Undead

"Undead" is a term used to refer to beings whose bodies are technically dead, but still exist on

Spike, an example of a vampire.

a physical plane. To achieve this state, an individual must be brought back from the dead or killed in a manner that allows them to be "reborn". Magic is often involved. Generally speaking, undead beings have some alteration to or lack of a being's form or faculty. For example, the lack of a soul may contribute to the characteristics of undeath, as in most cases of newly sired vampires, although notable exceptions such as Angel and Spike exist. Post-death, an undead

Daryl Epps, an undead who's form was constructed by various peoples' body parts.

's standards of living generally change; for example, vampires and zompires gain the desire and need to feed on mammalian blood. Furthermore, they lose their need to breathe, and their hearts cease beating. Vampires retain their core personalities and ability to think and make decisions (though the impact of this is lessened greatly by the loss of their souls). Zombies, o

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After being resurrected, Buffy Summers is not considered "undead".

n the other hand, lose their conscious mental capabilities and essentially become walking corpses. Ghosts are the souls of once-living people who are stuck on earth. They are incorporeal, but possess the minds of the people they once were, such as Dennis Pearson and Matthias Pavayne.

Buffy Summers was not considered undead after her resurrection by witch Willow Rosenburg because she returned as a physically living person by means of a unique spell.

Cases

• All vampires die upon being turned by their sire, and are thus undead.
• An Incan Mummy Princess who was ritually killed and mummified, returned to life because of a cursed seal and became a living girl. After she stopped feeding on the life forces of others, she reverted to a mummy and died.

• Warren Mears was brought back as a skinless being who could only be kept alive with magic and the end of which led to his second death. This did not apply to vampires, but did prevent them from reproducing, instead forming brainless "zompires" in their place.

• Wolfram & Hart had a standard perpetuity clause in their contracts which allowed their employees to remain in the firm after death as undead, immortal beings with the signs of their death still visible.

• Chris Epps brought back his brother Daryl through a scientific procedure which left him in a Frankenstein's Monster-like state.

• The 314 Project was a military operation aimed at creating a race of Bio-mechanical demonoids, where dead soldiers would be scientifically reanimated with cybernetic enhancements and demonic body parts.

• Adam, the very first out of the only two Bio-mechanical demonoids to exist, reanimated Professor Maggie Walsh and Doctor Francis Angleman as rotting, visibly dead servants.