# Zombie
You are a zombie, a rotting corpse animated by necromantic magic. Although most zombies are mindless brutes, you're a husk zombie, preserved through necromantic rites and alchemical reagents. The process worked especially well on you, and you retained your intelligence and identity to a far greater degree than other husk zombies.
It's not easy being a corpse. Your body continues to rot and putrefy, and the stench is ever present. Your old self keeps slipping away, more and more as the weeks pass by. Your reflexes have slowed, you're beginning to lose your sense of touch, and your emotions are dulling. As your body continues to decay, so too, does your mind. Your memory's not perfect, and although you haven't noticed any huge gaps or flaws yet, you have a feeling they're there somewhere.
Unlike your other senses, your hunger has intensified. You ceaselessly crave the raw flesh and brains of the living—the smarter the better—and satisfying this hunger is the only thing that makes you feel alive. When you eat, you're reinvigorated; feeling returns and the constant mental torpor you live under vanishes. You feel like yourself again... for a time.
One day you might be nothing more than a walking corpse, but for now, you retain your personality and your free will. Feeding your hunger might allow you to remain that way.
**Additional Feats** 4th [[Bashing Charge]], [[Combat Grab]], [[Crushing Grab]]; 14th [[Corpse Stench]]
## [[Zombie Dedication]] Feat 2
**Prerequisites** You died and were animated as a husk zombie
* * *
Despite your death and subsequent reanimation as a rotting corpse, you retain most of your mind and identity. Yet, it's always there: the hunger for the flesh and organs of the living. You gain the undead and zombie traits, and the basic undead benefits. Unlike a typical zombie, you're not mindless. Reduce all your Speeds by 5 feet. Your fist loses the nonlethal trait.
Because of its progressing state of decay, your body requires continual maintenance to remain at its best. Each day after your rest period, your body is deteriorated due to natural decay. Additionally, some zombie abilities allow you to push for a greater effect in exchange for a chance of deteriorating your body.
While your body is deteriorated, you're [[Slowed]]. You can spend 10 minutes checking and repairing your joints and other weak parts of your body to recover from deterioration. You can perform these repairs as part of your daily preparations. Because it's a natural result of your body's functions, you can't remove the slowed condition from deterioration through any other means.
You crave the flesh of the living. You gain a jaws unarmed attack that deals 1d8 piercing damage. Your jaws are in the brawling group and have the unarmed trait. You can use your jaws Strike only against a creature that's [[Grabbed]] or [[Restrained]] by you.
* * *
**Special** You can't select another dedication feat until you have gained two other feats from the zombie archetype.
## [[Ankle Biter]] Feat 4
**Prerequisites** Zombie Dedication
* * *
You fight just as well on the ground as you do standing up. While you are [[Prone]], you are always [[Take Cover|Taking Cover]] against ranged attacks, you ignore the status penalty on your attack rolls from being prone, and you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to Athletics checks to [[Trip]].
You can choose to move up to half your Speed when you [[Crawl]]. You can instead move up to your full Speed when you Crawl, but if you do, you must succeed at a @Check\[type:flat|dc:6\] or your body deteriorates.
## [[Feast]] Feat 4
**Prerequisites** Zombie Dedication
**Requirements** You are adjacent to a [[Restrained]] or [[Unconscious]] creature, or a deceased creature that died in the past hour.
* * *
You feast upon an adjacent restrained or unconscious creature, or a deceased creature that died in the past hour. If the creature is alive, you deal damage equal to your jaws damage. Whether it's alive or not, you gain a number of temporary Hit Points equal to half your level that last for 1 minute.
You can instead choose to gain temporary Hit Points equal to double your level, but if you do, you must succeed at a @Check\[type:flat|dc:6\] or your body deteriorates.
## [[Ravenous Charge]] Feat 4
**Prerequisites** Zombie Dedication
* * *
Hungry for the flesh of the living, you hurl yourself into the fray, teeth gnashing. You Stride. If you end your movement within melee reach of a living creature, you can make an Athletics check to [[Grapple]] that creature. If you succeed, you then make a jaws Strike against that creature.
## [[Brains!]] Feat 6
**Prerequisites** Feast
**Trigger** You Feast upon a humanoid's brain. The humanoid can't be mindless (or, if you're Feasting on a corpse, can't have been mindless while alive).
* * *
You consume the brains of your foe, causing synapses long rotten to fire and enabling you to shake off your mental torpor. You gain a +1 status bonus on skill checks to Recall Knowledge for 1 hour. If the humanoid had a higher modifier to the skill check you're using to Recall Knowledge than you do, the status bonus increases to +2.
## [[Numb]] Feat 6
**Prerequisites** Zombie Dedication
* * *
As your body continues to rot and putrefy, your senses deaden and your undead powers grow. You gain the [[Advanced Undead Benefits]] as well as a +1 circumstance bonus on saving throws against emotion and pain effects. While your body is deteriorated, your numbness amplifies in two ways: the circumstance bonus from this feat increases to +2, and if you roll a success on a saving throw against an emotion or pain effect, you get a critical success instead.
## [[Out of Hand]] Feat 8
**Prerequisites** Zombie Dedication
* * *
Even when your limbs are severed, they remain a part of you. When an arm is severed from your body, it gains the minion trait. While severed, your limb has the statistics of a familiar without any familiar or master abilities, except its Speed is 5 feet, it can't move further than 100 feet from you, it can Interact with things, and it can still make any unarmed Strikes it could have made while attached to you (usually a fist Strike). Any Strikes it makes share your multiple attack penalty and use your attack bonus and damage. If your arm is reduced to 0 HP or is ever more than 100 feet from you, it becomes inert until reattached. The GM might allow you to detach other limbs that have unarmed attacks using the below action (for example, if you're a tiefling with Form of the Fiend, giving you a tail unarmed attack).
You gain the [[Lay Down Arms]] action.
## [[Shamble]] Feat 8
**Prerequisites** Zombie Dedication
* * *
You may be slower than you were in life, but your pace is unfaltering. Stride twice, or three times if you spent 3 actions to Shamble. During this movement, you ignore difficult terrain and greater difficult terrain.
You can choose to ignore all circumstance and status penalties to your Speed when you Shamble. If you do, you must succeed at a @Check\[type:flat|dc:6\] when you finish Shambling or your body deteriorates.
## [[Unkillable]] Feat 8
**Prerequisites** Zombie Dedication
**Frequency** once per hour
**Trigger** You would be reduced to 0 HP.
* * *
You're relentless and nigh unkillable, shrugging off blows that should destroy you, though they might make your body start to fall apart. You are reduced to 1 HP instead of 0 HP. You must succeed at a @Check\[type:flat|dc:6\] or your body deteriorates.
## [[Festering Wounds]] Feat 12
**Prerequisites** Zombie Dedication
* * *
Wounds you inflict with your unarmed attacks fester and rot, becoming infected and difficult to heal. The DC to Treat these Wounds using Medicine increases by 5, and magically or alchemically healing these wounds requires a counteract check against your class DC or spell DC, whichever is higher. Succeeding at any of these removes the disease. The effect also ends if the creature is healed to full Hit Points by any means.
## [[Seize]] Feat 14
**Prerequisites** Zombie Dedication
**Requirements** Your last action was a successful fist Strike against a creature no more than one size larger than you.
* * *
You seize your foe and pull it close. The foe you hit is [[Grabbed]] as if you succeeded at an Athletics check to [[Grapple]] the foe.