The Old City

Buried beneath the Mad Queen's Palace, buried by time and earth and historical revisionism, is the Old City, called in contemporary annals the Nameless City, called by its modern populace the City of Ghouls.

In the years between the great flood and the rise of Rome, there ruled an empire unparalleled. They were called the Assyrians, and their armies marched from the Sea of Monsters in the west to the Wall of Heaven in the east, and their fleets brought ruin to the Children of the Sun beyond the Boiling Waters, and their palaces were buttressed with the skulls of their enemies, and their streets were lined with the shattered statues of enemy gods, and they were great and terrible.

But no earthly power is enough for man, whose avarice is infinite. The Assyrians desired the power of the gods. They craved, above all, power over Death.

It was then that the Black Goddess came to them, as she came to the Romans before their fall, and as it is whispered she comes to us now. She came with a book of secret truths, hidden from man by the gods, those jealous guardians. From this book, the Assyrians learned and mastered a hundred sorceries. Chief among these magicks was that most highly sought by the kings: the secret to eternal life.

Of course there were wars and schisms, for few would abide the destruction of the natural order, an affront to the gods themselves. But many of the Black Goddess' followers survived, and she commanded them to build a great city beneath the sea cliffs of a place where certain eldritch stars shone on starless nights.

They built a city of the dead.

For a time, the king of this city reigned above all others. His armies were inexhaustible, the enemy dead swelled his ranks, he grew ever stronger while his enemies could only weaken. But this army of the hungry dead would never stop its march, so bottomless was its hunger. The dead, beyond the king's control now, bled their former kinsmen dry until the Assyrian empire, built on the bones and severed heads of the conquered, was itself ground into dust.

They made a wasteland, and called it peace.

And so there remained one city of the Assyrians, sole relic of a fading broken dream.

But the people of this city had long ago disavowed the gods, and now divine vengeance fell like the sword of Damocles upon them. The earth was scorched and salted, the seas emptied of fish, the rains would not come, disease struck the people. Everywhere was famine and sickness. The people were terrified, surely judgement was upon them and they had been found wanting. And in fear, the king turned back to the Black Goddess. And she told him of the Hidden Ones.

Before man, before earth, before the gods, there had always Been. The gods did not come from nowhere. All things had come from the roiling chaos of Before, and in this nowhere, there were hidden beings older than ancient. It was they who wielded true power. It was they who would save the city, not gods or men.

But such things come at a price.

Great temples were built and sacrifices made; hecatombs slaughtered and their blood drained into the maws of statues whose thirst could never be slaked, children cast into the open arms of flaming hundred-tendriled idols.

And the Black Goddess, pleased at the frenzied orgy of worship, touched the king with Death. "You will never thirst or hunger again. Illness will pass you by." She smiled a terrible smile. "You will grow fat from death".

Time passed and the prophecy proved true: the king felt no hunger, no thirst, and the plagues that stalked his city spared him. He knew he must act quickly to save his people. He begged the Black Goddess to minister her blessing upon the people, promised her anything, anything. She smiled again, and said no sacrifices would be needed. One by one, in the temples of the Hidden Ones, the Black Goddess blessed every man, woman, and child with Death.

And though the plague died away, and the people rejoiced, their praises to the king fell on deaf ears. Something was amiss. He could feel it. The pains and needs of life had been relieved, and yet a great hunger was growing in him. No food would satisfy it. No wine would drown it.

It was a hunger for the dead.

Horror mounted in him as he presided over the burial of those who refused the Black Goddess' gift. He could not keep his eyes from the bodies. They seemed to call to him.

It was then he knew what the Black Goddess had done. Before he could glut himself upon the corpses of his people, he ordered his tower sealed and sunk with him inside it.

Soon this same hunger gripped the people, but few chose the king's path, even in the face of such monstrosity. In the space of a week the city turned upon itself, the mausoleums were broken open, the graveyards excavated, the great tombs of the royal family looted for their lifeless plunder.

And so rose the Ghoul Kings, great and gluttonous, partite masters of this City of Ghouls. Deathless aeons and the devouring of the dead has made them monstrous, twisted creatures, and the "people" are little better - ragged beasts who bear only the trappings of civilization, noble necrophages, preying upon their past and eachother.

Anything to live.

This whole take on the undead is inspired by the wonderful ghouls detailed here.