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Despite being firmly in the category of undead, vampires exhibit several traits inconsistent with the other revenants; after a brief description of necromancy and the various types of undead, I'll leave a few questions I've been carrying.
It's the commonly held belief, and I've heard nothing to dispute it, that the souls that belong to all creatures, man and mer, depart at the time of death to some part of Aetherius, unless bound to Nirn or caught by some greater power that has a claim on them.
Many are said to enter the Dreamsleeve to be recycled, slate wiped clean and given new life. I'm not sure how that jives with M.K's definition of the dreamsleeve as . It doesn't factor into this topic. One of Aetherius' realms is Sovngarde, where the Nord faithful who go after they die, to join Shor in the Hall of Valor. This, as I understand it is because during their lives, they caused their souls to resonate harmonically with Shor, a process called mantling. Similarly, souls made attractive to Daedric Princes go to their Realms upon death, pulled by the energies of the vastly more powerful beings, like iron filings to a lodestone. This is not necessarily done consciously, and one doesn't need to understand the process in order to enact it. In this way, those stricken with Lycanthropy go to Hircine's Hunting Grounds; the departed insane go to Sheoggorath's Madhouse. I bring these up to address the normal state of affairs first, and because it will become relevant shortly.
Necromancy & Undead
The three common undead are . Fleshless and flesh revenants' capacity for understanding and following orders is roughly proportional to their capacity in life, but the intelligence of an undead revenant is . This kind of necromancy is further defined as . The opposite—usage of a soul to be converted into magic—is the art of Enchanting.
For the less common necromantic binding of spirit revenants, we look to . Some ghosts linger naturally as a haunting, attached to Mundus by emotional bond or traumatic death. The ancestral Dunmeri spirits are bonded to their Houses voluntarily, by duty and ritual. Spirits can be bound involuntarily by means of , or by .
It's because of the distinction between animating corpses and binding shades that an economic necromancer can use all the morbid parts of the metaphorical buffalo, and animate the corpse of a foe he's already soul trapped. Neither zombies nor skeletons are animated by the souls they had in life.
is a special case of necromancy, in which the propspective lich willfully transfers his mortal soul to an external vessel, remaining connected to it somehow. A lich is something of both flesh and spirit revenants, and one of the .
Vampires
Vampires are a unique case of undead, to thwart Arkay. They display the same level of consciousness as mortal men and mer—far above that of the typical flesh revenant, animated by magic. They are the second type of undead not bound directly to the will of a necromancer or their animating spells, although one might say that they're in thrall of their Thirst. The Cyrodiilic clan of vampires claim to have been gifted their reason and savvy .
Are they animated by magicka and Bal's power, or do they still possess the spirits that filled them while mortal?
If they still have souls, are they capable of mantling their patrons?
Was Clavicus' “gift” to the vampires a clever coup to take their souls from Bal's clutches?
What is unique to vampires that causes them to burn in sunlight—that which we think of as the source of magic, a hole into Aetherius?
It's the commonly held belief, and I've heard nothing to dispute it, that the souls that belong to all creatures, man and mer, depart at the time of death to some part of Aetherius, unless bound to Nirn or caught by some greater power that has a claim on them.
Many are said to enter the Dreamsleeve to be recycled, slate wiped clean and given new life. I'm not sure how that jives with M.K's definition of the dreamsleeve as . It doesn't factor into this topic. One of Aetherius' realms is Sovngarde, where the Nord faithful who go after they die, to join Shor in the Hall of Valor. This, as I understand it is because during their lives, they caused their souls to resonate harmonically with Shor, a process called mantling. Similarly, souls made attractive to Daedric Princes go to their Realms upon death, pulled by the energies of the vastly more powerful beings, like iron filings to a lodestone. This is not necessarily done consciously, and one doesn't need to understand the process in order to enact it. In this way, those stricken with Lycanthropy go to Hircine's Hunting Grounds; the departed insane go to Sheoggorath's Madhouse. I bring these up to address the normal state of affairs first, and because it will become relevant shortly.
Necromancy & Undead
The three common undead are . Fleshless and flesh revenants' capacity for understanding and following orders is roughly proportional to their capacity in life, but the intelligence of an undead revenant is . This kind of necromancy is further defined as . The opposite—usage of a soul to be converted into magic—is the art of Enchanting.
For the less common necromantic binding of spirit revenants, we look to . Some ghosts linger naturally as a haunting, attached to Mundus by emotional bond or traumatic death. The ancestral Dunmeri spirits are bonded to their Houses voluntarily, by duty and ritual. Spirits can be bound involuntarily by means of , or by .
It's because of the distinction between animating corpses and binding shades that an economic necromancer can use all the morbid parts of the metaphorical buffalo, and animate the corpse of a foe he's already soul trapped. Neither zombies nor skeletons are animated by the souls they had in life.
is a special case of necromancy, in which the propspective lich willfully transfers his mortal soul to an external vessel, remaining connected to it somehow. A lich is something of both flesh and spirit revenants, and one of the .
Vampires
Vampires are a unique case of undead, to thwart Arkay. They display the same level of consciousness as mortal men and mer—far above that of the typical flesh revenant, animated by magic. They are the second type of undead not bound directly to the will of a necromancer or their animating spells, although one might say that they're in thrall of their Thirst. The Cyrodiilic clan of vampires claim to have been gifted their reason and savvy .
Are they animated by magicka and Bal's power, or do they still possess the spirits that filled them while mortal?
If they still have souls, are they capable of mantling their patrons?
Was Clavicus' “gift” to the vampires a clever coup to take their souls from Bal's clutches?
What is unique to vampires that causes them to burn in sunlight—that which we think of as the source of magic, a hole into Aetherius?
