Creator Journals 12/16/25
It was brought to my attention during a famously unreleased podcast episode that I tend to write a lot of necromancers. What’s the reason for that? Well, there are a number of likely reasons. The main reason is that I like them. They’re my go-to class in any given RPG game.
I tend to like writing morally gray characters who cross social boundaries, and if I can make that boundary-crossing a bit Lovecraftian, that’s a huge bonus.
The aesthetic is also really fun; skeletons, black, medieval gothic attire.
A lot of these characters honestly start out as DnD characters I build for myself. This whole fantasy venture originally began as a way to utilize some of my extra homebrew DnD lore.
That being said, I think there are still some pretty major differences between Mad Crossbones and Vulture.
True, both are morally ambiguous, magic obsessed outsiders with a gothic aesthetic and a squad of bone boys, but they do what they do for different primary reasons. Vulture is ideologically and emotionally obsessed with a symbolic victory over death. Mostly because of the tragic loss of her twin sister early in life. Vulture sees the pursuit of immortality as her calling. She’ll sacrifice whatever she has to in pursuit of eternal life.
Mad, on the other hand, has no emotional stake in his quest. It just happens to be the thing that interests him. He carries no ideology. The line between the living and the dead is occasionally unclear to him. He often forgets what is alive and what isn’t, whereas for Vulture, that divide is her core motivation. Vulture has a heart, debatably she has too much of a heart. She attaches to others easily and has trouble detaching when her goals and convictions require a sacrifice.
All in all, I’d say they can both serve as cautionary tales. Mad is a cautionary tale about the damage an apathetic person can do to the people around them. Vulture is a cautionary tale about prioritizing a stated purpose over life experience.
So yeah, there’s my rant for the day. Hope you enjoyed it.
Go forth and raise the dead! Make your own mistakes and find your own cautionary tales!
Today’s writing tip: If you think too hard about the meaning behind your story, you will cripple it. Sometimes it’s better just to let the story happen.
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