Anatomy of a Horror Setting #2-11: *Dun-dun* Zombie Love

The last article merely touched upon the zombies of horror’s voodoo lore. As stated those zombies tend more toward the living that are ensorcelled, or conversely, those held just away from the fringe of death. That said, there is nothing stopping any particular zombie from being in rough shape, with unhealed wounds, if not actual rotting flesh. Certainly if they are disconnected from select senses and awareness of being, then they may be grievously wounded and still carry on as long as their limbs remain intact enough. The biggest problem with these kinds of zombies as slaves though is that eventually they will collapse. They are still subject to most of the rules of physiology such as the need for rest and for food. That is why necromancers like to make real zombies, living dead zombies.

The living dead have no need to rest. They have no need to eat. This means that they can work ceaselessly. They do not feel pain. A lot of the time they do not retain any kind of survival instinct; though as with Romeroan ghouls, in some instances they do inexplicable retain a fear of fire. At the other end of the scale, the living dead and their kin, such as walking skeletons, may not need even flesh on their bones, and may not need their sensory organs (eyes and ears) to still be able to sense the world around them and operate within it. This means that the intelligence of the necromancer’s dead creations can have varying levels of intelligence despite their physical makeup. This leads to the two different routes that the necromancer can take in making and using zombies.

Necromancers can animate the dead with simple spells and control them like puppets to do their bidding. These zombies have no intelligence whatsoever, fear nothing, and do not need anything more the limbs necessary to do their tasks--and could even be just zombie limbs. In the alternative, necromancers can raise the dead to a semblance of life via rituals. These are the zombies that can be actually almost smart, depending upon the freshness of corpse involved in the creation of the zombie, or the strength of the ritual. That is of course unless the necromancer is binding spirits, life echoes, or incorporeal supernatural creatures to his corpses for the purposes of making a kind of greater zombie. This of course involves the other aspect for which necromancers are known.

Mood: harried.
Music: The Scorpion Sleeps by Rob Zombie and Zombie by The Cranberries.

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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #2-5: The Luckless Dead

A number of cliches fall by the wayside with the introduction of the most horrific school of magic going, Necromancy. Dead men tell no tales. They do to the Necromancer. The lucky ones are the ones who died. They don't feel that way when the Necromancer gets their hands on them. There are only two things in this world that are inevitable, death and taxes. The Necromancer can't help with your taxes, though the taxman attacked by one might wish otherwise. The Necromancer can make sure that the finality of death is anything but a certainty. Even the epitaph "Rest in Peace" holds no sway. There isn't even necessarily any respite for the cremated either. Not flesh, bone, blood, ashes, or the essence of a person is safe from this monster of a magician.

This leads to the first question asked for a setting where Necromancy will be introduced. If some other aspect hasn't already asked it for, now it must be decided, do people have souls, spirits, or similar, that live on after the death of the body? If the answer is yes then they fall under the power of this school of magic. The full repertoire of the Necromancer is available. If the answer is no, then some avenues of horror need to be set aside, but not all of them. A victim's consciousness may be used in place of a soul in many an evil binding. It just requires tighter control over the timeline. A consciousness is more fragile and decidedly fleeting in comparison to a spirit. Then, beyond the living consciousness, are their echoes, which may stand in as ghosts.

Perhaps an atypical use of Necromancy is the use of bodily materials in modifying, or enhancing the Necromancer. This begins with the comparatively innocuous imbibing of blood to gain strength, or bathing in it to maintain youth. From there the Necromancy might make personal use of an additional limb, or organ, including sensory organs. A different approach could be the creation of living dead monstrosities that will make people wish for the halcyon days of only having to deal with zombies. Then there are the undead, the vampires. Will Necromancers have any power over the children of the night? They are biologically dead, for the most part, depending on the setting. Either way, the vampires can be friend or foe, beyond just being more parts to put to use.

Music: Good To Be Bad by Whitesnake and The Golden Age Of Rock 'n' Roll by Def Leppard.

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