Octas/_fallen

This is a body part from a re-lived, created either because it was chopped off one, or the re-lived was so decayed that it fell apart on its own. They are horrible to behold, but largely harmless. They won't follow or track you and are not capable of any form of attack. They just lie there and will start twitching if any living human (or Dæmon) gets within around 8 lengths of them.

Twitchers are generally active for several minutes then hibernate. Hibernated, they won't rot, but smell musty and very slightly putrid. They will re-animate if a human or dæmon is nearby, or if anything physically disturbs them. After a few years of hibernation, or a few hours of activity, they die truly and fall apart to a sticky goo, eventually desiccating to dust. WARNING: DO NOT EAT!

The exception to the above is a severed Twitcher-Head. These remain active in that they can look around, and move their jaw and tongue (if they have such). They cannot move themselves about. They could bite you, but only if you managed to stick a part of your body right in their open mouth.

Similar to other body-part twitchers, a head will be active for a few hours if there are humans or dæmons nearby (it will also direct its gaze at them) or if it is physically disturbed. It will remain active in the presence of humans or dæmons or if there is sufficient non-repeating movement within its visual range. Hibernated and undisturbed, a severed-head twitcher can survive for about 120 years. Each hour of wakeful activity will reduce this by around 5 years, so kept fully awake by periodic stimulation, they can last about 24 hours. That anyone would want to do this with a severed head is a good bit more disturbing than the twitcher-head itself!

Base Stats:

Skills:

• Bite: ( Hit: D1 + 8; Damage: D1) - Re-lived bite to attack. They are quite good at it!

Language: None

Rotted Re-lived occur when bodies have been buried in (or left on) raw relatively-damp soil. Those bodies will rise up in a partially-decayed state. They are unintelligent and relatively weak. They can occur even with properly-buried bodies if the casket has cracked or otherwise becomes unsealed before the body inside has decayed of all flesh (bones do not, on their own, re-live).

Even well-buried re-lived are remarkably good at clawing their way back up out of the ground.

Base Stats:

Skills:

• Bite: ( Hit: D1 + 8; Damage: D2) - Fresh re-lived bite hard!

Fresh re-lived can also wield a simple weapon (close-range, blunt or bladed), but get no bonuses for use.

Language: None

Fresh Re-lived occur amongst recently dead. A fresh body left on (or in) the soil for more than about a day (less if conditions are wet) will re-animate in a state physiologically very similar to a live human. They are moderately intelligent and even show signs of former-life memory in that they can fixate on particular people, places or objects that were prominent in their former life. They do not, however appear to be sentient.

Fresh re-lived that were characters (or NPCs with stats) have double the Base-Physical as their former living body. Their other stats are all re-rolled to the above table. They cannot make use of skills, but do get bonuses for favourites.

Fresh re-lived will eat any food-like substance that is available. They are not effected by poisons or disease. If a fresh re-lived is deprived of food or water for more than 8 days, or oxygen for more than 8 hours, it will go into hibernation and re-awake as a a rotted re-lived (all stats re-rolled, nothing can go up).

While fresh relived occur naturally as described, they can also be created by deliberately infecting the recently dead with the juices of an existing re-lived (the goo that twitcher parts break down to, kept moist). They make cheap-to-maintain throw-away guards, if their creator does not care about them indiscriminately attacking anyone at all, including their creator!

Base Stats:

Skills:

• Bite: ( Hit: D1 + 8; Damage: D2) - creators of wrapped re-lived deliberately leave a gap in the bandages around the mouth, to do otherwise would somewhat defeat the purpose!
• Favourite:Weapon: ( Hit: D1 + 8 + weapon favourite bonus; Damage: as per weapon ) - wrapped re-lived can often be found in mausoleums or tombs of the wealthy or powerful, and may have been buried with a favourite weapon, if they had one in life. They will obsess on such a weapon and get a favourite bonus for it. No other skill bonuses apply, though. Wrapped re-lived that have been deliberately created as traps are often buried with a bladed weapon in their hand too, however this is generally not a favourite from their life, so does not attract such a bonus.

Language: None

You can mummify a body, and instead of using the proper embalming fluid, infect it with re-live juices. Lock it in a sarcophagus with air-holes and for the next few thousand years you have a ready-to go trap against tomb robbers.

Due to the partial-embalming, and the wraps themselves, wrapped re-lived are more physically hardy than strait fresh re-lived.

Fully-embalmed bodies laid-out in a mausoleums or tombs will often re-live as well, though after a longer period of time than an un-embalmed body in a casket. The burial space is always well-sealed-up by then so this isn't a problem unless it is re-opened, by people, or by shifts in the structure of the tomb itself. As these sorts of burials tend to be for the wealthy or powerful (and occasionally the popularly-loved or heroic), these people are often buried with favourite possessions, including weapons, which are exactly the sort of thing fresh/wrapped-relived tend to obsess over!

Base Stats:

Skills:

• The Aware retain all skills and weaknesses from their former life, but cannot improve them or learn new ones.
• Bite: ( +D1 + 16 ) - Aware re-lived bite too!

Often just referred to as The Aware.

If a living person makes contact with the juice of a re-lived, including re-lived saliva on an open wound or bite, while in a very weakened state (any current-stat at 0) they will, in a matter of minutes, become Aware Re-lived. They will retain memory and intelligence and even gain significant strength compared to their former self. However they will become entirely obsessed with infecting others, which does impact significantly on their judgement. They even retain their ability to converse intelligently, however they have lost all motivation to do so for any length of time, though they can fully remember themselves having such motivations in the past. While not evil in any moralistic sense, between their singular obsessive motivation and their ongoing human-level intelligence they may as well be.

Like fresh Re-lived, The Aware will hibernate if starved for more than 8 days or deprived of oxygen for more than 8 hours. They will remain aware-re-lived on waking from hibernation at any time.

For a character (or NPC with stats). Double their Base-Physical. Other scores remain the same. Aware Re-lived 'inherent' all skills, and favourites, and are subject to weaknesses, from their previous lives. They cannot improve or acquire new skills, however, as they have lost all motivation to learn or change.

A severed aware head is still fully aware. It can look, hear, move its jaw and tongue. It cannot speak, as it has no lungs or larynx. For movement, it can at best use its jaw to tip itself over if someone props it upright. Otherwise it is the same as a regular severed-head twitcher above. The headless body may move about instinctively but lacks any motivation and won't actually attack, though it might instinctively grab anything it feels touch it. It can still breathe through the top of its neck and even eat if someone stuffs food down there, though it lacks any intelligence to feed itself. It will normally last a few months continuously active or several hundred years hibernated.

A head-and-torso-only aware (a mere flesh wound!) can still breathe, talk and even eat, so can live as long as someone is willing (and game) to stick food in its mouth. Without food it will hibernate after a few days, re-awakening to full sentience for a few hours any time it is disturbed. Without waking from hibernation, they can exist about half as long as a full aware, so several hundred years. Each hour of wakeful activity knocks about a decade off this, so kept continuously awake by periodic stimulation, one could last a few months.

Stats:

As animal re-lived are generally created from fresh corpses, they are almost always the equivalent of a fresh relived. As such, they have similar physical stats to their living equivalent, except strength is doubled.

An aware animal (including uplifted) relived is even less likely, but would have double strength, and be equivalent on the other scores, again.

Animal Re-lived are not as common as you might think as re-life normally only effects humans and dæmons. They never occur spontaneously, but can be artificially generated by trying to infect recently dead (or even almost dead) animals with the juice of an existing re-lived. This will only work 1 time in 64 (roll 00 on a DD). Although much more tedious and unreliable than using human (or dæmon) bodies to create re-lived, the fact that you don't have to desecrate said bodies may be why some practitioners of this 'art' persist in doing it this way, despite the difficulty.

Re-lived animals, likewise, generally won't infect other animals, though they don't have any awareness of this and will preferentially attack their own species, if present, or anything that moves otherwise. They pose the same infection risks to humans and dæmons as any other re-lived.

Stats:

See equivalent human re-lived type, adjusting for 1-length greater height.

As closely related to humans as they are, dæmons are also fully susceptible to becoming re-lived. Humans and dæmons can cross-infect each other easily. Other than having the distinctly dæmonic appearance that humans naturally find off-putting, Dæmon Re-lieved are otherwise physically identical to their human equivalents. Dæmons (or humans) who die in Hell do not become Re-lived, and re-lived are, in fact, not something that will naturally occur in Hell, though it can be artificially induced there by deliberate infection with imported re-lived juices.

Unlike re-lived humans, even non-aware re-lived Dæmons retain their ability for magic. Rotted Dæmonic Relived will use magic entirely randomly. Fresh Dæmonic Relived may express their magic in relation to any fixations they have left over from life, but it will otherwise also be quite random. Aware Dæmonic Relived, just like their human counterparts, can use any magic they knew when alive, wilfully and intelligently.

This happens with dæmons because their magical ability is inherent to them and so is a matter of hard-wired instinct rather than learning.

Re-lived and Body Disposal.

To avoid inadvertently creating re-lived, human (and dæmon) bodies on the surface of Octas must be disposed of appropriately. The most common methods are:

Casket burial: This is common with humans. The casket must be watertight and not susceptible to rotting faster than the body inside. Cheap, badly-made caskets are the biggest cause of re-lived issues in urban areas. Burial grounds in unsuitable areas (particularly boggy places) or burial areas becoming unexpectedly saturated with water accelerating casket decay are also problems.

Tomb or Mausoleum: Popular amongst the wealthy and powerful. Bodies laid out, often embalmed, in a dry Mausoleum or similar burial place will re-live, but not quickly, and the burial space will be sealed up long before this happens. Tomb-robbing is a particularly dangerous occupation as many tombs' occupants are still around, and hungry! Sometimes use of magic, or just changes in local climate, can shift the foundations of tombs and crack them open enough to release any re-lived occupants.

Cremation: Very effective. But in urban environments it is expensive and difficult to do without generating much complaint. In the countryside a decent funeral pyre is effective. You don't have to reduce the body to ash, but it must be significantly de-fleshed.

Burial at Sea: There is contention as to whether this actually stops re-life happening or just causes it to happen where no-one can see it. The Re-lived can survive considerable time without oxygen under water! However, no re-lived have ever turned up in a fishing net so far, thankfully! If any Orca have encountered them wandering about down on the ocean-floor, they haven't said anything, which would be highly unusual for Orca! It is assumed that the brackishness of the Octas oceans stops re-life happening, since fresh-water lakes and rivers definitely can host the re-lived!

Dicing If the body is in small enough pieces, it will still re-live, but only as horrible-but-harmless twitchers. It is considered extremely disrespectful to do this deliberately to a body, but if you really had no alternative, people will generally forgive you once they finish throwing up!

Cannibalism: Very un-popular, for obvious reasons, but consuming the flesh does stop it re-animating. Again, bones don't re-animate on their own, and guts don't do so in a way that is more than just gross, so if the muscle tissue is gone, you are safe. Note that, while humans and dæmons don't see eye-to-eye on much, they do agree that eating any being capable of complex language, is cannibalism, not just your own species. Uplifted tend to agree with this view. Dragons generally don't!

Cast Down: This is a burial method unique to dæmons and, despite the name, is actually considered the most respectful way to dispose of the dead in their culture. Dæmons do not practice this to avoid re-lived, as that doesn't naturally happen in Hell, but it is mentioned here for completeness. Casting down involves carrying the body deep into the lower substrates below Hell (a dangerous journey, but safe-ish pathways through have been mapped), and casting the body (ceremonially wrapped, not just raw, with limbs dangling about!) into the vast misty emptiness below the very bottom of the world.

Things to avoid with dead bodies:

Abandonment: bodies abandoned outdoors are high-risk of rapidly becoming re-lived. Most human communities have strict laws and harsh penalties regarding this. Extremely dry environments are about the only place you can get away with this, and only so long as they stay dry, as even desiccated bodies can re-live.... just add water!

Direct Burial: putting bodies in the ground in anything other than a sealed casket is just asking for re-lived. You might be able to bury them deep enough to not eventually dig their way out, but that is surprisingly deep, and the exact depth varies with many factors of soil composition.

Rock Cairns: as with burial, you need half a small mountain of rocks to be sure they won't somehow wiggle their way out from under them. And be sure those stones will stay undisturbed for centuries.