Death's Embrace
Ervenian Era, 1051 AB
Death’s Embrace is the necrotic seat of power for Orrual. Nestled in the frost-bitten, volcanic caldera of Mungoth, this realm is equal parts mausoleum and laboratory—a timeless tomb that is also the greatest repository of necromantic lore in existence. To the living, it is a place of certain doom; to the undead, it is a paradise of stillness, preservation, and cold eternity.
From its frost-encrusted gates to its bottomless ossuaries, Death’s Embrace is suffused with Orrual’s signature blend of arrogance, perfectionism, and callous curiosity. Every structure, corridor, and sealed vault exists to serve the dual purposes of knowledge preservation and experimentation on life’s threshold.
When Orrual manifests in Death’s Embrace, it is often as a massive, floating skull wreathed in cold-burning green or blue fire. His voice echoes through the stone as if whispered by every corpse at once. To his followers, this manifestation is both a reward and a test—his arrival may signal divine favor, a new experiment, or their immediate conscription into undeath.
Geography
Death’s Embrace clings to the jagged basalt ridges of Mungoth’s inner caldera, where superheated geysers meet permafrost winds. The exterior resembles a titanic, half-frozen necropolis carved directly into the volcanic cliffside, with bridges of black ice spanning bottomless chasms.
Inside, the air is unnaturally still, motionless even when a door opens and bitterly cold, as if every breath drains vitality. The architecture fuses Menedynn imperial grandeur with ossuary minimalism: vaulted ceilings lined with skeletal reliefs, bone-latticed windows that shed pale necrotic light, and stonework inlaid with gemstones of unnatural hues (black, maroon, vivid slime-green).
Notable Locations
The Ossuary Spire
A spiraling tower of frozen bone rising above the caldera’s rim. Here, the souls of long-dead necromancers are bound into crystal phylacteries, their knowledge endlessly catalogued by tireless skeletal scribes.The Crypt Laboratories
Endless stone corridors filled with vivisection tables, alchemical pits, and soul-binding apparatus. Mortals who arrive here unwillingly become “research subjects”; undead who enter willingly are granted experimental augmentations.The Seven Seals Vault
A sealed necropolis said to hold the remaining five Immortality Rites that Orrual has yet to reveal to his faithful. Each seal is guarded by an undead horror unique to Death’s Embrace, created from the corpses of Outsiders slain in Orrual’s service.The Bloodrose Conservatory
A domed chamber warmed by geothermal vents, growing an orchard of blackened, thorny vines. These bloodroses bloom only in the presence of great necromantic workings, and are considered holy omens by Orrual’s faithful.Inhabitants
Petitioners
The souls of Orrual’s faithful arrive here already stripped of warmth, flesh, and breath, manifesting as skeletal servitors or preserved cadavers. They retain their intelligence and are assigned scholarly, archival, or experimental duties for eternity.Undead Nobility
Liches, graveknights, and mummified magi from across the planes maintain courts of frost-bitten grandeur, vying for Orrual’s favor with gifts of rare corpses and forbidden spells.Fiendish Allies
Mungoth’s native Mezzofiends occasionally visit Death’s Embrace to trade in soul-fragments and necrotic condensates. Rumor claims the Pale Accountant of the Daemon Lords holds permanent residence here during certain Gehenna “Market Years.”Trait Type |
Description |
|---|---|
| Gravity | Standard, though some vaults and libraries are suspended in null-gravity chambers for corpse preservation. |
| Time | Timeless with respect to age, hunger, thirst, and natural healing for undead creatures. The living do not heal naturally while within Death’s Embrace. |
| Shape & Size | Infinite |
| Morphic Traits | Divinely Morphic (Only deities, or demigods can alter terrain) |
| Elemental Energy | None Dominant |
| Alignment | Neutral Evil. |
| Magic | Neromancy spells are automatically maximized and empowered; Conjuration (Healing) spells might fail unless cast by Orrual's direct servants. Spells that restore life (raise dead, resurrection, true resurrection) automatically fail unless powered by divine intervention from a deity hostile to Orrual. |
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