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I would argue no. Once the former inhabitant is alive, I would rule that the former corpse is a cast-off remnant of a living being, no longer an actual corpse. Undead is, by definition, neither alive, nor dead. You might be able to do sometning with a clone if there was a way to quicken one without the death of the source since it has a degree of separation from the source at that point.
I would, however, allow it to be part, if not all the base material for a flesh golem. That could well be creepier, especially if said golem gets fully awakened, tormented by "Meat Memories" not its own. I suppose you could get the same Angst from that mis-quickened clone.
Now, that cast-off remnant might very well be very useful in a Voodoo-Doll sort of way. You say you need bit of hair to make the Curse stick? What do you think you can do with this?"
This really does pretty much cross Wheaton's rule something awful though. The whole thread.
1. Play an evil reincarnated druid/necromancer.
2. Die a bunch of times.
3. Animate your old bodies.
4. Profit!
Oh man, I like the flesh golem idea.
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I couldn't find if this has been asked before, so my apologies if it has:
While raise dead requires that it be cast on the dead body in question, resurrection only needs a piece of the body - and true resurrection doesn't need any part of the body at all - to bring someone back to life. While the spells are silent on the specifics, the implication seems to be that a new, living body is created in proximity to the spellcaster when these spells are used...which means that the old body is left behind, since there's nothing about it fading away or otherwise disappearing.
Given that, could you then animate the old body (after the person has been resurrected) as an undead creature? A mindless undead seems like a simple yes, but a sentient undead creature (via create undead or create greater undead) seems a bit trickier, due to that note in magic jar saying that sentient undead have souls...which you've presumably brought back into a living body already. Does that mean that you can't make a "leftover" body into a (sentient) undead creature? Or could an adventurer later run into their own mohrg or spectre or similar creature?
Up to the GM in how dark they want to allow their setting to be.
For a happy setting, your formed body would probably be removed from existance as part of casting the spell. Maybe bursts into gold light.
For a darker setting, the former body could remain for use in something. Or perhaps in rescuing your soul from death, an evil soul clung onto yours and now inhabits your formed body.
Up to the GM and in how their setting handles corpses. In theory, dead enemies are difficult terrain, but our happy settings often have them just disappear and leave their loot behind in nice, neat piles.
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add the bard corpse to the wall of bard corpses
Just look out for undead chickens.
When you "destroy" an undead creature (since we do not say "killed" an undead creature) the body parts are not always destroyed literally. A zombie takes enough damage to go down, it goes down. So, just as a living being is "destroyed" by wounds and becomes dead as the positive energy leaves its corpse, an undead when so destroyed becomes just dead as the negative energy leaves it corpse.
For mindless undead, there is nothing in RAW that I can see that says you could not re-animate a fallen undead with another source of magic to bring the fallen corpse back to undeath - just like Raise Dead can bring a fallen corpse back to life.
So - if you buy this concept that a corpse is sort of "nuetral" in regards to life and undeath, then the added factor becomes Sentient Undead - those with "souls". To reach that level, the death of the body must have been supernatural in nature (like a spawn of a vampire) or particularly traumatic (for a ghost), or both - and the soul stays bound to the corpse only now infused with undeath (and in Pathfinder, inherently evil).
True Resurrection, Resurrection and Raise Dead and all similar spells do nothing to a living creature or to an undead one. So, if you lost a comrade deep in a supernatural evil cave, and True Resurrected them back home without having their fallen corpse, I think it is perfectly RAW to say their remains of their previous form can be made into mindless undead. But without the soul available to attach, no higher, sentient, form of undead should be allowed.
I not only think that's RAI, I would say that is satisfactorily RAW.
I know.
Yes for mindless, no for sentient.
On the whole mindless zombies not using/requiring a soul.
You cannot high end resurrect any undead (to include zombies and skeletons, since they are not specifically excluded) without first having to destroy that undead. This implies that the soul is used, if inefficiently, even in "mindless" undead.
Does the old body still exist after a True Resurraction is cast? If the body were already animated before the True Resurrection was cast, you would still have to destroy that undead before resurrecting that person, so the spell obviously does something with the body if it does exist at the time True Resurrection is cast.
For mindless undead, there is nothing in RAW that I can see that says you could not re-animate a fallen undead with another source of magic to bring the fallen corpse back to undeath - just like Raise Dead can bring a fallen corpse back to life.
Per animate dead, skeletons and zombies can only be created from mostly intact corpses, so you could not use destroyed undead to create new ones. (You could research a much more powerful version of the spell to get that effect--and at the level that spell would be, why not just create more powerful undead?)
For mindless undead, there is nothing in RAW that I can see that says you could not re-animate a fallen undead with another source of magic to bring the fallen corpse back to undeath - just like Raise Dead can bring a fallen corpse back to life.Per animate dead, skeletons and zombies can only be created from mostly intact corpses, so you could not use destroyed undead to create new ones. (You could research a much more powerful version of the spell to get that effect--and at the level that spell would be, why not just create more powerful undead?)
Even a zombie 'destroyed" by a single arrow shot? I think mostly intact depends on the means by which the Undead was felled. Further - even if you hacked down a zombie, could you not Decompose Corpse and animate a skeleton?
On the whole mindless zombies not using/requiring a soul.
You cannot high end resurrect any undead (to include zombies and skeletons, since they are not specifically excluded) without first having to destroy that undead. This implies that the soul is used, if inefficiently, even in "mindless" undead.
Very valid point. But many mindless undead are composed of remains LONG dead, where the soul certainly has moved on to it's afterlife. What happens to the skeleton's soul when it is raised from the dead 500 years after it was entombed? You would think cremation would become a mandate of all the good god's if their petitioners were being suck back to their mindless mortal coils every time a low level necromancer stumbled across a graveyard that was no longer warded.
If you had the mortal remains of a recently elevated outsider - an angel, azata or similar outer planar creature that ascended from petitioner to their new form (after a mortal life), could you snuff out their immortal form with a simple create undead?
Not disagreeing, though - maybe the remains of a true resurrected creature could not be turned into an undead at all. Just wondering how far that reaches.
