Rank:
Ghoul

Description
Razzak is completely unrecognizable from when he was alive, with nearly all of his flesh having rotted away and leaving him as more skeleton than ghoul. He dawns his old and bronze, decrepit armor from a time long before the rise of Eagoth now rusted and tinted black from the many, many years of neglect and coffin sitting. He is adorned with a rotted, fur cloak that is trailed by shadows wherever he goes. The face of this once mighty man, is non-existent with only a haunting, hallowed skull to look upon. His body is only held together by the rotted strips of flesh that connect his bones at odd angles, the largest of this flesh sat upon his chest. This does not change the fact that this once warrior is now but a glorified skeleton who serves Eagoth.

Background
Razzak is ancient, perhaps one of the oldest that can now be found amongst the ranks of the undead legions, however, there is no evidence as to what he was before being raised. He had appeared out of the twisted, corrupted woods to serve his master and nothing more could truly be said about his origins other than that he had appeared from nowhere. It is theorized that he is some ancient champion that was lost to time and was just now raised as a result of the cursed earth that is now the lands of Leria. Whether or not this is true remains to be seen as Razzak is still “fresh” in these lands, now serving the legions as he is told, even still not having yet fought in any battles to test the newly raised mettle that now wanders Leria.

Wards
As a ghoul, Razzak holds no wards.

Description:


Sigil:

Rank: Revenant Major.

Description: Those few who have had the misfortune of beholding Ghural with conscious eyes have struggled to believe that he may once have been human at all. Decades of replacing rotting parts of his body with fresh ones, gradually accruing bulk and horrid enhancements to his frame, have left him a misshapen colossus as large as two men, with crooked asymmetrical limbs, jagged shards of bone protruding from his flesh, and a featureless skin-mask of a face surmounted by mummified eyes sunken in sepulchral sockets.

Background: The truth of who or what Ghural might have been in life is all but lost to time, its only echoes persisting in hushed rumours with no clear source. The most widespread of these tales hold that he once was an undertaker and cemetery warden who, come the night, would exhume freshly interred bodies – not to despoil them of their final adornments, as a less monstrous grave-robber would have, but to barbarously eat their flesh for his own pleasure. The rumours also hint that in time he himself met a gruesome end, though what that was no one seems to recall.

Be that as it may, it is known that the infamy of the Harvester arose during Eagoth’s conquest. Then, he scoured ruins and battlefields with his ghoulish underlings, sorting mangled and collapsed bodies in accordance with how they may best serve the necromancer’s designs and piling them high on charnel wagons drawn by repugnant abominations. Such is the fame that persists of him to this day.

Wards: Ghural and his acolytes dwell in a great ruined city southwest of Necron, named Comiriom, and hold dominion over its countryside. There, they collect bodies which for one reason or another are in no condition to rise into undeath, be they the crop of ancient necropoles or the remains of ghouls decayed beyond use and salvage by local meatworkers. Day and night, grim caravans march in and out from the crumbling gates, carrying their pestilential load like rotten blood flowing to a sickly heart.

Within crypt-like halls, the denizens of Comiriom keep the tally of their often shapeless goods, and, as they did in the times of the war, part the corn from the chaff. The remains they judge worthy of further use are sent to the Meatworks, while the rest are funneled into dubious experiments and amalgamations. It is thus little wonder that Ghural’s retinue includes numerous skilled meatworkers, though their awareness of anything beyond their craft tends to be lacking, and is known to employ hordes of strangely mutilated ghouls and bizarre unnatural creations for menial drudgery.

Rank:
Revenant minor

Description:
Exotic, almost otherworldly--the sight of Faustus is magnetic, drawing the gaze of children and men alike, though of course most don’t dare look too closely, casting furtive glances only for a moment, or else staring out of the corner of their eyes whilst they pretend to look elsewhere. They would not want to offend one of his obvious wealth and influence, after all.

The cloying and near-overpowering odors of perfume, frankincense, and other stranger scents waft into the nose and herald Faustus’ approach even before his odd clothes, demeanor, and footsteps do. ’To ward off evil,’ he’s been known to joke whenever one’s nose wrinkles too noticeably. Beyond the eternal presence of that smell, there is nothing constant about Fausus’ appearance. He has a thousand different strange outfits, masks, turbans, and the like for just as many different people and occasions, and probably just as many names and identities that he’s offered to the living.

Perhaps he truly is as corpulent as he looks, but equally likely is that he pads his clothes, or just wears layer upon layer that he can shed them as quickly and easily as he changes names. He often wears a turban, or some sort of veil, or even a mask, but on the odd occasion he does show his pallid face (or part of it, anyhow) to the living, and somehow it can pass. Harder to pass are his eyes. For that means, he often carries vials of some strange eyedrops along his belt or tucked into pockets and folds of his robe, right beside the vials of other strange substances like cloyed red wine...or is that blood?

Background:
Rumor has it that Faustus was a very wealthy and greedy merchant in life, who willingly offered his soul and service to Eagoth if only he could keep his treasures and carry on as a merchant just as he had done in life. Perhaps that is the case, but it would hardly matter now. Whatever fortune he may have carried over into his current state would have been nothing before the absurdity of the wealth that he now owns; perhaps Eagoth has received enough tribute and trinkets over the years to rival Faustus’ many hoards. Perhaps. But certainly there would be few others even among the elite revenants major with so much gold and jewels, for few among the undead find reason to care for such things now.

Their lack of craving for gold is arguably the driving factor behind much of Faustus’ success as well as his purpose. As the present state of Leria did nothing to tarnish its gold, and the excavations of graveyards and tombs unturned countless treasures while the sacking of every last city freed even more, Faustus was able to collect vast amounts of wealth, or barter for it easily enough. Though he certainly enjoys owning all of those treasures, he uses them for a practical enough purpose--trading with the living.

Only a few very unscrupulous men know the truth behind the mysterious figure that Leria calls Faustus, though there have certainly been many a black-market fence or other type that had suspicions. Still, the truth of how a revenant minor (along with his small group of loyal ghouls) could slip past the naval blockades in the dead of night, land upon the shores of the living, and infiltrate society successfully enough to do such dealings is so preposterous that none take it seriously. So for decades Faustus has managed to do precisely that, trading gold and other useless things in exchange for exotic liquors, strange alchemical ingredients, and other even weirder goods that he in turn can offer to those revenants major who ply their trades in the Meatworks or dark laboratories, or who simply find some pleasure in maintaining collections of oddities in their undeath.

Perhaps even more important than the goods he smuggles into Leria is the information that he brings. Though acting as a spy has never been Faustus’ greatest desire and greed for gold and lust for good bargains has always claimed a greater part of his heart, he is nonetheless one of the only sources of information concerning the goings on of the mainland and the machinations of the living and their various political realms. That near-monopoly on gossip and whispers has made Faustus valuable enough to even have the attention of Eagoth, rumors say, as well as his ear.

Wards:
Faustus treads a strange line between revenant major and minor. He is certainly clever, and rather independent; however, he does not directly rule any territory or command any army, govern any fief, or even hold any formal role or supervisor, really. He simply does as he pleases, and makes himself useful and indispensable enough to the powers that be to be granted relative impunity. He keeps his possessions spread far and wide, with the largest depots split between the vicinity of the Meridions for easy access to the shortest smuggling routes, and the others kept on hand near Necron and its surroundings where Faustus dwells most of the time when he is not ‘at work’ along his smuggling routes.

He often does keep a cohort of ghoul helpers to assist in transporting and guarding the various troves of his illicit cargo scattered across Leria, but those ghouls are expendable and they come and go; he barters them away to revenants major like any other good. More important is his Motley Crew, a group of ghouls dressed nearly so brightly and strangely as he so as to pass for living (albeit odd, and foreign) humans from afar. It is they who are his sailors, rowing him across the sea when he makes his occasional forays out of Leria. But when they reach their destination, be it a sprawling ports or an abandoned cove, they always retreat below deck or otherwise find a way to keep a low profile so that Faustus may carry out his secretive work alone, unhindered by their presence.

Theleden, Warden of Rhanea. Right hand of Eagoth

Rank: Revenant Major

Description: Prince Theleden of Esteline was rather handsome in life. His mane of curly blonde locks and golden beard were once the envy of young men across the land. But when Eagoth finally captured the Lion of Esteline, he was subjected to years of strange and horrific torments. The being that emerged from the Eagoth's dungeon was unrecognizable from the young prince that entered eight years earlier. Theleden's body is now wrinkled and pale as the moon, as if the very life was sucked out of him. His beard has fallen from his chin, exposing gaunt and sunken cheeks. His curls of thick blonde hair are now a thin and pitiful collection of translucent white strands. Theleden's lips are frozen into a perpetual grimace from entire months of agonizing torment, so much such so that his lips are scarred and split open. He is typically clad in a thick black robe and cloak. Ostensibly, the purpose of these vestments is to protect Theleden from the damage caused even by what anemic sunlight that shines on the perpetually-darkened lands of Leria. One must wonder, however, if Theleden yet retains some recollection of his former self, and covers himself out of shame.

Background: Many years have passed since Eagoth's conquest of Leria. And even after many years, little is known about the Great Necromancer. His ultimate motivations are often an enigma even to his inner circle of advisors and deputies. However, one aspect of Eagoth's personality is very well known: the Necromancer Lord is legendarily vindictive.

Theleden became the object of Eagoth's wrath when the young prince came to lead the living armies of Leria against Eagoth's undead hosts. Theleden was the prince of the small kingdom of Esteline when Eagoth's undead first overran the Kingdom of Rhanea and began marching across the borders into the neighboring lands, including Esteline. The disjointed counter-attacks against the undead legions were as demoralizing as they were disastrous. Panic erupted across Leria as Eagoth's undead inflicted defeat after crushing defeat upon the armies of the living. Small Esteline - a peaceful realm with a small, unseasoned army - seemed especially helpless against the inexorable army of the dead. Theleden's father, overwhelmed with despair, took his own life rather than see his people murdered and risen as Eagoth's minions. It was under such hopelessness that Theleden became the king of Esteline.

Unlike his father, Theleden was decisive in the face of the impending doom. He knew holding Esteline against tens of thousands of ghouls was hopeless, so he didn't attempt it. He instead ordered the populace to abandon the capital and flee. When the undead inevitably overran the city's ramparts, Theleden and his forces set fire to his own capital before escaping, destroying many thousands of undead.

Theleden and his army rode to Comiriom. At Theleden's request, lords from across the continent had gathered to plan a common defense against Eagoth's forces. Theleden proposed abandoning central Leria, destroying the great Bridge of Vardo, and amassing all of Leria's remaining warriors at the marshy chokepoint known as the Neck of Leria to prevent the undead from advancing south. The plan was unpopular with many of the lords - particularly those hailing from central Leria. It was the King of Yzen, powerful and enigmatic, who convinced many of the gathered lords and kings to agree to Theleden's proposal. While Theleden was placed in command of Leria's armies, the southern realms were to prepare every seaworthy vessel in Leria to evacuate refugees across the White Straits if Theleden and his forces should fail.

The undead host encountered the living first at Sour Bridge, where the north-south road through the Neck crossed a shallow, stagnant river through the marshes. Perhaps as many as 300,000 ghouls had been mustered to crush Theleden's army. At the sight of such a vast undead army, the living seemed to quail in fear, emboldening the dead to march through the marshes. It was not until the vast bulk of the undead horde was trudging across the marches to the high ground across the bridge that Eagoth and his revenants noticed a thick, oily sheen under the reeds. A hail of fire arrows arced across the sky and plunged into the oil-slicked marshes, setting the marshes - and the dead wading through them - alight. Eagoth and his forces rushed across the burning marches, immolating or badly burning tens of thousands of ghouls. Those undead that made it to the high ground on the southern bank had little time to prepare for Theleden's army charging back toward them. Too late, Eagoth realized, the rout was a feint.

Eagoth's legion of undead was nearly destroyed before the Great Necromancer ordered a retreat back to the North. A quarter of a million ghouls - almost half of all of Eagoth's undead - were destroyed at Sour Bridge. It was by far the single greatest defeat Eagoth ever experienced.

For a time, it had seemed that Theleden could turn the tide of war against Eagoth. But it was a betrayal by King Callidus that doomed Theleden and his army. The Great Necromancer relished Theleden's capture and tormented him mercilessly for many years. But years of torment were not enough to sate Eagoth's wrath. For not only was Theleden tormented, but he also received extensive brainwashing that erased much of his memory of who he was in life. All of his hatred for Eagoth was erased and in its place was left unwavering loyalty to the Great Necromancer and his mission to spread the Undeath across the world. And by appointing Theleden as his minister in the city of Necron, Eagoth’s revenge over his defeated nemesis is absolute. In undeath, Theleden has been made a commander of the Undeath he devoted his life to stopping.

Wards:
Rhanea - Rhanea was Eagoth’s homeland when he first raised his undead army. It’s capital city, rechristened as Necron, became the defacto capital of Eagoth’s undead empire. As the epicenter of the Undeath, Rhanea is the most established portion of undead Leria. As a result, many of its resources have been exhausted. Theleden and his minions have been working to extract every last resource from this depleted realm.

Rixis, Locus Warden

Rank: Revenant Major

Description:


Background:


Ward: Nergthron, Seat of the Locus

Midway through Eagoth's campaign to spread undeath and conquer all of Leria, he found himself being stalled and even pushed back on multiple fronts - the defenders of the living realms sweeping through his lines of the dead with such fervor and zeal, they denied him even the opportunity to desecrate the soil or animate the injured left in their wake.

Possessing abundant resources, tomes of ancient and forbidden lore, and various artifacts of note in spite of his losses, Eagoth devised a number of arcane experiments to assist in turning the tides of war back in his favor. Amongst these dark and terrible projects was the creation of The Profane Locus.

The Locus continuously desecrated the land around, and actively suffused all things that once lived with dark, animating energies. At first, the Locus seemed to be the ideal weapon - but shortly, numerous drawbacks and inefficiencies in its use became apparent, leading Eagoth to set it aside and turn to other ventures.

The Profane Locus can raise dead bodies in a fraction of the time normally required, even by Eagoth himself. These raised undead pay for this expediency however, as they are universally mindless and unbound. A consequence of the Locus fueling itself by binding and sublimating the spirits of the dead, torn from their bodies upon death. These raised undead possess only a primitive ability to sense life and a base drive to devour it, with a further need to bind them after rising in order to meaningfully direct them.

The Locus can accomplish more than simply raising bodies. Any and all tissue that once bore life will animate with time and proximity - severed limbs, scraps of skin, even mounds of disemboweled organs and viscera will all begin to writhe once suffused by the powers of the Locus. Like the bodies the Locus raises, these undead vestiges are universally mindless and unbound. Over time, with constant wear and decay, these remnants inevitably deteriorate into roiling heaps of partially liquefied, necrotic slop - which will congeal, aggregate, and form into massive undead constructs known as Dead Seas.

At first, Eagoth found great use in the Locus, especially upon the discovery that undead directly under his control would exert their binding upon any putrefied, animated masses left over by the Locus. An undead minion could be substantially bolstered by submerging it in a Dead Sea, fusing itself with the morass and simultaneously binding the whole of it to Eagoth. His meatworkers' labors were also eased considerably in the stitching and maintenance of valued bodies through the use of lesser animated tissues, adhered to choice skeletal remains already bound to his service.

Promising as the Locus was at first, it shortly became something of a nuisance and a detriment to Eagoth's schemes. Its proximity to any battlefield would interfere with his own magics, raising mindless, unbound corpses faster than he could, robbing him of many prized warriors and minds he had desired intact. The Locus would even snatch up and unmake their very spirits, denying their use as advisors and repositories of knowledge. Worse, it caused the active decay and deterioration of any undead to accelerate - causing bits and pieces of them that had loosened to animate, unbound from their own body and occasionally from within, with subsequent seething and writhing causing additional damage to their putrid bodies.

The Locus thus proved more of a liability than an asset, with the necessity of binding all the mindless undead it raised creating unnecessary tedium, and the loss of the spirits and minds of those it consumed proving harmful to Eagoth's procurement of intelligence from his raised enemies. When kept near to Eagoth's favored servants, it would slowly cripple them by animating bits and slivers of their flesh, hindering them at inopportune moments. Its more useful functions - its gradual production of Dead Seas and provision of animated tissue for the use of meatworkers - saved it from being abjured outright by Eagoth, but he banished it permanently to a more remote locale within his growing empire of the dead where its influence would not disturb his work. To this day, it is fed by an influx of shipped, necrotic tissue from elsewhere in Leria, overseen by a cabal of meatworkers and tenders who organize the reanimating flesh into pits where they may sculpt the unbound tissue into useful warforms to be commandeered by Eagoth's favored lieutenants, or else into packages of knit-kits to assist in the maintenance of more skeletal undead.

Name: Ardus Eimon Sybax (goes by Sybax)
Rank: Revenant Major, Commander General of Blackbone Harbor, Master of the Tower Somnambulist and the Stained Sepulcher
Description: An ugly, short little bastard with a great paunch belly of woven mismatched flesh. His skin is a mottled gray, clinging tightly to his bones where it still exists. His eyesockets are deep and dark, with sallow cheeks beneath a mop of wiry black hair. His dress is plain, black tunic, breeches and boots. He carries a wickedly curved scimitar on his belt and a bone and brass medallion as symbol of his office.

Bankground:
Sybax was given command of the Woefingers and the citadel that sits just south of Necron shortly after the fall of Rhanea. Although it is a small domain to govern, it is one of great importance as it guards the only water access to Necron. The fleet now under Sybax's control is only a fraction of what it once was, after several disastrous engagements with human squadrons. Sybax has spent the last 15 years or so attempting to rebuild the fleet and strengthen the garrison. Most of the fleets activities are small raiding parties on settlements to capture humans in order to turn them into ghouls.

With Eagoths apathy for governance and his withdrawal from his ghoulish dominion, Sybax has been left mostly to his own musings, waiting for an opportunity to better serve his master. With little to do and the menial tasks he is responsible for, Sybax has gathered a reputation for cruel and absurd activities.

Wards: The WoeFingers, (somewhere at the mouth of the river leading to Necron, probably that little island thingy)

Compared to the average ghoul, Lady Tiedriel is mostly intact - due in no small part to her expansive knowledge of magecraft. One might even call her beautiful, in the same manner as an ancient vampiress - though her skin is smooth and unblemished, it is deathly pale, utterly unmistakeable for that of a living elf. Her face, though sculpted to near-perfection, is marred by apparently empty sockets lit by dark, purplish-black flame. Her skin, much like her hair, is snow-white, the colour of death - though it remains somewhat luscious thanks to extensive efforts by the noblewoman herself. By and large, she is a strange parody of the picture of Elven beauty - slender yet healthily voluptuous, though her beauty does little for her these days.

Nonetheless, Lady Tiedriel goes to immense lengths to dress herself as she was in life. Most often, she wears robes coloured with the red-gold tones of the Noble House she was formerly heiress too, refusing to clad her body in anything but the most expensive, intricately designed robes she can find. That is not to say that she goes out of her way to put form over function, however - they are weighed equally, and, as such, she is often seen clad in robes of practical design with absurdly expensive embellishments and fresh dyes.

Not all of her equipment is so easily maintained, however. Her staff of office, once used as a training implement as she trained in the arcane arts, has been permanently marked by the foul magic that animates her body. Once bright, shining diamonds now have the colour of curdled blood, seeming to ooze foul energies, and while the silvery platinum haft is mostly free of damage, it is permanently ice-cold to the touch.

Once the heir to a great collection of Elven holdings, Tiedriel's promising future was ruined by the sudden rise of Eagoth. Her parents, friends to many of the Kings of Leria, pledged their assistance against his undead legions - and Tiedriel, having only just recently begun her training in the arcane arts, sought to use the conflict as a way to prove herself. During this conflict, she grew close to another Elven Prince involved in the war - and the two grew close, much to the pleasure of their parents.

Nonetheless, young love or not, Tiedriel was anything but lazy - though inexperienced, her magical potency proved impressive enough to turn handfuls of battles in the favour of the living, even saving her love's life on a few equations. The two were eventually wed closer to the end of Eagoth's conquests, and Tiedriel was with child.

Unfortunately, her happiness was not to last. Slain alongside her husband in one of the final sieges, her parents slaughtered, Tiedriel cast a spell of enchantment on her unborn child in a desperate attempt to save it, knowing the likely fate that awaited her. Valued as a mage, Tiedriel was eventually resurrected, made a Revenant Minor in Eagoth's armies. She eventually began to prove more independent than expected, however, and was raised to the rank of Revenant Major, her unliving child shielded from Eagoth's eyes by power illusion magic.

However, Tiedriel's independent streak - and magical skill - eventually proved too great of a risk to leave on the continent. Given command of a moderately sized fleet, Tiedriel was sent on a suicide mission to break the blockade of Leria. Tiedriel was a woman of ego, however, often defiant and abrasive - and rather than obey, she hid her fleet under a cloak of storms, setting sail back for Leria in hopes of exacting her rightful vengeance - and saving her child.

Now, she seeks allies - and just as important, objects of magical import with which to conjure into being an army of her own - one that Eagoth cannot turn to his own use. Her options for both are limited, however - and may come to involve forces she can scarcely control, whether otherworldly in nature or simply untrustworthy.

By the time Old Captain Coel’s body had been retrieved from his watery grave, his skin had turned a sickening shade of blue. His waterlogged corpse had to be dried out and partially rebuilt before being reanimated. His body is incredibly gaunt, and his skin is torn in a few places revealing bone and sinew underneath.

Coello has a red gem in his right eye that seems to light up whenever the captain gets particularly animated. He wears a large tricornered captain’s hat and an old, raggedy, slightly torn blue naval uniform complete with a cuirass. These are the colours of the Republic of Davari, one of the many realms of the living which holds the undead empire back with its massive naval fleet. He completes his wardrobe with a sturdy leather belt and a pair of torn cotton pants tucked into brown leather boots. He always seems to be smiling, though it’s hard to tell considering his almost skeletal nature. In place of his left hand, there is an old metal contraption like a claw. As you approach, he gets up... and extends a clawed hand in a friendly fashion.

Name: Odras the Blackfeather

Rank: Ghoul, technically, but with a consciousness

Description: Odros' skin is most likely charred and half melted off the bone, but it is impossible to see because his entire form is encased in mangled, and charred plate armor that was warped by magical flame. Where it was partially melted and then cooled one again it has reformed in strange slightly bubbled patterns in place. In the flames, his armor was also grafted and melded to him. He is a towering, striking figure in his state. Even his sword is twisted and distorted, yet effective if only because of his newfound, unnatural strength.

Background: Odras is an anomaly and, despite merely being a ghoul, remembers his previous life, at least in bits and pieces. He remembers the flames that consumed him and his men. He was a mercenary commander and led one of the last pockets of resistance to be snuffed out. He had brought together warriors from several territories and kingdoms that had fallen and led them in a final stand. They had called him the Vagrant Knight because he apparently held no banners from any kingdom himself, but he earned the respect of the scattered warriors from other lands. The passion he felt in defending his home and fellow man had somehow not been consumed in the fire and waves of undead that tore them apart. Now he shambles about the land in the scorched remains of his armor, wielding a charred, twisted sword. He seeks others from his ranks in life, hoping he can somehow spark the same nature in them. He is now called the Blackfeather because crows seem to flock to him, forming dark clouds overhead wherever he goes.