Living Dead
Creatures with the living dead subtype exist in a liminal state between life and undeath, sustained by unnatural forces rather than normal biology.
This subtype costs 12 XP. A living dead creature gains the following:
- Treated as undead by all magical effects, except for mind-affecting effects, which treat it as its original type.
- Immune to disease, paralysis, poison, and sleep effects.
- Does not sleep but enters a deathlike trance for 2 hours per day, which counts as 8 hours of rest for regaining spells and daily abilities (as if by ring of sustenance).
- Do not need to breathe and are immune to suffocation, vacuum exposure, and inhaled poisons.
- Are healed by negative energy and harmed by positive energy, as if undead.
- Can be ressurected via effects that create undead if greater material components are spent. For example, Animate Dead cast on a living dead creature's corpse resurrects them as if by Raise Dead, Create Undead does so as if by Resurrection and Create Greater Undead does so as if by True Resurrection. Casting normal resurrection effects on a living dead brings them back as whatever race they were before becoming living dead.
Deathless Sustenance
Living dead creatures do not need food or drink but must fulfill a supernatural compulsion tied to their nature such as drinking blood for vampires, consuming corpses for ghouls, absorbing souls for liches, etc. Failing to fulfill the compulsion follows the same rules as starvation. A living dead can enter their deathlike trance and remain in that state indefinitely to pause these effects until they awaken, typically when alerted to the presence of something that could fulfill their compulsion.