Something many people love to role play is the distrust and disgust towards the undead/ living-impaired. Another thing that people like to do in games, when possible, is create undead minions. Undeath in most of D&D (Forgotten Realms and such) is generally seen as quite possibly the most extreme of taboos to break...but why?
While head-spacing for an ambiguously-evil NPC, (that can become either an aide or hindrance to the party,) I thought about how a righteous/religious character might react to seeking/accepting help from a potential BBEG, and ended up with an explanation that would leave more questions then answers. Here were some key points:
• The Negative Energy Plane's sole inhabitants are undead. Some even come into existence from this place. • The Shadowfell is the next plane featuring an astonishing number of undead, being the place they get sent via banishment spells. • Undead can be the physical remains of a once-living creature, or the tormented soul of one. • Undead can retain the memories and the personalities they once had in Life (I found it odd the it's a proper noun in a lot of the print) • Only specific cases of undead have the soul bound to the/a body/piece • Bringing a soul back from the afterlife requires the consent of the soul to enter a body. • A lich is the result of someone trapping their own soul outside of their body via a very special and secret ritual
Now here's where things started getting...weird • In the case of intelligent undead (ghoul, ghast, wight, etc,) would they not be their own person, separate entities from the soul that once inhabited the body in life? • Are they then sentient? • What of the elves that undergo undeath to become ancestral guardians, only to be restored to life at a later time? • What about eidolons? • Could it be that the lower level spells simply bring the body back with a clouded/foggy consciousness? • Does the body have it's own soul? • Speak with Dead is a partial revival of the corpse, and explicitly states that the soul is not involved, so...what/whom are you speaking with? • When you reanimate a corpse with all its memories in tact, and they also come back as a ghost/spirit, you have two undead versions of the same person...which one is the 'true' one? • "Why do the Gods take such offense to it/us? Is it because..."
When your soul leaves the material world and goes to your god, there's a good chance that they will wash away all the parts that make you the person you are. Your memories, fears, hopes, dreams, doubts...save for choice pieces that they want, will all be discarded, and your raw soul will be made into an entirely new being. You, as you stand here today, will entirely cease to be, and a new thing will be forged from the remnants. Why are they so envious and petty, to want every last piece of you sealed away or destroyed forever?"
I think the whole necromancy is evil thing comes from the fact that most necromancers defile graves and disturb the souls of the dead. The fact is that most necromancers are evil.
With regards to the sentient undead, vampires, ghouls and ghasts are active dangers to living beings, as they do prey upon them. Most of these are hunted for much the same reason that bears and wolves were many years ago. The sentient undead learned how to fight back, usually by making more of themselves, but sometimes by practicing necromancy as well. Of course, when your food suddenly becomes a valuable part of your defence, it is quite easy just to kill more and more to make yourself safer as well as fill your tummy. It kind of creates a cycle that only ends when one side wins. Additionally, most intelligent undead venerate Orcus, a very nasty demon of undeath.
Now that I think about it, most powerful necromancers and liches barter with Orcus... Certainly, liches were created by Orcus, even if there are some who used other routes, almost all of them are likely to be using a demon's how-to guide.
But all that aside, the Forgotten Realms does have a difference between necromancy magic and raising the dead. Some spells are abhorred for bringing the dead back as slaves. There is certainly a difference between resurrection and animate dead. At no point does animate dead mention drawing on the souls of the deceased specifically. They are given a facsimile of life, just enough to perform simple tasks. Resurrection spells specifically bring the dead back to life. Likewise, spare the dying is a necromancy spell, but no one is really going to throw a fit about you casting it. It interacts with the divide between life and death, but at no point are the remains of loved ones forced to move by another's will.
My necromancer's whole motivation is discerning the difference between "bad" necromancy (i.e. animate dead) and "good" necromancy (i.e. raise dead). So uh, warning, what follows will be a bit of a word vomit because I've spent a LOT of time thinking about this lately.
I think the key lies in the spell description for raise dead - it explicitly mentions that a character's soul is involved. (This would also explain why the "good" necromancy spells are divine; souls are explicitly the gods' business.) So, because the spells that discuss creating undead don't mention the soul at all, we can conclude that undead are definitely soul-less. But some are intelligent, as you note, so that logically leads to a three-part division: body, soul, and mind (or spirit, or consciousness). The fact that you can have (semi-)intelligent golems also lends credence to the idea that consciousness is separate from having a soul. So:
A creature can have a body, but no soul and no mind. E.g. a zombie.
A creature can have a body and a mind, but no soul. E.g. a vampire.
A creature can have a body and a soul, but no mind?? Perhaps this is what happens when someone is under the effects of dominate person.
A creature can have a soul and a mind, but no body. E.g. a ghost.
In theory this means that you could kill a person and reanimate their corpse as a zombie, and their ghost could also hang around. Which would actually be kind of hilarious. I like the idea of the ghost yelling at their zombified body. "What are you doing, you idiot! Your arm's fallen off! Go fetch it!" RAW, I don't think there's anything that explicitly says a ghoul and their ghost cannot exist at the same time, but lore-wise I don't think would work because both the ghoul and the ghost need that mind - the former paired with the body, the latter paired with the soul.
As for why the gods aren't fans? Well, while in theory necromancy is a neutral school of magic that can be used for good or for ill, in practice it is used primarily for ill. Probably because it involves killing people, or at the least defiling their bodies, in a way that no other school of magic does. (My DM is explicitly using anti-necromancy laws as a metaphor for gun control laws for that very reason.) And gods don't like it when their followers are murdered, generally speaking. Also, creating undead feels like you're stepping on the god's toes, you know? Like, you're trying to reanimate living things, but the gods are supposed to be the ones who decide who gets that ability. (Hence why wizards don't get any of the true resurrection spells (except for clone I suppose.) So they get tetchy if you infringe on their turf.
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"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
I think there's a difference between the mental and spiritual. The spirit of the person may not be raised with the body, but the mind might be. Mindless zombies are the bodies without mind or spirit. Ghasts, vampires and the like have both body and mind. After that, it just becomes full ressurection, or full raise dead, depending on the source.
As for why the God's don't like it, it could just be that they don't think mortals should have the ability to do stuff like that. After all, ressurection is sorta part of their gig. If push comes to shove, their freaking dieties and don't have to make sense if they can nuke you.
So undead lack the positive energy 'Life Force' which is natural (god given?). They are animated by negative energy - hence they are cold. Negative energy is hard to wrap one's head around (for me). What is the source of negative energy? It is still energy, it does work (animating bodies and minds), but somehow it is different in quality than positive Life energy. Typical vampire mythology (and for most other undead as well) has them needing/hungering to feed on positive Life energy. But why? They have their own negative energy and cannot die, they do not starve to death for lack of positive life energy to feed on. Is it the memory of what it was to be alive that drives them to try and feel that warmth of life they once had by consuming it (in the case of vampires)? Or is it that they are just opposite and opposing (like light and dark and hot and cold), so when one exists they other is diminished (more light = less darkness, etc) thus the darkness hates and opposes the light because it threatens it's existence. So light loves its own brightness and wants to shine and eliminate the darkness and the darkness wants to snuff out the light and cover the world in darkness. Yes both are necessary. Life cannot exist without death, light without dark, hot without cold. The hard part to understand is that D&D gives these power... so darkness, death and cold have their own power, as opposed to just being the absence of energy/force. It would seem to me that the only power in darkness/death/cold is the power to consume energy (absorb light, life and heat), to negate it. It would seem that we animate the darkness in myth because of our fear and we make it into a monster that is coming to take our light/life. When the darkness/death is just the inevitable absence of life/light and it has not a will of it's own. It is not coming for you (unlike in D&D where it IS coming for you). Perhaps we could say that it is the collective fear of darkness/death that empowers both the god's of darkness and death by which the undead are empowered. Yes, yes, I like that. So the undead are fundamentally parasitic, they require energy from the fearful living to live. The god's of darkness and death need living creatures to fear them to give them power so they enact cruel plans to spread darkness and death, but if they ever triumphed totally (and destroyed life itself) then they would cease to exist.
So undead lack the positive energy 'Life Force' which is natural (god given?). They are animated by negative energy - hence they are cold. Negative energy is hard to wrap one's head around (for me). What is the source of negative energy? It is still energy, it does work (animating bodies and minds), but somehow it is different in quality than positive Life energy. Typical vampire mythology (and for most other undead as well) has them needing/hungering to feed on positive Life energy. But why? They have their own negative energy and cannot die, they do not starve to death for lack of positive life energy to feed on. Is it the memory of what it was to be alive that drives them to try and feel that warmth of life they once had by consuming it (in the case of vampires)? Or is it that they are just opposite and opposing (like light and dark and hot and cold), so when one exists they other is diminished (more light = less darkness, etc) thus the darkness hates and opposes the light because it threatens it's existence. So light loves its own brightness and wants to shine and eliminate the darkness and the darkness wants to snuff out the light and cover the world in darkness. Yes both are necessary. Life cannot exist without death, light without dark, hot without cold. The hard part to understand is that D&D gives these power... so darkness, death and cold have their own power, as opposed to just being the absence of energy/force. It would seem to me that the only power in darkness/death/cold is the power to consume energy (absorb light, life and heat), to negate it. It would seem that we animate the darkness in myth because of our fear and we make it into a monster that is coming to take our light/life. When the darkness/death is just the inevitable absence of life/light and it has not a will of it's own. It is not coming for you (unlike in D&D where it IS coming for you). Perhaps we could say that it is the collective fear of darkness/death that empowers both the god's of darkness and death by which the undead are empowered. Yes, yes, I like that. So the undead are fundamentally parasitic, they require energy from the fearful living to live. The god's of darkness and death need living creatures to fear them to give them power so they enact cruel plans to spread darkness and death, but if they ever triumphed totally (and destroyed life itself) then they would cease to exist.
My emphasis added. This plays nicely into the Blood War narrative, which is literally evil feeding on and destroying itself. I recall a similar narrative in the Dragonlance saga concerning Raistlin Majere if his power grows unchecked. Maybe there's something to that making undeath taboo - since it introduces this element of destructiveness which ultimately becomes self-destructiveness to the material plane. In doing so, it transforms life from a force which creates through reproduction and growth into the fuel for this destructive force which will ultimately destroy even itself if left unchecked. Also, symbolically, it perverts the work of the creative gods in this way - mocking their creation with a facsimile of it which ultimately may cause the destruction of their creation. This offense of course is specific to the gods which hold sway over living things and events which rely on living things, such as love, trade, or even war. The gods who rule over death and undeath may have different ideas, depending on the pantheon, or even be in league with Orcus in some cases. The energy argument is an interesting one, but since symbolism is the lingua franca of religion, I would think that why the gods make undeath taboo or mark it as evil has more to do with what it symbolizes. This of course is not mutually exclusive with the natures of positive (life) and negative (death) energies being at odds.
Adding to HobbitbyNature's writeup, in FR the god Kelemvor is against the extension of life by unnatural means, especially undeath. That includes Baelnorns, liches, whatever. This is based on the premise that the undead just consume life. Being connected to the negative energy plane, they act as a sink, consuming all life in an never-ending hunger.
However, in Eberron we have the Aereni elves, and the positively charged undead of the Undying Court, known as the Deathless. In accordance with that religion, this is a step for mature souls on their journey, and also so the knowledge of their ancestors are never truly lost to the Aereni. But only the worthy are granted the by the Priests of the Transition to become Deathless. Which leads to the Skullborn embracing necromany and the 'normal' undeath, because they were denied becoming Deathless.
After doing a bunch of research on this a while ago, I came to the conclusion that the antipathy in the Forgotten Realms towards the undead and raising undead has largely gone unexplained and unmotivated in the lore that's been written. Which is sad because... that's part of worldbuilding and I want something better.
WotC mostly uses loaded terms to make it seem obvious that the undead are bad (ooh, they draw on "negative energy" and are "unnatural"), but there don't seem to be any necessarily negative consequences to creating undead. If you rename "negative energy" to "rainbow energy" there's now very little to object to. It's all loaded language with no actual consequences.
Yes, undead are gross. And yes, it would be traumatic to see your loved one's corpse animated as a puppet. I completely understand why the *average* person in the Forgotten Realms would be against raising undead.
But people who are wise, educated, or well-trained always think about things more clearly. And so the lore needs to explain why paladins, clerics, and their gods *care so much* about this undead thing. Sure, the undead are unsettling, but it's hardly an *inherently evil act* to create them. If I animate the corpse of a dead thief with no family and get him to build a house or something... so what? Worst case scenario is I'm in violation of property law, not that I've changed my alignment to Evil.
You can make "undead = evil" a compelling idea, but you have to motivate it with something other than loaded language. For example, say that corpses have a connection to the souls that once inhabited them, and this is what necromantic magic capitalizes on. When you animate a corpse, it starts to *corrupt* that soul. The longer a corpse stays animated, the more harm comes to that soul, which is why certain good characters are *very motivated* to destroy undead.
You can build all kinds of interesting interactions into this and consequences that follow from it:
Let's say powerful, good creatures are trying to resurrect an ally of theirs who was undead for a time. If that creature's soul has been corrupted, the person who is resurrected may not be the same as they were before. Maybe this was a powerful necromancer's plan all along- to corrupt a soul that he/she knew the good guys were trying to resurrect. Cue the PCs getting involved in a high-stakes battle for souls between the forces of good and evil.
The Spirit Bard subclass (UA) is all about channeling spirits. What happens if you channel a corrupted spirit? Do you get some surprisingly dark (or even detrimental) effects? This is a good way to make the theme of the subclass more than just "flavor," but actually make it feel like part of the world it exists in.
If animating the dead corrupts the soul, is there a way to have a *different* effect on the soul? Could an evil soul be "corrupted" into goodness? If so, how do good clerics feel about this? Would they think it good? Would they think that "changing a soul" is inherently wrong? This is a great question for a PC to wrestle with.
I submit that ideas like these make the world seem more consistent and fleshed-out. You have the seeds of drama and tension built into the world because you've outlined how undead and the corruption of souls actually *works*. And the world ties into mechanics that the players have access to like resurrection, channeling spirits, and more.
I would love to see that official 5e lore has something like this already, but I haven't found it. In lieu of that, I have enjoyed trying to write a bit of my own.
I believe undead are seen as bad due to shadowfell portals which can be caused by amounts of undead and other causes of negative energy. This makes undead an exponential problem as the shadowfell is full of undead without a large amount of necromancers or other things to control them divine intervention could be the only way to stop it.
After doing a bunch of research on this a while ago, I came to the conclusion that the antipathy in the Forgotten Realms towards the undead and raising undead has largely gone unexplained and unmotivated in the lore that's been written. Which is sad because... that's part of worldbuilding and I want something better.
WotC mostly uses loaded terms to make it seem obvious that the undead are bad (ooh, they draw on "negative energy" and are "unnatural"), but there don't seem to be any necessarily negative consequences to creating undead. If you rename "negative energy" to "rainbow energy" there's now very little to object to. It's all loaded language with no actual consequences.
Yes, undead are gross. And yes, it would be traumatic to see your loved one's corpse animated as a puppet. I completely understand why the *average* person in the Forgotten Realms would be against raising undead.
But people who are wise, educated, or well-trained always think about things more clearly. And so the lore needs to explain why paladins, clerics, and their gods *care so much* about this undead thing. Sure, the undead are unsettling, but it's hardly an *inherently evil act* to create them. If I animate the corpse of a dead thief with no family and get him to build a house or something... so what? Worst case scenario is I'm in violation of property law, not that I've changed my alignment to Evil.
You can make "undead = evil" a compelling idea, but you have to motivate it with something other than loaded language. For example, say that corpses have a connection to the souls that once inhabited them, and this is what necromantic magic capitalizes on. When you animate a corpse, it starts to *corrupt* that soul. The longer a corpse stays animated, the more harm comes to that soul, which is why certain good characters are *very motivated* to destroy undead.
You can build all kinds of interesting interactions into this and consequences that follow from it:
Let's say powerful, good creatures are trying to resurrect an ally of theirs who was undead for a time. If that creature's soul has been corrupted, the person who is resurrected may not be the same as they were before. Maybe this was a powerful necromancer's plan all along- to corrupt a soul that he/she knew the good guys were trying to resurrect. Cue the PCs getting involved in a high-stakes battle for souls between the forces of good and evil.
The Spirit Bard subclass (UA) is all about channeling spirits. What happens if you channel a corrupted spirit? Do you get some surprisingly dark (or even detrimental) effects? This is a good way to make the theme of the subclass more than just "flavor," but actually make it feel like part of the world it exists in.
If animating the dead corrupts the soul, is there a way to have a *different* effect on the soul? Could an evil soul be "corrupted" into goodness? If so, how do good clerics feel about this? Would they think it good? Would they think that "changing a soul" is inherently wrong? This is a great question for a PC to wrestle with.
I submit that ideas like these make the world seem more consistent and fleshed-out. You have the seeds of drama and tension built into the world because you've outlined how undead and the corruption of souls actually *works*. And the world ties into mechanics that the players have access to like resurrection, channeling spirits, and more.
I would love to see that official 5e lore has something like this already, but I haven't found it. In lieu of that, I have enjoyed trying to write a bit of my own.
I mean it isn't just negative energy the alignments of the undead are all evil (except ghosts and maybe a few rare cases in older editions). So by being a necromancer you are using evil beings to accomplish a goal. Without the necromancer's presence the undead would just wreak havoc. In that sense, it is similar to a demon summoner effectively commanding demon's to build an orphanage. The power is still evil and there is definite potential for something to go wrong. Even if the necromancer's goal is benevolent you are still animating the dead as evil entities to accomplish it. Most undead don't have souls and are animated purely by negative/evil energy. For players who don't sweat alignment I can understand not liking it. But alignment is still a major part of the FR world (at least in regard to enemies).
In your own game though you are free to do what you like though. I'm just trying to explain the reasoning. I don't always like alignment choices myself.
Well, there are a few reasons why undead would be considered unnatural. The non-sentient undead are driven by compulsions (as detailed in #2), and the sentient undead would do anything to cling on to their pathetic existence. They are considered abominations because a creature's mind isn't supposed be to be in a dead corpse. Also, consider these two factors: 1. Creatures cannot be resurrected while they are undead. 2. Unlike living creatures, undead are ruled completely by their compulsions. Ex: Allips are driven by a need to share their secret with another, ghouls are driven by a hunger for flesh, wraiths seek to drain the life force of living creatures, and zombies want to make all living beings as dead as they are.
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All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
The Undead are basically the dead being raised undead by necromancy(death magic). I would suppose Orcus demon lord of Undeath was the first to create necromancy so the root of necromancy's source comes from him Mostly in my campaigns, I make Necromancy illegal because of how traumatizing it is to the onlooker.
The Undead are basically the dead being raised undead by necromancy(death magic). I would suppose Orcus demon lord of Undeath was the first to create necromancy so the root of necromancy's source comes from him Mostly in my campaigns, I make Necromancy illegal because of how traumatizing it is to the onlooker.
Also Happy Halloween :D
For my homebrew campaign, an elf cleric discovered the School of Necromancy. However, it was not until later that the spells that actually created undead were made, and before then only specific beings could create undead, such as gods, cadaver collectors, and corpse flowers.
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All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
This is a really cool discussion. Orcus the Prince of the Undead and the drow goddess Kiaransalee are both examples of evil deities whose sphere of influence includes undead, while archliches in Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk and the Undying Court of Aerenal are examples of non-evil undead.
My necromancer's whole motivation is discerning the difference between "bad" necromancy (i.e. animate dead) and "good" necromancy (i.e. raise dead). So uh, warning, what follows will be a bit of a word vomit because I've spent a LOT of time thinking about this lately.
I think the key lies in the spell description for raise dead - it explicitly mentions that a character's soul is involved. (This would also explain why the "good" necromancy spells are divine; souls are explicitly the gods' business.) So, because the spells that discuss creating undead don't mention the soul at all, we can conclude that undead are definitely soul-less. But some are intelligent, as you note, so that logically leads to a three-part division: body, soul, and mind (or spirit, or consciousness). The fact that you can have (semi-)intelligent golems also lends credence to the idea that consciousness is separate from having a soul. So:
A creature can have a body, but no soul and no mind. E.g. a zombie.
A creature can have a body and a mind, but no soul. E.g. a vampire.
A creature can have a body and a soul, but no mind?? Perhaps this is what happens when someone is under the effects of dominate person.
A creature can have a soul and a mind, but no body. E.g. a ghost.
In theory this means that you could kill a person and reanimate their corpse as a zombie, and their ghost could also hang around. Which would actually be kind of hilarious. I like the idea of the ghost yelling at their zombified body. "What are you doing, you idiot! Your arm's fallen off! Go fetch it!" RAW, I don't think there's anything that explicitly says a ghoul and their ghost cannot exist at the same time, but lore-wise I don't think would work because both the ghoul and the ghost need that mind - the former paired with the body, the latter paired with the soul.
As for why the gods aren't fans? Well, while in theory necromancy is a neutral school of magic that can be used for good or for ill, in practice it is used primarily for ill. Probably because it involves killing people, or at the least defiling their bodies, in a way that no other school of magic does. (My DM is explicitly using anti-necromancy laws as a metaphor for gun control laws for that very reason.) And gods don't like it when their followers are murdered, generally speaking. Also, creating undead feels like you're stepping on the god's toes, you know? Like, you're trying to reanimate living things, but the gods are supposed to be the ones who decide who gets that ability. (Hence why wizards don't get any of the true resurrection spells (except for clone I suppose.) So they get tetchy if you infringe on their turf.
Revenants are souls that retain their body. So you could say this creature has a body and a soul, but no mind.
Zombies have Int 3 and skeletons Int 6. Don’t ask me why they’re different, the point is that this shows even the most basic undead aren’t empty shells. There’s something in there watching you from those eye sockets, and all data points to it being something you really don’t want wandering around unchecked.
Zombies have Int 3 and skeletons Int 6. Don’t ask me why they’re different, the point is that this shows even the most basic undead aren’t empty shells. There’s something in there watching you from those eye sockets, and all data points to it being something you really don’t want wandering around unchecked.
Mneh. Int 3 is literally less than a dog, so there really isn't anything behind those eye sockets. Skeletons have Int 6 so we can infer they follow basic commands. I think the point is that most undead are alignment evil, though that can be changed for your lore. Zombies are pretty much dummies. They can do the very most basic things, always in the most direct fashion. If your necromancer commands a zombie to kill an adventurer, the zombie will always take the most direct path to doing so, even if it involves self-harm. skeletons are slightly smarter, which means they can follow more complex commands, albeit with a little more class.
Lots of questions, and honestly you have all the data it seems.
But let's look to each point.
distrust and disgust
this is simple to answer, 90% of Undeath is related to evil beings, and most undead are rotting flesh and smell bad. Even spirit based undead have a rotten smell or disturbing physical appearance.
undead minions
Are technically an evil act, and is usually outlawed by gods, and most settlements and governments in most settings in D&D.
taboos to break...but why?
One has to look up the history of Netherese to see why the people of Toril have issues with the Undead, and sometimes even Wizards. More Recently the Red Wizards of Thay have been reminding the populations of the world why Wizards and Undeath are bad news.
One thing on your list of key points, Undeath is a way Mortals, and the like can avoid their reincarnation cycle, and even in rear cases achieve a divine rank or two. For the Gods, undeath is a taboo since it takes power from the gods. Also Devils and Demons have used the Undead as soldiers in their unending war in the lower plains, and occasionally use the Undead as foot soldiers of the Prime Material plane.
types of Undead, simplified.
A: Mortal Soul bound without body to the Prime Material plane. (Shade, Spirit, Phantasms, or ghosts) - Taboo because they are either being punished by a god or trying to avoid their soul's fate.
B: Mortal Soul bound to a dead body. (Lich*, Vampire, Mummy*, death knight, etc.) Sometimes powerful people avoiding their fate, sometimes cursed by a god, usually bad news for common people.
C: Dead Body Animated by magic (Zombies, Skeletons, etc) these are basically undead golem.
D: Souls attached to objects or life. (Ancestral guardians, some magic items ie intelligent weapons) - Usually done with permission of a god and allowed. (Note technically Liches and Mummies count as this, but the method of making them can be a perversion of this kind of magic, note some mummies are made with permission of gods.)
Eidolons can be a little of Colom B & D, as they are undead guardian constructs, which may or may not use their original body parts. Due to the guardian nature of them, either a deity or high-level magic user/users made them. They are similar to mummies in this regard.
A person has one soul usually... Usually not always. See Kalashtar. The body however can hold memories, after all we have a brain. So, you can talk to the dead even if the soul has left, as long as there is a brain. (Only rules as written brain is no longer required, but a DM can insist on it still being there.)
"Gods take such offense" because it is often stealing from the power of the gods to become undead, unless you are cursed or rewarded by a god.
Rebirth cycles... is all a part of the mythology of D&D to allow great heroes to be reborn as new characters.
The quote at the end was not meant to be a 4th wall break, but I agree that it's important to remember that this is a fantasy roleplaying game.
It's meant to make you think about what someone in these fantasy settings would do/say/think when confronted. There is a lot of information that the PC's are not meant to know, but allows us the players to understand the secret workings of the D&D universe.
Most undead are linked to the negative energy plane- a place of entropy- and their forms will break down faster unless infused with the essence of this plane. Lower forms of undead have a weaker connection, creating a smaller siphon, whereas greater undead have a stronger connection and need some kind of energy flow to sustain them. It could be negative energy coming back, or energy stolen from their surroundings in the form of heat, matter, or the greatest being life energy.Living beings in the Negative Energy Plane are drained of mass and energy in minutes, and become part of this place as energy returns to it's lowest position
(Like the singularity at the heat death of the universe where everything exists at it's lowest state of energy. Souls are not physical, so they are tormented to exist in a maelstrom of insanity and silent screaming in the dark)
The Ethereal Plane is one of possibly, where consciousness is the only thing required to traverse. Ghosts and such form when souls have a strong enough will to linger and shape their form from the rolling clouds of smoky vapors of this place.
(It's The place of Imagination)
The positive energy plane leaks through to the material through holes in the veil - the sun and stars. It's a place of intense energy, heat, and light. Living things don't last long unprotected, and beings with negative energy are utterly evaporated. There aren't any undead known to come from here, but they may be empowered by the plane. Few things can actually traverse into this plane. It's just a constant flow of intense energy.
(Think of it like the heart of a real star- bombarding everything with multiple spectrums of energy)
Something many people love to role play is the distrust and disgust towards the undead/ living-impaired. Another thing that people like to do in games, when possible, is create undead minions. Undeath in most of D&D (Forgotten Realms and such) is generally seen as quite possibly the most extreme of taboos to break...but why?
While head-spacing for an ambiguously-evil NPC, (that can become either an aide or hindrance to the party,) I thought about how a righteous/religious character might react to seeking/accepting help from a potential BBEG, and ended up with an explanation that would leave more questions then answers. Here were some key points:
• The Negative Energy Plane's sole inhabitants are undead. Some even come into existence from this place.
• The Shadowfell is the next plane featuring an astonishing number of undead, being the place they get sent via banishment spells.
• Undead can be the physical remains of a once-living creature, or the tormented soul of one.
• Undead can retain the memories and the personalities they once had in Life (I found it odd the it's a proper noun in a lot of the print)
• Only specific cases of undead have the soul bound to the/a body/piece
• Bringing a soul back from the afterlife requires the consent of the soul to enter a body.
• A lich is the result of someone trapping their own soul outside of their body via a very special and secret ritual
Now here's where things started getting...weird
• In the case of intelligent undead (ghoul, ghast, wight, etc,) would they not be their own person, separate entities from the soul that once inhabited the body in life?
• Are they then sentient?
• What of the elves that undergo undeath to become ancestral guardians, only to be restored to life at a later time?
• What about eidolons?
• Could it be that the lower level spells simply bring the body back with a clouded/foggy consciousness?
• Does the body have it's own soul?
• Speak with Dead is a partial revival of the corpse, and explicitly states that the soul is not involved, so...what/whom are you speaking with?
• When you reanimate a corpse with all its memories in tact, and they also come back as a ghost/spirit, you have two undead versions of the same person...which one is the 'true' one?
• "Why do the Gods take such offense to it/us? Is it because..."
When your soul leaves the material world and goes to your god, there's a good chance that they will wash away all the parts that make you the person you are. Your memories, fears, hopes, dreams, doubts...save for choice pieces that they want, will all be discarded, and your raw soul will be made into an entirely new being. You, as you stand here today, will entirely cease to be, and a new thing will be forged from the remnants.
Why are they so envious and petty, to want every last piece of you sealed away or destroyed forever?"
• What part of you is real then?
I think the whole necromancy is evil thing comes from the fact that most necromancers defile graves and disturb the souls of the dead. The fact is that most necromancers are evil.
With regards to the sentient undead, vampires, ghouls and ghasts are active dangers to living beings, as they do prey upon them. Most of these are hunted for much the same reason that bears and wolves were many years ago. The sentient undead learned how to fight back, usually by making more of themselves, but sometimes by practicing necromancy as well. Of course, when your food suddenly becomes a valuable part of your defence, it is quite easy just to kill more and more to make yourself safer as well as fill your tummy. It kind of creates a cycle that only ends when one side wins. Additionally, most intelligent undead venerate Orcus, a very nasty demon of undeath.
Now that I think about it, most powerful necromancers and liches barter with Orcus... Certainly, liches were created by Orcus, even if there are some who used other routes, almost all of them are likely to be using a demon's how-to guide.
But all that aside, the Forgotten Realms does have a difference between necromancy magic and raising the dead. Some spells are abhorred for bringing the dead back as slaves. There is certainly a difference between resurrection and animate dead. At no point does animate dead mention drawing on the souls of the deceased specifically. They are given a facsimile of life, just enough to perform simple tasks. Resurrection spells specifically bring the dead back to life. Likewise, spare the dying is a necromancy spell, but no one is really going to throw a fit about you casting it. It interacts with the divide between life and death, but at no point are the remains of loved ones forced to move by another's will.
I like to think this essay will help.
My necromancer's whole motivation is discerning the difference between "bad" necromancy (i.e. animate dead) and "good" necromancy (i.e. raise dead). So uh, warning, what follows will be a bit of a word vomit because I've spent a LOT of time thinking about this lately.
I think the key lies in the spell description for raise dead - it explicitly mentions that a character's soul is involved. (This would also explain why the "good" necromancy spells are divine; souls are explicitly the gods' business.) So, because the spells that discuss creating undead don't mention the soul at all, we can conclude that undead are definitely soul-less. But some are intelligent, as you note, so that logically leads to a three-part division: body, soul, and mind (or spirit, or consciousness). The fact that you can have (semi-)intelligent golems also lends credence to the idea that consciousness is separate from having a soul. So:
A creature can have a body, but no soul and no mind. E.g. a zombie.
A creature can have a body and a mind, but no soul. E.g. a vampire.
A creature can have a body and a soul, but no mind?? Perhaps this is what happens when someone is under the effects of dominate person.
A creature can have a soul and a mind, but no body. E.g. a ghost.
In theory this means that you could kill a person and reanimate their corpse as a zombie, and their ghost could also hang around. Which would actually be kind of hilarious. I like the idea of the ghost yelling at their zombified body. "What are you doing, you idiot! Your arm's fallen off! Go fetch it!" RAW, I don't think there's anything that explicitly says a ghoul and their ghost cannot exist at the same time, but lore-wise I don't think would work because both the ghoul and the ghost need that mind - the former paired with the body, the latter paired with the soul.
As for why the gods aren't fans? Well, while in theory necromancy is a neutral school of magic that can be used for good or for ill, in practice it is used primarily for ill. Probably because it involves killing people, or at the least defiling their bodies, in a way that no other school of magic does. (My DM is explicitly using anti-necromancy laws as a metaphor for gun control laws for that very reason.) And gods don't like it when their followers are murdered, generally speaking. Also, creating undead feels like you're stepping on the god's toes, you know? Like, you're trying to reanimate living things, but the gods are supposed to be the ones who decide who gets that ability. (Hence why wizards don't get any of the true resurrection spells (except for clone I suppose.) So they get tetchy if you infringe on their turf.
"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
I think there's a difference between the mental and spiritual. The spirit of the person may not be raised with the body, but the mind might be. Mindless zombies are the bodies without mind or spirit. Ghasts, vampires and the like have both body and mind. After that, it just becomes full ressurection, or full raise dead, depending on the source.
As for why the God's don't like it, it could just be that they don't think mortals should have the ability to do stuff like that. After all, ressurection is sorta part of their gig. If push comes to shove, their freaking dieties and don't have to make sense if they can nuke you.
So undead lack the positive energy 'Life Force' which is natural (god given?). They are animated by negative energy - hence they are cold. Negative energy is hard to wrap one's head around (for me). What is the source of negative energy? It is still energy, it does work (animating bodies and minds), but somehow it is different in quality than positive Life energy. Typical vampire mythology (and for most other undead as well) has them needing/hungering to feed on positive Life energy. But why? They have their own negative energy and cannot die, they do not starve to death for lack of positive life energy to feed on. Is it the memory of what it was to be alive that drives them to try and feel that warmth of life they once had by consuming it (in the case of vampires)? Or is it that they are just opposite and opposing (like light and dark and hot and cold), so when one exists they other is diminished (more light = less darkness, etc) thus the darkness hates and opposes the light because it threatens it's existence. So light loves its own brightness and wants to shine and eliminate the darkness and the darkness wants to snuff out the light and cover the world in darkness. Yes both are necessary. Life cannot exist without death, light without dark, hot without cold. The hard part to understand is that D&D gives these power... so darkness, death and cold have their own power, as opposed to just being the absence of energy/force. It would seem to me that the only power in darkness/death/cold is the power to consume energy (absorb light, life and heat), to negate it. It would seem that we animate the darkness in myth because of our fear and we make it into a monster that is coming to take our light/life. When the darkness/death is just the inevitable absence of life/light and it has not a will of it's own. It is not coming for you (unlike in D&D where it IS coming for you). Perhaps we could say that it is the collective fear of darkness/death that empowers both the god's of darkness and death by which the undead are empowered. Yes, yes, I like that. So the undead are fundamentally parasitic, they require energy from the fearful living to live. The god's of darkness and death need living creatures to fear them to give them power so they enact cruel plans to spread darkness and death, but if they ever triumphed totally (and destroyed life itself) then they would cease to exist.
My emphasis added. This plays nicely into the Blood War narrative, which is literally evil feeding on and destroying itself. I recall a similar narrative in the Dragonlance saga concerning Raistlin Majere if his power grows unchecked. Maybe there's something to that making undeath taboo - since it introduces this element of destructiveness which ultimately becomes self-destructiveness to the material plane. In doing so, it transforms life from a force which creates through reproduction and growth into the fuel for this destructive force which will ultimately destroy even itself if left unchecked. Also, symbolically, it perverts the work of the creative gods in this way - mocking their creation with a facsimile of it which ultimately may cause the destruction of their creation. This offense of course is specific to the gods which hold sway over living things and events which rely on living things, such as love, trade, or even war. The gods who rule over death and undeath may have different ideas, depending on the pantheon, or even be in league with Orcus in some cases. The energy argument is an interesting one, but since symbolism is the lingua franca of religion, I would think that why the gods make undeath taboo or mark it as evil has more to do with what it symbolizes. This of course is not mutually exclusive with the natures of positive (life) and negative (death) energies being at odds.
Adding to HobbitbyNature's writeup, in FR the god Kelemvor is against the extension of life by unnatural means, especially undeath. That includes Baelnorns, liches, whatever. This is based on the premise that the undead just consume life. Being connected to the negative energy plane, they act as a sink, consuming all life in an never-ending hunger.
However, in Eberron we have the Aereni elves, and the positively charged undead of the Undying Court, known as the Deathless. In accordance with that religion, this is a step for mature souls on their journey, and also so the knowledge of their ancestors are never truly lost to the Aereni. But only the worthy are granted the by the Priests of the Transition to become Deathless. Which leads to the Skullborn embracing necromany and the 'normal' undeath, because they were denied becoming Deathless.
So Undeath isn't exclusively a bad thing.
After doing a bunch of research on this a while ago, I came to the conclusion that the antipathy in the Forgotten Realms towards the undead and raising undead has largely gone unexplained and unmotivated in the lore that's been written. Which is sad because... that's part of worldbuilding and I want something better.
WotC mostly uses loaded terms to make it seem obvious that the undead are bad (ooh, they draw on "negative energy" and are "unnatural"), but there don't seem to be any necessarily negative consequences to creating undead. If you rename "negative energy" to "rainbow energy" there's now very little to object to. It's all loaded language with no actual consequences.
Yes, undead are gross. And yes, it would be traumatic to see your loved one's corpse animated as a puppet. I completely understand why the *average* person in the Forgotten Realms would be against raising undead.
But people who are wise, educated, or well-trained always think about things more clearly. And so the lore needs to explain why paladins, clerics, and their gods *care so much* about this undead thing. Sure, the undead are unsettling, but it's hardly an *inherently evil act* to create them. If I animate the corpse of a dead thief with no family and get him to build a house or something... so what? Worst case scenario is I'm in violation of property law, not that I've changed my alignment to Evil.
You can make "undead = evil" a compelling idea, but you have to motivate it with something other than loaded language. For example, say that corpses have a connection to the souls that once inhabited them, and this is what necromantic magic capitalizes on. When you animate a corpse, it starts to *corrupt* that soul. The longer a corpse stays animated, the more harm comes to that soul, which is why certain good characters are *very motivated* to destroy undead.
You can build all kinds of interesting interactions into this and consequences that follow from it:
I submit that ideas like these make the world seem more consistent and fleshed-out. You have the seeds of drama and tension built into the world because you've outlined how undead and the corruption of souls actually *works*. And the world ties into mechanics that the players have access to like resurrection, channeling spirits, and more.
I would love to see that official 5e lore has something like this already, but I haven't found it. In lieu of that, I have enjoyed trying to write a bit of my own.
I believe undead are seen as bad due to shadowfell portals which can be caused by amounts of undead and other causes of negative energy. This makes undead an exponential problem as the shadowfell is full of undead without a large amount of necromancers or other things to control them divine intervention could be the only way to stop it.
Mostly nocturnal
help build a world here
I mean it isn't just negative energy the alignments of the undead are all evil (except ghosts and maybe a few rare cases in older editions). So by being a necromancer you are using evil beings to accomplish a goal. Without the necromancer's presence the undead would just wreak havoc. In that sense, it is similar to a demon summoner effectively commanding demon's to build an orphanage. The power is still evil and there is definite potential for something to go wrong. Even if the necromancer's goal is benevolent you are still animating the dead as evil entities to accomplish it. Most undead don't have souls and are animated purely by negative/evil energy. For players who don't sweat alignment I can understand not liking it. But alignment is still a major part of the FR world (at least in regard to enemies).
In your own game though you are free to do what you like though. I'm just trying to explain the reasoning. I don't always like alignment choices myself.
Well, there are a few reasons why undead would be considered unnatural. The non-sentient undead are driven by compulsions (as detailed in #2), and the sentient undead would do anything to cling on to their pathetic existence. They are considered abominations because a creature's mind isn't supposed be to be in a dead corpse. Also, consider these two factors:
1. Creatures cannot be resurrected while they are undead.
2. Unlike living creatures, undead are ruled completely by their compulsions. Ex: Allips are driven by a need to share their secret with another, ghouls are driven by a hunger for flesh, wraiths seek to drain the life force of living creatures, and zombies want to make all living beings as dead as they are.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
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If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
The Undead are basically the dead being raised undead by necromancy(death magic). I would suppose Orcus demon lord of Undeath was the first to create necromancy so the root of necromancy's source comes from him Mostly in my campaigns, I make Necromancy illegal because of how traumatizing it is to the onlooker.
Also Happy Halloween :D
"Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced"- Soren Kierkgaard
For my homebrew campaign, an elf cleric discovered the School of Necromancy. However, it was not until later that the spells that actually created undead were made, and before then only specific beings could create undead, such as gods, cadaver collectors, and corpse flowers.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
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If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
This is a really cool discussion. Orcus the Prince of the Undead and the drow goddess Kiaransalee are both examples of evil deities whose sphere of influence includes undead, while archliches in Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk and the Undying Court of Aerenal are examples of non-evil undead.
Revenants are souls that retain their body. So you could say this creature has a body and a soul, but no mind.
Hm... I know a necromancer...
Upvote these 18 unique mythical weapon materials!
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi
Zombies have Int 3 and skeletons Int 6. Don’t ask me why they’re different, the point is that this shows even the most basic undead aren’t empty shells. There’s something in there watching you from those eye sockets, and all data points to it being something you really don’t want wandering around unchecked.
Mneh. Int 3 is literally less than a dog, so there really isn't anything behind those eye sockets. Skeletons have Int 6 so we can infer they follow basic commands. I think the point is that most undead are alignment evil, though that can be changed for your lore. Zombies are pretty much dummies. They can do the very most basic things, always in the most direct fashion. If your necromancer commands a zombie to kill an adventurer, the zombie will always take the most direct path to doing so, even if it involves self-harm. skeletons are slightly smarter, which means they can follow more complex commands, albeit with a little more class.
Updog
Lots of questions, and honestly you have all the data it seems.
But let's look to each point.
distrust and disgust
this is simple to answer, 90% of Undeath is related to evil beings, and most undead are rotting flesh and smell bad. Even spirit based undead have a rotten smell or disturbing physical appearance.
undead minions
Are technically an evil act, and is usually outlawed by gods, and most settlements and governments in most settings in D&D.
taboos to break...but why?
One has to look up the history of Netherese to see why the people of Toril have issues with the Undead, and sometimes even Wizards. More Recently the Red Wizards of Thay have been reminding the populations of the world why Wizards and Undeath are bad news.
One thing on your list of key points, Undeath is a way Mortals, and the like can avoid their reincarnation cycle, and even in rear cases achieve a divine rank or two. For the Gods, undeath is a taboo since it takes power from the gods. Also Devils and Demons have used the Undead as soldiers in their unending war in the lower plains, and occasionally use the Undead as foot soldiers of the Prime Material plane.
types of Undead, simplified.
A: Mortal Soul bound without body to the Prime Material plane. (Shade, Spirit, Phantasms, or ghosts) - Taboo because they are either being punished by a god or trying to avoid their soul's fate.
B: Mortal Soul bound to a dead body. (Lich*, Vampire, Mummy*, death knight, etc.) Sometimes powerful people avoiding their fate, sometimes cursed by a god, usually bad news for common people.
C: Dead Body Animated by magic (Zombies, Skeletons, etc) these are basically undead golem.
D: Souls attached to objects or life. (Ancestral guardians, some magic items ie intelligent weapons) - Usually done with permission of a god and allowed. (Note technically Liches and Mummies count as this, but the method of making them can be a perversion of this kind of magic, note some mummies are made with permission of gods.)
Eidolons can be a little of Colom B & D, as they are undead guardian constructs, which may or may not use their original body parts. Due to the guardian nature of them, either a deity or high-level magic user/users made them. They are similar to mummies in this regard.
A person has one soul usually... Usually not always. See Kalashtar. The body however can hold memories, after all we have a brain. So, you can talk to the dead even if the soul has left, as long as there is a brain. (Only rules as written brain is no longer required, but a DM can insist on it still being there.)
"Gods take such offense" because it is often stealing from the power of the gods to become undead, unless you are cursed or rewarded by a god.
Rebirth cycles... is all a part of the mythology of D&D to allow great heroes to be reborn as new characters.
No part, it's a fantasy game.
The quote at the end was not meant to be a 4th wall break, but I agree that it's important to remember that this is a fantasy roleplaying game.
It's meant to make you think about what someone in these fantasy settings would do/say/think when confronted. There is a lot of information that the PC's are not meant to know, but allows us the players to understand the secret workings of the D&D universe.
Most undead are linked to the negative energy plane- a place of entropy- and their forms will break down faster unless infused with the essence of this plane. Lower forms of undead have a weaker connection, creating a smaller siphon, whereas greater undead have a stronger connection and need some kind of energy flow to sustain them. It could be negative energy coming back, or energy stolen from their surroundings in the form of heat, matter, or the greatest being life energy.Living beings in the Negative Energy Plane are drained of mass and energy in minutes, and become part of this place as energy returns to it's lowest position
(Like the singularity at the heat death of the universe where everything exists at it's lowest state of energy. Souls are not physical, so they are tormented to exist in a maelstrom of insanity and silent screaming in the dark)
The Ethereal Plane is one of possibly, where consciousness is the only thing required to traverse. Ghosts and such form when souls have a strong enough will to linger and shape their form from the rolling clouds of smoky vapors of this place.
(It's The place of Imagination)
The positive energy plane leaks through to the material through holes in the veil - the sun and stars. It's a place of intense energy, heat, and light. Living things don't last long unprotected, and beings with negative energy are utterly evaporated. There aren't any undead known to come from here, but they may be empowered by the plane. Few things can actually traverse into this plane. It's just a constant flow of intense energy.
(Think of it like the heart of a real star- bombarding everything with multiple spectrums of energy)