[Dragaera] Pararectal ideation on the Undead

[Scott Schultz]

Word games aside, "undead" is not simply a title bestowed on anyone who 
manages to escape the Paths. It's a state of being.

Aliera, Vlad, and Morollan are not Undead for the simple reason that none of 
them died. Aliera is a bit of a special case, what with her being 
essentially a demi-god. The normal rules don't apply. It isn't really clear 
that Verra could pull that "create a new body and put your soul in it" trick 
with just anyone. Morollan escaped due to a technicality, albeit one 
engineered by Verra. Vlad is an Easterner and was granted dispensation 
because he didn't belong there. It's not clear whether or not this means 
that Vlad is immune to whatever natural law prevents living "humans" from 
leaving the Paths. Even if he is immune, the Lords of Judgement could just 
hold him until he fell asleep and died, amounting to the same effect as if 
he had been held by the physics of the Paths themselves.

The point being that they're all very much alive when they arrive back in 
The Empire.

Sethra actually died at some point in her life, apparently voluntarily. 
Given her legend and lifestyle as the Enchantress, this doesn't seem to have 
initially been widely  known. Gandalf-like, she was eventually sent back to 
the world, where she took up her old life with nobody the wiser. The 
difference being that now she was a vampire. She became truly undead because 
she had truly died and her soul had separated from her body. Her soul 
returned from the Paths sans her original body, clothed instead in a new 
undead body (or something of the sort, we don't really know the mechanics of 
undeath).

As I recall, the business of her being Warlord while being undead was, in 
fact, a source of scandal for the Court when she was "outed", implying that 
when she accepted the position she was thought to be alive and she said 
nothing to those at Court to contradict that impression. It wasn't, and 
never would or will be a question of "The Enchantress wants to be Warlord, 
are YOU going to tell her no?" Sethra, for all of her influence and power, 
does not wield THAT kind of power within the Empire. In fact, she pretty 
much stands apart from the Empire, politically speaking. The comparison to 
Merlin that someone was making earlier is appropriate. She comes when she's 
needed, offers guidance and help, but she doesn't submit to the rule of the 
Emperor or anyone else unless it suits her purposes to do so. (Morollan 
being a case of the latter. Even he isn't naïve enough now, if he ever was 
so, to believe that he is her liege lord simply because his territory 
theoretically includes Dzur Mountain.)

Loraan is another special case, mostly because we just have too little 
information. Morollan says "Take it up with Blackwand." which is probably 
just his sardonic way of saying "I have no clue, either." The stories of 
Loraan having his soul in storage are probably true in some fashion, which 
might imply that he was already pseudo-undead when Vlad and Morollan 
attacked him the first time, and he just hadn't bothered to tell anyone.