Zombie

Zombies are an undead creature, usually humans who have risen from the grave, though sometimes can be magically controlled people or animals.

The term zombies originally come from the Haitian "zombis" created by paralyzing a victim with poison sending them into a death like trance. Once layer out for a certain period the spell caster could make the person come back and do simple commands.

Later zombies came to mean undead people, who literally came back from the dead, rotting and eating human flesh. Typically they are slow, but unnaturally strong. It is variable if they are intelligent or not. In H.P. Lovecraft's story Herbert West, Reanimator the main character Herbert West attempts to bring back humans with a special serum. This leads to zombie like creatures who eventually kill him. In popular media recently stronger faster zombies have been more present, while slower zombies are more comedic. Some zombies are also portrayed with special powers, extreme strength, acidic spit, etc.

In the Mythos

Death in the mythos is not always the barrier it seems. Often a strong willed person can keep their consciousness in their dead body or possess other's bodies. Herbert West created zombie like monsters with failed medical experiments, and Joseph Curwen resurrects bodies with the "essential salts" of the dead. However zombies feature in mythos stories more explicitly as well.

Robert Bloch imagines a sorcerer who's body parts crawl around to murder it's killer. Robert E. Howard's voodoo related story Pigeons from Hell where a woman has become a zuvembie a far worse version of the voodoo zombi. Howard also features zombie like vampires in his Solomon Kane story The Hills of the Dead.

Zombies also appear in many, many Call of Cthulhu scenarios. Too many to list.

Many spells exist in the Mythos to create zombies.

• Black Binding

Controllable grave born zombie. Costs 16mp and 1D6 San to cast. The caster pours a ritual liquid over a corpse or into a grave. After a week the caster returns to the body or grave and intones the Black Binding. After a half hour the zombie claws its way out. The caster can control it and it continues to rots as normal.

• Bind Soul

A soul is trapped and the body can be turned into a simple zombie.

• Create Zombi

Turns a living human into a zombi. Costs 10mp and 4 San. -The magician or bokor paralyzes their victim by making them inhale the powder (POT 25 poison) made from blowfish innards and alkaloids. The target falls into a trance that is indistinguishable from death. They are still conscious but cannot move. -The bokor then buries the person alive in a coffin a tube is inserted so they can breath. For every hour the person must make a San roll or lose 1D6 San. If they go insane they accept the will of the bokor to dispel the terror. -Thee nights later the bokor comes back and casts the spell. They must make a Pow v. Pow if the victim hasn't already been broken. If the spell succeeds the target is stripped down to 1 Pow and they can be controlled as a zombi by the bokor. If the spell fails the sorcerer can just cover the breathing tube and leave the victim to suffocate.

• Create Zombie

Creates a zombie from a corpse. Cost 1D10 San and 1 Pow. The caster puts an ounce of their blood into the mouth of the corpse, kisses the lips of the corpse and “breathes part of the self” into the body. This is when the Pow is lost. If the spell succeeds the caster may give the zombie simple commands. If the caster dies the zombie become inactive and rots. Part of the invocation refers to the Outer Gods.

• Create Heart Seeker or Seek Heart

Quickens and makes a corpse seek out a fresh heart to replace it's own. Costs 6 San and 8 mp. They must be withing a 100 yards and see the corpse to cast it. The corpse has to be drained of blood and the heart removed. This preparation takes 1D3 hours. The corpse jumps up and runs to find the closest human target and tries to rip the victim's heart out and place it in it's own chest. It stands in ecstasy before collapsing and rotting away. The spell lasts the corpses Str+Con+Pow in minutes. If it fails the corpse laments and decays.

Once a zombie is created a magician might use the spell Eyes of the Zombie to personally control the zombie. Each cast costs 3 mp and 15 San, and is effective for 1D3 months. The eyes of the zombie are removed and put in a chemical bath, the casters eyes are also removed and stored for safety. Then the zombie's eyes are placed in the caster's sockets. They murmur a phrase and they can directly control the zombie body. Replacing the eyes takes a reversal spell.

• Spells from 5.5 Call of Cthulhu rulebook

Y'm-bhi

Y'm-bhi: "Zamacona... observed the more manlike shapes that toiled along the furrows, and felt a curious fright and disgust toward certain of them whose motions were more mechanical than those of the rest. These, Gll'-Hthaa-Ynn explained, were what men called the y'm-bhi - organisms which had died, but which had been mechanically reanimated for industrial purposes by means of atomic energy and thought-power. The slave-class did not share the immortality of the freemen of Tsath, so that with time the number of y'm-bhi had become very large. They were dog-like and faithful, but not so readily amenable to thought-commands as were living slaves. Those which most repelled Zamacona were those whose mutilations were greatest; for some were wholly headless, while others had suffered singular and seemingly capricious subtractions, distortions, transpositions, and graftings in various places. The Spaniard could not account for this condition, but Gll'-Hthaa-Ynn made it clear that these were slaves who had been used for the amusement of the people in some of the vast arenas; for the men of Tsath were connoisseurs of delicate sensation, and required a constant supply of fresh and novel stimuli for their jaded impulses...."
— H.P. Lovecraft and Zelia Bishop, "The Mound (fiction)"

Y'm-bhi are a specific form of zombie raised up by the super-science of K'n-yan, using a combination of atomic energy, hypnotism, medical/chemical/biological science, biomechanics, and perhaps even a little sorcery. The People of K'n-yan are skilled at raising such creatures for various purposes, particularly slave labor, to which the Y'm-bhi are driven via telepathic commands issued daily; there is seemingly no condition, deterioration, mutilation, or modification of the body so extreme that it would prevent the corpse from being raised to some shocking and mind-shattering semblance of reanimation, perhaps supplemented by an ethereal/ghostly component replacing the mind and head of the thing that has been reanimated; in one particularly extreme and perhaps unreliable report, a Y'm-bhi was thus raised in a condition in which the organic head, arms, and lower legs had been amputated to satisfy the monstrous amusement and revenge of the citizenry of Tsath, leaving only an animated, mutilated, trunk to somehow serve as a sentry or guard, while walking upon bloody stumps and observing with ghostly eyes....