Shinigami (Patronage Supplement)

Shinigami

Shinigami
Lords of Death, the Shinigami rule Duat from their hidden mounds, giving orders to their Ghilan warlords and necromancers, and their potent wight servants. Realm: Duat Cities: Ynepor Noble: Ghilan Ghilan Breeds: Dhampir, Shadar Kai, Revenant, Shade, Vryloka Base: Wight Wight Breeds: None

In the Innocent Age, the Shinigami were often found observing the bodies of the recently dead.

The Shinigami are a Patron race consisting of intelligent undead creatures appropriate to be encountered at the epic tier of play. These creatures might be any sort of intelligent undead, including liches and vampires. However, as far any scholar can determine, these undead creations have no hint of a previous life. They appear to have been eternally undead. They created the noble race of ghilan, as well as creating the wights. Duat is their Realm of the dead, where the Shinigami hold sway from their deep warded tombs hidden under cryptic mounds.

Ghilan

Generally

The ghilan are the name for the shadow-based races in Patronage. They are the noble race created by the Shinigami to serve them. Many ghilan are warlords and necromancers who lead armies of wights. The Shinigami are known for fierce in-fighting, so many of these wars are internecine in nature. Many ghilan, over the millenniums, have emigrated into the Free Kingdoms, eschewing a life of necromancy.

Ghilan are most common in Duat, where they serve their Shinigami Patrons still. Ghilan are also the dominant race in Winteren, and can also be found in lesser numbers in Midhaven and Oncia.

Prominent Ghilan

• Nebu: A 7th century Ghilan warlord who raised a navy and, with his army of ghilan and wights, razed the human settlement of Dragonseye and broke their fabled Wheel. Shortly thereafter he invaded the Dragonslands and when confronted by one of the Dragon Patrons, he slew it in a mighty battle, which constitutes the first record death of a Patron. This caused the Dragons to retreat briefly form the world. The goliath Cyr created a Middle Empire in its place, and then besieged Nebu in the ruins of Dragonseye. Vastly outnumbered and cut off form Duat, Nebu held off the Empire's armies until he died of natural causes. His army surrendered shortly thereafter.
• Harald: A mighty warlord who founded the Northern Reach.
• Margor: A warlord of a minor Duatan tribe, with the advice of Efthal, he quickly grew to dominate the region, sacking the Alabastrian City of Ynepor and desecrating its sacred temple, and act that caused Empress Xalia to become rakshasa.
• Efthal: The most powerful mortal necromancer Patronage has ever seen. He granted himself undead immortality, conquered an Empire, lorded over a population for centuries, and then disappeared into the Barrens where he still teaches his disciple the darkest of arts.
• Haaken: A mighty warlord who reunified the Northern Reach.
• Margreth: A necromancer who planned to make herself a new Patron, when her mighty castle was swallowed by the mound upon which it had been built.
• Djamasp: A disciple of Efthal, installed briefly as Emperor before being killed by the human Khosrau.
• Yaro: The ghilan who abandoned necromancy and led his people through the Dead March to his promised land Winteren. He made an alliance with the goliaths of the area, and abandoned necromancy by enslaving the local humans to perform the menial tasks normally conducted by mindless zombies and skeletons.
• Otto: A great ghilan warlord who conquered the Border Kingdom and then held the mighty Alabastrian Empire at bay.
• Otto II: No known relation, but he also conquered the Border Kingdom and then secured a treaty that kept the Border Kingdom neutral between Duat and the Alabastrian Empire for more than 200 years.
• Vasa II: The current queen of Winteren.

Wights

Wights are intelligent undead that serve the Shinigami Patrons and their ghilan masters. Any undead that is not an appropriate encounter for epic tier of play might be described as a wight. In Patronage some Wights are created from the souls of other races, but some believe themselves to be created entirely from the Shinigami ab initio, being "born", as it were, undead.

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