Tier 3 Undead

Grave Knights (Swords & Shields) – If Crypt Guard Warriors were not dangerous enough, these ones really take the cake. Faster, stronger, tougher, and smarter than a Crypt Guard, these Skeletons have had their bones hardened to the extreme and are less easily damaged by blunt attacks than their predecessors. Standing a whopping 7 feet tall without its armor, a Grave Knight is a force to be reckoned with, and that is to say nothing about when they come in full units.

Mixing the fury of a berserker with the cold, callous, merciless discipline of a veteran knight, Grave Knights are, without a doubt, the absolute pinnacle of undead melee formations. Advancing in utter silence save for the clanking of their armor, they fight with brutal efficiency and absurd skill. Their blades always seem to find their mark, and even if they can’t they are able to at least make sizable dents even in the toughest of armor.

The only comfort an enemy can find in their disciplined and merciless foe is that they are relatively few in number and, despite being faster than a Crypt Guard while unarmored, as only a hair faster when covered head to toe in their full kit. However, while being less numerically massive would normally be seen as a downside, that still means little as their full unit size is actually only equal in number to a standard Luminas Confederacy Swordsman unit.

Given that a single Crypt Guard could only barely hold its own against a single Human of equal size and strength, you would expect that a Grave Knight would be just a smidgen stronger, faster, and toucher. This is not the case, as their armor is greater, yet also lighter and more durable. Likewise, their weapons are equally as potent and Grave Knights happen to have other, less visible buffs than a Crypt Guard.

Simply being in the mere presence of a Grave Knight is enough to cause a grown man to feel a sense of incoming doom, and if they somehow manage to only emerge from a battle with minor scratches to their flesh, they will need to worry about the curses that will follow them for the rest of their days. Whether you win or lose against them, odds are you won’t be able to try again anytime soon.

Unit Size – 80

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Grave Knights (Halberds) – Graven Knights are equipped with better, lighter armor and weapons by default, despite those things being more dangerous at the same time. However, sometimes what you need is not an advancing line of death, but instead, a stalwart wall that will not be easily broken. Spearmen are perfect for this job, holding down a position and acting as a mobile wall of pointed sticks to keep infantry and cavalry at bay. But what is more versatile than a spear, you ask? A halberd, that’s what.

While Crypt Guard needed an extra third arm to carry and use their weapons and shields to the best of their ability, Grave Knights need no such things. The ones designated as Halberdiers are even more heavily armored than their Sword and Board counterparts, hefting an even more impressive tower shield and an even more vicious halberd than their Tier 2 counterparts.

Like regular Grave Knights, these also emit a subconscious aura of intimidation and doom, and, just like their Sword and Board counterparts, these also have weapons that leave curses that can and will last a lifetime without proper treatment. However, what makes these Grave Knights even better at defense is their ability to root themselves to a single place. While unable to move from that position during the duration of this temporary ability, the Halberd wielding Grave Knights become exponentially more durable and can act as a near immovable object that can and will soak up absurd amounts of missile fire before even taking a single scratch.

Slower than their fellow Grave Knights, but far better at defense, these undead often act as gate guards and they are often damn good at their job. After all, even a runaway car can be rendered a smoking wreck if it plows into one of these things while it has ‘hunkered down’. Who needs reinforced concrete stakes when you can have ones that not only can reposition themselves but also act as decent guards?

Unit Size – 80

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Deadshots – When a single-shot rifle isn’t enough to do a job, and you still need the wielder to be an undead, that’s when you realize that the Deadshots are the way to go. Cold, emotionless killing machines, these marksmen are deadly accurate, even at long distances. Armed with what can only be called a flagrantly plagiarized M1 Garand, these undead can lay down a withering amount of highly accurate fire either as a full volley, staggered fire, or as individual shots.

However, their main weakness is their minuscule numbers per formation. This is not to say that they are ineffective, but just that they are best used not as units in a 20-stack army as most would but instead as independently directed squads that can be used to clear smaller areas. There are experiments being made that may result in these Deadshots having their main weapon be replaced with something with more ammo capacity and a higher rate of fire, but so far that has yet to happen.

Unit Size – 10

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Lich – This is the crowning achievement for so many magic users in Darksol. Rather than being a summonable unit that can be bound to an army, Liches are made during a laborious process that only the living can engage in. Each one is leagues more powerful than their previously living selves had ever been, with access to exponentially more magical power and potential than they could ever have dreamed of beforehand. They may accompany armies either as their leaders or as an extra helping hand. As they are not bound to the same structure as the normal armies, they can accompany a full twenty-stack army without breaking the rules of war in this world.

Unit Size – 1

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Wight Lord – When a great martial master dies, there is often a great deal of respect given to them, be they friend or foe. However, Darksol has never been a nation concerned with letting the honored dead lay where they were left, and any great leader or warrior who had once lived can and likely will be raised into undeath as a Wight Lord. Possessing all of the skills they had in life and now having an undying (pun intended) loyalty to Darksol, these risen elites act as a melee counterpart to their Lich comrades. Like a Lich, they don’t fit into the typical army structure in Mortis and therefore can act independently both on and off the battlefield.

Unit Size – 1

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Banshee – A spectral being in the form of a woman, the scream of a Banshee can stop a man’s heart or cause his eyes, ears, and nose to hemorrhage blood. Like Liches and Wight Lords, these also do not fit into the typical army formation parameters of Mortis. Unlike their spell-slinging and martial counterparts, though, these undead are ethereal and therefore cannot be harmed very easily without magic weapons or spells. Likewise, they themselves cannot physically interact with the things around them, instead acting as a mobile aura that debuffs all enemies near them while buffing all allies. As stated before, they can also emit a potentially lethal scream, but it cannot be used so soon after it had previously been issued.

Unit Size – 1

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Legion Zombie (Unarmed) – Another singular undead, but this time one that fits into the typical army rules of Mortis. Made up of potentially hundreds of zombies, a Legion Zombie is a towering giant of meat and bone. Slow but both very strong and very durable, Legion Zombies are mostly useful only for intimidation purposes. They are, however, able to rip large chunks of earth and rock from their moorings and toss them with ease, making them decent improvised artillery pieces, but their main function is to act like a brute force weapon. If a Grave Knight is a sword, then a Legion Zombie is a tree trunk being used as a club, being both utterly indiscriminate and also absurdly unwieldy.

They do have some other uses, though, as they reek to high heaven and can vomit up horrible chemicals like a flamethrower but with hazardous chemicals instead of liquid fire. Even if they are brought down, that isn’t the end of their threat. After a short period of time after their ‘death’, the Legion Zombie will explode and from their scattered remains a whole unit of regular Zombies will be born. Anything caught in the explosion or that has the misfortune to be touched by the scattered meat, bone, and fluids will find that their combat effectiveness will drop severely as the stench and the caustic nature of the Legion Zombie either forces them to vomit uncontrollably or suffer severe chemical burns that may or may not heal correctly.

Unit Size – 1

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Legion Zombie Archer – As if a Legion Zombie on its own wasn’t bad enough, Kain thought that it would be funny to give a few of them a massive bow to use as a very inaccurate form of artillery. They are the same as regular Legion Zombies but are a bit slower and not as good in melee due to needing to carry a fuck-all massive bow and a quiver filled with ‘arrows’ big enough to be used as fully metal telephone poles.

These things are incredibly inaccurate, but the arrows fired are usually covered in one chemical or another or are made with special arrowheads. This gives them as much versatility as a Ballista, but also a greater degree of maneuverability and melee capability. Ideally, these towering undead are used for sieges, sending massive metal arrows straight into the walls of an enemy settlement or into the deeper parts of a town or city. As Darksol has never signed the Geneva Conventions, Kain has seen fit to equip some Legion Zombie Archers with arrows designed to spread cluster munitions that may or may not contain hazardous chemicals or incendiaries.

Unit Size – 1

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Corpse Cannon – A large piece of self-propelled artillery made of an unholy fusion of metal and undead flesh; a Corpse Cannon is a howitzer propelled by a centipede-like set of meaty undead legs. Unlike normal artillery, the Corpse Cannon fires either conventional shells or purely magical shots. Unlike any normal gun of its kind, however, Corpse Cannon shots are designed to spread disease and corruption wherever the round eventually lands. Few things are more horrifying than seeing a mass of twisting flesh and blood made entirely by magic flying towards your position, only to explode mid-air and shower everyone nearby with scattered meat and bone, only for the residual magical effects to activate and drive you and your allies utterly mad.

Those killed by a Corpse Cannon always end up rising from the dead soon after their own death, making the weapon great at dealing with large concentrations of hostile forces. A decent enough shot delivered to just the right place can not only punch a sizable hole in an enemy army but also give that army a more pressing issue to deal with as their own fallen soldiers rise to begin fighting their former allies.

Unit Size – 2

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Devil Mortar – As if a regular mortar isn’t bad enough, especially with all the varied types of shells that they can lob, the Devil Mortar is far, far worse. Rather than being a single device that can be carried around and crewed, the Devil Mortar is a bit like the Corpse Cannon, but with a slightly different setup. A mass of legs carries a platform made of meat and metal, upon which are swivel-mounted mortars of two different sizes. Each platform carries five mortars total, with four being smaller and the one in the center being much larger.

Like the Corpse Cannon, these mortars also fire either conventional shells or magically made ones, however, due to being a mortar their arcs are much steeper, and their shells are a decent bit smaller. Like the Corpse Cannon, these twisted abominations are designed as much to kill as to both demoralize and corrupt their targets and like the Corpse Cannons these Devil Mortars house a sinister and sadistic intelligence.

The thing will play with its targets, dropping shells that just barely harm those nearby while sending them to defensive positions. Once the enemy has either split up or hunkered down, the shells will begin getting closer and closer, delivering a mix of explosives, chemicals, and curses that gradually reduce their target to gibbering madmen before using the explosions to drive them back into their allies to either kill them or be killed themselves.

Unit Size – 2

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Doombringer Rocket Launcher – Looking like a Katyusha on a mobile bed of ambling legs, a Doombringer Rocket launcher is an undead amalgamation of meat and metal, just like its cousins listed above. Like the Corpse Cannon, the Doombringer is designed fr indirect fire support that can be used to destroy enemy positions, but it is also like the Devil Mortar in that it can and will be playfully cruel to those it is pitted against.

If you understand how the Corpse Cannon and the Devil Mortar differ in overt function, you can call the Doombringer as ‘happy’ medium between the two, with a decent bit of destructive capabilities and a decent bit of insanity-inducing capabilities.

Unit Size – 2

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The Obliterator – A cannon of unspeakable power and immense size, The Obliterator is the final word in firepower. Capable of lobbing a massive 20-ton shell over 45 miles, it can act not only as a massive mortar but also as a howitzer and even as a direct fire weapon. If aimed and armed properly, it can even fire a specialty shell that can annihilate entire groups of airborne foes, sending an apocalyptic mess of shrapnel in all directions.

Self-propelled as it is due to its undead nature, it slowly crawls across the surface on massive treads and anchors itself into place with living tethers and grasping arms. Once in position, it becomes utterly immovable due to its magical nature, even as it launches shells of incredible size an incredible distance. Only one incarnation of this monstrosity can exist at any one point in time, and it itself counts as nineteen units of a full twenty-unit army. Each of the smallest Cluster Munitions Shells explodes with the force of 5 MOABs, so it is understandable that the full-size shells would be even more potent. If Kain himself controls this weapon it gains a special shell that can only be fired once per week and generates an explosion big enough to erase an entire city in a single shot with a massive burst of fire and death.

Unit Size 1 (There Can Only Be One Total In Existence)

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Death Knights – Despite being called knights, Grave Knights have no ability to mount up. Death Knights, however, have no ability to dismount. Rather than being a mount and a rider, the two are merely one singular being. Death Knights literally cannot dismount their undead steeds, nor can their mounts buck them off. One cannot exist without the other being with them at the same time. That said, they are absurdly powerful and extremely mobile, easily capable of using the undead nature of the mount itself to twist the legs of said mount to allow for side to side or reverse movement with little to no loss in maneuverability.

Rider and Mount are fused together, encased within heavy metal plates that actively sap the will to continue living from all hostiles nearby. When they charge, the aura of doom focused into a cone in front of them, delivering even swifter ends to all that face their charges. As they are undead, they do not tire, and thus can eventually run down anyone or anything that they are set against. Likewise, their weapons are partially ethereal, meaning they not only are extremely lightweight but also can slip through heavier armor as if it isn’t there, damaging the soft, vulnerable beings beneath them.

Unit Size – 30

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Night-Terror – The final iteration of a Fel Bat, this is a massive bat monster that can deliver swift death to any caught by it. It guzzles blood and meat without ceasing, flies silently and swiftly, and can emit potent sonic attacks that can do anything from stun foes to outright pop them with the sheer pressure. Worse still, it has a face that not even its mother would love, but seeing as it is a being born of unnatural power, that may be more of an insult to Kain and Alexis than anyone or anything else.

Unit Size – 1

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Death Chimera – No two of these creatures are the same, nor would you want them to be, for that would mean that the design has been perfected. Some are grotesque abominations that look to be walking tumors with gnashing maws filled with serrated teeth, and others look more like what you would expect from a traditional Fantasy Creature. To face one of these things is to roll the dice. Maybe you will get lucky and face one that you can deal with. Maybe you’ll be cutting it apart for literal days on end as it regenerates faster than you can damage it. Maybe it can fly, maybe it can swim, maybe it can tunnel, or maybe it will explode into a cloud of noxious fumes and acid? Who know! Not me, that’s for damn sure, and not you, either.

Unit Size – 1

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Flesh Tank – Kain may have taken a page from a certain video game when he made these, as they are a hideous amalgamation of mortal flesh and sinister metal. It matters not how much you damage the metal, as meat will simply push out and harden to fix the damage. It matters not how many times you cut away that meat that remains soft, for it always grows back before you can capitalize on the damage. Weapons? Oh, it can carry a wide assortment of them and come in any number of sizes and shapes. This is merely a blanket term for the unholy thing that Kain has made, and once it is unleashed it will never tire, nor run out of ammunition. Woe betides those it opens its front to devour, for they will eventually be spat out as more unliving chaff to keep the foe busy as it rampages like the insane monster it is.

Unit Size – 1