Can outsiders be raised as undead?

[Uvexar]

I've been looking into more permanent solutions to the temporary nature of X planar binding's "guard" function, such as killing the summoned creatures and animating them as undead. The main advantage of this being that it's cheaper and less likely to end in your death if your build a summoning circle covered in finger of death traps.

I understand that Outsider [Extraplanar] creatures don't leave corpses. However, I was wondering if outsiders lacking this tag do. What's the consensus on demonic undead?

[Supermorff]

Don't they only leave corpses if they die in their native plane, though? If a demon is "killed" in the prime material, they won't leave a corpse because they aren't really dead, just gone back to whichever Hell plane they're from.

The sorts of outsiders that won't do that aren't much different from regular folk (tieflings and aasimar are sometimes outsiders, I think, even though they aren't necessarily from another plane), so they'd leave corpses and can be raised as normal.

[frogglesmash]

Fiend Folio has the Blood Fiend which is an undead, vampiric demon, that turns the demons they kill into more Blood Fiends, so evidently outsiders can become undead.


Don't they only leave corpses if they die in their native plane, though? If a demon is "killed" in the prime material, they won't leave a corpse because they aren't really dead, just gone back to whichever Hell plane they're from.

The sorts of outsiders that won't do that aren't much different from regular folk (tieflings and aasimar are sometimes outsiders, I think, even though they aren't necessarily from another plane), so they'd leave corpses and can be raised as normal.

Iirc it depends on how they came here. Some spells, such as gate and plane shift, bring them here more permanently than others eg. summon monster or planar ally. If they die when summoned by the former spells they actually die, but if summoned by the latter spells they return to their home plane.

[Supermorff]

Check out Fiendish Codex I. If a Demon dies 20 things can happen. One of them is leaving a perfectly intact corpse. Most of them do destroy the body.

Ooh, I've learned something. The table you mention is in Chapter 1 Demonic Lore, page 9. However, that page (above the table) also says that this doesn't apply if the demon has been magically summoned. In that case, death counts as the summoning spell coming to an end, at which point it returns to the Abyss unharmed.

That same page also says "If a demon is killed on another plane, its body eventually returns to the Abyss" and "No matter what happens to the demon’s body, if it is killed outside the Abyss, its “essence” falls back into the raw chaos of the Abyss, where it is then be reformed as a new demon." I find this split interesting, because the d20 srd page on Types says that "an outsider does not have a dual nature—its soul and body form one unit. When an outsider is slain, no soul is set loose. Spells that restore souls to their bodies, such as raise dead, reincarnate, and resurrection, don’t work on an outsider." I don't think this necessarily answers the "can I make it undead" question, only that if you kill a demon and raise it as undead, it can still reform as a new demon when it gets back to the Abyss, and it will probably be pissed at you.

[hamishspence]

According to Dragon Magazine's Birth of the Dead article, Nightshades arise when a powerful fiend is slain on the Negative Energy Plane and the corpse left to soak in the negative energy over a long period of time.

[liquidformat]

only that if you kill a demon and raise it as undead, it can still reform as a new demon when it gets back to the Abyss, and it will probably be pissed at you.

I am AFB but I thought it said somewhere that they reform as Dretches after returning to the abyss? If so then they would be too stupid to remember how they died...

[Telonius]

You could go with a Lichfiend (Libris Mortis). Just keep the phylactery safe, and it'll just keep regenerating no matter where it's killed.

[ShurikVch]

Let's look at the Visage in the Libris Mortis - not just they're Undead ex-Outsiders (originally created by Orcus), but also could turn other fiends into Visages
Also, they're older than 3E - originally appeared in the Dead Gods (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Gods).