Little Bill
Kaithe Dame
pugbutter
Star Light
There are a great number of tales of undead hosts terrorizing the living. Literature is replete with these stories of necromancers and armies of zombies laying waste to civilization, carrying out horrifying atrocities against all living things. Inevitably, however, the forces of righteousness ultimately emerge victorious against the forces of death itself. But in this story, the valiant efforts of the living defenders ultimately prove futile.
This instead is the tale of Death triumphant.
Several decades have passed since the warlock Eagoth first raised his army of cadavers and waged war against the realms of Leria. Eagoth's undead legions took the continent by storm; his armies multiplying after every single battle. His undead warriors were unburdened by fear, hunger, or weariness and were motivated only by mindless subordination to the necromancer lord. For all their valor, the mortal armies of Leria were hopeless against the endless undead legions. A year after the start Eagoth's conquest, the numerous and mighty kings and lords of Leria were reduced to a handful of isolated holdouts trapped within the walls of their own castles, besieged by swarms of howling ghouls. Two years later Eagoth's conquest was absolute; every single Lerian - down to the last man, woman, and child - was a walking corpse. Leria had become an empire of the dead.
While Eagoth had proven himself a capable warlord, he found managing his vast undead dominion intolerably tedious. Eagoth granted to his most capable ghouls the capacity for free thought and introspection, that they could use their ability to think for themselves to take on the tasks of governing the various wards of Leria in the lich's stead. These Revenants Major served as governors and generals, ruling large portions of Leria in Eagoth's stead. The Revenants Major in turn appointed the cleverer ghouls as Revenants Minor, who served as deputies, leftenants, and taskmasters over the slavering, mindless ghouls. And it was the lot of the vast multitudes of mindless ghouls to toil unquestioningly to advance Eagoth's continuing war effort against the mortal kingdoms beyond Leria, who had now united in common defense against Eagoth's undead legions.
The combined armies and fleets of the living have managed to contain the undead to Leria's shores. Numerous invasion fleets have been sent out across the White Straits to establish an undead foothold on the lands of the living, but none have succeeded due to enduring naval superiority of mortal men. And though the living control the seas, they dare not attempt to field any foray onto Leria's shores lest their armies fall against the undead hordes and join their ranks in death. The resulting stalemate between the undead of Leria and the mortal men beyond has held for over twenty years now.
Over the course of such time, the undead dominion has had time to stabilize. A society of undeath, with its own strange polities and economies, has emerged. Eagoth, bored by the governance of his undead empire, delegates nearly all control to the Revenants Major. Not even death can prevent rivalry and intrigue. Infighting is strictly forbidden by the necromancer lord, but is not unheard of. Even open rebellion has a precedent, though the last uprising was stamped out ruthlessly many years ago and has not been attempted since.
Though the undead realm of Leria has ossified to a degree, this is a period of change and potential. The Revenants Major that carry out nearly all of the governance of Leria are beginning to realize the extent of Eagoth's apathy and have started to test the limits of their own authority. The undead legions are not the hivemind once previously thought and the monolithic undead realm begins to show signs of fracture.
In this story, you are a wight in any stratus of Eagoth's dominion. You may be a Revenant Major governing one of the wards of Leria or a legion of walking dead, perhaps you are a mere ghoul recently exhumed by the gravediggers with no power nor recollection of who you were in life. Or perhaps you find yourself somewhere in the middle.
That choice is yours to make, as is the path you lead in undeath.
