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Author
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Comment
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xXRadicalDreamerXx
Registered User
(12/5/05 6:13 pm)
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The Undead
I'm writing a story and i'm plaining on putting in some undead creatures like shadows, inccubi, and wraiths. Any suggestions for creatures. Or maybe some info on the undead. Like how normal weapons can't hurt Wraiths.(i.e a knife)
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Richard
Parks
Registered User
(12/6/05 11:05 am)
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Re: The Undead
Writing about the undead isn't so very different from writing about any other subject -- first you need to do your homework. Which is why I assume you're asking these questions here, and its not a bad way to start so long as you realize it's just a start and you need to keep going from here.
First of all, I'm not familiar with "shadow" as a separate entity unless you're taking your information out of the D&D Monster Manual, which isn't totally reliable if you're trying to base your stories on real folklore. "Shade" is a common usage for a ghost/spirit, as is "wraith." And neither are undead. They are dead, period. I believe "undead" is a more modern coinage, and in order to considered "undead" a body must first expire and then be reanimated. Vampires are undead. Zombies are undead. Liches are undead. Ghosts, wraiths, revenants, shades, etc are not. Neither is an incubus, by the way. It's a type of demon.
For ghosts you need either an exorcist or a way to thwart or fulfill the purpose which brought the ghost back in the first place. In general the undead can be attacked by physical means because they, however transformed, have a physical body, though the nature of the attack depends on the creature. For a zombie, put rock salt in its mouth and sew its lips shut (though how you get it to sit through this is the trick). Vampires, the stake through the heart works. Also cutting their heads off, burning, etc. Another trick is to rebury the vampire facing downward, so it can't figure out how to get back to the surface (apparently vampires aren't too bright).
When you understand more about the subject you're writing about you'll find story ideas pouring out, because the more you know the more story possibilities suggest themselves.
I think I just got one myself, actually. Thanks and good luck.
http://dm.net/~richard-parks |
Writerpatrick
Registered User
(12/6/05 12:51 pm)
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Re: The Undead
One of the big "dangers" of fiction writing (especially fantasy) is to write D&D stories. Try to locate original sources for the legends and be willing to develop monsters of your own.
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Eien
Unregistered User
(12/6/05 3:19 pm)
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About Zombies...
I'd also like to point out that mindless, flesh eating walking corpses are actually a reletivly new addition to the undead. From what I've researched, the first time this behavior was aplied were to the vampires in the novel "I Am Legend".
Zombies as we know them today were first introduced in the movie "Night of the Living Dead", which should require no introduction. So while they're often seen in fantasy stories, keep in mind that the version we know today is not a creature from classic folklore.
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xXRadicalDreamerXx
Registered User
(12/6/05 4:01 pm)
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Re: The Undead
I write for loy so of course my homework is finished. I didn't get any info on some of the creatures I listed from the D&D game. Just wanted to say thanks for some of the info.
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Veronica
Schanoes
Registered User
(12/6/05 4:38 pm)
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zombies
The mindless brain-eating hordes are newer, but I think that the
concept of the zombie itself as a resurrected corpse without will
bound to the zombie master is older, is it not? I may be mistaken,
but it seems the zombie we associate with voodoo practice is not
the same as the zombies that appear in Night of the Living Dead.
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Eien
Unregistered User
(12/6/05 7:48 pm)
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Re: Zombies
Indeed. The orignal concept of a zombie is merely a mindless slave. In some cases they don't even have to be ressurected corpses.
I'm not sure how old the word itself is, though. It's rather funny to realize how far removed the modern concept of a zombie is from the original, isn't it?
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Veronica
Schanoes
Registered User
(12/6/05 9:13 pm)
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zombie
Just out of curiosity, I checked the OED, and the earliest English-language listing of "zombie" is 1819 ("R. SOUTHEY Hist. Brazil III. xxxi. 24 Zombi, the title whereby he [chief of Brazilian natives] was called, is the name for the Deity, in the Angolan tongue... NZambi is the word for Deity."). I don't know, though. Was it in common parlance in the West Indies before that? The etymology entry says "Of W. Afr. origin; cf. Kongo nzambi god, zumbi fetish."
Hmm. I realize that this has nothing to do with the original question. I'm just a word geek.
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kristiw
Unregistered User
(12/6/05 9:20 pm)
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zombie etymology
Hmm, the OED doesn't make any distinction between the original voodoo term and the way it has been taken over by modern film. The first definition of "zombie" is:
1. In the West Indies and southern states of America, a soulless corpse said to have been revived by witchcraft; formerly, the name of a snake-deity in voodoo cults of or deriving from West Africa and Haiti.
Earliest (cited) usage: "1819, R. SOUTHEY Hist. Brazil III. xxxi. 24 Zombi, the title whereby he [chief of Brazilian natives] was called, is the name for the Deity, in the Angolan tongue... NZambi is the word for Deity."
Secondary definitions are people in a dull, lifeless state, or just generally "slow-witted." Nothing in there about rotting corpses or (more importantly) eating flesh. Now I'm curious-- the first known usage seems like, if anything, it's a positive term. How were zombies thought of by voodoo practitioners, before Hollywood took them up?
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kristiw
Unregistered User
(12/6/05 9:21 pm)
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word geeks
Oops! Beat me to it! :)
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Judith
Berman
Registered User
(12/7/05 9:02 am)
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Zombies are real but not dead
In the book "The Serpent and the Rainbow" by Wade Davis, which is non-fiction, albeit of a somewhat self-aggrandizing sort, he talks about his Haitian research, where he searched and eventually discovered the ingredients of zombie potions that put the victims chosen into a kind of suspended animation. After the victim is buried, the voudou priest digs up the "body," and feeds the victim additional drugs to keep them in a state of mental and physical servitude. Occasionally a zombie master has died and the zombies have found their way home, sometimes decades after their "death." Reports of such events were one of the things, IIRC, that spurred Davis to take the Haitian folklore about zombies seriously and search out the means of zombification.
One of the ingredients of the various zombie potions he analyzed is poison from a relative of a rockfish which is a delicacy in Japan. That fish, also poisonous, has to be prepared by specially trained chefs who know exactly how much of the toxin to remove so people get just a buzz. There have, however, been documented cases where the diner receives too much of the poison, is thought to die, and later wakes up in the morgue.
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Eien
Unregistered User
(12/7/05 3:15 pm)
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More Zombies.
Oddly enough, the modern version of zombies was more created by the public reaction to "Night of the Living Dead". As it turns out, George A. Romero himself thought of the beings in that movie as "ghouls", and the original title of the film was "Night of the Flesh Eaters".
Though it should be noted that calling them "ghouls" is even less accurate. According to the original folklore, ghouls are shape-shifting demons, not undead. Though they do feed on human flesh.
And I'd like to admit that, in truth, I don't watch zombie movies. I simply have this bizarre habit of researching this I find disturbing. Learning the truth as opposed to blind fear, if you will.
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aka
Greensleeves
Registered User
(12/7/05 4:23 pm)
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wraiths
My understanding of a wraith is that it's a spectral apparition
of a living person... though how (or if), precisely, that
differs from a doppelganger is unclear to me.
Edited by: aka Greensleeves at: 12/7/05 4:23 pm
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Richard
Parks
Registered User
(12/7/05 10:04 pm)
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Re: wraiths
There's a Japanese legend that a person who wishes another harm can send their living spirit to attack the other, but it's usually done when they're asleep, and without being consciously aware of it. There's an example, I believe, in the Tale of Genji. "Rei" is the generic term for a spirit, though, and I don't think they drew a distinction. Can anyone think of a Western example of the same sort of "ghost"? I'm drawing a blank.
http://dm.net/~richard-parks |
kristiw
Unregistered User
(12/8/05 1:45 am)
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possession
It isn't a ghost, but in the vein of using people's living spirits while they're sleeping... In Irish lore people can be pulled from their beds and dragged all over the countryside to satisfy fortune telling rituals. I was just thinking about this for the thread on mirrors and glass-- if a girl did a ritual in which her future husband would have to come and turn her shift at midnight, it was really HIM that did it, though not under his own control. It's a little absurd really, and there are stories about it breaking up relationships later: he eventually finds out it was her that pulled him halfway across the county, through rain and thornbrushes, is naturally angry and walks out.
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princessterribel
Registered User
(12/16/05 5:50 am)
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Just a thought
Why not read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein? That is a stroy of 'life' or animation bestowed upon dead body matter. Just a thought.
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Eien
Unregistered User
(12/16/05 6:05 pm)
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Frankenstein
If you think about it, Frankenstein is a pretty unique case in terms of undead. He isn't a mindless zombie, he also has no memories of a previous life, but he has human inteligence.
He also isn't a single person brought back to life, but instead a being made from the parts of several bodies.
In someways, it seems hard to clasify him as simply "undead". In a way, he's almost like a Pinochio figure...
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bielie
Unregistered User
(12/17/05 5:36 am)
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werewolves
Are werewolves undead?
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Writerpatrick
Registered User
(12/17/05 8:47 am)
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Re: werewolves
No. A werewolf is a cursed (or diseased) human. They kill to become human again. While vampires, zombies, mummies and the like become monsters after death, it's a human who survives an attack who becomes a werewolf.
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kristiw
Unregistered User
(12/17/05 12:46 pm)
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werewolves
Hm, but you can't kill a werewolf in any ordinary way-- if the human suffering from lycanthropy is killed by an angry mob and comes back to life since no one had a silver bullet, do they then qualify as undead?
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Writerpatrick
Registered User
(12/17/05 1:08 pm)
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Re: werewolves
The silver bullet is used because regular bullets don't have any effect. It's sort of a dicey issue. Theoretically, beheading the creature should kill it. Of course the stories started long before modern warfare, and it's doubtful that any monster could survive the blast from a sufficently strong weapon.
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