The Ethics of Undeath: The Undead and Alignment

[Falconer]

The Ethics of Undeath: Thoughts on the Undead and Alignment

Go, forth, my undying minions! Save the children!

The necromancy school has always been a source of confusion for players and DMs alike. Why is raising a zombie evil? Couldn't you use undead to create a labor-free society? Isn't that good? Can liches become good? If negative energy is a natural force, what's so bad about it? Even the folks at Wizards have never seemed to be able to come to a decision. One second using negative energy is no different than magic missile or fireball, the next it's a sin against creation itself.

And if they won't provide answers, we'll make our own.

So now for the rules: for the purposes of this thread, we're (mostly) going to be going by the book. That is, RAW. Zombies, vampires, liches, and indeed most undead are of the Evil alignment. Creating undead, unless is says otherwise in the books, is an Evil act. The primary purpose of this thread is to think of reasons why the Undead are universally evil (or at least nearly so) rather than say "it's stupid, just ignore it."

And, rather unfortunately, I do not own and have not read Libris Mortis: The Book of Un-Latin. So my primary source is going to be the SRD.

I hope you enjoy reading as much as I did writing. And now, to business:

The Zombie Horse Goes Before the Necromancy Cart

The nature of Undeath, like the nature of death itself, varies greatly from setting to setting, depending on cosmology. Some setting have only the Prime Material, others have maybe one or two other planes, but most have the whole gamut of them, and perhaps even more than that. And as the laws of the Multiverse tend to be pretty helpful when figuring out that pesky "morality", we'll figure out the exact nature of the Negative Energy Plane, before moving onto necromancy and individual types of undead and such. Unfortunately, we can't much rely on the SRD on this one. Wizards constantly contradicts itself, and you'll get different answers depending on who's talking. Therefore, we'll consider both options:

First, the Negative Energy Plane as an Eeeevil force, as has been suggested. This requires it to be sapient; by the rules, creatures with an intellect of 2 or less have no understanding of morality or ethics and cannot be labeled anything but Neutral, with certain exceptions. Again, for simplicity's sake, we'll assume that the NE Plane is not one of those exceptions. It's Evil, and it's capable of seeing and acknowledging that it's evil. As it is the Plane of Elemental Destruction, that means you have a plane-sized, arguably deific entity that really, really wants to kill everything in existence. A Devourer. Of course, for whatever reason, it can't directly just collide with the Prime Material and start annihilating continents (or maybe it can. Can you say Epic-Level Encounter?). And so it must take a more…subtle route. It must act through agents and ignorant dupes, so that it might devour the Prime Material and other planes from the inside, bit by bit. In areas where the wall between planes is weak, Negative Energy can bleed through and manifest as "naturally occurring" undead. In the end, every zombie animated, every Inflict Wounds spell cast, every vampire or wight that spawns is merely a piece in a far greater, more sinister game. Free-willed undead? That's what they think. A lich may laugh at the idea of having a master, but far down in the depths of his negative-energy powered subconscious, it's the Devourer that's thinking his thoughts for him. Every plan he makes, every kingdom he destroys is merely part of The Plane's aeon-spanning plan. And someday, legions of the unliving shall perform a blasphemous ritual, which will finally break down the barrier between the planes.

And the Devourer shall feed.
Omigosh, that was fun to write.
Next, we can suppose that the Negative Energy Plane is merely a cosmic necessity: everything begins, and everything ends. Not nearly as theatrical, but still worth considering. The Positive Energy Plane is the source of creation energy-that is, the energy that causes things to start being. It doesn't require a spellcaster to have an effect on the Prime Material. It's effects are felt merely because it exists. It is what allows for any sort of creation: a child being conceived, a castle being built, a kingdom being founded. The Negative Energy Plane, as its equal and opposite, is the source of all destruction energy. While the Positive Energy plane is what allows things to begin, the Negative Energy Plane is what causes them to end. Death, destruction, etc. Either one missing would cause utter stasis. Even moving would be impossible-for you to move, you have to end your previous position, and start a new one. Thinking wouldn't happen either. Nothing would. Literally, Nothing would happen. Existence wouldn't end, because you'd need the Negative Energy Plane for that. But it couldn't continue, either, because that needs the Positive Energy Plane. So you have, in a very literal sense, Nothing.

While I hope the first possibility makes the whole "Undead=EEEEVIL" thing self-explanatory, the second, while I hope its interesting, begs the question: how does that make the undead Evil?
-----------------------------------------
To be continued, of course. I'm just starting out with the Undead as a sort of cosmic evil before moving on to the particulars. Feel free to give criticism, thoughts, etc.

[elonin]

I'll have to disagree with your basic premise. AFAIK neither of the positive or negative planes have alignment descriptors. Undead being evil is secondary just like many necromancy spells. I wish that the game were more cohesive but that isn't so. Sorry if I missed your point.

[Falconer]

I'll have to disagree with your basic premise. AFAIK neither of the positive or negative planes have alignment descriptors. Undead being evil is secondary just like many necromancy spells. I wish that the game were more cohesive but that isn't so. Sorry if I missed your point.

I'm not so much saying "this is how it has to be because the RULES SAY SO!" so much as "fine, the rules are inconsistent. Let's see if we can think of ways to make them work." It's more a though experiment than a way I'd actually play D&D, though I suppose I should have clarified that.:

[Drakevarg]

I'd say that your Devourer idea makes for an interesting campaign arc, but I'd prefer the second option, generally due to my love of Yin-Yang powers. My custom fantasy world is pretty much built around the concept.

[olentu]

I'm not so much saying "this is how it has to be because the RULES SAY SO!" so much as "fine, the rules are inconsistent. Let's see if we can think of ways to make them work." It's more a though experiment than a way I'd actually play D&D, though I suppose I should have clarified that.:

Well the lack of alignment descriptors on the planes would make assigning any alignment tendency to either energy somewhat inconsistent.

[Drakevarg]

Negative energy is the source of all Necromancy. Necromancy is evil. Being killed by the Negative Energy Plane turns you into a Wraith. Wraiths are evil. Negative energy is the source of inflict spells. Inflict spells are Necromantic. Necromancy is evil.

Negative energy may not be evil, but pretty much everything you can do with it is.

[Falconer]

Well the lack of alignment descriptors on the planes would make assigning any alignment tendency to either energy somewhat inconsistent.

That's exactly why it's merely one possibility that's being considered. If you'll kindly look at the bottom, there's more to come. The NE Plane being evil answers the whole premise right away, and there's not much point in continuing. But since I'm going to continue, I'm going to write with the assumption the NE Plane isn't evil, however interesting it would be if it were. But again, I suppose I should have clarified that in the beginning. Mea culpa.

[Sergeantbrother]

I like the Devourer idea a lot, I like that it ties in cosmology with the nature of magic.

I have had similar thoughts about why Necromancy is evil. One of my thoughts was why Necromancy even works in the first place. Why can Necromancy animate a dead corpse, but it can't animate a statue? Both are non-living material being animated by magic, what makes the corpse special regarding Necromancy?

Well, my theory is that Necromancy is largely based around not only dead flesh and destruction about also spirits and the soul. This is why Necromancy can steal someone's soul, drain their life force, or allow you to speak to the dead. That being the case, I think its appropriate to say (in my own D&D world, I know its not canon) that animating a zombie or other undead creature traps the soul of the dead person in that body and uses the power of that soul as the animating energy force. For unintelligent undead, the spirit is in such a fog of pain and confusion that it essentially can't think in any meaningful way aside from obeying the orders which magically compel it.

If this is the case, and animating any a zombie or skeleton brings the spirit into the rotting corpse to suffer horrible agonies as its trapped in that body and denied an afterlife, then any act which animates a body is an act of extreme evil.

[Jacob Orlove]

Have you read the Tome of Necromancy? The first section deals with the morality of Negative Energy.

[Gensh]

...neither of the positive or negative planes have alignment descriptors...

While true, fiends of all alignments are apparently powered by positive energy, just like us squishies. That would make the Devourer-concept NEP some sort of cosmic evil, something beyond ordinary morality, a beast that simply desires to consume, as opposed to the fiends who want to rule.

[Drakevarg]

Well a problem with the idea of the "necromancy involves trapping the soul," at least with unintelligent undead, doesn't really work when you consider that I'm pretty sure that you can resurrect a person whose body has been reanimated as a zombie, and the zombie will remain functional.

My idea is that a corpse works for reanimation because it USED to house a soul. Therefore, the faux-soul created by negative energy to reanimate this body and operate it can enter the body, where it couldn't for a golem, which never had a soul to begin with.

This is why Necromentals also work; though they're not organic, they had souls and as such the gap where the soul used to be can be used to house a negative energy faux-soul.

[Falconer]

Have you read the Tome of Necromancy? The first section deals with the morality of Negative Energy.

Not until just now. The difference is in premise: I'm saying that the MM version of undead can work, it just takes some work justifying it. And so, I'm looking at different ways of doing so.

[olentu]

That's exactly why it's merely one possibility that's being considered. If you'll kindly look at the bottom, there's more to come. The NE Plane being evil answers the whole premise right away, and there's not much point in continuing. But since I'm going to continue, I'm going to write with the assumption the NE Plane isn't evil, however interesting it would be if it were. But again, I suppose I should have clarified that in the beginning. Mea culpa.

I am saying that the neutral evil plane does not in my opinion reasonably answer the premise as one ends up with a plane with an evil alignment that is not evil aligned.

[CDR_Doom]

While the Positive Energy plane is what allows things to begin, the Negative Energy Plane is what causes them to end.

If this is so, then using Negative Energy to create strikes me as a use other than it's cosmically intended purpose. Maybe that's where the evil comes in; subverting the cosmic order to create abominations seems like it might be an affront to the good-aligned deities.

[Justin B.]

I love the idea of Negative Energy as the ultimate force of destruction, that wants to undo all things. That might be ganked.

However, also consider that the Undead are generally assumed to want to feed on the flesh of the living, so my thoughts are this:

1. Undead can only be created from the deceased. This is a disrespectful use of their material form that you have infused with a false semebelence of life for your own purposes.

2. Due to the nature of magic, this disrespect for the dignity of life for your own personal gain plants a seed of evil within the undead, whether you intentionally did so or not.

3. This evil, like most evil, can be used for good, but is not preferable to other, less evil ways of achieving ends. Hiring a band of plucky, low level adventurers to save the orphans doesn't cause any creatures mortal shell to be disrespected, and the effect is the same.

But, to be fair, evil is still a relative term. This requires that you revere the housing of the soul, or the body.

Sentient Undead applies the same concept, but easier, since most of them have a choice whether or not to become undead, and most choose to do so for the power. The magic is tainted by your choice, therefore so is the body and thought that comes of it, making all sentient undead evil.

[elonin]

While true, fiends of all alignments are apparently powered by positive energy, just like us squishies. That would make the Devourer-concept NEP some sort of cosmic evil, something beyond ordinary morality, a beast that simply desires to consume, as opposed to the fiends who want to rule.

I'm sorry but I don't understand your point. Us squishies as you called us, fiends, etc come in all different outlooks being powered by positive energy. That undead are powered by negative energy is a coincidence. I know that the OP was asking for core but there are setting/core undead that are powered by positive energy. There are also necromancy spells that do not have the evil descriptor. BTW maybe the question should be about alignment in general, because I could certainly use a good descriptor spell for evil purpose and evil descriptor spells for "good" purpose.

That being said I do like the idea of an evil negative plane and good positive plane.

[olentu]

Sentient Undead applies the same concept, but easier, since most of them have a choice whether or not to become undead, and most choose to do so for the power. The magic is tainted by your choice, therefore so is the body and thought that comes of it, making all sentient undead evil.

Actually I believe several sentient undead are just created when things happen rather then being a choice. Such as, not counting the spells, specters, vampires, wights, and wraiths.


Also there are the, not counting the exceptions inherent in an always alignment, non evil sentient undead being mummies and ghosts.

[Drakevarg]

BTW maybe the question should be about alignment in general, because I could certainly use a good descriptor spell for evil purpose and evil descriptor spells for "good" purpose.

This is exactly why alignment being used as a metaphysical force of nature is silly. I usually solve it by saying that the so-called "good" and "evil" energies exist, but their labels are given by mortals. (For example, Gruumsh is the enemy of Corellon Larethian. Since most campaigns take place in a world where most people like Corellon Larethian, s/he (can't remember) is considered "good." Conversely, Gruumsh is considered "evil." And so any energies drawn from Corellon Larethian are labeled "good," while any energies drawn from Gruumsh are labeled "evil."

They're considered evil by association, not because they're in-and-of-themselves evil.

[Claudius Maximus]

Well a problem with the idea of the "necromancy involves trapping the soul," at least with unintelligent undead, doesn't really work when you consider that I'm pretty sure that you can resurrect a person whose body has been reanimated as a zombie, and the zombie will remain functional.

You actually can not bring someone back from the dead if their body has become an undead creature. Even True Resurrection requires that such a creature be destroyed before it can work. There may be some legitimacy to the claim that undead trap at least part of the original creature's soul.

[Beelzebub1111]

Well you see, long ago there was a demilich named Acerak. An evil creature who sought to transfer his consciousness into every undead creature in the multiverse. He succeeded in doing so, yet his mind was spread so thin that only a shadow of his influence (his alignment) remained in the undead.

[The Deej]

I've come up with a theory of life/unlife for a homebrew setting that's kinda like living beings have a 'life force' that consists of positive energy, which eventually runs out, then they die. The creation of undead involves the violation of dead bodies by fueling them with negative energy in a mirror of the positive energy that they used to have. Creation of incorporeal undead is simmilar, but with their souls/essence/whatever. It's like putting the batteries in a device backwards, after changing it slightly to work that way.

The reason why this would be evil is because it is an intentional violation of the natural order and a desecration of the body of the deceased. According to the PHB: "Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others". Violating a body and subverting it to your will kinda fits with with the 'hurting' and 'opressing' items. Constructs are different, because those are akin to building a machine, then animating it. Undead used to be people. Reanimating them is akin to disrespect for the sanctity of life (and death, sorta).

My 2cp.

[Jack_Simth]

You actually can not bring someone back from the dead if their body has become an undead creature. Even True Resurrection requires that such a creature be destroyed before it can work. There may be some legitimacy to the claim that undead trap at least part of the original creature's soul.

Which, you know, would explain why the spells that create undead are [Evil] - you're ripping someone away from their eternal reward, imprisoning them in a prison of rotting flesh, and either having them sit and watch while their body does your bidding(in the case of controlled undead) or having them sit and watch as a malevolent entity does it's dirty work with their corpse (in the case of uncontrolled undead - I'm quite satisfied (happy isn't the right word...) with mindful undead being controlled by infernal/fiendish spirits drawn in for the purpose).

It would also explain why only some necromancy spells have the Evil descriptor - Waves of Exhaustion, while Necromancy, isn't evil - and others do (perhaps Deathwatch, while seemingly-innocuous, acts as a Summoning spell, bringing up an unclean spirit to do the dirty work of telling you who's likely to die first).

Of course, you'll also need to figure out why Summoning spells gain alignment descriptors - perhaps the Summon isn't forcibly removed, but somehow "paid" by the spell, strengthening that faction?

Now, granted, there are a handful of ways around the "no resurrection" restriction (Clone, and getting a Clone by way of Wish, specifically), but they're few and far between (and in the case of Clone, it could be argued that the clone ends up with it's own soul, and it's just the spell creating it that keeps it from waking while the original yet lives...).

[Drakevarg]

Admittedly no matter what I spit out during this discussion is going to be a weak arguement, since I personally don't believe necromancy is evil. Can you do evil stuff with it? Yes. But animating a corpse isn't evil. Making an intelligent undead without free will probably would be, though.

Even outside of DnD, when I make use of the undead in my own universe, the souls of the dead used for necromancy are completely insane and have no free will, since they're locked in their own mind in an unceasing nightmare. If a soul somehow got its sanity back, it wouldn't be useable as a power source for the undead. So it's not evil becasue a) the body isn't being used for anything, and offending people isn't evil, and b) the soul is so screwed up it won't even notice it's being used as a puppet. And if it ever does notice, that automatically cuts the strings.

So at least using that system, it literally becomes impossible for necromancy by itself to be evil. Now, the obtaination of the body and what you do with it afterwards are entirely different matters.

The biggest problem is that the entire system is locked in by WotC's arbitrary biases.

[elonin]

Doesn't it follow that it's cause the body is still in use. Otherwise the then raised person would have memory of the time spent undead. Or at the least hold some personality traits of the fallen victim.

[Lysander]

I do like the idea of a sentient plane, and undead as its agents. That'd be a great plot hook.

Here's my personal theory on why undeath is inherently evil.

Creating undead is evil because the undead are themselves evil. You're creating a creature that instinctively opposes life. Yeah, a necromancer can control them and use them for productive possibly even benevolent purposes. But it's basically the same as building an army of human-hating killbots and hoping their programming doesn't malfunction. It's also sort of, in a way, an ecological issue. Imagine a necromancer that runs a successful gold mine for several years with skeleton miners. Eventually the mine runs out of gold and necromancer leaves, or maybe he just dies of old age, and guess what's left behind. Uncontrolled skeletons that forever roam the land attacking travelers until they're destroyed.

The other side of it is that manipulating flesh and spiritual energy (if not the souls of specific people) that way is pretty ghastly. People assume that mindless undead are machines and don't deserve any sympathy. They're more like lobotomy patients trapped in hideous rotting forms. They may not think much but they see, they feel, they have enough of a sense of self to have 1 Charisma. It may be minimal personality, but there's something there, some spark that you have trapped and enslaved in eternal horror.

Now is the negative energy plane and negative energy itself evil? While I like your sentient version I think the standard DnD system is more an issue of yin & yang. Undead aren't something that was meant to exist. You're bringing an unnatural monster into being on a plane that was created for living creatures. Remember that death itself isn't evil - in DnD death is moving on to your deserved afterlife and progressing on a spiritual journey.

[LurkerInPlayground]

1. Undead can only be created from the deceased. This is a disrespectful use of their material form that you have infused with a false semebelence of life for your own purposes.

While it isn't particularly praiseworthy. I wouldn't particularly lose my balls over it.

A more reasonable tack is to say that it causes emotional distress to loved ones. However, not every corpse has loved ones. Or if it does, the "good races" don't care. If your orcs and trolls are basically pure evil, making zombies out of them isn't necessarily going to get anybody's panties in a bunch.

2. Due to the nature of magic, this disrespect for the dignity of life for your own personal gain plants a seed of evil within the undead, whether you intentionally did so or not.

Okay. It's disrespectful and about personal gain.

So it's about as evil as capitalism sometimes is. Or about as evil as your average two-bit shyster. Hardly a grand cosmic evil.

3. This evil, like most evil, can be used for good, but is not preferable to other, less evil ways of achieving ends. Hiring a band of plucky, low level adventurers to save the orphans doesn't cause any creatures mortal shell to be disrespected, and the effect is the same.

You'd have a point if I didn't use orc skeletons or something.

In which case, the whole "the ends does not justifies the means" thing falls apart.

But, to be fair, evil is still a relative term. This requires that you revere the housing of the soul, or the body.

Meh. D&D only used to have "chaos" and "law" as alignments.

Sentient Undead applies the same concept, but easier, since most of them have a choice whether or not to become undead, and most choose to do so for the power. The magic is tainted by your choice, therefore so is the body and thought that comes of it, making all sentient undead evil.

The interesting thing is a game ran by DM I read about pretty much had a lich who didn't believe in an afterlife or gods. And this was a setting where the gods' existence is ambiguous.

From this lich's perspective, undeath is far preferable to oblivion. With undeath, he can at least study and think.

[olentu]

Which, you know, would explain why the spells that create undead are [Evil] - you're ripping someone away from their eternal reward, imprisoning them in a prison of rotting flesh, and either having them sit and watch while their body does your bidding(in the case of controlled undead) or having them sit and watch as a malevolent entity does it's dirty work with their corpse (in the case of uncontrolled undead - I'm quite satisfied (happy isn't the right word...) with mindful undead being controlled by infernal/fiendish spirits drawn in for the purpose).

It would also explain why only some necromancy spells have the Evil descriptor - Waves of Exhaustion, while Necromancy, isn't evil - and others do (perhaps Deathwatch, while seemingly-innocuous, acts as a Summoning spell, bringing up an unclean spirit to do the dirty work of telling you who's likely to die first).

Of course, you'll also need to figure out why Summoning spells gain alignment descriptors - perhaps the Summon isn't forcibly removed, but somehow "paid" by the spell, strengthening that faction?

Now, granted, there are a handful of ways around the "no resurrection" restriction (Clone, and getting a Clone by way of Wish, specifically), but they're few and far between (and in the case of Clone, it could be argued that the clone ends up with it's own soul, and it's just the spell creating it that keeps it from waking while the original yet lives...).

Well a problem I see is that the spell would retain the evil descriptor even if animating a corpse for which a soul does not exist.

[LurkerInPlayground]

Really, another reasonable why necromancy would be evil is because using the magic in the first place involves vile premeditated acts. These acts would include deliberately bargaining with cosmic forces of Evil (demons/devils), human blood sacrifice, drinking the life energy of innocents, possessing their bodies or creating monsters that exist to prey upon the living.

In D&D, creating zombie just requires the desecration of a corpse. Maybe. It's kind of vaguely sort of evil.

[Bibliomancer]

Well a problem I see is that the spell would retain the evil descriptor even if animating a corpse for which a soul does not exist.

Such as?

In DnD there are few or no ways to destroy souls (soul binding merely traps it, and has the evil descriptor). Hypothetically, you can use the stone to flesh spell on normal stone to create a lump of soulless flesh, but since it has no structure it could not be converted into a normal undead (even if you cast this on a human-shaped statue).

[Drakevarg]

Such as?

In DnD there are few or no ways to destroy souls (soul binding merely traps it, and has the evil descriptor). Hypothetically, you can use the stone to flesh spell on normal stone to create a lump of soulless flesh, but since it has no structure it could not be converted into a normal undead (even if you cast this on a human-shaped statue).

Sphere of Anhialtion, Necrotic Termination, just to name two off the top of my head.