The Vehement were a race of sentient undead with some degree of free will, borne from the Obscene Rite performed by Archebaud de Fleur during the Onyx King’s War.
The degree of necromantic control inherently demanded by the Rite mandated a sharp level of autonomy for some undead, who were magically bound to enforce the caster’s will while remaining under indirect control by the caster- in this regard, the necromancer would have to exert a much weaker degree of concentration while effectively commanding a roughly equal number of undead. However, the interruption of the ritual in it’s later stages via the death of the Onyx King left many of the undead masterless and with some degree of sentience, devoid of external order and command.
Many among the summoned masterless undead would ultimately band together for protection from contemporary Wudorian society. Difficulties in conveying sentience aside, many clerics of The Myriad were diametrically opposed to the existence of undead, sentient or not, upon the Wudorian continent.
The profession of Gravewalker sharply declined during this period, as many large tombs had already been profaned and had their bodies risen during the rite. Normalcy would be established as some Gravewalkers became conduits through which the Vehement could communicate with the various states within Wudor.
The status of the Vehement varied vastly from state-to-state: some, such as the Republic of Ettmark, adopted a ‘live-and-let-live’ policy in which the Vehement were permitted to run their own settlements without interference though were not officially considered citizenry or subjects, and were thus deprived of benefits and spared obligations. In the Realm of Velmir, some Vehement earned knighthood and citizenship for their deeds, though their society at large remained distant from the Realm’s. Only a small few realms, such as the Republic of Aviennaria, made any attempt to incorporate Vehement communities into society at large. Most, especially those run by Carettic People, considered the Vehement a blight and made active effort to eradicate them.
Whether the Vehement were fully sentient was widely debated among Wudorian polities- while appearing to retain some characteristics of the individual who’s corpse they inhabited, many had entirely different personalities and traits than their self-in-life. Some claimed direct inheritance as the individual they were in life, while others maintained that they were a separate, independent individual. While claims to the contrary exist, most agree that the Vehement possess fleeting knowledge of the individual they were in life, and tend to generally align with their past self in terms of character and morals. The degree of sentience was not universal among the Vehement, with some having inherent difficulty adjusting to the consumption of raw and sometimes human meat, while others did so as if natural.