Kal
Whispers
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Once upon a time, on a world long-forgotten, a civilisation rose and fell. Obsessed with death, revering and fearing it in equal measure, they pulled great wealth from the earth and erected cities that reached for the heavens, though they never crossed the Void-Between-Stars, never unlocked the secrets of the Hyperdrive through their own ingenuity or the visitations of galactic explorers.
To the best of their knowledge, their civilisation rose alone from the great void, the very lives they lived an implausible coincidence or act of divine providence - and when after long millennia they had exhausted the resources of their lone world, it fell into ruin and infighting.
Had it not been for the efforts of their Death Priests and Alchemists, scheming away in labyrinthian temple-cities, that would have been the last of their kind and nought would have remained but time-worn ruins. With centuries of work and unspeakable sacrifices, they cracked the ultimate riddle, fulfilled their Great Work, brought death itself to its knees - but in undeath, their need for life was greater than a lone world could provide.
Once more they would have faded into obscurity, had the precursors of the Ferrymen not risen from the ashes of despair and led the way into the very heart of death - the mythologised Netherworld, the sacred realm of the Gods of Death and Renewal and now the Hadeans themselves.
With the instability brought about by the God-Machine Omni's actions, many Hadean cities are once more abuzz with activity - and anticipation.
- Intent: Ferrymen to the Netherworld and creepy undead lurking in dark and forgotten places.
- Image Credit: Charon the Ferryman, Creepy People, Chickenman, and Examination by Jens Kuczware.
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: Masque (Common Destination)
- Name: The Hadeans, original name unknown.
- Designation: Sentient; Workers may be Semi-Sentient.
- Origins: The Netherworld, may have originated elsewhere.
- Average Lifespan: Undead; do not age or grow sick, but can be destroyed.
- Estimated Population: Rare (Hierarchs and Ferrymen) | Scattered (Workers, Warriors, and Artisans)
- Description: For most death is a full stop, the end of a tale, but for some it is only the beginning - in contrast to the spirits that populate much of the Netherworld, the Hadeans are yet anchored to forms of flesh and bone, though they do not necessarily keep much of who they were before. Only a few of the living ever visit their strange necropolises and emerge alive, though their Artisans can be found selling their wares in the cities of the Netherworld and the Ferrymen can be met in the strangest of places, ferrying dead souls and paying customers alike.
- Breathes: N/A, undead.
- Average Height of Adults: 1.9 metres
- Average Length of Adults: N/A, human equivalent.
- Skin Colour: Shades of grey and brown is the norm.
- Hair Colour: N/A, almost always hairless in their entirety.
- Distinctions: Skeletons, mummies, and desiccated corpses - in whatever form they take, Hadeans are almost always visibly dead. More often than not, they were once living, breathing beings of another species, though it is not unheard of for the Ferrymen to pluck a soul on its way to the afterlife and deliver it to a different body; some have even suggested that the Hierarchs have ways of creating more of their kind from the ground-up. Many Hadeans have a fondness for gold, incorporating it into jewellery and trinkets or even grafting it to their own bodies.
- Races: Hadean society is divided into a clearly defined caste system with minimal social mobility. In many cases, Hadeans are created to fill a role in a specific caste - this holds especially true for Workers, who only under the rarest of circumstances earn any self-determination.
- Workers: Least but most plentiful of the Hadeans are the Workers, hordes of labourers slaving away on the projects of their betters. It is not unheard of for them to be raised in great numbers for military purposes, usually serving as meat shields for more skilled Warriors.
- Warriors: The staunch defenders of Hadean society, the Warriors spend the aeons engaged in constant war games, competitions, and duels of honour; their grasp of modern technology is somewhat tenuous, but they compensate through resilience and skill at arms.
- Artisans: In many ways the beating heart of Hadean society, the Artisans record and communicate knowledge, direct labourers to build great works of architecture, forge the arms and armour of the Warriors, create exquisite works of art, and much, much more.
- Ferrymen: While common merchants may be found among the Artisans, the Ferrymen are much more than that; this closed society has been compared to the Force Orders of mortals, but concern themselves primarily with matters of commerce and transportation, not the conflict between Light and Dark. The skill with which they navigate the fickle "waters" of the Netherworld is the stuff of legend.
- Hierarchs: Most Hadeans know that power is meant for the hands of the few, not their grasping lessers, and even outsiders have been known to remark that the Hierarchs all but exude said power. These uncontested masters of Hadean society often style themselves with fanciful titles and tend to drift towards religious duties, feudal power ("Lord of the Skull Road"), or specialisation ("Prince of War/Lore").
- Force Sensitivity: High, varies by caste. All Ferrymen and virtually all Hierarchs are Force Sensitive, but the same cannot be said for Workers, who can only rarely access such power. Among the Artisan and Warriors, Force Sensitivity is neither common nor uncommon. Those of their kind gifted with the ability to wield the Force tend to have a strong aptitude for Necromancy, though it is still a learned skill.
- Undying Majesty: Due to their undead nature, Hadeans do not suffer from disease or senescence, are more resistant to harm than they were in life, need neither sleep nor nourishment,* and can in some cases be restored to "life" even after suffering horrible damage to their forms.
- Deathwalkers: Many Hadeans are able to navigate the boundary between life and death with relative ease, doubly so for the Ferrymen.
- Deathless Husks: The Hadeans are resilient but hardly invulnerable - many of their kind are quite flammable (if dried flesh remains) or rather brittle (if they are nought but bone). Various Force Abilities (notably Force Light), Sorcery, and Force disruption are all known to be effective.
- What Once Was: The Hadeans lost something in the interrupted transition from life to death; lower-caste Hadeans are often joyless husks all but devoid of creativity or initiative, while the elders of their kind have a sorry habit of falling ever deeper into insanity and idiosyncrasy.
- Diet: N/A; do not require nourishment,* but do require certain mystical energies so stay animate, e.g., life force or contact with a Nexus.
- Communication: The language of the Hadeans is complex, ritualistic, and incomprehensible even to most protocol droids. There are at least six distinct dialects, one is which is exclusive to religious purposes and one of which is spoken only by the Ferrymen; they are not necessarily mutually comprehensible. Many upper-caste Hadeans are polyglots - the Ferrymen seem more or less unimpeded by language barriers.
- Technology Level: Varies from group to group, but typically well below Galactic Standard, though exceptions do apply. Some fringe groups have begun incorporating cybernetics into their bodies, but the practice has not caught on in broader Hadean society.
- Religion/Beliefs: Hadean society is closely tied to elaborate religious practices, many of them concerned with death and mortality. The act of raising new Hadeans from the dead is often a religious ceremony. Various sects exist, many of which maintain obscure or arcane practices. It is common practice for the leaders of their kind to come from a religious background or fill religious roles despite a secular origin.
- General Behavior: Hadeans are nothing if not patient, the unique perspective of their deathless existence removing them further and further from what they held dear as mortals. Inexorable in death, they often choose to dedicate themselves wholly to the mastery of a specific craft or skill; with time, they can achieve a degree of skill unheard of among fleeting mortals - though their innovation is often limited.
- Hadeans in the Galaxy: Few are the places in which an the undead might find succour and so few are the places in which Hadeans dwell. More often than not, they tend to remain within the settlements their kind maintain in the Netherworld and in obscure corners of Realspace, though at times they can be found wandering or hibernating in dusty tombs. Ferrymen travel quite frequently.
- Rite of the Deathless: Little is known about how new Hadeans come to be except that the so-called Rite of the Deathless is performed by the Hierarchs and the Hierarchs alone (except when it's not, usually due to the Ferrymen recruiting someone directly). Most who join their ranks were once counted amongst the living, but in the transition the love and hate they felt as mortals tends to fade and wither.
- Legions of the Dead: When rarely the Hadeans march to war, theirs is not a force of floating war machines and soaring spacecraft but a great deathless host, numberless Workers marching mechanically alongside veteran Warriors and the occasional Hierarch.
- Seas of Death: According to myth the Ferrymen take their name from the great tomb barges on which they first guided their kind into the Netherworld, though in the modern era their method of traversing the vastness of the Netherworld has expanded in scope; it is far from unheard of to encounter a ferry, but Ferrymen are just as likely to use trains, suspicious elevators, or simply guide one on foot.
- Glittering Gold: The Hadeans are known to greatly favour abstract wealth - promises, memories, ideas - but are perhaps most famous for an at times peculiar lust for gold. Why they collect the metal is a mystery to most, but it is believed to be a central component of their own take on Alchemy and/or of some religious significance. Some have even speculated that it is used to anchor the soul to their undying bodies.
- Coins of the Ferrymen: The services of the Ferrymen - usually transportation to or from the Netherworld - can be bartered for, but if one prefers a more reliable solution the Coins come into play. This esoteric coinage of gold, silver, or blackened iron serve a different role from conventional currency; each Coin is "a price already paid" and virtually all Ferrymen will accept them in exchange for a more or less clearly defined service. One side carries the skull-sigil of the Ferrymen, the other the sigil of the issuing party, e.g., Greystone.
Once upon a time, on a world long-forgotten, a civilisation rose and fell. Obsessed with death, revering and fearing it in equal measure, they pulled great wealth from the earth and erected cities that reached for the heavens, though they never crossed the Void-Between-Stars, never unlocked the secrets of the Hyperdrive through their own ingenuity or the visitations of galactic explorers.
To the best of their knowledge, their civilisation rose alone from the great void, the very lives they lived an implausible coincidence or act of divine providence - and when after long millennia they had exhausted the resources of their lone world, it fell into ruin and infighting.
Had it not been for the efforts of their Death Priests and Alchemists, scheming away in labyrinthian temple-cities, that would have been the last of their kind and nought would have remained but time-worn ruins. With centuries of work and unspeakable sacrifices, they cracked the ultimate riddle, fulfilled their Great Work, brought death itself to its knees - but in undeath, their need for life was greater than a lone world could provide.
Once more they would have faded into obscurity, had the precursors of the Ferrymen not risen from the ashes of despair and led the way into the very heart of death - the mythologised Netherworld, the sacred realm of the Gods of Death and Renewal and now the Hadeans themselves.
With the instability brought about by the God-Machine Omni's actions, many Hadean cities are once more abuzz with activity - and anticipation.
Last edited:
