Nation Name
The Most Holy Confession Of The Dead And Undying God (or, informally, the Dead God's Church).
Government Form:
Theocracy. The highest leaders of the Church are the twelve immortal Necrosaints. Below them, the precise leadership structure varies between congregations, but the unifying principle is that those who have descended furthest into the bowels of the God Who Is It’s Own Tomb (and returned capable of some form of leadership and communication) are those who are emplaced within the high offices of the Dead God’s Church.
Demographics:
5% human, 95% skeleton servitor.
Population:
Human reproduction is not an easy task in the Tomb. The living population hovers at around one million. The skeletons of their ancestors, however, are in bounteous supply, eager to provide their labor, and number in the tens of millions.
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Plane Description: Some entities are too vast to die all the way. Some gods cling to their flesh long after it is dead. The Church is nestled within the vast, incomprehensible remains of what was once a god.
The scholars of the Church divide the Corpse That Is The Tomb into nine layers.
Epidermic: The external surface of the plane, covered in yards-thick black-grey skin, with which fungi and other forms of necrosis are slowly having their wicked way. The sky above is utterly black, and the temperature is typically close to freezing. Skeleton servitors, charged by their creators with farming edible fungi, dot the landscape, but humans are rarely seen.
Dermic: Beneath the exterior layer lie the turgid and semi-living cells of the dermal layer. The remaining biological activity of God here keeps the temperature at a liveable- albeit chilly- level. Blood vessels provide accessible corridors, while households make their residence in bone-lined abscesses within the skin tissue. The majority of day-to-day activities of the residents of the Tomb occurs here. People here experience intrusive thoughts from the Undying God, and dream of worship-rites and dead stars, though only visitors to the plane are likely to think these things are unusual.
Subdermic: The subcutaneous fat found here surrounds cavernous veins and arteries, upon which pilgrims set out to seek communion with God deeper in It’s tomb-body. Here, visions of the Undying God press constantly in on the edges of your vision, in a vague half-awareness of flitting shadows. This is the deepest layer most people can endure extended contact with, and holds many of the Tomb’s necromantic workshops and places of worship.
Muscular: Behold! The eternally-spasming muscle of the Body of God. Feel how it twists beneath you! Within these ever-shifting walls you shall find monasteries and waystations for pilgrims. Caution is advised- the twitching of the muscles has been known to snap veins shut on the impious, unwise, or simply unlucky. The monks who dwell here claim that close attention to the frequent audiovisual hallucinations will guide you in evading this fate. Certainly, the advanced age of many of them supports the truth of their claims.
Skeletal: You walk upon and within the bone of god! Here is the deepest any permanent communion of the faithful has set itself. Here is the final destination of many a pilgrimage, to chip away a precious piece of the holy skeleton, to carry for the rest of their lives, until their bones come to serve the Tomb. Does the roar of the Holy Voice in your ears not satiate you? Let the visions seen here be etched upon your eyelids! Open your mouth! That is the taste of god’s slowly burning flesh upon your tongue. Do not question when your hands act without your assent, for your tendons and muscles do the will of the Dead God.
Organotropic: The hissing of sacs, the wheezing of many-chambered hearts whose blood has long ago fled, and the pulsation of indescribable agglomerations of flesh whose purpose you do not know. When did you last sleep? Your body does things and you know not why. Each organ’s sound and sight brings a flurry of memories that are not yours- memories of consumption, worship, dread, and the slow, cold death.
Nervous: The lightning pulses beneath you. If it catches you, it will rise into your brain and drag the soul from your body as it passes. You step from axon to dendrite. Is this your will? You do not recall why you came here.
Nootropic: You are a thought in the mind of God. Hold this truth in yourself, or the mind of God will purge you as a disease. If you wish to return, remember also that you are more than a thought. You step upon an invisible web of rotting divine gnosis.
Barathron: HERE LIE THE SECRETS KNOWN ONLY TO THE NECROSAINTS.
History: In the beginning, there was the corpse of God, and there were many who had fled to It. They wept bitter tears, for the Tomb was a hard place to live, and many died.
After many years of suffering, one among them announced his intent to travel deeper into the Body of God. He was the First Necromancer. Together with his eight disciples, he journeyed to the heart of Tomb, what is now called the Barathron. There, they plead with the soul of God for their people, and It answered them.
The First Necromancer’s disciples returned to his people, who had become desperate, and began eating their dead. They commanded the bodies of the fallen to serve, and they rose, and the labors of the newly faithful were carried out by many pairs of hands, that they all might partake of the blessings of the Dead And Undying God.
Culture and Society:
The residents of the Corpse and Tomb are universally obsessed with their home, the consequence of living with the thoughts of a dead god eternally intruding on your head. Expressing the precise manner of that obsession- usually, but not always, through some form of necromancy- is the primary focus of their lives, as all labor necessary for the physical sustenance of the living population is carried out by numberless undead servants.
The basic unit of social life in the Corpse is the congregation. This consists of a number of the faithful who have found themselves (mostly) in agreement as to how to conduct their service to the Dead God. A congregation is typically led by an individual charismatic pilgrim who has journeyed particularly deeply into the Tomb (at least to the skeletal layer)- but the Church as a whole does not have a formal system of ordination per se. Any individual who feels called to preach, and can convince others to listen, is eligible to start a congregation. Congregations are marked by particularities in the sacramental skull face-paint worn by their members, and any pilgrim can spot another’s primary theological position by glancing at such.
In practice, however, the majority of congregations have a formal leader as a result of affiliation with one of the Necrosaints. Each Necrosaint is served by a small horde of hand-selected lesser clerics, who in turn guide a hierarchy of congregational leaders- nevertheless, oddball ‘unaffiliated’ congregations do exist, and make up about 10% of the population.
Congregations live communally, typically spending most of their waking hours engaged in such art or study as appropriate to their particular philosophy (see magic section). Currency is rarely used, as the principal resource in the Tomb- undead labor- is so readily available as to invoke little competition. Where disputes arise- over such exciting topics of who will make use of a particularly shapely tibia in their latest project, or whether the nootropic layer ought properly be considered part of the nervous layer- they are traditionally resolved by appealing to either the congregation’s leader, or a peer who is understood to be more progressed in their understanding of the Corpse That Is The Tomb (as evidenced by having made pilgrimage further into its depths.) If the dispute proves particularly intractable, it will be settled by necromantic duel. Often, this consists of seeing whose undead construct can destroy the others first- but it frequently takes other forms, such as a judged test of who can conjure the most aesthetically pleasing monstrosity, lift the heaviest weight with a necromantic creation, or present the most interesting novel necromantic theorem. Disputes between congregations are rare, but are settled similarly between their leaders (or, in the congregations that practice council or communal leadership, a nominated champion) if a higher authority cannot be agreed upon by both.
Critical to the society of the Tomb is the concept of pilgrimage- the notion that by traveling to the deeper layers of the Body, one can achieve a better understanding of it. Indeed, the universal term for ‘a member of the church of the dead god’ is ‘pilgrim’. The most worthy achievement in life is to dive deeply into the Body of God. Returning intact is a pleasant bonus, which confers social status, temporal authority, and necromantic power. Just about every pilgrim will journey to one of the monasteries of the muscular layer at least once in their life. Pilgrimages beyond the muscular layer carry drastically greater risk of death (either by the physical hazards of the Tomb, or by divinely-inspired suicide) or insanity, but many attempt them. It is common for aging pilgrims to set off on a pilgrimage towards the Barathron, knowing full well they will not return.
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Governance and Politics: Nominally, the head of the Church of the Tomb is the First Necromancer- however, he has not been seen since he set off for his fateful pilgrimage the dawning of necromancy. Instead, the Necrosaints- those blessed few who have traveled to the Barathron, the deepest recess of the Tomb- function as the heads of government. They select their own subordinates, who exercise day-to-day governance in their names, issuing instructions to the congregation leaders that report to them to ensure that the needs of the populace are met and that God’s will is carried out. Disputes across the hierarchies of Necrosaints are settled interpersonally where they arise. This is definitely a congenial, well-thought-out process. Reports that the Lady Of White Glass And Fire got into a slap fight with Most Patient Keeper Of Skin-Bound Tomes are heresy and probably false, anyway. See ‘Schools of Necromancy’, under Magic, for details on the congregations of the necrosaints.
In all the hundreds of years since the opening of the rifts, of the generations of pilgrims, only twelve have reached the Barathron and returned to tell the tale as immortal Necrosaints- and eight of them did so in the company of the First Necromancer. Each abandoned their former name, and took a title to replace it. They are:
The Testament of Flesh Made Steel
The Gilded Skull With Jeweled Eyes
Lady Of White Glass And Fire
Most Patient Keeper Of Skin-Bound Tomes
Warden Of Revealed Truths
The Bloodstained Rose Of Holy Martyrdom
A Burning Soul Hurled As A Spear
She Who Kneels Among Ash And Bones
The Princess Crowned With Many Crowns
Cold And Silent Longing
Speaker of Controversies
Ivory Star Of Cancerous Bone
Technology and Magic: Every single pilgrim is a necromancer. Not all of them are talented necromancers, but given a corpse any pilgrim can have it standing and doing basic manual labor inside of an hour. More powerful necromancers can raise a host of skeletons from nothing more than a few chips of bone, channeling necromantic power- termed thanergy- into the husks of cells and stimulating their ultra-rapid division according to their genetic template. Within the Tomb, thanergy is effectively unlimited in the subdermal layer and beyond, and still plentiful above it, as the Body of God produces it at an astounding rate. Outside the Tomb, thanergy can be stored in godbone, or harvested from the death of living tissues. The rate of thanergetic production is proportional to the size, youth, and complexity of the tissues destroyed. In practice, this means that a slain rat produces less thanergy than a slain cow, which produces less energy than a slain human. As a rule of thumb, one dead adult human will fuel a necromantic adept for fifteen minutes of intense work, though this can be extended by particularly talented practitioners.
Necromancy is used for everything by the residents of the tomb. Light is provided by reanimated clumps of phosphorescent cells. Textiles come from racks of sheepskin stimulated by thanergy to rapidly produce wool. Meat produced by stimulated muscle cell division, however, is not suitable for human consumption, and as a result the typical diet in the Tomb is almost entirely plant-based. These plants are primarily edible decomposers that are tended by skeletal servitors in the dermic and epidermic layers.
Tomb necromancers are capable of reactivating not merely entire corpses, but any function of dead tissue, down to the cellular level. In practice, exercising more complex instances of these functions requires significant anatomical and medical knowledge plus necromantic enlightenment. A novice necromancer can prod a tibia to grow into a skeleton that fits it’s own genetic template. A master can turn a few chips of bone and a few scraps of muscle into an acid-spitting beast the size of a house.
‘Necromantic enlightenment’ is a catch all term for the practical understanding of thanergy that comes with pilgrimage into the depths of the Body of God. Although hard study can elevate a necromancer’s abilities in principle, it becomes dramatically easier to work complicated necromancy- and therefore to get the hang of complicated necromancy in order to use it later- in the deeper layers of the Tomb. Anyone seeking to hone their necromantic talents is therefore likely to travel at least to the skeletal layer.
In principle, necromancy can also affect ‘living’ flesh (there is much scholarly discourse on where, exactly, the line between living and dead tissue lies). However, this requires intimate knowledge of the particulars of the subject. In practice, the only living flesh most necromancers can manipulate is their own, or those of close companions who they have spent a great deal of time studying.
Methods of Necromancy
Each of the eight original necrosaints developed their own approach to necromancy. Although other techniques have enjoyed brief popularity at various times, the social and political power of the necrosaints has ensured that their methods have always formed the backbone of necromantic life. These methods are simultaneously magical and social institutions, tied intimately to both particular beliefs about ideal faith, and particular exercises of necromantic power.
“Necromancy is an act of self-discipline” -The Testament of Flesh Made Steel
The Cavalier’s Method focuses magically on manipulation of one’s own living flesh, and that of others for more skilled practitioners. It’s adherents believe in following the Dead God by making a temple of their own bodies, steel-hard and unconquerable. They are unique in this, as most other necromancers lean towards the sickley. Their sacramental skull-paint leans towards the blocky and geometric, and may depict helmets or scars.
“Necromancy is an act of creativity!” - The Gilded Skull With Jeweled Eyes
The Aesthetic Method focuses on the creation of new and exciting forms of unlife. New and unlikely arrangements of limb, bone, and muscle are prized as pleasing to the Undying God. They are particularly talented in the manipulation of fat and flesh, as it offers a wider range of aesthetic possibilities. Their sacramental skull paint incorporates colors outside the traditional black and white, and often barely resembles a skull at all. The Princess Crowned With Many Crowns is an adherent of this method, but her tastes run towards the vicious and sadomasochistic.
“Necromancy is self-invigilation.” - Lady Of White Glass And Fire
The Inquisitorial Method is the smallest of the major methods, a result of it’s focus on one of the most difficult tasks in necromancy- the manipulation of neural tissue. This allows for the creation of pre-programmed- or even highly intelligent- constructs, and at the highest level the imposition of artificial thoughts and the reading of intention and emotion in others (though the reading of particular thoughts is beyond all but the Lady herself.) It is rumored that the brains of fallen followers are devoured by the Lady, and that this is how she has gained such unrivaled knowledge of it’s particulars. Her followers are vicious in their pursuit of perceived heresy, and their skull paint is painstakingly anatomically accurate.
“Necromancy is the keeping of debts to the dead.” - Most Patient Keeper Of Skin-Bound Tomes
The Traditional Method focuses on the exercise of pattern and the maintenance of traditions. It’s congregation is the only one with a formalized judicial code distinct from holy books (crime is rare in the Tomb), and has the most well-codified hierarchy. It’s necromantic specialty is spirit-calling- conjuring ghosts to inhabit dead flesh, or simply to communicate with. Their sacramental paint is simple and reasonable.
“Necromancy is an exercise of reason.” - Warden of Revealed Truths
The Method Of Reason points out that some faculty of reason is retained even by those deep in the throes of pilgrimage-madness. On this basis, they turn their scalpel-edged minds to the task of necromantic mastery. They maintain rigorous records of experimentation and results, and maintain dedicated cables of animated neural tissues to expedite communication between their congregations. They wear minimalist sacramental paint, when they bother to do so at all. They lack a specialty as a group, with each congregation focused on pushing the frontiers of a single extremely narrowly-defined field of specialty. Speaker of Controversies practices the Method of Reason, though some people think she just likes starting shit.
“Necromancy is an act of passion.” - The Bloodstained Rose Of Holy Martyrdom
The Passionate Method holds that necromancy and worship are both ecstatic, transcendent experiences. They channel these emotions into fleeting performance arts- dance, poetry, and the animation of blood. Blood is one of the harder necromantic workings, as due to it’s largely non-cellular nature it cannot be permanently animated as a servitor, instead requiring the continuous attention of a necromancer to manipulate. Their sacramental skulls are painted in blood, instead of black and white pigment, and are overlaid in lines to accent the wearer’s face rather than to hide it. Rumors circulate that the Rose is jealous of the Gilded Skull’s mentorship of the Princess, and seeks to elevate a protege of her own to the status of Necrosaint.
“Necromancy is unshakeable fervor!” - A Burning Soul Hurled As A Spear
The Method of Fidelity exults in burning religious passion. Their constructs tend towards the fleeting yet impressive, for their speciality is nudging tissues to produce interesting chemical reactions. In theory this is turned towards productive ends, though in practice the (predominantly younger) members of the Method of Fidelity enjoy a good show. Practitioners of this Method hurl themselves into pilgrimage with reckless abandon. It’s very common for younger necromancers to spend time in Fidelity congregations before drifting to more reasonable methods as they age. Their skull paint tends to be slapdash and haphazard, but applied with great enthusiasm at every occasion.
“Necromancy is unstinting devotion.” - She Who Kneels Among Ash And Bones
The Method Of Devotion emphasizes calm and absolute faith. Their congregations reside deeper in the Body of God than any other method- the majority of the method’s devotees reside in cloisters in the muscular and skeletal layer. They occasionally establish cloisters in the organotropic layer, but they inevitably vanish within a decade, a fact that does little to deter the followers of She Who Kneels. Their necromantic speciality is the working of bone- in particular, the Method of Devotion teaches the manipulation of the godbone found in the skeletal layer, which allows for the creation of regenerating skeletal constructs of surpassing speed, power, and durability. It is rare to find this skill outside the Method of Devotion, as mastering it requires an extended stay in the skeletal layer. Cold And Silent Longing is a student of this method.
Ivory Star Of Cancerous Bone adheres to none of these methods. She practices what she refers to as the Method Of The Tumor, and claims she is not yet ready to teach it.
The Powers Of The Necrosaints
The Holy Necrosaints can perform necromancy on an entirely different order of magnitude from their disciples. Each of them has an unlimited internal reserve of thanergy, extraordinarily rapid regeneration, complete morphological control over their own body’s tissues, and profound difficulty dying (Some pilgrims of reason have proposed that total incineration of a necrosaint’s corpus would be sufficient, but experiments have yet to occur). They augment these abilities with a century or more of practical experience (safe for Ivory Star, who was only exalted five years ago).
Military Overview: The Church Of The Dead And Undying God has no formal military whatsoever. It does, however, have a population profoundly talented in the creation of all manner of necromantic magnificence, and thoroughly motivated to defend their home. Any invader would also have to contend with the considerable physical and psychological hazards of the Body of God. Spend a few months conquering the Dermal Layer and you might find your soldiers start to come around to the Church’s way of thinking…
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Additional Info: They wear lots of skull face paint! Not all the time, though, mostly. They wear it for religious ceremonies, important parties, and so on. Think of it as the socioreligious (and non-gendered) equivalent of a necktie- some people wear them all the time, but most don’t.