"Be it ah undead or dead or alive, what does it matter so long as it looks nice enough to pass as human during the day and can make me coin during the night? tha trick is to not worry about the moral aspect of undeath but to know that in the end when you can watch your enemy die of old age, you get to ask yourself, who's next?" - Sennosan, a surface walking dark elf, when Mort asked him of his opinion on undeath

Undead Metabolism -

There are many long winded stories about the hunger of a undead body and their ability to consume sustenance and such. This will be a short study on the Unliving metabolism as I know it.

Lesser animations - The body is a amazing creation by all accounts no matter what way you look at it. Even as the body has died the tissues live on through the alchemical reaction in the body through the Athema, or essence of false life. Once a reanimated body is dissected for research one will find the flame of life resides in the mind, heart, and gut. Through he brain the "soul" of the creature is able to control the body. Being as this is not exactly magic purely, I cant say if it is the soul itself or the minds imprint of the soul. But to say the least the more intelligent of creations have desires and wills, if not dreams of their own as they slumber. The flame in the heart extends through the main veins and animates the tissues of the extremes of the body. and oddly, the gut seems to be the location of which the alchemical process is able to add more fuel to the exchange. The least of creations break down what they eat the best it can, the alchemy is fueled and the rest is transferred as waste material. I have not yet found how long the lesser can go without consuming new material, they have gone thirteen years without eating to show no sign whatsoever of decay or deanimation.

The vampires - Vampires are a hard undead to describe considering their metabolism is dual nature. They can get their best feeding though the consumption of blood but still have the ability to drain life essence through use of their nature considering negative energy. The interesting thing is that lack of a food source does not provide deanimation but just loss of self. This leads me to think that it is not the body that requires blood as a source of fuel but the soul that is torn and infected with the hunger. In addition to this theory it causes me to consider if one form of blood from one creature is more sustaining when compared to another form of creature. Is there a type of blood that would bolster the defenses of the mind so well as to cure them of their hunger? I will have to consult the vampire I know, thus far she has cloned a great many subjects to ensure she never loses herself but there is great potential for further study