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Straightforward by the title.
The flavor and feeling of them is they are "good undead."
If you don't die, then you can't die from lack of food. At least logically thinking.
You might be able to find it in the type writeup in either ECS or BoED.
Did you ask because it is in 3.p? I haven't seen Deathless in 3.p, and as far as I know it is not open-content.
[Jyoti] Deathless don't exist. Undead are proof of negative energy's wish to be like positive energy, but it can't, because we're awesome and they aren't. So as I said, deathless don't exist and it breaks the proper process of a soul's migration, just like undeath. Don't ask me again or I'll heal you to death. [/Jyoti]
This non-canon answer written at the whim of the moment and brought to you by the native denizens of the positive energy plane. :D
Depends on the deathless, same as the undead.
Deathless were basically created to fit the niche of "good undead," rather than doing the sensible thing and have the dead as morally grey as the living.
An evil wizard that gets up out of his tomb is probably still evil even after death. A saintly cleric, on the other hand, is probably going to be just as saintly if sent down from heaven after death.
My general rule of thumb is that animated corpses don't eat, unless they're something like ghouls, which do as part of their shtick, and at some point after feasting on the flesh of the dead will need to find the little ghoul's room to perform the other half of the bodily functions they still have. But skeletons? Not so much. Though it's cool watching a bottle of red wine pour down their rib cage.
Manifested spirits, such as risen martyrs from the BoED, and regular ghosts if you decide to give them that power (and I don't know if it's in the books anywhere, but it's an easy house rule) can appear as they did in life, and do all the regular stuff, so one would assume that they not only eat but do the rest of the usual.
I'd consider most of the Eberron deathless to be rather like mummies, judging by their appearance, so they probably neither eat nor excrete unless some magic put them back to looking like living people, in which case they probably would.
The deathless of eberron are more or less undead. They do not eat or sleep. They are substaned by the worship or there decendents. It says so in the ECS IIRC.
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Ok, what about Pathfinder Deathless? I have heard it mentioned in the Paizo books concerning the cyclops in Gurat, I believe. Of course this is from their Campaign Setting or Chronicles, but it still begs the question as to why it was used there. Will there be Pathfinder RPG deathless? And how do their deathless dine or excrete?
well not sure if they can use the name. But the concept is a non evil undead. So if they use the concept it is undead. And undead normally do not eat or have to go pee, even the ones that eat I am pretty sure do not do number 2
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There is a mention of a non-evil lich in The Great Beyond, and IIRC Ilesha's revenant in Skinsaw Murders is Neutral, so I believe that Pathfinder goes with the "there are some non-evil undead out there" instead of the official wotc "undead = PURE EVIL, therefore we have the deathless for the non-evil semi-undead" stance.
rather than doing the sensible thing and have the dead as morally grey as the living.
The problem with this is that the rules themselves define all undead as evil. Don't believe me? Look at the interaction between detect evil (3.5 version; remember, we're talking about a 3.5 campaign setting) and undead.
The problem with this is that the rules themselves define all undead as evil. Don't believe me? Look at the interaction between detect evil (3.5 version; remember, we're talking about a 3.5 campaign setting) and undead.
Various rules are conflicted on the matter. There are explicitely non-evil negative energy-empowered undead, yet some readings of the 3.5 Detect Evil spell might denote that undeath itself is evil. I don't agree with that particular reading of the 3.5 spell myself, but the Pathfinder version of the spell only includes undeath as a modifier when the undead being in question is actually evil in the first place.
I don't agree with that particular reading of the 3.5 spell myself, but the Pathfinder version of the spell only includes undeath as a modifier when the undead being in question is actually evil in the first place.
That's why I specifically mentioned the 3.5 version (again, the discussion was over Eberron's the the BoED's creation/use of the Deathless type, long before Pathfinder).
You're right that the Pathfinder version does explicitly state that only evil undead ping as evil (which I'm all for -- I always hated that all undead pinged as evil in 3.5 according to the chart). And, with that being the case, there's no reason to have a separate "deathless" type. If the positive energy thing is that important to the creature concept, you can just put in a quickie (Ex) ability that "reverses their polarity" so to speak -- makes them take damage from negative energy and heal from positive energy. Otherwise, just use them as-is and give them a Good alignment.
Undead are dead, and hence have no metabolism, therefore they do not digest what they consume - even if mechanically they /can/ eat - so the chewed up material will sit in their body until it rots, I'd imagine.
Undead are dead, and hence have no metabolism, therefore they do not digest what they consume - even if mechanically they /can/ eat - so the chewed up material will sit in their body until it rots, I'd imagine.
Unless we're talking about physically manifested ghosts who are living for all intents and purposes so should logically process food in the same manner as the living.
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I have lifted this text from the Gazateer. Paizo used the word "deathless".
Built as a series of terraced balconies clinging
to the edge of a precarious mountain spire, the curious
city is home to the wretched Mouthpiece of Gurat, a
deathless cyclops chained in a vaulted chamber within the
mountain’s very peak and discovered here in ancient times
by the first inhabitants of Qadira.
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I have lifted this text from the Gazateer. Paizo used the word "deathless".
Built as a series of terraced balconies clinging
to the edge of a precarious mountain spire, the curious
city is home to the wretched Mouthpiece of Gurat, a
deathless cyclops chained in a vaulted chamber within the
mountain’s very peak and discovered here in ancient times
by the first inhabitants of Qadira.
I would counter that in this case deathless is synonymous with immortal.
I have lifted this text from the Gazateer. Paizo used the word "deathless".
Built as a series of terraced balconies clinging
to the edge of a precarious mountain spire, the curious
city is home to the wretched Mouthpiece of Gurat, a
deathless cyclops chained in a vaulted chamber within the
mountain’s very peak and discovered here in ancient times
by the first inhabitants of Qadira.
I'm not sure it's being used in the same manner as the "Deathless" being discussed here. But I can't say for sure it isn't, either...
I think the idea here is that "deathless" means "undying" or "immortal," rather than specific reference to some variety of creature statted up in a non-open-source book.
And Paizo can use the world "deathless" all they want. There was "Koschei the Deathless" long before any of the companies involved were ever founded, or even for that matter the country they're in. We're very clearly in the public domain here.
Deathless were made to accomodate the Eberron Aerenal elven ancestors, their mummyish council of rulers. Other than that, I have seen very little about it. However, an interesting aside is that as far back as Van Richten's Guide to the Ancient Dead, mummies were animated by positive energy, not negative. At that time, it meant very little mechanics-wise, but accounted for their more lawful tomb-guardian outlook instead of evil.
And no, where undead diet has been discussed, the answer has always been that the stuff they consume is utterly consumed and gone. Hence, no number two. When they eat, they always eat to satisfy some kind of supernatural hunger, which would be a consequence of the negative energy animating them. Thus, a positive-energy undead would not have any sort of need to eat. It's more likely that they excrete stuff from overabundance of energy, really.
That said, I have no problem seeing the mummy council of good, dead elves sipping expensive wines and eating olives during sessions.
Deathless were made to accomodate the Eberron Aerenal elven ancestors, their mummyish council of rulers.
Newp. Actually they first appeared in Book of Exalted Deeds, AFAIK.
Yes, exactly. And when did BoED come out? I'd guess there is a definite correspondence in these dates. Either way, it doesn't much matter: The Aerenals are the only ones who have used the creature type, excepting the one deathless critter in BoED.
...and so, maybe this particular chained cycloptic deathless can eat and poop like the rest of us. Is that the consensus? Anyone at Paizo want to throw in here?
The chained cycloptic deathless is a pretty obvious riff on Prometheus, so judging by that, I'd say he'd have a colostomy bag.
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Yes, exactly. And when did BoED come out? I'd guess there is a definite correspondence in these dates. Either way, it doesn't much matter: The Aerenals are the only ones who have used the creature type, excepting the one deathless critter in BoED.
Third edition. Quite a bit before Eberron from my guess...
EDIT:
Also to clarify further, Eberron was created during a contest where the best campaign setting Wizard's could find from submissions, would be published. Keith Baker succeeded with the Eberron campaign setting, and it became published.
I find it highly more likely that he went to the Book of Exalted Deeds and chose to use deathless, rather than Wizards made deathless for a fan submitted Campaign setting.
Eberron was created by author and game designer Keith Baker as the winning entry for Wizards of the Coast's Fantasy Setting Search, a competition run in 2002 to establish a new setting for the Dungeons and Dragons game. Eberron was chosen from more than 11,000 entries, and was officially released with the publication of the Eberron Campaign Setting hardback book in June 2004. The campaign setting book was written by Baker, Bill Slavicsek, and James Wyatt.
I would like to point out that the subtype in the ECS is close but not the same as the one in the EBD.
The ECS lacks the lines
• Cannot use the run action
• Evil clerics can turn or destroy deathless creatures as good clerics turn or destroy undead. Good clerics and paladins can rebuke, command, or bolster deathless creatures as evil clerics rebuke, command, or bolster undead
Minor points but points all the same
And Book of Exalted Deeds was released october 2003, if I understand correctly. They were likely building the framework for the Eberron setting while working on the BoED. As I said, the dates correspond pretty well.
If I recall from the blog, the undying court was in his homegame as where the deathless(if not the rules from the book)
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Yeah I'm with those that think that's not deathless creature type, that's deathless as a synonym for undying, immortal, neverending, divorced from the mortal concerns.
He probably can eat and when he does eat he poops, and when he doesn't he gets hungry, but he could easily choose to not eat and while he wouldn't die from it, he wouldn't be happy.
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And Book of Exalted Deeds was released october 2003, if I understand correctly. They were likely building the framework for the Eberron setting while working on the BoED. As I said, the dates correspond pretty well.
Ehh I find it again highly more likely that Wizards made deathless, Keith adapted it for his campaign setting. Again I reference you to the fact the campaign setting was made a year before the book came out. Wizards decided to go with it then. At the very least, Keith would have seen it in production and decided it worked better for an idea he had and decided to utilize it. The first and only time a published setting would use deathless.
I want to emphasize that Deathless most likely had NOTHING to do with a campaign setting written up a year before the book that contained them was released.
It is far more likely that if deathless WAS an Eberron special feature they would have put it in the campaign setting, rather than in the Book of Exalted Deeds. There would have been no reason to FORCE players to buy the book a year before the campaign setting was published.
