I mean, it's not good, but is it really evil?
I had a concept of a Necromancer who can also resurrect and heal people (And I know there's the life school in the APG) but who is also protected by undead. (He's also supposed to have a Skeleton Dragon)
Also, while we're at it, any help in fleshing out this concept?
I guess I can houserule that raising undead isn't evil. Anyway, looking for reasons why it should be evil.
Mostly it amounts to what the base assumptions of your world are. Are undead universally evil? What about mindless vs. sentient? If no, then I see no reason why controlling undead would be Evil.
This is really one of those topics that has no one right answer and will probably continue to plague games until the world is swallowed by the Abyss. Personally, in my home games, undead does not equal evil. But then, I kinda play fast and loose with alignments anyway.
i view it as evil because in the games i run, the gods dont effect the world directly. furthermore, how would you feel if someone raised your dead sister and started using her to do whatever he wanted disrespecting her body. most people in the world think that once someone dies, thats it, let them stay that way. undeath is unnatural and to willingly use dead creatures against people is bad. IMO and only IMO.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
There are two main reasons why undead are "evil" in D&D.
The first is undead are the antithesis of life, and if life is inherently good, then undead are inherently evil. This is mostly because they are powered by the negative material plane. Of note, this is the reason why good clerics channel positive energy, and evil clerics channel negative energy. (You can most certainly houserule that this is not the case, just as casting an Inflict spell on someone trying to kill you might not be evil.)
Second, animating a corpse basically is a desecration of the body to most cultures. Then again, burying the dead (so the soul can't rise to heaven) can be considered a desecration to some cultures. Also, going to hallowed ground to unearth bodies and animate them is definitely a form of desecration. This made the initial role of undead evil that had corrupted bodies, and in general, that portrayal has changed little.
As a side note: If the body wasn't buried in a graveyard, chances are you killed whatever you are animating, and if your goal was to make an undead servant, was it really in self-defense? So, even if the act of animating the undead isn't evil, murdering something just so you can have a loyal servant is still murder.
In my game, animating undead is not an evil act in and of itself.
However, killing someone to raise them as undead is. Killing anything (even monsters) just to have a body that won't be missed is likewise evil. Using someone's body without permission is generally evil. Imagine animating someone's father without the permission of the next of kin. And good luck explaining to a superstitious pesant, or any cleric whose god has death rites, that using any body in this way is a good act.
So, I think of raising undead as kind of a gateway evil. If a skeleton is useful to have around, then perhaps getting rid of that annoying superstitious farmer will give you two useful skeletons. Then perhaps if you raise that orc village (nobody likes the orcs), you'll have lots of "followers".
Not every character does this. And in my game it's possible for such characters to remain good if they are ver careful with what bodies they animate and control. It's just difficult.
I find it easier to think of it this way: Good and evil aren't dictated by society, they're dictated by the game's dieties - and it takes negative energy (directly related to fundamental evil) to animate a lifeless body, or to bind an unfriendly soul.
It doesn't even matter culturally. Take Cheliax - Lawful evil that (or maybe a result of) constantly use devils. A society that runs off animated corpses for their physical labour might be the norm, as far as they're concerned. But the gods would immediately rule the society as evil.
With a bit of a sidestep is another example: Lichdom. I've had suggestions of "Good" lichs, but they just don't work that way. "I want to become a lich who uses his power for good.", and one of the material components is (under most circumstances) a mass murder of innocent people. If you are on a quest for power at the expense of killing innocents you are *not* good. And correctly roleplayed such a character would probably be on a slipery-slope of "I just need a *little* more power before I begin".
As far as controlling undead goes - no problem. Neutral characters could probably justify the use of the spell or a neutral cleric with negative channeling. Both effects are short lived temporary effects that don't require the creation of new undead - just the command of existing ones. These effects while necromatic (and thus may be socially unacceptable) are not evil (and not dooming your characters soul to the abyss).
Probably the most chief part is to remember D&D alignment is a tool. A nice evil person is still evil when hit by a Holy weapon. A nice evil person would agree when offered a deal where 100 die to save 1,000. A good character just wouldn't be able to make that call - even if it meant all 1,100 had to die - and he'd feel awful for it.
GM note: I was personally grey about good and evil until reading Book of Exalted Deeds for 3.5. Having good and evil as fundamentals dictated by the gods leaves no room for argument. And if they are using undead for good - they're neutral at best. Of course all of this should be tempered by your own reasoning - and it's meant to be fun... (remembers a time when he ran a game where alignments were handled secretly)
Controlling undead is bad in D&D because it is seen as bad and negative to abuse corpses in the culture that created the game.
In trying to keep the game with a positive public image, they made Undead all [EVIL] (big E) and the controlling of them therefore is also evil.
-S
In which cultures is it not bad and negative to abuse corpses?
Well, strictly speaking, ancient Egyptians ritually ripped organs out, (like pulling the brain through the nose) etc.. to make mummies. Something similar comes up in Ebberon where deathless are ritually prepared... If this counts as "abuse" is in the eye of the beholder.
Also, I dissected a frog and a fetal pig in high school. The belief is that they either don't have souls or that the soul moves on at the moment of death.
It's possible to apply this logic to sentients. I don't subscribe to it, and that's not how it works in my game, but some more gritty campaigns might work that way. (And yes, most gods would object to it... but if good and evil is defined by the gods, and the gods of your world don't care...)
Abuse definition 1. To use wrongly or improperly
I don't think it is to use the corpse wrongly or improperly to perform certain rites for the corpse in order to prepare it for the afterlife.
I think undeath is more unnatural than evil.
Undeads are broadly percieved as evil, I think, because often those who have created or control them tend to be evil, and use them towards evil ends.
|
Oh my, is it time for our regularly scheduled 'Why are Undead Evil?' thread already?
'
We have a Paladin Thread, a Realism Thread and a Human Sorcerer FavClass Bonus Thread all running at the same time, so this one was kinda inevitable.
I think I'll kick off a Cleric Armor Proficiency Thread just to see if I can get some fun out of that ...
An elven wizards who chooses to become a lich, might not be outright evil.
Was Frankstein's moster outright evil?
I see skeletons as myrmidons who never question their order, and zombies as animated corpses without intelligence and moral whose only feeling is hunger.
I think the reason why it is percieved evil to raise a dead guy, is because it is respectful to let him rest in peace, not to use his rotten corpse as slave labor.
|
Oh my, is it time for our regularly scheduled 'Why are Undead Evil?' thread already?'
We have a Paladin Thread, a Realism Thread and a Human Sorcerer FavClass Bonus Thread all running at the same time, so this one was kinda inevitable.
I think I'll kick off a Cleric Armor Proficiency Thread just to see if I can get some fun out of that ...
Oh snap, I need a Jumbo sized popcorn for that!
Like all other moral distinctions in Fantasty RPGS, because the gods say so.
Evil god posing as a good god: "The people in the next village you will come to are eeeevil. You must smite them and cleanse the town in my name. Do not listen to what they say. I am, after all, the god."
This argument is as old as the hills and has been repeated on other threads. However, regardless of peoples viewpoints the determination is ultimately up to the GM. If he has no problem with it, then so be it. If his view is different however, then you should wear it without complaining and use a different method for protecting yourself (since using mindless undead like skeletons and zombies as shields is okay at low levels but sucky at mid or high levels)
I believe the OP's question was WHY it would be considered evil. Just trying to clarify.
IIRC I've read plenty of fantasy litterature where undead aren't evil. For example skeletons might be protectors of a sacred sites. Also, I know this is Golarion, but the Baelnorn from the Forgotten Realms is a good elven lich.
In Golarion and by the RAW animating and controlling the undead is certainly evil. In fact James Jacobs has pretty much said that even mindless undead like skeletons and zombies maliciously and actively attack any living creature they see to kill them because of the negative energy empowering them. That's why you can have uncontrolled skeletons and zombies roaming the countryside slaughtering villagers in places. In Golarion only the evil gods would let you animate the dead and necromancers who animate and control the undead are probably breaking the law as well (at least in most of Avistan and Garund). No-evil undead are by RAW and Golarion lore the exception rather than the rule.
It seems that Ion might be the GM in this case, so the ultimate determination is up to you. By RAW however, raising and controlling undead is an evil act.
People feel free to disagree with me. ;)
I'll give you, animate dead is evil. If you want to get a corpse out of the dungeon, use floating disk. Druids should have animate wood, which is not an evil spell. Even in the show Ghost Whisperer, when a spirit animates a corpse, even for a moment, it's an ill intent that the spirit needs to get over so they can move on. My version of Greater Speak with Dead, allows a spirit to form a visual and auditory body only to answer questions. World Of Darkness did some good games involving the undead as anti-heros.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
With a bit of a sidestep is another example: Lichdom. I've had suggestions of "Good" lichs, but they just don't work that way. "I want to become a lich who uses his power for good.", and one of the material components is (under most circumstances) a mass murder of innocent people.
I saw one player who went with a more neutral aim for becoming a lich. His character was originally a farmer until bandits came along and robbed them and killed his wife. He them became a necromancer killed the man that killed his wife and raised him as his undead servant as punishment. He wanted to gain Lichdom so he could raise his wife, turn her into a Lich and they would live together peacefully.
Not exactly a good motive but not entirely evil.
|
I'd also like to point out that there are a lot of myths and stories about a fallen individual returning from the grave to protect the ones they carred about and they are seen as a blessing not an evil abomination, (normally).
How many stories are there of people swearing they just talked to so-and-so that told them this or that and if they haddn't listened would have done somehing really bad, . . . and then learn that the person that helped them died a few days/weeks/etc ago.
In the DragonLance Chronicles, Berems dead sister's ghost holds back the Queen of Darkness for Berem to reunite the gem with the pillar and thus saving the world.
Monster Squad, a long dead Van Helsing grabs Dracula and grapples him into the abyss to save the kids.
Listed as one of the examples of Miracle is raising all fallen warriors to fight on, does this have to be evil?
Being Human, the exorcised spirit of Annie returns for a moment to grab the monster slaying priest when he has te vamp and 2 wolfies down.
A "good necromancer" doesn't have to "control" undead to effectively use the same exact powers without the "ohhh, I'm EVILLLLLLL" overtones that the game tries to force.
What if they cast Create Undead by asking a long dead paladin or hero to return from the grave to fight on a little more.
Or maybe, non-evil undead are simply attracted to the individual, or he uses dark powers to fight the darkness, (because Magic Missile just doesn't cut it).
(reasoning and logic get tossed out the window when it is okay for a Paladin of the most LG of LGs to trap the soul of one of their loved ones in a sword, and possibly destroy their loved one forever if it gets broken, but it isn't ok for a Good Cleric to raise a few zombies in a last ditch effort to save a town being overrun by orcs. . .)
|
My house rule is that it's not evil to control lesser undead. The way I see it, if the soul can't be hurt by the spell, there's nothing wrong with it. If you're just hitting the bad guy with a skeleton you happened to find lying around, isn't this a good thing?
However, creating intelligent undead is always evil. A wraith or devourer has had its soul taken away from its final rest; therefore it hurts a sentient being, and this is evil.
As to undead who become so willingly--I don't see why they have to be evil. What if a good wizard becomes a lich so he can keep protecting his hometown long after his natural lifespan would have allowed him to?
In my campaign world I use the old Ravenloft standard for many undead. A person such as a wizard might become a lich for all the right reasons, but the power of undeath inevitably corrupts him and changes him to evil. He might start out as LG, but after a few years his alignment has shifted to LN and within a century his alignment has become LE as the evil necromantic energies eat away at his soul.
|
Dungeons and Dragons isn't a game of relativistic philosophy, but one of a more objective view point. Things are the way they are because it is the way they are. Having zombies go about destroy crops and towns is always a bad thing. Raising dead creatures by desecrating the remains with negative energies also is an evil act. Having the dead come back to life with the soul's permission is neither.
By giving evil more leeway by naming it neutral diminishes the power of good. Dichotomy is essential is classic Tolkien-esque fantasy, a major source of inspiration for DnD.
Of course there are other worlds like Eberron where things are a bit more ambiguous, but normally, philosophy of DnD is stagnant and objective.
Thank you all for your responses. Also thanks Phil for the insight of the malicious intent of undead fused with negative energy. Though you have to admit, Geb made a useful and productive use of the undead by having them farm of all things.
@Ted, I really don't fall into the bandwagon fallacy. Just because someone else does it doesn't mean it's a good reason. As for the Tolkien-esque fantasy, I'm sure that Monks don't fit in there either. I'm not trying to play in Tolkien's world, not that there's anything wrong with it, it's just not my place.
I really do like the blurring and greying the distinction between good and evil. It won't mean that there won't be npcs or pcs who go by black and white standards, but having it turn out that what they thought was good ended up promoting evil or vice-versa makes for interesting RP.
Right now what I'm thinking about is having Ultima raise the dead in some way other than negative energy (I don't know what) and then he can ask them for servitude. Somewhat like a calling for them to help. I think I'm going to give him the power to allow spirits to animate skeletal forms.
The other thing I might do though is allow those spirits to be indebted to him and not necessarily be the souls of the bones he's using. I don't know if it's really evil because he's using what has already been returned to the earth. So it's no more evil than picking berries from a tree.
I've got this story set up where he is in opposition to a fallen Celestial who became too prideful and has fallen to corruption.
|
|
I mean, it's not good, but is it really evil?
I am amazed no one has ever raised this topic before! It is definitely deserving of hundreds of threads and thousands of posts! We need to tackle this topic, because, well, people cannot see why tearing someone's soul out of the afterlife and placing it in their decayed, deads body as evil!
It is evil to violate the dead in Judeo-Christian culture is it not? The system is founded in that morality and enough said.
If you cannot understand why violating the dead through the use of magic is evil, may be we need a new thread: "Why are people unable to grasp the concept of animating or controlling the dead as an evil act? Discuss."
Sorry, but this topic comes up again and again. Is discussed again and again and again.
If you cannot understand why violating the dead through the use of magic is evil, may be we need a new thread: "Why are people unable to grasp the concept of animating or controlling the dead as an evil act? Discuss."
+1
Remember kids. If you have to say "it's for the greater good!" the action is neutral at best.
Neither command undead nor control undead have evil descriptors. Therefore, controlling undead is NOT evil.
Creating undead, however, is.
Voodoon has this idea of transforming criminals into zombies and using them as slave labor as a form of punishment. Marvel Comics had the so called living Mummy and Living Zombie. None of these are conventional animated dead. Controlling evil undead is evil just as summoning Fiends is evil.
If a character has been raised as an undead, that character cannot be brought back to life until the undead is (found and) destroyed. This is probably the biggest reason I see for it to be evil.
Note that many individuals -- even good ones -- might see this as a positive thing in some situations, but that doesn't change its god-enforced objective alignment tag.
@Ravingdork - May be. I do not have a book at the moment. Still, my point is that this has been discussed to death.
and now it has been brought back to life again. Would you consider that evil? (jk)
I mean, it's not good, but is it really evil?It is evil to violate the dead in Judeo-Christian culture is it not? The system is founded in that morality and enough said.
I think claiming D&D/Pathfinder is based on Judeo-Christian morality should generate a thread of its own..... Trying to put a D&D discussion to bed by claiming Judeo-Christian culture/morality proves a point is fraught with peril.
But on-topic - what if the dead being raised are non-sentient creatures? Being non-sentient they have no souls (or whatever you want to call whatever kind of post-death sentience they may have) so raising them against their will is not an issue. ie a "good" necromancer with an army of animal skeletons and zombies at his or her command.
(/tongue-in-cheek mode on) Especially as according to Judeo-Christian "culture", God gave man dominion over all the animals. Therefore it would not violate the apparent Judeo-Christian morality of D&D to raise them. (/tongue-in-cheek mode off)
Didn't we just have this conversation?
|
|
Trying to put a D&D discussion to bed by claiming Judeo-Christian culture/morality proves a point is fraught with peril.
Fraught with peril? This is not an Indiana Jones adventure or the such. How would you define the moral basis of our modern society (from a majority view) and the moral influence (foundation) of Pathfinder? Greco-Roman? Buddhist? Confuscian? Islamic?
|
Maybe I'm just slightly retarded, but could someone please point out to me in the following text where exactly it says that you are pulling someone's soul from the afterlife and infusing the corpse you use with it to create the undead?
This spell turns corpses into undead skeletons or zombies that obey your spoken commands.
The undead can be made to follow you, or they can be made to remain in an area and attack any creature (or just a specific kind of creature) entering the place. They remain animated until they are destroyed. A destroyed skeleton or zombie can't be animated again.
Regardless of the type of undead you create with this spell, you can't create more HD of undead than twice your caster level with a single casting of animate dead. The desecrate spell doubles this limit.
The undead you create remain under your control indefinitely. No matter how many times you use this spell, however, you can control only 4 HD worth of undead creatures per caster level. If you exceed this number, all the newly created creatures fall under your control, and any excess undead from previous castings become uncontrolled. You choose which creatures are released. Undead you control through the Command Undead feat do not count toward this limit.
Skeletons: A skeleton can be created only from a mostly intact corpse or skeleton. The corpse must have bones. If a skeleton is made from a corpse, the flesh falls off the bones.
Zombies: A zombie can be created only from a mostly intact corpse. The corpse must be that of a creature with a physical anatomy.
See, it would seem to me, that in the case of a neutral caster, perhaps instead of yanking poor farmer "A"'s soul from the afterlife and jamming it into skeleton "B", that you would instead be animating material (similar to animating wood/iron/whatever ala "Animate Object" spell) and the making the material do you will via magic force.
That in and of itself would not be evil, would it? Is it any more evil than say, animating a wooden tree in front of a nature loving druid?
Further, according to the SRD undead are not in possession of a "soul" or anything like that. It is not necessary at all.
I guess I fail to see how using Animate Dead as a spell then requires or is even "evil" other than the fact that its in the spell descriptor.
|
|
That in and of itself would not be evil, would it? Is it any more evil than say, animating a wooden tree in front of a nature loving druid?Further, according to the SRD undead are not in possession of a "soul" or anything like that. It is not necessary at all.
I guess I fail to see how using Animate Dead as a spell then requires or is even "evil" other than the fact that its in the spell descriptor.
Because Animate Dead has the Evil descriptor and because (by RAW) it creates Neutral Evil undead (skeletons and zombies are Neutral Evil in PFRPG).
As with anything else, you are entirely free to change this for your home game, but that’s how it is in RAW.
Oh my, is it time for our regularly scheduled 'Why are Undead Evil?' thread already?
But of course.
As far as the OP's question and story. That sounds like the perfect path to the dark side. heck it would have worked better had Lucas used that one.
|
|
I mean, it's not good, but is it really evil?
I had a concept of a Necromancer who can also resurrect and heal people (And I know there's the life school in the APG) but who is also protected by undead. (He's also supposed to have a Skeleton Dragon)
Also, while we're at it, any help in fleshing out this concept?
I guess I can houserule that raising undead isn't evil. Anyway, looking for reasons why it should be evil.
A lot of people think that icky automaticly equals evil.