

  The Numbers

  Here we get stats for the man himself and some of the allies he is likely to surround himself with. We’ll look at them in order of level.

  Legionnaire Vestige

  This is one of those spirits venerated as Balic’s civic heroes. Andropinis can summon them and order them around. It’s a Medium Shadow Animate and a Level 21 Minion Soldier with a ground speed of 6, a Flight speed of 5, Darkvision, and immunity to immobilization. Them being Animates instead of Humanoids makes me think the average Balic citizen is being misled about their true nature.

  Anyway, every vestige has a Guarded Creature chosen when they enter the fight, usually their summoner or creator. They fight with Shade Spears that deal a bit of damage and mark the target until the vestige is defeated or the encounter ends, whichever comes first. Yes, they can have multiple marked targets if they last long enough.

  If a marked enemy attacks the vestige’s guarded creature, the vestige teleports to space adjacent to their guarded creature as an interrupt, and grants the guarded creature +4 to all defenses against the attack. If the attack misses, the vestige drops to 0 HP. They’re jumping in front of the attack, essentially, so they’ll want to mark as many enemies as possible to better defend their charge.

  High Praetor

  An example of the highest-ranking templars of Balic, those chosen to stand by their Dictator’s side. It’s a Level 22 Soldier with the Leader tag and 211 HP. Their ground speed is 7, and they have a teleport speed of 5.

  They’re equipped like cliche Roman legionnaires, and their basic attack is a short sword that deals increased damage on opportunity attacks. They can use it in a Face Cut attack, which deals standard damage and dazes for a turn.

  They attack at range with eldritch javelins that deal force damage and slow (save ends). Once per encounter they can upgrade this to an Entrapping Javelin, which deals extra force damage and immobilizes (save ends).

  Their High Praetor Assault maneuver lets them throw an Eldritch Javelin and then charge. This also summons a legionnaire vestige, and lets the praetor determine its guarded creature.

  The praetor’s soldierly skill is Prateor’s Mark, which lets them mark an enemy within 20 squares for a turn with a minor action. Marked enemies grant combat advantage when not adjacent to the praeto, and take 15 psychic damage if they make an attack that doesn’t target the praetor. So unlike most soldier monsters, high prateors want to be far away from enemies they mark.

  Andropinis, Sorcerer-King

  The Dictator of Balic is a Level 25 Elite Controller (Leader) with 468 HP, a ground speed of 8, a flight speed of 5, darkvision, and blindsight 2. The fact that he’s an Elite instead of a Solo means he will have a sizable honor guard made up of high praetors and epic-level mages when you fight him. The more allies he has, the more dangerous he is, even beyond the usual encounter maths.

  Andropinis’ ties to his city and the surrounding region manifest in several ways. One of them is the Dictator’s Concord, an aura (10) that gives a +2 bonus to saves for all allies inside, and allows them to save against charm, fear, and stunning effects even if they would not normally allow saves.

  His Wound Pact lets him automatically deal psychic damage to anyone who damages him while he is already bloodied.

  His basic melee attack is with a Pact Dagger, which damages and knocks prone on a hit. The first time Andropinis takes damage before the end of his next turn, the target takes 10 damage and is slowed (save ends).

  At range, he can use psychic powers to inflict Overwhelming Memories on a target, dealing psychic damage and sliding them 3 squares.

  Aggression Pact lets him use one of the two basic attacks above and let one ally he can see make a free basic attack. Land Pact attacks enemies in a Close Burst 3, deals untyped damage, and slows (save ends). While any target is slowed by the power, Andropinis has Regeneration 15. Land Pact also causes 4 Legionnaire Vestiges to appear in the area, with Andropinis as their guarded creature. It recharges when he is first bloodied.

  Andropinis can also use Transposition (move) to switch places with an ally within 10 squares, and Dictator’s Authority (minor) to let an ally take a whole standard action right then and there. This, fortunately, only recharges when he’s first bloodied.

  Finally, if Andropinis ever starts his turn without any allies within 10 squares, a legionnaire vestige automatically appears within 10 squares, with him as the guarded creature.

  Final Impressions

  Andropinis might outwardly seem to be one of the least bad sorcerer-kings, and a good propspect for an alliance against his peers. Of course, Balic being inspired by Greece and Rome means that it’s an enthusiastic practitioner of slavery. Those nifty civil rights are for citizens, and then only if Andropinis isn’t angry at them. And when the chips are down Andropinis would not hesitate to drain his whole kingdom of life in order to protect himself.

• Nov 27, 2025

  Let's Read the 4e Dark Sun Creature Catalog: Abalach-Re

  

  The Lore

  Abalach-Re is a Sorcerer-Queen who rules the city of Raam as its Grand Vizier, a title she chose because she claims to rule on behalf of a (fictional) deity named Badna. Outwardly, she seems like a lazy, decadent and debauched ruler, who lets her nobles make war on each other while her police forces oppress a starving population and numerous rebellions grow right under her nose.

  In reality, she’s a lot more aware of what goes on in her domain. It’s just that she enjoys the cruelty on display, and likes to see those nascent rebellions crushed. She is decadent and debauched, but even that is a fruit of her explorations on the limits of her own physical form. This research has granted her prodigious body manipulation abilities, which she teaches to her closest agents and favored children.

  Abalach-Re keeps a close eye on her peers and was the one who alerted them when Dregoth got a bit too uppity. She makes sure to keep her own self-modification experiments a secret from the other sorcerer-kings, as these are her chosen path to ascension as a god-like being.

  Raam’s day-to-day administration is in the hands of several noble houses, each of which controls a different district. They’re more like organized crime syndicates than anything else, constantly at each other’s throats and united only in their desire to exploit the people under their charge. They’re aided in this by the city’s police force. Its officers, the Mansabdars, theoretically answer directly to the Queen, but in practice are all in the pockets of whatever noble house oversees their beat, and are no more than brutal thugs.

  Abalach-Re lets them all do it because, as stated above, she likes the cruelty. Instead of reining it in, she created an elite secret police force, the High Kuotaghas, who actually enforce her will in the city and act to smack down any noble who gets a little too confident. Kuotaghas often receive their queen’s “gifts” and as such have access to some body horror powers.

  Most of the Queen’s children are part of her court or members of the Kuotaghas, but some have turned against her. She lets them, because all of ther children have unknowingly been implanted with magical locator beacons. Even the rebellious ones are useful tools to detect other rebels.

  The Numbers

  We get three entries here and as usual I’m going to talk about them in order of ascending level.

  Street Mansabdar

  A typical member of the force that should be enforcing the city’s laws but is instead enforcing the will of some local warlord in exchange for fat bribes. It’s a Level 7 Soldier with 76 HP and a speed of 6. Clad in hide armor, it’s armed with a mace and a scourge.

  The Mace is our basic attack, which damages and marks on a hit. If a marked target ignores the mark, the mansabdar can use its scourge against them as an interrupt. It does the same damage as the mace, and knocks prone on a hit.

  Then the mansabdar can use Beat Down against the prone target, which deals the same damage as a basic mace strike and slows for a turn. If the target stands up before the end of its next turn, it also takes ongoing 5 damage (save ends).

  High Kuotagha

  A trusted agent of Abalach-Re, member of the group actually responsible for enforcing her will in the city. While still tagged as a human in its stat block, this kuotagha was extensively mutated by his boss, which I’m sure will be a nice surprise to the PCs. It’s a level 21 Lurker with 150 HP, a ground speed of 7, and a Spider Climb speed of 6. It also has low-light vision.

  The kuotagha fights with Claws, which target Reflex instead of AC, meaning they’re the “shreds armor like paper” kind. It can also extrude a Flesh Garrote that does the same damage and grabs on a hit. This grab inflicts a -4 penalty to escape attempts, and there is no limit to the number of victims the kuotagha can grab in this way. I’ll let you imagine how that works. All grabs can be sustained at once with a single standard action, which also does some automatic damage to the victim.

  All other traits here depend on the kuotagha having one or more grabbed victims. The creature agent of the law can inflict criticals on its grabbed victims on a 18-20 (which is very generous in 4e), has a +4 to all defenses while it has a grabbed victim, and when someone attacks it while it’s grabbing someone it can shift 1 square and slide any grabbed victims 1 square to a square adjacent to it as in interrupt. This will only happen once per round, but it’s gonna be so annyoing.

  And this is a regular monster, meaning you could potentiall fight a whole team of them at once.

  Abalach-Re, Sorcerer-Queen

  Abalach-Re is a Level 23 Solo Controller with the Leader tag and 856 HP. Like her henchthing above, she’s technically human, but “technically” is doing even more heavy lifting in her case. As mentioned above, she’s seeking a custom path to immorality that involves lot of self-bioengineering, and the fruits of this are evident in this stat block.

  Abalach-Re has low-light vision, a ground speed of 8, and a flight speed of 5 with hover and an altitude limit of 2. The Spirit Flight trait gives her insubstantial and phasing while she moves.

  Two of her three basic attacks can be either melee 1 or ranged 10: Telekinetic Thrust targets Fortitude, deals physical damage, slides 5 squares and immobilizes (save ends); Instinct Overload targets Will, deals psychic damage and lets Abalach-Re dictate the next move or standard action the target will take on their turn, though she cannot force a victim to use a power.

  The third basic attack is Disrupting Touch, which targets Reflex and can be either Melee 3 or Ranged 10. On a hit it deals physical damage and ongoing 10 force damage (save ends). Unlike the others, which are obviously psychic powers, I think this one might be a touch spell where she stretches her arms really far.

  Anyway, Morphing Power Splice lets Abalach-Re make three attacks with one action without provoking opportunity attacks, so she could use any combination of the above on the same turn.

  She can also lay down a Defiling Field, creating a zone in a Close Burst 3 that lasts until the end of the encounter. Any enemy that takes damage within the zone also takes ongoing 15 necrotic damage (save ends). Thankfully this is an encounter power, but it recharges when she’s first bloodied.

  Her movement power is Allocation, which lets her teleport 10 squares and then slide any enemy adjacent to her at the arrival point 5 squares. This also recharges when she’s first bloodied.

  In addition to all of the above, when Abalach-Re is hit with any attack she can use Vengeance of Adaptive Flesh as a reaction. This is a Ranged 10 attack that targets Will, and deals 15 ongoing damage of the same type she just took (save ends). Like all of her other ranged attacks, this doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks.

  It looks to me like she wants to stay mostly away from the PCs, using her powers to slide them into the defiling field so she can further damage them with more attacks and ongoing damage.

  Encounters and Final Impressions

  This is a pretty strong opening for this section, and a brief look tells me Abalach-Re is likely the weakest of the Sorcerer Kings. She doesn’t seem to have any particular resistance against being stunlocked by PC powers, so even though she’s a solo you might want to add some high kuotagha bodyguards to her fight.

• Nov 25, 2025

  Let's Read the Dark Sun Creature Catalog: Dragon of Tyr

  

  This entry appeared among the monsters, right where you’d find standard dragons in another monster book. I thought this was odd, because he’s the only dragon in Athas and also one of its more important “personages”, so why isn’t he in that section?

  The answer, I suspect, is because to be in the Personages section the character has to be someone who could be a potential ally to the PCs, and the Dragon of Tyr is not someone any party of PCs should be allying with. Instead, he’s the final boss of Dark Sun.

  Nevertheless I’m talking about him here, because he is an important personage and knowing his story gives a lot of context for the sorcerer-kings you’ll also find in this section.

  The Lore

  Everyone in Athas knows and fears the Dragon of Tyr. This great and terrible monster comes in from somewhere on the other side of the Sea of Silt every once in a while, and demands a huge tribute of treasure and slaves. Even the sorcerer-kings fear him, and so they scramble to meet his demands. Once that’s done, the Dragon flies home with his loot, leaving the region alone until his next appearance.

  All of this is common knowledge. Only the sorcerer-kings themselves know the full story: the Dragon was once one of them. His original name was Borys the Butcher, and like his colleagues he was one of the fifteen secret apprentices of Rajaat the Sorcerer.

  You see, arcane magic on Athas is a truly unnatural phenomenon, a flaw that slipped into the world when the primordials defeated the gods way back when Athas was still green. Rajaat was the first mortal to discover and master arcane magic. He was also the first to learn that you could pull more power from the life around you to cast bigger spells - in other words, the first defiler.

  Rajaat taught dozens of pupils, but he only taught the secret of defiling to his inner circle of fifteen secret apprentices. For Rajaat was a major asshole, and when he felt his Champions were ready, he ordered them to go out on a worldwide genocidal rampage to cleanse Athas of all the species he deemed “impure”. So much defiling magic was flung around in those wars that Athas’ previously green ecosystem was completely destroyed, starting the world’s transformation into the desert it is today.

  In time, even the Champions became convinced that all of this was a bit too much. Led by Borys, they turned on their master and managed to imprison him in a pocket dimension outside of time and space. Once Rajaat was out of the picture, the former Champions quickly conquered or built city-states in one of the last habitable regions of Athas, setting themselves up as the Sorcerer-Kings.

  By then, they knew that attaining the pinnacle of power as a defiler would lead to transformation into a dragon. Borys, who had taken it upon himself to guard Rajaat’s prison, successfully argued that the other Sorcerer-Kings should help him speedrun the transformation, since he’d need the power to contain their former master forever. And so they did.

  The ritual for the final transformation required the sacrifice of every citizen of Ebe, the island city Borys ruled. Borys renamed the resulting hellish wasteland Ur Draxa, the City of Doom. The Dragon dwells in the ruins of Ur Draxa’s palace to this day, leaving the city only to collect his tributes.

  The city itself is inhabited by a very large number of undead, and by the living slaves brought in as tribute. The city’s day to day operation is in the hands of the Dead Lords, a council of liches who serve the Dragon.

  The Dragon keeps their soul vessels (the book uses the p-word here) hidden deep within his palace to ensure compliance. He is wise to do this, for the Lord Vizier who leads the council has his own agenda. He’s secretly researching a way to cross into the Astral Sea and escape Athas altogether, and often sends his personal minions out on missions to recover any bit of planar lore he hears about.

  The Numbers

  We get stats for the Dragon of Tyr and for the Lord Vizier in this entry. The two are completely different, of course, so we’ll cover all their traits in their respective entries.

  The Dragon of Tyr

  The only dragon in Athas is a Gargantuan Natural Magical Beast with the Dragon tag (obviously). He’s also a Level 33 Solo Controller with 1216 HP, Darkvision, ground and flight speeds of 10, and a teleport speed of 5. He can hover, too. His alignment is Chaotic Evil.

  The Dragon’s Actions trait means old Borys doesn’t roll initiative at all. He has three whole turns per round at initiative counts 40, 30, and 20. He cannot delay or ready actions.

  His basic attack is a massive Reach 4 Claw that damages and strips all necrotic and psychic resistance on a hit (save ends). His bite deals more or less the same damage and immobilizes (save ends), with a Slow aftereffect (save ends).

  He can also use wider swipes to perform the Raking Claws attack, attacking all enemies in a Close Blast 4 for slightly less damage than the single-target version and also sliding them 2 squares on a hit.

  That’s it for physical attacks. Now for the spells and psychic powers, because of course he has both!

  The Dragon’s Defiling is a hazard all on its own, targetting all creatures in a Close Burst 5 and dealing necrotic damage on a hit. He can use the energy gathered with this to cast Defiling Death (ranged 10), dealing heavy necrotic damage and ongoing 20 necrotic damage to the target (save ends). After the first failed save, the ongoing damage increases to 30!

  The Dragon of Tyr starts the fight with Defiling Death charged, and once it’s cast he must hit with Dragon’s Defiling to recharge the attack.

  Once the Dragon is bloodied, he can use his Breath of Shredding Sand, attacking all creatures in a Close Blast 20 and dealing the same amount of damage as the bite on a hit, half on a miss. Fortunately this is an encounter power and doesn’t recharge.

  Finally, if the PCs manage to surround Borys, he can use a Telekinetic Pulse (encounter), a Close Burst 5 that deals the same damage as the bite, pushes its targets 5 squares, and knocks them prone. On a miss, it deals half damage and pushes 3 squares.

  The Dragon can use his move action on a Psionic Uplift, automatically pushing every adjacent enemy 2 squares and flying his Speed + 2 (i.e, 12 squares). If an enemy ends its movement within 4 squares of the Dragon, he can hit them with his Lashing Tail as a reaction, dealing the same damage as the claw and knocking them prone. And when the dragon is first bloodied, Telekinetic Pulse recharges and he can use it immediately as a free action.

  The physical attacks all target AC, the necrotic and tekekinetic ones all target Fortitude, and the sand breath targets Reflex. As the most powerful arcane caster in the whole world, you can say he knows pretty much every ritual in the game for use outside of combat.

  The Lord Vizier

  This is the oldest and most powerful lich among the council of Dead Lords, which makes him their leader. Ostensibly, he un-lives to serve his master the Dragon, but as we saw he’s also privately looking for a way off this dying rock. He is a Medium Natural Humanoid with the Undead tag, and Level 26 Elite Artillery. He has Speed 6, and Darkvision. He’s immune to diseases like all undead, and has Resist 15 Necrotic and Resist 10 Poison. His alignment is Evil.

  The Lord Vizier has a Necrotic Aura (5) that deals 10 necrotic damage to anyone who enters it or starts their turn inside. Like all liches, he’s Indestructible while his soul vessel remains intact: when reduced to 0 HP, his body and possessions become dust and reform within 1d10 days near the vessel.

  He wields the Dead Lord’s Scepter, and his basic attack is to bonk someone with it, dealing lightning-and-necrotic damage. His basic ranged attack is the Grasp of the Dead spell (range 20 vs. Fortitude), which deals necrotic damage and lets one undead creature adjacent to the target make a free melee basic attack. If the attack hits, the creature marks the target for a turn.

  He can also cast a Plume of Death (area 2 within 10 vs. Fortitude, recharge 5+), a fireball-sized spell that deals acid-and-necrotic damage and summons a Vizier’s Skeleton on a square within the burst.

  As a move action, the Lord can draw on his secret knowledge and perform a brief Planar Displacement, teleporting 15 squares and leaving a brand-new Vizier’s Skeleton in the origin square.

  Vizier’s Skeleton

  These sophisticated undead minions are constantly produced by the Lord Vizier’s special attacks, and he will probably have a whole bunch of them on hand when the fight starts in addition to some powerful non-minion undead. They’re Medium Natural Animates (undead) and Level 26 Minion Brutes who fight with Deadflame Swords that do fire-and-necrotic damage, and can shoot Chill Shards (Ranged 10) to do cold-and-necrotic damage.

  Encounters and Final Impressions

  When met outside his city, the Dragon is always alone and on a specific mission. He will usually completely ignore most people who have nothing to do with his goal, believing they are beneath his notice. Of course, if those people are stupid enough to pick a fight with him, he is only too glad to oblige, completely confident of his victory and with good reason.

  If he is attacked in Ur Draxa, I imagine the Dead Lords would join the fight too. Better bring an army or ten.

  The Lord Vizier generally obeys the Dragon’s every order and kills whoever he wants dead. I wonder if he can be met in friendlier terms when following his own agenda. Epic PCs would make perfect agents for recovering that lost lore without the Dragon noticing.

• Nov 24, 2025

  Let's Read the 4e Dark Sun Creature Catalog: Personages of Athas

  You’d normally expect a monster book to end right after the “Zombie” entry, but we’re only at the two-third mark on this one. We’re now entering the section on the “Personages of Athas”.

  The book has a really short intro for it, explaining that it takes a lot of skill and luck to survive for long in this world, and that this is a sample of people who managed to do exactly that and are therefore remarkable.

  The difference between the entries in this section and the ones in the monster section are not mechanical. As far as I can understand, every entry in this section concerns one or more specific individuals. And while I haven’t read every entry yet, I also suspect the book doesn’t expect them to automatically be your enemies. They could be entirely neutral to your goals, or they might even be potential allies. While one of these things is also often true about the monster entries, both should be true for everyone in this section.

  I think this is why the Dragon of Tyr was in the monster section. He is a specific individual, but he’s also the “final boss” of Dark Sun. By default, he’s not particularly interested in making new alliances and no PC party who isn’t completely rotten to the core would think of allying with him for real.

  The Sorcerer-Kings, however, are in the Personages section, because I imagine PCs might want to form temporary alliances with some of them against the others. We’ll also see a bunch of much lower level randos.

  As I stated in an earlier post, I decided to move the Dragon’s description to this section as I consider him to be more of a Personage than a monster. So we’ll start with him on the next post.

• Nov 23, 2025

  Let's Read the 4e Creature Catalog: Zombie

  

  The Lore

  Zombies in Athas have the same origin as zombies in every other D&D world: they’re created either intentionally by necromancy, or accidentally from dead bodies left for long enough in areas exposed to strong necrotic energies.

  In Athas that means areas touched by the Gray, the Darker and Sunnier version of the Shadowfell. Any bodies left in these places have a high chance of rising as zombies. As the natural environment in these areas tends to be particularly harsh as well, they can do interesting things to these bodies before they rise.

  The most common of those is that by the time the body rises its flesh is long gone due to the actions of predators and scouring winds, so you get a skeleton instead. But some places like the ones named below can preserve the flesh of a corpse, giving enough time to rise as a Darker and Sunnier Zombie with extra powers.

  The Numbers

  The zombies described in this entry are Natural Humanoids, which I think is an error because every other zombie is a Natural Animate. In any case, they have the Undead tag and the usual immunity to poison and disease and resistance to necrotic damage. They also tend to be faster than standard zombie varieties (which still exist in Athas!).

  Salt Zombie

  These are created from the big necrotic zone in the Salt Meres. They tend to lie beneath the salt flats, erupting out of the ground when they sense living beings walking the surface. They probably look dried out and mummified.

  Salt Zombies are Level 1 Soldiers with 28 HP and a ground speed of 6. Their necrotic resistance is 5 and they have Vulnerable 5 to Radiant damage. Their basic claws damage and grab on a hit, but their Salt Feast attack is usually more effective: it does the same damage and also grabs, but the target has a -4 penalty to escape the grab and takes another 5 damage every time they fail. And of course, the zombie can also keep attacking the grabbed target either way.

  They also suffer from the Zombie Weakness that afflicts a lot of standard zombies, and so are instantly destroyed when someone scores a critical hit on them.

  Black Reaver Zombies

  There originate from the Black Sands region. Legend has it that an ancient act of defiling magic summoned these sands into the region, and that they drained the souls of everyone they touched. There’s a creepy deserted city at its center, which was presumably the target of this magical WMD. Modern Athasians tend to give it a wide berth, and anyone who dies here will probably rise as one of these zombies.

  Black Reavers are Level 5 Lurkers with 51 HP and a zippy ground speed of 7. They’re blind, and so have the corresponding tag and are immune to blinding and gaze attacks, perceiving the world through their Blindsight 10. Their necrotic resistant is 10, and while they don’t take extra damage from radiant damage it does prevent them from using their Shadow Burst power for a turn, basically defanging them for that time.

  You see, their basic bite does a relatively weak mix of physical and necrotic damage, so they really need the extra necrotic damage from attacking a target that couldn’t see them at the start of their turn in order to be a threat to equivalent-level PCs. And the most likely way for them to get that bonus is Shadow Burst (recharge 4+), a move action that lets them teleport 5 squares and create a Burst 1 zone that blinds everyone inside around their arrival point. This zone lasts for a turn.

  When using these in an encounter, you might want to add plenty of vision-blocking terrain to the battle map, like ruined buildings or big rocks. A zombie without Shadow Burst could still get that damage bonus if it was behind such terrain before charging out and attacking, something its high Speed would help with. Darkness also helps, but not as much since PCs are likely to have many options for lighting up the place.

  Feasting Zombie

  This one appears in the Forest Ridge where halflings live. Halflings who catch terminal diseases are not eaten when they die, for obvious reasons. Instead, they’re buried, which is believed to return them to nature’s embrace. This alternate funerary practice is less effective at preventing them from rising as zombies when conditions are right.

  Feasting zombies are Small, since they originate from halflings, and they’re Level 6 Minion Brutes with Speed 5. They bite, and when they die they perform a Clamping Bite Death Chomp, which does the same damage as the bite attack and also slows (save ends) because the dead zombie doesn’t let go until you pry it off.

  Cinder Zombies

  These were killed and preserved by fire. This could be because they lived in some of the volcanic islands in the Sea of Silt, of because their village was torched by raiders. They’re charred instead of rotten, and therefore smell of burned meat. They’re also quite strong.

  Cinder Zombies are Level 12 Soldiers with 121 HP and Speed 5. They have Resist Necrotic 15, Resist Fire 10, and Vulnerable Radiant 5. They project an aura of Burning Embers that deal 10 fire damage to any enemy who leaves the aura, giving them an incentive to remain close. They pummel enemies with their Fists of Cinder that do a mix of physical and fire damage. If an enemy within their aura makes an attack that doesn’t target them, the zombie uses Punishing Sparks on them to deal a bit of fire damage on a hit. When the creature is first bloodied, it releases a Choking Cloud that attacks the Fortitude of enemies in a Close Burst 3. On a hit it deals poison damage and prevents them from spending healing surges (save ends). On a miss it deals half damage and prevents surge expenditure for a turn.

  Encounters and Final Impressions

  While the four zombie types presented here are new, they’re still zombies. You use them in the same way you use standard zombies which, again, exist on Athas. I think I like the cinder zombies the most, as they have an interesting Defender Aura-like setup and fire zombies make sense in non-Athas settings too.

  While three of the four zombies presented here are strongly associated with their specific home regions, there’s nothing preventing an enterprising villain from importing them to wherever their lair is, or from somehow replicating the process of their creation in a lab.

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