The Puresoul Sect

The Puresoul Sect of Arkatism has very dubious practices. It has been outlawed, membership being punishable by death, in all Safelstran counties for many years. It was made legal in Borin for a short period of the Count of Borin's reign, shortly before he announced his Boristi allegiances, and then cast them aside along with his Boristi ties. In Naskorion the sect is reviled, but barely legal. A purge was made in Galin fifty years ago, and not even a trace exists anymore.

The Sect believes that they must seek for the most worthy souls of the land, find the greatest warriors, leaders, artists, generals etc... and to save them for Arkati when he returns. Of course, the Sect understands that as people age, they die, and dead people aren't any use. The answer, in the eyes of the Puresoul sect, is to keep them alive - against their will if need be. In brief, the Puresoul Sect investigates great fighters and leaders, and upon deciding their worth for Arkat's New Empire, hunt them down, capture them, turn them into undead, dominate them and then keep tabs on them until Arkat returns.

The Puresoul Sect is headed by a dead soul of an original member of the Dark Empire, called Theobardt, who possesses one person to another, to keep himself alive. While he claims to have memories of Arkat he was born eighty years after Arkat's Ascension, his memory is also very vague and anything that happened before the last two centuries is, at best, vague. He has no recollection of the true nature of the Arkati cult, even though his sect seeks to emulate it. Theobardt ensures he has young vessels captured for him. He has under his control a variety of worshippers. He has preachers, who go out and tell the world about the imminent reappearance of Arkat (who has been imminently reappearing for a long, long time). Worshippers are almost always foolish layabouts and wasters desperately searching for something in the life who are then abused for money to keep the sect going. The worshippers are almost always under the belief that they have a chance at undead immortality, but are often pulled into underworld machinations, drug running, prostitution and mugging to earn money for the Puresoul Sect. Candidates for undead immortality are rarely drawn from the worshippers, candidates are chosen by a select process of divination and investigation by Theobardt and his closest agents.

Theobardt's agents are those best thieves, footpads, assassins and investigators that he has turned into ghosts to then go on and possess peoples bodies to continue the work of the cult in capturing people for Arkat's New Empire.

The procedure for capturing candidates is to use three to seven ghost assassins who use Held Palsy spells, backed up with Accuracy, to knock them out. They then take them back to Theobardt where they have their souls Drained down to zero magic points so that they cannot resist the Create Wight spell (see below). Once they are turned into Wights they are Dominated.

The Wights remain as temple guards, ready for when Arkat returns. They are sometimes enchanted with strengthening or armouring enchantments.

The temple headquarters are secrets, but located somewhere in Naskorion, with reserve headquarters in another county - as yet unknown. While it has public shrines, one in every Naskorioni city, the temple is where all the wights and agents are located.

Members are asked to donate 10-30% of their income in return for an alleged chance for undeathood.

Other Notes on the Sect

The Sect teaches Create Wight, a sorcerous ritual of enchanting that costs 1 POW. If the caster succeeds in a mp's versus mp's the target becomes wight. Note that these wights are different from those found in The Book of Drastic Resolutions Volume One.

Wights

STR	Base x2		Move	Base-1/5 fly
CON	Base
SIZ	Base
INT	Base -1
POW	Base
DEX	Base x1/2
APP	1d3

Weapon	att		dmg
Claw		25 base		1d6+damage bonus+special

Armour: 2 points of rotting flesh all around.

Notes:Wights appear as decayed, almost zombie-like, bodies with skin and withered muscles taut to the bone. Their hands become more bony - like claws, and their eyes turn pure black.

Wights gain two armour points of rotting flesh on all locations, and can only be harmed by magic, enchanted silver or enchanted iron. They can also fly at move 5. Anyone struck by a wights claw must make a magic points versus magic points roll with the wight or temporarily lose 1d4 STR, which is then converted into magic points for the wight on a 1:1 basis. STR recovers at 1 point per hour. If reduced to zero STR the victim collapses. As Wights rarely cast magic, they usually have their maximum possible magic points of twice their POW.