Voluntary spontaneous animation as undead

[Conradine]

Quick question: in your opinion a person who knows about spontaneous animation and badly wants to reanimate after death has more chances than normal to spontaneously become an undead?

[ExLibrisMortis]

Yes, I would say so. Mind you, only in the sense that 2% chance of spontaneous animation is much greater than 0.1%. It's still a longshot.

[Venger]

raw, it has no bearing. I like the idea as a houserule though. maybe key it off religion: if they've seen or could id a monster and want to turn into one, they have a chance to do so.

[inuyasha]

I mean, if someone really really wants to become undead, and they aren't a PC, then there's no reason why they can't as long as they meet flavor requirements, like being a particularly vile cannibal, or mummifying themselves. If they want to become an undead and they are a PC and don't have access to expensive rituals, all they need to do is find a way to get negative levels. I think that guarantees them becoming a wight.

[Conradine]

Wight, Swordwraith and Morgh spontaneously animate from different flavors of murderers. According to Dragon 336 several sins lead to different animations.

Morgh - serial killers expecially unrepentant
Famine spirit - frustration at poverty
Ghoul / Ghast - cannibalism, also greed ( rarely )
Mummy - yes, very rare but happens, spontaneous animation when the dying is full of anger and hate and the body naturally preserved due dry and hot climate
Shadow - dying due perceived weakness ( old age, illness, curses ecc. )
Sword wraith - bloodlust and desire to keep fighting
Wight - pleasure in murder, similar to morgh but focus more on sadism than on unrepentance
Ghost - purpose, obsession of any kind
Vampire - excedingly rare but some vampire arise spontaneously from suicides in cultures were suicide is shameful



Yes, I would say so. Mind you, only in the sense that 2% chance of spontaneous animation is much greater than 0.1%. It's still a longshot.

Could dwelling over emotions of rage / hatred / frustration for months before death raise that chance?

[Segev]

Don’t forget Slaymates: children dead due to a guardian or caregiver’s negligence or betrayal.

An aspiring necromancer can arrange these conditions to hope for one or more to spontaneously arise so he can Command Undead them into being his little necromantic metamagic batteries.

[Conradine]

And...
what could happen if someone meets multiple prerequisites?

Comes from poor background and deeply resents that ( Famine Spirit ), commits multiple murders for petty gain ( Shadow / Wight ), take sadistic pleasure in killing ( Morgh ), is utterly unrepentant ( Morgh ), occasionally savor bits of his slain enemies ( Ghoul ), take pride in his fighting skills and desires to keep killing ( Sword Wraith ), hates getting old and curses his physical decay ( Shadow ), dies committing suicide as final act of defiance ( Vampire ) full of anger and hatred toward humankind for perceived wrongs ( Mummy ) and swearing he will return to fulfill his ambitions ( Ghost )

[Venger]

Anyone who dies as a result of negative levels (any source) will also turn into a wight unless the source of them specifies otherwise.

I don't habitually read dragon magazine. did it specify which cultures dislike suicide? in D&D, since the afterlife explicitly exists, suicide would just be going there fast rather than waiting to be killed by a monster.

depending on the specific criteria for serial killing (say for simplicity's sake it's killing anything with an int of 3 or higher for recreational purposes. I don't think butchers ought to be classified as serial killers) pretty much everyone on oerth is a serial killer. no wonder there are so many mohrgs.



And...
what could happen if someone meets multiple prerequisites?

Comes from poor background and deeply resents that ( Famine Spirit ), commits multiple murders for petty gain ( Shadow / Wight ), take sadistic pleasure in killing ( Morgh ), is utterly unrepentant ( Morgh ), occasionally savor bits of his slain enemies ( Ghoul ), take pride in his fighting skills and desires to keep killing ( Sword Wraith ), hates getting old and curses his physical decay ( Shadow ), dies committing suicide as final act of defiance ( Vampire ) full of anger and hatred toward humankind for perceived wrongs ( Mummy ) and swearing he will return to fulfill his ambitions ( Ghost )

well, you'd list all the options, select an appropriate die, and roll it.

[WhamBamSam]

According to Libris Mortis, people who enjoy the taste of sentient creatures' flesh are more likely to become Ghouls, and some are specifically chosen by Doresain, the King of Ghouls to become Gravetouched Ghouls. So add indulging in cannibalism to the list above, and on the level of simply wanting it more, Doresain doesn't seem to have a lot of rules restricting who he can make into a Gravetouched Ghoul (the entry on his planar allies even explicitly says that he can add the template to creatures to which it could ordinarily not be applied) so you could just pray to him extra hard.

[Venger]

According to Libris Mortis, people who enjoy the taste of sentient creatures' flesh are more likely to become Ghouls, and some are specifically chosen by Doresain, the King of Ghouls to become Gravetouched Ghouls. So add indulging in cannibalism to the list above, and on the level of simply wanting it more, Doresain doesn't seem to have a lot of rules restricting who he can make into a Gravetouched Ghoul (the entry on his planar allies even explicitly says that he can add the template to creatures to which it could ordinarily not be applied) so you could just pray to him extra hard.

You could also just ask him. He's corporeally incarnated on the prime (and is only CR 10) so you could probably invite him to a barbecue and ask him nicely. Ghouls and their ilk revere him by eating together. You could probably learn about what the lifestyle entails by dropping in one weekend and bringing a hot dish.

[Conradine]

depending on the specific criteria for serial killing (say for simplicity's sake it's killing anything with an int of 3 or higher for recreational purposes. I don't think butchers ought to be classified as serial killers) pretty much everyone on oerth is a serial killer. no wonder there are so many mohrgs.


Actually, only very Evil characters would kill sentient beings for recreational purposes. Not even dwarves go out to kill goblin or orcs untill they don't become trouble ( which is quite often ).

[Venger]

Actually, only very Evil characters would kill sentient beings for recreational purposes. Not even dwarves go out to kill goblin or orcs untill they don't become trouble ( which is quite often ).

I don't think "for the xp" is an extant in-universe reason to kill other sapient creatures, so going into a dungeon to kill monsters and steal the treasure chests they're guarding is the kind of thing I was referring to. You're not killing wolves to protect your homestead, you're manufacturing this situation.

[Conradine]

I think that the meaning of "serial killer" in the description of Morghs is "kills being of his own species, or very similar, breaking social taboos".

The monsters in a dungeon fight back. Actually, they're likely to attack first. A serial killer is more a criminal who hunts in more or less civilized environments and kill defenseless people.

Also, I don't remember where but I read only good or neutral races becomes morgh. Orcs and goblins breaks no taboo by killing their own kin, nor does drows.

[Venger]

I think that the meaning of "serial killer" in the description of Morghs is "kills being of his own species, or very similar, breaking social taboos".

The monsters in a dungeon fight back. Actually, they're likely to attack first. A serial killer is more a criminal who hunts in more or less civilized environments and kill defenseless people.

does dragon magazine have a different description for mohrgs in this seven deadly sins section? monster manual only says mass murders (distinct from serial killers, but it says "or similar," so sure, serial killers could be included) turn into mohrgs, which fits the typical profile for an adventurer or npc even more closely.

my point is in an rp heavy or non dungeon crawl oriented campaign, even a module such as "eyes of the lich queen" where you habitually run into other humanoid races to kill in order to beat them to the macguffin or whatever, you will also likely fulfill the criteria to become a mohrg, so they would be very common if they can arise spontaneously versus just being created by necromancers

monsters in a dungeon will fight back and may attack first if they beat you in init, but the adventurers still went there to steal from them, like stealing honey from a beehive. they may sting you, but you orchestrated this situation, it's not like you're acting in self defense.

a character can serial kill in rural areas as well (and doing so is less likely to result in detection.) since it's hard to tell whether someone's got class levels, upon selecting a victim, you're just as likely to enter a normal combat with them, which is standard behavior for an adventurer, which is all i'm saying


Also, I don't remember where but I read only good or neutral races becomes morgh. Orcs and goblins breaks no taboo by killing their own kin, nor does drows.
That's not true. It's not in monster manual or libris mortis. I don't doubt you read that somewhere, but it must've been in a dragon magazine. I assume that's where this "taboo" aspect enters into it too. if it were, you couldn't have a human mohrg, for example, since they have no alignment guidelines, but humans can indeed be raised as mohrgs.

[Conradine]

I used wrong words. I meant "non generally evil races", with an implicit taboo on killing their own kin.

This is from Pathfinder - Undead Revisited pg 29


Unrepentant killers in life, mohrgs retain an intense hatred for all living creatures, in particular sentient beings that can experience a fear of impending death. Some mohrgs were bloodthirsty warriors who slew as many as they could on the battlefield, others cold and calculating murders who selected their victims with delicate care, but nearly all mohrgs lived and died as mortal humanoids who delighted in the deaths of their fellow beings. A few mohrgs, however, are created from the remains of innocents by spellcasters (using the create undead spell), who are driven mad by being deprived of a peaceful death and then watching the transformation and slow decay of their own bodies


Mohrgs tend to show a preference for the killing styles they employed in life, creating eerie echoes of their former crimes. A murderer who slit open the throats of his victims might claw the flesh from the necks of its prey, or even employ a knife on helpless victims, while a thug who killed innocents and took their coins might still seek to lure new victims down dark alleys rather than simply striking to kill. The most dangerous of mohrgs are those who remember their mortal lives entirely, and still feel no remorse for their actions; taking a dark satisfaction in each and every kill, these mohrgs seek to best the murderous exploits they committed while still mortal. Whether it was in cruelty or in sheer numbers, a mohrg attempting to outdo the mortal killer it once was is a frightening and sickening creature, anathema to life itself.

[Venger]

fair enough. that's interesting. I don't play pf, so assumed this was asking about 3.5 stuff