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I don't see a problem with having creatures have an alignment regardless of their intelligence (because mindless creatures, as deemed 'mindless' in PF, really aren't, for one).
And that's a whole 'nother pet peeve of mine.
Zombies and Skeletons are 'mindless,' and yet able to understand spoken languages (specifically their creator's instructions) and sometimes use weapons and armor (terribly inconsistently, with it even being possible, under some interpretations, to stick an exotic weapon on a corpse and then animate it, and it magically becomes proficient with it because it was in its hand when it was animated!). Some interpretations have them capable of hating life, and seeking out living creatures, and yet able to distinguish between living plants (they don't run around hacking up gardens!) and living bugs (they don't chase fireflies at night with murderous life-hating intent) and living trees (good luck tearing that oak down with your 1d3 claws, mister skeleton!) and able to somehow prioritize between tearing up grass and attacking humans. And then there's the question of how they know something is alive in the first place.
Can you just keel over and 'play dead' and auto-succeed, because a skeleton is too dumb to make a Sense Motive check and realize that you are a living person lying on the ground, and not a corpse? Can you throw a sheet over someone and leave the Int 0 skeleton utterly incapable of knowing that there could be a living creature under that sheet, even if the skeleton was in the room when you did it, because the skeleton *literally* has zero memory at all and the second that sheet went over the kid's head it might as well have been teleported to Venus for all the skeleton knows?
Can you summon a swarm of butterflies and utterly end an undead encounter, because they will spend the rest of their time attempting to find and kill every insect fluttering around them, while you take advantage of their distraction to walk out of their visual range, at which point, since they have no minds or memories, you have just ceased to exist to them?
Mindless is just a terrible rules mechanic. Insects can be trained, can remember things, can do math, can learn and practice craft skills, etc. Int 1, maybe. Mindless? No.
[tangent]I also loathe the Con nonability. My car has a Con score. It can be poisoned (sugar in the gas tank, anyone?). It can suffer 'organ failure' (battery... low...). It has a complicated system, some of it even uses stuff derived from organic life! (Like that black liquified dead dinosaur-sludge that keeps everything slippy and makes it go.) It can certainly be 'critically hit,' because there are places you can hit it and it doesn't much care, and places you can hit it that make its systems shut down. Con is a perfectly good mechanic to use for non biological systems, and in attempting to be 'realistic' and say that 'unliving things can't have 'health'' it's just created more problems, IMO. A workable mechanic, thrown out for exception-based design, just because 'the word doesn't sound right.' Utter flavor. Utter twaddle. If Gary had named the 'health' attribute 'Durability,' I doubt we'd have this nonsense.[/tangent]
Same with any undead you can order around. If it can follow spoken instructions, it's already smarter than quite a few of the people I've worked with... (And most of the pets I've owned, who can handle about one word, tops.)
Since 1st edition, there's been the notion that dead bodies retain some sort of 'spiritual echo' that can be spoken to via the Speak With Dead spell. IMO, the animate dead spell uses *that* 'echo' or 'shadow of the soul' or 'khaibit' or whatever you want to call it to give the animated corpse some tiny residue of the 'motor memory' of the departed, allowing the zombie or skeleton to use the weapons or wear the armor that it's previous owner could use. (Making the 'Lets put elven curve blades and longbows in all these commoner corpses hands to make them more useful!' no longer an option, as commoner corpse-zombies would have commoner weapon and armor proficiencies...)
That sort of 'fix' would get rid of this whole inane 'animate dead steals souls from Pharasma and can beat devil pacts and uncreate angels!' nonsense, along with the inconsistency that a skeleton can somehow hold the soul of an Int 18 wizard and still be mindless, or a 5th level LG paladin and still be (and detect as!) NE. If there was a person in there, in eternal torment, how come detect thoughts and detect evil/good/chaos/law can't detect them in there? Wouldn't a protection from *good* spell stop zombies made from good commoners, since the zombie would destroy itself (by tearing the trapped soul-fragment out of it's body) by walking into it?
It's just a crazy rabbit hole, and the game's mechanics have never supported it, and still don't.
IMO, if you spent your life doing whatever you needed to do to get into Iomedae's sacred snack chamber when you died, what happens to your corpse when you are already in heaven is irrelevant. Iomedae (and Pharasma!) pwns any punk 5th level evil cleric that turns your body into his trapspringer. If you sold your soul to Asmodeus for a harem of hotties and all the temporal power you can temp, and then died, no animate dead spell is going to prisonbreak your butt out of hell.
At *worst*, you might feel a vague sense of unease when it happens, 'as if someone just walked over my grave.' But since most petitioners are busted back down to 1st level and lose all their memories of their mortal existence, it's pretty much impossible for them to give a crap about this sort of thing, since they don't even remember what their mortal body looked like, or that they had a family it might be threatening. No 3rd level cleric spell is going to have the power to *ruin your afterlife.* (Or, in the case of someone in an unpleasant afterlife, alleviate your punishments!)
There are 8th and 9th level spells like Soul Bind and Trap the Soul that can work *near* this level, and they *still* can't slap Pharasma in her scowly face and steal stuff she's already taken custody of.
Pharasma may not be *perfect*, but she's a heck of a lot better than that!
I think most of the Undead Creation methods could be named 'Create Evil Undead'.
Some means to create Undead don't involve that, but most of the Undead types are inherently Evil.
whatever Ghast-dom is, is inherently Evil. same goes for all the Evil Undead types.
other types are not (Ghosts), and that list can be open ended, if much less common.
whatever is going on with JuJu Undead, isn't so much 'create typical undead' as 'create not-required-to-be-evil VERSION of typical undead' (thus, no longer typical, if not Evil).
Undead aren't ALWAYS evil. Just almost all of the time.
See Normalacy is restored.
Honestly though I'm not getting where the 3rd level spell trumps Pharasma argument is coming from? No where in the spell description is the former bodies soul even mentioned.
Undead aren't ALWAYS evil. Just almost all of the time.See Normalacy is restored.
Honestly though I'm not getting where the 3rd level spell trumps Pharasma argument is coming from? No where in the spell description is the former bodies soul even mentioned.
I don't recall ever seeing anything explicitly stating that, but it's a reasonable enough inference from Pharasma having such a problem with undead that I asked James Jacobs a while ago:
1b) Generally, mindless, after the fact undead only retain a tiny shred of the original soul. Not enough to stop the soul from moving on, but enough that as long as that undead exists, that soul feels slightly less. Kinda like losing a pinky toe. When a mindless undead is destroyed, that fragment is restored to wherever. Pharasma isn't involved, although she still hates the mindless undead.
So it's not that Animate Dead pulls your entire soul out of the afterlife, chops it up, and processes it into animation fuel, but it does apparently break off a small chunk of it for that purpose.
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My thoughts on all of the above are thus:
If it has a soul, its redeemable, and if its redeemable, then destroying it also destroys its shot at redemption. Now, suppose the zombie brought back was a paladin - you just nerfed his chance at the afterlife he earned. That means killing that zombie, and not trying to redeem it, is THE evil act, IMO.
And now I just think I got to the bottom of the problems I have been having with Arazni - MAN, did she get a raw deal. It doesn't matter what you accomplish in your life, some idiot with a spell can screw-up your eternity.
And this is why I say undead should be souless, and they always will be in my games.
Well I'm thinking Maxout is a troll since he hasn't appeared in the thread since the OP. As stated by James Jacobs undead aren't always evil. And to cover the OP's last line - Kaidan is a published Pathfinder setting and resurrection doesn't work there. So not only are undead not always evil, but resurrection isn't always a possibility either.
Because they are an unholy mockery of life powered by forces MAN WAS NOT MEANT TO DABBLE IN! (Duuuhn duhn duuuuuuhn!)
That said its also nice to have something there so the paladin can go smashy smashy without contemplating his navel.
Honestly though I'm not getting where the 3rd level spell trumps Pharasma argument is coming from? No where in the spell description is the former bodies soul even mentioned.
You might have missed my edit in my earlier post (which is understandable as I edited that thing, like, three times).
As plague ravages a town and the bodies of loved ones, friends, and neighbors pile up in the streets, what could be more natural than the fear of those corpses somehow coming to life, rising from the dead to claim you as one of their own? Death is the great unknown, the one thing all people fear, and the concept of returning from such a state turns the hearts of men and women to ice.
In areas devastated by pestilence and disease, the dead can sometimes outnumber the survivors, leading to the fear that the walking dead will overrun the living in a “zombie apocalypse.” And as more people fall victim to the terrifying plague, the number of walking dead continues to increase. Civilization is a fragile thing, and in the face of such an unprecedented, unstoppable threat, can society truly hold itself together? Or is it doomed to fall beneath the claws and teeth of the dearly departed?
The fear of the walking dead is also the fear of becoming one of them—a mindless slave under the control of someone else. A person transformed into a zombie loses his freedom, his individuality, his conscience, and some might say his very soul. And not even death can save you from such a fate, because your final reward—a peaceful death and a heavenly afterlife—is also taken from you. Becoming a member of the walking dead means nothing less than a horrific, unending life without hope of rest.
The bolded part is the important implication there. Is it explicitly stated? No. Not at all. But, depending on how you read it, it's pretty strongly implied. "... your final reward—a peaceful death and a heavenly afterlife—is also taken from you." is a pretty awful thing, especially added to "And not even death can save you..."
That's... kind of super-lame.
She's been less than fully functional ever since Prophecy broke down with Aroden's death. There have been souls stolen that were on their way to the Boneyard for judgement. (that's the central MacGuffin in Death's Heretic)Yeah, it's... odd to say the least (and rather unpopular). There was a bit of a furor about it, in fact (and I admit it makes Pharasma seem... less spectacular, which was a pretty large problem).
I don't know... I never fully bought that she didn't know. There's just too much oddness about Aroden and her (and she's actually done something like this before, with the Azlant).
There's a bit of a difference between stealing a few weak souls on the way to the boneyard and then undoing a transformation that it requires wish or miracle to otherwise perform, if said target fails their will save... and doing so with a 3rd or 4th level spell. That's where Pharasma becomes seemingly pointless.
And now I just think I got to the bottom of the problems I have been having with Arazni - MAN, did she get a raw deal. It doesn't matter what you accomplish in your life, some idiot with a spell can screw-up your eternity.
Oh, Arazni got an awful deal. That's kind of what makes it such a bad situation. But it wasn't a simple 4th level spell that did this.
Some of her faithful (after she was peacefully dead, mind) assaulted Geb's country Geb, and Geb took Arazni out of retaliation. She was raised... as a lawful neutral lich, from what I can gather... who was slowly corrupted by Geb over time. That doesn't perfectly fit with the timeline, but from what I've gathered from reading her entries, that seems to be what happened.
Over the years, his influence and urgings eventually turned her against her former allies, particularly her successor Iomedae, until nothing remained of her former personality.
The "over the years" part is what I mean.
Still awful, but not actually as awful as Animate Dead.
She's been less than fully functional ever since Prophecy broke down with Aroden's death. There have been souls stolen that were on their way to the Boneyard for judgement. (that's the central MacGuffin in Death's Heretic)Yeah, it's... odd to say the least (and rather unpopular). There was a bit of a furor about it, in fact (and I admit it makes Pharasma seem... less spectacular, which was a pretty large problem).
That was happening long before Aroden died. The Astradaemons specialize in snatching souls from the River of Souls, and I don't exactly remember, but I think there is a type of psychopomp that guards the River of Souls against the depredations of other outsiders.
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That was happening long before Aroden died.Yeah, it's... odd to say the least (and rather unpopular). There was a bit of a furor about it, in fact (and I admit it makes Pharasma seem... less spectacular, which was a pretty large problem).She's been less than fully functional ever since Prophecy broke down with Aroden's death. There have been souls stolen that were on their way to the Boneyard for judgement. (that's the central MacGuffin in Death's Heretic)
Yeah, it sure seems like undead existed *long* before Aroden died, so I'm not sure what he meant by that.
In fact, not only did undead exist before Aroden died, Arazni got turned into a lich 700 years before Aroden died, so it seems very likely that animate dead and zombies existed before then, which means Pharasma has been hemorrhaging souls *long* before the 'age of prophecy' ended.
That was happening long before Aroden died.Yeah, it's... odd to say the least (and rather unpopular). There was a bit of a furor about it, in fact (and I admit it makes Pharasma seem... less spectacular, which was a pretty large problem).She's been less than fully functional ever since Prophecy broke down with Aroden's death. There have been souls stolen that were on their way to the Boneyard for judgement. (that's the central MacGuffin in Death's Heretic)Yeah, it sure seems like undead existed *long* before Aroden died, so I'm not sure what he meant by that.
In fact, not only did undead exist before Aroden died, Arazni got turned into a lich 700 years before Aroden died, so it seems very likely that animate dead and zombies existed before then, which means Pharasma has been hemorrhaging souls *long* before the 'age of prophecy' ended.
I'm not talking about the undead thing. In part because I like non-evil undead, in part because I like that Golarion's undead are evil to the ectoplasm and in part because I love Pharasma (my very first Pathfinder character was a varisian cleric of Pharasma/loremaster that was part of the Pathfinder Society) and I disagree with anything that makes her any less powerful than she should be.
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Hm...well, common undead such as zombies and skeletons aren't behaving like real animals, not really. A "wild" zombie attacks anything that lives and breaths because the negative energy animating it compels it to do so (i.e. to destroy life) much as positive energy compels us to survive. However, while that IS similar to a living being, the animal kills to survive. Theoretically, a zombie doesn't "need" to feed, per se (Blood of Night alternate rules notwithstanding), it simply does. Its body is essentially static. Its dead. It stays the same sort of dead until destroyed. Eating stuff won't change it, keep it alive, kill it, what have you. Therefore, when it kills, it kills for moral reason, thus, default evil, or at least the closest way we can rationalize negative energy, which acts as a sort of "anti-life" seeking the destruction of all. I personally like living, so i see something that kills stuff for the sake of killing to be rather unpleasant at best, and abominable at worst. So, that's for mindless undead, anyway.
Onto necromancy. Necromancy is, as many necromancers in fiction have been heard to say, merely a tool, no different than illusion, enchantment, or any other form of magic. Which is, to some degree, true. Morality wise, controlling a dead body is no better nor worse than using a dominate monster spell to control a living being. Might actually be morally better, since the dead aren't really using those bodies anymore, so, whatever. They're certainly not going to object, unlike the minotaur you just dominated who has been finally freed and is starting to question why you made it carry all of your stuff for eighteen miles or whatever. However, since you dabble in negative energy, you introduce a very bad power into the world. By itself, this is no different than summoning fire (just as destructive, in all honesty), but there's a catch. First, one would have to be already a little eccentric at least to treat corpses as necromancers do, but that in and of itself isn't too unusual. Second, though, is that necromancy is also the area of interest of a number of dark powers, and I'm certain many mortal souls have been tempted by those powers, simply because their dabbling in necromancy has drawn the attention of these beings. Thirdly and finally, the negative stigma associated with such practices tends to have a very poor effect on the sanity of anyone attempting it. Everyone assumes so strongly you'll go bad that eventually, it'll become a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. At best, no one will trust you and you'll be shunned, the loneliness and pain slowly driving you to madness. At worst, you'll be hunted and attacked for no good reason, and you'll be forced to defend yourself. And once you've been forced to use your power to kill and destroy, you'll have to create rationalization. And only the purest of souls can withstand so much hatred and not sow hatred in turn. Which is why most necromancers do turn evil. That, and necromancy is easy power, so selfish people groove on it.
As for vampires, ghouls, and other creatures that feed upon mortals, their evil mainly comes from the fact that eating sentient beings eventually turns one a little loopy over the centuries. That, and the act of feeding upon another sentient being not for your own nourishment, but rather to continue living past your expiration date isn't exactly moral by any means. I mean, cannibalism isn't looked on too favorably, so a former human vampire sucking someone dry to stay unalive shouldn't be viewed too differently.
Finally, on the subject of those who intentionally join the ranks of the dead (such as liches and certain graveknights), the rituals they must go through in order to extend their existence are dark and horrible, require much sacrifice and pain, and all for the sole benefit of power, which is USUALLY an evil goal (there are minor exceptions, such as adherents to a faith devouted to keeping a demon sealed would sacrifice themselves to make one of their spellcasters a lich so he can keep an eternal vigil on the demon's prison). But even the ones that aren't perverse enough to use the secrets of lichdom for selfish reasons eventually turn paranoid and withdrawn, and with isolation often comes madness, and over many, many centuries of this, most of these voluntary undead become evil.
P.S. Undead can also easily be corrupted by darker powers, such as Urgathoa, Orcus, or, heck, even other necromancers, and thus wreak havoc even if they normally wouldn't. While this doesn't make them evil per se, it certainly makes them dangerous, since they stray very close to the darker path, moreso than other sorts of spellcasters.
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Well, the "corruption by darker powers" depends on how powerful those darker powers are. Yes, Urgathoa is the goddess of undead, and might be able to make normally polite and peaceable undead go nuts, run amok, and kill and eat all the humans they'd previously been coexisting with, (including their mortal servants, which can get truly inconvenient for a vampire with staff), but that's the same as saying that since Lamashtu is the goddess of beasts, all beasts are subject to "corruption by darker powers," since any moment Lamashtu wills it, she can have a live-action remake of "The Birds" with Merisiel taking the place of Tippi Hedren.
While Urgathoa stirring up the undead is a fine plot, it should likely be used sparingly, the same as having Lamashtu making the birds go nuts or Cayden Cailean possessing all the town drunks. Generally speaking, drunk should be drunk the same way that undead is just undead, with nothing more mysterious to it than that, and birds are just birds and unlikely to attack en masse unless they're some form of special birds who do that.
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One other thing to think of, is that, reference social issues: you're basically saying that undead "go evil" because they're lonely and thus lose empathy for other creatures. That seems to make a better argument for, "Hey, this is a sentient non-evil creature; we should make sure that it has company and is always well respected in our community."
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In my home games the nature of undeath depends upon the undead itself.
A flesh golem is a neutral construct. What is the difference between it and a zombie? One forces the spirit of an elemental to animate corpse bits and one uses "negative energy" whatever that is.
In my games mindless undead such as skeletons and zombies are essentially golems.
Intelligent undead ARE evil because they are not animated by "negative energy" but by demons and devils. A vampire might LOOK like Uncle Joe, but his vampiric body is actually now just hosting the demon Cerogix... that mage THOUGHT he would "unilve" forever, but he died, and now his body hosts the devil Vroximil...
A handful of undead remain spirits of the dead such as ghosts and such. Usually these are limited to incorporeal undead.
Anyway, that is the way I like to run undead.
Now see, that makes sense. I can entirely see how that works (similar to Buffy, actually).
EDIT: to be clear, I like that as a home brew option. It's not anything related to RAW, so it doesn't solve the very deep mystery of arbitrary evil in a general way, but as a home setting choice, it's great.
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Keeping your undead mummy paladin necropolis guards company with good outsider companions and allowing them a sort of dreaming/rest state could help with that as well.Create by a White Necromancer, no doubt? :)
Aw hell yeah.
(I still think Osirion/Egypt-style cultures make for a great origin point for certain white necromancer traditions, what with the focus on caring for their dead)
Also, for those wondering how good undead/necromancy can work mechanically as well as flavor-wise, the White Necromancer class from Kobold Quarterly is a must-read.
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A flesh golem is a neutral construct. What is the difference between it and a zombie?
This, inadvertently highlights another issue I have as well with the logic issues with Undead/Mindless/Evil.
I'm not really sure where this concpt comes from, but I want to say Eberron, that Constructs and Golems are braught about by somehow trapping an Elemental in it.
Soooo, it's perfectly (and even Nuetrally) okay to kidnap an Elemental (see also the whole Outsider Body & soul are one unit thing here), force it to inhibit a very 100% unnatural shell, (and likely one that is very much an oppossed element at that if your not Earth) and to serve you, or else. (That's nothing like using a Magic Circle to trap a Demon/Devil and force it to serve you, one of the most evil things a character can do classically). . . That's ok, forgetting the whole it's okay for golems to be unatural (what is really more unnatural than a golem, seriously), but that makes mindless undead evil somhow. Ah um, sorry. That's all fine. But somehow, using a perfectly natural and not in any way evil negative energy to reanimate a dead body (regardless of what reason it is to be used for, including protecting other good and innocent faithful from getting harmed in an assualt), that is somehow soul-tarnishingly overwhelmingly corruptingly evil?
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That's one of the reasons it's kind of odd, really.
I've personally interpreted golems with elemental spirits, ultimately, to mean not the sentient animated creatures that appear in the Bestiary/Monster Manual/etc. but rather to mean just spiritual animus, i.e. taking mindless not exactly alive elemental soul-like-stuff energies, shaping these, and shoving them into a golem creation. But that's not really what's implied by the rules.
What's even worse, is that you're taking a thinking, sentient, free willed, independent non-evil (outside of strange mitigating circumstances) creature, and forcing into servitude as a mindless, unfeeling, anything-but-free-willed slave to the creator. How is that any different - at all - from creating skeletons or zombies other than the servant you make as a golem is (generally) tougher, more powerful, and more expensive (so, you know, harder to destroy/free the thing inside it)?
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Keeping your undead mummy paladin necropolis guards company with good outsider companions and allowing them a sort of dreaming/rest state could help with that as well.Create by a White Necromancer, no doubt? :)Aw hell yeah.
(I still think Osirion/Egypt-style cultures make for a great origin point for certain white necromancer traditions, what with the focus on caring for their dead)
Also, for those wondering how good undead/necromancy can work mechanically as well as flavor-wise, the White Necromancer class from Kobold Quarterly is a must-read.
When I see White Necromancer I picture a version of Necroscope, someone able to communicate with the dead, gain their help, experience, knowledge, and even occasionally their consent to use their bodies. It is a matter of TAKING vs ASKING. Anyway I can definitely see this as a great flavor for a necromancer. Regardless of him being white he will be misunderstood and persecuted which just adds to the character. :)
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I as kind of (jokingly) going much more for the sort of oil and water idea, an elemental (the most natural thing I can think of beyond positive and negative energy outsiders) and forcing to to exist, indefinetly inside of the most unnatural "creature" I can imagine. That itself, in my opinion, must be an unending (psychological/emotional) torture equivalent to Summoning a Demon and forcing it to do only Good acts or watch good acts be done, forever. And the fact that said elemental spirit (again going from Eberron specifics that I'v seen implemented as the standard thereafter, even in Golarion), your literally removing it from it's elemental duties, (indefinetly) and forcing it to act and do things complitely contrary to it's nature, and absolutely against it's will.
Not to mention the entire religious (maybe more real world) implications of mortals stealing the "divine" powers to create "life" sort of unnatural.
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When I see White Necromancer I picture a version of Necroscope, someone able to communicate with the dead, gain their help, experience, knowledge, and even occasionally their consent to use their bodies. It is a matter of TAKING vs ASKING. Anyway I can definitely see this as a great flavor for a necromancer. Regardless of him being white he will be misunderstood and persecuted which just adds to the character. :)
Nailed it perfectly. :)
Gotta love a necromancer class that has Diplomacy hardwired into their undead-makin'!
(the header image for that article sums up a lot of what they're about quite well too. It's a beautiful, half-sad/half-heartwarming image)
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To me, I actually like the Divine White Necromancer than the Arcane side (which can already be done, really). I see a Cleric, calling on fallen saints to aid guide their allies swings, heal their wounds, or, if need be, reocupy their old bodies (or magically recreate them) to protect the innocent and temporarily spiritually aid in bringing some holy smiting Evil's way. Foresaking the heavenly pleasures to surve the causes of good in the world one last time, even if just as shambling, broken flesh. Better to take a falchion to the chest than let those Orc raiders destory another family that still has a lif ahead of them.
Not to mention a Good leading a small army of undead saints against the Evil Cleric's equal army of undead just seems really dang epic to me.
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To me, I actually like the Divine White Necromancer than the Arcane side (which can already be done, really). I see a Cleric, calling on fallen saints to aid guide their allies swings, heal their wounds, or, if need be, reocupy their old bodies (or magically recreate them) to protect the innocent and temporarily spiritually aid in bringing some holy smiting Evil's way. Foresaking the heavenly pleasures to surve the causes of good in the world one last time, even if just as shambling, broken flesh. Better to take a falchion to the chest than let those Orc raiders destory another family that still has a lif ahead of them.
Not to mention a Good leading a small army of undead saints against the Evil Cleric's equal army of undead just seems really dang epic to me.
Yeah I like that idea too. Kind of twisted :) But it works really well when you consider saintly reliquaries containing bits of bone and flesh and such (seriously gross if you ask me).
BTW THIS brings up another problem with undead...
You CAN'T have undead armies... a powerful necromancer is restricted to X HD per level... you can boost it by feats, traits, spells, archetypes... but it never really gets to the point of an ARMY. Somehow facing off against a platoon of undead just lacks the epic feel of facing and undead ARMY... *sigh* dang rules get in the way of story telling again.
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One other thing to think of, is that, reference social issues: you're basically saying that undead "go evil" because they're lonely and thus lose empathy for other creatures. That seems to make a better argument for, "Hey, this is a sentient non-evil creature; we should make sure that it has company and is always well respected in our community."
No it doesn't. Let me clarify. Mortal necromancers should be watched carefully to make sure they don't distance themselves too unhealthily from others and thus reach the sort of disconnect that often leads them to consider human lives as expendable resources. Having someone giving them the benefit of the doubt, acting as a support system, and occasionally telling them to get some sleep instead of tinkering with Old Farmer Bob's corpse for the ninetieth hour in a row might help keep the whole "the world is against me, so i have no choice to be against them" mindset at bay(not, this is a person by person basis type deal If they're already crazy, it doesn't work, but if they're just starting out, it'd be nice if everyone didn't automatically give them the stink eye for experimenting with a different sort f magic due solely to social stigma). As for undead themselves, at least according to Undead and Classic Horrors Revisted, this isolation is more due to the fact that their undead state begins to distance themselves from people. Even if they were constantly in a positive atmosphere, their condition will slowly wear on their minds regardless as a side-effect of being undead.
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Keeping your undead mummy paladin necropolis guards company with good outsider companions and allowing them a sort of dreaming/rest state could help with that as well.Or better yet, don't turn your Paladins to undead, and let them retire from the job and be replaced by fresh volounteers.
That, sadly, isn't always an option, or it might be the most foolish option possible under certain circumstances.
One other thing to think of, is that, reference social issues: you're basically saying that undead "go evil" because they're lonely and thus lose empathy for other creatures. That seems to make a better argument for, "Hey, this is a sentient non-evil creature; we should make sure that it has company and is always well respected in our community."No it doesn't. Let me clarify. Mortal necromancers should be watched carefully to make sure they don't distance themselves too unhealthily from others and thus reach the sort of disconnect that often leads them to consider human lives as expendable resources. Having someone giving them the benefit of the doubt, acting as a support system, and occasionally telling them to get some sleep instead of tinkering with Old Farmer Bob's corpse for the ninetieth hour in a row might help keep the whole "the world is against me, so i have no choice to be against them" mindset at bay(not, this is a person by person basis type deal If they're already crazy, it doesn't work, but if they're just starting out, it'd be nice if everyone didn't automatically give them the stink eye for experimenting with a different sort f magic due solely to social stigma). As for undead themselves, at least according to Undead and Classic Horrors Revisted, this isolation is more due to the fact that their undead state begins to distance themselves from people. Even if they were constantly in a positive atmosphere, their condition will slowly wear on their minds regardless as a side-effect of being undead.
I understand what you're saying.
However it clarfies that such creatures lose empathy because they are lonely. It's not the undead state that causes this: it's an existence of immortality surrounded by mortals and with no one else to 're-encourage' good. All people - all people! - need a supporting community to help keep them 'solid'. Undead are universally reviled and have no non-evil contemporaries (due to the fact that, you know, people keep persecuting them and trying to take their stuff).
There are, of course, ways around this.
Undead are not immune to polymorph: what happens if a lich uses Polymorph any Object on itself to make itself celestial (and thus instantly shift its alignment).
One of the questions about living necromancers: why do they have to be 'borderline' at all? Why can't the be perfectly normal relatively well-adjusted individuals? Many cultures don't have the taboos that we do about corpses and the dead.
Now, I'm not arguing Golarion setting: as-written, I heartily agree that undead are evil (or become so) almost entirely.
But in a Generic Campaign Setting (tm), why is this true?
Mostly... it's because there's an artifact in RAW that adds the [Evil] descriptor to necromancy spells. I find it an exceptionally odd change from 3.0 to 3.5 that said undead became evil (though, over-all, I think the changes from 3.0 to 3.5 are great).
Many cultures don't have taboos about the dead, but as someone who is REALLY REALLY into folklore, the number of undead viewed as "benevolent" by different cultures is vanishingly small. Generally it's ghosts (which is a more prevalent trend in the last few centuries than it was before) and "ancestor spirits" which may or may not be ghosts, and some of which are probably closer to the Fey than undead. Some are more to be pitied than feared (lemures, gaki), but overall the Undead = Evil is a pretty much common paradigm in folk legend.
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Keeping your undead mummy paladin necropolis guards company with good outsider companions and allowing them a sort of dreaming/rest state could help with that as well.Create by a White Necromancer, no doubt? :)Aw hell yeah.
(I still think Osirion/Egypt-style cultures make for a great origin point for certain white necromancer traditions, what with the focus on caring for their dead)
Also, for those wondering how good undead/necromancy can work mechanically as well as flavor-wise, the White Necromancer class from Kobold Quarterly is a must-read.
Thanks Mikaze! I'm very happy with that class :)
Oh, and here's a LINK to it in case anyone is curious about the class :)
And I agree - Osirion or some other Egypt-style culture in a campaign world would make a cool place for white necromancers to originate and/or be active
Wow, amazingly good arguments being brough up here - lots to consider.
In my home games the nature of undeath depends upon the undead itself.
A flesh golem is a neutral construct. What is the difference between it and a zombie? One forces the spirit of an elemental to animate corpse bits and one uses "negative energy" whatever that is.
In my games mindless undead such as skeletons and zombies are essentially golems.
Intelligent undead ARE evil because they are not animated by "negative energy" but by demons and devils. A vampire might LOOK like Uncle Joe, but his vampiric body is actually now just hosting the demon Cerogix... that mage THOUGHT he would "unilve" forever, but he died, and now his body hosts the devil Vroximil...
A handful of undead remain spirits of the dead such as ghosts and such. Usually these are limited to incorporeal undead.
Anyway, that is the way I like to run undead.
I have a more complicated, 3-part system for all this (Body/Mind/Soul = Animus/Soul/Spirit), but I really like how simple your method is. I still like there to be some 'vestige' of the original person inside, somewhere.
Also, what happens when a person's ghost meets their own dead body as a zombie? Is that possible? Can they possess it and become some sort of 'awakened' zombie? (like Deadlands Harrowed or WoW's Forsaken)
And since there is so much intelligent conversation going on here, I have to leave you with this -
Because they are an unholy mockery of life... <snip>
So you've met some of my ex's?
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Many cultures don't have taboos about the dead, but as someone who is REALLY REALLY into folklore, the number of undead viewed as "benevolent" by different cultures is vanishingly small. Generally it's ghosts (which is a more prevalent trend in the last few centuries than it was before) and "ancestor spirits" which may or may not be ghosts, and some of which are probably closer to the Fey than undead. Some are more to be pitied than feared (lemures, gaki), but overall the Undead = Evil is a pretty much common paradigm in folk legend.
Sorta. There are many cultures (India in terms of Pitrs, ancient Egypt, etc.) where one's ancestors can influence things and have a presence in the world. They aren't considered undead, because undeath is an unnatural state. Becoming an honoured ancestor and helping out your kin is a natural, hoped-for state. All they ask for is the rituals and sometimes sacrifices to keep themselves going.
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If separation from society were the basis of evil, the paragons of all wickedness would be hermits and castaways. Since they're not, it has to be something else.
With someone encountering a cranky wight in his barrow mound, the difference between him and someone whose house you break into, intent on stealing his stuff, is what precisely? Ditto the mummy in his tomb. These are his grave goods for his afterlife, dammit. Anyone who steals them deserves to get mummy rot. Get your own afterlife.
Which doesn't mean that there can't be evil undead, but if you look at most of them as people, they generally have reasons for behaving as they do, and it makes no points with anyone to greet them with "Begone, wicked and unnatural thing! In the name of -insert-deity-here-, I command it!"
Wow, being dissed by a proselytizing graverobber. I shall never live down the ignominy.
Meanwhile, other cultures pour libations on the graves of the dead, leave them flowers, or burn hell money and other elaborate offerings for their ancestors to use in the afterlife. They generally have less trouble with cranky undead people, or at worse have different problems, like ghost brides hoping to entice living grooms to join them in their narrow houses.
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Many cultures don't have taboos about the dead, but as someone who is REALLY REALLY into folklore, the number of undead viewed as "benevolent" by different cultures is vanishingly small.
As are the numbers of undead viewed as malevolent. Wights? Wraiths? Spectres? Ghouls? Ghasts? Pretty much Tolkeinisms or Lovecraftisms (and not even undead, in the case of ghouls, just degenerate corpse eating cannibal humans). Liches are D&D all the way. Mummies weren't reputed to 'animate' and 'attack people' until the late 19th century, as an excuse for why everybody who opened ancient tombs ended up dying, just like everyone who did anything *ever* 'mysteriously' ended up dying... (ancient Egyptians were more likely to attribute that sort of behavior to statues of Anubis, animating to crush grave robbers). 'Zombies' showed up as a cultural artifact a century ago, thanks to some Haitain tetrodotoxin shenanigans. Animated skeletons came about in a Ray Harryhausen movie (Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger? I don't remember.). Zombies that eat flesh are the fault of Night of the Living Dead, not 'ancient folklore.'
Sure, there aren't a lot of benevolent undead in folklore, because the majority of D&D undead were invented this last century and have no basis in folklore at all.
Undead, as a class of creature, is hardly an age old thing. Vampire folklore exists in many cultures, but not every culture that had a vampire analogue believed that they were actually dead corpses that crawled out of graves to suck the blood of the living.
The ancient Egyptians believed that people had a whole bunch of different souls or spirits, at least one of which remained behind in the corpse, and even *that* wasn't considered evil!
And, really, has any culture ever regards the spirits of the dead as inherently evil?
*Most* cultures that believe in spirits / souls / etc. at all regard their ancestors and saints and whatever as figures to be implored for aid, prayed to, sacrificed to, honored, revered and / or placated / appeased if one feels that one has done something to displease them or disgrace the family name. *Some* spirits might have been 'jealous of the living' and bedeviled, cursed or possessed the living or whatever, but that was always an exception, and never applied to the speakers own dozens of ancestors, making them a tiny minority of 'undead.'
The Greeks tended to regard the spirits of the dead as lonely sad creatures, stripped of memory and color and joy. Certainly not as malevolent, more something to pity. (Explaining the popularity of hedonism and epicureanism, perhaps, as they, unlike certain other cultures, didn't regard the afterlife as a pleasant paradise, some sort of 'reward' for not complaining about enduring a crappy unfair world of toil and privation, and wanted to have a good *life.*)
Plenty of cultures regard *corpses* as unclean things, to be burned or buried or shunned, with some folk even considering it a ritually 'dirty' thing to even *see* a dead body, let alone touch one, but that's not universal either, and laying a hand on a body is seen as a gesture of respect and 'saying goodbye' at a funeral here in the US. So the whole 'corpses are icky and inherently corrupting' isn't the only way to see things.
Heck, even in stuffy Victorian times, when it was *scandalous* to leave a table uncovered by a tablecloth, because someone might get improper lusty thoughts seeing the 'legs' of the table uncovered, spiritualism was big business, and these very fussy people would pay mediums to conduct seances around these very same tables, because the thought of using 'necromancy' to call up the spirits of the dead was considered a *party trick.*
Shamen and mystics and priests of every faith imaginable have called upon spirits of the dead, whether 'saints' or 'your grandfather,' for counsel or approval or blessings. Mongolia, Greece, Egypt, Africa, and, yes Dorothy, even modern-day Kansas. You'll find people talking to the dead.
This 'ancient tradition of zombies being evil' started in the hoary depths of antiquity, the year 2000, 13 whole years ago, when D&D 3.0 changed the alignment of zombies and skeletons to evil, in their own words, 'so that Paladins could smite them.'
Ooh, ooh. Death is scary, death is gross.
Whatever. I scrub my body with soap everyday that is made from dead stuff. I eat three meals a day of dead stuff, and, growing up on a farm, have butchered my fair share of animals, and picked my fair share of vegetables. My car is fueled by dead dinosaurs. My clothing is made from dead stuff, sometimes animals (leather), sometimes plants (cotton) and sometimes those dead dinosaurs again (anything synthetic). My donated blood is coursing through other people's bodies. My donated organs may someday (hopefully not soon!) end up in other people's bodies as well.
I can't draw a breath without inhaling dust, made from other people's dead skin cells. I'm swaddled in, soaking in, breathing in, drinking in death, every second of every day, and so is everyone else, whether they think it's icky or not.
There is not and never has been anything evil about souls, and there is not and never has been anything evil about bodies (unless they are naked, in which case they are wicked temptresses and should be stoned for leading poor helpless men into impure thoughts). It would be impossible to be a Paladin if one's body was evil *and* one's soul was evil. Two wrongs do not make a right, after all, and two evil components, unclean malevolent corporeal spirit-less bodies, and corrupt 'inevitably chaotic evil' incorporeal bodiless souls, wouldn't logically combine to make good, anymore than explosives and poison combine to make a tasty nutrient.
Oh wait. Table salt totally annhilates my point. Nevermind! :)
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+1 to Set.
Of course, the sky clad Jains went all the way with the consequences of the body and the world being not-good.
There, you do wear a veil to keep from breathing in and killing micro-organisms (which works philosophically, rather than literally), and don't wear clothes, because it's too much attachment to the body and its needs to keep warm and be modest; it's also, for monks and nuns, best to starve to death as a final way of rejecting needs over being nonviolent. Even the plants have a right to life. But one shouldn't choose that path until one actually is fully detached, or else it's a kind of hell.
On a different tangent, the Grail legend in Arthurian material is pretty much an extended adventure story about the problem of the body being corrupt and the soul predisposed to evil, yet the necessity of good and being a Paladin as the only Christian way to be a warrior. Galahad, of course, messes things up, because the story of Gawain, Perceval, Bors, and Lancelot is far more interesting from a quasi-theological standpoint. They are all, in a real sense, attempting to be Paladins. But they all have human flaws. It's the striving and repairing one's mistakes (particularly in Perceval's case) that makes them actual holy knights, rather than their inner perfection.
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it's also, for monks and nuns, best to starve to death as a final way of rejecting needs over being nonviolent.
That's an extreme version of ahimsa!
Reminds me of that old joke;
"The Mbutu tribe of central Africa is slowing dying out, due to their tradition of ritually killing themselves when they reach the age of seventeen..."
Also of Buffy, "Note to self. Religion; freaky." (Somewhat ironic, in that she uses a crucifix in her job.)
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Keeping your undead mummy paladin necropolis guards company with good outsider companions and allowing them a sort of dreaming/rest state could help with that as well.Or better yet, don't turn your Paladins to undead, and let them retire from the job and be replaced by fresh volounteers.That, sadly, isn't always an option, or it might be the most foolish option possible under certain circumstances.
...One other thing to think of, is that, reference social issues: you're basically saying that undead "go evil" because they're lonely and thus lose empathy for other creatures. That seems to make a better argument for, "Hey, this is a sentient non-evil creature; we should make sure that it has company and is always well respected in our community."No it doesn't. Let me clarify. Mortal necromancers should be watched carefully to make sure they don't distance themselves too unhealthily from others and thus reach the sort of disconnect that often leads them to consider human lives as expendable resources. Having someone giving them the benefit of the doubt, acting as a support system, and occasionally telling them to get some sleep instead of tinkering with Old Farmer Bob's corpse for the ninetieth hour in a row might help keep the whole "the world is against me, so i have no choice to be against them" mindset at bay(not, this is a person by person basis type deal If they're already crazy, it doesn't work, but if they're just starting out, it'd be nice if everyone didn't automatically give them the stink eye for experimenting with a different sort f magic due solely to social stigma). As for undead themselves, at least according to Undead and Classic Horrors Revisted, this isolation is more due to the fact that their undead state begins to distance themselves from people. Even if they were constantly in a positive atmosphere, their condition will slowly wear on their minds
ah crap. sorry man, didn't get what you were saying originally. Thanks for clarifying. Do polymorph effects allow alignment shifts since they're temporary?
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Keeping your undead mummy paladin necropolis guards company with good outsider companions and allowing them a sort of dreaming/rest state could help with that as well.Or better yet, don't turn your Paladins to undead, and let them retire from the job and be replaced by fresh volounteers.
That's not really better if one wants to have stories with non-evil undead in them and isn't beholden to someone else's declaration that undead have to be evil.
And as Tacticslion pointed out, sometimes it will be more practical for the given situation.
Only this pharaoh's most loyal servants could be trusted to protect it, and only those who volunteered and understood the weight of what had to be done and what was at stake were permitted to take up that station. So these noble, holy guardians have put their just rewards in the afterlife on hold for millenia, all for the sake of safeguarding the future of not only their country or their world, but everyone and everything in the solar system.
For them, Heaven can wait. Team Good would understand, even if Pharasma gets all pouty about it. They're still heading for their appropriate destination when their duty comes to a close. They're just doing some serious overtime at the moment.
ah crap. sorry man, didn't get what you were saying originally. Thanks for clarifying.
Hey, no worries! We're actually totally cool (and were when I made my post, too). :)
(Part of communicating with written word is that sometimes things get lost. Strike that. Part of communicating is that sometimes things get lost.)Do polymorph effects allow alignment shifts since they're temporary?
That's... up for interpretation. Since a celestial creature is 'always good', traditionally it's been seen that gaining that template (or something similar) auto-shifts your alignment to the appropriate one (in previous editions there were spells that did exactly that), unless it was an exceedingly temporary change.
The polymorph spells themselves function differently in PF.
But mostly, I meant Polymorph any Object, which, if used right, is permanent.
()
Certainly, if a creature permanently acquires the celestial template (complete with inherently good alignment) that's going to have some influence on how they view things. That doesn't negate free will, of course, but it basically rockets them directly to "immortal super-potent conscience" territory.
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Now I am starting to see one of my favorite arguments rear its head: Who's evil, us or 'the monsters'. We kick open their doors, break into their homes, kill their families and take all their stuff... and for what? A few nights of drinking and wenching and then we do it all over again?
You ever notice, monsters very rarely ever come to you, even in a lot of modern horror movies? A bunch of teens get stuck somewhere, then they 'go into the basement'. What the hell were they thinking? They had no spare tire? No GPS? Didn't feel like paying for a motel? To hell with them I say! Leave Jason alone!
Read the Odyssey - Odysseus was a jerk! He was constantly landing on other people's property taking their stuff. Everything he encountered he traveled to. Don't blame the monsters because they were hungry, because so was Odysseus and his men.
Have you guys seen the trailer for Warm Bodies? Even Zombies can fall in love. :D
Heh, trailer notwithstanding...
There is a very clear and real reason to be proactive about destroying evil... because evil is, by it's nature, going to do something evil. To that end, I'm not actually averse to a paladin going to hell or the abyss and getting their smite on 24/7 (if, you know, they're big enough to do so well... though most likely the extremely vast preponderance aren't).
But really the question of "why is something inherently evil" makes for interesting conversation. There are plenty of "fluff" reasons why one could deem all undead as automatically evil, but I really like for it to make sense, and so far a number of the elements we've received that deem them so either are weak, at best, or completely invalidate other core elements of Golarion's setting (like Pharasma).
EDIT for spoiler tag
I will also point out, that there's nothing wrong with trying to defend your life or that of your comrades. If you're attacked, and you defend yourself, you can hardly be blamed for what happens to the other guy.
Wonderfull stuff here...
If zombies and skeletons had even a portion of the souls of the departed in them, i would think that most societies would start cremating the dead.