Wandering Necromancers and the City of the Dead

A History of Death

Necromancers have been around for a very long time. Almost as long as death itself. They are older than humans, and older than most of the gods. The very first necromancers arose from a race long forgotten, back when words had real power. Back when death was knew, and even more frightening than it is today.

Once upon a time, a young child asked their mother to get up. They sobbed as dirt fell, covering her corpse until it was six feet underground.

But as I said, words had power. The mother's body heard her child, even if the soul had long since departed. She dug her way up before nature even knew what was wrong.

Thus began the necromancers. Kings eternal over kingdoms undying.

Wanderers
Nowadays, most necromancers are Wanderers. You do get the odd extra-antisocial manic who wants to live in a dungeon and conquer the lands of the living, but they don't last long. Sometimes they starve to death, or their focus lapses and their creations eat them. Anything can happen.

There are also sometimes pirates or priests, but they're a different thing altogether. 

Gryphon, 'Necromancer'

  Wanderers, although despised, looked down on, and ridiculed by many, are an integral and valuable part of society. Like retail workers, if they could run an entire store with the corpses of your ancestors and sheer force of will.

Necromancers, in those places out of the eye of the True God, or simply willing to bend some rules, provide labour, defence, or even entertainment, for a fee. Many of the more selfless ones even forgo the cost, doing good deeds for free.

The typical life of a Wanderer follows a simple pattern: Get to town with a group of undead, reanimate as many more as possible, work for a few weeks, get kicked out, repeat.

Of course, they often move on simply because the pay wasn't good, or because they got bored, but mages are notorious drama queens.

All schools of wizardry have a negative emotion that they suffer increasing amounts of, simply from casting their spells. Necromancers are lonely. They have the power at their fingertips to raise armies, bring the dead (partially) back, and turn enemies into friends, but they are lonely.

It's an ironic hell that they live in.

Most small towns were built by Wanderers, or at least started by them. When settlers came, the Wanderers paved the way. They built the first houses in the mountains, and gave the order to drag their own limp, dehydrated bodies across deserts to found sugar plantations.

Wanderers have a strained relationship with the Church of the True God. The Church's inclination to kill all necromancers other than themselves is conflicted with their desire to make life better for themselves and, to a lesser extent, their followers.

With the common folk, Wanderers are treated as an unpleasant necessity. Some towns are more welcoming than others, but the general respond to a Wanderer is 'here's some cash, do the job, and get out.'

Necromancers and ghouls generally fight, as both of them view corpses as a precious commodity. Both of them together, however, will often make a great team.

 redpencilart, 'Bonecarver' 

Necromancy. What is it?

Now: Necromancy is defined as:

Necromancy (/ˈnɛkrəˌmænsi, -roʊ-/^[1][2]) is a supposed practice of magic involving communication with the deceased – either by summoning their spirit as an apparition or raising them bodily – for the purpose of divination, imparting the means to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge, to bring someone back from the dead, or to use the deceased as a weapon, as the term may sometimes be used in a more general sense to refer to black magic or witchcraft.^[3][4]

 Now, for today, we're focusing on the 'Bodily part. The core of what a necromancer does. Turning a useless old sack of meat and stink into a helpful old sack of meat and stink. Sometimes this is slow, sometimes this is fast. Sometimes you need to call up the spirit of a fallen warrior to posses the body, sometimes you just need to tell the muscles that to do. It all depends.

In addition, the types of undead are exceedingly varied. You've got your typical zombies, skeletons, crawling claws... but then you have odder things. Skin kites, nailmen, organ-snakes... the list goes on. A sufficiently experienced necromancer should be able to make four or five functional undead from a single body.

Necromancy, at it's heart, is a complicated process. Everyone approaches it differently, and listing all the different methods possible is too large a project for this post.

 Yuriy Chemezov, 'Night lamp gone dark' 

The City of the Dead 

The City of the Dead is not quite a city. It's a library. Countless rooms, towers, and basements, each filled to the brim with books. It was made over the course of nearly a thousand years, and tended to by an army of undead. Although anyone is allowed to peruse it's endless halls, necromancers are the most frequent patrons.

It is guarded by the same army that cleans it, organizes the shelves, and carries candles for any mortal who wishes to read. The entire place is protected by wards, preventing fires, water, or removal of books.

Mages, the curious, and any who would add to the library's defences or knowledge are welcomed with open arms. No one owns the library, and nobody knows who originally created it, but it protects itself. It has endured the rise and fall of many empires, and catalogued them all.

Some mages have made their homes there, nestled in the crooks and crannies of shelves, seeking out the secrets of immortality, death, and ultimate power within the books. They are most often necromancers, as they can send their servants to fetch food and drink from the outside world.

Ghosts often frequent the halls, often simply to read, wiling away their afterlife on the pursuit of knowledge.

 Faith, 'Ghost girl in abandoned library'

The Children's Crusade

Four hundred years ago, the Children's crusade began, starting 'the Year of Nightmares.'

Like all the best wars, it started with romance. Babies started disappearing, vanished from their cribs in the middle of the night. Here and there, it happened at least once in each town. People began panicking, and couldn't find what was wrong, who was taking their children. Ghouls had taken them before, here and there, but it was rare. Mass kidnapping like this simply didn't happen.

The thieving of babies died down in a year or so, and people began to forget. All was quiet for about a decade, and then reports starting coming in from the east. Reports of monster children...

Ryan Yee, 'Blood Bairn' 

Investigations were sent, adventurers and soldier to investigate. The ones who managed to return spoke of fields of blood, with not a corpse in sight. The source became clear, and the dots were connected. The monster children were ghouls. But for what purpose was not known...

Ghoul children were an oddity. They did exist. They had to. But, they were rarely seen. They looked more human than their parents, unless they were feeding. They were generally cared for by their parents until they were old enough to strike out on their own. They rarely survived long on their own. Superhuman strength + a thirst for flesh + the emotions of a 10 year-old do not lead one to be very subtle.

Randis Albion, 'Spoiled' 

But not now. Adult ghouls had simply... vanished. Even those who had been outed, and lived off of corpses in relatively peaceful lives had disappeared.

An army was raised. Hundreds of knights on horseback rode out to face to coming horde. They stood, tall, proud, and only slightly shitting themselves as nearly a half-thousand blood-soaked children ran faster than any man up the hill to meet them. 

Photographer, 'Vampire Child' 

The knights had an advantage besides their superior weaponry and training. The ghouls, although hungry, were still children. The knights were large. When one of them was downed, he or she was swarmed, and devoured in less than a minute. The children, sated and no longer in a frenzy, would flee the battle. 

Some escaped. Most died. Just like that, the children's crusade was over. The mystery of where the adults went was never solved. The children were scared and confused. They told tales of waking alone in the night, watched by an enormous snake. They spoke of men made of blood, a grinning skull, and a field of corpses stretching from horizon to horizon. Blood-coloured skies flashing with red lightning, and stick-thin beasts striding through deserts of glass.

Several ghoul children were captured, and raised by an order of knights who paid homage to Gothos. They formed an elite crew of warriors known simply as 'the Crusaders' paying homage to the war they fought so long ago, for reasons they will never fully understand.

Darek Zabrocki, 'Twins of Maurer Estate.'

 STEALING SECTION

How Can I Use This? If you want to use to Children's crusade, here are some ideas for adapting it to your world or game: 

1. If you aren't using ghouls or something similar, try vampires. If you want to go for a terrifying mystery, make the ghouls into perfectly normal children, who suddenly grew unearthly strong and developed a taste for human flesh.

2. If you are playing an RPG, why not have the players take part in the groups of knights fighting in the crusade? Or, they could play the poor sods having to escort the captured child-ghouls to their new home, or even take care of them afterward. A ghoul PC could be the survivor of the children's crusade. If you want to get really weird, have the PCs play ghoul children leading up to the crusade itself.

An explanation: I'm sorry about my long absence from writing this blog, I've been very busy with writing, designing version 2 of Lint, and personal matters. I'll try and update it more frequently, and a guest author may make a post or two in the following months. Stay tuned!

The Not-Mice

They live in the dark cupboards, the cracks between the walls, and under your bed. They eat your food, and you don't see them. Your cat dies after catching a mouse, and you never suspect it might have been poisoned.

Your children complain of small hands skittering over them at night, and you dismiss it as the foolish thoughts of a child.

They come for you in the middle of the night, with poisoned needles and feral grins, and you finally believe.

 

Cinderella 1950, courtesy of Disney

"No! It's my turn to stab them!"

Nobody knows where the not-mice game from, nobody knows what they want. Anyone who tries to determine their inscrutable goals is found dead soon after.

They are susceptible to the same weaknesses as normal mice, but are far more cunning. Your cat may need to have a protective spell cast on it. They must see you eat the cheese you poisoned before they trust it. Mousetraps must be cleverly disguised.

They are evil and cunning incarnate.

Embraced and Vihe

Three hundred years ago, a colony of miners vanished off the face of the earth.

Their superiors chalked it up as a tunnel collapse, and sent more men in. They vanished as well.

A third time they sent men in, and they too vanished. The project was abandoned, the mines considered cursed, and the tunnels sealed. Everyone forgot about the incident.

But, a decade later, people in a nearby town swore they began to hear knocking underground, in their basements, in their homes. The sound of digging, and yelling down below. As though the miners were still alive and sane, ten years after being buried.

Priests were called, priests of the True god to perform exorcisms, priests of Gothos to set the angry dead to rest, and even a priest of the Drowned god was contacted, in an attempt to flood the mine. But nothing worked. All who tried to go down disappeared, and all who stayed on the surface were useless.

On night, a pickax, rotten and rusted, burst through the town's square.

People saw friends, family, all the lost miners, flood from the hole, along with everyone else who had ventured into the caverns. They were warped, changed, and disfigured. Fungus-like growths crept from their eyes, their spines, and their orifices. The guardsmen readied arms against their once-friends, their once-family, prepared for battle.

But the fight never came.

EmphasisMine, Clicker Nouveau 
Like this, with eyes

 

The humans faced their fungal opponents with weapons drawn and faces grim, and were assaulted with smiles of recognition and laughter, as they were overwhelmed. Still, they prepared themselves for death as the guards were grabbed and restrained.

But the fungal being's intentions were not to kill, but to hug.

After much screaming and crying, with the fungal beings attempting to comfort their long-lost friends and family, they were given a chance to explain.

CoconutMilkyway, 'Fungus people'

They called themselves 'the Embraced.' They spoke of an enormous cavern, full of luminescent mushrooms and strange creatures, far beneath the earth. And living in the middle of that cavern was a mass of fungus, spraying spores in every which way.

The fungus spoke to them, apologizing, saying it regretting luring them down here. But, it was lonely, and wanted company. It needed someone to be it's companion.

Lots were drawn, and a young girl, one made the equivalent of a slave for the other miners, was thrust forward, crying and screaming. She was drawn into the fungal mass, gently, but with enormous force.

The effect was immediate. The fungus's entire personality changed, becoming childlike, friendly, and very curious. It was now a near-perfect copy of the young girl. It introduced itself as 'Vihe.'

It spoke to the miners. The Embraced refused to speak of it's exact words, but what is known is that by the end of it's speech, each and every one of the miners walked willingly, with no magical coercion or threatening, into the fungus.

But instead of being absorbed, they were changed. Spores implanted in their bodies, in their brains, and took hold. Each of them had the mind of this new being riding backseat, speaking to them.

They could speak to each other, to the fungus around them, and were connected to the world. They wept with happiness, for they knew this was where they belonged in life.

And so, the first of the Embraced were born.

Jason Levesque, 'Musroom Girl', found on google images

It took over a century for the world to get over their presence. They were effectively telepathic plant-people, all connected to a hive mind being controlled by a seven-year-old. It was hard to get used to.

Many empires and cities wanted them as soldiers. They were big, strong, could speak silently, and had the confidence of a youth. They were convicted by nobles, experimented on by mages, and shunned by the common folk. But they continued on their way in the world, the same as anyone else. They became fishermen, bartenders, farmers, and tradesmen. And they took the downtrodden, beggars, serfs, slaves, and sent them in Vihe's direction.

And so, over decades, the Embraced ranks grew, and grew, and grew further still. Their numbers are still small, and so little of them actually wield any real power, but they are all family.

Many noble families have made it a crime punishable by disowning to become an Embraced.

artfulshrapnel, 'Fungal Zombies'

Vihe still resides in her underground cavern, beneath that nameless town. She is visited by all who are willing to give up their identity in order to become something more. Something that many think is better.

Although Embraced can be (and often are) sad, they are never depressed or crushed enough to commit suicide. If Vihe had been almost anyone else, the Embraced could never have been. But, due to a combination of single-mindedness, curiosity, and childlike joy, the Embraced are never sad for long. They see too much beauty in the world for anything to be really bad.

Embraced are universally curious, and optimistic. Vihe, if you get a chance to speak with her, is much the same, except in the body of a giant mushroom.

They eat food, like people. It's like a mushroom growing off of a living tree, or a baby inside a pregnant woman. It gets some of it's own nutrients, but it also draws a lot from the tree or person itself.

The Embraced fungus is a parasite of sorts. It can't actually survive on it's own (although that is not set in stone, I have some interesting ideas for fungus golems).

A starving Embraced might even be able to eat the fungus growing off of them, if they were really desperate. Most wouldn't try. They are a race of optimists, so most of them would just hold out the hope that they were getting help soon instead of tearing out chunks of hive-brain.

Otherwise, they would actually have to eat a bit more than a regular person, to account for both them and the fungus.

There has only been one time in history when the Embraced have rallied as a race, and not just as individuals. This was known as 'the Tide War.'

The Tide War
The Tide War began when a desert queen, now called Feena the foolish, decided the sight of Embraced was too much for her to bear, and the world would be better off without them. She rose an army, and set out to destroy Vihe.

The fungal goddess's response was quick, brutal, and final. Every Embraced, from all around the continent, mobilized. They set out, saying their goodbyes, and headed towards Vihe's cave. Many of them brought allies as well. Farmers brought beasts of war, merchants brought mercenaries, and city folk brought families.

The hired folk managed a proper assault on Feena's forces, but the attack of the Embraced was described as 'like the Tide.' Unstoppable. Men, women, and children hurling themselves soundlessly into their enemies, fighting until their bodies simply stopped working. Vihe had taken direct control of them, erasing all pain and fear from their minds.

Many protested her brutality, but not the surviving Embraced. they were silent on the matter, except to relay her words to any who asked.

"I had a choice. I could let Feena's army kill me, and then let the Embraced die off. Or, I could sacrifice a few willing Embraced to save us all. I do not like what I did, but I needed to do it."

Many have tried to argue, but she protects her belief with the stubbornness of a child. Her and the Embraced are alive, and to her, that is all that matters. Family.

 

Jessica Ward, 'Infected Closeup'

d20 Weird Whales

Whales are weird

Like, really really weird.

They are alien creatures, closer related to humans than to the fish they so resemble. They breath air but live in water. They have a single nostril on top of their heads that they seal off so they don't accidentally kill themselves while going about their daily business. They eat shrimp smaller than any part of their bodies. They sing underwater when they want to mate.

Hang onto your skirts, because whales are a whole lot weirder than that if you add magic into the mix.

But First, an Explanation
Hundreds of thousands of years ago, when the creatures of the world were being created, someone threw a pair of baby seals into an ocean, and that ocean just so happened to be a magical hotspot. Not much is known about exactly what happened to the seals, but suffice to say, it was dramatic, probably explosive, and created whales as we know them.

Continued exposure to the magic over thousands of years has warped whales, particularly whale oil, into a strange, magic-infused mess. Whale oil itself fetches oodles of money (oodles=1000 silver/ton, or 2000-3000 silver per whale).

Whale hunting is a common and dangerous profession. Those who practice it either make their fortune, or die trying.

Typical whale hunting gear involves nets, harpoons, and at least 1 mage.

Whales are bloody weird. Whenever you see a whale, roll on the following table.

What, you thought I would have a post about magic whales

and not include some way for them to fly?

Roll 1d20

1. The whale can fly at the same speed it can swim.
2. The whale can swim through land. Only land though, buildings will be crushed against it.
3. A permanent storm follows the whale, as strong as a hurricane.
4. The whale is over three times the size any self-respecting creature has the right to be.
5. The whale is godlike is size. Stats: good luck. At this point, you aren't picking a fight with an animal, or even a monster. You're fighting a mountain, or a medium-sized island.
6. The whale has a volcano coming out of it's back. The water near the whale is boiling hot, and a dragon lives there.
7. The whale operates on a slightly different timeline than everyone else. Every attack against it deals 1d10% of it's maximum health, while any non-damaging effect makes it's hit points 1d100% of it's maximum health (this can make it heal health or take damage). It's attacks are made from paradoxes, and mean that you are both hit and not hit at the same time. The attacks have a 75% chance to deal damage, a 24% chance to heal you, and a 1% chance to instantly heal you.
8. Absorbs people into it's body. Any creature it touches fuses with the outside of it's body if they  and their nervous systems fuse together. It has 1d4 creatures from your random encounter table already there, and can call on their knowledge
9. Smart. The whale has an intelligence comparable to a human.
10. Fast. The whale can swim at twice the normal speed, and jump 3x as high.
11. Lucky. The whale is being chased by a small army. It hasn't noticed.
12. Cult. A cult follows the whale. It has 1d20 barbarians following it around on boats, who will die for it if need be. If it has 1 cultist, the cultist is a very confused fisherman named Billy, who doesn't remember anything. 2 cultists mean Billy is joined by his equally confused wife.
13. Acidic. The whale leaks acid into the surrounding water. When it swims it leaves a trail of death behind it.
14. Invisible. The whale is invisible. Drinking it's oil will turn your innards and blood permanently invisible, and lamps that burn the oil shed an ambient light with no discernible source. PC's may be able to smear themselves with blood to turn invisible.
15. The whale is being ridden by a wizard named Shukila the Mad, who can only cast charm spells.
16. The whale is undead. 50% chance of having a necromancer and 2d10 zombies inside.
17. The whale is eldritch and alien to look at (it might look a little like a bear).
18. The whale is hairy and coloured ice-blue. It turns anyone it touches into ice. Lamps made from it's oil burn cold.
19.  The whale is nearly indestructible. It has 1,000,000 hit points.
20. The whale is Beeooooouuuuuuuaaaaaaaa, the god of whales. He has intelligence as a human, and all normal god abilities.

 

Populate this with rat-monkies or some shit like that.

Undead Whales and Pirate Necromancers

"I bin trawlin' these waters since I was a wee little scamp, even younger than you, ya grimy landlubber. I thought that nothin' could shock me. Why not? I mean, I seen it all. Eldritch horrors, tentacles coming up from the deep, and fish that could swallow a man whole. I seen a clam as big as an island, with a pearl inside it that glowed bright as the sun. I bin to an island full o' monkies that swam and hunted seals. But I ain't never seen something like that before."

"It was on us like jus' another wave, we din' even see it comin.' The ocean rose up, and a shape crashed into the hull. We looked over the side, and it was a whale. An undead whale, bone showing through in places, and it's eyes were rotting out -o- it's head. Flesh hung off of it like tattered sails of some ghost ship."

"The beast opened it's mouth, and undead charged from it's belly, all shoutin' and screamin' wit' no lungs to draw breath. I suppose inside that monster, they could jus' sit still, waitin' fer it to find their prey for 'em. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was what came after. A man, a normal lookin' man, with robes like a mage. He pointed out a few of our men, includin' the captain and the undead dragged em,' kicking and screaming, down into the depths. And then he walked back, calm as you please, back into his monstrosity."

"I don't sail the seas no more, and there's a good reason for that. Ain't no gold nor treasure that's worth another run-in with those particular pirates."

-Anonymous retired sailor

Undead Whales

This ain't your grandma's Free Willy.

Undead whales are a surprisingly common sight in the ocean. Although many people do not believe it to be true, necromancers can die, usually of old age. In fact, their bodies break down faster than that of most people, and so it is actually quite common for them to die peacefully before their corpses are ripped to shreds by their minions.

Undead whales are usually the toughest, largest, and most non-threatening undead beings when left along. Therefore, when their creators die, the whale will often swim aimlessly around the ocean, attempting to eat plankton that comes near. They will eventually break down, as the feedings of countless parasites and tenacious bottom-feeders eat the body as the whale drifts on, seeing no reason to try and stop them.

Seeing an undead whale is an both humbling, sad, and amazing sight. Two hundred tons of dead, rotting flesh, swimming until it's body simply falls to pieces. It surfaces, although it does not need to breath, and then dives back down, leaving scraps of flesh behind it.

Sailors think they are good luck, representing freedom, and do not trouble them. The logic is that if an enormous whale managed to evade whalers for that long, and then managed to escape death itself, and outlived it's one-time master, it deserves to swim for as long as it can. This sometimes brings them into conflict with druids of the sea, who regard the whales as abominations to be snuffed out, and will go to horrendous lengths to get rid of them. Mer and devotees of the Drowned God view undead whales as curiosities, and beings to be harnessed if possible for their own ends.

Undead whales are usually created by necromancers as transportation. They are self-controlled and tireless, meaning that the mage does not have to waste labour getting minions to steer or pilot. They are also mostly waterproof, and can dive deep down underwater. If the necromancer is the only living being on board, then the whale's body will contain more than enough oxygen for them to stay under long enough to evade any would-be pursuers.

The process of creating an undead whale is long and arduous, but requires a surprisingly small amount of magic. People theorize the reason is because of the innate magic whale fat possesses.

First, a whale carcass must be obtained. Usually this is done by hiring sailors to hunt the whale, which is then towed back to land. Sometimes, a whale carcass will wash up on shore, but this is a more dangerous practice, as those have the tendency to explode in a blast of build-up gas.

Next, the carcass is cleaned. Some scrupulous or unlucky necromancers do this themselves, walking into the body of the whale and hauling out most of the fat and internal organs, to make room for inhabitants. Most use undead servants or hired labourers to do this work for them.

After, any holes or unnecessary orifices are patched up with the liberal application of tar, to prevent leaks.

Most necromancers don't like working on corpses 

themselves, but there are weirdos in every job.

Necromancer Pirates

Although pirating isn't the first thing most people associate with necromancy, many people practice both professions. Some see a certain irony in it. For all everyone fights, they are the only ones left with any money in the end.

Mostly though, it is just to make cold, hard cash. necromancers don't have to pay their totally obedient and loyal crew, and can get more any time they please.

A pirate's death for me.

They strike more fear into people's hearts than regular pirates, they lurch on, uncaring, as their bodies burn. Even as they are impaled, they simply laugh, grab their opponent in a bear hug, and attempt to throw themselves over the side. What do they have to fear? Nothing. What remains of life is sweet, and death is a release.

When a necromancer ship or whale comes on the horizon, a crew knows what it faces. Warriors with nothing to fear.

Necromancer pirates are found the world over. Although they often begin their seafaring escapades in tropical lands, many of them migrate north, to colder waters, with less sea-creatures to eat their beloved whales, and no heat to rot their other servant's flesh.

In response to this threat, the Church of the True God sent out ships, called 'Dawnbringers' to fight against necromancer pirates. They are crewed by monks, paladins, and priests, and the Dawnbringers light up the night when they attack. Every inch of the ship has been soaked in holy water at least once. Dawnbringers that have been on the ocean for a long time convert the water and rain near them into holy water, scorching undead whales and pirates alike.

There is a strange psuedo-war going on between the Dawnbringers and the pirate necromancers. The necromancers cannot send their sailors to attack the ships directly, so they sneak past. They invade their peaceful temple, raid their merchant ships, and set fire to their boats. But they never fight them. Not directly.