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[Ascii Kid]

  Now there's a fantasy metaphyiscal question that I've never really even considered, which is another part of what makes this game so damn great. 
  If it were me, and I didn't have to worry at all about anything like coding and such and such, I'd go with some kind of division of souls.  Lets call them: The Animator, the Negotiator and the Essence, and each of these souls can be corrupted.
  The Animator is that thing which drives a creature to activity, meaning all living things and undead things have this part of the soul.  Physical damage weakens this soul along with the body that it's contained in, as they are intimately tied together, and corruption at this level is disease and infection.  Decaying undead have a corruption of this soul.
  The Negotiator is what drives a creature to interaction beyond the need for survival and procreation, thus existing in all self-aware creatures.  Madness and psychopathy represent the corruption of this soul.  This is the moral soul, and is missing in animals and other unthinking things, making it morally acceptable (to some races) to kill and eat them - they exist outside the sphere of moral consideration.  Unintelligent undead loose this level of the soul when they reanimate, but intelligent undead retain a corrupted version. 
  The Essence is the existence of the thing, and thus all things have this soul, even inanimate things.  Corruption at this level is represented by mutation and unnatural existence.  Vampires, werewolves, demons and their ilk all have corruptions of this level. 

  Now, all of these are encased in one shell, like a triple yolk egg. 
  Well, that's how I might do it, how's about you?
 
 

[Tormy]

Definitely no. It makes no sense at all.

[Ascii Kid]

Good point.  HA!

[Heavy Flak]

I've decided I'm an expert in this matter!

I don't think the majority of undead would have souls - that's part of what makes them undead.  Their animated husks, just meat puppets wandering around tied to the land.  They can't talk, they don't have a society, they shouldn't learn new skills; for all purposes they're a snapshot of their former lives, angry and in pain and constantly hungry. 

This little pet theory of mine is in total contradiction of a lot of cultures, which state the undead (and ghosts, and ghouls, etc) are the souls of people with unfinished business left behind on earth, and constantly in pain until they accomplish whatever it was they felt that strongly about.  Though, there's nothing saying you can't have BOTH kinds.

Type 1) Your standard Zombie dwarf, Skeletal Camel, all soulless, all bloated sacks of meat or clacking bones without souls

Type 2) Your talking, learning, conniving, may-not-look-it undead that still exhibits traits from their previous life.  This should NOT include animals, and only the "intelligent" races and could be where we get our Vampires and higher-Undead.

Type 3) Powerful wizards, or demi-gods and demons, that have overcome mortality.  Like Liches, or those who intentionally remove their souls at great physical pain and store it in a vessel hidden somewhere. 

[Tenebrais]

In my view, undead without souls are golems. They are just animated bodies, no different to if they were made of clay, puppeteered by a warlock of some kind.

I feel true undead will consist of either:
-Souls with too much to do to leave their bodies, producing zombies.
-People cursed not to die, especially if they are still subject to decay. Also includes werewolves, vampires and the like.
-Souls forced back to their bodies and enchanted to serve a necromancer.

The kind of Undead that naturally spawn in evil areas would be of either the first or second type. The third requires a ringleader, presumably a powerful wizard. Said wizard could create a golem/puppet, but doing something without a soul and hence without free will would require a lot of concentration to control even one, let alone an army. This wizard may also be able to enthrall living subjects, but this would have its own difficulties - the living would likely have much stronger will, since they're still using it, whereas the dead can be taken by surprise. Plus, it's much easier to raise the dead in secret.

In short, yes, I think the undead have souls.

[Neonivek]

The majority of undead in fantasy have souls, I "THINK" it is only when you start stepping into the realm of Modern fiction where the undead are bodies without souls to guide them
-Think means I am guessing

For example most undead involve either a person whos soul cannot move on possessing their body (Heck, there is a movie about it!)

After that we step into the area of curses where the individual is forced to live on, willingly or not, even after death. Vampires are a good example of this even though many sources of modern fiction have them with absolutely no souls.

Then we go into people who can be called into their bodies from their afterlife in defense of something. Mummies are a great example of this.

One problem that is stemming also is the difference between: Has no soul, Corrupt Soul, and Sold their soul. Some people have taken "Sold their Soul" to mean "Has no Soul". Interesting someone being "Soul-less" doesn't always means someone lacks a soul... Which gets confusion, it often means they have no moral compass rather then lacking a soul.

Now if the zombie has a HUMAN soul is an entirely different matter... Daemonic possession is another common source of the undead. Though some media say demons have no souls it is quite frankly a mystery to me where this came from (for the most part they are made of soul).

Since Demons have souls and so do dark spirits... Then yes the zombie has a soul, just not a human soul (unless it is being enslaved).

Interestingly there is a group where undead are created by stealing someone's soul. This is kind of a mid-area since while the zombie technically doesn't host the soul, it still relies on it heavily to remain animate.

These are all ways in which the undead have souls.


WOO!!! Soul System!!! I am glad Toady is finally using such!

As for Undead and Soul (My one and a half cents)

Depend Situations for Zombies with Souls
-Undead created by restless dead have a soul (Freddie is a good example)
-Undead created by willing subjects (Mummies)
-Undead created by placing souls inside a corpse (Frankenstien)
-Undead created by placing "Soul Beings" or Disembodied Beings inside a corpse or who can cause the body to remain animate even after the host body has fallen (Daemonic possession, Dark spirits, ghostly possession)
-Undead created by forcing a subject's soul to be unable to leave its body

As for if Zombies should have souls as a whole

Zombies who are created without any of the above methods could have a false artificial soul that lacks the complexities of a normal soul.

Zombies without even an artificial soul could be possible, but they fall appart without a power source

[Tormy]

I'm gonna copy & paste what I wrote in the Future of the Fortress thread, just in case...
I was thinking about this a bit more and...
Well perhaps some special creatures, like a vampire or necromancer [however necromancers for example are not supposed to be undead at all] should have a soul, but I still find the whole question very weird.
In my opinion zombies/skeletons and such creatures have no soul. In fact, this is why these creatures are being controlled by a superior entity, like a Necromancer, in many fantasy worlds.
So, my conclusion is: let the player decide this [since this is a very subjective thing], thus it should be controllable in the RAWs.   

[Neonivek]

I'm gonna copy & paste what I wrote in the Future of the Fortress thread, just in case...
I was thinking about this a bit more and...
Well perhaps some special creatures, like a vampire or necromancer [however necromancers for example are not supposed to be undead at all] should have a soul, but I still find the whole question very weird.
In my opinion zombies/skeletons and such creatures have no soul. In fact, this is why these creatures are being controlled by a superior entity, like a Necromancer, in many fantasy worlds.
So, my conclusion is: let the player decide this [since this is a very subjective thing], thus it should be controllable in the RAWs.   

In otherwords Puppet undead! Where they are just puppets on magical strings being help up by a powerful source of magic

[JT]

In writing for one of my never-to-see-the-light-of-day game universes, I had a reasoning behind undead.

Ordinary human beings contain spirits that control their metaphysique.  Their attributes (Strength, Endurance, Reflexes, etc.) are a steady progression from physical to mental to metaphysical, with "Fortune" at the far end of metaphysique.

A human body is like a carrier that provides the necessary substance for a spirit to interact physically with the world.  Ghosts and other apparitions are free spirits that can only affect the world metaphysically, meaning that they can instill emotions and feelings, can bless or curse those they encounter, and can cast spells.  A spirit's power, aside from a small amount of energy which it draws from the "Supercosmos" automatically, is based on the number of people who are aware of its existence and believe in it.  (This is the in-game justification for why people become depressed and ponder suicide when they are social outcasts.)

For a spirit to inhabit the body, however, it must be alive.  The body must be able to breathe, pump blood, and otherwise to ensure that the spirit's essence is fully distributed throughout the body.  If the body is not alive, it cannot carry the spirit's essence and the spirit leaves the body; it's a mutual dependence issue.  When a being is conceived under the purview of a deity, one of the deity's followers' spirits is allowed to enter the body as its rightful spirit.  Only during conception can a spirit assume control of a body, although if a body dies and a spirit leaves it, the rightful spirit can re-enter that body if the body is somehow resuscitated/resurrected -- though this requires the spirit to remain present and to choose to re-enter the body.

It is also possible for a body to be manipulated indirectly by a spirit, much like a puppet.  This is what an undead being is.  The body is very dead, but a spirit is very existent.  The type of magic necessary to animate undead essentially involves seeking out a spirit roaming free in the Supercosmos and/or the mortal plane and asking it if it would like to control the body.  More often than not, the spirit animating the body is not the rightful owner of the body, and has no recollection of any history or anything else to do with the body.  The spirit often has motives of its own, so the person beseeching the spirit usually enters into some form of mutual contract that will accomplish the spirit's unfinished business in exchange for the undead's willing servitude.  The "person" beseeching the spirit can also be a deity -- evil deities in particular will raise undead for no other reason than to kill living people so they have more spirits to enslave.

The more powerful the magic used, the more able the spirit is at controlling the body like a puppet.  Zombies run the gamut from lumbering hulks to devastatingly fast and fearsome brutes.  Because they feel no pain, the fastest zombies are easily the match of dozens of mortal men and can slaughter armies of living humanoids wholesale.

Do undead have souls?  Yes, somewhere, off in the immortal plane.  The souls that are controlling the bodies, however, are not the souls that belong there.


The more powerful forms of undead, e.g. revenants, are bodies that have been created from scratch or modified by hostile magic (usually evil deities) before being animated with a spirit.

[Tormy]

I'm gonna copy & paste what I wrote in the Future of the Fortress thread, just in case...
I was thinking about this a bit more and...
Well perhaps some special creatures, like a vampire or necromancer [however necromancers for example are not supposed to be undead at all] should have a soul, but I still find the whole question very weird.
In my opinion zombies/skeletons and such creatures have no soul. In fact, this is why these creatures are being controlled by a superior entity, like a Necromancer, in many fantasy worlds.
So, my conclusion is: let the player decide this [since this is a very subjective thing], thus it should be controllable in the RAWs.   

In otherwords Puppet undead! Where they are just puppets on magical strings being help up by a powerful source of magic

Hehe yeah...and also...:

What is "soul"?

The soul, according to many religious and philosophical beliefs, is the self-awareness, or consciousness, unique to a particular living being, defined as being distinct from the body and survives the death of the body. In these beliefs the soul is thought to incorporate the inner awareness of each living being, and to be the true basis for consciousness, rather than the brain or any other material or natural part of the biological organism. Some religions and philosophies on the other hand believe in the soul having a material component. Souls are usually considered to be immortal. Many beliefs hold they exist prior to incarnation.

The concept of the soul has strong links with notions of an afterlife, but opinions may vary wildly, even within a given religion, as to what may happen to the soul after the death of the body.

-----

So, this is an oxymoron, isn't it? Living creatures supposed to have a soul [if you believe in it at all], but the undeads are not living creatures.

[Greiger]

I always thought of the a necromancer using a part of their own soul to animate undead.  Explains why they usually look bony and frail, their soul has been weakened considerably by their work.

I also thought of necromancers being able to strengthen their souls through artificial means (ritual killing of a virgin, great hero, powerful beast, that annoying kid down the street that always walks on his yard, ect. allowing the necromancer to absorb a fraction of the victim's soul) but it being impractical to strengthen their own beyond a certain point with any method.

Things with weaker souls also drain the essence of other life around them, stronger life with wills are highly resistant to this effect. Larger animals and other such things are also somewhat resistant (and smart enough to try to get away). But things such as plants, small animals and insects are drained rapidly.  Why areas with large amounts of undead rarely support healthy life.  The necromancer's soul is not enough to fill the void in the undead and it drains the essence of the other life around. 

The amount of essence drained from the lesser life is insignificant and not enough to strengthen the soul of the undead or necromancer, but enough to kill the plants or small creature.  The amount drained is never enough to destroy the soul or essence completely(as once the essence or soul is significantly drained it will start to drain back, sorta like 2 connected glasses of water)

[Tenebrais]

So, this is an oxymoron, isn't it? Living creatures supposed to have a soul [if you believe in it at all], but the undeads are not living creatures.

The undead are not dead. As such, they can have a soul. The distinction between living and undead is that the undead are not dead for supernatural reasons.

[Tormy]

So, this is an oxymoron, isn't it? Living creatures supposed to have a soul [if you believe in it at all], but the undeads are not living creatures.

The undead are not dead. As such, they can have a soul. The distinction between living and undead is that the undead are not dead for supernatural reasons.

I don't know. Undeads were not dead before they became undead? [Think about the zombie movies for example]
PS.
The problem is, that this question itself forces us to give a subjective answer. There is no way to be objective about this.

[Neonivek]

Alright... I think we need to chose now if we are going to have this in the General Discussion or the Suggestion board while keeping it as if it was in both.

I really want to stop needing to jump back and forth between these. 

As for undead... Undead are not dead and they are not alive... They are a midpoint between them (think of it as limbo) kept that way through unnatural means or through defying the natural order of things.

A Zombie without a soul that is simply a puppet on a string isn't undead, it is the animate dead also known as the walking dead. (IMO)

[sweitx]

I think all undead would have a "soul" of some form.  Vampires and lich would retain the soul of their living counter part.  The zombie's soul would only retain the animalistic part of their former, living body's, soul.