On the Undead

It's probably no secret that I'm a big fan of putting undead of all kinds into basically every game I run, to the point where I've had to challenge myself with "no undead exist in this world" challenges if we're playing in a medieval fantasy setting.

But my brain, my brain loves the undead as a concept. I want to put them in everything. Left to my own devices I will put them in everything. Why is this such a core part of my design process?

This isn't going to be a detailed analysis of the history of undead in fiction, though one day I'd love to write something like that. At present, I don't feel qualified enough to talk about it (though I have read a lot of folklore). Instead, I just want to talk about some introspection I've done and why I'm drawn to using undead, and some of the creativity I've experienced by doing "no undead" challenges. This one is liable to be a little less structured than some of my other posts, but I hope it's of some value to you.

I love the horror genre

This is a thing about myself that I'll easily admit, I love horror. All kinds of horror, but in particular cosmic (surprise!) horror, body horror, psychological horror, and gothic horror. Special shout out to feminist horror, as a subgenre of horror of which I'll always recommend Bluebeard's Bride if you're interested in a very good example.

But what is it about horror that draws me in? Some of it is intrinsic, I think. It's just a core part of my nature that I can't fully explain. That's not the whole story, though. Horror provides us the ability to explore things that scare us or weird us out in a space where there's no real danger. Finding yourself trapped in one of Jigsaw's traps would be horrifying, and extremely dangerous. The consequence of failure is death. Watching a fictional scenario where Jigsaw is doing that to someone else lets you imagine what that feels like without the danger (unless you've got a heart condition, of course).

Part of this is also my background in Anthropology. Horror as a genre lets us explore themes of human darkness, for as we all know humans are the real monsters.

Of course, you can find those themes in Sci-fi and Fantasy and any other genre, but horror is just filled with moral and ethical questions. Take Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley. This is a gothic horror novel and indeed the progenitor of several styles of horror writing. I'm not going to spoiler warning a novel from 1818, but if you've somehow not read it, it's in the public domain.

Anyhow, Frankenstein explores the nature of a doctor who tries to conquer death and gives birth to a creature and the consequences of his hubris. By the end of the novel, we see Frankenstein's descent into obsession with destroying his creation: a sentient being who didn't ask for any of this.

Mindless undead; zombie horror

Frankenstein, by modern D&D standards, would be more akin to a Flesh Golem than an undead creature. So, let's talk a bit about zombies in media and how they illuminate the characters.

Hopefully this is not a controversial opinion, but in most horror movies where you have hoards of zombies the zombies themselves are not the core element driving horror. They are the situation. An ever present threat that's just outside the walls, threatening to break in at any moment. Weak individually, easy to escape, until there are just too many of them. But, that's an abstract threat for characters in most zombie movies. The real horror comes from the threat of being turned. Being bitten by one of these things begins an irreversible process which will lead to you potentially killing your friends. How do you handle that?

When the world outside has gone to hell, and you're running out of resources, what do you do? The petty tyrant rules through threat of violence, keeping the colony in line — they're the only one who can save you from the threat. In those stories, the threat could be anything, the zombies are just the vehicle to produce the threat.

Individually, however, zombies (and other undead creatures) represent an abomination. Corpses are supposed to stay in the ground and when they don't, bad things are happening. They're a reversal of the "proper" order of the world. A thing that shouldn't happen. In more modern media, this happens via either a virus or a process that no one person controls. In fantasy, that can also be the case, but you have an extra method. Necromancy.

The Necromancer is someone who perverts the natural order for their own ends. Desecrating bodies with dark magics and making them do stuff without their previous animating force's will. What they do afterward can be wildly varied, but it's usually "evil".

Once you get into the idea of a necromancer doing things, though, you're out of pure horror and into more fantasy with some horror elements — it's just another enemy to thwart, who happens to use undead rather than say, golems. Is that interesting? There are some logistical things associated with that, raising undead tends to be faster than making golems, but still you're dealing with a logistics problem rather than confronting the fear of death.

So, if the necromancer is just another foe to beat, how can the undead be scary or intriguing in a fantasy setting?

Fantasy undead, endless possibilities

First of all, there are tons of different kinds of undead in folklore and many more undead that have made their way into the fantasy TTRPGs that are modern creations. You've got a lot of variety to choose from. Some of them can provide terrifying experiences for the PCs if played correctly.

The most obvious choice here would be the Lich, a spell caster who have tied their soul to an object which allows them to regenerate unless that object is destroyed. Typically, taking one down requires first finding that object, and then killing an extremely powerful undead. On its face, this isn't too scary. It's a series of tasks to accomplish. But the Lich doesn't operate on the timescale you do. It can wait. It can plan. It can send things at you when you're least expecting it. Just when you think you've found its bonded object (called a phylactery in D&D), turns out you haven't. Half your party lies dead, and a week later the Lich will be back to torment you. A Lich, should it want to be, is a persistence foe. It will never stop, and it can hold a grudge for centuries.

However, let's look at something a little less common. The Shadow or shade (depending on the game). This is literally just an undead shadow that can drain the life from its victim. It can hide in the darkness. Disguise itself as your shadow. Stalk you. Attack in numbers when you're alone. It could be anywhere.

One more example. The Attic Whisperer. This is a little undead that is created from the death of an abandoned or abused child. It can't speak with its own voice, so it steals other voices. Often, they just want someone to play with. Frequently in the process they kill their playmates. It's sad, for one, but also terrifying when you hear the sound of a stolen child's voice coming from the attic, asking if you'd like to play.

Propagation of the Undead

One other element of the undead that occurs fairly commonly is that undead can propagate themselves by creating more undead. Let's rattle some off:

• Vampires drain the blood of their victims and create spawns
• Zombies (in zombie movies) infect the living which then rise as more zombies
• Bodaks kill their victims with a stare, who rise as another bodak
• Ghouls create more ghouls via a disease (like zombies)
• Shadows make more shadows by killing their victim.

And so on. Now, other monsters can do this, the first that comes to mind is Vegepygmies that arise from the victims of a certain kind of mold, but there's much less an element of propagation with other monster types than there are with the undead. If you want to devastate a community, the undead are a great way to do it.

What does that boil down to?

For me, I think it's just versatility. There's a lot you can do with the undead to evoke a horror feel inside a more typical fantasy adventure. This is something that I instinctively do. Pretty much everything I put to paper has some kind of horror or spooky element to it, because I like that. It's enjoyable for me.

The undead help fill a role with an easily moldable creature that is immediately familiar with an audience. It's a signifier for "oh, there's probably some spooky shit about to go down".

It's also (for me) a crutch. One that I love, but a crutch nonetheless.

What happens when you forbid undead?

So, one of my favorite home game campaign settings that my group has come up with is "the whale". When I started out, I forbade myself from including undead. The God of Death (simply Death) doesn't generally allow souls to go. He's largely okay with the number of souls in his realm staying the same, so he'll allow self-sacrifice resurrections. But that's it. As a result, undead do not exist at all.

One of the players added another fun element to the world: The Sun is referred to as the "4th moon", and is evil (according to popular opinion). Pyromancers gain their powers from it, and they are vilified because of their raw destructive ability. Too many accidental forest fires in the past.

It was great. Without the undead to rely on, we came up with some fun challenges and factions for the world, which ultimately led to a being of pure chaos being the final "big bad" of the series.

They say that constraints make for creativity, and I've certainly found that true.

Wrap Up

So what was the point of all that? I dunno, really. Just trying to get some thoughts out of my brain. I hope you enjoyed that little trip into my subconscious.