When you first come to Nerull to seek wisdom, you are like a skeleton, without strength or knowledge, just a frail body to mop the floors, scrub the walls, polish the holy vessels, and serve the masters. All you have is devotion to the Truth and this is the time for you to explore that devotion and come to know it like your own heartbeat.
When the work and toil has made your body strong and your spirit humble you will become as the Zombie. Your mind is not ready to contain the Truth, though the heart is willing. You must do the work of our Lord without complete understanding as you become a soldier for the Truth. In this time you will feel hot blood wash upon your hands, you will hear bones break with the force of your blow, you will hear the screams of the dying, and you will see the exact moment when life leaves the body. Your devotion to the Truth will transform to real understanding of the Truth. The words you have heard will begin to come to your mind in a sensible way and you will be able to speak them with confidence.
When you can speak the Truth without reservation, you will be as is the Ghoul. The Ghoul is ever hungry always seeking nourishment for its unlife. You will hunt for the Truth in all things. You will pore through the sacred tomes and scrolls, you will draw wisdom from your masters, you will seek ancient forgotten sources of the Truth. Your mind has achieved a readiness to understand the sources of the Truth around you and you will take it in from anywhere you can. There will be a time when you will begin to see how the many sources of the Truth are connected, so that you become aware of a greatness beyond the sources themselves.
At this time your understanding of the Word will lead you upon your path and your role in the Faith will be apparent. Some will find Truth in the Deed and will seek to perform works in the name of the Lord. In this way, they secure their salvation as would a peasant who farms and feeds his lord in the manor. Others who cultivate a higher mental awareness will obtain the most through a closer study of the Word. They study why the Deed is glorious and its beauty and focus in life. They see the significance in the Deed and study the variations and manners and create a defining philosophy for the Order. Together we work as a structured society that is motivated and defined by one guiding principle: Death.
If you follow the path of The Deed, you go from being a hungering Ghoul to a hungering Ghast. Salvation through The Deed can be frustrating and empty. The soldiers of Nerull can feel the spirit enter their body when The Deed is done, but the spirit vanishes and they feel they need to perform their work again to feel good. As the Ghast you still have not chained your hunger, but through time you become skilled at the work you are driven to do. Eventually, you slow down. You learn patience. The Ghast can be sent in groups to raid or hunt enemies of the Faith. They are sent on missions that require no delicacy but only brutality. You will come to terms with your existence and the spirit will begin to dwell in you at all times. Slowly you will lose your hunger and you can focus better for more precise work. At this time you will have advanced to the next level of service.
The Wight is like the Ghast, but it has lost its overwhelming hunger. You will not crave the power of The Deed as you used to because the power will be coursing through you constantly. You will perform as a musician plays a tune or a painter creates a portrait; you will be fulfilled as if by art. You will act out of refinement or necessity of purpose. The Wight is called when an agent is needed to range far and observe or perform The Deed. It has the ability to stop, contemplate the best course and then act. As you travel and learn about the world, you will gain valuable experiences that you will bring back to the Order. After many years of service abroad, you will return to a home to stay and take up a more valuable role in service to Nerull.
When you come home, you will become a Mummy. The Mummy is a guardian and servant of a temple. It acts as a superior warrior to train the Ghouls and protect the most sacred of our Lord's mysteries. At this stage, you are a master of The Deed and while in the temple you will be schooled further in The Word. What was formerly too complex for a soldier to understand, now that many experiences have been had, may be known. You have seen the Truth of The Word in the world; you may for the first time understand the Unlife within Life. As The Word and The Deed come together and the beauty of the combined lattice of the Truth becomes crystallized, the Mummy can become a Vampire.
The Vampire is the greatest servant of Nerull that The Deed can produce. Only complete and unwavering faith and regular works in the name of our Lord can create a Vampire. The Vampire becomes the lord of its own temple or fortress devoted to the works of Nerull. Sometimes in conjunction with a Ghost, they organize all operations within a certain jurisdiction be they spiritual, political, conspiratorial, etc. and report temple activities to the Lichs. They are not the ones who decide doctrine or what the goals of the Faithful are, but they are the ones who decide how the doctrine is best served and how to achieve the goals set for them. This is the extent a servant can reach if you cannot fully understand The Word. Superior understanding of The Word and The Deed are required to become a Lich.
The second path you can take after the Ghoul is the path of The Word. If you find philosophical exploration preferable to the actual act of killing, you will be drawn to the study of The Word. Often disciples of The Word of Nerull are seers of the lower planes or the demi-plane of shadow, ambassadors to the denizens of those places, seekers of the Petitioners, researchers of death in all its forms, in its relation to charms, numbers, time, perception, and reality, etc. in general they study what Dead is. In this way we continuously discover The Word of Nerull and how it then defines The Deed of Nerull. This on going study better focuses our minds and our Faith, so we can act in a way that will bring the proper structure to the world and there can be a more perfect existence. Both The Word and The Deed are necessary.
The first practitioners of The Word are the Shadows. As a Shadow, you are often excited by your thoughts, exploring ideas on your own and coming to puerile conclusions that were discovered centuries before. You will be a Shadow and you will follow a better defined, more substantial leader in thought. It is not until you understand that you are not a single brilliant mind whose ideas will take the Faith by storm that you can continue to learn. You must overcome yourself and that Ghoulish hunger for power to progress. You must realize that power comes with understanding of what has gone before and that many, many more years of study are required before you will be able to create on your own. The daily life of the Shadow is that of a minor functionary in the temple. Given time for study and self-examination, you can continue on your path, but now you are too hungry to be expected to perform capably on your own as your own mind and ego will get the best of you.
When the Shadow realizes its own insubstantiality, you must then work without yourself and yet for yourself. The Wraith has an open mind to take in experiences, life, knowledge and just look at them without personal evaluation. It is the time for you to see the world in constant relation to The Word and try to absorb as much information about the world in order to strengthen The Word. The Wraith quietly spreads The Word to those who may be sympathetic and in little ways you will act to bring The Deed of our Lord to fruition. The life of the Wraith, like the Wight, is lonely and risky and is a test of resourcefulness and survival in a hostile world. You will be called upon by the temple to range forth and procure sensitive information best obtained through divination. Often you will operate under deep cover sometimes for extended periods of time. When they have learned how the world moves and how our Lord moves with it, you will see how small you are and how meagre your thoughts are and then you can return to the temple as a powerful new servant.
Upon returning to serve our Lord in the temple you will become a Spectre. The Spectre serves two purposes in the temple. Like the Mummy, you will guard the temple from incursions and battle those seeking to destroy the temple and discover its mysteries. The Spectres also often have powers that will hide or disguise the temple from investigators. A pair or trio of Spectres is imperative for the extended operations of a temple. Secondly, Spectres will often collect a library or develop a laboratory to continue their explorations of The Word. From continued study you will understand new insights and then insights into the insights until Greater Truths of The Word are revealed. When your studies make profound impacts upon our understanding of The Word then you may be elevated to the status of Ghost.
The Ghost is the greatest level of servitude that can be reached by The Word alone. As the Ghost you have through devotion and superior faith and understanding proven your ability to govern a temple to our Lord in your own province or state. Often they work in conjunction with a Vampire and its armies in order to see that The Word and The Deed of Nerull are served in the area. Though you will dwell and operate in the material world, through mental acuity and finely honed levels of multi-awareness you will travel through and understand other realities and distant possibilities. It is for this reason that it is usually the Ghosts who progress to the final position of servitude to Nerull.
The most exalted position one can attain in the Faith is that of Lichdom, sometimes only in name, but many times in actuality. Most Lichs come from the ranks of the Ghosts as they have achieved a state of mind that understands Death totally, though Vampires can and have become Lichs. The requirements are simply that one must be a master of both The Word and The Deed. The Lichs themselves are often removed from corporeal matters existing purely in doctrine and action. They do not explain themselves, they do not teach their understanding, they do not explore theories to uncover Truths, they do not compete for power and treasure for these do not matter, they do not seek temporal ends; they are the ends and they need no justification or manipulation for everything comes to them eventually. They are motivated by only one thing: that everything comes to our Lord totally. As servants of our greater Lord they tirelessly pursue the potential for there to be only one state: Death. They command the Ghosts and Vampires to lead their dark armies and minions to fight certain foes and they unify the many temples and sects. They crush dissension and unbelief in the ranks and punish weakness and failure. Their direction does not govern the Faithful day to day, but century to century. Sitting upon the planet as it were a great funeral barge upon the water, they dip their paddles into it and take a stroke once every hundred years directing the course of the world.
This is the rank and file of Nerull. It is the defining order for the power structure of our faith. Under its guidance may The Word and The Deed come together to form one perfect End.
May the Lord even Bless your bones.