Canonically being undead blocks spells such as resurrection, which implies that there's something about being undead that affects the soul, though it's not spelled out specifically. If you ignore that, a big ethical problem is that corpses are actually a pretty limited resource, and once you've got industries dependent on undead labor there's a temptation to ... augment ... your supply.
If the undead in question are mindless automatons, then no, it's not unethical.
IRL corpses have no mind at all, yet digging up graves to put the bodies to use is frowned upon.
Regardless of the circumstances of the undead, I beleve that a civilization with ethics similar to ours would find using humanoid undead for labor to be unethical. Unless the undead are not reanimated corpses but something more akin to a mindless necromantic elementals.
I'm not trying to be snarky here, but this isn't a RL question. In the world of D&D, corpses are animated frequently to fight for their master.
Why is giving them a shovel worse than giving them a sword?
Also, why is it not ok to force an non-intelligent animated humanoid corpse to labor for you, but it is ok to to make an non intelligent elemental work for you?
If the undead in question are mindless automatons, then no, it's not unethical.
IRL corpses have no mind at all, yet digging up graves to put the bodies to use is frowned upon.
Regardless of the circumstances of the undead, I beleve that a civilization with ethics similar to ours would find using humanoid undead for labor to be unethical. Unless the undead are not reanimated corpses but something more akin to a mindless necromantic elementals.
I'm not trying to be snarky here, but this isn't a RL question. In the world of D&D, corpses are animated frequently to fight for their master.
Why is giving them a shovel worse than giving them a sword?
Also, why is it not ok to force an non-intelligent animated humanoid corpse to labor for you, but it is ok to to make an non intelligent elemental work for you?
In the forgotten realm, creating undead is a generally evil thing to do. Giving undead a shovel is not worse than giving them a sword, but it isn't exactly better.
Why is it not ok to make a necklace of human fingers, but it is ok to use shiny rocks? Why is it not ok to eat human flesh, but using salt is fine? Maybe it is because humans don't like to think of humans as no better than rocks. Maybe.
Again, I personally don't care, but it is not the kind of thing that most of civilized society is cool with. I based my answers under the assumption that OP's setting had similar morals to ours or forgotten realm's. We weren't given any context to the contrary in the first post.
It is possible there would be a culture or society in which dead labor would be ok, similar to slavery. However, I would argue that it would be unlikely that the entire campaign world was this way.
Might be an interesting theme - Free The Dead...
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
It is possible there would be a culture or society in which dead labor would be ok, similar to slavery. However, I would argue that it would be unlikely that the entire campaign world was this way.
Might be an interesting theme - Free The Dead...
Zombie Liberation Front: rebels without a pulse.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
It is possible there would be a culture or society in which dead labor would be ok, similar to slavery. However, I would argue that it would be unlikely that the entire campaign world was this way.
Might be an interesting theme - Free The Dead...
Zombie Liberation Front: rebels without a pulse.
With a picket line chanting “The dead are for graves, not for slaves!”
The last group I put it through made it their mission to destroy the entire industry based off of that viewpoint. It was an interesting dilemma of conscious that drove them to push through the potentially overwhelming odds.
The last group I put it through made it their mission to destroy the entire industry based off of that viewpoint. It was an interesting dilemma of conscious that drove them to push through the potentially overwhelming odds.
Interesting. I mean, unless it's derailing your sessions, it should be fine that they're doing so even if it's "not intended" or whatever. If they think its unethical it doesn't matter what us commenters think.
It is possible there would be a culture or society in which dead labor would be ok, similar to slavery. However, I would argue that it would be unlikely that the entire campaign world was this way.
Might be an interesting theme - Free The Dead...
Zombie Liberation Front: rebels without a pulse.
With a picket line chanting “The dead are for graves, not for slaves!”
The dead have a right to a "living" wage and effective health care!
It is possible there would be a culture or society in which dead labor would be ok, similar to slavery. However, I would argue that it would be unlikely that the entire campaign world was this way.
Might be an interesting theme - Free The Dead...
Zombie Liberation Front: rebels without a pulse.
With a picket line chanting “The dead are for graves, not for slaves!”
The dead have a right to a "living" wage and effective health care!
It is possible there would be a culture or society in which dead labor would be ok, similar to slavery. However, I would argue that it would be unlikely that the entire campaign world was this way.
Might be an interesting theme - Free The Dead...
Zombie Liberation Front: rebels without a pulse.
With a picket line chanting “The dead are for graves, not for slaves!”
The dead have a right to a "living" wage and effective health care!
And death benefits!! And a dental plan!
End our dependency on the funerary industrial complex!
It is possible there would be a culture or society in which dead labor would be ok, similar to slavery. However, I would argue that it would be unlikely that the entire campaign world was this way.
Might be an interesting theme - Free The Dead...
Zombie Liberation Front: rebels without a pulse.
With a picket line chanting “The dead are for graves, not for slaves!”
The dead have a right to a "living" wage and effective health care!
And death benefits!! And a dental plan!
End our dependency on the funerary industrial complex!
Join the cause for postmortem rights! “Give us liberty, or give us brains!!”
In my setting, bandits may be claimed by the vanquishers and put to labor for a short period after they die in recompense for their crimes. My band of rangers just killed eighteen bandits with the help of the party. They are going to haul them in a cart back to their base where they will be put to work chopping down trees and digging ditches. Two of the six party members have expressed reservations about using these dead bandits this way. The Rangers simply say, hey, they were bandits. They owe us.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
I have a kingdom in my homebrew world where the undead exist along side the living and have all the same rights. Because the strange magical nature of the area, all undead retain their memories and personalities after the transition. Undead created outside this kingdom follow all the normal rules, it is just this one area that is unique. The laws there are very strictly enforced by the will of their Lich King.
Undead are not inherently evil. Originally mummies were good undead created as protectors.
Even in 5e, there are good undead: The city of Aerenal in Eberron has good undead, employed by the city. As does Baldur's Gate Descent into Avernus.
In D&D, undead get a bad rap because of soul mechanics - you cannot raise people if they are undead which means that being undead affects the soul, even if we are just talking about zombies. The strong implication is that it somehow imprisons your soul (preventing you from going to heaven) as well as prevents you from being resurrected.
While this makes for a good game rule, it implies a rather evil universe - you dies, you are done with the mortal world, leaving your body behind, but for some twisted reason you are still connected to it and if someone can use it to do some rather nasty things to you. Your god is powerless to protect you unless your body was properly disposed of. Good reason to be cremated.
But this is not clearly stated in the rules so one can argue that it is not true. I.E. One can decide that the undead state blocks your soul from leaving heaven, rather than imprisons you.
Given such a rule undead labor is not in any way evil, although it could be disgusting.
It is possible there would be a culture or society in which dead labor would be ok, similar to slavery. However, I would argue that it would be unlikely that the entire campaign world was this way.
Might be an interesting theme - Free The Dead...
Zombie Liberation Front: rebels without a pulse.
With a picket line chanting “The dead are for graves, not for slaves!”
The dead have a right to a "living" wage and effective health care!
And death benefits!! And a dental plan!
End our dependency on the funerary industrial complex!
Join the cause for postmortem rights! “Give us liberty, or give us brains!!”
”The dead are for graves, not for slaves!”
”The dead are for graves, not for slaves!”
Those poor skeletons, forced to work their fingers to the bone in that mine.
If you are one to not care about the individuals you raised and simply use them for your long-term goal, then no.
Others may tell you "You should leave their bodies to rest! They suffered long through life and now you make them suffer again!" but if you are more focused about the "Present Living", then no fame and glory of the deceased matters to you.
If you are to be a more kind Necromancer and you feel some guilt for waking the long dead soul from slumber, then converse with them, make a deal to work together and later put them back in the grave with a little gift. Or maybe you are a mix of cruel, yet kind, where you will raise quickly someone that just died to finish what they started and then release them, thus making them suffer just a few more minutes before death.
So, I would say it depends on how you'd play your character. There's no right from wrong.
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Canonically being undead blocks spells such as resurrection, which implies that there's something about being undead that affects the soul, though it's not spelled out specifically. If you ignore that, a big ethical problem is that corpses are actually a pretty limited resource, and once you've got industries dependent on undead labor there's a temptation to ... augment ... your supply.
I'm not trying to be snarky here, but this isn't a RL question. In the world of D&D, corpses are animated frequently to fight for their master.
Why is giving them a shovel worse than giving them a sword?
Also, why is it not ok to force an non-intelligent animated humanoid corpse to labor for you, but it is ok to to make an non intelligent elemental work for you?
It is a RL question in as much as the OP’s audience (the players) live in the real world, so gaging things from their perspective has merit.
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Well, of course RL people and their opinions are relevant.
I meant that in RL you can't animate corpses, so morality should be applied from the context of a world where it's possible.
In any art form, including collaborative storytelling, all things are measured from the perspective of the audience.
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In the forgotten realm, creating undead is a generally evil thing to do. Giving undead a shovel is not worse than giving them a sword, but it isn't exactly better.
Why is it not ok to make a necklace of human fingers, but it is ok to use shiny rocks? Why is it not ok to eat human flesh, but using salt is fine? Maybe it is because humans don't like to think of humans as no better than rocks. Maybe.
Again, I personally don't care, but it is not the kind of thing that most of civilized society is cool with. I based my answers under the assumption that OP's setting had similar morals to ours or forgotten realm's. We weren't given any context to the contrary in the first post.
It is possible there would be a culture or society in which dead labor would be ok, similar to slavery. However, I would argue that it would be unlikely that the entire campaign world was this way.
Might be an interesting theme - Free The Dead...
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Zombie Liberation Front: rebels without a pulse.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
With a picket line chanting “The dead are for graves, not for slaves!”
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
The last group I put it through made it their mission to destroy the entire industry based off of that viewpoint. It was an interesting dilemma of conscious that drove them to push through the potentially overwhelming odds.
Interesting. I mean, unless it's derailing your sessions, it should be fine that they're doing so even if it's "not intended" or whatever. If they think its unethical it doesn't matter what us commenters think.
I am an average mathematics enjoyer.
>Extended Signature<
The dead have a right to a "living" wage and effective health care!
And death benefits!! And a dental plan!
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
End our dependency on the funerary industrial complex!
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Join the cause for postmortem rights! “Give us liberty, or give us brains!!”
”The dead are for graves, not for slaves!”
”The dead are for graves, not for slaves!”
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
In my setting, bandits may be claimed by the vanquishers and put to labor for a short period after they die in recompense for their crimes. My band of rangers just killed eighteen bandits with the help of the party. They are going to haul them in a cart back to their base where they will be put to work chopping down trees and digging ditches. Two of the six party members have expressed reservations about using these dead bandits this way. The Rangers simply say, hey, they were bandits. They owe us.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
I have a kingdom in my homebrew world where the undead exist along side the living and have all the same rights. Because the strange magical nature of the area, all undead retain their memories and personalities after the transition. Undead created outside this kingdom follow all the normal rules, it is just this one area that is unique. The laws there are very strictly enforced by the will of their Lich King.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Undead are not inherently evil. Originally mummies were good undead created as protectors.
Even in 5e, there are good undead: The city of Aerenal in Eberron has good undead, employed by the city. As does Baldur's Gate Descent into Avernus.
In D&D, undead get a bad rap because of soul mechanics - you cannot raise people if they are undead which means that being undead affects the soul, even if we are just talking about zombies. The strong implication is that it somehow imprisons your soul (preventing you from going to heaven) as well as prevents you from being resurrected.
While this makes for a good game rule, it implies a rather evil universe - you dies, you are done with the mortal world, leaving your body behind, but for some twisted reason you are still connected to it and if someone can use it to do some rather nasty things to you. Your god is powerless to protect you unless your body was properly disposed of. Good reason to be cremated.
But this is not clearly stated in the rules so one can argue that it is not true. I.E. One can decide that the undead state blocks your soul from leaving heaven, rather than imprisons you.
Given such a rule undead labor is not in any way evil, although it could be disgusting.
Those poor skeletons, forced to work their fingers to the bone in that mine.
If you are one to not care about the individuals you raised and simply use them for your long-term goal, then no.
Others may tell you "You should leave their bodies to rest! They suffered long through life and now you make them suffer again!" but if you are more focused about the "Present Living", then no fame and glory of the deceased matters to you.
If you are to be a more kind Necromancer and you feel some guilt for waking the long dead soul from slumber, then converse with them, make a deal to work together and later put them back in the grave with a little gift. Or maybe you are a mix of cruel, yet kind, where you will raise quickly someone that just died to finish what they started and then release them, thus making them suffer just a few more minutes before death.
So, I would say it depends on how you'd play your character. There's no right from wrong.