The Demonic and Undeath

The Demonic and Undeath: The Corruption of Dark Essences is an Official GemStone IV Document, and it is protected from editing.

The Demonic and Undeath: The Corruption of Dark Essences

In the Second Age undeath was rare in the East and West, especially before Despana and the Undead War. But the undead have haunted the southern wastes of our continent, alongside demons, since the unfathomed depths of the Age of Darkness. The black arts originated in those primeval animist cultures which, having migrated to that region in the dark ages, adapted their rituals to the infernal powers of that realm. These are profoundly corruptive essences which taint both inanimate and animate matter, warping those poisoned with them, who become twisted into malevolence in both body and will.

It was not until the Faendryl brought their own magical tradition of unified or “hybrid” magic that wielding dark essences would be considered sorcery. In this work we illustrate how that more ancient sorcery, with its clashing of ordinary mana and breaking of essence into more chaotic forms, is now understood as a spectrum that reaches down into the black arts of the demonic and necromancy.

Thalita Trevil
Order of the S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and S.H.A.D.O.W.
29th day of Eoantos, 5125 Modern Era

Foreword

There have been demons in this world for as long as there have been tears in the fabric of reality. These happen in intense magical environments, including mana storms, celestial alignments, and powerful magical backlashes. There are also liminal spaces where the veil thins, or planes intersect, allowing the malign influence of otherworldly powers. Wherever the shadow of the demonic has fallen, there has been undeath, which is directly or indirectly caused by them. The Faendryl elder historians speculated that the Lords of Lornon themselves were corrupted by exposure to demonic powers. There has been mythology since the earliest records of Marlu that blame the coming of the Ur-Daemon on Eorgina and Fash'lo'nae when they were exiled on the Dark Moon.

The Ur-Daemon tainted their surroundings and cursed the lands with their dark power. They are so deeply unholy in their physical incarnations, and so wholly foreign to our own existence, the Arkati cannot touch them with their own power. Blinded by the unnatural matter, they suffer in witnessing it. The manifestation of demons of such power ruptures the cosmic balances of the world, the cycles of life and death, sealing off even the powers of prophecy and Fate itself. They are a profound violation of our own existence, so much so that their presence breaks the laws of reality. Though we know they were behemoths and highly grotesque, with a myriad of forms, we only vaguely understand their full aspects. It would not be possible for us to look upon these horrors without having our sanity shattered. The Drakes themselves are said to have been driven mad with terror.

The great portal of the Ur-Daemon was in the southern reaches of our continent. The Southron Wastes were once a land that had been covered in forest and jungles, as evidenced by petrified woods which bear now indecipherable glyphs. The collapse of their portal blasted the landscape into a lifeless wasteland for hundreds of miles. These were known as the old places of the Ur-Daemon by the elven ancestors, especially its eastern region, which are the blackened wastes now called Rhoska-Tor. There have been dark cults worshipping them there since the Age of Darkness. The veil was deeply damaged and forever weakened in those undying lands, which were saturated in the dark power of the Daemons. The Dark Ones had dwelled there and corrupted it with their unnatural cycles, with little meaningful distinction between nursery and graveyard.

It is impossible for us to know for certain if the Ur-Daemon are ever truly dead. Their dismembered bodies are among the most terrible and powerful artifacts of darkness. Cultists of dark gods have been twisted and maddened from exposure to these relics, which have been partly revived with the black blood of very powerful demons. Without their portal we believe they were unable to sustain their forms in this existence, and so in a fashion, were banished back into the black abyss in the last battle with the Drakes. But the taint of their corruptive power and to some extent their physical remains linger, as well as their dreadful artifacts, which are most often buried deep below Rhoska-Tor where they slumbered in pitch and molten rock. Those lands are riddled with transient or lasting rifts to the demonic valences, most often found underground, which are sometimes called “infernal gates” or “cracks of doom.” These rifts themselves corrupt the region with dark essences and have allowed access to various kinds of demons since before recorded history. It is for these reasons that theology speaks of Marlu delving into ancient crypts seeking more of his kind and loosening portals to increase his power.

I. Dark Essences

The essence which constitutes all things in our existence is a spectrum of chaos and order, with planes of existence formed by specific resonances of energy. This is sometimes likened to a song of creation, where the demonic are the discordant harmonies. The laws of a given reality, and the qualities of its inhabitants, are determined by its essential constituency. When energies from other planes are introduced to a world, it induces deviations of its rules, which allows the effects we call “magic.” Regular or “rote” patterns of cause and effect are called spells, which are increasingly difficult to change as the grooves are cut deeper. This may also be said of intrusions of planes into each other, which causes the distinctions between those worlds to break down. In our world there are near planes which bleed into our own, with pure forms of mana, corresponding to our spheres of magic. Whether or not it is right to speak of these energies as foreign to our own reality, it cannot be denied that they are more pure in these higher planes, and that living creatures are mutagenically transformed by intense exposures to magical energies. Where “elementals” are often extraplanar entities, we have “elemental creatures” which clearly are not.

Concentrations of essences cause interplanar bleed-through into other realities constituted of those energies. Intensely elemental environments, such as the inside of volcanoes, form interplanar nexuses which allow the prime elemental planes to bleed into our world. Elementals might “naturally” be formed in this fashion. However, when more chaotic essences are concentrated, this bleed-through is instead into more disturbing realms. Some of these are near planes of existence, such as the Maw of Luukos, but it may also weaken the barriers between our world and the outer valences.

Where some might bristle at the language of life being “corrupted” by elemental or spiritual energy, or that the use of such magic is weakening the barriers between planes and slowly warping the natural laws of the world, few would deny that dark essences corrupt the living into more hostile and malignant forms. The thaumaturgical asylums of the Faendryl are full of sorcerers who have broken their minds with exposure to highly alien irrealities or become criminally insane with corruption by dark energies. But it is difficult to argue that chaotic essences are unnatural, while other mana is not, when they may result from the violences of these other forms of mana colliding together and backlashing.

Haunted realms eventually become infested with aberrations, essentially living beings which have been mutated with corruptive essences. They become physically dependent on these energies and tend not to roam beyond those ranges. In this respect they are similar to demons and the undead, which tend to remain in the muck of their own pollution. Some of the vicious things which dwell in Rhoska-Tor did not wander north until the Wizardwaste made it hospitable for them. The mutants of the Wizardwaste famously become sick and die when trying to leave its outer reaches. There is a loop of cause and effect in the disruption of native resonances inviting in those discordant harmonies from other realms. When the concentration of chaotic or dark essences is such that the region is bleeding through into infernal realms, the corruption becomes self-reinforcing, and those lands may remain cursed for thousands of years.

II. Sorcerous Elements and Tainting

These more chaotic essences exist in numerous flavors or combinations of properties, and being unnatural fusions or corruptions of the essence, sometimes are referred to as the sorcerous elements. Familiar examples include mawfire, balefire, hellfire, blackfire, nether, darkness, chaos, and the shadows. The Wizardwaste is dominantly tainted with chaos, as Rhoska-Tor is with darkness, and the Bleaklands is with shadows. Mawfire is an infernal essence which manifests as a green flame, which is often seen in Luukosian undead, and exists abundantly in the chthonic or “lower” near plane known as the Maw of Luukos. It only produces heat when in contact with living flesh and it is capable of burning the soul. Balefire is instead a kind of extrachthonic plasma of greenish-black flames which is caused by the contact between our world and the outer valences. It is formed naturally when drawing power through these valences and wielding mana through demons.

Hellfire is a corruption of elemental fire with the power of darkness. With the vathors this manifests with heat, while with necleriines it is outweighed with darkness, which manifests instead as coldness. Elementals of darkness, sometimes called dark vorteces, are cold and drain power from others. Entities tainted with darkness are often immune or resistant to cold. Blackfire is in some sense almost the opposite of hellfire, being the corruption of holy power with darkness. Darkness is unholy power and most often what taints the undead. Its most pure form is sometimes called “anti-mana,” though this term is highly misleading. It means that the essence is so deeply corrupted that it is antithetical to the rest of existence and has anti-magical properties. Intensely unholy things are often anti-magical. Nether is a force of utter inertness which allows the non-corporeal undead to inflict physical damages, and such undead often sink into the chthonic realms we call netherworlds.

“Chaos” is a kind of purely chaotic state of essence associated with “chaos magic” and mutagenics of animate matter. This is of special interest with the pure metals, in the metallurgic sense of purity, that are alloys of pure elements. Where urglaes is the metal of pure darkness and inherently cursed, urnon is the metal of pure chaos, and it is speculated that pure urnon is unable to become rigid with cursing. It was for this reason as well as the innate capacity of urnon to support sentience that the primordial demon of Shadows, known as “Althedeus” or the “Maw of the Void” among various other names, sought to have its minions craft an urnon golem to act as a vessel for its power. It was essentially imprisoned in the “Shadow Realm” of its birth and long sought to escape into other worlds. Only through such a vessel could it sustain itself in our reality.

It was formed in the violence of the war of the Drakes and Ur-Daemon, which was traumatic to the surrounding realities, forming planes and mixing demons across scattered existences. The war caused the birth of “primordial” demons in those other worlds from the chaos and darkness of the powers unleashed. Shadows in this sense are a fusion of darkness and chaos. The Bleaklands was formed with mass sacrifices, using the venom-blood of ebon-swirled primal demons, a primitive cousin of oculoths found in the Southron Wastes as well as other valences. The Bleaklands is riddled with spontaneous rifts into the Shadow Realm, which is merging into our world there because of the intense shadows.

Much as Disciples of the Shadows become tainted with this power — acquiring pale or grey skin with yellow eyes and red or black veins, if not more grotesque transformations such as tentacles — the same is true of other dark essences, which warp the living and often result in parasitic dependencies. It is much like becoming attuned to a more chaotic plane of existence, thus hungering for things of our higher world out of deficiencies. This raises the question of where these dark essences can be acquired, as they are unnatural or foreign, and there are basically three ways: They may be summoned from the demonic realms, or made by corrupting the essences of this world, or else some combination of these with one acting as a catalyst for the other.

This may be achieved with deep debasements of life forces, using animate matter as a confound for augmenting dark magic, or equivalently by conjuring dark essences through rifts or weaknesses in the veil. This includes soulcrafting, blood magic, and teratology. These black arts are a tradition outside of civilization. The Faendryl of the Second Age invented classical sorcery which immediately disrupts elemental and spiritual energy. But it was not until their exile to Rhoska-Tor that their “dark arts” incorporated aspects of wielding dark essences. This was a matter of survival, as it was for other exiles before them. The Dhe’nar had much earlier learned to control the undead of that place using the power that was left behind by the Dark Ones. Some places in the wasteland are much more intensely tainted with dark power than others, the worst being deep underground, with “hot spots” ranging from buried horrors to vergences in the veil. The central region is usually worse than the periphery. This is where the portal is believed to have collapsed. The Black Keep of Maelshyve was built near the edge of the wasteland on the "Torm Tor," one of the igneous protrusions of the region, which are mythologically associated with the Ur-Daemon. These are where the Daemons have most often been worshipped as dead gods. The terrible influence of this place over those who came too near it was the etymological root of the word “torment.”

There are an unusually large number of mana foci in Rhoska-Tor. It is thought these were the result of the Ur-Daemon pulling the flows of essence toward themselves to feed upon them. Corruptive essences flow along these streams and concentrate at the nodes where they pool together, which results in these foci being especially polluted with intense metaphysical radiations. Those “Dark Elves” who have perpetually remained in Rhoska-Tor are much more corrupted than those whose ancestors moved away from it. This is to such an extent that they are sometimes regarded as aberrations. These transformations include parasitic dependencies of various kinds or bondage with malevolent forces, and innate preternatural powers, as well as more extreme physiological differences such as corrosive black blood and glowing or void black eyes.

The original ancestors of Evashir had more limited corruption, most likely dwelling in the periphery of the region. They are thought to have used the harsh but semi-arid lands outside Rhoska-Tor proper for sustenance, exposing themselves to dark essences by wandering deeper into the wastes to study it, rather than being constantly poisoned in the underground caverns. This was not possible in other time periods, when the surface was more hostile and dangerous. The Evashirans ended up migrating to the more fertile coast. Sharath was built over still other magical abnormalities, and the Dhe'nar and Khanshael both suffer from fertility issues. There are Dhe’nar who in their old age become incapable of eating food and must feed on magical energies like sha'rom.

House Faendryl has strict laws governing sorcery and largely orients itself toward forms of sorcery that are low in corruption. There are many forms of research that are highly restricted or illegal, except for the purposes of countering those practices, which often leads to wandering criminals pursuing the black arts in lawless regions such as the wastelands. But it is possible to corrupt the essence of this world with sorcerous violence, which is prone to cursing both inanimate and animate matter. In this fashion sorcery is a spectrum that transitions into the black arts. The black arts in turn are inherently a darkest form of sorcery, as these dark essences are unnatural, and must be wielded in fusion with the energies of our world. The ideological dispute the Faendryl have with the other Houses on this subject is the question of whether mastering the dark arts is the most effective way, or possibly often even the only way, of defending against the most malevolent forces that threaten this world.

III. The Demonic

Demons are malevolent entities which are fundamentally constituted of dark essences. They corrupt and taint their surroundings merely by existing. They most often have a loathing or intense hatred of life, and hunger for the higher quality essences of our world. This may include feeding upon magical energy, slaughtering the living to consume their blood or flesh or bones, and devouring the soul which rips it apart and curses it. The word “demon” is most often used for extraplanar beings of more chaotic realms, but strictly speaking this is not necessary for a thing to be “demonic.” Consider unliving things made with the use of demonic parts, or the demonically possessed, or cambions and transformed fusions of life with demons. Abominations are often regarded as demonic, such as hybrids or unnatural offspring of demons with the living, or demons which are constituted from the matter of this world.

Necleriines are created with necromantic rituals, for example, formed most often with the blood or flesh of the dead. This is not particularly unusual as other extraplanar beings reproduce themselves from animate matter, such as the v'reen morphs and glistening cerebralites. They borrow this matter precisely because they do not possess it themselves. The distinction between demonology and necromancy is much more subtle than is usually thought and has more to do with the way essences are being wielded than the subject matters themselves.

With a severe enough debasement of one’s fundamental being into chaotic essences, which is to say demonic necromancy, the transmogrified may fairly be considered as having become demonic rather than undead. This is not so outlandish as it sounds. Even the Common language abridgement of the Enchiridion Valentia, which is highly cherry-picked to make minor demons seem natural as the native societies of other worlds, speculates that demons of Lorae'tyr may have been created artificially by sorcerers. It speaks of this explicitly in the case of verloks. But it is conspicuous that the abyran have humanoid faces. Abominations when found in the demonic realms are considered demons. Aberrations in demonic realms are not likely to be recognized as unnatural. Shien would not be suspect, were it not for imps. This makes it difficult to justify not treating the unnatural offspring of demons in our world, or even aberrant mutants of dark essences, as “demonic” simply by virtue of knowing they were made from indigenous species. It is often impossible for us to know if demons were native to given places or if they were transplanted there from other realms in the past. But by “demonic” we mostly mean demons. Much as we distinguish “elementals” from “elemental creatures.”

The demonic do not exist naturally in this world and commit violence to the laws of reality with their physical incarnations. There is inherent chaos in the essence which constitutes them. Though the minor demonic may sometimes seem innocuous, little more than valence fauna like the creatures of our world, more powerful demons of the same kinds are intrinsically unholy with manifest levels of corruption. This is often a powerful aura which overwhelms others with despair and terror, or other states such as pain or madness, and through which they may dominate the will of other beings of darkness. The severity varies with the power and kind of the demons. They typically will not be injured by weapons unless they are holy and highly magical. When the surrounding area is flooded with chaotic essence from a rift to the demonic realms, demons are effectively anti-magical, as magic breaks down and fails before it is able to affect them.

Without this support their incarnations become more constrained by our own reality and it becomes possible to inflict magic on them. It was for this reason that the Palestra were formed to act as bodyguards for summoners. In other existences our magic may work more or less well, and often may not work at all, even in those realities which are capable of sustaining the living. House Faendryl has primarily concerned itself with worlds that are habitable with material resources that may be extracted. They are also biased toward the valences where their magic works, or where they are able to wield some kind of magic effectively. This is by no means certain. But there are many realms even the Harrowers avoid as too dangerous, either inherently or due to what dwells in them, and they often have laws forbidding trespassing for sometimes unknown reasons. The most famous of these is Shieltine's Ward.

IV. Cosmology

There are some who try to treat “demons” as a catch-all word for all extraplanar beings whatsoever. But this is bad practice, and not what is usually meant. There are many kinds of extraplanar entity that are not demonic. Elementals of the wizardly elements, for example, are never considered demons. They are able to have godlike power, and summoning or portal accidents involving the elemental planes are immensely dangerous, capable of destroying whole cities or wider regions. Much of the continent of Finnia was annihilated thirty thousand years ago in the Elemancer Wars. The Great Fire immolated Sharath and the Ashrim Isles were incinerated. Mages suffer none of the stigmas of demonic summoning. It is not that demons are so terribly powerful, or that they are so especially dangerous. It is their inherent nature of darkness and what happens when they are allowed to exist here at all.

The demonic have a number of qualities that incite condemnation. This includes their innate dangerousness, individually in themselves, as well as their malice and will to destruction. But there are hazards with them including the risk of lack of control, where they may break free or inflict demonic possession, or lack of certainty in what is really being meddled with much like communes to dark gods. Summoning them loosens portals or thins and damages the veil, making the world more accessible to malevolent powers. They taint their surroundings with corruptive essences, which twists life and often causes undeath. They are most often horrific, grotesque, and violent. Those that might not have been malevolent are so alien as to be insane or driven mad from being trapped in our reality.

What we may say are not demons include elementals, spirit realm entities, and “astral” or conceptual beings from near planes of the mind. The last of these may take on horrific and nightmarish manifestations, but these terrors are not demons. There are malignant “outsiders” such as the things that make their way into the Rift that are not demons. Extraplanar races such as the Ithzir are not demons. The distinguishing factor for the demonic is their constitution with dark essences. Since this is often a consequence of them being forced to exist in our world, the demonic constitute a wide range of foreign entities, which are otherwise unrelated to each other.

There are various classification schemes for otherworlds and extraplanar beings, and these are ultimately nothing more than conventions. They have dubious verisimilitude as rational models of incomprehensible higher realities, and we are limited in our ability to understand the vast cosmic abyss. “Valences” were originally an onion shell model where the Basilican sorcerers imagined Elanthia as the mana-rich center of outer layers formed by tensions of cosmic forces. These were distinct levels of energy through which they sought to predict the demonic planes, as well as the power and qualities of their demons. Valences were what forms the demonic planes, and summoning was disruption, the act of making imbalances in them. When this approach was increasingly deemed impractical in the immensity of its ambition — with Elanthia ever more recognized as merely a planet in a material universe, with higher and lower planes, hovering on the edge of an infinite abyss of irreality — it was regarded as overconfidence to organize the whole archives on a cosmology. The notion of "valences" eventually lost its distinction from the planes themselves.

The Enchiridion Valentia for historical reasons thus refers to all meaningfully individuated planes of existence as valences regardless of their qualities, instead grafting classifications on top of it, with additional systems of nomenclature based on cosmological models. This is a source of friction with other cultures, which condemn tearing the veil as dangerous, but not magic involving the near planes which bleed into our world. They regard it as willful obfuscation. Though the usage is not consistent, summoners usually use the term “valence” to imply outer planes, which are sometimes distinguished as the "outer valences" or "sorcerous valences." When the outer realms or dimensions become so alien that the metaphor of a "plane of existence" has no coherent meaning, it is sometimes collectively called "the Void" or the black abyss outside of all existences.

There are thus significant biases in what actually gets explored. These are most often material worlds that are not part of our own spectrum of existence. These might not have significant corruption, especially valences that are “parallel” to ourselves. This is distinct from the realms which are inherently chaotic, which may be outer valences, but could also be lower pales of our own existence. The Faendryl practice is to distinguish these as “chthonic” and “extrachthonic” realms, with the essences of chthonic realms referred to as “infernal.” Extrachthonic sources often have infernal side effects when summoned into our existence, but in their utter foreignness, they may also involve other highly unknown factors that hold no place in the imagination. Broadly speaking, we sometimes categorize the demonic by the manner in which they exist in our own reality, which is loosely related to their origins.

Fiends are the incarnated demonic who originate in existences constituted of chaotic essences. They tend to be high in corruption and closely related to undeath. Vathors are the most familiar of this kind. Eldritch horrors are outworlders from the Void which can only constitute in this reality out of broken matter, having no form or energy which may exist in this world. These manifest in unnatural and highly asymmetric forms, grotesqueries of bubbling masses and eyes and tentacles. These usually cannot be directly summoned. They are sought by cultists for forbidden knowledge rather than war, and most often arrive in this reality through uncontrolled tears and backlashes. Infernals are often mistaken for non-corporeal undead and found in haunted realms, infiltrating through veil weaknesses, sometimes possessing others and transforming their host bodies instead of having their own incarnations.

The most powerful demons are not entities in the sense of what we call major demons. They are more like dark gods which cannot exist in our world without badly breaking the reality around themselves. They most often act through conduits such as warlocks or powerful undead minions. Their cults try to profane the lands with dark rituals to make the world more accessible to the power of their masters. Extraplanar undead are often the result of souls being captured in profaned places where such malevolent powers are able to establish their own sphere of influence. Erythro Island was such a place for the Shadows.

It is not possible in general for entities of more chaotic realms to open rifts into our world. Nor are we able to access higher planes of existence, except for those near planes which overlap with ourselves. It is almost impossible for us to force entry, for example, beyond the Ebon Gate without being dead. Sorcerers rely upon magical tethers or beacons for making their way back to Elanthia from the outer valences. Though it is less difficult to return from the lower near planes, which often have rifts opening into our world. Parallel material universes or "mirror worlds" are usually exceptionally difficult to access from our own, but “dark mirror” worlds are more chaotic, and sometimes have intrusions bridging between the barriers. It is very difficult to access even other planets in our universe. Though some kinds of minor demonic do not wish to be here, and may be threatened with link severing, much more often it is the case that demons wish to enter this world to feed upon it or dominate or otherwise defile it. But the way must generally be opened from this side of the veil, whether intentionally by summoners, or through powerful magical accidents. When the demonic have made it to this side of the veil, they will often widen the rifts or even open their own, allowing more of their kind to invade with them. Mass demonic summoning is often done with intense concentrations of dark essence, rather than with the safety methods of piercing and linking of individual demons, which instead bleeds through the veil into much more uncontrolled demonic gateways.

V. The Undead

Ghosts are the disembodied spirits of the dead. Whether those who continue to exist after death are accursed, however, is a question of whether their animate matter has been corrupted. It happens that the longer an untethered soul remains in this world, the more likely it is to suffer entropic decay, or become twisted by sources of corruption. The undead come into existence in many different ways, some of which are “natural” to this world. Typically, something in them has broken, interrupting the cycle of life and death. This may be the result of highly traumatic or violent deaths, or some perversion of unfinished purposes. Their soul might also be fragmented from some violence, or cursed through a sorcerous backlash, or they may have been trapped with the chaotic breakdown of life forces. These various causes of undeath are responsible for creating different kinds of undead.

When the undead are tainted with dark essences, we often call them infernal undead, and this is most often the result of necromancers or the demonic. Corruption from haunted realms that are polluted with infernal essences will result in tainted undead. Nevertheless, this is itself a spectrum, as the cursed undead have chaotic life forces. They have malevolent auras much as the demonic often do, which with the undead is commonly known as “sheer fear.” This is a violation of existence in much the same way as the demonic are more fundamentally.

Due to their fallen and cursed nature, the undead hunger for life forces, sensing the souls of the living with an innate will to destroy them. The spirit death from feeding upon souls often causes other undead. The more mindless undead are virtually blind to whatever is not living. They have no instinct to assault each other, nor do they have instinct to attack the demonic. They are prone to obeying more powerful forces of darkness than themselves. Thus, it is not uncommon for a fiend to have undead minions serving it, much as a lich might summon demons. The demonic and the undead are intimately related. It might reasonably be argued that undeath is ultimately demonic in nature, owing to their roots in chaotic essences and the interplanar bleed-through caused by it, even in situations where the undead do not originate in demons. There are undead which become extraplanar through attunement to other realms, and there are transmogrified beings such as bleakwalkers, which are not undead in the conventional sense but were once the souls of the living.

Much as the demonic may taint their surroundings into a haunted realm, the same is true of the undead, which may cause the inanimate matter of a place to become cursed. ShadowGuard remains overrun with undead in the present day, over twenty thousand years after the Undead War. It is sometimes not possible to “release” the undead forever without destroying the inanimate matter to which they have become bound. Cursed places will have a tendency to corrupt or taint other spirits, which will result in other forms of undeath. Those spirits which were never souls of the dead, such as the fey, may also be twisted with dark power.

These are the reasons the demonic and undead are so anathema, beyond the many other possible menaces of the world. They both feed upon life forces or taint their surroundings, causing everlasting imprisonment in undeath. Those places which have been subjected to massive corruption by dark forces have become haunted for centuries or thousands of years. This includes not only the wastelands, but besieged realms, such as the Ashrim Isle and the ruined lands south of the Demonwall. The debasement of the living through the demonic, whether we speak of aberrations or abominations, is essentially a form of necromancy. The worst kinds of undeath in turn are monsters transmogrified with dark essences, which have a demonic aspect to them because of the infernal nature of such forces.

VI. The Corruption of Life Forces

When the living are dying the tether that holds their soul to their physical form is decaying. Death is the point where this is broken, and the soul is released from the body. Necromancers refer to this tether as the “animus.” When the animus is broken it releases a chaotic degeneration of life forces known as necrotic energy. While this is an essence of death and thus “natural,” it is an entropic decay, becoming more chaotic than its unbroken condition. When there are concentrations of necrotic energy, such as in graveyards, there are corruptive effects such as the mutation of mistwood into witchwood. This is not by itself an infernal essence, and so graveyards are not inherently tainted, because there is no contamination of inanimate or animate matter with such powers.

When the necrotic energy is especially corrupted into chaos, it is able to curse spirits, either as non-corporeal undead or trapping souls inside corpses. Undead are often intensely radiant in necrotic energy, which may be sensed, such as by spectral mourning bugs. Necromancers are able to concentrate necrotic energy into layers on weapons, which unnaturally twists those broken life forces as a confound for magical augmentations. This often results in the rejuvenation of life forces in the wielder through sorcerous violence upon others.

Matter suffused with necrotic energy is typically radiant with an eerie black haze, and makes it more difficult for others to overpower the will of their wielders. In the same fashion, there are techniques by which the necromancers will immediately assault others through acts of will, trying to sever the animus of their victim outright. This allows the necromancer to convert the animus into useful magical power. But it will also allow them to rejuvenate the corpses of reanimated dead with the necrotic energy, or infest their surrounding environs with it, temporarily weakening the will of those corrupted by it.

There are more powerful forms of this “sacrifice” technique which are able to break even the cursed bond of the soul in the undead. But this more violent assault on the life forces results in a more chaotic and darker essence, which is closely related to the shadows, what we might call “shadow essence” instead of necrotic energy. This is an infernal essence which is essentially in equal parts demonic and necromantic in nature, and may be manipulated just as well with the methods of demonology and necromancy. Though the ends to which it is used would be different.

Demonology is ultimately a more general form of the sorcerous manipulation of inanimate matter, and includes the magic of gateways, as well as the manipulation of “sorcerous elements” or extraplanar energies. Necromancy is more broadly the manipulation of animate matter, beyond the narrow confines of the life of this world. These are two sides of the same coin. The corruption of essences with necromancy lends itself directly to the unholy power of the demonic realms. The demonic in turn have necromantic qualities due to the unnatural way in which they are forced to exist as animate matter. Undeath is merely a special case of these more general principles of the corruption of the living and unnatural forms of existing. There is beauty and grandeur in this more cosmic view of life, which encompasses all of the forms of unliving within it.

OOC Information/Notes

• Created by GM Warlockes, November 2025. Released July 3rd, 2026.
• Some information is adapted from the Evermore Hotel conference lectures from Ebon Gate 2024 and 2025.
• Some originates in various storylines, especially the Sacrifice update release event.