Vampires and other Nice Options

"Necromancers deal with Death, dead corpses, creation and control of undead, and related subjects."

...well, yes! That is a way to introduce the subject. No necromancer alive or not would have said something like that about his magical Way, but there is nothing technically wrong with the sentence.
My name is Faudrin, if you know Altair's texts you may recognize my name, and the name of Puze, my dear iapi. I am the old vagabond who saved the Earthling sigrax a couple of times, and donate him a leg. Can't say I like most the descriptions the Earthling makes of me, but vanity is seldom a suitable defect to be cultivated by an undead. Pride perhaps, but not vanity.
I am a lich. And as any one who can say that I am in my rights to feel proud for know more than just the basics introductory lines when the subject is necromancy.
Anyone who tells you necromancy is "about Death" either is a very poor student or never even studied the Way. Necromancy deals with the bond that connects your magical body to your physical organism. If you must be simplistic you can call that "life", and say that we deal with life. You just will need to clarify in which way, because that is the same thing healers do, and necromancers are obviously not healers: the two Ways are close, since necromancy do originated from healing magic, but there is a essential difference. I would not dare to say an "improvement" because that would be disrespectful to my fellow healers.
Healer magic uses the connection between the magical body and the physical to push the second closer to the first. That is why a healer cannot "improve" a living thing beyond the perfect ideal pertinent to this thing's specie. Since the magical body is far more resilient than the physical one, and does not suffer the effects of time in the same way, a powerful healer can give to a person a resistance that seems beyond the biological possibilities. Can prolong the individual life hundreds of times. But no healer can make a human see in the dark or breath under water, if those are not characteristics of that specific human sub-species.
We change the nature of the bond, instead of reinforce it. We mix the physical and the magical, and the bond that connects both, like a cookers doing one of your Italian Pizzas mixes the ingredients to make the pasta. The product cannot be separated or changed back in the initial ingredients.
We can deal with echoes of former living things, those things you Eathlings call "ghosts". Those are usually the only necromantic spells sigraxes who don't follow Necromancy are able to master. That is not deal with "Death" in any way I would give for the word, but is deal with corpses, just not the physical corpse. We can use those pieces of memory and residual energy of spirits who have already been devoured by the Giant Tarn to animate pieces of corpses left by other spirits who have followed the same path: not necessarily the same pieces of flesh that used to be connected to those pieces of ghosts, but that is equally possible.
I am describing the process of create low undeads. That's the core activity of a typical necromancer sigrax. You can reach a considerable level of sophistication in your work without leave the department of low undeads. I practice the art for more than just a few thousand years and I am far from be able to claim that I mastered half the accumulated knowledge in the topic low undeads. There is a lot I must learn, and new advancements happens every century.
Low undeads are a rich topic, and I am yet to know the necromancer who lacks interest for it, or diminishes the subject. However, if you ask any magic user who follows other way you probably will hear something silly like "low undeads are a preparation for true necromancy", "is how they train their students", that sort of thing.
Is hard for a sigrax to create high undeads, what is the next step. Not because they lack knowledge, sigraxes know magic as well as we do, I suspect most of them may understand it better than the average mage. They cannot distill the Xar in their bodies to the necessary level to deal with the effects of introduce the personal essence of someone in the mix of physical and magical bodies. That is what involves the creation of high undeads.
With the right tools and ingredients a sigrax can create high undeads. Usually they get better results in groups of at least five necromancers, but is possible for individuals to succeed the task.
In any case, whether it is created by one sigrax, by half dozen of them, or by a cabal of dozens of mages and hundreds of sigraxes, the undead will exist according to the laws established in the ritual of creation. They are usually made to endure time, indefinitely; but even that is optional. I have personally provided a undead existence limited to less than a decade to a fellow who only wished to exist long enough as undead to perform one defined task, and needed all power he could have in order to maximize his chances to achieve the goal.
That is a less externalist approximation of the subject Necromancy. Next time, if you have interest, I intend to provide some generic comments about the most usual "models" of undead existence. The paradigms we necromancers follow to optimize the results, and make the best undeads possible, considering the limited knowledge and purity of Xar available at the moment. And the living material we have to work with.

Vampires and Other Nice Options

Was a million years ago, give or take a couple thousand, the last time I sold my services. Retirement suits me. Therefore you may relax in the certainty that I have no interest in sell you anything.
Besides, I didn't looked by clients even when I was still alive. Necromancers are rare enough to not have to worry about competition, and would surprise you how many living people in any given century don't want to leave their bodies for fertilizer as spirits and go their way to be devoured by the Great Tarn in the afterlife. Necromancer mages make the prices for their main service as they please, someone always is willingly to pay.
In the end of day, a lich has little reason to worry about money or costs. Out nature closes the doors of civilized life for us, what is the many negative side of being like me, after some time. We have no sense of smell, and we feel no touch, we get the information those senses deliver to the living by magical ways but there is no pleasure of discomfort: those things are gone for good. Is very unsettling at first, but just for a century or two. Then what you miss is the walks between the towers of your home city at evening, the conversations in the Main Market where you used to buy spices and admire newly arrived slave-girls waiting to be sold on the block for the first time.
Liches cannot stay in cities, or close to living people, for long. Our company is deadly unhealthy. We must move each couple of centuries, more or less, because our presence affects the land and the air. Making necromancy stronger, and continuation of life impossible. The longer a lich stays in one place, larger is will be the area affected by his presence.
In any case, "lich" is the one model no necromancer can sell.
So, for the sake of conversation, lets say you where looking for a necromancer to end your life. Kill you, as a human. In order to bring you back, as a undead. Perhaps you would not be sure if that is a good choice, yet. Maybe was just a curiosity, a momentary fear of aging and dying, or you just begun noticing difficulty to read and that is annoying you enough to make you consider alternatives.
If you are able to seriously consider to buy a existence as undead that means you are decently wealthy. Any prosperous Merchant Caste can go for magical elixirs to slow aging and prolong virility, those who have magic potential awaken can add centuries to their young days by the same price others buy each extra year. Eventually, all living humans must age and die, and the same applies to most talking animals and plants. To actually escape that fate, one must change deeply. Leave behind both humanity and the condition of living being: that is a expensive step.
Then you find yourself a necromancer, and explained you want eternal life. He corrected you, and you agreed in replace that "life" for "existence". He asks you if you can pay for his services, and you persuade him that you actually can.
_How you imagine your existence, after your death?_ he may ask you_ What you like the most about being alive? What you want to do with you new body?
In my experience is rare for a client to have a useful answer for this question. It is really only ONE question, I only dressed it in alternative words. As a necromancer you want to have a large wardrobe full of words, because takes a time for the client start seem the slave-girl dancing under those cloths and she will have to present herself many times in wearing different accessories to keep them looking long enough. The question here, the "dancer slave-girl", is essential.
There is no "perfect solution" you could apply to all. Each high undead is unique, some "models" are more suitable for some purposes, and some are harder to make and therefore more expensive. In the end, a inspired necromancer can get almost any result you could dream from almost any basic model (I really dislike that word, when applied to that context; but, Altair made it popular and I never found an alternative in Earthling languages good enough to worth the trouble of change it). What no necromancer can do in your place is decide what is the right undead existence for you.
Over the ages some tropes became popular. Some guidelines all necromancers use to speed the process.( for the names here I am using those Altair provided us. If others translated the Merchant Language expressions to English before I have not found the work)

MUMMY:
You want stability, and you probably are the head of some social structure: your family, nation, Caste, church, or something around that field. Considering the basic options that was the most expensive alternative available in my portfolio.
Mummies are not as resilient as liches are, but they are the next best thing. And they are able to keep developing any magical power they had in life. There is always some lost in that area, and being undead do complicates the use of some magical Ways, and forces the magic user to learn again all he used to know. Even necromancy itself. Any way, this model is ideal for magic users, and is very hard to destroy.
Is not too hard to give those undeads a resemblance of life, if that is what they are looking for. The art was refined a lot since I last created a Mummy, and much of that refinement was in hedonistic concerns such as look well, smell nicely, and be able to enjoy sexual intercourse. If hedonism is what you are looking for that is not the obvious choice but is not one to ignore either. The negative aspect of this choice is that it is unable to change address. In that they are the opposite of liches. We create a lich in a center of power, a palace or a temple usually. It may be in the center of a large city. It cannot be moved after the undead is created. The health of any mummy is connected to this center of power, up there they are barely impossible to destroy and very hard to hurt.
If a mummy destroyed anywhere there is rituals a necromancer can perform to bring them back. But those rituals must be performed in the mummy's altar of power.
That means a long sleep in defenseless state for the mummy if a Xar-Scar opens nearby and covers their place of power. Until the Scar heal they are dead ashes that must be kept save in a urn waiting for the ritual that can only be made after magic go back to their home.


DROWNED :
Have you noticed how a significant portion of general population assumes that all old people are Historians? Well, I am an old fellow. Not ancient by the standards of liches, but older than most even when considered only that population. That said I do not count myself as an authority in things that happened before I start my existence as a mortal adult human.
When the subject is magical in nature is hard to use magic to trace the origins of it. In any case, the drowned are a strong candidate when my people start asking: "what was the first high undeads?".
You may ask yourself why we don't just find the first undead and ask this person. Isn't that simple. The period we are talking about is in the Barbaric Times, somewhere close to the beginning of it, and Barbaric Times is a period of more than 8 billion years. Not millions. Is possible that some undeads from that period still exist, but if they to chances are that they do not talk anymore. Mind changes over time, priorities change. The capacity to use words and share ideas may last indefinitely but the desire to do those things seems to be less durable, taking from what we know from undeads younger than one billion years, but older than myself.
I digress.
Your typical drowned looks like a corpse that after a decade under extremely cold sea water. The model does not allow the same latitude Mummies allow in therms of fulfill hedonistic demands. This undeads are always covert on water, cold and usually salt water. They need to stay under water at least half the time, but depends on the specific creation spell if the period of reference will be one day or six centuries. In any case, be far from water makes them week and after eventually they shut down, hibernating in a state that looks like dehydrated cadavers. They are not as fragile as actual corpses, but can be destroyed without much difficulty if you know how.
One way to explain them is to say that they are mummies, but their place of power is the oceans, and rivers connected to it. Their nature allows far more mobility, what prevents the inconvenience of be locked inside a Xar-Scar. Is not too difficult to preserve their magic power, if they where magic users in life.
They never look alive. You can hide their appearance with Illusion spells, of course. They will always drip cold water constantly, and as that is a magical collateral effect of their condition is not easy to hide it.
The reasons for anyone want that alternative are restrict, I do not consider drowned practical to be honest. Those who want undead existence for develop their studies indefinitely will find out that is very inconvenient to be wet all the time, and have to expend long periods bellow water: hard to read books that way. Those looking for self indulgence will find no satisfaction in the model, usually. Takes a real master necromancer to preserve some living sensibilities in a drowned. Those who seek political power for the sake of power itself, and those who want to serve their families as guardians and advisers are the likely clients for this specific model.


SPECTRAL :
Usually we base ourselves in the physical side and bring the magical substance in that direction. One exception to that rule is here.
The physical element is present, but changed beyond recognition. Up to a level that provides fair justification for those who mistake spectrals for some other thing. A thing that is product of Mind Magic, Mind Whispers mostly. I may be mistaken but my impression is that the literal translation would be "peregrine-mind". Spectrals, unlike the peregrine-minds are material beings. Despite appearances seemingly contradict that.
There is shortcuts, and too many necromancers indulge in them, but the proper way to create a spectral demands to users of magic. Ideally two mages, at least. One necromancer and one enchanter.
The Spectral is created in connection to an magical object. This object must stay safe because if it is destroyed so is the Spectral. Naturally, well made magical items are very hard to destroy and practically eternal if they don't face destruction by magical means.
The undead is invisible most the time, and can go trough solid objects with little effort. He does feel the physical world, and can affect it directly when he wants. In some extent is possible for them to temporarily change the physical objects so they became spectral enough to be carried through walls, even living people can be affected that way by the most powerful spectrals.
One negative aspect of their existence is the excessive sensibility to environmental changes, and magical influence. Even Path ways of magic are know to affect those who choose that model. Some wild animals also prey in those undeads, a entire fauna and flora of spectral beings is around us and usually cannot be noticed, much less harm normal beings but it do affects the spectrals. Some other animals change their bodies alternating between normal solid and spectral existence. If your client has intention to became a spectral is essential that you explain the dangerous existence he is choosing.
Not that those undeads would count as defenseless. If the necromancer does an average work while creating them, those beings are very difficult to destroy. They can be hurt, but as long as their anchor in physical world remains intact they will recover.
One thing that can be done by necromancers, and even followers of magical Paths such as shamans, is use the magical anchor to gain control over the Spectral. Having the right tools and proper knowledge even an alchemist could bend the undead to his will. That is one reason why this model is not recommended for free, paying, costumers. Least not often
Except when the client wants exactly that: to be for ever bond to serve a institution, or a family. Then there is ways to make impossible for anyone else do use the anchor to control him, as long as the people he named as rightful guardians of this magical treasure still exist. The classic solution is to make the connection between the magical anchor of a spectral and his blood lineage, that gives those living relatives a considerable power over the undead, and usually means his destruction if all his descendants die, but at same time protects the undead against a vast variety of magical traps.
Incidentally, that is one interesting way to work your way around a universal limitation of magic. Only someone with magic potential awaken can use a magical object, like a magical weapon or armour. However, if you make yourself a spectral and connect your anchor to your blood lineage then any one of your descendants will be able to use the magic weapon as a magical weapon, even those without magic potential. Actually, will be you using the powers provided by your condition as spectral to help your descendant. You could appear to him and hold the magical sword yourself, or 'possess' your heir (is a common feature of spectrals, not hard to add in their creation).
Most spectrals are Warrior Caste, or the wild barbaric equivalent to that, or the lawless equivalent.

---

I organized my list by "cost" so to speak. Or desirability. Going from the the most likely to be a good choice to the the model I would not recommend if the client has the money to go for the best. However, that is relative, as I mentioned already.
One can certainly go for a very powerful Spectral individual, many times more expensive than the basic Mummy.
In any case, those are the options more likely to be suggested first. They are powerful, timeless, and carry no concerns related to obtain nutrients. In one way or another those undeads are directly connected to a source of magical power, they will exist for ever without eat or drink. And if the client is a magic user is possible to transfer most of his magic power to the new existence.
Next come alternatives that have disadvantages in those aspects. A Necromancer must learn to balance the limitations according to the client. If your are creating an undead from someone who has no magic potential you have no worry about preserve the magic power, but nourishment has to be taken into consideration more seriously. Sigraxes and mages can sustain themselves whit magical energy only, when they are alive, and as that is not always possible for undeads is at least a complementary source of vital energy to consider.

---

PALE CHAMPION :
Without distance myself from the true I could say those fellows are glorified ghouls. A ghoul is a low undead with predator nature, they must eat flesh (usually human, or of any intelligent specie) to stay active. Is possible to "up" the model enough to allow them periods of human intelligence, after they feed. That makes them like the lizard-folk, who also need to consume the bodies of talking animals in order to maintain their intelligence in human level, or close to that.
Pale champions share the dietary needs of ghouls and lizard-folk, but they are far more powerful and a lot more solid than any of those.
Their appearance does not have to change much from what they used to be in their best days as living things. The Pale is taller than he was in life, a head or two, and we replace the eyes for magical stones of metal globes magically enchanted. They can see without any light, considerably better than they used to with living eyes. Traditionally we replace the teeth and the nails for enchanted red iron, but you could use any other material, and keep the appearance close to what living humans have. However, the model do not preserve tactile sensibility, and I personally see no sense in try to make those undeads look alive.
Pale Champions are usually Warrior Caste, or Noble Caste, and dedicate their timeless existences to serve as guardians of a castle or fortress. Many also teach new recruits and advise the new generations of their families in military matters. They are intelligent, and continue learning things, but tend to became somewhat reptilian in their logic after a few thousand years. Besides, they must eat talking beings, alive, with regularity to not decay in intelligence and rotten.
A necromancer can restore the Pale Champion to its original state, after a traumatic period without food. However, I used to insist in the difficulties involved to try dissuade the client to choose that model. For good reason: its not guaranteed to work, this recover, when it does not work the undead person end up as a fancy version of low undead. More mindless than a living beast. Is really not a risk to be taken lightly, taking in consideration the unlimited time frame.
On the other hand, they are cheaper that the good stuff, besides "20 times stronger than the stronger member of your specie can be" is the base line you have to mention. Pale Champions are as solid as stone and harder to brake than statues. They can be flexible, fast, tireless. And they never sleep, which is a detail that attracts a considerable number of Scholar Castes, Builder Castes and Metal Workers.

VAMPIRES :
I understand you Earthlings have a sort of religious reverence, or sexual trope, surrounding what you call "vampires". That being the reason why Altair the Infamous, poor dear boy, decided to use the word in this context.
Suits them, because there is something both religious and sexual involved with the origin of this model. Vampires are the most recent option added to the portfolio of Necromancers, save for minor variations in classic concepts. I was around when it happened myself.
To not start a History Lesson here, let's say that up to the first vampires emerge from the ground no one had considered undeads could be desirable slave-girls. No that is a lie! No one had considered that undead could enjoy their existence as sexual-slaves. Very fell masters do enjoyed to keep undead slave-girls, and slave men, for sexual purposes: but there was more dark humor in that than sexual arousal. Or at least, I suspect so.
Sexual pleasure was not on the table for those how considered to became undeads, that was part of the life we had to leave behind. Perhaps some abstract masturbation, if that make sense to you, or illusion magic. Or vivid experience of one's own sexual memories. All that far fetched, artificial flowers. Undeads and sexual pleasure do not mix (from the undead's point of view, at least).
Vampires are sensual, seductive predators. And is not only possible but even normal to make them fully capable to enjoy the pleasures of sexual intercourse. Both with each other and whit the living. Is the easiest way to shape a undead vampire, when creating it.
They need to consume energy, vital energy from talking animals, and there is some options for that but drink blood is the lazy alternative. They are necessarily connected to darkness, and with some predators. And that gives you a large but limited number of options, depending on what is your client's priority. And his talents as an living being.
Broadly speaking, make a vampire more vulnerable to light allows you to provide him more capacities similar to magic and reduces the frequency this vampire must feed from intelligent species. You can make him able to walk under the sun, but that gives up all his undead powers and imposed the need of consume a large number of intelligent slaves or enemies, frequently. You can make the vampire able to sustain himself with the blood of a few low animals and just the company of talking beings, but this vampire will get painful burn in his skin from moonlight and will not be stronger than he was in life or enjoy magic capacities proper to the undead condition of being a vampire. Or you can balance those factors, often the most advisable.
I value my intellectual honesty, specially when the subject is necromancy. Because of that I must be clear about one thing: traditional, old school, necromancers have mixed feelings about vampires. And the base of this mix is nausea.
I'm old, an elder for most liches walking around in this Age. Vampires do not strike me as a deformation or degeneration of necromancy, far from that. I do see the appeal of them. Have studied the implications and considered the possibilities opened by the existence of vampires. Even made the long travel to the dark caves of Undersea once, to meet the original creator of Sharitarn vampires. All that said, true is that even I consider vampires an odd addition to the Magical Way of Necromancy.
Perhaps they are the home stone, the first base, for a new Magical Way. "Vampire Magic" whatever it can be. There was a time when Necromancy emerged from Healing Magic, perhaps we are seem something similar now.











_continue _

Violet: is the color of magic, in general.      Purple:is the color of necromancy. 
  Civilized necromancers traditionally mix both colors in a representation of the symbol of the Mage University where they studied, and use it as a insignia. When the Mage University is not the one from the city where this necromancer is a citizen, the symbol of the city is represented larger, and the other symbol included as a complement in the lower right, left or center.

Type

Metaphysical, Arcane

     

EXCEPTIONS  

 

     Not all undeads on Sharitarn are product of Necromancer spells. There are at least two other options: 
     Undeads have been brought by the Vortex from other universes, where the laws of nature and the laws of magic are not necessarily identical to those in this Universe. Like any other ii coming from a Universe with different constants the undead endure a impact when they arrive, and their existence is defined by a mix between was they where in their home Universe and what is possible in Sharitarn. All beings from a same Universe seems to fall in the same paradigm. For instance: the Fathers of Shadows came from a Universe where death does not exist, and none of them can die. 
     If other beings arrive in the future from another Universe where death does not exist, they may all die immediately, or became as fragile as any human, or be as immortal as the Fathers of Shadows. Or anything else: is impossible to know, until it happens. 
    The second option is spontaneous raising of undeads. Those are almost always low undeads (the ones unable to talk or act rationally). It is a collateral effect of powerful necromancy, "flavoring" the Xar of a given area cumulatively over thousands of years. Or of a lich sleeping in the same bed for a couple of centuries. Is not something that happens every Thursday, spontaneous raising of undeads is a rare phenomenon. 
    In the west of South Continent, perhaps one quarter of the continent, about every old human has memory of a case or two of spontaneous undead. Animals more often than humans, because people there tend to take precautions with the corpses of their beloved ones. It is specially common near to the sea. Still, is one or two cases in a human lifetime not every winter. Unless you happen to be neighbor of some hidden Lich. That is when you see hordes of rotten corpses spreading in all directions. 
   Needles to say: smart liches do not stay for long after the effects of their presence start being noticed. They are far too powerful for most villages or cities to expel, and they know that. On the other hand, they also know that the cumulative effect of their presence attracts more attention, and sooner or later the Mage's Brotherhood will take action to preserve life on Sharitarn. More likely, other liches will do that themselves before one irresponsible individual attract unwanted attention that could lead to further debates and unpredictable catastrophe for all Liches.