History Main / UndeadLaborers

* ''Literature/Overlord2012'':
** The Empire is looking into using basic undead to perform primitive automation of tasks like farming to free up more men for the annual war with the neighboring Kingdom (the Kingdom fields elite knights but can barely afford to lose any in battle, the Empire fields huge amounts of levies so any losses are trivial and is bleeding the Kingdom yearly). [[OutsideContextProblem Then Ainz comes along...]]
** After [[spoiler:the Empire willingly becomes Ainz' vassal]], life is suddenly much easier now that their borders are guarded by tireless and obedient undead, especially since [[spoiler:Ainz' minions take zero interest in the Empire beyond telling them "don't disrespect Ainz, do what you're told, and send your taxes on time".]]

* In Creator/GrantMorrison's ''ComicBook/SevenSoldiers'', the underground Limbo Town do not bury their dead but instead turn them into laborers in their fields.

--> The widespread use of undead labour has shifted the lower class into those slightly more mentally-demanding and involved labouring tasks

* The classic Film/HammerHorror ''Film/ThePlagueOfTheZombies'' features zombies being set to work in an abandoned [[AliensInCardiff Cornish]] tin mine. (The film was made in 1966, so they were of the VoodooZombie type, despite having the appearance of rotting corpses that later fiction preferred.)

* In ''Film/WhiteZombie'', Creator/BelaLugosi's character Legendre uses traditional {{Voodoo Zombie}}s as a cheap labor force in his sugar mill.

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': In ''Literature/WitchesAbroad'', Mrs. Gogol refutes the misconception that voodoo priestesses like herself use {{Voodoo Zombie}}s, which is as untrue a rumor as dancin' naked and sticking pins in people is for the Lancrastrian witches. But, she admits, sometimes... just one zombie. When the house needs repainting.

* In ''Literature/OldKingdom'' books ''Lirael'' and ''Abhorsen'', Hedge uses hundreds of murdered refugees to dig up the SealedEvilInACan, as they're both tractable and able to withstand the frequent lightning strikes at the excavation site. He tells his "employer" Nicholas Sayre , who doesn't believe in magic, that they're very unwell--as Nick himself is very unwell, the excuse passes.

* In the [[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS4E21Primeval penultimate episode]] of the fourth season of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', the BigBad--an {{Cyborg}} FrankensteinsMonster revived into a body made from human and demon parts--reanimates his creators, a MadScientist and a PunchClockVillain, into a pair of these.

** ''TabletopGame/{{Jakandor}}'' setting. The Charonti use necromantic magic to raise the dead and have them perform manual labor.
** ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' setting. ''Elminster's Ecologies'' supplement, "The Settled Lands" booklet. An evil mage once used skeleton undead as farmworkers to tend his gardens.
** ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'' setting. Subverted with Karrnath's elite zombie forces. While they don't quite have free will, the fact that they have intelligence combined with being animated by energy from a plane of death and evil means that they default to killing things before too long. Per WordOfGod, part of the reason that Karrnath agreed to entomb their undead forces after the Last War was because they were worried about what would happen if they ''didn't''. If you tried to use elite undead soldiers as farmhands, they'll eventually wander off and start killing innocent people. Mindless undead are another story, and the Blood of Vol sometimes uses simple zombies or skeletons as laborers, but they're usually too expensive (and the practice considered too abhorrent everywhere else) to be really common.
** ''TabletopGame/{{Planescape}}'' setting. The Dustmen use zombies and skeletons as menial labor. They'll pay living people a small, one-time sum for the right to use their corpse this way after the person has died.
** ''TabletopGame/ScarredLands'' setting. The city of Hollowfaust is ruled over by necromancers who use skeletal undead to handle drudge labor, military defence and even a form of law enforcement, with nightly patrols by skeletons ordered to arrest anyone out after curfew or a public disturbance. Combined with the free healthcare provided by the highly trained Anatomist's Guild, one of the seven necromancer sub-schools, and Hollowfaust is noted to have one of the highest standards of living in the world, at the cost of a slightly authoritarian government.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Earthdawn}}'' supplement ''Barsaive in Chaos''. The undead Horror construct Twiceborn leads an army of undead from Parlainth to the destroyed city of Vivane. Once there she has them form into work parties and begin repairing the city.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Starfinder}}'' the airless planet Eox is primarily inhabited by undead, one of their primary methods for maintaining their population is offering reanimation contracts to the living of other worlds. Either offering a lump sum for the right to reanimate them as mindless undead, or reanimation as sapient undead in exchange for a period of IndenturedServitude.

* In ''VideoGame/ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura'' the P. Shuyler and Sons jewelry company is built over an ancient dwarven burial ground and uses undead dwarves as manual labour.
* ''VideoGame/DeadRising4'': This is pretty much the reason Obscuris started the zombie outbreak in the first place in the hopes of training zombies for cheap labor and stabilize the economy. Frank, not surprisingly, thinks they're idiots after learning this.

* ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic'' IV has its Death campaign follow Gauldoth Half-Dead, an AntiVillain Necromancer who instead of the traditional {{Mordor}} tropes turns his realm into a prosperous, safe and generally peaceful nation for both its living and dead inhabitants by using mindless undead for labor.

* {{Inverted|Trope}} in the ''Wrath of the Lich King'' expansion of ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', where you see the necromancers and various undead forcing living slaves to mine the ore saronite. It's played straight in other areas of Icecrown, such as a mining operation near the Shadow Vault.

* Mentioned by Lorenda in ''Webcomic/DanAndMabsFurryAdventures'' that the undead were once mindless slaves, especially to demon clans. When Dark Pegasus tried to animate them into his personal army for a ZombieApocalypse, the undead gained sapience and personalities, and rebelled against their summoner. Lorenda further notes that many households simply destroyed their undead servants, since they couldn't be bothered to re-educate "ornamental furniture."

[[folder:Web Original]]
* The [[http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Millennial_King Millennial King]], a [[BadPowersGoodPeople benevolent]] [[TheNecrocracy necrocrat]] imagined by [[Website/FourChan /tg/,]] uses this as the foundation of the labour force. Mindless undead act as menial labour and reserve troops, leaving the living to enjoy skilled trades and the arts.

* Scruffy the Janitor is killed in one episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', but is seen again later with no explanation. In an even later episode he's mentioned to be a zombie.
-->'''Hermes:'''There'll be no promotions unless somebody dies. And, even then, only if we can bring 'em back as a zombie like Scruffy.\\

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLifeAndTimesOfJuniperLee'' had a mummy named Skeeter Khomeingeit raising zombies so he can use them as a work force for his fast food chains in his debut episode.

* Gecko Moria of ''Manga/OnePiece'' had this thought process of the Thriller Bark pirates. Since zombies FeelNoPain, they'd make for great workers and combatants since they can't be put down...well least as long as no one has salt on them. [[spoiler:A more personal reason is because he won't be attached to them since a previous crew he was in were killed by Kaido.]]

* In Creator/GrantMorrison's ''ComicBook/SevenSoldiers'', the underground Limbo Town do not bury their dead but instead turn them into laborers in their fields.

* One ''ComicBook/{{Hellboy}}'' gag comic shows that the skeletons, skulls and random bones that are an integral part of every Hellboy comic are actually animated and closer to the ClassicallyTrainedExtra trope (one of them mentions getting to play [[AlasPoorYorick Yorick's skull]]).

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]

* The classic Film/HammerHorror ''Film/ThePlagueOfTheZombies'' features zombies being set to work in an abandoned [[AliensInCardiff Cornish]] tin mine. (The film was made in 1966, so they were of the VoodooZombie type, despite having the appearance of rotting corpses that later fiction preferred.)

* In ''Literature/WitchesAbroad'', Mrs. Gogol refutes the misconception that voodoo priestesses like herself use {{Voodoo Zombie}}s, which is as untrue a rumor as dancin' naked and sticking pins in people is for the Lancrastrian witches. But, she admits, sometimes... just one zombie. When the house needs repainting.
* ''Literature/{{Everworld}}'': Hel is using skeletons to dig into Niddhog's lair and steal his treasure. They really are automatons, so when the heroes run into them, the skeletons basically dig at them instead of fighting.

* The backstory of ''Literature/IKissedAZombieAndILikedIt'' explains that vampires had to break TheMasquerade in order to get Wal-Mart to stop using zombies as unpaid warehouse labour. Zombies in this setting are as intelligent and aware as ordinary humans if well-maintained, so this is literally slavery.
* The eponymous secret division of British Intelligence in ''Literature/TheLaundryFiles'' often uses a contract clause to relegate employees that suffer fatal on-the-job accidents (of which there is no dearth) to [[HumanResources "Residual Human Resources"]] status and reanimates them as zombies for the purpose of both manual and white-collar labor. [[TakeThat Apparently some zombies make better paper-shufflers or security guards than actual living people]].
* The [[MageSpecies Sartan]] {{necromancer}}s of [[LethalLavaLand Abarrach]] in ''Literature/TheDeathGateCycle'' reanimate ''all'' their dead, and set most of them to work at whatever tasks they performed in life (with living necromancers to supervise, as the dead can reproduce learned skills but not adapt well to changing circumstances, and as such will often end up mindlessly repeating whatever they were last doing to no effect without someone to babysit them). They also maintain an [[NightOfTheLivingMooks army of the dead]].
* In Creator/ClarkAshtonSmith's works:
** The short story "Necromancy in Naat" has a trio of wizards oversee an island estate with the reanimated bodies of shipwreck victims. Unusually for the trope, when the necromancers die, the partially self-aware undead are [[DiedHappilyEverAfter happy]] to keep running the place for themselves, and the hero and his lover get to be TogetherInDeath with "a shadowy love and a dim contentment."
** In ''The Double Shadow'' Avyctes uses mummies and liches as his domestic staff.
** Two necromancers reanimate an entire city to serve them in ''Empire of the Necromancers''. The undead don't like it.

* ''Literature/TheLockedTomb'': Skeletal servitors are common, especially in the Ninth House, which prides itself on its bone constructs. Animated skeletons do all the work in the Ninth House, from planting to harvesting to cleaning. This is a good thing, considering there are a [[DyingTown grand total of three people on the planet under the age of fifty]]. In ''Literature/GideonTheNinth'', Harrow is rather put out when she reaches the First House and discovers it's filled with skeletal servitors far more advanced and responsive than anything she could ever come up with. [[spoiler:Turns out that rather than being mindless programmed constructs, they're actually human souls bound to their own bones. Harrow considers this cheating]].
* ''Literature/ReignOfTheSevenSpellblades'': Zombie labor used to be very common in mage civilization, but necromancers had to spend a lot of time consoling the spirits of the dead (mainly through MagicMusic). Above a certain quantity, this tended to become logistically impractical, leading to ZombieApocalypse scenarios called "maelstroms" that are compared to entire towns being [[MagicMisfire consumed by the spell]]. This is what happened to the Parsu {{precursor}} civilization who originally built the labyrinth under Kimberly Magic Academy; recurring character Cyrus Rivermoore is one of their descendants and is working to recover their lost necromantic arts.

* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}''
** In the ''TabletopGame/GURPSTechnomancer'' setting, featuring magic coming into the world in the mid 20th century, some places have a [[LongerThanLifeSentence potential criminal sentence of "Death plus hard labor"]].
** In the Abydos supplement for ''TabletopGame/{{Banestorm}}'', the eponymous city of necromancers uses zombies for work--including [[KarmicDeath executing murderers with the reanimated corpses of their victims]]. Slightly deconstructed, as the health hazards of having numerous walking corpses as a part of daily life is discussed.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Earthdawn}}'' supplement ''Barsaive in Chaos''. The undead Horror construct Twiceborn leads an army of undead from Parlainth to the destroyed city of Vivane. Once there she has them form into work parties and begin repairing the city.

* In ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', the plane of Amonkhet is a place where ''everything'' becomes undead after death. This has been exploited to create a reliable workforce for the only place inhabited by the living on the plane. These Anointed are [[spoiler:those who died without fulfilling the Trials]] made into obedient workers via enchanted cartouches. While the mortals spend their lives training to fulfill the Trials, the Anointed tirelessly handle everything needed to maintain the city. Most of the Gatewatch find the whole thing unnerving, though the necromancer Liliana is rather impressed. There's an amusing bit where they are startled when one of the Anointed immediately enters their room at an inn carrying a tray laden with bread and ale when Chandra mentions "breakfast". Come ''Hour of Devestation'', they just keep doing the tasks that the cartouches are programmed with in the midst of the destruction.
* ''TabletopGame/TheSpoils'' features many undead menials. Referred to as "necromorphs," they mostly turn up in the Banker trade. They represent individuals who died in enough debt that resurrecting them as forced labor was profitable. Amusingly, Necromorphs are used not just for physical labor, but also for essential tasks that the living find interminably boring. This being ''The Spoils,'' this is alternatingly played for laughs (a long line of bureaucratic undead used to handle routine customer transactions is likened to an automated phone system, with the customer asking to, "Please speak to a ''living'' person.") and horror (A freshly wakened necromorph realizing that it took him 10 years to pay off the first 10% of what he owes.).
* Common for necromancers in ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'', especially for the Deathlords, some of whom has thousands of them. The Deathlord known as The Bodhisattva Anointed by Dark Waters has the citizens of the Skullstone Archipelago use them as part of the religion he created.

* The Scourge faction in ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} III'' is entirely comprised of different types of TheUndead, so it is an example of both TheNecrocracy and this trope, as their basic worker units are ghouls that are only good for harvesting lumber.
* Inverted in the ''Wrath of the Lich King'' expansion of ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', where you see the necromancers and various undead forcing living slaves to mine the ore saronite. It's played straight in other areas of Icecrown, such as a mining operation near the Shadow Vault.

* In ''VideoGame/KultHereticKingdoms'', a lot of these were created when [[{{Necromancer}} necromancy]] was legal, and even though no more are being made, they're still around. Corralling idle zombie workers from abandoned mines and suchlike for resale is a valid way to earn a living.
* ''VideoGame/{{Dominions}}'' has this as an element of the nation of Sceleria, and playing a key backstory part in the Scelerian successor nation of Lemuria. In the Middle Age, Sceleria's Thaumaturgs took up raising undead to supplement its living legions in the fight against the undead hordes of Ermor (which Sceleria splintered from in the disaster that transformed Ermor), with cheap menial labour being a secondary effect. When the combined desperate efforts of several nations managed to destroy Ermor, the Thaumaturgs (feeling that undead guardians were no longer needed) turned to other pursuits, leading to unrest as they were accused of abandoning the common people for their own gain with people having gotten used to cheap undead labour, so the Thaumaturgs decided to end the matter by creating a permanent Underworld portal so the dead could cross over of their own accord. [[GoneHorriblyWrong This is the reason]] why the Late Age has the ghost realm of Lemuria instead of a human Scelerian empire.
* ''VideoGame/DeadRising4'': This is pretty much the reason Obscuris started the zombie outbreak in the first place in the hopes of training zombies for cheap labor and stabilize the economy. Frank, not surprisingly, thinks they're idiots after learning this.
* ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic'' IV has its Death campaign follow Gauldoth Half-Dead, an AntiVillain Necromancer who instead of the traditional {{Mordor}} tropes turns his realm into a prosperous, safe and generally peaceful nation for both its living and dead inhabitants by using mindless undead for labor.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Koudelka}}'', this is a major plot point: [[spoiler:It's revealed that every attempt to use the [[TomeOfEldritchLore Émigré Manuscript]] to [[BackFromTheDead bring back the dead to the living world]] will be [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption doomed to fail]] because the Formors who created the tome could never "unravel the secrets of the soul". As such, they could not restore the dead as they were in life and simply brought them back as mindless corpses to be used in slave labour]].

* In ''VideoGame/GraveyardKeeper'', you can technically do all the jobs yourself, but that takes time. So why not reanimate the dead and use them as mindless labor?
* ''VideoGame/SuperLesbianAnimalRPG'': The backstory to the town of Mumford, where legions of zombies and mummies suddenly found themselves awake with no memories of their lives prior to said moment. When Melody and crew dig into it, they discover that the town's population had been resurrected to work on mining cryptocurrency for eternity. They eluded their fate, but the supercomputer that managed operations is still functional, and hopes to get them back to work soon.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Unsounded}}'', zombies are called 'plods' and commonly used as cheap labor, though care must be taken with them since they have a zombie's usual HorrorHunger. Duane, one of the protagonists, is unusual in the fact that he is actually a revenant rather than a zombie, keeping his mind and magic skills. [[spoiler:We later see that he reverts to the state of a plod at night, and the consequences of Sette not keeping control of him during that time.]]
* In ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'', the heroes force Zombie Head On a Stick to do mundane tasks for them like pick up an object five feel away. Interestingly, before becoming Zombie Head On a Stick, Jane was an intelligent (albeit evil and insane) zombie that worked in a fast food zombie-themed restaurant of her own free will. The heroes are able to change her personality and make her a prop they can use for stuff by starving her of flesh.

* The [[http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Millennial_King Millennial King]], a [[BadPowersGoodPeople benevolent]] [[TheNecrocracy necrocrat]] imagined by [[Website/FourChan /tg/,]] uses this as the foundation of the labour force. Mindless undead act as menial labour and reserve troops, leaving the living to enjoy skilled trades and the arts.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLifeAndTimesOfJuniperLee'' had a mummy named Skeeter Khomeingeit raising zombies so he can use them as a work force for his fast food chains in his debut episode.
* Scruffy the Janitor is killed in one episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', but is seen again later with no explanation. In an even later episode he's mentioned to be a zombie.
-->'''Hermes:'''There'll be no promotions unless somebody dies. And, even then, only if we can bring 'em back as a zombie like Scruffy.\\
'''Scruffy:''' Life and death are a seamless continuum.

* ''VideoGame/SuperLesbianAnimalRPG'': The backstory to the town of Mumford, where legions of zombies and mummies suddenly found themselves awake with no memories of their lives prior to said moment. When Melody and crew dig into it, they discover that the town's population had been resurrected to work on mining cryptocurrency for their lives. They managed to elude their fate, but the supercomputer that managed operations is still functional, and hopes to get them back to work soon.

* In ''[[VideoGame/GraveyardKeeper]]'', you can technically do all the jobs yourself, but that takes time. So why not reanimate the dead and use them as mindless labor?

* in ''VideoGame/{{Koudelka}}'', this is a major plot point: [[spoiler:It's revealed that every attempt to use the [[TomeOfEldritchLore Émigré Manuscript]] to [[BackFromTheDead bring back the dead to the living world]] will be [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption doomed to fail]] because the Formors who created the tome could never "unravel the secrets of the soul". As such, they could not restore the dead as they were in life and simply brought them back as mindless corpses to be used in slave labour]].

* ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'': [[TabletopGame/{{Planescape}} Dustmen faction]] employs undead workers.
** The Mortuary is a starting and otherwise significant location for the protagonist, what's with his ability to come to after dying, and an apparent history of the latter. The facility itself has only a handful of people between many mindless zombie workers and skeleton guards on site.
** In the city, several Dustmen offer people "contracts", essentially buying out rights for the person's corpse (when it becomes available) with a one-time payment in gold. They won't offer a contract if aware of protagonist immortality. Their tenets have reaching True Death as life's goal, and so making use of the body doesn't hurt anyone.
** A SideQuest is available, in which a citizen is upset by perspective of his body becoming a puppet in Dustmen hands now that he's had the stupidity to make a contract.
** A zombie serves as a direction marker near an inn in Sigil. It is written on, vandalized, but nonetheless works enchanted to point a lifeless arm in the direction of places, names of which player character says out loud.

* Gecko Moria of ''Manga/OnePiece'' had this thought process of the Thriller Bark pirates. Since zombies FeelNoPain, they'd make for great workers and combatants since they can't be put down...well least as long as no one as salt on them. [[spoiler:A more personal reason is because he won't be attached to them since a previous crew he was in were killed by Kaido.]]

* Gecko Moria of ''Manga/OnePiece'' had this thought process of the Thriller Bark pirates. Since zombies FeelNoPain, they'd make for great workers and combatants since they can't be put down...well least as long as no one as salt on them. [[spoiler: A more personal reason is because he won't be attached to them since a previous crew he was in were killed by Kaido.]]

[[folder:Other Sites]]
* In ''Website/SCPFoundation'', [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1700 SCP-1700 ("Debtshop")]] is an anomalous textile factory that reanimate people who died while wearing their scarves. The zombies created by SCP-1700 are forced to act as slave labor, creating more of the SCP-1700-A (magical yellow scarves) that animated them.
* The [[http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Millennial_King Millennial King]], a [[BadPowersGoodPeople benevolent]] [[TheNecrocracy necrocrat]] imagined by [[Website/FourChan /tg/,]] uses this as the foundation of the labour force. Mindless undead act as menial labour and reserve troops, leaving the living to enjoy skilled trades and the arts.
[[/folder]]

* in ''VideoGame/{{Koudelka}}'', this is a major plot point: [[spoiler: It's revealed that every attempt to use the [[TomeOfEldritchLore Émigré Manuscript]] to [[BackFromTheDead bring back the dead to the living world]] will be [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption doomed to fail]] because the Formors who created the tome could never "unravel the secrets of the soul". As such, they could not restore the dead as they were in life and simply brought them back as mindless corpses to be used in slave labour]].

* In ''Webcomic/{{Unsounded}}'', zombies are called 'plods' and commonly used as cheap labor, though care must be taken with them since they have a zombie's usual HorrorHunger. Duane, one of the protagonists, is unusual in the fact that he is actually a revenant rather than a zombie, keeping his mind and magic skills. [[spoiler: We later see that he reverts to the state of a plod at night, and the consequences of Sette not keeping control of him during that time.]]

'''Scruffy''': Life and death are a seamless continuum.

* Scruffy the Janitor is killed in one episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', and in a later episode is mentioned to be a zombie.