Do any of the Undead rosters have different races in them in lore?

[Goatmanpig]

Title

Is there a reason virtually all undead are "human?"

[Conflagration]

Humans are easier to design.

[SpiffyGonzales]

In the lore pretty much everyone exept the dwarves can become undead (immunity to magic... apparently even when dead)

Im sure ca WOULD do it... but that'd be a dlc of its own and an expensive one at that. Imagine designing undead models for EVERY SINGLE UNIT in the game. then imagine the balancing that would need to go on. I mean jesus you get undead skaven as the front line, knights of the black grail as cav, then you go into the mosters of chaos and the arty of the dwarves... and i gues vamp coast, and you have a TRULY op faction. any way of making that balanced is FAR beyond my comprehension.

[bearfieldlee]

There are a few animal variations but yeah, generally they are human because GW went with the common cultural archetype in their design.

[RCMidas]

There's also a random grudge that can pop up when playing as the Dwarves, demanding that you go attack the vampires for raising up a bunch of dead dwarves to stage a mocking play ("a terrible grudge, for it is a terrible play!").

[Ysthrall]

I speculated (the last time this thread popped up) that the reason the vast majority of Undead are (ex)human is because that's how Necromancy is set up.

Nagash invented necromancy. He did so working on humans. The basic Raise Dead spell is for raising humans.

Hence, skeletons and zombies. These are animated and puppeteered by the necromancer. Which is why they have sod-all initiative and lack the co-ordination and precision for archery.

The Tomb Kings work on a slightly different approach, summoning back the souls of the original dead soldiers, to one extent or another, to get much better troops (above bog-standard skeleton warriors).

Things such as the terrorgheist, fellhounds, and varghulf may not be actually dead and raised....

As for skeletal steeds, they might be inefficient to rasie (hence the cost of VC cavalry), or indeed Nagash may have produced a mod for that, having grown up in a civilisation with extensive cavalry.

Elves, Dwarfs, Orcs etc could perhaps be raised, but at really poor efficiency and minimal combat ability. So if you want to raise a dozen dwarfs and stand there carefully mentally directing them into a bad play.... fine. If you want to raise a hundred of them and get them to fight... it might be prohibitively expensive. Maybe Heinrich Kemmler could do it, as long as he wasn't doing anything else.

Oo, a thought... in the latest version of the Lore, does it state that when Nagash was fighting the Skaven, he'd raise dead Skaven to send them against their living troops?

[RCMidas]

Terrorgheists are actual undead, being the resurrected corpses of the truly monstrous bats that dwell in the darkest corners of the forests. Varghulfs, like vargheists, are mutated vampires - except that they were twisted because they gave into their most bestial and animalistic hungers, whereas the vargheists were sealed and starved inside their crypts by their kin.

As for skaven, they've been known to be raised by the hundred by your fairly average vampiric necromancer - at least in the books. A Lahmian vampiress in Nuln used the corpses of a failed invasion from several novels prior to cause some trouble for the heroes.

[TVMAN]

The actual reason is because the units are based on the tabletop models, and that's how the officially licensed models look for the vampire counts. The reason why they're all the samey human skeletons was because it's just cheaper to cast the models that way. The only roster on the tabletop that has a variety of undead from different races is the dogs of war, with the cursed company.

There are some in lore explanations for why the models are the way they are. Greenskins decay too quickly, dwarfs are naturally resistant to magic and are really difficult to raise, elves are infused with a type of magic that interferes with dark magic, etc.

There are exceptions of course, but out of all the races, humans are the easiest to turn into corpse puppets. There's also the intimidation factor: vamp counts mostly fight other humans, and it's scary when you're suddenly fighting the cousin you buried two weeks ago.

[RCMidas]

Plus the vast majority of corpses available in any given area where vampires and necromancers are most commonly found are human.

[TVMAN]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

Plus the vast majority of corpses available in any given area where vampires and necromancers are most commonly found are human.

Yes, that too. The vamp counts have access to a lot more human graveyards for fodder than anything else. That and most other cultures make it a point to avoid vampire territory if they can help it.

[Jack Deth]

Originally posted by Goatmanpig:

Title

Is there a reason virtually all undead are "human?"

Via the Liber Necris every race can be a necromancer or practice necromancy (regular dwarfs being the obvious exclusion, but Chaos Dwarfs can as well).

The reason other races don't varies.

Skaven have such short and violent lives they have more time spent just living, mix that with their self inflated ego in regards to everything ratty (as well as not wanting to give another excuse to be marked a traitor by not performing magic associated with the Great Horned One).

Elves and (c)dwarfs ignore it as they have already long living lives as well as Necromancy being far more to dangerous than just Dark magic. It's similar to practicing any of the Chaos Gods magic.

Orcs and goblins aren't programmed to.

Lizardmen have long lives, aren't programmed for it and see it as an aberration to the great plan.

Can you eat a body you already ate? Then why would you wanna raise a dead body? So Ogres don't care...they also live long and like Orcs/gobbos have a very focused and specific mindset.

So ya, much like the Colleges of Magic or the elves and Lizards practice of magic anybody CAN be a necromancer, but the benefits to anything outside of human are nil.

I mean, look at how being a necromancer in the Empire or Bretonnia is and factor in how dangerous twisting necromancy magic is to the user, and those around them, with the even more distrust for anything not lizard/elf/dwarf/skaven and the dislike for anything not them in those cultures and that's another reason why necromancy isn't practiced as much.

Originally posted by General Skarr:

In the lore pretty much everyone exept the dwarves can become undead (immunity to magic... apparently even when dead)

So in the lore all races can be raised. Dwarfs were done as such in the last VC army book when Manny elfnapped a princess. Dwarfs are resistant to magic, but not completely immune. Neferata if I recall in her novel also raised a bunch of dwarf wraiths because they pissed her off.

[Thor II]

Originally posted by General Skarr:

Im sure ca WOULD do it... but that'd be a dlc of its own and an expensive one at that. Imagine designing undead models for EVERY SINGLE UNIT in the game. then imagine the balancing that would need to go on. I mean jesus you get undead skaven as the front line, knights of the black grail as cav, then you go into the mosters of chaos and the arty of the dwarves... and i gues vamp coast, and you have a TRULY op faction. any way of making that balanced is FAR beyond my comprehension.

It doesn't have to be for each unit, it was enough to have two undead models (a zombie model and a skeleton model) for each race.

Of course, it's hard to imagine the excuse for not using Raise Dead in the enemy's monstrous units..... that vampire army wouldn't want to have an Arachnarok or a Dread Saurus in their ranks?

[DasaKamov]

While some good points are raised, I'm surprised that no one mentioned that VC undead are almost exclusively human because Games-Workshop wanted to create a Halloween-Themed-Hollywood-Horror-Movie-Army, and non-human zombies and skeletons would simply be too "weird" to fit that theme.

When random passersby see human zombies and skeletons on the tabletop or computer screen, they instantly say, "Oh cool, I know *exactly* what that army is about because of pop-culture."

[ChaosKhan]

Technically, everyone except the Dwarves can become an undead. It's kind of a grey zone simply because the Vampire Counts have always been kind of limited due to their location. Surrounded by Dwarves and Humans, they usually didn't have a choice at what to turn. In the lore, there are instances where Necromancers and Vampires raise other races in battle on demand, for example Skaven, Orcs and Goblins, but I have never read someone other than human receiving vampirism. It makes sense that also Elves and other races would be able to become vampires, but since they are so rare and the inherently human vampires are very selective when it comes to spreading their "gift", it seems like it doesn't happen.

[SpiffyGonzales]

Originally posted by Spookymancer:

You can make an undead out of anything. The lore is full of references to undead of every description, from undead skaven pirates to elven wights. Zombie lizardmen are a thing, and skeleton orcs happily fight in the Cursed Company of the Dogs of War.
Even things of chaos can be remade into undead. Krell, for example, is an undead chaos warrior.

Originally posted by General Skarr:

exept the dwarves

Dwarf ghosts are a thing. Have you played Belegar Ironhammer? He begins the campaign with four of them.
Dwarfs can be raised as undead just as easily as any other race. The problem is that any dwarf raised from the dead will almost certainly start settling grudges, ignoring the necromancer's will.
Look up Balkrag Grimgorson. He's a Slayer who died then got turned into a skeleton by a liche.

i thought spirits and the winds of magic werent tied together?

[RCMidas]

It's quite irrelevant, seeing as how dwarves are RESISTANT to magic, not immune to it. They CAN and DO become undead on occasion.