Would somebody explain the Deathless to me?

[SpuneDagr]

I really like that the elves are so different in Eberron, but there's one thing I just don't understand. What's the deal with the Deathless? They're undead animated with positive energy, but what does that really mean?
I still can't see them in my mind's eye as anything but an abomination. If they're infused with the power of life, why do their bodies still decompose?

 

[Gez]

The deathless were a concept made for The Book of Exalted Deeds. The idea was to have undead that would not be your average icky evil undeadses, but something more noble. Something compatible with Gooood. Like the spectres from tha Ark of the Covenant in that Indiana Jones movie -- or the keeper of the grail from that other Indiana Jones movie. Former mortals, that rather than dead or undead, are now immortal, but have limitations like the undead often have (for example, staying in one place guarding it from tresspassers).

I don't think it really deserved to be done, since technically you could have used undead, but D&D's morality (with good cleric destroying undead and evil clerics commanding them, etc.) made it so they felt compelled to make something new rather than undead.

Same for living constructs, I would have made it just a subtype for constructs. Oh well.

 

[Chroma]

I really like that the elves are so different in Eberron, but there's one thing I just don't understand. What's the deal with the Deathless? They're undead animated with positive energy, but what does that really mean?
I still can't see them in my mind's eye as anything but an abomination. If they're infused with the power of life, why do their bodies still decompose?

But with positive energy, they're not *EVIL*! *laugh*

Really, instead of making a whole new type of creature, "Deathless" should've been an undead subtype granting the current deathless abilities to undead and stressing the positive energy over negative energy ties, I think that might have cleared things up.

They originally appear in the Book of Exalted Deeds.

/Two minutes Gez, a mere two minutes! *laugh*

 

[BiggusGeekus]

What's the deal with the Deathless? They're undead animated with positive energy, but what does that really mean?

Imagine a corpse that's being piloted by remote-control by a little glowing ball of positive energy. That's deathless. True undead are more like souls that are enslaved to the corpse by shackles of negative energy.

Hope that helps.

 

[SpuneDagr]

Aren't living creatures just corpses controlled by positive energy?

I meant positive. oops.

 

[jmucchiello]

Aren't living creatures just corpses controlled by negative energy?

That's teenagers.

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

Two main differences between deathless and undead.

First, no mindless deathless (at least so far). So a corpse isn't being desecrated and misused by necromantic magic. Strangely enough, their own clerics can boss them using turn undead, which is why I'm using the Complete Divine damage/heal undead rules instead.

Second, the deathless don't prey on the living. No ability drain or level drain.

So the deathless are elves who just don't want to die. Hang around to help their people. No sucking souls or life forces.

That being said, they are still creepy. One player's character in our Eberron campaign is cleric of the Undying Court and he just doesn't seem quite right. Likes the look of undead flesh and tattoos of skulls. As Shaggy would say, "Uber creepy."

 

[SpuneDagr]

So basically they're an abomination that must be destroyed at all costs.

I can't believe I have such a strong opinion about this, but despite my best efforts, I can't see anything redeeming about them.

 

[I'm A Banana]

How can you save the world if you're dead? How can you lead your tribe to happiness? How can you discover the weaknesses of evil?

People die before their time...but the Deathless...they don't. The continue to exist, despite the fact that their biological functions have ceased, simply to continue on to a goal that is more valuable and noble than any one single creature's life.

Undead are made unwillingly, the negative energy feeding on the soul of the departed, forbidding them from reaching their afterlife and destroying their existence forever. Deathless willingly fall into it, simply continuing, their soul maintaining in the body by the blessing of life, not the shackles of death.

And as far as I can tell, the Risen Martyr in my campaign at the moment has painfully discovered that Deathless can still be energy drained.

Though I agree, they should've just been undead (positive) or something.

 

[Hand of Evil]

To me they should have been a sub-type of undead too. Does make you wonder what would happen if positive and negative get together...I think BOOM!