I'm a first time DM but have played for a little bit.
The campaign I'm running right now is based off the idea that undead and the spells that create them are not strictly evil. My decision was that spells like animate dead and create undead are evil if the caster is, any mindless undead created by these spells are the alignment of their creators. Intelligent undead can have any alignment, but the majority tend to be evil. Does this seem like a good premise or have I made undead too complicated?
I think it's a great idea. If you play your cards right, you could put your characters in some really juicy moral dilemmas.
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Do the "mindless" undead retain their alignment when their creator dies?
I like the idea of free-roaming LG zombie hoards rescuing stranded travellers, repairing roadways and structures, and doing their best at keeping decay at bay.
City Planner's Lament, "We are trying to make a new park here, but those zombies keep putting those hovels back up. Something needs to be done about this abomination!"
I'm a first time DM but have played for a little bit.
The campaign I'm running right now is based off the idea that undead and the spells that create them are not strictly evil. My decision was that spells like animate dead and create undead are evil if the caster is, any mindless undead created by these spells are the alignment of their creators. Intelligent undead can have any alignment, but the majority tend to be evil. Does this seem like a good premise or have I made undead too complicated?
The question ask yourself next is "if undead can be of any alignment, why do most tend to be evil?"
I think the normal reason undead = evil is because creating a zombie enslaves the soul of the deceased similar to how making a golem enslaves an elemental spirit. This is never explicitly stated in pathfinder but I kind of assumed that based on other zombie containing fiction I have read.
If there is no soul of the dead involved is there just a loophole in magic that makes animating corpses easier than say animating a mannequin?
Do the "mindless" undead retain their alignment when their creator dies?
I like the idea of free-roaming LG zombie hoards rescuing stranded travellers, repairing roadways and structures, and doing their best at keeping decay at bay.City Planner's Lament, "We are trying to make a new park here, but those zombies keep putting those hovels back up. Something needs to be done about this abomination!"
I never thought of that but it would be amazing. I might steal that idea
The question ask yourself next is "if undead can be of any alignment, why do most tend to be evil?"I'm a first time DM but have played for a little bit.
The campaign I'm running right now is based off the idea that undead and the spells that create them are not strictly evil. My decision was that spells like animate dead and create undead are evil if the caster is, any mindless undead created by these spells are the alignment of their creators. Intelligent undead can have any alignment, but the majority tend to be evil. Does this seem like a good premise or have I made undead too complicated?
I should make it a little more clear. Undead are still viewed mostly the same way by most people, societies and gods. So if a paladin were to smite a LG undead he would still get his smite, since it is undead. The part that I think makes it interesting is when the vampire that you've been sent to kill has the best of intentions with the inconvenience of being a blood sucking fiend.
Keep in mind that undeath is evil because it's unhealthy for the mind and soul and screws up the person's passage into the afterlife.
I think the normal reason undead = evil is because creating a zombie enslaves the soul of the deceased similar to how making a golem enslaves an elemental spirit. This is never explicitly stated in pathfinder but I kind of assumed that based on other zombie containing fiction I have read.
If there is no soul of the dead involved is there just a loophole in magic that makes animating corpses easier than say animating a mannequin?
Morally discerning necromancers choose animate objects/Craft Construct for their zombie needs.
We should keep in mind that this is a homebrew question to explore an alternate reality where undead and their creation is not necessarily evil. Saying that they ARE evil is not appropriate for this thread. This is a what if thread, not a what is thread.
I'm a first time DM but have played for a little bit.
The campaign I'm running right now is based off the idea that undead and the spells that create them are not strictly evil. My decision was that spells like animate dead and create undead are evil if the caster is, any mindless undead created by these spells are the alignment of their creators. Intelligent undead can have any alignment, but the majority tend to be evil. Does this seem like a good premise or have I made undead too complicated?
I don't think the idea is too complicated. I think that since you are making a world with an aspect that is significantly different from vanilla fantasy you need to think through the implications of this change. I think the questions posed in this thread are all good ones.
Here are some thoughts on how I might answer them if I were running this campaign, of course take it or leave it as it pleases you:
I would make mindless undead tools and flavor them more like constructs than vanilla undead. mindless undead are neutral or unaligned they do simply what they are told by whoever is controlling them. Undead set to a task will keep at that task to the best of their ability for example if they were told to fix the roads they will keep fixing the roads until they are destroyed, dominated by a necromancer, or run out of roads to fix.
As to the answer to my question about is it easier to animate a corpse than anything else obviously the answer needs to be yes (assuming you keep animate dead a lower level spell than animate object), but why? if you are not binding a soul to the zombie what else is the power source? It could be bound elemental spirits like constructs or maybe the Laws of Magic just make it easier to animate something that was once alive because its energy resonates with animation magic more strongly. The explanation doesn't really need to be good or logical because magic but I think you are better off having one beforehand than making it up on the spot.
As for intelligent undead perhaps mortals who animate their corpses tend to go insane over time since the mortal mind did not evolve to stay sane for centuries (perhaps elven undead fare better than other races?)
We should keep in mind that this is a homebrew question to explore an alternate reality where undead and their creation is not necessarily evil. Saying that they ARE evil is not appropriate for this thread. This is a what if thread, not a what is thread.
True dat. Regarding the original premise: Sounds like fun!
It's not cut and dried Lady J.
A good cleric (or one who worships a good deity) channels positive energy and can choose to deal damage to undead creatures or to heal living creatures. An evil cleric (or one who worships an evil deity) channels negative energy and can choose to deal damage to living creatures or to heal undead creatures. A neutral cleric who worships a neutral deity (or one who is not devoted to a particular deity) must choose whether she channels positive or negative energy. Once this choice is made, it cannot be reversed. This decision also determines whether the cleric casts spontaneous cure or inflict spells (see spontaneous casting).
Positive energy has ties to Good, Negative energy has ties to Evil.
One could even say they are aligned if one wanted to chum the water.EDIT Sorry, went off topic, removed the alignment stuff to the alignment retread thread.
it is a great breakdown of the things that change in the game when you decide that undead are not inherently evil.
It should give you a lot of ideas regarding how that choice might change your game world. Hope it helps.
if you wanted to change the current world rather then make a new one with different worlds you could even make it a specific cosmological event, the negative and positive planes arent evil or good but the negative plane is to the "south" of the planar system and thus is influenced by the lower planes which is what causes undead to tend towards evil, evil is literally leaking into the energy that keeps them alive, and vice versa for positive energy, either something caused them to drift closer to the center and loose this influence or possibly turn so there on "east" and "west" makeing it a law vs chaos thing now this would also cause clerics to not be restricted in what energy type they can channel, certainly be an interesting situation, when some of those roaming rotten ghouls start helping people and the chaotic good cleric goes to try and heal someone only to find them rotting there flesh away
personally good undead are great bits of storytelling, i always found the idea innocent people that died and became undead would hate the living automatically , like no im pretty sure that huge amalgam of 50 corpses born of a mass grave of a genocide is going to be a friendly giant whos only concern is making sure what happened to them never happens to anyone else ever again