SD.net Lords of the Dead (RAR!)

[Zor]

Because i heard some requests in the Lord of Darkness for something with magic and a little more dark than just having various fantasy creatures at your command.

In this thread, Q has picked up every established (50+ posts and not banned) SD.netter and informs that he will send us an alternate version of Earth that is exactly like ours, only 610 years younger. On said version of earth, Q has given us a set of powers that many would consider to be evil and are definately marcabre in nature, giving us Nercomantic abilities and forces of (among other things) the living dead. We are still mentally ourselves but now.

Each SD.netter has 24 hours before being sent back and can take back 1 cubic meter of stuff. Each SD.netter is given a Solar powered labtop with matinence nanites and an internet connection as well as an SD.net forum for long range communication.

As far as forces go, each SD.net gets...

-A Neo-Gothic fortress with an outer ring of walls enclosing half a square kilometer of land with rebar re-enforced walls 10 meters tall and 4 meters thick and iron gates and an inner keep with an inner keep with comprable walls and sufficient room for 2,500 people. Both have murder holes, crenelations and turrets. A small town exists inside the outer wall. If within 5 km of an ocean, a small port town with a wooden palisade, 500 artisans, 25 fishing boats, some docks and warehouses and a single drydock is thrown in as a bonus.
-Enough canned food, potatos and grain to last 10,000 people a year, as well as seed stocks
-25,000 Cattle (each cow can be exchanged for two sheep or pigs or Sixteen chickens or other poultry of comprable size) and 1,000 herdsmen and dogs
-50,000 army points

All your minions are loyal to you (save for Blood Mad vampires and jiang shi).

General terminology

NEUs-Necromantic Energy Units. Basically the energy that allows you to raise the dead for your means as well as a few other powers, several Summoners can pool their energies to specific ends (several Necrolytes pooling together to turn a corpse into a Revenant). Each summoner fully recharges their maximum NEU reserve every day.

Non Undead

Additional Cattle-1 Point per head (90% cows, 10% bulls), every 25 comes with a free herdsman with a dog.

Trebuchet-(650 Points) A trebuchet able to throw a 250 kilo stone sphere (or an undead soldier which might survive to some degree) 300 meters. Each Trebuchet comes with transport wagon ands draft cows, as well as a crew of twenty five Revenants with a Necrolyte commander.

Storm Engine-(5,000 Points, limit one) A storm engine is a arcane device in your fortress which allows you to summon forth a thunderstorm every 14 days that lasts for 12 hours. Storm engines can not be moved

Frost Wagon-(30 Points) A special wagon pulled by a pair of regular cows with a driver and two loader zombies (with their mouths sewn shut) with 18 cubic meters of space inside it. A special spell inside it keeps the inside of said wagon at -5 degrees Celsius; as such it is useful for collecting and transporting “new recruits”. Frost Wagons have one defensive measure which is the Cold Pulse, which with a puff of air lowers the Temperature of the surrounding air in a 20 meter radius to -10 degrees Celsius. This can only be done once and it takes a day for it to recharge. It takes one NEU to instill this spell onto a Wagon of comparable size to make more frost wagons.

Cold House-(250 points) a two story warehouse with the same spell in it that frost wagons have with 900 square meters inside. Useful for storing dead guys in for latter use. Comes with four loader Zombies and a Human Clerk.

Black Galleon (1,500 points)-An unarmed 300 tonne Galleon manned by living sailors, with the defining feature of having black sails. Has an onboard cold room three times as big as that on a frost wagon.

Pile-o-Dead Guys (2,000 points), a pile of ten Thousand fresh and reasonably intact cadavers collected from around the multiverse by Q from people which died in a variety of circumstances (although he did not kill them himself). This heap has a tarp over it, but if you get a pile-o-dead guys you better reanimate them or put them into the deep freeze quickly or they are going to rot into worthlessness.

Necrolytes-(20 Points) Necrolytes are living Human beings with basic necromantic abilities. Necrolytes are basic Summoners and the most cost effective means of padding out your NEU supply. Necrolytes have an NEU reserve of two and have the following powers…
-Raise Zombies, Deathsteeds, Ghouls and Revenants (doing so takes about one minute per raising, which is usual and requires them to be within 2 meters of the corpse)
-Provide additional NEUs to Necromancers for certain spells
-Black Fire, this ability allows them to basically firebend at a level comparable to that of the basic firebenders in Avatar with the notable exception of the fire being black. Doing so for about two minutes takes up one NEU. Range 15 meters.

Each Necrolyte is given a black cowled robe, trousers, boots and a few shirts for more casual wear, as well as a light breastplate, a Jian and a fancy dagger. Necrolytes are both male and female. Oddly enough, the Necrolytes that Q has given you are friendly, outgoing, kind (outside their loyalties to you), lighthearted and speak with either thick Australian or Japanese accents. To create more Necrolytes, you can bestow necromantic powers onto regular humans for 10 NEU. All Necrolytes are capable NCOs. You can upgrade Necrolytes that have been Necrolytes for five years to Necromancers for 125 NEUs.

Igors-(30 Points) Similar to those from Discworld, Igors while lacking any direct necromantic abilities are useful to your armies. Male Igors tend are hunched over short men with various odd patterns of stitches over their faces that tend to Lisp. Female Igors (aka Igorinas) are generally quite attractive, with a few decorative scars and stitching. Either way, Igors are quite dexterous surgeons; possessing a rather advanced amount of medical knowledge as well as emitting a passive psionic field which allows them to do things such as easily re-attaching someone’s arm, over-ride issues involving organ compatibility and blood types and so forth. They also have a good understanding about infections, microbiology and such. Igors are respectably sneaky and are good at knocking people out and though they would never shy away from breaking down a corpse for spares they are generally uneasy taking lives outside of euthanasia of those which are beyond their help. Their only weapons are blackjacks and pistol crossbows firing hypodermic tranquilizer darts. Igors carry backpacks with dynamo powered batteries.

As far as undead go, Igors are capable of sewing up corpses to specific ends. Let say you have the headless remains of a dead horse and a Revenant which has lost its legs, with a little sewing, some necromantic energy from a summoner and an electric shock can get you a centaur. Such composite creatures take 1 NEU per every 100 kilograms of creature.

Banshee (100 Points) Banshees are not undead, but rather a fantastic creature. Banshees are humanoid creatures with long leathery wings comparable to Pterosaur, re-enforced musculature, a steering tale, as well as two hearts, talons and are able to create an intense screech which can disorient men. Banshees have a top speed of 100 km/h in the air and can fly while carrying up to 15 kilograms of stuff. Banshees live as long as humans and breed at the same rate and are sapient. Banshees have to eat four times as much food as humans do. Each Banshee gets a helmet, five javelins and a leather satchel.

Necromancers-(150 Points) Necromancers are advanced spellcasters able to do things that Necrolytes just can’t do and have 10 NEUs to do it with. In addition to the things that Necrolytes do, Necromancers can…
-Reanimate Vampires and Jiang Shi
-Summon a Wisp, wisps are spirits that basically serve as mobile cameras through which the summoning Necromancer can control see with the clarity of usual human vision, wisps move at 20 kilometers an hour and can not attack in any way and can pass through solid mater, wisps last for about an hour. Wisps can only fly at most 2 meters above the ground (2 NEU)
-Doom Bolt, fires off a bolt of greenish energy which has the explosive power of a Mills bomb, range 150 meters (6 NEU)

They have comparable equipment (if somewhat fancier) to Necrolytes, with the exception of a staff. Any Necromancer you buy that is male has a voice which in the same lines as Christopher Lee or Ian Mckellen and is a capable strategist.

Undead Types

Zombies (1 Point)-Zombies are the most basic type of Undead. Basically think a modern virus Zombie, add resistance to rot which extends it’s lifespan to about ten years, the ability to receive basic orders (go there, go to X, obey the commands of X, guard said area, pick up box, put box down, everything in that general direction must die) from you and your human followers and remove its ability to infect others to make more zombies. Zombies have a weakness to cold, they don’t produce internal body heat and if left out in sub-zero temperatures for too long they freeze solid and need to be thawed. Zombies are subordinate to all your Summoners and can be re-animated from any corpse which still has most of its flesh and at least some of its brain. Takes one NEU to reanimate.

Ghouls (2 Points)-Zombies with something of an edge but are more difficult to re-animate. Ghouls are just as smart and durable as your Zombie Cannon Fodder, but can run at speeds of up to 40 kilometers per hour and have twice the upper body strength of a human or a zombie, and a better sense of smell. Ghouls only last 5 years at most. Can be reanimated by all Summoners which takes three NEUs.

Deathsteed-(3 Points) Basically a Zombie Horse that is subservient to any of your minions (save for Zombies and Ghouls for reasons of being too damn stupid) that tries to ride it or anyone who you order to let them ride it. Zombie Horses can not be commanded directly by you and on their own will just act like horses. Lasts 5 years can be reanimated by all summoners, takes 1 NEU to reanimate from a regular horse corpse.

Revenant-(5 Points) Revenants are a better class of Zombie, identical to strength, loyalty and speed of Zombies, but retaining human knowledge. One out of fifty Revenants you buy are capable blacksmiths with one out of ten being useful in other fields (including farming). Revenants last longer as well, about 25 years. Revenants that you get points from are armored in a chainmail shirt and a brodie helmet and are armed with a 25cm long dagger and either…
-A Meter long Spatha, a pair of pilum and a tower shield 50cm wide and 125cm tall
-Said shield and a 5 meter long pike
-An arbalest crossbow

Revenants take 5 NEUs to summon.

Vampire-(25 Points) Vampires are an advanced category of undead. Vampires look like pale skinned humans with pointy teeth. They have human level intelligence, but superhuman reflexes, dexterity and reaction times. All vampires (at least all that you get from points) look attractive with coolness, elegance, charm and style coming easy to them, as well as emitting a passive psionic field that puts people within a few meters of them at ease, although it’s not strong enough to stop someone running at a vampire with a sword. Vampires are five times as strong as baseline humans. While vampires can not survive being sent through a woodchipper and similar, the only easy ways to kill a vampire are...

-Decapitation
-Incineration
-Exposure to direct sunlight, This causes them to get intense sunburns over a period of ten minutes until their body is covered in third degree burns, after which they burst into flame.
-Garlic in the bloodstream (a few Milliliters of garlic juice is enough to kill a vampire)

The Standard Vampire is clad in chainmail, a breastplate, greaves and a pikeman’s helmet, as well as having several changes of cloths, daytime gear (gloves, a hooded cloak, balaclava and a pair of sunglasses) and are armed with a shield, a Spatha and a yew longbow.

Vampires need to feed on Eutherian blood, either one liter a week from non human sources or one liter a month from human sources and they can store up to five liters of blood in their body at once. Should a vampire be left without blood, said vampire will go blood mad, which means get touchy and Erratic in behavior for about a day and then suddenly degrade to a bestial nature. In said state vampires will randomly attack any Eutherian Mammal (including you) or source of fresh blood nearby until it drinks its fill (in which case it will fall asleep and awake as their normal self in about an hour), is killed or stays like that for more than 48 hours, in which case said vampire dies, crumbling to ash. For reasons of public relations and availability, the vampires Q gives to you will not randomly attack people for sustenance outside of bloodlust. Human blood does have some notable properties for vampires, most notably if a vampire has had all his/her limbs cut off a liter of human blood will cause them to regrow said arms in a few minutes.

To make more Vampires, a Vampire needs to drink a Human’s blood, sending him/her into a state of not quite death for about a week. Then either you or a Necromancer is required to covert said not quite a corpse into a Vampire (costing 10 NEUs). Vampires are immortal as far as aging goes.

Jiang Shi-(25 points) Jiang Shi are a more combat oriented vector of Vampires. They have the same intelligence, reflexes, durability and dexterity, but are stronger with ten times the upper body strength of a Human Being and (unlike vampires) faster moving, able to run at sixty kilometers per hour and can jump up to 15 meters. As well as the ability to grow 10cm long razor sharp claws as strong as steel out of their fingers. However, Jiang Shi have discolored skin, elongated arms, a more corpsey appearance than vampires and smell bad. Jiang Shi have Chinese clothing, but besides that are equipped with the same armor, shield and sword (but not the bow). Jiang Shi have the same blood limitations, and have the same requirements for reanimation.

Death Knight-(300 Points) Death Knights are your elite undead soldier. Death Knights appear as pale humanoids with a somewhat corpsey appearance (less so than a Jiang Shi) and eyes that have a faint green glow. Death Knights have human level intelligence and all the advantages in terms of strength, agility, reaction time and durability of vampires, but without the vulnerabilities to sunlight or garlic. The only ways to kill Death Knights are decapitation, utter dismemberment and incineration. Death Knights also are the only undead soldiers you can have with necromantic abilities, having the ability to raise Zombies ghouls and deathsteeds and have the ability to stockpile 2 NEUs. The Death Knights you buy from Q are capable tacticians and are useful for leading armies into battle.

Each Death Knight comes with a Black Warhorse, full plate armor, a lance and a 125cm Longsword. Death Knights can be reanimated or converted from living people at a cost of 125 NEUs and only you can do it.

Your abilities

As a Default you get…

A suit of full plate armor
A Longsword
A Staff
A decent instinctive grasp of swordsmanship
Biological immortality and resistance to disease (as well as curing cancer, diabities and other such nasty afflictions you might have)
125 NEU Reserve
The ability to cast every spell a Necromancer can and give Necromantic powers to others.

Additional abitributes (limit one of each)
Necromantic Energy Reserve-(250 Points) doubles your NEU capacity
Energy Reclamation-(250 Points), You gain the ability to reclaim NEUs from your undead minions, gaining back half the NEUs that were required to raise them. Doing so causes the undead minion to collapse into a pile of dust and a cloud of steam. Range 25 meters.
Mass Raising-(200 Points) You gain the ability to dump you’re entire NEU reserve into reanimating nearby corpses (in a radius of 50 meters) into either Zombies or Revenants in a few seconds.
Corpse Bomb-(150 points) You can convert about 25% of a single Zombie, Revenant or Ghoul into an explosive compound which you can cause to detonate by snapping your fingers or some other comparable thing. Corpse Bombs will detonate on their own after 48 hours, you can only have one corpse bomb at a time and doing so takes 20 NEU
Unnatural Strength-(150 points) You have Physical strength and reflexes comparable to a Vampire
Reactivation-(300 points) The ability to take a corpse which has been dead for less than 100 days and from it bring the person back to life, with all his/her faculties and memories and any diseases he/she had come back. Doing so will take your full NEU load. You can only reactivate a person once.
Death grip-(250 points), the ability to fire off a bolt of green lightning out of your hand, anyone who is hit by this lightning will die and automatically come back as either a Zombie (15 NEUs) or a Revenant (30 NEUs) a few seconds later. Range of 100 meters, cool down time of 10 minutes

So what happens?

[Samuel]

So what happens?

None can stand before the coming darkness.

Aside from conquering the planet we also have enough loyal undead slave labor to simply raise the general standard of living. Or we use them to jump start the industrial revolution- there is something about workers who never have to sleep, eat, get paid, etc that makes them perfectly suited from cranking out goods or general hard labor.

I'm pretty sure giving us time to prepare for this is over kill- since we have undead we can just throw workers at a problem until it is solved or dump it on our minions who probably are so cheerful because they have alot of free time.

[The Yosemite Bear]

hide mycrow comics from the revenants, likewise hide all stephine meyers, anne rice and others from the vamps, not just don't bring it over, but lunch incestigations to keep that stuff supressed.

[Zixinus]

Do what I always do:
1. Seek out an area that is easily militarily defensible, carefully conquer it and bribe persuade priests to adapt a version of the local religion where I am not doing something inheritable evil (I am sure that the priests can come up with something about how the body and soul separates at the moment of death and I only put in a replacement pseudo-soul or something).
1a. Call for 100 death knights, of whom 10 will always be around me as personal bodyguards. I would put the details of conquest into the more capable hands of necromancers.
1b. Create and maintain a small population of banshees that are loyal to me (so that means at least 100 banshees). Their children would be raised rather favorably to be my servants. They would be my scouts and messengers.
1c. Create a population of Necrolytes (but keep the Necromancer population relatively small).
1d. Start stockpiling gold and money to hire mercenary army. While undead servants are good and all, it would be wasteful to create my entire army out undead.

2. Raise standards of living so local population will like me. Allow enough of the nobility (that I didn't kill) in order to circumvent uprising.
2a. If seen profitable, perhaps allow a small (and thus maintainable) vampire population as my version of nobility.

3. Declare all larger cities to be under my direct property (with due compensation to the original owners, if they are alive). These cities have a certain level of autonomy (with Necromancers and Necrolytes in high positions where necessary), pay taxes only to me. All such cities will have a hospital staffed by at least one Igor (or Igorina) who must also teach some of his (or her) skills. Along with hospitals, all towns will have at least one orphanage, college (not sure regarding medieval school terminology), well-placed firefighting houses (with a small but constant staff), a court of law (with rotated judges and lawyers, to avoid the gap between university and town law), at least one cold house (that replaces the city's cemetery), post office (who will also double as my messenger network) and city-wide guard who's job is to ensure peace within the towns (and who effectively double as police). Oh, and make efforts to make a decent sewage system for god's sake.

Each will hopefully produce not only corpses that will be part of my workforce/army but people loyal to me.

4. Build proper fucking roads. Roads that would make legends.

Such legends that if say in the morning that I want fresh sea-fish for dinner, I see a horseman loaded with a basket of iced fish galloping home madly by afternoon.

5. My court. Allow some vanity by inviting the time's better artists in, especially painters, astronomers and other varieties of the time's scientists. These artists would be under my protection (that is extended to their family of course) from any legal threats of atheism as long as they serve my court. The children of these people would get a scholarship program for their children and can become Revenant if they allow so.
Necrolytes will be my trusted people in power.

6. Lay back and enjoy the women who will happily dance for their Lord of Darkness.

Questions:
1. I assume that Revenants, Death Knights and Vampires can learn new things?
2. I also assume that I have all the same abilities that Necrolytes and Necromancers have?

[Zor]

1. I assume that Revenants, Death Knights and Vampires can learn new things?

Yes they do, although Death Knights, Vampires and Jiang Shi are more able to learn.

2. I also assume that I have all the same abilities that Necrolytes and Necromancers have?

Yes, you have all the Necromantic abilities of a Necromancer as a default as well as being able to buy some nifty additional abilities for yourself using army points.

Zor

[Zixinus]

Where are placed in this medieval setting? China? Europe? Africa? Middle-East?

[Zor]

Where are placed in this medieval setting? China? Europe? Africa? Middle-East?

Place youself wereever the hell you want to in the year 1400, so long as it is not on a major agrigation of humans (on a population center). If you want to square death nights against the regular variety, send vampires against mameluks, install Jiang Shi Mandarins in the middle kingdom, feed Aztec Priests to Zombies or freeze your ass off in antartica, go ahead

[The Yosemite Bear]

So what is the penalty for introducing Meyers or Rice into this world?

[Setzer]

You have to help her write her next book.

[speaker-to-trolls]

^Wouldn't helping her write another book only exacerbate the problem?
Kind of a moot point anyway since SMeyer and Rice weren't alive in the 1400's and people are unlikely to start writing about sympathetic, drippy vampires in the middle ages when vampires are rampaging across Europe killing people.

[Zixinus]

That, and it will take a while for people to even start reading. You can't just put in the idea of institutionalized/mandatory education centuries before its time. At best, you can just keep gates open for those that want to be educated and give space to those who are to do their thing.

[CDiehl]

1. I assume the undead (including Death Knights) that I create or purchase are loyal to me, but how about those created by my underlings? If a Necrolyte or Necromancer in my organization creates undead, do they obey me or them?

2. Can I remove the powers of a Necrolyte or Necromancer in my service who disobeys or attacks me, especially one that I trained?

3. Can I dismiss the spell that creates an undead, leaving behind a corpse? I know that won't return the NEU's I spent, and I may not be able to re-raise it, but I may want to have a body around.

4. Might there be some way to recover NEU's short of waiting for tomorrow or using Energy Reclamation? That way, if I blow my whole supply into a Mass Raising or Reactivation, I'm not left totally helpless.

[Zor]

1. I assume the undead (including Death Knights) that I create or purchase are loyal to me, but how about those created by my underlings? If a Necrolyte or Necromancer in my organization creates undead, do they obey me or them?

They will be loyal to you first and their summoner second. If you die they become exclusively loyal to their summoner.

2. Can I remove the powers of a Necrolyte or Necromancer in my service who disobeys or attacks me, especially one that I trained?

If you have energy reclaimation you can take away the abilities from your summoners.

3. Can I dismiss the spell that creates an undead, leaving behind a corpse? I know that won't return the NEU's I spent, and I may not be able to re-raise it, but I may want to have a body around.

No.

4. Might there be some way to recover NEU's short of waiting for tomorrow or using Energy Reclamation? That way, if I blow my whole supply into a Mass Raising or Reactivation, I'm not left totally helpless.

No.

Zor

[CDiehl]

First, I'll allocate my initial 20,000 head of cattle in the following manner:
10,000 beef cattle
5,000 sheep
5,000 pigs
50,000 chickens
15,000 ducks
10,000 geese
5,000 pheasant

Now, for my 50,000 army points

I'll establish myself on a coastline, so I can have the option of using ships.

10 Trebuchets (6500 pts.). Five will be installed at my capital, the rest will be used in the field.

1 Storm Engine (5,000 pts.). I intend to use this to protect the area around my capital from drought. I imagine a thunderstorm every two weeks in the midst of a drought will help keep my crops growing.

20 Frost Wagons (600 pts.). I'll use them to store supplies on the march out, and carry bodies home on the march back.

5 Cold Houses (1,250 pts.). These will be installed in my capital, with two in the castle and the rest in town. They'll mainly be used to store food in case of a siege, but I'll build some more later to hold bodies. Also, I assume the 900 square meters listed for the size of the Cold House should read 900 cubic meters, so making a new one would cost 50 NEU's.

2 Black Galleons (3,000 pts.). These ships will sail along the coast in opposite directions, collecting supplies, and later, tribute (such as food and bodies). I'll make sure to assign a squad of summoners to augment the crew and protect my investment.

250 Necrolytes (5,000 pts.). The Necrolytes will be trained to launch Black Fire en masse against the first enemy force they encounter in battle, then raise the bodies as Zombies before counterattacking. I'll assign 50 Necrolytes to serve as my household guard. Initially, they'll be typical armored guards, but later, as I gain the services of living troops, this group, mostly female, will become part of my court, blending in during social gatherings in my palace and spying on my guests.

100 Igors (3,000 pts.). These are my combat medics. They'll mend my wounded troops, and repair disfigurements to my followers. I'll assign a squad of 5 Igorinas as my personal plastic surgery team, fixing my wounds and cosmetically enhancing my female companions.

20 Banshees (2,000 pts.). They will be kept outside my capital, as their appearance would scare my civilian populace. These will be my scouts and messengers, with some assigned to units separating from the main army. They aren't expected to fight most of the time, but carry my orders to my officers and help pursue fleeing enemies.

50 Necromancers (7,500 pts.). These are my officers in battle, as well as my field artillery, throwing Doom Bolts into packed enemy forces. Ten Necromancers will stick close to me, using Wisps to observe the enemy leaders. In peace, Necromancers are members of my court, and my ambassadors. I will install a group of 10 female Necromancers as my consort and her ladies-in-waiting.

500 Zombies (500 pts.). This is just a horde. They aren't used for anything tactical, just a reserve in case I need to throw numbers at an enemy. Obviously, this horde will grow as my summoners and I raise more bodies.

500 Ghouls (1,000 pts.). Ghouls are used as flankers, using their speed to help surround or run down the enemy.

700 Deathsteeds (2,100 pts.). These are mounts for the Revenants assigned as cavalry.

1,800 Revenants (9,000 pts.).This is my main army, of 1,100 infantry and 700 cavalry. They are armed as follows:
Infantry: 200 swordsmen, 550 pikemen, 350 crossbowmen. Fifty pikemen and fifty crossbowmen are kept in reserve.
Cavalry: 150 swordsmen, 350 lancers, 200 mounted crossbowmen. Fifty swordsmen and fifty lancers are kept in reserve.

20 Vampires (500 pts.). These are employed as spies and infiltrators. In battle, they raid enemy encampments at night to drain officers and steal information. In peacetime, they often travel with ambassadors, acting as spies.

5 Death Knights (1,500 pts.). These are the generals of the army, commanding the main units. One stays close to me, acting as a bodyguard and herald on the battlefield.

Also, I have all the Additional Attributes available (1,550 pts.).

My plan is to make serving me attractive to living people living around me. After a battle, I'll have their wounded seen to by my Igors once my own troops are helped, then offer my prisoners a chance to switch sides. The first man to take the offer becomes a Necrolyte. The first man to speak against me get Death Gripped, and the Zombie created from his corpse becomes the other man's bodyguard. The rest are given uniforms and weapons, and ordered to massacre those who still oppose me, who are then raised as zombies and assigned to them. In future battles, those who distinguish themselves will be rewarded with spoils, undead to command, and even becoming Necrolytes.

When living troops fight for me and die, after the battle, their bodies are laid before the men, who can testify to how brave or loyal a particular dead man was. I pick one to be Reclaimed the next morning, and have the rest raised as Revenants. I don't raise my own people as Zombies or Ghouls, because it's hard to get loyalty out of people who think they're just meat to be killed and raised as slobbering undead. When soldiers I have Reclaimed or raised as Revenants die in later battles, I'll raise monuments with their names carved in them on the battlefield, commemorating those who died and died again for me.

To gain allies, or willing vassals, I'll offer to make those leaders who join me Necrolytes, and later Necromancers. In time, I'll do the same for members of their families, installing them as members of my new aristocracy of necromantic power. Those leaders who oppose me will be killed, the Igors will graft animal parts to them, and they will be kept as undead freaks, who will be embalmed once they finally cease to function. Their purpose is to be an example to others. When negotiating with a potential foe, I'll introduce him to my past opponents, and to the summoners now serving me who had served those unfortunates before.