Corpus of the Abyss

Corpus of the Abyss (深淵なる軀) is an organization of undead magic casters founded in the New World four hundred years ago. It exists because of a problem peculiar to the undead: with no need of food, rest or sex, their desires collect elsewhere, and for a magic caster that means an appetite for knowledge which will not be argued with. A dispute over knowledge between two such beings tends to run all the way to the extermination of one side. The Corpus was the alternative. Its members put their names to an oath recorded in the Granisle Inscription, keep a rough account of who is studying what so that nobody duplicates anyone else's work, and trade rather than fight. It began with four Night Liches and three Elder Liches and has grown to some fifty-five, each of them powerful enough to bring down a country alone. Most keep entirely clear of the living; a few cultivate influence among them instead.