Legends > The Neverdead
The Neverdead
The Ghoul King
10,000 years ago, Iquatet the Dark Dragon, decided to take revenge on a dwarven family who had built weapons during the Spirit War to shoot down her children. Ever the cruel and patient goddess, she transformed but one member of the family deep below in the mines into an undead horror of flesh and muscle. Slowly, the curse was spread through the family, tragedy turning into travesty, as eventually the dwarves were consumed. With that Iquatet left, her work finished.
However her curse didn’t stop there, for the first dwarf continued to grow with time, digging ever deeper, inflicting others, as its labyrinthine passages spanned across mainland Ithuan. These accursed creatures were incarnations of hunger, and suffering. But under the leadership of their eldest, these “ghouls” formed a new empire in the name of their ever hungry lord, the Emperor of a Thousand Mouths.
The ghouls believe that through consumption they grow stronger, and their ultimate goal is to consume everything. In their culture, every ghoul is a mouth of the Ghoul King, and they act as an extension of his will. Thus they believe that the Ghoul King’s destiny is to consume all and lead them to the next world, ever consuming to state the gnawing hunger of their twisted forms.
The Queen of Blood
The Queen was once the sister of Alvertos Darke, Baron of Nightport, but to escape an arranged marriage she called out into the darkness, full of ambition and a desire to evade becoming a servant, and she got the attention of something she hadn’t expected to be listening.
When she drank a chalice filled with the blood of Darkness itself, Hollace Darke burned from within, her soul twisted into an unholy source of pure hunger. She became a powerful being of the night who could walk through the air, transform into a swarm of demon bats, phase through walls, turn into a bank of blood red fog, and hurl human foes like toys, dashing with lightning fast speed.
With her power she can drain the blood and essence of other beings and spread her curse even to creatures such as the Fae. From her, the first Vampire Lords were born. Now she spends her time traveling the cosmos searching for things to entertain her in her immortality. She is despised by the reapers, agents of death, something she takes pride in.
She is more powerful than any of her spawn, as she’s proven able to turn Archfae with her bite, something that should be impossible. This level of power is because of the concentration of Azerack’s blood she ingested, supplying her with incredible abilities.
The Maskmaker
A six armed archfae, master craftsman once worked under Queen Mabuka, creating the legendary masks of the archfae, their markings of office. However, after an argument with Titania, Mabuka commanded the obsessive fae never to make a mask for the Seelie Queen. Slowly though, as their passion was caged, they began to crack under the pressure, they eventually disobeyed their Queen, making the mask for Titania, and the Maskmaker was subsequently executed.
In death though, the Maskmaker only refined their craft further, carving mystical facemasks out of the bones of the worms of the underworld. These masks provide an incredible power, the ability to pass into the mortal world from the Lands Beyond Life and vice-versa. These “Greystriders” are seen by the mad Fae Ghost as the vessels of their masks, as they steal away their memories in exchange for that power. Greystriders are the only kind of undead that followers of Oetheus will allow to continue existing, if only because they return to the Lands Beyond Life after a time.
The Maskmaker’s skills are mythical, and they hope to one day create a mask powerful enough to ascend beyond death, and become the God of Masks.
The Lord of Skulls
The Lord of Skulls is a Legendary undead spellcaster who became the first lich, binding his soul to an unknown device and gaining unimaginable power, raising him to near god-like status. He is infamous for his role in the War of Skulls, a hundred-year conflict that devastated the plane of Kerios.
Considered to be the most powerful undead that has ever lived, and having wiped out whole cities with single spells, he even managed to wipe out a kingdom with his mythic spell, Wind of Mourning Cries, which caused a devastating plague and began his foul campaign. He was only defeated by the efforts of Dragon Lord Aerious, the Dean of Scathe at the time, alongside the remaining High Sages. The effort failed to destroy the Lord, only able to bind him, and cost Dragon Lord Aerious her right arm.
The mysterious and enigmatic undead overlord invented countless abominations of flesh and eldritch magic the likes of which had never been witnessed before and rocked the balance of Kerios to an unprecedented degree, as only a Major God has been recorded leaving a greater impact on a world.