Corpse Conscription

Corpse conscription is the practice of raising the bodies of recently deceased people via necromancy and pressing them into labor or military service, before (or sometimes instead of) releasing them to their next-of-kin for funeral rites. It is most often practiced on those who owe some debt either to society at large or to a specific organization.
The practice is controversial or outright illegal in locations with strong convictions about freedom and bodily autonomy (such as the Liberty Coast) or cultures with long traditions of ancestral reverence or explicit burial rites (such as Halfling and Gnomish societies, respectively).

Execution

The process begins with a body of a deceased prisoner, debtor, or fugitive that a judge or other legal entity sentences to corpse conscription for a predetermined length of time. In most practices, an undertaker strips the corpse of all possessions, organs, and flesh, leaving only a skeleton to be raised by a Necromancer. In some jurisdictions (such as rural parts of Upper Scalados and Terrónsta), where corpses are sentenced to "conscription until rot," their flesh is left intact and they are instead raised as a zombie.
Once the necromancer raises the corpse as a skeleton or zombie, they command it to carry out a task. Conscripted corpses can be used for military offense and defense or for hard labor such as tilling fields and mining ore. The necromancer continues to hold command over the corpse until its sentence has expired, at which point it may be deanimated and buried at the request of next-of-kin. Conscripted corpses whose bodies are never claimed by next-of-kin are sometimes buried by a local temple, but more often than not continue to work in their conscription.

Participants

A Necromancer is needed to raise corpses, turning them into zombies or skeletons.

Important Locations

• Dancamort

Related Organizations

• Chain of Charon