The Bone Orchard

The 'Bone Orchard' is the name given to the lands owned by House Abraxas in Bal-Morath where undead are used to tend the land.

History

During the last war, House Abraxas lent their necromantic expertise to the battles that waged on Bal-Morath's eastern coast, supplementing Imperial Legionaries with skeleton forces. This wasn't an act they undertook lightly, but shielding the living with the dead was something they considered to be the lesser of two evils. After the cessation of hostilities they elected to keep a small number of the reanimated instead of destroying them, returning with them to Bal-Morath. Rather than destroy the skeleton workforce, House Abraxas decided to put them to work in the fields as a sort of perverse 'swords-to-ploughshares' act of contrition.

The small collection of farms which grows House Abraxas produce, most notably the 'Dire Potato', has since become known throughout Bal-Morath as the 'Bone Orchard'.

Current Status

Across the Bone Orchard much of the unskilled labour is now performed by skeletons under the control of a member of the House. The presence of undead on these farms serves several purposes;

• The first, and primary, purpose is to assist in the growing of crops. Prior to harvesting, the 'Dire Potato' is a fairly dangerous foodstuff and the use of a labour force that is both cheap and practically immune to the worst of the potato's attacks is pragmatic.
• Secondly, the undead are in effect, 'free' and so much cheaper than slaves or hired help who need constant paying. Undead will work in all weather conditions and, potentially, 24 hours a day without sleep or nourishment.
• Thirdly, the continual maintenance of a large number of undead allows the necromantically inclined mages of the family a safe area to practice their control of the undead. Keeping control of such a large number of undead often requires more necromancers than the house can call upon (or afford to hire) so often this work is 'outsourced' to 'interns' (novice mages still under Chancery tutelage.
• The last purpose is to serve as a reminder/memorial of the horrors of war; each skeleton tending the fields is, potentially, the remains of a soldier from the last war - reanimated to fight on behalf of the living. Now that the act for which they were created is done it is the responsibility of their creators to deal with the aftermath, whether by retaining control of them or by destroying them (the latter of which the family finds distasteful, as it implied that it's alright to bring someone back from the dead then dispose of them as soon as their usefulness is at an end).

It has been noted that the post-war generations of the family are quite unfazed by the presence of the undead, and are a little bemused upon encountering more conventional farms. A few have even raised the possibility of expanding the Bone Orchard with additional skeletons for increased productivity. The older generation finds this notion distasteful and refuse to entertain it, even though there would be some economic sense in doing so.