“ When the campfires grow dim, stories are told. Stories of lost cities, great heroes and legends of old. One of these is the story of Knurlheim. Once the proud capital of the Dwarfs, now a ruin- abandoned long ago. Filled with vast riches and treasure. It's secrets forgotten with the decline of the Dwarfs, long ago. No one knows is certain if it ever exsisted at all.”
“ The Jiangsi was the name of an undead being in Chinese folklore and mythology. Usually translated as zombie or vampire for Western palates, the Jiangsi was really neither. They appeared as simply risen, fresh corpses. They moved (peculiarly!) by hopping rather than walking, and sought out the living to suck the Qilife force from their victims.
Perhaps significantly more interesting than the Jiangsi itself, was the lore surrounding them. 'Zombie wranglers', or 'Corpse Herders', usually Daoist priests, were men tasked with delivering these undead beings back to their respective home towns. Tradition in China placed great importance and emphasis on the return of the dead to their homes and families, and thus the corpse herders came to be. By using magick words and talismans they would animate the dead, and by placing specially inscribed parchments of paper over the Jiangsi heads and faces, the corpse herders would be able to control the hopping corpses. Then like pied pipers, they would lead processions of subdued undead, across many miles, rhythmically chanting and ringing tiny bells.
Special inns were built across China to house these undead caravans, as the zombies could only travel by evening and night, the sun anathema to them. Rows of doors opening to barely a closet-space, lined the walls of these special establishments. Behind these doors, the corpses would be stored upright while the corpse herders rested in rooms.
The Jiangsi under the control of a corpse herder were quite harmless, merely hopping after him, silently and without complaint, for weeks and months. If however, the magicked parchment would somehow be removed from their faces, the creatures would immediately seek living humans to kill. Their thirst for Qi was unquenchable.
The job of a corpse herder was an interesting one to say the least.”
“ The Rhenn Plains are serene and peaceful, beautiful, and quiet as if nothing had ever had happened to it, hiding away it's violent present and past. During some time ago, the countries needed land to fight on, for they did not want war to come to their home, so they chose the Rhenn Plains, Armies met there and men died on the lands, so the land has been empty always. But now there has been set an outpost and they are beset by the goverments wanting to keep it free, will the soldiers of the barracks prevail, or fall trying?”
