Corpse: creature or object?

7 thoughts on “Corpse: creature or object?

  1. “A non-undead corpse isn’t considered a creature. It’s effectively an object.”

    What about an undead that has yet to perish? Are they both corpse and creature yet not an object?

  2. NewGuyG says:

    But does an undead count as a dead humanoid? What would happen if someone cast resurrection on a zombie? Would the spell work and res the person or would you have to kill the zombie to turn it back into a corpse?

  3. Aarndal says:

    An undead is technically not a dead humanoid. Humanoids and undead are two separate creature types. An undead could for example have the human or elf subtype, but would still count as an undead.

    Resurrection doesn’t work on undead (zombies included).

    “You touch a dead creature [..] that isn’t undead.” – Basic Rules, pg. 272, Resurrection

    So yes, you have to kill the zombie first to bring back the soul into its old body.

    A zombie is btw. a body infused by some kind of necromantic magic (as described in the Monster Manual). It’s not a body inhabited by a soul of a deceased humanoid.

    • John Preis says:

      In Re: killing zombie to then bring back the soul to its old body — even then, the target corpse isn’t the corpse of a non-undead creature, but the corpse of an undead creature: Resurrection doesn’t work on it. It would take True Resurrection to restore the life of the original creature to the (now deceased) undead zombie. That’s an important/critical distinction. (Becoming undead is a bigger deal in 5E, metaphysically speaking, than it was in prior editions, where the state of undeath was somewhat more easily mitigated and possibly reversed.)

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