Search the Community

A new campaign I'm about to start has the evil nation next door relying heavily on skeleton labour, both as menial labour and cannon fodder for the armies of darkness. I haven't really fleshed out the economics. (There's a skeleton/zombie gag in there somewhere.) So I thought I might do so here and get any feedback and suggestions people might have. Kemet (The Black Land) Why yes, I have decided to make the necromantic kingdom fantasy Egypt. Think a wide, terrible desert with one life-giving river flowing through it. There's still plenty of live subjects in the kingdom. They still carry out some of the menial work. But I see most of them as doing more complex work, including overseeing gangs of skellies as they work the fields, dig the mines, and drag huge blocks of sandstone to build pyramids, etc. Any sort of skilled labour still requires living people. I figure there's plenty of people who, wanting to advance themselves in society, study necromancy. I envisage whole schools set up for the study of it. Many of the graduates will never amount to much more than middle management roles, overseeing work gangs, and helping make wands of skeleton control. There's also embalmers and doctors for the undead. The large number of low level necromancers allows for economy of scale when it comes to these minor, yet crucial, necromantic industries. So (living) people make a vital contribution to the economy this way. Another crucial thing the living contribute to the realm is death. After all, the best source of dead people is live people. All citizens can look forward to being rewarded with some form of extended life after they die. Those who just did their job but no more can expect a few centuries as skeletons before shuffling off to their afterlives. Better service in life leads to better rewards in undeath. Up to a point Kemet is a meritocracy. There is still a royal family. One cannot become a member of the royal family unless one is born into it or marries into it. But any office lower than that is open to anyone qualified. The very best necromancers will go on to rise into the ranks of the nobility. Naturally the nobility are all necromancers and/or undead. As for the royal family, all members can expect to be mummified and get to live eternally within the many palaces (necropalaces?) that dot the hills overlooking the river valley. Obviously there's been attrition over the centuries but there's still thousands of undead making up this family. The royal family is headed by the Eternal Pharaoh, the many times ancestor to the current, living generation. He or she (no-one is sure any more) rules over the kingdom from deep within their Great Pyramid, handing out decrees that are enforced by the bureaucracy of liches, vampires, and mummies. Any suggestions or just random musings welcome. (I've cross-posted this from the GitP world building forums)