fandomhigh | Necromancers Guide to the Undead, Thursday, Period 1

Entry tags:

necromancy

Necromancers Guide to the Undead, Thursday, Period 1

"So the week before we left for vacation--" which they absolutely would not be discussing, thank you "--we began discussing zombies. Today, we are continuing that discussion with a look at intelligent zombies. As I'm sure you can all guess, an intelligent zombie is one that has its mind - and usually its personality - intact. They are generally rare, requiring a great deal of mana and skill to create. While it's possible for an intelligent zombie to spontaneously emerge on its own, the odds are infinitesimal, as it requires a specific confluence of events. As far as necromancy can tell, a spontaneous intelligent zombie is what happens when a spirit that would have become a ghost somehow gets trapped within its body and there is enough ambient mana to raise the corpse as a zombie. It's certainly possible and individual cases have been documented, but we still do not yet understand the phenomena that allows it to happen, nor has any necromancer that I've heard of been able to produce a spontaneously-arising intelligent zombie."

And maybe don't think too hard about how they'd go about trying to 'produce' one, okay?

"For the most part, if you're interacting with an intelligent zombie, a necromancer has been involved. Most commonly, to create a sapient zombie, a necromancer has simply done deliberately what happens accidentally with a spontaneous rising: bound the dead soul to the body. This can be done at the time of death, which makes it easier, or the soul of the departed can be called back from the Æther. I referenced this in one of our classes about ghosts; a skilled enough necromancer can collect enough of a person's soul to be a reasonable facsimile of the person they were in life, which does include their thoughts, memories, and even secrets. Anyone capable of casting a spell that allows them to speak with a corpse is, at least briefly, creating an intelligent zombie: an animated corpse that can think and talk and remember. Most spells of that nature have a specific duration, however; a certain amount of time is common, or a certain number of questions. However, that spell is...inefficient, at best. Beyond the time limit, the corpse can choose to lie or misdirect, and it's only animated, not ensouled, which means that it can't learn new information, doesn't comprehend anything that has happened since it died, and can't speculate about future events. By binding the soul to the undead body, an intelligent zombie is capable of learning, comprehending, and speculating..."

Liliana trailed off, brow furrowing and head cocked to one side. She was tired - it had been another night of bad dreams - but she could have sworn she'd heard someone call her name. It wasn't the Chain Veil, as it wasn't calling her 'vessel' or 'root of destruction' but, for a moment, she truly thought she'd heard Liliana...

"Did any of you--? Never mind," she said, shaking that off and continuing with her lecture. "If you bind a whole soul to a corpse - it can be any corpse, not specifically the body the soul had worn in life - you will get a zombie version of that person. Which is often useful, say, if you need information that only they know, or you're looking to make a statement and only the risen corpse of the lunarch will do." As a completely hypothetical example, of course. "However, sometimes you may not want a specific person, simply a zombie that is capable of thought and speech. For that, you can make something not unlike a patchwork quilt of souls, plucking bits and pieces of souls from the Æther until you have enough to bind. It's slightly less complicated than it sounds - it's not like a puzzle where you have to find pieces that fit together to make a harmonious whole, but more like filling a cistern with water. Eventually, you get enough soul stuff to make sapience viable and from there, you can imprint the kind of personality that you want upon your zombie. These zombies are fascinating; they start off close to blank slates, but with instruction and time, they begin to evolve into their own person, capable of going above and beyond simple obedience. Some of my colleagues liken it to raising a child, you can watch the personality develop and chart its growth from needing to be told what to do and how to being a fully autonomous being, with its own opinions, beliefs, preferences, and conversational acumen. They make excellent household staff, for the record."

Every Vess manor across the Multiverse was staffed by at least one intelligent zombie of that variety - often two, so they wouldn't get ~~lonely~~ ~~bored~~ dulled from lack of interaction.

"Binding the soul to a corpse is usually done to other people; for necromancers that wish to make zombies of themselves, they embrace lichdom. Instead of binding the spirit to the corpse, liches remove their spirits, putting them into a sanctified vessel prepared for just that purpose. In this way, a necromancer may obtain something close to immortality, even though their body has physically died, their spirit lives on and their will remains their own. The method of becoming a lich is referred to as the Ritual of Becoming or Ceremony of Endless Night, wherein, under the light of a full moon, the necromancer creates and consumes the Elixir of Defilation. There are various ways to create this elixir, though the most common and easiest to create almost universally entails acts of utter evil. Other elixirs that do not require heinous acts to create are possible, but these are much harder and therefore far rarer. The elixir invariably kills the drinker but if the process is successful it rises again some days later as an undead lich, in full control of its faculties. The benefits to becoming a lich are numerous: you're effectively immortal, capable of sustaining tremendous physical damage, and are immune to disease, poison, fatigue and other effects that affect only the living. Furthermore, because the soul is separated from the body and stored elsewhere, killing the body will discorporate the lich, but will not kill it; after some time - varies by strength of the lich itself - the immortality magic will recreate the destroyed body. The only way to permanently kill a lich is to find the vessel that the soul is stored in and destroy that instead - obviously, no easy feat, especially since those vessels are magical themselves and therefore are resistant to non-magical means of destruction." Her nose wrinkled. "The downside of becoming a lich is that, well, you're dead. Yes, you've obtained immortality, but you're still a walking, talking corpse, without even the pretense of mortality that most vampires have."

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Showing off your intelligence!

Edited 2024-03-07 11:14 (UTC)

Liliana can already tell that some of you are going to have Opinions^TM about the subject matter.

Choose one type of intelligent zombie (binding a person's soul to a body, creating a patchwork of souls, becoming a lich) and come up with at least three arguments in favor of that method. No, you don't have to believe them, but the ability to formulate arguments you don't agree with is actually important rhetorical training.

If it will make you feel better, you can come up with as many arguments against the various types as you please.

She is expecting a lot of protests today; we'll see which holds out longer, her ~~coffee~~ patience or their arguments.

If you hate today's lesson, just wait till you see next week's!

Charlie Gale

Eleanor Zarrin

Stark

Stark was going to keep his opinions to himself today. Or at the very least he was going to try to do so.

He'd had a good night and a good early morning and he didn't want to ruin that!

Even though she knew that what Arthur was was fundamentally different, and what Rhys had become was also very different from what Ms. Vess was discussing in class today, 'intellectual zombie' still felt only a few steps removed. So Eleanor was listening with rapt attention, scribbling down a flurry of notes, just in case. Just in case something jumped out at her, just in case there was a thread connecting this to that or another thing that might be helpful...

Ignoring the voice in her head trying to remind her that being helpful was what got her into the mess she was trying to be helpful toward in the first place...

Eleanor frowned a little bit at her sprawling scrawl of notes.

"Well," she offered, and look at her! Actually participating in class this week! But this was something of particular interest to her, and she seemed to have some confidence at the moment, better make the most of it while she could. "It might not be an elegant solution for a soul that needs a vessel, but it's not like the corpse is probably getting much use otherwise. So there's two benefits. The soul goes...somewhere, and all the corpse was doing anyway, probably, was just rotting. Maybe good for plants, but not much else. And the third..."

She hesitated, because she hated to say it, even if it was true.

"It seems like...it would be easy enough. To destroy it. If you had to. If you changed your mind, or if something went....wrong."

"Very good, Eleanor," Liliana said. "You're thinking outside of the already-said and the obvious. Speak up more often, darling, you have good instincts."

When Eleanor blushed, it wasn't some soft delicate blossoming roses on her cheeks, but rather an off-color, almost sickly mottling. The term green around the gills would rarely seem so fitting.

"I-" She started, then bit herself off. In fact, she almost barked a laugh. If Ms. Vess knew her even a little, she'd know how off the mark she was with that last statement. But, instead, she gave a faint smile, a nod of her head.

"Thank you," she said. "But...really, it's more a matter of actually having something to say this time, more than anything else..."

And something about the furrow of her brow suggested she might have something more to say, in fact, so, with that encouragement...

"But....about....this patchwork method...how...long....does something like that usually take? For the blank state to start becoming something more....concrete and realized?"

"Weeks, usually," Liliana said. "At first, the necromancer must fairly constantly use their will to guide the zombie. Even as a blank slate, the it follow certain, basic instructions, but for complex tasks or thought processes, it can take weeks. Months for it to start forward thinking, realizing, for example, that if you have wanted tea every day at four, that instead of waiting to be commanded, it could just start preparing tea to be ready by four. But simple, rudimentary communication and obedience is immediate."

Eleanor nodded, thinking on this very carefully, jotting a little something extra in her margins, a scribbled impose will, underlined, with weeks to months, aver. underneath that.

"I guess that makes sense," she noted. "Like you said, it's like with a child. Or..."

Again, with that hesitation, for the unintentional cruelty that often went with accuracy.

"Training a new puppy."

"Precisely," Liliana approved. "Though with a puppy, I believe there's more of a focus on not doing things, as well as how to do them. Less so with zombies." A pause. "I think, anyway. I am a cat person myself."

"Sorry," said Eleanor, but there was a wry grin accompanying it, a light, almost dismissive shrug. "Family of werewolves, so..."

"Oh!" Liliana was briefly surprised and then intrigued. "That's simply fascinating, darling. Bound by the moon, at-will, or both?"

"At-will," Eleanor answered, smile going just a little uncertain, as she felt that little discomfort creeping up her spine, still not used to being so open and honest about it. "Though the full moon can still be a rough time for everyone.

"Not me, personally!" she then added, hastily, as if just remembering she should clarify. She didn't want to open herself up as some kind of expert, or able to even demonstrate or anything like that. "I...take after my mother's side."

"Ah, that must be difficult," Liliana said. "To fall outside the norm of the family. What blood does your mother carry? Human, or something else?"

And now they'd come full circle to why Eleanor usually kept to herself in class.

"Something else," she said, after a long, long moment.

"She's French," she offered, as if that should explain everything, no need to dig any further, Eleanor wouldn't even know how to really answer that even if she didn't feel the need evade.

Liliana blinked. "I have no idea what that means, dear."

Planeswalker, Eleanor. The countries she'd heard of - and could match the demonym to - could be counted upon one hand.

Stark was trying very hard today.

"With the, the lich," he began, "you've no danger of someone being turned into something they didn't agree to. Nobody is forced into any of this against their will or their wishes. And you said it can be done without doing anything truly evil, that it's just more difficult? And...and I suppose, that having put yourself into that position, you could achieve things that would have taken more than a usual lifetime?"

He really was trying! Look at this effort!

Liliana nodded along and gave Stark a smile. "Excellent points," she said. "There is no coercion or compulsion with liches, and many have spent countless years making plans and bringing about their ends via subtle methods."

They just weren't going to talk about what those plans or methods were.

Arthur Lester

Arthur, this is ridiculous.

"We don't know that, John," Arthur muttered.

"Ms Vess." Arthur cleared his throat. "Would putting souls in a living body be a similar process?"

"Do you mean a similar process as in, 'would you undertake a similar process to put a second soul into a living person,' or do you mean a similar process as in, 'would putting a second soul in a living body result in an intelligent zombie?" she clarified. "Or something else?"

"The former," Arthur clarified. "Or, I suppose, the reverse."

"...Would you undertake that process to remove a second soul from a living person?" Liliana asked, just to make sure she understood.

"And put it into a body of its own, yes," Arthur said.

"You might be able to," Liliana said, dubious. "But it would kill the first body. The base of the Elixir of Defilement is a virulent poison, because the body must die to give up the spirit, at least in this type of ritual. You'd also need a second body, either a corpse, and it would rise as a zombie, or a living body that is currently unoccupied."

Which, honestly, wasn't as hard as it sounded, but only if you knew the right sorts of people. Liliana did. Abyss, Liliana was the right sort of person, though that didn't mean she'd do it easily and for free.

"The first soul would either also be forced out, as per the ritual's intentions, or it would be trapped in a rotting corpse of a body. You'd also have to do an act of absolute evil in order to make the ritual even work. If, say, you knew of someone who had a second soul within their body--" you know, 'if' "--undergoing the Ceremony of Endless Night would solve that problem, technically but give you a number of far worse ones instead."

Absolutely not!

Arthur winced. "Neither of us really wants to end up rotting, I'm afraid."

Told you it wouldn't help.

"Yes, yes."

" That might work if you knew someone skilled in actually resurrecting the dead," Liliana said thoughtfully. "But you'd still need one living, empty body, and the resurrectionist, and will either have to live with the stain on your soul from whatever you did to create the Elixir of Defilement or have found one of the rare few other methods that don't require an act of great evil."

And, sorry darlings, Liliana couldn't help you with that latter bit.

"As I doubt that would work with one of the souls being a stubborn ass, I think we'll have to pass," Arthur said.

Which one of us is that, Arthur? John asked snidely.

Liliana might not be able to hear John, but she was certainly agreeing with him anyway. "You're sure you're counting that right?" she asked.

"Absolutely."

Except it's you.

"Is not."

"Agree to disagree then," she said with a small smile. "As I believe you're doing now."

"John's vote doesn't count; he's the stubborn one."

Hey!

"It's my body, I get final say."

I could punch you.

"But you won't."

I might.

"Ah, such sterling examples of compromise and bridge-building I see in front of me," she said, dimpling at them.

"We're fine!" They answered at once.

"We compromise when we need to," Arthur said.

We get along fine, John agreed.

Arthur nodded. "Right."

Liliana had only gotten Arthur's half of that, but she'd had siblings and that immediate snap from fighting to unification in front of an outsider was pretty universal.

Unless you were Urza or Mishra, in which case you ignored everything but your antipathy until the entire plane was doomed.

"Ah yes, I see that now," she said, her smile not lessening a jot. "However could I have been so mistaken?"

"Thank you for your time and answers, Ms. Vess," Arthur said. "It's not what we'd been hoping for,"

It's what I expected.

"but at least we know."

"If you would like, I can ask around about other potential options," she offered, since her own curiosity had been raised. "Some of my necromantic colleagues may have additional suggestions."

"We wouldn't mind anything you can find out," Arthur said. "Though rotting is not something we'd be up for. The rest...depends, I suppose."

"I would like to point out that I am only served by the highest quality zombies and mine do not rot," she sniffed. Unlike whatever necromancer has been responsible for the zombies at Caritas, of course. "But yes, I'm presuming you want to return to life, not undeath."

She paused. "What are your feelings on vampirism?"

"I...have no idea. John?"

John made a doubtful noise. I'd rather be able to see the sun and eat food.

"Maybe as a last resort," Arthur relayed. "But we'd prefer human."

A pity they hadn't covered vampires yet, or John and Arthur would have known that not every vampire suffered such drawbacks!

"Of course then, darlings, I shall see what I can..." The briefest twitch of her lips. "...Dig up for you."

John groaned and rolled Arthur's eyes.

"Thank you," Arthur answered politely.

Liliana waggled her fingers. "You're welcome, darlings."

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Necromancers Guide to the Undead, Thursday, Period 1

Sign In 03/07

Listen to the Lecture

Creative Thinking

Talk To Liliana

OOC

Re: Sign In 03/07

Re: Sign In 03/07

Re: Sign In 03/07

Re: Listen to the Lecture

Re: Listen to the Lecture

Re: Creative Thinking

Re: Creative Thinking

Re: Creative Thinking

Re: Creative Thinking

Re: Creative Thinking

Re: Creative Thinking

Re: Creative Thinking

Re: Creative Thinking

Re: Creative Thinking

Re: Creative Thinking

Re: Creative Thinking

Re: Creative Thinking

Re: Creative Thinking

Re: Creative Thinking

Re: Sign In 03/07

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana

Re: Talk To Liliana