NotesOnUndeath

 There are five states of the soul which are relevant to game.
"Alive" and "Dead and buried" are fairly obvious, and not really worth 
talking about here.  If there's anything more complicated going on,
it's beyond what *I* know about.

* Unliving: This represents the zombies and wimpy cadaver men the
party's been running into.  They have as part of their True Pattern
the fact that they are not alive.  This is represented mechanically
as the disadvantage Unliving [-50]: when an Unliving creature has
less than zero HP, the magics holding it together dissolve and it is
destroyed.  Anything which is Unliving is almost certainly a mook.

* Undead: K'shrik and Joan were good examples of this, and if you ever
meet a Lich or a named NPC who just happens to not be alive, it'll
probably be another one.  Such a creature has as part of his True
Pattern the negation of the very concept of Death.  This is usually
mechanicked as the advantage Undead Invulnerability [150]: nothing
can destroy an Undead creature without using its very specific
vulnerabilities.  Immersion in a True Element is usually enough --
burned in pure fire, buried in unworked earth (this is hard), that
sort of thing.  Even if you destroy its body (and again, this is
hard), its spirit is likely to stick around, either as some species
of Undead or as one of the Uncleanly Dead.

* Uncleanly Dead: E'leia was a good example of this, and K'shrik is
now.  


There's probably some deep connection between Unlife and Undeath: "For each untimely raised to life, another untimely passes from it" or something.  And you'll find out more about Uncleanly Dead characters as your characters find out.