Undead Index

Not to Be Confused with The Living Dead, which is about living actors portraying corpses. Not to be confused with Back from the Dead. Generally unrelated to Undead Horse Tropes.

Overlaps with Death Tropes, Dead Body Index, and Skeletal Tropes.

Assorted creature and character tropes:

• Attractive Zombie: A zombie that is good-looking in spite of being an undead corpse.
• Calacas: Skeletons representing the dead in Mexican culture.
• Chinese Vampire: Vampires from Chinese folklore and mythology.
• Chummy Mummy: A mummy who's friendly.
• Cute Ghost Girl: A ghost who happens to be adorable.
• Dem Bones: Reanimated skeletons.
• Dracolich: Undead dragons.
• Eerie Anatomy Model: A scary- or spooky-looking anatomy model.
• Flesh Golem: A creature made of dead body parts.
• Frankenstein's Monster: A monster made from being sewn together from dismembered corpses.
• Friendly Ghost: A ghost who is nice.
• Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: A vampire who is good.
• Friendly Skeleton: A skeleton who is kind and usually funny.
• Friendly Zombie: A zombie who means no harm.
• Gashadokuro: A giant skeleton Youkai manifestation of those who died from famine or war.
• Ghastly Ghost: A ghost who's unpleasant in looks, demeanor, or both.
• Ghostly Animals: Undead animals without physical bodies.
• Ghost Pirate: Undead pirates.
• The Grim Reaper: The personification of death is often depicted as a cloak-wearing skeleton.
• Headless Horseman: A headless horse rider who haunts roadways and woods.
• Mummy: Preserved corpses wrapped in bandages who come back to life.
• Nazi Zombies: Undead Nazis.
• Necromancer: A sorcerer who has the power to raise the dead.
• Non-Human Undead: An undead being that was never human to begin with.
• Our Banshees Are Louder: A Celtic Portent of Doom in the form of a crying, or wailing, woman.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: The varying portrayals of ghosts in fiction.
• Our Ghouls Are Creepier: The inconsistent portrayals of ghouls in fiction.
• Our Liches Are Different: Undead sorcerers.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Vampires are depicted differently from how they are usually depicted in fiction.
• Our Wights Are Different: The often inconsistent portrayals of wights in fiction.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Zombies are depicted differently from how they are usually depicted in fiction.
• Plague Zombie: People become zombies from a virus.
• Raising the Steaks: Undead zombified animals.
• Revenant Zombie: A zombie that isn't just a mindless monster and still remembers who they were when they were alive.
• Robotic Undead: Robots that take inspiration from the undead.
• Seductive Mummy: An alluring mummy.
• Silly Spook: A ghost who acts goofy instead of scary.
• Skeletal Musician: Animated skeletons performing music.
• Stingy Jack: A folk tale about a pumpkin-headed trickster.
• Undead Abomination: An undead Eldritch Abomination.
• Undead Child: Children that have risen from their graves.
• Undead Fossils: Undead prehistoric animals.
• Vampire Doctor: Character who works in close contact with those they'd normally consider food.
• Vengeful Ghost: An angry spirit out for revenge from beyond the grave.
• Walking Ossuary: Skeletal undead created by cobbling together parts from multiple skeletons.

Assorted general tropes:

• Actually Not a Vampire: A person with vampire-like habits and traits is mistaken for being a real vampire.
• Animate Dead: Bringing the dead to life under your command.
• Big Boo's Haunt: Generic RPG "haunted house" level.
• Boy Meets Ghoul: Love that starts with an undead partner.
• Burn the Undead: Fire is effective at destroying undead.
• Came Back Wrong: Can be the reason for undeath.
• Cavalry of the Dead: Summoning undead soldiers to fight a common enemy.
• Chill of Undeath: Undead creatures with abnormally low body temperatures.
• Creepy Cemetery: An unusually scary cemetery with undead creatures abound.
• Dead All Along: A character turns out to have been deceased all along.
• The Dead Can Dance: Undead characters depicted as good dancers.
• Deceased and Diseased: Undead creatures portrayed as poisonous or filled with disease.
• The Disembodied: Can be argued to be a form of undeath.
• Duty That Transcends Death: A character so devoted to their cause, not even death stops them from fulfilling it.
• Eating Optional: They often have urges to feed despite not really needing to.
• Fate Worse than Death: Undeath in general is often depicted as this.
• Fearless Undead: Undead creatures with no sense of self-preservation.
• Fire Keeps It Dead: Burning corpses keeps them from becoming undead.
• Ghostly Death Reveal: A character's offscreen death is revealed by their appearance as a ghost later on
• Ghostly Chill: When haunted places get colder, your breath is visible.
• Ghostly Gape: The undead have black empty pits where their eyes and mouths would be.
• Glowing Eyelights of Undeath: Undead creatures with glowing eyes.
• Horror Hunger: An undead character who feels a supernatural and irresistible hunger for living humans.
• I Love the Dead: A person likes to have sex with dead bodies.
• The Jaywalking Dead: Zombies are dumb enough to walk into traffic and get run over.
• Level Drain: Something that causes the player to regress levels; common effect of undead enemies in RPGs.
• Maximum HP Reduction: Attacks that reduce the maximum number of Hit Points, not just their current amount; common effect of undead enemies in RPGs
• Mistaken for Undead: A person is mistaken for being a member of the undead.
• Mortality Grey Area: A character is considered to be neither alive nor dead, or both at once.
• Mummy Wrap: A mummy restrains people using their own bandages.
• Murder Into Malevolence: When murder victims become evil ghosts.
• The Necrocracy: Undead creatures ruling a kingdom.
• Necromantic: When a villain's motive is to revive a dead loved one.
• Oxymoronic Being: They are the "living dead", after all.
• Perpetual-Motion Monster: Despite often craving blood, braaains, Life Energy or other foods, the undead don't need to eat and can keep going until permanently killed.
• Possessing a Dead Body: A dead body (re)animated by an inhabiting demon or spirit.
• Precautionary Corpse Disposal: A setting or situation where anyone who dies will become a monster, or otherwise dangerous.
• Quieting the Unquiet Dead: Giving the undead a helping hand to pass on.
• Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain: The go-to method for killing zombies.
• Resurrected Romance: Love that continues with an undead partner.
• Resurrected Murderer: A homicidal human doesn't stay dead.
• Revive Kills Zombie: "White" magic and healing items harming undead creatures.
• Ridiculously Alive Undead: An undead creature does something that seems biological, such as eating or burping.
• Rise from Your Grave: When a person who is dead and buried turns out to be undead and has to claw their way out of their grave.
• Sliding Scale of Undead Regeneration: Some undead rot, others don't, and some can heal.
• Suicide by Sunlight: Vampires who kill themselves by waiting for dawn or walking straight into sunlight.
• Supernatural Light: Unnatural illumination.
• Turn Undead: Something that causes undead creatures to panic or be destroyed.
• Undead Barefooter: Undead characters with no footwear.
• Undead Counterpart: Undead variations of Mooks
• Undead Laborers: A pragmatic solution when "have undead" and "need unskilled workers" overlap
• Undeath Always Ends: Even the undead can die.
• Undeath Is Cheap: A character can be turned back from being undead to alive again.
• Undeathly Pallor: Undead creatures with pale skin.
• Vampire Dance: Vampires who love dancing.
• Vampire Hickey: When a vampire leaves their bite mark on a victim after feeding. Used for someone to find when they examine said victim and/or staying with the victim after they turn.
• Vampire Procreation Limit: Something that prevents a vampire population explosion.
• Vampires Are Sex Gods: Vampires are pretty hot.
• Warrior Undead: An undead creature that skillfully uses armour, tactics, fighting techniques and weaponry.
• Was Once a Man: Since the undead used to be alive, this means that they used to be human beings.
• Weakened by the Light: Most undead creatures, ranging from vampires to zombies, are weakened by sunlight.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Eternal undeath can be just as sucky as eternal life.
• Wight in a Wedding Dress: Undead creatures in wedding dresses.
• You Can't Kill What's Already Dead: Undead creatures with Nigh-Invulnerability.
• Zombie Puke Attack: Zombies are so gross they make each other sick.
• Zombify the Living: From living to undead without passing through dead first.