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

The plane that awaited Liliana's students in the Danger Shop was something straight out of a nightmarescape. Even the ground beneath their feet was foul; any surface that wasn't bare rock or murky seawater was made up of rotted flesh and piles of bones, as if the entire plane is a gigantic slab of corpses. Dead bodies were everywhere, either whole or in parts, and traveling anywhere meant stepping on hills of diseased flesh or climbing up mounds of festering bones. The stench of death was strong on the ever-present wind, the sky was shrouded with thick gray clouds like dirty funeral shrouds, roiling with thunder and spitting violet lightning.

"Welcome to Grixis," she said when the whole class had assembled. "Yes, this is a real place, it's part of a a plane named Alara. When Alara was sundered, each of the shards was cut off from two different colors of mana, while a third became dominant, overshadowing the remaining two colors. Grixis is black-aligned, with red and blue as its secondary colors, and cut off from both white and green. This is the result of that mana imbalance: a plane where the hills are drifts of bones, the valleys are decaying flesh, and the seas are murky, polluted deathtraps. Because it does not have white mana to protect it or green mana to strengthen it, the mana of Grixis is actually entropic, and self-destructive, dissipating over time. As a result, Grixis, the plane of death, is dying. Ancient enchantments slow decay to a crawl, allowing the landscape to fester for centuries. This plane is inimical to life and every day is a struggle for survival for Vitals, or those beings still who still manage to cling to their lives and their vis. Vis is the life energy that suffuses a Vital's tissues and bodily fluids; it empowers demons and fuels all of the magic on Grixis. Because it is both so rare and so powerful, it is a heavily sought after resource." She gave them all an amused smile. "You are, of course, all very Vital indeed."

A fresh gust of wind brought not only the foul smell, but also a loud screech of pain and rage. Probably nothing, don't even worry about it. Liliana certainly seemed to give it to no mind, instead pointing to a large set of walls in the distance. "That is a Hermitage," she explained, "small, protected towns where human Vitals take shelter and try to eke out an existence. Even within their walls, survival is difficult; constantly under siege by flesh-hungry undead, attacked by the hordes of necromancers greedy for vis, and tempted by the promises of demons. This is your final, class. Make it from here to that Hermitage and help the residents in some meaningful way, either by assisting them with the defense of their home, or by helping them figure out a way to provide food for the inhabitants, since farming above the subsistence level isn't particularly viable. You don't need to split up and cover both options - you are being graded on your survival and your contribution, what anybody else does is none of your concern, unless you choose otherwise. Working together is a valuable strategy, but it also increases your danger and your likelihood of getting noticed. It also opens you up to the possibility of betrayal. Do as you see fit, but remember the assignment: Get to the Hermitage and personally make a valuable contribution. There are no A's given helping others achieve their goals."

And with that, she stepped back, a ~~throne~~ chair assembling itself behind her out of the discarded bones surrounded them. "Any questions before you begin? Last chance."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

With your reaction to, oh, all of this.

Charlie Gale

Gray

Stark

Arthur Lester (and John Doe)

Last chance for questions!

She will also entertain philosophical, historical, ethical, and/or academic questions about Grixis if you'd like. You have until the end of class to finish the assignment. How you choose to manage your time is up to you.

"Don't these people know about other planes?" Arthur asked. "Why would they stay here?"

"They do not," Liliana said. "It is very rare for anyone beyond Planeswalkers to know about planes outside of their own. They stay here because they cannot leave."

Each of you have a ~~life~~ vis total of 20, a number chosen completely at random.^* Each time any creature successfully attacks you, you lose one point of vis, which Liliana believes is quite kind of her. Any time you successfully attack a creature, you do one point of damage to it, and various types of undead will be able to take variable amounts of damage before being permanently destroyed ~~'permanently' until it's Unearthed anyway~~^**.

One benefit of running over what seems to be a very large graveyard^*** is that you have access to a lot of moddable equipment, mostly various kinds of weaponry. While it is moddable, keep things within reason, please. Can you find a lance made of living wood? Yes! Can you find a flame thrower or a machine gun? No.

Feel free to approach this however you want! Team up, do your own thing, try to sneak, go full murderhobo, whatever. Mod at will - you can ping me for opponents, but it's the day before a larp, so much of my attention will be on packing and prepping for that.

[*This is a Magic mechanics joke.
**This is also a mechanics joke. You don't have to worry about this happening.
***This is a Magic terminology joke. I am very funny.]

Here, you will find various kinds of ghosts like the ones you went over in Innistrad. They are easily avoidable if you recognize the danger in time (a woman in white, a sudden drop in temperature, etc), or you can try to fight them with whatever weapon comes to hand (or just your hands!) while trying to avoid taking damage in return. Ghosts take two hits to go down, or, just one hit with a silver weapon.

You will also find small groups of unbound zombies and skeletons. The zombies are slow and therefore easy to outrun, and observant people might notice the red glow of the skeletons' eye sockets and sneak around them.

If you choose to fight, the skeletons are armed with swords and shields, and there is a 50/50 chance they will reanimate once after you kill them. Zombies require two hits to kill and skeletons three, but if you're using a bladed weapon, double those numbers. Or, better yet, grab something blunt instead.

Oh, Charlie was all about the easy, so she changed track quickly when she felt the temperature drop, went the other way around the woman in white, and slipped silently around the skeletons.

Ghosts could be avoided. Stark could do that even though it went against his very nature to do so. He ought to be helping if he could but they weren't real.

Uh-oh, things are more difficult here. Most of the zombies you encounter will be feral, that is, faster and more persistent, and they need three hits to go down. Skeletons will have armor and need four hits, will travel in groups of three to five, and can use limited battle tactics.

If there is a non-feral zombie you are fighting, it is a zombie that is bound to a necromancer. Those zombies are much smarter than their counterparts, can use different strategies to try to trap you, and the first thing they will do is try to summon others to help, trying to get you surrounded. It takes three hits to kill them, too!

Additionally, you can find their controlling necromancer if you look for them. Liliana didn't go over how to fight necromancers (for what are probably obvious reasons), but you can certainly go after them if you'd like to! (Most of them are squishy wizards who figure their undead soldiers will protect them and will go down in a single hit if you do reach them.)

Again, Stark could avoid things. He'd spent a lifetime surviving.

He knew this wasn't real. He still felt strange about all of it. The smells of death, the avoiding it all, not doing anything to try and make any of it better.

The people in the hermitage are in dire need of help. They are facing an incursion of Sengir vampires that they need help fighting off.

The more bestial vampires normally need just two hits to be taken down, but if they catch and eat a Vital, that number goes up by one. They are also nearly mindless and trust in their savagery to win. The more human looking ones take four hits to go down, and are much smarter, their toughness also increases by one when they eat a Vital. There is one vampire, who looks almost normal who takes six hits, and that number increases by two with every Vital he kills.

A stake through the heart will kill any vampire instantly, but will take a toll on you. A bestial vampire will successfully attack you and do one vis point's worth of damage to represent the difficulty of shoving a stake through a ribcage. The more human vampires will do three vis points of damage. Kazarov does a whopping five.

...However, for each classmate you team up with, that number is decreased by one, to a minimum of zero damage. Because sometimes teamwork is the best method!

Edited 2024-04-25 07:50 (UTC)

Help come up with an alternate, sustainable food source that is viable for the people who live in the Hermitage. You can suggest whatever you want, and Liliana will award or deduct points for viability.

There are perhaps previous classes that one might look towards for inspiration!

She's just chilling on her bone throne, keeping a general eye out on how people are doing, but she's also available both before and after class.

I am extra and I have no qualms about that fact.

Necromancers Guide to the Undead, Thursday, Period 1

The Last Sign-In

Re: The Last Sign-In

Re: The Last Sign-In

Re: The Last Sign-In

Re: The Last Sign-In

Listen to the Assignment

Re: Listen to the Assignment

Re: Listen to the Assignment

The Final Exam

The Outer Fields

Re: The Outer Fields

Re: The Outer Fields

The Inner Fields

Re: The Inner Fields

The Hermitage - Fight

The Hermitage - Feed

Talk to Liliana

OOC