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The Unholy Wars

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Undead creatures have been hated over all the centuries of their existence. Seeming to do nothing more than wreak havoc upon the living, their reputation is well earned. But where did the undead ACTUALLY start? The earliest reports of the undead trace back to Ancient Egypt, where a Pharaoh wizard who wasn't quite ready for the afterlife developed a spell that would allow him to return to the plane of the living. Here's a small excerpt from a personal scribe's transcripts during that time period. Translated, of course, it reads,

"... and I am beginning to believe the king may not be dead. Horrible sounds can be heard radiating deep from within his tomb at night. I am beginning to wonder if it has something to do with the strange runes that appeared just after the sealing of his tomb. We dare not open the seal for fear of a horrible curse. I hope Anubis comes for his soul soon."

As it turned out, the pharaoh actually had placed a curse on his tomb, one that would allow him to return to life on the next full moon following his sealing. This sort of curse had never been seen before, so it is believed that the pharaoh developed this spell himself. However, his curse backfired. When the moon rose full, the king as predicted returned to life, though he was unable to escape his tomb. The secret passages proved too much, especially in the dark. So, the king was trapped forever in perpetual darkness.

Centuries later, during Feudal Europe, a group of wizards discovered and managed to enter the king's tomb. They were immediately met by a horrid creature of rotting skin and tattered bandages wrapped about its person. Driven to insanity by centuries of solitude, the "mummy" as it was later called, killed- no, maimed the wizards and wandered off to smite anything it saw. Once word got out and after a number of casualties, a team of trained wizards was sent out to destroy the mummy. Most spells were repelled by the creature, but fire proved to be immensely effective.

With the crazed mummy gone, things quickly returned to normal, but not for long. Another powerful wizard that went by the name of Sandro Carbone heard about this incident. Intrigued by the story, he hopped on his broom and zoomed off to find the pyramid for himself. He figured that, if someone was able to bring a human being back to life, then there had to be magic involved. No muggle could pull that off. He wanted to find the spellbook it was written in, if it even was written. With the power to raise mindless armies of walking dead, he could easily rule the world!

Upon find the tomb, he entered at once blowing a hole into the side of the pyramid. It took him nearly a week of searching passages before he found what he was looking for: The King's Chamber! Sandro rummaged through the massive amounts of treasure before he found the king's spellbook. 7 inches thick, it had thousands of spells in it. He spent days in the chamber searching for the spell that would reanimate the dead. His staff (the preferred version of a 'wand' back then) was on perpetual Lumos. Finally, after ignoring his hunger for days, the wizard emerged from the tomb triumphant.

He wanted to hug the sun he was so happy to be out of that dark hellhole. Sandro got right to work on his army. "Terra Infirma Revium Animatrus Enchanta Calla!" he shouted. The earth beneath his feet began to tremble, and all of a sudden, 10-20 figures began to rise from the ground. Grinning skeletons, rotting zombies, cackling ghosts, and even another mummy rose.

Sandro was amazed at what he saw, if not a bit horrified. The air around him grew cold and reeked of death. He tried to communicate with the creatures. "Welcome back to life, newly arisen. How's death?"

One of the skeletons immediately plunged his bony hand into the dirt and retrieved a rusty broadsword. It advanced on Sandro as more undead followed. The wizard noted that the skeletons all had sorts of armor on; probably the remnants of some war.

"I am your master!" shouted the mage, "You will obey my commands! Stop!"

One of the ghosts shot forward into Sandro's body, causing him to clutch his chest and let out a shout of pain. His body went into twitching spasms of unearthly pain. The skeleton with the sword shot forward and, with a swift swipe of his blade, beheaded the wizard.

A second skeleton donned Sandro's bloodstained cloak, grabbed his staff and spellbook, and smirked.

Not a month later, there were hundreds of undead creatures walking the earth. Dead wizard skeletons became known as liches, though zombies never seemed to posses the magic ability.

As there are today thousands and thousands of undead, wizards are urged to stay as far away as possible. The undead are capable of thousands of things, many of the liches unafraid to cast the three unforgivable curses. Only teams of trained wizards schooled in undead combat should ever confront them.

There are still undead villages throughout the world, and not many have been located. It is impossible to destroy all the undead creatures because the liches, who excel in the dark arts, always bring back the dead or undead for their own malicious purposes.

Chapter 1

The following is a list of reported undead creatures and what they are capable of.

Skeleton: The skeleton is the skeletal remains of whatever has died. Despite their lack of muscles, skeletons can be just as strong as their previous flesh-and-blood selves. Since skeletons are made of bone, poison will not work against them. Freezing and burning aren't very effective either. The best way to destroy a skeleton is to 'break' them. A good physical melee attack or any spell that uses extreme force works very well against these creatures.

Lich: A lich is a skeleton that was once a wizard. They posses immense magical abilities in the dark arts and are not afraid to cast the three unforgivable curses. If you ever run into an undead group, take out the lich first. They resurrect their fallen allies without hesitation.

Zombie: Zombies are often very frightening creatures. They are the still-decaying corpses risen from the dead. Many have been known to rip off one of their limbs to use as cudgels. They are perfectly balanced on one foot, and have no problem doing this. They are immune to pain, as their nerves have rotted away. Zombies are, of course, found all over the world, but ones risen in more tropical areas are prone to carry deadly diseases. Send a few of these into a town and it'll be a ghost town soon enough. Zombies feast on living human flesh. If a victim does survive a zombie attack, the bacteria from the bite will slowly decompose the victim from the inside out, causing the victim to become one of them. Fire has proven to be an extremely effective method of destroying these creatures.

Mummy: Mummies are basically better-preserved zombies, as they've gone through the ancient Egyptian mummification processes. They are wrapped in highly flammable bandages, so once again, fire is very effective. Mummies can carry curses that leave their victims weak and often very tired. Necromancers and liches alike usually appoint mummies to their own tombs to guard their vast treasures.

Ghost: Most ghosts in the world are friendly and harmless, but there are those who seek to destroy the living out of sheer jealousy. Ghosts take the form of how they remember themselves when they died. These specters can posses all the powers of their previous bodies. Some ghosts, known as Poltergeists are very destructive and take pleasure in messing with people or harming them. It's easy to detect ghosts, as the air around them is extremely cold. Some ghosts have been reported to be able to actually take over a mortal's body and use it as their own. This is extremely painful for the host, and can kill him or her when the ghost vacates the body. Ghosts are very difficult to kill (again), and only the strongest spells have any effect. The Summon Patronus spell works rather well, but it's rare that it will completely destroy the beast.

Wraiths: Wraiths are horrid beings that are somewhat of a mix of skeleton and ghost. They lack legs and make up for it with the ability to fly. It is not known what exactly wraiths are raised from, but many believe they're raised from bodies possessed by ghosts. Wraiths can drain the mental energy from their victim, leaving them weak and helpless. Wraiths may posses small amounts of magical abilities, but generally stay away from the subject. Wraiths are usually easier to beat than ghosts, since they actually have a solid form that can be hit.

Vampire: Nobody knows where exactly vampires came from, but they are certainly a force to reckon with. Only two things can kill a vampire, and that's direct sunlight and a wooden stake through the heart. Obviously, vampires only go out to hunt at night. They have the ability to turn into vampire bats to get around. Like the vampire bat itself, vampires need to suck the blood of others to live, but unlike the true bat, vampires need human blood to survive.

Necromancer: Not really an undead being, but a wizard driven to madness by their evil ambitions. Skilled in the most powerful forms of dark magic, they thrive on the lust for power. Their armies are almost always of the undead. A necromancer can be human or a lich.

Chapter 2

There hasn't been any sort of reports of what undead villages are like, except for a piece of parchment written by Cian Bloodbane, a wizard who managed to infiltrate an undead village. He never made it back, but his griffin, Falgor, was able to come back with nothing more than a few scratches and a note in its mouth. It read as follows.

February 19th, 1978 Studies of the Undead, pt 1

"This is fascinating! I have managed to sneak into an undead village, and I must say I've never seen anything like it. The buildings are shoddily built and made of things like logs, twigs, straw, apparently anything they can find in the forest surrounding the place. The night seems darker, the dirt dirtier. Even the air around me feels chilly, dark, and foreboding. I've already managed to defeat a few of these monsters. Oh, their eyes! So dark and lifeless. I don't think these creatures have any idea what they're doing. That might explain why they're all so destructive.. Maybe they're all following some dark leader hidden deep within the bowels of the underworld! Or perhaps I'm just over-dramatic… Whatever the reason, I plan to figure it out before I leave here. I've posted my griffin, Falgor, to keep watch tonight as I sleep."

February 20th, 1978 12:00 noon

"Apparently we were attacked last night. Falgor has a few scratches on his legs and sides and he seems restless. Though there's no sign of any undead bodies anywhere. I was an idiot to sleep here, I know, but traveling non-stop is really tiring! Anyway, it's noon, and it's still dark here. I don't even know if the sun's light can penetrate the aura of evil surrounding this place."

2:28 pm

"Incredible! After more exploration I've discovered a huge fortress! This must be where the main lich resides! I haven't run into any magical barriers yet.. Uh-oh. I just heard something. I'll have to continue my documentation la"

Cian's words stop there. Only Falgor knows exactly what happened after that, but it can be assumed that he is now one of them.

Chapter 3

The Ministry of Magic has a hard time keeping the undead hidden from muggles, since they are so hard to trace. There was a huge outbreak of undead appearances in North America from the 1950's to the 1970's. Such happenings were depicted in the "* of the Living Dead" series, along with many other historical films. The undead were incorporated into many muggle board and video games, books, and more whatnot.

One of the first and most fearsome vampires to ever walk the earth appeared in an old lone castle in Transylvania. He went by the name of Count Dracula and terrorized a number of villages. The Ministry of Magic dispatched a few wizards to get rid of the count. When they never reported back, the ministry decided to take a deeper look into the matter. They sent in more experienced combat wizards. Of the 5 that were sent, only 2 returned. They reported that nothing they did seemed to effect the vampire. Fire could distract him, but his skin didn't burn as much as it should've. One of the wizards also swore the count could pass through things, but he never went through wood. So the wizards went to thinking that perhaps if they made a dagger-like weapon of wood, could they kill the vampire? They experimented with this a bit, and in the end, they had to stab the vampire in the heart with ebony teakwood, sever the head, and burn the body with the head. For more information on this subject, view the original Count Dracula historical films. The remakes are for entertainment purposes, and contain less accurate information.

Chapter 4

There have been two wars that the undead creatures have participated in. The first took place at the pass from Egypt to Eurasia. A small army of 100-120 undead creatures laid siege to a castle positioned there. Moving silently as death , the undead had the advantage of a sneak attack. An Egyptian Necromancer, known as Sargon, led the army to near-miss victory. Only 9 of his zombies were left by the time the battle was over. By the next morning, the lich had three times his original army size in undead.

By then, many muggle and wizard lords heard of this and immediately armed their troops: the muggles for the land, the wizards to keep peace. The muggles and wizards formed an alliance to defeat the undead armies. The battle lasted many hours, the undead being much stronger than they had first perceived. To make matters worse, Sargon raised the fallen troops non-stop. A trio of wizards was finally able to weaken the lich to a point where he could be defeated. A muggle archer with a fire-enchanted arrow delivered the final blow to the demented creature. The rest of the battle was smooth-sailing from there.

The wizards let the muggles keep their new castle and its land, cast a good number of memory charms, and left before anyone could figure out what had happened.

"I realize teaming up with muggles in battle wasn't a safe idea, but we had to if we wanted to stop the undead from spreading," wrote Trex Albek, head of the Undead Control subdivision of the Ministry of Magic in the 1610's.

The next war that took place in 1682 was nothing but a slaughterfest. Liches in teams of 10 each ravaged villages and towns, casting the Death and Torture curses on anything that moved. The liches managed to kill millions of people this way. The ministry of magic sent as many wizards as they could muster to fight all these liches. It was a one-sided fight. The liches of course had their newly risen armies. Finally, when all seemed lost, the Ministry of Magic allowed the fighting wizards to cast the death curse. Many wizards still objected to this, but the ones who agreed quickly laid waste to the liches and torched the zombie armies.

The wizards won, but at dire costs. The arvada kadarva curse was re-banned, and undead combat- trained wizards were posted at each town. There haven't been any undead problems since then, but after that slaughter, the Ministry of Magic aren't taking any more chances.

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