The Southern Kingdoms

How terrible enough to work as a menial serf all of your life – only to find the process revisited upon you after your passing. Such seems common in these ‘Southern Kingdoms’, really a series of fiefdoms carved out by powerful necromancers between whom there is a fragile detente. And the damndest thing is that – as many of them are themselves already undead – there is little chance of respite from a sympathetic or incompetent heir.

• Sergei Manbear On My Travels Through the South (1941 A.T.)

Travelling far enough to the south, you will find yourself in a land where the fields are kept and the mines are worked by the walking dead. In some areas, these undead labourers are made from the bodies of those who, having lived their life, have given over their corpses to the state for use in these roles (although the nature of such things dictates that such is expected, rather than strictly voluntary). In others, criminals (or in a pinch, those who are deemed to be criminals) work after their death in labourer roles, and those more in favour to the local necromancer king either find the solace of rest, or more lauded positions as intelligent undead. While mindless undead can be directed to do simple tasks, complex crafting requires intelligence and the ability to create.

In truth, this is not one nation at all, but a number of them. They are the Southern Kingdoms – multiple discrete nations carved out by self-styled necromancer monarchs. Although some are more generous rulers than others, their domain over the dead most often comes from a desire for absolute control – and an utter lack of patience for those who would slip the careful web of authority that they maintain.

Geography

The Southern Kingdoms are bordered to the north by the Atair Desert, a large but navigable desert in the rain shadow of the Great Range of Atha, a mountain range that stretches most of the way up to Splishenfellow. Although the desert doesn’t follow the mountain range all the way north, it is broad enough to prevent northern aggression against the necromantic lands. To the south of the Southern Kingdoms, a gulf provides free range of the seas for several tropical nations who maintain their borders against the necromancers jealously. Further south even than this, thick jungle prevents the ingress even of the undead – the locals know how to navigate the jungle’s perils, but the shock troops of an ambitious necromancer have no such knowledge.

The Eastern Ocean hems the final border of the Southern Kingdoms neatly. Some of the kingdoms, which maintain trade with other nations, employ living sailors to carry trade goods and foodstuffs along the coastline. Although ships flying the flag of this bloc of nations are treated with suspicion, the quantity and quality of the goods exported is sufficient that ‘suspicion’ is the upper limit to the aggression that such nations show to these vessels. In turn, the Southern Kingdoms import foods and luxury goods that help to keep their living populations appeased.

There are rumours, of course, of pirate vessels that emerge from deep fog, their crew immune to arrow-shot as their vital processes have ceased years before. Such vessels are said to sink any ship they come across to the depths of the sea, and then send their undead crew down to recover any valuables or trade goods – but of course, if no survivors were left, who would there be to tell the tale?

The Southern Kingdoms are, in order of size of controlled lands:

• Anjar
• Xalia
• Rossen
• Najail
• Winrook
• Vhail
• Llast

Culture

Although it would be reductive to claim that all of the bloc of Southern Kingdoms shared a single set of cultural touchstones, there are some commonalities between them. Within the region, worship of Jerroh is restricted, and worship of Stasa encouraged. Most of the other gods have their advocates and detractors, although Astrid, as the demigod of thieves, is still quite strictly forbidden (as even the necromancers like to retain all of their possessions, and guard some of them quite jealously).

Art that emerges from the Southern Kingdoms tends to be highly classical in nature, with accurate and literal depictions of objects and scenery. Music seems to come in two groups; the more ‘cultured’ appreciating carefully paced numbers evoking a Golden Age aesthetic of order and control, and the music of the people, which seems more vibrant, chaotic, and desperate to prove its life. Perhaps fittingly, there is a popular underground movement that has arisen in the last twenty years or so, celebrating ‘The Grinning Fox’, a folk hero whose deeds have inspired others to stand up to the undead and their masters.

Serfdom and slavery do not formally exist in the Southern Kingdoms, a fact that emissaries of the Kingdoms never fail to bring up when meeting with nations that disapprove of their necromantic ways. Menial toil is undertaken by the mindless undead, who need neither food nor rest to complete their tasks. This said, the inhabitants of the Southern Kingdoms have little by way of control over their day to day lives; most are not permitted to travel, few are permitted training in a craft or trade that was not selected for them by undead overseers, and upon death, one way or another, most end up joining the menial workforce.

Population

The Southern Kingdom is fairly diverse in terms of species, although they have few trolls, ogres, or other giant-kin; the trolls, being difficult to corral in life, become no easier to do so after death, and so they are driven away or simply killed, and most other giants find the southerly climate too warm to be comfortable. Beyond this exception however, most of the peoples familiar to the Lakes District have some representation, though the different environment can sometimes mean that there are some fundamental differences in culture.

Perhaps more unusual, something about the Southern Kingdoms has created an unusual effect in a portion of its population; a tendency toward yellow irises. This trait shows up most often in those with a natural predisposition toward spirit sense, and, at least within continental Ariel, seems to be unique to something about the Southern Kingdoms, as only people from that location have this trait with any regularity.

Authored by: Andrew Dunlop
Fantasy Alive Lore Team 2026
Copyright © Endless Adventures Ontario