Deathless

Their prayers cause flowers to wilt and animals to grotesquely mutate in the womb. They are ghosts of flesh, undying echoes of cultish monks, haunting the ancient monastery near Harbabureşti, the abandoned village in the forest, and the old ruins in the mountains.

SCANNING…

We see them, six centuries ago. Devoted to the worship of Lilith. She granted them immortality of a sort. She intended to use them as a counter to the Templar presence in the valley. Vlad Dracula discovered these cultists and wiped them out to a man. Yet, their worship of Lilith had given them transcendence from their physical forms. Their spirits were made perpetual upon the earth. Their undead souls gathered necrotic flesh of an otherworldly matter. And so they roamed the valley and spread their corruption.

Cucuvea, wise old owl-woman Cucuvea, devised a way to thwart such illimitable evil. Unable to put an end to their immortality and knowing that destruction of their mortal bodies wouldn’t stop their evil presence, she laid a curse to bind their souls to the places they had been killed. Strictly confined like this, they could do much less damage, and eventually their strength would weaken.

Over the centuries, their haunting diminished until they had all but faded away. Their physical prisons fell to overgrowth and eerie whispers, and their history was nearly forgotten except in some local stories. But now, as evil stirs in Transylvania again, the shadows of the twisted monks have taken form once more. Phantom flesh grows around their cancerous souls.

The barely corporeal forms of the Deathless are hidden beneath sackcloth robes, either blackened or bleached as if by a great heat. With their heads down and their hands folded in unholy prayer, they go about their endless patrol, hoping that Lilith will favour them once more.

Two forms of Deathless are found in Bacaş County. We see the Silent. They are the animate remains of the cultists who were massacred and burnt on pyres after the fall of the monastery. Beneath the robes, their forms are like furnace-hot steam, what little is left of their once-human bodies is now fused inside their slashed and bleached garments. A fine blood-mist surrounds them. They perpetually bleed from their robes. As a constant reminder of their fate, when the silent Deathless are vanquished, they burst into flames and fade into ashes. From these remains, they rise again and again, to a renewed, accursed existence.

We see the Chanting. They had escaped the sack of the monastery and village. They were driven from the valley and up to the old ruins in the Custurii mountains, only to die of exposure or fall to animal predation. Lilith’s curse drew their spirits dutifully back, and now their frostbitten remains perform endless reenactments of worship. Insane, yet pragmatic and focused, they long for the day their adored mistress will return with their promised rewards.

As long as all Deathless are still bound by Cucuvea’s curse, they are somewhat contained. But lo, sweetling — the power of the spell wanes! And with the land again awash in fell energies, the undead monks feed and gain strength. They gather around shrines and relics of their profane faith, unleashing their wretched influence upon the land. Empowered by their zeal and mass rituals, the Deathless are slowly shaking off their invisible shackles. At this rate, they will outlast the wise old woman’s hex.