A Brief History of How We Got Into This Mess

What if Necromancy actually worked?

by Egregore Design

That is the central premise of the world of the Necro-Industrial complex.
Magic works, and mankind does what it always does: grind away until the most practical application reveals itself. Here, Necromancy proved itself the most useful. What was once taboo became industry. Magic is not good or evil, not even necromancy. It is a tool.

by Mike Hawthorne

The world of the Necro-Industrial Complex is one of smog-belching coal plants and turn-of-the-century industrial nightmares. Humanity's advance come at a breakneck pace and the fabric of society has come apart only to be reassembled over and over with every new invention and revolution.
Warfare is entering a new, lethal age. The age of the gatling, artillery, barb-wire and poison gas.
All of it is powered by a legion of undead, working for humanity instead of against it. They man the factories and mines, the farms and lumber-mills, the trenches and the deadly charges across no-man's-land. The very meaning of death and dying is no longer the same: once a cause for mourning, it is now the beginning of a business.

The Abhimaan Monarchy
The first to embrace the use of Necromancy, the Abhimaan Monarchy is a proud nation. It draws strength from tradition, but its a weakness that has seen them mired in the decades long Great War.

The Obryad Federation
Ancient and imperial, the Federation's countless noble-families squabble in the Summer Court while the war rage. Only two things are certain in the Federation: the blistering summer's heat and the dysfunction of its feudal courts.

Korero-Take Republic
Bloody revolution has seen the Korero cast off kings and queens. A young and vibrant nation, they trade age and experience for enthusiasm and innovation. No other nation can match the Gigants of the Republic.

Shinomas Magocracy
While the Abhimaan were the first, the Shinomas are the most fervent. It is a nation whose success is fueled by magic and now run by magi. It is said that one Nekrobiotek from Shinomas is worth three from any other nation; other contend this is to underestimate them.

But from beyond the shroud of reality, something stirs.

Humanity has attracted the hungry gaze of cosmic parasites. Magic weakens the shroud between realities and ravenous talons begin to rend it asunder. After centuries of predation, of appetites sated on every human soul that has left its failing form, the shroud has grown so thin that human and horror can soon reach out and touch the other.
They will stride across the world, and madness follows in their jagged shadows.
Will they be greeted as gods or devils? Will humanity continue their descent into savagery or unite? Will the undead, once reviled as blasphemous abomination, be the salvation of mankind?
Will we be cattle, prey or masters of our own destiny once more?