Graveborn: the Reliquary Throne

The dead demi-goddess. The skull that dreams the unborn. A kingdom more comfortable than you would ever admit.

The Graveborn were raised by a lich so old that almost nothing of it remains: no crown, no court, no name anyone still speaks, only a single blackened skull, a demi-lich reliquary that sits upon no shoulders. It does not rule. It is the wellspring, the source from which unborn life is drawn, its power to quicken the dead reaching under the whole of the world, and whoever lays a living hand upon it commands the endless armies of the risen. The lich is not the throne of the Graveborn. It is the prize.

So the Graveborn are, beneath the shrouds, a nation at war with itself over that prize. Necromancers claw their way up through the ranks not to serve death but to touch the skull and hold it, and whoever's living hand is closed upon the relic is, for as long as they can keep it, the master of the realm. Every time a new hand takes the skull the enemies of the Graveborn change, because the holder's grudges become the realm's grudges. It is the most political power in the world, dressed as the most morbid.

A corpse for a heart

Here is the secret the Dominion does not want spoken: the Graveborn cities are good places to live. The living dwell there too, ordinary folk and no small number of dark elves, well fed, well housed, rich beyond the means of any honest empire, because a workforce that does not eat, sleep, or rebel makes a realm abundant. The Graveborn take defectors from every people and ask few questions. Many come simply to learn the necromantic art, and stay because the streets are safe and the larders are full. They are, against every expectation, an almost civilized people. A courtly, candlelit, comfortable civilization with a corpse for a heart, the kind of grimness that smiles at you over dinner.

Where they stand

• Sworn enemy of: the Exemplaris, who exist to end them.
• Quietly entangled with: the Nightspun, who dwell among them.
• At odds with: whoever the current hand upon the skull has decided to hate this decade.

See the Graveborn in the wiki for their units, buildings, and leader.