Why do people presume undead template means evil template?


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Also on the subject of vampires, if vampires aren't forced to starve themselves, feeding should very rarely be a lethal thing at all. According to Pathfinder, vampires have a minimum of 4 HD. A feeding deals 1d4 Constitution damage to the creature they feed on. Even if they are feeding on a sentient creature, they will never risk killing said person before they have to feed again (based on the hunger rules in Blood of Night).

Now as to the morality of feeding, that's pretty easy to deduce. If it's done to induce suffering, oppression, or slaying the victim, then it's evil. However, the act of drawing blood is only as morally questionable as it pertains to harming the blood source.

However, this comes down to willing vs unwilling. Most people would be silly to argue that drawing blood from a willing donor for the well being of another is evil.

An example of this in action would be a campaign I ran a while back where my friend Rai played a vampire and there was an NPC with the group who was also a vampire of lesser power. Both fed on their party members who weren't particularly bothered by the ability damage the feeding involved, with the party's Paladin being one of the common members to willingly allow them to feed on him because it was trivial for him to simply cast lesser restoration and recover instantly.

Then there's also the fact vampires can feed on living creatures that aren't sentient and have even less chances of killing said creatures. Which means that vampires, unless intentionally being evil, are actually less destructive to life than most living humanoids.


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I had an interesting discussion on another medium as to the "naturality" of the undead. Technically I'm discussing it still but I figure may as well bring another view point on the matter.

We both came to the agreement that mix person with negative energy and you get undead. This always happens, it's certainly a natural result of it. After all, go to the Negative plane unprotected, you get a wraith in very short order. No more unnatural than humans exploding on the Positive energy plane.

But that's not the same thing as natural on the Material Plane. Or to be precise, it's not the same thing as part of Nature. It's a function of the universe, but on the material plane living things, for the most part, live, die, and are consumed in turn. The undead don't very much do the latter two. Some undead consume, lethally or not. Others convert. But none of them go away on their own. Leave an undead to their bit and they'll never stop needing to consume and they'll never in turn give up the ghost and be consumed. Nothing eats undead really.

Course by this metric, outsiders and native outsiders are not natural either, nor are constructs. Which could be considered pretty accurate. All three are disruptions of the natural order of things as far as nature is concerned. If one ignores the metaphysics, there's little question they're anomalies on the basis they consume without reciprocation. They aren't the only living things to do this, and not all of them consume of course, but they also aren't consumed.

Mind you, none of this makes them any more evil than any outsider or golem or what not.


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Which in turn actually brings me back to the source of evil undead in my campaigns. They're ****ing evil. When a vampire goes around killing people, you know that they're not some forlorn soul who really wish they weren't a monster but are subject to the whims of this "horrible curse of immortality and great skin".

It's because they're ****ing monsters. They kill people because they like to. They're gluttonous, ravenous, and treat human beings as fast food rather than people. They could subsist on so much less and never really hurt anyone, but the power and control goes to their heads, they become arrogant, they indulge themselves beyond what they need. Because they're bad people.

Not because they're vampires. If they wanted to, because they are vampires, they could have just stealthed around until they found a commoner, dominated them, fed on them without being seen, and then disappeared into the night, leaving the Commoner with a bit of Constitution damage for a couple of days (if the commoner works and rests, they recover 2/day out of an average of 2 damage).

But they don't. So they have to be dealt with. :D

Shadow Lodge

Ashiel wrote:


But they don't. So they have to be dealt with. :D

But why don't they

Not to mention by that logic every single good guy that I've every played in pathfinder to include Paladins would be considered evil mass murderers in our world
Edit: ok my Kitsune bartender hasn't killed anyone yet, but he has stolen, lied, forged documents, framed someone else for attempted murder, bribed guards and officials and is working to cheat his way into a monopoly so he's not a good guy either


Through a long running and somewhat strange campaign I was in, a player somehow managed to give sentience to the negative energy plane while trying to create a new form of undead.

(In game justification through the expenditure of years of research, a lot of black necromancy, and a hapless zombie he gifted it intelligence and foolishly kept increasing its connection to the negative energy plane until the plane absorbed the mind of the creature through that connection)

From that point on all undead with a connection to the negative energy plane were basically the mouths through which the plane attempted to consume all creation.


Ashiel wrote:

Also on the subject of vampires, if vampires aren't forced to starve themselves, feeding should very rarely be a lethal thing at all. According to Pathfinder, vampires have a minimum of 4 HD. A feeding deals 1d4 Constitution damage to the creature they feed on. Even if they are feeding on a sentient creature, they will never risk killing said person before they have to feed again (based on the hunger rules in Blood of Night).

Now as to the morality of feeding, that's pretty easy to deduce. If it's done to induce suffering, oppression, or slaying the victim, then it's evil. However, the act of drawing blood is only as morally questionable as it pertains to harming the blood source.

However, this comes down to willing vs unwilling. Most people would be silly to argue that drawing blood from a willing donor for the well being of another is evil.

An example of this in action would be a campaign I ran a while back where my friend Rai played a vampire and there was an NPC with the group who was also a vampire of lesser power. Both fed on their party members who weren't particularly bothered by the ability damage the feeding involved, with the party's Paladin being one of the common members to willingly allow them to feed on him because it was trivial for him to simply cast lesser restoration and recover instantly.

Then there's also the fact vampires can feed on living creatures that aren't sentient and have even less chances of killing said creatures. Which means that vampires, unless intentionally being evil, are actually less destructive to life than most living humanoids.

You forget:

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Energy Drain (Su)

A creature hit by a vampire's slam (or other natural weapon) gains two negative levels. This ability only triggers once per round, regardless of the number of attacks a vampire makes.

-----

When a Vampire bites someone, they suffer energy drain, when a Vampire feeds they damage the person's soul.


Vampires don't have a bite attack and do not attack with any natural weapons when performing Blood Drain.

Blood Drain wrote:

Blood Drain (Su)

A vampire can suck blood from a grappled opponent; if the vampire establishes or maintains a pin, it drains blood, dealing 1d4 points of Constitution damage. The vampire heals 5 hit points or gains 5 temporary hit points for 1 hour (up to a maximum number of temporary hit points equal to its full normal hit points) each round it drains blood.

You were looking at the same page as that information, I'm not sure how you missed it. =/


HWalsh wrote:

...

You forget:

-----

Energy Drain (Su)

A creature hit by a vampire's slam (or other natural weapon) gains two negative levels. This ability only triggers once per round, regardless of the number of attacks a vampire makes.

-----

When a Vampire bites someone, they suffer energy drain, when a Vampire feeds they damage the person's soul.

Blood Drain(Su) is what vampires use to feed. Energy Drain(Su) as written does not proc when a vampire is biting down on someone, because it isn't a natural attack. It's not actually associated with a bite attack or anything like that. Heck, normal vampires don't even have a bite attack.

Shadow Lodge

Even with level drain on a slam, that doesn't make them evil
Look at rouge from X-men. She has a very similar ability when she touches someone causing people around her to fear her and for her to fear herself.
She can kill with it, and it strengthens her when she uses it.
Would you call rouge evil?


Lord Foul II wrote:

Even with level drain on a slam, that doesn't make them evil

Look at rouge from X-men. She has a very similar ability when she touches someone causing people around her to fear her and for her to fear herself.
She can kill with it, and it strengthens her when she uses it.
Would you call rouge evil?

Wasn't she initially evil and had to be converted? I'm not well-versed in X-Men so I might be mixing up my characters here.


Arachnofiend wrote:
Lord Foul II wrote:

Even with level drain on a slam, that doesn't make them evil

Look at rouge from X-men. She has a very similar ability when she touches someone causing people around her to fear her and for her to fear herself.
She can kill with it, and it strengthens her when she uses it.
Would you call rouge evil?
Wasn't she initially evil and had to be converted? I'm not well-versed in X-Men so I might be mixing up my characters here.

She was, indeed. Brotherhood of evil mutants. Rogue isn't even a level drain for example validity either.


I feel like I leave this in every thread about this topic. I highly recommend taking the time to read it.

This issue with undead, and necromancy in general, is that designers haven't ever agreed on how it is supposed to work. remember, Necromancy is the school all the Healing spells used to be in. I'd say that rules-wise, the questions raised by necromancy are as bad as the ones raised by the Illusion school, but worse because of their far-reaching effects those questions have on the cosmology of a setting.

The necromancy school and all its various effects in pathfinder is the culmination of dozens of designers different takes on it. It is packed full of legacy issues which are compounded or ignored by a current design philosophy regarding the undead that can only really be described as "dogmatic." The crux of all of it, which designers have been going back and forth on for decades now, is "what is negative energy and how does i work?"

Essentially, there is no good answer. Because of that, it's up to you to make the decision for yourself.

Shadow Lodge

Rathendar wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote:
Lord Foul II wrote:

Even with level drain on a slam, that doesn't make them evil

Look at rouge from X-men. She has a very similar ability when she touches someone causing people around her to fear her and for her to fear herself.
She can kill with it, and it strengthens her when she uses it.
Would you call rouge evil?
Wasn't she initially evil and had to be converted? I'm not well-versed in X-Men so I might be mixing up my characters here.
She was, indeed. Brotherhood of evil mutants. Rogue isn't even a level drain for example validity either.

in some continuities she starts as a brotherhood mutant, but even then you could give an aguement against evil

Also how is she not using a level drain equalivent? The mechanics are similar (weakening by touch, strengthening her, potentially lethal within seconds, especially lethal for non mutants (ie commoners) potentially permantly lethal for mutants (if they, let's say, fail their save) it appears to be intensely painful
All in all it appears to be exactly like level drain (if level drain could also give you class features of the person drained or extra HD if they fail the save, so it's level drain+)

Liberty's Edge

Doomed Hero wrote:

I feel like I leave this in every thread about this topic. I highly recommend taking the time to read it.

This issue with undead, and necromancy in general, is that designers haven't ever agreed on how it is supposed to work. remember, Necromancy is the school all the Healing spells used to be in. I'd say that rules-wise, the questions raised by necromancy are as bad as the ones raised by the Illusion school, but worse because of their far-reaching effects those questions have on the cosmology of a setting.

The necromancy school and all its various effects in pathfinder is the culmination of dozens of designers different takes on it. It is packed full of legacy issues which are compounded or ignored by a current design philosophy regarding the undead that can only really be described as "dogmatic." The crux of all of it, which designers have been going back and forth on for decades now, is "what is negative energy and how does i work?"

Essentially, there is no good answer. Because of that, it's up to you to make the decision for yourself.

I go for moral option 3 : Negative Energy is the base physical property of the magical universe for destruction. Using it to create a parody of life and healing (aka undeath) is desecrating it and thus Evil. This also explains why the natives of the Negative Energy plane absolutely HATE undead.


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The Raven Black wrote:
Doomed Hero wrote:

I feel like I leave this in every thread about this topic. I highly recommend taking the time to read it.

This issue with undead, and necromancy in general, is that designers haven't ever agreed on how it is supposed to work. remember, Necromancy is the school all the Healing spells used to be in. I'd say that rules-wise, the questions raised by necromancy are as bad as the ones raised by the Illusion school, but worse because of their far-reaching effects those questions have on the cosmology of a setting.

The necromancy school and all its various effects in pathfinder is the culmination of dozens of designers different takes on it. It is packed full of legacy issues which are compounded or ignored by a current design philosophy regarding the undead that can only really be described as "dogmatic." The crux of all of it, which designers have been going back and forth on for decades now, is "what is negative energy and how does i work?"

Essentially, there is no good answer. Because of that, it's up to you to make the decision for yourself.

I go for moral option 3 : Negative Energy is the base physical property of the magical universe for destruction. Using it to create a parody of life and healing (aka undeath) is desecrating it and thus Evil. This also explains why the natives of the Negative Energy plane absolutely HATE undead.

Desecration has nothing to do with evil in Pathfinder. Insulting, sure, evil, no.


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Lord Foul II wrote:
Ashiel wrote:


But they don't. So they have to be dealt with. :D

But why don't they

What are you saying? I don't understand...

Basically, some vampires DO just live off the radar in my campaigns. It's just the typical populace will never know and don't hear about them, and there are organizations (particularly religious organizations) that hunt them for being undead more or less on principle (because even if I don't agree with it, that doesn't mean people don't do it in my campaigns).

When you come across a sentient undead creature in one of my games who's evil, it's for a real alignment reason. It means that those individuals crossed the line, just as mortals cross the line, except these individuals are typically more dangerous to the common man because they have weird supernatural abilities or strengths that make them more threatening.

And being more threatening can embolden the wicked to enact more wickedness. Say you've got a thug. Just a humble thug. He's no good but he doesn't really have any real power. But suddenly, he's a vampire. He can gorge himself on people for lots of temporary hit points. He's hard to hurt. He heals wounds so fast that most mortals can't hope to resist him. He kills people by hitting them with his fists, and iron refuses to cut his flesh. He has more power to exert over others and so he'll do that. His capacity to hurt, oppress, and kill has grown and it's a capacity he makes good use of.

Suddenly, Mr. Thug just got promoted to "Super Villain" status. In the last campaign I was running for my friends Rai and Aratrok, there was a vampire lord that their party encountered. The lord was an egotistical, maniacal, sexist, underworld shaker with narcissistic tendencies on god-complex levels. He had vampire minions that the party never slew, and a number that the party actively tried to protect and liberate from his command, but he was without doubt or question much in need of a good staking and some time in the solar dehydrator.

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Not to mention by that logic every single good guy that I've every played in pathfinder to include Paladins would be considered evil mass murderers in our world

Maybe you're talking about the spontaneously rising undead thing? Well, honestly, yes. There's a mighty good argument that given the nature of the classic murderhobo party, they likely leave a slew of undead in their wakes before suddenly rising as undead themselves for having killed 3,123,866 creatures on the way to 20th level.

If I misunderstood, please clarify.


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Ashiel wrote:
Desecration has nothing to do with evil in Pathfinder. Insulting, sure, evil, no.
Quote:


Desecrate

School evocation (evil); Level cleric 2

Casting Time 1 standard action

Component V, S, M (a vial of unholy water and 25 gp worth (5 pounds) of silver dust, all of which must be sprinkled around the area), DF


Ashiel wrote:
What are you saying? I don't understand...

The way you were saying it sounds like the opposite, that the reason that Undead are evil is that they are evil, rather than the reason being that evil undead are evil because they were evil regardless of being undead.

Shadow Lodge

Ashiel wrote:
...

what you appeared to have been argueing before seems to be the opposite of what I believe you're saying most recently

it sounded like you were saying that vampires are 100% all the time murderous a%#@~*$s no questions no arguement no discussion allowed that's just how it is

in your most recent post I think you're saying that it's no different from them getting a few levels in some class at once, it just gives them more power and more ability to o what they would already

I'm not sure which of these (or some other third thing) statements best reflect your opinion...

also. as a note: I do try to go for non violent solutions a lot, unless I'm playing as someone who's actually evil (the kitsune bartender I'm playing right now is evil, but actually has made it to level four without directly killing anyone, but that's in a type of campaign built to support aristocratic style backstabbing over literal backstabbing) and I've actually had complaints by some of my DMs about how I'm constantly going off the rails by not going off and killing whatever designated group of sentient creatures are labeled as ok


There's a lot of contradictory information about the relationship between Evil alignment and evil acts. Do things become Evil-aligned by doing evil, or do things become Evil first, and that causes them to commit evil deeds?

The fact that if I create a skeleton or wraith with magic, it's instantly Evil (ignoring for now the question of whether I'm evil for doing such a thing) suggests that alignment precedes action.

But there are cases where it seems to work the other way around, and maybe that's why the game keeps trying to explain evil undead rather than just taking it for granted. "Liches are evil because they do evil things to become liches." "Vampires are evil because they do evil things to survive." If undead are evil by default, they don't need a reason.


Matthew Downie wrote:
Ashiel wrote:
Desecration has nothing to do with evil in Pathfinder. Insulting, sure, evil, no.
Quote:


Desecrate

School evocation (evil); Level cleric 2

Casting Time 1 standard action

Component V, S, M (a vial of unholy water and 25 gp worth (5 pounds) of silver dust, all of which must be sprinkled around the area), DF

Desecration, the act of defiling something, generally religiously, not the spell in this context. You can desecrate an evil altar, both with the spell or in the actual definition of the word. But only the spell would have remotely evil connotations. Most would say desecrating an altar of Asmodeus to be a good act. Or neutral, depending who you asked. Nobody would say it's evil without extenuating circumstances.

And before someone says it, smashing an altar of Asmodeus is not actually just consecrating the site, it's still quite desecrating.

Honestly the whole desecration/consecration things always been a little weird as far as spell names go. I mean, it's all desecration or consecration depending entirely on the diety in question, the names are just plain misleading! Honestly I think it ought to be just one spell called Consecrate, or even Consecrate/Desecrate (hey if it works for Blindness/Deafness) since it does one or the other depending more on where it goes and who is using it. Or just name it for what the effects really do. Anti-Undead Field and Undead-Bolster Field. Not quite as snappy, but it at least avoids the silly wordplay.


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Truthfully, do the generally non-evil vampires in the "Twilight" series make you more or less scared of vampires? Does the possibility that the ghost in your uncle's house might be friendly like Casper make that adventure more or less exciting when you venture in to meet it?

Why do adventures need to be "scary?"

I think the goal should be usually "interesting" not "scary."

Although on top of scares not being the ideal end goal, knowing things generally also makes them less scary ANYWAY. The unknown is the scariest, that's why horror directors don't show you their monsters, etc.

So having a diverse, organic, realistic environment of gray philosophies and morals and motivations is the best of both worlds. It not only makes the game more engaging as an end unto itself, but also fuels fear regardless by fueling the unknown.

Vampires all the same = fighting them is all the same, predictable, thus easily defended against or beaten for an intelligent and prepared person. Yawn. Vampires like humans, all unpredictably diverse and unique and catty and political etc., but now also fasthealing, 30 foot jumping and a thirst for blood = scariest thing of all to me.


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Crimeo wrote:
Vampires all the same = fighting them is all the same, predictable, thus easily defended against or beaten for an intelligent and prepared person. Yawn. Vampires like humans, all unpredictably diverse and unique and catty and political etc., but now also fasthealing, 30 foot jumping and a thirst for blood = scariest thing of all to me.

I'd say Pathfinder scores pretty well on that front. Given that Vampire is a template, they can have any combination of class levels.

Additionally:
Vampire variant

Vampire variant 2

Vampire variant 3

Hopping vampire

There's not much you can be sure of with vampires, except that they're very likely to be evil.


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Matthew Downie wrote:

There's not much you can be sure of with vampires, except that they're very likely to be evil.

The issue is that they'll all be evil for the same reason. All of them have the same reason for their morality and ethics. To me, that's boring.


Feel free to change it.
But in the cosmology and reality as presented in Golarion they are seen as evil.
You can change it, individual characters can change it, but as far as the powers are concerned they are evil.


Milo v3 wrote:
The issue is that they'll all be evil for the same reason. All of them have the same reason for their morality and ethics.

The same cause - "because undead are evil" - but the moralities and ethics vary. "Any Evil" alignment means they might be have a lust for murder, or torture, or something more subtle like controlling other people, whether by supernatural means or blackmail and extortion.


Even if you try to put a utilitarian morality spin into a divine mandate universe, its still evil.

Negative energy is the all consuming void. A hunger for life that can never be filled or sated.

When you hook that kind of desire onto a living creature you are running something between a risk and a near certainty of doing something evil. Its like giving you a drug addiction when the only way you can even try to get your high is to suck it out of the living: something bad is going to happen eventually. Even the act of risking peoples lives on the hubris of "Oh i'll be different than all the other 999,999 undead that went before me" can be considered evil for the wonton disregard of the consequences of your actions.

Its one of the oldest tropes around: there's a REASON you don't mess with dark forces that the bad guys have. Using them turns you into the bad guy.


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BigNorseWolf wrote:
Its like giving you a drug addiction when the only way you can even try to get your high is to suck it out of the living: something bad is going to happen eventually.

Wait, this is somehow more evil than creatures that need to subsist on murdering other creatures and eating upon their flesh? Because as far as I'm aware carnivorous animals aren't evil.

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Its one of the oldest tropes around: there's a REASON you don't mess with dark forces that the bad guys have. Using them turns you into the bad guy.

Except you don't have to mess with dark forces, undeath can occur spontaneously.

Liberty's Edge

Charon's Little Helper wrote:
Matthew Downie wrote:
But canonically, there's something about the undead condition that warps your mind (quickly? slowly?) to evil. Otherwise, undead would have the same alignment range as everyone else, and they'd just be ordinary citizens, adventurers, soldiers, etc. Which is fine if that's the type of world you want to create, but sometimes it's nice to have creatures you can run into while adventuring and know that it's OK to kill them.

Or perhaps it's not really you at all anymore. Order of the Stick has a storyline going about a main character going vampire - and the character isn't actually controlling his body at all. His soul/personality is being held captive by the vampire - held captive in his own mind for the vampire to interrogate. Watching - but unable to do anything.

I thought that it was an interesting take on it.

What I find even more interesting is that the undead spirit is created to perfectly fit the original creature. It is basically all that is Evil within the mortal that it was, with no redeeming Good left.

Which would explain why the vast majority of undead are indeed Evil.


Milo v3 wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Its like giving you a drug addiction when the only way you can even try to get your high is to suck it out of the living: something bad is going to happen eventually.

Wait, this is somehow more evil than creatures that need to subsist on murdering other creatures and eating upon their flesh? Because as far as I'm aware carnivorous animals aren't evil.

False equivalency.

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Its one of the oldest tropes around: there's a REASON you don't mess with dark forces that the bad guys have. Using them turns you into the bad guy.
Except you don't have to mess with dark forces, undeath can occur spontaneously.

Can you name a few examples? I honestly cant think of any that aren't connected to an objectively evil act or the corruption of souls or life energy, which according to pathfinder cosmology is an evil act.


KujakuDM wrote:
Milo v3 wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Its like giving you a drug addiction when the only way you can even try to get your high is to suck it out of the living: something bad is going to happen eventually.

Wait, this is somehow more evil than creatures that need to subsist on murdering other creatures and eating upon their flesh? Because as far as I'm aware carnivorous animals aren't evil.

False equivalency.

Quote:


Quote:
Its one of the oldest tropes around: there's a REASON you don't mess with dark forces that the bad guys have. Using them turns you into the bad guy.
Except you don't have to mess with dark forces, undeath can occur spontaneously.
Can you name a few examples? I honestly cant think of any that aren't connected to an objectively evil act or the corruption of souls or life energy, which according to pathfinder cosmology is an evil act.

I mentioned one earlier, the Floodslain are an excellent example as they are even called out by the entry itself as being a rather chilling reality given they originate entirely from a natural disaster.

Other examples include Blast Shadows who occur from massive fires, Ghosts who just seem to happen whenever and somehow get to ignore the undead=evil rules because plot trumps even it's own fluff in golarion it seems, or even ghouls who can originate simply from cannibalism (Note cannibalism isn't the same thing as murdering someone then eating them. Eating someone alone is enough. It seems to be more about the taboo though cus evidently you get less ghouls from societies where cannibalism isn't considered icky.)


KujakuDM wrote:
False equivalency.

In what way?

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Can you name a few examples? I honestly cant think of any that aren't connected to an objectively evil act or the corruption of souls or life energy, which according to pathfinder cosmology is an evil act.

Discounting objectively evil acts (including spellcasting) or the corruption of souls or life energy the PRD has the following from bestiaries 1-4.

Allip, attic whisperer, bakekujira, (huh, berbalang has no origin on PRD), bhuta, devourers (they are made from evil people, but their origin is actually from leaving reality), dybbuk, ectoplasmic creatures, festrog, gallowdead, gashadokuros, gearghost, ghost, huecuvas, (manananggals do not state their origin), pale stranger, poltergeist, revenant, sea bonze, skeletal champion, spectre, warsworn, wight, yuki-onna, and void zombies, (zombie lord can be expected since skeletal champion is valid, and no origin is mentioned).

This is about a third of the undead in bestiaries 1-4.


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Milo v3 wrote:


Wait, this is somehow more evil than creatures that need to subsist on murdering other creatures and eating upon their flesh? Because as far as I'm aware carnivorous animals aren't evil.

Undead can't live on animals. Its going to be soylent green time eventually.

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Except you don't have to mess with dark forces, undeath can occur spontaneously.

Then you become the monster. Otherwise your "monster" is twilight, not a vampire.


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As someone who is currently playing a non-evil necromancer, I've got to say the draw of non-evil undead is very simple in my eyes.
Every unique undead is on some level a tragedy and a story, they were people once, they lived, loved and died, they had desires and dreams, wants, hopes and fears and all this is laid out for the players to explore when they come across the silent haunting of their once-homes by the lost and the damned.
Be it the ghost that haunts her resting place because her body was never found, the desperate ever-hungry mother, who died in a famine and still carries her still living child, constantly fighting the urge to feast on it while she finds someone, anyone who can take it from her to somewhere safe or the skeletal paladin that holds vanguard and the line long after the forces of darkness have stopped trying to face him, the undead are a wonderful, dark and tragic mirror of lives unfulfilled. Even hordes of mindless undead can be used to show really interesting horrors by proxy, wrongs that might not ever be righted because the worst has already happened and all the PCs can do is try to help as they can.

If you make all undead always evil, you lose the subtle sympathy that there could be for them and reduce what are essentially, the tragic lost and hopeless dead to monsters one and all, after all, we all die one day and wouldn't we like to rest easy in our graves as well, or if we were murdered, to have our killers brought to justice?

So, less special snowflake, more its an interesting angle that rarely gets used because undead are Always Evil.


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I think we can all agree that a Twilight is much more of an unholy creature than any normal vampire and should be smote on sight.


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BigNorseWolf wrote:
Undead can't live on animals. Its going to be soylent green time eventually.

1. Most undead that feed do not need to kill to feed.

2. Even then, so what? Carnivore kills a human and eats it (don't say they don't do it in real life, look at freaking dire wolves and dire tigers and dire sharks, those are going to get used in adventures), is it evil?
3. Where does it say they can't feed on animals (this is a sincere question, not being facetious)?
4. There is no sign that most undead even need to feed. Some do, like vampires but most seem to lack a need to feed [and most that have a method seem to do it because Evil rather than necessity].

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Then you become the monster. Otherwise your "monster" is twilight, not a vampire.

And yet there exist examples where that isn't true in the slightest. Look at the Chronicles of Darkness games, look at Vampire the Requiem. You can have proper vampires, you can make them horrific, without defanging them and without making them evil because "cosmos".

Also, why do all undead need to be monsters (or to be more accurate, more monstrous than the other monsters in the game)? Osiris wasn't a monster. Just because corpses are ugly? Why not have undead created from things like five knights who swore to protect their lands, and their oath did not end just because they died. That they had so much conviction that they conquered death and remained as eternally vigilante protectors.


Lord Foul II wrote:
Ashiel wrote:
...

what you appeared to have been argueing before seems to be the opposite of what I believe you're saying most recently

it sounded like you were saying that vampires are 100% all the time murderous a$~&@*~s no questions no arguement no discussion allowed that's just how it is

in your most recent post I think you're saying that it's no different from them getting a few levels in some class at once, it just gives them more power and more ability to o what they would already

I'm not sure which of these (or some other third thing) statements best reflect your opinion...

also. as a note: I do try to go for non violent solutions a lot, unless I'm playing as someone who's actually evil (the kitsune bartender I'm playing right now is evil, but actually has made it to level four without directly killing anyone, but that's in a type of campaign built to support aristocratic style backstabbing over literal backstabbing) and I've actually had complaints by some of my DMs about how I'm constantly going off the rails by not going off and killing whatever designated group of sentient creatures are labeled as ok

Ooooohhh, sorry! My bad, I just re-read it and I see how it seems.

Sorry, I've explained it better in some other undead-related threads. The gist of it is you don't have to have to have undead=evil to have evil undead, or even the majority of your undead to be evil. And I personally prefer that they aren't aligned due to creature type because that cheapens what alignment is supposed to be, turns it into a Red vs Blue, and goes against what the alignment rules actually say.

If a character is somehow evil because of their type, they're not really evil. At worst they might have the alignment subtype (which undead do not have) which makes them treated as evil mechanically, but they aren't actually evil. And if they're not actually evil, then it doesn't matter "evil" they are.

But the evil undead in my campaigns are evil because they are evil, not because they are undead. It's not that they caught a sudden case of the undead. The undeath part just means they tend to be immortal and have weird monstrous powers.

Notice
Even if taking a template suddenly makes your alignment change to a new thing, it doesn't exempt you from the alignment rules. There is no Ex, Sp, or Su ability or quality that locks your alignment to that one. If you are sentient you can just choose to be whatever alignment you want simply by acting that way.

This is basically how it would go down in game if played strait.

Paladin = Turned into Vampire.
Paladin becomes Evil due to Template.
Paladin is unamused having lost his powers.
Paladin goes back to behaving like a Lawful Good character.
Paladin becomes Lawful Good.
Paladin buys an atonement spell.
Paladin goes back to fighting evildoers, except not so much in the daytime.


BLloyd607502 wrote:

As someone who is currently playing a non-evil necromancer, I've got to say the draw of non-evil undead is very simple in my eyes.

Every unique undead is on some level a tragedy and a story, they were people once, they lived, loved and died, they had desires and dreams, wants, hopes and fears and all this is laid out for the players to explore when they come across the silent haunting of their once-homes by the lost and the damned.
Be it the ghost that haunts her resting place because her body was never found, the desperate ever-hungry mother, who died in a famine and still carries her still living child, constantly fighting the urge to feast on it while she finds someone, anyone who can take it from her to somewhere safe or the skeletal paladin that holds vanguard and the line long after the forces of darkness have stopped trying to face him, the undead are a wonderful, dark and tragic mirror of lives unfulfilled. Even hordes of mindless undead can be used to show really interesting horrors by proxy, wrongs that might not ever be righted because the worst has already happened and all the PCs can do is try to help as they can.

If you make all undead always evil, you lose the subtle sympathy that there could be for them and reduce what are essentially, the tragic lost and hopeless dead to monsters one and all, after all, we all die one day and wouldn't we like to rest easy in our graves as well, or if we were murdered, to have our killers brought to justice?

So, less special snowflake, more its an interesting angle that rarely gets used because undead are Always Evil.

It's still special snowflake. You just listed exceptions, sort of.

You can get dark and tragic without non-evil undead.

The mother who carries her child also is compelled to kill any who would agree to take it. For example. So she wanders trying to find help, and the one who will end her to save it.

The Undead Paladin who no longer can discern good from evil. Who has lost their Paladin abilities and does not understand why they feel the loss of their deity. They continue to kill, indiscriminately, in the hopes that one day they will atone.

Nobody has made the case for non-evil undead really.

Then there is the other reason.

Undeath is the "cheap" way to reach immortality. It's the quick and easy path.

What are the other ways?

Become a God? As a temporary fix one could in a bottle of Sun Orchid Elixer?

Undeath becomes the easier, smarter, alternative.


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BigNorseWolf wrote:

Even if you try to put a utilitarian morality spin into a divine mandate universe, its still evil.

Negative energy is the all consuming void. A hunger for life that can never be filled or sated.

Fire is the all consuming incinerator. It hungers for everything and can never be filled or sated.

Negative energy is a neutral energy from a neutral plane. Just like positive energy. They are not aligned, they are just aspects of existence. They have nothing to do with alignment, no matter how destructive they are as an energy. I would also point out that positive energy kills both living AND undead things while negative energy only slays living creatures who're pretty allergic to it.


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HWalsh wrote:

The Undead Paladin who no longer can discern good from evil. Who has lost their Paladin abilities and does not understand why they feel the loss of their deity. They continue to kill, indiscriminately, in the hopes that one day they will atone.

Nobody has made the case for non-evil undead really.

Actually, the Paladin is just as good at discerning good from evil in the vast majority of cases because at no point does the Paladin become brain-dead, and detect evil is neither a prerequisite for knowing evil when you see it, nor is it effective on the vast majority of the population, revealing evil people ONLY if they are above 4th level or connected to an evil deity.

The Paladin may have a momentary lapse in power because a template can do some funky things. Of course, by just using his or her faculties, the Paladin will naturally return to being Lawful Good and one atonement spell later and suddenly evil vampires really hate seeing you coming.


Problem with non-evil undead in Golarion is what undeath does to your soul.

In Golarion, you don't just knit together some old bones and make a skeleton.
That would be a bone golem.
In Golarion you pervert the very soul of the individual who's bones you use.

Becoming undead rips your soul from the balance.
You don't follow Fate's decree, you don't get judged and sent to your appropriate afterlife.
Undeath binds you in a quasi-life.
It goes against the fundamental nature of the multiverse; that's the reason Pharasmans hate undeath.
It's slavery of the soul; that's the reason Andorans hate undeath.

If you make another into an undead, you deny them their afterlife.
You keep them from their peace, from their place in the beyond.
You force your will upon both their body and their very soul.
Your will over that of others.
That is Evil.

If you make yourself undead, you defy fate, you defy balance.
You force your will above that of existence and nature.
Self serving, self empowering.
That is Evil.


Ashiel wrote:
HWalsh wrote:

The Undead Paladin who no longer can discern good from evil. Who has lost their Paladin abilities and does not understand why they feel the loss of their deity. They continue to kill, indiscriminately, in the hopes that one day they will atone.

Nobody has made the case for non-evil undead really.

Actually, the Paladin is just as good at discerning good from evil in the vast majority of cases because at no point does the Paladin become brain-dead, and detect evil is neither a prerequisite for knowing evil when you see it, nor is it effective on the vast majority of the population, revealing evil people ONLY if they are above 4th level or connected to an evil deity.

The Paladin may have a momentary lapse in power because a template can do some funky things. Of course, by just using his or her faculties, the Paladin will naturally return to being Lawful Good and one atonement spell later and suddenly evil vampires really hate seeing you coming.

You know Atonement isn't that easy. You have to do something. If you fell because you became evil because you became undead then most likely to atone you have to regain mortality.


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HWalsh wrote:

Undeath is the "cheap" way to reach immortality. It's the quick and easy path.

What are the other ways?

Become a God? As a temporary fix one could in a bottle of Sun Orchid Elixer?

Undeath becomes the easier, smarter, alternative.

Actually, becoming undead is a pretty difficult path compared to just being reincarnated over and over again. Reincarnation doesn't care about how old you are or how you died. It's also available much earlier since reincarnate is a 4th level spell available in far more places than create undead which is a 6th level spell.

To become undead without some sort of special circumstance (such as being turned by a vampire), you need an 11th+ level caster (or an efreeti) just to become a simple ghoul. 12th+ for a ghast. 15th+ for a mummy. Not particularly easy.

Becoming a lich is significantly harder.


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HWalsh wrote:
Ashiel wrote:
HWalsh wrote:

The Undead Paladin who no longer can discern good from evil. Who has lost their Paladin abilities and does not understand why they feel the loss of their deity. They continue to kill, indiscriminately, in the hopes that one day they will atone.

Nobody has made the case for non-evil undead really.

Actually, the Paladin is just as good at discerning good from evil in the vast majority of cases because at no point does the Paladin become brain-dead, and detect evil is neither a prerequisite for knowing evil when you see it, nor is it effective on the vast majority of the population, revealing evil people ONLY if they are above 4th level or connected to an evil deity.

The Paladin may have a momentary lapse in power because a template can do some funky things. Of course, by just using his or her faculties, the Paladin will naturally return to being Lawful Good and one atonement spell later and suddenly evil vampires really hate seeing you coming.

You know Atonement isn't that easy. You have to do something. If you fell because you became evil because you became undead then most likely to atone you have to regain mortality.

Incorrect sir.

Atonement wrote:

This spell removes the burden of misdeeds from the subject. The creature seeking atonement must be truly repentant and desirous of setting right its misdeeds. If the atoning creature committed the evil act unwittingly or under some form of compulsion, atonement operates normally at no cost to you. However, in the case of a creature atoning for deliberate misdeeds, you must intercede with your deity (requiring you to expend 2,500 gp in rare incense and offerings). Atonement may be cast for one of several purposes, depending on the version selected.

Reverse Magical Alignment Change: If a creature has had its alignment magically changed, atonement returns its alignment to its original status at no additional cost.

Restore Class: A paladin, or other class, who has lost her class features due to violating the alignment restrictions of her class may have her class features restored by this spell.

Given that every undead-spreading ability is a magical effect (all the create spawn abilities plus spells and such), if they cause your alignment to change, atonement has got your back.


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Lord Twitchiopolis wrote:

If you make yourself undead, you defy fate, you defy balance.

You force your will above that of existence and nature.
Self serving, self empowering.
That is Evil.

No, it factually is not.


Milo v3 wrote:
KujakuDM wrote:
False equivalency.

In what way?

Just because two things have similar characteristics doesn't mean they are the same.

1 is a number, 2 is a number, but 1 =/= 2.

An undead feasting on the living is different than an animal doing the same. For one, you say it yourself that most of the time they recieve no nourishment from it.
Plus consuming the flesh of a sentient creature is generally considered to be cannibalisim, an evil act.

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Quote:
Can you name a few examples? I honestly cant think of any that aren't connected to an objectively evil act or the corruption of souls or life energy, which according to pathfinder cosmology is an evil act.

Discounting objectively evil acts (including spellcasting) or the corruption of souls or life energy the PRD has the following from bestiaries 1-4.

Allip, attic whisperer, bakekujira, (huh, berbalang has no origin on PRD), bhuta, devourers (they are made from evil people, but their origin is actually from leaving reality), dybbuk, ectoplasmic creatures, festrog, gallowdead, gashadokuros, gearghost, ghost, huecuvas, (manananggals do not state their origin), pale stranger, poltergeist, revenant, sea bonze, skeletal champion, spectre, warsworn, wight, yuki-onna, and void zombies, (zombie lord can be expected since skeletal champion is valid, and no origin is mentioned).

This is about a third of the undead in bestiaries 1-4.

I cant hit every single one of your examples (I'm not going to put in that much work) but here are a few:

Evil Committed by others or through evil emotions like anger:

Allip: Suicide from madness. Evil Act.
Attic Whisperer: An attic whisperer spawns as the result of a lonely or neglected child's death. Evil Act.
Devourer: Devourers are the undead remnants of fiends and evil spellcasters. Evil is a requirement regardless of how it occurs.
Sea Bonze: Sea bonzes are formed from the combined despair and horror of death at sea, such as when a ship sinks and its entire crew drowns. It combines the anger and doom of all who die in such close proximity. Evil
Poltergeist: A poltergeist is an angry spirit that forms from the soul of a creature that, for whatever reason, becomes unable to leave the site of its death. Sometimes, this might be due to an unfinished task—other times, it might be due to a powerful necromantic effect. Desecrating a grave site by building a structure over the body below is the most common method of accidentally creating a poltergeist. The poltergeist experiences great trauma over its condition; this trauma twists its psyche to evil and fosters an overall hatred of the living expressed in outbursts of rage. Evil Act.
Huecuvas are the risen corpses of heretical clerics who blasphemed and renounced their deities before meeting death. Evil Act.

Unless you can show a few undead that just show up because of positive emotions or aren't manifestations of things like anger or other 'bad' emotions I really don't think you are going to convince anyone with those examples.

Others can be explained usually by the following:
ANIMATE DEAD; School necromancy [evil]

Ghosts are the one that is generally accepted to not necessarily be evil.


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Quote:

Allip: Suicide from madness. Evil Act.

Attic Whisperer: An attic whisperer spawns as the result of a lonely or neglected child's death. Evil Act.

While we're making up evil acts, I'd like to point out that eating chocolate icecream is an abhorrently evil act, along with playing checkers, and feeling depressed.


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Ashiel wrote:
Lord Twitchiopolis wrote:

If you make yourself undead, you defy fate, you defy balance.

You force your will above that of existence and nature.
Self serving, self empowering.
That is Evil.
No, it factually is not.

Pharasma would be inclined to disagree with you.


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Lord Twitchiopolis wrote:
Ashiel wrote:
Lord Twitchiopolis wrote:

If you make yourself undead, you defy fate, you defy balance.

You force your will above that of existence and nature.
Self serving, self empowering.
That is Evil.
No, it factually is not.
Pharasma would be inclined to disagree with you.

Alignment > Pharasma.

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