“Each to your own gods but death is for us all, in equal measure, every one, king or begging leper.” 

DOMAIN: Mastery of the overlap between Death and Life, the Bleak Garden. The Unspoken are the secret servants of the Burial Cult, those that have willingly met death on his own lands, embraced him, and returned to the living.

METHOD: The Unshriven are austere and simple, spells do not require fancy words or symbols, like weapons, spells must merely react to the sorcerer’s resolve, cast by force of will only.

ASSOCIATED SKILL OR STAT: Command. Although the Unshriven also require a high Fight or Weapon skill as to use multiple actions. More commonly that not, sorcerers cast two to three spells in meditation beforehand before launching into war.

SOCIETY AND BELIEFS: The Unspoken are the walking dead sorcerers, clad in obscuring robes and wise with the way of swords, are the warrior-priests to a strange, secretive sect of death-worshippers, the Unshriven Servants of the Burial Cult. The final Unspeakable Task is the cultist must suicide to enter the Bleak Garden, the shadowy place between life and death. If death finds favour with their bravery, he allows them to return as one of the Wakened Dead.

As a sect of warrior-priests, they encourage their initiates to enter the bland and barren temples, the Havens of Death Idealised with their weapons and armour, their tools of the trade and holy symbols. As a religious order, the death motif is very unobtrusive and simplistic. Since the Waked Dead have the briefest, blurriest memories of the Bleak Garden, that’s all they say of it. Besides, the Unshriven say, to visit death by dying so you can come back stronger than before.

This Unspeakable Task is not so much evil and terrible is that people coming back do not remember much of the afterlife. What they can recall is snatches of fragments, old dream-like images with no meaning or context sometimes banal, surreal, or disturbing.

Their magic is also very efficient, relying on the wilful demand of the sorcerer. Magic must react as a weapon, without the need for sound or artifice or scrolls of written words.

The Burial Cult has extremely little in the way of religious structure or mythology since theirs revolves around the utmost practicality for warriors, many of them mercenaries, disenfranchised from their own lands and culture through exile or enlightenment from travelling. The Burial Cult often forms a tight social network and a neutral place to resolve disputes. Usually the leadership roles defer to the oldest and most experienced first. There is little in the way of politicking apart from might makes right. If members do arrive into some sort of intractable dispute, they fight according to their own rules.

Although named Havens of Death Idealised, the temples are sometimes abandoned houses or isolated caves but a few are simple stone structures required to house the dead and living alike.

REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE: Technically there is no ancillary knowledge although all who pass through the Havens of Death Idealised, the temples to the Burial Cult, all show some merit and cunning with battle in all its forms. Instead, to mark the character as a willing initiate into the ways of the Burial Cult, buy a one-point Secret, Servant of the Burial Cult.

The Burial Cult has an almost purely fragmented oral history which has been changed down the years. Some Imperial scholars believed to have originated in Opetka as a peasants death cult to assist in improving crop yields. Long since banned, the cult attracted soldiers and mercenaries whose stock in trade is the taking of lives.

SORCERY OF THE DEAD
The sorcery of the dead is intentionally quick and long lasting. Since combat is long hours of dullness punctuated by seething violence, the spells are best cast as a bunch before battle and then hoping they all last that long.

THE RECKONING OF INJURIES
Intensity: 2
Casting Time: Combative
Duration: Width in Hours
Attunement: Yes
Effect: In the heat of battle, people lose their way, lose swords, and are trapped helpless. By casting a Reckoning of Injuries, the Unspoken gets to lash out with his fists and fury, releasing some of the terrible injuries laid upon mortals through the ages as though levied to the Unshriven by the very ghosts that suffered them.

Just by using your fists the death sorcerer inflicts damage equal to what weapon the opponent is using. If your opponent throws down his weapon, you only inflict fist damage to him. The caster can parry with his naked arms and hands.

THE THIRST OF ALL WOUNDS
Intensity: 3
Casting Time: Combative
Duration: Width in Hours
Attunement: Yes
Effect: This terrible spell enchants the sorcerer so any damage he causes, that life he spills is fed to him and proceeds to heal his injuries. Each two points of Killing damage the sorcerer inflicts heals one point of Killing or two points of Shock in any locations chosen on his body.

THE WAKE OF HORROR
Intensity: 5
Casting Time: Combative
Duration: Width in Hours
Attunement: Yes
Effect: The Unshriven radiates a sense of bleak fear and abandonment. While this is noticeable on an individual emotional level it spreads through Unworthy Opponents like a brush fire. The spell’s effects are complicated the casting sorcerer gains an MD in Intimidate. Worthy Opponents gain a momentary temporary passion: Craving: Flee!
For Unworthy Opponents, seeing a dead man hewing through the ranks, acts as a morale attack. This spell only affects those within striking range (+/- 5’ radius).

THE FEVER OF BATTLE
Intensity: 4
Casting Time: Slow 3
Duration: Instant
Attunement: No
Effect: While in effect the caster is immunised to fatigue and exhaustion. The caster rolls a Body + Vigor check and compares it with the Fever of Battle set to see which to choose although he may add identical sets together.

THE ARMOUR OF MISERY
Intensity: 2
Casting Time: Combative
Duration: Width in Hours
Attunement: No
Effect: The sorcerer numbs himself to minor injuries after suffering worse. Any location that has suffered a Killing injury has AR equal to the Killing Injury against Shock Damage.

THE SLEEPWALKER
Intensity 6
Casting Time: Combative
Duration: Width in Hours
Attunement: Yes
This spell raises a corpse to almost wakefulness. Its Knowledge, like its Charm, is considered 0 but it may still roll Knowledge skills if need be. It has the basic Wakened Dead advantages Deathly Flesh 1 and Grave Fortitude 1.

The corpse can do basic physical functions and even talk although it sounds like it is sleepy or drugged and is largely unaware of its surroundings. It will not reveal information it thought secret in life but it can be tricked.

This spell will not work if the corpse is older than a day.

THE UNSPEAKABLE TEST OF THE BLEAK GARDENS
Intensity 3
Casting Time: Combative
Duration: Width in Hours
Attunement: No
This is the Unshriven’s permanent Attunement spell. The sorcerer casts the spell and then dies according to whatever method he wants that leaves his body vaguely intact.

If the caster rolls under the Intensity he rises in as many days equal to lowest of Width or Height. If it exceeds he returns in as many days equal to the highest of Width or Height. If he fails, his soul doesn’t return and his body stays dead, rotting.

HEAVY KISS OF DEATH
Intensity: +2
Casting Time: Combative
Duration: Width in Hours
Attunement: No
This spell enchants a weapon to do an extra Width of damage if the attack penetrates the opponent's AR.

THE EMPTINESS OF THE UNHARMED
Intensity 7
Casting Time: Slow 1
Duration: Width in Hours
Attunement: Yes
This spell adds the Width of the spell as Wound boxes onto every location. At the end of the spell, the extra wound boxes disappear along with the actual damage although the cosmetic effects remain.

THE SWEETNESS OF SHALLOW BREATH
Intensity 6
Casting Time: Width or Height in Minutes (which is longest)
Duration: Width or Height in Hours (which is longest)
Attunement: Yes
This spell temporary masks the almost solid aura of death and unpleasantness around the sorcerer and it gives him the appearance of life for a little while.

BEGUILING THE DEAD
Intensity: 7
Casting Time: Width in minutes
Duration: Forever
Attunement: No
The sorcerer speaks to a ghost and asks him to leave. This spell temporarily releases a ghost’s hollow grip on life. The ghost automatically rolls its Command + Intimidate to act as Command + Sorcery gobble dice.

The ghost becomes aware of the false, soothing nature of the sorcerer’s voice and can just as easily ignore him.

PERFECT UNSPOKEN ATTUNEMENT
There is no Imperfectly Attuned Unshriven sorcerer, just a corpse. Perfectly attuned Unshriven sorcerers cover a lot of ground. Basically they are the Wakened Dead.

I have purposefully made the Wakened Dead different from standard gaming categories of undead. Neither zombies not vampires but a bit of both – a zombies appearance with a vampire’s thinking. The dead are animated by ambient magic. The cold or creepiness people feel is their Eerie Sense picking up on the walking corpse.

Wakened come in three flavours a Moment Dead, a Week Dead, and a Month Dead. There’re withered mummies who are considered Years Dead but the affects are the same as Month Dead.

Becoming one of the Wakened Dead creates many changes…