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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 7595890" data-attributes="member: 2209">Atarashia – A Gazetteer<a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/251795/Atarashia--A-Gazetteer?affiliate_id=17596" target="_blank">Atarashia – A Gazetteer</a>Pathfinder 1eMindless Dead: Cevnia’s process bound the negative spirit back into its body without transforming it into positive energy first. This was easier to do than a resurrection and required less magical energy. However, the process was imperfect and left the spirit trapped in the remains of its body, howling in mental anguish that blotted out all trace of intellect and personality, leaving nothing but an unquenchable hatred of the living. These mindless undead suffered endlessly and were always merciless killers. The deliberate creation of such an undead being is universally regarded as an evil act. Hungry Dead: Cevnia was not put off by the limited success of her early experiments. She used the information gathered in the creation of mindless undead and began to refine the process. She discovered new, more controlled methods of binding the negative spirit back to its body that did not interfere with the mental faculties of the resulting undead. However, these intelligent undead still suffered constant pain from the unnatural state their spirits were in, which quickly descended into jealous hatred of the living. In addition to this, there were other side effects… The first undead she created using the new method were ghouls, who were driven by a desire to consume the dead flesh of sentient beings, thus gaining momentary relief from their ever-present feeling of starvation. She tried again, using more powerful magic, and made mohrgs, who were motivated by the unappeasable psychological need to commit murder. She called these the Hungry Dead, as they were driven to destroy the living by all-consuming urges. Human Skeleton: ?Dwarf Zombie: ?Human Skeletal Champion: ?Goblin Burning Skeleton: ?Human Ghoul: ?Tengu Plague Zombie: ?Drow Fast Zombie: ?Human Juju Zombie: ?Human Mummy: ?Gnome Ghoul: ?Undead: As a mortal woman, Cevnia was fascinated with arcane magic and studied amongst the elves to broaden her knowledge. Unfortunately, she chose to use this knowledge to control others by playing on their weaknesses. The elves eventually discovered her network of spies and blackmailers, but not before she was able to steal many secrets from the ancient elven libraries. She was exiled from the elven homelands, but set up her own college of magic, carefully building up her influence and extending her control. At the height of her powers, she began to study the nature of death. She perfected the art of necromancy, created the first undead and ultimately transformed herself into a vampire. Then came calamity… In the fertile jungles of the north, a sun goddess called Tlaneci arose, whilst in the ice flows of the south, where life was harsh, and night lasted for weeks, the god of darkness, Taggarik, came into being. Not content with ruling his portion of the Inner and Outer Worlds, he sought to gain complete control of the Inner World, which he considered to be his rightful domain. When the other deities refused to grant him sole dominion of the Inner World, he conspired with the powerful vampire wizard, Cevnia, who had stolen secret magics from the elves. Together they wrought a spell that shattered the Inner World, scattering the beings who lived there. The cycle of the Double Realm was broken, the Inner World replaced with the half-planes of the Ethereal Realm and the Shadow Realm. Taggarik made the Shadow Realm his own, and infected it with his evil power, although he was not able to realise his plan of creating a physical realm, powered by negative energy. The spirits of those who had dwelt in the Inner World could no longer be reborn into the Outer World. Some accepted Taggarik’s offer of a place in the Shadow Realm, and ended up trapped in a tormented half-life, partly physical and partly spirit. Some fled to the Ethereal Realm, eschewing any hope of a physical existence, although most were eventually given refuge in the planar abodes belonging to the deities. The least fortunate were transformed into undead creatures by Taggarik and Cevnia and forced into their service. The clerics of Taggarik specialise in creating undead, and many wizards seek the path of the necromancer, guided by the teachings of Cevnia, who achieved deity-hood herself as a result of the Shattering, as it became known. Cevnia continued her research, refining her methods and learning to create other types of undead. She made progress but was always hampered by the lack of suitable negative energy spirits. Once the Inner World was shattered, the barriers that prevented negative spirits from crossing back over into the Inner World before their time were severely weakened. This meant that undead could be more easily created, without the need for ghosts. Taggarik and Cevnia created armies of undead between them. When they began to lose the war, they hatched a desperate plan to increase the number of undead. They infected many of their minions with a curse which meant that when they slew a living being, the victim’s spirit was automatically drawn back, and its body would rise up as another undead. As the living fell, so they became part of the army of evil undead. Since the War of Life ended, the creation of undead is tightly controlled. This is part of the armistice agreement between the warring deities. Only a certain number of undead can be created, or brought into the Outer World, and their creation is more difficult and costlier. Vampire: As a mortal woman, Cevnia was fascinated with arcane magic and studied amongst the elves to broaden her knowledge. Unfortunately, she chose to use this knowledge to control others by playing on their weaknesses. The elves eventually discovered her network of spies and blackmailers, but not before she was able to steal many secrets from the ancient elven libraries. She was exiled from the elven homelands, but set up her own college of magic, carefully building up her influence and extending her control. At the height of her powers, she began to study the nature of death. She perfected the art of necromancy, created the first undead and ultimately transformed herself into a vampire. However, she was repulsed by the decaying state of their bodies. So, she created vampires, who were more powerful than mummies, and maintained the look of the bodies they had in life. Satisfied that she had found an acceptable way to cheat death, she transformed herself into a vampire, and consolidated her position of power by destroying all the other vampires she had created initially. Thus, she established herself as the forebear of all vampires that exist today, although rumours persist that one of the original vampires somehow escaped destruction… Zombie: ?Ghost: Before the events that led up to the Shattering, ghosts were the only type of undead. A ghost is a spirit that does not pass on to the Inner World, as it was known then, or the Ethereal Realm, as it is now. When a being in the Outer World dies, its positive energy spirit is naturally transformed into negative energy as it passes on to the next plane of existence. However, in rare circumstances, this process can be disrupted. This occurs either due to a powerful act of will on the part of the recently deceased, or when the spirit has undergone a great psychic trauma, such as being murdered. Although ghosts are not intrinsically evil, they are beings of negative energy and suffer greatly in the Outer World, which is confusing and alien to their nature. This often causes the ghost to become malevolent, if it wasn’t already. A negative spirit in the Inner World would have spent its lifetime resolving psychological issues, before being reborn into the material Outer World as a positive energy spirit in a new body. Scholars speculate that ghosts are created when some of these psychological issues can only be resolved in the Outer World. For example, the spirit might need to protect loved ones, or to exact revenge upon its killer. She attempted to create ghosts by killing living beings in horrendous ways, so as to precipitate the necessary psychological trauma. However, the success rate of this was low as, more often than not, the spirit would simply cross over into the Inner World and remain beyond her reach. Skeleton: Because ghosts are immaterial negative energy spirits, they do not die in the same manner as material beings with positive energy spirits. They can be temporarily dispersed, but will usually reform after a period of time, and can linger in the Outer World for decades or even centuries, until their reason for remaining is resolved. The arch-wizard Cevnia became fascinated with the durability of these negative spirits and wondered if there was a way to somehow harness their power to extend her own lifespan. She noted that some ghosts were able to temporarily possess the body of a living being in the Outer World. This is a deeply unpleasant and painful process for the living being, and also for the ghost, as it is constantly fighting rejection by a body that was designed to hold a positive energy spirit. Cevnia discovered a way to prepare the remains of a body in such a manner as to make them compatible with a negative spirit, thus avoiding the problem of rejection, although it is still grindingly painful for the spirit. By binding a ghost to its remains prepared in this way, the first undead skeleton was created. The “body” was animated by negative energy, but could not truly die, as it was already dead, thus making it very hard to destroy. Devastating amounts of damage had to be inflicted on the physical remains in order to disrupt the binding. The number of ghosts was (and still is) relatively small, and it was often impossible to locate the original body. When the body was available, it was usually just a pile of bones, which explains the fact that her first undead creation was a skeleton. Ghoul: Cevnia was not put off by the limited success of her early experiments. She used the information gathered in the creation of mindless undead and began to refine the process. She discovered new, more controlled methods of binding the negative spirit back to its body that did not interfere with the mental faculties of the resulting undead. However, these intelligent undead still suffered constant pain from the unnatural state their spirits were in, which quickly descended into jealous hatred of the living. In addition to this, there were other side effects… The first undead she created using the new method were ghouls, who were driven by a desire to consume the dead flesh of sentient beings, thus gaining momentary relief from their ever-present feeling of starvation. She tried again, using more powerful magic, and made mohrgs, who were motivated by the unappeasable psychological need to commit murder. She called these the Hungry Dead, as they were driven to destroy the living by all-consuming urges. A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight.  A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. Mohrg: Cevnia was not put off by the limited success of her early experiments. She used the information gathered in the creation of mindless undead and began to refine the process. She discovered new, more controlled methods of binding the negative spirit back to its body that did not interfere with the mental faculties of the resulting undead. However, these intelligent undead still suffered constant pain from the unnatural state their spirits were in, which quickly descended into jealous hatred of the living. In addition to this, there were other side effects… The first undead she created using the new method were ghouls, who were driven by a desire to consume the dead flesh of sentient beings, thus gaining momentary relief from their ever-present feeling of starvation. She tried again, using more powerful magic, and made mohrgs, who were motivated by the unappeasable psychological need to commit murder. She called these the Hungry Dead, as they were driven to destroy the living by all-consuming urges. Mummy: Sensing that she was nearing her goal, Cevnia poured all her art and cunning into the creation of intelligent undead that were not inflicted with the uncontrollable desires of the Hungry Dead. She had some success with mummies, especially the powerful mummy lords. Mummy Lord: Sensing that she was nearing her goal, Cevnia poured all her art and cunning into the creation of intelligent undead that were not inflicted with the uncontrollable desires of the Hungry Dead. She had some success with mummies, especially the powerful mummy lords. Shadow: The spirits that took up Taggarik’s bargain soon regretted it, as they realised he did not have the ability to make them fully corporeal within the Shadow Realm. Those who resisted his will were given over to Cevnia to use as power sources for her material undead. Those willing to embrace Taggarik’s evil were sent to the Outer World as incorporeal undead, such as shadows and wraiths. Wraith: The spirits that took up Taggarik’s bargain soon regretted it, as they realised he did not have the ability to make them fully corporeal within the Shadow Realm. Those who resisted his will were given over to Cevnia to use as power sources for her material undead. Those willing to embrace Taggarik’s evil were sent to the Outer World as incorporeal undead, such as shadows and wraiths.Ghast: A humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight.  A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast. Plague Zombie: Anyone who dies while infected with zombie rot disease rises as a plague zombie in 2d6 hours.</blockquote>

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