The Undead

Death has always been a thing of fear and mystery to the people of the Known World. While most, if not all, faiths agree that there is life after death or that a person doesn’t simply cease after they die, they still debate on what actually happens after a person takes their last breath. For instance, the so-called Children of Aapo (Golden Church, Children of the Sun, Children of the Moon and Children of the Star) believe that the souls of the dead travel to a place beyond the material world and ultimately find themselves in Heaven or the Abyss. On the other hand, the followers of the Great Cycle (House of Seasons and the Road of Light) believe that one is reborn into a new body after the death of their previous one. Then, there are your animist religions that believe that souls and spirits are everywhere.

Despite what religions may say, the subject of death is always a difficult one. In Kithiya for instance, merely speaking of the dead is considered bad luck and is generally discouraged. In places like Xepico and Waldoria, death is an accepted reality of life and they deal with this through morbid jokes that usually disturb those who are unfamiliar with their culture. Most cultures though prefer to be positive with their views either way and like to think that people who “pass on” from their life are either rewarded for their good deeds or punished for their bad deeds.

Then you have undead. Ghosts. Zombies. Banshees. You name it.

In most cultures, those who should be dead but are somehow still moving around are considered abominations. They are things that simply should not be. A man should only be able to take so much pain. A woman shouldn’t be able to move after she stops breathinging. The list goes on.

But through dark rituals the dead can be forced to stay in the material world. This is called “necromancy” and is a blasphemous act that can get one into lots of trouble. While undead are considered to be evil or at least dangerous, not all are as there are a few benign ones here and there. Unfortunately, it is never good for any dead being to remain in the material world as their immortality, their inability to affect anything and their other limitations will certainly damage or destroy their sanity. That is why most religions, especially that of the Golden Church, encourage purifying said spirits so that they can move on to another phase of existence.

Undead are rarely tolerated and, in more civilized parts of the Confederate Islands, the general response to undead activity is purify or destroy. That said, there are some undead that are tolerated in some places, especially those that prove useful and are not intelligent enough to be considered sapient. However, these undead and the necromancers that created them are closely guarded and watched by clergymen and such beings are often destroyed right after they are used to avoid further problems.

There are many rumors that both the Xenjese Commonwealth and Zorali Magocracy incorporate necromancy in their military technology though there is very little convincing proof of this. Be that as it may, both nations have been known to engage in unethical activities to gain an advantage over their rivals, namely each other and the Confederate Islands. When one thinks about the slavery that is commonplace in Xenji and the genocide that seems like a requirement in Zoral, necromancy seems like a petty crime.

History

The undead have been around since people first learned the art of necromancy. However, even in those early days, necromancy was shunned for the innate danger it posed. Only a few were allowed to practice necromancy and those who were irresponsible in its use were immediately put to death by the kings and queens of that age.

The first act of necromancy to be recorded was committed by King Eleazar of Pelmos who reanimated his wife when he couldn’t accept her loss. Unfortunately, due to being a very inept necromancer, the king only turned his wife into a zombie who quickly attacked and killed him. It has been a cautionary tale of not tampering with unknown forces for millennia.

Another infamous act of necromancy was said to be enacted by Queen Ahaz of Surdalia who, in a fit of rage against her husband, reanimated a small army of zombies to attack him. Again, being a largely inept necromancer, the zombies immediately turned on the queen after they had devoured her husband. Yet another cautionary tale about necromancy.

The first true necromancer to use his powers for ill purposes was Cain of the Wastes in Valmoren. In order to challenge King Samson, he raised legions of wights to attack the capital which was razed to the ground in the course of a week. Luckily, King Samson knew another necromancer, Niobe who called upon the ghosts of the dead to aid the living in their fight against Cain’s sorcery. It took King Samson and Niobe over three years to just reclaim the capital from the undead but, with the help of clergymen and devoted followers of the Redeemer, the wights were destroyed. This came at the cost of Niobe’s life and King Samson’s sight and right arm. Cain was ultimately slain by a group of warriors who simply buried him unceremoniously with the corpses he reanimated.

Another notable undead to pop up in history is Prince Vladimir of Varelac in the Dark Isles. Unlike most examples here, the prince chose to become a vampire to protect his country from foreign invaders. Unfortunately, while he did manage to fight off his enemies and protect Varelac, his transformation turned him into a true monster. His need for blood became so terrible that his own grandchildren came to fear him which eventually drove Prince Vladimir to suicide by exposing himself to sunlight.

Then there is Countess Emerald of Selvakar, another member of the modern Dark Isles, who was so obsessed with her wealth that she became a ghoul. She hid this well from the people of Selvakar and was said to wander out into the night in order to devour young maidens. Even before she became undead, Countess Emerald was already well known for her sadism towards the peasantry and the common folk. She would put people, including and especially children, in prison for flimsy claims and slowly starve them to death. It was only when the people finally had had enough of her cruelty that they rose up and rebelled against her. Aided by Duchess Kezia, another noblewoman of Selvakar, they laid siege to her castle and, upon breaking into her quarters, learned just what an abomination she had become. It was said that Duchess Kezia was so disgusted with her that she condemned Countess Emerald to the same fate as her victims: death by starvation. After her death, Countess Emerald’s body was burnt to ash to ensure that she would never rise again.

On a more positive note, probably one of the rare few, King Jung of Dorul was once distraught over how he should deal with the Pearl Bandits, the pirates who terrorized the waters of his country in days of old. He feared trusting foreigners because he always thought they were invaders or would betray him at the slightest opportunities. Unfortunately, due to inaction, many common sailors like fishermen and merchants fell victim to the Pearl Bandits leading to bankruptcy, misery and death. However, one night, he was visited in his dreams by the ghost of his grandmother who told him that there was no harm in trusting others so long as one remained vigilant. And so it was that King Jung came to realize his folly and has focused on diplomacy with neighboring island-countries to ensure the safety and prosperity of Dorul. However, that was the last King Jung heard of his grandmother and wept often for her until he died. On his deathbed, his last word was a happy greeting of “grandmother!”.

In the 1400s, there is of course Admiral Donato Sebastian, one of the most feared undead. Being an “archlich” instead of simply just a lich, there are few things that can truly match both his physical and magical power. Only holy relics of great significance can ever hope to slow him down and only the most senior and determined of clerics can hurt him. It was said that he became an archlich after performing a profane ritual he learned from the Gravelands. To become immortal and gain god-like power, it was said he sacrificed his own wife and unborn child in the ritual to become the undead horror he is now. Since becoming undead, he has prowled the Thessonia for centuries, attacking Xenjese and Zorali ships while corrupting the good citizens of the Confederate Islands.

When the Xenjese Commonwealth first came into being during the early 1600s, the Xensjese transformed the corpse of their founder of their island-country into a revenant, a rare and powerful form of undead. The Xenjese wanted a leader who would lead them against Zoral and the Confederate Islands and, to achieve this, the Commonwealth hired necromancers from all over Thessonia to build the abomination. However, one of the necromancers in the group still had a conscience and deliberately sabotaged the effort in recreating the old pirate. Instead of getting a leader that would lead them in glorious conquest, the Xenjese ended up with a mindless monster that destroyed a number of their cities and then died an explosive death three days later that took out a small province.

Then, in as far back as just a few decades ago, Cain of the Wastes rose again as a lich and attempted to destroy Valmoren with the greatest horde of ghosts, zombies, phantoms and wights to ever be seen. Luckily, the Confederal Military responded almost immediately, managing to drive back the undead before they could cause significant damage. In the end, Cain of the Wastes was slain by two preachers (one from the Golden Church and the other a child of the sun), a team of young wizards and several shots from multiple mortars. This time, the body of Cain was burnt to ash to prevent his return.  

Nature

While not all undead are evil, remaining in the material world is ill-advised for them. It is always better for them to move on to their next phase of existence rather than stay in the material world. Watching their loved ones grow old and die, their inability to affect anything and the total lack of feeling will eventually drive them to madness, sometimes making them outright hostile to the living.

There are mainly two categories of undead: corporeal and incorporeal. Corporeal undead are those that still have physical bodies like skeletons, zombies and wights. Incorporeal undead include wraiths, ghosts and phantoms which are reduced to being fleshless spirits. The general rule with undead is that, if they have bodies, they are likely to be mindless and dumb and those that don’t are still fully capable of rational thought and reasoning. Then there are those undead that are both such as revenants, liches and archliches which are some of the most dangerous types of undead.

Point of Origin

Undead are reanimated through necromancy. They are usually fleshless spirits bound to the material world. Then there are those rare undead that are called forth from the place between the material world and the hereafter such as phantoms.

Types of Undead

There are actually many types of undead but these are by far the most notable ones:

GEIST: Neither true ghosts nor undead, geists are just the psychic or spiritual imprint of people. They have less to do with actual dead people and are more like memories or ideas of said people. Physical weapons like swords or guns will never harm geists and will just pass through them harmlessly. Natural weapons like fists or teeth will hurt them however as it is the idea of damaging them that actually works.

SKELETON: Walking piles of bones. Generally dumb but, in enough numbers, can be a real problem. Their natural weapons like teeth, claws or tusks are usually rotted and can only harm the living with their fists, feet or weapons they can pick up.

WRAITH: Spirits or souls with little to no memory of who they are. They are usually harmful and will often try to suck the energy out of the living to sustain themselves. Appear as grey or black rags or wisps of smoke that form a vague humanoid shape.

ZOMBIE: Walking dead with flesh on them.

GHOST: Souls of people trapped in the material world.

WIGHT: Intelligent zombies that can turn the living into the latter.

PHANTOM: Souls of people summoned from the border between the material world and beyond.

REVENANT: An undead with a complete mind and an extremely strong and durable body.

LICH: An undead magician that is extremely hard to kill thanks to their phylactery.

ARCHLICH: A combination of a revenant and lich, combining raw physical power and magical mastery, making them the most dangerous form of undead.

ASWANG: Usually only found in Pyril, aswang can appear human by day but are slavering undead monsters by night. After dusk, they detach part of their bodies to hunt for the flesh of the living, though their favorite is that of unborn fetuses. The two types of aswang are the manananggal whcih detach at the waist and the penenggalen which separate at the neck. They are almost always hostile to the living.

TIYANAK: Again, usually only found in Pyril, these are undead children that have powerful illusion magic. They usually disguise themselves as babies, toddlers or any older child and attract victims with their cries. They usually reveal themselves when their prey is close enough or until a person carries them to a settlement where they can wreak havoc.

Weaknesses

GARLIC: As a general rule of thumb, nearly all undead are repulsed by garlic.

HOLY SYMBOLS: Also, most undead, especially those that are hostile to the living, are afraid of religious symbols.

RED: Incorporeal undead usually can’t cross a barrier that is colored red such as a wall that is painted red.