Undead

Undead were once-living creatures that had been animated by spiritual or supernatural forces. Some deities employed undead as divine servants; for example, the dwarven god Dumathoin used undead dwarves as divine messengers.

Undead were extremely resilient to a number of effects and substances that were extremely harmful to the living. They were immune to all mind-affecting effects, poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, and death effects. In addition, it was not possible to drain their life force in any manner.

"Once an area is infested with undead, it becomes a gathering place for the foul things."

- Khelben Arunsun

Origins
There were six basic ways a living creature could become undead:
 * Purposeful personal reanimation:
 * A living creature could willingly undergo the transformation to undeath. In most cases, the creature possessed a disposition towards evil, but this was not always the case. More common reasons included fear of dying of old age, fear of dying from a grievous wound, and a thirst for power.


 * Minions:
 * An intelligent creature might create undead servants as a means to their own ends. These mindless minions were created by malevolent spellcasters to serve as guards or otherwise carry out their bidding.


 * Atrocity calls to unlife:
 * Sometimes, a living creature committed an evil and heinous act that transformed them into an undead creature. The intensity and specificity of the required act was somewhat random and not entirely uncommon.


 * Unfinished business:
 * An intelligent creature died or was killed with an important deed left incomplete. In a similar manner to atrocities, the specifications surrounding undeath achieved in this manner were often left up to chance.


 * Dark forces:
 * Malign forces created undead beings seemingly at random. This had the potential to befall any creature, at any location and seemingly at any time. In Cormyr, it was thought that wandering evil spirits would take over corpses and use them to slay and scare the living.


 * Death by wounds caused by another undead:
 * Many forms of undead creatures inflicted their undeath upon others when striking them with a mortal wound. Perhaps most famously, this occurred in the case of vampires and their bite.