Book of Bone and Ebony

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use, even if only for their ability to rapidly crush the enemy’s morale. The following system allows characters and Storytellers to generate their own necromantic war machines from the ground up. It lists the cost in resources (in terms of both money and corpses) required by the various types of undead siege engines as well as the type of necromantic magic and Essence cost required to make the engine work. NECROSURGERY Abyssal Exalted (and their masters, the Deathlords) possess an unsurpassed ability to craft great and terrible works of mismatched flesh. Those Abyssals who have mastered necrosurgery (see Exalted: The Abyssals, p. 130) and Bone Graft Technique (see Exalted: The Abyssals, p. 188) can use those abilities to assemble horrible necrotic concatenations of sculpted bone, twisted metal and sutured flesh. By itself, necrosurgery allows a practitioner to fuse human tissue (living and dead) and animal tissue (living and dead) into horrid sculptures of flesh. When augmented with Bone Graft Technique or similar magic, it can incorporate iron and soulsteel elements as well. More horrible yet, those with enough mastery of necromancy can animate even the most unnatural abominations through the use of the spell Walking War Machine 95 CHAPTER FOUR • CREATIONS OF BONE (see Exalted: The Abyssals, p. 226) and its subsequent techniques. Alternatively, an Abyssal (or a Deathlord) can order a nemissary to possess his sculpture of flesh, animating it that way. With enough time and resources, an Abyssal Exalt could use necrosurgery combined with Bone Graft Technique (and possibly Walking War Machine or its more powerful versions) to do any of the following: • Graft several heads (or eyes) onto a single body to create a guardian who can’t be surprised. • Forge giant metal spider legs and attach them to a (sturdy) animal corpse, and animate the result with necromancy. • Graft huge bone or metal spikes onto the skeleton of a zombie to make it more formidable in combat. • Connect hundreds of bodies together to create an enormous meat golem. Mortals, Abyssal Exalted and Deathlords alike have come up with any number of ways to slow (or arrest entirely) the rotting process in order to extend the useful duration of these abominations. The Charm Decay Resistance Preparation (see Exalted: The Abyssals, p. 188) is available to Abyssal Exalts, but many methods exist, including a wide range of alchemical mummification procedures.
EXALTED • BOOK OF BONE AND EBONY FRAME AND COMPONENTS Undead flesh never tires, never feels pain and never knows fear. Those three reasons alone make reanimated servitors worth the effort. A zombie slave can go top speed for weeks on end and not need rest. It may rot. It may wear out. It may emit a stench that makes the living puke. But undead flesh is nothing if not steadfast. And it is plentiful. Corpses are common, and if they’re not, deathknights and nemissaries can easily make more. The reanimated dead all possess the same characteristics, and those characteristics are the given the necromancer has to work with. What varies is how that flesh is arranged, combined and fused into a larger whole. As with all things, there are more and less effective ways of combining dead bodies into engines of war. Determining the engine’s base frame is the first stage in designing a walking war machine. HUMANOID Animating a single human corpse is nothing to a master of necromancy. It is neither a challenge nor any particular advantage in battle. Cleverly fusing several of them together, however, and animating the monstrous result (e.g., spine chains) suddenly makes the process both more interesting and more tactically advantageous. Accretions of human corpses can be some of the more disturbing war engines. Merely witnessing the physical blasphemy of a walking war machine or seeing dozens (or more) corpses — perhaps friends or acquaintances — systematically integrated into a siege engine can be traumatic and deeply demoralizing for the denizens of Creation. It’s one of the reasons the Deathlords do it. A skilled practitioner can combine human bodies in a myriad of ways using the techniques of necrosurgery. The muscles and bones of two different bodies can be connected to fuse the bodies into a single grotesque body. Alternatively, parts of several corpses can be sewn into or onto a single cadaver. Resource Cost: None ANIMAL The corpses of large animals make excellent additions to a necromantic war machine. They’re sturdy, they’re terrifying, and they can form the basis for the larger types of war machines. Reanimated hybrocs, mammoths and yeddim make excellent war machines even without modification. It stands to reason, then, that once properly stitched and grafted together they can easily turn the tide of a battle. Resource Cost: Usually none, but for more exotic specimens, it may require the necromancer to assemble a hunting party, with all the costs pertaining to such an endeavor. 96 A-HUNTING WE WILL GO The monstrous siege engines of the Deathlords make use of any and all dead tissue that can be scavenged. Human, animal, fresh, rotten, large or small, it makes no difference when the final product is an abomination the size of a building. The greater destructive capacity (and increased intimidation factor) of larger siege engines makes them popular with the Abyssals and Deathlords. That requires either larger corpses or many smaller ones. In some cases, large normal animals suffice. There are times, however, when building the perfect undead siege-beast requires components of a more unusual variety. In these cases, forces from the Underworld may gather a hunting party in a shadowland — led either by an experienced nemissary or an Abyssal, depending on the quarry — and launch into Creation to bring back the necessary raw materials. Hunting parties are called mainly to bring down extraordinarily tough or dangerous prey. Cachalots, siaka, river dragons, hybrocs and beast men are common targets. Wyld mutants constitute a large portion of what such hunting parties go after. The variety of mutant flesh allows the necrosurgeons to add components to their war machines that might be impossible to get in the Underworld (or elsewhere in Creation). From time to time, very large and heavily fortified hunting parties also go in search of behemoths, if they have some indication of one’s whereabouts. Since the fall of Thorns, some Deathlords (particularly the Mask of Winters) have been sending out hunting parties to bring back bodies of the Dragon-Blooded. War machines using the Terrestrial Exalted are much more durable than those made with mortals alone. A war machine that uses bodies of the Dragon-Blooded for at least half of its flesh gains an additional -1 health level, although this number can go up. A creature that was made exclusively of young, vital Earth-aspects might add a -1 and two -2 health levels. Mortals living near the shadowland may actually feel that the hunting party is trying to defend them in some way by taking down large and dangerous creatures. They typically stop feeling that way quickly when they see the beast come back as part of an undead war machine. BONE Possibly the most favored substance in a necromancer’s arsenal, bone is beloved as much for its hardness and versatility as for its reactivity to necromancy. Sigils, glyphs and runes
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AND A Compendium of Necromantic Lor
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Book of Bone and Ebony

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