"Well, I am in need of a new group..."

[THIS OPPORTUNITY SURPASSES YOUR OTHERS. ACCEPT.]

"...and I would be pleased to join you. When do we depart?"

"Glad to have you aboard! We were leaving two weeks from yesterday, was the plan, I think. I'm still setting up a good wagon." 

"You probably have more to pack than I do," he says, tilting his head slightly to the side.

Over the next two weeks, the three of them prepare to depart. Tarka takes the lead on planning, focusing on every detail. Supplies are purchased, agreements for the division of loot are made, capabilities are discussed, tactics are planned. During one of these conversations, Tarka asks the obvious question.

"Ossa is not human, is he? Or any other form of humanoid, I expect."

"Well, no not really. He's a skeleton. Not even a particularly advanced one, he's mostly running on muscle memory and a basic instruction-set. The muscle memory is a good one though, the original owner was a veteran bodyguard, I think."  

"Ohhh, that makes sense! What is muscle memory? And don't skeletons not have muscles?"

"I see. That gives me some idea of what to expect, although I would like to spar with him later, if possible."

"Sparing with him is fine. Ideally, you'd do it before we go, I don't know spells that repair him yet and it's best to be careful."

"Ah, muscle memory is, like, your skills and motions and so forth as recorded in your instincts and your reflexes and so forth. Some of it is literally muscles, but lots of it is in the parts of mind and metaphysiology that stick around after death rather than taking off with the soul, so you can preserve it if you're careful, that's how mindless, soulless undead know how to walk around and such without anyone needing to manually describe walking. If you've got a fine touch, you can even keep around some more sophisticated skillsets like using weapons or tools, or in Ossa's case, the whole suite of stuff he does. Reacting to people, if in a not-very-sophisticated way, jumping in front of attacks, the whole lot. Combine that with a small central core for making high-level decisions, and you get something which can walk around and do things, much more cheaply than a purely-artificial construct. Even most constructs use *some* kind of cheat of like that. And yes, the phrasing in Common is stupid, it's from old imperial and they didn't allow necromancy so they also didn't think about how it worked very much. The draconic is much nicer, it's [a word that literally translates as "the lower/lesser/base/animal memory"] but it makes you sound like an stuffy old academic."

"Of course. I should not take long or do damage, it is just a simple assessment."

"Oh, I've heard of that. Although at home we call it 'neuromuscular habit' and I don't think there's any metaphysiology involved."

Several days before their departure, Sida makes one last trip to the Order of Edification's library—her beloved library, how she'll miss it—to make a few final additions to her notebooks and to look for Sendra.

The Order of Edification is as it has been since she first arrived here, in all it's glory. Sendra is hard at work, deep in a pile of books on white magic in a nook in the library. 

"Psst. Sendra. Do you have a moment?" she whispers.

"I do. What's the matter?" Sendra replies. 

"I, am leaving town soon. So I would like to say goodbye and give you the notes I've been writing for the order. I don't think they'll be very useful, but they're worth something."

"Ah."  Sendra looks worried. "I'd ask you to stay safe, but you wouldn't listen. Good luck. Thank you for the notes. I hope you don't have to bury too many friends."  

"I've lost a lot of people already. I'm... not unaccustomed to it."

"Anyways, executive summary. I've outlined the tech tree and what physical-scientific knowledge I can remember, which is not as much as I'd like. Also, the natural laws are a lot more different here than I first thought, so probably a lot of this won't transfer over. And I have even less of an idea of what things make most sense, economically. But hopefully I should at least be able to give you an idea of the rough sequence of steps, and where you can end up if you follow them."

"I have also outlined what I remember of the Canon, although I've only ever read about half of it. This might end up being useful, if someone founds a priestly order and then gives it a few hundred years. But I've realized that I don't know enough about my civilization’s social technology to adapt it to the different conditions here, and it will take a while to develop something new. I think the lichocracy might be a decent starting point, though."

"... the lichocracy? The state whose system of government is a blatant formalisation of the idea that the most powerful should rule, plus some systems to make up for the fact that the sort of powerful person they attract isn't interested in governance at all? I'd be interested to see your reasoning there." 

"Well, in order to be a lich, you have to be pretty smart, right? And since they're immortal, they have much more reason than most people to play the long game. So with the combination of power, intelligence, and long time-horizons, they should be in a pretty good position to make a long-term investment into a polity, to keep it stable and prosperous. I'm not entirely sure what they value individually, but I would be surprised if it didn't involve wealth and/or magical knowledge. And the strategy you'd pursue to maximize a polity's tax output and growth—economically, technologically, etcetera—would be pretty good for the citizens, or at least better than seems to be the case in many other parts of this world. The part where they're not interested in governance could be an obstacle, depending on what form it takes, I'd have to know more about the place."

"Hmm. I think there are several bad assumptions there - the first is - not every lich is from a magical tradition that depends on intelligence, many are from traditions where stubbornness or pain tolerance or ability to sweet-talk are more useful traits. I don't have a demographic survey on hand of what's most common. Secondly, ability to play the long game is not the same as inclination to play the long game - many liches take their newfound unkillable nature as an excuse to stop planning for their own survival, let alone sensible economic development. Thirdly, raw intelligence doesn't equate to skill at governance, it's an old trope, of the wizard taking power and assuming that skill at figuring out the mysteries of the universe will translate to running a slice of it and then failing totally. Immortality doesn't help much, because there are only so many skills a person can keep sharp no matter how long they live and being an undead is actively detrimental to mental flexibility and stability. Finally, viewing your subjects as a resource extraction project to be maximised doesn't actually result in good things happening to those people as actually implemented by people motivated by personal gain as a governance culture, no matter how enlightened the person who proposed the policies implemented likes to think they are. The incentives you have described are there, and they have some effect, but what good the lichocracy does for it's citizens is well outweighed by the evil it spews into every neighbouring nation."

"Oh, I was under the impression that becoming a lich was a difficult, magically complex undertaking. If you can do it without being clever, the situation is different. Probably it wouldn't work then, unless you had the right person."

"It is the case that people have often achieved magically complex effects through sheer weight and stubbornness. Intelligence helps, but it's not required. Also just in general experience can substitute for talent in any domain, if you have enough of it."

"I should have expected that. Anyways, do you have any questions?"

"Unfortunately, I think all my questions will arise when I have read your manuscript, and that will most likely not be until you have left."