D&D 30-Day Challenge: Day 15- Favorite Undead

This one's easy.  Vampires can be cool, but can be overdone.  The lich is awesome, but so powerful many parties may never come close to being able to face one.  My favorite undead?

Skeletons.

Before I ever played D&D, I saw movies with awesome Ray Harryhausen skeletons.  In fact, to this day, most of the skeletons in my games are basically those same Harryhausen skeletons, similarly armed and equipped.  I think the folks who write those neat Lost Worlds combat books felt the same way.  The Skeleton is visually cool, it's got (in most editions) a resistance to cutting and slashing weapons, can be employed in mass groups, and is the first undead a Cleric can become powerful enough to just dust outright.  I love 'em.

The skeleton is visually unnerving, it's most definitely an unnatural representative of death slogging toward you with a rusty scimitar.  They have no fear, no morale checks, they just won't stop.  The will keep coming until you smash them to dust or they kill you.  Period.  Relentless, tireless, remorseless.  Skeletons.

If you ever get the chance, REF5 Lords of Darkness has really good treatments of many common undead, and the fiction on Skeletons by Deborah Christian is pretty darn cool.  I highly recommend it.