09-13-2018, 08:42 AM | #11 |
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: The Kingdom of Insignificance
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Re: Kindly Necromancers
Necromancy as a necessary evil, as opposed to just being a blanket evil...
Possibly, the best way to put down an infestation of mummies, zombies, animated skeletons, wights etc is with a living breathing necromancer.
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09-13-2018, 09:37 AM | #12 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: Kindly Necromancers
Well, why is necromancy a necessary evil though? Death is not necessarily a bad thing, as it brings a release from pain, a rest from labor, and a cessation of suffering. In any society where ancestors are venerated, necromancers could give the living messages from the dead and use their abilities to give physicality to ghosts to allow them to accomplish their final tasks.
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09-13-2018, 10:36 AM | #13 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Kindly Necromancers
Quote:
You could also play up the split between necromancy, exorcism, and necrurgy.
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09-13-2018, 01:04 PM | #14 | ||
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Re: Kindly Necromancers
Quote:
Obviously it doesn't have to be, but people are highly suspicious that it will be that. Combine it with some religions doctrines that the dead are supposed to be immediately dispatched to their rightful reward after death, and necromancy raises the ugly question of "Are necromancers more powerful than divine will, able to divert the dead from their rightful and restful destinations?" Some religions (including Christianity at various times and places) believe the entire body is also needed to go on to your just reward, so you can't even argue that you're just re-using it after the inhabitant has "moved out". Even though many of the various Christian religions don't formally teach that you need your body after death these days, it's common for people to have unstated worries that perhaps you do and it's better to be safe than sorry on that part. People are still buried (or cremated!) with their false teeth and prosthetic limbs, even if told that they will be bodily returned intact and youthful. Humans also have an in-built dislike of rotting meat for health-and-saftey reasons, and the bodies of the dead are heavily associated with rotting meat for obvious reasons. Various preservation or rapid-disposal practices can break that association, but usually cultures that practice either tend to believe that either the body is needed (preservation) or must be disposed of before the dead can move on (rapid-disposal). Quote:
"Necromancer" has a built in values judgement, like the difference between "Archaeologist" and "Grave Robber".
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09-13-2018, 01:36 PM | #15 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Kindly Necromancers
Quote:
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09-13-2018, 01:41 PM | #16 |
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Re: Kindly Necromancers
In the Eberron setting for That Other Game (TM) there is a nation which in theory is not run by an undead warlord pretending to be his own grandson - this nation utilizes the dead as laborerers and soldiers. After all, duty is everything, so why should it stop just because one is dead?
There is also an elvish nation that is ruled by the benevolent positive-energy liches of the Undying Court. |
09-13-2018, 01:50 PM | #17 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Kindly Necromancers
While probably hard for most players to imagine, a society could exist that doesn't put any importance on corpses. They may consider bodies merely shells for the spirit and therefore no more valuable or sacred than the set of clothes one wore when dying.
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09-13-2018, 02:24 PM | #18 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: Kindly Necromancers
Quote:
So of course they raise the bodies of convicted criminals and do terrible things to them. And death is no end to one's sentence... |
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09-13-2018, 02:29 PM | #19 |
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: New Zealand.
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Re: Kindly Necromancers
There are a couple of setting switches as well.
- Necromancy as an off shoot of healing magic. Is bringing someone back to life after they have been dead for 30 seconds Healing or Necromancy? - Necromancers being the experts in undead should be useful when dealing with an infestation of vampires or zombies etc. The monster blood tattoo books have a technology path that might be described as Monster sourced Necropunk where the parts of dead monsters are used for everything from Implants to engines.
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09-13-2018, 02:40 PM | #20 |
Join Date: May 2012
Location: New Hampshire, USA
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Re: Kindly Necromancers
Well, the medium that helps you talk to your grandmother after she's passed on is a kindly necromancer. So is the priest that performs last rights so the dead can rest properly. The shaman of the raven god who dances over your grave after you've been unjustly murdered in order to give you a chance for revenge as a revenant is a ... well... they're a necromancer that's at least friendly to you (ala the movie The Raven). And so is the medicine man who projects his spirit into the spirit realm to chase down the lost spirit of a sick boy in order to prevent him from passing into the realm of the dead before his time (like Ged does at one point in A Wizard of Earthsea.)
Mostly these guys are defined by the medium advantage, as well as spirit allies or patrons with psychopomp spirits. They likely have ghost summoning abilities and generally use them to help make sure that the deads unfinished business is resolved, or that the livings unfinished business with the dead is resolved. Especially emotional baggage or crimes. They might also have the ability to predict deaths and sometimes do pre-emptive death counseling, or show people who are going to die old they're own deaths so they can fight bravely through things in the mean time. Like you said, historically there are more kindly necromancers than evil ones. It is the primary job of the priests and spiritualists in many societies to interface with the realm of the dead to provide comfort, solace, and peace to the dead and to the living about the dead. Build them as path of spirit, with lots of social skills. They're likely to be adept travelers in the astral plane, including whatever social skills and survival skills you might need for that, as well as good counselors for the living (although likely a bit socially awkward.) Alternatively you could build them with Astral perception/projection style abilities. Add in flavors of the Death power and some undead stuff. Finally, remember that an 'evil necromancer' is basically the same thing as a good necromancer except that they have an abusive relationship with the dead about controlling them and dominating them for the necromancers own sake. The good guy necromancer is about helping people, both the living and the dead, especially whereever they overlap. |
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