@knighthawkDepends on what kind of undead, my friend. And would you be starting out as one, or are you curious on them as enemies?
w00t IC posts!
I was thinking as a culture. I'll admit I have never played war craft for more than 2 weeks and of that the undead for only a few days. So any plagerism is accidental or coincidental.
Magic is energy, energy comes in many forms such as plasma, gas, liquid, or even solid magic.
A hundred years ago a meteor fell into the already arid desert with no great disturbance to any villages and nowhere near any trade routes. For another ten years nothing would happen until a group of mercants saw a caravan traveling crossways to the trade route, while odd it was nothing compared to the fact that it was nothing but sun bleached skeletons of animals and riders.
Since then, there has been an odd academically rise in necrotic activity. Any sumoned/recently created undead always seem to be looking off to the horizon at some fixed point, like waiting for the sun to rise. Wild undead have started a long march towards the desert, many never making it due to natures hazards or the act of man. Inteligent undead have felt this pull of some manner like a 'new north'.
Those that survive the travel find themselves at a massive mountain a mile wide made of stone somewhere between sapphire and lapis, transparent blue with streaks of gold. The stone itself is worthless to jewelers and poses no greater focus for magic, much less necomancy. What it does provide, is stability. Ghosts become more solid, zombies began to regenerate rather than rot. Even vampires bloodless was slightly slated in the presence of the mountain.
Ninety years later, a thousand corpses have started the basis of a society some have called it necrotopia, others the mourning lands. There are ten leaders, assigned to watch over one hundred others with careful detail to avoid any majorities of any particular kind to prevent a caste system of the undead. So far, they are building their society similar to greek/Roman influence with a base ten structure and a strong oral tradition of multi-cultural pidgin with any written alphabet being an amalgamation of others symbols.