Undead Celestials

[Fhaolan]

A comment in another thread caught my eye, and made me puzzle over it for a moment. I decided, out of curiousity, to find out what the opinions are of other DMs in this forum.

Do you allow Undead Outsiders? I mean, say a demon dies... can it be made in a form of undead in your campaigns?

In my campaign, that's not technically possible. Just like there can't be succubi paladin in my campaign. Celestials, Demons, Devils, etc. are pretty much alignment elementals. You can't have a Lawful demon in the same way you can't have a fire elemental made of water. It's nonsensical. These creatures aren't technically alive in the first place, so they can't be made into undead.

But that's just my campaign. Could this happen in your campaigns? Can you have a Guardinal Ghoul? A zombie devil? A Lich that used to be a Hound Archon?

[EvilElitest]

A comment in another thread caught my eye, and made me puzzle over it for a moment. I decided, out of curiousity, to find out what the opinions are of other DMs in this forum.

Do you allow Undead Outsiders? I mean, say a demon dies... can it be made in a form of undead in your campaigns?

In my campaign, that's not technically possible. Just like there can't be succubi paladin in my campaign. Celestials, Demons, Devils, etc. are pretty much alignment elementals. You can't have a Lawful demon in the same way you can't have a fire elemental made of water. It's nonsensical. These creatures aren't technically alive in the first place, so they can't be made into undead.

But that's just my campaign. Could this happen in your campaigns? Can you have a Guardinal Ghoul? A zombie devil? A Lich that used to be a Hound Archon?

Deathless from the Ebberon champain settings are undead that use positive energy instead of negative, but they are still cold heartless bastards. In my champain too i make outsider like celestrail, demon, devil ect. always of their aligment becuase i view them as the living embodyment of that perticual aligment. I don't think you should change that. However, undead outsider do exits with demons and devil. Orcus can raise them. I don't know the details though, sorry.
From,
EE

[kamikasei]

On the one hand, don't 'dead' outsiders automatically reform out of the stuff of the plane?

On the other hand, aren't there demonflesh golems? And didn't Orcus or one of those devil/demon lords come back as some sort of undead?

Personally I wouldn't allow it. Like you say, they're not really alive to start with, in any way that would let them become undead.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

Demonflesh is special. See, the trick is to rip it off the demon while it's still alive, then trap it's soul in the flesh so that it doesn't fade away. I tell you, best pair of jeans money can buy.

[Raistlin1040]

How are demons, devils, celestials "not alive"? I can see it with elementals but with outsiders? No. I'd allow them to become undead in my campaigns. In fact I think I will!

[ishi]

They're certainly "alive" but there's some major difference between outsiders and other living things. I don't remember where I saw this(or maybe it's only in my head), but I think I remember reading that whereas humans and other non-outsiders have a dualistic self, body and soul, whereas outsiders have only one unit that comprises both body and soul.

That said, I wouldn't see any problem with allowing demon-skeletons or something. Actually, for some of the more human-like outsiders, I might allow other undead templates. Vampiric Succubi would be an interesting opponent...

[Viscount Einstrauss]

I'm trying to imagine that vampiric succubus. All I get are very disturbing images of some sexual fetish gone horribly wrong.

[Raistlin1040]

...alright VE. You have successfully used a craft disturbing mental image

[Thomas]

Vampire succubus = sexy to the second power.

[ishi]

I just became the Creepy Fetishist in the Playground, didn't I?

In an high-level campaign, I once got sick of playing mages and clerics, so I tried a bizarre skillmonkey in the form of a Succubus Rogue/Exemplar. Near-useless in combat, but a lot of fun to roleplay in social situations, and NO seduction. Ever since that character, I've really liked the succubus as a Master of Disguise rather than as a seductress.

[TheOOB]

I usually don't allow undead outsiders. Outsiders soul and body are contained in one unit, and undead are a body animated through necromancy. In my campaigns at least when an outsider dies their body drifts to the outer planes along with their soul, thus making any attempts to animate them pointless.

The only exception I can think of off the top of my head are vampires, as vampirism is just as must a disease as anything else and doesn't rely on animating a corpse, instead it changes the creature while their still alive. I suppose there are a few other aquired templates that might also work, except lich definatly wouldn't work (once again outsiders body=soul, thus you can't remove their soul from their body).

[Ramza00]

Vampire succubus = sexy to the second power.

A half vampire succubus is sexy.

Sleeping with the dead is not sexy.

[Fhaolan]

How are demons, devils, celestials "not alive"? I can see it with elementals but with outsiders? No. I'd allow them to become undead in my campaigns. In fact I think I will!

In my case, it's a pure campaign thing. Meaning that in my campaign there is no effective difference between an outsider and an elemental, because that's the way I designed my campaign. My campaign cosmology is *completely* different from what the standard D&D ones are, so my answers to these kinds of questions are going to be completely different than anyone elses. Which is why I was curious and asked the question to see what other people would do.

Just as a sample, here's the basic cosmology of my campaign, in a more flippant form than I normally describe it. In the beginning there was this God. He was bored, so he made himself a wife. The wife complained that there was no furniture for her to make him move, so he created the eight types of elementals (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Void, Tree, Lightning, Ice) and made them create Utopia. Once they were done, they created their own little worlds on the edge of creation in order to stay as far away from the expanding family of squabbling Gods. [Eight elemental demi-planes spinning around the main God-plane.] Each God partitions off part of Utopia into their own demi-plane home. For example, the Tower of Mistress Sun. Experimenting with the concepts of morality and ethics, the Gods created incarnations of the variations [Devils, Demons, etc.], using the elementals as templates. These creatures are no more 'alive' than elementals. Mortality, reproduction, all that hasn't been invented yet.

Because the various elementals, devils, celestials, etc. are pure incarnations of their aspects, they are predictable and the Gods get bored again. They decide to experiment with the new concepts of free will and mortality. To keep Utopia from being tainted with it, they partition off a chunk and put boundries between it and Utopia. This is the 'Mortal World', and the boundries become known as the Shadowlands (full of dead things) and the Mirrorlands (full of dopplegangers and boggles/goblins). Mortals are sometimes infused of elemental/demonic/celestial stuff to produce half-breeds, and the descendants of these halfbreeds become the Fey, like nixies, dryads, and sprites.

And then there are the things that come from 'outside' the multiverse. Things that come from the place that first God came from. Mindflayers, Beholders, and other, far less pleasant things. The Outer Dark, which nearly everyone refuses to admit exists.

So on, so forth. You get the idea. My campaign cosmology just doesn't work in the normal 3rd edition D&D way. It has been designed, and redesigned, and reworked, all the way from Original D&D, through 1st edition, 2nd edition, 3rd edition, Paladium, GURPS, Rolemaster, several home-brew systems, and so on. This thing is way past the point where I'm bound by what WotC prints in whatever splatbook is currently in vogue for transplanar campaigns.

[TheOOB]

A half vampire succubus is sexy.

Sleeping with the dead is not sexy.

Using the varient rules in the "Tome of Necromancy" something everyone should consider doing vampires are still, for the most part alive, for example as long as you have at least some basic knowledge of undead(1 rank in knowledge(religion) you can crit them.

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=632562

[Closet_Skeleton]

Liber Mortis has an undead called a "Visage" which is an undead demon. If you're using Templates then according to Savage Species' type pyramid, an Outsider can be given an undead template and gain all the benifits but his type would not change. A Vampire Succubus is legal and would have Blood dependancy and other vampire powers and weaknesses but would still be an Outsider since it came from another plane.

[Illiterate Scribe]

Some person at WotC created a thing called a 'necromental', an undead elemental, and thus caused the entire planar cosmology to come crashing down.

It's a being made entirely from fire energy ... and entirely from negative energy.

[Talya]

A half vampire succubus is sexy.

Sleeping with the dead is not sexy.

Unless you're a fan of Joss Whedon.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Unless you're a fan of Joss Whedon.

I'm sure you can be a fan of Joss Whedon entirely without being a Necrophile. I mean, you could like Alien Resurection. Wait...

[Sam K]

In my case, it's a pure campaign thing. Meaning that in my campaign there is no effective difference between an outsider and an elemental, because that's the way I designed my campaign. My campaign cosmology is *completely* different from what the standard D&D ones are, so my answers to these kinds of questions are going to be completely different than anyone elses. Which is why I was curious and asked the question to see what other people would do.

Just as a sample, here's the basic cosmology of my campaign, in a more flippant form than I normally describe it. In the beginning there was this God. He was bored, so he made himself a wife. The wife complained that there was no furniture for her to make him move, so he created the eight types of elementals (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Void, Tree, Lightning, Ice) and made them create Utopia. Once they were done, they created their own little worlds on the edge of creation in order to stay as far away from the expanding family of squabbling Gods. [Eight elemental demi-planes spinning around the main God-plane.] Each God partitions off part of Utopia into their own demi-plane home. For example, the Tower of Mistress Sun. Experimenting with the concepts of morality and ethics, the Gods created incarnations of the variations [Devils, Demons, etc.], using the elementals as templates. These creatures are no more 'alive' than elementals. Mortality, reproduction, all that hasn't been invented yet.

Because the various elementals, devils, celestials, etc. are pure incarnations of their aspects, they are predictable and the Gods get bored again. They decide to experiment with the new concepts of free will and mortality. To keep Utopia from being tainted with it, they partition off a chunk and put boundries between it and Utopia. This is the 'Mortal World', and the boundries become known as the Shadowlands (full of dead things) and the Mirrorlands (full of dopplegangers and boggles/goblins). Mortals are sometimes infused of elemental/demonic/celestial stuff to produce half-breeds, and the descendants of these halfbreeds become the Fey, like nixies, dryads, and sprites.

And then there are the things that come from 'outside' the multiverse. Things that come from the place that first God came from. Mindflayers, Beholders, and other, far less pleasant things. The Outer Dark, which nearly everyone refuses to admit exists.

So on, so forth. You get the idea. My campaign cosmology just doesn't work in the normal 3rd edition D&D way. It has been designed, and redesigned, and reworked, all the way from Original D&D, through 1st edition, 2nd edition, 3rd edition, Paladium, GURPS, Rolemaster, several home-brew systems, and so on. This thing is way past the point where I'm bound by what WotC prints in whatever splatbook is currently in vogue for transplanar campaigns.

I quite like that setting. You sir (or ma'am, or whatnot) get a pancake.

[Fhaolan]

I quite like that setting. You sir (or ma'am, or whatnot) get a pancake.

Why thank you. I do like waking up in the morning and being presented with a pancake.

There's a lot more to the campaign world, mostly to do with 'mortal' history, but it's not relevant to this discussion. Some day I might write the whole mess up, but there is an advantage to just holding it in memory. As I learn new ideas from books, movies and games, I can just decide that idea is valid in the campaign without having to re-write 'published' material. If there are conflicts between the new concept and something I said before, it's just a 'Ah, mortals just can't comprehend the true reality of the multiverse.' situation.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

Hey, I liked Firefly.

And Whedon himself hated Alien Ressurection.

[Matthew]

A half vampire succubus is sexy.

Sleeping with the dead is not sexy.

Hmmn. The Undead are not actually dead, as I understand it. They are between life and death (and to varying degrees).

Nah, I don't allow Undead Outsiders. As far as I am concerned, they are beyond life and death.

[jono]

I would. In fact I've just finished creating a bunch of vampire tieflings (non-native outsiders). I think i refered to them as "Undead Augmented Outsider(Tiefling)/lvl 3 Fighter"

As for allowing them, why exactly not? I'd never let a player use them, but templates are there for a reason; they let you create weird monster variants without having to create them from scratch. And I like to abuse the templates, so I do!!!

[Piedmon_Sama]

I'm trying to imagine that vampiric succubus. All I get are very disturbing images of some sexual fetish gone horribly wrong.

There's a great short story from one issue of Hellblazer about the children of a Vampire and a Succubus. They looked like ordinary children, until they went into "feeding mode" and then turned into little mutant bat-monsters that would tear people to shreds like a whirlwind of flying blades... and as soon as one of them became old enough for sexual reproduction, all its younger siblings were instinctively compelled to rip it to shreds and eat it.

[pyroguy_93]

On a similar idea, what about outsiders contracting lycanthropy

[The_Snark]

Liber Mortis has an undead called a "Visage" which is an undead demon. If you're using Templates then according to Savage Species' type pyramid, an Outsider can be given an undead template and gain all the benifits but his type would not change. A Vampire Succubus is legal and would have Blood dependancy and other vampire powers and weaknesses but would still be an Outsider since it came from another plane.

It isn't technically legal, actually, according to the book. The example it gives is a Ghost Barghest, stating that it is not technically legal by the rules, but if you, as DM, decided you were going to do it anyway, this is how it probably ought to be handled. The type pyramid doesn't really make sense, since each template states what it can be applied to and what it can't be applied to.

On a vaguely related note, Fiend Folio has demons that are essentially demonic vampires and demonic ghouls.

I can't see outsiders contracting lycanthropy, myself.

[Khantalas]

Basically, umm, well, there are simply no undead templates that I can think of vampires can acquire.

However, there are rules for lichfiends in LM, which lets you make your outsiders undead with slightly changing the lich template.

Besides, who the hell told you souls leave undead bodies, anyway?

[Closet_Skeleton]

Besides, who the hell told you souls leave undead bodies, anyway?

Chinese Mythology? Well, in that case only 50% of your soul does.

I think the whole point of killing undead is to allow the souls to enter the afterlife. Then again, vampires have no souls (provable with mirrors) according to Bram Stoker and I'm getting the soul freeing thing from him.

Darn it. Logic, differant cultures and vampires do not mix well at 12 AM...

Mirror shy. Yes, that's it. Vampire souls are shy. That's why they don't appear in mirrors.

[Khantalas]

Silly thing that always bothered me, if vampires don't appear in mirrors because they have no souls, what's the friggin' deal with Angel?

Meh, my undead are silly like that, actually retaining their souls and all that.

Undead are still not inherently evil. Don't bring that up again.

[The_Snark]

Undead are still not inherently evil. Don't bring that up again.

It depends on your campaign setting, really; if you've decided that negative energy is a foul force that corrupts the life and mind of those who use it, than yes, undead are likely going to be evil, with a few exceptions (and even those will end up brooding and conflicted). If it's not, then it is sort of silly for undead to be inherently evil.

I always thought undead retained their souls too. I mean, that's why they're still alive... un-alive. Look at ghosts; if they don't have a soul, what are they?

The exception is the lich, who stores his soul in his phylactery.