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Old 09-13-2018, 08:42 AM   #11
Luke Bunyip
 
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Default 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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Old 09-13-2018, 09:37 AM   #12
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Default 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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Old 09-13-2018, 10:36 AM   #13
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Default Re: Kindly Necromancers

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The role basically got taken over by mediums working in the Spiritualist tradition. That confines itself to working with the spirits of the dead, not their bodies. So I'd base socially acceptable necromancers on them.
There is also the Nekromanteion at Thesprotia in western Greece, and Mesopotamian rituals to appease the restless dead.

You could also play up the split between necromancy, exorcism, and necrurgy.
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Old 09-13-2018, 01:04 PM   #14
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Default Re: Kindly Necromancers

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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.
Necromancy generally isn't about being death priests who sit around and worship A Good Death. It's about digging up Grandmama and putting her to work digging your potatoes (undignified, not a rest from labor, and quite possibly a resumption of pain and suffering), or dragging her back from wherever she went to ask her where the family jewels are hidden, or what kind of dirt she has on Grandpapa.

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).

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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.
Certainly, but the people who do this are generally not called "Necromancers". They're either "regular old priests/shamans", or "regular old people" (if all you have to do is sacrifice at the family shrine or participate in a trance ritual, very common beliefs).

"Necromancer" has a built in values judgement, like the difference between "Archaeologist" and "Grave Robber".
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Old 09-13-2018, 01:36 PM   #15
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How would you portray a kindly necromancer? Let us set aside the stereotypes implicit in Magic and avoid stuff like necromancers committing necrophilia and raising zombies. Would they be individuals skilled in the abilities of the Death power or the abilities of the Spirit Control power? Would they individual skilled in the Path of Spirits who specialized in the dead? How would you represent them?
In 17th Precinct a paranormal cop show set in a timeline where "power plants" are literal plants that provide the energy for spells and cars have "infernal combustion engines", the Necromancer occupied the occupational niche of Medical Examiners in the real world. They had Spirit Empathy and a spell that summoned the souls of the recently deceased back to their the vicinity of their body so they could be talked to.
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Old 09-13-2018, 01:41 PM   #16
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Default 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.
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Old 09-13-2018, 01:50 PM   #17
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Default 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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Old 09-13-2018, 02:24 PM   #18
evileeyore
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Default Re: Kindly Necromancers

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It's about digging up Grandmama and putting her to work digging your potatoes (undignified, not a rest from labor, and quite possibly a resumption of pain and suffering)...
Exactly in one game I'm in the religion in charge believes that the soul and body remain connected after death and to desecrate or defile the body cause the soul torment, even if it is in Paradise.

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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Old 09-13-2018, 02:29 PM   #19
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Default 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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Old 09-13-2018, 02:40 PM   #20
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Default 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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