Today: you tell me what you'd expect to see in a necromancer empire.
I've been doing some world building on the Necromancer Empire. I've had something like this in mind for at least a decade.
The goal is a government that'd fit into a fantasy land, such as we play in Dungeon World or D&D, which is objectionable but non evil.
That is: There should absolutely be social ills. There should be problems, because utopias are no fun. No one lives in absolute poverty, because of the utility of the dead. It should not be a dystopia. (Unrelated note: G+ says dystopia is spelled wrong, but google disagrees. how very newsspeak of you, G+.)
Yesterday, I did a Q&A and additional world building. That is still ongoing.
Today: you tell me what you'd expect to see in a necromancer empire.
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Link to Q&A. Not required, but maybe fun:
ReplyDeletehttps://plus.google.com/u/0/+WilliamNichols/posts/cQLcNbcxzSr
Some kind of fairly specific attitude towards carrion-eating critters, and one or more comprehensive approaches (or lack of same) towards hygiene.
ReplyDeleteIf a significant portion of the effective populace is ambulatory corpses, these things matter immensely, and their failures are serious, like fire in an all-wooden town.
Places to wash or otherwise clean/compost the undead. Similarly, places to purge bodies - burning pits, etc.
ReplyDeleteDepending on the level of sentience the undead have, corrals or cages for those more feral.
"No Reanimation" cemeteries where people can put loved ones to protect them.
Fences with outwards-facing spikes protecting homes and businesses.
Lots of churches.
If necromancy is generally accepted as being 'how society works' then zombies, golems, thralls and such will be commonplace. As will carts and machinery driven by skeletal horses.
ReplyDeleteSacrifices are powerful, I expect neophytes would be present at slaughterhouses to game the sacrificial energy from killing cattle.
Similarly, priests would visit the elderly and sick and see them off to the afterlife as humanely as they can, while also harvesting their life energy for use elsewhere.
The empire would be powerful in war with troops which will not route, are hard to stop and are easily replaced.
Churches to gods of life/light/law would be illegal but you can bet they will be operating underground.
Actually, I could totally imagine a symbiotic/syncretic relationship with a church of life and light... totally different spheres, non-opposed.
ReplyDelete"This is the church that you deal with for daily concerns about living and loving, the greening of the branch and the glory of spring. Then there is the (more important) church that deals with the disposition of the two things that survive your life: Your soul, and your really useful corpse."
Oh, note that I should have mentioned: I'm calling the mainstain of the undead lifeless. This is a direct homage to Sanderson's Warbreaker. They are not the same, but very similar.
ReplyDeleteLevi Kornelsen This is a really good point! A couple options:
1. A type of lifeless who remove carrion eaters from cities.
2. Put a fluid into the lifeless that makes the flesh decay slowly (you'd need that anyway), and/or that makes the flesh poisonous.
Thoughts?
More for Brie Sheldon , Brian Ashford , and Tony Lower-Basch in a bit!
Brie Sheldon Oohhh, those are good.
ReplyDeleteIn this version, the Empire is a theocracy with freedom of worship. That is, there's an official religion (necromancy), but you don't have to be a member of it. Members get cool stuff, like free flour.
As such, temples become an obvious place to house the dead and dying. I adore the idea of no raise cemeteries. Any cemetery would be a no-raise cemetery, and I've been mentally struggling with whether raising is compulsory or not.
I'm not sure if it should be, or if that goes through the moral event horizon. Thoughts?
After reading the Q+A:, things I'd want to see covered:
ReplyDeleteEmbalming / preservation; who does it, what is needed, what's the secondary industry there? That.
Animation, and how it's maintained (and broken, if breakable).
Programming, for lack of a better word, and how that happens. Which might be part of the animation magic... Or not (in meat-robot-land, can the meat robots be hacked? Programmed? Have spyware added?)
The absolute rule (the empire owns the dead) and the exceptions, fringe cases, and baroque institutions built on those (like, private ownership of animal dead leads to the rich having..... ....or whatever edge case has a whole side show running).
Brian Ashford Yes, with exceptions:
ReplyDelete-- turning non-humanoid things (like horses) into lifeless is considered bad wrong evil by Religion. You absolutely still get useful undead, and you get crazy wizards making undead squirrels. But, to be found out risks the Paladin Legions knocking on the wizards door.
-- I adore the idea of sacrifices, and of slaughtering cattle. I hadn't thought of that!
-- Absolutely the priests visit the elderly and sick. Hell, the Necromancer Church/Empire runs end of life homes.
-- Absolutely on the troops. While a lifeless doing housework may last for ten years, a lifeless sitting in a bunker waiting for action could be good for decades.
-- At least in this version, there's freedom of religion. I'm curious as to the law element there, though -- why would necromancy inherently be anti-law?
Tony Lower-Basch Ayup. That sounds about right.
ReplyDeleteLevi Kornelsen
ReplyDeleteEmbalming absolutely needs work. I don't have quick answers for that.
On Animation: Heck yeah. There's at least two different sorts: arcane and divine. The Divine is fueled by the act or worship, and act is crazy fucking wizards.
How exactly all that works I've not entirely figured out. Does the worship act to preserve current lifeless, or give clerics additional capability in the future? That is, as you have more lifeless do you need more worship to maintain them? Or, as you have more worship, do the clerics get more powerful?
Programming: There is absolutely after production commands. I'm thinking of a few types of lifeless, which had different sigils:
1. Generalist lifeless. These are OK at a variety of tasks, but aren't excellent at any of them. Sigil: Hammer & Sickle
2. worker lifeless. These are good at doing specific types of repetitive "work" tasks. Sigil: Hammer & Shovel
3. Farmer lifeless. Pretty obvious, right? They do a lot of the repetitive farming. Sigil: Sickle & Pitchfork
4. Cleaner: They clean things. Sigil: Mop & Broom
5. Fighter. The most dangerous. They aren't good fighters, but they will keep going. Sigil: Sword & warhammer.
Each category was created by a researcher, by crazy wizards or clerics. There are also sub types, and more being created by researchers. Now is the golden age of research!
Can they be hacked? Absolutely. The primary programming is determined by a literal brand. Change that, and change the behavior. There are probably sigils that modify other ones, used to hack the lifeless.
Edge cases: Yeah. Cool. There's assuredly some "99 year leases", and that sort of semi-permanent thing. And members of the House of Lords who simply ignore or flout the rules of ownership.
More on edge cases, programming, and embalming in a later edition.
This is great, keep it coming!
ReplyDeleteWhat is the transportation infrastructure like? Are boats used? Wagons? Just flat out lines of undead carrying things?
ReplyDeleteAnd, related question, how urbanized can the church allow the civilization to become?
William Nichols Resurrecting the dead could certainly be seen as acting against the natural order of things so Law folks could strongly oppose it. This applies equally to any magic though.
ReplyDeleteBrian Ashford A certain sort of lawfull folk, sure. A particular perspective.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting. I may have to write something about that.
(Bored scribbling over lunch)
ReplyDeleteImperial undead are created from the bodies of the faithful, and only those bodies. This is done in this manner because The (imperial) God holds their spirits firmly after death; the act of raising the body will not also potentially call up their shade. Other raisings (human or animal) risk doing just this, either as a tormented passenger within the body or an independent and enraged one without.
Before a raising, the body is placed in a snug sarcophagus and treated three times.
First, the body cavity is partly opened, and most of the organs removed, with a sac of neutral material inserted in their place; the whole is then resealed. The organs themselves will be flayed into strips and treated to create sutures, lines, and other "repair kit" for the undead in question. Genitalia are also removed and sealed over smoothly at this stage; the anus is sealed over, and the nose and mouth may also be sealed. These are to remove any easily-rotted or accessible openings that are no longer needed. All hair is shaved off, to make later cleaning easier.
In the second stage, the blood is pumped out and a preservative pumped in and through, cycling for up to a full night. This preservative also invades other tissues, replacing the water within with a transparent, supple, and water-repellent substance.
Third and finally, a white crystalline dust is added to the preservative and cycled through for a few hours before switching back to the standard fluid. This dust accretes to and re-stiffens the bones, which would otherwise be left somewhat rubbery. The sarcophagus is important at this stage; without it, bones would often harden quite crookedly. With it, only a few slight bends can be anticipated.
The corpse is now ready for animation.
Very nice, Levi Kornelsen !
ReplyDeleteThe repair kit can also be made from the skins of animals; the surgeons guild is very much involved in this.
There are (assuredly) different varieties, skill levels, and end products. This is a pretty high level one, to make lifeless that will serve tirelessly for a decade or more.
Conversely, if a lifeless is going to be discarded quickly, it can be raised without nearly as many precautions. It will break over time.
There are other steps that can be added, as well. Whether before or after animation, military lifeless often have armor sewed onto their skin to deflect blows. This armor is easier to replace than a lifeless servant.
Heh; for sure. I was largely just spitballing on the idea of "Basically, these are the universal industrial machines, and the supply is fairly limited - seems like the empire would invest a fair bit of expertise and value into them, trying to make them good"
ReplyDeleteoh, absolutely.
ReplyDeleteBecause this is useful, there's pressure to spend as much money on it as possible. But, because it is a cost, there's pressure to find the cheapest ways possible.
And both have happened: The Wizards and clerics continue to look for cheaper ways to create lifeless. And ways to make more useful servants. While the first lifeless only had a few built in commands, more complicated commands have slowly been built in -- as well as an ability to follow generic command. The researchers developed haulling lifeless, who could easily be harnessed while planting crops.
Lifeless were also created that planted a specific crop. These lifeless could be used independently (for mono cultures) or together (for polycultures). Three plants in particular worked well together: corn, squash, and beans. Three different lifeless were developed, which could plant three crops on top of each other. One could plant corn, one could plant squad, and a third beans. There are rumors of a fourth in development, to attract bees.
Exactly how to do this is built in to the sigil that powers the lifeless. This is an incredibly complicated command, and implanting it into the sigil. Because the complicated command is built into the sigil, it is useable by the untrained. Nearly anyone can command these lifeless.
These lifeless also had a simple command: "dock", which instructions the lifeless to stop what it is doing, and return to its home base. Temporary home bases can be made -- by priests -- while one is rented, but this will eventually revert back to the temple.
On the other hand, experiments in materials to protect the lifeless continue to happen. The triple process took decades to perfect, lengthening the useful time of a lifeless from months to years to as long as a decade of near continual use.
edit: three lifeless for super specialists, not one that can do all three. That starts looking like decision making.
It seems like the span of a lifeless would end twice, so to speak. Once when it's no longer fit for (job it was made for), and the second time when it could no longer move forward at all.
ReplyDeleteAnd in between, the long retirement to the hamster wheels that run pumps and millstones and...
Levi Kornelsen valid point. Even if you can no longer clean, you can still keep walking on a tread mill.
ReplyDeleteAt some point of speed, that stops being useful. Then the lifeless are buried. Or maybe burned. Or maybe carted out by other lifeless and disposed of in the wilderness.
Trying to picture the demographics here; how does this match your image?
ReplyDeleteSo, town of 1000 faithful, with a temple (also some number of non-faithful; let's ignore them for now).
Say an average lifespan of 50, which is really quite good. But they're pretty hygenic and such, so hey. That gives 20 deaths a year. Let's say 90 percent of those can be made into lifeless, 10 percent aren't viable because of the death.
Say a Lifeless lasts 5 years average before retirement, 5 years after. So there's about a hundred lifeless in service, another hundred in retirement turning the wheels, about.
If the lifeless are feeding the faithful, and half the lifeless are farmers, then each lifeless farmer produces enough food to feed 20. Which is many times medieval numbers, so we are talking about heavy activity plus developed fields, probably irrigation and other stuff?
Those fifty lifeless will need handlers. Say, ten handlers? Junior clergy? Then ten more for the retired? Plus... Say, two embalmers, two animators, a couple orator/worship leaders, and rental agent. 27 clergy, mostly junior, plus others outside the core needs. Even a round 50 of them would only make five percent of the faithful population in holy orders/government service at some level (largely petty).
Of the remaining 50 active lifeless, then, maybe 10 are attached individually to the leaders (who get 2 or 3 apiece), and 10 more have temple assignments. Maybe 10 are tithed to the imperial legion.
Leaving 20 for rent.
(Hrm. I think I screwed up my basic maths, there, somewhere.)
ReplyDeleteAre you sure? I'm getting about the same results.
ReplyDeleteI guess there's two questions:
1. how much does a farmer lifeless produce?
2. how many lifeless are there?
For (1), if we assume parity between a farmer and a lifeless, then:
1a. Lifeless useful time of 10 years, 350 days per years, 20 hours per day yields 70,000 hours.
1b. Farmer useful time of 40 years, 250 days per year, 10 hours per day yields 100,000 hours.
That means a lifeless farmer does not replace a human farmer; even with these assumptions, you need more lifeless to replace the farmers. Maybe this time is more useful, as in virtue of having fewer human farmers, there is more time to think about how to farm. Maybe.
2. How many lifeless are there?
Going with the town of 1,000 and a life expectency of 50, you do get 20 deaths a year. Assuming an 80% conversion rate, you get 16 lifeless per year. Roughly, for every 3 lifeless that go into farming in a year, 2 farmers can get a different job for their entire life. Or, for every 7-8 faithful who die, roughly 2 living people can quit farming.
That's actually pretty great! Especially as those people could then think about better farming techniques with lifeless, such that the lifeless labor could become more useful through the generations.
So, where we are now, where there's basically no need for farm labor? Yeah, the specialized lifeless labor hour is much more efficient than the human being labor hour.
And that doesn't account for labor of monstrous humanoids. When an adventuring party raids a kobold lair and knocks them all down, why not raise them and use them as basic, short term lifeless? You may only get a year or so, but that's still useful.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it seems very do-able. Demographics also give a sort of impression of things like "How common are lifeless on the street, and where?" And "How many people can rent one?", and such, so I'm trying to see where you'd peg those things, too.
ReplyDeleteDid some math wrong: Its actually more like 4 dead faithful to replace 1 farmer. Which is still not bad!
ReplyDeleteAs for the renting: At ten years of useful life, we wind up with 80 active non-farmer lifeless in the town of 1,000.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, the treadmill lifeless can likely do other minor chores, mostly hauling. You'd see them around. That's 80.
If 10 of the active 80 disappear to Taxes, then you wind up with 150 lifeless. Many would have jobs where you never see them, but you've got a 6 to 1 ratio of people to non-farmer lifeless. That's pretty good.
There's still a market for people labor, as a huge quantity of the lifeless labor is used to keep everyone fed. Jobs that require judgement (like constable) would be done by human beings. But, what you get is a population that doesn't need to farm, and that has lifeless walking around.
In the Capital, the numbers would be remarkably different. Not only do you get the same ratio, but you also get some lifeless from each town. The Capital is rich, and this is where you get personal servant lifeless for most people.
I haven't seen any mention of abolitionists, activists who want to tear down the whole rotten system of exploiting the labor of the dead.*
ReplyDeleteI like your use of "lifeless" as the term of art for the undead slaves automatons. Of course the official language would be softened to dull the system's moral sharp edges!
* but G+ can make it hard to read long threads; I might've missed some of those Read more links.
Ahhh, so it's not just faithful that get raised.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that'd make for a lot more, and plenty made under much worse conditions. It also means almost certainly a lot of really horrific military adventurism - that crappy peasant village doesn't have treasure; it is treasure, waiting to be slaughtered.
It's probably worth considering that in the real world as human labour requirements have diminished that hasn't really lead to any more free time for the masses. Instead the working class transfer to other jobs and the rich get richer.
ReplyDeleteIt is whoever owns the zombies that wins in your setting as they either own the fruits of their labour or they get to rent them out to anyone who wants to spend less on wages.
All of the people who should be farming now need new jobs and if the only people offering to pay them are necromancers offering cups of flour in return for their attendance at church then that's what the will do.
It certainly explains where they are getting the energy to raise the dead from.
Brian Ashford indeed! I might be saying something about the incentives of modern capitalism and comparing it unfavorably to necromancy.
ReplyDeleteSome measure of that is intentional.
Because prayers are best and most effectively done on a full stomach, the necromancers need to feed the people. Because priests get their power directly from the actions of the faithful, there is democracy. Hell, there is delegative democracy: a priest can have a flock of only himself, but will have only minimal power.
The flour is intentionally more than a person needs: some can be exchanged for rent and you can make your own bread. I'm positive the church has boarding houses, priced just so.
The Baker's guild is always looking for good flour.
Edits: Typos from mobile.
Assuming the priesthood can have kids, I'd bet any number of dollars that the non-church Guilds fall all over themselves to take any children of the higher priesthood that haven't got magical talent, and are sure to promote them to the limit of their ability (and sometimes past it). Because you've gotta keep those ties good and strong.
ReplyDeleteLevi Kornelsen Oh, absolutely. And the Bakers guild must have already been in bad standing. They thought they were essential, then Miller showed up and the people started to be paid in flour. Suddenly, people made their own bread.
ReplyDeleteRadically altering the balance of power.
I would expect to see nobles clinging to their entitlements even more viciously than they did in real-world middle ages.
ReplyDeleteReasoning: Noble income in (at least) much of Europe was dependent in large part upon taxation of a populace that was continuously productive through labor. There is some evidence that there is no such populace in the Caliphate.
Nobles, therefore, have far less income. The bottom layers of the economic pyramid that supported them have been entirely subsumed by the church. If they exist at all, they're going to be pretty desperate.
Oh, absolutely.
ReplyDeleteI've got a whole history on the change from a Kingdom under the Caliph to rule by the aristocrats who could raise the dead to the gradual change to rule by priests who can channel worship.
Much like the British nobility, the nobility of the Caliphate are declining. But, because many of them are personally powerful -- as well as rich -- the Church strives to keep them happy.
Hmm. If we are talking about an expansionist empire that happily captures towns and sends them home as lifeless cargo, then the nobles have a potentially very strong position right there.
ReplyDeleteTake an enemy village/whatever, bring in the priesthood, and split the bounty; all they need to do is raise 'em to collect their percentage / half / whatever, plus all the retirees when those same lifeless start to wear out.
I mean, that's a strong plan for any militia from the empire, but nobles would be really well-positioned to profit; they'd have their own ships for the cargo, could set up better facilities for preserving their murder-harvest, and so on.
The level of hate and fear others would have for the empire would be.... Spectacular.
Question becomes: How long until the lifeless can feed the population?
ReplyDeleteApparently, in the 1930s, the family farm of four people... fed four. By the 1970s, a farm fed 75. And now, its more like 150. And, in 1500 Europe, 75% of people were involved in food production.
I puzzled over that; I think the depression is what's causing the low end 1930s number. And the 1500 number includes everyone who has the job of getting food to table, which includes millers. I'm going to assume 50% are directly farmers. That is, a farmer is responsible for putting food into the mouths of two people.
The lifeless has more work-hours per year than a farmer, but needs different methodologies. Due to that, the first lifeless only produce as much as a farmer, but this gets better. The rate at which it gets better is important, and who knows.
With a ten year useful timespan, a town of 1,000 has 80 farmer lifeless at any one time. To produce enough for everyone, you need to produce enough to feed 13 people. To have a surplus, call it 14.
What technology is necessary for a farmer to feed 14 people?
Levi Kornelsen That is frightening. Remember, one part of the experiment is to stay safely on this side of the moral event horizon.
ReplyDeleteThough, that does provide a fascinating lens on the player character Paladin and Wizard from the Empire, who immediately started raising their defeated foes.
For a farmer (lifeless) to feed 14, it needs to be able to farm 28 acres at medieval yields, or less acres at higher yields.
ReplyDeleteIncreasing the area it can farm to that size means better equipment, possibly verging on heavy machinery.
Increasing the yield per acre means more developed fields, irrigation, and better seeds.
So, in the empire, maybe:
Work crews of lifeless and humans clear, level, and fence fields thoroughly, strip them of rocks, fertilize, and mercilessly exterminate all small life that could eat crops; that's just standard practice. The empire has a system of aqueducts. Crossbreeding and varying grains to improve yields is long-established technology either in the empire or someplace they conquered the crap out of.
Because lifeless don't get tired or disgruntled, you can hook up a dozen of them to large rakes and plows and get effects more like a tractor than a team of animals; given longer hours at that high labour, you get some serious results.
Levi Kornelsen Would that be beyond Rome's capabilities?
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols - If the hope is for the Empire to not be evil, the Priesthood would need serious constraints to stop exactly that kind of thing... as well as probably stamping out the inevitable "I'm gonna use this method to found my OWN empire, without all these rules" that'd come along once every couple of decades.
ReplyDeleteLevi Kornelsen One step at a time.
ReplyDeleteFirst, for the folks who try to make their own: Imagine lifeless made from the greatest warriors that fell in battle, either against or with the Empire. Imagine these are kept in storage, in mothballs, prepared for a time of need. They can be ready in mere days. Imagine, too, that they are commanded by the Ancient Ones. By the skulls of dead necromancers, that is.
Basically, imagine if Washington and Lincoln and FDR and Mr James K Polk were interred and given the nuclear launch codes. Or, if you prefer, William the Conqueror and Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria.
Their shades, at least. Reduced, and concerned primarily with the continuation of their empire.
Would you try to make your own necromancy empire?
As for the morality of the Priests themselves ... that's tougher. I can't just offer to nuke them, since they are the government.
ReplyDeleteThat one I'll need to think about. Constraining anyone's morality is hard, especially if they have mindless soldiers at their disposal.
William Nichols - Technologically, Rome could have done most of the pieces of that, but found it easier to just get more land and slaves and maintain a broader land base worked less intensively. So it's not something they did.
ReplyDeleteBut, like, think of terraced rice fields. They're like that in the sense of intensive development.
William Nichols - I would totally try to start my own. Just, like, waaaaaaaaay over there.
ReplyDeleteI think, Levi Kornelsen , that you had about the right way here, earlier: the lifeless are best made from the faithful. Making those outside the faith into lifeless risks ... problems.
ReplyDeleteIs it done? Sure. Is it a good idea? Oh, Hell no. For a couple of reasons: 1. Their spirits get lose. 2. Their god gets pissed off. And 3. Other empires unite against you.
Raising them can still make sense, but comes with both short and long term risks. It changes the payoffs, and means you send in the priesthood peacefully rather than the murder hobos.
Levi Kornelsen Also, this is why anyone who can create lifeless is has a standing invitation to join the House of Lords. So, you can go way over there into the barbarian lands without the comforts of home, start murdering and raising, quite possibly die ... or you can hang out in the Empire, have a say in politics, raise the dead from time to time, and live a life of luxury.
ReplyDeleteWhich do you choose?
Personally, Lordliness sounds nice. And yeah, that seems like it'd work pretty well.
ReplyDeleteBut even so, I've still got a dollar that says "A PC group will attempt this".
Well, sure. And that's AOK: Any setting that is designed so PCs cannot act is improperly designed.
ReplyDeleteThis came about due to a DW game, in which I'm playing a Wizard Necromancer from the Caliphate, and another PC is a Paladin from the Caliphate. We're in barbarian country, creating low level lifeless.
Hell, when I cast unseen servant? I used corpses.
PCs are all evil, even ones that're good aligned.
On the people fed per lifeless: Remember they spend more hours in the day, and more days in the year. They may have triple the productive hours.Getting to 12 people fed per lifeless, then, is a matter of getting to 4 people fed per farmer. And that sounds a heck of a lot more reasonable.
ReplyDeleteThis may have been covered -- there's a lot of awesome here, and I've only had a chance to skim -- but people dealing with their loved ones who are lifeless is an important social issue.
ReplyDeleteWhen we see someone we know, it's natural to reach out for social contact. But if the social connection is severed -- due to a bad breakup, or one of you becoming mindless lifeless -- that's going to be a painful stab.
Are there charms and prayers -- little rituals -- that you repeat to yourself when you meet a lifeless intimate?
Or, as the soft fleshy bits of the face are a common first target for carrion eaters, are lifeless stripped of their lips, noses, and cheeks -- a practical concern that also makes them nearly unrecognizable, and contributes to the feeling of a "faceless" labor caste?
Are there mummies, vampires, litches? Do you need to be of an upper caste (or promoted to lordship, or be an "upper lord") to become one of the "mindful lifeless?" How does the church deal with illicit -- or even just foreign -- mummies?
When I picture an undead army, I imagine vast troops of chaff, possibly some highly over-specialized, and a few terrifying elites. I can imagine that as a social pattern as well...what happens if a plague or disaster takes out all the living in an outpost of the empire, leaving only lifeless?
Thoughts on neighbors:
ReplyDeleteSome heretic, humanist druids are inspired by the success of the caliphate (priests and necromancers "solving" the farm and unskilled labor problem) and decide to team up with transmuters and accelerate the rise of some city state by "solving" the crop yield and nutrition problem.
A mysterious but staunch ally marries their children into the nobility, starts to convert their populace, and intends to join their lands to the caliphate. They even demonstrate the ability to raise lifeless! Looks like house of lords in they're future! Then they reveal that they're intelligent undead...
Jesse Cox I like this.
ReplyDeleteSome of it is covered, but you are right that finding lifeless you knew in life would be painful. Renting your dead husband (or, worse, x-wife) could be very very bad.
As for the more intelligent undead: they are officially against the church's rules. Well, sort of. Liches and vampires: verbotten. Intelligent, talking skulls and ghosts? Sure! Avenging spirits? No problem.
But, something which can both do the work of a person and has the mind of a person? Nope, against the religious rules.
There's got to be a town where everyone is dead. That's glorious. And you could send in lifeless to create a new settlement, with only a few priests to command them.
George Austin To the first: I smell a union.
ReplyDeleteTo the second: Sounds like a time for PCs. Send in the Paladins!
New one: https://plus.google.com/+WilliamNichols/posts/LdA5pQx8iMh
ReplyDeleteAbout lifeless loved ones: The more pleasant solution would be masks, or even hoods, to cover the face.
ReplyDeleteBrian Ashford Sure, but imagine if you go to rent a lifeless and intentionally go for your departed husband / daughter / etc. The pathos!
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols Or worse, the rich merchant who always coveted your wife and buys her lifeless after her mysterious death...
ReplyDeleteRevolting. It happens. It absolutely happens.
ReplyDeleteDepending on the current level of corruption within the priesthood, that may end with a swift Paladin foot to the head. Whose head is a matter of some question ...