There is nothing wrong with going by what's written, and equally, there's nothing wrong with deciding how it works in your world regardless what's written. The sources explicitly encourage deviating from what's written.
This premise of this topic is not one that people can definitively answer for others but only for themselves. One person's justification in their setting does not mean another person's justification in another setting is wrong even if the setting's foundation is the same between the two.
In the end, the person who is running the campaign gets to decide. It's better to accept the setting as defined by the GM for in-world roleplay than cause an IRL ruckus over IRL philosophies.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Something else worth mentioning is that in 5E the vast majority or undeads are of evil alignment, even mindless ones such as skeletons and zombies.
So animating corpses even as work labor involve creating more evil creature to this world, not something many laws or rulers may be tolerant with.
This is another reason why alignment is a silly mechanic. Undead without intelligence should be treated as "unaligned" just like constructs and beasts.
In this edition ''Undeads are once-living creatures brought to a horrifying state of undeath through the practice of necromantic magic or some unholy curse.''
They're evil in nature and ''Creating the undead through the use of necromancy spells such as animate dead is not a good act'''
Animate Dead says ''Your spell imbues the target with a foul mimicry of life, raising it as an undead creature."'
After being animated ''The zombie advances, driven to kill anyone too slow to escape its grasp.''
And finally ''The magic animating a zombie imbues it with evil, so left without purpose, it attacks any living creature it encounters.''
It is this kind of thing that is driving WotC to separate the lore of Forgotten Realms from the rules. People like to use it to mandate how other worlds and settings should be.
Its not new D&D generic lore rules have baselines for monsters or magic which are often changed in some worlds and settings to be handled differently. EBERRON and DARKSUN are prime exemples.
That is true, but then people read those quotes and used them to argue that it applies to a homebrew setting just like your post did.
If the Lore quoted is universally true then it can't be changed in each setting, if it isn't universally true and can vary by setting, then your quotes become irrelevant to the topic.
My belief is that the Lore isn't universal but too many people try to use it as if it were.
Something else worth mentioning is that in 5E the vast majority or undeads are of evil alignment, even mindless ones such as skeletons and zombies.
So animating corpses even as work labor involve creating more evil creature to this world, not something many laws or rulers may be tolerant with.
This is another reason why alignment is a silly mechanic. Undead without intelligence should be treated as "unaligned" just like constructs and beasts.
In this edition ''Undeads are once-living creatures brought to a horrifying state of undeath through the practice of necromantic magic or some unholy curse.''
They're evil in nature and ''Creating the undead through the use of necromancy spells such as animate dead is not a good act'''
Animate Dead says ''Your spell imbues the target with a foul mimicry of life, raising it as an undead creature."'
After being animated ''The zombie advances, driven to kill anyone too slow to escape its grasp.''
And finally ''The magic animating a zombie imbues it with evil, so left without purpose, it attacks any living creature it encounters.''
It is this kind of thing that is driving WotC to separate the lore of Forgotten Realms from the rules. People like to use it to mandate how other worlds and settings should be.
Its not new D&D generic lore rules have baselines for monsters or magic which are often changed in some worlds and settings to be handled differently. EBERRON and DARKSUN are prime exemples.
That is true, but then people read in the PHB those quotes and used them to argue that it applies to a homebrew setting just like your post did.
Something else worth mentioning is that in 5E the vast majority or undeads are of evil alignment, even mindless ones such as skeletons and zombies.
So animating corpses even as work labor involve creating more evil creature to this world, not something many laws or rulers may be tolerant with.
This is another reason why alignment is a silly mechanic. Undead without intelligence should be treated as "unaligned" just like constructs and beasts.
In this edition ''Undeads are once-living creatures brought to a horrifying state of undeath through the practice of necromantic magic or some unholy curse.''
They're evil in nature and ''Creating the undead through the use of necromancy spells such as animate dead is not a good act'''
Animate Dead says ''Your spell imbues the target with a foul mimicry of life, raising it as an undead creature."'
After being animated ''The zombie advances, driven to kill anyone too slow to escape its grasp.''
And finally ''The magic animating a zombie imbues it with evil, so left without purpose, it attacks any living creature it encounters.''
It is this kind of thing that is driving WotC to separate the lore of Forgotten Realms from the rules. People like to use it to mandate how other worlds and settings should be.
Its not new D&D generic lore rules have baselines for monsters or magic which are often changed in some worlds and settings to be handled differently. EBERRON and DARKSUN are prime exemples.
That is true, but then people read in the PHB those quotes and used them to argue that it applies to a homebrew setting just like your post did.
Something else worth mentioning is that in 5E the vast majority or undeads are of evil alignment, even mindless ones such as skeletons and zombies.
So animating corpses even as work labor involve creating more evil creature to this world, not something many laws or rulers may be tolerant with.
This is another reason why alignment is a silly mechanic. Undead without intelligence should be treated as "unaligned" just like constructs and beasts.
In this edition ''Undeads are once-living creatures brought to a horrifying state of undeath through the practice of necromantic magic or some unholy curse.''
They're evil in nature and ''Creating the undead through the use of necromancy spells such as animate dead is not a good act'''
Animate Dead says ''Your spell imbues the target with a foul mimicry of life, raising it as an undead creature."'
After being animated ''The zombie advances, driven to kill anyone too slow to escape its grasp.''
And finally ''The magic animating a zombie imbues it with evil, so left without purpose, it attacks any living creature it encounters.''
It is this kind of thing that is driving WotC to separate the lore of Forgotten Realms from the rules. People like to use it to mandate how other worlds and settings should be.
Its not new D&D generic lore rules have baselines for monsters or magic which are often changed in some worlds and settings to be handled differently. EBERRON and DARKSUN are prime exemples.
That is true, but then people read in the PHB those quotes and used them to argue that it applies to a homebrew setting just like your post did.
Im not arguing anyone homebrew world each is free to run differently than how the games presents it, which is what i have been discussing since the begining.
If poeple in their own homebrewed world wants zombies to not be evil and animate dead to not be viewed as not being a good act they sure can. If they come ak for others opinions about it, its normal to rely on the generic lore of D&D to make our own opinions and give it. We do not known the lore of the OPs own homebrewed world on undeads and animate dead.
Im not arguing anyone homebrew world each is free to run differently than how the games presents it, which is what i have been discussing since the begining.
If poeple in their own homebrewed world wants zombies to not be evil and animate dead to not be viewed as not being a good act they sure can. If they come ak for others opinions about it, its normal to rely on the generic lore of D&D to make our own opinions and give it. We do not known the lore of the OPs own homebrewed world on undeads and animate dead.
If the Lore quoted is universally true then it can't be changed in each setting, if it isn't universally true and can vary by setting, then your quotes become irrelevant to the topic.
My belief is that the Lore isn't universal but too many people try to use it as if it were.
BTW, If I am mischaracterizing your stance then I apologize, but we have seen many threads over past year with people fighting over lore and the changes WotC is making to lessen the impact it has on the way people play at their own tables. I am all for making it abundantly clear that the lore presented is just an example and not the rule.
Im not arguing anyone homebrew world each is free to run differently than how the games presents it, which is what i have been discussing since the begining.
If poeple in their own homebrewed world wants zombies to not be evil and animate dead to not be viewed as not being a good act they sure can. If they come ak for others opinions about it, its normal to rely on the generic lore of D&D to make our own opinions and give it. We do not known the lore of the OPs own homebrewed world on undeads and animate dead.
If the Lore quoted is universally true then it can't be changed in each setting, if it isn't universally true and can vary by setting, then your quotes become irrelevant to the topic.
My belief is that the Lore isn't universal but too many people try to use it as if it were.
How i see it the generic D&D lore and rules are universally true but anything in the game can be changed if the DM want his homebrewed campaignn world to deviate from it. Like anything else, they provide a ground foundation for us to build off of it or use as is.
Im not arguing anyone homebrew world each is free to run differently than how the games presents it, which is what i have been discussing since the begining.
If poeple in their own homebrewed world wants zombies to not be evil and animate dead to not be viewed as not being a good act they sure can. If they come ak for others opinions about it, its normal to rely on the generic lore of D&D to make our own opinions and give it. We do not known the lore of the OPs own homebrewed world on undeads and animate dead.
If the Lore quoted is universally true then it can't be changed in each setting, if it isn't universally true and can vary by setting, then your quotes become irrelevant to the topic.
My belief is that the Lore isn't universal but too many people try to use it as if it were.
How i see it the generic D&D lore and rules are universally true but anything in the game can be changed if the DM want his homebrewed campaignn world to deviate from it. Like anything else, they provide a ground foundation for us to build off of it or use as is.
I think we are mostly on the same page at this point.
Id add that even within the same campaign setting there can be places where its unethical to make use of undeads but where other part of the same world are okay with using them as work labor or soldiers, such as Karnath in EBERRON or Zhentil Keep in FORGOTTEN REALMS. It can thus depend of many factors to determine this question of ethics.
Curiosity that might be relevant to this thread. I know skeletons and zombies are in the MM, but I'm wondering if there are any undead in MMM who've changed lore wise to make them a bit more morally/ethically agnostic so the question is efficiently answered "depends on your world" rather than this pinhead upon which folks are trying to dance angelically?
Basically are there undead in MMM that are described in more nuanced terms than the evil brush with which they generally get painted in Volos and MToF? The answer doesn't "settle" the ongoing ethics lists folks seem set on contending; but it would point to the rules wishing to have the world building be the deciding tool instead of bestiary text precedent.
Curiosity that might be relevant to this thread. I know skeletons and zombies are in the MM, but I'm wondering if there are any undead in MMM who've changed lore wise to make them a bit more morally/ethically agnostic so the question is efficiently answered "depends on your world" rather than this pinhead upon which folks are trying to dance angelically?
Basically are there undead in MMM that are described in more nuanced terms than the evil brush with which they generally get painted in Volos and MToF? The answer doesn't "settle" the ongoing ethics lists folks seem set on contending; but it would point to the rules wishing to have the world building be the deciding tool instead of bestiary text precedent.
I haven't checked for this in particular, but MMM seems to be less 'changing' lore and more making things lore agnostic. They might remove some bits like evil alighments, but I don't think the book really introduces 'new' lore, at best it might just omit some lore pushing undead toward evil. When I get home I could try doing a bit of browsing through the book to see though.
Separate from the ethical questions, is it even practical to use the undead as a labor force? Real corpses don't generally last very long, D&D undead are apparently more durable but still tend to spend most of their time sitting around waiting for adventurers, so if you used them for labor they might fall apart pretty quickly, and the corpse supply doesn't replenish all that fast.
Separate from the ethical questions, is it even practical to use the undead as a labor force? Real corpses don't generally last very long, D&D undead are apparently more durable but still tend to spend most of their time sitting around waiting for adventurers, so if you used them for labor they might fall apart pretty quickly, and the corpse supply doesn't replenish all that fast.
I suppose there are questions. How do you control them? Is it a device that directs them with magical commands? Wizards casting spells? What prevents the wrong person from getting control of the undead, regardless of whatever mechanism is being used to direct them? An undead labor force could very quickly become an undead army in the wrong hands, even putting aside ethical and sanitation concerns.
Separate from the ethical questions, is it even practical to use the undead as a labor force? Real corpses don't generally last very long, D&D undead are apparently more durable but still tend to spend most of their time sitting around waiting for adventurers, so if you used them for labor they might fall apart pretty quickly, and the corpse supply doesn't replenish all that fast.
Thank you for the inspiration. I will see if I can do some calculations to see if it even is useful.
First instinct would be that is would be, just because of how easily you can get undead. People require lots of work to hire, plus money to pay. Undead take a single 3rd level spell each day per undead. But I'm really not sure...
Separate from the ethical questions, is it even practical to use the undead as a labor force? Real corpses don't generally last very long, D&D undead are apparently more durable but still tend to spend most of their time sitting around waiting for adventurers, so if you used them for labor they might fall apart pretty quickly, and the corpse supply doesn't replenish all that fast.
Thank you for the inspiration. I will see if I can do some calculations to see if it even is useful.
First instinct would be that is would be, just because of how easily you can get undead. People require lots of work to hire, plus money to pay. Undead take a single 3rd level spell each day per undead. But I'm really not sure...
Keep in mind that paying a cleric or wizard to stick around and upkeep the undead might not be cheap in and of itself. These wizards and clerics could have other opportunities to pursue rather than spending their time playing overseer to undead laborers. For animate dead you're looking at at least a fifth level spell caster. In most cases I think if you have enough skilled casters around to maintain this undead work force via animate dead you're probably going to spend more on keeping them around than you would need for peasant laborers.
This is just me, but I'd probably also rule you need the caster there overseeing things, I wouldn't let you just give them a days worth of instructions and then leave. Meaning it would be a full time job for the casters involved.
It might be more feasible if some sort of artifact is being used to raise and control the dead, but that then has safety concerns of if it's lost/damaged/falls into the wrong hands.
First instinct would be that is would be, just because of how easily you can get undead. People require lots of work to hire, plus money to pay. Undead take a single 3rd level spell each day per undead. But I'm really not sure...
Getting a third level spell cast costs way more than the 2 sp or so of labor a zombie or skeleton can do in a day.
First instinct would be that is would be, just because of how easily you can get undead. People require lots of work to hire, plus money to pay. Undead take a single 3rd level spell each day per undead. But I'm really not sure...
Getting a third level spell cast costs way more than the 2 sp or so of labor a zombie or skeleton can do in a day.
Might depend on the nature of the labour? If it is a particularly hazardous mining operation, for example, or recovering something from the ocean floor?
There's usually something better suited to the problem. Zombies and skeletons are extremely unimpressive.
Depends on the situation you're trying to deal with. For underwater work, water breathing is a ritual so you can send a work squad of a hundred people down in place of a single zombie. For hazardous stuff, zombies and skeletons are too stupid to do anything much complicated without direct supervision, and if you can get someone down there to supervise you probably don't need the creature in the first place, though you don't get particularly superior fetch creatures until 4th level when you can get elementals.
Yeah it is odd to have everything be completely agnostic until the setting applies it's stance.
I think it's ok to have some things have a default state like fiends, celestials, undead, and constructs.
Everything else can be neutral imo
There is nothing wrong with going by what's written, and equally, there's nothing wrong with deciding how it works in your world regardless what's written. The sources explicitly encourage deviating from what's written.
This premise of this topic is not one that people can definitively answer for others but only for themselves. One person's justification in their setting does not mean another person's justification in another setting is wrong even if the setting's foundation is the same between the two.
In the end, the person who is running the campaign gets to decide. It's better to accept the setting as defined by the GM for in-world roleplay than cause an IRL ruckus over IRL philosophies.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
That is true, but then people read those quotes and used them to argue that it applies to a homebrew setting just like your post did.
If the Lore quoted is universally true then it can't be changed in each setting, if it isn't universally true and can vary by setting, then your quotes become irrelevant to the topic.
My belief is that the Lore isn't universal but too many people try to use it as if it were.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Im not arguing anyone homebrew world each is free to run differently than how the games presents it, which is what i have been discussing since the begining.
If poeple in their own homebrewed world wants zombies to not be evil and animate dead to not be viewed as not being a good act they sure can. If they come ak for others opinions about it, its normal to rely on the generic lore of D&D to make our own opinions and give it. We do not known the lore of the OPs own homebrewed world on undeads and animate dead.
If the Lore quoted is universally true then it can't be changed in each setting, if it isn't universally true and can vary by setting, then your quotes become irrelevant to the topic.
My belief is that the Lore isn't universal but too many people try to use it as if it were.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
BTW, If I am mischaracterizing your stance then I apologize, but we have seen many threads over past year with people fighting over lore and the changes WotC is making to lessen the impact it has on the way people play at their own tables. I am all for making it abundantly clear that the lore presented is just an example and not the rule.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
How i see it the generic D&D lore and rules are universally true but anything in the game can be changed if the DM want his homebrewed campaignn world to deviate from it. Like anything else, they provide a ground foundation for us to build off of it or use as is.
I think we are mostly on the same page at this point.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Id add that even within the same campaign setting there can be places where its unethical to make use of undeads but where other part of the same world are okay with using them as work labor or soldiers, such as Karnath in EBERRON or Zhentil Keep in FORGOTTEN REALMS. It can thus depend of many factors to determine this question of ethics.
Curiosity that might be relevant to this thread. I know skeletons and zombies are in the MM, but I'm wondering if there are any undead in MMM who've changed lore wise to make them a bit more morally/ethically agnostic so the question is efficiently answered "depends on your world" rather than this pinhead upon which folks are trying to dance angelically?
Basically are there undead in MMM that are described in more nuanced terms than the evil brush with which they generally get painted in Volos and MToF? The answer doesn't "settle" the ongoing ethics lists folks seem set on contending; but it would point to the rules wishing to have the world building be the deciding tool instead of bestiary text precedent.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I haven't checked for this in particular, but MMM seems to be less 'changing' lore and more making things lore agnostic. They might remove some bits like evil alighments, but I don't think the book really introduces 'new' lore, at best it might just omit some lore pushing undead toward evil. When I get home I could try doing a bit of browsing through the book to see though.
They are all labeled as "Typically <alignment>" but I haven't read through the lore bits and compared them.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Separate from the ethical questions, is it even practical to use the undead as a labor force? Real corpses don't generally last very long, D&D undead are apparently more durable but still tend to spend most of their time sitting around waiting for adventurers, so if you used them for labor they might fall apart pretty quickly, and the corpse supply doesn't replenish all that fast.
I suppose there are questions. How do you control them? Is it a device that directs them with magical commands? Wizards casting spells? What prevents the wrong person from getting control of the undead, regardless of whatever mechanism is being used to direct them? An undead labor force could very quickly become an undead army in the wrong hands, even putting aside ethical and sanitation concerns.
Thank you for the inspiration. I will see if I can do some calculations to see if it even is useful.
First instinct would be that is would be, just because of how easily you can get undead. People require lots of work to hire, plus money to pay. Undead take a single 3rd level spell each day per undead. But I'm really not sure...
I am an average mathematics enjoyer.
>Extended Signature<
Keep in mind that paying a cleric or wizard to stick around and upkeep the undead might not be cheap in and of itself. These wizards and clerics could have other opportunities to pursue rather than spending their time playing overseer to undead laborers. For animate dead you're looking at at least a fifth level spell caster. In most cases I think if you have enough skilled casters around to maintain this undead work force via animate dead you're probably going to spend more on keeping them around than you would need for peasant laborers.
This is just me, but I'd probably also rule you need the caster there overseeing things, I wouldn't let you just give them a days worth of instructions and then leave. Meaning it would be a full time job for the casters involved.
It might be more feasible if some sort of artifact is being used to raise and control the dead, but that then has safety concerns of if it's lost/damaged/falls into the wrong hands.
Getting a third level spell cast costs way more than the 2 sp or so of labor a zombie or skeleton can do in a day.
There's usually something better suited to the problem. Zombies and skeletons are extremely unimpressive.
Depends on the situation you're trying to deal with. For underwater work, water breathing is a ritual so you can send a work squad of a hundred people down in place of a single zombie. For hazardous stuff, zombies and skeletons are too stupid to do anything much complicated without direct supervision, and if you can get someone down there to supervise you probably don't need the creature in the first place, though you don't get particularly superior fetch creatures until 4th level when you can get elementals.
Create Undead you could make Wights with a higher slot.
They are fairly intelligent and can control zombies for you.