Thanatos

Thanatos is the southern continent of Ondûn. Shrouded in impenetrable mists, Thanatos is the realm of the dead and, until the end of the First Age, it was here that all dead souls were ferried. After the Night Wars devastated three continents, Thanatos fell silent but many speculated – correctly, in fact – that undead nations still reigned there.

Geography

For practically all of its history, the interior of Thanatos remained a mystery to the people of Ondûn – save to the native human population. Protected by the Whither, only a handful of outsiders ever set foot on the blighted soil of Thanatos and fewer still returned to tell the tale.
In the Vanished Time, Thanatos might have resembled southern Obsidios or Sapphros – thick jungles, grassy savannas, dry deserts. By the beginning of the First Age, the sheer numbers of slain undead during the Time of Terror desecrated much of the land, the very soil drained of life and nutrients. Plants refused to grow in the topsoil of Thanatos and any fauna, native or imported, quickly rotted and died. In time, the undead rulers of Thanatos would come to intentionally spread and even worsen this effect, stopping all running water on the continent, controlling the weather and even plotting out the sun. During the Night Wars, they brought this blight to foreign shores, where it became known as the Spoils.
Since the days of the mist-kings, Thanatos was divided into thirteen regions – at times kingdoms, at others provinces – each with unique cultural distinctions:

• Djaret: Vast and centrally located, Djaret was the breadbasket of Thanatos, even before its Spoiling. Known for its vast sinkhole farms and high population, it eventually fell to Lyxenagos, the Open Lich, in Gallons M39.
• Kafad: The northernmost region, Kafad was hemmed by the Clavicles to the south and boasted the most fertile soil on continent, even after the Spoiling.
• Lahas: The smallest and most westerly of the region, Lahas abutted the Tritonic Ocean and, during its tenure as a kingdom, was frequently conquered by its more bellicose neighbors.
• Natum: Infamous for its frequent undead incursions, the soil of northwestern Natum was more despoiled than any other province and produced a martial, raiding culture early in its history.
• Sehot: A narrow, barren desert region along the continent's southwestern coast, Sehot was enclosed by mountains and accessible only by isolated passes. Saram Gor was its capital

Climate

Located in the southern hemisphere, it was presumed that Thanatos would have boasted a warm, tropical climate and, in the Vanquished Time, this was quite likely the case. As the undead rose to power,
With the coming of the dead, however, and the continent's suffusion with necrotic magic, the climate was likewise affected. Those few outsiders to visit the continent and return spoke of a noticeably cooler climate, more akin with northern Rubicos or, in some place, Diamos than the southern reaches of Obsidios and Sapphros to the east and west.
The largest contributing factor to those cooler climate was inarguably the Blemished Sun, a powerful spell cast to shade the sun during the reign of the Red Empress. Its light muted enough to permit vampires to walk abroad, it cooled the climate as well, resulting in milder summers and freezing winters. Additional meteromancy disrupted the water cycle to prevent both precipitation and evaporation. The human population accessed their potable water either from deep aquifers beneath the soil or by magical means.

History

A Note About Dating

Thanatos and Ondûn did not share a calendar. While most other civilizations followed the Divine Calendar, Thanatos observed the March of Moons, a unique system designed to measure specifically their own lunar cycle. This affected how one measured hours, days, weeks, months and even years. Comparing dates was nearly impossible and many historians quibbled over how precisely to interpolate a date from one calendar on another.
For this reason, the following timeline is presented using the Thanasian calendar – with the exception of the Vanished Time – rather than the standard Divine one.

Vanished Time

The ancient history of Thanatos is one of peace and prosperity. The ancestral homeland of humans, the continent that would become Thanatos was once inhabited by dozens of small civilizations – nomadic herders, river-traders, settled agrarian cities. As the population flourished, several of these civilizations sought to expand, crossing the Strangled Sea and establishing colonies on both Sapphros in the west and Obsidios in the east.
None know precisely when the Whither first began to appear. In its earliest incarnations, it was not a thick curtain of mist but instead sporadic patches that would appear and vanish within hours. From this mist came hordes of mindless undead. None know the precise origin of these creature but, initially, they appeared as undead human – colonists, even – driven by an insatiable hunger. Known as the Time of Terror, many of the continent's nascent civilizations did not survive this threat. As the invading dead grew more and more numerous, the human population dwindled, nearly to the point of extinction. Only those civilizations – thirteen in total – with strong enough militaries to rebel the dead survived the Time of Terror.
In Corpse Moon I, an unknown Thanasian man, living in the foothills near Isarakarasi, was approached by the imprisoned Elder Evil Yog. Encased in sacrosteel, Yog's power was strong enough only to make a bargain with this man. In exchange for timeless, immortal power, Yog asked for the man's undying service. Upon performing a fell sacrifice, this man was given the Gift and transformed into Azathomet, Ondûn first vampire.
Yog's first order was to spread the gift It gave to all thirteen of the petty monarchs that ruled Thanatos. One by one, Azathomet did as he was bid and soon, Thanatos was ruled by the undead. His task done, Azathomet retreated into the bowels of Mountain That Feeds and would not emerge for many long ages – unless at Yog's bidding.

First Coterie

Now gifted with undeath, the petty monarchs sought to transform Thanasian society to their whims. Calling themselves mist-kings, they each instituted sweeping reforms. They passed the Gift to those they deemed worthy and instituted blood-taxes on their populace to sustain themselves. What's more, they began to study necromancy, seeking a means to turn the undead hordes to their advantage.
Over the following centuries, Thanatos would transform from an embattled wasteland to a thriving continent. There was much war between them in this period until, at the bidding of Imokepat, they formed the First Coterie in Culling M380 for mutual gain. Thanks to mutual cooperation, many of the innovations commonly associated with the nation – the subterranean agriculture, the stagnant waters, even the full appearance of the Whiter – would develop during the First Coterie's collective reign.
Yet the mindless dead continued to pour into Thanatos, faster even than the vampire lords could assimilate them. As the land choked with roving zombie hordes, the Coterie turned to another solution – conquest.

Night Wars

Main Article: Night Wars
In Dread M49 – 899 1A – Thanatos sent three armadas – dreadnoughts loaded with undead soldiers – to claim coastal territory on Auros, Obsidios and Sapphros respectively. Caught completely unaware by this attack, the Thanasian forces established footholds in Vhakizla, the Glaive and founded the stronghold of Aos on the southern tip of Auros.
Resistance, especially in Sapphros, was initially quite scant and Thanasian forces were obliged to large swaths of territory, magically terraforming it for their use. Humans refugees fled north in droves while the conquests of Auros and Obsidios proved that much harder. In Obsidios, it was the thick jungles that inhibited the undead forces, the slow-moving dead often tangled in thick overgrowth. In Auros, the collective armies of the Sister Empires would eventually assemble to help defend the orcish homeland and give battle to the Thanasians for over three decades.
By Dread M55 – 32 2A – Thanatos was flagging. The flow of fresh undead into the nation was slackening and political strife amongst the Coterie was becoming unmanageable. This strife would come to a head when Ptaqeshet, queen of Sehot, slew all twelve members of the First Coterie – and subsequently all their get – in a single night. Termed the Feast of Fury, it simultaneously ended the Night Wars and made Ptaqeshet, the Red Empress, one of only two vampires in all Thanatos.

Red Age

Under the rule of the Red Empress, Thanatos saw a lengthy period of peace, unity and isolation. Ruling from her new capital of Saram Gor, it was believed she reigned for nearly 1500 years, from Gallows M26 to Rancid M910. With the Whither fully in place, Thanatos made no more forays into the wider world – with a few notable exceptions – for the entirety of her reign.
If reforms began under the First Coterie, they were perfected under the Red Empress. With zombie incursions slackening, the Empress was free to focus her attentions elsewhere to improve her new empire. Humans flourished in this period, no longer prey to any voracious vampires save the restrained empress. During her tenure, the Church of Death Everlasting was founded in Culling M1858 but perhaps her greatest accomplishment was the formation of the Blemished Sun in Pact M265.
However, the longer her reign stretched on, the more and more weary the Red Empress grew of ruling and of vampirism. After installing complex procedures to account for her death many years earlier, Ptaqeshet ended her own life and reign in Gluttonous M60. Upon her death, the contingencies she'd established went into effect, passing rule to the Church of Death Everlasting.

Epoch Entombed

Apart from Azathomet in his mountain, there were no vampires in Thanatos from Gluttonous M60 to Heartbeat M17. Instead, the high priests and hierophants of the Church of Death Everlasting – all mummies – ruled the nation for approximately 300 years. While a time of comparative stability, it also saw the slow decay of Thanasian society beneath religious doctrine and ecclesiastical bureaucracy.
Following a thousand years of prosperity, the living of Thanatos came to the fore in this era. Already ascendent thanks to the Empress' lenient policies, more and more humans were rising to positions of prominence in the strictly hierarchical Thanasian society. The highest of them were granted the honor of mummification but, once awoken as mummies, they often found themselves opposing the rise of other living and striving to enshrine undead power.
Towards the end of the epoch, the Church leaders obsessed over an apocalyptic heresy known as the Exarch Entombed. According to the prophecy, the world's ending would only be averted by the eponymous Exarch, a mummy entombed for 499 years. To this end, many mummies inside the church retreated to their sarcophagi, in the hopes that they might emerge as the Exarch in 499 years. It was this prophecy, of unknown origin, that began the downward spiral that could collapse the Epoch Entombed.

Hour of Azathomet

As more and more priests and pontiffs in the Church abdicated their duties, an unknown human dared enter Isarakarasi in Culling 1949M to awake Azathomet. Pleading for gudiance, he begged the first vampire to emerge exile and guide the collapsing nation. Upon hearing this, Azathomet slew the messenger but nonetheless answered his plea. Emerging from the mountain, Azathomet quickly swept aside the scattered remnants of the Church, seized control of the rudderless nation and, as its new Emperor, proceeded to restore some semblance of stability to Thanatos.
Azathomet's tenure was exceptionally brief for a Thanasian ruler – no more than a decade. During this time, he surrounded himself with promising human courtiers and advisors. Only upon those he deemed most worthy did he bestow the Gift. By the end of his reign, Azathomet had single-handedly created another vampiric aristocracy – known as the Second Coterie – in Tainted M1825. When he was satisfied, Azathomet returned to self-imposed exile beneath Isarakarasi and did not again meddle in Thanasian politics.

Second Coterie

Fearful of another extinction, the vampires of the Second Coterie did not share their predecessors reticence to pass out the Gift. This led to a massive spike in the vampire population and the carving of the thirteen regions into hundreds of smaller fiefdoms. Viscounts, baronets and marquis now ruled petty kingdoms no larger than estates. A High Count nominally ruled each region and its collection of fiefdoms but the title was often short-held, thanks to near-constant squabbling and back-biting amongst the various factions. Despite the apparent chaos of this system, it somehow managed to maintain relative stability for many years.
All was not stable in the wide central region of Djaret, however. Strange killings, acts of sabotage and mysterious disappearances began to plague the counties and baronies, all tied to a strange cult amongst the human population. The vampire aristocracy was slow to respond to these threats, unaware of the true danger that lurked in their midst. By Gallows M39, however, the High Count of Djaret was dead, usurped not by another vampire but instead by a strange, undead wizard known as Lyxenagos, the Open Lich.
The emergence of Lyxenagos provoked immediate reprisals from the other High Counts but, try as they might, he could not be overthrown. The victim of several assassination attempts, Lyxenagos simply reformed days later, thanks to his hidden reliquary. The other vampires began to make peace with him until, emerging from hiding in other regions, more and more liches arose to trouble them in their fiefs. As the Second Coterie turned inward to fight the threat within, a civil war began.

War of Blood and Bone

Unlike its wars of conquest overseas, the War of Blood and Bone was civil and fought between vampire and lich. This was a war of poisonings, assassinations, kidnappings and ransoms. The Coterie began with every advantage – the power, the authority, the resources – but Lyxenagos and his allies fought a dastardly persistent guerilla campaign, proving impossible to entirely vanquish, thanks to their reliquaries.
While liches in the outlying provinces were often hunted down and killed, Djaret – under the sway of Lyxenagos and his Souls Forfeit – became a haven for their kind. Soon, a Congerie of Liches arose, with Lyxenagos at its head, to rule the region from Devoured M79 to Unhallowed M1865. Vampires and their allies were hunted under their rule and the Congerie resorted to destructive magical tactics to enforce their borders with the neighboring hostile regions.
The true victim of this devastating war were the common people, trod underfoot by brutal extermination campaigns and caught in the arcane crossfire. The sentiment grew so terrible that, in Gluttonous M89, a church-backed revolt began to spread through Thanatos. Led by a mummy claiming to the Exarch Entombed, it demolished the established power structures, both of the vampire fiefdoms and the Congerie of Djaret, and forced the two warring powers to peace talks. In Ancestral M1879, after three short years of revolt, the leaders of all three factions – vampire, lich and mummy – came to terms, to discuss the future of Thanatos. Thus, the Triumvirate was born.

Reign of the Triumvirate

To ensure peace between the warring sects, the Triumvirate would represent all three. Iremitaru, a vampire who claimed to be the sole surviving get of Ptaqeshet, the Red Empress, was appointed the Sanguis, head of Thanatos' economy. The Exarch Entombed was the natural choice for the Corpus, the leader of the faith. While Lyxenagos was presumed to claim the title of Cerebrus, he instead demurred and appointed a successor, a nameless lichling he'd raised as an apprentice. The favor was not returned, for the Cerebrus' first commnad was to destroy Lyxenagos – and his reliquary.
As the Triumvirate rose to power, so too did Thanatos. It was a golden age for the empire of the dead, thanks in part to the waxing of necrotic power that seemed to blossom in the east. A comparatively unimportant city, Yxthon found itself the nexus of this inexplicable surge in power and became the new capital and center of the Triumvirate's operations in Leech 144M. Ruling from their aerial Pyramidion, they ushered in this new age of prosperity and opulence.
What's more, for the first time in thousands of years, Thanatos turned its eyes outward. Midway through the Fourth Age, the Triumvirate established diplomatic relations with Yogoth and even permitted the construction of an embassy in Yxthon. This seemed to pique their curiosity about the outside world and, in Dread 344M, they launched small campaigns to found small colonies in southern Obsidios and Sapphros, an act not seen since the Night Wars millennia earlier.

Politics

There was no single governing body that ruled Thanatos during its long tenure on Ondûn. Instead, dozens of factions held sway for a century or three, occasionally warring with one another or squabbling for power. Few political truths were considered universal from one reign to another – save one: the dead ruled the living.
The populace of Thanatos was divided into a strict caste system, where one's place was determined by one's life, death or undeath. The lowest and caste were the living, often servants and laborers in skills too complex for mindless undead. Above the living were those mindless dead – skeletons and zombies that technically outranked the living but were often given the most menial tasks. Above the mindless were the middling undead – death knights, ghosts, wights, wraiths and many others – functioning as an effective middle-class; merchants, bureaucrats, military commanders. At the top were the greater undead – liches, mummies and vampires – that ruled over the nation. Though the individual fortunes of these factions rose and fell throughout the centuries, they always remained elevated above all other living and undead.

Vampire Coteries

The gift of vampirism gave unchecked power to the first rulers of Thanatos' thirteen regions. The mist-kings reigned with absolute impunity, hunting and feasting on their human subjects at will. It was a brutal time, a time before the vampires of the continent began to carefully shepherd and cultivate human life as a precious resource. While some unlucky mist-kings were toppled by peasant uprising and revolt, the most successful enthralled their chief rivals to them, creating loyal servitors and eliminating competition all at once. Until the formation of the First Coterie in Culling M380, the greatest threat to a mist-king's reign was typically a rival vampire, eager to claim their territory.
By the time of the Second Coterie in Tainted M1825, this backbiting and scheming increased tenfold. While each vampiric noble was ostensibly ruled by a High Count, infighting between them was absolutely rampant. Vampires squabbled for every superficial title and insignificant barony. Rather than the open barbarism of the mist-kings, however, the Second Coterie adopted a veneer of respectability to their petty feuds. Sabotage, assassinations and poisonings were quite common amongst them, all with an eye towards evading the ire of the High Counts that presided over them all.

Red Empress

By contrast, the reign of the Red Empress was the longest period of peace and prosperity in all Thanasian history. Sweeping away the barbarism of the Night Wars and the mist-kings, she ushered in an age of stability that saw all of Thanatos, not merely its undead aristocracy, flourish. A booming economy, coupled with wartime spoils, saw the material wealth and infrastructure of Thanatos blossom to new heights, heights only ever attained again during the late stages of the Triumvirate. The Red Age was an equally successful period for the Church of Death Everlasting, who naturally elevated to fill the role left abandoned by the absent aristocracy.
For all the benefit she brought to Thanatos, the Red Empress was unquestionably a cruel tyrant. She would suffer no other vampires during her entire long reign and hunted them down with extreme impunity. Her word was law and any challenge to her authority was met with swift violence. When a province displeased her or a functionary disobeyed, they were dispatched without mercy and without redress. She was answerable to none and, brooking no rival, it was eventually her own ennui that ended her reign when she took her own life in Gluttonous M60.

Church of Death Everlasting

Though scattered and sectarian, some form of the Church Everlasting – a cultic worship of death – has existed in Thanatos since the advent of its first mist-kings. Its unification was another innovation of the peerless Red Empress. She formalized its structures, a hierarchy that would endure for thousands of years, and assigned her newfound church the all-important task of shepherding and fostering the human population that made the necrocracy function.
For hundreds of years, the Church oversaw much of the day-to-day bureaucracy that kept Thanatos running smoothly. In addition to their ecclesiastical duties, the Church educated and employed the human populace, allocated the death and reanimation of worthy citizens, managed the growing and shipment of goods and supplies across the empire and advised the current ruler, whether empress, lich or triumvirate. These duties would expand to include military and foreign policy during the Epoch Entombed, immediately following the Red Empress' death in Gluttonous M60.
By her design, the Church was intended to operate wholly independently, to function as a well-lubricated machine. Much of that machinery was composed of living volunteers – humans, willingly serving the church in an effort to curry favor – many types of undead, from bureuacratic wights to death knight paladins to mummified cardinals, were found amongst its ranks. It was these last – the mummified clergy – that were highest ranked and most influential, each ruling the Church for a spell on the Bleak Council before retreating back into their entombed torpor.

Souls Forfeit

Triumvirate

Economy

Demographics

Culture

Campaigns

Name: Thanatos
Capital: Yxthon (Fourth Age)
Government: Necrostate
Languages: Thanasian
Demographics: Isolated (71% undead, 26% human, 3% other)
Demonym: Thanasian