Porting from rpgnet, to see what perspective I can get over here for this topic:
When I think necromancer (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Necromancer), I think of someone like orochimaru in the naruto manga/anime with its Edo Tensei (http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Summoning:_Impure_World_Reincarnation) (which is pretty freaking cool) which can bring someone back as a unkillible/regenerating zombie with all their skills, abilities, personality, and knowledge intact, but forced to do the bidding of the summoner/necromancer. However, many games just have you reanimate dead rotting bodies or dumb skeletons as fighting fodder and/or you just have a lot of curses spells at the near height of the necromancer powers. Which always made me go "Really? Thats it?".
I think one the cooler necromancers I have seen were the harvesters (pg 15-24) in the palladium world book12 psyscape. They could steal souls to increase their powers and use their(victims) magical abilities, they could bring back xombies which were leveled up regenerating tough zombies filled with the essence of the alien AI. Sadly, I have not seen any books that allowed for bringing back a reanimated person as a thrall with their abilities intact.
Someone in the other forum did mention the sorcerer RPG, which did have a cool token that could be used for a variety of things in necromancy which I liked.
Any games where necromancy is actually really cool? Powers and abilities wise?
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Quick Update:
I am still busy, but I want to do a quick compile of everything I have seen from this and other sites, suggestions, etc. Thanks for all the input everyone. I also want to add that it does not have to be limited to rpg games, it can be any other media (books, movies, etc) which has some good references or ideas are welcomed as well. It also does not have to be limited to just magic; science, alien, etc is all fair game also. *going to copy/paste this part to save retyping it over for other threads)
Lets see what we have so far:
RPG Books
PB rifts: psyscape: harvesters are pretty cool, you worship an alien intelligence, you get the usual standard necromancer powers, BUT you can absorb the souls of sacrificial victims which makes you more powerful, you also have access to their spell list/powers. You can summon the AI to create xombie’s which suck out souls of victims and replace it with part of the AI’s essence which makes them super strong and regenerative zombies.
Sorcerer RPG (Sorcerer & Sword supplement): Pretty neat idea of using tokens to store sacrifice/energy for anything from creating a super zombie or bring back an army of undead.
Runequest: Necromantic Arts
Warhammer Fantasy: Night's Dark Masters
Earthdawn
Ars Magica
Adventurer Conqueror King System
Migration of the spirit
Exalted
Crimson Exodus
Conan: Mongoose d20
Geist: Sin Eaters
Burning Wheel: Magic Burner
deadlands
Talislanta
warhammer 40’k necrons - ok, technically robots that are shaped as skeletons with living steal. However, they are still pretty bad ass, just needs to be changed up, I never played the RPG, but I did play the dow PC game and loved them. I love the pyramid of uber death + advanced tech, just need to mix them up a bit so instead of alien robots, just have a Borg + dead space where the soldiers are the reanimated dead.
Books:
necroscope series(at least before vampire world, have not read vampire world or up yet): So the main character can talk to the undead and convince them to rise up and fight for him as a walking corpse (meh, nothing special about that), but the necromancy that is used by the bad guys isn’t about bringing the dead back, but by getting the dead to release its secrets by torturing the remains of the dead to force it to give up all it knows. It was an interesting way to get the information to say the least.
Manga/Anime:
Naruto (anime/manga): Orochimaru’s Edo Tensei is probably the gold standard of what I think is cool necromancy. You can bring someone back from the dead with all their skills/abilities, they are pretty much indestructible with super regeneration, and you can “upgrade” their bodies to make them more powerful.
Games:
Dead Space: Necromorphs were cool, Like the idea of aliens reshaping the dead into monsters/tools
Resident Evil: Ok, general zombie Apoc game, but the virus was neat because besides just bringing zombies back, it mutated them also.
Movies/tv shows
Phantasm series - a mortician is resurrecting the dead and shrinking them to dwarf size to be used as slave labor and as an army to take over other dimensions. Yes, you read that right.
There's a RuneQuest II book about Necromancy. The name of the supplement escapes me right now (Edit - the name of the book is RuneQuest II - Necromancy or 'Necromantic Arts'), but if you visit Mongoose's site, you might get some... ;)
Night's Dark Masters for WFRP2 has some stuff on advanced necromancy, I never really looked at it but it seemed to allow you to graft zombie giant spiders to zombie ogres if that's your cup of tea.
EarthDawn nethermancy was pretty foul in a good way.
Quote from: trollock;553756Any game out there where necromancer is just a fortune teller that uses chicken bones and fox guts to tell the future? I belive this is the original meaning of the word, before D&D molested it.
Close. A necromancer was a fortune teller that used a primitive Ouija board or séance to communicate with spirits, who tell the necromancer the future.
But the meaning was drifting way before D&D. Clark Ashton Smith's Xothique and Averoigne stories include necromancers as we think of the term. It would be interesting to track down the source of the shift in meaning...
The understanding of 'necromancy' as 'black magic' has been around since at least the renaissance. If anything the modern/fantasy understanding of the term is somewhat narrower and closer to the terms origin.
I think the only reason that it has regained any association with divination is due to it being used in the King James Bible.
The real shift in terminology is for the suffix 'mancer/mancy' to refer generally to magic instead of specifically to divination, and that applies to a lot of misused terms, but again has been ongoing for hundreds of years in multiple languages.
Yea, I remember reading that it was basically used to communicate with spirits. Basically necromancers were just mediums and then the word changed to a darker meaning. Probably Christianity was the one that changed it. In a related work, demons were not the monsters/corrupters/soul stealers..etc that they are portrayed today. Originally, demons in magical beliefs were neutral beings/spirits that performed services and were educators. It was Christianity that twisted the definition into them being evil creatures and lumped everything non christian belief as demon/devils.
Quote from: Badmojo7;554008Yea, I remember reading that it was basically used to communicate with spirits. Basically necromancers were just mediums and then the word changed to a darker meaning. Probably Christianity was the one that changed it. In a related work, demons were not the monsters/corrupters/soul stealers..etc that they are portrayed today. Originally, demons in magical beliefs were neutral beings/spirits that performed services and were educators. It was Christianity that twisted the definition into them being evil creatures and lumped everything non christian belief as demon/devils.
That is because christians oppose education.
Quote from: Badmojo7;553486When I think necromancer (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Necromancer), I think of someone like orochimaru in the naruto manga/anime with its Edo Tensei (http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Summoning:_Impure_World_Reincarnation) (which is pretty freaking cool) which can bring someone back as a unkillible/regenerating zombie with all their skills, abilities, personality, and knowledge intact, but forced to do the bidding of the summoner/necromancer.
Ars Magica had a spell called 'The Shadow of Life Renewed' which let a magus bring someone back from the dead, except probably dangerously unbalanced and without a soul (because hermetic magic couldn't affect those). I'm rusty on what AM necromancy in general could do, though.
QuoteProbably Christianity was the one that changed it.
Not really. It was a Hellenic pagan practice, and was heretical to both Christians and Jews, but even among the Greek those who messed with the Underworld weren't considered the best company. Employing a medium was a 'buyer beware' type of activity.
There is a divide between Hades and the rest of the Olympians, and none of the mythology involving him makes him out to be a very benevolent deity. His own cultists avoided invoking his name, not out of reverence, but fear.
Even the traditional Christian conception of Hell as a fiery pit of torment is just a relabeled Tartarus. So that can't really be laid at the feet of Christianity. Those who dabbled in Hades realm had a sinister reputation even in their own religion, and their own culture.
Indeed. The Romans were great fans of Augury, but scared shitless of necromancy.
RPGPundit
Heh, interesting stuff. I only have time to glance at these at the moment because I am busy with work with the 4th of july coming on here in the states. Hopefully after that I can sit down and compile everything so far and see what I can do with it.
Mages in Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS) can pretty much "build" undead monsters to order.Max HD is the mage's own level, and the beastie gets 1 special ability +1/INT bonus. So a 9th level Mage with INT 16 can pretty much take a victim (hapless or willing) and turn him or her into a vampire.
I suggest plugging in the nastier undead from the old RC, or better still, allowing your high-level necromancer to go apeshit and craft some shambling monstrosities of his own, complete with unique special abilities and eponymous appelation (like Dragoslav's Plague Zombie, or Abu-Khaibit's Shadow Stalker, or Dr. Pretorius' Patchwork Man).
Am pretty nuts busy right now catching up from vacation in Hawaii, but I can honestly say that mine own Celtricia game and GuildSchool rules draw heavily on Necormancy and the Migration of the Spirit. (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/22871895/Migration%20of%20the%20Spirit)
Or, as one person noted, there is a bit of zombie apoc going on in many areas where there where too many spirits to get properly shrived.
You can also se the effect from the players side here if you look at Death Mgic or Necromantic Magic in the Spell List. (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14956149/Spell%20List)
I just did an update on the top to include everything I have seen so far from here and other places.
Grabbing Heroes of Horror and Libris Mortis makes 3.5 a really, really good platform for necromancy. There's a good guide for it reposted here (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5584).
Exalted 2E also does really, really well with necromancy. Tradeoff is that it's a White Wolf product, so it's a bit... icky. Grab the Abyssal handbook for the instructions on building stuff. If you go that route, ask me and I'll give you my spreadsheet for building the suckers.