Necrotic

**Necrotic** were once humans of great renown. Buried in the majestic crypts of the kingdoms of men, the corpses of long-dead human nobles were woken by the Hexing Gems and are infested with an alien consciousness with an unknown and dangerous purpose.

Their eyes socketed with diamond Hexing Gems, the necrotic have no memory of their former lives, and go about their purpose with calm and untiring devotion.

Though the necrotic are technically undead, they do not emphasize this aspect of their existence. They consider themselves to be living creatures, even though they do not eat, sleep, or have any of the other biological necessities of mortal creatures. The necrotic call themselves “the Awakened”; their nickname for living humans are “the Sleepers”.

The necrotic are infested with an alien consciousness that is fed to them through the Hexing Gems they socket into themselves. What most mortal races do not realize is that Hexing Gems have sentience and self-awareness. This consciousness normally does not assert itself, except with the necrotic.

The necrotic came into existence approximately 2300 years ago when Hex struck the planet, scattering Hexing Gems throughout the world. The largest chunk of Hex that broke off, about the size of a small mountain, burrowed itself down deep into the crust of the planet and settled near the human crypts, which awakened the first necrotic. With no memory of their former lives and an urge provided by the gems to create more of their kind, the necrotic set out to rouse more corpses and begin building their subterranean domain.

It took the human kingdoms several years before they discovered the existence of the necrotic, and since then, the two races have been engaged in nearly constant conflict. The necrotic merely wanted to be left alone to pursue their goals, but the humans were horrified at seeing the corpses of former kings and knights committing unspeakable acts for some unknown purpose.

The humans soon discovered that fighting the necrotic posed a nefarious dilemma: in order to fight the necrotic, some humans would inevitably die, which would only create more necrotic. This left the humans with the awful choice of leaving the necrotic alone, which was an unbearable thought, or warring against them, which ultimately bolstered the enemy’s ranks.

The humans’ solution was to hire mercenary companies of other races to battle against the necrotic. Though it would prove impossible to eradicate the necrotic using only mercenaries, this tactic was intermittently effective.

Three hundred years ago, the necrotic finally reached the end of their patience with the incessant meddling of the humans. They decided that an invasion of the surface world would kill a multitude of humans. This would serve a dual purpose: it would cease the human meddling in the necrotic’s affairs, and would allow them to harvest corpses to create new necrotic.

The necrotic could not initiate such an endeavor alone, though. They approached the vennen with their idea, who eagerly accepted the chance to assault the surface world, especially the orcs. The shin’hare were also easily persuaded to join the coalition, as were the dwarves, whose expertise in creating tunnels to the surface was a key element in the plan. With the Underworld alliance in place, the Underworld Incursion was launched.

As part of their alliance, the vennen taught the necrotic the basics of Blood Magic.

## Midnight Shepherds

The Midnight Shepherds are a sect of necrotic warlocks tasked with gathering and tending to large herds of the undead.