Why is creating undead Evil?

[Troacctid]

Houseruling animate dead and (most) other undead-creation spells so that they channel both negative energy and capital-E Evil energy and that undead are actually "always Evil" (yes, even then), and have uncontrolled, even mindless, undead be horrifically destructive, while causing pain to the soul in the afterlife (regardless of alignment) would fix this whole debacle.

That's not even a houserule so much as a valid interpretation of the existing rules that's 100% consistent with the text, AFAICT.

[Segev]

As for what effects evil pollution has, that's easy, it corrupts and defiles the land. You've seen it a million times in media. Scar was probably casting a lot of evil spells after he usurped the throne from Mufasa.

Okay. What does good pollution do, then? If Scar instead cast tons and tons of good-aligned spells, what would the Pride Lands have looked like?

That's a commonly held opinion in-universe. You wouldn't be the first to believe that it's inconsequential because it's not obviously hurting anyone directly. It shows a level of callousness that tends to preclude a good alignment.

If it takes thousands of people all doing it with abandon, then it's not hurting anybody anyway, and casting a good spell or two to counterbalance should be just fine as a "clean-up" measure.

No, it's not callousness. It's rejection of a lame excuse. It also requires the contribution to be so small as to be unnoticeable per casting, so if you do notable good with each casting, you're already ahead of the game.

I want my acts of definite evil to actually be evil, not be "dark and edgy." "I wear dark eyeshadow and black clothes, write goth poetry, and cast animate dead," should be up there with "I wear dark eyeshadow and black clothes, write goth poetry, and beat my kid when I get angry," not on par with, "I wear dark eyeshadow and black clothes, write goth peotry, and put a spiked collar on my chihuahua."

[Psyren]

Only if negative energy and death (no matter the cause) are inherently evil. Which they aren't.

It's true that negative energy itself isn't evil - but neither is radioactive waste, and pouring it into a lake or meadow would still be an evil act.

Per Libris Mortis, negative energy makes it easier for uncontrolled undead to enter the world that the necromancer didn't intend. There are a vast quantity of undead creatures that can arise spontaneously from various circumstances, and LM/BoVD state that unchecked necromancy can mean more of them. Nobody knows exactly what makes some executed serial killers become Mohrgs while the others simply die off for example, but in nations where necromancy is widespread, you will get more of the former. Similarly, not all neglected children become Slaymates and not everyone who dies with unfinished business becomes a Ghost, but the ones that do likely do so due to some presence of "ambient" negative energy.

Likewise, healing should be evil for tipping the balance (and summoning the Jenova expy Elder Evil). Which it isn't.

I think positive energy doesn't have a similar effect for a few reasons:

1) The universe tends towards entropy anyway - it might take trillions and trillions of years, but negative energy is very slowly winning. So while widespread necromancy can speed things up in the downward direction, the same is not true for a bunch of healing reversing that trend in the other direction.

2) The nature of the two energies is different. Negative energy feeds on, well, everything - up to and including other energies. Positive energy, specifically the variety used in healing, has inherent limits placed on it, such as (in most cases) not being able to heal someone beyond their hit point total, maximum stats, or an otherwise healthy state. Positive spells that could do damage to living creatures in this way likely exist, but they are either not well-known or not easily accessible by most casters.

[Quertus]

Reading some of these responses, I feel like Luke: "so, the dark side is stronger?"

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On the one hand, dumping toxins into the rivers to kill off a village and, ultimately, potentially the whole campaign world, sounds pretty evil to me, regardless of how many "trees" one plants, and regardless of whether those trees ultimately are enough to eventually counteract that pollution. The village is still dead.

On the other hand, "Eberon makes it make perfect sense, because it says 'I said so, make it up for yourself'" is the opposite of an improvement. That just spreads the nonsense / lack of sense over *more* layers, rather than actually clarifying anything about the underlying mechanics.

-----

Side question: we have the books, so we know that Animate Dead has the [evil] tag. But is there any way for characters in the world to empirically determine this fact (not through asking others, but to actually scientifically test / observe the phenomenon?)?

[Troacctid]

On the other hand, "Eberon makes it make perfect sense, because it says 'I said so, make it up for yourself'" is the opposite of an improvement. That just spreads the nonsense / lack of sense over *more* layers, rather than actually clarifying anything about the underlying mechanics.

Is there anything about the underlying mechanics that particularly needs to be clarified? The spell has the evil descriptor, which has clearly defined mechanical effects. The undead it creates also have an evil alignment, which has mechanical effects as well. Seems like the mechanics are all neatly locked up. The more interesting question is, what kind of story do we want to tell? Why does it matter to the plot?

Side question: we have the books, so we know that Animate Dead has the [evil] tag. But is there any way for characters in the world to empirically determine this fact (not through asking others, but to actually scientifically test / observe the phenomenon?)?

Evil spells leave behind a lingering aura that can be detected by detect evil. It doesn't give you any information as to why it's evil, just that it is evil.

[Psyren]

Side question: we have the books, so we know that Animate Dead has the [evil] tag. But is there any way for characters in the world to empirically determine this fact (not through asking others, but to actually scientifically test / observe the phenomenon?)?

In settings that contain locales (cities or nations) where necromancy is widespread, a character could in theory compare the number or likelihood of spontaneous/uncontrolled undead in those locations to nations where necromancy is more tightly regulated or outright banned. For example, in Golarion, the nation of Geb has legal necromancy and is teeming with spontaneous undead. It's not impossible that this fact could have other root causes, but the most likely driver is the much higher incidence of "allowed" necromancy in this place and places like it.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

That's not even a houserule so much as a valid interpretation of the existing rules that's 100% consistent with the text, AFAICT.

Err, no? Animate dead etc don't channel evil energy (capital-E or otherwise), skeletons don't do anything at all if uncontrolled, by RAW, zombies only do what their masters tell them to, and such effects don't cause damage or pain to the soul.

That's why I said they're houserules.

[Troacctid]

Err, no? Animate dead etc don't channel evil energy (capital-E or otherwise), skeletons don't do anything at all if uncontrolled, by RAW, zombies only do what their masters tell them to, and such effects don't cause damage or pain to the soul.

That's why I said they're houserules.

That's also a valid reading of the rules.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

That's also a valid reading of the rules.

If you mean, "that's what the rules say, and the others are houserules," yeah.

[Silly Name]

Okay. What does good pollution do, then? If Scar instead cast tons and tons of good-aligned spells, what would the Pride Lands have looked like?

Why does good "pollution" need to exist? Why should it be as strong as the lingering effects of Evil?

But if it were to exist, I assume it would make things brighter, healthier, more peaceful. If we subscribe to the idea that too much Good is bad (which I've always found profoundly dumb), it may turn the area too lively, too bountiful and its inhabitants too passive, leading to an overpopulated region easily taken over.

If it takes thousands of people all doing it with abandon, then it's not hurting anybody anyway, and casting a good spell or two to counterbalance should be just fine as a "clean-up" measure.

Sure... the same way that throwing a single cigarette or plastic cup in a river won't upset the ecosystem. And everyone who throws cups and cigarettes in the river thinks "meh, just one won't hurt anybody", until the river is full of waste and all the fish are dead or poisoned. If Evil spells indeed create pollution, and it works this way, every little Evil spell contributes to creating a worse environment.

[Psyren]

If you mean, "that's what the rules say, and the others are houserules," yeah.

Unless you're speaking exclusively lojban, ambiguity and interpretation is a part of language, and rules are based on language.

For example, saying "animate dead doesn't channel [evil] energy" is not definite, because it clearly has the [evil] descriptor, so it depends on your definition of "channel", which the game rules do a poor job of defining. And hostile skeletons/zombies are found uncontrolled in official modules and even encounter tables all the time.

[Segev]

Why does good "pollution" need to exist? Why should it be as strong as the lingering effects of Evil?

Why does "evil pollution" need to exist? Why should it be as strong as the lingering effects of Good?

We have [good] spells whose very casting is a good act, so if the explanation for [evil] spells being inherently evil is "evil pollution," why would the explanation for [good] spells being inherently good be any different?

But if it were to exist, I assume it would make things brighter, healthier, more peaceful. If we subscribe to the idea that too much Good is bad (which I've always found profoundly dumb), it may turn the area too lively, too bountiful and its inhabitants too passive, leading to an overpopulated region easily taken over.

Alright, so if you have good pollution making an area brighter, healthier, and more peaceful, and evil pollution making an area darker, blighted, and more violent, it would seem that having both would make the area both brighter and darker, healthier and more blighted, and more peaceful and more violent. This would, in fact, cancel out.

[Troacctid]

Why does "evil pollution" need to exist? Why should it be as strong as the lingering effects of Good?

We have [good] spells whose very casting is a good act, so if the explanation for [evil] spells being inherently evil is "evil pollution," why would the explanation for [good] spells being inherently good be any different?

I don't understand? I feel like you were complaining before about the rules being inconsistent? But it seems like the only reason they're inconsistent is because you're insisting on assumptions like these that make them inconsistent? And they would work totally fine if you relaxed those assumptions, which, as far as I can tell, aren't based on anything in the text?

[Segev]

I don't understand? I feel like you were complaining before about the rules being inconsistent? But it seems like the only reason they're inconsistent is because you're insisting on assumptions like these that make them inconsistent? And they would work totally fine if you relaxed those assumptions, which, as far as I can tell, aren't based on anything in the text?

I'm insisting that the whole pollution concept is either inconsistent or lame, if not both. If it's lame but not inconsistent, it's easily mitigated by doing some generic good that counteracts potential evil that might one day maybe arise from it, or casting a [good] spell to counterbalance it. Which kind-of makes it lame, anyway.

I've given examples of what would be satisfyingly unavoidable evil, in contrast to the silly "evil pollution" idea. I'm not happy with them for other reasons, but they at least point in the direction I think a solution has to lie.

[Psyren]

We have [good] spells whose very casting is a good act, so if the explanation for [evil] spells being inherently evil is "evil pollution," why would the explanation for [good] spells being inherently good be any different?

The issue here is that casting good spells can't change your alignment by themselves (BoED pg. 7) while the opposite is true for evil spells (BoVD, FC2) so the "cancel out" argument doesn't work. Yes, it's a double-standard, but that's how it works in the D&D game.

I'm insisting that the whole pollution concept is either inconsistent or lame, if not both.

Of course it's inconsistent - doing good being harder than doing evil is a common trope in fiction. "There wouldn't need to be paladins if the world was fair," etc.

[Unavenger]

Also, "Good is harder than evil" isn't even an unreasonable point. It would take years to build something that I can destroy in minutes, decades to nurture a person who I could kill in seconds, millenia to build a society that an army can tear down in a few days, and aeons to build up a world that we are destroying in decades and can potentially annihilate in two hours flat. Of course it is easier to do evil than it is to do good.

My main gripe with the "Cosmological balance tilts" or "Pollution" or whatever arguments isn't that, and it's not that they're never actually represented mechanically and therefore it's hard to argue that they're actually relevant anyway. No, my main problem with them is that they're platitudinous coverups for a system that glorifies disproportionate posthumous retribution and stipulates a variety of moral tenets that now make even WotC themselves, who wrote the damn things, recoil in disgust.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Unless you're speaking exclusively lojban, ambiguity and interpretation is a part of language, and rules are based on language.

For example, saying "animate dead doesn't channel [evil] energy" is not definite, because it clearly has the [evil] descriptor, so it depends on your definition of "channel", which the game rules do a poor job of defining. And hostile skeletons/zombies are found uncontrolled in official modules and even encounter tables all the time.

Well, "it doesn't say it isn't" isn't really much of an argument for a positive rule identification, and who's to say that the "uncontrolled" undead aren't carrying out their last orders?

As the rules stand, skeletons and zombies only do stuff they're told to do, and nothing else. Any module designers that state otherwise are actively breaking the rules or enforcing houserules on the module (like the dumb rules enforced in The World's Largest Dungeon).

[icefractal]

If I was going with "undead are are a bad thing" - which is a legitimate setting element I feel like, because the alternative is "undeath provides infinite energy and immortality, anyone who's not utilizing it is a fool" - then I would go with pollution, but not "evil pollution" - negative energy pollution.

Let's start with the fact that undead provide infinite energy. A skeleton can walk on a treadmill forever, not requiring any food. Or with supervision, farm forever, mine forever, etc. So where's that energy coming from?

Well, the answer could be - from the other side of the positive/negative energy pool, running the pump in reverse. The effect? Living creatures die younger. A single zombie only makes a small change when spread out across the whole world, but it adds up, and stronger undead like Liches consume more. It's not the creating them that does it, it's their continued existence. And it's not something you can balance with a counter-factor because the current situation (of humans living to 2d20+70) is based on things being overwhelmingly tilted to the living (as most settings are). An actual balance would have people dying of old age at 30 or the like.

So picture a necromancer and his skeleton entourage as a guy driving around in a convoy of "coal rolling" trucks and you can see why he'd be disliked.

Incidentally, this also explains why anyone would care about purging the undead from some forgotten tomb that nobody even visits - their mere existence there is like a burning oil well.

With that premise, the most ethical form of reanimation is short-duration and small in numbers. Animate a zombie hydra to save the city from an invading army (and then destroy it afterwards)? It's not without cost, but many people would say it was worth it. An entire skeleton work force? You're ****ting up the world for your own benefit.

[noob]

If I was going with "undead are are a bad thing" - which is a legitimate setting element I feel like, because the alternative is "undeath provides infinite energy and immortality, anyone who's not utilizing it is a fool" - then I would go with pollution, but not "evil pollution" - negative energy pollution.

Let's start with the fact that undead provide infinite energy. A skeleton can walk on a treadmill forever, not requiring any food. Or with supervision, farm forever, mine forever, etc. So where's that energy coming from?

Well, the answer could be - from the other side of the positive/negative energy pool, running the pump in reverse. The effect? Living creatures die younger. A single zombie only makes a small change when spread out across the whole world, but it adds up, and stronger undead like Liches consume more. It's not the creating them that does it, it's their continued existence. And it's not something you can balance with a counter-factor because the current situation (of humans living to 2d20+70) is based on things being overwhelmingly tilted to the living (as most settings are). An actual balance would have people dying of old age at 30 or the like.

So picture a necromancer and his skeleton entourage as a guy driving around in a convoy of "coal rolling" trucks and you can see why he'd be disliked.

Incidentally, this also explains why anyone would care about purging the undead from some forgotten tomb that nobody even visits - their mere existence there is like a burning oil well.

With that premise, the most ethical form of reanimation is short-duration and small in numbers. Animate a zombie hydra to save the city from an invading army? It's not without cost, but many people would say it was worth it. An entire skeleton work force? You're ****ting up the world for your own benefit.

Make enough undyings to compensate for the negative energy by bringing back positive energy?

[icefractal]

If Deathless exist in the setting, they'd just be like living creatures I guess, which are also positive-energy powered. Honestly there's no point saying "undeath is bad" if there's an easy work-around for the badness.

If you're going for that, just say "undead actually aren't bad, people use them frequently, and maybe some civilizations are necro-transhuman utopias". Which is also a legitimate way to design a setting; it's just a preference thing.

[Troacctid]

Well, "it doesn't say it isn't" isn't really much of an argument for a positive rule identification, and who's to say that the "uncontrolled" undead aren't carrying out their last orders?

But the argument was that it's open to interpretation, and there are multiple valid readings. So..."it doesn't say" is kind of the point of that argument, right?

As the rules stand, skeletons and zombies only do stuff they're told to do, and nothing else. Any module designers that state otherwise are actively breaking the rules or enforcing houserules on the module (like the dumb rules enforced in The World's Largest Dungeon).

Libris Mortis does say that zombies default to attacking the closest living creature if given no other orders.

[Psyren]

Well, "it doesn't say it isn't" isn't really much of an argument for a positive rule identification,

The [evil] descriptor is enough evidence that it is, therefore the burden of proof that it isn't is actually on you.

and who's to say that the "uncontrolled" undead aren't carrying out their last orders?

Putting aside that every last one of them being that way strains credulity, Libris Mortis explicitly says this is false - that "wild" mindless undead are in fact possible in Dungeons & Dragons.

As the rules stand, skeletons and zombies only do stuff they're told to do, and nothing else. Any module designers that state otherwise are actively breaking the rules or enforcing houserules on the module (like the dumb rules enforced in The World's Largest Dungeon).

Zombies don't actually have the clause you're referring to, and as for skeletons - if you want to be that much of a stickler for RAW, that same page says Skeletons "obey the orders of their evil masters", so you still can't make them and not be evil by RAW, making this entire side discussion moot.

[noob]

Zombies don't actually have the clause you're referring to, and as for skeletons - if you want to be that much of a stickler for RAW, that same page says Skeletons "obey the orders of their evil masters", so you still can't make them and not be evil by RAW, making this entire side discussion moot.

Step 1: make skeletons.
Step 2: get an evil person to be their master.
Step 3: mind control the evil person since mind control is not evil for some mysterious reasons.
Five hundred wrongs makes a right just after a mind rape or something?

[Blazeteck]

I think whether or not its evil is going to depend entirely on social constructs and divine decree in your settings. The cultures may see it as desscration as it was once someones loved one and theres usually a social stigma attached to messing with the dead body of someone. How would you feel if someone up and dug up your dead grandpa and so he could use it for something? Theres also the possibility that the gods themselves deem it as an evil act. If all the good gods on the setting say its evil well its gonna be hard to go against that.

As far as the creatures always being evil you can look at it from the perspective of undead usually being a an enemy when put into media, Ive rarely seen anything that tries to depict undead as anything other than a monster that will try to kill you, or you could try to look at it from a diving into the lore perspective. Is it just uncontrolled undead that are evil because usually an uncontrolled undead will try to attack creatures whereas a controlled one will do as its ordered. Whens the last time you can remember a DM putting uncontrolled undead in a game and not having them attack the party when interacted with? Ive never had someone throw uncontrolled undead into a game simply to have them do absolutely nothing or on the other hand try to do an act of good or kindness.

[noob]

I think whether or not its evil is going to depend entirely on social constructs and divine decree in your settings. The cultures may see it as desscration as it was once someones loved one and theres usually a social stigma attached to messing with the dead body of someone. How would you feel if someone up and dug up your dead grandpa and so he could use it for something? Theres also the possibility that the gods themselves deem it as an evil act. If all the good gods on the setting say its evil well its gonna be hard to go against that.

As far as the creatures always being evil you can look at it from the perspective of undead usually being a an enemy when put into media, Ive rarely seen anything that tries to depict undead as anything other than a monster that will try to kill you, or you could try to look at it from a diving into the lore perspective. Is it just uncontrolled undead that are evil because usually an uncontrolled undead will try to attack creatures whereas a controlled one will do as its ordered. Whens the last time you can remember a DM putting uncontrolled undead in a game and not having them attack the party when interacted with? Ive never had someone throw uncontrolled undead into a game simply to have them do absolutely nothing or on the other hand try to do an act of good or kindness.

Ghostwalk.
A portion of the afterlife based stories have dead people come back to earth (so they are undead: dead but still among the living) and usually have them behave like people.
Now creating undead with a magical ritual from corpses to make them serve their creator is nearly always done by super evil people in fiction.

[Segev]

The issue here is that casting good spells can't change your alignment by themselves (BoED pg. 7) while the opposite is true for evil spells (BoVD, FC2) so the "cancel out" argument doesn't work. Yes, it's a double-standard, but that's how it works in the D&D game.

Wait, really?

That's lame. I don't care if anybody disagrees with me on this, that's my opinion and there's no objective truth I or anybody else can point to to support or deny it. But in my opinion, that's just lame.

Bleh. Maybe it's better to just house rule animate dead as not inherently evil, then. I lose potentially-interesting fluff that I might one day come up with, but it's better than it being obnoxiously lame (again, opinion).

Of course it's inconsistent - doing good being harder than doing evil is a common trope in fiction. "There wouldn't need to be paladins if the world was fair," etc.

It negates the very notion of "good" spells, though.

Meh. It was poorly thought-out, and my efforts to make it satisfactory have failed. I give up.

[Troacctid]

Ghostwalk.
A portion of the afterlife based stories have dead people come back to earth (so they are undead: dead but still among the living) and usually have them behave like people.
Now creating undead with a magical ritual from corpses to make them serve their creator is nearly always done by super evil people in fiction.

Ghostwalk changed ghosts to not be undead.

[Phhase]

Eh, mostly it boils down to the creator's views (both literal and spiritual) of "Ew gross dead bodies icky" which I hold in contempt. The question of consent to use of the body is more pertinent, but since speak with dead is a thing, I think the issue is easily taken care of.

On topic of Atropus, I thought that he was beckoned not by negative energy, but by death on a massive scale? I think the sample adventure in Elder Evils has him summoned via the villain casting a spell that calls down a meteor, killing tons of people? I mean, Atropus is obviously an avatar and nexus of negative energy, and spreads undeath in his wake, but I don't think it's a part of summoning him.

It rubs me the wrong way that an elemental force of the universe no different from fire or water is somehow involved in questions of morality. While I do enjoy classic fantasy romps, I prefer the power reveals narrative to the power corrupts one, especially since the former can often be indistinguishable from the latter. Sometimes, it gets tired, and archetype becomes stereotype. Besides, we already effectively have "Evil" elementals in demons and devils. I strongly prefer undead the way Redcloak puts it: skin and bones glued together with some dark energy, little more than puppets or robots.

It's especially perplexing because necromancy in 3.5 was explicitly "magic that manipulates life and death", and thus, healing spells were classified as necromancy, completely logical. But in keeping with the "ew gross necromancy" theme, 5e moved healing to evocation for some reason. Except, they also made Positive Energy capable of inflicting radiant damage to anything, which makes no sense! They way it worked in 3.5 where it was healing only unless diametrically opposed by negative energy was far more in keeping with the "gross necromany" narrative! Whatever, I'm just ranting about nothing, disregard.

Here's an idea: a Day of the Dead inspired circus caravan where performers are animated as skeletons after their passing, so they can continue to entertain. That sounds like tons of fun!

[Blackhawk748]

While the pollution theory is interesting and can work depending on setting assumptions, thinking a bit more about this, it could very well be that creating undead is an Evil act because it's a defilement of a corpse.

As we've already discussed, your body being animated by necromantic magic prevents any form of resurrection from occurring until the zombie/skeleton is destroyed. And even if this isn't a practical problem for most, your corpse will still be shambling along with no agency of its own under the orders of the necromancer, rotting and decaying, forbidden from peaceful rest.

What's evil about this? One could say that a corpse is not a person, and they'd be right, but... It still was part of one, once. Defiling bodies is an act of disrespect, and a peaceful rest should be given to all. Once you start seeing those bodies as resources, once you deny them the dignity of the tomb, you being to err close to a lack of respect for the dignity of living beings.

Even if someone agreed to being raised as a zombie after their death, the issue remains that they have zero say in what happens to their body after that. The necromancer is free to do as they want with their new servant, who will obey any order without question.

You can disagree, of course, I don't pretend that this is an universal answer. But, D&D standard cosmology proposes that morality is objective: there are Good actions and Evil actions, and there is little space for moral relativism.

So how does this work when I raise a long dead Tiger? It's not a person, it doesn't have a soul (at least I'm pretty certain animals don't have souls in DnD cosmology) and it's never going to get raised. On top of that, I'm not "defiling a corpse" because that has cultural connotations and Tigers don't have cultures.

So why is it Evil to do that?

[icefractal]

It rubs me the wrong way that an elemental force of the universe no different from fire or water is somehow involved in questions of morality. While I do enjoy classic fantasy romps, I prefer the power reveals narrative to the power corrupts one, especially since the former can often be indistinguishable from the latter. Sometimes, it gets tired, and archetype becomes stereotype. Besides, we already effectively have "Evil" elementals in demons and devils. I strongly prefer undead the way Redcloak puts it: skin and bones glued together with some dark energy, little more than puppets or robots.

I think that can be a very interesting setting, but it does change things considerably if you consider the implications.

Undead don't need food or really any other resources. A city with a population of 2000 living people can easily have 20k undead residents underneath it (most of the problems living underground disappear when you don't need light or air and most cave-ins are only an inconvenience). And why wouldn't they? It's immortality, and while the cost to be (for example) a Necropolitan is somewhat high, it shouldn't be that hard to get a loan when you're going to become a perfect worker with eternity to pay it off. The benefits for the society are large, although the living may find themselves patronized (they're important because undead can't have children, but maybe not allowed into dangerous lines of work, and with 50 years of experience you're still an "apprentice", because the guildmasters have centuries of it and no desire to step down).

So really, most "stable" cities should have a population that's 90% or more undead, with the living considered as basically teenagers until they 'mature' to post-mortal. And the ones that don't are at a serious disadvantage.

To an extent this is just the same situation as the Tippyverse, but this one doesn't even require high-level casters to exist and be helpful. The ritual for Necropolitans is somewhat vague but doesn't seem to require anything more advanced than "zombie servitors" to do the chanting, and some forms are even easier.

Lol, maybe undeath is actually evil because it tends to create massive inequality with an immortal 1% that's also high-level than you.