Incorporeal Undead of Helca

Posted on December 21, 2025 in Steel-Realms

Incorporeal Undead of Helca have the standard properties of Non-Corporeal Undead of the iVerse.

The Winter Host no longer uses Non-Corporeal Ranks due to the difficulty of their control with the Cold Bargain.

Non-Corporeal Ranks of The Winter Host

Corporeal undead are far more easily controlled with the power of the Cold Bargain. Long ago, the Lich Lords tried to fill ranks of The Winter Host with specters, ghosts, and wraiths, but too many times these non-corporeal minions were able to slip from their grasp, even betraying their former masters in various ways. All specters were destroyed. The few ghost servitors that remain are kept as close guardians of the Lich Lords themselves.

b>Wraiths: Wraiths were long ago unchained and released upon the human lands – most were destroyed but a few haunt remote places; The wraiths created by the Lich Lords were powerful enough to command Will-o-Wisps, specters, and other spirits themselves, several keeping the eldritch pacts made that they went to their grave with, regaining them when they were risen as undead with the Cold Bargain.

Wraith Era of Kaald

CY 7000-7500 approx The “Wraith Era of Kaald” – Technically, the Wraiths driven out of the Lioch Lords realm in this time afflicted the lands of Kaald, the Grand Duchy of Rhyl, a few other NE areas of the Kingdom of Gladnor, a few eastern settlements of the Merchant Cities of the North and some of the Northern Hinterlands. The Lich Lords unchained the the majority of Wraiths and specters they can bound with the Cold Bargain, due to the attempt by these non-corporeal creatures to take control of other minions and rebel/betray their masters.

The Breath of the Wraith

The Lich Lords built a powerful ritual, incorporating the Cold Bargain and drawing from their victims all their breath, transforming it inside themselves with void magic, and breathing their transformed breath of undeath into them, sealing the Cold Bargain pact. They were next to impossible to kill, but generally weak in impact.After time passed, their Necromancer, warlock, and witch powers – along with their personal motivations – returned to them for some unknown reason. Perhaps an imperfect or hasty ritual? Regardless, with this came the will to break the chains of binding.

The Plague of Wraiths

The “Wraith Era of Kaald‘s” (500 years beginning around CY 7000) legacy drove out the acceptance of Necromancers in the Hinterlands. Kaald and Rhyl were hit the worst as these unbound spirits sought revenge on the living. The empowered Wraiths were initially next to impossible to kill, and a few had to be held in Silverstone Tower until a means of killing them forever could be found. Most of these were powerful Necromancers, warlocks or witches already, and their embrace of the void amplified their power with the Cold Bargain in strange ways. The Necromancers of the north gained a lot of knowledge in fighting these types of udead, though many of them succumbed to the Lich Lord’s Wraiths themselves and were lost to undeath.

Theodrose was a specter, a servant of an incorporeal warlock wraith transformed by the Cold Bargain of the Lich Lords. Theodrose rebelled and somehow consumed the master that spawned him – taking all his power in turn. It was the breaking of this domination that began the “wraith rebellion” of the Lich Lord’s minions.