Undead

"I've seen plenty of ghosts in my time, I've had to exorcise many. These souls are lost and angry, and torment the people they haunt. When souls refuse to move on, sometimes someone has to come in and tell them to leave."

— Johan Forlorn's Journal

Undead is a blanket term for any creature who had died previously and brought back into a living state. Some demons and vampires count as undead, but it usually refers to creatures like Zombies or Ghosts, which will be discussed here.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Inktober Day 22 - Ghost by Ibby Wondrous

Ghosts are ethereal entities that exist on the line between the mortal plane and the realms of the dead. They usually take on the appearance of the soul's former body shortly before death. If a death was particularly traumatic, they may manifest wounds and injuries they obtained in their death.
The detail of the ghost depends on how much power they have to manifest a form. A solid looking, human like form takes a lot of energy to sustain, so many ghosts tend to not manifest features they don't deem necessary, often times ghosts appear mono-chromatic and translucent, having wispy tails instead of legs. Some lose even more detail, becoming blank figures or smokey orbs. All Ghost forms lack irises, instead having a glowing X pattern in their place.

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Zombies are undead that are reanimated corpses, and can be in various stages of decay. Some people who raise the dead will go out of their way to fix up the bodies, often leaving them with obvious signs of repair like stitching, skin graphs, glass eyes, mechanical or animal like replacement limbs, etc. Unlike Ghosts, they are physical entities that can interact with the mortal world.

Creation

For an undead to be created, obviously, someone has to die first. In the case of Ghosts, when a person dies their Soul is released from their body. From there the soul has the option to go to one of the two Dead Planes, Overworld and Underworld. However, if a person chooses not to move on, their soul will float around on the mortal plane as a ghost.
Zombies can be created in many ways. Often a corpse is reanimated through Necromancy. Zombies that are simply reanimated but lack a soul will simply be brain dead vessels for the necromancer to control, known as thralls. A soul can take possession of a reanimated corpse, giving the zombie a will, though it can still be controlled by a necromancer if they choose to.

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by IbbyWondrous

Sherry Eckstein, an example of a zombie.

Parent Species

Most Mortal Races

Lifespan

Immortal

Related Articles

Zombies can't exist without magic to keep them alive, as they are missing a part of that soul that keeps them bound to their body. Thralls need a necromancer to tie them to Earth, while litches tend to rely on some powerful magical artifact as an anchor.

Abilities & Powers

Undead gain new powers with the deeper connection to their soul, and will develop new magical abilities and senses. These tend to fall under the Arcane or Illusions Magic fields, often involving a form of ESP. Some get a form of telekinesis which can allow ghosts to pilot reanimated corpses, and also accounts for reports of poltergeist activity.
With out this ability, ghosts can't otherwise interact with the mortal world. They are often invisible and inaudible to mortals unless they put in the energy to produce themselves, or the person can see undead as a magical ability. They are completely intangible and phase right through objects, walls or people. Most Undead lack the ability to feel pain, unless in the case of phantom pain, which is purely psychological. Their sense of touch, taste and smell are all extremely numbed.
Ghosts are bound to their remains and cannot travel far from it without their power and energy waning. They can however attach themselves to a single part of their body, like their head for instance, so if it is moves away from their usual territory, the ghost can teleport from their body to their head. Some cultures in the The Fantasme even traditionally dismember and scatter remains so that their ghosts may have a wider range of movement in the afterlife.

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Zombies lack the need to maintain certain bodily functions to move around. They do not need to breathe, they don't need to eat, their heart does not beat, their blood does not flow. They can lose body parts with out much hindrance. The caveat to this is that the body will continue to decay, and will rot away if preservation efforts aren't made. A zombie that wishes too last must constantly maintain its body and repair damaged tissue.

Behaviors

Zombies tend to be mindless with out a soul. Mindless zombies tend to stand around not doing anything until they are given instruction. Their master can give them very basic instructions that they carry out without question, or the necromancer can take control of them directly like a puppet. When souls take possession of a corpse, they regain their mind and will behave as they did when they were alive. However a necromancer can still give instructions and control them, and the soul inside can do nothing about it.
Ghosts tend to be souls who can't move on. This is often due to some form of trauma they have suffered in death, or unfinished business that they never completed. Ghosts can be calm occasionally, mainting their memories and old personality, but there are many times where a ghost suffers from madness that makes them violent and cause havoc for the living people around them. This is called a haunting, and needs to be dealt with for there to be piece in the area.

Exorcism

There are many ways to remove a haunting. Sometimes it can be as simple as removing the body from the property, though if a ghost has haunted an area for a long time, they can attach themselves to physical objects on the property as well, making it more difficult. Sometimes a ghost will leave on their own if their death is avenged, or their unfinished business is dealt with.
Normally this solution works in all cases, but its not always possible to figure out what the ghost wants, or even carry out their will. This is when a proper exorcism needs to be performed. Usually one needs to call in a Priest to perform the job.

History & Cultural Perception

Undead have existed for thousands of years. Some of the oldest cultures known to Earth and the Fantasme have mentioned ghosts or entities similar to them. The more powerful ghosts tend to be very old and haunting equally old structures with a lot of history and negative energy. Even though not all ghosts are malicious, there tends to still be a large number of people who are afraid of them, as their appearance or actions may come off as unintentionally frightening.
Zombies and litches are a phenomenon that came with the rise of necromancy in the Fantasme. Many cultures have negative views on the practice. As a form of Dark Magic, some believe it to be a gateway into demonic magic, while others question the moral implications of reanimating someone corpse, often for selfish reasons. Zombies are seen as disgusting abominations and are usually killed on sight if they are discovered.