As undying, their first death is not their last. They may die of thirst or hunger, drowning, decapitation, or countless other ways, but as long as a piece remains or they are not exposed to sunlight, they will return. As they grow into their powers, their bodies mutate to accommodate their new life. For vampires, it is growing fangs, and developing hypnosis or venom, for a ghoul, it is the ability to unhinge their jaw or crush themselves into tight spaces. These changes are permanent, setting each undying apart from their brethren, but they all start in the same place.

As a magic being, the undying are able to use their magic with ease, without the same physical toll other magic users might experience. Their powers tend to develop around supporting their continued existence, with abilities that allow them to blend in, hunt, and ensorcell their prey.

Despite their name the undying can die. It's just that death doesn't stick. They can die of shock, hunger, thirst, or any number other things. On rare occasions, they can even become sick with human maladies, although the constant regeneration of their body tends to fend illness off quickly.

The undying cannot be afflicted by the shifter's curse.

Mind over matter. The way you think of yourself matters; you thought you ought to consume blood to feed your hunger, and you grew fangs. You needed strength and speed to take down your prey, and so you pushed yourself past human physical limits. Although these became permanent modifications to your body, there are other ways you can preternaturally manipulate your shape. Controlling dismembered body parts, for example. This ability describes how far you can go beyond mortal living limitation. e.g. reconstituting after a fatal blow, dismemberment, poisoning, etc.

It also describes how well you can utilize your magic. Unlike other blood-magic users, you are a creature of magic and thus experience very little backlash from channeling forces beyond our understanding.

Undying are are subject to Thresholds, Oaths, Thrice Asked, and Favors in the Codes of Conduct.

Eternal life and eternal youth. What more could you want? Most undying know that the key to a healthy unlife is picking up a hobby.

You are functionally immortal. Although you can die and be harmed, you can recover from even the most grievous wounds unless exposed to sunlight, or your body is completely destroyed. If you become dismembered, you can feel and control these disembodied pieces. It is simply a matter of fetching the lost body part and reattaching it. Your bodily functions are still active as well, although they move at a much slower rate than a living human's.

If you do not ground yourself, your magic begins to fade. Often, an undead's body will simply wither, but cases of deanimation, falling to pieces, or petrification are just as common. Should you stay in this state for a full twenty-four hours, then you will become nothing more than a mindless monster, a permanent affliction of the fallen undying.

Create a minor ability from one of your chosen keywords. This is something you can do with little to no effort.

There is something that grounds you to the mortal coil, an often gruesome action which sustains your eldritch existence. A cost. In all cases, this action is compulsive, and some describe it as a deep, consuming hunger, even if your belly is full. Your physical form has permanently changed to accommodate your quest to stay alive. It varies by the undying; a majority have taken on the form of vampires, consuming flesh, blood, and energy, but others, such as stitched corpses, may need a surge of electricity to keep themselves limber.

With preparation and will, an undying can force themselves into hibernation. This is a state in which they are almost inert, generally unconscious to the world and vulnerable if they do not take steps to protect themselves. A sudden change around them, like their tomb being broken into, can awaken them, but they will be starving and desperate to feed and regain strength. Many undying through the centuries have hibernated and been protected by followers, leading to interesting myths and scary stories around campfires, as well as entire cults dedicated to them. These cults generally experienced quite a nasty surprise when their object of worship awakened.

When your body is destroyed, if even a cell remains, you can return. This would obviously take some time, though. You can move to the spirit track while you wait because death is nothing more than inconvenient. Glorious End (Cenotite)

Perhaps you've tired of your immortal life and it's time to see a proper end. In this case, you've harnessed the powers of undeath for so long and with such skill that you've discovered a means to return. Completely. You become a living breathing human again. You can age, grow sick, and die, but you've chosen your fate. This is a permanent option. If you take this path, you lose all undead abilities and become a human. You retain mundane abilities. You have a natural inclination towards the Cthonic and Eldritch portfolios. You cannot become undead again.

Silver. Silver-backed mirrors do not show your reflection. Although it does not burn you in the same way it would those beastly shifters, proximity tends to make you feel a little like your seams are loosened. Being touched or struck by silver gives a -1d6 penalty to your Cinder pool.

Early on, you discovered that sunlight weakens the eldritch magic that binds you together. So long as you are under the cleansing light of the sun, you are sickly and weak, and prolonged exposure will destroy you entirely. Daylight and True Sunlight reduces your Strike pool to 4d6. With the Daywalker keyword, an Undying can roll a contested roll to attempt to prevent the passive effect of True Sunlight, but not daylight.

You are an abberation, a monster who has stepped out of the natural flow of life. Those who wrote the code of the universe take exception to this. You are discomfited by holy symbols, so long as the one holding them is a believer. If one touches you, it will temporarily deaden the eldritch magic on that body part.

To maintain the eldritch magic in their bodies, an undying creature must ground themselves. Perhaps they are one of the classics and they drink blood, but there are endless options: consuming flesh, much like a ghoul, or energy such as emotion or vitality, electricity like Frankenstein's monster. If you use too much of your magic at once, your urge to ground yourself becomes all-consuming. Most often, this is a need to feed. It is most commonly felt like a ravenous hunger.

An Undying can use their magic up to half the number of dice in their Cinder pool, rounded up before they need to Ground themselves. If they do not, they begin to experience the ill effects of neglecting to Ground, up until they go inert. Both successes and failed rolls with a Magic Keyword counts towards the limit.

If an Undying fails to Ground themselves and continues using magic, each use of a Magic or Path Keyword reduces their Luck by one (1). This is the mechanical representation of the ill effects.

Grounding after reaching your limit does not automatically "reset" an Undying's ability to use Magic Keywords, but it will remove the compulsion to feed, the loss of control, and avoid going monstrous. In some situations, if an Undying performs a particularly extreme Grounding and flavour permits, it may allow further use of magic, up to half of their normal magic use rounded down. Extreme measures for grounding may be something like consuming the electricity of the city's power grid, fully draining a body of blood into a mere husk, or consuming all the flesh off the bones of a creature. If this involves PVP, the players must agree on the possible consequences and use the Strike & Cinder system.

If you are not utilizing the dice system, Grounding is still required after they push past their limit but is up to you when and how it happens. All we ask is that you keep these details relative to their rank. For example, a lower ranked undying would need to Ground themselves before a higher-ranked one.