Undead

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Undead (不死者) are creatures of the dead that have come back to the land of the living after death. They can be found in both YGGDRASIL and the New World.

Background

In YGGDRASIL, Undead was one of the many races a Player can choose to be and play as. Moreover, such race is divided into different subspecies according to their racial level, allowing players to further evolve beyond it. This goes along well with the right classes like necromancer specifically that are befitting for someone who was an undead. Necromancers had the ample power to raise an army of undead as long as they come prepared with the right skills or spells to use for the creation process. Even if a necromancer ends up dying, their horde of summoned undead won't disappear. Rather, the undead will continue to live on and operate independently as they are simply no longer bound by the command of its fallen summoner. In short, the necromancer's death does not mean the end of its army of summoned undead since all they have lost was a mental bond formerly shared between master and servant. Intelligent undead beings of great power remain animated even when their creator is destroyed.^[1][2]

As an Overlord of a high-tier race, one could create a more powerful undead than what an Elder Lich or other undead are capable of doing. To create a permanent undead that cannot disappear easily until killed in battle, one needs the target's dead body or any least bit of their remains including bones to carry it out. The corpse's quality determines the level of an undead one creates. In this case, the Sunlight Scripture's corpses at most can create the kind of undead up to level 40 at max. Beyond such a limit, while using their corpses, the undead would vanish with the passage of time, along with the corpses that served as their medium.^[3] Even without a vessel for summoning the undead, he is still able to spawn one out of thin air. Yet the undead created also could not stay in the New World for long.^[4]

Moreover, the quality of the undead produced can vary by what kind of species the corpse originated from. In particular, dragons and trolls are among the corpses out there that could become a zombie or a skeleton. For humans, Ainz seems to use a human corpse as a catalyst to keep his summoned Death Knight, a mid-tier undead or below permanent in the New World.^[5] There are even some among the Dragon Lords, one of the strongest species from the New World that were said to be an undead. Antilene Heran Fouche stated that both Elder Coffin Dragon Lord and Vampiric Dragon are presumed to be alive due to their race as undead while Captain of the Black Scripture thought they are already dead.^[6]

In some shape or form, Ainz's way of using the corpses seem as if the resurrection is taking place, yet the targets that are dead will come back to life as undead rather than alive in the flesh through a racial skill. From the Web Novel, Ainz said there are spells which can bring the dead back to life but at the cost of them, turning into an undead during the process.^[7] Ainz noted without an intact corpse, there is a chance that if he used resurrection magic, it might become one of the undead.^[8] Though it is different from a normal resurrection via a tier spell, where the person is supposed to be brought back to life not as an undead, but part of the living instead. It seems also apparent that certain undead monsters have some sort of ability which allows them to spawn a weaker undead through the target they've killed.^[9] Depending on the undead, abilities like Crypt Lord or Overlord, they could go as far as buffing their own undead minions to be stronger than it normally was supposed to be while controlling them.^[10]

In the Web Novel, soldiers who died without their weapons turn into undead were equipped with different types of weapons. The most convincing argument among people was that the weapons were the representation of their will, possibly due to the interference of magic as some believed to be the cause.^[11]

Along the way, there happens to be a healing-type spell such as "Greater Lethal" that can heal the undead through its generated Negative Energy. However, when exposed to the kind of healing-type spell that uses Positive Energy, undead can end up being the one who sustains the damage instead of the heal. As long as the negative energy which served to be their life-force was not depleted, the undead would keep on fighting. If the conditions for instant death are not met, they would not lose the will to fight like the living would. In that regard, the undead were perfect soldiers on the battlefield since they don't suffer from exhaustion or pain.^[12]

On the other hand, the undead are looked upon as monsters that possess an undying hatred for all living creatures and its intent was to eradicate them. The undead were viewed to be the enemy of all living beings negatively. Yet, there are few exceptions to this idea in which Ainz Ooal Gown, who doesn't see it the same way they do but was still indifferent to them nonetheless in terms of not being able to show emotions physically. Despite Yuri Alpha being undead, she doesn't seem to bear any ill hatred towards the living and regarded some of them with kindness instead. Also, the same could be said with Evileye, an undead who works in a group like Blue Roses consisting of humans.

Though the undead possesses hatred against the living, there are some like Davernoch who were able to somehow suppress it. He was considered to be a naturally-spawned Elder Lich capable of intelligence, going as far as forming a goal in life that includes harnessing the power of magic and learning techniques beyond the spells he could use since his genesis. In other words, certain sentient undead are capable of keeping their hatred under control when negotiating and forming relations with the living.^[13] If the living were the ones who try to offer negotiation first, then it would usually end up turning out to be a bad trade. But if the undead were to initiate the first offer or negotiation, there had once been instances of people obtaining ancient items that had been made with now-forgotten knowledge.^[14] Whenever Ainz issues mental commands over the weaker undead, they won't be able to easily attack the living out of their nature unless it was ordered to do so by their master.

For those undead who planned to build their influence among the living, along with it came an increase in the number of enemies. In particular, since the undead were the enemy of everything that lived, there were times where the living would come together to form international alliances in order to exterminate them. Because of this, there were even fewer members like that in the undead groups such as Corpus of the Abyss. Of course, there were also those who had put down roots in the darkness of the world of the living, but such skilled undead were few and far between.^[15]

While so, the undead does not age nor suffered from fatigue like the living go through. Hence, the undead would continue ruling the land for all eternity until it was defeated. Unlike the dragons' own growth rate, high-level undead are not the type to grow in bodily might. Instead, they could accumulate knowledge and experience constantly over time. From that point of view, the undead might be even stronger than dragons.^[16] Among the many undead out there, Titus, a Skeleton Mage is attempting to master a new methodology of crafting scrolls as well as translate the New World's language and thereby improve himself.^[17] In the New World, it seems there are legendary tales recorded and passed down about the undead such as an Astral Ripper or Wriggle Pestilence.

In the moment that one became undead, one’s physical appearance was fixed and can no longer experienced the biological aging process. In addition to that, Suzuki Satoru noted how resurrection items and spells could be used on undead creatures who had been reduced to 0 health points. However, one could not restore these walking corpses back to their original state before they had become undead.

When a group of weaker undead gather in one place, stronger undead are then created after a certain period of time passes by. Undead normally spawned in places such as the Katze Plains or E-Rantel's graveyard where many people died.^[18][19][20] For example, a Death Knight and other undead spawning at that location tends to be a hotspot for their birth. Such an effect could also be used in tangent alongside a magic ritual called Death Spiral that turn a living person into an undead like the Elder Lich. Though this ceremony requires the sacrifice of a location composed with living entities to form another place for naturally spawn undead. They gather together in numbers, causing the birth of a more powerful undead to appear one after another while the cycle continuously repeats itself.^[21]

While such phenomena were highly probable in such grim and dark locations, in other normal locations the possibility of corpses that were left alone would turn into undead, was a rare thing. It was also said that when a corpse turned into an undead, its strength would match the strength of the corpse as a baseline. Thus the undead formed from the corpse of someone who had enough conviction and confidence would certainly be a powerful enemy against the living.^[22]

Although the undead could be dominated through magic, the only human who succeeded in doing so was one of the Thirteen Heroes being Rigrit, a necromancer. However, dominating the undead requires a rather complicated process even for the likes of Fluder to master. The undead do also happen to have absolute resistance to the effect of mind control spells. Controlling the minds of undead with magic is next to impossible unless it was done through a World Item such as Downfall of Castle and Country.^[23] In the New World, the control and destruction of undead is usually done by priests using the 'power' of the 'gods'. If one chooses to become an undead in the New World, their heart and mind will begin to alter as well. The change to the undead state often affects the soul too as far as Evileye knows it since she is an example of one who was once a human being.^[24]

It was said that the undead, unlike magical beasts, had had no concept of the word “territory.” Furthermore undead had various powers and abilities. A portion of the undead possessed the ability to instill fear instill fear in all living things, be they beast or man. Others were said to possess abilities like invisibility, stealth, or incorporeality.^[19]

Basic Undead Race Traits

• Bludgeoning Vulnerability V
• Biological Penalties' Resistance
• Critical Hit Immunity
• Dark Vision
• Death Immunity
• Disease Immunity
• Doubled Damage by Fire
• Eating, Drinking, and Breathing are Unnecessary
• Energy Drain Immunity
• Good, Light and Holy Vulnerability IV
• Good and Holy Consecrated Areas' Vulnerability II
• Mind-affecting Immunity
• Necromancy Resistance
• Paralysis Immunity
• Physical Penalty Resistance
• Poisoning Immunity
• Recover by Negative Energy
• Sleep Immunity

Types of Undead

Skeleton

• Bone Vulture
• Elder Lich
• Elemental Skull
• Gravekeeper
• Heavy Skeleton Warrior
• Nazarick Master Guarder
• Nazarick Elder Guarder
• Nazarick Old Guarder
• Night Lich
• Overlord
• Red Skeleton Warrior
• Rot Wyvern
• Skeletal Dragon
• Skeleton Archer
• Skeleton Centipede
• Skeleton Mage
• Skeleton Rider
• Skeleton Sailor
• Skeleton Warrior
• Soul Eater
• Spartiate

Zombie

• Blood Meat Hulk
• Corpse Collector
• Death Knight
• Dog Zombie
• Dullahan
• Eyeball Corpse
• Freezing Zombie
• Frost Bone
• Ghast
• Ghoul
• Jack the Ripper
• Necroswarm Giant
• Organ Egg
• Plague Bomber
• Squire Zombie
• Undead Beast
• Zombie Dragon
• Zombie Goblin
• Zombie Troll

Death Spirit

• Astral Ripper
• Carrion Baby
• Grim Reaper Thanatos
• Ghost
• Jack-O-Lantern
• High Wraith
• Messenger
• Pale Rider
• Pumpkin Monster
• Screaming Banshee
• Vanquished Spectre
• Void
• Wight
• Wraith

Vampire

• Cure Elim Los Malvar
• Elder Vampire Bat
• Lesser Vampire
• True Vampire
• Vampire Bat Swarm
• Vampire Bride
• Vampire Rat
• Vampire Wolf
• Vampiric Dragon Lord

Unknown Undead

• Corrupt Dead
• Crypt Lord
• Deadman Struggler
• Death Assassin
• Death Cavalier
• Death Emperor
• Death Empress
• Death Priest
• Death Warrior
• Death Wizard
• Doom Lord
• Eternal Death
• Grave Dead
• Greater Graveyard
• Guphandera Argoros
• Overlord Cronos Master
• Overlord General
• Overlord Wiseman
• Swell Skin
• Wriggle Pestilence

Trivia

• The undead cannot receive any buff or enhancement from eating food.
• The Baharuth Empire is conducting experiments to make undead laborers under their control. However, it seems apparent that Ainz is already doing just that with his undead minions, lending them out to the citizens and dealers of his nation for various tasks.^[25]
• Those who died a violent death and the dead who were not properly revered have the highest chance of becoming undead.
• Because it is uncertain what causes the spontaneous genesis of the undead, the Baharuth Empire is currently investigating the reason for that.
• To prevent the dead from becoming undead, the people of the New World have taken to making proper burials for the dead as soon as possible when death occurs.
• Albedo once tried to conduct an experiment to determine which type of undead could feel emotions, but her findings were cut short after she got into an altercation with Shalltear.
• There exists a secret society that only consists of undead Magic Casters.
• Undead were the first of its kind in the Overlord series known to spawn in the New World as it seems apparent that their birth looks to be limitless even after death.
• Ainz plans to conduct an experiment on whether or not the soul was actually the cause for mid-tier undead like Soul Eaters to stay permanent in the New World rather than the corpse itself.^[26]
• According to Osk, the undead are supposed to have poor physical stats, but that does not seem to be the case with Ainz.^[27]
• Decapitation is quite a common killing method for most low tier undead beings.
• Most undead are known to possess very high resistance to the cold, and temperature drops would not in anyway inconvenience them.^[28]
• Once one became an undead creature, most race-change items would not be able to change one’s undead status. If it was possible, the only things which could do that would be on the level of World Items.
• While every race could be turned into zombies or skeletons, there were certain exceptions. Races without a skeletal system could not be zombified or skeletonized.
• Undead beings with high-level thief skills were not common in the game.^[29]
• Undead tend to not attack fellow undead, but there were two reasons why they headed for Ainz despite the fact that he is an undead. The first was the orders of their creators. The second was Ainz's ring as it had concealment powers, hiding his undead status.^[30]
• While musing about the true identity of the Ghost Ship in the Katze Plains, Ainzwas unsure if inanimate objects could be turned into undead.^[31]
• Save for a few exceptions, normal undead do not have sexual desires.^[32]

References