Necroethics

[Archpaladin Zousha]

With the Necromancer base class on the way and the Necrologist archetype in Battlecry! (as well as the undead eidolon summoners and various necromancy-themed archetypes before them), I got to thinking about how they might function within parties and the wider setting.

I think it goes without saying that the "ethical necromancer" is a popular anti-hero kind of character throughout fantasy media, making agreements with living people to gain permission to use their remains after death, returning their reanimated servants to death when they're no longer needed, using their dark powers to stop truly evil villains, etc.

This is even more pronounced in Starfinder, where Eox is a prominent member of the Pact Worlds' alliance, and borai being a playable versatile heritage right in the Core Rulebook.

But the vibe I get from other parts of the text, ESPECIALLY Book of the Dead, is that, in terms of authorial intent, such necromancers are kidding themselves at best. That although the concept of Alignment no longer plagues Pathfinder, the creation and use of undead beings is still wrong on a moral and metaphysical level.

For example, in Geb's narration from Book of the Dead, he describes undeath as a morally neutral state of being, only opposed by Pharasma because it's a rejection of her authority, but we know creating undead beings does damage their souls and the fabric of the Universe itself, and the clear subtext is that Geb is making excuses for himself and projecting his own flaws onto Pharasma, much like he does with other prominent undead figures such as Ordellia Whilwren or Walkena, attempting to insinuate they're as bad/selfish as he is to salve his own insecurities and avoid admitting or accepting when he's wrong.

The Hallowed Necromancer archetype also specifically prohibits creating undead as one of its anathema. While that's obvious given its whole purpose is using knowledge of necromancy to destroy willing undead and put unwilling ones to rest, it also means you're not allowed to, say, call upon the souls of your dead relatives to help you fight and then let them go back to their rest afterwards. The act of disturbing the dead's rest without Pharasma's explicit approval through the spells approved for speaking to the dead and resurrecting them, no matter how selfish or selfless the reasons, is an inherent violation. Even the Necrologist's technique of recording the names of battlefield dead to summon them temporarily, while likely rationalized as a way of respecting them, crosses this line.

Obviously, for some players, this is a non-issue. Playing a morally dark character who either doesn't care about the state of their soul or has deluded themselves into thinking they're an exception is the point. Or heck, just playing a straight-up villain, like the antipaladin and desecrator Champion causes. But that's not for everybody, and it feels like the way the text reads in regards to this is that anyone who uses zombies and skeletons to do their fighting, even if they put them back in the graves afterward, has crossed a line, and that they may as well double down and do actual evil, especially the kind of evil that can turn you into an undead being yourself, because otherwise they'll get to the afterlife upon dying of old age (if not sooner) and Pharasma will be waiting for them with a sawed-off shotgun.

Like, what's the alternative if you wanna play a misunderstood goth hero with spooky dark magic being used for good ends and the Blood Lords AP isnt an option?

[Christopher#2411504]

The Spell Animate Dead was renamed to Summon Undead in the Remaster. It does not gain the Unholy trait either.

This is to make clear that using it does not violate any of Pharasmas edicts. So people stop overthinking things like this.
If those abilities aren't tagged Unholy, it is save to assume they work and are okay with Pharasma.

[QuidEst]

Christopher#2411504 wrote:

The Spell Animate Dead was renamed to Summon Undead in the Remaster. It does not gain the Unholy trait either.

This is to make clear that using it does not violate any of Pharasmas edicts. So people stop overthinking things like this.
If those abilities aren't tagged Unholy, it is save to assume they work and are okay with Pharasma.

Pharasma didn't care about good or evil, and doesn't care about holy or unholy, though? The presence or absence of the unholy trait is irrelevant when it comes to her.

As for the main question, if I were to help somebody make a less-evil necromancer, I'd probably pick the ghost-focused subclass, and have them work by binding existing spirits. It's a lot easier to avoid them being created on the spot, since they don't have to take up physical space most of the time. When one is destroyed, it's just temporarily dispersed. No ethical concerns about making undead, and it's keeping them from being a problem elsewhere.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Exactly, and her anathema still include "create undead" and "desecrate a corpse." And I'd argue it's pretty easy to infer from the rest of her description that she'd consider summoning physical undead or conjuring a horde like the Necrologist does to be such forms of desecration.

It's not even so much about Pharasma's edicts and anathema considering such a character wouldn't worship her in the first place, but her position as perhaps the most powerful deity in the Universe and the general tone the writing takes with her as merely the agent and custodian of the Cycle of Souls, indicates that the conceit that every disruption of that Cycle damages the souls involved and breaks the Universe a tiny amount, slowly but over time hastening the end of the Universe, is objective fact, not an opinion of hers that can be debated.

As far as the narrative in Pathfinder is concerned, Pharasma is always right.

[Dragonchess Player]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Like, what's the alternative if you wanna play a misunderstood goth hero with spooky dark magic being used for good ends and the Blood Lords AP isnt an option?

Note, the Blood Lords AP is "maintain the status quo to prevent a worse situation," not "spooky dark magic being used for good ends."

You can possibly/probably make "fighting fire with fire" work for Abomination Vaults, Outlaws of Alkenstar, and maybe Seven Dooms for Sandpoint. The upcoming Hellbreakers and Hell's Destiny APs, for the necrologist in particular, may also have opportunities (devils vs. undead).

[Castilliano]

Note that Summon spells in PF2 create facsimiles, so you aren't desecrating anything or anybody's remains/spirit/etc. w/ Summon Undead (vs. Animate Undead where you were, however contrived it was for such bodies to appear at your location even with low-Rank magic). Their faux-undeath doesn't mean Pharasma approves since you're still tapping into some Platonic "undeadness" or essence (whatever that is); the monsters are still abominations to her however temporary.

What's interesting to me is how Golarion (& Earth) cultures clash on such issues. Ancestor worship remains one of the most popular forms of religion. And in high fantasy there's LotR where the Good/Holy side very much depends on undead assistance in a world full of frightful undead. I think if you put enough cultural impetus behind it, you'd be able to frame necromancy as a positive form of magic as long as you avoid the Unholy tag. And skulls. Hopefully we've all learned that yes, using skulls as one's symbol does mean you're the baddie, at least in UK lore.

[AceofMoxen]

Let's pin down Phrasma's stance.

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

As far as the narrative in Pathfinder is concerned, Pharasma is always right.

Is she always on the side of right? Or is she singly focused on ensuring (and maybe delaying) the creation of the next universe and absolutely has the correct knowledge about how to do so? Without alignment, we can really ask these questions.

In theory, when alignment was part of the game, Phrasma should have been an opposing force to the party just as much percent of her appearances as Abadar, right? That is, if you took a random 30 appearances of each or their followers across the pre-remaster period, you would find them opposed to the party vs. aligned with the party at the same ratio? I doubt it. The only time I remember her opposing the party is at the beginning of Tyrant's Grasp.

In 1e, she allowed NE clerics, but I'm absolutely confused about what they would do. I've been told since 2006 that "Neutral is not Good-lite." I still have the same response that if I'm a Neutral traveler, I would absolutely prefer to sleep at the inn of a Good-aligned innkeeper than an Evil innkeeper. Did a NE cleric of Phrasma ever appear? In 2e, She only allowed GN, TN, LN followers. (Is Phrasma Neutral on Law-Chaos? clearly no) I'm pinning a "good-lite" label on TN Phrasma.

QuidEst wrote:

Pharasma didn't care about good or evil, and doesn't care about holy or unholy, though? The presence or absence of the unholy trait is irrelevant when it comes to her.

Phrasma allows neither sanctification, however, a list of tasks she might assign her followers includes killing Soul-stealing Fiends, but not Celestials. So Holy could be helpful to her followers. The wiki says "Her followers ... carry tiny vials of holy water"

Let's look at the wiki:

Quote:

anathema "rob a tomb" is replaced with "take from the dead in bad faith".

Her followers can take from the dead in good faith? Or in no faith at all? There are many ways to interpret this. Let's say a rich man is buried with his wealth, and a young Phrasmain cleric vows to keep his tomb sealed. A few years later, a judge rules that his wealth was acquired through fraud. Is breaking the cleric's vow 'Bad faith,' or was the rich man already acting in bad faith because of the fraud? What if he does break the seal, and later finds out the judge was corrupt? I think he's under no obligation to correct his mistake. Is the only way a Phrasmain cleric can be bad is in unlikely hypotheticals?

Quote:

Worshipers

Midwives, pregnant women, morticians

So a villainous Midwife is just not doing her job correctly? A villainous mortician can't worship Phrasma and steal from the dead in bad faith. I guess they could overcharge the families for their services? I'm aware of jokes about a Pregnant Woman (sidebar for non-woman who can get pregnant?) using her embryo as a hostage to commit crimes. It absolutely feels like she only allows evil in the silliest situations?

Quote:

Edicts

Strive to understand ancient prophecies, destroy undead, lay bodies to rest
Anathema
Create undead, desecrate a corpse, take from the dead in bad faith

Do 'Destory undead'and 'Don't create Undead' are at the center of this whole discussion. 'Understand ancient prophecies' is almost certainly not meant to apply to Great One Olds or Outer Gods, so it's not evil. I have a personal bugbear about "desecrating corpses" in settings with undead. There should be agreement that any corpse that might be turned against you can be chopped up or burnt, as long as you do it respectfully. By Earth rules, Lastwall should be making efforts to return bodies of living whispering way followers to Tar-Baphon and/or the church of Urgathoa. You can't just import Earth practices into a fantasy setting.

Quote:

The Pharasmin Penitence is an extremist sect that views worldly pleasures as going against Pharasma's plans and actively seek out those whom they feel upset their beliefs by making life easier, for instance, arcane casters

Alright, that's a villainous group. Phrasma doesn't care about suffering or boredom.

Quote:

Iomedae still bears a slight grudge against her for not revealing Aroden's impending death

This is silly, and the only source seems to be a 2008 book. I really hope this isn't canon, especially as it appears to be only "legends" that Phrasma knew. (there is some Canon dispute on Phrasma's foreknowledge)

Quote:

The god of accidental death, Zyphus has a fierce rivalry with the Lady of Graves, but it is not altogether clear if this feeling is mutual.

Zyphus, 'Most Hated Rival of Pharasma,' 'Most other gods view him as more of an annoyance than an actual threat' I think this guy is a masochist looking to get stepped on by the most powerful woman he can find.

Quote:

Pharasma's clergy often worked with those of Aesocar, especially those who delivered Azlanti babies

This is interesting. Aesocar is labeled as LG, but she was involved in Azlanti "creation of life, creating many lifeforms through magic." I assume Pharasma was aware that the Azlanti were slaves of the Alghollthu, making any lifeform they create also slaves. So maybe Phrasma is ok with the creation of slave races? That's pretty evil.

Maybe Pharasma is more evil than I thought.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Dragonchess Player wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Like, what's the alternative if you wanna play a misunderstood goth hero with spooky dark magic being used for good ends and the Blood Lords AP isnt an option?

Note, the Blood Lords AP is "maintain the status quo to prevent a worse situation," not "spooky dark magic being used for good ends."

You can possibly/probably make "fighting fire with fire" work for Abomination Vaults, Outlaws of Alkenstar, and maybe Seven Dooms for Sandpoint. The upcoming Hellbreakers and Hell's Destiny APs, for the necrologist in particular, may also have opportunities (devils vs. undead).

Yes, I was more citing Blood Lords as an AP that is morally "dark" enough that any concerns about "ethical necromancy" are effectively moot, since PCs written up for it likely just don't care about whether or not they're desecrating the bodies and souls of the dead, or what Pharasma thinks of them, since said PCs are either undead already or plan on becoming such at the first opportunity.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Castilliano wrote:

Note that Summon spells in PF2 create facsimiles, so you aren't desecrating anything or anybody's remains/spirit/etc. w/ Summon Undead (vs. Animate Undead where you were, however contrived it was for such bodies to appear at your location even with low-Rank magic).

Wait, summoned undead aren't real?!

[Dragonchess Player]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Dragonchess Player wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Like, what's the alternative if you wanna play a misunderstood goth hero with spooky dark magic being used for good ends and the Blood Lords AP isnt an option?

Note, the Blood Lords AP is "maintain the status quo to prevent a worse situation," not "spooky dark magic being used for good ends."

You can possibly/probably make "fighting fire with fire" work for Abomination Vaults, Outlaws of Alkenstar, and maybe Seven Dooms for Sandpoint. The upcoming Hellbreakers and Hell's Destiny APs, for the necrologist in particular, may also have opportunities (devils vs. undead).

Yes, I was more citing Blood Lords as an AP that is morally "dark" enough that any concerns about "ethical necromancy" are effectively moot, since PCs written up for it likely just don't care about whether or not they're desecrating the bodies and souls of the dead, or what Pharasma thinks of them, since said PCs are either undead already or plan on becoming such at the first opportunity.

Also, Pharasma worship is banned in Geb. Too many of the "rich and powerful" are undead.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Dragonchess Player wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Dragonchess Player wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Like, what's the alternative if you wanna play a misunderstood goth hero with spooky dark magic being used for good ends and the Blood Lords AP isnt an option?

Note, the Blood Lords AP is "maintain the status quo to prevent a worse situation," not "spooky dark magic being used for good ends."

You can possibly/probably make "fighting fire with fire" work for Abomination Vaults, Outlaws of Alkenstar, and maybe Seven Dooms for Sandpoint. The upcoming Hellbreakers and Hell's Destiny APs, for the necrologist in particular, may also have opportunities (devils vs. undead).

Yes, I was more citing Blood Lords as an AP that is morally "dark" enough that any concerns about "ethical necromancy" are effectively moot, since PCs written up for it likely just don't care about whether or not they're desecrating the bodies and souls of the dead, or what Pharasma thinks of them, since said PCs are either undead already or plan on becoming such at the first opportunity.

Also, Pharasma worship is banned in Geb. Too many of the "rich and powerful" are undead.

Right, and...

Blood Lords SPOILERS!:

...the few Pharasmins you meet are criminals looking to do a terrorism, and you CAN beat the crap out of them if you want, but the scenario places a lot of emphasis on the fact that you can talk just them out of it. It won't make them abandon their beliefs, they'll just live to fight another day, but for the PCs they're someone else's problem now.

[keftiu]

i makea da skeleton

[Squiggit]

For me the back and forth is what makes it interesting. Pharasma's influence is very strong, but the fundamental logic used by her and her cult can feel arbitrary, abstract, and self serving. It sort of breaks down to an 'undead are evil because undead are evil' and feeding into Pharasma's obsession over controlling the flow of life and death as much as anything practical.

It's also probably worth considering that the average person, necromancer or no, probably isn't particularly versed in the mechanics of the maelstrom and the river of souls, so it's not necessarily an ethical consideration most would even know it's something to grapple with in the first place.

Such a necromancer is going to be much more interested in the more immediate ethical and moral realities of the sociocultural circumstances they live in than abstract planar theory.

[Mangaholic13]

Me personally? I got plans for a Pharasma worshipping Ghost Necromancer. In regard to their actions, their logic is as follows: "Oh, I'm not creating undead. That's unthinkable! The spirits I call up are simply those still awaiting The Gray Lady's judgement. Since the Ushers know where they were in the line, the moment they return, they'll resume waiting."

AceofMoxen wrote:

Let's look at the wiki:[

Considering the wiki's page for Sarenrae talks about the Cult of the Dawnflower as if they still exist (which they don't)... Not sure it's going to reliable, especially since it mentions things from 1st Edition that may no longer be considered canon anymore.

"AceofMoxen wrote:

Quote:

Iomedae still bears a slight grudge against her for not revealing Aroden's impending death

This is silly, and the only source seems to be a 2008 book. I really hope this isn't canon, especially as it appears to be only "legends" that Phrasma knew. (there is some Canon dispute on Phrasma's foreknowledge)

Yet this...(YMMV):

"AceofMoxen wrote:

Quote:

Pharasma's clergy often worked with those of Aesocar, especially those who delivered Azlanti babies

This is interesting. Aesocar is labeled as LG, but she was involved in Azlanti "creation of life, creating many lifeforms through magic." I assume Pharasma was aware that the Azlanti were slaves of the Alghollthu, making any lifeform they create also slaves. So maybe Phrasma is ok with the creation of slave races? That's pretty evil.

Maybe Pharasma is more evil than I thought.

Proves she's evil? How do you know she knew of the Alghollthu? What are you basing the assumption on?

By that logic, Iomedae is evil because she didn't instantly stop Tar-Baphon from nuking Lastwall.

Granted, both you and Squiggit are right: Pharasma and her clergy do not believe in giving the undead any quarter.

Also, to note, Pharasma isn't the only deity with anathema against undead. Sarenrae has it too.
So does the Dwarven God Magrim (who also includes damaging souls, so many creating undead doesn't actually damage a soul?)
The Mwangi deity Luhar (who also includes asking the dead questions)
Fandarra, the Giant Goddess
Gozreh
So, yeah, even an ethical necromancer is going to step on the toes of a couple different religious groups.

[Castilliano]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

Note that Summon spells in PF2 create facsimiles, so you aren't desecrating anything or anybody's remains/spirit/etc. w/ Summon Undead (vs. Animate Undead where you were, however contrived it was for such bodies to appear at your location even with low-Rank magic).

Wait, summoned undead aren't real?!

Correct. If summoned via a Summon spell that is, not necessarily via other spells, rituals, etc. It might be better phrased that Summon-spell creatures of all types (and I suppose instruments too) have no existence external to the duration of the spell. They're created whole cloth from some sort of cosmic template not fully explained, but not from creatures on other planes, corpses, souls, nor any other preexisting stuff (except maybe metaphysical proto-matter).

This differs from previous editions, mainly to quell moral issues. There are threads in the forum that address this and supply citations, including one within the last month or so.

There's is room for philosophical inquiry on what such brief (un-)lifespans represent, especially since for that minute or so they're effectively indistinguishable. Ex. How do they speak languages and know facts that the summoner does not know? Soul magic effects them, right, but aren't they soulless? And so on.

[Arcaian]

Mangaholic13 wrote:

Considering the wiki's page for Sarenrae talks about the Cult of the Dawnflower as if they still exist (which they don't)... Not sure it's going to reliable, especially since it mentions things from 1st Edition that may no longer be considered canon anymore.

Good catch on the Sarenrae front! It's a single sentence primarily linking to an article that clearly states that the Cult of the Dawnflower is now non-canon, but that should be in the Sarenrae article itself too. It's a really easy edit to make, and getting an account doesn't take long at all - I'd encourage you to fix it! We're always struggling with getting enough volunteers to stay up-to-date with changes and new content.

[Christopher#2411504]

QuidEst wrote:

Christopher#2411504 wrote:

The Spell Animate Dead was renamed to Summon Undead in the Remaster. It does not gain the Unholy trait either.

Pharasma didn't care about good or evil, and doesn't care about holy or unholy, though? The presence or absence of the unholy trait is irrelevant when it comes to her.

That is plain untrue.

Cleric Anathema:
"Casting spells with the unholy trait is almost always anathema to deities who don't allow unholy sanctification, and casting holy spells is likewise anathema to those who don't allow holy sanctification."

Pharasma:
"Divine Sanctification none"

She actually dislikes Holy spells as much as Unholy spells. But Holy spells often do extra damage to Undead, so you can get away with them more easily.

So Unholy is still a very good indicator what is okay for her.

[The Raven Black]

Unholy is not a good indicator. Undead is.

[The Raven Black]

Creating undead will have zero impact on Pharasma's judgement. Unless you are one of her faithfuls I guess.

Just like having been an undead before her judgement has no impact either.

It is the existence of undead she abhors.

[The Raven Black]

I always saw Evil pharasmin as required to deal with Good undead.

As long as you follow her edicts and anathemas, you can be the worst person to ever live on Golarion, Pharasma will not care.

Just like she allows the souls to go to the Evil planes

[QuidEst]

Christopher#2411504 wrote:

QuidEst wrote:

Christopher#2411504 wrote:

The Spell Animate Dead was renamed to Summon Undead in the Remaster. It does not gain the Unholy trait either.

Pharasma didn't care about good or evil, and doesn't care about holy or unholy, though? The presence or absence of the unholy trait is irrelevant when it comes to her.

That is plain untrue.

Cleric Anathema:
"Casting spells with the unholy trait is almost always anathema to deities who don't allow unholy sanctification, and casting holy spells is likewise anathema to those who don't allow holy sanctification."

Pharasma:
"Divine Sanctification none"

She actually dislikes Holy spells as much as Unholy spells. But Holy spells often do extra damage to Undead, so you can get away with them more easily.

So Unholy is still a very good indicator what is okay for her.

Yeah, you're probably not supposed to go around casting holy and unholy spells as a Pharasmin- that's an issue of being insufficiently neutral in something you're supposed to be neutral in. I was definitely incorrect in saying it didn't matter at all to her. It doesn't follow that she's okay with an undead spell just because it's not unholy, or that unholy was removed specifically to allow Pharasmins to use it. That's the leap I'm not following.

[Christopher#2411504]

QuidEst wrote:

Christopher#2411504 wrote:

QuidEst wrote:

Christopher#2411504 wrote:

The Spell Animate Dead was renamed to Summon Undead in the Remaster. It does not gain the Unholy trait either.

Pharasma didn't care about good or evil, and doesn't care about holy or unholy, though? The presence or absence of the unholy trait is irrelevant when it comes to her.

That is plain untrue.

Cleric Anathema:
"Casting spells with the unholy trait is almost always anathema to deities who don't allow unholy sanctification, and casting holy spells is likewise anathema to those who don't allow holy sanctification."

Pharasma:
"Divine Sanctification none"

She actually dislikes Holy spells as much as Unholy spells. But Holy spells often do extra damage to Undead, so you can get away with them more easily.

So Unholy is still a very good indicator what is okay for her.

Yeah, you're probably not supposed to go around casting holy and unholy spells as a Pharasmin- that's an issue of being insufficiently neutral in something you're supposed to be neutral in. I was definitely incorrect in saying it didn't matter at all to her. It doesn't follow that she's okay with an undead spell just because it's not unholy, or that unholy was removed specifically to allow Pharasmins to use it. That's the leap I'm not following.

It not being Unholy is a good indicator that it is save.

It Summoning instead of Creating them is another.

The church would still discourage you from using the Spell, to avoid the perception you dabble in creating undead. After all the average person cannot tell Summon from Creation. But they aren't going to go inquisition on your behind for it.

Necromancer and Necrologist should be equally save.

[The Raven Black]

My PF1 Cleric of Pharasma enjoyed wrestling control of undead from her opponents, have them serve the will of the goddess by helping her and later release them into true death so that their liberated souls could go to their judgement.

[Unicore]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

Note that Summon spells in PF2 create facsimiles, so you aren't desecrating anything or anybody's remains/spirit/etc. w/ Summon Undead (vs. Animate Undead where you were, however contrived it was for such bodies to appear at your location even with low-Rank magic).

Wait, summoned undead aren't real?!

All the other summon spells would be pretty morally evil (if not unholy in the game world) if the creatures they summoned were real versions of those creatures.

[The Raven Black]

Does anyone know where the Remaster RAW clarifies the Summons are not real thing?
I cannot find it on AoN.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

The Raven Black wrote:

Creating undead will have zero impact on Pharasma's judgement. Unless you are one of her faithfuls I guess.

Just like having been an undead before her judgement has no impact either.

It is the existence of undead she abhors.

I'm confused, how would doing the thing she abhors more than anything else in the Universe during your life NOT impact her judgment of your soul? Pharasma's judgment supercedes all other authority in the Universe, so anyone who breaks her rules and is subject to her judgment would be punished accordingly, right? That's why your average necromancer begins looking to become undead no matter the reasons they got into necromancy in the first place, because they know Pharasma will make an example out of them if they die of old age or have an accident.

[The Raven Black]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

Creating undead will have zero impact on Pharasma's judgement. Unless you are one of her faithfuls I guess.

Just like having been an undead before her judgement has no impact either.

It is the existence of undead she abhors.

I'm confused, how would doing the thing she abhors more than anything else in the Universe during your life NOT impact her judgment of your soul? Pharasma's judgment supercedes all other authority in the Universe, so anyone who breaks her rules and is subject to her judgment would be punished accordingly, right? That's why your average necromancer begins looking to become undead no matter the reasons they got into necromancy in the first place, because they know Pharasma will make an example out of them if they die of old age or have an accident.

I'm sorry, but I do not recall anything in canon supporting this.

When you're dead, you're not making undead anymore. You are then judged based on your acts and beliefs and sent to the proper afterlife accordingly. AFAIK Pharasma does not have a special place for the souls of necromancers. Once you're dead, you're judged and your soul is recycled just like any other and the cycle of life and death goes on.

[The Raven Black]

I think most necromancers who turn into undead do this to avoid the dissolution of memories and the self that happens to the vast majority of the dead.

[Unicore]

The Raven Black wrote:

Does anyone know where the Remaster RAW clarifies the Summons are not real thing?

I cannot find it on AoN.

It is clarified in a section of Secrets of Magic (the conjuration section on page 21) that would have to be heavily changed to be remastered.

In the player core it just says that summoned creatures are banished instead of killed or destroyed at 0 hp.

At the same time, without the Secrets of Magic clarification, summoning is pretty icky and gross, even if it doesn't kill the creatures summoned. It would be pretty disgusting in world as well because there is no will save or anything like that to resist.

It also reopens that already fraught Pandora's Box of creature motivations and what it means for a creature that is required to fight for you but might not even be capable of being commanded by you to be on the battle field as your minion. This is already a bit of a mechanical issue in the way that summoning spells and the summon trait work, but it becomes ethically fraught when a spell like summon giant or summon dragon is bringing forth a specific, real, sentient creature from somewhere that would have no inherent metaphysical compulsion to help you.

[QuidEst]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

Creating undead will have zero impact on Pharasma's judgement. Unless you are one of her faithfuls I guess.

Just like having been an undead before her judgement has no impact either.

It is the existence of undead she abhors.

I'm confused, how would doing the thing she abhors more than anything else in the Universe during your life NOT impact her judgment of your soul? Pharasma's judgment supercedes all other authority in the Universe, so anyone who breaks her rules and is subject to her judgment would be punished accordingly, right? That's why your average necromancer begins looking to become undead no matter the reasons they got into necromancy in the first place, because they know Pharasma will make an example out of them if they die of old age or have an accident.

Here's the thing. Pharasma isn't actually punishing people for its own sake. If somebody is getting sent to Hell, it's not because Pharasma wants them to suffer, and if somebody goes to Elysium, it's not because Pharasma wants them to be rewarded. The universe continuing to run properly is reliant on souls going to the right place. Systematically giving necromancers the wrong afterlife would also cause universe-destabilizing problems.

Pharasma will absolutely sometimes send some psychopomps to deal with an undead necromancer, or in a lot more cases, she encourages her church to deal with them. That doesn't necessarily affect how she judges them. If she were human, it definitely would, but she's not.

Now, there's certainly some weirdness around all this- there's a protean who sometimes gets to judge some souls instead, and other weird exceptions. Presumably that's part of the whole process too. Realistically, it's a made-up setting and just having Pharasma decide for everyone is kind of boring.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

The Raven Black wrote:

I'm sorry, but I do not recall anything in canon supporting this.

When you're dead, you're not making undead anymore. You are then judged based on your acts and beliefs and sent to the proper afterlife accordingly. AFAIK Pharasma does not have a special place for the souls of necromancers. Once you're dead, you're judged and your soul is recycled just like any other and the cycle of life and death goes on.

But don't the activities OF a necromancer earn them a bad afterlife in the first place because of the implicit violation of consent from animating a corpse or binding a spirit to do your bidding?

[The Raven Black]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

I'm sorry, but I do not recall anything in canon supporting this.

When you're dead, you're not making undead anymore. You are then judged based on your acts and beliefs and sent to the proper afterlife accordingly. AFAIK Pharasma does not have a special place for the souls of necromancers. Once you're dead, you're judged and your soul is recycled just like any other and the cycle of life and death goes on.

But don't the activities OF a necromancer earn them a bad afterlife in the first place because of the implicit violation of consent from animating a corpse or binding a spirit to do your bidding?

That would be reflected in their alignment, and thus the place where their soulstuff gets sent to.

Pharasma deals with her followers breaking her anathemas, as any deity does. But she is not interested enough / jerk enough to impose her views on people who do not venerate her.

I think Nethys, for example, would be pretty upset with Pharasma if she dealt harshly with one of his followers just because necromancy was their preferred focus in magical studies.

[The Raven Black]

And I think the character you envisioned in your OP is perfectly viable. I feel it is an extremely interesting conundrum to try and use your dark powers to do good deeds in the hope of saving your soul from a benighted fate. Or just because you're a good person at heart.

After all, before Remaster we could totally have Good Summoners with undead eidolon, Good casters using Animate Dead, Good PCs with undead Familiar...

[Archpaladin Zousha]

If that's the case then why does the subtext in Book of the Dead imply so strongly that Geb's assertions of undeath being as natural as life when it's literally the energies of destruction and entropy being used for creative purposes, which is why undead have their continual need to consume and destroy, and that the living and undead can coexist when his own nation has undead dominating the living as slaves, not as equal partners, are him talking out of his ass and making excuses for himself?

The Raven Black wrote:

After all, before Remaster we could totally have Good Summoners with undead eidolon, Good casters using Animate Dead, Good PCs with undead Familiar...

Yeah, but I thought the devs' opinion on things like that was "that was a mistake" the way Asmodean paladins, Erastil's misogyny or that one thing about Zyphus were.

[Set]

AceofMoxen wrote:

In theory, when alignment was part of the game, Phrasma should have been an opposing force to the party just as much percent of her appearances as Abadar, right? That is, if you took a random 30 appearances of each or their followers across the pre-remaster period, you would find them opposed to the party vs. aligned with the party at the same ratio? I doubt it. The only time I remember her opposing the party is at the beginning of Tyrant's Grasp.

There was an AP set in Ustalav where the party ended meeting an awakened flesh golem, and there was some assumption that they might not end up immediately attempting to destroy it or even talk to it, which was just, IMO, so far outside of anything the recommended 'cleric of Pharasma' for the AP would tolerate that it made me laugh. Here's some creature made of stitched together desecrated corpses (anathema!) that was never even born, but created by some nut (also seems like a huge no-no to the *goddess of birth* even if it gets zero mention, compared to her 'goddess of hating undead' label).

I really expected the church of Pharasma (particularly those Penitents) to straight up be adversaries at *several* points in that AP.

Quote:

In 1e, she allowed NE clerics, but I'm absolutely confused about what they would do.

Pharasma is the most dogmatically lawful of the not-Lawful gods out there. :)

I can't even imagine what a *Chaotic* Neutral cleric of Pharasma would be like, but a NE one seems like they'd be a perfect assassin for the goddess. The NG Pharasmin might go after undead for defying her (even if many, if not most, of them, do not do so of their own volition), while the NE Pharasmin goes after the *living* who defy her will.

Creating 'unborn' life like leshies or ghoran? That's a stabbin.'

Attempting to live forever by bidding for the Sun Orchid Elixir? Stab.

Teach or just work at a place like the Academae that has an entire section dedicated to pumping out arcane necromancers? Stabby-foo!

Being resurrected, or, worse, using reincarnation to get around aging? Stab-stab-stab for you.

The less stabby might agitate for laws and traditions to forbid this sort of nonsense, and the less immediately powerful-enough-to-kill-Sun-Orchid-bidders might resort to undermining the Sun Orchid trade (by hunting and killing Sun Orchid hunters and guides in the deserts of Thuvia, or even by just stirring up resentment and envy in the lower classes against those who can afford to 'defy the gods with their blasphemy).

Plenty of stuff for the NE church of Pharasma to get up to.

She's not real big on attempts to nail down the workings of fate, for instance, so one priest might get a bug up his butt about Harrowers, and end up persecuting local fortune-tellers, whipping up public sentiment against them, 'prove' them to be charlatans, etc. (and, accidentally or not, generate some anti-Varisian sentiments, which could be doubly ironic if half of the local church are, in fact, Varisian...).

Anywho, any of these living folks who break her laws get stabbed and sent to Pharasma for premature judgement. The NE cleric even makes it clear that *they* are not judging the sinner, it's what Pharasma will do when the sinner arrives. They are just... expediting the meeting...

Maybe they are even *helping* the sinner, by stopping them from doing any more necromancy or fortune-telling or whatever it is that would increase the burden of sin for which they are about to be judged!

[Mangaholic13]

Set wrote:

*Stuff*

Funny, you'd think there would be stuff written in any of the numerous books about Pharasma holding contempt over all forms of created life...

Does the fact that it's considered life rather than unlife have anything to do with it?

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

If that's the case then why does the subtext in Book of the Dead imply so strongly that Geb's assertions of undeath being as natural as life when it's literally the energies of destruction and entropy being used for creative purposes, which is why undead have their continual need to consume and destroy, and that the living and undead can coexist when his own nation has undead dominating the living as slaves, not as equal partners, are him talking out of his ass and making excuses for himself?

The Raven Black wrote:

After all, before Remaster we could totally have Good Summoners with undead eidolon, Good casters using Animate Dead, Good PCs with undead Familiar...

Yeah, but I thought the devs' opinion on things like that was "that was a mistake" the way Asmodean paladins, Erastil's misogyny or that one thing about Zyphus were.

...Because Geb is going to obviously defend/justify himself, maybe? And is not an authority on ethics?

I mean, just look at Arazni.

...Although, feels like this thread has gotten off topic.
Isn't it supposed to be about Necro-ethics, not "Will Pharasma and her followers try to destroy you for just being a necromancer, regardless of your moral intent"?

If ethics were easy, we wouldn't have the Trolley Problem, after all.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

That's what I'm trying to say: ostensibly Pharasma's reasons for hating unlife, that you cannot invert void energy to sustain life indefinitely any more than you can use vitality energy to kill, which is why undead beings constantly need to feed on living things to keep entropy at bay, that attempting to do this yanks souls from the River of Souls and damages them, which in turn is damaging to the universe itself, these appear to be objective facts of the Universe, or else Geb wouldn't be devoting so much time and energy trying to refute them, and thus, in order to practice the kind of necromancy people typically want to do when playing a capital-N Necromancer (conjuring hordes of skeletons/zombies/ghosts to defeat their enemies, mostly), you're inherently committing a violation one way or another, and the only way you can believe you're not is if you similarly begin making excuses for yourself, or to just not care.

That the devs are implicitly stating there is no moral way to use undead beings, because it inherently violates and harms the body and soul of the person you're using and there's no meaningful way anyone can consent to that. That the only ethical necromancy is that which specifically rejects the intended gameplay of a "Necromancer" class or archetype by focusing on DESTROYING undead beings and laying them to rest, in which case they're indistinguishable from your average heroic cleric or wizard.

[Set]

Mangaholic13 wrote:

Set wrote:

*Stuff*

Funny, you'd think there would be stuff written in any of the numerous books about Pharasma holding contempt over all forms of created life...

Does the fact that it's considered life rather than unlife have anything to do with it?

I feel like there's an attempt at snark here, but a salient point, that I already made, was that bodies are being desecrated to make these flesh golems, which is itself a violation of her tenets, and yeah, it has been mentioned in books before that she doesn't like corpses to be desecrated.

(She probably cares a whole heck of a lot less about any living plants harvested to make the base forms of leshies, I'll admit. She may prioritize animal lives and deaths over plant lives and deaths.)

So, if that was intended as snark, and I'm not reading into it (and if so, I apologize for misreading your tone), it kind of misses the point entirely.

[QuidEst]

Undeath has three big issues with it:

- It's environmentally bad, just on a cosmic scale rather than a local one. This is why Parasma herself is against it. The other reasons are much more useful arguments for her church to make, because people don't even care too much about stuff that affects the planet they live on, let alone 'reality as a whole long after all life on the planet is long dead anyway'. I'm going to lump in "it's just wrong (Pharasma says so)" into here.

- It is antithetical to life. Undead have a strong bias against life that's hard to overcome, and may even have overwhelming urges to feed on life. Mindless undead cause injuries and accidents at higher rates around living people even when just ordered to do manual labor. This is the one that most people care about, because it endangers them. I'm going to lump in "it's just wrong (unholy)" in here too.

- Ethical sourcing of bodies and/or souls. Necromancy makes use of dead bodies, and the largest ethical concern is the expedient temptation of killing people for fresh bodies and/or souls. After that is using pre-deceased ones, which is a bit more philosophical when it's *just* the body. It's complicated by the damage to a soul that undeath can cause. This category is something that can at least be mitigated with permission or performing it on oneself. I'm going to lump in "it's just wrong (unnatural)" into here.

Plenty of other smaller ones too, but I think those are the major ones. The first one isn't outside what a lot of characters do, it just has a god that cares about it in particular. The second is between the player and GM to hash out how much it applies to a character. The last one is partly a matter of character philosophy. I don't think it's unreasonable for a necromancer to take the stance that they have a certain right to bodies that were turned into bodies in legitimate self-defense.

Now, in my case, it's easy. I'm just playing a selfish character who cares more about having mindlessly obedient undead than about what effects that has. If you want to make an ethical necromancer, it needs to be under an ethical framework that can resolve these or justify them, with the understanding that Pharasma and most of the holy gods will not agree.

[Castilliano]

Remember the sacredness of one's body/bodily autonomy. Most cultures, presumably even more on Golarion given the metaphysical ramifications, place high value on the ethical treatment of corpses of one's kin, often including those of one's enemy. The ethics differ drastically in practice, yet few consider a human body a mere resource (even among cannibals).

Plus killing someone in self-defense does not give one rights to their body (well, except in the finders-keepers, possession is 9/10 of the law kind of way). RPGs have kinda made this feel like the norm; looting the body has often included its parts, especially if a magical component. But the bodies of formerly sapient creatures in actual practice? That feels like a fairly universal anathema among pro-social (or just un-antisocial) groups. Whether this is reasonable or not is secondary to the powerful emotional revulsion most will then use reason to justify.

[QuidEst]

Castilliano wrote:

Remember the sacredness of one's body/bodily autonomy. Most cultures, presumably even more on Golarion given the metaphysical ramifications, place high value on the ethical treatment of corpses of one's kin, often including those of one's enemy. The ethics differ drastically in practice, yet few consider a human body a mere resource (even among cannibals).

Plus killing someone in self-defense does not give one rights to their body (well, except in the finders-keepers, possession is 9/10 of the law kind of way). RPGs have kinda made this feel like the norm; looting the body has often included its parts, especially if a magical component. But the bodies of formerly sapient creatures in actual practice? That feels like a fairly universal anathema among pro-social (or just un-antisocial) groups. Whether this is reasonable or not is secondary to the powerful emotional revulsion most will then use reason to justify.

Sure- and if that's taken as granted with no possible exceptions for permission, forfeiture, or outcome, then nothing like ethical necromancy is possible, since even using existing undead is wrong. Which is fine, just a very short discussion.

[Mangaholic13]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

That's what I'm trying to say: ostensibly Pharasma's reasons for hating unlife, that you cannot invert void energy to sustain life indefinitely any more than you can use vitality energy to kill, which is why undead beings constantly need to feed on living things to keep entropy at bay, that attempting to do this yanks souls from the River of Souls and damages them, which in turn is damaging to the universe itself, these appear to be objective facts of the Universe, or else Geb wouldn't be devoting so much time and energy trying to refute them, and thus, in order to practice the kind of necromancy people typically want to do when playing a capital-N Necromancer (conjuring hordes of skeletons/zombies/ghosts to defeat their enemies, mostly), you're inherently committing a violation one way or another, and the only way you can believe you're not is if you similarly begin making excuses for yourself, or to just not care.

That the devs are implicitly stating there is no moral way to use undead beings, because it inherently violates and harms the body and soul of the person you're using and there's no meaningful way anyone can consent to that. That the only ethical necromancy is that which specifically rejects the intended gameplay of a "Necromancer" class or archetype by focusing on DESTROYING undead beings and laying them to rest, in which case they're indistinguishable from your average heroic cleric or wizard.

Well, one thing I can think of would depend on this question: "How long does the Necromancer intent on keeping the undead around?"

Perhaps your necromancer only creates undead on a job-by-job basis. Once the job is done, they let the bodies go back to being dead and even conduct funeral rights for them. They might even, for example, call up the spirits of a murders victims and ask, "Would you like to get vengeance with your own hands?"

I don't know, I might just have different ideas on what a "Necromancer" can constitute.

Set wrote:

Mangaholic13 wrote:

Set wrote:

*Stuff*

Funny, you'd think there would be stuff written in any of the numerous books about Pharasma holding contempt over all forms of created life...

Does the fact that it's considered life rather than unlife have anything to do with it?

I feel like there's an attempt at snark here, but a salient point, that I already made, was that bodies are being desecrated to make these flesh golems, which is itself a violation of her tenets, and yeah, it has been mentioned in books before that she doesn't like corpses to be desecrated.

Alright. Going back to your Awakened Flesh Golem, provided they had already demonstrated their intelligence and capacity for reason... I think it would make perfect sense for a cleric of Pharasma to not attack the golem or destroy it.

Yes, as you pointed out, their creation requires corpses to be desecrated... but that's on the creator, not the creation. The golem never asked to be made by desecrating corpses.
We already have a BIG example that Pharasma and her followers will spare something created that is anathema and instead focus on punishing the creator:
The Shabti
They are made from bits of mortal souls (that's a violation) and made to take whatever punishment the person they're copying will face in the afterlife (that's a major violation). And yet, Psychopomps go out of their way to FREE Shabti, find out who they were made to be a scapegoat for, and then let the Shabti go free and punish the actual person.

QuidEst wrote:

- Ethical sourcing of bodies and/or souls. Necromancy makes use of dead bodies, and the largest ethical concern is the expedient temptation of killing people for fresh bodies and/or souls. After that is using pre-deceased ones, which is a bit more philosophical when it's *just* the body. It's complicated by the damage to a soul that undeath can cause. This category is something that can at least be mitigated with permission or performing it on oneself. I'm going to lump in "it's just wrong (unnatural)" into here.

Reminds me of a joke I'd thought of for something.

The set up is, a necromancer assassin unleashes a horde of zombies. A police officer then starts charging him.
Cop: You are under arrest for attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, reckless endangerment, disturbing the peace, and grave robbing!
Necromancer: Grave robbing!? I did no such thing! I obtained these zombies legally!
Cop: ...What? Also, how??
Necromancer: The corpses were donated to necromancy!

...Actually, that does raise a question: Is it considered desecrating a corpse to animate a dead body... if that dead body had been donated to necromancy?

Granted, in Geb, that's a nonissue, since Geb's own laws state, "You die on Gebbite soil, you're getting reanimated, and your mindless corpse will work the fields."
Naturally, this just incentivizes the living to see other forms of undeath.
It also leads to an entire class of undead who have no real power but still consider themselves better than the living.

[Set]

QuidEst wrote:

- It's environmentally bad, just on a cosmic scale rather than a local one. This is why Pharasma herself is against it. The other reasons are much more useful arguments for her church to make, because people don't even care too much about stuff that affects the planet they live on, let alone 'reality as a whole long after all life on the planet is long dead anyway'. I'm going to lump in "it's just wrong (Pharasma says so)" into here.

I feel like there's an actual reason other than 'Grey Lady dun like it', like all souls are kinda recycled, even if some ka or khaibit-like bit of them goes on to become a Petitioner or whatever, some other vital bit of them swirls down the big drain at the bottom of creation (the 'Negative' plane) and spat back out all shiny and new at the big spigot at the top of creation (the 'Positive' plane), and that there's a finite amount of 'soul' out there. Every bit of it siphoned off to form a shadow, spectre, wraith, or still inhabiting a fleshy undead like a vampire, ghoul or lich, is subtracting from the soul-river, and making either A) less people to be born, or B) just as many people to be born, but with *less soul*, making them hollow empty people...

I could see it as a faux cosmological version of the old sci-fi / fantasy trope about societies run by immortals (via body-swapping tech, or just vampires or whatever) being stagnant and having zero upward mobility because the 'old boy's club' in charge *never actually dies* and ends up clinging to power and the title of Prince being an eternal sentence, since the King will never pass on his crown.

Those who cling to existence aren't just metaphorically stealing from future generations (by hanging on to power, property, wealth, opportunities, rather than allow the next generations to ever have any), but if some element of souls are indeed recycled (and we do know that not *every* element of a person goes on to any new Petitioner existence, as at least some lose memories of life and, more or less, become entirely new faceless strangers anyway, often also changing entirely in appearance or form, to giant maggots, or fluffy bunnies, or whatever), then any sort of intelligent undead is 'stealing' from future generations quite literally, by reducing the quantity (or quality?) of newly arriving souls pouring down from the Positive plane.

I have no idea if anything like that has been written to be canon (or if I'm even stretching it terribly with the black hole drain / white hole faucet metaphor for the Negative and Positive planes), but it certainly feels compelling to me.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Set wrote:

QuidEst wrote:

- It's environmentally bad, just on a cosmic scale rather than a local one. This is why Pharasma herself is against it. The other reasons are much more useful arguments for her church to make, because people don't even care too much about stuff that affects the planet they live on, let alone 'reality as a whole long after all life on the planet is long dead anyway'. I'm going to lump in "it's just wrong (Pharasma says so)" into here.

I feel like there's an actual reason other than 'Grey Lady dun like it', like all souls are kinda recycled, even if some ka or khaibit-like bit of them goes on to become a Petitioner or whatever, some other vital bit of them swirls down the big drain at the bottom of creation (the 'Negative' plane) and spat back out all shiny and new at the big spigot at the top of creation (the 'Positive' plane), and that there's a finite amount of 'soul' out there. Every bit of it siphoned off to form a shadow, spectre, wraith, or still inhabiting a fleshy undead like a vampire, ghoul or lich, is subtracting from the soul-river, and making either A) less people to be born, or B) just as many people to be born, but with *less soul*, making them hollow empty people...

I could see it as a faux cosmological version of the old sci-fi / fantasy trope about societies run by immortals (via body-swapping tech, or just vampires or whatever) being stagnant and having zero upward mobility because the 'old boy's club' in charge *never actually dies* and ends up clinging to power and the title of Prince being an eternal sentence, since the King will never pass on his crown.

Those who cling to existence aren't just metaphorically stealing from future generations (by hanging on to power, property, wealth, opportunities, rather than allow the next generations to ever have any), but if some element of souls are indeed recycled (and we do know that not *every* element of a person goes on to any new Petitioner existence, as at least some lose memories of life and, more or...

This was the impression I got, yes, along with the fact that undead constantly need to feed on life to keep from deteriorating, and that does similar damage to the souls of their victims, especially with undead whose feeding habits produce more of their kind, such as shadows, wraiths and ghouls.

From what we've seen, we can extrapolate that undeath is, at the end of the day, an unsustainable state: the undead need to feed on life will result in one of two ends: either they will overhunt in their territory and end up deteriorating into nonsentience and frailty, or their predations draw the attention of adventuring parties that will destroy them.

This deterioration can only be STALLED, not overcome, and it's why intelligent undead tend to form underground societies in urban locations, to facilitate their feeding needs with people that "no one will miss" and ensure their own personal comfort. This is also the role the Church of Urgathoa fulfills: acting as a middleman to the undead in procuring food and helping people who want to be undead become that. The logical endpoint of these systems is Geb, where the undead have reached critical mass and subjugated the living, making them into a slave and livestock class. But despite Geb's rosy language, it's a situation that happened largely without him, as the Blood Lords organized under him to keep their own gravy trains going while he moped over Nex. And the general impression one gets of Geb (the nation) is that it's very invested in maintaining its status quo (the whole point of the Blood Lords AP, as has been discussed) and regards both the possibility that Nex (the wizard) is returning and the increased enthusiasm this has stirred in Geb (the wizard) and in Nex (the nation) with kind of an "ohhhhhh s$*#..." vibe, because they understand the house of cards their nation is, and any disruption to the supply of Quick coming in to supply the hungers of the undead, and the supply of cheap food going out that makes their neighbors tolerate them could make the whole thing come crashing down.

[Set]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

This was the impression I got, yes, along with the fact that undead constantly need to feed on life to keep from deteriorating, and that does similar damage to the souls of their victims, especially with undead whose feeding habits produce more of their kind, such as shadows, wraiths and ghouls.

I have long disliked the notion from earlier editions of D&D, that creatures animated by negative energy are somehow 'free.' IMO, negative energy should be a hungry void, devouring constantly to survive. Instead, we've had a system where one could be a living creature, subject to aging, death and decay, constantly needing to kill and devour other living creatures to survive (even if some choose to only kill and devour plants), while a mindless skeleton can keep trucking for all eternity, and never *needs* to kill anything to sustain itself.

A more on-theme form of undead, IMO, would *lose* hit points every day, when a living creature instead gains them, as negative energy cannot 'grow more of itself' the way a person or animal can. Those undead capable of draining energy, shadows, wraiths, wights, would have to do so *just to continue existing*, while a few, such as ghouls and vampires, can do so by devouring flesh and blood. Only the vary rarest of undead, like liches, might get around this constant 'hunger' and daily loss of hit points, by some ridiculously hard-to-achieve input and assimilation of magical energy, in place of stolen vitality.

Negative energy would not be infinite free energy, it would be endless hunger, forced to kill and devour even more so than living creatures (who can, if they choose, sustain themselves on products like honey or milk or fruit or vegetables that do not require killing any creature to consume, although *some* undead, like vampires, could similarly feed 'sustainably' by not killing those whose blood they drink. What would make the vast majority of them evil with a capital E is that *they choose not to do so*).

Obviously this would impact stories. One could not, under this paradigm, expect to open a crypt that's been sealed + buried for centuries, or even days!, and expect to find functional undead, as they would have 'starved to death' within a week or so! A workaround would be that undead only 'burn life' when they are active, and can go dormant and lie around motionless and all-but-insensate, perhaps even for millenia, without suffering this deterioration. (But gosh, they will be desperate for new life energy when they do awaken, since if they don't feed, they are just taking time off their clock / draining their battery!)

Quote:

From what we've seen, we can extrapolate that undeath is, at the end of the day, an unsustainable state: the undead need to feed on life will result in one of two ends: either they will overhunt in their territory and end up deteriorating into nonsentience and frailty, or their predations draw the attention of adventuring parties that will destroy them.

Agreed, it should be this way.

Quote:

This deterioration can only be STALLED, not overcome, and it's why intelligent undead tend to form underground societies in urban locations, to facilitate their feeding needs with people that "no one will miss" and ensure their own personal comfort. This is also the role the Church of Urgathoa fulfills: acting as a middleman to the undead in procuring food and helping people who want to be undead become that. The logical endpoint of these systems is Geb, where the undead have reached critical mass and subjugated the living, making them into a slave and livestock class. But despite Geb's rosy language, it's a situation that happened largely without him, as the Blood Lords organized under him to keep their own gravy trains going while he moped over Nex. And the general impression one gets of Geb (the nation) is that it's very invested in maintaining its status quo (the whole point of the Blood Lords AP, as has been discussed) and regards both the possibility that Nex (the wizard) is returning and the increased enthusiasm this has stirred in Geb (the wizard) and in Nex (the nation) with kind of an "ohhhhhh s%%&..." vibe, because they understand the house of cards their nation is, and any disruption to the supply of Quick coming in to supply the hungers of the undead, and the supply of cheap food going out that makes their neighbors tolerate them could make the whole thing come crashing down.

The contrast between Geb and Tar-Baphon is striking. As a ghost and a lich, neither of them *personally* has any need for the living, at all, but Geb has surrounded himself with an aristocracy of undead like ghouls and vampires *who cannot survive without mortals to feed off of.*

Tar-Baphon also has some vampire followers, who are, one assumes, short sighted idiots or complete nutjobs who drank the kool-aid, because if the Whispering Way gets it's 'way' and all life is ended and only the undead remain, vampires are pretty much toast. (Reminding me of those dumb-but-pretty/cool vampires from the first Blade movie, who wanted to summon their 'Blood God' and turn everyone on the planet into vampires, leaving them... nothing to eat, and doomed to madness and death (as we saw happens with vampires who starve) within a matter of months...)

It would be the weirdest war front on all of Golarion, if Geb had to bring forces to bear against Tar-Baphon, because Geb (and his Blood Lord aristocracy) *doesn't want all life to end*, leaving the forces of good to say, 'Uh, who are we supposed to be rooting for again?'

"You realize they are just fighting on our behalf because they want to eat us later, right? They are ranchers, protecting their cattle, and we are the cattle..."

[Mangaholic13]

Well... this section from the Starfinder GM Core might be interesting to add in:

"Starfinder GM Core pg 185 wrote:

The vast nothingness of the Void is a merciless, lightless expanse
of manifest destruction and nihilism. Sapping and consuming
the life force of any living creature exposed to its energies,
it corrodes and disintegrates material objects to rubble, then
dust, and then nothing at all, yet the Void contains its own form
of anti-life. At their densest concentration, the plane’s energies
aggregate into bizarre, black crystalline snowflake structures.
These irregularities spontaneously generate the plane’s resident
sceaduinars. Dwelling in exquisitely lethal cities drifting in the
vacuous darkness, these so-called void raptors are incapable
of true creation and blame this flaw on some ancient betrayal
by their rivals in Creation’s Forge. Sceaduinars react violently
not only toward creatures sustained by vitality energy, but
also toward undead, whom they view as unnatural parasites
unworthy of their plane’s energies.

...So, apparently the Void CAN create life. And THAT same life also views the undead as unnatural.

Set wrote:

(Reminding me of those dumb-but-pretty/cool vampires from the first Blade movie, who wanted to summon their 'Blood God' and turn everyone on the planet into vampires, leaving them... nothing to eat, and doomed to madness and death (as we saw happens with vampires who starve) within a matter of months...)

Reminds me of the vampire servants of Dracula in the Netflix Castlevania. Only one of them (ironically, the one whom the others saw as a brainless brute) asked the understandable question: "Hey, if we kill all the humans... whose blood are we going to drink?"

[QuidEst]

I can appreciate undeath as a form of "divide by zero" error, where using the natural state of decay as a fuel source gives you something in the ballpark of a perpetual motion machine. This has imperfections and side effects, but that "free lunch" is what's so unnatural.

Just now realizing that it's very straightforward to just put the cost of the "free lunch" on the universe lifespan. It's always phrased as disrupting to the cycle of souls, etc., but I think treating it as where the proverbial battery is hidden makes a lot of sense.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Set wrote:

while a mindless skeleton can keep trucking for all eternity, and never *needs* to kill anything to sustain itself.

Minor clarification, but skeletons actually DO need to "feed," replacing bones in their body that have been broken due to accident or violence, or just deteriorated over time due to the inherent entropy of void energy powering them.

"You have basic undead benefits. For your undead hunger, you don't eat flesh like ghouls or drink blood like vampires, but you do collect bones you can use to help yourself mend" Book of the Dead, page 55.

Presumably this is what leads mindless skeletons left to their own devices to violence: they seek more fresh bones and when they encounter living beings, they've no reservations about ripping through whatever meat is between them and that prize.

[Perpdepog]

What's interesting is that we now have borais, who are apparently an exception to a lot of these ideas about undead. They aren't strengthened by void energy, for one thing, but vitality energy. They also still very clearly have their souls, and those souls don't seem to be damaged, that we can tell, from living as a borai. Granted, borai do seem to give out sooner than other undead, their bodies breaking down after a couple hundred years or so.
That might be where their "cost" comes from? I haven't re-read their SF2E entry so I forget if it's the void energy in them that is expressly linked to breaking their body down.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

That's one reason why I wanted to discuss this, frankly: it feels like there's a disconnect between Pathfinder and Starfinder's opinions on undeath, Starfinder treating undead as morally neutral while Pathfinder implies they're not.

While yes, the devs have stated one game's canon doesn't impact the other, I feel like this is something that could cause problems for writers of both games in the future, as they have different ideas on the fundamental metaphysics of the game world and the intended moral and ethical dynamics of their respective narratives.

Spoiler:

Especially in regards to whether or not Pharasma can actually be wrong about something.