Ossuary Collaborative

The cabal is structured like a guild of scholars and magistrates. Its highest-ranking members, known as Curators, oversee vast crypt-vaults, ossuaries, and bone libraries hidden in forgotten catacombs or carved into necromantic sanctuaries. Beneath them are Archivists, Charnelkeepers, and Embalmists, each responsible for cataloging, studying, or maintaining undead under their purview.

Each member takes an Oath of Stillness, pledging to never use necromancy for personal gain or uncontrolled destruction. Breaching this oath results in severe punishment—often involving binding the offender into undeath under Collaborative control.

The Collaborative believes that the undead, whether sentient or mindless, constitute a distinct class of being with its own hierarchy, rules, and rights. They see necromancy as a discipline of precision and responsibility, not chaos. Their central dogma is known as "The Bone Concord"—a codified set of doctrines that outlines how, when, and why undead may be created, maintained, or destroyed.

They take particular offense at rogue necromancers, uncontrolled liches, and undead uprisings that violate the delicate “ecology” they believe must be maintained. To the Ossuary Collaborative, necromancy is not just magic—it is stewardship.

The Ossuary Collaborative functions quietly but decisively across borders. Members travel in secret, wearing bone-inscribed sigils and carrying permits called Death Mandates, which they claim grant them authority over wayward undead or illegal necromancers. Though most governments deny the Collaborative’s legitimacy, many turn a blind eye to their activities—especially when undead outbreaks mysteriously vanish overnight.

In places where their presence is tolerated, the Collaborative may maintain bone-chapels where funerary rites are conducted with eerie reverence, or ossuaries that serve as both research libraries and resting places for “retired” undead.

Among adventurers, the Ossuary Collaborative is spoken of in hushed tones. Some consider them ghoulish cultists masquerading as scholars. Others have seen firsthand their chilling effectiveness at eradicating necromantic threats or banishing a lich that had terrorized a region for decades.

Their methods are grim but efficient. Their morality, alien but unwavering. Whether seen as saviors or villains, the Ossuary Collaborative moves through the shadows with the weight of millennia of bones behind them—and an unshakable belief that undeath belongs to them alone.