Resurrection Brigade

Give thanks to the dead; better them than us.

— 1st Resurrection Brigade Motto

In modern war, most of the fighting and dying is done by the Undead. Hordes of the dead rush at the enemy across the no-man's-land or perform ordered volleys of fire from trenches and gun-lines. As a result, every Great Power has become adept at getting the most use out of every stiff. A corpse can be recycled past destruction as long as anything is intact; any part still whole can be sewed together with others and reanimated once more.
Resurrection Brigades are tasked with collecting the dead from the battlefields to ensure the army always has an adequate supply of corpses. They venture out into warzones on corpse-carts to pick up any dead - or pieces of dead - they can find, either friend or foe. It is a vital but unpleasant task, and the Brigades have no illusions of the horrors of war.
Today, their task is more dangerous and difficult than ever with flamethrowers, artillery and Godslayer cannons turning bodies into unusable clumps of broken meat - and any Brigade who gets in their sights.

Zombie Soldier by Live Rasoloarison

Corpse-Cart

Once the dead became an integral part of war, so did the Resurrection Brigades. Even before mass-reanimation had reached industrial efficiency, corpses had become not a nuisance to dispose off after a battle, but an asset and resource. Wars had already been won or lost over who claimed the bodies left behind in a battle and Resurrection Brigades grew in number and size. As Necromancy became industrial, so did the appetite for corpses.

Early Resurrection Brigade work was done by whoever could be spared, usually as a punishment. With time, the role and rank of the Brigades were formalized but the tradition of assignment as punishment is still alive and well.

Some nations use criminals for the job, drafting entire prisons in chained together gangs of corpse-carting labor.

Picking up corpses is dangerous work, as those corpses often fight back. Resurrection Brigades must be adept at battling enemy stiffs still lingering on the battlefield and, when supplies are low, any living soldiers they might encounter.

Today, every army in the world fields Resurrection Brigades. In times of peace, they collect the dead from their country to make sure the army's undead ranks are always full. In times of war, they pick through battlefields and massacres, or make their own.

The Undead

The dead walk the world and inhabits its farms, its factories - and its armies. Corpses have become commodity and death the beginning of a business transaction.
The Undead have become a vital part of the world and it is up to the Resurrection Brigades to make sure there is always more bodies to reanimate. One way or the other.
Read More About The Undead

"Or I'll send you to the Resurrection Brigade" is a disciplinary threat in many armies, with a veiled double meaning.

The Long War

The world is engaged in a devastating conflict that has seen nations ground to dust and generations slain; the Long War. Necromancy has made losses almost meaningless and the conflict has raged for decades now; mainly trampling the Corpse of a once great nation that help start it.
In many places, the war is a stalemate, miles of trenches and barbed wire fields staring at each other through the sight of a gun. Elsewhere, the undead march at the command of their living master. In the Long War, more dead fight than living.

by 13th Gate Escape Room

Coping Mechanism

Resurrection Brigades see the worst of the war. Bodies broken by artillery, ravaged by chemical weapons and set ablaze by fire; and worse. Without having to worry about harming the living, all Great Powers use use the most gruesome and terrible weapons of war they can make. On occasion, more than just the undead get caught in the fire.
Drinking and drug abuse are rampant in nearly every Resurrection Brigades. Only Nekrobioteks become as hardened and inured to the sight of horror as a veteran Resurrectionist.

Woe to any village caught in the track of a Brigade below its quota.

Structure

Resurrection Brigade are structured much like any other part of the army, with a few key differences. Every unit is centered around its corpse-cart and each unit has one or several Butchers embedded with it. The Corpse-Cart is a tough, all-terrain vehicle that ferry the Brigade to where the corpses are and the bodies back again. The Butchers assess corpses for viability but with time many of the soldiers of a Brigade tend to become expert at that themselves.

Brigades usually draw their members from other parts of the army, but will sometimes press-gang locals near the battle to do the work under supervision. Most consider the dangerous, dirty work to be a form of punishment. More often than not, that is the intent. For officers, it is a dead-end for their career with no hopes of glorious victories or advancement.
Each corpse-cart is manned by an officer, a sergeant and corporal, plus a variable number of soldiers and stiffs. Every cart is assigned to a Gigant and under the overall command of a Captain who coordinates all the corpse-carts.

by Jacko Wins

Because of their importance to the reanimation process, the Resurrection Brigade captains are often in close communication with the Gigant's Master Nekrobiotek; in some cases, it is the Nekrobiotek who really run things. Resurrection Brigades are deployed on every front line and with every Gigant. As the Long War grows more vicious and more bloody, the Brigades are doing more fighting than ever as enemies compete with each other over the dead.

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