do the undead continue to decompose?

[Hand of Evil]

Simple answer, YES and NO. It really depends on the undead and your world myth. Gods, negative energy, living on the flesh of the living could be used to explain the lack of decomposer.

 

[Umbran]

But in the real world if you open an ancient tomb you probably won't find any skeletons or half-decayed corpses.

In the real world, if you open an ancient tomb - where the corpse is not in contact with wet soil, you will almost certainly find bones and/or a skeleton. You will probably even find dried flesh still upon those bones. In very dry or very cold climes, the corpse can be preserved quite well for a surprisingly long time.

In the real world, if you open an ancient grave, where the corpse is pretty close to or in contact with wet soil, you won't find the flesh, but you will probably still find bones. Bones can take a very long time to break down - or else we would never see fossils

Places where you'd find bones, skeletons are a viable choice. If there's still flesh, call it a zombie.

 

[Siridar]

I always played it as how I needed it to work to make something viable.

If I needed some skeleton guardians that lasted for hundreds or thousands of years, then they didn't decompose or turn to dust.
Zombies might decompose, but they would never decompose enough to point of simply being skeletons.

It was the negative energy that kept them the way they were/ are.

Although, truthfully it's not something I ever really put much thought into. If I needed some undead guards or beings, they just were.

 

[Tonguez]

Personally I like my Zombies to have rotting flesh that sticks to the face of grappled PCs, maggots pouring from eyesockets and nausea causing stench CR+1 (oh - and the Plague bearer template too)

 

[s/LaSH]

As far as the mindless undead are concerned: Yes. At least to a certain point. Then again, in my campaign they're occasionally encountered as natural phenomena - skeletons arise from unburied/unavenged 'sleep' with worrying regularity. This largely involved them being found in a sealed room covered with dust, however; the decay would probably be slowed by this. They don't last past one activation most of the time.

For intelligent undead, I figure they're being transformed into something else by the negative energy spirit that gives them purpose beyond death. (Then again, not everyone goes with that interpretation.) If you accept that, then you'll accept that they retain certain cell processes, but their cells operate in a different way - slower, no heat, reproducing only occasionally to heal wounds or replace mortified tissue, in which case the undead slowly approaches a different physical state over centuries. (See my game page, linked off my comic below, for one interpretation of this as it applies to ghouls.) Because they have no real immune system or body temperature to fight off infection, they may still rot (especially ghouls), but they won't fall to pieces because they'll heal magically. This allows for centipedes to crawl out of a ghoul's nostril at a dramatic point - it's a nice dark place to nest, really, isn't it?

Incorporeals are, of course, immune to any decay except residual self-image. That is to say, they won't rot unless they think they should. Then again, incorporeals are usually insane anyway, so who knows what they think?

There is one exceptional encounter later in my campaign involving underwater zombies; I guess they're preserved by the negative energy or something. (And when I get around to chronicling it, you'll understand why.)

Really, it's all up to taste and circumstance, isn't it?

 

[Ruined]

IMC, undead do rot at a fairly standard pace. Zombies would eventually become skeletons, etc.

Should anyone need them in my games, there would probably be spells available to Preserve Corpses. Since necromancers already have access to spells such as Augment Undead (can't remember exact name) and the like out of Tome and Blood and the old school Necromancer's Handbook, it's not a far stretch.

 

[Arnwyn]

Like theRuinedOne above, in my game undead continue to decompose. Liches and the like have created preservative spells to prevent themselves from falling to dust over the centuries.

 

[MarauderX]

Same for me when I DM - undead still rot away at a normal rate. I think I read somewhere on the boards about the necromantic art of retarding the decaying process and such. Someone want to do a search?

 

[Nightchilde-2]

In my campaign, it depends on what I feel the story needs.

If I need juicy, fluid-dripping zombies, then that's what the PCs face. If I need paper dry zombies, yep, they get those too. Coagulated blood with skin the color of a clotted bruise, maggots and bits of flesh falling off? Got those. Zombies swollen with gas caused by internal decomposition, forcing a Fort DC 15 check if punctured? Oh yeah. they hated those.

A skeleton tends to be a skeleton, but for flavor, I'll say it occasionally has a pice of flesh or sinew here or there hanging off of it.

Vampires, I tend to see as unaging and unchanging, so they appear much like they did in life. Liches in my campaign tend to continue to dessicate and become more "deathlike" in their visage. Undead beholders are disgusting sights to behold....

So, yeah, pretty much go with the flow and whatever I think would make for a more interesting story is what gets done.

 

[Kilmore]

Personally, I would say that undead maintenence is the realm of the god / demon lord of undead's influence rather than any magical "science". In most campaigns, I would see the diety of undead as being a gruesome sort of fellow who maintains an unpleasant aspect to his work.

Therefore, I see zombies and other undead with the appearance of death keeping the charnel stench and the thriving maggot ranch without any practical degradation in the monster's capabilities for a good long time.

But if you have a different type of diety of undead in your campaign, your mileage may vary.