How are Risen created?

[Elieson]

From what I gather, the Nintendo Dream comic is supposed to be canon, which implies that statements like this are true. What throws me off the most is:

My friends who became Risen...

I don't remember any part of the game that mentions details about the Risen in the plot with the possible exception of the dialogue in Yen'fay's paralogue.

Not ruins, sir/my lady, but a tomb. Made to honor the spirits of our greatest warriors. Therein lie the warriors who built Chon'sin up from the earth. But not with stone or mortar did they work. They founded our country with steel! Any true child of Chon'sin knows their titles like family. The Holy Sword... The Demon's Edge... The Red Hilt... They struggled all their lives and found respite only in the grave. But now it is a place overtaken by Risen, and neither living nor dead can know peace.

It's arguably referring to the fact that Risen are in a tomb meant to honor the dead, but if we compare what Lucina said to what we read in the Chon'sin tomb, then it could plausibly refer to the Risen.

Another element of their existence is brought up by their character description which you can check in battle.

A hideous creature of otherworldly origins.

If their origins are "otherworldly, then how can they turned from the dead, unless it's viewed as an otherworldly power that turned them from living to dead in the first place.

The Final clue that I can dig up comes from the Death's Embrace DLC chapter, where Algol and Chrom are arguing about well, right and wrong.

Algol

Games? These are no games I'm crafting, sir—these are feats of skill. Works of art. And as for what happened to the villagers... Well you're about to find out firsthand.

Frederick
This is his doing, milord!

Chrom
Then you're responsible for the massacred village we came across...

Algol
Heh heh. Well, I can't take all the credit. It wasn't me directly, after all... You see, we create assassins here—loyal implements by which we may kill. Which has nice cyclical benefits, seeing as we use the dead for our assassins.

Chrom
What?! ...But why?! Why would you do such a thing?

Algol
Hah! Such a naive question! Because living people HURT, boy. They feel pain—and they fear it. And the clink of coin, or even one kiss, is enough to buy their betrayal. Oh, we tried the living...and tired of them failing us, one fool after another. But the dead brought back—they're another story entirely.

Chrom
You're mad...

Algol
With Risen we can create the perfect killers! They don't question orders, and they don't stop until their targets are vanquished. Of course, crafting them isn't easy... It requires genius of the highest order. ...If I do say so myself, heh heh! Now THESE, the assassins before you, are the culmination of my endeavors. I believe you're familiar with their work?

Chrom
The village...

Algol
Yes, that village, and so many others... I've lost count, to be honest. But honing your craft takes practice, you know. And I've had a LOT of practice... And now, I'm finally ready to unveil my masterpiece! My ultimate creation! Behold!

Risen Chief
Nnn...grrh...Kill... As Master commands...

Chrom
But you destroyed their village! Why would they serve you?

Algol
Amazing, the magic you can work in a man's final moments... One meaningful whisper, and he remains indebted to you beyond the grave. They've no choice, no free will... Only the need to serve their master.

Other character quotes from battle referenced here.

But the thing that throws me off the most is Lucina's battle-quote.

Lucina
How could anyone do something so cruel to these poor people? I can only hope that this will bring you some measure of peace... And rest assured, I will cut down the man responsible for this atrocity!

If the comic is correct, then she already knows that Risen are turned humans before she crosses worlds via Naga's spell. It's tough to interpret one way or another, but it almost reads as if she doesn't know that Risen are essentially zombies, which contradicts the line in the comic.

There are few other discernible conversations which reference Risen, such as a couple in EXPonential Growth, but these are inconclusive in general towards the undead theory. This does prove a possibility though; that Risen are not the same across dimensional planes. What's most confusing is Aversa's dialogue with Risen in battle-quotes, as in the main game's Chapter 9, it's implied that she somehow summoned Risen

This brings up [what I believe are] four possibilities;

1. Risen are flat-out confirmed to not be resurrected humans, and just creatures of otherworldly existence.
2. In the world that the game takes place in, Chrom & co. are unaware of what the Risen are, and Lucina has simply never brought up that they are likely created in a similar way to Risen in her timeline
3. In the world that the game takes place in, Chrom & co. are aware of what the Risen are, but simply do not discuss the subject for <insert reason here>
4. In the world that the game takes place in, Risen are not created from the undead. but instead:
   1. Familiars or some alternative to familiars, plausible due to the events transpired in Chapter 9
   2. Outright summoned beings from an undisclosed location

---

Are there any other clues strewn about Awakening content that could accurately describe Risen and their source? The main story dialogue is just to vague, and various outrealms possessing Risen of different behavior and existence reasoning just throw too much uncertainty into the air.

Edited September 15, 2014 by Sara.

[Comet]

In the DLC where you can get legendary items, some of the army says they feel like the Risen are familiar to them, if that means anything to you.

[GinRei]

Not just familiar, but it felt strongly implied it was an alternate world where the first generation became those Risen.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Reading into things is fine, but I don't think the devs had any intentions other than making them generic mooks so you could have someone to fight when there's no plausible reason for a hostile army to be hanging around.

[YayForYuffie]

I viewed it as such. Risen are zombies created from the fallen due to dark magic. Grima is able to use this dark magic because he's an evil god and whatnot. When Grima's vessel passed into the second timeline (where Lucina arrives to try and fix everything), he still has some remnants of that power, and uses that power (intentionally or no, most likely the former) to summon Risen for the evulz. Which would explain why Lucina knows that the Risen used to be some of her friends.

Due to their worship of Grima, his cultists may have discovered the secrets to summoning Risen as well, hence Aversa summoning some in Chapter Nine. Or it could have been the vessel summoning them behind the scenes. Algol may have found out by stealing their tomes, or found out himself

Lucina

How could anyone do something so cruel to these poor people? I can only hope that this will bring you some measure of peace... And rest assured, I will cut down the man responsible for this atrocity!

I had viewed this as Luina being horrified by Algol's actions of killing the people, and summoning them back to life. It could simply be her being horrified by his casual disregard for human life, no?

Anyway, that's simply how I interpreted it. There are probably far more plausible explanations somewhere.

[Sock]

Topic title is a little misleading. "What are the Risen?" Zombies. Plain and simple. It's well established throughout the game. "How are the Risen created?" Now that we don't know.

Brady has a good line in Death's Embrace:

Brady

In the future, our wounded often turned to Risen just as we were tryin' to heal 'em. It really stinks havin' to kill the very people you've been fightin' to save... Ya just gotta remember these folk ain't turnin' back, no matter what.

I interpret the "just as we were tryin' to heal 'em" as having a bit of leeway--people tend to embellish their stories. The people being healed died before the healing did anything, then they turned into Risen shortly after (couple minutes, maybe).

Instead of HOLYCRAPYOUDIDN'TEVENDIEYETWHYAREYOUARISEN.

Yet, even so. Dead people turning into ZOMBIES right in front of you? Um, how...? I blame Grima having the power to create zombies. We know the Risen initially came back in time because of Grima, but also I seem to recall the game saying at some point that the Risen exist because of Grima. Which implies he can create them.

I had viewed this as Luina being horrified by Algol's actions of killing the people, and summoning them back to life. It could simply be her being horrified by his casual disregard for human life, no?

That's exactly how I understood it.

[Etria]

I had viewed this as Luina being horrified by Algol's actions of killing the people, and summoning them back to life. It could simply be her being horrified by his casual disregard for human life, no?

I would rather say that they put it in because they can't assume that everybody knows and has read the comic. I only found out about it a year later or so. Referencing something outside canon (just the game in this case) is risky if the additional material isn't widely known.

Brady's line sounds a bit like there's some sort of zombie virus. You don't become a risen right away and if you're treated quickly enough, it can be stopped. If not, Omnomnom brainz.

[Book of Ereshkigal]

IIRC, Brady mentions in one of his supports people actually would turn to risen in front of him when he tried to heal them? That is why I thought Lucina was upset about people being turned into risen in the DLC.

Not just familiar, but it felt strongly implied it was an alternate world where the first generation became those Risen.

IIRC, Owains JP battle convo with one of the deadlords really implies this, as one of them has an engraving on their weapon that is a fragment of his name. (Or Lissa's, can't remember atm) Edited September 15, 2014 by L95

[Elieson]

*Topic changed thanks Tsamimi*

I had overlooked Brady's support log; I'll check into that later.

But another thought crossed my mind; that if you eliminate Grima by sealing him with the Falchion, that Risen could still theoretically be created due to:

• Alternate timeline Risen somehow crossing via Outrealms
• Bits and pieces of Grima's power somehow affecting the dead, or summoning them by ?means?
• Grimleal fanatics like Algol still performing what are essentially forbidden arts to create Risen, rather than summon them

But then how does a Reeking Box work? It Summons Risen to a specific location. Does that mean that they're already out there and just not assembled, or are they spontaneously created by opening what could be viewed as a Pandora's Box of sorts. So many questions might be answered, but I don't think the Reeking Box could.

Who's more familiar with reading the J!Scripts? L95 and Rey, get to work!

[Roivann]

My interpretation of the reeking boxes (which are not elaborated on in the script, if I'm correct) is that their smell attracts Risen.

[Dragoncat]

Henry said they reproduce, lol...

I'm willing to bet they're animated corpses, given life by the grimleal's evil magic. "my friends that became risen" probably means the friends were killed, then turned into the risen.

And I agree that the reeking boxes have a smell that attracts them.

Edited September 15, 2014 by Dragoncat

[Roivann]

So where do Revenants and Entombed come from? All the risen have classes that humans would have; these are likely people who died fighting the risen and were subsequently reanimated. But there aren't non-risen Revenants and Entombed, as far as we know. Perhaps they're the o.g. Risen?

[Snowy_One]

Well... when a mommy risen and a daddy risen love each other very much...

In all truth and reality, I just chalked it up to 'Magic. They don't have to explain it' and was willing to accept that. I was more focusing on the 'All my (time-traveling) children' part of the plot.

[Elieson]

So where do Revenants and Entombed come from? All the risen have classes that humans would have; these are likely people who died fighting the risen and were subsequently reanimated. But there aren't non-risen Revenants and Entombed, as far as we know. Perhaps they're the o.g. Risen?

IIRC someone in EXPonential Growth refers to them as Royalty amongst the Risen, so I guess they're just higher-ranked for ?Reason?, kinda like how Risen Chieftains are chieftains due to strength.

[Buttocksinator]

I assumed that it was just very powerful necromancy. Something that takes either a lot of power (Grima) or a lot of time (Algol) to pull off effectively. As for the Risen that appear during the course of the game, I think they all came from the future. The only two times we see them "appear" is once with Marth and again in Plegia when those archers take out the pegasus knights.

As for the Entombed? They kind of strike me as creations rather than animations, as in, created by Grima's sheer will as opposed to casting hocus pocus on a corpse. That would explain why their "special", but this is all just speculation.

Edited September 16, 2014 by Buttocksinator

[Dr Dodo]

https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Risen

While I don’t think that it’s actually explained in Awakening, it seems to have been explained in detail in other Fire Emblem games (I don’t actually know since I haven’t played them, I’m just assuming this is based off something canon). Hope this helps!

[Captain Karnage]

And that's a necro