"The armies of the Undead are unlike others. I have faced them many times and they exact a fear-grip on men's hearts in a way that no other enemy can. Men are more prone to fear when facing a host of the walking dead, and fear is a soldier's worst enemy."
- —Grandmarshall Blucher von Vincke[2a]
The legions of the Undead unleashed upon the battlefield.
The Undead, also known as the Restless Dead or the Unliving, is a term used by scholars of the mortal world to describe all those entities, both physical and incorporeal, that once were living beings, had their life processes cease, but used the foul magic of necromancy to extend their existences so that they are now neither truly alive nor truly dead.
Given a new half-life through the Dark Magic of necromancy, these damned souls are awakened from their rest to embark on deeds most foul for their corrupt masters. No pulse, no breath, no life, yet still they stir. Dead, but dreaming, they exist to plague the living with thoughts of their own mortality.[1a]
With tongue-less mouths, they whisper a single name: Nagash. Nagash the Black, first and greatest necromancer to ever stride the Known World, it was his great fear of what lay beyond the realm of flesh that led him down the path of damnation. He was willing to commit any blasphemy imaginable, if only he could master death itself. From his researches and his rituals arose the first of the Undead.[1a]
In the Empire, talk of the Restless Dead turns all eyes to the east, towards Sylvania, a cursed land and once the stronghold of the great von Carstein Vampire Counts who have all, supposedly, been destroyed. There are few that truly believe that, for those that have returned from the grave once can surely do so again.[1a]
The Tomb Kings of Nehekhara frown upon the use of "undead" for themselves. Instead, they prefer to call themselves the Awakened or the Free Dead, to differentiate themselves from the enslaved puppets commanded by necromancers.[3]