Kangaxx

Kangaxx the Lich is a powerful undead who leads armies of animated corpses to war against the living.

History
Nothing is known about Kangaxx’s mortal life. It is assumed that it must have been a wizard of some skill prior to becoming a lich, and it goes without saying that it must have been a necromancer beyond compare to have achieved lichdom, rather than simply being rotted away by the necromantic energies it commanded. From the shape of its skeleton, it was likely either a human or an elf – many scholars suggest a Sidereal Elf, owing to Kangaxx’s favouring of weather magic – but the name “Kangaxx” does not appear among the naming traditions of any known culture. Many people use male pronouns when talking about Kangaxx, but any sexual characteristics it had rotted or froze away centuries ago, so there is no way of knowing its gender before its transformation – Kangaxx considers itself to be beyond mortal considerations like gender, so the pronoun “it” is used throughout this document.

What is known is that, centuries ago, Kangaxx led his army of animate corpses in war against the living. He did not seek conquest or glory; he sought death for all. The legends say that he was defeated and his bones smashed to powder, and yet centuries later – and yet many, many years before the events of today – he returned, and was only defeated again after a long and terrible conflict. The Winter of Death, as his campaign was known, was one of the most terrible and brutal times in history, and the superstitious live in terror of it ever occurring again.

Appearance and Personality
Kangaxx looks for all the world like a man who was frozen to death. Such skin as it still has is blue with cold and shrunk against its bones; in many places it is missing entirely, exposing the skeleton underneath. It has no eyes in his sockets but can nevertheless see with preternatural clarity. It wears simple black robes which are rimed with frost, even in the warmest climes; it has no need of armour. Despite the lack of ostentation in its clothing, it has had its skull implanted with several exquisite gemstones. Some scholars wonder is, rather than being purely decorative, these form part of its necromantic animus in some way, although no other necromancer has been observed to use such a technique. Kangaxx isn’t telling.

When Kangaxx condescends to take to the battlefield personally, it prefers to fight using magic – it favours weather magic, blasting its foes with waves of cold or gusts of ice; it has also been observed to be able to drain away an opponent’s life energy with a touch. It also carries a wicked metal scythe – like its robes, rimed with frost and sometimes trailing icicles – with which it is very skilled, and a dagger for precision work.

Kangaxx’s personality can be summed up very simply – it hates, coldly and clinically, anything alive, and appears to have no interests beyond propagating undeath across the world.

=Excerpts from Texts=

Excerpt from 'The Rules of Winter'
"What they fail to see is that everything is a weapon.

''The rules of war are a weapon, to be turned against our foe. Their civilians are a weapon, to be sent clamouring to their gates starving and desperate. Their families are a weapon, to make them fear what will happen should they dare to defy me.''

''Use everything. Stop at nothing. The whole world is a tool.''

''Our homelessness is a weapon, for our enemy have nothing to strike against. Our starvation is a weapon, for we fight harder for hunger's sake. Our hunger is a weapon, to chew at our enemies flesh! Our flesh is a weapon, cold and inured to the strikes of mere sword and steel! Our dead are weapons, to be used again: let no soldier sell their life dearly only once! The fellow comrade you march beside - their life is well spent if it costs the enemy two of theirs!''

''Let the summer fools bury their dead. Let the summer fools lay resources and advantages to rest, for fear of using them. Why would they not? They have plenty, and they think that plenty will last. They think that they can glut themselves on it and not let others have their share.''

''Let the summer fools enjoy their waste, for they live in times of produce. I have no such protections or illusions, and when the wild winds roll around neither will they. They have forgotten the foremost rule of winter when it would do good for them to remember it well.''

The foremost and worst rule of winter is this:

When the cold rolls in, you fight for the right to sit at the fire or you become fuel for it."

Excerpt from 'A Biography of Zsuzsa Slatewalker by an Admirer'
Zsuzsa dared not move. The lich, the plenipotent skeleton, had returned. She was confident that her skill at concealment would hide her from ordinary eyes, but the sockets in that jewelled skull could never be considered ordinary. The wisest choice was to stay still, stay silent, and wait until the monster left the cave on whatever its next errand was to be.

Kangaxx did not resemble his minions. Where they were rotten corpses, with yellowed bone visible wherever enough flesh had sloughed away, shambling as if sleepwalking, the lich itself was made of smooth, unmarked bone, pearly white to the point where it almost seemed to glow. There were no tendons, no muscles connecting them. They were held in their proper place by will alone. It was studded all over with precious stones. She had no idea whether they were part of the magic that kept it animate or not. It moved swiftly, precisely and with purpose, like a dancer. She could feel the power radiating off it, the weight of millennia of magical study finding whatever expression it could. Kangaxx was - is - not a necromancer. Kangaxx is necromancy, the embodiment of the sick vitality that can make the dead walk. Its lick-spittles, the necromancers that served it, were but pale imitations. They were gambling that they would find the same apotheosis as their master, make that transition into thinking ablife, before Kangaxx tired of them and reduced them to mindless foot-soldiers. Zsuzsa even knew that the Kangaxx she was watching was weak, slowly coming back into its full strength after a long sleep.

The old texts had claimed that its last defeat had destroyed it forever. Wishful thinking.

Kangaxx crossed to the man chained to the wall spread-eagled. There was a stone table next to him, with mysterious bottles, bowls of powder and some knives. The prisoner half lifted his head, not quite daring to meet the empty gaze. His right arm had been pared down to the sinew and bone, cut away to leave blood-streaked ivory. The stump of flesh at his shoulder had been given some treatment to make it ooze blood, not pour it. There was a click as the lich picked up a small metal knife. It leaned in close to the man, who whimpered and shifted in his restraints. The knife went into the flesh of his shoulder, sending a rivulet of blood down his chest that slowed, then stopped unnaturally. Zsuzsa watched, keeping her breathing slow and even. The victim shuddered, and lolled his head against the wall, but made nothing more than gasps and whimpers. It seemed as though he didn't have any screams left in him. Since the lich had arrived, the temperature in the cave had plummeted. Zsuzsa had to press her hand to her mouth so the mist of her breath wasn't visible.

After a minute or so, Kangaxx dropped a large gobbet of flesh onto the cave floor. The man's shoulder was now exposed. The lich uncorked a bottle and rubbed some oil into the glistening tendons, then firmly pressed some powder into the ragged edges of fat and muscle. Kangaxx carefully pulled the skeletal arm through the manacle, the hand bones compressing as they passed it. The arm dropped uselessly to the man's side. He was trying not to look at it.

There was another sharp feeling in the air and fog started coiling around the floor. The dead arm lifted itself up slowly and waved in front of the man's despairing face. He recoiled, crying out wordlessly. The blood-stained bones of the fingers gripped his chin and forced him to face Kangaxx.

"When I have finished with you," when Kangaxx spoke, there was no movement of its jaw. The voice came from nowhere, deep but quiet, echoing off the walls as it went. "You will take a message to your kind. You will tell them that I have returned."

The man slumped when his arm, or rather that which was no longer 'his' arm, released his face. Kangaxx walked out of the room. The bones of its feet clicked on the stone.

There was no sound except for drips of water and the man's quiet sobbing. Then there was a sharp noise. The skeletal arm had picked up a knife from the table. With care and deliberation, it started to cut the man's remaining arm.