1d66 Skeleton Varieties

11 Fresh and bloody. Newly-flayed, some vestiges of the previous owner's personality remain. Susceptible to suggestion and often show signs of disorientation and confusion.

12 Wearing its old flesh. Recently created. Scraped clean and clad in well-tailored clothing fashioned from their tanned skin.

13 Wearing someone else's meat. Sewn into the raw skin of another creature and walking around in it like a costume. Sometimes uses an animal's hide, but usually is a person-suit.

14 Carved. Decorated with deep patterns, pierced filigree, and sculptural details. More art pieces than enforcers, usually deployed as personal attendants and servants.

15 Scrimshawed. Etched with shallow patterns, pictures, and protective glyphs stained with lampblack. The etchings are extremely effective wardings that reflect local hazards and threats, usually self-administered.

16 Animal-headed. Normal in all respects except the skull has been replaced with one from a different creature. When the new skull is roughly the same size as a human's it's simply swapped, but much larger or smaller creatures' skulls are replicated as pieced and carved bone sculptures at the correct scale.

21 Mismatched. Collaged together from the assorted remnants of incomplete skeletons, scavenged bones, and adventurer aftermath. Ungainly and inelegant but extremely cost-efficient and self-repairing.

22 Veinous. A byproduct of creating traditional skeletons, composed entirely of braided veins. Move by hydrostatic pressure, monstrously strong.

23 Decalcified. Created by prolonged exposure to mild acid. Unsettlingly flexible and resilient, immune to blunt force trauma.

24 Multiple arms. Equipped with extra sets of limbs beyond original anatomical specifications. Range of motion and maneuverability is decreased due to crowding along the shoulders and spine, but: extra swords.

25 Armored. Encased in a permanently installed suit of plate and reinforced with bracketing to enhance their strength and structural integrity. Specialize in oversize weaponry, ultra-heavy draw bows, and hand to hand combat.

26 It's got a gun! Goofy but indiscriminate with terrible trigger discipline. An awful idea. Strictly regulated.

31 Sniper. Expertly camouflaged in any environment. Only fires on high value or predesignated targets. Takes pride in its work, but no joy.

32 Wizard. Made from mage bones. Skilled spellcasters and extremely intelligent. Must be created in cohort batches by combining the skeletons of multiple mages. If they have too large a proportion of bones from any one individual there's a risk their personality will re-assert itself and become an artificial lich.

33 Butler. Impeccably dressed, perfectly polished, poised, and prepared to accommodate any request. An indispensable fixture in any household of quality.

34 Gem-encrusted. Dripping with precious and semi-precious stones set in platinum and gold, hanging in strands or as pendants, and inlaid directly into the bone. Entirely status symbols. Sometimes imitated with rhinestones and cut glass.

35 Gilded. Coated in a thick later of pure gold. Impervious to the elements, decay, and corrosive chemicals.

36 Silvered. Plated in a thick layer of pure silver polished to a mirror shine. Immune to magic, supernatural entities, and high-energy beam weapons.

41 Beaded. Completely covered in ornate patterns of seed beads pressed into a thin layer of resin and wax. Extremely colorful. Usually created for festivals, holidays, and ceremonial duties.

42 Wax figure. Embedded inside a hyper-realistic wax sculpture of a living person. Having a face, even if it's not theirs, causes them to develop noticeable personalities and occasionally even become vain. Avoid fire and heat sources at all costs.

43 Lantern. Set with dozens of lit candles. Usually non-combatants assigned to patrol as sentries or with other skeletons. Move slowly and gracefully to avoid spilling wax.

44 Flame. Outfitted with fuel lines, sparkers, gas jets, and a central fuel tank mounted inside the ribcage. High quality specimens are coated with asbestos or refractory ceramic to prevent charring. Occasionally self-modify to have wrist or throat-mounted flamethrowers.

45 Prism. Cast in optical glass and ground into an array of lenses and refracting surfaces. Amplify the ambient light and light sources around them into a 60' zone of rainbow illumination that reveals invisible objects and creatures.

46 Clay. Entirely artificial constructs, sculpted to be faithful replicas of genuine skeletons but made of fired ceramic. More durable than bone models but harder to program.

51 Concrete. Manufactured skeleton substitutes, each bone cast in a concrete mixed using cremains and fine-ground bonemeal as aggregate. Reinforced with an internal rebar armature.

52 Fossil. Completely petrified, all their organic material replaced by quartz-rich stone. Too ancient to be intimidated by modern gods, immune to turning.

53 Opalized. Bones entirely replaced by precious opal. Create a zone of bad luck around them and in the areas they frequent. They don't talk on their own but sometimes speak true prophecy.

54 Haunted. Inlaid with obsidian and silver wards to trap spirits. Just a vessel for souls and not animate or mobile unless actively possessed.

55 Dancing. Fully focused on their partying and peaceful unless you bring the mood down. Everyone is welcome to join in the celebration.

56 Candied. Encased in a thick shell of crystallized sugar, shed shards when they move. Followed by hordes of ants.

61 Hive-host. Home to a colony of eusocial insects, carrying and protecting the hive inside their ribcage, skull, and marrow-channels. Bees, wasps, and hornets are common choices but other species like ants, termites, and social spiders are popular as well.

62 Ooze symbiote. Covered in an inch-thick layer of living ooze that selectively eats soft tissue and organic detritus. A spontaneous mutualistic relationship that forms in areas with high ooze populations. The skeleton carries the ooze to prey much faster than it could move on its own and gets protection in return.

63 Reef. Home to a thriving micro-ecosystem of corals, anemones, and the mobile species that make up a healthy reef. Imbued with an enchantment that makes the air 15' around them behave like water. Amphibious. Corals and anemones sting on contact.

64 Blooming. Intertwined with vines and foliage. Sometimes done purely for aesthetics but usually weaponized by choosing plants with thorns, caustic sap, irritating oils, or toxic and psychoactive pollen.

65 Electric. Wound with copper wire and capacitors. Always move in groups of at least three, one fitted with a tesla coil and the others with lighting rods.

66 Radioactive. The spine, skull, and all long bones are filled with ingots of metallic radioisotopes and drilled with holes to reduce shielding. They don't have a way to tell if they're close to reaching critical mass and need to be kept a safe distance from each other.