Plaguethralls

Plaguethralls were the unintended result of necromantic alchemy developed to prolong the usefulness of undead thralls. A specialized cordyceps potion was administered to a living sapient before death, allowing the fungus to propagate throughout the body and later preserve dead tissue against the normal deterioration of a thrall. For reasons never fully understood, it was never successfully reproduced outside the Heir lineages; the process only stabilized in sapient peoples carrying Human-derived ancestry.

The result proved dangerously infectious. An infected person who died without first being thralled rose as an uncontrolled thrall. If the victim had been thralled while alive, however, the fungal network preserved that connection across death. Infection transmitted from such a thrall could carry the same binding into new victims, allowing a single controlled thrall to spread into an increasingly large and loosely controlled horde. Skilled necromancers eventually exploited this property deliberately, while uncontrolled infections became devastating plagues.

Control inevitably weakened as infected thralls in the horde deteriorated. Rather than attempting precise control over every individual, a skilled necromancer maintained the horde at a precarious knife-edge between obedience and ferality, subtly directing the collective while regularly pruning older thralls whose bindings had deteriorated too far. A horde approaching complete loss of control could sometimes be stabilized by incorporating freshly infected sapients, strengthening the collective binding while its oldest and least controllable members were removed. Maintaining a large horde therefore became a continuous balancing act; neglect, miscalculation, or the death of its controlling necromancer could rapidly turn a weapon into a wild outbreak.

Husks, as they came to be known, remained limited to the sapient Heir races. Semi-sapient creations such as Ogres, Cyclopes, Trolls, and Arbs could not turn, nor could ordinary animals. Dragons were likewise immune, their sapience having derived from the Wardens rather than through Heir lineage. Thus nearly every mortal race remained vulnerable.

Plaguethrall was the formal Morvaren and necromantic term for the fungal undead, while Husk became the far more common name in everyday speech. A living carrier was simply Infected and remained a living person unless the infection killed them or they otherwise died. Death caused the Infected to turn, after which the resulting undead was called a Husk. Husks retaining a necromancer's binding were sometimes distinguished as Bound Husks, while those without effective control were called Wild Husks.