Yes, I'm aware it comes from the origins of the tropes and of the dead, but given that we're in the 21st century and subverting tropes is the name of the game. Hell, orcs are now a playable race. We've got stuff fleshing out goblins, kobolds, so why not do the same for our mortally-challenged brethren?
I mean I get that a lot of undead are supposed to be manifestations of evil thoughts binding them to the living but can they please have more moral ambiguity. Maybe even undead PCs. Cmon? Also whats with liches being default evil? So by putting your soul in a jar you suddenly become evil? Huh.
In my own setting, becoming undead is a very valid workaround for the limitations of mortality, lichdom is extremely popular for powerful and aging mages, there is also a "necropolis" city for the undead to settle down away from the hustle and bustle of the living world.
So far, the only setting I know to treat undead more favorably is Eberron, what with those deathless elf zombies, but thats about it/
Liches need souls from other people to stay alive. They could take the souls of criminals but on the same idea you could do Veganism. Most undead need to kill the living or are compelled to do so.
I think in the "pre history" of the Forgotten Realms, the The Netheril's flying cities were governed in some instances by Liches who weren't necessarily evil. I think a lot of necromancy practices in the FR are actually efforts to recover practices of that ancient civilization (who might have been arrogant or at least excessively pleased at its on accomplishments, flying cities built up decapitated and then flipped mountain tops and all).
I think intentional undead as a practice is seen as evil because it's thought of as something as a "crime against nature" (and don't go on the Druids circle of spores sentence on the undead being as natural as myconid life cycles, probably one of the most moronically written passages of fluff in 5e). And since we're not just talking about a logical positive prime material "nature" but the D&D cosmology, ducking death through undeath is literally avoiding accountability to a higher power. Selfishness just isn't good, in the end, literally.
Now sure there are beings who find themselves, "dang, I'm undead" and try to make a go of it using their new status for good ends. But I think you're also missing that, at least to me, it's pretty clearly implied that actions involving willful or involuntary necromantic transformation of life into undeath more often than not in most D&D lore involve necrotic energies, which is an energy with origins within the negative plane. The negative plane, the same plane whose very existence suggests the antithesis if not negation of the prime material plane just doesn't do much good in the world, almost elementally speaking. I mean the same plane that when touched to a mirror of the Prime material plane produces the Shadowfell.
But yes, I'm sure there are "good spirits" out there too.
This is related to a recent thread about whether it's possible to be a good necromancer.
The short answer is: mostly selfish people need to be undead. Being good aligned means that most of your goals are shared with other people, and they'll carry on your mission after you die. Most good people won't seek to live on after death, as it is often difficult and costly and not worth it. There could be exceptions in case you have some unique skills or knowledge that the world can't afford to lose, or you find some unusually easy way to become undead.
The vast majority of undead didn't choose to become that way. They were created by a necromancer who created thousands, or maybe accidentally fell under some curse. They don't exercise the free will of the good person they were in life. They might be under the evil will of the necromancer who created them, or the indifferent, neutral will of an ancient curse gone wrong.
You can definitely create stories about good ghosts who linger to warn someone, or perhaps a paladin wight who guards the tombs of the valiant fallen from robbers, but they are the minority.
This is related to a recent thread about whether it's possible to be a good necromancer.
The short answer is: mostly selfish people need to be undead. Being good aligned means that most of your goals are shared with other people, and they'll carry on your mission after you die. Most good people won't seek to live on after death, as it is often difficult and costly and not worth it. There could be exceptions in case you have some unique skills or knowledge that the world can't afford to lose, or you find some unusually easy way to become undead.
This one you can sort of say that a hero seeks to extend their own life, knowing that its a sacrifice for them, but it allows them to repay their community far more than they could have in a regular lifetime. e.g. a traveling wizard goes around the countryside teaching people spells like create water etc etc so nobody will ever die of scarcity, or an undead rogue spending their lives hunting down a conspiracy.
Also, there is I think a notion that even good people who choose to become undead suffer a diminishment of their ability to exercise free will. Will comes from life, and loss of life makes them more vulnerable to wizards who may try to usurp their free will. So even though they might start out as undead with good intentions, they are turned to evil.
I also think there is at least as much chaotic in undead as there is evil. Death is a law of nature, as inescapable as taxes. Undead are violators of that law. And ancient undead, although their actions might have been considered lawful and good in their time, might be harmful to the present world.
As always, you can do what you want in your setting. Also, there is a Reborn race in testing that allows for an undead PC. Revenants also don't seem to be too far from their morality in life, just with an overwhelming urge to take down the person that killed them.
As for lore as written, there are a few considerations:
First of all, undead are tied to the Negative Energy Plane. The NEP is the ultimate terminus of the multiverse, it is the concept of "ending" as much as the inner planes are their element of the outer planes are their alignment. Without the NEP, nothing would stop just as nothing would combust without the Fire Plane (note, I may be spilling Elder Scrolls lore over D&D lore). Because of this, the Negative Energy Plane is necessary and not truly evil, but bringing it to the Prime Material Plane is equivalent to ending something before its proper time, and that's what undead tend to do a lot of.
It's also worth noting that skeletons and zombies do have an intelligence modifier on par or exceeding many animals, and the skeleton's description says that resurrecting the person who a skeleton once was will "banish the hateful undead spirit". So undead who aren't using the same soul as in life are being "piloted" by something else.
Put these together and this is how I interpret things: creating an undead that's not the same person as in life involves taking an entity that "exists" (for lake of a better term) in the Negative Energy Plane. A being of pure death or ending, especially one with limited intellect, is completely unprepared to handle the emotions and sensations that being in a world of life or continuing brings them (that is to say, the mere presence of emotion and sensation). This sends them into a panicked rage where they'll try to ensure their safety by making everything more like the NEP, that is, more dead.
Liches absorb the souls of other beings. If one finds a way to be a lich without that, then more power to him or her. It does seem like you worked through the implications of an immortal (functionally) segment of the population.
If you're looking for reasons why there are so few "good" undead, this thread covers them well.
If you're looking for ways to create good undead, that's already within your hands to create. One way to see it is that the dead are not necessarily evil, but what happens to them is most often for an evil purpose. A person who was unwillingly brought back to unlife/undeath still means that someone had reason to do that to someone. What good reason could that be?
That's where the crux of the problem is.
What good reason is there to bring a dead being into undeath?
Love? That's selfish.
To protect something else? That's still selfish rather than to do it oneself without death magics.
To continue their own necessary works to benefit the living? That's still selfish in the way that it's arrogant to think nobody else will/could pick up the task.
To willingly return from death to protect something else? That's still the same selfish arrogance that nobody else will/could do it. If there's the slightest chance that even one living person might do it, then undeath is unnecessary.
Selfish acts come with a price.
If you can find a truly altruistic reason to bring the dead into undeath without arrogance of "I'm/They're necessary", then you can have "good" undead.
Good luck with that, though.
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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.
If you're looking for reasons why there are so few "good" undead, this thread covers them well.
If you're looking for ways to create good undead, that's already within your hands to create. One way to see it is that the dead are not necessarily evil, but what happens to them is most often for an evil purpose. A person who was unwillingly brought back to unlife/undeath still means that someone had reason to do that to someone. What good reason could that be?
That's where the crux of the problem is.
What good reason is there to bring a dead being into undeath?
Love? That's selfish.
To protect something else? That's still selfish rather than to do it oneself without death magics.
To continue their own necessary works to benefit the living? That's still selfish in the way that it's arrogant to think nobody else will/could pick up the task.
To willingly return from death to protect something else? That's still the same selfish arrogance that nobody else will/could do it. If there's the slightest chance that even one living person might do it, then undeath is unnecessary.
Selfish acts come with a price.
If you can find a truly altruistic reason to bring the dead into undeath without arrogance of "I'm/They're necessary", then you can have "good" undead.
Good luck with that, though.
What if they didn't want to die and keep on experiencing the world, and chose to be raised so they could do so?
Also you mention that its selfish if they think they're the best person for the job. Except what if they are? A 16th level character is infinitely more well equipped for a task than anyone else of a lower level. Not to mention that what if the other lvl 16+ people arent willing to do so?
Also, you say its wrong to raise someone even if they willed it so because its selfish. By that logic, an athlete who loses his legs wanting to get prosthetics so he can compete in the paralympics is wrong and he should be wheelchair bound forever.
Also, you say its wrong to raise someone even if they willed it so because its selfish. By that logic, an athlete who loses his legs wanting to get prosthetics so he can compete in the paralympics is wrong and he should be wheelchair bound forever.
Wow. That's quite a leap.
Losing a limb and losing a life? You took the wrong turn at Albuquerque.
This attempt to paint someone in a bad light for legitimate statements tells me you are not interested in knowing why there are so few "good" undead and want justification for more good undead. You do not need us or this thread for that.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
Also, you say its wrong to raise someone even if they willed it so because its selfish. By that logic, an athlete who loses his legs wanting to get prosthetics so he can compete in the paralympics is wrong and he should be wheelchair bound forever.
Wow. That's quite a leap.
Losing a limb and losing a life? You took the wrong turn at Albuquerque.
This attempt to paint someone in a bad light for legitimate statements tells me you are not interested in knowing why there are so few "good" undead and want justification for more good undead. You do not need us or this thread for that.
ignoring my point. why does one need selfless reasons to be raised as undead?
Weren't Baelnorn ( High elf-lich things ) Neutral Good?, Plus there's the Undying Court in Eberron which are kept alive by the aerenal elves collective feeling of loyalty, I once played a Pugilist who was a private eye in Neverwinter, and his reason for being Vampire was he was captured by mad Necromancers back when he was a street urchin and experimented on, to give you the gist of his story he was forced to resort to feast on people, even though he got magic item to counteract this, he slowly began to hate what he had become and sought out those who did this to him, he rarely resorted to biting someone as he didn't want to pass on the curse.
Anyhoo, I suppose a fanatical knight of a line of nobility could quite possibly seek out necromancy magicks to make sure they could protect the crown forever, or a mad wizard could create a undead golem to bring a lost lover back to life, the lover, horrified by their form, fled, and that's yo' backstory or something like that.
Also here's a good homebrew I found a while ago Guide to Non-Evil Undead, could prove useful if you plan having any good or neutral -aligned undead in your campaign :).
What if they didn't want to die and keep on experiencing the world, and chose to be raised so they could do so?
Also you mention that its selfish if they think they're the best person for the job. Except what if they are? A 16th level character is infinitely more well equipped for a task than anyone else of a lower level. Not to mention that what if the other lvl 16+ people arent willing to do so?
Also, you say its wrong to raise someone even if they willed it so because its selfish. By that logic, an athlete who loses his legs wanting to get prosthetics so he can compete in the paralympics is wrong and he should be wheelchair bound forever
Undeath is generally not seen as a prosthetic to aid people against the disabling affects of death, though I suppose you could in some sort of posthuman/transhuman perspective, but your response doesn't seem to be informed by that thinking. However, where paraolympians sometimes use prosthetics (and often do not) to engage in the common human experience of athleticism, undeath is not a common experience to life, it is not life (probably why one of the introductory necromancy spells is called False Life).
Exceptionalism (the idea that there are "chosen ones" or specific geniuses with unique capacities etc) is a problematic space in moral philosophy and ethics. An individual or type of individual gets special treatment and/or resources (in this case "not having to die or remain dead") that others are deprived of because of their circumstances is at the core of centuries of discussion around justice, at least social economic justice (which I was first introduced to as the argument over "who gets what and why"). It's a problematic (meaning difficult thought) space in D&D where the point of the game is more often than not to cultivate a truly exceptional character within the character's game world. IRL "I'm special/elite so should receive special/elite treatment" is perennially problematic. In a game where heroic exceptionalism is a key feature, you could work around it with handwavium entitlements and pretend there would be no resentment among the commons who don't have access to the hero's privileges, ignoring the in game lore that marks undeath universally as something antithetical to truly living. It's a way of playing the game, but as you see in this thread a lot of people would disagree with your world building. That shouldn't stop you necessarily but the folks following up to your thread do seem to have more experience with the game and how undeath is designed to play within it. I'd use that for food for thought rather than pushing back with that Paralympian analogy. I mean, that's one way to argue, but...
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Rare is a good way to put it. I do remember there being a revenant or a ghost with good intentions popping up here and there in games and stories. I think most of the time death is associated with tragedy and tragedy is seldom seen in a good light. Also for most multiverse setting games if a good being dies their soul is expected to move on and do work elsewhere. I think most corpses and undead or seen as tools of an evil mastermind mind more so than souls brought back to do either good or evil acts. The Forgotten Realms and Eberron both have baelnorn to an extent and it was often presented as a subverted trope. I kinda like the lore of MtG's Golgari from Ravnica, and the Ravnica setting as well, definitely viewed death differently than your traditional Prime reality sort of deal.
Probably because Undeath was always intimately tied to the Negative Energy Plane...
"Mummies derive their power from the positive forces of the universe? Bah!
I don't care who the hell this 'Don Rifkin' or whatever this hack's name is, but I assume he is gathering information from one of my oldest works and guides to all sorts of beastly flora and fauna. The truth be told, I made a mistake in that work - haven't you ever done that, said 'left' when you meant 'right'? I'm still appalled at the fact few so-called 'learned ones' don't correct what are obviously errors.
Any wizard or scholar with even half his wits knows that all undead get their powers from negative energies! While positive energies allow for animation of constructs or objects, only the forces of the negative spheres, both from the inner realms of 'material' and the outer realms of the 'metaphysical' (whether demonic or diabolic), have the power to create an undead form. The mummy has the same special immunities and weaknesses other corporeal undead have and anybody who thinks otherwise is in for a big surprise." - Portion of an epistle written by Zagig the Mad Archmage
From a story telling point of view, the monsters are evil so the characters have something to do with their swords.
For my part, I was researching something from days gone by (AD&D) and I was shocked at how little has been added to the original monster manual - fiend folio - monster manual 2.
So it appears the owners of D&D haven't found much reason to create more "good things" in the list of "encounter beings."
But you can write your stuff anyway you want to fit the way you and your group want to play. D&D is an amazing game for just this reason. It can be many things for many people.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Most of the good-aligned undead I'm familiar with come from World of Warcraft. Maybe they are not good, more neutral. I think a unique "undead" class would be cool. But I don't think it should be treated like other rare races and be accepted everywhere.
Discrimination and racism in D&D make for great story.
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Yes, I'm aware it comes from the origins of the tropes and of the dead, but given that we're in the 21st century and subverting tropes is the name of the game. Hell, orcs are now a playable race. We've got stuff fleshing out goblins, kobolds, so why not do the same for our mortally-challenged brethren?
I mean I get that a lot of undead are supposed to be manifestations of evil thoughts binding them to the living but can they please have more moral ambiguity. Maybe even undead PCs. Cmon? Also whats with liches being default evil? So by putting your soul in a jar you suddenly become evil? Huh.
In my own setting, becoming undead is a very valid workaround for the limitations of mortality, lichdom is extremely popular for powerful and aging mages, there is also a "necropolis" city for the undead to settle down away from the hustle and bustle of the living world.
So far, the only setting I know to treat undead more favorably is Eberron, what with those deathless elf zombies, but thats about it/
"h"
Liches need souls from other people to stay alive. They could take the souls of criminals but on the same idea you could do Veganism. Most undead need to kill the living or are compelled to do so.
Mostly nocturnal
help build a world here
I think in the "pre history" of the Forgotten Realms, the The Netheril's flying cities were governed in some instances by Liches who weren't necessarily evil. I think a lot of necromancy practices in the FR are actually efforts to recover practices of that ancient civilization (who might have been arrogant or at least excessively pleased at its on accomplishments, flying cities built up decapitated and then flipped mountain tops and all).
I think intentional undead as a practice is seen as evil because it's thought of as something as a "crime against nature" (and don't go on the Druids circle of spores sentence on the undead being as natural as myconid life cycles, probably one of the most moronically written passages of fluff in 5e). And since we're not just talking about a logical positive prime material "nature" but the D&D cosmology, ducking death through undeath is literally avoiding accountability to a higher power. Selfishness just isn't good, in the end, literally.
Now sure there are beings who find themselves, "dang, I'm undead" and try to make a go of it using their new status for good ends. But I think you're also missing that, at least to me, it's pretty clearly implied that actions involving willful or involuntary necromantic transformation of life into undeath more often than not in most D&D lore involve necrotic energies, which is an energy with origins within the negative plane. The negative plane, the same plane whose very existence suggests the antithesis if not negation of the prime material plane just doesn't do much good in the world, almost elementally speaking. I mean the same plane that when touched to a mirror of the Prime material plane produces the Shadowfell.
But yes, I'm sure there are "good spirits" out there too.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
This is related to a recent thread about whether it's possible to be a good necromancer.
The short answer is: mostly selfish people need to be undead. Being good aligned means that most of your goals are shared with other people, and they'll carry on your mission after you die. Most good people won't seek to live on after death, as it is often difficult and costly and not worth it. There could be exceptions in case you have some unique skills or knowledge that the world can't afford to lose, or you find some unusually easy way to become undead.
The vast majority of undead didn't choose to become that way. They were created by a necromancer who created thousands, or maybe accidentally fell under some curse. They don't exercise the free will of the good person they were in life. They might be under the evil will of the necromancer who created them, or the indifferent, neutral will of an ancient curse gone wrong.
You can definitely create stories about good ghosts who linger to warn someone, or perhaps a paladin wight who guards the tombs of the valiant fallen from robbers, but they are the minority.
This one you can sort of say that a hero seeks to extend their own life, knowing that its a sacrifice for them, but it allows them to repay their community far more than they could have in a regular lifetime. e.g. a traveling wizard goes around the countryside teaching people spells like create water etc etc so nobody will ever die of scarcity, or an undead rogue spending their lives hunting down a conspiracy.
"h"
Also, there is I think a notion that even good people who choose to become undead suffer a diminishment of their ability to exercise free will. Will comes from life, and loss of life makes them more vulnerable to wizards who may try to usurp their free will. So even though they might start out as undead with good intentions, they are turned to evil.
I also think there is at least as much chaotic in undead as there is evil. Death is a law of nature, as inescapable as taxes. Undead are violators of that law. And ancient undead, although their actions might have been considered lawful and good in their time, might be harmful to the present world.
As always, you can do what you want in your setting. Also, there is a Reborn race in testing that allows for an undead PC. Revenants also don't seem to be too far from their morality in life, just with an overwhelming urge to take down the person that killed them.
As for lore as written, there are a few considerations:
First of all, undead are tied to the Negative Energy Plane. The NEP is the ultimate terminus of the multiverse, it is the concept of "ending" as much as the inner planes are their element of the outer planes are their alignment. Without the NEP, nothing would stop just as nothing would combust without the Fire Plane (note, I may be spilling Elder Scrolls lore over D&D lore). Because of this, the Negative Energy Plane is necessary and not truly evil, but bringing it to the Prime Material Plane is equivalent to ending something before its proper time, and that's what undead tend to do a lot of.
It's also worth noting that skeletons and zombies do have an intelligence modifier on par or exceeding many animals, and the skeleton's description says that resurrecting the person who a skeleton once was will "banish the hateful undead spirit". So undead who aren't using the same soul as in life are being "piloted" by something else.
Put these together and this is how I interpret things: creating an undead that's not the same person as in life involves taking an entity that "exists" (for lake of a better term) in the Negative Energy Plane. A being of pure death or ending, especially one with limited intellect, is completely unprepared to handle the emotions and sensations that being in a world of life or continuing brings them (that is to say, the mere presence of emotion and sensation). This sends them into a panicked rage where they'll try to ensure their safety by making everything more like the NEP, that is, more dead.
Liches absorb the souls of other beings. If one finds a way to be a lich without that, then more power to him or her. It does seem like you worked through the implications of an immortal (functionally) segment of the population.
If you're looking for reasons why there are so few "good" undead, this thread covers them well.
If you're looking for ways to create good undead, that's already within your hands to create. One way to see it is that the dead are not necessarily evil, but what happens to them is most often for an evil purpose. A person who was unwillingly brought back to unlife/undeath still means that someone had reason to do that to someone. What good reason could that be?
That's where the crux of the problem is.
What good reason is there to bring a dead being into undeath?
Love? That's selfish.
To protect something else? That's still selfish rather than to do it oneself without death magics.
To continue their own necessary works to benefit the living? That's still selfish in the way that it's arrogant to think nobody else will/could pick up the task.
To willingly return from death to protect something else? That's still the same selfish arrogance that nobody else will/could do it. If there's the slightest chance that even one living person might do it, then undeath is unnecessary.
Selfish acts come with a price.
If you can find a truly altruistic reason to bring the dead into undeath without arrogance of "I'm/They're necessary", then you can have "good" undead.
Good luck with that, though.
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.
What if they didn't want to die and keep on experiencing the world, and chose to be raised so they could do so?
Also you mention that its selfish if they think they're the best person for the job. Except what if they are? A 16th level character is infinitely more well equipped for a task than anyone else of a lower level. Not to mention that what if the other lvl 16+ people arent willing to do so?
Also, you say its wrong to raise someone even if they willed it so because its selfish. By that logic, an athlete who loses his legs wanting to get prosthetics so he can compete in the paralympics is wrong and he should be wheelchair bound forever.
"h"
Wow. That's quite a leap.
Losing a limb and losing a life? You took the wrong turn at Albuquerque.
This attempt to paint someone in a bad light for legitimate statements tells me you are not interested in knowing why there are so few "good" undead and want justification for more good undead. You do not need us or this thread for that.
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.
ignoring my point. why does one need selfless reasons to be raised as undead?
"h"
Weren't Baelnorn ( High elf-lich things ) Neutral Good?, Plus there's the Undying Court in Eberron which are kept alive by the aerenal elves collective feeling of loyalty, I once played a Pugilist who was a private eye in Neverwinter, and his reason for being Vampire was he was captured by mad Necromancers back when he was a street urchin and experimented on, to give you the gist of his story he was forced to resort to feast on people, even though he got magic item to counteract this, he slowly began to hate what he had become and sought out those who did this to him, he rarely resorted to biting someone as he didn't want to pass on the curse.
Anyhoo, I suppose a fanatical knight of a line of nobility could quite possibly seek out necromancy magicks to make sure they could protect the crown forever, or a mad wizard could create a undead golem to bring a lost lover back to life, the lover, horrified by their form, fled, and that's yo' backstory or something like that.
Mystic v3 should be official, nuff said.
Also here's a good homebrew I found a while ago Guide to Non-Evil Undead, could prove useful if you plan having any good or neutral -aligned undead in your campaign :).
Mystic v3 should be official, nuff said.
Undeath is generally not seen as a prosthetic to aid people against the disabling affects of death, though I suppose you could in some sort of posthuman/transhuman perspective, but your response doesn't seem to be informed by that thinking. However, where paraolympians sometimes use prosthetics (and often do not) to engage in the common human experience of athleticism, undeath is not a common experience to life, it is not life (probably why one of the introductory necromancy spells is called False Life).
Exceptionalism (the idea that there are "chosen ones" or specific geniuses with unique capacities etc) is a problematic space in moral philosophy and ethics. An individual or type of individual gets special treatment and/or resources (in this case "not having to die or remain dead") that others are deprived of because of their circumstances is at the core of centuries of discussion around justice, at least social economic justice (which I was first introduced to as the argument over "who gets what and why"). It's a problematic (meaning difficult thought) space in D&D where the point of the game is more often than not to cultivate a truly exceptional character within the character's game world. IRL "I'm special/elite so should receive special/elite treatment" is perennially problematic. In a game where heroic exceptionalism is a key feature, you could work around it with handwavium entitlements and pretend there would be no resentment among the commons who don't have access to the hero's privileges, ignoring the in game lore that marks undeath universally as something antithetical to truly living. It's a way of playing the game, but as you see in this thread a lot of people would disagree with your world building. That shouldn't stop you necessarily but the folks following up to your thread do seem to have more experience with the game and how undeath is designed to play within it. I'd use that for food for thought rather than pushing back with that Paralympian analogy. I mean, that's one way to argue, but...
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Rare is a good way to put it. I do remember there being a revenant or a ghost with good intentions popping up here and there in games and stories. I think most of the time death is associated with tragedy and tragedy is seldom seen in a good light. Also for most multiverse setting games if a good being dies their soul is expected to move on and do work elsewhere. I think most corpses and undead or seen as tools of an evil mastermind mind more so than souls brought back to do either good or evil acts.
The Forgotten Realms and Eberron both have baelnorn to an extent and it was often presented as a subverted trope.
I kinda like the lore of MtG's Golgari from Ravnica, and the Ravnica setting as well, definitely viewed death differently than your traditional Prime reality sort of deal.
Probably because Undeath was always intimately tied to the Negative Energy Plane...
"Mummies derive their power from the positive forces of the universe? Bah!
I don't care who the hell this 'Don Rifkin' or whatever this hack's name is, but I assume he is gathering information from one of my oldest works and guides to all sorts of beastly flora and fauna. The truth be told, I made a mistake in that work - haven't you ever done that, said 'left' when you meant 'right'? I'm still appalled at the fact few so-called 'learned ones' don't correct what are obviously errors.
Any wizard or scholar with even half his wits knows that all undead get their powers from negative energies! While positive energies allow for animation of constructs or objects, only the forces of the negative spheres, both from the inner realms of 'material' and the outer realms of the 'metaphysical' (whether demonic or diabolic), have the power to create an undead form. The mummy has the same special immunities and weaknesses other corporeal undead have and anybody who thinks otherwise is in for a big surprise." - Portion of an epistle written by Zagig the Mad Archmage
From a story telling point of view, the monsters are evil so the characters have something to do with their swords.
For my part, I was researching something from days gone by (AD&D) and I was shocked at how little has been added to the original monster manual - fiend folio - monster manual 2.
So it appears the owners of D&D haven't found much reason to create more "good things" in the list of "encounter beings."
But you can write your stuff anyway you want to fit the way you and your group want to play. D&D is an amazing game for just this reason. It can be many things for many people.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Worth noting the Player Hand Book says this:
"Creating the undead through the use of necromancy spells such as animate dead is not a good act, and only evil casters use such spells frequently."
The word "frequently" implies that good or neutral casters can still create undead in rare circumstances, likely when there is great need.
Most of the good-aligned undead I'm familiar with come from World of Warcraft. Maybe they are not good, more neutral. I think a unique "undead" class would be cool. But I don't think it should be treated like other rare races and be accepted everywhere.
Discrimination and racism in D&D make for great story.