TheUndying

The Undying are the scourge of Arbos, incarnate servents of the Consumption. None are quite sure when the Undying came to be, but it is thought that they emerged shortly after the Consumption first spread through the system. The Undying life cycle is complex, and it has many interconnected stages.

The first stage is simply Consumption. Like any other disease, the Consumption is unthinking and cannot reason or formulate long-term plans. Most afflicted by Consumption linger and die after several years. Terrestials, however, experience a far different fate. While Exalted are normally gifted with a supernatural resistance to disease, the Consumption not only circumvents this immunity... it thrives within the body of an Exalt. Within weeks, the Dragonblooded will resemble a human in the advanced stages of the disease, until ultimately the afflicted Terrestial dies.

Several months later, the corpse will rise. This form is not a true Undying... it seems more like some form of lesser undead, a zombie. This undead seeks the energy of the living which it can no longer generate. It collects this energy by devouring human organs. While this horrible diet can put the creature in significant danger, it has enhanced speed and strength which cause it to be far more dangerous than any mere zombie. Likewise, it is a thinking and cunning hunter, intelligent enough to lay traps or wait in hiding.

These creatures are known as 'Broodlings', and the Undying collect them from the countryside they control. To the Undying, Broodlings are juveniles. Over a period of roughly a year and a half, the Broodling will survive on human organs, and they can persist quite easily in captivity as long as they are given a steady supply of food. At the culmination of the Broodling cycle, the Consumption has progressed within the vessel to the point where it is unique, having developed individual mutations over the gestation period. The vessel now appears to die, and the Broodling collapses as inert necrotic goo.

The Undying is now complete, though it does not have a body. It will infect any acceptable human host within range. If a host is absent, the Undying may linger upon the air and travel great distances. It does not need to infect a host immediately; Indeed, an Undying can linger if confined for many centuries and still remain infectious. When a host finally is infected, they become ill over the course of a few hours. Within a day, they begin to change. The Undying melts away any previous identity the host may have had, replacing it with its own. By the time two days have past, the transformation is complete, and the Undying is a mature adult.

An adult Undying finds sunlight uncomfortable; they display symptoms as if in the advanced stages of Consumption whenever the light of the twin suns falls upon them. In the evening, however, they have robust health. They heal as Exalted do and likewise enjoy a complete immunity to diseases of all types.

Undying learn 'Charms' that largely have to do with using the Conumption as a weapon and a tool. They may infect others to leach energy off of them from a distance; This is, in fact, how the Undying 'feed'. Most Undying have several dozen humans infected at any time, giving them easy access to large pools of essence. They may also create monsters with the Consumption, infecting human or animal hosts with varients that can give monstrous size or speed (Think Resident Evil here). Likewise, the Consumption can infect people to give the Undying mental control over them, allowing a vague equivelent to posessesion or Force Obediance.

The process of maturation for the Undying is not yet complete. As decades pass, the disease converts more and more of the host body into something... else. Exceptionally ancient Undying are magnificently powerful, on the scale of WoD Antediluvians.

While Undying hate to be 'killed', they are effectively immortal. No currently known method can permenantly slay one of these incarnate diseases. That said, infecting a new host begins the long process of maturation all over again, so the Undying greatly fear death. Even the most ancient Elder can be reduced to little more than a mewling newborn if the host body they have cultivated over millenia is destroyed.

The Undying are not known to show a particular interest in space travel, essence technology or Manse. They care only for an extensive human herd salted with the occasional Terrestial bloodline, so that they may persist and continue to flourish.