Undead

The unliving are spirits or reanimated corpses of the dead. They are fortunately uncommon; most people live their entire lives without even hearing rumors of their existence. They are a threat to the living, as they prey upon the living, act as slaves for their dark masters, or act upon their own desires. The undead share few of the physical limitations that mortals possess: they have no need to breathe, they do not age, they are not affected by death spells, disease, magical draining, magical sleep, paralysis, poison, and stunning. Further, sapient undead cannot use the same kind of magic that mortals enjoy. Those that are able to wield magic use abilities or spells derived from Shadow - these powers are often innate.

All undead are vulnerable to Divine magic. Most are vulnerable to fire, and many types of the unliving have their own special strengths and weaknesses.

Origins
The undead are classified under many varieties, and are created in a myriad of ways. The creation of undead is generally treated as a serious crime, though mortal efforts to suppress the unliving are failing due to the growing numbers of Shadow Mages.

Shadow Magic
Mages who wield forbidden magic derived from the primordial Xammordu use such negative energy to reanimate corpses and enslave spirits to achieve their own dark agendas. Shadow magic can be used to create a horde of zombies, force phantoms to attack others, and the highest echelons of that power can also be used to transform a living wizard's body into the rotting husk of a powerful lich.

Spirits
Not all who die pass on to the next life. Sometimes a dead person's spirit lingers in the mortal realm, and seeks to resolve his or her own personal goals - often call unfinished business. Ghosts may be peaceful, and bring no harm to others. Ghosts may often be hostile, and seek to unleash their fury upon the unwary. Sometimes, a ghost may remain to watch over his or her own family left alive. Once a ghost's unfinished business is resolved, that spirit usually moves on.

Xammordu
The eternally-slumbering primordial sometimes dreams of realities that are unfathomable to the mortal mind. Rarely, wisps of these imaginings escape into Arkai and become conscious. These few entities are known as the Ancients, and act to serve their creator. Each Ancient sires undead unique to their own creation. Of the known Ancients:
 * Maloth, who sired the blood-drinking, fearsome, and alluring vampires.
 * Szaborg, a being comprised of shadows and negative energy, spawned the Shadow Horrors - the monstrous, flesh-devouring cousins of the vampires.

Shadow Horror
Shadow Horrors are powerful and grisly revenants who roam the world and consume the flesh of the living to survive. As descendants of the Ancient Szaborg, they enjoy a multitude of otherworldly powers and suffer the effects of a terrible curse from which they cannot escape. They are very rarely found on Arkai, numbering less than one thousand across the entire world. When encountered, they make exceedingly dangerous foes that threaten an entire countryside. Holy warriors, slayers of the undead, and wizards from all walks of life are quick to hunt them.

Physiology
Shadow horrors physically resemble the persons they once were in mortal life in almost every aspect, though their transition into undeath gives them very distinct features: all shadow horrors have black eyes with softly glowing white pupils, rows of sharp fangs, and black, shadowy ichor instead of red blood. Their cold flesh is paler and often colored with a grayish cast (among bestials, fur and feathers gain a dull, somewhat discolored appearance; scales look dull with a grayish cast).

Their powerful hunger forces them to consume raw flesh from living beings once or twice each week in order to survive. A hungry, young horror less than five decades in age can subsist upon a whole deer or two people each week, whereas a centuries-old horror will be satiated after ten or more people each week. They do not benefit from eating any other kinds of foods, and a diet of blood sustains them only for a night.

If the horrors abstain from feeding for more than a few days, they quickly lose self-control as their ichor consumes their minds and bodies. If the horror is consumed by his own ichor, that ichor remains as a mindless black slime that consumes every living thing it can find; in the wilderness, it dies upon exposure to sunlight.

The body of a shadow horror is remarkably resilient; they are resistant to pain (excepting pain caused by their weaknesses), regenerate rapidly, and their bones resist breakage. Their predator senses are greatly heightened, and as years pass their strength and manual dexterity slowly grow stronger.

Although they enjoy a variety of strengths and powers, they also carry a variety of severe weaknesses: they will immediately die upon direct contact with sunlight by means of immolation. A horror can, at best, remain outdoors and in great agony prior to dawn; but once the sun rises, the horror will die. A horror cannot remain awake during the day under the shade of a tree, nor can she wear layers of clothing and a hat and have any hopes of survival. She must seek shelter in total darkness with no exposure to sunlight, and sleep during the day. She will automatically awaken at night.

Fire is a great bane to shadow horrors. When confronted with fire, the horror’s natural instinct is to flee. If the horror comes in contact with flames, the fire spreads quickly and causes significant damage until it is extinguished. Depending on the severity of the burns, fire damage may take weeks, sometimes months to heal.

Magick is another great weakness for shadow horrors; they are twice as susceptible to magickal effects, and take twice as much damage from magickal attacks as would a living being. Beyond that, horrors cannot use any form of magick except for shadow magick, and are twice as vulnerable to its corrupting effects.

A careless shadow horror is easy to detect; she has a malign aura that frightens animals and young children. Adults in the presence of a horror will feel a “wrongness”, intense dread, or impending doom – depending on how powerful the undead individual happens to be. She casts a shadow, but no reflections.

A horror’s ichor is a very powerful magickal reagent. If used to enhance magick, it will empower it greatly, but also corrupt it. It negates an equivalent power of positive magick. The strength of the ichor has driven mages (especially shadow mages) into relentlessly hunting shadow horrors for nefarious purposes.

The Embrace and Lineage
Any shadow horror is capable of making more horrors – called “siring” - by means of a “natural” ritual. The sire must obtain a living victim and mark her third eye with a dab of shadow ichor (usually the sire’s own) in order to trap her soul within her body after her death. The sire must then remove the heart of the victim, allow her to die, and then replace the heart with a large quantity of his own ichor. The ichor spreads rapidly through the body and transforms the victim into a shadow horror within a matter of hours.

When the new horror – called the “progeny” – awakens, she is hungry and must feed within hours. Otherwise, she will die.

Any sire has the ability to command his progeny via innate magickal compulsion. This control may however be countermanded by any ancestral sires earlier in a given lineage. This means that the Ancient Szaborg could countermand any of these magickal compulsions. This has, in many cases, lead to a dreadful and misguided tradition of “patricide” justified by the desire of younger shadow horrors to be free of compulsion.

Behavior and Associations
<span style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif"">Shadow horrors are loners for practical reasons. Because they consume so much flesh, they require a constant source of animals or people upon which they feed. Each additional horror in the same area presents competition for food. Further, if the population of animals or people decline too rapidly, the horrors may draw the unwanted attention of slayers. Therefore, no more than a few horrors will dwell together.

<span style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif"">Each horror retains his or her original set of beliefs, knowledge, and emotions upon being embraced. Within centuries the corrupting madness innate to their curse sets in, and grows stronger. Each form of madness may be different for each horror.

<span style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif"">Personal associations with people are limited to non-existent, as virtually all mortals are considered a food source, and mortal lifespans do not engender lasting relationships with the immortal horrors. Vampires are often treated as rivals. As such, a horror will try to slaughter vampires dwelling in or travelling through his territory. If a vampire is left alive, it is possible that he or she may fetch a group of undead companions to kill or drive out the shadow horror.

<span style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif"">The Curse
<span style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif"">Each shadow horror’s body carries some of the power of their Primordial ancestor. While their ichor gives them supernatural abilities, it also irrevocably damns them. The ichor is a corrupting, consuming force that will devour a starving horror. As time passes, the corruption slowly wears away at their minds and plunges them into complete madness. There is no cure nor prevention for the unavoidable insanity, but some horrors try to slow the curse’s progress.

<span style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif"">Power
<span style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif"">All shadow horrors possess immunity to death magick and the ability to see perfectly in total darkness, even that which is magickally-created. By exerting their willpower, they may use the energy of their ichor to utilize their innate abilities. A horror must practice exerting his willpower for months in order to use the most basic abilities, and years longer to use more advanced abilities.

<span style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif"">Basic abilities <span style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif"">: detect entropy, negative energy, and usage of shadow magick; speak with the dead; boost one’s own speed, strength, and toughness for a short time.

<span style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif"">Advanced abilities <span style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif"">: create a small elemental made of shadows, which can perform simple duties; manipulate the forms of shadows, and drain light in a small area; create a circle of total silence; create a temporary weapon, object, or armor from shadow.

<span style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif"">Master abilities <span style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif"">: create multiple, large elementals made of shadows, which can perform complex duties; manipulate entropy to cause rapid decay, aging, weakness, etc. or prevent the effects of entropy for a time; inflict the confusion or madness of Xammordu upon any sapient being; transform into a powerful being of pure shadow that can become incorporeal at will.

Notable Undead
Balus

Krisera Talenmyr