Undead are a staple of fantasy RPG adventures and DragonQuest includes the usual suspects. However, undead in DragonQuest can be a challenge to GM as described in the rules. In particular, a number of the Greater Undead (Night-Gaunts, Spectres, Wights, and Wraiths) are described as "waxing and waning", "half of this world and half of another plane" or "vary in substantiality in direct proportion to the time of day". Does this mean that their physical attributes should also vary? For Spectres, this is specifically stated as true but for the others it is unknown. The rules suggest that most Greater Undead are Adepts. Do their Ranks with spells also vary? Again, except for Spectres, unknown. No game mechanics for playing out this variability are given in the rules. Sadly while providing a somewhat different take on undead from other RPGs the DragonQuest designers left a lot of questions unanswered.
Because of some discussion on the Yahoo! DragonQuest groups, and a couple of recent adventures targeted at DragonQuest that featured or included undead, I decided to review again what is and is not there in the DragonQuest rules concerning the undead.
