For those of you who run settings in which being a Necromancer is a possibility. Is it considered evil to be one? Or can there be heroic Necromancers? Is creating undead taboo in the world? Or is it accepted in some places?
If I use them, I use them as bad guys. At best, I'd make them unsympathetic yet not actively evil.
These are folk who hang around with corpses, interfering with the dead. How sympathetic can that get?
Be honest, was this thread inspired by the recent thread necromancy debate?
RPGPundit
Cl23/Mnk1 Pope of the Holy and most Glorious reformed Church of Wee Jas. Hero of Greyhawk, Slayer of Dragotha, Favorite of the Goddess and Bane of Kyuss, hated Enemy of Vecna. Lawful Neutral. Necromancer.
From the frontpage of the Celtricia wiki...
"The 'necessity of magic' comes from a major component of the Celtrician experience, that of the Migration of the Spirit. The ancient name for Celricia is the 'Waking Dream', and it is considered the space between life and death. In broad terms, The Celestial Planars let loose spirit energy into the Well of Life, and this is what inhabits every new birth. Continuing this journey after death, the souls migrate to the Well of Death, where their merits are judged before they are free to continue through the Well of Death and reabsorbed by a Planar. However, the key here is that the journey from death is long and difficult, taking decades or centuries, asuming the spirit is free to leave the 'Waking Dream' at all. Necromantic magics can greatly aid the spirit in freeing itself and travelling through the void, and can also protect it from other forces. These are called Shriving Necromancies, and while strange and difficult, such practitioners are seeen as beneficial. Necromacy is also, however, the vehicle for snaring and enslaving spirits, or for those who are not ready to leave Celtricia. Those who face death in Celtricia may fear it, but more, they fear dying alone, unshriven, their spirit tied to the 'Waking Dream' and an eventual puppet of some unscrupulous Necromancer."
Quote from: GalerosFor those of you who run settings in which being a Necromancer is a possibility. Is it considered evil to be one? Or can there be heroic Necromancers? Is creating undead taboo in the world? Or is it accepted in some places?
I like them, like them so much I write an article for Knockspell about 'em. But only as non-player characters.
There are essentially two kinds of necromancers you could do. The first type, and the kind I covered in KS, is the classic swords-and-sorcery kind. They create armies of undead and Frankenstein monsters. They aren't pleasant to be around at all, because they live in underground crypts and chapels made of their victim's bones - no sane person would associate with them regardless of alignment because they are so obviously not to be trusted.
The second type is just as evil, but somewhat more subtle. Call them a hedge necromancer. Add a dash of Eastern European shamanism, Caribbean voodoo, and Asian spiritism. You've essentially got a really disgusting fortuneteller that takes 'reading the entrails' to an extreme. They create undead, but usually only a few. They might lead Manson-like cults of other nutjobs, or work alone like a serial murderer, but the smell always gives them away.
If you want to play a character somewhat necromancer-like without overt evil, try a medium or some kind of priest that speaks to the dead. Most people can handle talking to their Aunt Bea by proxy, but when you actually bring the old gal back for some face time, it really freaks the shit out of them, and that's about the time the lynch mob puts up a sign-up sheet in the tavern.
The Necroscope series by Brian Lumley deals with modernish era warfare between different groups. The main hero is someone who can speak to the dead and sometimes even raise them from the dead for a time if he needs the assistance.
I guess technically it counts as my game, since I am the one who wrote this particular section... :D
Necromancy. Though the word often brings to mind images of a evil figure in a black robe bent on destroying the living, not all practitioners of the art are evil. Though almost all of them do wear black robes...
This particular school of necromancy, far from being a secluded cabal of conspirators hidden deep within the jungle, is an open university on the main street of Miyr, regional capital and home of the Adventurer's Guild.
Quote from: RPGPundit;356059Be honest, was this thread inspired by the recent thread necromancy debate?
RPGPundit
No, it was not.:)
In my Rolemaster game:
In the Empire, necromancy was illegal outside the Church of the god Death (Yes, I had really imaginative names for some Gods, sue me), but Death Worship was perfectly legal. There was a Persian style empire to the east where the Church of Death saw necromancy as an abomination. This led to much conflict.
Arcane necromancy was illegal in the Empire, however, in the breakaway City of Skullport (Yes, I had really imaginative names for some Cities, sue me) necromancy was legal as long as you had a Guild Licence from the Necromancer's Guild.
Finally, Dwarf Priests where necromancers, due to their religion revolving around ancestor worship (Yes, I had really imaginative ideas for some races, sue me), where raising the odd dead dwarf to ask him what to do was considered perfectly normal.
None of these were 'evil' per say, although there was a group of Necromancer Druids who were fanatical animal rights fundamentalists who arguable were. (Zombie bears for the win).
In my games whether PC or NPC, they are strange folk but not necessarily evil. The study/reverence of death is just another expression of magic or faith.
Regards,
David R
You can also go the Dr Frankenstien route, with necromancy as a science, not evil as such but ethically questionable and profoundly unnatural.
In my homebrew fantasy setting necromancy is a traditional art still practiced by some of the major families.
Some areas of the setting are suspicious or even hostile towards it, seeing it as dangerous and consorting with 'spirits', but in any larger city it's common to see the undead envoys and avatars of powerful merchants and politicians... usually masked and covered in a way that makes it obvious what they are.
Most of the time it's just considered old-fashioned.
How about the Pushing Daisies TV show and when the Scooby Gang reserrect Buffy? They are good guys raising the dead for all the right reasons.
You also have the option that animating the dead is simply animating an obect that is no dfferent from a bit of wood, of course here you must accept that there is no innate divinty in the body.
Lastly remeber that the official defintion of necromacy is 'devination by communicating with the dead' so like folks here have said that covers all your mystics doing Seances, that kid in 6th Sense voodoo men, shamen of all stripes and Whoopie Goldberg in Ghost.
So I can see a good few examples of good necromacy.
Evil individually? Not always so. But as a practice it straddles the line at best, as even those that start out with good intentions slide down that slippery slope of corruption.
-=Grim=-
My image of a necromancer is at best like Gerald Tarrant from the Coldfire Trilogy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coldfire_Trilogy): it's possible they might ally with someone for a good cause, but their methods are inherently deeply disturbing.
Quote from: Galeros;356004For those of you who run settings in which being a Necromancer is a possibility. Is it considered evil to be one? Or can there be heroic Necromancers? Is creating undead taboo in the world? Or is it accepted in some places?
I tend to think of it as no more intrinsically immoral than any other form of magic or technology would be. In my settings, cultures vary on their attitudes towards it. In my Dawnlands setting, the two main types of undead are mindless labourer zombie / skeletons, and vampires who are attempting to become gods. The zombies / skeletons are controversial and widely despised because they're seen as unfair competition for the freemen of Kaddish's jobs. The vampires have cults and run gangs, but so does everyone else, and becoming a god doesn't really impact anyone on a day-to-day level. Heroes and other divine beings hate the vampires, but they're exceptional in that respect.
Not much to add as far as traditional fantasy is concerned, other than to say that Clark Ashton Smith is IMHO the definitive inspiration for all things necromantic. Stories such as "The Empire of the Necromancers" and "The Colossus of Ylourgne" are a must-read.
But in modern fantasy/horror games, where they tend to make more acceptable PCs, I dig 'em. In the oWoD, it was Clan Giovanni vampires, Silent Strider werewolves and Euthanatoi mages. In the new one, Moros mages, and possibly Sanctified vamps. Haven't read Geist yet, but I'm looking forward to.
I've had necromancy play a fairly big role in two D&D campaigns, one 2E and the other 3E. In the 2E campaign it was legal in Cormyr (Forgotten Realms). Animating a corpse as a zombie or skeleton was allowed so long as the corpse was legally acquired. The party's arcane caster had a girlfriend that was a necromancer, she had a skeletal cat as her familiar. I quite enjoyed that campaign. One of the major arcane NPCs was a Neutral Lich that ran a zombie crewed plantation. He had very low labor costs...
The 3E campaign was set in Sembia (Forgotten Realms) and necromancy was illegal. The party ran into a necromancer that was running a zombie brothel. In a statement of how jaded the players were, they never even blinked at the idea of zombie prostitutes.
In a D&D campaign I have never understood why raising a corpse as a zombie or skeleton was considered evil. It's just a corpse, it has no mind, it can't make moral choices. I see it as no different than an animate object spell. In addition the Negative Plane is not evil, so why is using negative energy seen as evil?
Quote from: Galeros;356004For those of you who run settings in which being a Necromancer is a possibility. Is it considered evil to be one? Or can there be heroic Necromancers? Is creating undead taboo in the world? Or is it accepted in some places?
On the lost planet Tékumel (http://www.tekumel.com/eoasw4_02.html), necromancy is not only not evil, it's an acceptable religion and there are families dedicated to Lord Sárku (http://www.tekumel.com/world_gods10.html)* who erm, keep the family around after death, literally! Even though open warfare between priesthoods is prohibited, that doesn't rule out secret warfare, intrigue or underground raids. Most of the other Change (Tlokiriqáluyal) gods have undead including my favorite, Lord Ksárul (http://www.tekumel.com/world_gods08.html)**. While still very usable as mooks to major villians (depending on the type of undead) not having them as automatic xp meatbags mixes things up nicely.
So it's perfectly acceptable to have a priest running around in the group who has some slightly off or shuffling followers, best not mentioned tho. Especially if there's also an opposing follower of Lord Belkhánu (http://www.tekumel.com/world_gods05.html), Lord of the Excellent Dead in the party as well. :eek: (BASH BASH SMITE)
While not an everyday event, it's not an unknown sight to see a person or two with a somewhat stiff gait and lots of lime on them walking on the streets near or after nightfall in certain sections of town...they might even be an honored priest late for the evening rituals! I've had visiting nobles from clans affiliated with Sarku et al show up like Clark Ashton Smith's Dark Eidolon.
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/212/the-dark-eidolon
(http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z60/clan_mum/Tekumel/FLOGS.jpg)
(image from art for a failed Clark Ashton Smith comic book, appropriate IMO)
* the Five-Headed Lord of Worms, Master of the Undead, Guide into Darkness, the Demon-Lord of Decay
** Ancient Lord of Secrets, Doomed Prince of the Blue Room, Master of Magic and Sorcery
The only game that I have run where anyone ever wanted to play a necromancer was a "Witchcraft" game from Eden. Necormancers there are mostly about dealing with the spirits and the dead, so there was really no issue with it.
In our homebrew world, Necromancers were accepted.
It turned out that there is a code of conduct for Necromancers, similar maybe to the Hippocratic Oath or something. It certainly involved not having two Necromancers in the same city, unless the resident Necromancer would allow you to perform the craft.
It was also illegal to mess with a dead person without consent of the family or the state. Testimony of a dead person was admissible in court.
It was not illegal to create raise animals as undead, but many cities would have local laws to ban undead within their walls. It was customary, though, to allow a Necromancer to bring a single skeleton animal companion as a sign of his craft.