Quote from: dragoner;792792It is not just a thing, it was a person. Typically, necromancy, deals with enslavement, or somehow feeding off the energy of the dead, or just as a simple vandalizing a gravesite. Generally all which would be considered evil, though historically was driven by fear of sepsis or disease; not that people understood what it was, ie cholera was originally thought to be from bad odors.

OK, I'm out. I apologize for ever joining this thread.

Quote from: Tetsubo;792794OK, I'm out. I apologize for ever joining this thread.

What? Fine.

Quote from: Tetsubo;792756Forget the 'dead' part. There are fungi that take over living insects and use them to spread their spores...

Wouldnt exactly call the ant alive at that point. And it isnt alive once it reaches its destination. Creepily fascinating because the fungus has one specific command line. Go up, turn, go forward, stop, bite.

Worse is there is a parasitic fly that goes after fire ants. The larva eventually hollows out the head and it falls off. But the body continues to trundle about with the worm for a good while because bugs are scary like that. The government released them into a few states to try and curb the fire ant problem. Arizona was one I believe.

Quote from: Tetsubo;792793D&D has literal Evil and Good in it. It isn't about cultural opinions. The standard descriptor for an Animate Dead spell is Evil. I disagree with that. The negative Plane itself is not evil. Negative energy itself is not evil. Why is using negative energy to animate a mindless undead evil? Because the writers of the game said it was evil. That is not a good justification for me. I've had this conversation a hundred times. I am in the minority opinion on this. Most folks just say it is evil because it is listed as Evil. I don't like that. Things without minds can't make moral choices. The spell itself when used to create something that can't make a moral choice shouldn't be evil in my opinion. I am sure I will be corrected.

Well, the OP does not mention D&D, though it does mention alignment.  Probably why many people posted System answers.  And I understand alignment very, very well, well enough to know that it is, as mentioned, deilogically biased and cosmology biased, in that this concept of Patron Deity (one I dislike, but that is me) can be the one who judges whether a worshipper is cleaving to their alignment.

Quote from: dragoner;792779Sans moral relativism, necros are evil, pretty simple.

Depends on the game.

In D&D they tend to be evil. But at the end of the day necromancy is just another school of magic. Neither good nor evil. It just tends to get more visibly abused than about any other type of magic. Enchantmet probably gets more abused, but its more or less invisible until 5th ed where a charm now tips off the victem they were had.

In Dragon Storm they are either soul eating villains of the blackest sort. Or ex-apprentices who have seen the light. Or just people who like to chat with ghosts...

Quote from: Omega;792800Depends on the game.

Yes. The game has to have it as well. Though I think some people are unclear about what evil means. The Manichean dichotomous relationship between good and evil is more recent, even in Christianity; whereas the old pre-Christian religions, like the worship of Perchta, were ambivalent to say the least.

Since all the cool kids have already weighed in with personal setting... ah... settings, I guess I can too.

In the cosmology I set up (its over in the sticky in Design and Development), Necromancy isn't 'raising corpses'. It is the study of the metaphysical laws governing death, largely with the goal of being able to return from the Lands of the Dead.

And it is evil as all get out.

Evil, because it contravenes Divine Law (several of the major Gods, including Death, the Sun and the Sea, all have specific antagonistic relationships with the Undead).

Evil, because the Undead are universally predatory. It is an expression of ultimate selfishness, returning from death, and that selfishness manifests in their willingness to do anything to remain 'alive'.  Weaker, more foolish necromancers return as savage, nearly mindless ghouls that kill and eat the living, more powerful necromancers return as Vampires, draining blood/life to sustain themselves while manipulating the living to their own ends, while the most powerful (liches for lack of a more generic term) consume souls outright and seek to upset the cosmic order in some fashion in order to remain 'free'. Killing and enslaving all the living, severing the world from the Gods, or even killing the gods themselves... all with the simple, selfish goal of making it impossible for them to be sent back to the Lands of the Dead.


On the other hand, simply animating skeletons isn't even considered Necromancy. Animating entire corpses is a lot more distasteful (rot, you know?), but is otherwise value neutral. Of course: any number of local cultures may frown on animating the dead for other reasons, not least of which is the potential to offend the relatives of the dead.  Regardless: its basic enchantment, nothing more.

Likewise: Contacting the spirits of the dead isn't considered necromancy.  Only attempting to drag them from the Lands of the Dead into Haven itself is Necromantic.  Simply checking in on Grandpa or asking the murder victim's spirit about his killer? that's spiritualism or, I believe in the D&D school system, Divination.

Quote from: Omega;792800In D&D they tend to be evil. But at the end of the day necromancy is just another school of magic. Neither good not evil. It just tends to get more visibly abused than about any other type of magic. Enchantmet probably gets more abused, but its more or less invisible until 5th ed where a charm now tips off the victem they were had.

That... oh my god.

I now have the best idea for a Lawful Bastard enchanter who abuses the everloving fuck out of his powers and hates necromancers because they casually pervert the natural order for their own selfish benefit. It will be glorious.

Thank you for the inspiration.

Quote from: dragoner;792801Yes. The game has to have it as well. Though I think some people are unclear about what evil means. The Manichean dichotomous relationship between good and evil is more recent, even in Christianity; whereas the old pre-Christian religions, like the worship of Perchta, were ambivalent to say the least.

Real world views on necromancy. Which are few and far between in the fantasy sense. Have little bearing on D&D setting necromancy.

In Forgotten Realms its just another form of magic and like all else theres good and evil uses.

In Dragonlance the god of good curses a knight with horrible undeath.

In BX it was just an animating force. Any caster with the animate Dead spell could use it. Law, Neutral, or Chaos. And there wasnt any necromancy at all in the system. Sure you could call yourself a necromancer. But it was just a title.

Quote from: Omega;792894Real world views on necromancy. Which are few and far between in the fantasy sense. Have little bearing on D&D setting necromancy.

In Forgotten Realms its just another form of magic and like all else theres good and evil uses.

In Dragonlance the god of good curses a knight with horrible undeath.

In BX it was just an animating force. Any caster with the animate Dead spell could use it. Law, Neutral, or Chaos. And there wasnt any necromancy at all in the system. Sure you could call yourself a necromancer. But it was just a title.

You can chose to ignore reality, sure. I have been kicking around the idea of running a DnD campaign starting in Kohci, India at 1503. So reality does have an influence.

The canon DnD references won't have as big effect on my views because, I don't know them.

Quote from: dragoner;792910You can chose to ignore reality, sure.

Once you have chosen to include functioning necromancy you have already chosen to ignore a pretty significant chunk of reality.

Also, you are begging the question of a pan-culturally agreed definition of what necromancy is even supposed to be.

And it is not like real world cultures agree at all on how one should properly reverence the dead - burial, burning, exposure, and ritual cannabalism are just part of the human spectrum. Therefore coming up with a universal agreement on what desecration of the dead is would be impossible or so general as to be meaningless in deciding how a culture would view necromancy.

Quote from: Bren;793070Once you have chosen to include functioning necromancy you have already chosen to ignore a pretty significant chunk of reality.

No, just sectioning it off and changing certain aspects. History is just too much fun not to play with.

Quote from: Bilharzia;792052The magician doing something like this is effectively denying Death - this is why Humakt worshippers, a Death cult, are fanatical undead hunters. On the other hand Zorak Zoran, also a Death cult, has a Create Zombie spell as a cult spell. The spell does not need a spirit bound to the zombie - it's mindless and is just meat and bone, most other zombies will have a spirit bound against its will to the zombie body it inhabits.

I've always thought that element of the Zorak Zoran cult a spiffy example of something tabletop RPGs routinely screw up: that religions aren't as nearly G-vs-E pigeonholed as players want them to be.  It's so strange that Tekumel and Glorantha got that bit right, right at the beginning of the hobby, followed by decades of settings of blandly rigid objective morality.

Although 95% of settings don't think things through.  The game session that inspired this blog post of mine (Undead Estate Law) wound up twisting the players' brains in directions they really didn't want to go ...

In that light, for those of you who really want to see how the other side plays out, pick up GURPS Banestorm: Abydos.  It's the only gaming product with a warning label I've never sneered at, and it comes by that warning label honestly: if you're a squeamish sort, don't read it.  If you'd like a chilling, detailed take on what a city run by necromancy might look like, do read it.

The Necromancer Chronicles by Amanda Downum have a rather "good" main character, with what the setting calls Necromantic powers, although I seem to recall a lot more talking to spirits and dealing with vampires than raising minions.

I've wanted to model a setting after the rich animism, but all the major characters are special snowflakes with way more power than a typical mid-level OSR character (for reasons that turn out well-justified in setting, but they're clearly literary heroes rather than RPG [zh]eroes). Maybe it comes closer to 5e cantrips-at-will: magelight, see invisible / spirits, magical wards on your house, detect magic.

I don't know if someone has bothered to state the obvious, but the original form of necromancy and the word itself is tied most to divination.

Necromancy is 'supposed' to be about calling spirits to find out information, not animating corpses.

By THAT metric, the vast bulk of traditional necromancy is typically non-evil.