The Undead Horde 2020

The Undead Horde in 2020 had little autonomy, being ruled and controlled by The Nite Qing.

Although with little conscious effort to do so, the 2020 Undead Horde loosely worked together to achieve the goal of acquiring The Iron Tome and feeding their endless hunger for the living.

The Undead Horde sought to amass as much Literomantic Power as possible, to prevent the living houses from gaining the Iron Tome. And also, they wanted brains.

The Undead Horde first appeared on the scene in modern history in November of 2020, during an annual event called the Game of Tomes, an event for literomancers of ancient Houses in which they continued to practice their literomantic skills, although much reduced from what they had once been. A being known as The Nite Qing appeared and began killing both literomancers, and non-literomancers, and sending them against the living. At the same time, magic suddenly recovered its ancient potency. The prevalent theory as to why is that the Iron Tome awakened from a period of dormancy or hibernation.   With the world having been completely unprepared for zombies and magic, a zombie apocalypse quickly ensued. In most places, civilization collapsed in a few short weeks. Undead, during this first appearance, tended to mindless killing machines, even the Tome Zombies. There were, however, notable exceptions, such as the famous broadcast of AuthorGoddess' popular internet talk show Let's Talk!, in which an undead RPGDinosaurBob called the program to assure living viewers that "undead were just like everyone else." Cold- and darkness-based powers appeared to be fairly common among them.   The literomancers decided to fight the rising threat, but mostly, they were just a bunch of struggling writers, with no military training and few, if any, combat skills, so their initial resistance was weak at best. Military forces, lacking magical powers, were also ineffective as a whole.   The most effective land-based resistance was organized by Sable Aradia, leader of House Lapin, who was a military science fiction writer and a military wife as well as a literomancer. But the forces she amassed, including as many surviving literomancers as she could find and the remnant of the Canadian Armed Forces, were overrun, though they managed to hold out until the last week of what is now known as The First Word War.   Salvation came from House Mollusca, an ancient civilization of aquatic literomancers who had been dwelling quietly beneath the surface of the ocean for perhaps millennia. They provided refuge for fleeing literomancers during the course of the war, and martialed their magical defenses.   As the only House Leader to survive the fall of her House, Sable Aradia led her surviving people to The Zafforza Trench to join House Mollusca in their fight. The living forces made their final stand at the Trench, and defeated the Nite Qing, who turned out to be some kind of demonic being that had possessed Erin Righ, Sable's husband. The Horde, no longer controlled, began to disperse.   Coffee Quills, Leader of House Mollusca, wrote in the pages of the Iron Tome, which was rumoured to be able to change the very nature of reality, to Resurrect the dead. While this was effective, it also altered the coastlines and water levels of the Earth, resulting in The Restructuring.   The Iron Tome was subsequently sealed in an undersea vault in a hidden location, never to be used again. Or so the world thought.

November 30, 2020

In the year it first appeared, the Horde was made up primarily of millions of mindless, hungry zombies who attacked the living, seeking to satisfy their hunger for brains. They spread rapidly and relied on overwhelming swarm tactics.   A small number of Tome Zombies — undead literomancers — seemed to serve as a loose kind of "officer," in that they assisted the Nite Qing in his quest for world domination. Tome Zombies were more likely to display some autonomy and intelligence, and were also more likely to manifest as other undead, such as ghosts or vampires.  

The forces of the Undead had access to all modern writing and military equipment.

The Horde had no friends. The entire world was terrified by them.