# Do Undead Still Have Souls?



## LuYangShih (Mar 31, 2003)

I was looking at a few of the Undead creatures today, and I started to wonder, do all of the Undead still retain the spiritual essence they had when they were alive?  In other words, if a character dies, and they are reanimated as a Skeleton, does their soul go on to Valhalla or what have you, or is it trapped in the Undead body?  And if that's true, would this be the rationale for the Animate/Create Undead chain of spells having the evil descriptor?

Clearly, some Undead retain the basic thought patterns and memories of their previous lives, like Vampires and Liches, but do they still retain their souls, or are they another being that now possesses the body?  Is a different being altogether present in the host body, or has the former occupants soul been corrupted?  Just wondering the opinions other people have on this, as I'm considering running an Undead centered campaign, and stuff like this would be good to know.


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## Alzrius (Mar 31, 2003)

If you're looking for a hard-and-fast rule here, D&D rules aren't going to provide you with much. This sort of thing tends to be nebulous enough that it's a "DM's perogative" answer.

That said, 2E did have some answers to this. In 2E, characters who became sentient undead did not have their souls go on to the Outer Planes. No petitioner forms on the plane of their alignment or domain of their god, and their memory core doesn't go to the Astral Plane. It was hinted at, though never outrightly said, that destroying undead sent them to oblivion, soul and all. There was no repository of "undead who are no more". It was also vaguely noted that undead don't keep their souls however, and negative energy now resides where the soul once was. The presumption here was that an undead's soul has been destroyed (or is somehow trapped in the undead shell, since they could still be resurrected).

As to whether those who become skeletons or zombies have no soul pass on...that's slightly more difficult to adjudicate. 2E had no answer there. I personally would say no, mindless undeads' souls do not pass on. The spells that make them undead trap the soul in their rotting corpse, though I'd rule this for the sake of mere simplicity, and because even mindless undead can be granted sentience.

Note that vampires and liches retain more than "basic thought patterns and memories". These creatures retain all their intelligence and memories of their old lives. Ghouls and wights and such are the ones that only seem "semi-sentient". Also, its pretty well understood that an undead is the same person it was when alive...just with a warped personality.

EDIT: I recommend you pic up _Van Richten's Guide to the Walking Dead_, a 3E _Ravenloft_ product that can be used in any setting. It has some great flavor text on the nature of undead, specifically lesser corporeal undead, along with a great variety of new powers and such.


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## maddman75 (Mar 31, 2003)

I know of two possible paths you could take.  The first is that the souls are trapped in the undead body, driven insane and (in the case of skeletons and zombies) bent to the will of hte spellcaster.  This is why creating or consorting with undead is evil with a big E.

The second, the 'Buffy' explaination, is that the undead is not the person that once lived.  It is a demon, one that has stolen the form and oftentimes the memories of the person that once lived, but it is not them in any way.


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## Larry Fitz (Mar 31, 2003)

The spells have the evil descriptor because it's bad to play with corpses. Things like that should only be atempted by a licensed and experienced Necromancer or Houngan. 

Think about it. If you read about someone digging up corpses for their own purposes would you question anyone who said "Digging up corpses? Like from their graves? Wow, those dudes are evil." No, you'd accept that value judgement. Death is part of the natural order, we are born, we live our lives, we die, and our bodies are taken care of by those who cared for us in life. In some ways the respectful treatment of our corpses is the last kindness we receive. When someone abuses a corpse, such abuse revolts most people who hear of it. Ceremonial burial is one of the earliest things in a civilizations development from barbarism.

On the soul issue, I play it that until the proper ceremony takes place a soul is not "at rest" and if the corpse is subsequently animated the soul is aware of it and tormented by the knowledge while in the afterlife, unless of course undeath was a goal of the deceased.


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## Quip (Mar 31, 2003)

Another possiblity is that the souls are neither trapped within the undead nor at rest nor destroyed. Rather, they are trapped halfway between life and the afterlife, and is in torment because of it. Intelligent undead can be in a similar state, but with soul pulled closer to the undead so that the memory and personality is partially still there. I would consider such a soul still tormented however, regardless of how the undead feels about it.


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## s/LaSH (Mar 31, 2003)

I'd be inclined to consider three possibilities, possible coincident.

First, mindless undead like the zombie or skeleton. These are fairly clearly free of personality and move only clumsily. These undead are manipulated by magic, much like a golem (only it's evil magic). No soul, no personality.

Second, the aware undead. Creatures with minds and personalities such as ghouls and vampires. These creatures generally retain languages from life - but although they may have the same basic personality, they're largely evil. I think this is probably the Buffy/Angel model: the corpse has released its original soul, which performs certain functions like the consciense, and had it replaced by some evil spirit which has no conscience and is capable of warping the body, to some extent, to reflect its 'true' form. Look at the end of Season 2 of Angel (ironically, they only just screened it in my country) - you see what a vampire demon really looks like, and _damn_ is it nasty. Also, consider Angel himself. He's 'The vampire with a soul', and he goes around trying to do good.

What does this model mean? The soul is fairly clearly released (nobody but Angel and Spike have souls). However, the soul does not dictate knowledge or personality; it seems to be the home of morality. Further, the demon that replaces the soul seems to be able to 'lay eggs' in its victims. A rather hideous thought.

Third, the voluntary undead. This is blurry. Things such as the lich cast aside their mortality for the price of a little skin and body odour. There's no way this is an 'infected' undead. The question is, Does it have a soul? If it does, you may well be looking at an archlich (the ultra-rare good or neutral variant). But why are they so rare? I suspect it's because voluntary undead cast out their soul and get a fresh spirit in its place. Again, the soul is unnecessary.

So, I think no undead have souls. However - this doesn't mean the soul is free; Devourers, for example, capture souls and feed off them. If so, where does the soul go? And is it dissimilar to the 'spirit', or sentience, of a being? (Theology now. Spirit is what sets humans apart from animals, which only have souls. The 'soul', it would seem, is not just morality but is lifeforce itself. The thing that makes your legs move or your hair grow.)

The spirit is quite definitely still held within the body (except for mindless undead); this would probably preclude raising until you blast the corpse to pieces. A lich would store its spirit in a phylactery. Most people would lose the spirit when they were killed, but it seems infectious undead can set up a 'spirit web' or something to ensnare their victims' spirit, like Trap The Soul or Magic Jar only with the body. Thus an undead cannot be raised until destroyed.

Whew, that's nasty. There is one possible 'out': assimilating the soul and spirit into one package in your theology, and claiming that the 'spirit' left in the body is just an impression, like a footprint in the clay. Thence, you can use True Resurrection on an undead person, and create a duplicate that's not undead, but only under this model.


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## Seaver (Mar 31, 2003)

I was thinking about this myself awhile back after fully reading the description of True Resurrection, specifically the line (from the SRD):

 "The character can revive someone killed by a death effect..." normally no raising someone from a death effect I believe, "...or someone who has been turned into an undead creature and then destroyed."


So first an undead must be destroyed before being resurrected.  Therefor the soul must be tied to that state of being in some way.


This all reminds me of the undead from the Death Gate Cycle series of books.

The souls are tied to the bodies, tormented by their condition while necromantic magic keeps the body animated.  The undead resent their condition, even though some still maintain their loyalties despite their constant anguish.  I especially liked the visual description of the undead.  The souls tied to, but not quite in sync with the bodies.  The mind, body, and soul separate entities, not meant to be disconnected.

The undead do not necessarily behave as they did in life.  In fact, well...I don't really want too give to much away in case someone may read those books.

I do recommend reading at least the book focusing on the world with the undead and seeing how they handled it.  Fire Sea is title of that one, the third in the series.  It may be available at the library.


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## S'mon (Mar 31, 2003)

1e had a life force/soul distinction.  You need the life force to raise the dead, and it would be trapped in the body of the undead form (hence undead couldn't be raised).  It could be dispersed by eg destruction of undead form, by death magic (eg 'finger of death', 'death spell'), or by a failed resurrection survival roll.

Souls by contrast are a lot tougher/intangible, although they could be trapped, I don't think there was any official way to destroy one.  Generally speaking, a soul would not be trapped in an undead form, bar some kind of evil magic.  On death the soul went to an eternal afterlife.  Elves and most other nonhumans had spirits rather than souls, this meant they couldn't be 'raised' and would eventually reincarnate.

3e seems to have got rid of the life force idea, so all you need is the soul, making it very hard to keep dead (N)PCs dead! 
I think this was a mistake so I keep the life force/soul distinction.


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## Hadit (Mar 31, 2003)

I would say that skeletons and zombies do NOT have souls... they are simply corpses animated by negative energy.
All intelligent undead DO have souls... warped to evil by negative energy. Their souls are trapped from passing on.
The rare exception is the neutral lich, which chooses it's fate. These creatures are so intelligent and eldritch that the concept of good and evil is blurry and abstract for them. They hold their own souls in bondage.


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## Tonguez (Mar 31, 2003)

IMC all mortals have
1. body- the physical part
2. soul- the power source that moves the body
3. spirit - the selfaware immortal part

Incorporeal Undead (Ghosts etc) have spirit and soul, no body

Mindless UnDead (Zombi etc) have Body and Soul, no Spirit (replaced by magic - the spirit is trapped in the Shadow plane*)

Intelligent Dead (Ghoul, Vampires) have Body and Spirit but their soulds are replaced with negative energy (from thre Shadow plane)

* Shadows IMC are Spirits of a destroyed Undead who have been fully corrupted by the Shadow Plane - as they gain power they become Nightshades (my explanation of why shadows don't take over the world - once they reach a critical mass the shadows merge and become a Nightshade of some type (Nightwings are my favourite)


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## Keith (Mar 31, 2003)

Interesting topic!  One notion that seems to crop up a few times is the one of life essence being “trapped” in skeletons or zombies, which I think is missing the time scale of creating these creatures.  In both cases, but most overtly in the case of a skeleton, the creation process occurs well after the individual has died, and whatever occurs after death in the campaign setting has occurred.    The notion that a run-of-the-mill evil spell could be used to animate the corpse of a major hero, and in so doing draw their life force, or any part of it, back from the afterlife and trap it in a mere skeleton…well, absolutely does not work for me.  I wonder what other people think of that scenario?

For me skeletons and zombies are animated objects with no portion of the people who have gone to whatever rest they get in their world.  The alternative seems like too much of a breech of the fundamental function of life and death, particularly when you may have real, existing gods actively involved with that function.   While it makes perfect sense for skeletons/zombies/similar creatures that get created to have the qualities listed under “undead”, to me they are little different from a chair animated to attack.

Another twist on this topic:  the Lich is not undead, I think.  While the process of becoming a Lich is described as evil, I don’t recall any mention of death.  Thus, a living 11th level spellcaster transforms, personality and skills intact, into a Lich.  Lich is a prestige class for evil spellcasters, not a type of undead!  The description does say, I believe, that the Lich “extends their life”.  That is not the same as dying and coming back as undead, to me.  Bit of devil’s advocacy here, but I do think I have a point.
Finally, why IS becoming a Lich evil?  Why don’t good casters create a process that extends their lives but is not evil?!  I think the answer to this is that this issue, extending life-spans, should be a major concern with spellcasting, but has been totally fumbled in D&D.  Magic is approached from a combat perspective, not from what you could call a medical one.  The cure spells are there, but where are the anti-aging and disease prevention spells?    I’m wandering off topic, though.  The topic at hand is enough to handle at once.

Cheers


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## Keith (Mar 31, 2003)

Hey, yea-nightshades.  What were they before they died, and how are they created?!  There is a big hole there, too.   Shadows are a bit vague, also.
Actually, all of the Ghosts, Spectres, what-have-you have to be tied into a cosmology pretty carefully to work at all.  Most of those concepts run in the face of a functional cosmology that has a system for handling life-after-death.


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## Arnwyn (Mar 31, 2003)

Not sure if there's an actual rule here, but IMC, yes - every animated (whether through magic or, traumatic event, or something similar like dying in an unholy area) undead has a bit of soul still trapped and tormented in undead form. Works for me.


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## The Sigil (Mar 31, 2003)

*GUSMAET (Grand Unified Soul, Matter And Energy Theory) - LONG*

GUSMAET is pronounced "Goose Mate" LOL... but here goes...

An interesting question.  Let's try defining some terms and put forth some assumptions and see what happens...

Body - Physical, tangible, form (this one seems pretty clear)
Soul - The self-aware sentience (for fans of OSC, the "aiua", IIRC)

Let us assume that the main "inner planes" are not fourfold, but sixfold:

Positive Energy
Earth, Air, Fire, Water
Negative Energy

The methods of animation of the "body" are various and sundry, and I will try to keep things in line with default D&D cosmology, which tells us that Elementals and Outsiders cannot be raised if slain.  Presumably, their souls are not lacking - since they are sentient - but are rather inextricably tied to their bodies.

We know that positive energy is considered "healing energy" for living creatures, while negative energy "disrupts life."

Presumably, the outer planes, in addition to being made of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water - may also be thought of as being made of "Law and Chaos, Good and Evil."  Hence, there is matter that is "Law" etc.

Let us consider first the easiest case - elementals.  Elementals are creatures that are sentient (have a soul), are composed of matter from the inner planes (Earth, Air, Fire, Water), and cannot be raised if slain - hence, the soul must be inextricably linked to their body.  This tells us that Earth, Air, Fire, and Water are "media" capable of "holding" the soul.  Further, elementals can be "healed" by either positive energy (normal healing spells) or in some cases by application of their native element - at least in prior D&D versions.

I will posit that, consistent with the above, positive energy can be converted into Earth, Air, Fire or Water - but only when applied to a living being.  Now, of course, I have to define a living being. LOL

Well, to me, the option that is most attractive for defining "what makes a soul," given the above, is that the soul is a "wave pattern," if you will - something that is not the media itself, but relies upon the media for its continued existence (clearly, you can have water without a wave, but you cannot have waves without water).  It is this pattern, this organization, that differentiates between a sentient earth elemental and a big, earth-elemental-sized lump of matter from the elemental plane of earth.  Contained within the pattern is not only the sentience of the creature, but at an unconscious level, "instructions" for how the creature's body behaves - hence, when positive energy flows into the pattern, it automatically transforms itself based upon the pattern into the needed physical elements, "healing" the body of the elemental.  Similarly, a large enough disruption of the medium is sufficient to disperse the pattern - in more D&D-ish terms, inflicting enough damage and ruining enough of the body "breaks" the pattern and kills the creature.

This further tells us that pure elemental material is not good at "holding" patterns - left to itself, it collapses to a "raw" state, devoid of patterns (precluding raise dead spells from working even a moment after the creature's death).  We can therefore define a "living" creature as one whose tangible body is imbued with a sentient "pattern."

Outsiders, which work in much the same way as elementals, lead us to believe that Law/Chaos/Good/Evil matter works the same way as Air/Earth/Fire/Water matter.  So Law/Chaos/Good/Evil are media capable of propogating the necessary "patterns" of the soul, but do not do a good job of holding the patterns.

Having played with all of these thoughts, let's turn our attention to the problem of humanoids and other creatures which CAN be raised and DO have souls that can exist independent of the body.  We have already established that elements such as Air, Earth, Fire, and Water and Law, Chaos, Good, and Evil are not "stable" enough media to continue to hold a soul in the face of severe disruptions (damage) to the elements in question.  This leaves us with two other media to explore - positive and negative energy.

Given the effects of positive and negative energy on living creatures, it should be rather obvious that for living creatures, the only logical choice for a medium is positive energy.  We further know that the bodies of living creatures are (in theory) composed of a mix of air, earth, fire, and water - and also Law, Chaos, Good, and Evil - that's the tangible "stuff" - while positive and negative energy are intangible.  Since the material elements themselves do not "hold the pattern" of sentience (rather, positive energy does) in the case of living creatures, it seems reasonable that positive energy could be called the animus (animating force) of the creature - hence, positive energy must have some connection to the eight physical elements.  We won't examine this connection here - it is enough to say that positive energy can animate the eight physical elements - but only when that energy contains a sentience pattern - a "soul" independent of the body itself.

This sets us up for a lot of nice "features" in the D&D system.  The positive energy pattern itself is tied to the body through connections - which, when enough of the connections are severed, causes the positive energy and the pattern associated therewith (the "soul") to separate from the body.  Does this look like "hit points" to anyone else?  Furthermore, positive energy poured into the creature can be used to (a) re-establish/strengthen the "soul" (in cases such as Int/Wis damage) or (b) be converted per the directions extant in the soul pattern into "material" element. (a.k.a. healing).  Since Int/Wis damage heals naturally over time just as physical damage does, it seems to imply that positive energy has the natural property of "regenerating" itself over time as necessary to fill out the sentience pattern.

If we assume that the pattern "prefers" to acquire certain material elements - or to convert positive energy into those elements - suddenly, we see "alignment" falling out of this world view as well.  The patterns of some individuals could be - or become through choices, depending on how you look at it - predisposed to acquire Law matter and expel Chaos matter... meaning that over time, the creature's body literally becomes "Lawful."  (Repeat, substituting in alignment axes of your choice) - or it may have no preference, so that on balance, the body stays "neutral."  Now, the "detect evil" spell doesn't look quite so silly - it's simply detecting for a certain type of matter - and the small amount of "evil matter" in a "Good" character will be masked by all the "good matter."  Similarly, we can get "prime material" creatures with subtypes as they naturally collect certain elements to the exclusion of others (perhaps frost worms, with a Cold subtype, have expelled nearly all "Fire matter" from their beings).

Some of the other consequences of this idea of the nature of creatures in D&D?  Well, let us further ascribe to positive matter free of the "dimensional anchor" of a physical body the ability to "plane shift" over time towards the outer plane towards which its "preferred alignment" pre-disposes it.  In common terms, let's say that the "soul," when separated from the body, has a natural tendency to seek the outer plane appropriate to its alignment.  Once it arrives in that plane, which is "conducive/friendly" to the matter the soul prefers, the positive energy slowly converts itself into the appropriate type of matter (in the case of Neutrals, it converts itself into equal amounts of Law/Chaos and/or Good/Evil matter).  Suddenly, "petitioners" from MotP have "fallen out" as a natural result of our assumptions - and we see why heaven and hell fight for souls - the only way to add significantly to the population of the outer planes is through the natural gravitation of souls formed of positive energy to the outer planes... since the amount of matter in the outer planes is otherwise constant (huge, but finite), there is an upper limit on the number of progeny members of the outer planes can have amongst themselves... but positive energy that changes into "aligned" matter is very much "new" matter and in a very real sense increases the "power" of the plane.

Similarly, creatures that "store/eat" souls are creatures with the ability to somehow interact with the positive energy that makes up a soul... and hence can disrupt or even destroy the "pattern" that resides in/on the energy.

Another interesting consequence - and this is the one that finally attempts to answer the original question - comes if we assume that negative energy is just as capable of holding patterns as is positive energy - but with the stipulation that negative energy is a more "degenerate" form of energy than positive energy and cannot transform itself into matter.  In other words, it's a one-way street - positive energy can become matter can become negative energy, but not the reverse.  Now we can attempt to handle the undead question.

1.) Non-intelligent undead - Lacking sentience, but given animus by negative energy, these undead are "moved" by negative energy that does not have an associated sentience pattern.  The soul is still independent of the body, and IMO, has the ability to be raised by spells that do not require the original body.

2.) Intelligent undead spawned from creatures that are killed (e.g., ghouls, wights) - These creatures have sentience, but it is somewhat bestial and imperfect.  Presumably, the "sentience pattern" in the negative energy of these creatures is one that is "trying to fit" the body that it has - and not being the original "shaper" of the body, cannot do so easily - this "mis-fit" causes problems such as low intellect, as the energy is not nearly as much in control of the body as it would like to be.  Again, the soul is still independent of the body, and IMO, has the ability to be raised by spells that do not require the original body.

3.) Intelligent undead that are "Transformed" from the living (e.g., vampires, liches) - These creatures are in perfect control of their bodies - because rather than try to fit an energy pattern onto a body, they simply substituted - willingly or unwillingly - slowly or quickly - the positive energy on which their sentience pattern was overlaid with negative energy.  Thus, there has been no discontinuation of sentience - merely a replacement of the media on which that sentience rests.  These creatures' souls are literally made of negative energy instead of positive energy.  Some creatures (such as liches) bind their souls to phylacteries as well as physical bodies - the details of this are beyond the scope of this examination - let's just say, "it's magic" - since it literally is magic that is used to effect this change.  The question of, "does a vampire's soul disperse or go to the outer planes when it is destroyed?" is one left to the individual DM, I suppose... does negative energy behave like positive energy in this manner?  There's no hard evidence one way or the other, but I would suggest that the soul instead gravitates to the negative energy plane - where it succumbs inevitably to madness, crushed up with all the other souls there and without a physical body... until it returns to be animus for a semi-intelligent undead (#2 above)... which explains where those patterns come from in the first place and why they "don't quite fit" their (new) bodies.

It also explains why only the most powerful of resurrection/raise spells DON'T require a body - the soul is attuned to certain elements and only powerful magic can assist it to the degree necessary to create a new body in the right proportions whole cloth out of physical materials.  The magic "helps" the soul create matter to "fill in the blanks" under ordinary circumstances - which is why you need fresher, more complete corpses the weaker the magic used.

Incidentally, the reason that possessions, et al, works, can be attributed to magic "bridging the gap" - the above is based on a "natural world" view - and magic can of course be used to "fake" a better fit of body to soul during possession, etc.  We can actually let that stand as a the "hand-waving" method to questions outside the natural life/death/undeath order - if it's not covered in life/death/undeath, "it's magic."

CONSTRUCTS: Matter animated by Magic.  Depending on the matter involved, may have a subtype.

PLANTS: Tough one.  Intelligent ones follow these same assumptions, perhaps non-intelligent plants are like non-intelligent undead - animated/given life by positive energy without a pattern.

NIGHTSHADE: Perhaps an unholy creature native to the negative material plane?  As such, it fits the definition of undead espoused above (one whose animus/soul is made of negative energy) - perhaps with a body made mostly of negative energy, with only Evil physical matter.

GHOSTS AND OTHER INCORPOREAL UNDEAD: Perhaps their bodies are made of "ether" - a ninth element - rather than the eight physical elements.

Wow, that was a lot longer - and more comprehensive - than I thought it would be.  And probably riddled with bad assumptions and faulty logic and stuff inconsistent with core D&D. 

Thoughts?  Critiques?  Comments?  This was all done "off the cuff" without reference to D&D books and is the first time I've tried to address the question from start to finish in a comprehensive fashion.

--The Sigil


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## Keith (Mar 31, 2003)

Yikes!  I’d like to comment, but it will be a while before I can even read all of that!
Way to throw yourself into it!  At a glance, there are some very interesting ideas in there.

Cheers


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## The Sigil (Mar 31, 2003)

No problem - it took me about 45 minutes to compose my thoughts, get them cohesive, and pound this out - so I don't expect a reply in 45 seconds! ;-)

--The Sigil


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## LGodamus (Mar 31, 2003)

I just wanted to touch on keiths comments....
Liches do have to die for their transformation to take place it has always been so in every edition including 3e

and skeletons are undead because they are animated w/ negative energy ......you can animate bones using the animate object spell  but they arent undead they are a construct ...it is the negative necromantic energy that makes them unead


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## Keith (Mar 31, 2003)

Point taken, although negative energy versus whatever animates that candlestick in the MM makes no difference to me, personally.  Like I said, skeletons as undead are fine with me.  I don’t actually use any of these exact creatures anyway, so my comments are pretty speculative .
On the Lich, I expect that is the correct take.  Still, a quote demonstrating it stated clearly would help.  I don’t doubt there is one, but I don’t recall seeing one myself.


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## Gez (Mar 31, 2003)

IMC:

Peoples are made of body, soul, and mind.

The mind is the sum of memories, thought process, experience (level). It's the key behind the Int score.

The soul is the personality, instinct, emotion, alignment. It's the key behind the Cha score.

Undead replace their soul with negative energy -- this is why their alignment may change even when they are intelligent and remember their former life (e.g., vampire). They still keep their soul, but it is imprisonned and used as fuel to animate their corpse; or turned into their incorporeal shape.

Petitioners lose their mind -- they are merely souls.


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## The Sigil (Mar 31, 2003)

LGodamus said:
			
		

> I just wanted to touch on keiths comments....
> Liches do have to die for their transformation to take place it has always been so in every edition including 3e



True enough - though I think my system does handle this by calling "that which is animated with negative energy is undead" - hence, liches don't have to die violently, but in a sense, they do, by definition, die (death being defined as "that point in time at which the positive energy that once animated a body no longer does so" - whether that cessation is due to the positive energy/soul leaving the body or replacing the positive energy with negative is immaterial).

Of course, this places those "halfway" to becoming vampires in an interesting situation - they are in flux as they are, in some ways, animated by both!   This explains why those being drained by vampires are sluggish, et al - the positive and negative energy interact badly with each other, causing the person to be sluggish.  Whether the person becomes undead or returns to "life" depends on whether the vampire is able to continue "siphoning" the positive energy and "injecting" the negative - or whether the vampire is stopped/kept from its quarry and the positive energy - which, you will recall, regenerates itself over time - is allowed to "push out" the negative energy (which does not regenerate itself).

--The Sigil

EDIT: Grammar, redundant sentence.


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## The Sigil (Mar 31, 2003)

*bump*


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## F5 (Apr 1, 2003)

Wow.  So, uh, Sigil...that was just off-the-cuff, huh?  I've cut-and-pasted a copy into my gaming stuff folder, to peruse at greater length later, if you don't mind.  That's good stuff.

One thing I refer to in answering the question of "where is an undead cretures' soul" is an idea that comes up a lot in Eastern philosophies, and in Egyptian mythology; that people have two souls.  One which goes on to an afterlife, and one that "stays behind" somehow.  One soul often has the being's memories and personality, the other has its' core Essense, so to speak.

In my game, I've simplified some of these ideas, and tweaked 'em.  The two souls are called many things in many languages, but they translate to "heart-soul" and "mind-soul".  The heart-soul binds the being to the Earth/prime plane, and when the being dies, this soul remains.  The Mind-soul's final task is to guide the heart-soul back to Nwth (gaia, basically), where it rests until it is reincarnated.  The mind-soul passes on to the outer planes.  Undead happen when there is some disruption to this pattern.  Ghosts are formed when the mind-soul has its' own agenda, and refuses to guide the heart-soul home.  Liches banish their heart-soul from their bodies, and exist as creatures of pure Mind.  You can't be brought back from the dead unless both halves of the soul are in their proper place.  

Now I have to go back to the Sigil's treatise on elemental/existenial waveform-energy, and its' place in the formation of Soul, and figure out how this all ties together.  This will take me a while, and my brains may end up leaking form my ears before I'm finished.  But I'll have fun doing it...

[edited to fix silly typos]


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## LuYangShih (Apr 1, 2003)

Well, I did not expect that much of a detailed response.    I'll try and reply to all the other posts here in a few hours, thanks for all the ideas.


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## Saeviomagy (Apr 1, 2003)

From the description of the spell "speak with dead", it's quite clear that SOMETHING stays in the body that contains the sum total of everything it knows, along with some modicum of it's personality. The spell very specifically states that the soul of those spoken with is not contacted in any way.

However it also says that the body, which is containing 'imprinted' knowledge, cannot learn.

To me, this would suggest that skeletons etc are something simpler than this - they are merely motive force, nothing more. Otherwise one would expect that they would have personality, and the ability to think (which they do not, with an int of -). Also, it shows that animation of a corpse is perfectly possible without it being [evil], and in addition, it's possible to do without disturbing the soul.

Furthermore, it suggests that intelligent undead (and creatures which are possessed) should retain all the knowledge from their previous life, unless this 'imprinted knowledge' is somehow destroyed.

Finally, it would suggest that an undead would not be able to learn new things unless it were inhabited by something which is capable of learning.

Personally, I think that the [evil] descriptor on animate dead (along with the fact that evil priests command undead and channel negative energy) is either
a) Purely cultural.
b) Purely game-balance.

In other words the descriptors should not be there. An evil cleric should be capable of being positively aligned, and vice versa, and the only real restrictions should be whether your god and culture supports this. Animating unintelligent dead creatures may well be distasteful or taboo to certain cultures, but I can't see why it should be a broad-band 'evil' act. In fact, I believe planescape presents a culture in which the animation of your corpse after death is a right which can be traded, and only a minimal stigma applies to that.


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## Saeviomagy (Apr 1, 2003)

The Sigil: Ethereal matter more-or-less has to be able to simulate any real matter, as it's possible for a real creature to be transferred there, and anything transferred there works as normal. Furthermore, the ethereal is... pretty much everywhere - all the planes etc. It's not a distinct form of matter (I don't think) it's a place for matter to be.

A ghost would be a recreation of the original body, only on the ethereal plane. Traditionally, the ethereal was the portal to the outer planes (right?). So a ghost means that the soul started it's movement towards it's own alignment plane, but became stuck for some reason, and instead of forming a petitioner body on it's alignment plane, formed it's analogue on the ethereal.

Perhaps it's the reason why there is no 'neutral' alignment plane? Perhaps it IS the 'neutral' alignment plane? And ghosts get stuck there because their focus on something overrides the influence of good/evil/law/chaos matter?

Perhaps an elemental's 'soul' dissipates because they are typically already on the plane which most corresponds with their own essence? And the chaotic nature of the astral makes linking up the appropriate soul from the prime extremely difficult?


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## cptg1481 (Apr 1, 2003)

*Question for the Group*

Here is an actual in game issue that happened to a character of mine.  

His name was Zonk, he was a 1/2 Orc ranger, who because of a wretched childhood and other things was NE.  (Please reserve the anti-evil campaign/player judgement please)  He was a slave, brutalized and treated like an animal for some 15 years.  he unlike most fantasy characters when faced with his freedom chose instead of a rosey life of righting wrongs and freeing the oppressed a different path.  He decided that no one would ever get the best of him again.  Further he would have anything he desired, regardless of the cost.  He would use his strength (20) to this end.  

I played him as selfish and violent, capable of manipulating others through force or coersion to to get what he wanted. (As a side note...for those who think evil = phsycotic he did have a sense of loyalty to his adventure group and while he surely would not die for them he honestly enjoyed thier company and appreciated that he could have much more of what he wanted by continuing his relationship with them. ) 

Anyway, in the course of his adventure career in particular facing a group of vampires.  One group had placed a gueas (sp), or compulsion on the low willed, party barbarian to remove a rival gang of undead.  In a spectacular confrontation (well played and machinated by the DM) the group, being both clearly out classed and out gunned was going to have  to assist thier barbarian in this cause, it was either this or death.  

At a pivitol point the female vampire leader offered eternal life and awsome power (read - become a vampire) to my guy along with the others.....what do you think a guy who wanted be powerful enough to outclass most of the world do?  This along with that there was the "what better way to swing the balance of power to our side" argument.  He felt that his decision to accept was the best possible way to tip the odds in the favor of the party.  Soooooo......he did it.  He drank some potion (the mechanics of which are not important) and bam he's back the next night a vampire.....

To make a long story short...this was the brekdown of this particular game.  The DM desided after that that he didn't want an evil game.  Ergo, me being a vampire was out.  I decided not to game with that DM after that.   However, that is not the point, its a done deal, I'm not looking for support or critisism of my choicecor view.  

My question was this....since my guy was NE anyway, and made the choise to "undie" willingly what were the implications for his soul?  Could I still play the guy...did he have the volition to be a viable character.  (understanding that he was beholden to the particular vampress of course) I mean was he a suped up version of himself minus a hearbeat?  Just wondering what the thoughts are.  

In my game I'd say fine to someone whe "became" undead under this or any other process that made them a "higher" or intelligent undead.  I this particular case the guy would have been elated with his newfound power.  

Any thoughts on the disposition of his 1) memories/skills, 2) soul, 3) emotions, 4) hopes, and finally his dreams and goals?  

Thanks in advance.....


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## S'mon (Apr 1, 2003)

*Re: Question for the Group*



			
				cptg1481 said:
			
		

> *1) memories/skills, 2) soul, 3) emotions, 4) hopes, and finally his dreams and goals?
> 
> Thanks in advance..... *




I'd think the vampire half orc would retain 1, 3 & 4 (affected by his vampire lust for blood etc), but not 2.  Everything but the soul.
If half-orcs even have souls...


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## s/LaSH (Apr 1, 2003)

Right, I wondered about the terms we're using here, so I asked a guy with a degree in theology (he's also a Catholic priest; highly qualified there, I think). Here's what he had to say.

There are two models under which you can refer to souls: the Greek, and the Judaeo-Christian.

Under the antique Greek model, there is the body, and there is the soul. The soul is kinda the lifeforce-identity thing (I believe it's called psyche in ancient Greek, whence we get the word psychic as well as psychology).

Under the Judaeo-Christian model, there is the body, the soul, and the spirit. The soul is what animates living things. The spirit is a fragment of God itself. (Divine gender indeterminacy intentional.) Animals do not have spirits. Logically, therefore, higher functions of intelligence are spirit-related.

Further information: Angels do not have souls.

This creates a charming mess that needs to be resolved.

Under the Grecian model, an intelligent undead would either be a corruption of the original soul or a negative energy duplicate that uses some kind of impression left within the body. Most people seem to be using this archaic model.

Under the Judaeo-Christian model (only a couple thousand years old), an intelligent undead can simply replace the soul with a negative energy duplicate. The spirit can then remain, retaining identity and so forth. If it does depart the body, where do residual life skills like language come from? The back part of the brain?

Anybody want to poke this can of worms any harder?

(Yay, I got the post through without a kernel32 crash!)


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## LuYangShih (Apr 2, 2003)

Alright, these seem to be the thoughts so far:

1.  Undead are a type of Demonic Parasite that inhabits once living beings, suffusing them with Negative Energy and displacing their soul.  The Buffyverse theory.  The soul of the being that previously inhabited the body is now free, and probably in the Outer Planes somewhere.

2.  Undead are another being of some kind, but in this theory, they are not Demonic, and the soul of the previous being is either trapped in the body (the 1E life force theory) or tormented by the knowledge of what has happened to them/their body.

3.  Undead are the same being they always were, except that they now use negative energy to sustain their existence, instead of positive energy.  If the Undead is ever killed, the soul is sent to the Negative Energy plane where a very nasty fate awaits them.  You don't wanna be turned into Undead in a world where this theory is the law.  Sigils Theory.

4.  The Mind-Body-Spirit are all interconnected, and the perversion or removal of one or more of these three things is what causes Undead to exist.  The imprint of memories exists in bodies, and while the soul/spirit no longer is present in the Undead, it still retains all it's knowledge and skills because the body itself retains those memories.  This seems to originate from the Egyptian Afterlife theory, so I'll call it that.   

It's pretty much agreed non sentient Undead do not retain the soul/spirit of the being they previously were, so let's lay that issue to rest.  Although, it would be good to remember that in some theories, the spirit/soul of the beings body who was reanimated would be tormented by the knowledge of what had happened.  This would give credence to why the Animate Dead spells are considered evil, as well.

I'll give my opinion on all the theories as soon as I have some time, and if I missed any theories, feel free to point them out.  This is great stuff guys, thanks for giving me all these ideas.


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## The Sigil (Apr 3, 2003)

*bump*

Now that April Fool's Day is over, maybe we can turn our minds from the light-hearted to the "deep thoughts" and get some more quality input on this thread. 

--The Sigil


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## LuYangShih (Apr 4, 2003)

I really like most of the theories so far.  I think I prefer to keep the Undead and Demons seperate, however, so I will discard the Demonic Parasite theory.  I would like to keep Undead as unique as possible, instead of another type of fiend.


I am unsure as to whether or not I should keep the raising/animation of Undead an evil act.  Should it be evil, or should it be moral free?  Is creating an Undead a wicked act?  Why would the animation of a creatures corpse torment the soul of the creature that once possessed it?  And would such truths explain why burial is so important to most cultures in a fantasy world?

I also wonder what type of Undead are the true Lords Of Death.  Vampires, or Liches?  Vampires have great strength and powers, but they also have severe weaknesses.  Liches would clearly be much rarer, but would generally be more powerful as well.  If a nation existed where the Undead were the ruling force, would the heads of state be Vampires, or Liches?  And what would the role of the other type of Undead be once one or the other had achieved dominance?  Anyway, just a few questions.


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## s/LaSH (Apr 4, 2003)

LuYangShih said:
			
		

> *I am unsure as to whether or not I should keep the raising/animation of Undead an evil act.  Should it be evil, or should it be moral free?  Is creating an Undead a wicked act?  Why would the animation of a creatures corpse torment the soul of the creature that once possessed it?  And would such truths explain why burial is so important to most cultures in a fantasy world?*




I surmise that's due to the negative energy that is somehow involved in the undead's life-force. Simply being near an undead is going to cause plants to wither, small insects to curl up and die, that sort of thing, just because there's this anti-life thing sitting there. A lot of undead in one place are going to cause a lot of destruction to the local ecosystem. And even if they become undead with the best of intentions, their whole being is now devoted to death, which will inevitably twist their minds towards evil.

Sound about right?



> *I also wonder what type of Undead are the true Lords Of Death.  Vampires, or Liches?  Vampires have great strength and powers, but they also have severe weaknesses.  Liches would clearly be much rarer, but would generally be more powerful as well.  If a nation existed where the Undead were the ruling force, would the heads of state be Vampires, or Liches?  And what would the role of the other type of Undead be once one or the other had achieved dominance?  Anyway, just a few questions.   *




A vamp is stronger (physical ability bonuses, that sort of thing). A lich is hardier (if you kill it, it phylacterises right back at ya). Logically, in an evil society, the one who survives assassination rules. And the lich is the best at that. However, the vampire is still going to be a power in the land. Look at Vecna and Kas - lord and general. A lich won't necessarily have the muscle to back up its authority unless it has some vampire underlings to fly off and do its bidding.

Other undead? The incorporeal types are probably high in the heirachy (and there will be a heirachy - some forms of undead are 'racially' superior to others, it's a statistical fact). Incorps are going to be walking through walls, spying on lesser beings (their touch attacks are largely useless against other undead), but a secret police who can call in vampires to tear rebellious zombies limb from limb is still a grade-A secret police.

The unwilled types (skellywags, zombies) will be mindless labourers, of course. The 'lower' corporeal types (ghouls, wights, that sorta thing) will be grunts, functionaries, your basic lower-middle class. They can put up a fuss if they get torn limb from limb - without reason. Then there would be the uniques... things like devourers and nightshades that you would rarely see even in an undead realm. Devourers, if present, are smart and powerful - they're likely to work directly for liches, as torturers and advisors. 

Nightshades, on the other hand, are brutally smart and far more powerful than a mere lich, at least in physical terms - and a nightshade could very easily take on a lich with its energy resistances, magic detection and spell immunity. A nightshade of any type would probably be either a lone wolf causing havoc (chaotic evil, after all), shrugging off legions of undead grunts; a mercenary, a general without compare; or a ruler in its own right. 

Imagine... a nightcrawler whose palace is a wide-open courtyard of earth where it lies buried and communicates with telepathy. It's going to know if anyone tries to get near it (tremorsense), and is virtually assassination-proof simply by that fact. Only incorps could reach it, and they'd have problems - DR 25/+3, to be precise. Incorporeal touch attacks just don't do that amount of damage. If the beast turns invisible and summons its own pack of spirits, the would-be assassin hasn't got a chance.

Hm, just thinking out loud there...


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## ColonelHardisson (Apr 4, 2003)

LuYangShih said:
			
		

> *Alright, these seem to be the thoughts so far:
> 
> 1.  Undead are a type of Demonic Parasite that inhabits once living beings, suffusing them with Negative Energy and displacing their soul.  The Buffyverse theory.  The soul of the being that previously inhabited the body is now free, and probably in the Outer Planes somewhere.
> 
> ...




With a bit of thought, these three theories can easily co-exist in one campaign world. It would certainly make for an interesting world, and would give more scholarly-minded Necromancers plenty of lecture fodder.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Apr 4, 2003)

I know that most people here have agreed that non-sentient undead do not have souls tied to them, however I'd like to assume they do.

The PHB says that you can only bring back an undead that has been destroyed first.  It doesn't make any differentiation between sentient and non-sentient undead.  If we take this as a premise, that means there is SOMETHING left in the undead that is required to recreate the person.  Even the most powerful spells that can recreate the bodies from scratch still need you to destroy the undead first.

So here is my theory:

Mindless undead still have at least a piece of the soul tied to them.  Maybe, since it isn't very powerful magic, it isn't enough to tie the entire soul to the body.  It animates the body using negative energy and then ties just enough of the will power of the soul to the corpse for it to be able to move on its own.

In this case, that means that the more powerful the magic, the better it is at tieing the soul to the body.  Thus, the magic of a vampire or lich is powerful enough that the soul fully becomes part of the undead, and it is just animated with negative energy instead of positive energy.

You can explain ghosts by saying that the soul WANTS to remain and therefore it uses its own willpower to grab on to negative energy as sort of an anchor to the material plane.

Of course, this theory has one problem.  For mindless undead, if only part of the soul is bound to it, what happens to the rest of it?  It is happily residing on an outer plane somewhere or trapped in limbo somewhere?  Perhaps animating a creature as a mindless undead just weakens the petitioner somewhat.  I guess it would have to be your decision in your own campaign.

In mine, I think I will assume the soul is trapped in limbo, or perhaps still within the corpse, just unable to exert any control.  This helps explain why the spells are [evil].  Imagine a universe where even the lowliest mages had the power to imprison a soul from the afterlife.  Where gods could not, or were not allowed to interfere with this process.  It would explain why a lot of the good gods have their followers seek out and destroy the undead at all costs.  The gods cannot stop mages from imprisioning the souls of their petitioners, but they can command their followers to release them.

Majoru Oakheart


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## Malcolm (Apr 4, 2003)

!!! Good stuff folks!

I run a campaign world in which there are 2 very different and very distinctive cities/socieites run by the Undead.  Both are unique in their presentation and how they function, but have similar advans and disadvans.

My theory to base the soul/mind/body argument for Undead is a mix of the 3 ColonelHardisson summed up.  
Simply put: The mind, body, and soul are tied together in all living things in a mesh that blends them together; they are inseperable to some degrees and what affects one affects the others.
When living creatures are transformed into an Undead state (voluntarily or not) part of their soul is transfered to the Negative Plane (replaced by Neg energy), part of their mind is corrupted with the influence of outsiders (demons attempting easy access to a body with only parts of a soul to now defend itself), and part of the soul lingers to give energy to make the body work now that it cannot continue to do so. 
The more powerful the magic/miracle used to Animate the Dead the greater this exchange of energy to the Negative Plane becomes and the more intelligent the Undead.  

Various Undead:
1.) Un-intelligent Undead = Energy is used to simply hold the body together and function.  The soul is in minor torment and put to rest when the body is destroyed.  Otherwise with vast armies of Necromancers and Adventurers churning through Skeletons all the time, no souls could get to their final resting place without tons of True Ress and Miracles.  The Negative Energy Plane would be full of souls...
2.) Intelligent Undead = Greater exchange of soul (Postive) energy with energy from the Negative Plane.  More functions of the previous living creature are displayed; memories come back and in some cases the ability to wield magic.  Ghosts themselves are "locked memories" that are keyed to one type of thought pattern, and pursue it until a set condition is satisfied. They and Spectres are the break-through point of Intelligent Undead from Ghoul to Vampire, Survivor to Changer.  The lesser Intelligent Undead cannot learn (typically) but Vampires and Liche-types can gain skills, learn new feats, etc. 
3.) NightShades (theory)= The Undead form of an Outsider, usually Abyssal but can be Infernal or even Celestial in origin.  These beings swap power from the various Outer realms to the basic Negative, and the results are paid back heavily!  This would lead to indicate that the Postive and Negative have a greater role than simply being Inner Planes..

As to the cities:
a.) One is a city where each section is ruled by an Undead Lord(s) who hold ultimate power over their specific Undead type.  I.e. A Zombie Lord rules over a large collection of zombie-type creatures; the Vampires stick together, etc.  There is no inter-mingling except by a few of the incorporeal Undead.  The city is layered, being composed of 5 cities that were built over each other.  The top is full of Zombies (mostly human), the next layer is an ancient Egyptian style genre of Mummies (drow), the 3rd is Vampires (mix) in an Eternal Garden, and the 4th is a domain of Liches (Dragons, Ogres, and some mix) who mainly just tinker.  The 5th level is secret, sorry but I have players who read this and would love to find out!
b.) The other city is not segregated, but rather mixed heavily except ruled by castes.  The Vampires make up one caste structure, and the Lich Lords the other.  While the two sides must work together vs. outside forces, they are at odds with each other for power.  This city has more of a Vampire-LARP flavor to it.  Once again, the party hasn't ventured there so I'm loath to discuss much other than it is a very rich, very cultured city, which has a few mortal visitors (not all evil) who profit greatly from dealings with it.


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## ColonelHardisson (Apr 4, 2003)

Possible mild spoiler for Hollowfaust below.


An interesting take on at least part of this subject can be found in Hollowfaust, a city sourcebook for the Scarred Lands. The general populace has been taught that the mindless undead (zombies and skeletons) are merely the vessels the souls of their loved ones once inhabited. This is an important point, because the necromancer rulers of that city use the bodies of the deceased citizenry as the city guards and workers. If the DM supposed that skeletons and zombies or any other animated undead still had the souls of the deceased, this would throw everything into a new light in that city. For example, what if this was a closely-guarded secret of the necromancers, who wished to maintain peace within the city - and the PCs found out?


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