Life After Death

Death. The high cost of living. The great equalizer. The ultimate end. The one thing that can not be avoided. Or can it? There are some that walk these lands as not living beings, but rather corpses brought back from beyond the afterlife. This book shall be a scientific view on the subject of unlife.

What does it mean to be undead exactly? A person who is undead is basically a dead body that has had a soul artificially attached. To bind a soul to a body that it is not meant to be bound takes dark arcane power, something that is an impossible feat for most mortals.

Normally when a body dies, their soul travels to the afterlife and does not return. When a soul is anchored to a dead body, it will strive to escape its torment. The body will slowly deteriorate with the passing of time if it cannot properly anchor the soul. To do so, it requires life essence. Such is why the unlife must feed off of the living; they must aquire the life essence, which is carried in the blood, to keep their bodies intact with the souls still attached. Without said life essence, the soul will detach from the body and move on. The more common of the undead family does not drain blood, but rather it takes life essence directly into its being.

That is why a Vampire requires blood. The blood is the anchoring point of souls and living bodies because it carries the life essence. Seeing as how the Vampire cannot produce its own blood, it must take it from others to survive. Even though it keeps the anchor in a different way, the basic need remains the same in Vampires and their more common counterparts.

It would do well to note here that where as a Vampires bite will temporarily turn their victim into the walking dead, the affects are not permanent. It has been greatly shown that the affects of such a bite will cease after the duration of the time spent amongst the unliving.

It is widely known that the unlife is, for the most part, shrouded with darkness and often shunned by those who walk in the light. It is interesting to note however that there was, at least once, a man who walked amongst the living with a dead body, but was not inherently evil. The ex-Herald Emak spoke of him as her mentor, and where as this Herald knows very little of the man, it is a fact that there was an undead healer who remained true to his beliefs, and was still welcomed in his guild.

I hope these little insights have aided you in learning about that which not many know. Keep in mind that this book does not include the third form of unlife which are known as the Liches.