I get the keep my mind and memories, so I'm not some dumb zombie going babbling "brrrrlll" here and there, seeking brains. I'm fairly powerful so I can pull out my own weight, enough to become the necromancer's right arm. And if it comes to the worst I can always backstab the necromancer and become the boss, as typically lichs have their own necromancy.
I'd expect my phylactery to be with the necromancer at the start, for exactly this reason. So I think that a lot of my job in my first days [years?] as an undead is to get their trust so I can: replace my phylactery with a copy, hide the original, and proclaim my independence.
Do souls have sizes, like "you need at least the soul of a medium sized dog or pig"?
Because if every soul is worth equally much, just set an anthill on fire and be done for the foreseeable future.
Of course, as your next course of action, you should make up for the damage done to your local eco system, but that should be doable within the powers and lifespan of a lich.
Probably, given that they're good spell casters. You could for example cast "alter self", and look like your desired sex. The main problem is that those spells are typically short-lived, they last minute~hours, so after the time ends you're again a skeleton or decaying corpse.
A vampire. Since it’s a necromancer raising me, instead of another vampire, I won’t be enthralled and will have free will.
Then there’s all the wonderful abilities and the fact that I’ll still look good for an undead (it’s a pretty movie vampire, not one of those creepy ones)
First - pretty movie vampires were pretty humans before they got vampired. Second - why in the fuck would a necromancer raise a vampire with free will? Face it 'pretty' boy, you'll be stuck in a cave trying to kill adventurers who never visit. You'll be talking to rats after the first month of solitude. You'll lose your undeath virginity to a lost mountain goat. The first time a girl will be around your cave, she'll notice how it smells like a homeless man who hasn't changed his underwear in years and avoid the cave entirely. You'll feel like spiking yourself in the heart because you had gotten used to the smell, but you won't even be able to do that - you're a necromancer's minion. You have no choice in how you live or die. You're just a smelly guardian of an uninteresting cave.
I'll take undead drake. I'm doing some epic shit before I die, not just guarding some cave.
Anyway, no one said that the necromancer needed a guardian for some smelly cave. I like to think the necromancer got lonely and just wanted a friend to chat with.
Even if what you say is true, cave guarding is for low-level chumps like skeletons or ghosts. Vampires are middle-management at least :)
Also, how on earth can you tell me I have to look exactly like I did when I was alive - which is still pretty :P - while you apparently can transform from human corpse to a drake?
Following your rules, the necromancer would be trying to assemble a drake using human bones, creating some weird facsimile of a dragon. The "drake" would spend its time jumping out from behind rocks shouting "blergh", while falling apart at the slightest touch. Wishing some adventurer would put it out of its tortured existence instead of just pointing and laughing.
So any animal is fair game? In which case, dodo. You MFs ate us into oblivion, I'm gonna come back with species worth of pent up rage and an undead thirst for blood.
Edit: in retrospect I now realise a dodo would be super easy to send back to the underworld :-(. I'm gonna be... checks deadliest thing notes, a car.
I'll be that guy, and say abomination. The more twisted the better. Like a mouth in my belly, extra arm on my back kind of twisted. I'll learn to enjoy striking terror in my victims' hearts. Afterlife will be dope.
But that is what the Good News(tm) is all about for the evangelicals! He is already HERE! Parts of him are probably fossilized or petrified by now. And the rest of him is just dust. And dust never goes away. Why, I might even have a particle of Jesus dust in my yogurt right now! Halleluhah.
Wraith, so that I can go through walls, carry a big-ass scythe, and upgrade from generating Fear to generating Terror, so I can exploit that juicy morale penalty even if the enemy unit is immune to Fear.
I don't remember that being in the original Painkiller, though maybe it's just been too long, but are you maybe thinking of a dullahan?
The Dullahan (Irish: Dubhlachan; dúlachán, /ˈduːləˌhɑːn/) is a type of legendary creature in Irish folklore. He is depicted as a headless rider on a black horse, or as a coachman, who carries his own head.
Whatever kind of undead Raziel counts as. Double undead vampire = soul devouring wraith? Hey, manifesting on both spiritual and physical realms is neat.
If there are no restrictions other than "undead", I suppose that one can probably min-max this to be some sort of undead god.
I have little familiarity with Dungeons & Dragons' Greyhawk setting, so I don't know if "being Vecna" in particular is a good idea, but it illustrates the point that that game clearly has undead gods.
I would be the kind of ghost that could possess people so I could bang their wives using their bodies but somehow when I cum, the possessed penis shoots out my actual sperm so I can forever keep my sainted genome alive
One that can shape-shift so I can change my bodies sex to the one that aligns with my gender identity and be fully conscious and self aware but I'd also line to have free will