The Bright Side of the Undead

OK, so maybe this post has a dumb title, but are there any reasons that a “good” person would want to create undead or is necromancy really as evil as everyone says it is?  Well, it depends on your culture.  Not to go down the moral relativism rabbit hole, but what people believe about their bodies is dependent upon their religions.

There is a tradition in some Asian cultures where zombie creation is simply to get the corpse back home for burial.  If someone were to have traveled to a distant city in order to get a job and then died, they probably could not afford to get their corpse shipped back home.  So in order to have the corpse buried with the family (and prevent the spirit from rising due to the unfamiliar ground), there are religious folks who will animate the corpse and then lead them to their home / homeland.

I’m sorry but for some reason I just cannot read that and then get the thought of a “goose herder” out of my head.  Apparently, geese were herded to market in historic times, and I keep getting these two images laid atop each other - the cute little girl with her switch and her basket frolicking down the road leading a half dozen zombies.  Yes - I am messed up!

On Sambrek Island, they use zombies as farm workers.  The corpses are typically sundried (as opposed to embalmed in some other cultures) just in case some part of them falls off.  They don’t want dangerous chemicals getting mixed in with the crops, but apparently body parts are just fertilizer.  Only criminals (typically pirates) are supposed to be turned into zombies after they have been executed, but recently, the number of executed prisoners has not kept up with the demand, so they have been importing executed criminals from Brinston.  The zombi-fication is seen as part of their punishment.  When this news breaks in Brinston, there will be a major scandal, but that hasn’t happened, yet.

Our last possible “good” undead for today is that there are many religions that strongly believe the body is the least important part of the person.  It is their immortal soul that matters, and upon death, the soul escapes the body and travels on to the person’s just reward.  Depending on the strength of this belief, turning someone’s corpse into a zombie may not hold any horror to these people.

But honestly, most people are creeped out by skeletons, zombies, and other undead creatures and therefore will consider any crafting of the undead to be a desecration of their bodies.  So, yeah, in pretty much every culture, necromancy is going to be seen as evil (fear inspiring).  Might be fun, but probably still evil!