Can you give me some evolution tree for undead creatures?

[RepresentingWrath]

Bless, bruh.

Bruh.

 

[Vnator]

In most undead lore, there IS no evolution tree. In fact, it goes the other way, a line of negative succession in which each generation of undead from a given line gets weaker, and it's such a fast degredation that only the absolute highest classes of undead can create other undead.

That said, yes, there is a strength higherarchy among undead, and usually how each strength tier of undead is created is of increasing difficulty in conjunction with their strength.

The power scale goes like this.

Corporial type undead
(Undead types with physical bodies that can be destroyed)

1. Skeletons: The weakest type of undead, usually created by some form of necromantic energy reanimating the bones of the deceased. There is some variance in the strength of skeletons depending on what the bones belonged to, but within the same type of creature they are always the weakest.

2. Zombies: Zombies are somewhat stronger than skeletons in a physical sense, but the thing that REALLY sets zombies above skeletons is that they can usually pass on negative effects by their bite or by scratching their victim. In the more sci-fi geared zombies typical of zombie movies in which zombism is transmitted by some form of virus that infects living victims, this effect is especially potent in that the bite and scratch will transmit the virus and actually turn the victim into another zombie. However, for more fantasy-related zombies, the bite and scratch tend to only have paralytic effects on average.

3. Ghouls: Ghouls are most famously created as the thralls of a Vampire (thus the comment of higher tier undead creating lower tier undead.) A ghoul is in every single way an upgraded version of a zombie, usually having most of the same characteristics in terms of outward appearance, but in most lore they retain a great deal more of their human intelligence than a zombie would. In some lore, even fantasy in nature, the bite of a ghoul will indeed turn the victim into another ghoul.

4. Death knights: Death knights can be best thought of as a powerfully upgraded version of a skeleton created in a special and unique way that is entirely unlike the skeleton's creation process, but in appearance the main difference between a skeleton and a death knight is that the death knight is often wearing full armor. Unlike a skeleton, a death knight will have great supernatural strength and speed, and also has human levels of intelligence and awareness. These are the only class of undead that can often be portrayed as good in nature, as sometimes there is lore where a noble warrior will rise to protect something long after their death.

5. Vampires: Vampires have a rich and varied lore that would take far too long to get into here, but most people are usually familiar with it. The main things of note are that, depending on the method, vampires are able to create other vampires equal or lesser in power to themselves, and can also create ghouls, depending on the method. Usually, the method of conversion from a human to a vampire or ghoul is the same, but the main difference is either consent of the person being turned (having it forced upon you turns you into a ghoul instead of a vampire) or the virginity status of the person being turned (virgins become vampires, non-virgins become ghouls.)

6. Lich: In all lore, the Lich is always considered to be the very highest class of undead. A lich is a mage who uses powerful magic to bind their soul to an object called their philactary. After binding their soul in this way, they can inhabit a skeletal body which, if destroyed, will cause them to simply be forced back to their philactary until they can inhabit a new body. As such, a lich is unkillable unless you can find and destroy their philactary (which they often hide extremely well.) Due to the powerful magic needed to turn themselves into a lich in the first place, a lich will always also be an incredibly powerful mage in addition to the innate nature of lichhood making them incredibly difficult to kill.

Incorporeal undead
(Undead without physical bodies)

1. Whisp: A whisp is the physical manifestation of a disembodied soul, often appearing as a floating ball of light. A whisp often does not have the ability to affect the physical world, or at most can exert some minor telekinesis or affect the air temperature, but a whisp being visible often means there are other stronger undead around.

2. Shade: A shadowy silhouette of a person that often appears outside of one's peripheral vision. This is, in fact, a type of undead. It is a shadow that can move on it's own, independent of a physical body that would cast the shadow.

3. Apparition: "Apparition" literally means "appearance." They appear as the ghostly images of people, but often don't have the ability to do much more than have their physical presence be noticed.

4. Poltergeist: Literally "noisy ghost." A poltergeist is an incorporeal type of undead who often does not appear physically as a whisp or apparition would, but they have far greater ability to affect the physical world by moving objects around, dramatically shifting the air temperature (but usually no more extreme than the range of a hot summer day to a cold winter day), or even cause a person some physical damage such as causing scratches to appear on their skin.

5. Hitogata: This one is exclusively from Japanese lore, but it is a dramatically more powerful version of the whisp. Instead of being made of incorporial soul material, a hitogata actually has a body of fire and can start fires if it so desires.

6. Ghost: A ghost is typically portrayed as being an apparition with the full abilities of a poltergeist as well, and manifesting both of these capacities at once is thought to mean it is a far more powerful version of incorporeal undead than either of the two.

7. Wraith: A vastly upgraded version of a shadow with all the same physical features, but it has the ability to physically attack and damage things.

Those are all the standard types of undead without going into copyright territory. There are also unique class undead who lean more toward one or the other, such as the ring wraiths from LOTR, which have the name "wraith," but appear more like death knights wearing hooded cloaks.

The best one here! If you really want an evolution chain, then I recommend against having vampires and liches be part of it, because they're not traditional undead like skeletons and zombies, and should have their own evolution chains instead.

 

[Jemini]

The best one here! If you really want an evolution chain, then I recommend against having vampires and liches be part of it, because they're not traditional undead like skeletons and zombies, and should have their own evolution chains instead.

Very much so. Vampires are, by far, the very worst case for any form of evolutionary tree since traditional vampire lore generally tends to fall into 2 categories on this topic, neither of which leave any room at all for evolution.

Either they have a strict top-down higherarchy in which stronger vampires can only create other vampires that are equal or less than them in strength (usually giving 4 clear deleniations of power, with the ability to create lesser vampires being one of the things that's lost at the 4th step down), or the vampire's power is simply something they accumulate by some method. Either their power itself grows as they age, or perhaps just their capacity to build up power does. Either way, it's attached to pure age and nothing else.

(The latter is the more traditional of the 2, with the 4 step ranks of vampires being something purely invented by webnovels. Brham Stoker's Dracula was very much a creature of the 2nd type.)

As for the Lich, they are another creature for whom their traditional lore leave zero space for an evolutionary tree. A demi-litch is purely a creation of Dungeons and Dragons with no other lich lore that allows for them to exist (thus another reason to avoid it, since WotC tends to be very letigious,) meanwhile all other things like "elder lich" and "skeleton mage" are not an evolutionary tree advancement of a lich at all. In fact, the only thing that makes a lich stronger or weaker is how good of a mage they are. It's pure 100% based on the lich's magical knowledge, and the indirect link it has to their age is purely a product of them being older allowing them to accumulate more magical knowledge.

(To this day, I am still of the opinion that Quatach-Ichl from "Mother of Learning" is likely the single most terrifying (and accurate) lich to have ever been portrayed in fiction, and he manages this despite MoL being a time-loop series.)

EDIT: Fun fact, Voldemort from Harry Potter is actually a Lich as well. I am completely digging the angle where he's not a skeleton, because that actually goes back into completely traditional Lich lore as well. The skeleton thing is also mostly an invention of D&D. The first lich to ever appear in fiction is actually from Slavic folklore. It is a wizard named Kashe the deathless, who was given the ability to put his heart into an egg by Baba Yaga and this allowed him to never be killed unless someone found the egg and destroyed it. He looked like a perfectly normal old man, if you discount the fact that in most versions of the story he is imprisoned in some way and often mutilated in order to keep him from escaping. (There are also versions of the story where instead of an egg, it's a horse that he was awarded by Baba Yaga. The horse is also the source of his immortality in these versions.))

 

[Deleted member 84247]

I made this for something before.

 

[Vnator]

EDIT: Fun fact, Voldemort from Harry Potter is actually a Lich as well. I am completely digging the angle where he's not a skeleton, because that actually goes back into completely traditional Lich lore as well. The skeleton thing is also mostly an invention of D&D. The first lich to ever appear in fiction is actually from Slavic folklore. It is a wizard named Kashe the deathless, who was given the ability to put his heart into an egg by Baba Yaga and this allowed him to never be killed unless someone found the egg and destroyed it. He looked like a perfectly normal old man, if you discount the fact that in most versions of the story he is imprisoned in some way and often mutilated in order to keep him from escaping. (There are also versions of the story where instead of an egg, it's a horse that he was awarded by Baba Yaga. The horse is also the source of his immortality in these versions.))

Hindu mythology also has that kind of a myth too, where various powerful demons would split their soul and put it into an object or other creature, where they can't be killed until that object/creature is destroyed. It's a cool myth and I'm glad so many places make use of it. Liches are freaking awesome!

 

[SirDogeTheFirst]

To make matter short, I want to see some examples as reference material for mine.

Usually, I think it began with skeleton/zombie and move up.

Maybe you can take different undead beings as their individual races and have them evolve into different species in their race. Like instead of evolving a skeleton into a zombie, then into a vampire, make a zombie evolve from a mindless, slow monster to a fast, stalking predator, or into something like a tank from left4dead, in which its muscles grow in unnatural levels, or let them spit chemicals, or make them interact with magical mushrooms and be a walking spore nest. For skeletons, you can make their bones grow more durable, and change their body structure. Level 1 skeleton, bones tough as a normal human, level 5 skeleton, has bones strong as steel, and warped to look like a full body heavy plate armor.

 

[Cipiteca396]

Alright, I have a little time, but not much. So we'll go with the (AI) prompt method of generating an evo tree.

First, you want to find your 'key words'.

Physical. Corporeal. Magic. Mundane. Elemental. Undead. Soulless. Intelligent. Animated. Resurrected.

And many more. Things like this will allow you to create 'groups' of evolutionary options. Things that add variety without adding difficulty. Every time you see an option like 'Burning' Skeleton or 'Burning' Corpse, you know it's a Fire Elemental evolution. It might be best to avoid a lazy naming convention like that, but at the very least it should help you fill out the tree.

Typically, there should be some restrictions or at least prerequisites to get options. At the bare minimum, your base rank Skeleton Thrall isn't going to evolve into a Grand Hellfire Lich when it hits level five. However, aside from level and power, you can use skills, achievements, environment, and other factors as well. Maybe living near a volcano will unlock some Fire variant evolutions. Maybe living in a prison will unlock Rogue variants. Maybe collecting a certain number of bones will unlock the Amalgamation upgrade.

The key point of an evolution tree though is probably the option to switch branches. A skeleton might switch into a zombie, or a ghost, or even a death elemental. Or it might upgrade into a higher rank skeleton, a skeleton with a stronger base species, or some kind of skeleton-like monster. With enough effort, it should be possible to get all the way back around to being a living thing again- if the rules of the world allow for it.

A little rushed, so I feel like I didn't do a good job, but back to the fight, I suppose.

 

[Octopal]

Skeleton->Skeleton Girl->Skeleton Girl With Basic Weaponry->Skeleton Girl with Super Weaponry->Skeleton Woman With Legendary Gear-> Skeleton Goddess of Milk (Because milk makes strong bones)


That is my contribution in this sea of very good suggestions. Bless, bruh. Have a good day

More evolution:
Skeleton Goddess of Milk -> Skeleton Goddess of Milf -> THE Granny of Skeleton -> THE Dead Skeleton

 

[Shard]

IMO it is a fairly complex setup, had to do a bunch of thinking about it for an idea I had that didn't work out.

As others have mentioned, there should be some divides, and some exclusive groups.

Vampires are not evolved, but made, either through a powerful curse, or the bite of a powerful vampire, and grow in power with age and feeding.
Liches are not evolved, but made, typically by a mage deciding death shouldn't be allowed to stop their studies of magic and giving it the middle finger by hiding their soul outside their body. The main change I can see making is have them not be skeletal by default, but rather just naturally rot unless they actively stop it via magic.

(To this day, I am still of the opinion that Quatach-Ichl from "Mother of Learning" is likely the single most terrifying (and accurate) lich to have ever been portrayed in fiction, and he manages this despite MoL being a time-loop series.)

100% this. I have never seen a better lich in any story or game anywhere. Not even a contest of any sort. I HIGHLY recommend giving "Mother of Learning" a read.

Once beyond those clear exceptions, I would classify undead into a few groups - spirit, body, curse. Within body, you have two subcategories, skeleton and zombie, where zombies can become skeletons, but not the other way around, barring a switch to a spirit or curse first and then stealing a new body.

Your skeleton types are faster and more agile than the zombie line due to not having to lug flesh around, but lower strength and durability because the flesh and muscle still contribute even if dead. Skeletons become more durable over time as their bones dry out, and zombies likewise dehydrate, their flesh turning into essentially armor. The majority of their progression is either through equipment, intelligence, and skill, or intelligence and magical skill.

For curses, you can come up with anything you feel like, just slap a spirit into a curse. Typically these can be bound to a location, object, or individual, and may occur naturally, such as the typical "unfinished business ghost" but can evolve beyond the score of their curse similar to other spirits and eventually break the curse, becoming free-roaming spirits if they wish.

Spirits start off as wisps of ectoplasm with only an incredibly weak ability to siphon negative energy from other sources. All life includes small amounts, but it is much easier, and more plentiful as well, to siphon from corpses. This leads to swarms of wisps being attracted to battlefields and massacre sites to feed on the dead. From there, they slowly gain substance, turning into a defined orb of negative energy. These still cannot affect the world, but can evolve into either will-o-wisps that focus on trickery, or a more humanoid spirit.

Your will-o-wisp line gains more power similar to before by absorbing from corpses, but gaining illusion magic and the ability to manifest as light. This aids them in tricking people to their deaths, such as by pretending to be a child lost in a cave and leading someone to become lost.

On the other hand, your more humanoid spirits have a lot more options. One line focuses on the incorporeal nature, slowly gaining the ability to choose to interact with the physical, and eventually leading into being able to possess corpses as a zombie, though they lack the magical bonus that allows skeletons to move, so they tend to be temporary bodies. Even later, their will becomes powerful enough to attempt to force another spirit out of their own body and take it over. This can, depending on your choice, either swap them to a living being, or kill the host body while animating it, each option coming with its own perks and followups.

Another incorporeal line focuses on trying to interact more, gaining a body made of ectoplasm and the ability to use it to interact with the world. They lose the ability to pass through solid matter, and become vulnerable to physical weapons to a degree, but later on can regain the ability to go incorporeal by shifting their ectoplasm into energy and back again. This is where things like shadows and wraiths fit in, being able to directly manipulate the world around them.

Some goals can be hit by multiple types, such as a zombie becoming a banshee directly, or a incorporeal spirit becoming one by claiming a body for itself, or a less incorporeal undead manifesting into a more ghostly banshee. Similarly, a fleshy undead could gather themselves up and become a spirit upon destruction of their body, once powerful enough. This level of interconnection allows a single being to take all three primary paths depending on their situation.

A zombie might become a ghoul, then get waterlogged and rot into a skeleton, learn magic and become a skeleton mage, then get destroyed and turn into a poltergeist, strengthen itself into a wraith, then possess a corpse to become a zombie type again. This also lets you 'kill' your undead characters without removing them from the story, just weakening them and requiring them to gain a new set of skills. With some effort, you could even end up with an undead villain who does annoying things like show up as a zombie in armor, light itself on fire so it might burn people it attacks, then gets faster and more agile as it burns away, only to eventually be destroyed before the spirit emerges and possesses someone it killed and starts casting spells to make up for the weaker body.

I MIGHT have put a little too much thought into this for a failed idea, so I will probably be using it myself at some point. Feel free to snag anything that you think might be handy, however.

 

[Gryphon]

I have a philosophical question... If a skeleton has flesh on it... is it still a skeleton or is it a zombie?

That is what we in the business call a human

 

[Jemini]

Corporial type undead
(Undead types with physical bodies that can be destroyed)

1. Skeletons: The weakest type of undead, usually created by some form of necromantic energy reanimating the bones of the deceased. There is some variance in the strength of skeletons depending on what the bones belonged to, but within the same type of creature they are always the weakest.

2. Zombies: Zombies are somewhat stronger than skeletons in a physical sense, but the thing that REALLY sets zombies above skeletons is that they can usually pass on negative effects by their bite or by scratching their victim. In the more sci-fi geared zombies typical of zombie movies in which zombism is transmitted by some form of virus that infects living victims, this effect is especially potent in that the bite and scratch will transmit the virus and actually turn the victim into another zombie. However, for more fantasy-related zombies, the bite and scratch tend to only have paralytic effects on average.

3. Ghouls: Ghouls are most famously created as the thralls of a Vampire (thus the comment of higher tier undead creating lower tier undead.) A ghoul is in every single way an upgraded version of a zombie, usually having most of the same characteristics in terms of outward appearance, but in most lore they retain a great deal more of their human intelligence than a zombie would. In some lore, even fantasy in nature, the bite of a ghoul will indeed turn the victim into another ghoul.

4. Death knights: Death knights can be best thought of as a powerfully upgraded version of a skeleton created in a special and unique way that is entirely unlike the skeleton's creation process, but in appearance the main difference between a skeleton and a death knight is that the death knight is often wearing full armor. Unlike a skeleton, a death knight will have great supernatural strength and speed, and also has human levels of intelligence and awareness. These are the only class of undead that can often be portrayed as good in nature, as sometimes there is lore where a noble warrior will rise to protect something long after their death.

5. Vampires: Vampires have a rich and varied lore that would take far too long to get into here, but most people are usually familiar with it. The main things of note are that, depending on the method, vampires are able to create other vampires equal or lesser in power to themselves, and can also create ghouls, depending on the method. Usually, the method of conversion from a human to a vampire or ghoul is the same, but the main difference is either consent of the person being turned (having it forced upon you turns you into a ghoul instead of a vampire) or the virginity status of the person being turned (virgins become vampires, non-virgins become ghouls.)

6. Lich: In all lore, the Lich is always considered to be the very highest class of undead. A lich is a mage who uses powerful magic to bind their soul to an object called their philactary. After binding their soul in this way, they can inhabit a skeletal body which, if destroyed, will cause them to simply be forced back to their philactary until they can inhabit a new body. As such, a lich is unkillable unless you can find and destroy their philactary (which they often hide extremely well.) Due to the powerful magic needed to turn themselves into a lich in the first place, a lich will always also be an incredibly powerful mage in addition to the innate nature of lichhood making them incredibly difficult to kill.

I just realized, I forgot to include Mummies on this list.

I'd place mummies between death knights and vampires in terms of general power.

Mummy lore is, interestingly, a rather recent thing historically speaking. In Egyptian lore and the lore of other cultures that practiced mummification in their death rites practices, it was just a death rite and nothing more. There was nothing about it in the lore other than it being something to help the soul in the afterlife. In fact, the mere fact it is part of the soul going to the afterlife leaves absolutely no consideration in the lore at all for the mummy then raising as an undead.

All actual mummy undead lore comes up after Egyptian tombs started to be researched by Western archeologists, and that research began to subsequently get published and the actual mummified remains brought back to be displayed in museums. As such, all mummy undead lore is a creation purely of the 20th century.

In terms of mummy undead lore, there is a very close association with the pharaohs of Egypt and the more powerful among the mummies have a definite regal aspect to them. There are also lesser varieties of mummies that, I guess, are probably supposed to be the pharaoh's servants who would also be mummified along side the pharaoh and buried with him. (by Egyptian burial practices, they did not wait for the pharaoh's servants to die a natural death before mummifying them.)

As such, there can be a lesser mummy variety positioned below the pharaoh type, likely close in power to that of a ghoul to the extent I'm unsure which would actually be more powerful between the two.

The lesser mummies are often portrayed as just zombies covered in bandages. Meanwhile, the pharaoh mummies have some serious power at their control, often in the form of their ability to utilize curses in some manner. These curses are initially based on the diseases that the raiders of Egyptian tombs would get as a result of some spores in the tomb, which would eventually lead to death. Control over scarabs and the ability to cause scarabs to manifest form every crack in walls seems to be another frequently portrayed ability.

In the late 90s film, "The Mummy," the mummy in question actually was able to manifest the plagues of Egypt that were supposed to have been inflicted by the Christian God in the book of Exodus, but this can pretty easily be discarded as inaccurate lore produced by a bad reading of the story.

A more accurate type of magical ability a pharaoh mummy ought to be able to wield is anything related to abilities possessed by the actual gods of Egypt, which would be something an author would have to research on their own.

Ultimately, mummies are a great type of undead to feature in your story if you happen to be a well experienced writer due to the fact that there is so little traditional lore about them and all of it is an invention of the 20th century. This means it's fertile ground for you to path the way toward further developing the lore yourself.

EDIT: For instance, the distinction between pharaoh mummies and servant mummies is actually something I just made up as I was writing this just now, but there is still a pretty definite gap in ways mummies are handled in fiction with some being really powerful and possessing magical abilities while others are just walking corpses with bandages on them and are just another damage-sponge undead for the player/protagonist to fight. I do like this distinction I came up with as it very easily explains this disparity in the different ways mummies are handled in games and fiction.

(If I may be so bold as to actively develop the lore a little further, maybe the abilities of the servant mummies are actually affected by the presence or absence of the pharaoh mummy, that being another ability attributed to the pharaoh mummy. If the pharaoh is asleep or their power somehow not present, the servant mummies are no more than shambling corpses with the intelligence of the standard zombie but maybe more physical strength, and generally play a role of guarding the tomb. But, if the pharaoh mummy is awake and able to give power to their servants, the servant mummies can become intelligent, regaining some of their abilities they had in life.)

EDIT 2: Actually, there is a fairly recent development in mummy lore from, of all things, the Zelda franchise. The mummy lore up until this point has all been of the Egyptian mummification tradition. However, Zelda Breath of the Wild actually pulled the Tibetan mummification practices into the mix. Tibetan mummies are VERY different from Egyptian mummies. The Tibetan mummies are very rare, and all of them are of Buddhist monks of great renown. This is because the Tibetan Buddhist monks have a practice of living mummification, in which the monk will live in a very specific way and eat very specific things as their death is approaching, and this allows their body to avoid decay even after their death.

This is apparently something that's not easy to pull off, and therefore the mere fact a monk has managed to get it right tends to gain them a great deal of renown.

This is just something that has existed as a curiosity up until now, and Zelda BotW is the first real foray into pulling this particular type of mummy into fiction. As such, 100% of all Tibetan-based mummy lore in fiction is currently contained in only a single work of fiction, making it the starting point for all future development of the lore.

Features we can derive from this are that these Tibetan-based mummies are often good in nature, with their live mummification actually preserving their living consciousness in the bodies. They would all be renowned monks who are powerful in their own right, and as in the DLC for the game you actually get to see one of them getting up and fighting you, it seems we have the precident to say the Tibetan-tradition mummies can get up and fight, putting their honed bodies trained in the martial arts into practice just as well as they would when alive. All of them would be absolute masters of the martial arts, and boast excellent agility typically well beyond what's associated with the undead and even what's associated with all but the very most talented of living humans.

Another aspect that would trend the Tibetan-based mummies toward being good and beneficent in nature is that, in order to develop this lore, we would have to draw from Buddhist tradition in which they have the path of enlightenment, of which these mummies are supposed to be at the height of that path. In fact, they'd likely qualify as what Buddhist tradition calls a Bodhisattva, which is someone who has achieved the height of enlightenment but still dwells among mortals in order to guide them on the same path they have reached so far as to near the end of.

 

[CheertheSecond]

I think I should share some of my knowledge too.

Before I have an idea in creating an undead evolution tree, I found that Undead has no evolution at all. It was just an outliner that isn't natural.

Myth and folklore just simply make no connection between one undead to another.

Skeletal mage is not a lich and they also have no connection to a necromancer

• Skeletal mage is a mage or a magi user that is entirely skeletal.
• Meanwhile, a necromancer is one that animate the dead matter.
• Lich is a mage that found a way to cheat death. There is no saying that the spell that keep the Lich undead is necromancy or not.
• These three above are, therefore, death cheaters, and should be fearful of Death itself for transgressing the natural order which Death upholds.
• This would extend to any group that worship Death itself as a revered entity.
• The demonic beings that deal with souls would likely be offended by their act of robbing them of potential clients.
• Even the gods of the underworld would seek those undead's annihilation for daring to interfere with the order of the world of the dead.
• The mummified Buddhist monks, while an undead themselves, would give their hand in eliminating the undead that wrecks havoc to the living world which went against the teaching of their sect.
• The Egyptian Mummies are those who prepared to went to the afterlife. Being called back to the living world would be nothing short of an insult to them since their preserved body is to pass through the entrance to the afterlife, not to return to the living.
• Last but not least, the Cephalophore (beheaded saints) are martyr. They died for their faith and continued to battle evil even in dead. They are undead but they would have nothing but distaste for other undead.

Undead is just too varied in ideology that it is almost impossible to make a good evolution tree. Hence, I had to ask for reference to help with creative decision.

 

[Jemini]

I think I should share some of my knowledge too.

Before I have an idea in creating an undead evolution tree, I found that Undead has no evolution at all. It was just an outliner that isn't natural.

Myth and folklore just simply make no connection between one undead to another.

Skeletal mage is not a lich and they also have no connection to a necromancer

• Skeletal mage is a mage or a magi user that is entirely skeletal.
• Meanwhile, a necromancer is one that animate the dead matter.
• Lich is a mage that found a way to cheat death. There is no saying that the spell that keep the Lich undead is necromancy or not.
• These three above are, therefore, death cheaters, and should be fearful of Death itself for transgressing the natural order which Death upholds.
• This would extend to any group that worship Death itself as a revered entity.
• The demonic beings that deal with souls would likely be offended by their act of roping them of potential clients.
• Even the gods of the underworld would seek those undead's annihilation for daring to interfere with the order of the world of the dead.
• The mummified Buddhist monks, while an undead themselves, would give their hand in eliminating the undead that wrecks havoc to the living world which went against the teaching of their sect.
• The Egyptian Mummies are those who prepared to went to the afterlife. Being called back to the living world would be nothing short of an insult to them since their preserved body is to pass through the entrance to the afterlife, not to return to the living.
• Last but not least, the Cephalophore (beheaded saints) are martyr. They died for their faith and continued to battle evil even in dead. They are undead but they would have nothing but distaste for other undead.

Undead is just too varied in ideology that it is almost impossible to make a good evolution tree. Hence, I had to ask for reference to help with creative decision.

I love the direction with mummies there, but I have to disagree on one point with Liches. The magic that allows the mage to become a lich involves binding their soul to the phylactary. There are only 2 types of magic that have been portrayed as affecting the soul. Those are divine magic and necromancy, and the divine soul magic is entirely geared toward bringing the soul along their natural death route where as the necromantic soul magic is the one that moves toward things unnatural in the death process.

As such, binding one's soul to an object such that they can cheat death (the term cheat automatically meaning unnatural) pretty clearly makes it necromancy.

That said, most wizard lore portrays necromancy as only a single discipline of magic study, and there is nothing actually preventing a mage from learning more than a single discipline. (Especially if they have made themselves immortal.)

EDIT: Would also like to add that the Buddhist mummies, while I completely agree they'd conclude the necessary thing to do with other types of undead is to eliminate them on sight, I would like to caution that the proactive seeking out and elimination of other varieties of undead would probably not be something they would be motivated to do. Their primary motivation would be the guidance of the living, and the elimination of other varieties of undead is just something they'd do because they interfere with their primary mission of guidance.

EDIT 2: Also, if skeleton mages are not liches, then they have to be death knights taken in a magic direction. Standard skeletons are unintelligent, and thus would be incapable of utilizing magic.

 

[CheertheSecond]

As such, binding one's soul to an object such that they can cheat death (the term cheat automatically meaning unnatural) pretty clearly makes it necromancy.

That said, most wizard lore portrays necromancy as only a single discipline of magic study, and there is nothing actually preventing a mage from learning more than a single discipline. (Especially if they have made themselves immortal.)

The thing is knowing 1 spell to bind your soul to an object to hide oneself from Death. May not be sufficient enough to say that they are a necromancer.

If I know how to bandage a skin scratch, I clearly can't say myself to be a doctor or nurse, aren't I?

Being a mage that can bind my soul to an object may not mean I can animate dead matter.

 

[Jemini]

The thing is knowing 1 spell to bind your soul to an object to hide oneself from Death. May not be sufficient enough to say that they are a necromancer.

If I know how to bandage a skin scratch, I clearly can't say myself to be a doctor or nurse, aren't I?

Being a mage that can bind my soul to an object may not mean I can animate dead matter.

No, but being able to perform a successful coronary bypass is plenty to allow you to call yourself a surgeon, even if that's the one and only surgery you're capable of and you can't do any other form of surgery successfully. All that means is that you're just hyper-specialized in that one surgery.

The lich creation ritual is often portrayed as being extremely high-level necromancy, so that level I just described is the accurate comparison.

 

[owotrucked]

 

[CheertheSecond]

No, but being able to perform a successful coronary bypass is plenty to allow you to call yourself a surgeon, even if that's the one and only surgery you're capable of and you can't do any other form of surgery successfully. All that means is that you're just hyper-specialized in that one surgery.

The lich creation ritual is often portrayed as being extremely high-level necromancy, so that level I just described is the accurate comparison.

That in particular is a bit tricky.

A surgeon can not perform on themselves but can practice their specialty on others.

A Lich, on the other hand, used the spell on themselves but I am unsure if they would like to make other people a Lich too and for what reason.

This makes a Lich hardly a practitioner of the art of necromancy is what I was thinking but of course there are flaws in this way of reasoning.

 

[Jemini]

That in particular is a bit tricky.

A surgeon can not perform on themselves but can practice their specialty on others.

A Lich, on the other hand, used the spell on themselves but I am unsure if they would like to make other people a Lich too and for what reason.

This makes a Lich hardly a practitioner of the art of necromancy is what I was thinking but of course there are flaws in this way of reasoning.

Now you're being pedantic.

What I'm saying is that if you are able to perform only a single task within a profession, if that single task happens to be at the very highest end of the skill chart then you can be considered to be performing within that profession even if you can do absolutely nothing else within the profession.

The surgeon example is just a single example. Ignore the little bit about it being on others Vs. yourself. It's the skill levels involved that is the point. Performing the Lich ritual is at the very highest end of necromancy, therefore all liches who performed the ritual on themselves are necromancers. The only way a lich isn't a necromancer is if they found someone else to perform the ritual on them.

(Interestingly, the example of Kashe the deathless I used as an example of one of the earliest known liches in fiction happens to be one of those who is likely not a necromancer. It was baba yaga who turned him into a lich, he didn't do it himself, therefore he's not the necromancer. Also, there's definite precedent for the lich having the ritual performed by someone else.)

 

[Shard]

I would like to mention that at least in DnD, divine liches are a thing too, though exceptionally rare. Clerics of high power and devotion were sometimes given life after death as a sort of anti-undead guardian, having resistances against common undead weaknesses, if I recall correctly, but both their creation and power is from their deity rather than themselves, so they only halfway count IMO. And can't remember the name to share.

There were also non-evil elf liches, baelnorns.

 

[Octopal]

Vampires are not evolved, but made, either through a powerful curse, or the bite of a powerful vampire, and grow in power with age and feeding.
Liches are not evolved, but made, typically by a mage deciding death shouldn't be allowed to stop their studies of magic and giving it the middle finger by hiding their soul outside their body. The main change I can see making is have them not be skeletal by default, but rather just naturally rot unless they actively stop it via magic.

Vampire is third evolution of goblin. Next branch-evolution of Ogre, Ghoul and Dhampir. ›Re:Monster