Odin/Necrosiege

Necromantic Siege Tactics and Devices

Fire Skulls

These simple siege weapons are nothing more complicated than flying, flaming skulls that explode into liquid flame when shattered. To make a batch of these terrors, ten skulls must be cleaned and filled with pitch, then sealed with wax and a linen fuse rag. Several sets of wings are then attached to the skulls, which are placed upon special soulsteel racks holding ten skulls each. The skulls are then animated by casting Walking War Machine or its Labyrinth or Void counterpart. Whenever the skulls are lit, they rise from the racks and converge on a single target as directed by the animating necromancer, though this target must be within 100 yards of the staging ground for the skulls, lest the weapons burn away their own wings before reaching the target. The skulls do the same fire damage as simple fire arrows and will ignite anything flammable in their final explosion.

Corpse Harvester

One of the most plentiful battlefield resources available to a necromancer are corpses. This undead war machine was designed to harvest the dead without tying up squads of foragers and laborers who could be better used elsewhere. By attaching dozens of limbs ending in iron hooks to the corpse of a yeddim, a necromancer creates a massive, lumbering beast of burden capable of harvesting dozens of fresh corpses at a time. By replacing the eyes of the beast with the heads of carrion birds the necromancer instills an innate instinct to seek out the resonance of decay that wafts from the dead. Once the harvester is released onto a battlefield or other scene of mass slaughter it slowly wanders the area, picking up cadavers of all kinds with its hundreds of iron hooked limbs, passing them onto its back where still more hooks latch into the dead flesh, holding its cargo in place. A single harvester can carry between 40 and 50 man-sized corpses at a time, plus around a hundred pounds of smaller pieces, such as severed limbs or small animal corpses, per ten large corpses. Once fully loaded the beast will return to it’s holding pen where it can be easily unloaded.

Harvester Ballistae

These fearsome weapons are used to break massed formations of infantry on the battlefield. Designed like gigantic crossbows, harvester ballistae fire three ten-foot long harpoons at a time. These harpoons have the same statistics as warstrider long bows firing broadhead arrows with a Strength of 10, and take five turns to reload. A single harpoon may pierce as many as four soldiers before finally falling to the ground, anchored by newly dead flesh. This is when the skeletal arms grafted onto the blunt ends of the iron harpoons animate and earn these grizzly devices their harvester moniker. Slowly but surely the four arms of each harpoon drag the fully laden weapons back to the firing platforms of the ballista, dragging several corpses each in tow. Though not terribly efficient (the harpoons take an entire scene to return and many are so badly damaged as to lose their animation) the continued use of harvester ballistae in an extended battle or siege can show a significant return of resources with minimal effort.

The Hundred Wells Plague

Many necromancers have lamented the limited intelligence of undead corpse harvesters, whether they be hordes of shambling zombie laborers or massive corpse-machines designed for such a purpose. This technique was pioneered by clever necromancers searching for a use for dozens of rotting animal carcasses, dead cats, dogs and smaller animals returned to the workshop by mindless servitors whose only command was to harvest corpses. By desiccating dozens of small animals in special salt vats, a necromancer is able to instill a sense of undying thirst upon the resulting necrodrones. Once the drones have been separated after the animation process, the foul little creatures seek any nearby source of pure water and crawl bodily into the wells, springs and rain barrels of nearby settlements. It doesn’t take long for cholera and other diseases spread by the tainted wells to infect large swathes of farmland and villages. Many a magistrate has been horrified to find a vicious animated raccoon or monkey glaring up from the bottom of a tainted well.