The Necropolis
Far off to the north, the dunes of Dynas are ever shifting as winds whip the sun scorched landscape. In this land, water is scarce, towns rarely see many visitors, and the heat is liable to kill you if you aren't careful to keeping hydrated. It is at the far reaches of this barren and inhospitable land that one of the most insidious forces lurks. Capitalism. More specifically, this is where the Necropolis, or the Great Necropolis, if you buy into the hype, resides.
Constructed in a time that history has long forgotten about, by the boney hands of an undead workforce, the city rivals capitals in the neighboring nations in terms of scale and density, though is not in terms of bustling life, given its nature. It is different, and yet in many ways it is the same as any other city.
There is commerce and trade. Many flock to the Necropolis with dead loved ones, seeking to have them revitalized and brought back to the land of the living. Those who have the means of swift travel, or deeper pockets, can benefit from some of the best reanimation in the realm, while those who have journeyed long and hard often must manage cheaper options.
There is entertainment and recreation. With so many of the residents of the city no longer living there full time the need to stave off boredom is strong. Fights past the death are put on in small arenas that are dotted around the city. Occasionally fighters with beating hearts and blood still left to bleed will test their mettle in these bouts, a sight that always draws a crowd. If they should happen to perish during the proceedings, the Necropolis has a very generous life insurance policy it extends to them.
There is culture and the arts. Inevitably, people will die. It's a well known fact of life after all. Inevitably, people might decide they would very much like to avoid this, regardless of where they found themselves in life. In this way, while there is an official Dead Tongue spoken within the city, new influences of language and culture come into the city from all over Mastune. Bits and bobs of other cultures weaving themselves into a Frankensteinian tapestry.
Council of Eleven Liches
Overseeing the Necropolis is the Council of Eleven Liches. Together these 11 undead figures craft and implement changes to policy and governance with the aim of maximizing shareholder value by maximizing the assets of the Necropolis. Occasionally a member of the council will challenge another to a duel. This is considered a cheap way to get out of work while also collecting on death insurance, and while arguments have been raised to the practice, a majority consensus has never been reached among council members on prohibiting such executive retreats.
Soul Coins
A currency used within the Necropolis. Does not contain actual souls, as compounding inflation has made them worth far less than an actual soul's current monetary value on the exchange.
Deaths
As the Necropolis specializes in the subversion of death, and the various forms that can take, there is a sizeable population of Deaths who work in and around the city. Coming into being when a mortal has reached their final hours, a Death is not truly realized until it has been confounded in its singular purpose. When forced to exist in the land of the living for such a long period of time, a personality and sense of self are often the next things to develop in Deaths, who are quite new to the whole concept of "living" and "understanding concepts".
In this way the city has a ready supply of impressionable embodiments of death who are seeking a new purpose to their existence. As with many things, this has been something the Council has been eager to capitalize on to reduce expenditures and minimize employee turnover and re-training costs.
Each Death is numbered in the order they were registered with the Necropolis, either by the lich that has staved it off, or from agents reporting on unusual Sphynx activities, which often indicate a mortal's death has been subverted.
It is said that some of the oldest Deaths, those with the most amount of personality, eventually end up becoming jaded as they work their new positions. It is imperative, as laid out by the Council's management guidelines, to refrain from assigning a Death to the employ or as a consulting representative to their designated Undeath who they were supposed to originally collect from.
Reanimation
With the most adept experts on the study of creating undead life residing within the Necropolis it is no wonder that many exceptions to the rule are conjured and crafted within the more secret parts of the ancient, undead city. Revenants who linger with no knowledge of the vengeance they seek, ethereal warriors willing to serve to gain direction in their un-life. Skeletons who grow bones anew when planted back into the dirt, springing up with more limbs each time they rise from the soil. Souls ontologically altered and grafted so that they might dive past the veil on covert missions into the farthest realms of the afterlife before resurfacing as if from a body of water.
The less said about these experiments the better. Nothing was made to last forever, and there exists few things that should die more than once. It's not healthy, after all.
