Salt Mummy

Salt mummies are preserved corpses of ancient humanoids who were accidentally buried too close to veins of white, brittle salt. Of course, salt alone is not sufficient to suffuse a body with undead vigor; often, such a creature has taken a great sin with it to its subterranean grave, the horror of which eventually creates a linkage to the Negative Energy Plane.

A salt mummy is usually encountered by miners working a new deposit. It appears at first to be nothing more than an old, salt-rimed corpse. If the miners continue to dig it out, eventually the mummy becomes animate and waits until it is almost dug free. The shuddering crack as a salt mummy breaks away from a salt vein is a dreadful thing to hear.

A salt mummy stands around 6 feet tall and weighs about 180 pounds.

Some salt mummies know Common, but many more know only the ancient language they spoke when living, a language now long dead.

In melee combat, a salt mummy delivers a powerful blow, but worse than that, its salt-encrusted body is supernaturally arid.

A salt mummy normally attacks using its Power Attack feat, taking a −5 penalty on its attack rolls and gaining a +5 bonus on damage rolls.

Dehydrating Impact (Su): Each time a salt mummy touches a living creature, the creature must make a DC 19 Fortitude save or take 4d6 points of damage as moisture is evaporated from its body. This impact is especially devastating to plants and creatures with the water subtype (such as water elementals), which take 4d8 points of damage. Even on a successful save, a creature still loses moisture, taking half damage. The save DC is Charisma-based.

Water Weakness: All water deals damage to a salt mummy as if it were holy water.

Unholy Toughness (Ex): A salt mummy gains a bonus to its hit points equal to its Charisma modifier × its Hit Dice.

Clerics of the Blood of Vol sometimes seal the corpses of slain assassins, corrupt officials, and criminals in caskets packed with salt in hopes of spurring the transformation of those corpses into salt mummies. Most salt mummies, however, are found underground⁠—​the remains of evil adventurers, goblinoids, and other humanoid creatures killed in Khyber and ravaged by the salt deposits.

Salt mummies haunt some of the larger salt caverns under Faerûn, most notably in the Buried Realms near the dwarf ruins of Tethyamar (under Anauroch), Deep Raurin (beneath the Raurin Desert), and the Darklands (especially near the troglodyte warrens of Traaskl Thorog, located under Chessenta).