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[DJ]

Seconded.

[Boksi]

Two-point-eightynine-thed

[Neonivek]

While I do think a system like Fieari's system is great... I do think it should be changed for Dwarf Fortress. Though I hope that goes without saying and I don't seem like a Jerk.

Though I am not TOO knowledgable of how it would be done.

I do think that there should probably be more parts of the soul possibly by splitting up your groups into many smaller groups.

[Asehujiko]

(Freekishly Skeletons are usually much more intelligent then Zombies in most videogames)

It actualy makes alot of sense. Zombies require little more then a plug in some of their biggest wounds and some basic "get up and fight you lazy git" necromancy. Skeletons on the other hand have no fuctional tissue and require alot more magic to properly animate and maintain. Therefor it also seems logical to equip them with superior intelect because they are much more valuable in terms of magic involved.

The garden variety DF undead(raised by the evilness of the land itself) are likely candidates for having no soul at all.

[ChJees]

The garden variety DF undead(raised by the evilness of the land itself) are likely candidates for having no soul at all.

You mean those bloodthirsty zombie hoary marmots which are trying to eat you?

[QuantumSawdust]

Depends

Take the stereotypical slow BRAINS zombie. They are driven by an uncontrollable desire and have no other goals but to get more brains. Many undead are like this, even intelligent skeletons.

However, any undead beast which can make moral choices on any level must have a soul.
Take vampires. They need blood, sure, but they can choose who they attack, and the may have standards (avoiding children, whatever), and they certainly can hold a conversation. Vampires must have souls.

However, there is still the case of undead beings which have sold their soul, or had their soul taken over by a powerful magician or whatever.
In these cases, they still must maintain a fragment of their soul or the whole process would have been meaningless. However, they are also driven by the rulership of their masters. In this sense, they lack a soul to make choices on their actions if their master makes a demand. The master taking part of the soul is what allows him to do this without fear of the undead rebelling.

So I say undead can have no soul, in which case they aren't really even true undead - they are just mindless bodies of mechanical and physical desires. Undead can maintain their full souls, in which case they are more like normal humans or beasts that are cursed. Or undead can have their souls controlled, in which case they may act normal most of the time, but be "sleepers" for dark forces to act upon.

[Arkose]

Lets make things even more confusing by injecting some Buddhist philosophy into the issue!

form is not the soul, sensations are not the soul, perceptions are not the soul, assemblages are not the soul, consciousness is not the soul

[Sunday]

Really, though, the original "need brains" zombies were pretty smart.

See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1FKU9Oihw&feature=related

[Neonivek]

Really, though, the original "need brains" zombies were pretty smart.

See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1FKU9Oihw&feature=related

If I were to guess what that video was... is it Thriller?

[Kagus]

The title's right there:  "Return of the living dead".  Definitely not Thriller.


Slightly off-topic, but whoever is playing that zombie is doing an amazing job with the movements.  Really creepy.

[Heavy Flak]

I have to say, I like what Fieari has written up.  I think it could work really well in the DF context.  While I still disagree with Tormy and Tenebrais on if animals have souls, what Fieari has typed up certainly acts as a good series of guidelines for the various types of undead, and what you can, and can't be.

Sunday's link makes me really sad.  I've never considered the Return series to be... uhhh... true to zombie lore.  Maybe if they called them something else, I'd be more okay with it.  Like if Kubrick had renamed the Shining, "Super-scary Haunted Hotel" since the only things his movie has in common with the book is there's a kid with his folks in a haunted house in Colorado. 

Edit: A quick aside - the return series is created by the co-writer of Night of the Living Dead, John Russo.  There was a court case about it, and it was found George Romero was able to make more movies in his Night world, while Russo could make all the movies he wanted with "Living Dead" in the title. 

[Kagus]

Zombie lore is a rather touchy subject, one where people unfortunately tend to cite George Romero as an expert.

Hell, he doesn't even know what his own zombie lore is.

[PTTG??]

*snip*

Quite clever. I like it.

[Neonivek]

Zombie lore is a rather touchy subject, one where people unfortunately tend to cite George Romero as an expert.

Hell, he doesn't even know what his own zombie lore is.

Yeah, I agree. Many people even go as far as to say that non-shambling zombies are not zombies.

So yeah, zombie lore conversations are odd at best.

[Sabin Stargem]

I just noticed that there are two undead threads now, one here and the other in Suggestions.  Since my posts in Suggestions are not so much about gameplay as how I think Souls work, I figured placing a copy here would be good.

The body and mind are vessels, in that they each are shapes and frameworks in which the soul's capacity would attempt to fill.  Because of this, the nature of a being will strive to solidify it's opinions as a creature lives longer.  Something like a political outlook or methods with handling predators are a combination of gained knowledge and the soul's desires.  So too it applies for body.  Of course, when a creature is in an environment where fulfilling it's true potential is difficult, the body and mind reflects this.  The soul doesn't, because it changes very slowly and is essentially immortal.  It may grow and change, but the soul can't be tainted.  Rather, the reason that necromancers, shamans, and devils are interested in souls is because they possess properties that make have a drive to accomplish something.


Something like a zombie is very simple to accomplish with a soul, because most souls are inclined towards consumption and destruction, because the nature of existence demands that things to be created and destroyed.  As such, most souls can be easily attached to a vessel that was once inhabited, and it would occupy that space - like a placeholder of sorts, that gives very simple instructions.  Eat.  Move.  Stare.  Stuff like that.  However, bodies that once possessed a soul but no longer have such, quickly lose their capacity to effectively hold a soul unless another soul takes the space that was occupied.


Vampires on the other hand, possess their original soul upon being transformed into a vampire.  The big difference is in the mind and body, which was altered - and so the soul will find itself cut off from various aspects of both, yet more voids in which to fill.  This why a violent person turned into a vampire could suddenly find a life of peace, or for an satisfied person to become an insatiable bloodsucker.  The soul's effects on mind and body effects the direction they develop, but when both are altered suddenly, an rebalancing occurs.


More complex uses of the soul, like resurrection or to impart power into an object has higher requirements.  Recalling what I already said, simply placing the soul into a random body wouldn't resurrect someone, since the mind is something that interprets the soul.  It acts as an filter, a means of understanding the soul and expressing it in a way that could be used.  An madman who has lost his mind would gain direct access to his soul's desires, but continually loses the ability to control his actions, since the latest desires of the soul are constant and demanding.  Therefore, placing the soul into it's original body of this lifetime is the ideal solution.  However, is it possible to copy the mind, so that it could be placed into a different body, to await for the soul?  Probably.


One of the most common means by which to create an item of power, is to split off a portion of a soul.  This doesn't destroy or harm the soul, but rather it creates a 'seed', which contains the core principles of a soul.  This seed attaches itself to an object, since attachment to a living thing usually means that the seed would be submerged, unable to express itself sufficiently.  Simple animals like squirrels, hedgehogs, dogs, and so on might be 'infected' by this seed, and start displaying somewhat different behaviors.  However, an object that contains a seed would feed of other souls that are nearby, slowly growing.  By continued contact with a strong soul, both souls will eventually gain properties of the other in some form, becoming stronger for it.

In the context of my last post, Mummies would basically come in two flavors:  Botched, and correctly mummified.  The common Egyptian method of mummification doesn't produce good mummies, due to their misunderstanding of the mind and body.  Due to scattering the body parts, though still preserved within the tomb of a mummy, the soul that is attached can only be partially expressed.  Because of this, most mummies can be considered to be a type of petrified zombie.  However, if the brain and other critical portions of a person isn't removed when mummified, the reanimated corpse would be able to achieve higher functions.


Unfortunately, this leaves us a dilemma.  What of skeletons, liches, and other creatures that lack a 'mind' or 'body'?  Since I consider the soul to be an object that will try to fill a vessel to the best of it's abilities, then it can gradually start affecting deteriorating remains if the loss of mind and body is relatively slow - say, rotting over the course of a year.  Liches are normally created through an understanding of the soul, and how it interacts with a mind.  As such, the Phylactery would act as the vessel, customized to hold the Liche's will.  If botched, that simply means that the mind of the would-be Lich would have an altered means of expressing itself.


Ghosts, the last of the more common undead give us a problem:  They clearly have no body, in the sense they have no skeleton or corpse to animate.  Rather, ghosts are attached to a location, like where their remains are present, or a place that they often think of.  Like their home, or a person.  So ghosts have to be mental constructs, projected by a soul that is attached at a physical location.  To dismiss a ghost, is to eliminate the mind, which would rob the soul a means of expression.  Alternatively, moving or thoroughly destroying the object that the soul has attached itself would be another means of removal.