Bonertown, USA

A necropolis you mean
Like Asphodel from M:TG...
Or maybe a more latin or Haitian feel?
I mean start with how the living behave, and then remove the need to eat, sleep, protect themselves from the elements, basically all bottom tier Maslovs needs...

The only valuable commodities would be what was necessary to arm soldiers or produce more undead

So some sort of lichocracy with a ruling class of liches who produce more undead and thus, sustain the population, with the society and economy below them dedicated to fueling their magic, and thus also killing people to make corpses

Am I the only one looking at OP's image and wondering how deformed these people must have been in life that their ribs extend out to form pseudo-tits?

I've always wanted to find an excuse to include in one of my settings a nation of flamboyantly festive Day of the Dead themed skeletons called "Hexicans."

>Reaper's ideal waifu on the right

I thought he and the blue sniper were an item

Not sure if they might have had something going on in the past, but at present they're on opposing sides and she's trying to protect those he is trying to kill.

How you fluff your undead society will determine how it looks.

Are we talking all undead or just some types? A skeleton city could easily thrive in the desert as a lack of water would not matter to them but any undead with flesh would be quickly desiccated.

Are you going to have social classes? Cause vampiric nobles are always in vogue and having zombies or other mindless undead as the "untouchable" labor class could open up some fun for an external power to form an uprising.

Why do they have tits?

How can a skeleton be voluptuous like those twins?

MAKE THEM THE NOT!BYZANTINE EMPIRE.

THEY ARE AN EXTREMELY ADVANCED CIVILIZATION OF CASUAL HEDONISTS THAT PRESERVE ANCIENT CULTURE AND ARE GENERALLY HAUGHTY IMPERIOUS ASSHOLES, BUT AREN'T GENERALLY DANGEROUS.

THEY ENJOY USING THEIR UNDEATH TO CONTEMPLATE THE NATURE OF GOD AND EXISTENCE BY STICKING THEMSELVES IN TOMBS OR DUNGEONS OR ON TOP OF VERY LARGE PILLARS SIMPLY SO THEY CAN SIT THERE AND THINK. ADVENTURERS WHO BREAK INTO THEIR DUNGEON WILL GET A VERY STERN TALKING-TO.

Why don't you?

Widowmaker, not Ana.

Don't forget trade. Sure, they may not end up trading with cities directly but there is bound to be some merchant house that is willing to do business. Something that's dangerous for flesh and blood people to make/harvest/create but not a big deal for skellies would be a good thing.

WIZARD!

Thank you based wizards!

>I'm having trouble fleshing it out.
Use zombies, not skeletons. Come on, this is necromancy 101!

Undead mining is kind of cliche but it's a good one. Mining town in the mountains where they can live in peace away from the living but still trade. Having no need for food or water, they focus on mastering crafting/architecture for something to do and not go insane. Medium sized town with a massive, ornate underground complex dug out from mines. Think lotr Moria.

>b a s e d wizards blessing skeletons with grand tracts of land, and majestic hair
Great joy!

Implants don't rot?

I wasn't around for the threads but I did end up eventually finding out about the Millennial King, a Good aligned Necromancer.

1d4chan.org/wiki/Millennial_King

This might be too far along the scale for your goals but you might be able to implement some ideas. Really I feel your Lich should have a goal of some type. Something that requires all the power from Lichdom and an undead city.

she's purple

I legit enjoyed that movie

Do you want the society to be good or evil OP? I have a few relevant screencaps.

Give the big bad an angelic motif and fucktons of smug selfrighteousness

Widowsmakers backstory that the evil organization brainwashed her, right? If Reaper is the leader of said organization, he could make her do anything he wanted...

One idea I've heard is that since vampires are super-strong, yet have several well-known weaknesses and a very select diet, they would make an excellent slave-labor force. What about a revolutionary BBEG?

But what if the skeletons don't want land and would rather just sing?
youtube.com/watch?v=Zn-F6bWS240

Wait, is that how caterpillars work?

Twins, Basil. TWINS!

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When a caterpillar pupates. It dissolves pretty much its entire body, including it's brain

So yes, a butterfly will never have any memories of being a caterpillar

Having a lich as a Mayor should give the Town pretty good access to magic benefits, no? Even though being a pretty "normal" settlement, with sentient skellingtons/zombos, most of the economy/trade being done within should revolve around services? Undeads don't need a lot of stuff I guess?

They could probably have a pretty good argicultural production, skeletal livestock doing all the work and not needing feeding. I'd say their harvests being pretty good and well handled (no problems making irrigations with your undead workers) would make for good exports to neighbouring societies. They'd probably be all "eww, undeads" at first and refuse to buy, which would gradually lower the price to a point where neighbours can't abstain. And after realizing the goods are fine, and the population of Skellingville are alright trading partners, commerce in the region will normalize.

I wanna go home

Nope, they DO retain memories:
>journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0001736

legitimately doesnt make fucking sense. how does a caterpillar dissolving into fluid somehow recombine into a fucking butterfly? how is butter formed? how pillar get preddy?

It doesn't dissolve into fluid, it dissolves into a weird cellular mass that contains the genetic information of how to rebuild itself into a butterfly/moth

That said, I hadn't heard of the study posted here Which suggests that they do somehow retain memories, despite the massive restructuring of their brain.

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If you want your undead to interact with normal towns then your lich could:
Strip the flesh from the bones. They'll be cleaner that way and the living don't want to get anthrax or any other kind of icky diseases the undead don't have to worry about
Strengthen their bones with leather straps and other physical enhancements so they'll be stronger
Invest in "life imitation" objects as a commodity like wigs, clothing, fake breasts and hips, perfumes, illusion projecting jewelry, that kind of thing
Import puzzles, toys, model ships, marble blocks, canvases and paint, musical instruments, books and other artistic and cultural objects. You can't make your people work 24 hours a day if you value their mental health even if they don't sleep, they have to get hobbies to do something in their now expanded free time. (I imagine they might have some excellent breweries)
Your workers don't have to worry about many things that hinder the living, you can create exotic goods for a fraction of the price other sources might ask. Stuff like poisons and antidotes (Milking snakes and collecting dangerous herbs are not a problem), pneumoconiosis is a thing of the past for the miners, apiculture has become easier, bone carving, heavy industry (if available), metallurgy (They laugh at metal fumes and the dangers they pose), woodworking, working with toxic chemicals (alchemy and tanning of leather), etc.
Time is not a problem to the unliving, they should manage to keep vast archives and libraries with all the information they manage to collect. Since the only requirement to be part of the settlement is to be dead, they might get knowledge from every culture and race in your world. That should bring an influx of scholars to the city

Now your undead folk has not only an economic niche in the world, but also an explanation of why people who don't need anything might still want money to spend on stuff

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Well, first off: What kind of undead are we talking here? I can list 5 off the top of my head, and each has different needs, weaknesses, typical levels of cognizance, etc.

Liches just need to keep their phylactery intact, but, being intelligent (usually), will desire some form of mental stimulation, whether it be tomes or experiments.

Vampires require blood to sustain themselves, either alone or as a supplement to food. They will also tend towards intellectual stimulation, but are usually shown to be more artistic than scientific.
Furthermore, unlike liches, vampires have a variety of weaknesses that would affect their unliving requirements - extreme photosensitivity, hydrophobia, and extreme OCD, to name a few.

Zombies may require flesh and/or brains for sustenance. They may or may not be sapient, though if they're the main populace I'd have to assume they are.
In that case, expect them to be more or less regular folk with a different diet. Possibly a significant consumer of scented oils and waxes.

Skeletons require diddly-squat. Sapient skeletons... are a downright terrifying idea, come to think of it. No needs, not much that can harm them (blunt damage is the only universal risk)...
but on the flipside, none of that really talks about what they would want.

Ghosts, assuming the ability to affect physical stuff at all, would basically mix zombies and skeletons. No physical requirements, but no major need for changes in unlifestyle.

Basically, what do they need, and what do they want? What're they buyin'? What're they sellin'?

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Look up
>Ghostwalk
>Libris Mortis
>Pathfinder's Geb

Then add your own fluff

I had one exactly like this
The city was essentially Australia. Every country in the known world kind of just agreed that the place was a neutral ground and the hellish wasteland that it was situated on made it an ideal place to dump derranged criminals that they didn't want on their clay. Fast forward a hundred years and they ended up dumping a necromancer on the verge of lichdom. This guy saw the poor poor murderers and rapists that he lived amongst and decided to make it a thriving city by raising their dead as tireless slave labor. Their ploughs and carts were pulled by teams of zombies, their military consists of an undying horde of diseased corpses and rattling armored skellies, and they had even managed to dominate several feral vamps to hunt their food.

I want to take the one with the eyepatch out on a nice date and definitely call her again

Jesus Christ, I've been on Veeky Forums a long time and is the most magical realm thing I've ever read.

Not exactly an entire society per say but undead do feature in a few of the various cultures of my own setting:

For one group, they comprise a three person council that basically have the last word on anything brought to them. If the Senate comes to a dead lock on something they have to decide to bring it up to the Council or the Consensus of Wisdom as they are called. Once done they deliberate on the matter and once they give a decision the Senate is bound to obey it.

In another culture that's sort of a European Spanish flavor, their religion is essentially Santa Muerte with more Christian like imagery and one of the customs they have is to keep the bones of relatives in or near the home. Nobles can afford entire crypts to keep the whole body while poorer families will generally keep the skulls. Scrimshaw is also another custom decorating the skulls of loved ones for when they bring them out for a festival where the dead party along side the living

Calling a girl after a fun night out is magical realm now?

Of course it is, are you trying to get a girlfriend like a normie or something?

There's nothing wrong with being a normie

Traveling necromancers buy up all the corpses they can, so they can use them in the final battle against good/evil/neutral/cable tv

A redlight district to encourage tourism

unnnnnnfffffffffffff

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aw yea

>Spade staff
Gonna have to use that motif for my next BBEG.

DID YOU LEARN NOTHING?!

Oh shit! Skelecopters!

I recall 5e has intelligent undead and they are incapable of speech. As such, I figure there's probably a large market for Wile E Coyote-style signs, and for really wealthy undead, some sort of magic item of prestidigitation or ghost sound to communicate in air-written words or messages not unlike Dark Souls' "HELLO"

>there is nothing wrong with being a normie

Op, just go back and play Planescape Torment.
Best example of an undead society ever. It's got a history, a segmented society, and different undead are represented, have individual roles, and their own goals.

That is not helpful. Are undead naturally occurring? Are they invariably evil? Do they have to eat? Can they produce more undead by themselves? Do they impact their environment simply by being undead and close by? Are they isolated? Skeletal or with flesh? Do they carry disease? Do they need rest? Do they have the full range of human emotion?

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That's not gonna work, who would want to have sex with a skeleton lady?

I'd bone her bones

Some people like there girl boney

Coming soon from Pixar studios - "Spooky Waifus" answering the question of what if our bodies after death had feelings?

Okay, so there's obviously a lot of undead. Let's just get the most important ones here:

Skeletons
Zombies
Sapient undead (smart zombies and skellies)
Ghosts
Vampires
Liches

The liches and vampires should obviously be in charge, with the sapient undead and ghosts as the regular populace and non-sapient undead as slaves. You'll need different districts with different peoples, some fair racism and shit and maybe even some insurgence shit.

Also, cool idea; undead are trying to abstain from eating human/sapient meat/blood which is hard. Even though eating it is illegal, powerful gangs trade in human body parts and maybe even slaves, just like real life drugs and whores.

Also, if skellingtons and zombies want to look more human/less undead, there might be a large trade in human skin , hair or even complete heads. Would make for an interesting setting where the noble skellington women dress up in different pretty human skins for all events and parties.

You could use Lovecraft's ghouls (see yog-sothoth.com/wiki/index.php/Ghoul) for a not entirely evil society of undeadish creatures.

I could see, at least for skellingtons, a business in full bodysuits meant to mimic other races.

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So... something akin to Richard and his village, ala LFG?

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¡Oye, chicos! ¿Que esta pasando en esta puesto?

But then how do they stay where they are and not just...plop to the ground?

Plus if you look at the side boob on the one on the left, that really makes it look like her rib-cage exploded outwards.

>I mean start with how the living behave, and then remove the need to eat, sleep, protect themselves from the elements
That's not entirely accurate as many undead do feed on the living in various ways whether it's something of a physiological need or merely a hunger/desire it's often one of if not THE primary driving force for many undead throughout fiction.

There are fewer but still some cases of undead "sleeping" such as vampires resting in coffins or some undead burying themselves in graveyards. Though the reason for "rest" in undead may vary from normal biological need for sleep it's often functionally similar in many ways creating a vulnerability and downtime of action.

Protection from the elements could actually be a greater concern for undead depending on the specific mechanics.
Corporeal undead may not be killed or even phased by illness or things like hypothermia or suffocation or even great wounds like the living might, but they are not immune to damage. Bones can be broken, necrotic flesh can be hacked away, and a body can be reduced such that it does not pose a threat or is even outright destroyed. Even if common vermin and disease shun some undead they swarm others and there are more monstrous and magical beasts that could use undead as a nest for eggs or otherwise contribute to their degradation. Even if undead don't die directly from cold or heat or drowning it could affect their decomposition or they could be bashed about by heavy wind or tides. The sun can be damaging or deadly for some undead and others have vulnerabilities to specific factors natural and manmade to avoid.

While strong and resistant to many dangers most undead can not heal naturally like the living and with an eternity of unlife there's plenty of time to suffer a death of a thousand cuts as your body or even spirit is worn away. Given full society and no handwaving, I imagine that preservation and maintenance of the body and spirit would be a primary priority.

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i could imagine that theres a transition program to encase undead in more durable material.

I could see skeletons getting a special paint applied to make their old bones more resistant.

Either that, or bonetowners could get replacement parts, maintenance, and preventative chemical treatments from a witch-doctor or necromancer.

this guy

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Well I could imagine that for those that can afford it would get silver and gold and jewels while those who have earned or are worth it would get less glamorous but perhaps hardier materials with only the greatest warriors or those who need it for special tasks getting strong lasting casings. It might be cheaper to kill and reanimate some slaves to replace the average skeleton or zombie that falls apart.

The lack of healing options for most undead would have huge implications too including a mixed relationship with necromancers and evil priests that are some of the few that can heal undead but are also a threat able to dominate their will to use as servants.

Actually thinking more about it the cost/benefit analyses for coatings would depend on the mechanics like most of this stuff.
For example, do skeletons and zombies maintain a connection to their severed limbs? The idea of a hand or head crawling on to continue attacking has a lot of potential for fun and funny but it can take more effort to implement and keep track of. However, if the skeleton has a metal coating then their arm could be reduced to dust by a mace but still have a functional hand connected to them with the coating. Depending on how far you take that idea the coatings become exponentially more valuable and are almost more of a cursed/animated armor powered by an undead.

>this is how you make golems

in The Scar China Mieville has a character from the city state of High Cromlech, a state ruled by the undead (abdead in his nomenclature). Humans are poor but free laborers in ghettos. most a abdead are wealthier (capital and no expenses), but rely on human labor in the long run to keep from going slowly to piece doing their own work. A liveman can pay for the necromancy to become a deadman if he can afford it (a rare thing), ideally at an age where they can be perpetually youthful. The lowest of the low in High Cromlech are the vampir, the only abdead that need to feed, who sometimes must go begging among the (legally and practically) well-protected humans. The main language is Quiesy, a lang that depends on both the sounds made and the duration of silences, with variants that can be spoken, sputtered, or tapped (depending on what pieces the speaker still has to work with).

in the scar, a section of the city was sheriffed by vampir knights, who collected a gore-tax each night, as payment from the citizens they protect.

In Peru, the Inca was considered to remain in full possession of all his property after death. His mimmy held perpetual court in a summer estate, fully staffed with slaves supported by taxes from his land. Death basically meant going to retirement so your son could be the Inca.

Now imagine that every once ina while, that mummy speaks up to bitch about how mediocre his grandson the sitting Inca is

bump

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