Nekros

DESCRIPTION

Nekros

History

Acquisition

Forming a Pact with the Godhead Hypnea to manipulate the dead necessitates a deeply personal experience with the Metaphoric concepts of Miasmata. Anguishing over one's own state of undeath, feeling downtrodden from the Humors of disease, or suffering from the traumatic memories of corpses piled high or anguishing over the loss of loved ones are the appropriate seeds a candidate might channel to feel the tug of Avernus upon their soul, enabling them to raise the living dead.

When drawing upon these feelings or memories to will a corpse to arise, it is that intention - of bringing the dead back to life, giving them autonomy, or making use of their body parts, even those of animals - that welds the Pact to their soul once they reanimate a Thrall or a Fetch. This is a dangerous time for a fledgling Necromancer, as they are not a Pale Man by this point, and they might not learn to Tether their first risen.

Spontaneously raising a loved one or a pet as a Thrall can happen with a traumatizing, even dangerous stroke of providence, but not every Nekron goes on to follow this amoral path. Some never practice the art further and thus sidestep the fate of becoming Pale Men; these Pacted who avoid raising the dead are referred to as Inconsummates. Wherever Necromancy is unlawful, they are kept under strict parole, imprisoned, or put down if found out due to the fear that they might misuse it, or that they might be actual practitioners, guilty until proven innocent.

Living as a Nekron

As one of the most reprehensible Pacts, Nekron prefer to keep themselves hidden. They never reveal the truth, manufacturing ruses to avoid detection and persecution. Few lands cater to their ilk, such as Arcanis, the warbands of Vokhazan, and frozen Slahane. Elsewhere they find solace in secretive or dominant religious sects and institutions.

A Necromancer is always someone who keeps themselves near to a source of the living dead. Sometimes they are gravekeepers, or scroungers on the battlefield, yet more often are they murderers and mercenaries, even entrepreneurs operating a front entirely powered by wageless undead slaves.

Unlike the Blighted, Nekron are actively hunted by Spiritists and Radiance. Necromancy is a serious accusation in every country that forbids it, and they are more likely to feel competition from other encroaching Necromancers due to the scarcity of dead bodies - more often than not, they betray and murder each other for their souls.

Nekros is only as potent as the creativity and resourcefulness of its practitioner. These purveyors of death prefer to work from behind the scenes, amassing resources, capitalizing on blackmail and threats of murder, or the exploitation of loved ones' souls. They rarely ever put themselves in harms way directly if they can afford to, preferring to Command the living dead into doing their bidding, watching patiently through their senses.

Pale Man

Every consummate Nekron possesses naturally pale skin, and their eyes become a shade of grey due to this. Shambling undead without Tethers no longer show them hostility. Many wear gloves, don makeup while wearing shades to obscure their eyes, else relying on Malediction to bring color back to their features.

Mageburn Symptoms

• Lesser: Slippage, Chills, Runny Nose, Sore Throat, Headaches, Obsessive Behavior
• Moderate: Caged Rabbit, Anemia, Flu, Intense Shivering, Uncontrollable Obsession
• Greater: Becoming Draugr, Overwhelming Paranoia, Coma
• Slippage: As the Necromancer's power wanes, so too do their Tethers. Undead beneath their purview begin to slip out of control, shambling after the living around them to feast on their flesh or else going dormant if they feel no hunger.
• Caged Rabbit: The living dead no longer consider the Necromancer a Pale Man, unless they truly are a form of Undead such as a Draugr. This usually happens as the last of the Necromancer's Tethers slips away, plunging them into a dangerous situation where the dead crave their flesh. Many choose to become Draugr simply to avoid this fate.

Raise

Nekros may control differing types of undead, arising them as-is from a dead body or part that meets the requirements. Each has a certain cost to Tether it.

It is by the aid of Maltricians and the Devorari that the living dead may be sculpted in a manner beyond simply raising them. Other skills and Practices such as Artificing aid in outfitting the undead with the instruments of war. To many Nekron, a retinue of the undead is a sprawling tapestry of artwork that they and their apprentices spend countless hours assembling.

• Thrall: 1 Tether - A Thrall is the basic minion of a Necromancer, arisen as-is with no change to its body. They can move normally as their biology allows, but Necromancers often fail to bother with mending their broken or decomposing bodies. When untethered, a Thrall rots to the point its nervous system decays to slow its movements within a week, and by a month they can no longer move. Unless treated in some way, a Thrall tends to carry the scent of soft rot.

• Fetch: 1 Tether - A Fetch is a small CR1 animal - usually no larger than a large dog - which may retain its instincts to run, bite, and fly if it has intact wings. Fetches tend to be more readily available than the corpses of humanoids or larger beasts. A Fetch may also be assembled from a limb or even a skull which may rattle as an alarm, biting the clumsy. Some captured Draugr break and tear off their own hands, using them as a Fetch to escape confinement.

• Skeleton: 5 Tethers - A Skeleton is any Thrall without any musculature left. They have vacant faces, blind if not embedded with gemstones or eyeballs of some kind, yet able to 'see' the Saol of those within ten feet of them. A Skeleton operates at two skill tiers beneath the one who raised it. These can be quite troublesome to deal with, limbs still functioning until the skull is crushed.

• Ghoul: 5 Tethers - A Ghoul is a Thrall that has had its physical capabilities heightened, allowing for it to move and strike quickly with purpose. When raised, the liquid in their flesh drains away, leaving them dry, gaunt, and shrunken-skinned, with lips peeling back to show a haunting face of dried gums and teeth. It will still collapse but remain Tethered and aware should it suffer enough trauma that it cannot move, or its nervous system ceases to function due to decapitation.

• Graft: 25 Tethers - The Graft is any minion devised as an extension of something else, such as an exoskeleton, parasite, prosthesis, or container that may continue to operate long after the one inside has perished or lost some form of function. This might be used to subdue, to subsume and hide, to smuggle or protect. Still more uses exist to stabilize a body or puppeteer another creature weaker than its joints. These are typically created by other disciplines and then animated, but a rib cage that shifts to catch the blow of a sword is entirely feasible, as is a bone worm that threatens instant death should the recipient violate its Command or try to remove it.

• Hulk

25 Tethers - A Hulk is a shambling monster of flesh Risen from three to seven corpses - or something with about that much mass. Seven to ten feet in height, these masses of flesh are imbalanced and lumbering when made from many corpses, but powerful and muscular all the same. Through Malediction, a body with proper kinematics could be sewn together that ambulates normally - or one could find some large beast and raise it as a Hulk.

• Chariot

25 Tethers - Something that operates as a vehicle, a Chariot is a large mass of bodies designed to move quickly, scuttling along the ground or rolling on provided wheels. While often these appear as a horrific mass of undulating bodies tangled together with a Necromancer surfing upon them, those with the necessary skills can construe actual carriages from the dead.

• Draugr:

100 Tethers - Raising a Draugr is as simple as tugging upon a soul of the recently deceased - or ejecting a soul from a soul stone - to then stretch over a body, reaffirming its Pathos and Psychoplasm to take back possession of itself. However, once a being is a Ghost, it has lost the other Metaphor that make a Draugr what they are, and it cannot be risen as such. While Necromancers may Tether to Draugr in order to impart their abilities or spy upon them, they still retain their free will. A Dragon raised in this way is a Dracolych.

• Ghost:

100 Tethers - By weighting the soul down with a Tether as it leaves the body, a Nekros can force it to become a Ghost. Newborn Ghosts are Echoes, unable to understand their own abilities all that well, nor might a Tether puppeteer them as they have free will. Still, they might be mentored, protected, and nurtured as valued spies, or else they might blame the one that Raised them should they abhor this deathly state.

Note: Beings with free will possess their own skills; they would be considered CNPCs if they aided the player, or else a Formation if Raised en masse.

• Goliath: 500 Tethers

Eleven to fifteen feet in height, a Goliath is a frightful mass of groaning scores strewn together, else a gargantuan undertaking by a gleeful Maltrician looking to shape the dead into a colossus of meat and bone. Rarely, a gigantic form of Fauna might satisfy this condition.

• Death Knight: 1000 Tethers

• Death Wyrm: 1000 Tethers

The consequence of raising an Adult Dragon - or greater - as one's loyal minion, a Death Wyrm is a large being wielded by the Necromancer as a shock trooper, or else aerial cavalry. Should their [[Grist] organ is left intact, making a Death Knight out of a Death Wyrm might enable the dead dragon's Geist - and this it's Natare.

When mass raising hundreds of undead, you only need detail the first risen corpse, provided your story begins at the timestamp where the process began - or picks up from and references such with a backlink to that thread or series of threads, if unfinished. This allows you to carry on with building your retinue as resources, skills, and Spell Reserves allow. Similarly with Malediction, you may say you have spent your time altering many undead. All of this must be detailed somewhere on your Character Sheet, with links to the threads where the undead were built and altered.

Tether

One learns that Undead must be sustained, or they will begin to decompose. A Necromancer tethers Undead to themselves, halting their degradation. This can be done to Thralls, Draugr, Ghosts, or even themselves if they are also among the ranks of the living dead. Normally mending of the flesh is performed by a Maltrician, but this allows the undead to appear more lifelike than mere arcane surgery. The Tether functions at an unlimited distance from the mage, but may be followed by nearly any form of divination unless dismissed remotely.

While wielding a Tether, the Nekron experiences a diminishing of their restoration of Arcane reserves - the numbers below indicate how many Tethers they may wield before they cease regenerating Spell Reserves altogether. Most only wield up to half of this amount, so that they might operate their other abilities freely.

A Necromancer may Tether to a corpse, halting its degradation and allowing for its senses to be used as a tool for Scrying. This is typically done to create sentries or store dead things for later use. They might even Raise it remotely as they progress - a Thrall that falls in battle might have its body parts revitalized as Fetches.

• Novice: 2 Tethers
• Apprentice: 10 Tethers
• Journeyman: 100 Tethers
• Expert: 1000 Tethers
• Master: 10000 Tethers
• Ascendant: Unlimited Tethers

Command

Scrying

Through its Tether, a Nekros can peer through the intact senses of an undead. If these sense are enhanced, it will allow the Nekron to make use of them. The sensations are rather hazy at first, like a fleeting picture or distant thoughts in the imagination. Over time a Nekron develops more clarity, able to perceive through their undead - one at a time - as an extension of themselves.

Soul Star

As any being enters into a state of death, the Nekron may expend Spell Reserves to crystallize its soul into a kind of pseudo-Alkahest. This effectively imprisons their soul as an object, and they remain fully aware, yet unable to move in the throes of constant torment. When embedded into any undead, it allows them to regenerate, and - if without a soul itself - conferring the skills they had in life, including Arcana if they are a Death Knight. They will have access to the skills and memories they had in life, allowing for some facsimile of a personality, and their dead flesh will regenerate from destruction.

A Soul Stone containing a soul with Personal Arcana may be consumed for Spell Reserves via Syphon. It is not unheard of for a Lich to hold several Grafted accessories containing the souls of magi it has defeated in its long unlife.

The embedded Death Knight will receive all the traits of their Arcana and Ascension, if any, including any Mageburn symptoms should they burn themselves out - and doing so will cause them to immediately slip their leash. Blights will confer their benefits and drawbacks to the minion, which may risk slipping and rampaging if its needs are not met.

• Sliver: Apprentice Skills & Arcana; Regenerates slightly less than a normal person.
• Shard: Journeyman Skills & Arcana, Young Dragons; Regenerates as normal as a living person.
• Crystal: Expert Skills & Arcana, Adult Dragons; Regenerates flesh slowly, but noticeably over a day.
• Sphere: Master Skills & Arcana, Elder Dragons; Regenerates flesh in under an hour.
• Globe: Grandmaster Skills & Ascended Arcana, Ancient Dragons; Regenerates flesh in minutes.

To manufacture a Soul Star is a vile taboo, seen as unforgivable by nearly every culture on Antarok. 

Tiers of Mastery

Novice

Just starting out, a

A novice is on their way to becoming a Pale Man, and will become so by the third or fourth Thrall they raise.

• Raise: A novice may arise a Thrall or a Fetch.
• Tether: As a novice, the Nekron may sustain 2 Tethers.
• Command: A novice is limited to simple one-word commands without any refinement, such as 'attack' or 'stop' to one minion at a time.

Apprentice

Still

An apprentice may

• Raise: An Apprentice may now arise a Skeleton or Ghoul.
• Tether: An Apprentice may sustain 10 Tethers.
• Command: An Apprentice might define more complex tasks, such as 'stop over there' or 'stab that person with your spear'.

Journeyman

A journeyman has

A journeyman may

• Raise: A Journeyman may now arise a Hulk or create a Graft. They raise the dead at half the cost in spell reserves. A Journeyman may Raise a Tethered corpse at any distance.
• Tether: A Journeyman may sustain 100 Tethers.
• Command: A journeyman may begin to define more complex tasks with conditions such as 'detain a man with red hair, and attack him with your sword if he resists', but repetition nor autonomy is unavailable at this point. They may issue commands to each within earshot.

Expert

Experts

An expert may

• Raise: An Expert may now arise a Goliath, Tether a ghost, or bring a Draugr into the world. They raise the dead at one fourth the cost in Spell Reserves.
• Tether: An Expert may sustain 1000 Tethers.
• Command: An expert may define a task with repetition and Apprentice-level skills such as 'mine for copper with your pick until the tunnel is about to collapse, then reinforce it with wood from the forest, and begin again' , but adaptable autonomy at this stage is not possible. At this stage, they may issue their commands remotely, without a need to be heard.

Master

The master

A master

• Raise: A Master may now arise a Death Knight, greatest of all bound Undead. They raise the dead at one tenth the cost in Spell Reserves.
• Tether: A Master may sustain 10000 Tethers.
• Command: A master may now define a routine with adaptable autonomy for their Tethered. Volumes of information can be passed on with a mere gesture.

Ascension

Lich this

Lich that

• Raise: The Lich may now arise the living dead at no cost of Spell Reserves; simply Tethering to them will birth a creation.
• Tether: A Lich is only limited by the amount of dead body parts available to their craft, and time.
• Command: A Lich may freely puppeteer each of their Death Knights as if they were themselves, grafting their own personalities into them.

Artifacts

Soul Sundering

Utilizing a Soul Stone, a Sunderer might impart enchantments upon items that confer supernatural abilities. This traps the soul inside, giving the artifact a form of pseudo-sapience that may be Tethered to and Commanded. The soul consumed might confer heightened regeneration to an undead holder, or allow them to utilize one of the skills or an Arcana through the artifact, and the stone utilized will be calculated into the grams required to process the ability. As per the Artifact Attunement rules, additional XP must be spent attuning to the resulting artifact, equal to the XP that would have been spent on a personal NPC with those same capabilities.

Such artifacts are vulnerable to Luxium; Spirit Oil and the Pact of Radiance directly oppose the Miasmata woven into their make.

Soul Stone Properties

30 grams - A Sliver Skill or Regeneration

100 grams - A Shard Skill or Regeneration

1000 grams - A Crystal Skill or Regeneration

10000 grams - A Sphere Skill or Regeneration

100000 grams - A Globe Skill or Regeneration

Scrying Mirrors

With the dust of Miasmata, a Nekron might manufacture a mirror upon a reflective surface, allowing for another act of Scrying to be maintained. Entire rooms decorated with these panels are not unheard of, allowing the wielder of Nekros instant feedback from huge swathes of their dead retinue.

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