A thane is a high-ranking pine kindred. They normally wear emblems of their position, such as an embroidered cloak and jewelled headband. Their equipment and jewelry will be more expensive and better quality than a regular pine kindred, and thanes always carry a satchel or pouches containing ingredients for their spells.

The Pine-Dead Elite. A pine kindred is not created a thane, but becomes a thane through its own efforts. Few full-blooded pine kindred have the resolve or talent to become thanes, most remain standard pine kindred for their entire existence. Achieving thanehood is easier for kindred with the favor of the jarl, who can grant them special training and more opportunities for advancement. The best amongst them might become jarls themselves one day. This makes pine kindred society a sort of undead meritocracy, with thanes filling roles analogous to aristocrats or officials.

Halls of Horror. In most pine kindred communities, the thanes inhabit their jarl's hall when not about their duties. A pine kindred "Hall" is rarely literally a hall, the Jarl's Hall is usually a shrine-filled clearing or wood henge near the Jarl's Grove of Death rather than an actual building. Thanes can have halls of their own, if they're especially important or in in charge of settlements far from the jarl's Grove. These halls are sometimes used for "feasts" during which the pine kindred drink turpentine mead, recite poetry, practice dark rites, and other celebrations.

Secret Rites. Pine kindred spellcasters adept in the Dark Druidic Mysteries need unholy shrines to perform sacrifices, acquire new spells, and maintain their spell-casting abilities. A pine kindred practitioner of Dark Druidism must perform certain Mystery rites at least once each lunar month. If it doesn't meet this requirement, the dark druidic spellcaster loses the ability to prepare two spells for each lunar month it missed until its repertoire is diminished to the single 1st-level spell of a regular pine kindred. Performing the secret Mystery rites will fully restore its spells. The Mystery rites take at least an hour to perform and must take place at night, but this time can be split into separate 10 minute long rituals; these rituals must all occur during the same lunar month but can be spread across multiple nights. It is a tradition, but not a necessity, for pine kindred dark druids to perform these secret rites on nights when the moon is full.
 Most thanes perform their secret rites in the shrines of the jarldom's unholy grove, but some thanes maintain their own shrines. Typically these are thanes who dwell too far away to easily commute to the grove once a month, but particularly studious, secretive, or ambitious thanes may keep a private shrine to practice their spellcasting.

Captains of Kindred, Masters of Thralls. The primary duty of a thane is commanding other pine kindred in battle as a warchief. A typical thane leads twenty or so full-blooded pine kindred and fircarls. A thane may have its own territory, a Thanedom, within the domain of the jarl. Typical thanedoms are military camps from which the pine kindred defend their borders and launch raids to capture humanoids for sacrifice. Complex pine kindred communities have thanes in charge of sites that fill particular needs (weapon manufacture, pine sap fermentation, charcoal burning, mining metal ore, et cetera). Such sites have buildings necessary for their function (i.e. an armory needs shelters to store weapons in good condition). If the role requires a lot of manual labor, the thane will be headmen of a "village" of resin-thralls. Some thanes can create thralls with a Dark Druidic Mystery spell called animate resin-thrall, which is similar to animate dead.

Autonomous Thanedoms. A thanedom can be so far removed from their jarl it becomes semi-independent, with the most powerful thane in it acting as the local chief who makes any decisions which aren't superseded by "royal commands" from the jarl. On rare occasions, a thanedom becomes fully independent, either because the jarl has been destroyed or the local chief has decided to break free of its jarl's authority. Mainstream pine kindred society views most such chieftains as "Traitor Thanes" who rebelled against their jarldoms and "steal" humanoid sacrifices that rightfully belong to their jarl. An independent thane often calls itself a Jarl or Earl, but is more accurately a "pretender to jarldom" as they cannot create full-blooded pine kindred, the defining power of a pine kindred jarl.
 All true pine kindred in an independent thanedom will be outcasts like a traitor thane or refugees from destroyed jarldoms, the bulk of the population will be resin-thralls or fircarls. An independent thane normally has Dark Druidic Mystery powers that produce resin-thralls and fircarls in their own unholy grove or a temple-shrine that performs the same functions. They will have a "Jarl's Hall," but the elite retainers within it will be regular pine kindred instead of the thanes of a true Jarl's Hall, although there may be a few thanes among a pretender jarl's followers.
 Independent thanedoms rarely last long; most are either destroyed by internal strife and war or wither away because they cannot replace slain pine kindred. Most rarely, the thanedom obtains the secret of Pine Kindred Initiation and becomes a true jarldom. This is very rare; few traitor earls become masterful enough spellcasters to research that Dark Druidic Mystery themselves, so they would have to become spellcasters as powerful as jarls and then somehow conquer a jarldom and seize control of an Unholy Grove or steal the secret ritual from a jarl's private shrine.
 Traitor thanes normally lair in defensible locations, such as robber baron's fortresses atop peaks or halls surrounded by mazelike thickets and wooden palisades. They tend to be less isolationist than normal pine kindred and are more likely raid outside their pine forest for living victims to transform into new kindred. Rebel thanes are desperate for allies and have even been known to use evil humanoid mercenaries, since a living warrior can be far more effective than a fircarl. Only a truly foolish humanoid would trust a pine kindred employer. Inhuman allies such as evil fey, trolls, or ogres are more common.

(Originally created by Julian Lawrence; appeared in White Dwarf Magazine #21 (Oct/Nov 1980) as part of the Fiend Factory mini-module "One-Eye Canyon", edited by Albie Fiore.)