Suppose a powerful necromancer animates the skeleton within a still living target.
Would that be possible or do you figure there has to be a concrete death before necromancy can manipulate a target?
And if so, what qualifies that cessation of life? Can a cut off hand from an otherwise very much alive person be manipulated by necromancy immediately or does it need to grow cold or something else first?
I’ve no answers here I’m just wondering what other’s thoughts are. Life is afterall a very long story about how you died but in Azeroth death hardly means anything. So when exactly are you dead enough to become undead?
Good question especially now that Necromancy can be empower by ANY Cosmic Force!
Does it qualify being undead if a corpse is raise with Life energy?
The only example I could think of this interesting predicament are:
- Bolvar Fordragon who was raised by the Ruby Flame (I was never clear of what raise him in the first place tbh…also I call it Ruby Flame, but I know the Phoenix Flame and Light/living flame has similar properties to raise the dead IMO, I think)
- The Botani who are notorious for their ability to infest humanoid races, turning them into shambling slaves.
Death in WoW as undeath is a very ambiguous matter to be honest… great for a continuing ongoing game but TERRIBLE (IMO) if you want to got deeper and create a logic stand point for world building, story telling or expanding more in a RPG serious series like BG3, Dragon Age or Witcher type of game.
Someone here once said it best about the WoW lore from an RP view: “WoW lore is as vast as an ocean but as deep as a puddle”
I think this especially applies with questions like these that go deeper in the lore than what is shown in the game or even in the books that focus more on the events or its Characters than explaining how Paracausal or Cosmic forces work. (IMO)
IN SHORT: IDK!
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Agreed.
For example I’ve always thought the Forsaken PC race would be better classified as mutants. Undead in some sense or another, certainly, but fundamentally humans warped by magic to be ghouls that use their slain adversary as a means of both recruitment and resupply as it were.
With the Death Knights being perhaps the most cruel of Arthas’s design as at least the Forsaken’s compulsion to devour flesh is strategic. They just feel the need to harm souls for the fun of it, far as I can tell.
And neither of these states really strikes me as requiring death. One’s a mutation of the flesh, and the other of the spirit.
And then we get the Darkfallen who unofficially suggest it’s no big deal at all.
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I really hope this someday becomes more than cosmetic since basically they are undead with no real different than their living elven brothers. Which IMO opens another can of worms because basically your undead with no drawbacks, practically immortal… with the exception of some NPC expressing they feel nothing or empty etc. However nothing else in the game recognizes this… not even your racials.
This makes undeath or even the concept of death in WoW inconsequential IMO… but then again Warlocks never get any drawbacks by using their spells beside some consuming your health…
Sigh… now I miss my Hellfire, they should have mix this spell with burning rush instead of taking it away! (IMO)
My guess would be that you’d probably be considered undead when whatever makes you You is sustained entirely by an outside force instead of your normal body contributing to it at least a little bit.
In the case of a severed hand, maybe when the tissue and stuff has died? Because I dunno if you could say it’s a dead body part until it’s passed the point of being able to reattached and still having function.
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Tbf things like the forsaken’s compulsion to consume flesh or the death knights need to inflict pain aren’t really drawbacks to necromancy itself but more little twists arthas added on to furter torment the individuals he raised
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living skeleton already has a soul attached, and more firmly to boot.
edit: possessions still happen, tho.
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Your skeleton isn’t “dead” or even “inanimate”. It is very much a living thing. It even heals itself and responds to signal from the body.
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concrete death. the totality of the body to be reanimated naturally occurring life energy must be extinguished before being replaced by the new outside animating energy.
pieces die if cut off from the main and should be able to be reanimated almost immediately
Sylvanas’ soul was turned into a banshee almost the second it was fully detached from her body. Arthas never even ‘de-animated’ when he died, Frostmourne sucked out his soul/lifeforce and replaced it with necro energy as close to instantaneously as to make no noticeable difference; however that was the result of an extraordinarily powerful necromantic artifact being used, so despite it being demonstrably possible such an event is extremely rare and hard to achieve.
There was a funny moment where a paladin was torn completely apart and simply put together. 
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Shadowlands Necromancy works by bringing life to inanimate parts rather than reattaching souls to bodies, as regular necromancy (and sometimes Shadowlands necromancy too) does. With that being the case, perhaps it could bring life to a still living persom’s skeleton. But idk, would you want to see that? Walking Dead still hasn’t shown an unborn baby dying and killing it’s own mother, even though that should definitely happen.
I’m mostly undead on monday mornings; usually I’m alive by 10 am.
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[Somehow I gotten in the habit of hitting delete when I want to edit a post. Boy is that annoying.]
As I said in the accidentally deleted post. If you cut a hand off, it isn’t dead (not instantly). You are “just” cut off from it. You can make it move like electricy can make a frog’s leg move.
If a necromancy takes of living person and makes them instantly into an undead, one of two thing would seem to need to be true. One, the magic “insta-kills” them, bypass the natural processes of death. Or you can use necromancy to control living flesh (which I would consider to be more “body control” magic.)
In that case could a druid give it incentives to ya know. Hatch.
I suppose a sufficiently powerful druid COULD plant life magic in someone and watch their skin split open like an overripe fruit and than a necromancer animates said skeleton/pile of flesh
Team work makes the dream work
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I once read a D&D spell that animated the skeleton of a s till living person. The skeleton was treated as as separate undead that immediately attacked the flesh encasing it. Gruesome at the very least.
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I don’t think that’s possible.
The souls of the undead (Forsaken, death knights, or ghouls) are imperfectly attached to their bodies; the dark magic that sustains them is a buffer that prevents their souls from properly joining with their bodies.
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Undead#Nature_of_undeath
Apparently, necromancy is more than just making skeletons dance like marionettes. It requires this element, which is only possible when the soul leaves the body. (=death)
According to Maldraxxus, the flesh must be “unliving”. I’d say this is the case as soon as necrosis begins. A severed hand is usually given 6 hours under ideal conditions irl.
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If the writer says it’s possible than it’s possible. WOW’s graphics however aren’t nearly good enough to render such an effect.
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And where did the writer do that? 