Post/Author/DateTime	Post
safeguardian 03-07-05, 09:48 PM	You were debating about why zombies are evil. How is another argument? Why is there not an open acceptance for a good vampire? There comes a time when a vampire is made good and it creates a good following. Here is a wild one. A good mummy. A good pharaoh like ruler treated his people and country well should not always have to be a creature who is able to kill with a mummy rot disease and without mercy. Granted, there should be no remorse for some undead. Morghs do not atone for there mass killings when they were alive. Their thirst of killing enables them to exist. Liches. They were just awarded for their evil by itself. Let me know about these point of views concerning the undead. My character is a cleric. My job is dangerous but I am not on the frontline.
Fluffy pink rabbit 03-07-05, 10:18 PM	I have always thought that mummies should not be "always evil". I can definately see a place for good/neutral undead creatures in the game. Some time, I intend to create a culture that allows the dying to "donate" their bodies for zombification, creating a supply of tireless workers to supply their towns.
Leibel 03-08-05, 09:27 AM	Good or Neutral Mummy, eh - good idea if you can think up a good plot/history. A good campaign too - the "villain" is the mummy and that's who the PC's go after but it's really the PC's boss who wants the land the mummy rules. As for the good vampire there was one(Forgotten Realms I believe) but he's was the exception rather than the rule. Personally a good mummy is more beleivable than a good vampire because one could think of Mummyism(?) as a way of a people keeping a good ruler alive(sort of) but w/Vampire's they are blood drinkers - where would a good vampire find an acceptable blood source. Neutral vampire has an outlet however - dead evil opponents.
Vharuck 03-08-05, 10:17 AM	I think vampires become evil because of the magical curse of vampirism. Read Dracula by Bram Stoker. The wonderful and lovely mis Lucy (IIRC) became a sex-driven vampiress who was willing to attack those near and dear to her.
was_fired 03-08-05, 10:28 AM	I have no problem with good mummies myself. Good vampires are pushing it since I always considered vampirism to cause a form of insanity, but this isn't really support in the rules. In my world at least there is no such thing as a good lich. The process of becoming a lich is described as unspeakably evil so I thought to myself what that would be like. The result was that the final component of the ritual was torturing children and their parents to death. The children first kill their parents, then a cage is built of the parents bones which their children are held in. The cage is then imersed in the boiling blood and entrails of their now dead parents. After this the souls of the families are bound to the cage which is shrunken down into the lichs phylacterapy (sp). Then lich then kills himself and the trapped vengeful souls bind to him in their eternal quest for revenge. As long as a lich exisits it always is forced to hear to cries of those who bind it the realm of the living. This is just how I run it however, and it is not core. This is why I refuse to allow such a thing as a good lich though... or even a sane ancient lich.
Count Arioch the 28th 03-08-05, 10:44 AM	Well, in my campaign, vampires are possessed by demons, who can draw on the memories of the person it was previously. I have a loose manifesto of sorts about undead creation. Some undead simply are not the same person as they were in life. (Wights, Wraiths, shaodws, etc. They don't retain any previous memories, so I stick with the evil only alignment.) A few are only created from evil people. (Morhgs are the animate remains of serial killers, they have to be evil in life, or they don't become morhgs at all.)
Wyrd Bearer 03-08-05, 10:57 AM	Yep, if you go by well written and high quality (as in not Anne Rice) vampire myths, vampires are intrinsically evil. Vampirism is a curse on the living. Over the centuries, perhaps, a vampire could regain enough will power to force themselves to only feed on base animals, but not right off the bat (ooh, I didn't mean that as a pun). Other types of undead, like mummies, I can see as being good. Usually undead that was raised to protect an area from tomb robbers and their ilk I can see as being good, such as the crypt thing (FF), especially if raised by a good diety (through their cleric) to eternally guard a site sacred to them. (I'm not a fan of the deathless, as their sole existence is further try to associate the positive plane with good which is a terrible idea IMO). Mohrgs and ghouls are generally evil, I accept this because the living individuals had tendicies that were evil themselves, Mohrgs being psychopathic killers in life and ghouls were people who enjoyed the taste of flesh in life (this is hinted at in the Libris Mortis, I don't have the MM right next to me). Liches, ah here is a fun one. Generally speaking, only an evil person seeks to become a lich in order to live forever. But that is generally speaking. Wee Jas is not an evil god, nor is every one of her followers an evil person. Some are good, most are neutral. For a follower of Wee Jas to become a lich, it isn't bad, usually, this person is a respected individual who knows much and thus becomes an immortal sage for the benefit of all generations after. And yes, in Faerun there are good lich templates apparently, and in the Libris Mortis there is a variant lich which is good. But back to vampires. Really, in the end, it is up to how the DM has the world set up of whether becoming a vampire. The generally accepted wavelength is that vampires are naturally evil because they are embodiements of extreme lust and the like.
Evil Wizard 03-08-05, 11:02 AM	I always figured the process that makes one a vampire turns you evil. There's a whole lot of other changes going on to the ex-living person there, a stark shift to chaotic evil isn't beyond the bounds of belief. Or if you prefer, most good vampires immediately go out and watch the sunrise, rather than suck the blood of the living for sustenance. The only ones who stick around are the evil types, and the neutral vampires who eventually go evil. It's kind of hard to be a nice guy when your touch drains people's life force, and you survive by draining people of their blood. Oh yeah, liches. They don't go into detail, but it says right there that the process is "unspeakably evil". One can infer that you have to do some bad, bad things to make your phylactery. I just don't see many good characters going out and collecting the blood of a thousand virgins or whatever's required just to live forever.
CzarGarrett 03-08-05, 12:49 PM	It makes sense that undead whom pray and require energies (blood, brains, etc) of sentient beings would be usually or always evil. The undead who them themselves and sentient and do not require energies to survive could be any alignment- although I highly doubt too much lawfulness.
Khaibit_Ema_Neteru 03-08-05, 01:01 PM	If you check Deities and Demigods, there's a write-up of a greater mummy, a non-mindless undead of any alignment raised by the gods of egypt. It's happy.
Ogre4Hire 03-08-05, 01:18 PM	I always thought the reason that Vampires were evil was because of the things Vampires had to do to survive would probably cause a good or neutral with good tendancies person to commit suicide rather than "live" with their hungers. Savage Species talks more on Undead and Undead spawn and the way their alignments work.
Leibel 03-08-05, 01:26 PM	Just a thought for a campaign - ancient egypt w/an "Immortal" Mummy Pharaoph who uses the corpses of his enemies as bodyguards(not original I know - warhammer's Tomb Kings has this) and/or try to template the Skeleton Warrior from the 2e MM to represent those who want to serve their king "after death". A world/country/mini-campaign where necromancy is neutral or even good - that'll mess with players used to the evil necromancer stuff.
DarkLordDiablos 03-08-05, 03:06 PM	Most mindless undead are True Neutral IMO, they just follow orders. Mummies, easy one, they protect their tombs and rule their undead followers if they have any. They can be almost ANY alignment... Liches are 99.99% evil, the ritual to become a Lich is just too evil to become good within the next millenium or so... I imagine it includes the torture and killings of a lot of people, entrapping their souls and bathing in their blood... Vampires, well, I have to disagree with the rest of you... Though a good Vamp is near-impossible, they are intelligent enough to remain at least partially human... They have normal desires, fears, and needs... They're just undead and would drink your blood when they get the chance... It's called instinct: Lizardfolk eat you when they are hungry, yet they are not Evil... They NEED to do this to stay alive, so I say Neutral is definetely possible to achieve for Vamps. Plus, drinking blood is harmful, but not deadly... I can imagine an innecrophiliac (like many of my characters :D :rolleyes: :eek: ) to allow a vampiress to drink some of his blood to please and sustain her... No one's dead, no one complains, yes, I'd even say, everyone's happy. I see no Evil act there, acts of (sick) love, yes, but evil? No. If she can sustain herself like that, she could become a Good Vampiress. Lawful? No, unless they start their own community where drinking blood is allowed (yes, I planned such a thing once, but dumped it for my "No Undead" rule)
Ogre4Hire 03-08-05, 04:43 PM	The difference between a lizardman and a vampire is that a lizardman simply regards humans as a possible source of food if no other sources are available. Lizardfolk have a very survival oriented mindset. Vampires, on the other hand are once living creatures who must now feed on their former kindred in order to survive and are plagued by a mindless hunger. Unless they can feed off animals, I just can't justify them being Good creatures. Note too that unlike other creatures that survive on blood, such as stirges, vampires will typically keep feeding until they kill their victim.
Titan W 03-08-05, 04:58 PM	For good vampires - I must agree that they are very possibble... If not hard to maintain... I rmember in a TV series there was a girl who, on a mission to kill one vampire, got bitten by another, in order to saver her life from a lethal wound (THe ohter vampire would have been CN under somone's control, AAR, she spent the rest of the series strugling to maintain her humanity. Bottom line... It's possibble, however they would need to only accept blood from willing victims, etc... so it would be extremely difficult...
DarkLordDiablos 03-13-05, 04:00 PM	It would generally be like "Interview with the Vampire", the main char, you know. Generally, it's not that hard to find a willing victim... If you can't find one, feed off of recently killed animals, or just buy some raw steaks, steaks are a necessity for non-killing Vamps... Generally, I cannot see why anyone would find non-evil undead hard to imagine... Sure, they have difficulties, but I think they would definetely exist.
was_fired 03-13-05, 05:43 PM	Titan she had the benifit of blood banks, and yes the main character of that series was evil. He was just lawful evil and his current master happened to keep him from killing humans too often.
Hammerhead 03-13-05, 06:25 PM	I think the process of becoming undead turns people evil in a lot of cases. For instance the wight has an overpowering hatred of all life. Its hard to see someone like that not being evil
MinionOfCthulhu 03-13-05, 10:32 PM	As for the good vampire there was one(Forgotten Realms I believe) but he's was the exception rather than the rule. Personally a good mummy is more beleivable than a good vampire because one could think of Mummyism(?) as a way of a people keeping a good ruler alive(sort of) but w/Vampire's they are blood drinkers - where would a good vampire find an acceptable blood source. Neutral vampire has an outlet however - dead evil opponents. It's not the same thing of course, but in the Discworld some vampires lead fairly blameless lives as kosher butchers, which allows them to have all the blood they could want, and of course, blood pudding and really rare steaks. There are even a sort of vampiric teetotaler club called the Überwald Temperance League, an AA-like establishment for vampires. I don't really agree that vampires automatically mean evil, but I could see why a majority of vampires should be evil. Not all of them, but most of them. A vampire is much stronger then a human, and it'd be hard over the years to watch these squishy weak mortals grow weaker as they age and you live on, immortal. Sort of how dragons view people; it's hard to think of some races as an equal when you're much stronger then they are and will outlive their children's children's children's childre--you get the idea. But as others have said, most undead are evil in the very sense of the word; it's impossible to justify a good-aligned mohrg, for instance.
Antioch 03-14-05, 04:46 AM	The "Always blah" entry under the Alignment line does not mean that the monster is always, unwaveringly, the indicated alignment. It simply means that exceptions, while possibly, are not very likely to occur. I would rule that any intelligent undead has the capacity to retain any alignment it held in its former life, especially when taking it into consideration for plot or background. I've seen a handful of DMs create good liches and vampires before, and in the instance of one of the good vampires, he was a very kind, very noble king that the people all knew was a vampire, but still loved and respected him because of his disposition. As for the aforementioned lich ritual, I would imagine it could be very gruesome, demanding hundreds of victims to provide itself with long life...or it could be a very powerful spell. I tend to think of magic as a dynamic system in which one spell cast by two different people can have two VERY different casting methods. Gnomes, I should think, dont cast spells the same way an orc would. On a similar tangent, I'm sure there are various ways to enter lichdom, some quicker, some cleaner. Really, depends on the plot, the background, and the work one is willing to put into it.
Knight_of_spades 03-14-05, 08:55 AM	Why is it so important to have good undead? What story purpose can they serve? If you want good undead just do it. But know this: Good vampires are toothless and dull!
Evil Wizard 03-14-05, 01:27 PM	That's a good point, too. "Always Chaotic Evil" means that, for all intents and purposes, they're all evil. If you have a million vampires, one of them will not be Chaotic Evil. Of course, there's five other non-good alignments it could be, but the possibility exists. I think the "always" alignments are there to tell the paladin what's probably safe to smite without asking. :P