Conquest of the Horde

I have a query that I can't quite find the right way to phrase. It's a complicated concept for me and my tourbillon mind, but it should be easy enough to answer.

You see, from what I've come to understand the Undeath of a Forsaken is an immutable fact.


But I've a question of ambiguous relation to this. What is the limit of a Forsaken being healed?

The method of healing is entirely irrelevant. Divine magic of any spectrum, necromancy, et cetera, the end result will no doubt be practically the same.

I mean... What is the capacity of this healing?

On a living subject, most forms of mystical regeneration would ( conceivably ) not turn back the withering clock of time.

But Undead are always going to be Undead! No amount of healing makes that heart beat again.

So by extension, what other lasting injuries are there for Undead? What is "fully healed" for them?

Do they hit 'peak' to the extent of their decomposition upon reanimation?

How do outside "additions" to the body and necromantic constructs tie into this?

So many possibilities and I don't know any solid evidence pointing to a single one of them. Can you help me? The answers must be out there.

I think 'Fully Healed' for an Undead would be returning them into the state of being they were in during the time they were risen. For an example, if an Undead was risen with no skin on his left arm, I'd think that the skin he lost would never be able to be returned. However, if an Undead was to be resurrected with their skin intact, they might be able to heal back to that state.

I could very well be wrong though, this is simply speculation.

You can heal an Undead, through Necromancy, up to and no further than the state of the best preserved corpse. It takes some skill to do this, and more effort than a lot of public employee Forsaken care to do, so most of them come out just fine enough to work (Rotting, missing flesh, but with the appropriate number of limbs).

Edit: I forgot to mention, this can be done more easily by grafting pieces of other corpses onto the healing Forsaken in the case of big wounds (Arms lopped off) and just necromantically bonding them to the Forsaken's spirit, so as to avoid a needless waste of arcane energy. It isn't really needed for flesh-wounds that magic can simply reverse or seal easily though.

Something I've always viewed forsaken healing as, aside from the healing of the actual skin, is kind of 'buffing' the energy that's holding them together, since after a certain beating, if what my discussions about killing undead are true, they'll just... Fall apart. As such, it makes sense to think when a forsaken is healed, it's also a reinforcement of the energy holding them together. *shrug*

Quote: [Forsaken are] Not affected by raise dead and reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect Forsaken. These spells return a destroyed Forsaken to her undead life; the Scourge's curse makes it virtually impossible to bring a Forsaken back to life as the creature she was before she died. Only wish or miracle can accomplish that.

Quote:Forsaken do not heal naturally.

Quote:Good-aligned priests turn or destroy undead, while evil-aligned priests rebuke, command or bolster undead. Neutral priests must choose to turn or rebuke undead, and the choice cannot be reversed later; this choice affects whether they spontaneously cast cure or inflict spells.

I'm also going to take the opportunity to say that Priests are able to Summon Undead (turn a corpse into an undead creature to fight for them), and cast death coil. However, according to the WoW RPG book, Priests contain no other spells skills that affect undead save for healing rain and smite - which heals the living and damages the unliving, or damages evil/undead targets; respectively.

Quote:While they can no longer use the Holy Light, and have since learned how to use the shadow; the priests teach that there must be a balance between light and shadow, and members must learn the Light as well, but never forget they were born from the shadow.

Shadow Priests however, change this situation. How? It's not clearly defined.

However, where Shadow is a twisted version of Holy Magic - it still depends on faith. Necromancers really don't have any spells that are able to heal undead. Merely ones that allow them to create, control, and damage them. This is probably because Necromancer is one of the three basic arcanist classes, rather than one of the three healer classes. Necromancy, in itself, is a school of magic that specializes in the study of the dead through arcane rather than faith.

Quote:Not at risk of death from massive damage. Unlike other undead, a Forsaken is not destroyed when reduced to 0 hit points or less. Instead, at 0 hit points a Forsaken is disabled. She can perform only one move action or standard action each round but does not risk furtherdamage from strenuous activity. Between –1 and –9 hit points, the Forsaken is down. She is unconscious and cannot act, but she does not risk further damage (unless her enemies attack her or some other unfortunate event befalls her). At –10 hit points, the Forsaken is destroyed.

Forsaken are also not affected by nonlethal damage. Therefore, it's simple to say Forsaken to not have a "fully healed" state or suffer injuries that would otherwise destroy them. The Curse of the Scourge was a powerful necromancy spell that was able to bring all corpses in Lordaeron back from the dead as unliving creatures to serve the Lich King. This does not, however, mean that Necromancers are able to 'heal' undead. They simply return the undead back to a fighting state when they fall. Priests, especially Shadow Priests, are able to cast resurrection or true resurrection to bring a destroyed or dead character back to their former state- which also affects the Forsaken.

Other than that, from what I've read - The need to 'heal' Forsaken is useless, because they can find a bone from a corpse to replace any appendages they may lose - and they don't take any damage that does not destroy them.

However, Forsaken can still take damage to their HP. Because HP does not represent health, but rather anything it takes to stay in the fight. (Balance, Will, Etc.)

In this Case:

Quote:Negative energy (such as from a death coil spell) heals Forsaken, while positive energy hurts them.

Both Priests and Necromancers have the ability to cast death coil, and therefor allow Forsaken to stay in the fight. HP, Life, and Death are all separate things.


Also: Priests are part of the Healer Class, along with Shaman and Druids. They are able to heal and inflict minor-critical wounds. This, would not apply to Forsaken because they are not wounded.

To answer your question. I found this:

Quote:Forsaken, unsurprisingly, look like dead people. Their skin is gray and rotting, showing bone and flesh in places. Their pupil-less eyes glow with dim, white ghostlight. Their muscles are withered, making them scrawny. Their movements are slow but jagged. Forsaken hardly ever smile (unless their lips have rotted away — then they smile all the time). Necromantic magic keeps them somewhat preserved, but natural decay still proceeds, just slower than normal.

We really don't have much information on the Plague or Curse used to create the Scourge -and thus the Forsaken- but the spells that create and raise the dead into undead result in three basic types: Ghouls, Zombies, and Skeletons. Forsaken could be mistaken as Ghouls and Zombies, but they are still decaying into skeletons. Whether necromancy simply slows the decaying process or holds the Forsaken together is another argument entirely.


Additional Supporting Quotes:

Quote:Not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability drain or energy drain. Immune to damage to their physical ability scores (Strength and Agility), as well as to fatigue and exhaustion effects.

Sources include WoW RPG: Sword and Sorcery, and WoWWiki.

Edit: Added details concerning death by decay.

LostStranger Wrote:On a living subject, most forms of mystical regeneration would ( conceivably ) not turn back the withering clock of time.

To add on what others were saying, healing does not turn back the "withering" clock of time for them either. It fully puts them back together, but Forsaken are still subject to a form of "old age." As Forsaken grow "older," they start to lose more and more of their minds, until they finally become mindless undead. I don't recall if there is ever an actual timetable given for this, but it's mentioned in one or two of the Forsaken quests in Tirisfal.

So, for all intents and purposes as far as we, as a WoW RP server, are concerned, Forsaken are almost identical to the living as far as healing goes. You can get fully patched up, but it won't save you from eventual "death" to the passage of time.

Edit: Also, keep in mind, that not everything in the D20 books apply to WoW. The whole "Holy healing harms undead" doesn't apply in WoW according to Word of God, it heals them just fine, it's just painful. They're obviously also still subject to critical hits and the like according to the logic of the game.