Undead: is the person's soul trapped?

[Aaron L]

According to Libris Mortis, the souls of those raised as undead, even unintelligent undead, are indeed trapped in the undead shells. This is why the creation of undead is an Evil act. I've come to agree with this treatment of it; this is why Create Undead is such a low level spell compared to Animate Objects, and not a complex Item Creation feat like Create Construct. The inclusion of the trapped soul as an animating force makes it much simpler to do.


It also adds an extra interesting element to undead, and I do love using undead as monsters and bad guys. It makes undead all the more horrifying when you realize that the original person's soul is imprisoned in that zombie you are fighting (maybe even seeing what it is doing through it's own eyes, yet unable to stop it) makes the threat of becoming undead all the more terrifying, condemns Necromancers and others creators of undead as truly the most horridly vilest of Evil, and also makes destroying undead a truly Good act, by releasing the trapped souls contained within the undead obscenities.

 

[Drowbane]

In fact, this is a handy way to keep those recurring villains from, well, recurring. Turn the body into an undead and stow it away somewhere (preferably shielded from divination), and someone is going to have a really hard time bringing that guy back. Sort of a poor-man's "trap the soul" spell.

Thats where the villain's pre-cast Clone comes into play...

 

[Subversive]

I'm wondering about the Libris Mortis information, and thinking about situations with that and spells like Clone, or if a Larva has "risen" (if indeed, that is the right word) to the state of true Tanar'i when you cast animate dead on the soul's former body. My thinking is that there are two possibilities:

A) the spell fizzles. That seems annoying from the point of view of gameplay (and apt to be abused by the DM)

B) the spell cannot retrieve the body's original soul, and instead targets the closest available alternative soul. This seems like a really cool, evil thing to have happen. I imagine this mane, burning in the pits of hell. All of the sudden, he gets sucked back into a random body. His last thought, "Oh thank gods..."

 

[Shemeska]

I wouldn't put much stock in that particular bit of info from Libris Mortis. It makes a claim without addressing the bizarre yet very real ramifications that spring up from the claim, and it comes off as silly to allow a 3rd level spell to do things that a wish shouldn't be capable of doing. Plus there's that whole general you won't come back from any raise dead etc spell without the soul being willing to do so.

I think it might be generally agreed upon that once a petitioner transitions to something different such as a fiend, celestial, a specific servitor of a deity such as a Minion of Set, that spells that would raise them from the dead simply don't work. At that point the original soul has become something more than it started out as, and even normal petitioners after a certain point have grown so close to their plane that a raise dead spell looking for that original soul isn't going to find them because they no longer exist as they were back then when they first died. There's some DM wiggle room here yes, but at least to me it makes sense.

And for LM in general, this is the same book that came up with the "lichfiend", something that without further explanation -which LM fails to provide- is impossible because of the absolute lack of body/soul duality in fiends, which is required for something to become a lich in the first place. My faith in LM as a deep source on undeath is about as much as I'd view the BoED as a deep source on morality.

 

[Thunderfoot]

I'm wondering about the Libris Mortis information, and thinking about situations with that and spells like Clone, or if a Larva has "risen" (if indeed, that is the right word) to the state of true Tanar'i when you cast animate dead on the soul's former body. My thinking is that there are two possibilities:

A) the spell fizzles. That seems annoying from the point of view of gameplay (and apt to be abused by the DM)

B) the spell cannot retrieve the body's original soul, and instead targets the closest available alternative soul. This seems like a really cool, evil thing to have happen. I imagine this mane, burning in the pits of hell. All of the sudden, he gets sucked back into a random body. His last thought, "Oh thank gods..."

Don't forget that the soul has to WANT to come back. A Resurrecction, Raise or what have will not work if the soul is unwilling - IF it were possible, would Orcus really want to become human again? Probably not... I'm just saying.

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

For that matter, I really dig the idea of a society for whom the reanimation and use (in labor, security, or war) of its recently-deceased is just accepted tradition. When grandpa dies, you have a funeral to say goodbye to his soul, and his corpse gets animated as part of the ceremony to serve the community, and to be lovingly maintained by the family the same way a headstone or monument would be.

Sounds like a Tim Burton movie to me!

 

[I'm A Banana]

If a person rises as a mindless undead, is his soul trapped, or does it go on to its eternal reward? Is there an official stance on this? How do you define it in your game?

His soul is absolutely trapped, destroyed, or consumed in the process of turning him undead.

That's why the spell is [Evil]. It consumes a spirit to build a willing, mindless servant. That's why the various raising spells don't work: there is no intact soul to summon back anymore. This is even true in mindless undead, where the spirit is so wracked with pain and cold, and the body so incapable of sensing things, that it simply rides along while negative energy eats away at it, and propels the corpse to consume more.

It's not expressly stated in the rules, but it's highly suggested by the fact that the spells are [Evil], and that the various raise spells don't work when you're undead.

If it was just animating negative energy, they wouldn't necessarily be [Evil] (Enervation isn't an evil spell, and it uses negative energy, for instance). If the soul was in its eternal rest, reincarnation would still work.

It's possible to create a campaign where zombies are more like flesh golems, simple materials animated by a force, but that runs counter to the horrific idea suggested in the core of absolute soul-destroying blackness consuming the very last essence of a thinking, living being to become a mindless servant for someone's selfish schemes.

 

[Seonaid]

I really dig the idea of a society for whom the reanimation and use (in labor, security, or war) of its recently-deceased is just accepted tradition. When grandpa dies, you have a funeral to say goodbye to his soul, and his corpse gets animated as part of the ceremony to serve the community, and to be lovingly maintained by the family the same way a headstone or monument would be.

That's a really cool idea. Have you put it into practice at all? How did it go?

 

[Falkus]

His soul is absolutely trapped, destroyed, or consumed in the process of turning him undead.

That's why the spell is [Evil]. It consumes a spirit to build a willing, mindless servant. That's why the various raising spells don't work: there is no intact soul to summon back anymore. This is even true in mindless undead, where the spirit is so wracked with pain and cold, and the body so incapable of sensing things, that it simply rides along while negative energy eats away at it, and propels the corpse to consume more.

It seems odd to me that a third level spell can capture or destroy a soul, when the other spell that does the same thing is a ninth level spell.

 

[Ripzerai]

As Falkus (nearly) pointed out, Trap the Soul is an eighth level spell.

It's therefore absolutely broken to allow Animate Dead to do the same thing. Trap the Soul is eighth level for a reason.

Animate Dead shouldn't affect the soul at all, and shouldn't affect any spells that contact or manipulate the soul.

Note that Speak to Dead is not one of those spells. See Complete Divine, page 126 - Speak to Dead contacts memories within the corpse itself, not the soul. I see nothing wrong with allowing Speak to Dead to communicate with a zombie.

I can see where people might think the idea of a soul imprisoned within a mindless thrall is flavorful and interesting; I completely agree with that. But Animate Dead is not powerful enough for that flavorful and interesting idea to reasonably work. An eighth-level variant might work, for a sadistic necromancer who wishes to punish an enemy in a particularly gruesome way.

There's no reason why Animate Dead should be evil. If the caster of the spell has the permission of the deceased or their family, the spell is neutral. Without such permission, it really depends on the context - parading someone's dead loved ones in front of them is cruel, but without such displays I don't see any inherent reason it should damn those who cast the spell.

And, in fact, it's integral for several game settings, including Hollowfaust in the Scarred Lands, the Charonti in Jakondor, and the Dustmen in Planescape, that Animate Dead be a morally neutral spell. Gruesome, yes, but certainly not evil.