Nuit
From Mizahar Lore
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Out of character note: In order to reflect the rarity of ancient Nuit, and to avoid conflicts with material still to be developed, new Player Characters may only play Nuit born after 500 BV, that is, about 1000 years ago. |
 Nuit, the Manyborn | |
| Height | Depends on current body |
|---|---|
| Weight | Depends on current body |
| Lifespan | Indefinite |
| Major features | Pale, dark bags under eyes, cold to the touch, black tongue |
| Abilities | Undead traits, move into new bodies, body does not heal |
| Population | 2,000 |
| Most common in | Throughout Mizahar, mainly Sylira and especially Sahova |
| Reputation | Feared and mistrusted |
| Racial gods | for some it is Uldr, god of the undead |
| Racial bonus | +10 Embalming |
The Nuit are a race of undead people who, born from the magic of man, can still spread their curse naturally. Among the many types of undead that make Mizahar their home, Nuit are considered to be the closest to the living, in that they do not experience cravings or bloodthirst, though they also lack the plethora of abilities that other undead possess. The Nuit occupy other creatures' corpses for a period ranging from months to years. These bodies degrade over time and will never heal when damaged, forcing the Nuit to jump into new bodies periodically, or be destroyed. They can also infect the living with their curse, turning them into Nuit; these two traits are the source of their bad reputation among other races. In truth, their personalities are as varied and complex as those of the living.
Contents |
History
Animation is the discipline of world magic responsible for the creation of the Nuit. This discipline can bind life to lifeless objects, ranging from simple, mindless instinct nailed into objects to more advanced golems and, for the very skilled, actual souls merged with virtually anything the wizard can think of. The ritual for creating the Nuit, named Daek-nuit, dates back to well before the Valterrian, and it is said that the sages of old knew much more powerful versions of it. Whether this holds truth or not, this knowledge is most likely lost forever.
History has forgotten the name of the wizard who invented the Nuit, but it is speculated that he was imparted the information by the god of the undead, Uldr himself. Magic at the time was still rough and unrefined, though. This nameless wizard probably recorded the method on a dark tome that has since been copied and modified many times. In later times, Animators such as Yovinkus Wotch and Zarik Mashaen turned the ritual into a much more scientific form. The instructions for the Daek-nuit are now available on the magical black market or libraries dealing in the forbidden. While the details might be available, the skill required for the ritual is by no means trivial, and only a master Animator could perform it with some success.
The Nuit are hardly a cohesive race, and some argue that they are not a race at all, as much as some kind of infectious disease. They are mostly scattered all over Mizahar, with the notable exception of the island of Sahova of Sylira. Five hundred Nuit wizards occupy the island, a magical research facility that is a repository of arcane lore like few others in today's world. The rest are wanderers, good or evil, searching for a meaning to their existence. They have no history; instead, they are looking for one.
Biology
Physical Appearance
The physical appearance of a Nuit changes with every body they occupy. They are not even limited to taking the body of a sentient creature, though they will almost never move into an animal. The main reason is that it is going to be extremely difficult to set up the next body jumping rite while inside the bodies of most animals. The only circumstance when a Nuit might consider moving into an animal would be out of necessity, and even then only with reassurances that someone else could prepare a new body for them.
Some Nuit will only occupy male or female bodies, depending on whether they consider themselves to still have a gender; these tend to be the younger Nuit, and many will stop paying attention to such details after a couple centuries. In general, any body will do if the Nuit is pressed for time or in urgent need of a new body.
The Nuit's internal organs are not functional, except for the brain which is necessary for their survival. A few Nuit who practice embalming even remove them without consequences except the deep cuts that this entails. They have no blood; instead, they possess a white ichor that is not pumped through the body. Losing ichor weakens them proportionally, and can kill them if the loss is too great. Ichor is regained through a deep, lethargic sleep that may span entire days or even weeks.
A body occupied by a Nuit soon adapts to their new host and undead condition. Dark bags develop under the eyes, which look dead and haunted. Their tongue turns black and they often lose weight over the first few weeks of using the new body. Both fat and muscle mass are lost; Nuit tend to be skinny and not very strong. In addition, their reflexes are somewhat sluggish, generally making them sub-par warriors. Their senses, on the other hand, are those of the body they occupy, and they may be able to retain some of the special abilities of their host body, albeit at a lower level. These things also degrade when the body needs to be discarded.
Common traits
The Nuit are undead, and as such they do not need to breathe, eat, drink or sleep. They are also immune to most poisons and many diseases, though poisons made to hurt the undead and diseases that simply destroy the body will still affect them. Note that they maintain their sense of touch along with the other senses, and as such they can feel sensations, including pain. They will never lose consciousness unless killed, though.
Nuit can be killed by cutting off the head, or by utterly destroying the body. In fact, because wounds cause them to lose their precious ichor, cutting them into pieces will often result in death.
A Nuit's body decays over time. Nothing can stop this process, though the healthier the body was, the longer this process takes. In general, a well-kept body will last a few months or longer, maybe even a full year before it needs to be replaced. Embalming increases a body's longevity. When patches of rotting tissue begin to litter the body, it is time for a change. Wounds never heal, and can never be healed, not even with magic. At best, the Nuit can be patched up so they do not fall apart. Serious wounds reduce a body's duration considerably. They tend to adopt a clean lifestyle in order to slow down their decay, unless they are confident in their ability to procure new bodies, in which case they can be very careless.
See Decay Rates for more detailed information.
Psychology
Other types of undead experience insatiable hunger that drives their existences, but the Nuit possess lucid, unclouded minds. This is not to say their condition does not affect their minds; on the contrary, it slowly shapes their thought processes, steering their mindset from their original race into that of an immortal being.
The living spend much of their time satisfying basic needs - sleeping and eating, or securing what they need to do so; most social interactions revolve around this. The Nuit have no such necessities, and since they do not crave human brains or blood, either, it means they have very little or no natural drive except when it comes to obtaining their next body. The prospect of eternity without a true goal can make even unlife tedious and repetitive, and indeed, the first cause of mortality among the Nuit is not the hatred of men or the claws of monsters, but suicide. Once the Nuit has experienced all he wanted to, he will often take his own life out of tedium and boredom. Those who do not commit suicide usually have some greater goal or activity driving them, be it curiosity or a grand quest that they feel they must accomplish. It can be as simple as entertainment or as ambitious as destroying a rival god.
The Nuit tend to be detached beings, looking at things from the viewpoint of eternity. Little can faze them, and they regard surprises as something unexpected and welcome. At the same time, though, they can be obsessively single-minded and dedicated to the one task that gives meaning to their unlife.
Their attitude towards others depends on the individual Nuit. They tend to be listeners rather than speakers, observant and likely to keep to themselves. Because of the static intensity of their gaze, the living are often left wondering if a Nuit is looking at them as potential bodies to be occupied. This is often correct, as the Nuit have a sharp memory and keep track of candidate bodies well in advance of their need to change.
Reproduction & Aging
A Nuit can survive indefinitely if it can move to new bodies regularly. Like other types of undead, millennia-old specimens are not hard to come by, provided they can escape racial hatred and the tedium of their own existence. Because of their body jumping habits, it is impossible to tell a Nuit's age by appearance alone. Mannerism and style of speech may be much more revealing in this respect.
The Nuit may only jump into dead bodies, though they may start hunting their prey while it is still alive. Regardless, they cannot enter a body whose soul still dwells within. The ideal body to move into is a healthy one, and as recently dead as possible; good storage can compensate for age. For example, on Sahova, Nuit wizards use cryonic methods to freeze bodies for later use. The less trauma on the body, the better. Damage to the brain will make a body totally unsuitable.
The transfer involves a ritual that lasts several hours, and leaves the undead exhausted. The destination body is arranged on a flat surface, with its mouth open. Runes are painted all over the target body, usually on the forehead, heart, hands, navel and feet. The knowledge to set up these runes is coded in the Nuit's mind as instinct, as is everything else about the ritual. The undead crawls on top of the target body and opens its own mouth. Slowly, ichor begins to drip from their mouth into the corpse. After several hours, the soul is finally expelled with the last of the Nuit's ichor, and flies into the new body, which will become functional in a matter of minutes. The undead will emerge highly weakened from this ritual, and it usually takes them a couple weeks to recover completely and synchronize with the new body.
Nuit can transmit their undead condition by letting someone else drink enough of their ichor, though success is not guaranteed, as the target can survive or just die and not become an undead. Generally speaking, the Daek-nuit performed by an Animator is the only reliable way to create a new Nuit.
Society
Social Structure
Nuit tend to be loners with little reason to form societies, unless they are emotionally attached to another Nuit. The biggest exception is Sahova, where almost five hundred Nuit coexist together as a single society. Even so, the Nuit do not often seek interaction of their own will, and have to be persuaded to do so. When they form societies, they are not loyal by temperament; they are the types to plot in silence for a long time, and carry out their plans when they are ripe for fruition. When the Nuit serve, it means they find it convenient or reasonable, or they do not have a choice. The Nuit are not good at leading others, except other Nuit; they are often unsympathetic and forgetful of the needs of the living.
Language
They speak whatever languages they knew in life, and any they might learn afterwards. Nuit are not partial to any one language, and do not inherit the languages of their host bodies (or any other mental abilities).
Names
Names are an interesting matter. The Nuit usually maintain their own name, which is often the one they used when they were alive. At times, though, they feel that their old name is inadequate to describe their new condition, as it was linked to their former body. In this case, it is not uncommon for Nuit to rename themselves to their liking, one or more times. Some Nuit change their names with each body they take, with some adopting the victim's identity, others using fantasy names to describe their new form. In an organized society such as Sahova, it is common for them to stick to one name, as it makes it easier for others to address and recognize them when their appearance changes.
Family Life
The Nuit have almost no concept of family. Old, mortal relationships are usually forgotten within a century or two, except maybe a great love which might even be the reason for one's unlife as a Nuit. It is not that the Nuit truly forget, as their memory is excellent, but they get more and more detached, to the point of their former life becoming irrelevant.
Occasionally a whole family turns into Nuit together. Relationships often grow colder in time, with brothers becoming little more than strangers after a few centuries. The other side of the coin is a relationship, especially one between lovers, taking on obsessive tints and extremes of jealousy. This feeling of belonging to each other becomes the drive that the Nuit need so badly.
Keeping family relations with the living is often difficult or impossible; most cultures despise the Nuit for their undead nature and corpse-stealing habits, and while they are allowed into many cities, it does not mean they are treated kindly. Having a Nuit relative is an embarrassing secret that might cause the family to be hated by the community. As such, families will regularly cut all ties to the undead member, considering them dead for all practical purposes.
Everyday Life
A Nuit's everyday unlife depends on how they choose to spend their time. Some keep themselves continuously busy, others take their time, knowing they have as much as they want. They see little difference between night and day, and if there is enough lighting to go by they will hardly understand the time of day. They typically allocate an hour each day to taking care of their body and checking it for defects.
Religion
There is no organized religion among the Nuit, though individual Nuit can worship any deity. Worship of Uldr, god of the undead, is commonplace though not universal among the older Nuit. The younger are still attached to their former selves and will, in many cases, retain their old gods. Several gods take exception to the Nuit's very existence; needless to say, these deities do not have many followers among them.
Informative Threads
| Information threads | ||
| Tarot's Soapbox | More information on Nuit Pt. 1 | |