Undead and Souls

[Admiral Squish]

So, I'll be honest, I'm not actually sure how this relationship is supposed to work.
Does an undead creature contain the soul associated with the body? If it does, is the soul's will corrupted, suppressed, or simply absent? Or is the soul of an individual raised as an undead off floating around the planes, dealing with its ultimate fate while it's body operates independently? What about incorporeal undead? Are they souls that have somehow been corrupted to negative energy? What causes a body to become undead without magical input, anyways? Is it just 'ley lines' or something, or is there a concrete reason for them to come into existence? Does the mental state of the soul have some impact on the chances of becoming undead?
Do deathless work the same way, or do they involve the souls? Would it be possible to make deathless versions of regular undead? If it were possible, would there be a notable difference between a positive-powered skeleton and a negative-powered skeleton?
Are the above answers setting-dependent?

[jedipotter]

Depends on the game.

Most agree undead are trapped souls. They don't ''pass on to the better place'', they are stuck in the world.


Most games have the Dark Powers create a lot of undead.....it just happens. Someone does a horrible death, and evil takes over their body and they become undead.

Though plenty of games have created undead too.

The state of mind is a very common factor. Strong willed people become undead.

Deathless never really got much attention....

[Honest Tiefling]

Setting dependent or DM dependent, depending on your poison of choice. I've gotten several different answers about 3.0/3.5 DnD alone.

[goto124]

Mindless undead are often literally soulless, I think. And then we have the spirits, which are bodyless souls.

Where did I put the comic where a zombie and a ghost come from the same person...

[SiuiS]

The soul of an undead creature is present if it is an intelligent undead. Ghosts are souls, wraiths are souls, spectres are souls, vampires have souls, mummies have souls, liches are a special case where the rules say "undead have souls" but also "this guy removed his soul and put it in a rock".

Corruption of the will is implicit but anything up to and including the rule that undead are or have souls, are directly and explcitly campaign-specific. If you're playing a campaign setting, it has it's own rules and they a rent the same as any other campaign setting except incidentally.

[Geostationary]

It's really just something that you'll have to figure out on a case by case basis. Different settings and cosmologies work differently- for example, Exalted actually discusses the structure of the soul and how that plays into the various sorts of undead while as far as I know D&D isn't all that specific.

[hamishspence]

The soul of an undead creature is present if it is an intelligent undead. Ghosts are souls, wraiths are souls, spectres are souls, vampires have souls, mummies have souls, liches are a special case where the rules say "undead have souls" but also "this guy removed his soul and put it in a rock".

Complete Divine said that liches trap their souls in their own undead bodies.

Order of the Stick took the same approach - saying the soul only enters the phylactery when the body is slain.