The Undead Horde 2021

The Undead Horde was an absolute monarchy, ruled by the Night Monarch with an iron fist. However, whenever a Night Monarch is defeated, the new Night Monarch is "chosen" by the subconscious will of Literomancers. In many ways, it is much more democratic than any of The Great Houses.   The Nite Qing maintained a degree of influence in the 2021 Horde, however, and councilled the Nite Monarq on strategy and affairs of state.

Since the Nite Qing's reign, when a new Undead is welcomed into the fold, they are given a name by the reigning Night Monarch to represent their new status. This is often wordplay on their living name. The Undead also refuse to be bound by "living-supremacist spelling conventions."   The Undead revelled in being villains. They existed to defeat the living, and if anything, they wrote harder than they did as living Tome Knights. However, their villainy did not extend to each other. Their democratic structure made them fiercely loyal, and their thralldom to the Night Monarch assured that unlike in the living Houses, there was never any betrayal.   They also displayed considerably more autonomy than the previous Horde did overall. Many Tome Zombies were affected by The Filking Plague, which became integral to their social interactions with one another.   Some Undead, however, missed their living House of origin and longed to return to them. They still acted upon their sinister impulses — to eat the brains and blood of living Tome Knights, and devour their word-magic — but therein lay the tragedy. It was not uncommon for Undead to apologize even as they were feeding.

The Undead sought to destroy the living through their Literomancy and take The Iron Tome for themselves.

The Undead Horde first made its appearance in the First Word War of 2020. Their first leader was the Nite Qing Erin Righ. Although a zombie apocalypse and the restructuring of society was the result, they were ultimately defeated by the living. Upon their defeat, the Undead were all restored to life, and Erin Righ, no longer possessed by the spirit of the Nite Qing, joined House Chiroptera as its general.   In the aftermath of the apocalypse, society, for the most part, reorganized itself under the leadership of the literomantic Great Houses for mutual protection. As November approached, Zombie Summoning Totems began to appear near the seats of power of the Houses, usually in the form of plushies shaped like totem animals of one of the other Houses. Tensions mounted and conflicts began to break out between the Houses, and scattered rumours of returning zombies went mostly unnoticed, or were written off as the intended effect of the cursed plushies.   But AuthorGoddess, who had come to worldwide attention after reporting live on the First Word War, had apparently been chosen by the Nite Qing to succeed him, and she was responsible for the cursed items and stirring up conflict. Her Horde's attack on House Sauropoda on the 6th of November, therefore, took everyone entirely by surprise, and casualties were significant.   Prior to The Second Word War, Erin Righ disappeared. He was later confirmed to have returned to the Undead Horde, and was a significant player in its hierarchy.   AuthorGoddess implemented a new form of Dark Literomancy, in which Tome Zombies, rather than feeding directly on the life energy and thus, the magic, of dead literomancers, stole their Literomantic Power instead — though this often led to their demise through critical Magic Drain.   The Horde in the Second Word War did not display the same sort of affinity for cold that previous zombies had displayed, except for the Night Monarch herself, who seemed to have a mastery of runic magic and some power over storms of all kinds. They also began to display more free will overall, and even showed susceptibility to The Filking Plague that was sweeping literomancers in an epidemic.   This time, in the wake of having been pitted against one another, the spirit of alliance prevailed among the living forces. Pioneered by the alliance between House Tiki and House Sauropoda, whose House Leaders were friends, and echoed by the formation of the Babbit Alliance when Siobhan the Writer and Sable Aradia resolved their differences, the Great Houses banded together in what became known as the Grand Alliance. This time it was House Lapin who found themselves leading the last stand, and the Night Monarch was defeated on December 1, 2021. The dead were again resurrected when Sable Aradia wrote in the Iron Tome. What side effects this may have had on the nature of reality remain unconfirmed. Many suspect that this is what formed the Void.

December 2, 2021

The Undead Military was comprised of a variety of traditional and modern military structures, as well as magical and mystical forces. Their compliment has been known to include zombies, vampires, liches, death knights, and undead fossilized skeletons.

The Undead wanted to eat everybody, and everybody feared the Undead. They got along with no one but themselves.