Undead

The nature of death and the afterlife is a contentious subject in Sildair, with some religions and philosophies having wildly different beliefs about what happens when a creature dies. However, most agree that there are two types of undeath: one where the spirit dies and the body lives on, and one where the body dies while the spirit lives on.
The latter are creatures such as vampires and liches, whose body is in a state of decay, but is being maintained through magic, and their own willpower, while the former are things such as zombies and skeletons, who have no soul, but a being puppeted by the will of someone else, such as a necromancer. Scholars, inquisititors and mages will sometimes refer to spiritless undead as flesh-golems or bone-golems, while undead with their souls intact may be referred to as Living Dead.
There are those individuals who refuse to die, and extend their lives with unholy magic beyond the death of their body. While this may seem superficially similar to extending life through healing magic, the fundamental difference is that the body is already dead, and will immediately decay if not continously maintained through some spell or curse. The heart will no longer beat, and often other signs of decay will follow, until all that is left of the body are the bones.
Conversely, a body reanimated by necromantic magic will have no spirit, and instead relies on the will of another to stay animated. However, the body retains a certain amount of rudemental autonomy, even without a spirit, like an echo of the spirit that once inhabited it. Similar to muscle memory, a skeleton of what was once a warrior will be able to fight with some of the skill of that warrior, allowing a necromancer to simply order the skeleton to attack or protect a certain area, without needing to literally puppet it.
This ability of zombies, skeletons and similar things to show a certain amount of autonomy leads to the superstition that they too are retaining the spirit of those who once inhabited their body, and most common folk do not know the difference between an undead creature that has a will of its own, and one that does not. The Grey Brothers are keepers of much of the lore surrounding necromancy, and while they themselves consider it truly abhorrent to reanimate bodies, they make one exception when using magic that allows them to interrogate a dead body, because they know they are not actually disturbing a spirit that has passed, but are in fact merely listening to the echo left behind in the bones.

Ancient battlefields are much sought after by necromancers, as they harbour bones infused with a warrior's skill, and they come with arms and armour included.

The curse of vampirism is nurtured and perpetuated among the elites of Miankurian society, and they treat it not as a curse, but as a sacrement to their God Melkor, the very first vampire.