#undead lore

[dept-of-monster-affairs]

What are the most common types of undead and how do they come to be?

Off topic I’ve really been enjoying your writing and world building. Keep up the good work ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ )

Thank you for contacting the Department of Monster Affairs. Our researchers have cataloged multiple types of undead; the only undead legally allowed in the Federation of American States are vampires and ghosts. Vampires of the Dosnensiiot clan are legally protected under the Rocky Mountains Treaty, and other vampires, including dhampir, are allowed if they submit to dietary monitoring. Ghosts are allowed to remain if they are benign. Ghosts that are violent toward humans will be exorcised due to their high likelihood of transforming into demons. There are non-legal undead that can be found in the Federal States of America as well. These undead are often controlled by illegal necromancers, created by biomancers, or remnants of the Great Incursion. These non-legal undead include but are not limited to skeletons, zombies, ghouls, stitch-monsters (also known as frankensteins), shades, and wraiths. If you have knowledge about the location of any of these non-legal undead or their creators, please contact your local Wardens immediately. Vampires are primarily created when one vampire drains the blood of a mortal to the point of death, and the deceased individual's body remains intact for 3 nights. However, our researchers are looking into the rumors that individuals fed on by a vampire or vampires for an extended period of time, and then those individuals die due to unrelated causes, may still rise as vampires. Ghosts occur when a mortal dies and their soul is prevented from moving on to the afterlife. The causes for this are varied, typically falling into four categories: being the victim of a tragic death, having unfinished business, nefarious magic binding the soul to our plane, or extreme fear of the afterlife.

The creation of non-legal undead is information not available to the general public.

Thank you again for contacting the Department of Monster Affairs. If you have any other questions, please let us know.

Thank you so much! I am so glad you like my writing and all my weird world-building. I'm having a lot of fun doing it! I actually have a vampire story I am trying to finish (I have a lot I am trying to finish, lol). Hopefully, I can post it soon!

[writerswho]

If a person shits themselves when they die, every zombie is technically shitting themselves. 

The reason zombies are so slow is that their pants are full of shit, and that makes them walk slowly because it's hard to run with all the extra weight of the shit.

In a post-apocalyptic scenario with zombies, the main threat wouldn't even be the zombies, but the return of the Plague. 

Thanks to the voices in my head, rats are the second most populated species on the planet. They are found on every continent except Antarctica — that we know of. Then you have the zombies, which are dead, rotting flesh mixed in with all the poo, and zombies aren't just humans, so we have lots of different types of bacteria and dead bugs and incredibly unhealthy ways of existing. Streets full of carrion, sick animals on top of animals without diseases. Rats from one side to the other, spreading everything, everywhere. 

Everyone is always so focused on the heroic struggle for survival in post-apocalyptic scenarios that we just forget that the rats can destroy the planet in two weeks if no one is watching.

[warcraft-lore-archives]

How are death knights’ bodies different from those of other undead like the Forsaken?

As both the death knights and the Forsaken are technically undead, much about their bodies and vital functions – or lack thereof – is similar. Virtually all death knights do not feel temperature or physical pain and have no real need to breathe, rest, or sleep, which are traits they share with the Forsaken [Death Knight, Chapter Five, Legends: Volume One: Fallen, Volume Two: Fallen, Volume Three: Fiend, Quest: They’re Doing it Wrong, Item: Diving Log, NPC: Prince Erazmin Dialogue, Traveler, pg. 96 (softcover edition), Object: Guide to the Side Effects of Reanimation]. That said, it is still technically possible for death knights to sleep if they want to [Object: The Death Knights of Acherus].

Additionally, the death knights and the Forsaken are both capable of bleeding, provided they have some sort of substance running through their veins. The fact that Arthas could still bleed and feel, even as a death knight, enraged him so much that he removed his own heart and threw it down a pit immediately after becoming the Lich King [Quest: The Hunter and the Prince]. Another death knight, Koltira Deathweaver, also complained of internal bleeding at one point [NPC: Koltira Deathweaver Dialogue].

While many of the Forsaken are described as being bloodless, some, including the undead player character, have a type of fluid inside them that oozes out when they are cut [Traveler, pg. 96 (paperback edition), Elegy, Quest: Hiding in Plain Sight, Page: Undead]. Archbishop Alonsus Faol, for example, has no blood as an undead, but it is pointed out that he is “tied together” with ichor [Before the Storm, Chapter Twenty-Six]. Not dissimilarly, a group of gnolls were reanimated after their bodies were infused with a unique type of embalming ichor [Quest: Graverobbers, Quest: Rot Hide Ichor]. Others still, such as the Scourge’s gigantic flesh giants, cannot be created without both blood and embalming fluid to preserve their parts and keep them functioning [Quest: Spill Their Blood].

The biggest question most players have concerning death knights, however, is whether or not they decay like their Forsaken counterparts. The seemingly immaculate appearance of their bodies compared to the Forsaken, many of whom are in a perpetual state of decomposition and often lose limbs, led many to assume that death knights’ bodies are preserved and maintained by a greater degree of necromantic magic [Traveler, pg. 96 (paperback edition), NPC: Forsaken Battleguard Dialogue, Quest: The Wakening, Short Story: Dark Mirror]. This is, in fact, true as Sylvanas once explained that the Val’kyr serving under Arthas raised death knights in rituals so potent that it made their bodies much stronger and hardier than those of traditional undead [Short Story: Dark Mirror].

Some of the original orcish death knights were depicted as rotting corpses, but it is important to note that the orcs’ souls had been placed in already decomposing bodies by the time they were reanimated [Tides of Darkness, Chapter Six, Chapter Seventeen]. In other words, there is no doubt that strong necromancy preserves the death knights’ bodies and prevents them from decaying at the same rate as lesser undead, but the appearance and state of their bodies likely depends on how long after their deaths they were reanimated.

[warcraft-lore-archives]

Introducing Death Knight Lore Week

What is it?

Like Shark Week on the Discovery Channel… but better, because it’s about death knights.

Last year, I put together a week-long info lore dump on druid shapeshifting after getting inspired to do research into the vast, vague, and sometimes contradictory history of druid lore. Although it’s been a little over a year since “Druid Week,” I decided I wanted to do another one and research a specific class in an attempt to both clear up any confusion about their lore and communicate some pretty cool lore facts along the way. After putting a vote to the masses, you guys chose death knights... so, without further ado, for every single one of the next six days, I will be posting popular questions (and my answers) about death knights!

What are some of the questions you’re answering?

To give you a taste of what’s to come in the next week, I will be answering questions like (in no particular order):

How much free will do death knights have under the Lich King?

How do different races and cultures view the death knights?

Who are the Four Horsemen?

How do each of the death knight generations differ from one another?

How are death knights’ bodies different from those of other undead like the Forsaken?

What is the exact nature of the death knights’ curse to inflict pain on others?

If you find you have additional questions you want me to answer, definitely send me a message and I’ll see what I can do!

As always, I am not an absolute authority on any of these topics and readily admit I have not meticulously combed through all of the relevant source material (although I really tried my best). Therefore, if you see I’ve missed something or you want to contribute your own input on these topics, you are more than welcome to do so - in fact, I encourage it.

Thanks and see you all during Death Knight Lore Week!

 ——————————————–

For Druid Week, see here

[dragnrider-the-sun-titan]

How do skeletons sleep?

Do their bones relax and separate from each other a little bit? If one fell asleep on the couch with their leg and arm dangling off the side, would those clatter to the ground?