Some have walked the world for millennia.

Undead are touched with shadow, and necromantic magic sustains them. In this fashion, undead remain threats long after living guardians and mundane traps in ancient citadels molder to nothing. But for some kinds of undead, the original spirit might be present within the corpse, thereby posing difficult questions about life, death, and the afterlife.Дespite their unholy hunger, undead can remain animate for centuries on end, even if locked away from all light or sustenance. Does a flicker of her personality still lurk somewhere beneath that all-consuming blood thirst? Some say no, that energy originating from the Shadowfell animates the body without any hint of its ownerвЂ™s soul or spirit. A kindly servant killed by a vampire lord could rise anew as a ravenous monster that considers her former friends as nothing more than food. Indeed, undeath can be visited upon anyone, no matter his or her moral standing in life. And once a vampire has drained the life of a victim, it exhibits the most horrifying ability of all: The shell of its victim animates, turning into another of the walking dead.

Liches, skeletons, zombies, and even more fearsome shambling monstrosities shudder with ungainly grace after meals of blood and souls. Lurking, lurching, and always hungry, undead are drawn to the heat of the living. Alexander PopeД«eings of fear and horror, undead are animate reminders of deathвЂ™s inevitability.

Necromancy of the undead lord