Monster ecology: The Woman in Gauze
Though true undead aren’t quite a thing in Elysia, due to there being no true death, there exist races of monstergirls that nevertheless exemplify that sort of trope in their appearance and demeanor. One more traditionally known sort is the mummy. Found almost exclusively on the Isle of the Desert Queen, Mummies are zombie-like women wrapped head to toe in tight gauze, obscuring their features. Legend says that they are not a naturally occurring species, and that the first mummies are former adventurers that were cursed by the Desert Queen after disturbing her resting place long ago.
Unlike their zombie cousins, mummies are actually quite intelligent, with some having even formed settlements within the desert that interact and trade with the wider world. A common misconception is that they are slow and dim-witted like zombies, but the truth is that mummies who have these traits are typically either newly turned, or have gone too long without feeding. Mummies feed on fluids and spirit energy, which rejuvenates them and allows them to function like any other living being, but if they go too long without sustenance they will revert to a more zombie-like state. You can tell a mummy’s condition by examining the gauze wrapped around them, which oddly despite being cloth appears to be a part of their body. A healthy mummy will have fairly loosely-fit gauze that they seem to be able to manipulate like clothes, often wrapping them in a way to accentuate their features and entice potential mates that will keep them fed, while a hungering mummy’s wrappings will be tight against their bodies, further inhibiting their movements.
Unusual for other monstergirl species, mummies are only created through a special ritual performed at the time of a person’s defeat. Before their body dissipates into spirit energy, a high level spell is cast to bind their respawn point to a sarcophagus. The spirit is then released, where it will begin reforming, and the ritualist will begin encasing the body as it reforms in gauze wrappings. These wrappings are covering in hieroglyphs that will bind them to the host, using their own spirit energy to turn them into a mummy. Once the new mummy awakens, they will be in a hungering state due to the transformation’s toll on their own spirit energy, but the ritualist will typically provide their first “meal”. A hungering mummy is driven only by their need to feed, but a sated mummy is, besides being clothed in their wrappings, more or less indistinguishable from a normal human.