Olden Era Fan Codex / Factions
The dead outnumber us, and they are patient.
Necropolis in Olden Era is younger and hungrier than the cultivated death-cult that haunts later ages. The faction coalesced perhaps two centuries before the events of the game, when a circle of human and elven scholars in the eastern marshlands made a workable breakthrough in what would later be called formal necromancy — a discipline rather than a curse. They have been refining the method ever since, and they have been doing so in territory that no other power particularly wanted, which has bought them time.
The faction's identity is not nihilism. It is conservation. To a necromancer of this period, animating the dead is the only honest answer to a continent that consumes lives at industrial scale; the alternative is to let useful labor and useful knowledge rot in the ground. This argument is, naturally, not persuasive to the Temple, which considers the practice both a sin and a public-health hazard. The two factions are heading toward a war that everyone except the diplomats has already accepted.
Necropolis fields liches as administrators, vampires as field officers, and an enormous logistical advantage in the form of every casualty on every battlefield they win. Their magic emphasizes drain effects, curses, and the steady, grinding raise-chain that turns a near-loss into a strategic recovery.
For players, Necropolis is the snowball faction. Early it is fragile. Mid-game, if it has had any battles at all, it begins to compound. By month three an uncontested Necropolis is generally already over.
Built into and on top of a much older ruin, the bones of which are still visible at the foundation level. Streets are flagstoned with what were once tomb-lids. The central structure is the Conclave, a vaulted hall where senior liches hold tenure-style argument over method. Outbuildings include the Vampire's Loft (a residence rather than a barracks), the Boneyard (workshops where raise-templates are prepared), and the Black Library. The skyline is low and dark, dominated by the Conclave's blunt central dome. The town does not have a curtain wall in the usual sense; it has wards, and a great deal of patience.
| Tier | Name | HP | Att | Def | Damage | Speed | Growth | Special | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Skeleton(Bone Soldier) | 6 | 5 | 4 | 1–3 | 4 | 18 | Undead; immune to morale and mind-affecting magic. | Tradition |
| 2 | Walking Dead(Risen Zombie) | 15 | 5 | 5 | 2–3 | 3 | 9 | Disease on hit: target loses 1 attack and 1 defense for the battle. | Tradition |
| 3 | Wight(Wraith) | 18 | 7 | 7 | 3–5 | 5 | 7 | Flying; drains 2 mana from the enemy hero on each strike. | Tradition |
| 4 | Vampire(Vampire Lord) | 40 | 10 | 9 | 5–8 | 6 | 4 | Souldrinker; heals own stack equal to damage dealt; No Retaliation. | Tradition |
| 5 | Lich(Power Lich) | 30 | 13 | 10 | 11–13 | 6 | 3 | Ranged; Death Cloud splashes adjacent hexes (does not harm undead). | Tradition |
| 6 | Black Knight(Dread Knight) | 120 | 16 | 16 | 15–30 | 7 | 2 | Curse on hit; 20% chance of Death Blow doubling damage. | Tradition |
| 7 | Bone Dragon(Ghost Dragon) | 200 | 23 | 23 | 30–45 | 9 | 1 | Flying; Aging halves enemy stack HP on a successful strike. | Tradition |
Death Knight
Vereth lost the eye at a siege he no longer cares to name, and the socket has been filled with something that watches back. He rides a horse that does not eat and a banner that does not rot, and his lieutenants stopped asking questions years ago. He is precise on a battlefield and indifferent off of it.
Necromancer
Kethash earned his epithet in the long mortuary-libraries of Eshkar, where he is said to have waited eleven years for a single book to be returned to him. He keeps no familiars and no apprentices, considering both a liability. The dead do as he asks because he asks them politely and exactly once.
Lich
Morrigane crossed over in her own laboratory and did not bother to clean up the body afterward, on the grounds that she would not be using it again. She speaks in a voice that frosts the inside of helmets and is courteous to anyone who survives a conversation with her. She is not, by her own insistence, dead — merely uninterested.
Wight-Lord
Azrenoch held a marcher fortress on the wrong side of a peace treaty and refused, in the end, to come down off the wall. His banners hang in the same hall they hung in when he was breathing, and the local farmers leave wine at the gate on the anniversaries. He is said to remember every face that climbed his ladders.
Necropolis is built around two mechanics: raise-dead and skeletal-transformer economy. Every fight that produces enemy corpses produces Necropolis units, so the army gets bigger after every win. Early-game caution is essential; the tier-one and tier-two stacks are not impressive in isolation, and a single bad early week can crater the snowball. Once the lich tier is online the magic game opens up — curses, drain life, animate dead — and the faction begins to convert opponents' losses into its own gains. Worst matchup is Temple, whose dispel and resurrect lines directly counter the raise-chain; best matchup is anyone who insists on attritional fights.
Temple. The defining enmity — Temple's existence and Necropolis's method cannot share a continent indefinitely.
Sylvan. Detested but secondary — Sylvan reads necromancy as a rot in the substrate.
Hive. Strangely compatible — the Hive's leavings make excellent raw material, and the Conclave has tested the boundary.
Rampart. Avoided rather than fought — Rampart's holdfasts are not worth the campaign, yet.
Dungeon. Quiet correspondence — both sides keep scholars in each other's libraries and pretend not to.