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[Ardent Debater]

*DAY ONE*

Though you thirst to learn more, your mortal body needs something to eat... But what? You don't know the first thing about herbalism, you've got no crops to harvest, or a crossbow to hunt with. All you've got is corpses! Wait, wait, that's it! You concoct a cunning scheme that's sure to get you something to eat.

[19]

You spend a good half hour searching, or rather, the corpses you've possessed spend a good half hour searching for a clearing, and they find one. A small, sparsely wooded field almost two hours from the hills, it's more than enough. You command several of the Zombies to lay flat on the ground, while you hide in the bushes. Two, cramped, boring hours later, a group of coyotes come to feast on the carcasses. You wait a moment, and another, while you wait for them to come closer, and closer, and.... NOW! You jump to your feet, thrust your staff forward and utter blasphemous unthinkable speech. The coyotes look at you in fear, and though nothing tangible occurs, you feel a fragment of energy exit your staff and dart forth, hitting several of the coyotes. You sense their souls ripping from their bodies, and their lifeless corpses fall to the ground. When you unleashed your smite, one of the coyotes stood as if paralyzed for a moment, before breaking out of his trance and sprinting away. You're not perfect, not yet.

You command the dead to abstain feasting for a moment, instead, you have them carry the coyotes back to the hills. There are three here, excellent. When you arrive at the hills, you order your companions to scatter, searching for a clearing, and those with Wood-Cutting Axes, harvesting wood. Meanwhile, you proceed to skin the fattest coyote, and an hour later, you come up with perhaps thirty pounds of usable meat. It smells terrible but you can't afford to be picky. As for the other two corpses, you leave them where they lay.

[6]

By nightfall, your minions have managed to find a somewhat flat, empty space atop one of the hills. It's fairly small, but it can always be expanded later. They've managed to cut down and harvest two trees without suffering any casualties, but it won't be nearly enough to build anything resembling a wall for now. It's quite cold, you've started a small campfire and have fried, mostly charred, the coyote meat to point that it's edible. You have a chewy, repugnant meal and go to sleep by the fire, while the dead watch over you.

*DAY TWO*

You awaken with a yawn, and look around. Both of the coyote corpses are piled into a stack, and a stack of logs three feet high lays next to them. Apparently the wood-cutters continued their task well into the night. The dead are in the same positions they were when you went to sleep, and they stare at you with glassy, dead eyes. Last night was extremely cold, and while it was tolerable, maybe you should work on a cabin before you build a palisade. In addition, these rations are terrible, and make you wish you had something worth eating, but they'll suffice for now. The dead are awaiting orders.

What do you do today?

Spoiler:  Mighty Wizard (click to show/hide)

Name:
Age: 16
Status: Healthy

Traits:

Muscled, from a lifetime of hard labor.

Skills:

Necromancy: 3
Farming: 5

Spoiler:  Inventory (click to show/hide)

On your person

Filthy Clothes(worn)
Walking Stick
Iron Pocketknife

In your possession

4 Day's worth of coyote meat
2 Coyote corpses
1 Stack of logs
3 Wood-Cutting Axes
2 Pickaxes
1 Carpenter's Hammer

Spoiler:  Arcane Knowledge (click to show/hide)

Necromancy

RAISE DEAD
MINOR SMITE

Spoiler:  Mighty Wizard's Holdings (click to show/hide)

Nothing, so far

Spoiler:  Mighty Wizard's Followers:(17) (click to show/hide)

12 Zombies
5 Skeletons

[AoshimaMichio]

Prepare rest of the meat and animate coyote skeletons. Meanwhile undead can make a basic shelter, like this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

More logging.

Physical needs are getting in our way. Lichdom seems like a good way to get rid of those.

[escaped lurker]

Prepare rest of the meat and animate coyote skeletons. Meanwhile undead can make a basic shelter, like this:
More logging.

~ +1
Just let "the boys" chop down at least one conifernous tree - their branches are great for such shelters. Use vines or brambles to tie the frame together - they easily will do for such a simple construction, where not much stress is placed upon them.

If the coyotes are raised successfully, we should send them out for scouting. What we want, is a brook or river nearby - there will be animal trails leading to it somewhere. Let them find several - Once we know a couple of these trails, we can hunt better game with more ease.

Also, if we are cold, we obviously are doing something wrong. Strip the zombies of any non-putrid clothing, or let them wash it if it is too repulsive to use otherwise. It won't be as good as an actual blanket, but any kind of cloth giving us additional cover against the cold, is better than the air sapping strength from us.

[Ardent Debater]

*DAY TWO*

[13+2=15]
((+2, due to skill bonus.))

You grunt, crack your knuckles, and get to work. Standing with your staff held high, you mutter vile whispers from a thousand forgotten ancient tongues, and you feel your essence leave your body, arcing like lightning through the air, into the bodies of the coyote corpses. One of the bodies, the one you harvested, is unable to rise, as you destroyed crucial areas of its spinal cord during your mediocre butchery. The others, however, snap and spasm as unlife fills their bones. Your mind is widened as you peer through the eyes of your new minions.

+2 Coyote Zombies!

You feel as if you should be tired, exhausted even, but only the faintest fraction of your magical might has faded, and that shall be renewed within the hour. Though you cannot access more than a paltry smidgen of your full power at once, eventually... Nothing will be beyond your grasp. But that's enough philosophy for today, you've got to get to work.

You send your canine companions off to find a stream, brook, or river of some sort, and search for the animal trails bound to border it. Now, as for the issue of shelter, you order your minions to cut down a nearby pine tree and dismantle it to form a rudimentary shelter for you. While they perform their tasks, you go to prepare the rest of the coyote meat.

[11][11][11]
((Seriously, what just happened? ))

By nightfall, the coyotes find a fairly sizable stream only three spans away. They don't have enough time to search the area for paths thoroughly, but tomorrow they'll be sure to find something. Your undead laborers set up a crude, small tent-like structure out of leaves, vines, and branches. It's nothing lavish, but it should meet your needs for the time being. Stricken by sudden inspiration, you take off any of their clothes that aren't rotten or particularly filthy, to use as blankets. Most of your followers are now partially nude, but, who cares? After finishing your temporary home, they continued their woodwork, and as of now, have amassed eight feet of logs. At this rate, they'll be able to create a one-room wooden shack by the end of the week, perhaps even tomorrow, if they do particularly well.

During all of this, you sit by the fire, and slowly cook coyote meat for the entire day. When you finish, you look up at the idle corpses and face-palm. Did you really just waste ten hours of potential study time doing a mundane task that could've been allocated to one of your minions at no cost? Sigh, it'll take you a while to get used to the whole Wizard thing.

+2 Day's worth of coyote meat!

*DAY THREE*

Last night you slept much better, and crawling out of your shelter, you feel rejuvenated. The workers kept laboring well into the night and into the morning, there's a good twelve foot stack of logs now, almost a third of what you need to build your cabin. Most of the corpses stand idle, watching their comrades impassively. You feel an intense desire to further your power, and wonder what you might be able to do beyond raise the dead.

What do you do today?

Spoiler:  Mighty Wizard (click to show/hide)

Name:
Age: 16
Status: Healthy

Traits:

Muscled, from a lifetime of hard labor.

Skills:

Necromancy: 3
Farming: 5

Spoiler:  Inventory (click to show/hide)

On your person

Filthy Clothes(worn)
Walking Stick
Filthy Makeshift Blanket
Iron Pocketknife

In your possession

5 Day's worth of coyote meat
3 Stack of logs
3 Wood-Cutting Axes
2 Pickaxes
1 Carpenter's Hammer

Spoiler:  Arcane Knowledge (click to show/hide)

Necromancy

RAISE DEAD
MINOR SMITE

Spoiler:  Mighty Wizard's Holdings (click to show/hide)

A small, crude, tent-like shelter

Spoiler:  Mighty Wizard's Followers:(19) (click to show/hide)

12 Zombies
2 Coyote Zombies
5 Skeletons

[FallacyofUrist]

Okay then...

Magical experimentation! Attempt to use our essence to "overcharge" a coyote zombie.

[NRDL]

Okay then...

Magical experimentation! Attempt to use our essence to "overcharge" a coyote zombie.

+1

[AoshimaMichio]

Rest of our undeads need some work too. Few can start working with the cabin already, it's not like we need all the logs before we can build anything.

Those who are not needed for construction can go scouting our surrounding area. Stones, ruins, caves... anything with slightest chance of being useful.

[Xantalos]

Question time for GM please!

Can we have an overview of magic? The significance of a wizard and how powerful they generally are? Are there any gods in this world? What does our character know of the world's history? Our general location continent-wise? Are there any big kingdoms nearby that we know of?

[Tomasque]

Rest of our undeads need some work too. Few can start working with the cabin already, it's not like we need all the logs before we can build anything.

Those who are not needed for construction can go scouting our surrounding area. Stones, ruins, caves... anything with slightest chance of being useful.

But we keep one zombie with us as a guard, just in case the supercharged coyote becomes uncontrollable. Sure we can smite, but what if it doesn't work on undead?

 Oh, and after the coyote experiment, we should zombify some squirrels or other small such creature that can perch up in a tree, skitter quickly, and hide well. They would be very useful.

[Ardent Debater]

*DAY THREE*

You decide that you'd like the cabin to be finished sooner, rather than later, and command a few of the undead to start building the foundations. When you're satisfied that they're doing their jobs properly, you command the rest of the undead to scout the area for anything that might be useful. Of course, you aren't commanding them verbally, you're mentally willing them to do what you want them to... It's hard to explain, but it's almost like your thoughts reach out into their, well not minds, into their shell, giving them basic instructions. The few others are busy cutting logs. All of your minions are busy, and your immediate physical needs are satisfied, which means you can begin to sate your Arcane thirst for knowledge.

[9]

You order one of the Zombie Coyotes to stop moving, and it does, leaving it's near-identical twin to go off searching for animal trails. You reach out and grab it, muttering meaningless words to yourself like a mantra, and unleash as much power into it as you can without hurting yourself. The sheer energy exiting you causes the air to ripple, and the Coyote begins to spasm wildly. You keep pouring, more and more, and finally, you reach some kind of limit, and the Coyote's eyes pop out of its head, and the corpse collapses, lifeless once more. Well, you learned more or less nothing. But perhaps if you limited the power influx, and only applied it to certain areas... Yes, that, that could work, yes indeed.

-1 Coyote Zombie!

You feel winded, and while your energy reserves are near 100% capacity, the sheer volume of power being transmitted has stressed your mind and body. You're completely exhausted, and have a splitting headache. Your body wasn't ready to channel this much power, and you decide to rest for awhile, watching your undead companions build the start of a humble shack.

[9][19][17]

The remaining Coyote Zombie does well, and manages to find five little-used rabbit trails bordering the stream. Your undead scouts have found several convenient outcroppings of rock, and a few fruit trees. What interests you the most is their discovery: A small cabin in the woods, two day's travel away. Apparently, one man lives there. An old, grey-haired hermit living in solitude, hunting and trapping for what little he needs. The Zombies and Skeletons building the shack have made tremendous progress, and the shack is halfway finished. The undead wood-cutters don't stop either, so the builders have a constant influx of supplies, hastening the project's completion.

*DAY FOUR*

You've got a good feeling about today, what should you do?

Spoiler:  Mighty Wizard (click to show/hide)

Name:
Age: 16
Status: Healthy

Traits:

Muscled, from a lifetime of hard labor.

Skills:

Necromancy: 3
Farming: 5

Spoiler:  Inventory (click to show/hide)

On your person

Filthy Clothes(worn)
Walking Stick
Filthy Makeshift Blanket
Iron Pocketknife

In your possession

4 Day's worth of coyote meat
A few stacks of logs
3 Wood-Cutting Axes
2 Pickaxes
1 Carpenter's Hammer

Spoiler:  Arcane Knowledge (click to show/hide)

Necromancy

RAISE DEAD
MINOR SMITE

Spoiler:  Mighty Wizard's Holdings (click to show/hide)

A small, crude, tent-like shelter.
A halfway finished wooden shack

Spoiler:  Mighty Wizard's Followers:(18) (click to show/hide)

12 Zombies
1 Coyote Zombies
5 Skeletons

[NRDL]

Let's go meet the old hermit, ascertain who and what he is.

If he has food, we can extort him with zombies, but if we can also learn survival skills by befriending him, that's also an option.

[S34N1C]

Let's go meet the old hermit, ascertain who and what he is.

If he has food, we can extort him with zombies, but if we can also learn survival skills by befriending him, that's also an option.

I was going to say just kill him, but might as well learn something first.

[AoshimaMichio]

Let's go meet the old hermit, ascertain who and what he is.

If he has food, we can extort him with zombies, but if we can also learn survival skills by befriending him, that's also an option.

-1 Let's not. It's two days travel away and we don't have that much food yet. I would rather ignore him for few days and get our travel rations up to date. We could, however, copy his traps and get few rabbits.

In terms of arcane study I would like to see if we can bind bones of coyote skeleton together with strips of its skin and see if we can reanimate it when it stays together better. Or failing in that, see if we can reanimate portions of body. Upper body of coyote shudders and begins to move!

[escaped lurker]

Let's go meet the old hermit, ascertain who and what he is.

If he has food, we can extort him with zombies, but if we can also learn survival skills by befriending him, that's also an option.

-1 Let's not.

-1 Let's really not
We won't befriend any normal human, because they think us an abomination - especially if we have undead in our service.
Also, it is a man, alone in these woods? Let's not bite off more than we can chew. Anybody living in such a semi-hostile environment, could be more than what he seems.

+1 to setting up traps for rabbits
(We don't want them to be our main source of food though. Rabbit starvation is a thing.)

Magic Research
Proposed Arcane study, is also a go - but I would like for us to also try to expell some of our mana from our body, and try to controll its movement outside of our body. This could open up casting and study of attack spells besides smite.

[Ardent Debater]

Question time for GM please!

Can we have an overview of magic? The significance of a wizard and how powerful they generally are? Are there any gods in this world? What does our character know of the world's history? Our general location continent-wise? Are there any big kingdoms nearby that we know of?

Answer time for Xantalos!

Mana is an invisible force that surrounds and permeates the universe. It keep the laws of physics in place, and prevents total stagnation and/or total chaos on a molecular scale. All living organisms have a soul, this soul passively absorbs mana, which is used to sustain that organism's more sophisticated bodily functions and sustain its mind, emotions, thoughts, and memories. Some organisms, usually sapient, though magical animals do exist, are able to actively gather mana into their soul. Mental training and discipline allows magic-users, or, Mages, to absorb mana faster, retain it longer, and store more mana. Such organisms, with the proper training and/or natural aptitude, are able to temporarily bind mana to their will, and mentally command it to perform an action upon leaving their body, that may or may not follow the conventional laws of physics. This action is called a Spell.

Most Spells fall into one of dozens of categories, or, disciplines, that follow the same broad command format and cause the same type of effects. Learning to use a Spell is difficult, and may require days, weeks, or even months, depending on the Spell. Inventing a Spell is extremely difficult, and dangerous. Improvising Spells with no prior preparation is suicidal for all but the finest Archmages. Wizards are extremely rare individuals whose souls are linked to the mana field. Wizards are blessed with an uncanny aptitude for all kinds of magic, learn magic hundreds of times faster than standard Mages, and have an almost endless supply of mana. It might take a mortal Mage fifty years to master pyromancy, it might take an extremely determined Wizard with access to the proper tomes only half a year at most. This means that Wizards have an unprecedented amount of power and an unmatched versatility, making them extremely dangerous foes. Due to their Godlike power, Wizards are unable to coexist with ordinary mortals, as they instinctively fear, envy, and revere them all at once.

Wizards are extremely rare, with only one being born every few centuries, only a handful, (as in, single digit number) of Wizards are alive today. Dozens of Wizards have existed throughout the world's history, and many are mythologized. Wizards are responsible for almost all monsters, artifacts, and non-Human races, among other things. Wizards, almost invariably, either elevate themselves to the level of Emperor over mortal men, or hide away, to study the Arcane arts undisturbed by the passage of time. The criteria for Wizardhood are completely unknown, and mortals are seemingly elevated at random. A few constants have been observed: an Wizard always awakens during his early-mid teenage years, only one, rarely two, Wizards awaken every few centuries, and Wizardhood is not hereditary. Apart from that, there is no common thread connecting Wizards, save their power.

There are many Gods in this world, or a few, or only one, or none at all, depending on which religion you follow. Pantheism is common, but Monotheism is growing in popularity. The Mighty Wizard protagonist knows as much as most rural farmers do of the world's history, nothing beyond hearsay, tales, and rumors. Currently, you are in the Utnik Forest, which spans half of the Thrent continent. You are in the northernmost territory of the Thrennit Empire, an expansionist high medieval british/germanic empire, which draws heavily on Imperial Rome for much of its bureaucracy, culture, and military tactics. If you have further questions, ask them! I'll be updating tomorrow, if I am able to, sorry for the wait.