Since the undead rising began, a few basic rules have made themselves manifest.

1. Killed by one, rise as one.

If you are killed by the undead, you rise as one a short period of time later. Generally the dead rise as simple zombies (or skeletons) but it’s not unknown for them to rise as the specific sort of undead that slew them.

2. Undeath is expensive.

Rising from the grave has no precedent in international law, so the dead lose all their wealth and possessions. Furthermore, the treatments–both medical and arcane–to sustain an undead body quickly add up, forcing many undead into servitude.

3. Entropy is inevitable.

The process of decay is somewhat arrested by rising, but it is not stopped. Cutting-edge mortuary science, often paid for by undead insurance brokers Ike Z-Surance, helps keep undead looking fresh and lifelike for as long as possible. It is also possible to prolong decay and dissolution for some time after looking lifelike is no longer possible. But if it takes days, weeks, or centuries, all undead eventually decay to nothing. No one knows what happens after that.

4. Conversion is possible.

A zombie can become a skeleton, a wight can become a lich, and many other “lateral” moves are possible. New undead are often strongly recruited, which has led to a certain cult like atmosphere in some undead mono-societies.

5. They’re all unholy.

Every major religion on Earth that existed before the rising has condemned the undead as foul, unnatural, and abominations. While some new religious movements sympathetic to the undead have arisen, they tend to be dismissed as cults. While some progress in undead rights has been made, primarily making it illegal to kill them in many circumstances, they remain on the whole shunned by religious and conservative people. Those religious and conservative folk who are reanimated almost always destroy themselves or go mad thanks to the inherent contradiction of their condition.

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