Chapter 1-34: The Shroud (1/2)
“The Shroud is a cross-dimensional Legendary Class Curse-effect spell Cast at Forty or beyond. It was Cast by a force of undead that had conquered and subsumed the world we now call Shoul, a moon now in orbit around Terra-Luna. They labored on it for untold millennia before succeeding, and after they did, they escaped the world and void they had been exiled to through great deathgates to other worlds with massive Dead Marches, there to conquer those unprepared worlds, subsume them into undeath, and then send forth the powerful of that world out in command of their own Death Marches.
“We do not know how many iterations of this have passed, precisely, only that there have been at least five.
“The original moon had twelve deathgates. The second one we discovered had constructed two others, already used, in addition to the one being attuned to Terra-Luna. By estimations, they would have constructed at least six of them in total.
“The Primary Effect of the Shroud is to cut a world off from the Divine and the Planes. Thus, all contact with other realms that might lend aid are Interdicted. Unless the world is capable of fighting a Dead March with between one and two hundred million reinforced corpse-crafted and fully kitted-out undead, the dead monsters and heroes of the prior world, and full sets of Minister-Bishop-Cardinal Buffs, the world dies, is animated as undead, and the cycle is repeated, building more Death Gates, and the Dark Cardinals sent forth to claim a world of their own as the Dark Hierophant claims that world for itself.
“The Shroud’s power is broad and pervasive. Any world encapsulated by it is utterly wiped from the knowledge of the Divine and its servants. It is perfectly possible to talk about the Shroud right in front of a Celestial, demon, or devil, and they can be listening closely, and when you finish they will not be aware of anything you said at all.” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “If they are trapped underneath it, they will retain their knowledge, but as soon as they are free... the knowledge is wiped again, and they won’t even be aware of the time gap.”
He looked confused. BUT... WE HAVE CONTACT WITH DIVINE POWER. THERE ARE CHURCHES ACTIVE HERE.
I nodded slowly. “Yes. And,” I lifted a finger, “your undead are Cursed by the Dawn. They can’t actually sweep out and conquer the world like they should have. That is NOT a function of the Shroud.”
He looked thoughtful. SOMETHING HAPPENED...
“Yes. Something intervened at the crucial moment, and broke something. If I were to guess, I would guess that something broke the Death Gate that brought the March here, shattering the unbroken line to the original world where the Shroud began, and the original Death Gates.” I sighed. “My gut says your World-Angel sacrificed themself to shatter the Arch of the Death Gate, and laid the Curse of the Dawn through the very medium of the Shroud, operating off the vengeance of the souls caught within it.
“But that is only a guess.”
HOW DOES ONE DEFEAT THE SHROUD?, he asked simply.
“You have to kill off every single Dark Minister, Bishop, Cardinal, and Hierophant if present, on the world. That, in turn, is only possible if you utterly destroy all their minions, as they can both body-hop to any of them, and if they die, one of the intelligent Congregants subservient to them will be promoted up to Minister status, a Minister to Bishop, and so forth.
“To wipe the Shroud you must kill ALL the undead the Shroud is centered upon.”
THAT WOULD SEEM TO BE A DIFFICULT FEAT, he observed with a straight face.
“The first step is overcoming the Curse of the Sun, and killing them permanently. Once you can do that, it is merely a question of scale. The Dark Clergy have a control range of approximately five hundred paces. From there, their orders are relayed out by their Congregants. Their status comes from command of their undead. A Dark Minister must command at least five hundred undead. A Dark Bishop must command at least a hundred thousand. A Dark Cardinal must command five to ten million.
“As they lose those numbers, either because command links are severed, out of range, or the undead are destroyed, they are demoted in power.
“Undead whose command links are severed will naturally be drawn back to their Clergy. Thus, you do not have to worry about ‘losing’ undead and them wandering free. While they can extend a long distance from their Clergy in relays, picking off one of them and breaking the relay chain forces them back towards their Clergy, which can be used against them.”
WHAT OF THE POWERS OF THE CLERGY, THEN?
“The first and most important is they automatically dominate any undead in their control range of lower power, and this basically holds true up until at least Legendary status, post-Twenty.” He frowned at that. “Furthermore, once dominated, the undead will be Bound to Serve, and cannot escape, save by becoming Clergy itself and leaving the world, the lines of control to a lesser Clergy are broken somehow, or its controller is actually slain, if it is but a Congregant.
“They will also dominate Fiends in that area as powerful Clerics might, and can enslave them as well. Such are always minions and servants, never Clergy. They might seethe under such control, but they have no choice in the matter, either.
“They can control the gathered negative energy of their Congregations into powerful blasts of negative energy, which can also manifest as the negative equivalents of elemental energy: pyreflame, soulchill, sanguine acid, hate lightning, and death screams. They can grant their Congregants the ability to shoot this energy as well. As it is pure negative energy, it can also heal their minions, and over time, slowly improve them as it learns how to corpsecraft.
“They can’t teleport, but they can shift to the carcass of any of their minions, devouring its spirit and taking its bones for their own. A common tactic is to spread hidden minions about to keep a command path open to a body safe to jump to. Trying to do that to another Clergy is useless, of course, merely kicking the lesser Clergy to another minion.
“Each Clergy has a different Patron, who are generally all in competition with one another... but once suppressed in conflict, they can only obey their superior dutifully.”
“The end goal of the Clergy is to become the Dark Hierophant, the undead lord of the entire world. Their domination of other undead extends to the whole planet at that time, and there is no chance of rebelling or escaping control. The Hierophant will be compelled to render the entire planet into a death world, erect Death Gates to solidify the power of the Shroud, and spread undeath ever wider. Once formed, each Gate will connect to another world of the living, and the Hierophant will send the greatest of the Clergy of the world it has conquered out to claim another world of their own.
“This Earth is merely one of those worlds.”