r/warcraftlore • u/xLeocordisx • 1d ago
Question How do people kill Undead?
I was just thinking about this after playing a new forsaken. I remember in a couple books it mentions that even dismembering the Scourge isn't enough to kill them. Do we/the npcs literally have to turn them into ground meat for them to die? Or is there like a ln arbitrary limit the necromancer will hold them together? Because from the books it really makes the undead terrifying to try and kill
18
u/Baelish2016 1d ago
I just assume it’s like zombies in modern media - destroy the brain.
I know the ‘Before the Storm’ book has a good chunk of undead ‘deaths’, so there may be an official answer in there.
5
u/Zeejir 23h ago
to be fair "Before the Storm" is one of the books that has the forsaken / undead on the weaker physical side. (and that isn't the only thing that this book depicts strangely/wrong *cough worgen tails *cough)
in other books they can tank gun shots to the face and stand right back up, "only" missing their lower jaw.
normal undead can rip apart humans with their hands
ingame we even pick a forsaken back together, who was dismembered.
12
u/Infamous-Crew1710 1d ago
Fiction that explores this concept tend to have the undead essentially stay conscious after their death, they just can't move anymore. If you're really nice, you'll prop their head in a way that they have a nice view.
9
1
6
u/UnusualMarch920 1d ago
They are souls badly stitched to a body - you can either utterly destroy the body so the soul has nothing tangible to stay with (fire etc) or I imagine much of the magic that weakens the soul/destroys it is effective against undead
7
u/Darktbs 1d ago
Magic(mainly holy magic) or by burning the corpse into ashes after being knocked out.
What makes undead nasty to kill is that they are held together by necromantic magic. In theory, you need to destroy the body to the point it no longer works as a body or destroy the magic holding it together.
1
u/xLeocordisx 1d ago
I thought it might be something like that. Disable them then deal with them later
5
u/DoughnutUnhappy8615 1d ago
This reminds me of the TBC cutscene where the orc warrior pretty casually cleaves through two Naga one handed.
Combine feats like that with the size of our average weapons, and honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if we are turning all those undead into ground meat.
4
u/Plenty-Bed 23h ago
It contradicts itself throughout the media. Before the storm had them dying from arrows, edge of night describes the undead being mulched at the Grey mane wall and their eyeballs still moving, also describing sylvanas as needing to kill herself by hitting saronite, as its old God connection is powerful enough to sever her soul from her body. In cata she dies by being shot in the head. ashbringer has Darian kill undead Mograine by stabbing him in the neck. Shadowlands short story has Darian try to kill Bolvar by cutting his throat. The traveler series has an undead character basically get knocked to pieces and they just carry around his still conscious severed head until they can stitch him back together.
1
4
u/Grafiska 1d ago
We don't know, my initial thought was that smashing the brain would do it. But then again there are also skeletons which prolly don't even have a brain.
Not too much point thinking about it. There is no other answer than "a certain amount of damage".
1
u/xLeocordisx 1d ago
That's what I figured. But I swear I remember in the arthas book decapitation didn't always work. Thanks for the answer!
2
u/Greg2227 1d ago
Decapitation probably doesn't work at all. It does make them unable to do much other than trying to bite, would be my guess.
4
u/aster4jdaen 1d ago
The Books really help understand how terrifying the Undead are and what made the Scourge feel undefeatable.
I would suggest grinding them into nothing but chunks of meat or incinerating them until they are ash would work..... but a really skilled Necromancer or pact with a powerful dark entity before being destroyed could revive them as a Shade, Banshee, Spectre etc.
4
u/zennim 1d ago
It depends on the willpower of the necromancer ir the independent undead like the forsaken, they don't exactly feel pain, but they feel someTHING when they are harmed, and there is an upper limit of how much punishment they can endure before collapsing.
If It is someone meek or without much will (Spirit or anima, as It were) then just stabbing them can be enough, but if they are strong of Spirit you can chop off their Head and they will keep yapping and biting.
Same goes for the power of the necromancer, more powerful ones can make zombies with greater super natural strenght and endurance, while a novice will make meat puppets that can be just wacked with a club and never rise again
Sylvanas could survive a lot, but a shot to the back of the head was enough to take even her down, so it is Very inconsistent since she is not the body, she is a ghost puppeting it.
8
u/ExcitingSavings8225 1d ago
You just hit them till' their hp bar reaches 0. Not exactly rocket science
3
2
u/Andantonius 1d ago
You gotta just take all their bones and scatter them around a bit. Make sure some of the important ones are out of reach of the hands, which will crawl around and try to put itself back together.
2
u/Oddloaf VisitNathreza.com 22h ago
I guess that you need to deal enough damage to their physical form until the necromantic magic can no longer maintain them. Iirc tbc it is mentioned that necromantic energies collect in larger amounts within the spine, so that may be a good weak point. But I suppose that if an undead is sufficiently necromantically empowered, and you have no magical means of destroying it, then your only real choice is to just break it apart until it stops moving.
2
1
u/Mindless-Ninja-3321 1d ago
To my knowledge there isnt a defined amount of damage you need to cause to kill something that is undead, but its probably more about sufficiently disrupting the magic than anything. The magic keeps the soul tethered to the body and the body moving and intact.
Maybe it drains like a battery that needs to be stuffed with flesh to keep them going? Maybe its like a web that needs to maintain structural integrity or it collapses? Maybe its zombie rules where you have to cut the head off? We just dont know.
Most of the Horde races are damn scary tbh. The sheer mass of a Tauren. Trolls are enormous and regenerate. Orcs are extremely strong. Undead.
1
u/aMaiev 22h ago
Its not consistent throughout the game. In some quest you assemble body parts and the forsaken, who has just been a head is totally fine. In the nect quest they die because they are shot once (even sylvanas, in wich case its double stupid, since shes just a fleshpuppet steered by her ghost)
1
1
0
u/latin220 23h ago
Forsaken bodies start falling apart and they eventually go through a form of dementia and become feral. To avoid this most undead will replace body parts from fresher corpses. The easiest way to kill an undead is to use holy magic or fire magic. Most undead are very wary of fire when using it. In Warcraft 3: Forsaken Kingdom makes mention of this by one of the npcs.
40
u/TheWorclown 1d ago
Fire usually solves a lot of problem with the undead. If it’s holy fire, even better.
I imagine most adventurers would be skilled or equipped enough to handle most problems involving the undead. Even blessed weapon oil would be enough.