Overview
Mortuvians are half-undead remnants: souls forcibly tethered to failing bodies by accident, defiance, curse, or incomplete ritual. Neither fully alive nor fully gone, they wander Postremo Limine with the aura of a corpse and the mind of a survivor.
Some say Mortuvians were meant to be erased, but clung too tightly to existence. Others believe they are the byproduct of failed resurrection rites, rejected by the cycle and cast into Postremo Limine as punishment, containment, or unfinished mercy.
Their bodies are gaunt, partially skeletal, and animated by necrotic vigor. They carry darkvision, resistance to decay, and a cold awareness of nearby death. Some emit a corpse scent that warns predators, scavengers, and allies before they arrive.
Despite their appearance, Mortuvians are not mindless undead. They are cunning scavengers, bonecrafters, graverobbers, corpse-guides, and memory harvesters. Their breath carries remnants of entropy, manifesting as rot, frost, or soulburn expelled from lungs that should no longer work.
To outsiders, they are omens of death. To themselves, they are proof that even rejection can become survival.
Physical Traits
Mortuvians are medium humanoids with gaunt, skeletal, or corpse-thin frames. Many appear partially mummified, half-decayed, or stitched back together by forces that did not care about comfort.
Their skin is pale, faded, gray, bruised, or corpse-blue, often stretched tight over bone. Some possess exposed bone features, ossified ridges, rib-like growths, or external skeletal plating across the limbs, spine, chest, or shoulders.
Their eyes are usually dim, hollow, or coldly luminous. Some glow faintly in darkness, while others appear clouded like old glass.
Mortuvians often possess long tails, sometimes prehensile, bone-tipped, or wrapped in cloth, scrap, prayer cords, or burial ribbon. These tails may be used to retrieve small objects, brace against uneven ground, or manipulate tools.
Their voices are hollow, dry, and rarely raised. When they speak, it often sounds as though the words are passing through an empty chamber.
Their breath visibly mists in cold air regardless of temperature. In some Mortuvians, this mist appears black, blue-white, gray, or faintly luminous depending on the nature of their grave-breath.
Many Mortuvians carry the smell of old soil, incense, ash, rot, or sealed tombs. Some hide it with oils, grave herbs, or soul-repelling incense.
Culture
Mortuvians rarely form large structured civilizations. Instead, they gather in small packs, grave-circles, corpse camps, scavenger crews, and quiet enclaves near places where death collects.
Their communities are often built in abandoned crypts, ruined clinics, battlefield remains, collapsed churches, ossuaries, bone markets, and cold tunnels where the living rarely stay long.
Mortuvian culture is quiet, reflective, and deeply concerned with what remains after death. They do not always fear decay. Many see it as release, transformation, or the final freedom denied to them.
Emotions among Mortuvians are often muted, but not absent. Grief, memory, quiet joy, bitterness, loyalty, and dark humor are common. They may not express emotion loudly, but they feel the weight of existence with painful clarity.
Ritual adornment is common. Mortuvians decorate themselves with etched teeth, bone beads, ribwraps, ancestor scraps, grave coins, corpse-thread, and fragments taken from those who mattered to them.
They burn incense to repel soul anomalies, mark safe routes, warn others away from dangerous remains, or soothe the restless dead. Some incense trails are used as silent messages between Mortuvian packs.
Mortuvians often believe that decay is not the enemy. To them, decay means release. The true horror is being trapped between endings.
Some claim Mortuvians dream only of the moments before they died. Each time they sleep, they wake slightly different, as though the memory of death continues rewriting them.
Abilities
Mortuvians possess half-undead resilience. They are resistant to disease, decay, pain-based anomalies, energy drain, and many mind-affecting effects. Their bodies do not respond to injury or corruption the way living flesh should.
Their Corpse Sense allows them to detect corpses, dying beings, gravely wounded creatures, and heavy concentrations of death within a short radius. This sense functions through scent, pressure, soul residue, and instinct.
Their Breath of the Grave allows them to exhale necrotic force in the form of rot, frost, corpse-smoke, or soulburn. The damage is usually not overwhelming, but it can disrupt weakened enemies, contaminate wounds, or stagger those already close to death.
Many Mortuvians possess a prehensile tail capable of retrieving hidden tools, manipulating small objects, holding wrapped items, or assisting with balance.
Their skeletal resistance makes them difficult to damage with slashing, piercing, or glancing blows. Bludgeoning force is more effective, as it can crack bone plating, collapse brittle structures, and disrupt their undead frame.
Mortuvians are most vulnerable in natural sunlight. True sunlight weakens them severely, causing sluggish movement, pain, confusion, and an inability to fight properly. Artificial light does not produce the same effect, though radiant relics may vary.
They are physically fragile compared to stronger predator races, but they are difficult to kill outright. A Mortuvian may collapse, break, and continue crawling long after a living body would stop.
Relationship to Postremo Limine
Mortuvians occupy an uneasy place in Postremo Limine. Many settlements distrust them on sight, seeing them as walking plagues, grave-thieves, or failed undead.
Despite this, Mortuvians are useful in places where death has power. Diver crews may hire them as corpse-finders, battlefield scavengers, bonecrafters, memory harvesters, crypt guides, or handlers of cursed remains.
They are dangerous when allowed near the wounded. Their grave-breath can worsen injuries, disrupt healing, or panic already weakened allies. Their corpse sense also makes hiding the dead from them extremely difficult.
Mortuvians are known to weaponize remains: bones, flesh, teeth, grave ash, marrow, and sometimes soul fragments. To them, this is not always desecration. It may be survival, craft, or memorial use.
Most undead-affecting relics behave unpredictably around Mortuvians. Some harm them, some fail entirely, and others react as though they are both target and wielder.
Mortuvians rarely seek open conflict, but they are excellent scavengers, ambushers, and survivors. They prefer cold routes, abandoned passages, corpse-heavy zones, and places where others hesitate to follow.
Entities generally treat Mortuvians like any other race of Postremo Limine, though death-oriented Entities may react to them strangely. Some ignore them as already claimed. Others pursue them as unfinished work.
A Mortuvian is not death itself. It is what happens when death fails to finish the sentence.