I see what you mean, but since the starting point was the old pictures, including those of the undead, I think they need to be there just the same. What is cliché too me though is mostly that these undead singelmindedly (?) attack and try to eat my brain. I think there are great possibilities to build tragedy and all sorts of interesting twists into the undead to make them fresh ( … figurately spoken that is ).Personally, I don't get excited about the undead, seems a trifle cliché these days. Weird monsters (including weird undead - the ruby core elves sound awesome) get me excited, but I won't be using any "traditional" zombies, animated skeletons, lich or vampires in any of my games.
Clark Ashton Smith is one of my old favourites in this. Read these short stories to see what I mean:
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/sh ... cy-in-naat
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/sh ... cromancers