Revive Undead: The 'Willingness' Clause

[Tetujin]

The spell, in Spell Compendium, mentions the "Animating spirit must be free and willing to return". The spell also specifically mentions using the spell to bring back skeletons and zombies. So first, for the sake of argument, is there any person would would willingly give up the afterlife for animating a completely non-intelligent creature, forced to follow the orders of the person who, presumably, killed them in the first place? A similar but less strong argument could be made for other kinds of intelligent undead. Since I think this interpretation of the clause would lead to a rather silly spell, I wonder if the "Animating Spirit" has the same intelligence as the undead that was destroyed, so non-intelligent types would be willing by default, and intelligent types would be compelled by their service to the necromancer who created them?

Thoughts?

 

[frankthedm]

The spell, in Spell Compendium, mentions the "Animating spirit must be free and willing to return". The spell also specifically mentions using the spell to bring back skeletons and zombies. So first, for the sake of argument, is there any person would would willingly give up the afterlife for animating a completely non-intelligent creature, forced to follow the orders of the person who, presumably, killed them in the first place? A similar but less strong argument could be made for other kinds of intelligent undead. Since I think this interpretation of the clause would lead to a rather silly spell, I wonder if the "Animating Spirit" has the same intelligence as the undead that was destroyed, so non-intelligent types would be willing by default, and intelligent types would be compelled by their service to the necromancer who created them?

Thoughts?

Who says destroyed undead go onto the afterlife? That may be an assumption Complete Divine uses, but not everyon uses that feel-good standard. Some of us say the soul dies when the body is drained to level 0.


1. I do work under the assumption the non-intelligent undead have negative energy animating spirits, rather than the soul of the body itself.

2. I also work on the assumption becoming a sentient undead destroys the victim's soul. All that left for the spirit is undeath. This spell is thus desirable by destroyed undead.

3. The more powerful undead like Devourers and Nightshades could be out of the cycle of [after]life.

4. Awakened undead.

 

[jasin]

I'd guess that the spirit is the same as it was before the creature that became undead.

So if Jozan the cleric of Pelor has the misfortune to become a vampire and is then destroyed, he'll refuse to be brought back as a vampire with revive undead.

The blackguard who became the vampire willingly probably wouldn't mind.

As for zombies and skeletons... not sure. If someone was willing to spend 5,000 gp in diamonds to bring back a zombie, I'd probably rule it just works, since the zombie is just the body, so it doesn't really need a spirit to animate it.