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Thread: Why is creating undead Evil?
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2020-09-23, 09:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
What this scenario isn't considering is the 1-3 children, 6-12, grandchildren, etc that the person is not making because they no longer have the ability to reproduce. A society of undead, even if you wait for teenagers to properly mature, would stop growing in short order as none of the citizens would be having children. You would have to keep a stock of living citizens as breeding stock. Even then, the population would be so weighted toward the needs of the undead that maintaining the few living residents would become more costly than would be sustainable. It just wouldn't be cost-effective.Last edited by illyahr; 2020-09-23 at 09:16 PM.
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2020-09-23, 09:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
This actually does illuminate a major out-of-universe reason for the 'evil' attachment to animate dead. If mindless undead are simply fleshy or bony robots then you've created a necropunk world. The evil tag is a handwave that allows a GM to forbid their otherwise standard high fantasy from going the necropunk route 'because that would be bad' for reasons that it is considered unnecessary to justify.
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2020-09-23, 09:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
In the scenario I was talking about, teenager is metaphorical - the living are considered immature no matter their age; most people become undead when they're pretty old, although some might do it before taking age penalties, so in the 30-34 range.
And given that undead don't die as often (accidents can still happen, but no old age, disease, or malnutrition related deaths cuts things down hugely), and even the living will be safer with the most dangerous jobs delegated to low-status undead (mining, for example), even a society producing half the normal amount of children would probably grow quite fast.Last edited by icefractal; 2020-09-23 at 09:59 PM.
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2020-09-23, 10:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
I don't think he meant literal teenagers. And the needs of the undead are really a lot lower than they are for the living. Historically, the vast majority of labor went into agriculture, which undead do not need at all. Undead also don't need to sleep, so they are dramatically more efficient than the living. Mindless undead (who I think would probably be the majority) don't even have demands at all in the economic (or any other) sense, and will simply do whatever you tell them to do until they do something else. I would expect undead societies to have an enormous surplus of basically everything. Their main resource constraint is probably managing the ratio of vampires to the living so that people don't die of blood loss and vampire don't starve.
Except it doesn't fix that problem. If necromancy is Evil, that's fine. Because there are supposed to be Evil cultures that run around doing Evil. If the Elves, Dwarves, and Humans of the world forswear undead armies because they're gross, that doesn't magically stop the Goblins or Orcs from raising undead armies of their own. And since undead are basically better than comparable living troops (what with not needing food or rest, and not breaking due to morale), what that likely means is that the forces of Evil have conquered the world under their necro-empires. If you don't want a necro-punk setting, just declare that you don't have a necro-punk setting. The game doesn't need to or benefit from screwing over PC necromancers to make that happen.
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2020-09-24, 03:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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2020-09-24, 03:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
Last edited by noob; 2020-09-24 at 03:49 AM.
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2020-09-24, 04:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
I'm actually not sure about a complete lack of soul (some CG planes are sort-of a perfect wilderness afterlife, and in my games I've always ruled animals can be resurrected), but it's still Evil to mistreat animals and things that aren't as sapient/sentient as humans. They're still living beings and therefore are due some baseline amount of dignity - remember, Good doesn't champion respect for humanoids, it champions respect for all living beings.
And yes, most animals don't have cultural hang-ups about burial. But, again, in D&D morality is an absolute thing because Good and Evil are almost tangible, we have spells and magic items that can identify them with no error.
So if the rule is "creating undead is Evil because defilement of a corpse is always Evil, and the act of rising undead is always defilement as it interferes with the natural cycle and harms the soul in some way", then that applies to all corpses regardless of race or species.
I also want to insist that undead apparently mess up with souls even if creating a zombie doesn't trap the soul of the body's original owner. My theory is that it prevents resurrection and creates a sense of anguish and dread in the soul, causing pain to them in the afterlife until the undead is destroyed.
This also sort of addresses the point of "but what if I willingly give up my body for necromancy?" The necromancer is still causing you hurt even if you agreed to it. The fact a brave hero sacrifices themselves to let innocents escape does so willingly doesn't make the villain's murder of the hero any less evil just because the hero was willing to die at their hands.
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2020-09-24, 10:47 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
That's not what that means. It just means there are factions in D&D that are called "Good" and "Evil". Utilitarianism or Deontology or Virtue Ethics aren't somehow false in D&Dland because there's a spell that has different opinions from them. That doesn't make any sense. D&D alignment doesn't even map particularly well to real-world morality. Apparently it's morally not okay to steal power from the god of murder as an Ur-Priest, but totally fine to mentally enslave someone or boil their blood in their veins?
Basically, D&D alignment exists to provide a fig leaf for why dungeon crawling is okay. Asking it to do anything more than that, or getting into the metaphysical weeds of objective morality, causes more problems than it solves. If necromancy lets you provide a higher standard of living for your people while having them do less work, it's good by the standards players will actually apply.
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2020-09-24, 12:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
So now I'm picturing a twisted setting where undead-hating Druids *know* that they're not "servants of the balance"; they're intentionally making the world unbalanced to give the living unnaturally long lifespans, make flowers bloom brighter, etc.
Will the party right their wrongs, at the cost of returning/condemning humanity to a much more limited lifespan, or will they contribute the cover-up of "the balance" for their own benefit and continue the racist eradication of the "alternately ambulatory"?Last edited by Quertus; 2020-09-24 at 12:36 PM.
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2020-09-24, 12:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
Depending on how the entry defines "master", that's arguably you again with extra steps. As with many other D&D definitions, it's not cut and dry. I'd also question whether long term control of a sapient being and allowing his undead minions to persist would leave your alignment unchanged in perpetuity.
Remember that D&D rules only present the status quo and the underpinnings thereof. Your character's goal in their campaign could be to discover an ethical or "pollution-free" form of necromancy, including researching a custom reanimation spell that lacks any of the tags and produces neutral undead, and they may even succeed. Or they could rewrite the cosmology such that undead are stable magical creations like constructs instead of having a constant link to the NEP, solving spontaneous undead forever. You could even solve the issue of good spells not changing alignment. Just because a status quo exists doesnt mean it cant be changed or destroyed over the course of a campaign after all, and I think a post-industrial undead-fueled economy is a valid endpoint for any number of adventuring stories.Plague Doctor by Crimmy
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2020-09-24, 02:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
To the contrary, I like my evil necromancer concept. I want his evil to actually be evil, though, even when done through supreme callousness. I'm not bothered by animate dead being evil. I'm bothered by it being evil with a lame, "Mweeheeheehee I'm so edgy" sort of 'safe' evil.
I'm annoyed by it being evil-by-jersey-only.
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2020-09-24, 02:41 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
Getting back to the original question, creating undead is considered evil because it fits the general definition of desecrating corpses of most societies throughout history.
Because zombies, animated skeletons, ghouls, wraiths, vampires, etc. have been considered evil in most legends and stories about them for centuries -- possibly millennia.
This one was not a D&D invention. Having the dead walk while still dead (not resurrected, for instance) is pretty much considered evil.
There are very few stories about Count Dracula the Philanthropist, about the Zombie economic boom, or about the Egyptian mummy that comes out of the tomb to feed the poor.
And those few that exist are generally considered to be subverting expectations.Last edited by Jay R; 2020-09-24 at 02:42 PM.
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2020-09-24, 03:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
Right, yeah, BUT what I'm getting at is that you don't need explicit mechanical validation in order for there to be an in-universe stigma for undeath as gross and evil. In a medievel-ish magical setting, it does make sense for most places. Dead stuff come back is understandably unsettling at first contact. I think that sort of "logical conclusion scenario" is something that would be more fun as a possible option for the players to create down the line if it occurs to them, rather than an obvious starting point.
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2020-09-24, 04:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
I guess I'm confused then - because not only does the above have nothing at all to do with the info I provided ([good] spells not making you good), WotC did provide a concrete if broad reason why animating undead makes you evil, or at least callous so I don't see how that can be interpreted as "jersey-only."
I think it's worth asking the question though, because there's lots of magic that is unsettling without automatically being evil. There are spells that usurp your free will like Dominate or Enslave, spells that outright destroy your sapience like Baleful Polymorph and Feeblemind, and spells that can force you to turn on your friends and family like Friend to Foe or Insanity. So I think that going the extra mile to explain why making undead gets the [evil] tag while these sorts of spells don't is a worthwhile endeavor for a book like LM.Plague Doctor by Crimmy
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2020-09-24, 05:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
But you don't have to desecrate corpses to do necromancy. You could just cast Animate Dead on a bunch of horse or cow skeletons, getting you a plow team that never tires. People used animal bone tools for stuff, so it's hard to see how animal skeletons wouldn't be okay if necromancy actually did work. Moreover, this standard starts getting really uncomfortable really quickly (most societies throughout history had something that we would describe as slaves).
Having the dead walk while still dead (not resurrected, for instance) is pretty much considered evil.
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2020-09-24, 05:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
Some settings it isn't. But it depends on how it works in setting.
My game, some entities who trade in souls recently gave a character some knives, requesting he use them to do coup-de-grace on sentient enemies with.
Used in that way, the knives start to glow after a kill, and are to be returned then. The fluff specifies that victims cannot be raised, reincarnated... or Animated, or transformed into undead... unless the knife is destroyed. In other words, animating a skeleton requires the owner of the body's soul to be imprisoned inside.
This is not dissimilar to RAW, where you cannot bring someone back to life if part of their body, even part you aren't using for the spell, is being used to animate an undead creature, even so minor as a mindless skeleton.
That fluff makes undead usually a lot worse."We were once so close to heaven, Peter came out and gave us medals declaring us 'The nicest of the damned'.."
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2020-09-24, 06:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
I feel that necromancy being evil is best explained in light of Good and Evil being objective concrete forces in the D&D multiverse. In this context, the creation of undead being evil can be understood as an arbitrary physical reaction. Like why do radioacfive elements decay? There's a material cause but there's not a reason.
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2020-09-24, 08:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
Some notions:
Animate Dead is [Evil], but creation of Blood Golem is non-aligned?
Really?
30 gallons of blood? (Not from a Dragon or Outsider) Must be a heck of donation...
Not just animating, but even summoning Zombies is [Evil] - despite you're neither creating something new, nor even summoning it for particularly long time (1 round/level)
Meanwhile, summoning a Flesh Golem is (again!) non-aligned - despite it being made of, essentially, the same materials as a Zombie, animated with the very same spell as a Zombie, equipped with imprisoned tortured Elemental, and (unlike a Zombie!) may go on rampage at the drop of hat...
Now, there was said a lot about the alleged Evil/Negative "pollution"...
Wait a minute...
Where, exactly, we animating our hypothetical Zombie?
Because I don't see clause about Animate Dead stopping being [Evil], if cast on the Negative Energy Plane, or in the Abyss...
The Sticks and Stones spell isn't [Evil], despite it can create Wights (and not even "Wights at the next sunset", but "Wights in 1d4 rounds")
Consecrate Spell and Purify Spell [metamagic] add [Good] descriptor to a spell.
Thus, Consecrated Purified Animate Dead causing more Good than Evil...
Dirgesinger PrC (Libris Mortis): Song of Awakening - which creates actual Undead (even if just for a short time) isn't labeled as [Evil] - unlike the Song of Bolstering "... bolster undead creatures against turning, much as an evil cleric does"
White Arcanist PrC in Ravenloft (Heroes of Light) is not just non-Evil, but must be Virtuous (it's one of requirements). Meanwhile, this PrC not just a Necromancy specialist, but at capstone becomes Undead - Ghost...
Correction: healing in 3.5 is mostly Conjuration (healing);
Necromancy, usually, heals something only if it's draining health from somebody else (although Death Pact restores you from the death - and not as Undead)
Healing was Necromancy in 2E AD&D
Attempt to disproving absence of something by proving presence of something completely different is a red herring.
So, let's see - known Mabar manifest zones are:
Aundaire - Floating Towers of Arcanix (maybe-manmade manifest zones, tied to any plane except Dal Quor)
Breland - Faded Forest
Corvagura region of Riedra - Shanjueed Jungle
Eldeen Reaches - The Gloaming
Sarlona - Wild Zones (especially strong manifest zones for unspecified planes - with actual planar traits, and Outsiders there aren't considered extraplanar, and can't be banished)
Tashana Tundra - Aukaraks (Reality Storms: fleeting, unstable manifest zones, and can be tied to any plane except Dal Quor)
Thrane - Valin Field
Xen'drik - manifest zones to most other planes
But what's about Karrnath?
Where's its Mabar manifest zone?
Sorry, but Fort Bones is 4E - thus, doesn't exist for this subforum...Last edited by ShurikVch; 2020-09-25 at 05:16 AM.
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2020-09-24, 08:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
I'm digging up a discussion from earlier in this thread because there's a possibility that you've both overlooked: that negative and positive energy simultaneously cancel out on a statistical level while not canceling out on an individual level.
I'll use a real-world example to illustrate this point. Suppose I own a chemical factory and carelessly dump carcinogenic pollution into the local river. Alice gets cancer and dies. Later, Bob develops cancer for unrelated reasons and I donate money to allow him undergo a new and expensive form of treatment, ultimately saving his life. Statistically, I've done as much good as harm. They cancel out. The total amount of death due to cancer remains the same as if I had done neither. Individually . . . well, Alice is still dead. Saving Bob cannot change that.
Bringing this back to DnD, we could have a situation where casting both evil and good spells in equal measure will create a world where the total amount of darkness/light, compassion/hate, suffering/flourishing etc. remains the same but each is now happening to different people. While the total amount of general badness in the world remains the same, some of that is now the spellcaster's fault. Moral responsibility for causing harm has a greater impact on someone's alignment than moral responsibility for preventing harm, so that caster's alignment would take a turn downwards as a result.
Under this interpretation, there is one way that equal and opposite good and evil acts might cancel - and that is if both are done to the same person, having effects of the same nature on that person, such that the net effect is null. In cases where a character has released energy into the world that could indirectly cause any sort of harm to anyone, it's impossible for them to know who they'd need to compensate and how - so certain spells can be Evil because of "evil pollution" and, although "good pollution" will statistically counter the effect that these spells have on the world, it will not counter the effect that these spells have on the caster's alignment.
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2020-09-24, 08:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
Animal skeletons are OK. Animal skeletons that walk around after they have died are not OK, in virtually every culture in history.
I cannot reply directly to your comment about slaves, due to forum rules.. But it is irrelevant to a discussion of how corpses should be treated.
No. Just no. Virtually all stories about the walking dead assume they are evil. This isn't because every author for thousands of years just happened to make the same choice independently. They do evil stuff because they are evil because they are unnatural beings who are supposed to be dead and they aren't. Really.
I can't cite sources because of the rules for this forum, but it's really true. They have been presumed to be unnatural, and that implies that they are evil.
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2020-09-24, 09:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
None of those cultures had access to necromancy. Lots of modern medicine is stuff that, for very good reason, was considered deeply creepy in the past. But that's not a good reason to reject organ transplants or blood transfusions now, because we can do those things safely and they save (or prolong) lives. Skeleton Oxen are totally safe as long as they are controlled. There is absolutely no reason to believe that a culture in a world where that was true would behave in the same way as one from our world.
They have been presumed to be unnatural, and that implies that they are evil.
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2020-09-25, 12:12 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
Furthermore, in both D&D and folklore, lots of types of the undead can arise spontaneously without the intervention of fiends or necromancers, and are therefore, by definition, NOT unnatural.
Mohrgs, for example arise naturally from the bodies of unrepentent murderers, and ghouls arise naturally from the bodies of cannibals. No fiends or necromancers needed.
EDIT:
I suppose they could be unnatural if they did these things specifically with the intention of cheating death, but that doesn't seem to be a thing that we see.
EDIT:
You CAN bring them back to life with Reincarnate or True Resurrection and THEN animate their body however.
Although, I suppose blocking resurrection could be evil by itself, even without trapping souls. Although the level of evil would depend on the availability of resurrection and the shabbiness of the afterlife; at least one of these factors would have to be significant for blocking resurrection to really matter in the grand scheme of thingsLast edited by Bohandas; 2020-09-25 at 12:36 AM.
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2020-09-25, 06:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
I'm pretty sure stopping someone from being returned to life isn't Evil, because there's a spell that's literally called Trap the Soul, and it doesn't get the Evil tag. Again, "Evil" does not represent a coherent moral system. It represents "these guys are the villains in dungeons".
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2020-09-25, 01:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
There's some very noteworthy exceptions to these, but I can't go into them because they involve Romanian history and a popular mainstream religion, respectively.
EDIT:
There's also a specifically egyptian one for the second one tok but I can't go into that either as it involves mythologyLast edited by Bohandas; 2020-09-25 at 01:13 PM.
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2020-09-25, 01:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
I think he's just flat wrong. Generally speaking, if you are dead then come back, that's totally okay if you come back looking normal and act like a normal person afterwards. What makes it evil is when you come back looking like a creepy monster and do evil stuff afterwards. Which, again, "people who look creepy are inherently bad" is not a great moral precedent.
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2020-09-25, 03:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
Interestingly, the undead could be viewed as a metapbor for the persistence of such cultures' values. An awful thing from the past that should have departed long ago, but yet persists and continues to torment those who still live. It can convert the living into more of itself. And it is usually either mindless or decadently corrupt
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2020-09-25, 04:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
But I'm not, cuz it's dead and I'm utilizing every part of it's body. Does me eating a bull disrespect the bull?
And Good and Evil are factions with that label in DnD. It's absolute because Heironious/Torm say it is, and I will say they are generally good, but they can also be right jerks and aren't perfect. See the fact that Deathatch is somehow Evil
It doesn't cause harm to the soul, the reason you can't Raise Dead someone who's body is currently animated is incredibly simple: It's cuz the corpse is occupied. The negative energy is simply occupying the spot a soul would inside of the corpse and therefore the soul can't go back unless the undead is destroyed or you use a more power Rez that doesn't need a body.
This is far more in line than having a 3rd level spell mess with a soul.
This reminds me of something. How the hell is making a Golem not evil? You are literally trapping an Elemental inside of an artificial body, a being that is intelligent mind you, and making it do whatever you want.
"But Undead make Negative energy pollution!" And Golem's enslave intelligent Elementals, which is worse!!Last edited by Blackhawk748; 2020-09-25 at 04:54 PM.
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2020-09-25, 04:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
Sometimes, I have strong opinions on seemingly inconsequential matters.
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2020-09-25, 05:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?
Last edited by Bohandas; 2020-09-25 at 05:04 PM.
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Re: Why is creating undead Evil?