There are dark magics in Wyrlde, magics which twist the flesh and bind the soul, necromancies that revive the dead and unnaturally prolong the spirit, drawing on necrotic powers. Infested and driven by miasmatics from the Necrotic Plane, these beings are alive, but not in a sense that we recognize, being driven entirely by death itself.
Those for whom this happens, those unfortunates, are called the Undead. That these things can animate skeletons and keep them together, that they fill zombies and pause decomposition, that they are able to raise revenants and restore mummies – they are a scourge, and the necrotic plane is to blame.
The most irksome of these assorted beings are Zombies, Skeletons, and Mummies. Revenants are another deeply feared form, as are Fext, Drahger, Gangshi, Oreks, Gotcha, and related forms. The biggest key when dealing with the undead is to remember that they are corpses that have been returned to a semblance of life by some form of miasma. If it isn’t a corpse, it isn’t undead.
There is no hierarchy to the undead. They are the tools of others, like the Dread’s Clerics, and as such the revenants, zombies, and skeletons are little more than puppets. They are often confused with the corrupted, however, of which the Yuma are the most fearsome, but thankfully not all that common yet.
According to the lore of visitors to other Mortal Realms, some things that are undead elsewhere are not so here. Vampires and Liches are not undead here, nor are Wraiths, Spectres, Shadows, Ghouls, Ghasts, and Ghosts. These are planar Denizens.
A peculiar point to note: Ghouls will eat the undead. They do live on corpses, after all.
Drahger
Drahger live in graveyard, barrows, or ruins, often guarding treasure buried with them in their burial mound.
Fext
Fext are animated corpses, like Zombies, of ancient warlords and masterful warriors. They are especially feared, because not only can they be anywhere, but they can only be harmed by glass weapons. Actual weapons, made of glass, not something like a broken bottle.
Gotchas
Gotchas are giant, rotting, skinless skeletons made up of many different dead bodies, standing 30 feet tall with burning yellow or green eyes that seem to protrude from the hollow sockets. Gotchas are so named because as they move their teeth clatter and the tendons vibrate, and it sounds very much like they are saying “gotcha” over and over again in strange patterns.
Orek
An Orek is a thinking zombie. They do not appear to rot, and they act otherwise like a regular person, even perhaps holding a job and working beside others. Oreks hunt at night, killing and eating people.
Ralang
Ralangs are zombies who are infectious. Their bite can cause a kind of spiritual contagion that takes from three to 18 months to grow within having no obvious effect, but then turns upon the host and begins to kill them, causing them to rot. Infants might die in 1 or two days, proud warriors might take well over a hundred. However, once they do die, they too rise as Ralang and begin to infect anyone nearby. Ralangs are fast. Very fast. Also, cunning.
Zombies
Zombies – and their more decayed future selves, called Skeletons – are the work of something and or someone bringing through vapours, humours, and miasmas through a dimensional rift to animate and empower the dead.
A lot of people will say that the best way to kill a zombie is to chop its head off. Sadly, that is why most of those people did not survive. You survive by running away from Zombies. The best way to get rid of a Zombie is to get a Shrineward over there to dispel the Necrotic denizens and restore the corpses to the ground.
Chopping the head off of a thing that doesn’t need one in the first place is foolish and I am pretty sure something left over from folks from another world.
