The reanimated corpses of humans who fought against the Fallen Lords and lost. Because they’re dead, Thrall are ponderously slow, but they will also withstand a great deal of damage before the foul sorceries that keep their bodies upright fail. -Thrall Description, Cast of Characters, Myth TFL Manual
Description[]
Thrall are the basic undead foot soldiers of the Dark, and are far and away the most prominent in number. In comparison to other undead, they are simple to create, since they do not require a specific type of corpse (as do Ghasts, and by extension, Wights) or a large amount of effort on the summoner's part (as do Soulless). Any well-preserved cadaver can be converted into a Thrall regardless of how long the subject has been dead, which has led many necromancers over the years to raid ancient crypts and mausolea in order to bolster their armies. Fresh corpses make suitable candidates as well; much to the Legion's dismay, it has become a common practice for dark lords to draw reinforcements from the ranks of their slain foes or even to attack villages and other low-priority targets in order to forcibly "recruit" their inhabitants. From there, Thrall are each given an ax along with a rudimentary set of armor before going on to fulfill their normal duties as shambling executioners.
Though they can accept basic commands, Thrall are mindless undead, and therefor the subtleties of combat are lost on them. They cannot be made to understand flanking maneuvers or any specialized tactics for that matter more complicated than attacking the nearest foe. In lieu of strategy, most commanders tend to throw massive numbers of Thrall at their enemies in the hopes of overwhelming them with numbers alone, with the knowledge that any opponents killed will also feed their own numbers. Due to the sluggishness and lack of dexterity inherent to their decaying bodies, all Thrall are equipped with a large ax so that they might do as much damage as possible with each hit. Despite the ease of their creation and their expendable status, Thrall can take tremendous amounts of punishment, collapsing only when the magic that revived them is no longer sufficient to prevent their bodies from falling apart.
Flavor Text[]
Myth: TFL[]
" ... the seventh wave of Thrall stumbled and climbed over the slippery, piled dead and Mazzarin saw The Watcher with them and at last knew the number of his days."
"Bahl'al descended to the flooded, rusting halls of Si'anwon and under the sea there took no breath for nine days, searching the ruined palaces and temples of the Trow for the dream of unlife."
Myth II[]
"...Bahl'al spurred his army onward with a blistering wind. Three full days before his army arrived... the citizens of Tyr knew their doom lumbered nearer with each passing hour..."
"...they attacked the city of Covenant... reinforced not only by the slaughtered town folk and farmers... but also by the plunder of catacombs, crypts and cemeteries of a thousand years."
Myth III[]
"…The men of Dru'Cullah made their last stand against the Watcher's army. As dawn broke, a shifting mass appeared on the horizon - not the heat of the sun rising from the glen - but a sea of deathless corpses shambling towards Dru'Cullah. The population of neighboring villages had swelled the ranks of the dead. Many soldiers took their own lives, but at the days end, all marched for the Watcher…"
"…from…every barrow…every cairn…every mausoleum…dead were taken. The most holy of sanctuaries were defiled as bodies of the dead were loaded onto great wagons, piled high with corpses and buzzing flies. These were rolled before the feet of Bahl'al, and within minutes, the ancient dead were clawing their way through the piled massed of writhing corpses…"