By Stuart Ellis

The medical technology available to the high nobles is advanced enough to rescue their most valued servants from crippling injuries and even death.

The medical technology available to the high nobles is advanced enough to rescue their most valued servants from crippling injuries and even death. If a soldier dies or is maimed committing some heroic feat, and if a skilled medic can reach him in time, he may be revived and remade.

The Lazarites are living heroes, symbols of the strength of the human spirit, the proud tradition of a unit and a nobles generosity to his men. Their connection with death and dead soldiers makes them a little supernatural in the eyes of the living; Lazarites are often attributed with uncanny insight, incredible fighting ability or even said to be representatives of the dead, particularly by Hazat and Li Halan troops, leading priests to think of the old Manja cult. The slight character changes seen in many Lazarites are also put down to the touch of death.

The nobility carefully use Lazarites to heighten soldiers loyalty and enhance their own power, even if many don't believe in the mythology. Few people, particularly the soldiers eager to have some hope of cheating death, want to know about the complex Guild devices used to revive and stabilise hideously wounded men or like to think about the cybernetics under the bright uniforms. Any strangeness is disguised or minimised as far as possible: some Lazarites wear gloves all the time and a few never seem to take their armour off.