Is Animating Dead Evil?

[Holy Bovine]

Well, that depends on what you think the topic is
.Ziggy

Obviously its about Hitler animating dead puppies and whether this is what made him evil.

Sheesh! Pay attention already!

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

OK, so let's say Hitler is reanimating a puppy....

So you play Weird Wars, too?

 

[Happiest_Sadist]

I claim that animating undead would be evil on sentient creatures because it traps their souls preventing them from finding rest. However, why can't someone animate a horse or wolf. They don't have souls in the same sense as people, so IMHO no evil would be done in animating them. However many gods would still refuse to grant animate spells to their priests; most (almost all) people would be biased against those who animated animals and act accordingly.

 

[Piratecat]

In my campaign, good undead do not register on "detect evil" spells. They are not necessarily inherently evil... although most undead are, of course. The negative energy that powers them shows up on "detect undead" spells, even for good undead.

You can be sure that Sir Aleax (Ghouleax - sheesh!) registers as good and displays all the abilities a paladin of his level should have.

I'll also point out that trying to turn undead the Saint is VERY tacky.

 

[Sir Osis of Liver]

If turning him is tacky i'd bet Unholy wording him would be down right rude.

 

[Blackjack]

I generally look at the subject this way, Animateing mindless undead is definately not evil, the spirt has fled and now it's just a shell.

So you wouldn't mind if someone dug up your grandmother's bones and used them as tools? After all, it's just a shell.

I'm going to agree with Ancalagon here!

 

[Blackjack]

Perhaps Malachite should martyr himself - of course he would have to succeed and that might be tough, but I have faith in the DoD. [...]

He'd have to ensure that there was someone who could take over as a strong interm leader

Oh, rest assured this strategy has already occurred to me.

 

[Deadguy]

Souls and the Animated Dead

More than once during the course of this discussion, there has been the comment to the effect that:

Animating a person traps their soul in the body to animate it

I'd love to know where this notion comes from. It doesn't appear in the SRD spell description nor the description of Skeletons or Zombies. So I was wondering, where does this idea originate? It certainly has a significant bearing on this discussion if the spell does trap the soul of the deceased in the corpse. And vice versa, if the aniation involves purely amgical force moving the corpse around, then it outs a very different perspective on matters.

So, anyone know where this idea originated?

 

[JacktheRabbit]

I know I am really late into this discussion but I have a really simple question.

If animating a Zombie is evil then why isn't creating a Flesh Golem evil as well?

Both are mindless creatures made from the bodies of deceased people right?

In my opinion skeletons and zombies are not evil and creating then is not evil because they are no more than automatons animated by the casters magic.

 

[Blackjack]

If animating a Zombie is evil then why isn't creating a Flesh Golem evil as well?

Both are mindless creatures made from the bodies of deceased people right?

I don't have the creature description handy, but does it say that flesh golems are made from the bodies of people?

(and hey, if you ask me, a flesh golem is just as bad as animating a skeleton, absolutely, but WoTC didn't ask me. )