TheRisen (Japanese:屍兵Undead), also known asDeath Masks (Japanese:死者の仮面Mask of the Dead) are a type of undead creature created fromhuman corpses. Originating as the creations of the alchemistForneus in the ancient history ofArchanea, these creatures became known and feared for their brutal antagonism toward humanity as the servants of the Fell DragonGrima, Forneus's other creation. They primarily serve as an army for Grima and his followers, theGrimleal.

Overview

Characteristics

All Risen sport a set of characteristic physical traits: mottled purple skin, glowing red eyes, and a skull-like face mask presumably covering injuries or decay to the host corpse's face. Risen frequently exhale or belch a dark purple smoke, likely tied to the dark magic fuelling their existence, and evaporate into said smoke and leave no physical trace behind when slain. Though undead, Risen appear to have finite "lives" and can be killed in similar ways to humans without necessitating that the body be damaged beyond continued function or repair. Likely as a result of being decaying corpses with a lack of sensation, Risen are capable of certain feats of physical dislocation which no human could successfully do, such as rotating their head a full 180 degrees. With the exception ofRevenants andEntombed, Risen practicethe same forms of combat as humans.

For the most part, the Risen appear to have no sentience of their own. They are driven solely by aggression, "living" to fight humans with no other drive. They are capable of speech, albeit extremely limited to simple broken sentences slurred through their unfamiliarity with language, though the Deadlords inInfinite Regalia are able to speak fluently. However, they do appear to have a sense of hierarchy based around the dominance of the strong: the Risen'sleaders in combat are dictated by their power over their peers,^[1] andWalhart inadvertently caused a horde of Risen to follow him as a leader through sheer force in his efforts to fight them as practice.^[2] Certain Grimleal individuals such asValidar andAversa appear to be capable of directly controlling Risen; when under somebody else's command, as opposed to their usual mindless and wild behavior, Risen appear to be capable of practising simple tactics in co-operation with each other.^[3]

In ancient times, Death Masks were created manually through the use of a species of shelled insect which were namedthanatophages (Japanese:屍蟲corpsebug) byForneus. When presented to a corpse, a thanatophage would lay down roots within, and assume control of, that corpse. Forneus took advantage of the thanatophages' ability by creating masks containing these insects, then placing them on corpses.^[4] As of the era ofAwakening, this manual process was no longer necessary as Grima's dark powers created Risen through some unexplained process. According toBrady, when Grima is at full power as he was in the doomed future whence he came, the process of converting a corpse or even a still-living wounded individual is automatic.^[5] There may be some relation between the creation of Risen and the creation of theLoptrianDeadlords; indeed, the Deadlords who serve the Grimleal are stated to just be powerful Risen.

History

Origins

The Risen originate in the ancientArchanean city ofThabes, where the alchemistForneus kept a workshop in the lower levels ofits labyrinth. Forneus's work was focused on two goals, one of which was finding the ability to resurrect the dead to serve as warriors.^[6] His discovery of thanatophages resulted in the creation of the original Risen, which he called the Death Masks.^[4] However, the ruling senators of Thabes opposed Forneus's experiments, and when their attempts to stop him—first by convincing him, then by sending soldiers after him—failed, they chose to seal Forneus and his creations away in the depths of the Thabes Labyrinth. They used theSage's Shield to establish a seal meant to last beyond the collapse of Thabes itself, to ensure that Forneus's Death Masks and his other creation, aperfect lifeform created withdivine dragon blood, would never be disturbed.^[6]

Eventually, the Thabes Labyrinth was visited byAlm andCelica, the rulers ofValentia at the time. They took the Sage's Shield and broke the seal on Forneus's workshop, in which they encountered the Death Masks, still wandering the depths of the labyrinth. They fought and defeated both the Death Masks and the perfect lifeform, containing their threat for a time. At some point after many years since Alm and Celica's encounter had passed, both the perfect lifeform—now calling itself Grima—and the Death Masks emerged from Thabes to conquer the world.

Grima's reign

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The name "Risen" was coined by officials of theHalidom of Ylisse in a war council shortly after their first appearance in the world, and subsequently entered common usage in describing them, both in the actual timeline and in Lucina's doomed future.^[7]

In the doomed Grima-ruled future from whichLucina and the other children originated, the Risen were the dominant force, constantly terrorizing and hunting the surviving remnants of humanity in Grima's name.^[8] At roughly the same point as Lucina's arrival in the past to avert Grima's future, they began to also appear in the past, time-travelling with Grima in pursuit of Lucina and her friends and first dropping onto Ylissean territory through portals in the sky. In the aftermath of their first appearance west of Ylisstol and their subsequent attack on PrinceChrom of Ylisse, Risen started spreading across both the Ylissean continent and neighboringValm, terrorizing the people both autonomously and, on occasion, under Grimleal command.

In gameplay

Unlike monster units, Risen inAwakening function identically to usual generic human enemies. They almost universally possess the same classes, stats and weapons as their human counterparts, and are distinguished primarily with semi-unique portraits and battle models granting them their undead physical appearance. The only exceptions areRevenants andEntombed, which function using their exclusive talon weapons; while theBlessed Lance andBlessed Bow dealbonus damage to Revenants and Entombed, Risen of any normal class do not receive bonus damage and are treated as normal human units in terms of effective weapons.

InAwakening, Risen comprise almost all of the enemy units in Chapters1,2,13,22,24, and25, Paralogues3,12,16,17,19 and21, and in theDLC episodesThe Golden Gaffe,EXPonential Growth,Infinite Regalia,Harvest Scramble,Hot-Spring Scramble,Death's Embrace,Five-Anna Firefight,Roster Rescue, and theFuturePastseries. Additionally, hordes of Risen appear on theworld map to be fought inskirmishes, and can be summoned through use of aReeking Box.

InEchoes: Shadows of Valentia, Death Masks are encountered in theThabes Labyrinth dungeon inAct 6, starting from the sixth basement floor. They function exactly the same way as they do inAwakening, except that Death Masks are among the strongest generic enemies in the game. Unlike other generic,class grown enemies, Death Masks have personal stats hardcoded into the game that determine their Normal Mode strength at Lv 1. However, if the level they appear as exceeds 1 (e.g. Lv 10Villagers in theCreation battle) or the difficulty is Hard (which gives all enemies extra levels), then they will gain stats according to their class growths and the number of levels above 1 they are at. All Death Masks have very highHP, and those in infantry classes tend to have enhancedmovement, and they often wieldpoisoning weapons.

Other appearances

Fire Emblem Cipher

There are currently six cards inFire Emblem Cipher which feature generic Risen. The Risen cards are governed by special rules that are shared by no other card in the card game, in that they have zero deployment cost and the player is allowed to both possess in their deck and deploy into battle as many as they want at once, the idea being to have an overwhelming number of them. They have no attack or support power of their own, but they can enhance or be enhanced by certain cards depictingChrom,Aversa, andGrima.

Two of these cards, both frombooster series 14, depict situations that do not happen inAwakening. One card depicts a femaleDark Mage, but all Risen Dark Mages inAwakening are male. Another card depicts aCleric, but there are no Risen Clerics inAwakening.

Fire Emblem Cipher data for Risen
	Grotesque Soldier, Risen
		"~~~~!!"
		Attack: 0	Support: 0	Range: 1	Deploy Cost: 0
		Class: Mercenary		Tier:Base	Class Change Cost: --
		Army of Risen:[Special] You may deploy this card even if there is already an ally "Risen" in play. You may have more than 1 "Risen" in play. [Special] You may have more than 4 copies of this card in your deck. Despair Emblem:[Support] Deploy one "Risen" from your Retreat Area.
	Card #B08-047aN • Artist:Aogachou
	Grotesque Soldier, Risen
		".....!!!"
		Attack: 0	Support: 0	Range: 1	Deploy Cost: 0
		Class: Fighter		Tier:Base	Class Change Cost: --
		Army of Risen:[Special] You may deploy this card even if there is already an ally "Risen" in play. You may have more than 1 "Risen" in play. [Special] You may have more than 4 copies of this card in your deck. Despair Emblem:[Support] Deploy one "Risen" from your Retreat Area.
	Card #B08-047cN • Artist:Aogachou
	Grotesque Soldier, Risen
		"........."
		Attack: 0	Support: 0	Range: 1	Deploy Cost: 0
		Class: Soldier		Tier:Base	Class Change Cost: --
		Army of Risen:[Special] You may deploy this card even if there is already an ally "Risen" in play. You may have more than 1 "Risen" in play. [Special] You may have more than 4 copies of this card in your deck. Despair Emblem:[Support] Deploy one "Risen" from your Retreat Area.
	Card #B08-047cN • Artist:Aogachou
	Grotesque Soldier, Risen
		"...!!!"
		Attack: 0	Support: 0	Range: 1	Deploy Cost: 0
		Class: Pegasus Knight		Tier:Base	Class Change Cost: --
		Army of Corpses:[Special] You may deploy this card even if you already have an allied "Risen", and you may have 2 or more allied "Risen" at once.[Special] You may have 5 or more cards with the same card name as this card in your deck. Despair Emblem:[Support] Choose 1 "Risen" from your Retreat Area, and deploy it.
	Card #B14-040aN • Artist:Aogachou
	Grotesque Soldier, Risen
		"~!!!"
		Attack: 0	Support: 0	Range: 1-2	Deploy Cost: 0
		Class: Dark Mage		Tier:Base	Class Change Cost: --
		Army of Corpses:[Special] You may deploy this card even if you already have an allied "Risen", and you may have 2 or more allied "Risen" at once.[Special] You may have 5 or more cards with the same card name as this card in your deck.
	Card #B14-040bN • Artist:Aogachou
	Grotesque Soldier, Risen
		"............"
		Attack: 0	Support: 0	Range: -	Deploy Cost: 0
		Class: Cleric		Tier:Base	Class Change Cost: --
		Army of Corpses:[Special] You may deploy this card even if you already have an allied "Risen", and you may have 2 or more allied "Risen" at once.[Special] You may have 5 or more cards with the same card name as this card in your deck. Monster-Healing Staff:[Activate] [] [] Choose 1 card from your Retreat Area, and add it to your hand.
	Card #B14-040cN • Artist:Aogachou
Some card information translation provided by Serenes Forest. For more detailed strategic information on these cards, seetheir TCG wiki article on Risen .

Flavor text

Trivia

• Despite the Risen taking on a variety of classes, the only classes shown in cutscenes areFighter,Archer, andDark Knight, the latter two only inAwakening's opening sequence.
• Risen classes that wear full-face helmets, such asCavalier andWarrior, do not have the traditional Risen mask in their battle models; instead, they have a red glow within the grills to symbolize their affiliation. Oddly, theGeneral andGreat Knight classes still have the Risen masks, despite wearing full helmets.
• InAwakening, despite the Risen not being officially named by characters in Chapter 1, selecting one with the cursor will reveal their name prematurely.
  • Similarly,Robin andLissa's C-support mentions the Risen by name despite being unlockable before Chapter 1.
• A Risen mask makes a cameo appearance inThrust to the Future ofTokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE.
• InEchoes: Shadows of Valentia, the player is able to obtain the Death Masks' mask as theDubious Mask item. When equipped by any unit, they wear that mask in battles.

Etymology and other languages

Risen

Death Masks

Gallery

• 
  AFighter Risen in a cutscene inAwakening.
• 
  A uniqueSoldier Risen created byAlgol inDeath's Embrace.
• 
  AVillager Death Mask inEchoes: Shadows of Valentia.

Cipher artwork

• 
  Artwork of a Risen.
• 
  Artwork of a Risen.
• 
  Artwork of a Risen.
• 
  Artwork of a Risen.

References

See also