Corpus

Corpus

Undead: Dead bodies that raise up again in the form of fallen. They tend to be the weakest of the corpus but the most prevalent. There are many variations of them; some are groups of undead matter others are a single corpse. There are even cases of undead trees and other plant matter. One thing in common is they tend to be very weak and unintelligent when they first rise, and as they age they get more intelligence and magic power. One thing in common with all undead is a weakness to daylight/daylight spells (sol, some fire, sunlight). When undead gain sentience they can remember their previous lives and are thus the most likely to talk to you if approached correctly.

Wight: A type of corpus that have a spiritual form and the dead body they use is more of a puppet than a body they take possession of. They are not an apparition because without a body they lose life rapidly and die. They are not, however, tied to one specific body. They cannot freely jump bodies until their bodies are killed, so they tend to hang out in places with lots of dead bodies (war zones, graveyards, etc). In the daytime they cannot move the bodies. The bodies do not gain any supernatural movement ability, so they cannot possess bodies too degraded to supply their own locomotion. They tend to have very powerful abilities like auras, freezing touches, etc but nothing to augment the body’s abilities.

Wraith: Are similar to the undead but they also possess a magical armament, the ability to imbue their equipment with a part of themselves. This causes old wraiths to look like old suits of armor because they can posses bodies that are near dust inside magical equipment. This grants them severe magical resistance and they can walk in the sun. However, destroying the equipment destroys the wraith or weaken it severely. Wraiths are generally not intelligent and behave as mindless juggernauts, and will thus charge the largest sources of life and feed by killing. Most wraith are unable to speak but can understand language (witnesses have seen wraith take orders from other fallen). Weak wraith tend to have weaker looking equipment (rusted or broken) but stronger wraith have shiny looking equipment with auras coming off of it. The equipment is not real and disappears with the wraith’s death.

Vampire: Not particularly powerful in numbers, but their abilities and physical agility are superior to the other corpus. Fast, strong, a lot of magic make them unbeatable by a normal human. Severe weakness to daylight, weaker vampires will die outright while stronger vampires have to maintain magic to prevent being hurt by it but this magic will use up a vampires’ concentration for their other magic. They are masters of illusion and remember their previous life, and they can spread vampirism by draining another human who may rise after they die. Most vampires do not survive because they are unintelligent when they first rise and are killed by sunlight. Vampires that have survived are thus crafty or embrace the lifestyle of the vampire because death is so near to them. They recover any damage they sustain at midnight. There are three ways to kill a vampire without special magic: beheading, dehearting or sunlight. They are weak to world spirit magic (Sol, Lun, etc) and get no special resistances to it. They tend to be incredibly weak to running water, mostly it disrupts their magical ability (such as not being able to maintain sunlight protection while crossing over it). They are most powerful right after midnight. One Vampire has been known to soundly defeat an entire unit of alchemical soldiers. Many vampires use their illusion magic to resemble humans but their true forms are monstrous.

Skeleton: Very little is known about them because they seem to only exist deep within the fallen land. They exist in gigantic colonies, one eyewitness in the 4th call called them ‘the roaches of the fallen’ because no matter how much you attack them they seem to come back. No weakness to sunlight or fire and are resistant to every type of weapon besides crushing, blunt or silver weapons. Even when ground into powder over time they will recollect and rise again. They are incredibly weak individually, with one soldier fighting 50 skeletons and being felled in 1 or 2 hits, but exception skeletons have been noted. Mage skeletons or the dreaded ‘Red Skeleton’ have never been recorded to be defeated. There was a report, authenticity doubtful, they there is a ‘Skeleton lich’ or ‘skeleton king’ who controls or creates all skeleton fallen. He was only sighted once and every skeleton obeyed his commands but it was unknown if he was a particularly powerful specimen of skeleton or an important figure. They also have a hive mind where when you attack one, others in the area are able to detect the fighting.