do the undead continue to decompose?

[alsih2o]

i mean, if some fantasy world wanna be art geek could cast the necromantic spells could s/he make zombie or skeleton statues, with instructions "stand like you are throwing a discus, and don't move, no matter what"

do zombies, skeletons and the like continue to rot after their deaths? has anyone put an expiration date on their undead? or is a zombie,once produced, able to stand around for millenia without decomposing?

 

[Allanon]

Well I suppose that depends on whether they were embalmed or the like. And whether you rule that magic will maintain them. The normal rules don't state clearly whether magic does this, although a gentle repose in combination with permanency could do the trick.

A normal zombie freshly raised will decompose normally and eventually become nothing more than a skeleton, whose bones will become yellow and brittle over the years until it disintigrate's into a pile of bone pieces and powder. the times this takes is about 6 month for a zombie to turn skeleton. Less if in a humid enviroment like a swamp or rainforest. More if in a dry enviroment like a frozen tundra or a desert. Skeleton's will probably last longer, something like 20 to 30 years.

On the other hand a embalmed zombie or skeleton will probably last much much longer... something like 10 to 15 years for a zombie to 50 years for a skeleton. If regularly treated it could very well last for as long as it is maintained. If put in a vacuum (like a glass box) it could last forever without preservatives or maintainence.

You could also put you're undead 'sculptures' in a glass container filled with a preservative. A sort of a grissly biological lab like the on at a school . Only this one can move. Just imagine the visual, a room filled with jars and containers who's contents turn their heads (or something vaguely similer) to follow you and who's hands, feets, appendages still occasionally move.

 

[alsih2o]

something like 10 to 15 years for a zombie to 50 years for a skeleton.

so, would you think that all those old, long abandoned tombs have someone stop by and refresh them twice a century or so?

does this mean undead can "die"?

i am not trying to be argumentative, i am honestly interested in what people think of this topic

 

[Angcuru]

i mean, if some fantasy world wanna be art geek could cast the necromantic spells could s/he make zombie or skeleton statues, with instructions "stand like you are throwing a discus, and don't move, no matter what"

I had to read that a few times to get you were saying, but ......ROFL!!!!

well, undead don't change, I think. Their state of being undead, along with the magics that uphold that state of being undead, would prevent further decay.

 

[Allanon]

so, would you think that all those old, long abandoned tombs have someone stop by and refresh them twice a century or so?

does this mean undead can "die"?

i am not trying to be argumentative, i am honestly interested in what people think of this topic

As I said, it depends on whether you allow magic to maintain there current status. But in the real world if you open an ancient tomb you probably won't find any skeletons or half-decayed corpses. In a fantasy world where the real world has no power all could be different.

In my campaign normal necromantic magic like animate dead produces undead with limited life expectancies. An ancient tomb with no inhabitents will not contain undead guardians of the skeleton/zombie variant without them having special preservative magic or alchemical processes applied to them.

So yes in my campaign undead 'die', they're bodies become so decomposed that the necromantic energies that animate them fail and fizzle. Only special undead like vampires, death knights, liches and the like 'live' on, their bodies kept 'fresh' because of the more powerfull necromantic energies that animate them.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Secret College of Necromancy has a chart that shows decomposition of bone at various temperatures/climates.

 

[Umbran]

Depends on the undead, and your world's metaphysic, I should think...

If you read the zombie description, it says that "A rank odor of death" surrounds them. That'd be one stinky statue. If you want to inject some science, that implies bacterial action, continuing decomposition. That either continues until the zombie is still a zombie, but low on organic parts, or reduced to a skeleton (which doesn't rot too well, and so continues on forever as an undead).

For the most part, undead higher up the chain don't seem to decompose on a mortal life span. Most of them tend to feed on the living (ghouls eat flesh, vampires blood, wights drain life essence), and it seems reasonable to say it's that consumption of the living that keeps the dead around. Note that liches generally dont have to consume anything. You might choose to say that liches do eventually deteriorate and become demi-liches. Or not.

 

[Berk]

Well since undead are powered by negative energies and these energies are magical it's pretty easy to say that they don't continue to decompose. Course that isn't to say that they can't continue to decompose in your world if you want them too. Just personally I think that takes away from some of the mystique or what not.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

For me, it's a matter of what kind of undead.

For instance, here are three different takes:

1. Zombies. Zombies are on a slow-rot. The animation process slows down rotting. However, the animation process is also dependant on rotting, since the Negative Energy is maintained by this entirely natural process.

2. Ghoul. Ghouls are on a standard rate of rot. However, their anatomical life-processes are continued by Negative Energy. Thus, they continue to pump blood, digest, and grow new cells. However, these cells are "born" dead, and thus immediately begin to rot.

(Note: Vampires are of the same sort, although far more "refined" in regards to how well the Negative Energy takes over the biological processes of the body.)

3. Liches. Liches are fueled by massive amounts of Negative Energy directly channeled into the Lich from the Negative Energy Plane. This invokes the lich with his own "battery". Indeed, this battery is so potent that the organisms that cause corpses to become icky slimy things (like Zombies) are actually killed by it. As such, Liches "dry rot", the skin slowly pealing away like paper and disintigrating into dust.

Again, this is just how I handle it.

 

[tonym]

has anyone put an expiration date on their undead? or is a zombie,once produced, able to stand around for millenia without decomposing?

Back when I DMed (I'm a Player these days), I had zombies last forever.

Little chunks of zombie meat (fingers, toes, teeth, etc.) would always fall off my zombies, and those pieces would rot on the floor. However, my zombies would never diminish in size (more than a little), nor rot too much themselves.

This was because my zombies magically summoned back--as 'fresh' meat--the pieces that dropped-off. They accomplished this slowly, molecule by molecule, as the pieces rotted away on the floor. This reconstitution-by-summoning was a necessary part of my zombies' nature, otherwise a single meat-dropping zombie would eventually fill-up an entire dungeon with discarded zombie bits!

I always enjoyed describing zombies to my players, by the way.

Like my zombies, my skeletons lasted forever, too.

So, to answer your question...Yes, in my old campaign, skeletons and zombies could have stood still like statues forever, holding any pose their master wished.

Oh. And when a really old skeleton or zombie got destroyed, it would suddenly 'decompose' to its proper age. For example, an old skeleton would turn to dust, while a fresh one would just fall apart, wetly.



TonyM