A: The question of why our undead tend to be humanoid can be difficult to answer. It could simply be a matter of depiction - human/humanoid undead are just easier to portray because that's what we know. We have a better insight at what a driving force might be for these types of creatures, and if we're actually acting out the part, an idea of how we might be able to become them... theatrically, anyway. When you look at non-humanoid undead, you tend to see them either as an accessory, such as an undead horse ridden by the undead warrior, or somewhat anthropomorphized, as opposed to being an actual antagonist (or even protagonist!) that acts and thinks in distinctly non-human ways. Another reason is our human fear of death. It's deeply ingrained in most of us to have a fear of our own mortality, therefore what could be scarier than death taking a form like our own? We seem to be a bit obsessed with ourselves. So we might just seek out alternative versions of our own mortal lives to get the biggest scare, confront our biggest fear, and perhaps understand death a bit better.
If any of those reasons are valid, then it doesn’t necessarily make sense to change that tactic in our stories. It might be a good challenge though to break away from that mold. What would the spirits of animals want? Would undead wildlife be out for brains like zombies so often are? Would a vampire squirrel be as much of a nuisance as a humanoid one? Certainly, a hoard of skeletal moose, wraith dogs or mummy cats could be just as terrifying as humanoid counterparts. It certainly couldn’t hurt to try them out in your games. Despite being born in October, in no way do I consider myself an expert of spookiness. Fortunately, Bugsy has a bit more experience in the realm of horror. Bugsy, why do you feel we focus on humanoid undead and should we change that? Is it a worthwhile pursuit?
B: One thing that makes the undead work, baring the "rapid epidemic" format that was popularized through the original Night of the Living Dead, is their relationship to history. A (comparatively) nude skeleton was a petty generic monster to me as a kid, but any portrayed with bits of rotting clothes or rusting armor were utterly terrifying. Now there was a connection to people who had once lived... but what was the relationship between the deceased individuals and these abominable things? Did they have memories or had they become purely feral? And which of those was the scarier possibility? Ones with crowns may have been the scariest of all - they were marked as specific individuals, and what horrid circumstances had led them to the fate of postmortem animation was a chilling exercise left to the imagination.
Finally, I think there's great power in the perverse ways that our own rituals of death and grieving are violated (or, in the case of vampires, grossly repurposed) in stories of the undead. Animals may be treated as raw materials (which, again, offers many storytelling opportunities), but humans, in death, are given honor and respect - so a lich, necromancer, or particularly hands-on AI repurposing the dead feels blasphemous, moreso if one is aware of the deceased's life and circumstance. There's a reason that, when the spell or animating force is lifted, a story will usually have someone comment on letting the undead "rest." Whether or not you believe any of that individual remained in the shell being used, that use is an interruption of that natural, and most human, of states.
Hopefully all this will you give you an idea of how to effectively use the undead in your stories and games. Sure, zombies are fun to mow down, but in those kinds of stories, basically any generic enemy can stand-in for them. (And it may say something about the creators of such works that people are, to them, only an incident away from becoming those generic enemies.) If you want to be really spooky, or even just a bit more interesting, connect them to the lives of the characters (and players inhabiting them) and the history of the world they inhabit. Sometimes, simply viewing things that defy our simple, linear existences, is the most affecting animating power of all.
Send comments and questions to neversaydice20@gmail.com or Tweet them @neversaydice2.
