[Railstar]

Thanks for all the ideas so far!

Originally Posted by William

First, he might simply be studying them to advance his medical and magical knowledge, much as real doctors did with cadavers (stolen or legally acquired). A large library of organs from many different races, ages of people, genders, etc. could be a useful reference.

Are there any magical beasties running about with useful organs? Eye of newt, heart of manticore, and all that. Come to think of it, the whole organlegging might have some history if there's any way that chimerizing oneself with exotic organs is possible and conveys some benefit.

Flesh golems are mentioned in passing under the description of the Golem spell in Magic. Your necromancer might have had an interest in constructing these as servants a bit sturdier than zombies. You'd certainly need a steady supply of organs, preferably as fresh as possible.

I can absolutely see her keeping an organ library, I definitely like the idea. She's definitely the type to keep the organs to find a use with, perhaps even animate them just to see how they work. On a somewhat macabre note, would an animated heart be viable as an autonomous pump of some kind? I like the idea of a semi-organic laboratory.

Magical beasties could work. I imagine there'd be rituals that use the body parts of such creatures. Or rituals that use human body parts. For whatever reason I can't think of them just now, but ideas of that nature could make a good reason to be collecting body parts.

Flesh golems are probably the least likely possibility: Improved Zombies (Pyramid 3/01) are both generally better and far easier to make than corpse golems - so I'd need to find a niche of what the flesh golems can do that the Improved Zombies can't.

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

Supplying magical creatures and other wizards with human meats. Does mostly organs because it's harder to tell they've been taken out just by glancing at a corpse.

Those human meats might be magical components or just lunch.

That is a good starting point! I think she'd be able to summon a Mi-Go, and they are interested in the whole brain-in-jar thing. It could work as a form of brain-library. That could be a good place to learn more surgery from. Allying with a Mi-Go outpost definitely feels like her sort of thing.

We could also combine with the GURPS Horror Brain In A Jar as a psionics-developing experiment.

Originally Posted by thrash

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was published in 1818. Perhaps she started out making golems.

I can definitely see scientific value for that idea. Perhaps combining with the Mi-Go idea, trying to build a functioning body for a brain-in-jar as a science project relating to something approaching resurrection.

Originally Posted by edk926

Embalming has been around for millennia. Evisceration is a nice head start for the entire process.

I know when she embalms the Improved Zombies that leaves plenty of leftover organs to find a use for. It could explain the leap from embalmer to surgeon.