Dread Ram
Image by Wayne Reynolds, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed at the Ghostwalk Art Gallery here
[Ghostwalk is another 3rd edition era book that seems to have been mostly forgotten. Part of that is timing--it was the last 3.0 book, released the same month as the 3.5 Player’s Handbook. It’s also decidedly high concept--it’s a campaign setting where ghosts continue to adventure after death, gaining levels in ghost classes that improve their undead abilities but are lost if they get brought back to life. Weirdly, of the 17 stat blocks for monsters in the book, 5 of them are CR 3. The dread ram is better balanced than some (at least it doesn’t do no-save Constitution drain like the necroplasm does). But it’s not even the only CR 3 undead in the book designed to be used as a mount! The spectral steed also fills the exact same niche, only for incorporeal creatures (like PC ghosts). Weird.]
Dread Ram CR 4 CE Undead This rotting hulk has the body of a ram the size of a rhinoceros. Its head is a ram’s skull, green flames licking through the eye sockets and out of its mouth.
Dread rams are walking testaments to the power of Orcus, the Prince of Undeath. Each one captures unholy power to act as a shrine in Orcus’ honor, empowering the undead wherever they go. They are not created spontaneously except on Orcus’ layer of the Abyss; almost all of them are borne of the intentional creation by devotees of Orcus. They are sometimes used as mounts by wicked clerics, necromancers, or undead warriors.
A dread ram is of limited intelligence, able to speak in Abyssal and usually uttering devotions to Orcus, threats to other creatures or sycophantic praise of their master. They yearn to lash out in bone-crushing violence, and will attack the living unless specifically ordered to do otherwise. They make for excellent battlefield control, scattering foes with their auras of doom and breath weapons, then shoving those that remain into tactically disadvantageous positions with bull rush attacks.
A dread ram can be created by a worshiper of Orcus using a create undead spell at CL 14th. The process requires additional material components of 4 flasks of unholy water and 100 gp worth of silver dust.