Cult of Death
| Training for | Warlock |
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The Cult of Death is more a following than a school. Death Warlocks are naturally fascinated with the shards of the soul that squeeze life back into a very dead body. Students, or perhaps more accurately, members, of the Cult of Death do not simply make an appearance when it is time to learn a new Power. They will take up residence with the cult, forming lasting friendships and sharing daily activities for months or even years on end.
Adventurers with "more important" things to do might treat the Cult as a charging station; a place where they pay their dues between adventures, but most members stay close to the order at all times. The public of every society across Otan is inherently fearful of the Undead, and by extension, they fear and loathe the Warlocks who manipulate them. Their opinions quickly change, however, when they require a Warlock to neutralize a "natural" Undead threat.
The Cult of Death begins by teaching students with the Warlock calling to sense the connection between a Soul Shard (a fragment of a once-living soul) and the corpse it formerly inhabited. Making this connection with the recently deceased is the easiest method, producing a zombie, whereas the long-deceased become skeletons.
Advanced Warlocks learn to raise animals or stitch together mismatched human and animal remains to create bone horrors. The Cult of Death’s instruction does not stop there; ever more powerful Warlocks can eventually learn to raise entire armies. Their undead creations become increasingly large, numerous, and intelligent as the Warlock invests more power into their construction.
Teaching Methods
Because the Cult of Death operates more like a secret order than an academy, students pay their "tuition" by actively participating in cult activities. These consist of ritualistic rites and ceremonies that frequently include the gathering of skeletal material. Local cemeteries and ossuaries are often wise to these practices, which frequently sparks a game of cat-and-mouse with local officials who take great care to sequester the newly dead.
Powers are learned as students and masters gather in collective rituals to animate a corpse. The masters will purposely hold back their own magic in the hopes that a student's latent Power will finally emerge. This collaborative process remains the standard for more advanced Powers, though the foundational setup and rituals will differ. For the highest-level capabilities, the ritual is typically performed one-on-one, with both the instructor and student attempting to raise an Undead monstrosity together. Instruction continues until the student successfully receives their Power or the instructor deems them unready.
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