It begins with a dream. A dream of a kiss from a figure with a face shrouded in shadow. The sufferer then awakes with lips red and pink. This is the beginning of a disease that sinks deep into the victim’s lungs and brings up pink bloody phlegm for a full fortnight. In the young, aged or weak this is sometimes fatal but it rarely strikes down those in their prime. Soon enough, for all but a handful of unfortunates whose lungs have been permanently damaged, the phlegm clears up and the cough dies away.
But when death comes courting, it will not be satisfied with one kiss and after a month or perhaps a year and a day the dream returns with the dark figure ever more insistent. This marks the onset of the second stage of the disease: the blinding headaches, the delirium, the mad ravings and finally the long sleep in which the sufferer dreams and stirs but never wakes.
Those who have tasted death’s kiss and whose cough has dissipated live in fear knowing that death has chosen them as its own and is merely marking time before it drags them the rest of the way into the grave. There are the lucky ones who recover from the cough and never experience the second stage of the disease, but of those who suffer from the headaches that come with the second stage of this disease only the luckiest are able to live and those that do so are never quite the same again.
Along the coast of the Keening Sea, east of the Shuttered City, there lies a miserable stretch of coastline whose one imposing feature is the grim walled community of Erleforst (32.12). This is ostensibly a treatment facility for citizens of Shuttered who are suffering from the Courting Death. In reality, there is no known cure for the disease, or at least not one that is cheap or accessible enough for the priests of Erleforst to provide it. Instead, the sanatorium is a dystopian nightmare of regimented training and ritual fasting, presided over by a megalomaniac ex-bishop named Tharcofal.
The Priests of Alberon are wary of Tharcofal for his past crimes, but they also rely on him to control the damned of the sanatorium. For it is well known that these desperate souls will do anything to be released from the disease, and thus are highly effective as soldiers or assassins while they last. Especially as the second stage of the disease comes on, they become utterly fearless, willing to take on incredible risks or flat-out suicide missions in exchange for the promise of a cure. Trained and armed in Erleforst, they are called the Dead Men and given skull-shaped masks to wear before they go out into the world on covert missions. Often the Dead Men collaborate with the Priests-Militant of the Temple Invisible, though in the latter case, the holy assassins will always make sure that the Dead Men die rather than returning to the sanatorium.
Dead Men have been deployed as far afield as the Kingswood, the temple of the Whispering Sisters (32.22) and most famously to Blind Midshotgatepool during Shuttered’s war with that city. Only their high turnover prevents them from becoming one of the most dangerous fighting forces in the Shrouded Lands. However, a rumour has recently spread that one among the Dead Men has now lived an unusually long time.
Connections:
- A band of Dead Men who defected during the war with Blindmidshotgatepool are now known as Death’s Lovelies and are dangerous bandits indeed (27.23).
- Lord Alevari came down with the Courting Death some time ago and his wife took some rather drastic measures as a result.
Hooks:
- Are the dreams meaningful or merely psychosomatic?
- How widespread is this disease? What races aside from humans can catch it?
- Is there a cure for the Courting Death? If so, what makes it unfeasible for the priests of Erleforst?
- Why was Tharcofal deposed from his position as bishop?
- What sort of missions have the Dead Men undertaken?
- Who is this Dead Man who seems unable to die?