The Dead College

The Dead College takes a very different approach to meeting its security needs than most phyles do. Whereas most phyles try to keep their members alive as long as possible, the Dead College reasons that since most of its members will be dead eventually anyway, why not find ways to keep fighting after death? As such, living members of the College are almost inevitably subservient to undead – liches and vampires being the most prominent in the power structure. Living members are called upon for blood donations and other forms of service, in return for which they are guarenteed an existence after death. (Admittedly, for the lowly members of the phyle, this will likely be as a skeleton or zombie.)

• phyle badge: A death’s head (skull), typically rendered either in white thread as an embroidery, or made of steel or lead and worn as a brooch or talisman.
• governance: Most Dead Collegians gather in Necropolises – amalgams of cities and graveyards. Prominent ones include Hollow Heart and Empty Graves. The power structure of the phyle as a whole is a necrocracy – the (un)dead rule over the living. One could almost call it a gerontocracy, as those higher up in the power structure tend to have been undead the longest, but this is only a common tendency, not a rule.
• current leadership:
• member obligations:
• member privileges: Living members are pretty much guaranteed to be raised as undead after death (although often minor undead.)
• typical members: Liches, Vampires, other sentient undead (Ka and Ba), Arcanists, Necromancers,
• allies: The College has scholarly (and thus, sometimes friendly, sometimes not) relations with the Clock Tenders and the Other Side. They sometimes hire themselves out as magical muscle to the Overlords, but such arrangements are tense and short-lived.
• enemies: All pure factions, especially the Hospitalers are permanent enemies of the phyle.
• economy:
• don’t mess with us because: Many of us are already dead – killing the rest will just make us more powerful.
• common religions: The Path of Blood is the most prominent, with respectable minorities for Ngethra’s Children and the Otherness. A significant portion of the phylists (especially the dead ones) are non-religious.
• restrictions, attitudes towards purity and taint: Taint is the source of our power.
• favoured classes:
• prestige classes:
• cleric domains:
  • at least one of: Death, Deathbound, Decay, Taint, Undeath
  • none of: Creation, Healing, Life, Purity
• feats: Spell Focus (Necromancy)
• skills: Intimidate, Knowledge (Arcana), Knowledge (Religion), Spellcraft

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