Negative LA-Assignment : Resurrection, but no diamond here

[Beni-Kujaku]

Salt Mummy

You really can never be sure to be safe with criminals in the D&D world. It's hard enough to kill them, since rogues all have high Dex and can go in hiding before you can catch them, or escape any nonmagical prison, but even if you succeed, you're far from done. If the corpse is left to rot, it becomes a Mohrg. If they are killed while planning a coup, they become Sepulchral Thieves, and even if you bury the corpse properly, there's a chance there just happens to be a salt vein nearby, and you'll have a Salt Mummy on the loose in no time. Of course, since it's so easy, some evil clerics intentionally bury criminals in a salt-filled coffin in the hope of creating a Salt Mummy. To these clerics, I have something to say: Are ya stupid? It costs about 1000 gp in fine salt to fill such a coffin, and all that for a glorified zombie only marginally better than a simple skeleton bear, and definitely more expensive, even not counting the investment to reach the 24 equivalent turning levels necessary to control it. And what do you get for your effort? A self-healing undead dealing a few dehydration damage on each hit, and with none of the mummies' abilities.

- 12 Undead RHD, Medium size. Off to a great start. No reach, low BAB and middling HP are never good on a beatsticky monster.
- +16 Str, -2 Dex, no Con, -4 Int, +0 Wis, +6 Cha, total +16, +9 Natural armor. Wow, that's... Impressively bad. Similar or worse than a brown bear's stats (as a reminder, a 6 RHD animal rated here as worth 5 RHD). Strength doesn't do everything in a fight, and even less outside.
- Fast Healing 10, Unholy Toughness. That's actually good. These abilities give you some much needed durability.
- Dehydrating Impact (+4d6, Fort half, on each touch, including slam attacks). Just don't shake people's hand on the street.

The Salt Mummy doesn't have much going for it, especially not its type. I guess a Monk/Unarmed Swordsage could make it work, giving it 2 or 3 more attacks on which to put Dehydrating Impact. That said, this one ability will be useless if you use weapons, which is sad. 6 RHD, with the Undead immunities making the difference with the brown bear despite the lower BAB. DLA-4. The Salt Mummy really needs more BAB than it has.


I want to see a Salt Mummy with a red Santa cap, employed to dry people coming back from ski with snow-soaked clothes. Speaking of water, our next monster is the Sea Tiger! See you next time, and merry christmas to all!