Automation & the Undead

[AcerbicOrb]

Has it occurred to anyone else that automation of manual labour can be carried out by undead labourers? Particularly skeletons. They might not be the smartest, but they can definitely be instructed to do basic menial tasks such as farming, mining, woodcutting, etcetera.

What effects might this "automation" have on a typical medieval economy? Would we see food, wood, minerals becoming cheaper due to the decreased labour costs? Would we see peasants flocking to the cities in search of work? Would we see massive rural unemployment? Would the freed-up labour move into more skilled crafts, or into academia - causing a cultural renaissance of sorts?

Let's hear your ideas.

[noob]

This discussion goes quite often but generally it happens in the 3.X thread rather than in worldbuilding.
So you can consult what already exists about the subject of undead automation with a simple research.

[AcerbicOrb]

This discussion goes quite often but generally it happens in the 3.X thread rather than in worldbuilding.

Ah, I was looking in the wrong place perhaps? Thank you.

[Taro]

The problem is who want's to donate their cadavers menial tasks for eternity? Would you?

[Mechalich]

This has been considered a number of times in fiction, for instance in the Death Gate Cycle novel Fire Sea or in the recent anime film The Empire of Corpses.

The various applications depend very heavily on what your undead are capable of doing, at what cost in supervision and magic, and how much maintenance is required compared to living workers. There are different questions depending on whether or not you are considering the situation in the short term: wherein some major discovery suddenly allows undead to be used for labor applications in a way not previously possible; or the long term: wherein the entire civilization has reached a new equilibrium based on the back of ubiquitous undead labor. These questions are very similar to those demanded of any science fiction piece regarding the robot revolution, since that's what undead basically become, fantasy robot equivalents. It is also rather similar to the question raised by the ubiquitous utilization of golems or steampunk automata or even the droids of Star Wars.

Mass application of anything for the purpose of general labor has a major influence on society in terms of storytelling. Effectively you cut the blue collar bottom out from storytelling because those people no longer exist. Even the lowliest of people in he most basic of jobs is now a supervisor of many units. Luke Skywalker is a helpful example here: he was effectively a farmhand working in a dilapidated economic backwater - but his actual duties were the maintenance and supervisor of dozens of droids and large industrial machines (modern industrial farming becomes more and more like this everyday by the way). In the same fashion a farmer in your necrotech society is more of an undead supervisor than an actual farmworker and basic necromantic knowledge, even if not actual spellcasting, is likely to be widespread. This is likely to result in an extremely stratified society.

[kraftcheese]

I can't remember how exactly it played out in the sourcebooks, but a nation in the D&D Eberron setting uses undead as soldiers, laborers, etc and isn't necessarily evil. If you die in battle, you're reanimated as a soldier to keep on fighting; the undead soldiers have an effect on enemy morale as well as being more resilient than a regular peasant conscript (albeit not as smart).

I think most of it will be in the 3e sourcebooks which may give you a few ideas?

[Zombimode]

I can't remember how exactly it played out in the sourcebooks, but a nation in the D&D Eberron setting uses undead as soldiers, laborers, etc and isn't necessarily evil. If you die in battle, you're reanimated as a soldier to keep on fighting; the undead soldiers have an effect on enemy morale as well as being more resilient than a regular peasant conscript (albeit not as smart).

I think most of it will be in the 3e sourcebooks which may give you a few ideas?

Karnaths use of undead is limited to soldiers. The widespread use of necromancy during the Last War is part of the reason of the nations's unpopularity today.
This Military paradigm shift was made possible and acompanied by declaring the Blood of Vol as the state Religion - a Religion created by one of the Settings arch villains who could not care less about the nations well being.

While the current government has abolished and outlawed Blood of Vol worship (and reinstated Sovereign Host worship) but kept the large undead contingents (plus supporting stuff that weren't clear Blood of Vol fanatics), the acceptance of undead was never that great in the Karnath population.


While Karnath is certainly an example of widespread use of undead, it is definitely not a Free-Undead-Labor-Utopia-Pipedream that seem to Pop up in theses Forums every so often.

[AcerbicOrb]

While Karnath is certainly an example of widespread use of undead, it is definitely not a Free-Undead-Labor-Utopia-Pipedream that seem to Pop up in theses Forums every so often.

I didn't mean to suggest a utopia - far from it.

[Anymage]

While Karnath is certainly an example of widespread use of undead, it is definitely not a Free-Undead-Labor-Utopia-Pipedream that seem to Pop up in theses Forums every so often.

Deep down, the problem with the free undead labor utopia is that it relies on reading 3.5 RAW as the literal laws of physics in the setting. Once you start from that point, either expect society to have already been overhauled by plenty of other magical abilities, or expect the players to bring about massive upheaval when they do so. 3.5 RAW does very much allow the creation of a post-scarcity utopia.

If you treat 3.5 RAW as just a rules interface that glosses over all the fiddly bits that get in the way of telling exciting stories about heroes, or if you're making up a different setting whole cloth, you have to ask what problems you do want to have cropping up. Simply because actual post-scarcity utopias are boring places that don't give adventuring heroes much to do. And while one could have other problems popping up while still having convenient free energy undead, the idea just suggests so many yummy complications that few authors would pass it up.

[Quarian Rex]

Deep down, the problem with the free undead labor utopia is that it relies on reading 3.5 RAW as the literal laws of physics in the setting.

See, I think that most free undead labor utopias rely on ignoring RAW. They tend to assume perfect control of an undead workforce vast enough to revamp an entire society. This sort of thing is only really possible by either hand-waving infinite (or nearly so) HD limits on animate dead or hand-waving infinite (or nearly so) necromancers in the society. Both options snap RAW in half and, oddly enough, make the setting you're making more boring.

Simply because actual post-scarcity utopias are boring places that don't give adventuring heroes much to do.

This is why figuring out an actual RAW solution for the free undead labor utopia is far more interesting. Why? Because if you use the games' actual mechanics to create a utopia, you now have actual mechanics that can threaten it. That is the very basis for dramatic action. Adventurers now have a place in this setting.

Also, the undead -> robot analog should only be partial. It can be tempting to see the undead as variant automatons (they're mindless right?) but that does them a crippling disservice (and is painfully boring). They are neutral evil and the only desire within their empty minds is to rend living flesh. No matter how tight the control, it's important to remember that you are not directing robots, but are enslaving serial killers.

The way you establish control is important, not something that you should gloss over or automatically assume. This will be the main weakness of your society. The control pool of a necromancers' animate dead spell is extremely limited and will most likely be reserved for the casters personal use (bodyguards and assistants) or for key state resources (necromantic siege engines and the like?). Control Undead, while great for extending your control over high HD mindless undead, is something that requires upkeep and is extremely vulnerable to being dispelled (see above and the lack of enslavement of the serial killers).

Oddly enough, the best way I've seen so far to maintain this kind of wide spread undead control is from mundanes, not casters. Specifically, Spheres of Might. An ability called Armies of the Dead is available for characters with +6 or higher BAB who are trained as Warleaders. It lets you use Diplomacy on mindless undead, once you get them to friendly they will follow your orders and can benefit from morale bonuses and such. Granted, if you don't give them regular pep talks they will go feral.

A lower level (and more scalable) option from the same book would be training Warriors/Fighters with the Animal Trainer martial tradition and the Monster Tamer (Undead) sphere-specific drawback, providing you with 1st level mundanes who can 'control' up to 3 HD of undead by training them as if they were animals (with tricks and purposes). That is something that you can build a society on, something with limitations and obvious control choke-points and all that good stuff.

The point here is that if you want to do something like this then some time has to be spent on how it would actually be achieved, instead of making a bunch of assumptions to shoe-horn in a utopia. The end result may still be that utopia, but the details of how it is achieved is where the adventures are.

[Quarian Rex]

Automatic reset traps of Animate Dead and Command Undead don't ignore RAW for D&D 3.5. Sure, it'd probably take a while for the DMG-defined demographics to cause such items to become commonplace, but it still allows a trap-bearing individual to perpetually control at least 43,200 1-HD skeletons. Then again, this kind of scenario might not be what you're referring to.

Even looking past the fact that automatic reset spell-traps break everything in the game you now have undead production (which has never been a problem)... but not control. Remember, you are not directing automatons, you are enslaving serial killers. The traps can produce the undead but are incapable of issuing any actual commands (like 'do something actually useful' and 'don't eat the people I like') because they are... you know... just traps.

Like I said, RAW is not the problem. It is ignoring RAW and assuming that things work the way you want them to that makes broken situations that leave no room for adventure.

[Mechalich]

Mass magical applications of any kind - not just automatic resetting traps - break the world in 3.X D&D. The how of bending and twisting the rules into allowing for an undead labor force is a moderate challenge but a little system mastery and maybe a bit of spell research (for instance updating the old 2e undead lieutenant spell to 3.X to allow for a hierarchy of undead minions) can get around that without much cheese at all.

Anyway, you can easily achieve an undead labor force in other settings. That does not, however, imply anything resembling a post-scarcity utopia. It just means you have a nearly infinite source of manual labor. It's roughly akin to having a perfectly docile slave race lying about (there are fantasy settings that have this), the big difference being that undead cost somewhat less to keep. This will certainly improve life for the masses because it means that the nobility won't constantly be demanding corvee labor or service in kind, but it doesn't do much of anything to insulate you against crop failure or improve livestock production or provide any other technological advance. It means you'll have a lot more of various basic things that manual and semi-skilled labor can produce - in particular you'll have a lot more structures, since basic labor is useful in building walls - and more time to produce skilled labor products that are limited by labor needs - like tapestries - but it doesn't mean society will advance. In fact it's likely to stagnate. So what you'll have is a pseudo-medieval society with a lot more stuff but not necessarily better stuff.

[Knaight]

The problem is who want's to donate their cadavers menial tasks for eternity? Would you?

Sure. Once I'm done with my meat-vehicle I don't particularly care where it ends up.

[Quarian Rex]

An automatic reset trap of Command Undead with the ability to communicate wouldn't give you control over at least 43,200 1-HD skeletons? I think there are multiple ways to accomplish this, such as Ghost Sound and/or making the trap an intelligent item.

Your proposed solutions seem to be based on what you want RAW to be, not what it is. Ghost Sound, Magic Mouth, whatever, has as much influence on animated dead as a trained parrot randomly yapping at them, or the people you want them to attack ordering them to attack you instead. That would be no influence at all. As for making intelligent traps, looking at p.132 of Dungeonscape, such Intelligent Triggers can choose when to trigger the trap, nothing more. No changing of AoE, no dismissal of duration, no nothing. They are not considered to be casters by RAW. Even relying on the cheese that is auto-reset spell traps you merely have the means to produce as many homicidal serial killers as you have corpses, not the means to control them. Like I said before, production of undead isn't the problem, control is.

Again, if you want to just hand-wave a solution, do so. It's your campaign. Just don't pretend that it is anything close to RAW. Also, remember that it you decide to solve your problems with spell trap shenanigans you have now provided the players with similar solutions to whatever challenges you choose to throw at them. Unless you're playing in the Tippyverse I don't think your campaign will survive.

[Zombimode]

Also, citing Reseting Traps to Support a Statement indicates either that you have not understood some key aspect of the rules (mostly Item Creation) or that you are ignoring those rules but for some reason don't want to admit that you are.

So, Reseting Traps.
First, it is mindboggingly obvious that the rules for reseting traps don't exist to obsolete all other rules for Magic item creation. Thus you follow the normal procedure for custom Magic items. And while there are Guidelines for custom Magic items, they are in the end completely DM-dependent.

Thus, when you try to do something that relies on a custom reseting trap:
- if you are a Player, you can't rely on that since it is a custom Magic item and thus dependent on your DM
- if you are the DM, you can save youself the trouble and just declare the solution to work

Reseting Traps of Create Food & Water, Command Undead etc. share the same conceptual space as continues Magic items of True Strike that cost that same as continues Magic items of Bless: from the perspective of the Players they are wishful thinking, from the perspective of the DM they are equal to just making up stuff.

[noob]

Yes if you want create food at will just make simulacrums of mirror mephits and make those simulacrum create more simulacrum and so on until you have thousands of mirror mephits then make them produce creatures that can cast create food.
Do not use custom magic items the former solution not only is cheaper but it also does not needs your gm to allow a custom item.
Also do not forget instead of undead automation you can just turn any dead creature into undying(yes even dead rats and squirrels) then they will probably figure out a solution for automation(and even possibly reinvent modern technology) since you will have tons of creatures that all have lots of int ,are good aligned and do not needs to eat,sleep,breath or drink and never age(thus they will probably want to solve all the problems and will have a lot of time to learn and find solutions).
About controlling undead do not forget skeletons and zombies keep following the last order given to them when they stop being controlled.
It is just that usually in adventures that order is "kill anything that enters that room" but you could give to a skeleton the order "run in that hamster wheel forever" then when it would stop being controlled it would keep following that order forever(and provide cheap energy: only a bunch of 50 gp gems for energy forever: you will gain back that money only in a few thousand years).

[Vogie]

This is also explored on Amonkhet, a MTG plane that they've built a 5e plane to mimic. The denizens of the world live in what is effectively a Post-scarcity society - all physical labor is performed by mummies, freeing up the average citizen to train and perfect themselves.

I've wanted to explore a world with the concept of Necromancy as a lawful-only part of the spectrum. Necromancy spells are used basically exclusively by law enforcement, with the creation of the undead as an exploration of the concept of "multiple life sentences".

[Bohandas]

Simply because actual post-scarcity utopias are boring places that don't give adventuring heroes much to do

What about the Federation Of Planets?

[Bohandas]

Also, the undead -> robot analog should only be partial. It can be tempting to see the undead as variant automatons (they're mindless right?) but that does them a crippling disservice (and is painfully boring). They are neutral evil and the only desire within their empty minds is to rend living flesh. No matter how tight the control, it's important to remember that you are not directing robots, but are enslaving serial killers.

That's debatable. The rules and fluff often seem to suggest more of a creature with no will of it's own that moves only at the direction of a necromancer rather than Night of the Living Dead type zombies

The problem is who want's to donate their cadavers menial tasks for eternity? Would you?

It could be part of the estate tax

[Quarian Rex]

About controlling undead do not forget skeletons and zombies keep following the last order given to them when they stop being controlled.

That's a holdover assumption from 2e. Not something that is actually stated in 3.P RAW. The opposite is usually what is heavily implied.

That's debatable. The rules and fluff often seem to suggest more of a creature with no will of it's own that moves only at the direction of a necromancer rather than Night of the Living Dead type zombies

You are completely correct, for controlled undead. The control of the Animate Dead spell is absolute and cannot be broken except through the caster exceeding his HD limit or dying (correct me if I'm wrong here). I love that and don't want it to change. Once they have slipped the yoke of their master though, their true nature reasserts itself and the bloodletting commences.

Remember that most of the fluff for animated dead seems to refer specifically to controlled undead. That the authors didn't provide more detail/draw a finer line is one of the greater failings of 3.5.

[noob]

That's a holdover assumption from 2e. Not something that is actually stated in 3.P RAW. The opposite is usually what is heavily implied.
.

wrong:

A skeleton is seldom garbed in anything more than the rotting remnants of any clothing or armor it was wearing when slain. A skeleton does only what it is ordered to do. It can draw no conclusions of its own and takes no initiative. Because of this limitation, its instructions must always be simple. A skeleton attacks until destroyed.

Skeletons can only do what it is ordered.
It can draw no conclusion on its own nor take initiative.
without the ability to take initiative you can not harm people if you never received the order to do so
Please read it from
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/skeleton.html
by raw also skeletons always attacks: they can at most take a move action per turn since there is written "A skeleton attacks until destroyed" but since skeletons does only what it is ordered to it then means that the necromancer creating a skeleton is completely unable to give an order that would make the skeleton not attack.
So in fact the way it works is that the necromancer can give any command but it is always a command that makes the skeleton attack.
A necromancer could say "attack that punching ball forever" but he would be unable to give an order that does not makes a skeleton attack something.
An alternative reading could be that giving an order which makes a skeleton not attack would result in the destruction of the skeleton.
but that does not prevents free power from skeletons: just make them hit the top of an iron(enough hardness for not being destroyed by skeleton punches) wheel that then spins producing rotational energy.

In fact the text a skeleton takes no initiative could mean that it can not act in a battle(other than attacks of opportunity if the skeleton is somehow not flat footed which is impossible if you never act unless you have some class feature bypassing that) since you need an initiative roll to act in a battle.
Which would further imply that skeletons are without risk.

[Quarian Rex]

wrong:

A skeleton is seldom garbed in anything more than the rotting remnants of any clothing or armor it was wearing when slain. A skeleton does only what it is ordered to do. It can draw no conclusions of its own and takes no initiative. Because of this limitation, its instructions must always be simple. A skeleton attacks until destroyed.

Skeletons can only do what it is ordered.

Keep reading the rest of my previous post. That seems to be referring solely to controlled skeletons. As I said before, not spelling out the distinctions of controlled vs. uncontrolled behavior in animated dead is one of the major failings of 3.5 (they could have prevented sooo many useless debates). If they were truly automatons in all situations then they would be neutral (like most constructs) not neutral evil (the most evil of evil).

by raw also skeletons always attacks: they can at most take a move action per turn since there is written "A skeleton attacks until destroyed" but since skeletons does only what it is ordered to it then means that the necromancer creating a skeleton is completely unable to give an order that would make the skeleton not attack.

See, it is mindbogglingly wrong insights like this that make me think that you are just trolling (and not very well). All that the sentence, "A skeleton attacks until destroyed.", says or implies is that they do not retreat. A controlled skeleton can have it's orders changed at any time and it will obey. Fully. If you cannot see something that basic then I don't know what you could have to contribute to this or any discussion.

[Bohandas]

You are completely correct, for controlled undead. The control of the Animate Dead spell is absolute and cannot be broken except through the caster exceeding his HD limit or dying (correct me if I'm wrong here). I love that and don't want it to change. Once they have slipped the yoke of their master though, their true nature reasserts itself and the bloodletting commences.

That's not explicitly stated anywhere though, regarding what happens to mindless undead that are uncontrolled. They could just as easily fall inert or continue acting out their original orders sorcerer's apprentice-style. This latter possibility being the one that makes stereotypical armies of the dead and undead guards most plausible (With randomly rampaging undead they would be inclined to attack the necromancer's target cities or intruders to the tomb or whatever but would be even more inclined to attack anything else they happened to come across first)

In any case though (except the 'inert' case) an uncontrolled skeleton is still useful for slaughtering cattle

[noob]

The reason why undead creation is evil and why undead are evil aligned is that undead are all conduits that makes energy vanish from the material plane and go in the plane of negative energy and who sends negative energy in the material plane.(described in libris mortis)
It have no described ingame effect but it means that it can plausibly cause bad stuff independently of real actions.
So it could explain why skeletons are evil even if according to the rules they are mindless and can only follow orders: their presence harms life itself.

[Quarian Rex]

That's not explicitly stated anywhere though, regarding what happens to mindless undead that are uncontrolled.

I don't think you could show me an encounter with uncontrolled animated dead in a published adventure where they weren't just flesh hungry killers. Neutral evil has an effect. More importantly, the idea that they would just stand there, being unresponsive, when uncontrolled is just boring. That seems to go against even RAI.

[noob]

Except that it is often because the skeleton received an order like "attack anyone who enters this room" even if the necromancer died a long time ago.(which is often the case in abandoned sanctum of evil and stuff like that)
The gm does not says "the skeleton received order X" but some adventure modules says it.

[Bohandas]

Your proposed solutions seem to be based on what you want RAW to be, not what it is. Ghost Sound, Magic Mouth, whatever, has as much influence on animated dead as a trained parrot randomly yapping at them, or the people you want them to attack ordering them to attack you instead.

I think it might depend on whether the spell is created by the same person who created/controls the undead creatures, it comes down to the exact interpretation of the phrase "your spoken commands". I agree, however, that two spells listed would not work, as ghost sound is not "spoken" and magic mouth is explicitly unable to "activate magical effects". A higher level version of magic mouth that lacks this limitation would be viable however.

[LudicSavant]

In one of my current settings, the PCs' country is ruled by La Dame Aeternerre (translation "The Eternal Lady"), the lich queen who led the revolution and consumed the souls of the corrupt aristocracy that preceded her. She is a highly effective administrator who has brought many improvements to the lives of her subjects, including a degree of undead automation. She is ruthless to her enemies, but generally has maintained a very high approval rating amongst her subjects over the course of her interminable stay of office, to the point where folks are essentially asking for "all the more years!" In this land, memories (XP) are taxed to support large scale arcana and state magic item creation. As such, a common custom is to keep a diary, so that one can choose specific days (two weeks in total per year since the wartime tax hike) that they want to forget when the taxman comes around, and have a record afterwards. Rumors that this is used to suppress inconvenient information are wholly without merit (twist, they actually were without merit, at least in a case where a key memory that a PC believed was sabotaged was willfully erased by themselves for reasons that made perfect sense to them once they knew what it was that they erased. They erased the day they discovered that they only got their vaunted position because someone else threw the contest the PC won to get it).

Culturally, the animation of a dead body is not seen as a desecration, but an honorable dedication, a way to help the people you care about out even in defiance of the reaper. It is treated with the dignity of, say, organ donation in the modern world. To simply place a man's body in the ground would be seen as wasteful and even disrespectful, tantamount to saying that his body is useless and cannot help anyone.

Skeletons can be packed extremely tightly, requiring neither food nor air nor space to stretch out. You can pack them densely into a shipping container and dump 'em out where they're needed, watching the bones unfold from each other in a predetermined pattern. However, they are not simply an automatic solution to all labor needs. Mindless undead require handling and oversight by highly skilled professionals, and are a perishable resource; in addition to requiring arcane forms of sustenance, animated flesh and bone wears down over time and must be replaced with fresh corpses.