So, I had this idea I thought was interesting.
The dead in this world aren't good about staying buried, so those that come back tend to pool around in one major city, a city ruled by and for them. The dead are tied to their bodies, running the gamut from suave vampire to rotted zombie in terms of intelligence and physical upkeep. Dead don't eat, don't sleep, don't tire, can physically regenerate to a degree, and on the whole are gloomy and no fun to be around. What would a medieval, low-magic metropolis filled with intelligent undead like this look like?
So far I envision a rather staid place bound heavily in tradition, the dead find meaning in shared rituals and ceremonies like nothing else, and everyone's been around a long time so things change slowly. Aesthetically it's going to look as Clark Ashton Smith as possible, also resembling a movie lot or amusement park in some ways (a constant sense of illusion and fakeness). Legal institutions exist, but on the whole the city is lawless with a rather active free market economy, several alpha dog undead sit on the top of the economy but everything underneath is a churn. There is a ruling priesthood, the Trivium (also looking into mental health issues), and a police force, the Lictors, but both rely more on tradition than any real mandate to keep order. An aristocracy exists as well, though everyone here is self-made and ties of kinship mean nothing.
The city doesn't trade (since there aren't any other cities to trade with), but actively scavenges for resources outside the city along with looking for (undead) slaves. This is how most dead get here, practically everyone is enslaved upon arrival. Being is slavery is horrible, but after some pretty nasty slave rebellions this has become one of the place where strong protections do exists, with both legal and ceremonial paths to one's freedom.
A big part of the city's economy is tied up in the mortuary economy, denied true rest the wealthy build fancy mausoleums for themselves to hibernate in, also funding divinity cults to ensure their memory. Taking apart and rebuilding the city is a constant obsession, it's unspeakably old and needs endless upkeep, but this also supplies work to an enormous population of proletariat dead. There's also a huge hospitality industry, inns and brothels and such, since the dead can't eat or copulate they're obsessed with pretending to do it. Past that, life in the city is pretty much anarchy, filled with hopeless, traumatized individuals who can't die. Parts of it are going to be perpetual warzones, with angry or insane undead trying to chop each other up into little pieces and no one able to do anything about it.
A lot of this comes from the White Wolf RPG Exalted, which I'm lifting from shamelessly. A lot of the rest comes from living in Los Angeles, down near where all the homeless tents are. This been a fun one to think about for me, so if anyone has any thoughts or ideas for my city of the dead, or if they would alternately have a different take, I'd love to hear it.
The dead in this world aren't good about staying buried, so those that come back tend to pool around in one major city, a city ruled by and for them. The dead are tied to their bodies, running the gamut from suave vampire to rotted zombie in terms of intelligence and physical upkeep. Dead don't eat, don't sleep, don't tire, can physically regenerate to a degree, and on the whole are gloomy and no fun to be around. What would a medieval, low-magic metropolis filled with intelligent undead like this look like?
So far I envision a rather staid place bound heavily in tradition, the dead find meaning in shared rituals and ceremonies like nothing else, and everyone's been around a long time so things change slowly. Aesthetically it's going to look as Clark Ashton Smith as possible, also resembling a movie lot or amusement park in some ways (a constant sense of illusion and fakeness). Legal institutions exist, but on the whole the city is lawless with a rather active free market economy, several alpha dog undead sit on the top of the economy but everything underneath is a churn. There is a ruling priesthood, the Trivium (also looking into mental health issues), and a police force, the Lictors, but both rely more on tradition than any real mandate to keep order. An aristocracy exists as well, though everyone here is self-made and ties of kinship mean nothing.
The city doesn't trade (since there aren't any other cities to trade with), but actively scavenges for resources outside the city along with looking for (undead) slaves. This is how most dead get here, practically everyone is enslaved upon arrival. Being is slavery is horrible, but after some pretty nasty slave rebellions this has become one of the place where strong protections do exists, with both legal and ceremonial paths to one's freedom.
A big part of the city's economy is tied up in the mortuary economy, denied true rest the wealthy build fancy mausoleums for themselves to hibernate in, also funding divinity cults to ensure their memory. Taking apart and rebuilding the city is a constant obsession, it's unspeakably old and needs endless upkeep, but this also supplies work to an enormous population of proletariat dead. There's also a huge hospitality industry, inns and brothels and such, since the dead can't eat or copulate they're obsessed with pretending to do it. Past that, life in the city is pretty much anarchy, filled with hopeless, traumatized individuals who can't die. Parts of it are going to be perpetual warzones, with angry or insane undead trying to chop each other up into little pieces and no one able to do anything about it.
A lot of this comes from the White Wolf RPG Exalted, which I'm lifting from shamelessly. A lot of the rest comes from living in Los Angeles, down near where all the homeless tents are. This been a fun one to think about for me, so if anyone has any thoughts or ideas for my city of the dead, or if they would alternately have a different take, I'd love to hear it.