The Undead

Undead in this world are of several different types. They have in common that they are brought to unlife or controlled by the powers of the Black Serpent through his cultists, and that they can be rebuked or even destroyed by rituals of Svarog

Bone serpent Ancient Trimanian legends speak of bones being animated by priests of the Black Serpent into the form of a giant snake, which they used to assault cities. These bone snakes are said to be immune to most weapons, held together by dark rituals and thus dispellable by the appropriate ritual. Other sources claim that while the priests animate the bones, the control of the creature is done through a demon possessing the corpse, thus making it impossible to disspell the animation.

Ghost Ghosts are the returned spirits of dead persons. They are unable to manifest in a physical form, and thus can not harm or be harmed by direct interaction. They appear at sites of great emotional significance, usually where they were slain in a particularly horrible way. They seek revenge or reparations for misdeeds committed against them. Ghosts are not inherently evil, however their strife for revenge turns them malicious. Legend has it that some ghosts that have been wronged particularly horribly, they are able to manifest partially in our world, and attempt to kill anyone entering the site of their haunting. Ghosts can not be turned, however they can be exorcised by a special ritual.

Revenant The exact requirements for the creation of a revenant is not known, however the revenants are always the remains of men and women who had their ambitions cut short by death, leaving an important task unfinished. Bitter, resentful and in possession of all the mental faculties they had in life, the revenant is an incredibly dangerous type of undead for these reasons alone but to top it off they are also incredibly hard to destroy. In some stories the same revenant is seemingly slain multiple times only to return to cause further death and destruction.

However, each individual revenant has one unique way in which they can be destroyed, which they are themselves aware of, if you can trick the revenant into telling you or find some other way of obtaining this secret you can defeat it. The revenant is not animated by the power of the Black Serpent, with scholars debating if it is the power of the dead himself, or another power besides Svarog or the Black Serpent that brings them to their undeath. Some speculate that revenants are ghosts brought into flesh. If so, it should be possible to deal with them the same way as with ghosts. The servants of the Black Serpent can gain power over the revenant, usually by promising to aid it in finishing it's task or through rituals giving control over undead.

Upyr The upyr is a rare form of undead that is able to pass for a living creature due to powerful magic connected to the Black Serpent. In order to “survive” the upyr has to consume the fresh blood of humans. The upyrs main power is regeneration. After drinking blood, any wounds sustained by the upyr are healed, and even limbs regenerated. Suffering decapitation, a new body will eventually form from the head.

To become an upyr, one has first to be drained of blood to the extent that one is dying. The upyr to be has then to drink blood from an upyr, the magic from him thus transfering into the upyr to be. Although the victim can attempt to fight the transformation and try to avoid to consume the blood of the upyr, consent is not needed to invoke this pact. Most upyri grow swiftly accustomed to the situation and few have any regrets of what they have become.

The new upyr is bound now to the Black Serpent and his or her soul will end in the realm of the Black Serpent when the upyr is destroyed, even if the upyr chooses to live by the teachings of Svarog.

Walking corpse The easiest way to create an undead for the cultists of the Black Serpent is to reanimate a freshly slain corpse. These undead, usually called walking corpse, are not easy to mistake for the living, as they have no facial expression and move in a stiff, unnatural way. They have no mind on their own, but follow the spoken command of the cultist that led the ritual to animate them. To slay this undead, it is not enough to bring it to hack it to pieces. In addition, a ritual of containment and destruction needs to be performed around it after it has been immobilized.