PF - Creatable Undead That Retain Living Memories?

[unseenmage]

Are there any undead in Pathfinder which one can create the retain their memories of being alive?

The GM has dropped a couple of historical NPC corpses on us and I'd like to facilitate the potential fun by raising these corpses with their plot hook memories intact if possible.

[Angrith]

It's up to DM adjudication, but intelligent undead should work. Wights if I recall are specifically called out as a separate spirit inhabiting the body, but wraith's do have some connection to their past lives explicitly. It's just minimal. A juju zombie specifically retains the skills and abilities it had in life, so there's a good argument to be made there that it keeps its memories.

[unseenmage]

From what I'm seeing of Juju Zombies they disappear to retain their memory of how to do stuff. There could be some question of whether they retain their memory of what they did though.

Are Juju Zombies amnesiac with skills or duplications of the living mind in entirety?
Would be nice if there was a NPC in an adventure somewhere whose memory was either overtly stated to be intact or fragmented or what have you.

[Psyren]

Do you need them to be up and moving specifically? Because if it's just their info you want, something like a seance or speak with dead should do the trick.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Angrith
A juju zombie specifically retains the skills and abilities it had in life, so there's a good argument to be made there that it keeps its memories.

I think there's a solid argument for a juju zombie retaining its memories. They're described as self-aware and more intelligent than typical zombies, and conscious enough of their condition to hate their own existence. If they hate their current undead state, it follows they have memories of when they were alive.

As for accessing those memories, that could be more of a trick, since they're described as understanding all the languages they knew while alive, but unable to speak. Since Speak with Dead explicitly won't work with undead creatures, it might be a little involved getting to those plot-hook memories.

[Angrith]

I think there's a solid argument for a juju zombie retaining its memories. They're described as self-aware and more intelligent than typical zombies, and conscious enough of their condition to hate their own existence. If they hate their current undead state, it follows they have memories of when they were alive.

As for accessing those memories, that could be more of a trick, since they're described as understanding all the languages they knew while alive, but unable to speak. Since Speak with Dead explicitly won't work with undead creatures, it might be a little involved getting to those plot-hook memories.

If the juju zombie retains skills and languages, they can just write out their memoirs. No speaking necessary. The Mohrg (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/mohrg) requires a much higher caster level but explicitly recalls some memories.

Psyren is right though. Speak with Dead is easiest if you have a mostly intact corpse and no need for them to be up and about.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Angrith
If the juju zombie retains skills and languages, they can just write out their memoirs. No speaking necessary.

If you can command them to, this would certainly work, although the question is whether what they write can be trusted. Intelligence and malice make for quite the unreliable narrator.


Originally Posted by Angrith
Speak with Dead is easiest if you have a mostly intact corpse and no need for them to be up and about.

Speak with Dead explicitly does not affect undead, in both 3.5 and Pathfinder.

The 3.5 PHB and the P1 CRB have the exact same text: “This spell does not affect a corpse that has been turned into an undead creature.”

.

[Segev]

Speak with Dead explicitly does not affect undead, in both 3.5 and Pathfinder.

The 3.5 PHB and the P1 CRB have the exact same text: “This spell does not affect a corpse that has been turned into an undead creature.”

.

Those suggesting speak with dead are suggesting using it instead of creating undead from the corpses.

[Batcathat]

ISpeak with Dead explicitly does not affect undead, in both 3.5 and Pathfinder.

The 3.5 PHB and the P1 CRB have the exact same text: “This spell does not affect a corpse that has been turned into an undead creature.”

.

I think the point was that the OP might not need to raise at all them if they just want their information.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Batcathat
I think the point was that the OP might not need to raise at all them if they just want their information.

Fair enough, but even so, Speak with Dead is extremely cumbersome in practice. Unless the caster is relatively high level, you only have a few questions per week, and the responses are "brief, cryptic, or repetitive," as well as the deceased having the option to lie or bluff.

I would assume the OP knows this, which is why he's looking for alternatives. OP, is this for your fourth-level penguin necromancer?

[Angrith]

Yeah, speak with dead would be pre-undead.

[Psyren]

Fair enough, but even so, Speak with Dead is extremely cumbersome in practice. Unless the caster is relatively high level, you only have a few questions per week, and the responses are "brief, cryptic, or repetitive," as well as the deceased having the option to lie or bluff.

I would assume the OP knows this, which is why he's looking for alternatives.

I'd rather suggest other options (or at least ask why those options aren't feasible) than assume anything.

For a specific answer to OP's question, the following undead specifically can access the memories of their former life per Complete Divine: vampires, spectres, ghouls and ghasts.

[Angrith]

I'd rather suggest other options (or at least ask why those options aren't feasible) than assume anything.

For a specific answer to OP's question, the following undead specifically can access the memories of their former life per Complete Divine: vampires, spectres, ghouls and ghasts.

Is there a way to create a vampire other than another vampire spawning? I didn't see anything on the SRD about it, but I'm not familiar with Complete Divine.

[Segev]

Is there a way to create a vampire other than another vampire spawning? I didn't see anything on the SRD about it, but I'm not familiar with Complete Divine.

Vampires can be created with create greater undead. Ghouls can be created at the lowest level a caster can cast create undead. I'd recommend ghouls, myself, but vampire would be kinder to the people you're "raising."

[unseenmage]

...

I would assume the OP knows this, which is why he's looking for alternatives. OP, is this for your fourth-level penguin necromancer?

Yes. 6th level now. Just got access to Animate Dead via an Archetype (some early game rebuilding got okayed).

Though the game has plenty of access to corpses we're so far lacking in guns and the specific gems required.

Have found the Spheres of Power Corpse Manipulation ability to be exceedingly versatile though.



Vampires can be created with create greater undead. ...
Is this true in Pathfinder? I was under the impression that Vampires weren't a player made undead.

[Psyren]

Is there a way to create a vampire other than another vampire spawning? I didn't see anything on the SRD about it, but I'm not familiar with Complete Divine.

Not that I know of. An unsafe Wish or Miracle might do it.


Vampires can be created with create greater undead. Ghouls can be created at the lowest level a caster can cast create undead. I'd recommend ghouls, myself, but vampire would be kinder to the people you're "raising."

Well, technically you're not raising anyone - you're shoving an unrelated evil spirit into their dead body that can access their memories and follows your instructions.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Well, technically you're not raising anyone - you're shoving an unrelated evil spirit into their dead body that can access their memories and follows your instructions.

I believe that’s just OOTS lore; I don’t recall anything about that in the relevant vampire-related PF material. But as far as I can tell, you cant create vampires with Create Greater Undead in PF anyway.

[Segev]

I believe that’s just OOTS lore; I don’t recall anything about that in the relevant vampire-related PF material. But as far as I can tell, you cant create vampires with Create Greater Undead in PF anyway.

Huh. I stand corrected. I was operating form memory and thought they were on the create greater undead list. My error, apologies.

[Psyren]

I believe that’s just OOTS lore; I don’t recall anything about that in the relevant vampire-related PF material. But as far as I can tell, you cant create vampires with Create Greater Undead in PF anyway.

I'm talking about intelligent undead in general, not vampires specifically. And OotS didn't invent the idea of intelligent undead being your corpse piloted by an evil spirit, that's 3.5 RAW from Complete Divine.

[Segev]

I'm talking about intelligent undead in general, not vampires specifically. And OotS didn't invent the idea of intelligent undead being your corpse piloted by an evil spirit, that's 3.5 RAW from Complete Divine.

I assume there is exception made over liches, which are explicitly the person they were before, just undead? What about Necropolitans?

[Noxangelo]

Necropolitans are made by performing a ritual on the living person. i already checked.

[Psyren]

I assume there is exception made over liches, which are explicitly the person they were before, just undead? What about Necropolitans?

Sorry, I wasn't quite accurate there. The passage in Complete Divine refers specifically to the types of intelligent undead that create spawn as working this way - so ghouls, vampires, wights and the like. Something like a Lich likely does have the original being's soul rather than a replacement - though of course in a Lich's case, the act required to become one is so depraved that the difference between the original soul and that of a monster is probably immaterial.

[Segev]

Sorry, I wasn't quite accurate there. The passage in Complete Divine refers specifically to the types of intelligent undead that create spawn as working this way - so ghouls, vampires, wights and the like. Something like a Lich likely does have the original being's soul rather than a replacement - though of course in a Lich's case, the act required to become one is so depraved that the difference between the original soul and that of a monster is probably immaterial.

It is material to the lich. If you’re going to commit heinous acts and spend lots of money to become undead and preserve yourself for eternity, you probably care a great deal that it is still you, not some random spirit that acts like you.

Same with enduring the necropolitan ritual.

Does make some vampire lord stories feel... diminished... when the “tortured soul” isn’t actually the one that did the deeds over which it feels guilty, or to which horrid things happened that he no wants to avenge.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Segev
Does make some vampire lord stories feel... diminished... when the “tortured soul” isn’t actually the one that did the deeds over which it feels guilty, or to which horrid things happened that he no wants to avenge.

This is an extremely good point, and I’m not convinced that the vampire’s driving spirit is something different from its soul while previously alive. Here’s the relevant text from p. 126 of Complete Divine:


Originally Posted by Complete Divine

“Some undead such as vampires and wights create spawn out of a character they kill, trapping the soul of the deceased in a body animated by negative energy and controlled by a malign intelligence.”

This doesn’t specify where that “malign intelligence” comes from, and it could just as easily be the darker aspects of the character’s own mind given free rein.

That said, since this is a Pathfinder thread, I’m not sure if it’s all that productive to dwell on the text from a 3.5 supplement. Blood of the Night gives a stronger indication that the original spirit and intellect still animate vampires, as for instance the text for the jiang-shi:


Originally Posted by Blood of the Night

"Jiang-shis are created from restless spirits who failed to leave their bodies upon death.”

From this it seems clear that the body’s original spirit continues to remain in the vampire, as opposed to something ill-defined entering from somewhere unspecified.

.

[Psyren]

It is material to the lich. If you’re going to commit heinous acts and spend lots of money to become undead and preserve yourself for eternity, you probably care a great deal that it is still you, not some random spirit that acts like you.

It might be material from an identity standpoint sure, but my point is that from a morality standpoint, whether it's you or a monster doesn't matter when you effectively have to become a monster to pursue that path to its end.



This doesn’t specify where that “malign intelligence” comes from, and it could just as easily be the darker aspects of the character’s own mind given free rein.

Those two don't have to be mutually exclusive. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1007.html)

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Psyren
*snip*

Since the OP is specifically asking about undead in Pathfinder, referencing a comic based on 3.5 may not be that relevant.

As for Blood of the Night, reading a little further gives more details on another vampire variant:


Originally Posted by Blood of the Night
“A vetala rises from an evil child who received an improper burial upon death, and whose spirit wrenched free of its original form to adopt the corpse of another as its host.”

So here we have one variant, the jiang-shi, which specifically houses the original spirit, and another variant, the vetala, which specifically houses a foreign spirit arising from a rare circumstance. In both cases the description is much better-delineated than the rather vague text quoted from the 3.5 supplement, so for each variant we know exactly what we’re dealing with.

[Psyren]

So here we have one variant, the jiang-shi, which specifically houses the original spirit, and another variant, the vetala, which specifically houses a foreign spirit arising from a rare circumstance. In both cases the description is much better-delineated than the rather vague text quoted from the 3.5 supplement, so for each variant we know exactly what we’re dealing with.

You seem to think I'm arguing with you when that's not the case. The original soul is definitely in there in both editions.What I'm not understanding about your position is the difference between an alien intelligence piloting the undead creature with the original soul held hostage inside, or the original soul having been warped into something alien by the process of becoming undead; whichever one you go with, you're not actually raising the person that was alive when you create an undead, which was my point from the beginning. What difference are you seeing?

[Segev]

This is an extremely good point, and I’m not convinced that the vampire’s driving spirit is something different from its soul while previously alive. Here’s the relevant text from p. 126 of Complete Divine:



This doesn’t specify where that “malign intelligence” comes from, and it could just as easily be the darker aspects of the character’s own mind given free rein. Now that I read that again (having not seen it in a while), I remember thinking, when I read it at first, that the "malign intelligence" was the spawn-creator. After all, spawn are forced to obey their progenitors, regardless of their own wills. So a vampire spawn is the person trapped in his own dead body, compelled to obey his vampiric master.

I do see how you could read it another way, though.


That said, since this is a Pathfinder thread, I’m not sure if it’s all that productive to dwell on the text from a 3.5 supplement. Blood of the Night gives a stronger indication that the original spirit and intellect still animate vampires, as for instance the text for the jiang-shi:



From this it seems clear that the body’s original spirit continues to remain in the vampire, as opposed to something ill-defined entering from somewhere unspecified.

.Seems fairly clear for PF, yeah.


It might be material from an identity standpoint sure, but my point is that from a morality standpoint, whether it's you or a monster doesn't matter when you effectively have to become a monster to pursue that path to its end.Well, by that token you really shouldn't care if the soul is "of a monster" or "of a humanoid" more than whether it's good or evil and how harmful it is to others, if considering the morality of treating it "like a monster." To wit: I agree, liches probably deserve murderhoboing, as a general rule, because they're wicked abominations of unlife who don't mind hurting others and probably will and definitely have. So if you're murderhoboing for a living isn't making you evil by default, adding a lich to your kill-count probably isn't going to make you more evil than you already are.

Which is why it seemed important to me from an identity standpoint, because becoming undead is a goal that a fair number of characters have, and if "becoming undead" means "becoming a prisoner in your own body while something else puppets you," that's a wildly different outcome than promised. And it would seem an oddly broad-based thing to manage to keep secret from even the most learned mystical scholars for any long period of time.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Psyren
What difference are you seeing?

First, the difference between editions. The 3.5 text in Complete Divine is rather vague and open to interpretation, whereas the Pathfinder text from Blood of the Night is extremely precise.


Originally Posted by Psyren
What I'm not understanding about your position is the difference between an alien intelligence piloting the undead creature with the original soul held hostage inside, or the original soul having been warped into something alien by the process of becoming undead….

Well, as you’ve just phrased it, in the first instance the soul is trapped and unable to act, while in the second the soul is in control. Those look like diametric opposites to me.

But beyond that, I feel like there’s a false equivalence in how you’ve phrased it, “alien” and “alien,” which I don’t think fully applies. Allochthonous and autochthonous are better descriptors, since “alien” is effectively “foreign,” and it’s not really accurate to claim the original soul is “alien” when it’s still in the same body.


Originally Posted by Psyren
…whichever one you go with, you're not actually raising the person that was alive when you create an undead….

And again, this view feels colored by the vaguer text from Complete Divine, whereas Blood of the Night is quite explicit that in some cases, it really is the same individual, body and soul, down to their specific obsessions.

Given that this is a Pathfinder thread, referencing 3.5 material doesn’t seem as useful when discussing how undead function in Pathfinder. But it’s ultimately up to the OP to decide which he finds most helpful.

[Psyren]

Well, as you’ve just phrased it, in the first instance the soul is trapped and unable to act, while in the second the soul is in control. Those look like diametric opposites to me.

You misunderstand me - in both cases I'm talking about the driving soul. In one, the driving soul is an evil spirit that holds the original hostage. In the other, you ARE the evil spirit, either by choice (lich), or twisted that way by negative energy (ghoul, vampire - and note that some vampires can be both.) Your perennial example of the jiang-shi is the latter too: "A jiang-shi is created when a restless spirit does not leave its corpse at the time of death, and is instead allowed to fester and putrefy within." Either way, I view the difference between these two scenarios as largely being academic - the soul/persona you had before converting (or "festering and putrefying" in the jiang-shi's case) isn't who you are now.

Did that clear it up, or shall we keep non-arguing?



Well, by that token you really shouldn't care if the soul is "of a monster" or "of a humanoid" more than whether it's good or evil and how harmful it is to others, if considering the morality of treating it "like a monster." To wit: I agree, liches probably deserve murderhoboing, as a general rule, because they're wicked abominations of unlife who don't mind hurting others and probably will and definitely have. So if you're murderhoboing for a living isn't making you evil by default, adding a lich to your kill-count probably isn't going to make you more evil than you already are.

Which is why it seemed important to me from an identity standpoint, because becoming undead is a goal that a fair number of characters have, and if "becoming undead" means "becoming a prisoner in your own body while something else puppets you," that's a wildly different outcome than promised. And it would seem an oddly broad-based thing to manage to keep secret from even the most learned mystical scholars for any long period of time.

The fact that a lot of people want something doesn't make it consequence-free or even sane. In Pathfinder, some vampires certainly can become non-evil (though Blood of the Night states this might take centuries, and is more often a product of loneliness than repentance) but as with any listed monster alignment, the vast majority don't.

[Segev]

The fact that a lot of people want something doesn't make it consequence-free or even sane. In Pathfinder, some vampires certainly can become non-evil (though Blood of the Night states this might take centuries, and is more often a product of loneliness than repentance) but as with any listed monster alignment, the vast majority don't.

Which is why I made the point of referencing that it would be impossible to hide from people who were so obsessed with esoteric and arcane knowledge taht they would seek out the rituals to do something...and not come across warnings that it won't be them that is left in the body.

Sure, some would be so desperate, power-mad, or hubristic that they'd believe they'd be the exception and refuse to accept the warning as true. But it would be a point of discussion, rather than the primary warning against it being "but you'll have to do great evil." Sure, there are people who would balk at doing the evil, but you're more concerned with the selfishly evil who will say "yeah, so?" because they're the ones who'll actually do it.

[Psyren]

Which is why I made the point of referencing that it would be impossible to hide from people who were so obsessed with esoteric and arcane knowledge taht they would seek out the rituals to do something...and not come across warnings that it won't be them that is left in the body.

Sure, some would be so desperate, power-mad, or hubristic that they'd believe they'd be the exception and refuse to accept the warning as true. But it would be a point of discussion, rather than the primary warning against it being "but you'll have to do great evil." Sure, there are people who would balk at doing the evil, but you're more concerned with the selfishly evil who will say "yeah, so?" because they're the ones who'll actually do it.

As with Palanan, I think we're in violent agreement moreso than actually arguing about something.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Psyren
As with Palanan, I think we're in violent agreement moreso than actually arguing about something.

I’m not in violent anything so far as I’m aware, and I’m pretty sure we really don’t agree on the items mentioned earlier.

That said, at this point it’s best to wait for the OP to let us know if he’s interested in pursuing this any further.

[Aotrs Commander]

Would skeletal champion (https://aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Skeletal%20Champion)b e an option? as it's a template option, they retain all their skills and abilites, basically. Like a poor man's lich/skeleton warrior! Obviously no good if you don't have access to the body, but I assume that vampires were being talked about, you'd have that.

Doesn't say there - I had to do some digging - but you can create one (according to Undead Revisited) by using Create Undead with at least caster level 11 (HD must be less than your caster level, so they'd have to be 3 levels lower than your caster level when alive, as the template adds +2 racial HD) and requries you to cast Enervation or Energy Drain. So at the point you can really create undead at all you ought to be able to muddle through with maybe some scrolls or something.

[Psyren]

I’m not in violent anything so far as I’m aware, and I’m pretty sure we really don’t agree on the items mentioned earlier.

That said, at this point it’s best to wait for the OP to let us know if he’s interested in pursuing this any further.

Well, you haven't answered my last question so I won't be able to understand where you're coming from. Leaving it there then.