Undead

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v50.14 · v0.47.05

This article is about the current version of DF.
Note that some content may still need to be updated.

The animated dead (or undead) Ñ are the bodies of formerly living creatures animated through fell magic. These night creatures can be created intentionally by a necromancer to serve him, or arise naturally from the dark energies of evil regions.

What is an undead?

An undead may be formed of either the rotting husk or the bones and shell of a being. The former is considered a zombie, and the latter a skeleton. Although vampires are no longer performing the bodily functions of a living being, they are not considered the "animated dead", this term being reserved for a corpse which has begun to move and act on its own or by the will of another, but lacking any form of intelligence beyond a primitive urge to hunt and kill any living thing it can find. Where zombies and skeletons cannot think or behave in any sophisticated manner beyond "kill everything", vampires are willful beings, generally indistinguishable from living persons (and capable of great deception to ensure that nobody learns about their condition). Ghosts are called Undead in-game, but they are also not considered animated dead (as they lack a corporeal form).

As long as the remains of a creature contain a body part capable of grasping, be it a hand or head or the entire upper half, those remains can be animated. This can lead to animated hands and heads, which seems comical until you consider the implications of a swarm of such monstrosities and the havoc that they might wreak. Even some parts of creatures which should be incapable of autonomous movement can be raised, such as the hair or skin or even mussel shells. They are, however, predictably nonlethal, mostly serving as a B-movie terror monster to scare your dwarves into running around. A body part can be resurrected as a zombie even if it has already done so and been de-animated again. However, pulping damage (that is, "exploding into gore", "cloven asunder", "torn into shreds" and so on) to the head, neck, lower body, or upper body will turn the corpse into a "mangled corpse", ensuring that the zombie cannot rise up again. Likewise, destroying the structural integrity of an animate body-part will stop its reanimation.

Traits

Upon animation, an undead gains a syndrome that fundamentally changes its physical characteristics and behaviour. Some of the traits they generally possess are:

Severely increased strength and toughness and reduced speed;
Opposition to life;
Lack of emotion, pain, thought, or need for sustenance or breath;
Undead status (NOT_LIVING), sterility, and inability to attribute rust or gain.

Undead retain the wounds that killed them in life, as well as any they have sustained since or from a temporary de-animation. Undead vary in levels of strength depending on their form. Certain types of animal are likely the most dangerous that it is common to encounter, and can have dangerous strength, speed, aggression, and piercing attacks. The undead of butcherable creatures can still be butchered once de-animated, as long as they have not rotted; doing so will prevent them from re-animating again, though their untanned skins and hair can potentially become undead.

Larger undead with the BUILDINGDESTROYER tag can still destroy buildings, though undead with special attacks like webbing will not be able to use them (Zombie Dragons, however, still use their breath). Undead thieves can still pick locks, but will not path to a locked door unless in pursuit of the living. If found underground, undead will usually path into a fort if they can.

Undead from necromancer towers are reported to carry armor and weapons, giving the terror of the announcement "The dead walk! Hide while you can!" far more weight than before.

Thralls, Husks, and Zombies

Certain kinds of evil weather can instantly turn any syndrome-vulnerable creature into a bloodthirsty undead killer, opposed to all life. These creatures are referred to be the sort of weather that transformed them, an identifier as a thrall, husk, or zombie, and their original creature name-- for example, a stray guineahen unholy gloom husk. The specific procedurally generated syndromes of thralling evil clouds are functionally identical to that of animate dead, with the same extreme gains in physical stats, lack of pain or breath, etc.

Because the interaction can happen without first killing the target, thrall-like creatures retain any armor or weapons they were carrying. Perhaps worst of all, they may still be contaminated with the material leading to the transformation, "infecting" those with whom they wrestle in a chain reaction that can rapidly destroy a fortress if they are not stopped immediately.

Destruction

The undead should in general be considered a serious threat, far beyond the average goblin garbage. They are far greater in strength and durability than the living, are tireless, feel no pain, have no useful articulations to damage, ignore injuries to their now- useless organs, do not fall unconscious, and are impervious to the effects of morale. All of these traits make the undead highly dangerous; one can compare the effect to fighting a smaller and somewhat more fragile bronze colossus.

You would not wish to attempt to kill them with puncture wounds for this reason, and likewise, choking is ineffective against their lack of breath. Pulping or severing ("flies/sails off in an arc!") an important structural body-part (head, neck, upper body, lower body) is guaranteed to kill an undead. Blunt weapons are effective weapons to use for animated corpses for they are not only less likely to sever off parts for further reanimation, but are likely to inflict pulping damage, mangling the zombies so badly that they cannot rise up again. Of those available to dwarves, maces are more efficient at pulping than warhammers. Flails are better still if one can acquire them. Beheading appears to sometimes work less reliably - this is possibly related to the neck being cut off rather than the head itself, which the game does not register as decapitation^[Verify]. Crossbow bolts can kill the undead if one of the previously mentioned important body-parts is destroyed by the shot, but as shots cannot aim at specific organs this method often relies on chance. Cutting apart the physical form of undead can be dangerous if the source of reanimation is still active and present. The more body parts are about, the more fodder for animation is present. In this case, it is wisest to either butcher the corpses (if they can be butchered), throw them into magma, or pulverize them with a drawbridge, which will destroy the bodies so thoroughly that they cannot be reanimated again. A thrall may be "safely" fought with cutting weapons however, as long as there is no risk of infection at hand. Undead animals can be disposed of by cage-trapping them and trading them away to passing merchants.

Undead from necromancer sieges should be treated with far more caution, as they can carry equipment. These are exceedingly dangerous, for their already heightened strength and toughness are further augmented by weapons-grade metal. You may want to eschew direct combat altogether in this situation, especially as necromancer sieges already tend to summon the walking dead in pages of a hundred, and one is enough to rout an entire squad.

Evil weather thralls may also require utmost caution. Any thrall carrying a melee weapon or armour (let alone any combat skills of its own, which it will retain the use of) can dispatch a full squad in short order even with average combat skills, making direct confrontation an unwise choice- Armok help you if the thrall in question used to be one of your best soldiers. A particularly dire possibility is that, if the responsible evil cloud is in dust form, the thrall is still contaminated with whatever substance transformed it. If this is the case, any dwarves sent to fight the thrall will become thralls themselves if the thrall tries to wrestle them. From there, the new thralls might spread the contaminant further still, which can easily lead to a full-fledged zombie apocalypse.

In these and other dire cases, it is often better to not fight them directly at all, instead resorting to traps, atom smashers and other indirect ways to neutralise them. It is not advised to directly fight a zombie horde that outnumbers your military, even a highly trained one. A legendary squad can take down zombies in roughly equal numbers, but a continuous onslaught of undead will quickly show a major disadvantage of living soldiers in over-exertion. Magma, that classic solution to all dwarven problems, is another effective weapon, as is fire in general. The sheer heat of magma will eventually destroy the corpse, rendering it unable to rise again. Magma kills zombies fairly slowly though.

Morale is a big obstacle to directly confronting a zombie horde. Without enough discipline, a troop sent to fight them may instead decide to flee in terror from such abominations of nature. As you may imagine, this can lead to endless amounts of Fun, for unlike your dwarves, the undead cannot feel fear or any other emotion, and any dead dwarves may in turn rise up and add to the horde's numbers. It is important that any undead-fighting squad consists of severely hardened and disciplined soldiers. Any soldiers you bring to embark on an evil biome should have at least two points in discipline, as morale is currently buggy and leads to ordinary dwarves fleeing even from living wildlife^Bug:7161. This may also be worked around with a little modding, by adding at least [NATURAL_SKILL:DISCIPLINE:1] to all civilised races and trainable pets. Additionally, the very act of fighting undead makes dwarves more vulnerable to insanity (particularly if the undead was acquainted with the dwarf fighting it in its former life), which must be countered with as many sources of good thoughts if possible.

Reports have been made of zombies animated by the ambient evil of a region deanimating on their own when wandering away from such a vile place. However, there are also reports of undead wildlife being encountered in areas bordering such places.

Undead Fun Facts

Undead can animate from hauled corpses.
Undead will not attack vampires.
Undead will not attack inorganic enemies like the bronze colossus.
Undead risen from starved animals in cages are not caged.
Undead attack all organic megabeasts as well as invaders, except necromancers (as their sorcery allows them to control undead easily).
Creatures capable of evading traps or bypassing locked doors retain that ability as undead.
Enthralled dwarves from your fortress are not affected by traps.
Dwarves who like an animal will also enjoy that undead animal.
Enthralled dwarves in a fortress which is retired or abandoned can appear as part of a migrant wave, causing lots of Fun.

Bugs

Certain types of undead tissue such as hair and feathers cannot be damaged, nor can they damage dwarves.^Bug:5356
Dwarves will not report someone missing as dead even if the corpse is gnawing on their ear.
Animated creatures can somehow become stuck in mid-air, and will not move at all, even if killed. Spatters of blood from the animated party also float in this manner. This has been known to occur in cases ranging from a deer's animated head to a goblin's partial skeleton.