((OOC: Private for Ven.))
“Traditionally, the nature of necromantic resurrection requires the absence of a soul, or rather the use of a body from which the soul has departed. Technically, the art of necromancy claims dominion over all bodies reanimated in the absence of holy magic. Because the art is considered taboo in most cities, there are few laws concerning the manipulation of souled undead. The difficulty of such a task prohibits most occasions for its implementation, as well. Nonetheless, there has been enough documentation of relevant attempts to warrant a short meta-analysis of the practice. The following includes techniques for trapping the soul inside its body, and in so doing gain control of sentient undead.”
A Review of Necromantic Strategies for Souled Undead
By Galdres Adlathil-Emberin
In the Journal of Deceased Studies, Vol 16
At some point, all of the students and acolytes in the northwest wing would notice that the shallow layer of graveyard dirt in their greater workshop had been raised in one spot. The mound was marked by a perfunctory gravestone, more to ward it against disturbances from visitors than to commemorate the nameless corpse that waited below. The body beneath was not unknown to those who frequented the workshop, for it had been constructed over the course of ten days on a nearby table. So it was that ten more days passed in wait beneath the soil, only one-tenth of a complicated ritual that only the goddess herself completely understood.
On that tenth day, Chae dismissed all others from the room. She was wearing plain robes, apparently prepared for a messy event, and carrying ten large summoning crystals in a bag on her back. She set to work embedding the gems into the walls and floor, surrounding the grave in a complex configuration that caused them to glow faintly with the accessed power. This was the only light in the room, and it would be spent when the soul was summoned.
The body itself was not one person but many, pieces of criminals and other donated humanoids sewn into something greater than the sum of its parts. Notable additions included the skull and mind of a student who had died in an unfortunate alchemy experiment, though the face had come from a handsome Endapanoish elf who had desired his remains be used at the Library, as well as a lithe pair of legs from a thief who wasn’t quite swift enough. Its chest had been branded at the center in the shape of a ten-spoked wheel, though the dead skin was incapable of inflammation and the sigil was made less of risen pink flesh and more of a peeling ashen film.
Though coffinless, the body had also been buried with other items of arcane significance. The talons of ten owls, to bind the raised creature to her power, had been placed around the ankles and wrists in lieu of hands or feet; a poisoned dart, tainted with a potent wolfsbane potion, had been stuck in the dead stomach to grant a resistance as well as to evoke the stalking intuition of the wolf; the left eye had been covered with a black opal, to enhance magical aptitude; and on the right eye had been set a small gear from the tinkering workshop, to encourage an analytical curiosity.
All that was left was the soul. Chanting in the fell language of undeath, Chae lit a black candle and held it before her. Her whole being was focused on the traits she desired: stealth, perception, athletics, loyalty, inquisitiveness, greed. This would define the soul that she summoned, much like she had been summoned, from another world. But unlike the ritual that had restored her to her own body and bound her to a makeshift phylactery, this soul would be trapped in a cage of her creation—and bound to the power of her divine will.
ExcusesGod Powers:
i. Perceives every word that has been written.
ii. Evokes intense moments of inspiration, especially in regard to magic and invention.
iii. Able to reverse the effects of psionic and illusion magic.