Eleanor Rigby

When a person dies, their bodies are usually taken care of by loved ones, family, or at least people offended by the resulting smell. Some bodies are just left there, but even these are usually eaten, buried under the elements, or even just decompose. To a very small number, none of this happens. The body simply lies there for years and years.

Most times that the dead are not cared for their spirits haunt the places of their demise. These ghosts torture the living, or at the very least haunt them. Sometimes this is not an option for the uncared for dead, or perhaps the spectral life just doesn't suit them.

When bodies are left truly alone after there death, neither touched nor burnt nor rot for years on end, sometimes they sigh. At this point there eyes have probobly rotted out and there flesh no longer resembles anything close to that of the living. A few days or weeks later, the body will sigh again. After a few cycles of this, the body may stand up, and continue whatever business it was pursuing before it died.

A painter who died in their secret painting dungeon and was never found would stand back up and resume rubbing a paint brush on canvas. A star gazer who died in a abandoned observitory would tilt their head to the sky and watch. Of course the passage of time makes these actions impossible: the paint dried, the brush ruined, the canvas torn, the view obstructed. The actions themselves are also empty, the brushstrokes falling in poor form and even if colored with paint not depicting anything. This is obvious even just from observing the body and the empty way it approaches it's once and always routine.

The apearence of these undead varies with the state of their bodies before they reanimated. One thing that always stays consistent is the futility with which they take any actions. Seeing the boredom and emptiness of these creatures monotonously performing their daily routine is known to send shivers up the spine and put an empty pit in the stomachs of even the most hardened warriors and faithful priests.

They seem to be completely lacking in any emotion, and feel no ill will towards the living: content to simply continue their monotony forever if undisturbed. They will, however, lash out at anyone who tries to keep them from completing their tasks, usually clawing with fingerless hands. This does very little physically to the injured, however the experience is described as one of the worst every felt by survivors. A cold numbness spreads over the victim, followed by a feeling of emptiness in the gut, as though one has not eaten in days. This is accompanied by a feeling of isolation and pointlessness in the effected person. Those effected have been reported to simply lie on the floor and stare at the undead who caused them to feel this way till they starve to dead or are removed by their companions. This feeling is also experienced when viewing the creature for too long, usually over the course of hours.

Physically, they are quite weak, and unable to overpower any reasonably strong adult. In addition, any movements they make are slow and methodical, and they are easily out run. When destroyed, their bodies quickly turn to dust, revealing huge cavities inside their chests, their organs filled with simple air.

In Game

If only in a dungeon to be killed by a party and looted, these are a piss poor monster. An undead who employs no strategy when fighting, and won't even attack unless the party interferes with them? Might as well have them fight blind pillow golems. Where I think these monsters can play an interesting role is first to set a scene and second as a role playing opportunity.

As the party uncovers a body hunched writing in a storage room in the sealed tomb they are exploring they realize that the workers here were sealed in. By seeing this scribe from when the tomb was built, they can see the place "in action" and have the dungeon be more than a stupid dungeon crawl. In addition, the party now has to decide what they want to do with the scribe. Do they leave it unmolested to continue its work forever? Do they kill it to let it rest, or because of some duty they feel against the undead? Maybe an evil priest binds them to their will, and uses its to untraceably kill an important figure. Whatever ends up happening hopefully you have managed to get your players to interact with the dungeon, world, and game meaningfully without nessesarily resorting to combat.

For stats, I would only give these creatures a few hit points, and fairly terrible AC. Their attacks should be harmless except for their psychological damage which I would represent as Charisma or Personality damage. Perhaps 1d4, save to 1 point. If in an enclosed area with them for over an hour I would probobly have the party make saves or suffer the same effect.

I think that these monsters work best nesseled in dungeons where they provide an explenation to the surrounding area, however here a few ideas for encountering them sort of ramdomly:

1.) A small cottage whose only inhabitant was a lonely writer who died of a stroke. She spends every day cleaning her house and then sits in front of her book for a 12 hour and writes one sentence. All of the books in the house have been written to completion,  and then written over again to make the text all but unreadable. If a character can somehow decider what the author wrote after their death they can gain a small talent at writing dark poetry in exchange for a point of Charisma perminatly.
2.) While walking, the party notices that some of the ground sounds hollow when stepped on. If investigated, they will find a trap door which leads to a buried prison room with one in habbitant. The corpse only rocks back and forth wispering nonsense go itself as it did in its final days before starving.
3.) The party comes across a still part of the forest where no animals come. There is a dead tree with a broken rope tied to a branch, and a corpse with a noose arround it's neck lying on the ground. The corpse will get up and walk to a nearby stump, preparing a painless poison before drinking it and trying to hang itself again, repeating it's last day over and over again.
4.) Overlooking a once beautiful place a corpse in robes is sitting cross legged. The monk was paralyzed by venom before sitting down and dying. No one has found his body until now with the players.
5.) An ancient wizard was cursed to read stone tablets till they died of starvation. Somehow the party comes across the wizards corpse still reading the magical writing.
6.) A flying ship with all of its rigging and sails destroyed. The crew is now just corpses who uselessly man the destroyed rigging. The characters will have to act quickly in order to board the ship before it drifts away. (I actually like this one a lot and want to write a one page dungeon about it)

Yes I know I never gave them a name