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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 817101" data-attributes="member: 5143">I know that most people here have agreed that non-sentient undead do not have souls tied to them, however I'd like to assume they do.The PHB says that you can only bring back an undead that has been destroyed first.  It doesn't make any differentiation between sentient and non-sentient undead.  If we take this as a premise, that means there is SOMETHING left in the undead that is required to recreate the person.  Even the most powerful spells that can recreate the bodies from scratch still need you to destroy the undead first.So here is my theory:Mindless undead still have at least a piece of the soul tied to them.  Maybe, since it isn't very powerful magic, it isn't enough to tie the entire soul to the body.  It animates the body using negative energy and then ties just enough of the will power of the soul to the corpse for it to be able to move on its own.In this case, that means that the more powerful the magic, the better it is at tieing the soul to the body.  Thus, the magic of a vampire or lich is powerful enough that the soul fully becomes part of the undead, and it is just animated with negative energy instead of positive energy.You can explain ghosts by saying that the soul WANTS to remain and therefore it uses its own willpower to grab on to negative energy as sort of an anchor to the material plane.Of course, this theory has one problem.  For mindless undead, if only part of the soul is bound to it, what happens to the rest of it?  It is happily residing on an outer plane somewhere or trapped in limbo somewhere?  Perhaps animating a creature as a mindless undead just weakens the petitioner somewhat.  I guess it would have to be your decision in your own campaign.In mine, I think I will assume the soul is trapped in limbo, or perhaps still within the corpse, just unable to exert any control.  This helps explain why the spells are [evil].  Imagine a universe where even the lowliest mages had the power to imprison a soul from the afterlife.  Where gods could not, or were not allowed to interfere with this process.  It would explain why a lot of the good gods have their followers seek out and destroy the undead at all costs.  The gods cannot stop mages from imprisioning the souls of their petitioners, but they can command their followers to release them.Majoru Oakheart</blockquote>

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