Death is a natural part of life. For everything has its time upon this planet which must - in due course - come to an end at its appointed time, and thereby allow those who come after to inherit what is left behind. To fear this end is natural. To resist, understandable. To succeed... is profane beyond measure.
A great deal of myth and speculation surrounds the stages of death for a mortal soul. The beginning is understood well enough, with a soul simply emerging from its mortal shell shortly after departure, but much of what occurs between that point and arrival within the afterlife seems to be inconsistent at best. Whatever its specifics, however, the system certainly functions well enough in the vast majority of cases. The afterlife is verifiably chock-full of the souls of those who have successfully passed on. With that said, the mortal world still has to contend with those that fall through the cracks, or worse, those who intentionally abuse them.
Undeath is the result of a soul going against the natural order and evading attempts to ferry them across the Veil into the afterlife. While many such souls do enter this state for what many would consider unethical reasons, and all should be considered potentially dangerous - for reasons which should be come clear soon enough - it is worth noting that not all undead beings are 'evil' or inherently monstrous. Some souls are simply overlooked, become lost, or hide from psychopomps in fear. Some escape the mortal cycle out of a desire to do good. Some are even granted a sort of limited undead immortality by the gods themselves in order to complete assigned tasks. As a label, 'undeath' is simply a state of being; not a description of character.
Distant Relatives
Despite often being lumped in with the beings described in this article, living skeletons, zombies, and similar such shambling corpses are not strictly considered Undead by the modern definitions. Rather, they would be considered a form of Magically-Animated Construct, with any who achieve sapience after their creation being classed as intelligent Golems. To qualify as Undead, a soul must at some point be separated from the body it was born into, regardless of the status of that body when they are born. Whether or not the soul later returns to a body - the one they previously occupied or otherwise - is another matter entirely.
There is a blurry line between when a soul leaves the body and the point at which it can reasonably be termed undead. Fresh from the corpse, most are willing to consider these loose souls to simply be in an intermediary step between life and the afterlife. People are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and not define them solely by a transitory state of being. But for souls that are uncollected, some make it rather difficult to pinpoint when they transition from merely being a lost soul to being something else. Eventually some kind of change is unavoidable, at which point they will clearly be an undead creature of some kind, but until then, bickering about where that line should be drawn continues to swirl through academic circles.
Classifications of Undeath
The undead can manifest in a wide variety of ways - so wide, in fact, that this article will only be covering a few specific umbrella terms and particularly noteworthy individual forms. The determining factors of an individual manifestation can depend on everything from environment to the personality of the deceased to ripples in the Veil and even to direct divine intervention. There are two preliminary points of consideration in the classification of undeath: Physicality and Awareness. The former is the simpler of the two, merely taking into account whether the being in question if tangible or not. Most spirits, even those capable of manipulating objects or persons in the mortal plane, are otherwise fully incorporeal, lacking a body that can be easily detected by untrained mortals, while many other forms of undead root themselves in a physical shell in order to stave off the effects of existing in a world suffused with magic. Awareness is the level of Self an undead being retains in their new state. This element is constantly changing, even for corporeal beings, as their souls accumulate excess magic over time and undergo a process known as 'Shattering'.
Shattering
When a mortal soul is contained within a body, the combination of this outer shell and the soul's sense of self serve to shield them from the influences of the ambient magical energies that flow throughout Teicna. Though the soul can still be affected by extremely frequent magic use or the practice of Soulcasting, it will generally only accumulate energy on their own terms; through life experiences and personal growth. Once loose in the world, however, magic has a tendency to collect onto free-roaming souls. Over time, they grow in power, but it also has a tendency of diluting one's grasp on their sense of self. Eventually, with very few notable exceptions throughout history, these souls will hit their limit and Shatter; their psyche splinters into facets determined by elements of their former personality, but with a dangerously wild streak imparted by all of the excess magic now fused onto them. In some cases, one of these facets will be a nearly intact form of the person exactly as they were in life, but rarely is it able to exert any meaningful level of control over the new whole.
Undeath is the result of a soul going against the natural order and evading attempts to ferry them across the Veil into the afterlife. While many such souls do enter this state for what many would consider unethical reasons, and all should be considered potentially dangerous - for reasons which should be come clear soon enough - it is worth noting that not all undead beings are 'evil' or inherently monstrous. Some souls are simply overlooked, become lost, or hide from psychopomps in fear. Some escape the mortal cycle out of a desire to do good. Some are even granted a sort of limited undead immortality by the gods themselves in order to complete assigned tasks. As a label, 'undeath' is simply a state of being; not a description of character.
Examples of Undead Archetypes
Ghosts
The most plentiful of all undead, ghosts are little more than the lingering souls of the dead in the beginning stages of Shattering. Intangible and often invisible if they do not put forth the effort to project an illusory form, they can often be found haunting the location of their death, or else places, items, or persons that were important to them in life. In some circles, ghosts are treated almost like a larval stage of more dangerous spectral entities; an unknown potential threat that has yet to come into its own power. This is true to some degree, as all ghosts can fully succumb to Shattering given enough time and ambient magical energy, but in recent decades, attempts have been made to 'purify' locations of magic in order to create spaces where ghosts can reach equilibrium in peace, potentially allowing gods of death to accept them into the afterlife despite whatever event might have originally prevented their passage. Said efforts have yet to bear much fruit, but if nothing else they provide safe havens for a small percentage of these spirits.
Spectres, Wraiths, & Poltergeists
The permutations of post-Shattering spirits are too numerous and culturally-dependent to truly dig into to great depth in this article, but these three terms - taken from the Ceph, Underkingdom, and Mensche, respectively - represent the three most common results, and those which represent the greatest potential risk for someone encountering an unfriendly spirit.
'Spectre' refers to a soul that's given in to shallow antagonism and the catharsis of bringing suffering to others. The magic they've absorbed manifests visually as a glowing face and hands and a greater capacity to interact with the mortal world. They delight in stealing important objects, inflicting pain, and generally torturing the living, and in particular those who might have caused them pain in life. Taking this to an extreme, Wraiths actively seek to slay the living, though they still have a tendency of drawing out their kills, savoring the suffering and loss of hope they inspire in others. Their greater level of power and capacity for villainy manifests as a sinister cloud around themselves, rarely giving a clear view of anything resembling a creature outside of a face or killing implement, but always giving a sure sign of their presence. Poltergeists move in the opposite direction, downplaying the severity of their antics to mere annoyances or unsettling visions. Often born from the souls of the young and mischievous, they have something of an affinity for like-minded souls, and have been known to form bonds with living beings who are willing to entertain their antics for long enough.
Ghouls
It is widely understood that a mortal soul is not meant to remain within its body after death, and ghouls are the a prime example as to why. Whether through magic or sheer, violent power of will, should a soul manage to regain its presence within its original body, the corruptive forces of magic are no longer blocked out, but in fact become amplified upon both, forming a ghoul in a matter of days. In addition to the usual maddening effects of Shattering - making most ghouls rather violent and prone to bouts of rage - the slow, steady rotting of their bodies generates a horrific hunger within them, driving them to seek out meat in a vain attempt to sate it. Most succumb to this unholy drive quickly, devolving into mindless, cannibalistic beasts in short order, but some manage to hang onto some aspects of their sense of self for a bit longer. These individuals - generally kept sane through the very same willpower that allowed them to temporarily transcend death in the first place, or else a psyche so broken in the first place that the ghoulish mindset wasn't particularly different - make the most dangerous ghouls, as they are able to meld a fiendish intellect with the hunger-fueled instinct of a feral beast.
Eventually, ghouls will generally rot down to their bones, at which point they will cease to function and collapse if they were unable to circumvent the process ahead of time. From here, some souls remain huddled within their corpses, moaning in agony and terrified of the prospect of leaving their worldly anchor. Others emerge as fully-formed Wraiths, ready and willing to continue the killings they performed as ghouls, now unshackled from the inconveniences of hunger and corporeality.
Revenants
When a god wants something done on the mortal plane, but they don’t want to deal with it personally, they will often utilize a revenant. These beings are souls of the dead who felt they had unfinished business significant enough to warrant a second chance at life. If a god agrees, they will grant the mortal their second chance… at a cost. Although their bones and souls will be protected by divine will, their bodies will rot away the longer they remain in the mortal plane, giving most an incentive to resolve their business as quickly as possible. This process is much slower than for a ghoul, and comes without the intense hunger and maddening side-effects, but it's a strong incentive for the vain or otherwise charismatic. Additionally, many revenants are tasked with completing some favor for the god in addition to completing their own tasks. It might be bringing a particularly nasty criminal to justice, or helping to spread the word of that god to more secular mortals, or it might simply be to complete their unfinished business in a specific way. Whatever the case, the gods dole out this special treatment sparingly, but just often enough that there will always be willing mortal souls available should they ever need an agent on the ground.
Liches
In short, Liches are ghouls with foresight. Prior to death, a soon-to-be Lich arranges a runic item - called a phylactery - which will trigger on their passing and absorb their soul into itself. Once powered by their soul’s steady accumulation of ambient magic, it acts to reanimate their corpse under the full control of the contained soul. Due to this careful arrangement, the soul of a lich is largely protected from the Shattering most ghosts suffer from, and their bodies aren’t warped by those forces into feral, hunger-driven beasts the way ghouls are. While Liches can eat food as a sort of backup fuel source, deriving the same energies ghouls might in the process, they are kept animate purely through magic and the strength of their own will.
Once revived, many liches seek additional ways to preserve their bodies in such a way that they can still move about before they rot to the point of uselessness - at which point they would be little more than a trinket-bound soul with no power in the world. Some get runes bored into their bones to allow their skeletons to persist without the need for muscles and flesh. Others steadily replace portions of their body with machinery, keeping only the portions necessary for them to retain control within the boundaries set by the runes on their phylacteries. However they go about it, they are effectively immortal. Phylacteries are now perfect, however. Eventually, be it over the course of decades or centuries, the usual effects of magic on loose souls will slowly take hold.
The Best Intentions...
Some liches choose the undead state out of a desire to continue efforts that would normally require multiple mortal lifespans or which would be otherwise impossible if they were to die 'too soon'. These individuals have turned to it in hopes of mastering multiple schools of magic, maintaining control over a region ‘in the family’ despite lacking heirs, or even just to read and study all of the books in their libraries. Some of them may even be quite benevolent, seeking only to ensure the best for people under their care, and fearing for what happen to them should others step in. While these individuals prove that liches need not be evil by nature, they still run the same risk of Shattering that faces their more power-hungry counterparts, and as such can be an even greater threat to those around them purely due to the insidiously slow process of magic leaking into their phylacteries.
A Shattered Lich is a terrifying thing. While many liches are in it for the power granted by undeath to begin with, and thus worth a certain degree of fear even from the outset, those who are driven mad by magic’s influenceretain a level of agency in the mortal plane unheard of among most other undead, and can leverage this agency more directly and with more subtlety as well. Because of this danger, many gods keep a close eye on any willing to undergo the process to become a lich - which skirts by the Law of Magic which dictates what is and is not unlawful manipulation of a mortal soul on technicality alone - and are quick to set mortal authorities upon them at the slightest sign of corruption… assuming they don’t strike the fools down themselves, that is.
Genius Loci
At times, enough death and magic takes place in a location that the lost souls of individuals and the prevailing magic of the location itself cease to be separate entities and instead coalesce into a single soul. Bound in place by the connection of this new soul to the environment that spawned it, many have drawn comparisons of this process to the enlightenment of sapient golems. However, the requirement of the involvement of lost mortal souls places it quite firmly in the camp of undeath. The scale of this event can vary wildly, having been recorded in locations ranging from individual homesteads to an entire acropolis, they also tend to be some of the most difficult undead to handle with any finality. Their souls are both large and powerful, making them difficult to destroy entirely, and they have the capacity to regenerate portions of their soul over time in the event of partial destruction. Under normal circumstances, the sheer volume of their soul allows them to weather the effects of Shattering by more or less 'quarantining' portions that begin to suffer its effects and splitting them off into their own spirits. Incompletely destroyed Loci can lose this capacity for compartmentalization, allowing them to simply regrow and Shatter in tandem, creating a significantly worse spirit than was originally in place. As a result, most locations suffering from this form of undeath are either written off entirely, or embraced as cohabitants.
Vampires
Victims of a pseudo-divine parasite that keeps their body alive and functioning and their soul lashed to it regardless of their own desires, Vampires are more undead by technicality than anything. Their eccentricities among the other beings listed here are too numerous to list outside the confines of their own article, but it's particularly noteworthy that they are the rare exception of being a creature unsanctioned by the gods themselves who are entirely immune to the Shattering process. While they still have a mental struggle of their own to contend with, it is impossible for a vampire to succumb to the effects of ambient magic upon their souls.
Comments