Undead (Discworld)
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In Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, the undead are seen less as monsters, and more as characters with unusual cultural quirks. They even have their own bar in Ankh-Morpork.
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[edit] Zombies
Zombies are the most basic kind of undead. Essentially, they are people who are dead, but haven't stopped moving. Unlike zombies in most folklore and horror fiction, they are not automatically mindless but may retain the same personality they did when they were alive.
This personality tends to be obsessive in some way. A zombie can (usually) only be created if there is something more important to it than passing on. In this case, they may be summoned back by a voodoo practitioner, or simply refuse to leave. For instance, Mr Slant, head of the Guild of Lawyers, was executed for an unknown crime centuries ago, but refuses to die until his descendants agree to pay the firm for his defending himself at the trial.
If, for some reason, Death is prevented from releasing someone's soul from their body, the result is many aimless zombies. This has, however, only happened once without someone else taking up the role.
The most difficult thing about being a zombie is that your body has actually stopped living. This means bits are likely to drop off unless you take precautions. It also means you need to think about your autonomic processes, as they no longer happen automatically. A zombie can remain active even if its flesh is lost to wear, tear and rot. Since this is very inhibitive to social acceptance, most zombies apparently use some artificial methods of preservation.
Noted zombies in the novels include: Baron Saturday, Mr Slant, Windle Poons and Reg Shoe.
[edit] Mummies
Mummies tend not to come back to life on the Discworld. There are only two cultures (Djelibeybi and Tsort) who really believe in mummification anyway, and they have both lost interest in it in recent years. Pyramids, however, describes an occasion when the dead of Djelibeybi did return to their bodies. Essentially they seemed much like zombies, only better preserved. They unanimously despised the pyramids in which they were interred, and upon their release they helped to destroy the Great Pyramid and then dissolved their corporeal bodies in the Djel. This caused some problems for Death, as he was unused to having over 1,600 souls to take at one time.
[edit] Vampires
Nosferatu Sanguineus
On the Disc, all our world's vampire legends are true, even the contradictory ones. They just aren't all true for the same vampire.
The "default" Discworld vampire is generally consistent with the Dracula image. Their homeland is Überwald, a land that does not so much resemble Eastern Europe as the Universal and Hammer Horror movie sterotypes of the region. When you live for centuries and instinctively see humans as prey, it's very easy to decide that this means you're destined to rule by force. Überwald is filled with vampire aristocrats.
One odd element of this vampiric attraction to nobility is their names, which often run for several pages. Over the course of their long lives, vampires acquire titles in much the same way as a philatelist acquires stamps. Collecting titles is both a means to pass the time and a subtle reminder to hoi polloi of whom to respect.
The more intelligent vampire nobles know better than to oppress the local peasants too much, realising that there's no sense in driving them to become a torch-bearing mob. Others are too arrogant to worry, or see the whole business of feeding on humans as a very complicated, relatively stylized hunting sport. These vampires (most notably the old Count Magpyr, who returned from the dead so often his coffin had a revolving lid) "play by the rules" and give their quarry ample opportunity to defend themselves. Realizing that even death is rarely permanent for a vampire, these traditionalist like to give their prey a sporting chance and so keep their castles stocked with large collections of holy water, garlands of garlic, wooden stakes (complete with anatomical diagrams detailing the position of the heart), metal decorations easily bent into holy symbols, and very clean windows covered by easily pulled-aside drapes. Vampires only really become dangerous when they start breaking the rules, as demonstrated by the younger Count Magpyr, who developed immunity to the traditional weaknesses by lengthy conditioning of himself and his family.
The craving for human blood appears to be more an addiction like alcoholism than a strict dietary requirement. Vampires are reported to have some need for extra "haemo-goblins" and must consume blood to survive, but this blood need not be fresh, or even human. The addiction to fresh, human blood is one which a growing number of vampires are beating, with help from support groups like the Überwald League of Temperance (the "Black Ribboners"). They refer to this change in diet as "going cold bat" (cf. cold turkey). Many get jobs at butcher shops or slaughterhouses in order to obtain their sustenance without harming human beings. In giving up human blood, most vampires sublimate their desire into a secondary, more socially acceptable addition such as such as coffee, or even politics. Vampires denied the opportunity to satisfy their secondary addiction may begin suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms, including hallucinations such as with delerium tremens. Vampires in this state will eventually become unable to control their natural addiction to blood.
Discworld vampires can survive in sunlight, provided they wear heavy clothes and broad-brimmed hats. When exposed to direct sunlight he or she will be immediately reduced to ashes, but requires merely a drop of blood to recorporate. Many Black Ribboners carry a dustpan, brush, and explanatory card asking bystanders for assistance in reviving them.
Vampires can create new vampires with their bite, but generally prefer not to. Given the existence of vampire couples with vampire children, they seem able to reproduce sexually. Ankh-Morpork resident Arthur Winkins became a vampire as part of an inheritance that included an old castle in Überwald and the accompanying noble title. His wife Doreen Winkins refers to herself as a vampiress, or vampire by marriage, although she is not actually undead.
Coolness, poise and self-assurance come easily to natural born vampires. A female vampire will look fabulous even in a modestly priced dress. Members of the Überwald League of Temperance seek to renounce vampiric stylishness in all its forms, ditching sleek black cloaks for ratty jumpers and mournful violin playing for building models out of matchsticks.
Vampires have the ability to levitate and change into bats or other animals, although "beetotallers" find using these talents more difficult. It is easier to transform into many bats, thereby maintaining the same body mass. However, the vampire must then control all the bat bodies with a single mind.
Although male vampires can recorporate their clothes after an ashing or a transformation, female vampires find this more difficult. The reason for this is unclear, though many speculate it is to do with the "underwired nightdress thing". In other words, according to narrative convention (the all-powerful force on the Disc), female vampires must always be sexy. There are some exceptions to this rule; in Monstrous Regiment one female vampire recorporates her clothes.
A recent trend among rebellious younger vampires involves dressing in bright clothes, drinking blood from wine bottles, and staying up until nearly noon.
Noted vampires in the books include: Arthur and Doreen Winkins (the Count and Countess Notfaroutoe), the Dragon King of Arms, the Magpyr family, Lady Margolotta, Otto Chriek, Mr Morcombe, lawyer to the Ramkin family (though some in the League suspect he may merely be a man who stubbornly managed to live for 400 years), Maladict(a) and Salacia "Sally" von Humpeding, the first vampire City Watch constable. A Mr. Bleakley is also referred to in several books as a prospective vampire Watch officer.
[edit] Werewolves
Lupus Sapiens
There is some debate on the Discworld as to whether werewolves are undead or not. The general consensus seems to be "they're big and scary, they come from Überwald, and if you stab them with a sword they don't die. What more do you want?" Regardless of whether or not they are technically undead, inhabitants of the Discworld generally lump werewolves into the same category and treat them in the same fashion.
There are as many werewolf barons in Überwald as vampire ones, and for much the same reason. Many werewolves combine carnivorous animal instincts with the human trait of sadism that real wolves couldn't hope to understand. Others just make the best they can out of a life where, once a month, they find themselves stealing chickens.
A "true" werewolf is a human three weeks out of four, unless (s)he chooses otherwise, and a wolf the week of full moon. There are also yennorks, werewolves who cannot change, and are permanently in human or wolf form. They usually find werewolf culture uncomfortable and leave to live in a village or pack, as appropriate.
This is where the other kinds of werewolves come from. Crossbreeding between yennorks and ordinary humans has resulted in various other forms of werewolf. The most obvious are the people who turn into wolf-men, rather than wolves, at full moon, but the spectrum ranges from people who have hairy palms and eyebrows that meet in the middle to creatures that look like feral wolf-human hybrids... except at full moon when they turn into wolves. Meanwhile yennork/wolf mating has led to some extremely intelligent wolves, and is possibly also the cause of the occasional "were-man", a wolf that turns into a wolf-man at full moon.
While there have been some suggestions that Discworld werewolves, like the Hollywood stereotype, can "infect" others with lycanthropy through their bite, on the whole it appears that werewolves on the Disc are born, not made.
Werewolves do not get on with vampires. This is less to do with deep-seated polito-racial rivalry and more because the effortless cool of vampires make werewolves feel like hairy animals.
One Hollywood stereotype they do conform to is their vulnerability to silver, which causes burns even on light contact. A longtime supremacy of a number of werewolf clans in Überwald led to a ban on dwarfs mining silver in the region, though that ban was lifted when the most powerful werewolf clan was destroyed.
Werewolves are synaesthetes, being able to "see" smells.
Noted werewolves in the books include Ludmilla Cake, Lupine (a were-man) and Sergeant Delphine Angua von Überwald and her family.
[edit] Banshees
Little is known about Discworld banshees. Although the banshee of Gaelic folklore are always female, the only two banshee to appear in the Discworld books have been male.
Banshees are tall, lean figures, who appear to be wearing long leather capes. These are actually their folded wings. They have flight muscles like steel armour, but their skeletons are fragile. Banshees have two hearts and many rows of teeth.
The Discworld banshees seem to have evolved in the jungle, where they used their power of flight to help them hunt small (and not so small) animals. This carnivorous instinct tends to backfire in Ankh-Morpork, where any uncooked animal is basically food poisoning on legs.
There appear to be two kinds of banshee, civilised and feral. Civilised banshees can apparently sense when a person is about to die. They will traditionally scream from that person's rooftop as a sign of impending death. However, Mr. Ixolite, the banshee featured in Reaper Man, has a speech impediment and prefers to leave a note instead. Hearing the scream of a feral banshee is also a sign that you are about to die, but the connection in this case is much more direct.
Noted banshees in the books include Mr. Ixolite (civilised), and Mr. Gryle (feral, although he can talk and understands the concept of money).
[edit] Bogeymen
While not technically undead, verging more on anthropomorphic personifications, bogeymen are frequently lumped into this category. Bogeymen are manifestations of human fears, both childish and primal. They seem to be sustained by the fear of humans (belief has considerable power on Discworld), which gives them ample reason to keep to their traditional work of frightening people. When off-duty, quite a lot of bogeymen seem to frequent Biers, the unofficial bar for the undead in Ankh-Morpork.
Because one of the standard tricks used by children wanting to get rid of bogeymen is to put their heads under the covers, bogeymen become extremely confused and begin to doubt their own existence if a blanket, pillow, or even a handkerchief is thrown over their own heads. Bogeymen do not have a fixed appearance, usually being able to manifest themselves as whatever the viewer fears most. Their true physical form is usually obscured by the frightening illusions they project. The only bogeyman revealed so far in the books resembled a small, wizened monkey.
The original bogeyman eventually became the Discworld Tooth Fairy.
