The Night of Blight Deck - A handy dandy Devil's Deck consisting of cards related to a horde of undead monstrosities, ranging from fancy artifacts to horrific abominations and the callous crafters that created them.
Shambler
Type: Undead
Element: Blight
Description: A bald, average-height human corpse with rotted green skin and glowing, toxic-green eyes. Wears torn peasant’s clothing.
Lore: The most basic of basic zombies; once a normal human but now a walking corpse, these wretched revenants lack any capacity for thought and operate purely on an unholy hunger for flesh, though their rotting bodies and stiff movements mean they’re only ever a true threat in large hordes. They do make for fantastic fodder though, and are a particular favorite for burgeoning necromancers looking to build themselves up!
Sprinter
Type: Undead
Element: Blight
Description: A bald, average-height human corpse with rotted blue skin and glowing, toxic-green eyes. Wears ripped commoner’s clothing.
Lore: Why walk when you can run? That’s the question these driven zombies asked themselves upon gaining their newly found lease on unlife, and it’s one they’ve stuck to! No more shall they be the slowest of the slow! No more shall they shamble aimlessly! No more are they the most basic of fodder! Now they have goals! Drive! Dreams! And all of them involve eating mortal flesh!
Leaper
Type: Undead
Element: Blight
Description: A bald, average-height human corpse with rotted yellow skin and glowing, toxic-green eyes. Wears ragged pants, is shirtless otherwise.
Lore: Why run when you can jump? That’s the question these overachieving zombies asked themselves upon deciding gravity is oppression and they shall overthrow such a tyrant! Through their drive to take the skies, they have developed leaping skills beyond the means of common men! Not beyond frogfolk though, who still outclass them.
Weeper
Type: Undead
Element: Blight
Description: A pale undead with whitish-gray skin and thin white hair. Tears perpetually leak from its pale blue eyes. Technically a wight instead of a zombie.
Lore: Some people don’t take to undeath as well as others. Some folks are downright miserable about it, and this wight in particular is just having a constantly crappy day to go along with it. It’s okay though! For their tears and wails elicit sympathy from even other undead! Who immediately rush to their aid and start mauling whatever potentially upset their buddy! So, you know, you if you stand too close.
Bleeder
Type: Undead
Element: Blood
Description: A zombie embraced by blood magic instead of the standard blight, empowering it beyond the average undead. Has red eyes, crimson skin, and bone claws extending from their fingers; also bald and perpetually bleeding.
Lore: Blood magic is a tricky thing. Plenty of foolish mages have gotten into it thinking it’s just like water magic but red, only to realize forming a “red water whip” uses more blood than their body contains right before experiencing the miracle of exsanguination. But not to worry! Enterprising necromancers put these foolish prospects to better use by reanimating their corpses and fixing their issues. Now they’ll never run out of blood again!
Spitter
Type: Undead
Element: Acid
Description: A zombie formed by enhancing the standard shambler with acidblight, a combination of corrosion and standard blight. Has standard blight-green eyes but their skin is fully sunken through with acid, partially melted, and covered in leaking wounds. Their belly is distended with acid and most of its jaw is dissolved.
Lore: Acid magic is a godless thing; literally, no god embodies this magic. Plenty of demons do though, and some foolish individuals think making deals with them is a fantastic idea. It’s not, but when those fools inevitably pass, something has to happen to their corpse, and the meandering dead are easy to enthrall. It’s even said Invidians target those that are attractive yet insecure purely to twist their remains into such mutilated shapes. Or so the tales go; the modern necromancer, so long as they’re skilled enough, can easily make these wretches on their own.
Scorcher
Type: Undead
Element: Fire
Description: A zombie wracked by hellfire; its skin is blackened and charred, drawn taut and tight to their bones. Small fires lick up its skin, though it will erupt into flames that completely cover the walking corpse once provoked. Has orange eyes that glow with unholy flames and wears tattered clothes that tend to burn once its flames flare up.
Lore: Anger is a natural emotion. Some call it primary, though its nature is a secondary one; pain or fear comes first, then anger follows it up. A fire needs a spark, and anger so easily lends itself to flames. It’s a natural emotion, one that can easily be righteous, but the longer it burns and the more it lingers, the more it consumes. Righteousness fades faster than rage, and unending rage easily becomes wrath. While mortals lack the inherent nature of rage shared by Iratans, their natures can be twisted into such a wrathful state. And once they do, that rage can linger even after death, seeping into the body and bones even as the soul leaves it behind. To such a corpse, one so fully consumed by furious wrath, what other reaction could they have to the prospect of being enslaved? In this sense, these monsters are a trap for the unwary, as much as they are an asset for the vicious.
Freezer
Type: Undead
Element: Ice
Description: A wight fully empowered by frostblight; its white skin is frosted over, giving it a bluish tinge. Like all wights, it has pale blue eyes.
Lore: What is the difference between a zombie and a wight? It’s a curious question that has plagued necromancers for centuries, up until it was pretty easily answered by them just asking a demon who knew. And once that question was answered, the logical follow-up was “so how can we make wights worse?”, and these wretched creatures are the answer. Though mortals can’t take all the credit, since it’s pretty natural for wights to turn icy in colder regions; in a sense, it’s just a distinction for fun instead of accuracy.
Shocker
Type: Undead
Element: Thunder
Description: An electrified zombie; its skin is blackened similarly to a Scorcher, but it’s covered in glowing cracks in varying shades. The standard is blight-green, but they can come in several other colors. Collect them all!
Lore: Blight, light, lightning. Three words that intersect in interesting ways. Lightning, the offspring of Light; Blight, its corruption. Light is an element of life; Blight is, perhaps, the only element of Unlife. Not Death, but a twisted thing born from the dead undying. So what then occurs when the offspring and the corruption intersect? In other words, what happens when a zombie gets struck by lightning? Shocker happens. It’s not a hard question.
Scrambler
Type: Undead
Element: Blight
Description: A bald, average-height human corpse with rotted gray skin, emaciated bodies, and glowing, toxic-green eyes. Lacks clothing.
Lore: What’s your favorite type of egg? Or, no, it’s more like “your favorite way of preparing eggs?”, though the type of egg can depend a great deal too. Personally, mine is scrambled, though maybe I’m just not adventurous enough. Anyway, I was hungry when naming these ones. They’re just kinda crawling zombies, too desiccated to get up on their feet and pretty weak all around, so I would have called them Crawlers, but Scrambler came to me and I just liked it better. Ah, wait, I shouldn’t be putting my personal thoughts on these. Uh...something something, victims of famine, eternally hungry.
Hulker
Type: Undead
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Element: Blight
Description: A bald, above-average height corpse hulked up massively beyond the human standard with rotted, mottled, dark-green skin and glowing, toxic-green eyes. Wears a ripped open vest to bare its amazing pecs and solid abs, plus tattered pants.
Lore: Strength is an important factor in crafting any type of monster. It’s only natural to want strong goons to be your enforcers and while the standard zombie is easy to make and plentiful as long as you have enough corpses, they’re not especially strong or durable. So enterprising evildoers did the logical thing and pumped up their standard Shamblers with gallons of blight. The result was horrifying half-melted abominations that were completely ineffective as enforcers so some just started using orc corpses instead, but others refused to bend, set on the idea of crafting their own super zombies, for the honor of their art! And also because orcs are big and scary and harder to kill than humans! And so, after thousands of murders and unnecessary mutilations, success was claimed, and the first of the beefiest brutes was born, purely to murder and mutilate even more people! Truly, worth all the crimes against nature.
Bulker
Type: Undead
Element: Blight
Description: A bald, above-average height corpse bulked up massively beyond the human standard with rotted blue skin and pale, white eyes. Doesn’t wear a shirt, so its rotted but solid physique is on full display, though it does still wear shorts.
Lore: So it turns out some other necromancers figured out to do the “bulked up undead” thing much earlier and easier than those other necromancers just by using wights and some flesh manipulation for muscle growth instead. This upset the first group of necromancers, who sent a sternly worded message to the second group, who replied in turn with the simple message: “eat shit”. The resulting feud is still ongoing and has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
Licker
Type: Undead
Element: Blight
Description: A bald, average-height human corpse with pink skin and mouths for eyes. Its body is further covered in open mouths that have long, distended tongues
Lore: Gluttony is a curious sin. Like all sins, it’s tied to desire and excess, wanting too much of something at the expense of others. In Gluttony’s case, it’s a hedonistic desire, much like Lust, based in accumulation, much like Greed. There’s a reason why those three sins are considered closest to one another. And for the hungry dead, what else are they but eternal gluttons? Meat does not sustain them, but they want it nonetheless, not for sustenance, but for the pleasure of eating. To feel as though they are living once more. Yet their hunger can never be satiated, so what happens to the unliving corpses that last longer than their intended purpose as fodder with their endless desire to feed? Isn’t it obvious? They get better at eating.
Howler
Type: Undead/Beast
Element: Blight
Description: A mutilated zombie with a wolf’s head. Its body has been modified to be more wolf-like, leaving it hunched over with sharpened claws on its hands and feet. Fur erupts in patches across its skin and it wears a dark jacket with torn pants.
Lore: The modern lycan is a very different being from the original werewolves. Once upon a time, it was outright illegal in most nations to be one, because a werewolf was not merely a person who shifts into a wolf, but a murderer who had given into predatory instincts. A serial killer, some would say. But times changed and the followers of the Beast tamed themselves to maintain power. Still though, the history remembers the terror of wolfish monsters hunting humans on a full moon, and some have strived to recreate such beasts, to varying degrees of success.
Slasher
Type: Undead
Element: Blight/Fire
Description: A heavily burned undead woman with long, dark hair, wearing a scarlet tabard and a leather mask, leaving her red right eye showing. Her fingers are tipped with metal blades, looking like claws.
Lore: What defines a murderer as opposed to a killer? The answer is a simple enough one: a killer ends lives through means of violence whereas a murderer is deemed unjustified in doing so, often because of their choice in victim. Dianu was most definitely a murderer. All murdered are killers but not all killers are murdered; a simple distinction. Perhaps she could tell a tale of woe to describe how she got to the point she did, but, truthfully, she didn’t have a good one. She just had knives. Knives she used with such violence and skill that they were basically parts of her hands, no different from her fingers, and as the magistrates sunk the blades in, binding and fusing steel to bone as her hands began to char, she felt a sort of joy, knowing her knives would never be far.
Splatter
Type: Undead
Element: Blight/Water
Description: A large, muscular undead man with mottled, pale-blue and moss-green skin, soaked and dripping with constant water. He wears a sack over his head with a hole in it, showing his blue left eye, along with gloves, boots, and tight, torn shorts.
Lore: Edgar knew how to be quiet. He was taught to, early on. And he knew how to stay quiet and do his job properly. The docks were a place for quiet actions, and he knew how to silence the nosy and noisy when needed. Loose lips sink ships and smuggling was a dangerous game. So he kept his mouth shut and held his tongue. But people kept talking. Talking and speaking and chatting. Chattering day in and day out. The noise rang in his ears, constant and maddening. So he hefted his hammer and made it quiet.
Rumbler
Type: Undead/Beast
Element: Blight
Description: An abomination of necromantic magic fusing beast and folk; in this case, a bear and a human. Large and bulky, its head is that of a large black bear’s and its hands are bear claws. Fur dots its pale, rotted and stitched flesh, and it wears an open, black jacket and matching pants.
Lore: The lab rumbled. No, not quite; the beakers of gleaming green and sickly yellow bubbled. The abomination heard it as rumbling though. A roar in its ears, triggering an aggressive growl in turn, rumbling up from its open chest. There was a happy noise, and a skinless woman smiled down at it, her yellow teeth gleaming in the sickly lights. He was perfect.
Necromancer
Type: Mage
Element: Blight
Description: A mage in a black robe, wearing a yellow skull mask.
Lore: Death is a natural thing. As natural as Life. Yet the two together is the most unnatural thing any could conceive of. What is dead should remain so, yet to the ambitious, the callous, the greedy, and even the melancholic, this truth is denied. It takes a certain drive to take the natural and make it otherwise; to raise a corpse and enslave it to your will. And to the necromancer, those mages of blight who look deep into the depths of dead eyes and see not sorrow, but potential, the cruel miracle of unlife is their gift unto the world. For the rotted deserve no kindness; If Life is to Toil, Why Should Death be Otherwise?
Skinner
Type: Undead
Element: Blight
Description: A tall, looming woman; her skin is fully flayed from her body, leaving only glistening red muscle, and she wears a cloak woven from several animal skins. She has yellow teeth and lacks eyes.
Lore: Marguerite was a hungry girl. She worked hard and listened well. It didn’t feed her though.
Marguerite was a thirsty woman. The count had a striking visage and a strong voice. She drank deep of his wine and felt his hands.
Marguerite was a tired lady. They told her the blessings were true, that corpses were left for the living. But she couldn’t help but wonder if, perhaps, the gods of death may take offense to the enslavement of the dead. And, if so, what might they do to her?
Marguerite was a fearful corpse. The heresies she committed hung heavy over her head, a blade waiting to drop. She saw dullahans in the corners of her eyes and knew they sought her. She had committed horrors. They would hunt her. They would know her. They would always recognize her as long as she wore the same skin…
Marguerite was hungry.
Undead Bone Spear
Type: Item
Element: Blight
Description: A spear crafted of pure, white bones. The head of the spear extends from a pair of jawless skulls added for decoration, giving it the impression of a sharpened tongue.
Lore: Bone mages are an unusual sort. To most followers of Marrow the Butcher, Blood is the core of their deity’s power, yet there are those who instead practice more solid arts; if blood is to water, then bone is to stone, or so it is said. In practice, bone magic is a painful thing if used on oneself and it’s rarely the effort to learn it in comparison to other arts. Still, some peoples, such as the Dai’Kulani of Pahsein’s Folly, try to employ these strange magics in crafting weapons and armor, sometimes with great effect when they get their hands on something especially powerful, such as a lich’s remains. It’s a shame the craftsman fortunate to find such a treasure failed to take precautions; blight is a dangerous thing, and before he knew it, he’d already half rotted while working on his masterpiece. He did finish it in the end though, and his grateful skull adorns his treasure to this day.
Amulet of the Moon
Type: Item
Element: Cold
Description: An amulet displaying a pale disk representing the moon, threaded with pearls and sapphires. The pearls are a mix of white and black, shifting according to the phases of the moon, while the center disk directly mimics whatever phase the moon currently is in, shifting from white to black accordingly.
Lore: Torva the Lunatic loved the moon. That shouldn’t be too surprising; it’s in his name. He desperately loved the moon though, believing it to be a God, one lost to the world, thrown away by the usurpers that now rule in her beauteous stead. So he tried to crash the moon into the Est, failed miserably, and died badly. Yet despite his failures, his legacy lives on, and the Moonsoul Dynasty of the Dark Lands, to this day, holds true to his beliefs. This necklace is merely one of many treasures crafted by these people, said to grant the bearer mastery of magics both light and dark, so long as they are willing to accept the cold embrace of their wayward deity. It does not say it will drive the user to madness with an obsessive lust for the celestial body it depicts, but then, cults rarely say such things.
Mask of the Departed
Type: Item
Element: Stone
Description: A simple stone funeral mask, lacking most features aside from two simple holes for eyes, and one simple hole for a mouth. Very simple.
Lore: In old Pahseinala, the practice of crafting death masks was initially exclusive to their royalty, to keep their remains recognizable so all would know who they were upon entering their second lives, but the practice later spread to the nobility, then to the common people. Clay masks were commonly laid upon the dead and buried with them, so their faces may be known even as they faded into the soil or sands. It’s believed taking such a mask will allow the wearer to see wayward spirits and holes into the realms of the dead, but there will always be a price to pay for such an act. If the dead are robbed, they will take in turn, and if their face is stolen, then they will need a replacement.
Mystery Prize
Description: A mysterious prize.
Lore: A botched prize intended by a certain silly little sister to go to her crush.
Note by Seeker: Meant for Michael, not a haughty wood elf who thinks she’s too good for me.