Question What ELEMENT type is a zombie?

Hello,
im working on a game where units have an element type (atleast one element but can also have 2 elements)
the current unit i am working on is a zombie
so much question is what type or double type is a zombie?

the element types that are available are the following:
WATER, EARTH, AIR, FIRE, DARKNESS, LIGHT

currently i am thinking of the zombie being:
DARKNESS (just one type) or
EARTH + DARKNESS (2 types)

any sugestions which one is better and why?

 

zombies are meat though. You are missing meat.


If you wanted a very serious answer, I'd go with just darkness. Earth has positive connotations and there is nothing positive about zombies.

 

I was going to reply EARTH. Zombies traditionally climb out of the dirt, which is a bit on the nose but still feels right to me. You could interpret Earth is the most inert (dead) of the elements, not necessarily the hippie Captain Planet interpretation of earth.

For comparison, if you were to have vampire entities, they could be represented by DARKNESS.

 

In ancient Greece, Hades was associated with both the dead and the earth, so Earth would be a good fit. Darkness was not an element though.

 

I was thinking along the same lines as @BIGTIMEMASTER, that straight DARKNESS is the way. But, I just had a quick re-read of some zombie history. That is, Haitian zombies, which came long before Dawn of the Dead zombies. I knew that their origin predated movies, but I didn't realise that the Voodoo zombie had yet earlier roots which do, indeed, specifically touch on both DARKNESS and EARTH.

Spoiler: References to historical ways in which humans suck

According to The Tragic, Forgotten History of Zombies, zombies in Voodoo originally came from folklore among slaves, who were taken to plantations where they were worked to death. When they died they were said to be free to return to Africa... unless they committed suicide, where they were trapped in their bodies as a zombie.

To me, that suggests DARKNESS from how downright evil that whole darn scenario is, and EARTH because working the earth became these poor peoples' lives until they died.

Of course if you just want straight up pop-culture zombies then straight DARKNESS might get the job done well.

Personally, I like building little twists into things which might encourage curious players to learn a bit of something on top of having fun. And/or it could lead into some reminders about why zombies are (or should be) horrifying separately to the threat they pose to other characters.

 

darkness, and fire . . .

those two represent the element ' void ', however not sure zombies are that evil, tend to be mindless, more than ' evil ', however not sure any of the stuff fits ' zombies ', they tend to have their own lore, it's related to a virus, nuclear stuff, or weird magic, not really a specific element, perhaps also going to say ' dirt ', because they rise from the grave, ground, or have bodies that have half turned also to mulch, or almost gravel, zombies don't really make sense in the elements // primordial qualities stuff, etc etc . . .

perhaps what think is, that zombies are made to look more ' evil ' than they are, think most of them are ' friendly ', and sort - of more walk around, it's been exaggerated in video - games, the more point - blank evil creatures are vampires, then werewolves, one could add liches, and then mummy - generals, and then perhaps ghosts // poltergeists, zombies aren't really evil, however if they had an element it'd be ' virus ', or then sort - of ' voodoo ', looking at the classic content, or various tropes, there's also the classic nuclear - zombie, or then alien - zombie // mindflayer-from-space stuff, invasion of weird sci - fi parasites, etc etc . . . .

 

I would switch darkness and light to death and life because light and fire are already somewhat redundant and darkness is not a thing, it is the absence of light. Darkness is the default state, its like nothingness and zombies can't be sensibly aligned with that.

 

its not listed as an option but I'd think maybe "shadow", so darkness I guess

 

Well, evil zombies could probably fall in the category of dark elemental magic, or dark earth. But since its moreso necromancy and dark magic, bringing them back to life, they more fall in the category of dark magic than any sort of elemental magic.

However, if you are making a race of creatures that are zombielike, then let your imagination run wild, and make up your own elemental magical type, for good or bad zombie creatures.