Branch AN, part 1

I originally posted the bare bones of this in the comments of my first chapter, but decided I should post it here and expand it a little.

The core idea- that of a random fodder monster- something that shouldn't have a backstory at all- finding out that they might have one and going looking for it tickled my fancy when I was first playing with the idea of writing something for this. It also provides the possibility of **** down the way, should that end up being the route I take. Not guaranteed, but a possibility.

I'm a D&D boy, so I was tempted to swap out the exalted/white wolf skillset for D&D ones. Might go back and edit that to match, because it's what I'm used to. Also, coming from old-school FR, Necromancy is a lot greyer for me then it is for most people. Its' icky, to be sure, and animating someones' corpse without permission is probably illegal, but it's quite possible to be used for good. To (badly) quote the Sage of Shadowdale himself: "It would behoove ye to recall that for every tale of a bloodthirsty corpse or undying tyrant, there are at least as many of skeletons rising from family crypts to whisk their last descendant to safety, or of a paladin who refuses to let the small matter of the grave to stand between them and defense of the innocent." Given that, our main character may actually qualify as an outright hero. One who uses shady methods, to be sure, one whos' never going to truly be squeaky-clean enough for some, but very firmly opposed to evil. Maybe, maybe not. We'll see how the story plays out.

I'm also stealing from Battle for Wesnoth, a pretty solid indie fantasy turn based... Tactics/strategy game (I heartily recommend it, it's free) for the undead units he can create. Walking Corpses are the mookiest of mooks. They're level 0 (the same as a completely untrained, unequipped peasant), have pathetic melee, no ranged attacks, and bad HP. They're probably the least cost-efficient unit in the game on top of that. There redeeming features- which don't actually redeem them- are their Plague rule on their melee attack and their incredibly low cost to level up... once. Plague is probably their selling point, and it is iffy. It turns the unit it killed into another walking corpse. Used to be that it turned it into an exact copy of the walking corpse- experience and health included, which honestly was a bit of a game breaker. Both ways. Made your new mooks incredibly fragile, but also easy to rank up.