Necro-Synthesis: The Dead Labor Economy
Soul Capture, Undead Contracts, and the Corporate Afterlife
The Nekrocorp Accord of 2187 settled the question of what happens to a person at death: their soul becomes a legal resource, capturable at the moment of biological death and bound to an animated corpse for labor contracts lasting up to 500 years. The living work alongside the dead in every office, factory, and service sector. Dead workers do not eat, sleep, or unionize. Three mega-corporations own 80% of all bound souls. The living accept this arrangement because it keeps taxes low and goods cheap. The Unbounded - souls that escaped capture at death and haunt the city's infrastructure - are technically illegal. They are also the only free people in the world.
“The soul-lease agreement covers 200 years of service in exchange for the subscriber’s estate passing tax-free to designated survivors. Most people sign it. It is the most popular financial product in the world.”
- Nekrocorp Standard Soul-Lease, promotional brochure, 2204
1. Setting Overview
Necro-Synthesis is a world where death is a business transition, not an ending. Soul-capture technology - developed from necromantic theory in the late 2100s and refined into industrial-scale machines - means that every death generates a corporate asset unless the dying person has taken active, expensive steps to prevent it. The poor rarely take those steps.
The city looks efficient and bright. Dead laborers do not tire. Dead workers show up on time, do not complain, and accept any working conditions. The living get cheaper products and lower taxes. The arrangement has political support because its costs are invisible: they are paid by the dead, who cannot vote.
Tone: Corporate horror that is mundane rather than grotesque. The horror is not in the appearance of bound souls - they look like people, move like people, and were people. The horror is in how ordinary the arrangement has become.
2. The Dead and the Living
Bound Souls exist in two categories. Class A bindings retain personality and communication ability - these are the premium product, used for skilled labor and customer service. Class B bindings are stripped to motor function only, used for physical labor. The distinction is made by the capturing corporation at the moment of death, not by the deceased.
The Unbounded are souls that escaped capture, usually through equipment failure, unusual circumstances at the moment of death, or rare natural resistance. They haunt the city’s infrastructure: power grids, communication networks, older buildings. They are treated as trespassers. They are also the setting’s primary conscience, having died without a corporate contract and therefore having nothing to lose.
The Living are divided between those who work alongside the dead every day and have normalized the arrangement entirely, and a growing minority who find the normalization disturbing and are unsure what to do about it.
3. Factions
Nekrocorp - The largest soul-management firm. Owns 40% of bound souls in the city. Currently lobbying to extend the maximum contract length from 500 to 1000 years.
The Unbounded Collective - A loose network of free souls who have learned to operate in the city’s infrastructure. They have information access that no living person can match. They want legal recognition. The corporations want them recaptured.
The Soul Rights Advocates - A living-person organization arguing for limits on soul capture. Currently fighting to require consent documentation signed before death. Corporations argue this would collapse the economy.
4. Unique Mechanic
Soul Saturation Track (1-6): At 1-2: Character is functionally normal; no special abilities with bound souls. At 3-4: Character can sense nearby bound souls and read their emotional state (even Class B). At 5: Communication with any bound soul without equipment. -1d6 to Presence with the fully living. At 6 (Death Imprint): Full communication with bound and Unbounded souls in range. Counts as partially dead for legal and social purposes. The character has a very useful problem.
Saturation resets 1 point per scene without soul contact.
5. Character Archetypes
The Soul Engineer
Maintains the binding machines that keep contracts active. Has noticed that three souls in her care have been trying to communicate something specific for six weeks and keeps not finding time to listen.
- Drive: “Find out what they are trying to say before their contract is transferred to another facility.”
- Approach Distribution: Force 1 | Finesse 2 | Mind 3 | Presence 2
The Unbounded Advocate
A living lawyer whose Saturation is at 5 due to years of soul-rights work. Can hear the Unbounded clearly. Uses their testimony in legal filings, which courts currently refuse to accept as evidence.
- Drive: “Get one Unbounded soul’s testimony into the official record.”
- Approach Distribution: Force 1 | Finesse 2 | Mind 2 | Presence 3
The Corporate Investigator
Tracks escaped souls for Nekrocorp. Does the job competently. Recently found an Unbounded soul who claims to remember being voluntarily captured - which should be impossible under current capture-only-at-death protocols.
- Drive: “Figure out if the protocols were broken before or after filing the report.”
- Approach Distribution: Force 2 | Finesse 3 | Mind 2 | Presence 1
6. Starter Scenario
The Leaked Contract: An Unbounded soul has smuggled documentation into a city journalist’s inbox - a soul-lease agreement signed 40 years before the signatory’s death, meaning Nekrocorp held the contract before the person died. If the contract is real, Nekrocorp has been capturing living people’s souls, not just the deceased. The characters have 48 hours before Nekrocorp’s legal team buries the story and the journalist’s source is recaptured.