Something else interesting to note about Lazurite is its hunger abating properties for the undead. While not mentioned in 1e, in Book of the Dead, Geb mentions that Nemrek Noctoria's layer of heavy radiation sooths the Ghoul's need for constant flesh. While this isn't explored again it is worth noting that the Lazurite caverns present in Age of Ashes book 4 also hold one of the only ghouls in the city who is completely lucid and not succumbed to base instinct.
I never really grokked the whole mummy idea, but the way that they were able to tie in mummies to Osirion with lore of covetousness is so damn clever. That feels genuinely organic to me, rather than just a real world analog. thanks for spelling it out in a way where I could actually understand it.
That was the BEST undead DnD video I've ever seen. ❤ So much fixed nonsense and new creativity. Long but worth it. The explanations of why and how made undead fearsome.
For example, preferably, I would like to become a Lich, but if I got transported into Pathfinder, as I am now, I figure a Gool will be a pretty good deal. Don’t have to deal with sunlight, don’t have to deal with coffins, and all you have to do is kill and eat things, and you can even paralyzed them before killing and eating them, so I figure that’s a pretty good deal.
If you ever want a fresh reason for a mummy antagonist, look up the Mummia trade in our history. "They ate my wife!" "You can't blame them for their ancestor's actions." "It was a week ago!" Thanks for the video.
When the table's only healer always rushes head long into the deepest darkest dungeon. In search of undead to battle in close combat, and always goes nova with heals on them. You going to hope and pray for their safe return outside? When your first pick for dependable back-up insists on suicidal tendencies.
Someday we will see the Creature Feature episode of Centaurs, Lamia, Driders, Girtablilus, Alraune, and other upper humanoid-bodied races.... interesting that we have Driders but no arachne in Pathfinder. I wonder why that is?
Something I feel you should have mentioned about the Vrykolakas is that instead of having to return to their coffins to regenerate, they can transfer their spirit into the nearest animal when they die. Thus making them much more difficult to track down and slay before they manage to heal themselves.
I used to live in the Philippines, and man do they have some crazy folklore and monsters. Aswangs (pronounced kind of like Ah-swongs) are a whole class of monsters that all hunt in a similar manner, and it sounds like Pathfinder sort of jumbled features from the basic Aswang, Tiktik, and Manananggal all into one creature. One feature I like about them is that supposedly your reflection in their eyes is upside down, otherwise they can walk around like normal people in the day. There was also one time where there was a rumor going around a neighborhood near me that an Aswang had killed an eaten a kid. One neighbor told me "I'm not superstitious, so I don't believe in aswangs or anything like that. I think it was organ harvesters trying to cover their tracks." This wasn't her being a conspiracy theorist either, that's common enough that I saw public safety signs my first day there in the port I landed at talking about how to avoid getting caught up in human trafficking, and they had a section on organ harvesting. So there are indeed monsters greedy for flesh in the remote jungles of the Philippines, they just happen to be human too.
Hey awesome comment flibber. I should say that this is a little on me. In Pathfinder Aswang and Manananggal are separate creature types (I don't know about Tiktik), but for whatever reason I believe Manananggal are not considered a type of vampire or a vampire subtype, just another kind of undead, which is why I didn't cover them here.
Excellent video! Thanks for making me aware of Lazurite, I’m slowly developing a concept for an Alkenstar “weird west” type campaign, and some miners accidentally unearthing a vein of that stuff sounds exactly like something I could use as a plot point.
It does make me wonder if there is a better explanation for why skeletons seem overall more proficient that zombies. Maybe it has something to do with everything skeletons lack being easier to design bodily functions around, such as a vfx artist never really modeling a full characters musculature for movement, but using a skeleton as a base for the animations.
One of my players brought a certain point regarding burial rites in a world where undead exist. Why people practice the kind of burials that leave mostly intact bodies, that evne a novice necromancer can raise as mundead minions? We know that the fate of the body usually doesn't affect the soul that travels to the afterlife, and when it does, it's because the soul was bound to become an undead anyway, and the state of the body only affects what undead it becomes. Of course, our knowledge of the lore isn't the same as the knowledge of of an average person on Golarion. But cultures on Golarion are millenia old, in such an expanse of time they should have figured out that, let's say, cremation is a safer method of dealing with remains than inhumation, or laying the bodies in crypts or catacombs. There may be still some that out of vanity and the desire to be remembered construct imposing mausolea and decide to be buried there. But such crypts would be expected to be protected against intruders, and even if undead were to arise within, they would be easier to contain. A barely protected, open graveyards outside town limits, where common people are buried, should not exist, as they are just an invitation for necromancers and ghouls.
You are absolutely correct, in this kind of world most societies probably would cremate but I guess that would be less fun for adventurers scoping out old dungeons so they don't. There are a few canonical exceptions. In Nex for example, because of their long war with Geb they *always* cremate their dead. They even have special agents called Deathsealers whose whole job is to roam around the country burning dead bodies.
Love this. I've always thought liches would be like vampires in sense that they are "frozen" in time with magic, rather than rotting wizards. They don't need to eat cause their bodies are "frozen" but maybe that's just me...
Both liches and vampires rot if unattended because they're both death. Vampires will self-repair the rot though by drinking blood while Liches have to put their considerable magic power to work doing the same thing. Young liches do this to keep up appearances, but after a few millennia they start to get lazy and they sort of let themselves go a bit. After all rotting or not rotting it doesn't actually hurt them in any way or make them physically weaker.
@@TheMythKeeper I can see that for sure. I remember reading in the 2E undead supplement, that they consume knowledge/magic, which to me, helps them to almost stay 'frozen' in time. In a way, even more so than a vampire. But more like a walking fresh corpse. Just a little head canon - haha. I would like to play one in 2E...
Yes. I've always imagined Liches having a way to steal the positive energy by touch or bite. Touch would be ferocious but bite would be almost immediately fatal, a one shot. Like a soul drain. To me, being within 20 feet of one would have a dire effect on all life in that area. Like they could "taste you".... Being top tier undead, their negative energies should be impressive attacks themselves. Their ability to access several of the highest level magics combined with severely corrupting necromancy should be a truly horrible experience in every possible way. Why do we never see Lich Necromancer familiars? I would think a few vampires would make great familiars for a Lich. Even a ghost or pack of Ghouls. He could see thru their eyes, smell blood, etc. Imagine an entire castle (Poltergeist) being under the control of a Lich. It seems like it would make the Poltergeist more powerful and deadly.
One of my players just hit lvl 20 as a dwarven wizard who specializes in item creation. He discovered the automatons from the jitska imperium and learned to create the minor artifact soul batteries of the automatons. I want him to be able to eventually rediscover Azlanti magic secrets, and knowing that some of these monsters from these creature features have centuries old knowledge is really going to help get him there. I'm thinking a Bodak who saw the fall of Azlant perhaps?
Absolutely. Keep in mind a Bodak, unless in service as an enforcer to a more powerful kind of undead, are likely quite mad after several millennia of stalking the world of the living. This means that to interrogate the creature your wizard will likely have to securely bind it and figure out what it actually wants so it can bargain with it. Even if he figures that out whatever information he reveals might be fragmentary, misremembered or otherwise incomplete.
Or you could have a type of mummy that only regains undeath/sentience when your wizard tries to decode the treatise the mummy made it's life's work and thus values enough to come back to defend. It would probably think the Azlanti are still around which could be interesting to say the least. At that point you could have a resolution that involves force (compelling the mummy into being a tutor), negotiation, interesting curses, or even diplomacy (perhaps your wizard could flatter the mummy and talk about how awe inspiring that life's work was and how critical it is that the knowledge survives, etc). The fun thing about dealing with immortals/undead is motivations change so much when things like food, pain/comfort, and productivity are no longer relevant.
Thanks! I thought that too but I couldn't do an undead video without vampires. Maybe in the future I will pull them out and do a seperate video just for them.
Awesome video! As a counterpoint to undead, I hope you make a video on Psychopomps soon, they're by far my favorite outsiders and I love their looks and themes. Looking forward to more content!
I will cover psychopomps and psychopomp ushers in a future Religion video, but they'll likely come after my series on the Empyreal Lords and the Inferal Demigods which means they are a fair ways out at this point. I think I've released Angels and Devils so far, so Archons should be next week, then Daemons, Agathions, Demons and Azatas in that sequence. Then after that I've probably got one more more evil aligned videos (maybe about Qlippoths, Divs and Asuras) before I get to Psychopomps and other more neutral outsides. My personal favorites: the Inevitables. Phew! Pathfinder really is a bottomless well of concepts.
@@TheMythKeeper I really like Archons so I'm glad to hear that's coming next! And yeah, the Inevitables are a fantastic concept, but I'll be eagerly awaiting the inevitable(heh) Psychopomp video.
Make sure to not abuse the Repurpose spell too much (or at least kill them off after you're done with them). Too much undead units can take a toll on the engine and slow the game down. Speaking from personal experience XD
Funnily enough, in my homebrew some elementals can technically be counted as undead, since there are no elemental planes. One of the of ways they come about is the result of a dead spellcaster fighting the call of the grave, but instead of trying to get their husk moving, they use what magic they knew to fashion one out of what's nearest to them. This can result in Worms-that-Walk, but just as often mudmen lurching out of the graveyard or a blazing humanoid flying out of a crematorium.
I don't know the reason behind but Vetala has been change to Vetalarana in PF2e. Also urdefhan altough refered to as Orvian Vampire, they are neither vampire nor undead, in 1e they were outsiders but in 2e altough they were created in abbadon they are their own type of creature, in fact they have humanoid trait. Still an amazing video, i wished i could find this channel sooner.
You're right about urdefahn not being technically undead. I'm just randomly a big fan of the urdefahn (since I ran Serpent's Skull years ago actually) and I wanted an excuse to squeeze them in.
@@OldGreyGryphon Its one of the greats. I'm always hoping more people will check out my Vidrian Deep Dive video - a video that I put a good deal of care into since I enjoyed Serpents Skull so much.
I wonder if Zon-Kuthon is a divine Devourer. How Devourers are created sounds a lot like what Dou-Bral went through and they both have extremely alien minds.
So one thing i'd be interested in is this: Is necromancy evil? Not from a societal view or scorned by the gods, but just inherently and objectively. And for this question, assume full consent given by all parties.
One of the decisions that make me most happy about Remaster project is that they are finally abandoning that old D&D sacred cow of alignments. What is evil? If you define evil for me I can tell you whether or not its good/evil. If evil for you is doing anything that interferes with the natural cycle of life and death (Pharasma's POV) then yes, necromancy is definitely evil. If someone is afraid to move on to the next life and turns to necromancy does that inherently make them evil? No, I don't think so at all. Fearful - sure. Some may point out that a person's innate morality comes from the positive energy suffused in their soul, but to this I'd point out that most modern ethical frameworks require a fair deal of logic or ethical science. A person can be "good" even if their nature is not good by performing good actions. A vampire may choose to drink animal blood even though its less savory. A liche may fight against the demons of the worldwound. I don't know, this is a great question, but now for the first time the answer isn't simple "Yes because of R0OLZ!!!"
@@TheMythKeeper Yep, the morality of necromancy is very interesting to me and i agree with everything you said. Though my question was less about alignment, and more along the lines of "Does Necromancy inherently cause harm to the universe" Maybe the negative energy used in it inherently corrupts the positive energy of the world. Maybe raising an undead inherently causes harm to the soul of the subject. Does Golarion have those aspects? I'd be happier if such didn't exist - but only knowing the answer can you determine if it is possible to play a moral necromancer, or merely someone in denial about the truth. I noticed that player Liches don't even need to consume the souls of other people to stay alive (..or undead). Thus the question is.. why is this considered evil? Same for Vampires on animal blood. Or Vampires that buy blood from people. Irl we have people donating blood for people in need - were vampires to exist they could totally be integrated into the system without resorting to violence. Do mindless undead inherently attack the living? Can intelligent undead overcome these instincts? I'd love to see another video just diving deep into the morality of various forms of necromancy (still assuming consent from all parties involved).
@@symmetry8049 - "Does Necromancy inherently cause harm to the universe" --- I think the answer to this is yes, but its much more obtuse, complicated and indirect. From my understanding the River of Souls and the Antipode (see my Planar Cosmology 101 video) are like the heartbeat of the multiverse, and heaving a steady supply of quintessence moving through the planes keeps the multiverse healthy. When souls are prevented from moving on to the next phase of their existence the universe is harmed. Like a person eating too many fats and sugars which can lead to arterial blockages, large populations of undead are harmful to the correct functioning of the multiverse. This is why Pharasma hates the undead. Her psychopomps are like the white blood cells of the multiverse. That said, the multiverse is vast, and one person becoming a lich isn't going to upend the multiverse any more than a random snickers bar will kill a person. Likewise a person that doesn't recycle now and then isn't 'evil', even though the collective cost of not recycling may end up being very harmful to the planet. Once the lich has performed the appropriate rituals, as long as the soul-cage is preserved, they will live forever. They don't need to consume souls, they don't need to cause harm. They can be completely altruistic in all regards in fact, good people through-and-through. BUT... Pharasma would still say they're being evil. ;-)
Friend, you just got a new subscriber! What and incredible video! I've been wanting to play PF2 for a while, and knowing a bit of the world's lore helps getting hyped a lot, specially lore about my favourite kind of enemy!
Definitely a useful video. I like the way they characterised Mummys and the sense that the mummy is somehow both the curse and retribution. I also like how many kinds of vampire there are; I can see that leading to a lot of variety in the kinds of games you can put them in. Most of the other sorts of undead in this video.... honestly I think I'd re-work the lore if I was running them. There's a distinct thread of 'was a victim of a traumatic event'->'become evil undead', in a way that goes beyond just dark magic rituals. For me personally that's not something I like. I feel like that cuts off the possibility of engaging with darker themes in a meaningful way in games. Because it sort of implies that any victim the party fails could become a monster and I don't think that really supports the sort of games I like, or the ways I tend to bring in those themes.
I agree completely actually. All the lore is fungible here, and I think in general the idea that victims of trauma become evil is less interesting than ambition, greed or desire turning someone evil, but I think there's still a lot of cool stuff visually. Personally making this video made me oddly fond of Mohrgs all of a sudden.
@@TheMythKeeper The visuals for the Mohrgs are top notch. And I like the idea of the soul being the deciding factor in whether or not something is undead. I've passed the video on to a friend who's thinking of running a pathfinder game in the future. He mentioned wanting to do something with the undead and I think he'll get a lot from this video :)
'Muscle memory' - quite the feat with no muscles. What holds a skeleton together? Does a necromancer spend hours wiring the bones together before reanimation or are we supposed to believe the bones just happen to float near each other in the correct order to approximate a human form?
That's the second muscle memory question in about as many hours. The bones know. ;-) When the dark magic animates them they somehow know both how to knit themselves back together in the right order and carry the 'muscle memory'. Should I call it 'motorics memory' instead?
Hey Mr.Mythkeeper, could you do a video about the ancient empire of the ghol-gan and about cyclops civilisations? They really fascinate me and are something only found in the pathfinder setting!
Great video. I would like to get one (or more) about the dragons, imperials linnorms etc but since there will be more dragons arriving soon I'm not sure it's The time.
I'm also looking forward to the new dragons. I want to know what an occult-oriented dragon, which is what Fortune and Omen sound a bit like, would be like for instance. Would it be one of the few beings capable of divining some of the secrets of the Old Ones without going insane?
@@zenjr1004 Its just right here on RUclips. You can hit the join button to get early access to videos, or just give it a minute and it'll be on the main channel before you know it.
Hey, I like and enjoy your videos, but want / need to adress a possible issue. Don't get me wrong, I wish you all the best, so I dont want you to get into problems, that's why I write this: On your Channel Information you say that you use the work of artists in a fair use context. You probably use the art of pathfinder / paizo too in your lore-videos - at least I've seen some.^^ Paizo states that their art is not allowed to be shared behind any sort of paywall. Your new video is for channel-members only - so it's behind a paywall. So if you use their art / the art of other artists to actually make some money, is that fair use then? As I said: Don't get me wrong. I understand that you want to earn something for your great work (and it is a lot of work and time you invest here) and I haven't seen the new video, so I don't know, if you are actually using paizo art / other artists work behind that paywall. I just want you to double check and be aware about that possible issue, if you haven't / aren't already - so that you don't run into legal problems here. It bothered me for a time now, that you didn't give any credits to the artists, when you used their art (I know - it is not easy / possible to find out who the artist was for every piece and it would be even more work - but it seems like you didn't even try) Be careful and keep going! Edit: Or is that membership only for instant access to new vids? I don't know if that makes a difference - maybe I got something wrong there?
You got it in the Edit. There is no exclusive content in the channel. Just wait. The members just get it 4 weeks early. Thanks for the thoughtful comment, appreciate it.
MythKeeper videos are even better than usual when they apply to a game you're in! Like when watching his Creature Feature on Giants I thought of several potential adventuring hooks just from his descriptions of what motivates different breeds of Giants.
So, I've definitely not been playing as long and forgive my ignorance- Is it really that different? Because I look at games like GURPs and Warhammer and old World of Darkness titles and I don't think they'd be easily picked up and run by a kid either. And (perhaps mistakenly) I was under the impression that older versions of D&D were more like that? Crunchier, with a lot of specific rules and knock on effects to keep in mind. Which doesn't make any of them bad games, but doesn't make them easy to pick up.
I have a question. So quintessence (quin) is the soul or what makes up the soul and the soul goes to the river of souls and to bring a person back you have to get that soul before it leave the river of souls. Then how does a mummy come back to life with memories of what it was from the past all of them should have been housed in the soul and then once the soul was wiped clean the memories gone, unless they can carry over some how. Something for me is not adding up.
You've got everything 100% right here and you've also understood something that makes mummy's really special and unique in the undead community. At the beginning of my video I mention that Resurrection doesn't work if the soul has been judged already, but shortly thereafter I say that Necromancy allows people to bend or break the rules. In the case of Mummies, which are intelligent but long-dead creatures, are very much breaking this rule. Let's follow the afterlife and flow of quint of a hypothetical Mummy. They live a full life in which they rise to power in their community, before they die they make a proclamation that they will protect this community forever until the end of time, they are buried in a grand elaborate crypt and priests reiterate this as a prophecy. Their collective magic and power turns this into a powerful prohecy or curse. This hypothetical mummy was neutral evil. They get judged by Pharasma and end up as one of The Hunted living in Abaddon. Despite having been a great lord among the humans of his society, his second-life is short. A daemon finds him and a small group of survivors within weeks of his arrival in the afterlife and he is devoured. What happens to the quint after his second death? The quint is distribued into the structure of the plane itself. Some of the rocks, plants, rivers and so on of Abaddon are now composed of the quintessence that was once a part of our living human leader. His personality, and the collective personality of all those who died, are part of what's defining the nature of the plane. Over time the planes breakdown. Old shed quintessence will go down the antipode. But that process is very, very, very long. Hundreds of millennia may pass before the quintessence from a single person is completely lost. Meanwhile on Golarion someone breaks into his old tomb. The old prophecy activates. The power is so strong that his composite quintessence is pulled out of the plane itself. If you were wearing spectral goggles you would see green spirit-stuff coming out of the plants and the soil, heading contraflow down the River of Souls, all the way to the old king's corpse in Golarion. Then the original composition of quintessence is reassembled. The mummy is risen. He has no memory of his afterlife, he's been reverted to the entity he was in death. This kind of undead has broken all the rules we're familiar with for resurrection. Also consider how wild the case of Walkena the Mummy God-King of Mzali. He died in 3967 and was resurrected in 4610. He was gone for 643 years. What was he doing in his afterlie for 600 years. We don't know. He doesn't know. But what we do know is that Walken is an *actual* god. If people worship him, he can confer them divine power, at no cost to his personal power. That's radical. My best guess is that he went to Hell (Lawful Evil) and slowly ascended from lowly Damned Petitioner to Lesser Devil to a Duke of Hell. I think he was a lesser divinity by the time he was brought back, and this explains why he's still a god in unlife, he just doesn't remember any of this. Wild stuff!
@@TheMythKeeper I think I follow your train of thought with all of this, then my next question is what if the person of importance was NOT evil aligned would they or could they come back as a mummy to protect their tomb? Or is the curse of the mummy only good enough for evil aligned people?
@@franklinrichards8851 I don't see any technical/mechanical reason why this couldn't happen, but since part of the reason that a mummy returns is hubris or certitude about the mission, I think that kind of brazen overconfidence is more common in more evil aligned creatures than more good-aligned creatures. Most good creatures will recognize that they are not alone in the fight, whereas evil creature become convinced of their own necessity. Consider Thanos' various lines in End Game ("I'm the only one who knows it." / "I'm the only one with the will to act on it." / "The hardest choices require the strongest wills"). Its this kind of certitude or assuredness that will bring a mummy back. If a good (or neutral) creature has that kind of conviction, then sure, they might come back as a mummy. That would certainly make for an interesting character. A self-righteous altruist, who believes he is uniquely qualified, but who is so good in other aspects that his hubris is outweighed by his sheer goodness? I'd still argue that this was maybe a neutral soul. It takes a certain level of self-importance to become a mummy. Also, remember its your game, so in fact, anything goes!
@@TheMythKeeper I guess one of the other things I was looking at that I never agreed with was that Mummy's where evil, or move over where only evil. I am not saying that there are not evil people that would not go into becoming a mummy to get around dying. But most of history even talks about the mummy's curse or a mummy in general being that someone has come to rob the tomb, be that a out right tomb robber for money or a Tomb Raider like Lara Croft or Indiana Jones... In the end they are taking something that does not belong to them and the mummy is there to protect it. It just has never really set to well with me that they could only be evil aligned. But things are what they are I guess
@@franklinrichards8851 Don't forget Pathfinder is finally abandoning the D&D alignment system with REMASTER coming out in the near future. I don't think evil is a requirement for a mummy, but they need to be convinced of their own self-importance before they die. Its not just that the tomb raider stole some stuff; its that the tomb raider dared to steal some stuff from *them*.
I feel like antimagic should be able to effectively kill mindless undead, but the rules don't seem to support this. It would definitely be very powerful, but it just makes sense in lore.
Just got into looking into the Lore of this world. And this is awesome. You have really got me listening to more. This in particular is intriguing. Thanks for your hard work uploading brother.
You sir are a scholar and a gentleman... I'm GMing Blood Lords for my group now and this and the Geb video have really helped me and players see the world
This video was really thought-provoking! Among many other questions, I wonder if there are Positive Energy counterparts to the undead and what they would look like. Could a powerful magic user prolong their lives with measured channeling of Positive Energy in a fashion that mirrors a Negative Energy-powered Lich? I'm imagining the magic equivalent of an unending slow-drip Greater Restoration spell. If infusion with Negative Energy warps souls to become bitter, destructive, introspective, and devoted to esoteric pursuits, how would constant contact with a survivable amount of Positive Energy change a mortal's mindset? Perhaps that's how you'd arrive at the trope of seemingly immortal "living" wizards from mortal races. In my mind I think of an ageless being still fully "alive" in the conventional sense. They would be bursting with vitality and emotion, constantly enthusiastic and flushed as if they just finished invigorating exercise or were in the throes of hedonistic arousal. Those dedicated to change/novelty might be mercurial in their interests, constantly seeking to engage in an outside world full of new friendships, new challenges, and new pleasures. The more orderly/traditional ones might be frighteningly focused on singular interests, tirelessly pursuing art, food, architecture, or propagation of life (e.g. gardening, medicine, child-rearing). Perhaps where a conventional Lich must struggle for balance against invasive introversion and ennui, our "Positive Lich" would have to strive to maintain control in the face of intense lust, anger, manic joy, singular obsession, and so on. As for hazards: instead of draining others with their touch they might invigorate them but to a degree that swiftly becomes unpleasantly intense and even harmful (and that might mean they could only be in contact with those they care about in short bursts and thus are frequently touch-starved). There could be an increasingly invasive tendency towards disdain for "normal" mortals who will never live long enough to perfect the pursuits our ageless "Positive Lich" has come to value, and it might be made worse by the aforementioned physical isolation. While a kind caster may recognize the value of mortal pursuits, they might also eventually regard most creations the way a parent views an unrelated child's drawing - endearing but clumsy. This would leave them feeling as if they have few true peers to relate to, and might cause them to unhealthily fixate on the rare prodigies that meet their standards. Finally, if the ritual is incorrectly performed or degrades it could channel too deeply from the energies of the Positive Plane and force uncontrollable growth. For instance, cancer is the uncontrolled creation of new tissue and such a scenario could result in a swift devolution into several forms of Lovecraftian abomination. I also really liked the idea of any sufficiently powerful emotion being enough to anchor incorporeal undead of different dispositions. I feel that fits very well with the move away from explicit alignments in the upcoming updates, but I've already written an essay so I'll leave it at that. All in all another great entry into your lexicon of material, and thank you for it!
I love a big meaty comment like this. Here's the scoop as I understand it: The Positive Energy counterpart to undead is just things that are alive. All things that are living are animated by positive energy - its just that the energy decays overtime. When a cleric heals a fighter by channeling positive energy they are effectively replenishing the fighter's life force. So to answer the second part: "Could a powerful magic user prolong their lives with measured channeling of Positive Energy in a fashion that mirrors a Negative Energy-powered Lich?" Yes. 100%. In fact there are countless examples of this. Queen Galfrey made herself immortal using positive energy magic and lived for hundreds of years to ensure the demons of the Worldwound couldn't take advantage of a crisis resulting from a change of leadership on the part of the crusaders. All monks or druids that acquire the Timeless Body have essentially learned how to prevent positive energy decay, either through divine magic (druid) or by mastering their inner spirit (monk). Heck, I'd argue that gnomes are born with the innate ability to replenish the natural positive energy that animates them by undergoing new experiences. I think your idea of a postive energy liche is awesome actually. In fact the game has mechanics for a creature overloaded with positive energy. Its called a Brilliant Creature ( www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/radiant-creature-cr-1/ ). Typically these creatures occur by being unmade and remade in the positive energy plane, but there's no reason a spellcaster seeking immortality couldn't figure out a way to overload themselves with positive energy and intentionally ascend themselves into a brilliant creature.
@@TheMythKeeper My introduction to PF was actually the WoTR videogame and I had forgotten all about Galfrey's life extension. I also didn't realize that the druid/monk abilities involved plugging up the leak in the sink as it were. The reason I love details like that (and your content exploring those details) is they provide a starting point for imagination. Cheers!
For the Aswang vanpire you used an image of a manananggal which is an undead creature alongside the penanggal I'm suprised you did not talk about. Anyway just a thing i noticed. Love the videos. I can't wait for more videos about outsiders as rakshasa are some of my favorite villains.
Yes, you are right! I used that art because I liked it best and because the aswang is so similar to the manananggal that I didn't think anyone would notice! Do not fear, we'll get to Rakshasa eventually. :-)
![[FULL] RETROSPECTIVE : Final Fantasy Tactics](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RUBmYqs1jZ0/mqdefault.jpg)
Something else interesting to note about Lazurite is its hunger abating properties for the undead. While not mentioned in 1e, in Book of the Dead, Geb mentions that Nemrek Noctoria's layer of heavy radiation sooths the Ghoul's need for constant flesh. While this isn't explored again it is worth noting that the Lazurite caverns present in Age of Ashes book 4 also hold one of the only ghouls in the city who is completely lucid and not succumbed to base instinct.
This is an awesome note, thank you for pointing it out.
"Look at the big brain on Brad"
-sorry I had to quote on Pulp Fiction. Lol.
Does 2e change any other properties about it? I haven’t looked deep into 2e lore.
I never really grokked the whole mummy idea, but the way that they were able to tie in mummies to Osirion with lore of covetousness is so damn clever. That feels genuinely organic to me, rather than just a real world analog. thanks for spelling it out in a way where I could actually understand it.
Hey! Thanks for the kind words, and for watching and commenting! Glad I could be of help 🙂
That was the BEST undead DnD video I've ever seen. ❤
So much fixed nonsense and new creativity. Long but worth it.
The explanations of why and how made undead fearsome.
Wow, thank you! Glad you liked it!
For example, preferably, I would like to become a Lich, but if I got transported into Pathfinder, as I am now, I figure a Gool will be a pretty good deal. Don’t have to deal with sunlight, don’t have to deal with coffins, and all you have to do is kill and eat things, and you can even paralyzed them before killing and eating them, so I figure that’s a pretty good deal.
If you ever want a fresh reason for a mummy antagonist, look up the Mummia trade in our history. "They ate my wife!" "You can't blame them for their ancestor's actions." "It was a week ago!" Thanks for the video.
When the table's only healer always rushes head long into the deepest darkest dungeon. In search of undead to battle in close combat, and always goes nova with heals on them. You going to hope and pray for their safe return outside? When your first pick for dependable back-up insists on suicidal tendencies.
These are great
Thank you!
nobody makes a better guard for your phylactery then you yourself
Great video thank you
Can you do a video on dragons
Dragons will be out in 4 weeks ;-)
I would give you all my bones, if I were undead.
Good sir, I request a dragon creature feature!
I think that's literally the next feature now, so 3 weeks out ;-)
A'-buh-dawn*
"The fire skeleton is perpetually lit."
Hell yeah bone dude, live your non life.
🤣
Someday we will see the Creature Feature episode of Centaurs, Lamia, Driders, Girtablilus, Alraune, and other upper humanoid-bodied races.... interesting that we have Driders but no arachne in Pathfinder. I wonder why that is?
Creature Feature: Tauric creatures... Could be a fun one! I have a region deep dive on Iobaria coming up that features some centaur info too btw.
This felt like a documentary. An easy listen on my drive to and from work. I'm definitely hoping the rest of his content is just as good.
Thanks King 🙂
The Undead Creature Feature right after the Geb Regional Deep Dive... now thats flavor !!💀
Now that you know its history, its important to know what types of things you might have to kill... or re-kill.
@@TheMythKeeper Or aspire to become...
@@TheMythKeeperand re re kill, and....
You know what. Just burn it with fire.
Mmmmmm, corpsefleeeeeeshhhh 🤤
Something I feel you should have mentioned about the Vrykolakas is that instead of having to return to their coffins to regenerate, they can transfer their spirit into the nearest animal when they die. Thus making them much more difficult to track down and slay before they manage to heal themselves.
Absolutely, good point that's a fairly significant ability I should have called out.
I like the scene where he says it is Mohrgin time and Mohrged all over the place. Truly one of the undead types of all times.
truly one of the mohrg moments
Due to religious issues Paizo has opted for stop using phylactery and use the term soul cage
I wasn't aware, thanks for the update.
really? my god how pathetic.
I support any effort to rid Pathfinder of D&D's archaic conventions.
I used to live in the Philippines, and man do they have some crazy folklore and monsters. Aswangs (pronounced kind of like Ah-swongs) are a whole class of monsters that all hunt in a similar manner, and it sounds like Pathfinder sort of jumbled features from the basic Aswang, Tiktik, and Manananggal all into one creature. One feature I like about them is that supposedly your reflection in their eyes is upside down, otherwise they can walk around like normal people in the day.
There was also one time where there was a rumor going around a neighborhood near me that an Aswang had killed an eaten a kid. One neighbor told me "I'm not superstitious, so I don't believe in aswangs or anything like that. I think it was organ harvesters trying to cover their tracks." This wasn't her being a conspiracy theorist either, that's common enough that I saw public safety signs my first day there in the port I landed at talking about how to avoid getting caught up in human trafficking, and they had a section on organ harvesting.
So there are indeed monsters greedy for flesh in the remote jungles of the Philippines, they just happen to be human too.
Hey awesome comment flibber. I should say that this is a little on me. In Pathfinder Aswang and Manananggal are separate creature types (I don't know about Tiktik), but for whatever reason I believe Manananggal are not considered a type of vampire or a vampire subtype, just another kind of undead, which is why I didn't cover them here.
I liked that Netflix show about Philippines mythology
Excellent video! Thanks for making me aware of Lazurite, I’m slowly developing a concept for an Alkenstar “weird west” type campaign, and some miners accidentally unearthing a vein of that stuff sounds exactly like something I could use as a plot point.
This sounds like a really fun game. Wild West with a hint of gothic horror. Really like it.
9:27 Skeleton with mussle memory, good one
😆
It does make me wonder if there is a better explanation for why skeletons seem overall more proficient that zombies. Maybe it has something to do with everything skeletons lack being easier to design bodily functions around, such as a vfx artist never really modeling a full characters musculature for movement, but using a skeleton as a base for the animations.
I'm Dying for more content like this...or woulds UN-dying?
😆
One of my players brought a certain point regarding burial rites in a world where undead exist. Why people practice the kind of burials that leave mostly intact bodies, that evne a novice necromancer can raise as mundead minions? We know that the fate of the body usually doesn't affect the soul that travels to the afterlife, and when it does, it's because the soul was bound to become an undead anyway, and the state of the body only affects what undead it becomes.
Of course, our knowledge of the lore isn't the same as the knowledge of of an average person on Golarion. But cultures on Golarion are millenia old, in such an expanse of time they should have figured out that, let's say, cremation is a safer method of dealing with remains than inhumation, or laying the bodies in crypts or catacombs.
There may be still some that out of vanity and the desire to be remembered construct imposing mausolea and decide to be buried there. But such crypts would be expected to be protected against intruders, and even if undead were to arise within, they would be easier to contain. A barely protected, open graveyards outside town limits, where common people are buried, should not exist, as they are just an invitation for necromancers and ghouls.
You are absolutely correct, in this kind of world most societies probably would cremate but I guess that would be less fun for adventurers scoping out old dungeons so they don't. There are a few canonical exceptions. In Nex for example, because of their long war with Geb they *always* cremate their dead. They even have special agents called Deathsealers whose whole job is to roam around the country burning dead bodies.
Ahh the Undead my favorite Creature/character to play with or play as.
Love this. I've always thought liches would be like vampires in sense that they are "frozen" in time with magic, rather than rotting wizards. They don't need to eat cause their bodies are "frozen" but maybe that's just me...
Both liches and vampires rot if unattended because they're both death. Vampires will self-repair the rot though by drinking blood while Liches have to put their considerable magic power to work doing the same thing. Young liches do this to keep up appearances, but after a few millennia they start to get lazy and they sort of let themselves go a bit. After all rotting or not rotting it doesn't actually hurt them in any way or make them physically weaker.
@@TheMythKeeper I can see that for sure. I remember reading in the 2E undead supplement, that they consume knowledge/magic, which to me, helps them to almost stay 'frozen' in time. In a way, even more so than a vampire. But more like a walking fresh corpse. Just a little head canon - haha. I would like to play one in 2E...
Yes. I've always imagined Liches having a way to steal the positive energy by touch or bite. Touch would be ferocious but bite would be almost immediately fatal, a one shot. Like a soul drain.
To me, being within 20 feet of one would have a dire effect on all life in that area. Like they could "taste you".... Being top tier undead, their negative energies should be impressive attacks themselves. Their ability to access several of the highest level magics combined with severely corrupting necromancy should be a truly horrible experience in every possible way.
Why do we never see Lich Necromancer familiars? I would think a few vampires would make great familiars for a Lich. Even a ghost or pack of Ghouls. He could see thru their eyes, smell blood, etc. Imagine an entire castle (Poltergeist) being under the control of a Lich. It seems like it would make the Poltergeist more powerful and deadly.
One of my players just hit lvl 20 as a dwarven wizard who specializes in item creation. He discovered the automatons from the jitska imperium and learned to create the minor artifact soul batteries of the automatons. I want him to be able to eventually rediscover Azlanti magic secrets, and knowing that some of these monsters from these creature features have centuries old knowledge is really going to help get him there. I'm thinking a Bodak who saw the fall of Azlant perhaps?
Absolutely. Keep in mind a Bodak, unless in service as an enforcer to a more powerful kind of undead, are likely quite mad after several millennia of stalking the world of the living. This means that to interrogate the creature your wizard will likely have to securely bind it and figure out what it actually wants so it can bargain with it. Even if he figures that out whatever information he reveals might be fragmentary, misremembered or otherwise incomplete.
Or you could have a type of mummy that only regains undeath/sentience when your wizard tries to decode the treatise the mummy made it's life's work and thus values enough to come back to defend. It would probably think the Azlanti are still around which could be interesting to say the least. At that point you could have a resolution that involves force (compelling the mummy into being a tutor), negotiation, interesting curses, or even diplomacy (perhaps your wizard could flatter the mummy and talk about how awe inspiring that life's work was and how critical it is that the knowledge survives, etc). The fun thing about dealing with immortals/undead is motivations change so much when things like food, pain/comfort, and productivity are no longer relevant.
Man I feel like vampires alone could have their own video. Great job with this one!
Thanks! I thought that too but I couldn't do an undead video without vampires. Maybe in the future I will pull them out and do a seperate video just for them.
Don't stop with Vampires, consider an in-depth video for each Undead type.
Awesome video! As a counterpoint to undead, I hope you make a video on Psychopomps soon, they're by far my favorite outsiders and I love their looks and themes. Looking forward to more content!
I will cover psychopomps and psychopomp ushers in a future Religion video, but they'll likely come after my series on the Empyreal Lords and the Inferal Demigods which means they are a fair ways out at this point. I think I've released Angels and Devils so far, so Archons should be next week, then Daemons, Agathions, Demons and Azatas in that sequence. Then after that I've probably got one more more evil aligned videos (maybe about Qlippoths, Divs and Asuras) before I get to Psychopomps and other more neutral outsides. My personal favorites: the Inevitables. Phew! Pathfinder really is a bottomless well of concepts.
@@TheMythKeeper I really like Archons so I'm glad to hear that's coming next! And yeah, the Inevitables are a fantastic concept, but I'll be eagerly awaiting the inevitable(heh) Psychopomp video.
Great lore video! Now I want to do a Lich playthrough of Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous. ❤
Do it!
Make sure to not abuse the Repurpose spell too much (or at least kill them off after you're done with them). Too much undead units can take a toll on the engine and slow the game down. Speaking from personal experience XD
I'm really enjoying the series thus far. I play Civilization 5 on one screen and listen to your show on another. Great information to absorb.
What would everybody’s ideal undead be two play as/become?
Also, what’s wrong with phylactery? It’s been fine for decades, so what’s the issue now?
Funnily enough, in my homebrew some elementals can technically be counted as undead, since there are no elemental planes. One of the of ways they come about is the result of a dead spellcaster fighting the call of the grave, but instead of trying to get their husk moving, they use what magic they knew to fashion one out of what's nearest to them. This can result in Worms-that-Walk, but just as often mudmen lurching out of the graveyard or a blazing humanoid flying out of a crematorium.
Thanks for this ..
Keep up the awesome content!
Thanks! And welcome to the club :-)
I don't know the reason behind but Vetala has been change to Vetalarana in PF2e.
Also urdefhan altough refered to as Orvian Vampire, they are neither vampire nor undead, in 1e they were outsiders but in 2e altough they were created in abbadon they are their own type of creature, in fact they have humanoid trait.
Still an amazing video, i wished i could find this channel sooner.
You're right about urdefahn not being technically undead. I'm just randomly a big fan of the urdefahn (since I ran Serpent's Skull years ago actually) and I wanted an excuse to squeeze them in.
@@TheMythKeeperSerpent’s Skull is my favorite AP so far. It’s very Lost World meets Tomb Raider and I adore that.
One day I’ll collect every chapter!
@@OldGreyGryphon Its one of the greats. I'm always hoping more people will check out my Vidrian Deep Dive video - a video that I put a good deal of care into since I enjoyed Serpents Skull so much.
I love monsters. Please as many more videos about monsters as possible 🙏🏻 thank you kind sir
This is exactly why there's nothing evil about the necromancy school of magic.
Love your content
Thanks Rei!
Some of the images i recognize from the PF2 side but others i really want to find the source on!
I wonder if Zon-Kuthon is a divine Devourer. How Devourers are created sounds a lot like what Dou-Bral went through and they both have extremely alien minds.
It’s a cool idea
Skeletons can retain muscle memory. Good to know.
So one thing i'd be interested in is this: Is necromancy evil?
Not from a societal view or scorned by the gods, but just inherently and objectively.
And for this question, assume full consent given by all parties.
One of the decisions that make me most happy about Remaster project is that they are finally abandoning that old D&D sacred cow of alignments. What is evil? If you define evil for me I can tell you whether or not its good/evil. If evil for you is doing anything that interferes with the natural cycle of life and death (Pharasma's POV) then yes, necromancy is definitely evil.
If someone is afraid to move on to the next life and turns to necromancy does that inherently make them evil? No, I don't think so at all. Fearful - sure. Some may point out that a person's innate morality comes from the positive energy suffused in their soul, but to this I'd point out that most modern ethical frameworks require a fair deal of logic or ethical science. A person can be "good" even if their nature is not good by performing good actions.
A vampire may choose to drink animal blood even though its less savory. A liche may fight against the demons of the worldwound.
I don't know, this is a great question, but now for the first time the answer isn't simple "Yes because of R0OLZ!!!"
@@TheMythKeeper Yep, the morality of necromancy is very interesting to me and i agree with everything you said.
Though my question was less about alignment, and more along the lines of
"Does Necromancy inherently cause harm to the universe"
Maybe the negative energy used in it inherently corrupts the positive energy of the world.
Maybe raising an undead inherently causes harm to the soul of the subject.
Does Golarion have those aspects? I'd be happier if such didn't exist - but only knowing the answer can you determine if it is possible to play a moral necromancer, or merely someone in denial about the truth.
I noticed that player Liches don't even need to consume the souls of other people to stay alive (..or undead). Thus the question is.. why is this considered evil?
Same for Vampires on animal blood. Or Vampires that buy blood from people.
Irl we have people donating blood for people in need - were vampires to exist they could totally be integrated into the system without resorting to violence.
Do mindless undead inherently attack the living? Can intelligent undead overcome these instincts?
I'd love to see another video just diving deep into the morality of various forms of necromancy (still assuming consent from all parties involved).
@@symmetry8049 - "Does Necromancy inherently cause harm to the universe" --- I think the answer to this is yes, but its much more obtuse, complicated and indirect.
From my understanding the River of Souls and the Antipode (see my Planar Cosmology 101 video) are like the heartbeat of the multiverse, and heaving a steady supply of quintessence moving through the planes keeps the multiverse healthy.
When souls are prevented from moving on to the next phase of their existence the universe is harmed. Like a person eating too many fats and sugars which can lead to arterial blockages, large populations of undead are harmful to the correct functioning of the multiverse. This is why Pharasma hates the undead. Her psychopomps are like the white blood cells of the multiverse.
That said, the multiverse is vast, and one person becoming a lich isn't going to upend the multiverse any more than a random snickers bar will kill a person. Likewise a person that doesn't recycle now and then isn't 'evil', even though the collective cost of not recycling may end up being very harmful to the planet.
Once the lich has performed the appropriate rituals, as long as the soul-cage is preserved, they will live forever. They don't need to consume souls, they don't need to cause harm. They can be completely altruistic in all regards in fact, good people through-and-through.
BUT... Pharasma would still say they're being evil. ;-)
Friend, you just got a new subscriber! What and incredible video! I've been wanting to play PF2 for a while, and knowing a bit of the world's lore helps getting hyped a lot, specially lore about my favourite kind of enemy!
Thank you so much and welcome to the channel!
One of my favorite types of monsters to use in pathfinder 2e and play as one thank you for the information love your channel
Definitely a useful video. I like the way they characterised Mummys and the sense that the mummy is somehow both the curse and retribution. I also like how many kinds of vampire there are; I can see that leading to a lot of variety in the kinds of games you can put them in. Most of the other sorts of undead in this video.... honestly I think I'd re-work the lore if I was running them. There's a distinct thread of 'was a victim of a traumatic event'->'become evil undead', in a way that goes beyond just dark magic rituals. For me personally that's not something I like. I feel like that cuts off the possibility of engaging with darker themes in a meaningful way in games. Because it sort of implies that any victim the party fails could become a monster and I don't think that really supports the sort of games I like, or the ways I tend to bring in those themes.
I agree completely actually. All the lore is fungible here, and I think in general the idea that victims of trauma become evil is less interesting than ambition, greed or desire turning someone evil, but I think there's still a lot of cool stuff visually. Personally making this video made me oddly fond of Mohrgs all of a sudden.
@@TheMythKeeper The visuals for the Mohrgs are top notch. And I like the idea of the soul being the deciding factor in whether or not something is undead. I've passed the video on to a friend who's thinking of running a pathfinder game in the future. He mentioned wanting to do something with the undead and I think he'll get a lot from this video :)
@@lkriticos7619 Awesome. Thanks for share!
These long form videos are awesome. Thanks for the lore, MythKeeper!
'Muscle memory' - quite the feat with no muscles. What holds a skeleton together? Does a necromancer spend hours wiring the bones together before reanimation or are we supposed to believe the bones just happen to float near each other in the correct order to approximate a human form?
That's the second muscle memory question in about as many hours. The bones know. ;-)
When the dark magic animates them they somehow know both how to knit themselves back together in the right order and carry the 'muscle memory'. Should I call it 'motorics memory' instead?
Hey Mr.Mythkeeper, could you do a video about the ancient empire of the ghol-gan and about cyclops civilisations? They really fascinate me and are something only found in the pathfinder setting!
I have a video coming up on the Western Mwangi expanse in about 4 weeks that has a pretty deep history of the Ghol-gan at the top of the video.
Wow I remember that MTG card you used to show zombies was so so so good. So you recall the name?
Give me the timestamp, I'll see if I recall ;-)
Great video. I would like to get one (or more) about the dragons, imperials linnorms etc but since there will be more dragons arriving soon I'm not sure it's The time.
I'm also looking forward to the new dragons. I want to know what an occult-oriented dragon, which is what Fortune and Omen sound a bit like, would be like for instance. Would it be one of the few beings capable of divining some of the secrets of the Old Ones without going insane?
Dragons video is made now! Its just hit the Mythwatchers Club members, which means it will be available to everyone else in exactly 4 weeks.
Didn't knew there was a club.
@@zenjr1004 Its just right here on RUclips. You can hit the join button to get early access to videos, or just give it a minute and it'll be on the main channel before you know it.
Signed. Watching Daemons of abbadon. ;)
As a Blood Lords GM, I thank you good sir!
You're very welcome!
Undead, always a fun topic.
I always enjoy your work. Thank you so much.
🧐👍
Yesss! Creature feature day! Amazing video, friend! 😄
Haha! Awesome, thank you so much for the support!
@@TheMythKeeper Always! You deserve that and more!
Hey, I like and enjoy your videos, but want / need to adress a possible issue.
Don't get me wrong, I wish you all the best, so I dont want you to get into problems, that's why I write this:
On your Channel Information you say that you use the work of artists in a fair use context. You probably use the art of pathfinder / paizo too in your lore-videos - at least I've seen some.^^ Paizo states that their art is not allowed to be shared behind any sort of paywall. Your new video is for channel-members only - so it's behind a paywall. So if you use their art / the art of other artists to actually make some money, is that fair use then?
As I said: Don't get me wrong. I understand that you want to earn something for your great work (and it is a lot of work and time you invest here) and I haven't seen the new video, so I don't know, if you are actually using paizo art / other artists work behind that paywall. I just want you to double check and be aware about that possible issue, if you haven't / aren't already - so that you don't run into legal problems here.
It bothered me for a time now, that you didn't give any credits to the artists, when you used their art (I know - it is not easy / possible to find out who the artist was for every piece and it would be even more work - but it seems like you didn't even try)
Be careful and keep going!
Edit: Or is that membership only for instant access to new vids? I don't know if that makes a difference - maybe I got something wrong there?
You got it in the Edit. There is no exclusive content in the channel. Just wait. The members just get it 4 weeks early. Thanks for the thoughtful comment, appreciate it.
@@TheMythKeeper Bam! And there's another video. :D
@@acobacoaco Every week a new vid!
мне понравилось ! лайк и комментарий , для алгоритмов ютуба =)
Good stuff 😊
❤
This is fantastic! We’re in a necropolis currently and this helps immensely with some basic understanding for our party!
Yes! You know I love it when there's synchronicity between the videos dropping and what's going on in people's games!
MythKeeper videos are even better than usual when they apply to a game you're in! Like when watching his Creature Feature on Giants I thought of several potential adventuring hooks just from his descriptions of what motivates different breeds of Giants.
How do skeletons retain skills and muscle memory? No brain, no muscle, no soul.
The bones remember somehow, when the dark magic wakes them up again.
I thought he covered that in the video.
@@redfaux74 it's been 8 months so I don't remember the metaphysical mechanics but iirc there is a plothole specifically about skeletons.
Just wanted to say thanks for the great content. It's perfect for when Im writing or working on my campaign.
Great to hear!
So, I've definitely not been playing as long and forgive my ignorance- Is it really that different? Because I look at games like GURPs and Warhammer and old World of Darkness titles and I don't think they'd be easily picked up and run by a kid either. And (perhaps mistakenly) I was under the impression that older versions of D&D were more like that? Crunchier, with a lot of specific rules and knock on effects to keep in mind. Which doesn't make any of them bad games, but doesn't make them easy to pick up.
Perfect video for my ongoing ustalav campaign. Awesome video!
Now I want to see stats of strigoi
Here you go: 2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=1944
Ghoul = me when I skip lunch
😆
My favorite was devourer
They are very cool
I Love your content! Have binged watched/listened to a lot of them.
I have a question. So quintessence (quin) is the soul or what makes up the soul and the soul goes to the river of souls and to bring a person back you have to get that soul before it leave the river of souls. Then how does a mummy come back to life with memories of what it was from the past all of them should have been housed in the soul and then once the soul was wiped clean the memories gone, unless they can carry over some how. Something for me is not adding up.
You've got everything 100% right here and you've also understood something that makes mummy's really special and unique in the undead community.
At the beginning of my video I mention that Resurrection doesn't work if the soul has been judged already, but shortly thereafter I say that Necromancy allows people to bend or break the rules.
In the case of Mummies, which are intelligent but long-dead creatures, are very much breaking this rule.
Let's follow the afterlife and flow of quint of a hypothetical Mummy. They live a full life in which they rise to power in their community, before they die they make a proclamation that they will protect this community forever until the end of time, they are buried in a grand elaborate crypt and priests reiterate this as a prophecy. Their collective magic and power turns this into a powerful prohecy or curse.
This hypothetical mummy was neutral evil. They get judged by Pharasma and end up as one of The Hunted living in Abaddon. Despite having been a great lord among the humans of his society, his second-life is short. A daemon finds him and a small group of survivors within weeks of his arrival in the afterlife and he is devoured.
What happens to the quint after his second death? The quint is distribued into the structure of the plane itself. Some of the rocks, plants, rivers and so on of Abaddon are now composed of the quintessence that was once a part of our living human leader. His personality, and the collective personality of all those who died, are part of what's defining the nature of the plane.
Over time the planes breakdown. Old shed quintessence will go down the antipode. But that process is very, very, very long. Hundreds of millennia may pass before the quintessence from a single person is completely lost.
Meanwhile on Golarion someone breaks into his old tomb. The old prophecy activates. The power is so strong that his composite quintessence is pulled out of the plane itself. If you were wearing spectral goggles you would see green spirit-stuff coming out of the plants and the soil, heading contraflow down the River of Souls, all the way to the old king's corpse in Golarion.
Then the original composition of quintessence is reassembled. The mummy is risen. He has no memory of his afterlife, he's been reverted to the entity he was in death. This kind of undead has broken all the rules we're familiar with for resurrection.
Also consider how wild the case of Walkena the Mummy God-King of Mzali. He died in 3967 and was resurrected in 4610. He was gone for 643 years. What was he doing in his afterlie for 600 years. We don't know. He doesn't know. But what we do know is that Walken is an *actual* god. If people worship him, he can confer them divine power, at no cost to his personal power. That's radical. My best guess is that he went to Hell (Lawful Evil) and slowly ascended from lowly Damned Petitioner to Lesser Devil to a Duke of Hell. I think he was a lesser divinity by the time he was brought back, and this explains why he's still a god in unlife, he just doesn't remember any of this.
Wild stuff!
@@TheMythKeeper I think I follow your train of thought with all of this, then my next question is what if the person of importance was NOT evil aligned would they or could they come back as a mummy to protect their tomb? Or is the curse of the mummy only good enough for evil aligned people?
@@franklinrichards8851 I don't see any technical/mechanical reason why this couldn't happen, but since part of the reason that a mummy returns is hubris or certitude about the mission, I think that kind of brazen overconfidence is more common in more evil aligned creatures than more good-aligned creatures. Most good creatures will recognize that they are not alone in the fight, whereas evil creature become convinced of their own necessity. Consider Thanos' various lines in End Game ("I'm the only one who knows it." / "I'm the only one with the will to act on it." / "The hardest choices require the strongest wills"). Its this kind of certitude or assuredness that will bring a mummy back. If a good (or neutral) creature has that kind of conviction, then sure, they might come back as a mummy. That would certainly make for an interesting character. A self-righteous altruist, who believes he is uniquely qualified, but who is so good in other aspects that his hubris is outweighed by his sheer goodness? I'd still argue that this was maybe a neutral soul. It takes a certain level of self-importance to become a mummy. Also, remember its your game, so in fact, anything goes!
@@TheMythKeeper I guess one of the other things I was looking at that I never agreed with was that Mummy's where evil, or move over where only evil. I am not saying that there are not evil people that would not go into becoming a mummy to get around dying. But most of history even talks about the mummy's curse or a mummy in general being that someone has come to rob the tomb, be that a out right tomb robber for money or a Tomb Raider like Lara Croft or Indiana Jones... In the end they are taking something that does not belong to them and the mummy is there to protect it. It just has never really set to well with me that they could only be evil aligned. But things are what they are I guess
@@franklinrichards8851 Don't forget Pathfinder is finally abandoning the D&D alignment system with REMASTER coming out in the near future. I don't think evil is a requirement for a mummy, but they need to be convinced of their own self-importance before they die. Its not just that the tomb raider stole some stuff; its that the tomb raider dared to steal some stuff from *them*.
really nice ! Very thorough....i am still hoping for Dragons...as very few creatures are like them...
Next creature feature ;-)
I feel like antimagic should be able to effectively kill mindless undead, but the rules don't seem to support this. It would definitely be very powerful, but it just makes sense in lore.
I agree on this :-)
Just got into looking into the Lore of this world. And this is awesome. You have really got me listening to more. This in particular is intriguing.
Thanks for your hard work uploading brother.
Welcome aboard!
You sir are a scholar and a gentleman... I'm GMing Blood Lords for my group now and this and the Geb video have really helped me and players see the world
I cant believe how many folks have commented that they're running bloodlords as they watch this. Awesome to hear & glad it was useful
Geb
💀
This video was really thought-provoking! Among many other questions, I wonder if there are Positive Energy counterparts to the undead and what they would look like. Could a powerful magic user prolong their lives with measured channeling of Positive Energy in a fashion that mirrors a Negative Energy-powered Lich? I'm imagining the magic equivalent of an unending slow-drip Greater Restoration spell. If infusion with Negative Energy warps souls to become bitter, destructive, introspective, and devoted to esoteric pursuits, how would constant contact with a survivable amount of Positive Energy change a mortal's mindset? Perhaps that's how you'd arrive at the trope of seemingly immortal "living" wizards from mortal races.
In my mind I think of an ageless being still fully "alive" in the conventional sense. They would be bursting with vitality and emotion, constantly enthusiastic and flushed as if they just finished invigorating exercise or were in the throes of hedonistic arousal. Those dedicated to change/novelty might be mercurial in their interests, constantly seeking to engage in an outside world full of new friendships, new challenges, and new pleasures. The more orderly/traditional ones might be frighteningly focused on singular interests, tirelessly pursuing art, food, architecture, or propagation of life (e.g. gardening, medicine, child-rearing). Perhaps where a conventional Lich must struggle for balance against invasive introversion and ennui, our "Positive Lich" would have to strive to maintain control in the face of intense lust, anger, manic joy, singular obsession, and so on.
As for hazards: instead of draining others with their touch they might invigorate them but to a degree that swiftly becomes unpleasantly intense and even harmful (and that might mean they could only be in contact with those they care about in short bursts and thus are frequently touch-starved). There could be an increasingly invasive tendency towards disdain for "normal" mortals who will never live long enough to perfect the pursuits our ageless "Positive Lich" has come to value, and it might be made worse by the aforementioned physical isolation. While a kind caster may recognize the value of mortal pursuits, they might also eventually regard most creations the way a parent views an unrelated child's drawing - endearing but clumsy. This would leave them feeling as if they have few true peers to relate to, and might cause them to unhealthily fixate on the rare prodigies that meet their standards. Finally, if the ritual is incorrectly performed or degrades it could channel too deeply from the energies of the Positive Plane and force uncontrollable growth. For instance, cancer is the uncontrolled creation of new tissue and such a scenario could result in a swift devolution into several forms of Lovecraftian abomination.
I also really liked the idea of any sufficiently powerful emotion being enough to anchor incorporeal undead of different dispositions. I feel that fits very well with the move away from explicit alignments in the upcoming updates, but I've already written an essay so I'll leave it at that. All in all another great entry into your lexicon of material, and thank you for it!
I love a big meaty comment like this. Here's the scoop as I understand it: The Positive Energy counterpart to undead is just things that are alive. All things that are living are animated by positive energy - its just that the energy decays overtime. When a cleric heals a fighter by channeling positive energy they are effectively replenishing the fighter's life force. So to answer the second part: "Could a powerful magic user prolong their lives with measured channeling of Positive Energy in a fashion that mirrors a Negative Energy-powered Lich?" Yes. 100%.
In fact there are countless examples of this. Queen Galfrey made herself immortal using positive energy magic and lived for hundreds of years to ensure the demons of the Worldwound couldn't take advantage of a crisis resulting from a change of leadership on the part of the crusaders. All monks or druids that acquire the Timeless Body have essentially learned how to prevent positive energy decay, either through divine magic (druid) or by mastering their inner spirit (monk). Heck, I'd argue that gnomes are born with the innate ability to replenish the natural positive energy that animates them by undergoing new experiences.
I think your idea of a postive energy liche is awesome actually. In fact the game has mechanics for a creature overloaded with positive energy. Its called a Brilliant Creature ( www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/radiant-creature-cr-1/ ). Typically these creatures occur by being unmade and remade in the positive energy plane, but there's no reason a spellcaster seeking immortality couldn't figure out a way to overload themselves with positive energy and intentionally ascend themselves into a brilliant creature.
@@TheMythKeeper My introduction to PF was actually the WoTR videogame and I had forgotten all about Galfrey's life extension. I also didn't realize that the druid/monk abilities involved plugging up the leak in the sink as it were. The reason I love details like that (and your content exploring those details) is they provide a starting point for imagination. Cheers!
I liked this video and the one about Geb a lot! Keep up the good work man, thanks for these videos
Thank you!
Hoooooh! A Pathfinder lore channel! Sign me up!
Yes! Welcome! I love new arrivals
Great Video!
I love that in 2e you can play as a lich, vampire, ghoul, ghost, mummy, zombie, or skeleton. I'm planning on playing a lich in Age of Ashes
Yeah they’ve really opened all the doors haven’t they?
@@TheMythKeeper Indeed and I couldn't be more excited, I've always had a soft spot for the undead
For the Aswang vanpire you used an image of a manananggal which is an undead creature alongside the penanggal I'm suprised you did not talk about.
Anyway just a thing i noticed. Love the videos. I can't wait for more videos about outsiders as rakshasa are some of my favorite villains.
Yes, you are right! I used that art because I liked it best and because the aswang is so similar to the manananggal that I didn't think anyone would notice! Do not fear, we'll get to Rakshasa eventually. :-)