Non-corporeal
Non-corporeal refers to creatures that do not possess material substance in the physical plane. In the context of GemStone, it is usually in reference to various creature, often undead, which are insubstantial and possess only a spiritual or ghostly form. Coding-wise, the creature has no body parts that are corporeal and has several body parts which are specifically marked as non-corporeal. Creatures such as this have a number of factors that cause them to be different in combat than regular creatures. They cannot be killed by a standard melee critical injury, nor do they receive wounds from damage, and some types of attack are less effective or entirely ineffective at injuring them.
Two definitive characteristics of non-corporeal creatures is that (1) they can be affected by Phase (704), a sorcerer spell can be used to force a non-corporeal creature into physical form upon a successful warding roll, which then subjects the the creature to the normal limitations and weaknesses that corporeal creatures have; and (2) Kai's Smite, which is obtained at the twenty first step of the Order of Voln, will temporarily corporealize the creature (use the SMITE verb). These two characteristics differentiate non-corporeal creatures from creatures that have no body parts (e.g. elemental creatures), as the latter is not affected by Phase or Kai's Smite.
A vast majority of non-corporeal creatures will evaporate quickly after death, much faster than the usual natural creature decay, but that is a per-creature setting. These creatures are LOOT-able while they are in roundtime (either from their own actions or from another source), which continues even after they are killed, but at the end of which they will immediately evaporate.
Non-corporeal creatures have their own critical table which overrides the critical table for the attack type used on them. e.g. using an arrow will give results from the non-corporeal table rather than the puncture table. However, living non-corporeal creatures will not have the special messaging.
For the list of non-corporeal undead creatures, see the category page.
Additional Order of Voln Information
The Symbol of Transcendence will allow a character to step into the space between the corporeal and ethereal realms for 30 seconds. While in this state, characters will take damage as if they were a non-corporeal creature (obtained at the twelfth step).
The Symbol of Disruption will cause a character and all group members to be surrounded by a churning spectral aura. Any non-corporeal undead struck while under this symbol's effect will be dealt roundtime based on the critical rank of the attack and will suffer a temporary penalty to AS/DS/CS/TD/CMAN while disrupted (obtained at the twentieth step).
Additional Sorcerer Information
Disintegrate (705) is particularly powerful when used against non-corporeal creatures, actually stronger than when normally used against corporeal creatures.
Non-corporeal creatures cannot be animated with Animate Dead (730).