Void Zombie

A void zombie arises when a humanoid dies from an akata's void death affliction. This walking corpse is animated by a larval akata attached to the deceased creature's brain, using a grotesque feeding tendril that emerges from the corpse's mouth to drink blood from its victims.

A void zombie typically exists for only a few months before it collapses and the larval akata crawls free from the motionless shell. When it feels the natural end of its unlife approaching, a void zombie finds a secluded place to vomit forth the nearly mature akata larva, then withers away. The disgorged larva metamorphizes into a full-grown akata several hours later, usually eating the corpse as its first meal.

The name "void zombie" is something of a misnomer; though still compelled by necromantic energies, a void zombie is a host in the life cycle of a parasitic alien, not a mindless, reanimated corpse (despite their similar appearances). The fact that a typical void zombie shares the neutral alignment of the larval akata within, rather than the intrinsically evil nature of other zombies, has caused some scholars to push to reclassify them under other names. Suggestions have included "void dead," "akata spawn," or "bloodwalker," but the visceral and compelling commonplace name has proven difficult to shed.

The driving force behind a void zombie's violence rises from the ravenous hunger of the alien parasite that serves as the channel for its animating negative energies. Necromancers have tried often to duplicate the void zombie, but without a larval akata hosted within, the result is simply a zombie with missing jaws or, at best, one that moves faster than normal. Others have compared a captive void zombie to a captive yellow musk thrall in an attempt to discover a potential link between the two- after all, both are animated bodies controlled by a parasitic outside force. Strangely, a void zombie becomes particularly violent when encountering a yellow musk thrall, making direct comparisons of the two creatures particularly difficult, or even dangerous. The fact that a void zombie, unlike a yellow musk thrall, is actually undead may hold some clues as to the source of this strange behavior.