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Hello! While going through another thread where a discussion was being had about why undead are considered evil, I started wondering if there were any counterparts to undead that just pop up in Golarion.
I mean, there are several undead things that pop up due to the way they were killed, the type of person they were in life, at place of extreme violence, etc. Evil emotions, fear , pain, etc. all come together to form a new shadow, ghost, poltergeist, whatever.
But are there any good-aligned anything that just pops up in places of peace, love, goodness, righteousness and just help people? I'm talking on the material plane, obviously this sort of thing happens in the good-aligned planes.
Just curious. I've come across many type of undead that have attacked on sight, but don't think I've come across any that have just shown up and started healing.
That one is a bit difficult to answer. Going by the lore, we actually have Psychopoms hunting down said undead, should meet wandering clergy of Desna, and so on. Problem is: That just wouldn't´t make for a good game.
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Paizo would avoid calling them undead. There are good haunts (forget what they're called), which are similar, and there are good phantoms.
Undead come from RL folklore. In which very good souls usually go straight to their happy reward rather than spend time righting wrongs down here, though they can help in small ways
Which nicely explains why the world stays a hard place
Same for Golarion
I thought we called those 'paladins', 'clerics of Pharasma', and stuff like that?
In a way, every newborn is an anti-undead :-)
The Raven Black wrote: In a way, every newborn is an anti-undead :-) This. Undead are a magical manifestation of anti-life. There isn't any "anti-undead" because undeath is anti-life. By default anything living is anti-undead.
I do like the idea that in places of great sacrifice, peace, beauty, etc. naturally occurring good-aligned spirits/entities would pop up and either wander around helping people or creating places of refuge.
Clerics and such are not the same, as those are people who have chosen their path, and already have their opposites.
I'm usually a person who is not impressed with 'the same but OPPOSITE' type things, but it seems that if a place can be so horrific that it spawns evil entities, there should be places so wondrous they spawn good entities.
Imbicatus wrote:
This. Undead are a magical manifestation of anti-life. There isn't any "anti-undead" because undeath is anti-life. By default anything living is anti-undead.
Please do not get caught up in my mostly-joking terminology, I simply meant creatures that are the opposite from naturally occurring undead. :)
Optimistic Cynic wrote: Imbicatus wrote:
This. Undead are a magical manifestation of anti-life. There isn't any "anti-undead" because undeath is anti-life. By default anything living is anti-undead.
Please do not get caught up in my mostly-joking terminology, I simply meant creatures that are the opposite from naturally occurring undead. :) I think the point they're making is that there is no need for what you're trying to describe, because the role is filled by every living thing in existence.
Living creatures and undead are their own antithesis.
From a myth perspective, there's no need of what you describe.
Any living creature that dies in a Five Guys restaurant would surely come back and help people get ketchup for their French fries.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Are there places and crcumstances that spawn Hallow monsters rather than Corruption monsters? Only in Terraria.
And perhaps the First World.
You could also look to the heavens, which spawns celestial creatures naturally.
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Claxon wrote:
I think the point they're making is that there is no need for what you're trying to describe, because the role is filled by every living thing in existence.
Living creatures and undead are their own antithesis.
From a myth perspective, there's no need of what you describe.
That is only true if you are looking at this in a 'living vs. undead' point of view, which is not the point of this thread. Or, at least, not the point I was asking about, perhaps not very well.
To clarify my question a bit : Are there spontaneously occurring good-aligned creatures/entities, just as there are spontaneously occurring evil creatures/entities, based on history, environment, etc. I am not talking about creatures that are born or choose their alignment. But rather ones that are formed due to environment, history, etc. just as how places of incredible horror and fear can spawn evil spirits, undead, haunts, etc.
Well, unless I am mistaken about evil entities spontaneously occurring due to horrific locations, acts, history, remnants of twisted and evil people. I seem to remember many such things hitting us in campaigns, but maybe I am incorrect in my belief.
Five Guys, being the holy ground it is, would indeed be a possible location of such goodness. :) Though my personal trainer would disagree. (but I'm pretty certain he is evil anyways)
Honestly though, I think some posters further up the thread may have answered the question. There are a few, but relatively rare.
@Optimistic Cynic:
Drop the "good" and "evil" parts of it.
Undead are more or less simply an occurring failure interrupting the flow of souls. (Which the self-created forms of undead have learned to capitalize on).
Things work as intended, you simply die, your soul passes to the Boneyard and you move on to your afterlife.
That´s why there´re apparently no "good" counterparts, like folks staying on as "guardian spirits" for their families or similar things.
Ghosts may be of any alignment, and in that respect can break many of the usual assumptions about undead. But like most evil ghosts, good ghosts usually have some sort of unfinished business that ties them to the physical world. That bond could manifest as a need to protect a holy site, give succor to the needy, etc.--perhaps until a living person of suitable holiness can assume that role and thus release them?
Any place of appropriate importance, power, or sanctity (though not necessary "goodness") might become the ward of a kami. Most kami are neutral, but at least one good variety exists. Similarly, other forms of nature spirits might manifest in suitably "pure" places. For example, in some cultures or settings, the presence of a nymph, dryad, or unicorn would be a clue that you've found such a place.
Purple Overkill wrote: @Optimistic Cynic:
Drop the "good" and "evil" parts of it.
Undead are more or less simply an occurring failure interrupting the flow of souls. (Which the self-created forms of undead have learned to capitalize on).
Things work as intended, you simply die, your soul passes to the Boneyard and you move on to your afterlife.
That´s why there´re apparently no "good" counterparts, like folks staying on as "guardian spirits" for their families or similar things.
To expand on this, undead "events" are typically life and death matters that result in death, but when they don't.... life goes on, the event is uneventful.
So while it could be an interesting concept... I cannot see a way to create such a being while remaining consistent.... maybe one which could be created in places like working hospitals and act as an invisible anti-life suppression aura and your campaign could be centered around why they are disappearing and go into re-summoning some could be a homebrew... but you'd likely be making it almost whole-cloth.
I mused that naturally occurring undead came from negative energy finding adequate receptacles on its own
I then tried to imagine what the equivalent would be for positive energy and I remembered that it PFRPG cosmology this is exactly how new living souls come into being as newborns
Come to think of it, the terrible events that lead to naturally occurring undead are events of death and destruction (so natural attractors of negative energy) that end in forcing a soul outside the cycle of life and death by binding it with negative energy and making it undead
Not sure that a similar thing could happen with positive energy since it is already suffusing the Material Plane
In any case Pharasma would not be pleased with the result. So are there any non-undead non-outsider creatures out there that Pharasma wishes destroyed ?
There are a bunch of spirits and fey that might fill the role of Anti-Undead. I am mostly thinking about things like the Kami that are supposed to be guardian spirits of nature that would defend their wards against things like the undead.
Loci Spirits do seem to fit the bill of what I am looking for. :)
It just seemed sad that places of great horror and fear could create evil entities, whereas places of great sacrifice, beauty, or peace do not do the same.
Such places of goodness would attract certain creature types, but not many just manifest something simply by being so powerfully good.
Good discussion!
The Erelim angel is kind of like this. It's made from the souls of champions of good.
Optimistic Cynic wrote: Loci Spirits do seem to fit the bill of what I am looking for. :)
It just seemed sad that places of great horror and fear could create evil entities, whereas places of great sacrifice, beauty, or peace do not do the same.
Such places of goodness would attract certain creature types, but not many just manifest something simply by being so powerfully good.
Good discussion!
I find it quite ok. Reading up on the undead lore in Class Horrors Revisited, Undead Revisited and all things Occult paint a pretty harsh picture on how literally damaged those creatures are. For example, look at poor Phantoms: Forever stuck with being bound by one emotion...
That depiction on how it works and that they suffer from being unable to reach the afterlife is part of the underlying horror of it.
So it´s hard to imagine for good things to have an equally harsh altering effect and, again, with actual promise of just reward in afterlife, that would devalue that reward a bit.
OTOH, we do get things like Paladins....
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
There's also the prana ghost (which also has some things to say about normal ghosts). But in general I agree that most more benevolent entities would simply pass on and become normal outsiders, or perhaps even manasaputras.
I wonder if anything special wonky happens when an undead's type gets changed. So, say an undead becomes a level 20 monk. He'd count as an outsider instead of an undead for most purposes.
Melkiador wrote: I wonder if anything special wonky happens when an undead's type gets changed. So, say an undead becomes a level 20 monk. He'd count as an outsider instead of an undead for most purposes. It´s already an interesting point. According to Occult Adventures, Ki and Chakras are coupled with using positive energy.
There´re two example undead Monks, a Devourer and a Vampire (both using the Hungry Ghost archetype) trying to find out how that route would work out.
They're loci spirits. Places were everything is nice and happy can lead to positive energy forming loci spirits which give boons to people.
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My view: Places suffused with love and happiness, and/or alcohol, do spawn anti-undead. It takes about nine months.
It seems odd that in a "balanced energy" worldview -- the view that the elemental forces are opposites and balancing -- earth/air, fire/water, postive/negative -- that negative energy seems to be able to animate so well that which is otherwise inanimate.
Look at the comparison between Create Undead and Animate Construct -- create undead animates things as well as alters them, and potentially allowing the former base intelligence. More or less permanently, and more or less for free. There is no real comparison between this and it's closest comparison creature -- constructs.
Constructs, on a spontaneous basis, are only created temporarily. There is no "create construct" spell that animates the inanimate permanently. Constructs can be crafted, but only at extremely pricey cost.
There are classes and archetypes that can literally engage in mass undead creation -- there is no other functional equivalent in the game that isn't considered "evil" in some fashion.
The closest anyone can come to that would be an effective counter to mass numbers of undead would be summoning -- since summoned creatures disappear after death, they can't "feed the beast".
The problem is summoning isn't permanent like creating undead is. While we have calling, that brings the actual creature, and the death of that creature is likely to add to the numbers of undead unless they are somehow immune to such things, which is usually not intrisict to the monster.
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