Why Are Necromancers Always Evil?

[Ravens_cry]

Skeletons and Zombies used to be Neutral, and with good reason, something has to have inteligent to be Evil. Animals may hunt you down, they may kill you, they may even use *gasp* poison, but they are not Evil.
Zombies and Skeletons are even less intelligent then animals, they are automata that obey orders to the letter, magical robots formed from corpses.
Heck, Mummies are only Usually Evil, which means a fair share are Neutral or even Good. Vampires and Ghouls and Ghasts are Always Evil, but they require predatory acts upon the living to survive and are intelligent, no such matter for Zombies or Skeletons.
As for Lichs, well there is a "sub-species" creatively titled "Good Lichs" that can be good.
So again, being undead, negative energy and all is no absolute indicateor of alignment, actions are, except for zombies and skeletons, which doesn't really add up.
Creating undead can still be evil if one is desecrating graves and animating without permission and proper restitution of the bodies former occupants and inheritors.
If you still want to give unintelligent undead an alignment, give them the alignment of their creator or controller, for they are tools, nothing more.

[742]

because gary gygax said so.

because dead things have a big squick factor; whats more evil than that?

because somebody has to do it! necromancers are as good a group as any.

[Snake-Aes]

because gary gygax said so.

because dead things have a big squick factor; whats more evil than that?

because somebody has to do it! necromancers are as good a group as any.

What about someone that reproduces by stalking a victim's house, poisoning it, tearing off its eyes and hypnotizing it into taking care of your spawn until they are old enough to eat the victim?
Congratulations, you have a perfectly Neutral-Neutral Emerald Wasp! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_cockroach_wasp)

[Megaduck]

If that is why, why is resurrecting the dead, with Raise Dead or True Resurrection, or Clone for an arcane version, not seeking "to control that which is the proper domain of the gods"?

Because in those cases your not taking the ripping the soul from its intended rest, shoving into it's decaying former body, and forcing it to serve you an an emotionless automa for all eternity?

Remember, this spell has an [Evil] Tag.

:smalltongue:


*Edit*
Ok, I'm being flippant which is never a good idea on the interwebs. My point is more that people are taking the fact that Skeletons are Neutral and working back to say that the [Evil] Tag on the spell that creates them is wrong rather then taking the [Evil] tag as correct and working forward to why Skeletons are neutral.

What people like Zexion want is to create a Necromancer that's not Evil. Which is fine. The other side doesn't like the idea of Undead which is also fine.

The problem with this back and forth argument however is that no one is really arguing the rules. We're all trying make the rules fit our already created positions.

[hamishspence]

A lot of spells have the [Evil] tag- in itself, it doesn't mean that casting such a spell is a catastrophically evil act. It's only a 1 point corrupt act in FC2, and there are much worse acts to compare it with- like robbing the needy, or causing gratuitous injury.

Animating the dead might prevent souls from returning to life, but, as written in Libris Mortis and Complete Divine, the animated dead doesn't contain the soul of the victim- only more powerful undead, like liches or mummies, do.

Maybe it's a prototype of the 4E "animus" concept- a being needs both soul and animus to come back to life, and while the animus is in an undead being, the soul is stuck in the afterlife, unable to answer True Resurrection.

4E doesn't make it impossible to come back if your body is undead- but I did say it was a prototype.

[SITB]

I have a question, why does the spell Animate Dead have an [Evil] tag? Because WOTC arbitrary decided it? Because messing around with dead bodys is desecration? Why?

[hamishspence]

Probably legacy value. Even in 2nd ed when spells weren't tagged, some (including Animate dead) had text saying "Casting this spell is not a good act, and only evil casters use it regularly"

When translated into 3.0, it was handled by giving it the [Evil] tag.

Maybe Gygax, or TSR, were first responsible.

[Darcy]

That assumes your immortal soul is even part of the process. If mindless undead are just what they appear, mindless automata who can obey simply worded commands, the original soul long departed to it's appropriate afterlife, then that is really not an issue. Some put forth as evince that there smut be some soul torment involved you can't be resurrected hen your undead.
But there is also evidence for post-hoc reasoning otherwise.
For example, you can create a mindless undead by animating a statue Stone to Flesh-ed or from the result of a Clone spell done while the original is living.
My general understanding of the mechanics of necromancy is that it involves using negative energy to maintain or remake the spiritual bonds between a soul and a corporeal body- typically, the soul that inhabited the body when it was alive, like Megaduck mentioned above. That's not always the case it seems, but that seems to have been the original intention. It's different from resurrection because that does not give the soul autonomy over its body, or restoring any vitality to it- it just uses the soul to power the body.

In other cases, it's hazier- but as I understand it, in many systems, animating dead, previously living corpses, involves putting the soul back in the body without giving it free will, intelligence or any of the other perks of living. If that's not how it works in the system you're using, then it's not necessarily evil, but that's my understanding of it.

[zalmatra]

Basic mindless skeletons can be animated with either positive energy or negative energy and you don't even need humanoid remains, you can go the butcher shop get a bunch of animal skeletons and miraculously they will compose into a humanoid skeleton
heck you don't even need a body for skeleton creation just cast it at the edge of a pretty big forest the bones come to you :P depending on the size of the forest though depends on how many castings are available o.o

zombies should always remain neutral evil and always hunger for brains to retain flavor though.

[Ravens_cry]

@Darcy:
If you want to fluff it that way, that's fine, but I don't see it as precisely necessary, per say.
It also doesn't explain what animates something that never had a soul to begin with, such as a stone to flesh statue or the body from a Clone done while the subject is living , or the body a thumb is taken from and the thumb resurrected or reincarnated, all perfectly viable subjects for an animate dead spell under D&D 3.X rules.

[BLiZme.2]

@ Ravens_cry about stone to flesh statue or the body from a Clone they probably do not count as a "corpse" as per the spell based on the definition of the word corpse. Especially because the stone to flesh statue is just a lump of mystery meet with no bones or organs and the unused Clone is arguably not a corpse as it was never alive and is just a really really good dummy. And as stated earlier the corps left after you use a thumb to res the owner of the body is technically legit but seems to be a loop hole that never got closed.

[Ravens_cry]

@ Ravens_cry about stone to flesh statue or the body from a Clone they probably do not count as a "corpse" as per the spell based on the definition of the word corpse. Especially because the stone to flesh statue is just a lump of mystery meet with no bones or organs and the unused Clone is arguably not a corpse as it was never alive and is just a really really good dummy. And as stated earlier the corps left after you use a thumb to res the owner of the body is technically legit but seems to be a loop hole that never got closed.
The stone to flesh spell specifically says corpse, so the wording is iffy. Now Pathfinder says lump of man shaped mystery meat, which I agree makes more sense. I'll give you that point.

But Clone is a replica of the original, with all the blood vessel and skeleton and internal organs. If anything was a perfect target for an animate dead spell, it's the results of a Clone spell while the cloned one is still living.

If one can include the resurrection line of spells as examples of creating unintelligent undead involves the soul, then then the reincarnation and clone examples can be used as evidence otherwise, leaving the answer as "inconclusive".
Cheers.:smallsmile: