[Writer's Block] Undead and the reason behind their actions

[Slapzilla]

So, Argantes, what motivates an individual to seek undeath?  Power?  Fear?  Worship?  A Power seeker could become a Vampire, or a Lich.  One afraid of death could become a Spectre or a Ghast.  One who worships the Dark could become a zombie.  But why?  

Side question #1; Does this city have a reputation for being haunted or cursed?  Ruled by the true undead, sure, but what does that mean?

Side question #2; What does Light do about any of this, if anything at all?

I've always been able to bust up writer's block by deciding what a faction represents in a wide metaphoric sense.  For instance, since the undead are so rare, could this represent a pilgrimage or an inner journey where a being might achieve enlightenment?  If so, then this process could be steeped in lore and secret society mysteries.  Layers, that when peeled back, reveal further enigmas.  The eventual reward is transcendance and posterity.  This kind of thing adds flavor and could begin to suggest situations and stories that should help you find something that sparks the imagination.

If the journey to undeath represents a descent into mental illness, then the vampires might manifest as paranoid and violent homicidal predators.  Conversely, they might be morbidly embarrassed at their 'condition' and would go to great lengths to not 'have an episode'.  How you decide to handle it will inform how they could be dealt with--dragged into the daylight, or rehabbed somehow.  Liches might be portrayed as megalomaniacal Dr. Evil types sitting on thrones, plotting decades in advance and petting skeletal cats.  But what do you do with that?  What does a Lich represent specifically and what do undead represent generally?

I've found that when I can't answer these kinds of questions for myself, then I'm not ready to develop the faction as a force in the world... yet.  But when I can, the events that the faction motivates begin to blossom into full fledged plots.  Block broken.  I hope this helps without sounding weird and preachy.

 

[Bill Volk]

Maybe undead in this setting never work together. Maybe each individual undead is bent on getting revenge for its own death or finishing some other kind of personal business in the world of the living. Maybe undead are so rare because it takes an extraordinary amount of passion and hate at the moment of death for a person to crawl back from the afterlife as an undead. An undead would fall apart after getting what it wants (if getting what it wants is still even possible,) but until it does, it has the power to topple armies and crush cities.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Liches might be portrayed as megalomaniacal Dr. Evil types sitting on thrones, plotting decades in advance and petting skeletal cats.  But what do you do with that?

Create a gnomish Austin Powers. :D

[Slapzilla]

It seems so obvious now.