Skeletal Wrathfire
When the victims of a massacre are buried together in mass graves, their restless spirits can come together, animating their numerous dead bodies out of a desire for vengeance. A skeletal wrathfire appears as a multitude of skeletons wreathed in sickly green flames. Unlike a revenant, a wrathfire's vengeance is not targeted; the spirit doesn't remember the exact circumstances that led to its own creation, so it simply lashes out at all living creatures.
The spirit animating a wrathfire does not inhabit the skeletons that make it up in the same way a mortal's soul occupies their body. It's more accurate to imagine the skeletons as "puppets" being controlled by the wrathfire, which takes the form of the spectral green flames which surround them. However, if the skeletons are destroyed, the wrathfire has nothing to focus its existence, and quickly disperses. This also means that a wrathfire is not incorporeal and has a physical presence, which affords it certain advantages when interacting with the world, but makes it vulnerable to ordinary attacks.
The creation of a skeletal wrathfire is a major fear for tyrants, who have come up with a number of precautions against them. Having their victims executed individually is the first, as creatures that are not killed together are incapable of forming into a wrathfire. If mass violence cannot be avoided, which, to a tyrant, happens often, some may opt for the added work of burying corpses in their own graves. When possible, the most favored method is to bury corpses of beings that bear mutual hatred for each other, as, while not completely reliable, the animosity they bear often prevents their souls from joining.
Of course, the angry dead can rise in many forms, so preventing the rise of a wrathfire may simply allow for a revenant, ghost, or other undead creature to emerge instead.
Basic Information
Anatomy
A skeletal wrathfire can form from as few as 3 corpses, and has no upper limit, but typical numbers are between 5 and 10. In order to create a wrathfire from a small number of skeletons, the spirits must be especially furious and singleminded in their desire for vengeance. Those formed from larger numbers of creatures are likewise larger and more powerful. Particularly gargantuan specimens are sometimes called murdersworn instead, as they are of similar scope to the dreaded warsworn, and arise from the systematic massacres of entire towns or populations, especially from attempted genocides.
The bones that make up a wrathfire remain floating in the flames even if they are broken, but the more damaged they become, the dimmer the flames grow until, when the creature is destroyed, they go out completely. Once a bone is broken, it will slowly piece itself back together and re-fuse, which is how the wrathfire recoveers from injury. It is possible to remove a bone from the rest of the wrathfire, but the flames remain, and can still harm the one holding the missing bone.
Behaviour
Wrathfires burn with a seething hatred of the living, but they especially despise anyone that resembles the beings responsible for their creation. The resemblance can comprise anything from ancestry to occupation: one created from a group killed by marauding hobgoblins would likely hate hobgoblins, while one created due to religious persecution would likely hate members of whichever faith was responsible. This is the only type of memory that a wrathfire has, vague and fragmented though it may be. No matter how much it kills, though, a wrathfires desire for revenge can never be satisfied.
While wrathfires do not have any particular feelings toward other undead, they are spirits defined by their anger, so they rarely work well in groups. They are willing to serve more powerful undead, or even sufficiently evil living beings, as long as they are given plentiful opportunities for slaughter. If they go very long without being able to kill, they are likely to abandon their masters. Wrathfires can be easily provoked, even by members of their own side, and their default response to any offense is violence.
Wrathfires have an interesting relationship with treasure, as most bodies buried in mass graves lack grave goods. For this reason, they are naturally envious of those with such items, and will take them when they get the chance. Often, these objects are destroyed by the wrathfire's flames, but items like jewelry remain. The longer a wrathfire has been in existence, the more treasure they will likely have accumulated, but this is not guaranteed. Depending on the souls that make up a wrathfire, it may not have interest in some forms of treasure, or may be more likely to act on its envy by breaking the items instead of taking them for itself.
Additional Information
Average Intelligence
A wrathfire's intelligence is not particularly notable. No matter how smart the souls that make it up were in life, the process of fusing and transforming leaves very little of the beings' original minds intact. They can speak, but their reasoning capabilities are generally inferior to those of an average humanoid.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Like most undead, skeletal wrathfires can see perfectly well in the dark.
Undeath
Wrathfire Relations
Skeletal wrathfires bear similarities both to witchfires and to skulltakers. Both witchfires and wrathfires bear green flames representing their rage and pain, and like a skulltaker, a wrathfire is composed of multiple creatures' bones. In fact, wrathfires display some innate respect for skulltakers, and sometimes serve them directly. Strangely, they seem to have no love for witchfires,
Spells
A typical wrathfire has the spells listed here, but individuals often have different spells depending on the circumstances that created them. One whose constituent souls were killed for religious reasons may replace vision of death with crisis of faith, for instance. A spell like grasp of the deep may fit a wrathfire whose souls were killed by drowning.
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