About Necromancy and Necromancers.

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Cabarcos
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About Necromancy and Necromancers.

Post by Cabarcos » Fri Jul 16, 2021 5:41 pm

So..., Necromancy is evil and necromancers should be too.
There are necromancers that would try to make you one of his pets, so no question in that case, but when you find a necromancer that lets you be, what should be your reaction?
If you are not a Paladin of Lathander, and he/she is not using the undead to commit crimes you will just continue with what you were doing?
In term of RP, a normal person will take note and report it to the authorities?

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Re: About Necromancy and Necromancers.

Post by LovelyLightningWitch » Fri Jul 16, 2021 5:49 pm

Necromancy itself is not evil.

Black necromancy (damaging people's souls, creating undead, the like) is hands down evil.
Grey necromancy depends on jurisdiction (Inflict X wounds, Negative energy ray, False Life (in later editions) and the like) is neutral
White necromancy is almost universally accepted (Death Ward, Undeath to Death, Blood of the Martyr etc.) are either neutral or good.


A paladin of necromancer would likely be versed in this distinction.

Encountered a Black necromancer? Likely smite, or get back up and then smite. Or if tyrran, likely apprehend and bring to authorities rather than smite.

Encountered a Grey necromancer? The Good aspect of paladin doesn't compel you either way. The Lawful aspect might compel apprehension if local polity bans Grey necromancers too.

Encountered a White necromancer? Team up and hunt undead together, yo!


(You can split grey necromancy further but that's semantics. Most of this is semantics tbh. There's ways to describe magic without these schools in FR, but what's listed under Black necro is always evil, even if you call it "Entropic Magics." or whatever)

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Re: About Necromancy and Necromancers.

Post by Duchess Says » Fri Jul 16, 2021 5:52 pm

There is no one "should". To say everyone (or even every normal person) should act one way is how you get one-note RP.

You could report it to some authority. My feeling is most "normal people" would report it +only+ if it's a threat to their own community or loved ones and call it someone else's problem if they're out in the wilds. You could also run away in fear and never speak of it to anyone. You could be literally "morbidly" curious and ask them friendly questions about their work. You could blackmail them. You could try to start a moral debate. You could be so jaded by this monster filled world that a zombie or two doesn't affect you at all any more. It all comes down to your character's personality, alignment, job, experience... Just do what feels right.

But I do think having a mandatory reaction to anything is the worst thing for an RP community.
Last edited by Duchess Says on Fri Jul 16, 2021 6:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: About Necromancy and Necromancers.

Post by Cabarcos » Fri Jul 16, 2021 5:57 pm

I'm asking for opinion, not for a mandatory reaction, about what a normal good person will do in that world.
Its hard to imagine because real world is quite different.

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Re: About Necromancy and Necromancers.

Post by Cabarcos » Fri Jul 16, 2021 5:59 pm

And I was refering to Necromancers that raise undead, that kind of evil necromancy.

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Re: About Necromancy and Necromancers.

Post by Duchess Says » Fri Jul 16, 2021 6:11 pm

Well, maybe think what a normal good person would do if they found out about a drug lab or drug den operating out of a house in real life. If it's in their neighborhood they'd probably contact authorities and be proactive about removing it. If it's elsewhere they may report it if it's no risk to them or just keep their head down and let it be someone else's problem and bemoan to their friends about how drugs are ruining neighborhoods.

In that way it kind of depends on the circumstances of discovering the necromancer. A neutral good hin of Bendir who doesn't abide by a strict anti-undead dogma who encounters a necro with mummies outside Sibiyad may let them be because that's what they expect from that shady land but if that same necro is spotted close to home you'd bet they would raise a posse.

So in that way I think the most common normal good person reaction is probably to stop a necro or at least chase them away if they're a threat to a place they value and to not want to get involved if they're far from home.

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Re: About Necromancy and Necromancers.

Post by Cabarcos » Fri Jul 16, 2021 6:29 pm

Thanks, some days ago I found several necromancers while I just was getting some salt, and that make me wonder if my char reaction at that time was proper.
They let me be, so after thinking they are 1, 2, 3, ..., 7, 8... well a lot, I'll go the other way.

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Re: About Necromancy and Necromancers.

Post by AstralUniverse » Sat Jul 17, 2021 4:39 am

Some of the most interesting RPs I've had were when I was a paladin or a necromancer RPing with a necromancer, or a paladin, in the realms of 'gray area' where morality and what is 'right and wrong' getting blurred and tricky. LOVE it.

What a normal person would do...
Think of it as more accepted in the realm than you'd intuitively think. That evil necromancer that lives at the edge of the farmlands and animates the dead and deals with dark obvious evil magic isnt necessarily a 'kill on sight' target for the authorities. Maybe the city fears them. Maybe they are very rich and politically involved. There are plenty of reasons not go violent on them on any scale.
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Re: About Necromancy and Necromancers.

Post by Cabarcos » Sat Jul 17, 2021 7:04 am

Yes, sometimes it's easy to forget that as in real life things are not just black or white, and even if the people tries to be good, sometimes turns a blind eye on things for several reasons.

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Re: About Necromancy and Necromancers.

Post by Nitro » Sat Jul 17, 2021 2:46 pm

AstralUniverse wrote:
Sat Jul 17, 2021 4:39 am
Some of the most interesting RPs I've had were when I was a paladin or a necromancer RPing with a necromancer, or a paladin, in the realms of 'gray area' where morality and what is 'right and wrong' getting blurred and tricky. LOVE it.

What a normal person would do...
Think of it as more accepted in the realm than you'd intuitively think. That evil necromancer that lives at the edge of the farmlands and animates the dead and deals with dark obvious evil magic isnt necessarily a 'kill on sight' target for the authorities. Maybe the city fears them. Maybe they are very rich and politically involved. There are plenty of reasons not go violent on them on any scale.
On the flip side, imagine if you will a world where ghouls that stalk graveyards and consume the flesh of the living are more than stories. Where you might remember your uncle getting killed by a group of skeletons when a necromancer invaded the mine he worked in to seize the resources within, where you hear news of hideous liches waging war on all living things.

And then you see some guy puppeteering your dead grandparents and using them to kill goblins.

It may not make much sense for everyman joe to immediately attack and kill a necromancer, but it would absolutely make sense for them to be met with fear, distrust and disgust everywhere they go, chased away by guards and militaries without being allowed to get a word in, hunted incessantly by crusading paladins and vengeful witch hunters, no matter that they just wanted to use their powers for good.

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Re: About Necromancy and Necromancers.

Post by LovelyLightningWitch » Sat Jul 17, 2021 3:52 pm

Nitro wrote:
Sat Jul 17, 2021 2:46 pm
AstralUniverse wrote:
Sat Jul 17, 2021 4:39 am
Some of the most interesting RPs I've had were when I was a paladin or a necromancer RPing with a necromancer, or a paladin, in the realms of 'gray area' where morality and what is 'right and wrong' getting blurred and tricky. LOVE it.

What a normal person would do...
Think of it as more accepted in the realm than you'd intuitively think. That evil necromancer that lives at the edge of the farmlands and animates the dead and deals with dark obvious evil magic isnt necessarily a 'kill on sight' target for the authorities. Maybe the city fears them. Maybe they are very rich and politically involved. There are plenty of reasons not go violent on them on any scale.
On the flip side, imagine if you will a world where ghouls that stalk graveyards and consume the flesh of the living are more than stories. Where you might remember your uncle getting killed by a group of skeletons when a necromancer invaded the mine he worked in to seize the resources within, where you hear news of hideous liches waging war on all living things.

And then you see some guy puppeteering your dead grandparents and using them to kill goblins.

It may not make much sense for everyman joe to immediately attack and kill a necromancer, but it would absolutely make sense for them to be met with fear, distrust and disgust everywhere they go, chased away by guards and militaries without being allowed to get a word in, hunted incessantly by crusading paladins and vengeful witch hunters, no matter that they just wanted to use their powers for good.
Apropo - "Using their powers for good" is a misnomer for anyone in FR educated in the field of magic.

Undead are reanimated through use of negative energy. Negative energy is a draining force that saps from the reality of Prime Material and sends its energies to eternal oblivion in the plane of Negative Energy.

While small concentrations of negative energy are mostly harmless (just some wilted flowers or withered corpses), the amount necessary to actively keep a body animated corrupts the world it walks around.

The existence of a single undead for a prolonged period in a given region can cause negative energy to accumulate in sufficient quantities that when someone is buried there, they may spontaneously reanimate. Or if someone dies there, a shadow spawns as their soul passes to the Fugue from their imprint. And the more undead - the stronger this font of negative energy, and the more corrupted the area becomes.

And if the spontaneous undead that rises can create spawn... Well, enjoy your village becoming nothing but that undead's spawn until a cleric comes by and cleanses the region and infuses the region with positive energy long enough to counter the corruption. And if no cleric comes by... things are going to get out of hand in an almost exponentional way.


source: Libris Mortis.

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Re: About Necromancy and Necromancers.

Post by AstralUniverse » Sat Jul 17, 2021 8:07 pm

Nitro wrote:
Sat Jul 17, 2021 2:46 pm
AstralUniverse wrote:
Sat Jul 17, 2021 4:39 am
Some of the most interesting RPs I've had were when I was a paladin or a necromancer RPing with a necromancer, or a paladin, in the realms of 'gray area' where morality and what is 'right and wrong' getting blurred and tricky. LOVE it.

What a normal person would do...
Think of it as more accepted in the realm than you'd intuitively think. That evil necromancer that lives at the edge of the farmlands and animates the dead and deals with dark obvious evil magic isnt necessarily a 'kill on sight' target for the authorities. Maybe the city fears them. Maybe they are very rich and politically involved. There are plenty of reasons not go violent on them on any scale.
On the flip side, imagine if you will a world where ghouls that stalk graveyards and consume the flesh of the living are more than stories. Where you might remember your uncle getting killed by a group of skeletons when a necromancer invaded the mine he worked in to seize the resources within, where you hear news of hideous liches waging war on all living things.

And then you see some guy puppeteering your dead grandparents and using them to kill goblins.

It may not make much sense for everyman joe to immediately attack and kill a necromancer, but it would absolutely make sense for them to be met with fear, distrust and disgust everywhere they go, chased away by guards and militaries without being allowed to get a word in, hunted incessantly by crusading paladins and vengeful witch hunters, no matter that they just wanted to use their powers for good.
I absolutely agree with the probability to this scenario. I do not suggest that Evil, and especially the most kind of Obvious Evil should be met with an invitation for tea. I only wish to emphasis that Evil exists more commonly that can realistically be exterminated on sight into oblivion. So Evil folk exist. They do stuff.. Its almost like having the party you dont like winning the elections and you gotta facepalm in front of the TV for 8 years, for example. You dont like it. It disgusts you and you wish it were gone but there's enough of it to be semi-tolerated in form of, as you said, mistrust, disgust, or even organizations with the sole purpose to build cases against you or track you done when you're alone out of town and do it off the books. All of the above is great and leads to something more meaningful than "Necromancer! KILL THEM!".
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I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


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Re: About Necromancy and Necromancers.

Post by Hobojoe » Sat Jul 17, 2021 10:45 pm

I'd say the answer is multifaceted, a normal person from Thay or Zhentil Keep would likely react differently to one from Waterdeep or Baldurs Gate, people raised in the shadow of a Banite Church who've been witness to clerics with their Baneguard in tow would likely be more accepting than someone who's never witnessed such. The only constant for someone who's not wholly evil would likely be distates/disgust/fear the extreme of which is dependent on the character.
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Re: About Necromancy and Necromancers.

Post by Cabarcos » Sun Jul 18, 2021 8:31 am

Thanks for the answers, they have helped to get some perspective about it.

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Re: About Necromancy and Necromancers.

Post by Marsi » Sun Jul 18, 2021 10:38 pm

Cabarcos wrote:
Fri Jul 16, 2021 6:29 pm
Thanks, some days ago I found several necromancers while I just was getting some salt, and that make me wonder if my char reaction at that time was proper.
They let me be, so after thinking they are 1, 2, 3, ..., 7, 8... well a lot, I'll go the other way.
You don't have to have a reaction for everything. Sometimes you just want to get that salt and not have an existential crisis because some edgelord forgot to put his zombies/demon/glowing eyes away.

Usually what I'll do it mete out my characters response to the quality and conscientiousness of the roleplay I'm seeing.

If some necromancer in 63 black wordlessly jogs past me with a zombie minion, I'm just going to go "woah wth" and keep walking. Some people feel burdened to dramatically react to every situation like this, regardless of the depth, or whether the context really demands it, and it's a dark road that leads to a lot of unsatisfying PvP.

Why should the great bell of Beaulieu toll when the shadows were neither short nor long?


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Re: About Necromancy and Necromancers.

Post by Seven Sons of Sin » Tue Jul 27, 2021 2:50 am

Marsi wrote:
Sun Jul 18, 2021 10:38 pm
Cabarcos wrote:
Fri Jul 16, 2021 6:29 pm
Thanks, some days ago I found several necromancers while I just was getting some salt, and that make me wonder if my char reaction at that time was proper.
They let me be, so after thinking they are 1, 2, 3, ..., 7, 8... well a lot, I'll go the other way.
You don't have to have a reaction for everything. Sometimes you just want to get that salt and not have an existential crisis because some edgelord forgot to put his zombies/demon/glowing eyes away.

Usually what I'll do it mete out my characters response to the quality and conscientiousness of the roleplay I'm seeing.

If some necromancer in 63 black wordlessly jogs past me with a zombie minion, I'm just going to go "woah wth" and keep walking. Some people feel burdened to dramatically react to every situation like this, regardless of the depth, or whether the context really demands it, and it's a dark road that leads to a lot of unsatisfying PvP.
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Re: About Necromancy and Necromancers.

Post by In Sorrow We Trust » Tue Jul 27, 2021 1:46 pm

As the player of Holly Holtz, I guess I should add my experience to the pot.

Holly has been so much fun. I originally made her as a naive young woman with simple goals: make friends, find love, and experience the happily ever after. Sounds simple, right?

Not for Holly.

You see, Holly suffers from a form of psychosis which causes her to have hallucinations and delusions of grandeur. To top it off, though she had always tried her best to socialize and make friends, it was incredibly awkward. Her low charisma meant she had no concept of personal space and she always smelled really, really bad because, SURPRISE, she's also a necromancer and had very poor hygiene. (She's better about the hygiene part these days.)

But where I think a lot of necromancer characters had the tendency to roam around, hiding their undead as best they can and fighting people when they are discovered to keep their secret,

I did absolutely none of that on Holly.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

I solo'd most if not all of my writs all the way to level 21. When I would go out, I summoned my undead on the fringes of civilization (but quite BLATANTLY in the road) buffed them up, and just went.

I encountered people while traveling, and OFTEN, but where many characters would try to be sneaky, I would actually go out of my way to approach people WITH my undead right next to me. Counter intuitive, isn't it? Most of those who have seen Holly and how she was early in her character development, she got into a lot of trouble when people saw her with her undead.

And some people tried to kill her.

Here's the thing that absolutely surprised me about these experiences though: EVERY SINGLE PERSON that I ran into? Made it engaging and interesting and fun. Sure, they chided, sure some were upset, scared, or even disgusted. Never once do I recall being one-lined by a paladin, though, even though they did Paladin Things, they weren't cruel about it.

It was one of the most fun experiences I've ever had while leveling a character, and yes, she is now a loathed outcast, but I honestly kind of miss it.

Maybe my experience is different than others. Absolutely good characters who are beholden to do good should not try to be friends with necromancers who blatantly desecrate corpses and dig up graveyards... but there's always room to at least make it fun, like those I interacted with on Holly.

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