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Ghosts are the go-to generally.
But, if you aren't playing Golarion, then rules do not prevent any non-planar intelligent undead from being good as undead don't have any more difficultly in changing their alignments than dwarves/humans/goblins/etc. So you can be a good lich, good vampire, good wight, good mummy, etc.
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One of my GMs did a good Vampire campaign. We got injected with some mystery poison right before we got turned so we kept our minds and alignment. It worked pretty well.
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One of my GMs did a good Vampire campaign. We got injected with some mystery poison right before we got turned so we kept our minds and alignment. It worked pretty well.
This.
If it's a homebrew campaign, there's no reason the GM couldn't just rule that you're 'neutral' versions of many Undead. You could either be the exception to the rule, or Undead in that world could generally have more diversity in alignment than you'd expect in Golarion.
I'd just recommend that you and the GM sort out what the 'rules' for Undead will be in the world. How common are non-evil Undead? How accepted by the general public? etc.
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Intelligent undead can be any alignment they want. Sometimes the circumstances of their existence naturally cause them to slip toward Evil (or dark Neutral), particularly in the case of vampires, but there's no lore reason given for WHY all undead are "Always Evil" (barring ghosts) so there's nothing besides an arbitrary two words to ignore for a game like this.
Technically speaking even then undead may always START as Evil but can shift alignment over time to whatever they want much as Evil Outsiders can.
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Helm of opposite alignment or DM Fiat
As a species... no.
As INDIVIDUAL EXCEPTIONS.. yes.
If the GM wants to run an "everybody's undead" campaign, the GM should also fiat that intelligent undead can be of any alignment.
As a general rule of thumb, any type of being you allow (or demand) the PCs play should be allowed to be any alignment they choose, even if it goes against type.
my GM wants to play an undead game. a little help would be great.
If you are playing an undead game from the get go, and it is through the GM... why be nonevil?
Be delightfully evil. Steal candy from babies, do trip maneuvers on little old ladies, sneak money from the clercs' donation boxes, and generally be a menace.
Why is your GM throwing you into an undead campaign if he doesn't either expect you to be evil or give a houserule for the campaign? That would be like saying you all play wizards in a no magic campaign (...would those just be larpers?)
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It's 3.5, but you might look at the deathless type from the Book of Exalted Deeds and the Eberron Campaign Setting. (It's the positive energy equivalent to the undead.) Ghostwalk (3.0) has rules for ghostish PCS that are outsiders rather than undead. (They are corporeal in the main setting, but may become incorporeal if they stray far away from it.) Necropolitans from Libris Mortis can be of varying alignment.
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Technically speaking even then undead may always START as Evil but can shift alignment over time to whatever they want much as Evil Outsiders can.
Actually, according the bestiary they do it significantly easier than an outsider. Undead can change their alignment as easily as a human could if you use the rules in the bestiary.
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Ghostwalk was a fascinating setting, iirc.
Technically speaking even then undead may always START as Evil but can shift alignment over time to whatever they want much as Evil Outsiders can.Actually, according the bestiary they do it significantly easier than an outsider. Undead can change their alignment as easily as a human could if you use the rules in the bestiary.
There are actually rules in the Bestiary for alignment shifts?
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There are actually rules in the Bestiary for alignment shifts?
Sort of. In the introduction section where is says what each part of the statblock means it talks about whether different types of creatures can change their alignments from the ones listed in their statblocks.
Only un-intelligent creatures or planar creatures have additional difficultly in altering their alignments past the fact you are changing your personal values. Many undead are intelligent and non-planar in nature.
Most undead are evil, but they can be good just as easily as a dwarf can be chaotic evil (Most dwarves are lawful good according to the CRB and ARG).
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I think a great aspect of intelligent undead PCs is the struggle between their new nature and their fading humanity. Trying to fight against the darkness and rise above their circumstances creates great roleplaying opportunities.
If your GM can capture this, you'll have a fantastic game centered around personal horror.
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There are a couple, even in Golarion. There's a Neutral mummy in one of the adventures, for instance.
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It really does seem that intelligent undead should have an even easier time changing their alignment than most, since they've got a ton of time for reflecting on things, and lack a lot of social, cultural, or biological pressures that would otherwise inform their thinking. They probably don't get out much so they don't often get exposed to new perspectives, but I imagine they can get a whole lot of reading done.
But ultimately there's two reasons to run a game where the players are monsters.
1) Appealing to the sort of juvenile "let's be delightfully evil and burn down orphanages and stuff" impulse.
or
2) Telling a story about struggling with, changing, or coming to terms with your monstrous nature and how it conflicts with everything else about you.
Given that one of the most successful non-D&D RPG lines was explicitly about #2, I heartily recommend that approach over #1.
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Doomed Hero has a mechanic in his games that might apply to this.
There are two types of evil:
Evil by Nature and Evil by Choice
The undead, demons, abominations...so forth are evil by nature. They are the product of unnatural order or cruelty and thus it is much easier for them to commit evil acts.
Evil by Choice on the other hand has you maniacs, serial killers, and villians of the classic archetypes.
When creating an NPC or character that is evil or good, think about those designations. It should make for some excellent story telling.
If you want to read some excellent examples of this concept, I highly recommend the Dresden Files.
Good luck and happy gaming.
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Inflict wounds spells do not have the evil descriptor for the record.
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We're not talking about hurting the living. And good-aligned undead wouldn't have any more trouble using negative energy than evil-aligned humans have using positive energy. Also, ghouls and vampires don't actually need to eat to survive. They just like to. A ghoul monk ascetic would be downright interesting, actually.
Most people just rule whatever they want with undead, which totally sucks the soul out of the entire concept unironically.
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Concern #1: "How the F*** do we heal ourselves?", since undeads heal via negative energy, which is non-good.
Negative energy is neutral. If negative energy was evil, then spells which use negative energy would be evil and the plane of negative energy would be evil.
Using it to hurt the living kinda does... and not that many classes have access to it.
Based on that line of thinking, swords are evil, fists are evil, puppies are evil, small blocks of wood are evil, because all can be used to harm the living... Also casting inflict wounds on an undead does not harm anyone, let alone the living.
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Concern #1: "How the F*** do we heal ourselves?", since undeads heal via negative energy, which is non-good.Negative energy is neutral. If negative energy was evil, then spells which use negative energy would be evil and the plane of negative energy would be evil.
Using it to hurt the living kinda does... and not that many classes have access to it.Based on that line of thinking, swords are evil, fists are evil, puppies are evil, small Danish blocks of plastic are evil, because all can be used to harm the living... Also casting inflict wounds on an undead does not harm anyone, let alone the living.
FTFY.
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There is little to stop the very intelligent ones from changing if they want, but they seldom have any incentive. There are a few rules about spells and necromancy, and vampires suck blood (though I gather there have been some books and films which address the problems of squeamish vampires).
Liches are odd because the lore says they are super duper evil, but they don't seem to have any compulsion to be proactive about it. A Demilich for example can sit still and do nothing, ever, and still pings as evil, but perhaps that is the consequence of boredom and idle thoughts.
Mild spoiler - In Wrath of the Righteous there is a mighty Lich who has got fed up of it all and who hasn't done anything particularly evil for millennia.
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There is little to stop the very intelligent ones from changing if they want, but they seldom have any incentive. There are a few rules about spells and necromancy, and vampires suck blood (though I gather there have been some books and films which address the problems of squeamish vampires).
Liches are odd because the lore says they are super duper evil, but they don't seem to have any compulsion to be proactive about it. A Demilich for example can sit still and do nothing, ever, and still pings as evil, but perhaps that is the consequence of boredom and idle thoughts.
Mild spoiler - In Wrath of the Righteous there is a mighty Lich who has got fed up of it all and who hasn't done anything particularly evil for millennia.
I think Liches are "super duper evil" because the process of becoming a Lich requires doing some (admittedly nondescript) super duper evil stuff. So even if they spend the rest of their unlives in quiet contemplation, they still had to murder puppies or eat babies or whatever they did to become a Lich to get there.
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Inflict wounds spells do not have the evil descriptor for the record.Using it to hurt the living kinda does... and not that many classes have access to it.
Clerics have it, and they are a both a common class and the one many people go to for healing anyway. You just need a cleric of a neutral god or an evil god. Asmodeus seems like a go to for this, since he is an evil god with a fairly public church.
There is also infernal healing, which is fast healing, and thus still applies. Slow, but it works.
I think Liches are "super duper evil" because the process of becoming a Lich requires doing some (admittedly nondescript) super duper evil stuff. So even if they spend the rest of their unlives in quiet contemplation, they still had to murder puppies or eat babies or whatever they did to become a Lich to get there.
Paizo has actually written up in story background how a few of it's liches actually attained their state. I can tell you for all of them, their evil was very much "descript".
I haven't read that stuff and likely don't have access to it, so could you elucidate your meaning?
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The Darakhul from Kobold Press are cool PC Ghuls!
Inflict wounds spells do not have the evil descriptor for the record.Using it to hurt the living kinda does... and not that many classes have access to it.Clerics have it, and they are a both a common class and the one many people go to for healing anyway. You just need a cleric of a neutral god or an evil god. Asmodeus seems like a go to for this, since he is an evil god with a fairly public church.
.....
Not to mention the Oracle, Witch or Shaman with no allignment restrictions....
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It helps to determine how exactly undeath works in your game.
I used to think that intelligent undead were simply their former selves minus the heart beat. I couldn't really wrap my head around half of the lore and mechanics surrounding them, though. If resurrection isn't an unholy abomination, why is undeath? If the living can be of any alignment, why can't the undead? After all, negative and positive energies are alignment-neutral. Many fantasy tropes involve dead heroes rising back as evil, while still generally-agreed upon to still be the same soul in charge, the process making them hate the living. But the rules were silent on why and how undeath affects souls, simply stating the end result behavior in the monster entries.
And then came the Order of the Stick, and their take on vampires, and honestly, it just makes so much sense. If an evil undeath god is responsible for making undead souls, and that these souls kidnap bodies and their original host souls, it explains well why the new attitude isn't the same as the original, why undeath is an abberation and sacrilege, and why one cannot use ressurection spell on those afflicted by undeath. The only undead that doesn't fit this mold well is the lich.
I think that before settling whether or not the undead can be non-evil in your campaign, the GM should settle how undeath works. If it's just a process that allows a soul to use negative energy to substitute biology, I see no reason why he can't just wave the "undead are evil" rules, especially for sentient undead (though vermins will devour the innocent too, and they aren't evil, so I have a hard time seeing the logic in non-sentient evil creatures). If the souls of the undead aren't the same souls that controlled the living body, then one could say a god created non-evil souls to spawn these undead, for whatever reason that may be. "Why would the gods create non-evil undead, where undead are an aberration and pretty much exclusively created by evil gods?" would make for a great plot imo.
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I haven't read that stuff and likely don't have access to it, so could you elucidate your meaning?
All the ones I can remember featured mass (as in "dozens" not a "a few") murder/sacrifice. The occult ritual the published to become a lich definitely expects (and without ultra high level leveraging requires) sacrificing lots of people to succeed.
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Clerics have it, and they are a both a common class and the one many people go to for healing anyway. You just need a cleric of a neutral god or an evil god. Asmodeus seems like a go to for this, since he is an evil god with a fairly public church.Inflict wounds spells do not have the evil descriptor for the record.Using it to hurt the living kinda does... and not that many classes have access to it.
You don't need to worship a Neutral or Evil god to cast Inflict anyway. you're all thinking of Channel Energy.
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And spontaneous casting. Because no one prepares cure spells, they forget you can prepare inflict spells.
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And for Sorcerers, Wizards and Arcanists is the Repair Undead spell a good option!
I haven't read that stuff and likely don't have access to it, so could you elucidate your meaning?
Several liches have had their process described, and in all cases it was descriptive, horrific, and involved mass painful deaths (and in some cases soul-destruction or sacrifice) of innocents. In other words, you don't become a lich by practicing Evil Lite. This also includes some cases where the process didn't succeed, and what was produced instead was some halfway monster who was now throughly insane AND evil.
Would the liching ritual not work if your mass sacrifice is of genuinely horrible people?
I'm intrigued by the idea of a Wizard who wants to turn into a Lich, but is trying to ensure that only people who really deserve it get hurt in the ritual to turn him into a Lich.
Would the liching ritual not work if your mass sacrifice is of genuinely horrible people?
I'm intrigued by the idea of a Wizard who wants to turn into a Lich, but is trying to ensure that only people who really deserve it get hurt in the ritual to turn him into a Lich.
This is where I would remind you of the "ends do not justify the means". Doing evil things to evil people, doesn't change the evil of the acts themselves.
Plus, if you really WANT Immortality as a lich, there's a point where your power/life lust will become stronger and you'll lower your standards so you can get enough victims for the ritual to succeed.
But if you're going to do evil things, it's probably better to do them to evil people than to non-evil people.
If a would-be Lich were to take over a prison where the worst of the worst criminals are kept, tell all the guards and staff to go home for the day (and offers them money to do so), use the very worst criminals as fodder for the Liching, and makes sure to clean up afterwards -that would still be evil absolutely, but it would be socially acceptable evil for the most part.
The people who have to live in the community near Fantasy Alcatraz might even appreciate it.
Wait, what does "dark neutral" mean?
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I haven't read that stuff and likely don't have access to it, so could you elucidate your meaning?All the ones I can remember featured mass (as in "dozens" not a "a few") murder/sacrifice. The occult ritual the published to become a lich definitely expects (and without ultra high level leveraging requires) sacrificing lots of people to succeed.
There is at least one Chaotic Neutral Lich.
He is mentioned in The Great Beyond chronicles book, a chap named Xegirius Malikar. There is no mention of how he became a Lich, but he is apparently an insane person who lives in a ruined castle floating around the Negative Energy plane. Thus while he isn't exactly evil, his pad isn't particularly welcoming and his insanity might not make him the most trustworthy ally.
On the other hand, most Liches do seem fond of using mass murder to fuel their lichdom. Meyi Pahano in Undead Unleashed got her entire fellow wizard academy to commit suicide - she's rather good at Dominate Person and her group were pretty depressed at the time anyway.
Carrion Crown has some unusual and not always evil ways of becoming a Lich, but any discussion is a minefield of spoilers, just play it, it's really good. Shame about spoilers because there is a good article about Liches in book 6 of CC.
One dude massacred thousands to impress Tar-Baphon and buy lichdom. Another fellow fed an entire Kellid tribe into some weird space machine in Numeria. One lady drained a bunch of dryads. You get the picture. However, I think these guys were just showing off because not everyone has to be so heavy-handed.
There are a couple of Dwarf Wizards in Dark Markets who did it by accident by trying to protect people from evil magic but it got them instead.
There is too little information on most of them, I'd like more, especially on the ones who do something interesting rather than simply murder a bunch of people. Any powerful spellcaster can do that. There is a servant of Nethys in Inner Sea Gods for instance who we know little about. Nethys doesn't really care about life or death so he wouldn't be impressed by slaughtering willy-nilly, so this person would have had to do it by casting a lot of spells all the time, I imagine. Much more interesting.