Grim Court | Eldranis | LegendKeeper

Grim Court

The High Necromancer holds absolute authority. The Dread Council oversees major rituals and secret missions, and Bone Wardens command undead forces.

High Necromancer — Malakar Thorne directs rituals and decisions.
Dread Council — Senior necromancers who advise the leader and oversee major operations.
Bone Wardens — Magically bound enforcers who lead undead armies.
Acolytes of the Grave — Trainees, death priests, and cultists who gather sacrifices, perform lesser rituals, and maintain undead forces.

Death magic — Raise undead, bind spirits, manipulate life forces, and sell curses or resurrections.
Acquisition — Recover necromantic relics and occupy catacombs and crypts.

Expand contacts among underground cults and corrupt Altoria officials.
Acquire relics from the Veins of Altoria and convert more crypts into strongholds.

Find further means of immortality and transcend death.
Raise an undead army to control regions of Pallasia.
Perform a cataclysmic ritual to blur life and death in Altoria and dominate living souls.

Corrupt mages, disillusioned scholars, nobles seeking immortality, and cultists join for knowledge or protection. Many senior practitioners have studied death magic for centuries.

Prove mastery of necromancy, dark rituals, or forbidden knowledge.
Swear the Covenant of Bones.

Forbidden magic, ancient relics, and knowledge of lichdom and other paths beyond death.
Underground resources, undead servants, and assassins.

Obey the Court and participate in sacrifices, undead raising, and ceremonies.
Contribute necromantic knowledge and remain absolutely loyal.
Betraying the Covenant of Bones brings immediate death.

Rite of Ascension — A dangerous rite often sacrificing a powerful soul. Survivors are said to gain greater necromantic power and an ability to cheat death.
Covenant of Bones — Members sacrifice a living being and bind its bones into a loyalty sigil. Betrayal kills the oath-breaker.
Black Communion — Senior members consult long-dead necromancers and death gods for knowledge and guidance.

Malakar Thorne — The High Necromancer uses lichdom to accumulate magical knowledge and influence over the living and dead.
Nyssa Valen — A Dread Priestess specializing in soul-binding and spirit communication.
The Bone Warden — An ancient skeletal warrior bound to the Court who commands its undead armies.

Ravenmark Cabal — trades death-magic knowledge and sometimes joins powerful rituals.
Black Veil — obtains rare ritual components in exchange for curses and dark magic.
Ebon Inquisition — hunts Court members in its campaign against necromancy.
Imperial Academy of the Arcane — seeks to regulate the Court’s dangerous practices, though it does not reject necromancy outright.

The Sepulcher of Whispers is a hidden fortress carved into caverns beneath Altoria, protected by wards and undead servants. Its precise location near forgotten catacombs or abandoned crypts remains rumored.

The Court conducts major rituals there. Only trusted initiates can pass its wards; trespassers are said to disappear.

History

Necromancers expelled from the Imperial Academy of the Arcane for dangerous death-magic experiments founded the Grim Court centuries ago. They recruited others seeking immortality and control of souls, surviving persecution through hidden bases and underground contacts.