Are undead really two types of creature?

[Makorel]

So I was thinking about the undead subtype and couldn't help but feel like there's two kind of them. On the one hand you've got creatures like reanimated corpses such as zombies and skeletons which are pretty similar to constructs, save for the fact that they are made of once living material. Then you've got various forms of ghosts and poltergeists aka spirits which are supposed to be in the outer planes where the after life is and basically anything else that Protection from Good and Evil works on. I could see ghosts being classified as some kind of fey (like the will-o'-Wisp) or even as lesser fiends/celestials.

To sum up there are bodies without souls and souls without bodies. Am I wrong in thinking of undead this way? Which is the true undead?

[KittenMagician]

the thing about reclassifying some undead in this way would make certain spells/abilities be less usable (turn undead for one). living things are often thought of as the culmination of body and soul. so to have one by itself still moving and acting is not natural. so when you animate one part of a dead thing you make an undead.

[Millstone85]

On the one hand you've got creatures like reanimated corpses such as zombies and skeletons which are pretty similar to constructs, save for the fact that they are made of once living material.Ah, but consider the flesh golem. It is made from once living material, yet is classified as a construct. So, what is the difference with a zombie? Well, the flesh golem is animated by a spirit from the Elemental Plane of Earth, plus some lightning (and probably the words "It's alive! It's alive!"). Meanwhile, zombies, like all undead creatures*, are animated by necrotic energy from the Negative Plane. And so, while a flesh golem can become violent, there is something in a zombie that makes it fundamentally anti-life.

It is... not my favourite bit of D&D lore.

*Except the deathless of Eberron, who are animated by the Positive Plane, somehow still remain corpses, and have the undead type.

[Belac93]

This is a pretty good post about different kinds of undead. (http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-tangled-cladistics-of-so-called.html)


There's a problem with the word "fish". The word "bug" has the same problem.

In both cases, the word was coined and propagated by non-specialists, describing something without any need for precision.

A bug is any little creepy-crawly with more legs than a decent Christian should have.

A fish is anything that swims in the water and breathes water. Even the beaver can be classified as a type of fish, with a bit of squinting.

(Don't resent past generations for their [crappy] systems of classification. Their systems served different needs.)

Intentions notwithstanding, the end result was still overlapping systems of poorly-defined categories, which leads to labyrinths of conflation whenever anyone tries to have a technical conversation about them.

This is the exact problem that the Lesser Undead currently have.

[Matuka]

A simple way of seeing it is just looking at the name, undead. If it was dead and was brought back, whether by its own power or by that of someone or something else, but still isn't quite alive, but is definitely no longer dead, it is then undead. Undead are always missing something. Even a lich, who keeps his/her soul, but removes it from his/her body as part of the ritual of becoming a lich.

[Nagog]

Thematically, there are plenty of reasons to become undead, immortality (though for many in a lessened state) being one of them, others being such traits as Undead Fortitude. All in all, it's a decent lot.
Mechanically, I'd say there more drawbacks than there are upsides. Considering the majority (if not all) healing spells specify they do not effect undead, that's a pretty major drawback. Undead fortitude is nice, but considering it's the defensive ability of a CR 1/4 enemy, it's fairly easy to overcome or circumvent.

Philosophically, I agree with the majority of the previous post's link (which is also fairly entertaining). Undead are typically inhabited by souls, whether souls of those who have passed on or souls who have yet to be born is up for debate on a case-by-case basis. Intelligent corporeal undead, such as Liches, Revenants, and the like, are typically inhabited by the same soul that occupied that form in life. They typically hold a special place among undead classifications, as in the case of a Lich, death may or may not have actually occurred in the classical sense, and in the case of the Revenant, their purpose and restrictions can occur due to a wide variety of phenomena, but not typically with spells available to PCs. In the case of Ghosts and other spirits escaped to the physical planes, the line is somewhat blurred. By some definitions, many fiends are ghosts, as they are spirits of the wicked dead given new life/existence. While there is no RAW backing for it, I would assume most celestial are the same way. However, Ghosts in the classification Undead are typically spirits that escaped judgement one way or another, and continue to inhabit the physical planes, whether due to fear of their ultimate fate, or revenge in a similar vein to a Revenant, or otherwise, is also denoted on a case-by-case basis. Unintelligent undead, such as most zombies and skeletons, are typically inhabited, as the link theorized, by lost or wayward souls pulled from another plane. Lost souls in the lower planes (who have yet to undergo the transformation into fiend) are the easiest to sway into inhabiting a corpse, as it is a welcome respite from the tortures they have been consigned to.

All in all, Undead are those who should not be living and yet live anyway, typically in a form that has long expired.

[Greywander]

So I was thinking about the undead subtype and couldn't help but feel like there's two kind of them. [...]

To sum up there are bodies without souls and souls without bodies. Am I wrong in thinking of undead this way? Which is the true undead?
It's a bit more complicated than that. Corporeal vs. Spectral is just one axis of several on which undead can be categorized.

Another axis that comes to mind is Created vs. Native. Native undead are undead creatures that were never alive in the first place. Creatures such as the nightwalker, for example. Such creatures might be considered a type of Outsider native to the Negative Energy Plane, whereas most created undead are still native to the Material Plane (assuming they were so while still alive).

Yet another axis would be Mindless vs. Intelligent. Your run-of-the-mill zombies and skeletons are little more than flesh robots, with little capacity to make their own decisions. They will literally stand around doing nothing, except attack those who get too close, unless you tell them what to do. A more sophisticated skeleton might mime the daily routine it had in life, but it is just following preexisting habits without any understanding of what it is doing. Liches and vampires, by contrast, can be quite cunning and intelligent, and definitely have a similar capacity to reason and plan that the living do, if not more so.

All of these are very different from one another. Then again, elves are pretty different from dwarves, yet both are humanoids. Insects, fish, and mammals are all considered beasts, rather than each having their own type. So what I'd suggest is that maybe there's something about these different categories, some core trait that they all have in common. For example:

Beasts are natural creatures, native to the Material Plane. Unnatural creatures are labeled as Monstrosities. Beasts lack an eternal soul. Creatures native to the Material Plane that have a soul are all labeled as Humanoids, even if they don't have a humanoid body shape (centaurs, for example). A creature with a soul that isn't native to the Material Plane has the relevant Outsider type associated with their home plane (Celestial, Fey, Fiend, etc.). Giants and dragons are special cases, being more than just flying lizards and basketball players; their legacy harkens back to the ancient war between giants and dragons, before the gods even existed. Giants and dragons might have souls, and might be native to the Material Plane, but on a cosmological level they are fundamentally different from humanoids. And so on.

But this is just one way of interpreting creature types. Maybe they're entirely a game construct with no in-universe representation, in which case they might as well be completely arbitrary. There's no need, then, to distinguish between different types of undead, because the rules don't treat them differently. (As such, I'm not really sure why Ooze is a creature type, when oozes could have been classed as, say, Monstrosities.)

[Clistenes]

This is a pretty good post about different kinds of undead. (http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-tangled-cladistics-of-so-called.html)

Priest: Eating meat on a Friday during Lent? Heathen!
Commoner: Nope. This is otter... a kind of fish.
Priest: Oh, that's fine, then... care telling me where can I buy some?

[Theodoxus]

After watching Attack of the Clones again recently, I really want to set up a campaign world where corporeal undead and constructs are the primary "worker class", but based in different kingdoms. One a Technomancy, using high tech robots in an Eberron-esque way; high magic that mimics real world tech; bright and shiny on the outside. The second a Necromancy, that uses skeletal and zombified former residents in much the same way as the robots. It'd have a much more grimdark feel; gritty and sooty; a higher "unhappiness" factor for the living, knowing one day they'll end up menial labor.

The twist would be, both kingdoms would have very similar elites using magic to subjugate the lessers around them. Bright and shiny on the outside would be met with an almost Whovian "Cyberman" inside. Are the robots actually fully constructs, or just armored skeletons? Or maybe a bit of both? Maybe the secrets of Construct-ion have been lost and the elites are using necromancy to preserve the illusion?

The necromancers on the other hand have had a 'revolution'; maybe a lowly peasant worked their way up the ranks and once they learned the dark secrets of what happens when citizens "die", has told his former classmates, leading to an uprising. Maybe they're now signing "DNR"s (Do Not Reanimate), or selling their bodies to the science academy for a helping hand when they're alive; knowing they'd be reanimated to menial or warlike tasks.

The kingdoms are in a perpetual warm war, using their preferred automatons whenever the war flares up into active status.

The campaign itself would probably be an intrigue tale, trying to cool the war, maybe steal state secrets and swap them - mingling Technomancy and Necromancy to advance both cultures... or it might just be a dungeon hunt with the backdrop of these strange nations.

[Chronos]

Speaking of outsiders, in a D&D world, "body" and "soul" are not necessarily dichotomous. A ghost consists entirely of a soul, and hence can float through walls and let arrows pass harmlessly through it, and can only interact with the physical world through force of will... but an angel also consists entirely of a soul, and yet is as "solid" as any human.

[Eldariel]

There are incorporeal non-undead too such as Shadow Demon. So in that sense, creature type and incorporeality don't really go hand in hand. There are also another class distinction between undead: ones that are risen and serve (such as Zombies and Skeletons) and ones that rise spontaneously and have willd of their own (such as Will-o'-Wisps or Ghasts, tho 5e did retcon them into being Orcus-made). Though that's more narrow in 5e than in many earlier editions. Still, Undead is a catch-all type for things that were once alive and are no longer so. Every single Undead is made of some humanoidish thing that was once alive and is converted into a thing that's no longer alive. You can't even say incorporeals are reanimated spirits as such, they're just a different guise for undead to manifest in. The guise depends how and what becomes undead, but the thing is more or less the same.

[Kane0]

If you really want to see the lengths of the imagination stretched when it comes to creature types, try the Ranger with favored enemy... Aberrations or something

Creature types aren’t really scientifically accurate representations, they’re more of a layman description. ‘Fish’ and ‘Bug’ are good examples in that link above.

[Teioh]

Pillars of Eternity is like that. Undead and Golems share a creature type, and Ghosts and what not are different tupe

[Imbalance]

After watching Attack of the Clones again recently, I really want to set up a campaign world where corporeal undead and constructs are the primary "worker class", but based in different kingdoms. One a Technomancy, using high tech robots in an Eberron-esque way; high magic that mimics real world tech; bright and shiny on the outside. The second a Necromancy, that uses skeletal and zombified former residents in much the same way as the robots. It'd have a much more grimdark feel; gritty and sooty; a higher "unhappiness" factor for the living, knowing one day they'll end up menial labor.

The twist would be, both kingdoms would have very similar elites using magic to subjugate the lessers around them. Bright and shiny on the outside would be met with an almost Whovian "Cyberman" inside. Are the robots actually fully constructs, or just armored skeletons? Or maybe a bit of both? Maybe the secrets of Construct-ion have been lost and the elites are using necromancy to preserve the illusion?

The necromancers on the other hand have had a 'revolution'; maybe a lowly peasant worked their way up the ranks and once they learned the dark secrets of what happens when citizens "die", has told his former classmates, leading to an uprising. Maybe they're now signing "DNR"s (Do Not Reanimate), or selling their bodies to the science academy for a helping hand when they're alive; knowing they'd be reanimated to menial or warlike tasks.

The kingdoms are in a perpetual warm war, using their preferred automatons whenever the war flares up into active status.

The campaign itself would probably be an intrigue tale, trying to cool the war, maybe steal state secrets and swap them - mingling Technomancy and Necromancy to advance both cultures... or it might just be a dungeon hunt with the backdrop of these strange nations.

Sounds a lot like old Mage Knight or the short-lived Golem Arcana.

[Theodoxus]

Sounds a lot like old Mage Knight or the short-lived Golem Arcana.

Hmm, I'll have to check those out!

[OldTrees1]

Skeletons are souless bodied undead.
Liches are souled bodied undead.
Ghosts are souled bodiless undead.
There are no souless bodiless undead.

Mortals are made of a living body and soul. If a mortal would die but fails to die, then you have an undead. Maybe the moral soul went to the afterlife but their "dead" body failed to be dead (Ex: Skeleton). Maybe the body died but the mortal soul failed to go to the afterlife (Ex: Ghost). Or maybe the mortal decided to fail both ways at the same time by trapping their soul inside their "dead" body while preventing their "dead" body from being dead (Ex: Lich).

Or maybe undead is merely an atypical form of life. Sort of like how it is atypical for humanoids to die as young as Humans.

[Arkhios]

In my books (metaphorically speaking), genarally an undead is neither alive nor dead; a creature that has died, but has partially returned from death (such as ghosts, ghouls, skeletons, and zombies), or a creature that has only partially died (such as liches and vampires).

All of the above (and many more left unmentioned) are equally undead, only their form and current state of decomposition varies. They are dead, but still, for a reason or another, they aren't; thus, undead. Do note that words mean things.

[Matuka]

In my books (metaphorically speaking), genarally an undead is neither alive nor dead; a creature that has died, but has partially returned from death (such as ghosts, ghouls, skeletons, and zombies), or a creature that has only partially died (such as liches and vampires).

All of the above (and many more left unmentioned) are equally undead, only their form and current state of decomposition varies. They are dead, but still, for a reason or another, they aren't; thus, undead. Do note that words mean things.

I already said that

[Arkhios]

I already said that

And?

Are you saying you're upset because what I said is same as what you said?

I replied directly to the OP, without reading through other posts. I believe that's allowed?