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Zexion
2010-07-18, 04:42 PM
A while ago, I noticed a strange stereotype: Necromancers are always evil. This doesn't make sense to me. For example, using an army of dead soldiers to defend a country would seem more Neutral, even Good. Or using skeletons to build houses or bridges or something...

Any thoughts?

EagleWiz
2010-07-18, 04:53 PM
Using negative energy (creating undead) is an evil act.

Denkal
2010-07-18, 04:55 PM
There's the use of negative energy, which is generally frowned upon by good-aligned beings, and it could be interpreted as disrespectful to the being whose corpse you animate.

Snake-Aes
2010-07-18, 05:02 PM
A while ago, I noticed a strange stereotype: Necromancers are always evil. This doesn't make sense to me. For example, using an army of dead soldiers to defend a country would seem more Neutral, even Good. Or using skeletons to build houses or bridges or something...

Any thoughts?

My group's favorite setting doesn't link "negative energy" with "evil". It's an energy just like positive and the elements. And, as you suggested, undead are integrated into industry. They are cheaper than golems and perform simpler tasks, like pulling weights and tilling soil. Rich people can buy lichdom, and the "corpse industry" is as big as it gets for stuff that anything above "Peasant" can afford at work.

Zexion
2010-07-18, 05:03 PM
There's the use of negative energy, which is generally frowned upon by good-aligned beings, and it could be interpreted as disrespectful to the being whose corpse you animate.
But why is is frowned apon? I mean, the use is typically for Evil purposes, but, for example, so is combat training. Necromancy is just a tool, what you use the tool for should be what determines it's alignment.

EDIT: @Snake-Aes: That sounds completely awesome.

Hyooz
2010-07-18, 05:05 PM
There's just something about using Uncle Louie's corpse that's just incredibly distasteful to most people.

But really, you might as well ask why murder is evil. Or cannibalism.

Yorrin
2010-07-18, 05:05 PM
It's the classic problem of the ends not justifying the means.

In this case- if you take an army of undead to defend a LG Paladinic stronghold or save innocent lives or what have you, you still used negative energy to create the undead in the first place, and thus it is an act of evil. The prime argument used here is that if you had enough power to do good via an act of evil such as necromancy, you could have re-focused your power to some non-evil means to the same end.

The Glyphstone
2010-07-18, 05:06 PM
Because WotC can't make up their mind about morality as it relates to spells and particularly negative energy.

NowhereMan583
2010-07-18, 05:06 PM
A while ago, I noticed a strange stereotype: Necromancers are always evil. This doesn't make sense to me. For example, using an army of dead soldiers to defend a country would seem more Neutral, even Good. Or using skeletons to build houses or bridges or something...

Any thoughts?

I think it stems from the common cultural taboo re: desecration of the dead.

I agree with you though, it doesn't make much sense when you think about it.

Using undead as labor seems like it would actually be more acceptable than having living humans do the work, because mindless bodies don't really care whether they have to spend the day building houses. However, then you have to ask:

Does creating undead disturb the souls of the dead in question? If so, it's a serious violation of rights and may be tantamount to slavery. If not, then it's probably okay.
Does using undead for labor take jobs from the living? If so, it's probably not going to make you a popular person.


Wow. This post got really unfocused as I wrote it.

Noedig
2010-07-18, 05:07 PM
See I hold with Snake-Aes on this one. The plane of negative energy is just a cosmic balance against the plane of positive energy. Negative energy is not "evil", but it can be used to do "evil" things like animating. For that matter, an over abundance of positive energy can be used to do some pretty bad things to people, like make them explode for having to many hitpoints. I personally have less of a problem with skeletons than exploding people.

Zexion
2010-07-18, 05:08 PM
There's just something about using Uncle Louie's corpse that's just incredibly distasteful to most people.

But really, you might as well ask why murder is evil. Or cannibalism.
Fair enough.
But no, what I'm asking is why necromancy is bundled up with murder in people's minds.

It's the classic problem of the ends not justifying the means.

In this case- if you take an army of undead to defend a LG Paladinic stronghold or save innocent lives or what have you, you still used negative energy to create the undead in the first place, and thus it is an act of evil. The prime argument used here is that if you had enough power to do good via an act of evil such as necromancy, you could have re-focused your power to some non-evil means to the same end.
And what makes the negative energy evil? It isn't specified as evil in the D&D books. It's just negative energy. You might as well call subtraction evil and addition holy. :smallconfused:

I think it stems from the common cultural taboo re: desecration of the dead.

I agree with you though, it doesn't make much sense when you think about it.

Using undead as labor seems like it would actually be more acceptable than having living humans do the work, because mindless bodies don't really care whether they have to spend the day building houses. However, then you have to ask:

Does creating undead disturb the souls of the dead in question? If so, it's a serious violation of rights and may be tantamount to slavery. If not, then it's probably okay.
Does using undead for labor take jobs from the living? If so, it's probably not going to make you a popular person.


Wow. This post got really unfocused as I wrote it.
I do not believe so. Roy didn't even know until his father told him.

Well... it probably does, but that's not necessarily evil.

Noedig
2010-07-18, 05:11 PM
@NowhereMan: I think for corporeal mindless undead like skeletons and zombies, its more of a matter of the corpse being suffused with pure negative energy rather than the remnants of a soul. For intelligent undead and most incorporeal undead, there is more of a gray area, especially for incorporeal which I think are actually vengeful souls.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-18, 05:11 PM
I do not believe so. Roy didn't even know until his father told him.

Well... it probably does, but that's not necessarily evil.

Roy was a bone golem. Golems are powered by elementals.

Then again, it should probably make them more evil than the undead, who do no such thing.

awa
2010-07-18, 05:12 PM
in second edition you could use animate dead and not be evil if you asked the person you were casting it on before you cast it.

One thing to consider is all we know what non immediate side effects a spell like this would have. Its possible that the designers felt that their was some inherent aspect of creating undead that is evil.

So any "good" done by the act would be weighed against whatever the spell does.

Denkal
2010-07-18, 05:12 PM
But why is is frowned apon? I mean, the use is typically for Evil purposes, but, for example, so is combat training. Necromancy is just a tool, what you use the tool for should be what determines it's alignment.

True, there isn't much reason for Negative Energy use to be evil of itself. You might homebrew Necromancy spells that can summon the soul of a body for aid, so that good necromancers can call the aid of fallen heroes, ala Ghost Martyrs of the Sapphire Guard.

Then, once their aid isn't needed, they return to their afterlife, removing the taboo of desecrating their remains.

Zexion
2010-07-18, 05:12 PM
Roy was a bone golem. Golems are powered by elementals.

Then again, it should probably make them more evil than the undead, who do no such thing.
Yes, but a bone golem is still an undead. :smallbiggrin:

Mmm... there's some gray area there, I admit.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-18, 05:13 PM
Yes, but a bone golem is still an undead. :smallbiggrin:

No, it's not. It's a construct. Constructs are a totally different type of creature than undead.

awa
2010-07-18, 05:15 PM
also order of the stick is one person interpretation (regardless of how good that interpretation is) just because it worked like that in the comic dosent mean it would work that way in all worlds.

Zexion
2010-07-18, 05:15 PM
No, it's not. It's a construct. Constructs are a totally different type of creature than undead.
...
Oh. Oops. See, this is why I should check these things with the forum before I go making assumptions. :smalltongue:

Eurus
2010-07-18, 05:15 PM
One of the ways that I like to fluff it is to say that channeling negative energy for any reason, but particularly for undead, actually decreases the overall amount of positive energy in the world (since positive and negative energy have a matter/antimatter relationship). By pulling more of it from the Negative Energy Plane into the Material, you're essentially increasing entropy. :smallwink:

Granted, this does make positive energy an intrinsically Good thing, but since even a holy sword can be used for evil deeds I'd say that's only a minor issue.

Reluctance
2010-07-18, 05:18 PM
Are you asking for the underlying reasons for the trope that necromancy is evil, or are you asking people to explain it using D&D physics? The former ultimately stems from the fact that decomposing bodies are often vectors for disease, add cultural/evolutionary conditioning to taste. The latter assumes that D&D metaphysics were designed with any purpose beyond what sounds cool at the moment.

Zexion
2010-07-18, 05:18 PM
One of the ways that I like to fluff it is to say that channeling negative energy for any reason, but particularly for undead, actually decreases the overall amount of positive energy in the world (since positive and negative energy have a matter/antimatter relationship). By pulling more of it from the Negative Energy Plane into the Material, you're essentially increasing entropy. :smallwink:

Granted, this does make positive energy an intrinsically Good thing, but since even a holy sword can be used for evil deeds I'd say that's only a minor issue.
But if it's a matter/antimatter relationship, wouldn't that mean that it eliminates a similar amount of positive energy, and that using positive energy would also accelerate entropy? :smallamused:

Yorrin
2010-07-18, 05:21 PM
And what makes the negative energy evil? It isn't specified as evil in the D&D books. It's just negative energy. You might as well call subtraction evil and addition holy. :smallconfused:


To quote a guy over on the ENWorld boards: in core DnD issues of good/evil are simply defined and accepted. Every spell that deals with the creation of undead or negative energy at all (to my knowledge) has an [Evil] tag on it. The same way devils and demons have the evil subtype. Does this pass over tons of subtleties? Yes. But the bottom line is- DnD morality is judged by someone's standards, and negative energy and undead both fall on the evil side of those standards.

Nero24200
2010-07-18, 05:22 PM
Fair enough.
And what makes the negative energy evil? It isn't specified as evil in the D&D books. It's just negative energy.

My interpretation wasn't that negative energy in itself is evil (after all, inflict spells aren't) but rather this particular application of it is. To sustain an animated created you need to create a small conduit to the negative energy plane - in other words an unnatural means of siphoning additional negative energy into this world. That would explain why druids, for instance, hate undead, as a bunch of additional negative energy without positive to balance it out upsets natural order.

But really, it could just be that undead are almost always portrayed as being evil in fantasy. And well...would you be happy if you buried a loved one to then find their corpse up and ransaking your village? I wouldn't.


True, there isn't much reason for Negative Energy use to be evil of itself. You might homebrew Necromancy spells that can summon the soul of a body for aid, so that good necromancers can call the aid of fallen heroes, ala Ghost Martyrs of the Sapphire Guard.
There is a big difference there. If someone remains as a ghost it's by choice. If your local necromancer casts Animate Dead on your corpse, it isn't a choice. Not to mention that typically animated creatures (I.E skeletons and zombies) aren't intellegent, so they wouldn't have your personality. They would be fully under the command of the caster.

So, as in my previous example, if a necromancer decided to raise your corpse and kill your loved ones with it, there isn't anything you could do to stop your body going through with it.


in second edition you could use animate dead and not be evil if you asked the person you were casting it on before you cast it. This I could get behind. That's the idea behind the Deathless in Eberron - That they are ancestors that remain to protect their kin.

arrowhen
2010-07-18, 05:22 PM
Like all things alignment, it makes more sense the less you think about it. Dead things are icky and icky = evil.

Criptfeind
2010-07-18, 05:23 PM
And what makes the negative energy evil? It isn't specified as evil in the D&D books. It's just negative energy. You might as well call subtraction evil and addition holy. :smallconfused:


You hit the nail on the head, negative energy is evil because necromancy uses it and necromancy is evil because it uses negative energy. It all started because some guy in WOTC decided that negative energy is evil in core settings, it is as arbitrary as positive energy being good, some parts of the paladin code, and the famous druid scimitar.


But really, you might as well ask why murder is evil. Or cannibalism.

Ah but there are reasons that we call even these things evil. Murder is evil in most societies because it promotes discord and stops the society from working. Cannibalism is evil in some societies because of ultimately the health risks.

As for necromancy it does not really disrupt society, so why is it evil?

Sir_Elderberry
2010-07-18, 05:23 PM
I've always heard it fluffed as negative energy being, quite literally, un-life. When you use it, plants grow a little worse, diseases spread a little easier (diseases not being microbial in D&D), people don't live quite as long. It's basically magic pollution. The alternate explanation is that it somehow obstructs the soul's passage into the afterlife (definitely true for sentient undead).

That said, I think a setting that removed such alignment restrictions would be just fine and, honestly, not all that surprising to most players.

Zexion
2010-07-18, 05:24 PM
But really, it could just be that undead are almost always portrayed as being evil in fantasy. And well...would you be happy if you buried a loved one to then find their corpse up and ransaking your village? I wouldn't.
Ransacking your village, though. Would you be happy if you looked down from your immortal resting place and saw that your body was still helping your town?

There is a big difference there. If someone remains as a ghost it's by choice. If your local necromancer casts Animate Dead on your corpse, it isn't a choice. Not to mention that typically animated creatures (I.E skeletons and zombies) aren't intellegent, so they wouldn't have your personality. They would be fully under the command of the caster.
Which is a good thing, because then the dead spirit gets his immortal rest.

So, as in my previous example, if a necromancer decided to raise your corpse and kill your loved ones with it, there isn't anything you could do to stop your body going through with it.
Yes...

CarpeGuitarrem
2010-07-18, 05:26 PM
It is funny...in D&D, you have a veritable revolving door, so really, death and life don't matter all that much. It's a desensitization of death, and as such, a desensitization to life.

Personally, I would hold that necromancy should be considered evil, because it disrupts the natural order of life and death, but then again...so should the revolving door. Which makes things interesting.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-18, 05:26 PM
In the interests of being system-neutral, necromancy is fairly morally neutral in Exalted. Sure, its original source is the dead creators of the world who want to kill everything so they can finally rest in peace, and to learn it you must teach someone the fear of death, but ultimately, the spells and its users are fairly varied in their outlook.

Zexion
2010-07-18, 05:27 PM
Personally, I would hold that necromancy should be considered evil, because it disrupts the natural order of life and death, but then again...so should the revolving door. Which makes things interesting.
Exactly. Resurrection also breaks those laws, except for the old-age rule which I still think is terribly arbitrary.

LurkerInPlayground
2010-07-18, 05:28 PM
A while ago, I noticed a strange stereotype: Necromancers are always evil. This doesn't make sense to me. For example, using an army of dead soldiers to defend a country would seem more Neutral, even Good. Or using skeletons to build houses or bridges or something...

Any thoughts?
Well, I just think of a couple of exceptions.

Namely, Diablo 2's Necromancer is in a enemy-of-my-enemy kind of situation. Sure, Heaven tends to disrupt the balance of things, but that's mostly a philosophical hang-up, they're better neighbors than Hell is. Heaven is mostly polite and subtle. Hell? Not so much. So Necromancers end up fighting hell out of their belief that they are preserving some kind of "Great Balance."

Garth Nix's Old Kingdom trilogy has evil necromancers, with one major exception. The Abhorsen is the only necromancer who is allowed to be one, given that his (or her) job is entirely about safeguarding the gates into and out of death. So he ends up foiling the schemes of necromancers and restless spirits who attempt to cheat death. The incumbent Abhorsen inherits his position purely through his bloodline.

Anyway, the idea of the evil necromancer probably stems more from cultural hang-ups than anything else. Graverobbers typically stole cadavers for scholars who are interested in studying anatomy. And this was illegal in historic Europe for religious reasons. It is pretty much the precursor to the trope of the amoral mad scientist seeking forbidden knowledge. Upsetting the natural order of things and whatnot.

Ironically, the former example of Diablo II's Necromancer actually doesn't really fall into the whole "evil scholar" trope, since he's more like a rebel than the exception-that-proves-the-rule.

NecroRebel
2010-07-18, 05:29 PM
Necromancers in D&D and associated works are Evil because magicians who animate corpses are traditionally evil in other works. There's really no other reason. You might as well ask "why are dwarves industrious?" or "why are elves always the best archers?" Both of those are because Tolkien's dwarves and elves were industrious and archers, respectively.

If you want an in-world justification, you're going to have to make something up. Maybe it is because it captures and enslaves the spirit of the deceased (though in that case Golems are probably just as Evil; you're capturing and enslaving the spirit of an elemental in that case). Maybe entities of negative energy happen to be anti-life incarnate, and thus, if uncontrolled will do everything in their power to kill everything they perceive, and by creating an undead negative energy creature you're by definition creating a mindless destroyer. Maybe undead are all the minions or powered by a fragment of a Demon Prince, as 4E does with Orcus. There's countless justifications that can work. If animating the dead is Evil, those who do it regularly are probably Evil too.

Or maybe undead aren't Evil by definition at all. Since negative energy is simply energy and not actually aligned, well, there's not really any moral quandary involved in creating an undead entity if you're also not enslaving anybody. In that case, Necromancers can be any alignment. However, note that if the Necromancer's Necromancy is a means to an Evil end, such as the somewhat-trite "I'll raise an army of the dead and conquer the world!" justification that also just so happens to tend to draw the heroes' attention, that means that many of the Necromancers that the players encounter are going to be Evil, even if the majority are not.

Ultimately, that's probably what it comes down to; Necromancers are stereotyped as Evil. Sometime, some power-hungry lunatic that just happened to be a Necromancer decided to use their talents to raise an army of undead, and people remember that great Evil and associate all Necromancers with it.

Zexion
2010-07-18, 05:31 PM
This is definitely a controversial topic! :smalltongue:

Some more food for thought: If someone's immortal resting place is not disturbed, but their body is unwillingly animated as a zombie to build houses and stuff in their hometown, is that Evil? Technically, as dead people, their bodies are not their property anymore...

Aroka
2010-07-18, 05:31 PM
A while ago, I noticed a strange stereotype: Necromancers are always evil. This doesn't make sense to me. For example, using an army of dead soldiers to defend a country would seem more Neutral, even Good. Or using skeletons to build houses or bridges or something...

Any thoughts?

Because they're based on evil characters from R. E. Howard's and Clark Ashton Smith's stories, and because the undead are usually associated with evil deities, and because almost all cultures have pretty powerful taboos about the dead that it takes a bit of a sociopath to break. It's not the necromancy that's portrayed as evil, it's the necromancers, because that's their story role.

And because necromancy is much, much more than just raising mindless corpses to serve you - it usually includes, almost by definition, some pretty awful practices for selfish reasons.

mucat
2010-07-18, 05:32 PM
The answers fall into three main categories, depending on how the campaign world is set up. Any of these answers makes for a perfectly workable campaign.

Possibility #1: Using negative energy has direct and terrible consequences, regardless of the intended purpose.
In some campaign cosmologies, channeling negative energy causes direct harm to the universe or the creatures in it. Perhaps it weakens the wall between the Material and Negative planes; let enough necromancers practice their art for too long, and the Material plane may crumble into negative energy. Or if it doesn't threaten to actually destroy reality, channeling negative energy may still subtly darken the world. If too many people channel too much negative energy, plants will become blighted, famines, plagues and birth defects more frequent, insanity more common, people's spirits generally more morose. Note that we're not talking here about famines and plagues directly caused by the necromancer, but about indirect yet inevitable side effects of their art.

A smaller-scale evil consequence might be that the souls of people raised as undead are trapped in some painful limbo, unable to move on as long as their body remains n its unholy state. Even in the case of mindless undead, where the soul has no direct control over the undead body, it might still be trapped and in pain.


Possibility #2: It's all a cultural taboo.
In other campaigns, none of the evil side effects just described for negative energy exist; raising undead causes no direct harm other than whatever acts the necromancer orders them to commit. But there might still be a strong social taboo against necromancy, perhaps because it is deemed disrespectful to the dead, perhaps because most past necromancers have used their undead armies for evil. This taboo would tend to be self-fulfilling; the people most likely to practice necromancy in a world that detests it, are those who already regard their society and fellow citizens with contempt, and/or are hungry for power at any cost. Their actions reinforce the stereotype, and the taboo grows even stronger.


Possibility #3: Huh? Who ever said necromancers are evil?
In some campaign worlds, using negative energy or raising undead causes no actual harm...and society as a whole knows this. Mindless undead may serve as brute labor, and actually raise the world's standard of living now that skeletons are doing the jobs no one else wants. Intelligent undead might not be automatically evil either -- or if they are evil, might be capable of self-control to preserve their accepted place in society. (The later Discworld books come to mind.)

Yorrin
2010-07-18, 05:33 PM
This is definitely a controversial topic! :smalltongue:

Some more food for thought: If someone's immortal resting place is not disturbed, but their body is unwillingly animated as a zombie to build houses and stuff in their hometown, is that Evil? Technically, as dead people, their bodies are not their property anymore...

Once again it's not a question of the ends, it's a question of the means. If necromancy is evil (which you still seem unconvinced) then no matter what you do with it, it is still evil.

Also- your signature is a lie. Just wanted to point out that I found it humorous :smallbiggrin:

LurkerInPlayground
2010-07-18, 05:34 PM
Meh. The real world basis actually probably stems from the aforementioned graverobbing scholars. Leonardo Da Vinci was known to have studied cadavers at a time when such things were frowned upon.

Also, considering that the Golem stemmed from the idea that the people who made them have some insight into animation, how life works, it just ends up being a thing about how "man ought not transgress into the Natural Order."

Which pretty much sums up the study of medicine in its infancy. And it's part of the ongoing cultural stereotype of scientists as amoral dabblers in That Which Man Should Not Know.

Swords and Sorcery villains sort of play on this trope as well. In Conan, sorcerers often dabbled with Lovecraftian horrors. Even relatively benign sorcerers tended to be eerily inhuman to the average person.

Aroka
2010-07-18, 05:34 PM
Aren't the necromantic elves of Eberron mostly good and neutral? This is justified as using positive energy, but that's just a handwave necessiated by the "undead are negative energy is evil" stupidity. Indeed, ever since AD&D, Faerūn elves have created non-evil liches (Baelnorns) who are just regular undead, and would be powered by negative energy (but remain non-evil, usually LG) in this paradigm.

JonestheSpy
2010-07-18, 05:36 PM
A while ago, I noticed a strange stereotype: Necromancers are always evil. This doesn't make sense to me. For example, using an army of dead soldiers to defend a country would seem more Neutral, even Good. Or using skeletons to build houses or bridges or something...

Any thoughts?

Well, first you have to remember that traditionally there is a link to a soul and its remains. Think of all the ghost stories that are about something being wrong with the body - hidden, not buried in a consecrated graveyard, a bone stolen, etc. So even unintelligent undead are a desecration.

As for having an undead-industrial complex - would you REALLY feel OK seeing your mom's corpse out fixing potholes? Or how about your child's?

(On the other hand, I don't see too much wrong with the "raising an undead army to defend the city" scenario. Partly because the bodies are likely to be so old as to be unidentifiable, and more importantly because the majority of souls attached to those bodies would probably want to be able to help defend their descendents and old home town if they could.)

Ravens_cry
2010-07-18, 05:37 PM
My group's favorite setting doesn't link "negative energy" with "evil". It's an energy just like positive and the elements. And, as you suggested, undead are integrated into industry. They are cheaper than golems and perform simpler tasks, like pulling weights and tilling soil. Rich people can buy lichdom, and the "corpse industry" is as big as it gets for stuff that anything above "Peasant" can afford at work.
I like the idea. Magic as a tool, as technology, being used for more then just monster mashing, is something that makes me squee. And undead have so much potential as a prime mover.

Zexion
2010-07-18, 05:37 PM
Once again it's not a question of the ends, it's a question of the means. If necromancy is evil (which you still seem unconvinced) then no matter what you do with it, it is still evil.

Also- your signature is a lie. Just wanted to point out that I found it humorous :smallbiggrin:
And I am unconvinced because the means are not directly proven to be evil, but it is implied. It seems like, as many others have said, a cultural taboo.

((True. But my family is currently on an incredibly boring fishing trip, which I hate, and I'm able to iPhone post all I want for the next two hours. :smallbiggrin:))

Acero
2010-07-18, 05:38 PM
Fair enough.
But no, what I'm asking is why necromancy is bundled up with murder in people's minds.



U gotsta be dead to become an undead.

look at When Xykon used speak with dead. It upsetted the goblin's soul's rest.

Zexion
2010-07-18, 05:41 PM
U gotsta be dead to become an undead.

look at When Xykon used speak with dead. It upsetted the goblin's soul's rest.
No it didn't. Speak With Dead draws on the knowledge imprinted on the goblin's corpse. Rich got that one wrong. :smallbiggrin:

JonestheSpy
2010-07-18, 05:44 PM
No it didn't. Speak With Dead draws on the knowledge imprinted on the goblin's corpse. Rich got that one wrong interpreted the spell in a manner more in line with traditional beliefs about communicating with the dead.:smallbiggrin:

Fixed that for you.

Ravens_cry
2010-07-18, 05:44 PM
No it didn't. Speak With Dead draws on the knowledge imprinted on the goblin's corpse. Rich got that one wrong. :smallbiggrin:
Or more likely, he chose to ignore it. Technically speaking, one could explain it as a "house rule".

LurkerInPlayground
2010-07-18, 05:44 PM
I like the idea. Magic as a tool, as technology, being used for more then just monster mashing, is something that makes me squee. And undead have so much potential as a prime mover.
I actually prefer magic as a metaphor for a dark ages proto-science.

During the Renaissance, something as simple as knowing how to take the cube-root of a number could end up a trade secret; an edge that you have over your competition.

Likewise, inquiry into the nature of matter and physics tended to be philosophical questions rather than what we would recognize as scientific ones. Alchemy appeared to be a nigh-magical art because chemistry initially appeared to be a whimsical and chaotic process, partly because chemicals weren't pure. And also partly because of the dearth of knowledge regarding the elements.

And something as simple as medicine could border dangerously close to what would've been considered sacred territory. And in the aforementioned Swords-and-Sorcery example, sorcerers ended up having such profound knowledge that they appeared to unsettlingly alien.

In short, I like magic when it's not technology as our modern sensibilities understrand it. There is no democratic philosophy that technology is used for the betterment of mankind or that it is empirically accessible to everybody who puts in the work. It isn't easily found in mass-market textbook to college students. There is no peer-review. Hell, it isn't even a science that uses a standardized vocabulary or set of measurements. There is no FDA to approve the witch's brew for public consumption.

As a result, I find contemporary fiction with magic in it to be boring, because it's just too in-line with our modern thinking. Magic is safe and convenient and standardized. It inherently lacks conflict. Lack of conflict makes for a boring story.

Zexion
2010-07-18, 05:47 PM
Fixed that for you.
No, you didn't.

Or more likely, he chose to ignore it. Technically speaking, one could explain it as a "house rule".
Or, even more likely, the imprinted knowledge convinced the goblin body and brain that it was the spirit of the dead goblin.

Ravens_cry
2010-07-18, 05:51 PM
Yes, and things changed. Proto-science became, well science. From Alchemy, to Natural Philosophy to Science, what an amazing world has sprung from a bunch of charlatans trying to make gold.
I just like something being used to it's full potential, taken to it's logical conclusion. And a necrotech society sounds like an intriguing logical extension of the widespread use of those spells.

LurkerInPlayground
2010-07-18, 05:53 PM
Yes, and things changed. Proto-science became, well science. From Alchemy, to Natural Philosophy to Science, what an amazing world has sprung from a bunch of charlatans trying to make gold.
I just like something being used to it's full potential, taken to it's logical conclusion. And a necrotech society sounds like an intriguing logical extension of the widespread use of those spells.
Yes, yes, but as stated, I prefer it when magicians are inscrutable monsters who hoard secrets so that they may lord their power over their fellow man. Why would they make it easier for public consumption? That is simply insane from the perspective of a feudal overlord.

Zexion
2010-07-18, 05:54 PM
Yes, and things changed. Proto-science became, well science. From Alchemy, to Natural Philosophy to Science, what an amazing world has sprung from a bunch of charlatans trying to make gold.
I just like something being used to it's full potential, taken to it's logical conclusion. And a necrotech society sounds like an intriguing logical extension of the widespread use of those spells.
Yes... I just had a comic idea! And since nobody liked Joke Troper, I now have a new comic (idea)! Expect the first strip when I get back! :smallbiggrin:

afroakuma
2010-07-18, 06:00 PM
Partially it's likely the symbolic desecration of final rest; also the attunement of negative energy with literal unlife (as a counter-force to natural life). Myself, I don't personally see the animation of nonsentient, non-consumptive, non-destructive undead as evil (skeletons, for example, are basically fragile organic golems). The creation of undead which deprive the natural world of resources (by eating living beings), attaint the natural world with their essence or are sentient and thereby powered by a spirit bound away from its final rest is an evil act, however.

Teln
2010-07-18, 06:00 PM
As for having an undead-industrial complex - would you REALLY feel OK seeing your mom's corpse out fixing potholes? Or how about your child's?

(On the other hand, I don't see too much wrong with the "raising an undead army to defend the city" scenario. Partly because the bodies are likely to be so old as to be unidentifiable, and more importantly because the majority of souls attached to those bodies would probably want to be able to help defend their descendents and old home town if they could.)

Simple solution: have the morticians surgically remove the skeleton after death, put carved wood or something in the corpse in order to keep the proper appearance (or simply have a closed coffin funeral), and animate the skeleton. Nicely depersonalizing, and far less smelly.

LurkerInPlayground
2010-07-18, 06:01 PM
Simple solution: have the morticians surgically remove the skeleton after death, put carved wood or something in the corpse in order to keep the proper appearance (or simply have a closed coffin funeral), and animate the skeleton. Nicely depersonalizing, and far less smelly.
Just use Golems. Less flimsy. Less controversial. You'll never get those politicians to legalize necromancy anyway.

awa
2010-07-18, 06:03 PM
that just gets into enslaving elemental s which is another topic entirely.

Zexion
2010-07-18, 06:04 PM
that just gets into enslaving elemental s which is another topic entirely.
Mmm... not really. It's still necromancy. And it's still unethical. :smallbiggrin:

Aroka
2010-07-18, 06:05 PM
Also, in many religions and in many magical-metaphysical systems, there is a definite connection between corpse and soul even after death, or some other reasoning for reverence of the body; meddling with the body after death is desecration.

Really, would anyone think that even modern Western society would be accepting of walking corpses being used as a workforce? Plenty of people won't even allow their organs to be harvested upon death, and are very firm about this belief (based on various reasons).


that just gets into enslaving elemental s which is another topic entirely.

If the elemental is unintelligent or unaware, it's not enslaving, it's just using a power source.


Mmm... not really. It's still necromancy. And it's still unethical. :smallbiggrin:

How is it necromancy if it doesn't involve necromantic spells? Animating inanimate objects isn't necromancy, and in creating a golem, that's what you're doing, regardless of the material.

Zexion
2010-07-18, 06:06 PM
Also, in many religions and in many magical-metaphysical systems, there is a definite connection between corpse and soul even after death, or some other reasoning for reverence of the body; meddling with the body after death is desecration.

Really, would anyone think that even modern Western society would be accepting of walking corpses being used as a workforce? Plenty of people won't even allow their organs to be harvested upon death, and are very firm about this belief (based on various reasons).
"Sir, where are you taking this body?"
"To the lab!"
"For what purpose, sir?"
"Science!"

If the elemental is unintelligent or unaware, it's not enslaving, it's just using a power source.
And if the spirit is unintelligent or unaware, is it using the body as a workforce? :smallbiggrin:

LurkerInPlayground
2010-07-18, 06:07 PM
that just gets into enslaving elemental s which is another topic entirely.
It turns out that the complacent masses are okay with slavery. At the very least, they're okay with it when it's not happening in front of them.

The idea of mutilating grandma? Well, people get notably less complacent about that.

Snake-Aes
2010-07-18, 06:08 PM
Just use Golems. Less flimsy. Less controversial. You'll never get those politicians to legalize necromancy anyway.

Or scrape off the face, sew on the head a bag with the Maker's logo and sell it for 150gp to the local blacksmith who will be REALLY glad for having someone to pull the carts around that doesn't cost 4-digit gold pieces, doesn't eat, doesn't smell(it's included in the price :D) and works just as well as the mule it replaced.

Really, if you remove the inherent taboo of "ew ew negative, evil, corpse, must not touch, ew ew ew", necromancy has as much space in the cities as any other magic.

Zexion
2010-07-18, 06:08 PM
It turns out that the complacent masses are okay with slavery. At the very least, they're okay with it when it's not happening in front of them.

The idea of mutilating grandma? Well, people get notably less complacent about that.
Exactly. Also, I edited my last post.

Really, if you remove the inherent taboo of "ew ew negative, evil, corpse, must not touch, ew ew ew", necromancy has as much space in the cities as any other magic.
Exactly.

LurkerInPlayground
2010-07-18, 06:09 PM
Or scrape off the face, sew on the head a bag with the Maker's logo and sell it for 150gp to the local blacksmith who will be REALLY glad for having someone to pull the carts around that doesn't cost 4-digit gold pieces, doesn't eat, doesn't smell(it's included in the price :D) and works just as well as the mule it replaced.

Really, if you remove the inherent taboo of "ew ew negative, evil, corpse, must not touch, ew ew ew", necromancy has as much space in the cities as any other magic.
Just use slaves or serfs, depending on your culture. Geez, reinvent the wheel why don't you?

WarKitty
2010-07-18, 06:11 PM
Just wanted to point out that "Harm" spells are not tagged as evil despite using negative energy...

Zexion
2010-07-18, 06:12 PM
Just use slaves or serfs, depending on your culture. Geez, reinvent the wheel why don't you?
Unethical, and unethical. :smallamused:

LurkerInPlayground
2010-07-18, 06:12 PM
My favorite reason for why mind control magic is Evil:
"It robs them of their free will!"

As does bashing in their face with a sharp metal stick.


Unethical, and unethical. :smallamused:
I'm assuming that culture that uses them doesn't think so. Or at least, they think it's more ethical than disturbing the dead.

Ravens_cry
2010-07-18, 06:13 PM
Yes, yes, but as stated, I prefer it when magicians are inscrutable monsters who hoard secrets so that they may lord their power over their fellow man. Why would they make it easier for public consumption? That is simply insane from the perspective of a feudal overlord.
A lot of early scientists and inventors were like that, what with no patent or copyright system in place to prevent intellectual property theft. Imagine if someone set the ball rolling for such a system to be developed. Yes, you prefer otherwise, and that's fine, that's your opinion.
But I prefer otherwise and that's my opinion. Another idea I had was for a republican empire that formed when a classic triple Alliance of Elves Dwarves And Men won decisively and what happened after. For example, orcs and goblins live on reserves and ghettos. This is an improvement when they lived in slavery as reparations for the damage done in the war. An exploration of the decay of seemingly noble motives.

Aroka
2010-07-18, 06:13 PM
And if the spirit is unintelligent or unaware, is it using the body as a workforce? :smallbiggrin:

That's the thing, though - you're talking about some kind of cosmic good/evil deal, which, while it exists in D&D, isn't really the only kind of morality, or even the most relevant one. The thing that matters - especially considering your question, "why are necromancers portrayed as evil" - is what society thinks about necromancy.

Societies tend to think necromantic practices are horrible and evil.

That could be framed as a law/chaos matter in D&D, but that's not really the point.

WarKitty
2010-07-18, 06:14 PM
It turns out that the complacent masses are okay with slavery. At the very least, they're okay with it when it's not happening in front of them.

The idea of mutilating grandma? Well, people get notably less complacent about that.

Actually, if you look at history, the complacent masses are often quite ok with slavery that is happening in front of them, as long as it's happening to someone who can be described as other than themselves.

LurkerInPlayground
2010-07-18, 06:15 PM
A lot of early scientists and inventors were like that, what with no patent or copyright system in place to prevent intellectual property theft. Imagine if someone set the ball rolling for such a system to be developed. Yes, you prefer otherwise, and that's fine, that's your opinion.
But I prefer otherwise and that's my opinion. Another idea I had was for a republican empire that formed when a classic triple Alliance of Elves Dwarves And Men won decisively and what happened after. For example, orcs and goblins live on reserves and ghettos. This is an improvement when they lived in slavery as reparations for the damage done in the war. An exploration of the decay of seemingly noble motives.
And I stated my opinion.

The thing is that you might as well just write sci-fi or something because it's formulaic. It's just a case of replacing "A" with "B." Nothing terribly novel about it.

I mean, I can write a story about robots!

Actually, if you look at history, the complacent masses are often quite ok with slavery that is happening in front of them, as long as it's happening to someone who can be described as other than themselves.
Which is why I qualified it by saying "at the very least."

It turns out that modern enlightened civilization is okay with slavery too. They just call it different things.

Zexion
2010-07-18, 06:16 PM
That's the thing, though - you're talking about some kind of cosmic good/evil deal, which, while it exists in D&D, isn't really the only kind of morality, or even the most relevant one. The thing that matters - especially considering your question, "why are necromancers portrayed as evil" - is what society thinks about necromancy.

Societies tend to think necromantic practices are horrible and evil.

That could be framed as a law/chaos matter in D&D, but that's not really the point.
But cosmic good/evil is also an interesting topic to talk about in this thread. Because negative energy is always associated with Evil...

Ravens_cry
2010-07-18, 06:19 PM
It turns out that the complacent masses are okay with slavery. At the very least, they're okay with it when it's not happening in front of them.

The idea of mutilating grandma? Well, people get notably less complacent about that.
It's all about culture. As I said in a similar thread, it might be considered a public duty. Maybe people who agree to donate their body get a tax-break. And use skeletons. Not only are they faster, they smell less,are less prone to certain forms of damage, and are less recognizable as the original person. That's not ol' gran out in the field pulling the plow, it's just another skeleton.

Snake-Aes
2010-07-18, 06:21 PM
I'm assuming that culture that uses them doesn't think so. Or at least, they think it's more ethical than disturbing the dead.

This is what I said with the whole taboo thing. Today slavery is a taboo on most lands. Two centuries ago it wasn't. And people totally didn't mind having slaves. The same applies to necromancy and the taboos around messing with corpses and negative energy.

(Also note that typically a corpse is considered the state's property in many, if not most countries, because otherwise there would be a bigger bureaucratic hell to investigate crimes and the like)

LurkerInPlayground
2010-07-18, 06:21 PM
But cosmic good/evil is also an interesting topic to talk about in this thread. Because negative energy is always associated with Evil...
Meh, I always thought that the D&D alignment system was one of those things that people should have left by the wayside.

When playing Baldur's Gate II, I don't want to see Sarevok taunting the other party members by unironically using the phrase "power of evil."

And I also don't want to read forum debates with participants whose entire ethical understanding is informed by alignments. I die a little inside every time that happens.

Zexion
2010-07-18, 06:22 PM
It's all about culture. As I said in a similar thread, it might be considered a public duty. Maybe people who agree to donate their body get a tax-break. And use skeletons. Not only are they faster, they smell less,are less prone to certain forms of damage, and are less recognizable as the original person. That's not ol' gran out in the field pulling the plow, it's just another skeleton.
Yeah, the skeleton thing is a good idea.

Megaduck
2010-07-18, 06:22 PM
If you're going to use the "Undead are not Evil" idea in your campaign you'll need to ask yourself why do you need Human Bodies?

Why can't you put some sticks or carved wood in the shape of a person and cast animate dead on it and have a skeleton? If you can great, then why don't the people just do that?

If you can't, what is it about a formerly living body that's so special and why doesn't that start pushing the spell back to evil?

LurkerInPlayground
2010-07-18, 06:23 PM
It's all about culture. As I said in a similar thread, it might be considered a public duty. Maybe people who agree to donate their body get a tax-break. And use skeletons. Not only are they faster, they smell less,are less prone to certain forms of damage, and are less recognizable as the original person. That's not ol' gran out in the field pulling the plow, it's just another skeleton.
Yes, but I was making an off-hand joke about politics too. Yes, it might be morally equivalent to using robots by any pragmatic analysis, but that's usually not how it happens.

Hell, one might even say that skeletons have one-up on robots by being green. Unless magical energy comes from sucking the lifeforce out of the land or something.

Aroka
2010-07-18, 06:25 PM
If you're going to use the "Undead are not Evil" idea in your campaign you'll need to ask yourself why do you need Human Bodies?

Why can't you put some sticks or carved wood in the shape of a person and cast animate dead on it and have a skeleton? If you can great, then why don't the people just do that?

If you can't, what is it about a formerly living body that's so special and why doesn't that start pushing the spell back to evil?

This is a completely brilliant observation with interesting implications, and can lead to all sorts of great places.

I pretty much use the assumption I mentioned before - that the corpse has a connection to the departed soul - which explains why it's evil desecration to create undead.

Starbuck_II
2010-07-18, 06:26 PM
Cannibalism is evil in some societies because of ultimately the health risks.

As for necromancy it does not really disrupt society, so why is it evil?

But cannabalism keeps a society from being malnurished (Aztecs).

And it isn't Evil according to Book of Vile Darkness (one official expert on what is evil). It is only evil if you gain pleasure (kill them just to eat them, not for keeping out hunger) or power (vile spells/ritual that require it) .

If you don't? No evil.
LurkerInPlayground:


The idea of mutilating grandma? Well, people get notably less complacent about that.

Not evil if we use the body for science/magic ala Golems.

A: "Unhand my grandma!"
B: "But I'm making a Flesh Golem not a zombie. Although both use bodies of the dead."
A: "Oh, then go ahead not evil. Have a good day!"

Set
2010-07-18, 06:27 PM
Because WotC can't make up their mind about morality as it relates to spells and particularly negative energy.

Yup. Negative energy is neutral. The negative material / energy plane is neutral. The residents of the negative energy plane (xeg-yi) are neutral.

Bringing it into the material plane is arbitarily described as evil in some non-core products.

And yet, utterly contradicting that stance, bringing positive energy into the world is not good. If mindless neutral negative energy is generically evil for no reason, then mindless neutral positive energy should be generically good for no reason, just to be consistent, but whatever doofus thought it was 'obvious' that mindless negative energy was 'evil' because it's destructive (unlike, say, fire, which is morally neutral, despite being even more dangerous, since fire, unlike negative energy, can actually spread and destroy entire cities), didn't bother to think through to the logical conclusion that positive energy would then be good.

Which would mean that, if bringing negative energy into the world is an evil act, then bringing positive energy would be a good act, and any evil Cleric casting cure light wounds on himself after a battle would be risking 'falling' and 'turning good' because he's casting a spell that brings positive energy into the world.

Animate Dead spells are often justified by defenders of the 'OMG it's evil!' argument as somehow stealing the souls of the corpses animated, which is kinda ridiculous. You need spells like magic jar before you start messing with souls, and even the speak with dead spell explicitly doesn't communicate with the actual souls of the departed...

In 1st edition, mummies were animated by positive energy, which made sense, because positive energy creates life, and mummies, with their disease touch, *create life.* Then that was retconned as 'a mistake' by some fool who obviously didn't realize that a negative energy infused undead creature couldn't *create life* anymore than it could get pregnant and make babies in it's tummy. There's no mistaking that disease organisms are a dangerous form of life, but so are baby tigers and sharks, and mama tigers and sharks aren't fueled by life-annhilating negative energy. In the rush to shove all evil things towards negative energy, some decisions that were utterly contrary to what negative energy does (destroy life, not *create* life) were made, and are now held up as banners by supporters of the inherently contradictory concept.

Meanwhile, the real-world is replete with cultures that respect the dead differently, including some that ingest some of the ashes of their cremated loved ones to contain a bit of the essence of their loved one within themselves forever, to some whacky europeans who build cathedrals out of human bones, to people who care so little about the disposition of their fleshly remains that they donate them to medical schools and 'corpse farms' where medical students and forensics examiners use them to further their studies, to the millions who believe in the Vatican-approved canonical concept of Transubstantiation, where the host and the sacramental wine *literally* transform into flesh and blood in the mouth of the person receiving Mass. Arguments characterizing anyone who doesn't pump their beloved grandmother full of deadly toxins, smear her with makeup to obscure the fact of her passage because we've become so squeamish, and then bury her in a box in the ground like some taxidermically-preserved museum exhibit that nobody will ever see as a painted savage is projecting late 20th century burial parlor marketing speak on a world where, not even 100 years ago, in *every* civilized nation, the dead were kept in the home for several days, and relatives would often sleep in the same bed with the deceased. Dead bodies weren't something easily avoided 'back in the day' and the reverence attached to them is a pretty recent, and pretty western, concept. The bodies of hanged criminals were hung from walls and left there are warnings. In some cultures, not only were bodies not sacrosanct or worthy of respect, they were shunned and considered taboo or spiritually corrupting to even touch them (and there are modern faiths and practices that require ritual cleansing after handling a dead body as well), or, in the most extreme cases, spiritually dangerous to even *look at,* leading to odd practices like spitting at a corpse accidentally seen, to 'reject the evil.'

So it's not at all 'unrealistic' for there to be a culture in a fantasy world, one that *knows* explicitly, through the use of magic, that the soul leaves the body and cannot be retrieved or tampered with or even *contacted* after death by anything short of Raise Dead, that regards the corpse or bones as just 'leftovers,' and treats them accordingly, recognizing that to revere a corpse, when they *know* that the soul has gone on to the Upper (or Lower) planes is inherently disrespectful to the spirit of the person that died, as if all they ever loved about the deceased was his perfect hair or washboard abs or her flawless skin or gravity-defying jumblies.

Depending on how negative energy works, zombies might be considered unsanitary (as well as unpleasant reminders of the friend, loved one, etc. who once wore that body), but if negative energy really is inherently life-negating, it would follow that zombies *can't rot,* since no microbe, mold, etc. could actually thrive within their negatively-charged tissue. (Although the tissue could still wear with use, and, unlike a living body, shed skin cells, etc. will *not* replace themselves, causing zombies to get increasingly worn down and 'faded around the edges' if not somehow maintained or lacquered or baked to a leathery toughness or something equally creepy.)

Assuming that negative energy isn't inimical to life, 'cause of all those disease-generating mummies and ghouls, zombies can probably rot, along with anyone else who thinks that negative energy is inherently hostile to life, since the rules kinda prove that the flavor text is bupkiss. And so skeletons become the superior choice not just aesthetically, but for reasons of safety and sanitation.

Were I to rewrite D&D, I'd probably make negative energy useless for animating dead anyway. My own understanding of 'negative energy' is that it's not 'endless free mechanical energy!' or 'golems made cheap!', it's actually a hungering *lack* of energy, a void of light, life, warmth, etc. It couldn't *create* energy anymore than it could create life (obviously I'd have to retcon mummies and ghoul fever back to non-life-creating status). All undead would become like ghouls and vampires and the incorporeals, in that they would need to devour energy (from the flesh and blood of the still living, in some cases, through the standard 'life-energy-drain' of incorporeals in others) to maintain their undead status. Liches and Mummies would be sustained by powerful magical forces, instead, but still might have limitations (mummies only active for short times after being 'awakened' and then going dormant again, the magic that keeps them functioning having a limit before it needs to recharge, possibly for centuries..., liches being powered by their own arcane or divine energies, allowing them to cheat the constant drain of being powered by negative energy entirely just like a person casting create food & water cheats his own need for sustenance). Even if a skeleton or zombie could be animated, the spellcaster would have to refresh the spell on a daily basis, or find a way for the animated dead to sustain itself (such as by creating a life-devouring 'hungry zombie' able to feed itself off of living flesh, drawing in the positive energy / life-force it needs to function, as negative energy, in this paradigm, wouldn't be 'free power,' but have an actual cost that needed to be paid).

All undead would be able to affect each other, because there would be no 'negative energy damage,' there would only be the draining / stealing of positive energy from the living, and, second-hand, from each other, because they would have a small reservoir of stolen positive energy within themselves, that they've taken from the flesh, blood, life-force, etc. of whatever living prey they've attacked recently. A pack of shadows, in absence of living prey, might tear each other apart, liberating what dregs of stolen life-energy they have from each other, until only one remains. A pack of vampires or ghouls might fall into the same situation, forced to tear each other apart, in the absence of any living prey, losing hit points every day they go without feeding, and finding each other looking tastier and tastier as the need to feed grows more urgent. A 'negative energy' damaging spell would drain light or heat (darkness and cold spells becoming necromantic), or directly drain positive energy / life-force from the target. Negative energy would be the absence of positive energy, and not a 'thing' unto itself, just as darkness is the absence of light and cold is the absence of heat.

Mummies would, like the old legends, *curse* their targets, not create living micro-organisms, 'cause that's just backwards. If anything, negative energy should *cure* disease (at the cost of hurting the recipient, much like chemo-therapy or radiation treatments) by killing off micro-organisms.

Other useful necromantic effects could repel vermin, sterilize areas, purify contaminated food & water, etc. as well as consume light or heat in an area, allowing for refrigeration of the now-sterilized and germ and vermin-free foodstuffs that the living need to survive.

But that's all fantasy. Instead we have negative energy as a life-hating force that is mindless and not evil, but anyone who uses it *is* evil, that destroys all living things, but can be used to create life, and that is a hungering void that serves as a perpetual infinite free energy source.

Three or four editions full of different writers have made a hash of the whole concept.

LurkerInPlayground
2010-07-18, 06:29 PM
Not evil if we use the body for science/magic ala Golems.
I might point out that people have been notoriously resistant to science and magic.

That's assuming that people don't automatically conflate the two. It's distressing enough when past intellectuals actually had to have debates about what distinguishes the two.

Even today, ponying up grandma's body for science isn't exactly popular practice. If anything, organ donors and the like are a rarity.

ericgrau
2010-07-18, 06:31 PM
I think the means itself is evil, whether or not the ends are good. Maybe it involves dark energies, maybe it binds away someone's soul, who knows. Would be nice if they got deeper into it, but then the gamer makers would get stigma for detailing out the dark arts. So if anything someone should use a "greater good" argument when justifying the use of necromancy, kind of like saying "okay, but is it worth it to kill orphans to accomplish this."

Aroka
2010-07-18, 06:33 PM
The general disconnect probably comes from the fact that WotC grabbed an archetype from fantasy - the necromancer - that, in the sources, is using inherently evil means to evil ends, and then mucked up the means so they're no longer inherently evil.

Jack_Simth
2010-07-18, 06:34 PM
Well, the core spells for creating undead (in D&D 3.5, at least) all have the [Evil] tag on them.

Why they have the [Evil] tag is not defined in the rules.

However, there are a few things we can extrapolate from... although the rules we're extrapolating from are not perfectly consistent... but when has D&D ever been perfectly consistent anyway?

As for the things we can extrapolate from....

1) You cannot use Reincarnate, Raise Dead, Resurrection, or even True Resurrection to get someone back when their corpse is undead (even though True Resurrection doesn't require a corpse).
2) Even after the walking corpse is rendered re-dead, Reincarnate and Raise Dead fail.
3) As an exception to 1, if you apply Resurrection or True Resurrection directly to the still-active undead, it works (it's specified under the Undead type).

Now, the rules aren't fully consistent (there's a couple of methods to get an undead from a corpse after you've raise the dead guy, and the Clone spell doesn't have the limitations other spells do ... but as I stated, the rules in D&D aren't entirely consistent), but there's something going on here.

So really, it comes down to "how do undead work?" - which isn't clearly spelled out, at least not in the Core rules. If it's "The soul is dragged back from it's eternal rest, imprisoned in a cage of rotting flesh, and tortured to power it's corpse" then it deserves the [Evil] tag. And oh by the way, that particular explanation would cover the why's of 1, 2, and 3 above.

But none of the whys are actually spelled out in the Core rules... so any specific reason is, of necessity, campaign-specific.

Snake-Aes
2010-07-18, 06:36 PM
Even today, ponying up grandma's body for science isn't exactly popular practice. If anything, organ donors and the like are a rarity.

That, again, goes on the whole cultural load thing.

Answering the OP: Because it's arbitrarily decided so. Tampering with corpses tends to be a taboo, as christianism and the middle ages can show us.
And on the cultural load thing: when I ask that you try and imagine how it would be without the taboo, then you can only do so if, when the "ew ew squick" feeling that comes with imagining it is cast aside. That feeling is the taboo's load.

There's not much more to say on it. Different Cultures have different takes on how to treat a corpse. Almost always there will be a ritual, but many end up eating the corpse as part of it. Our flesh is no less edible than that of a cow, so there's really no intrinsic "wrongness" on that.

(making people break their own beliefs for a moment to muse about the possibilities leads to interesting anthropological experiments)

LurkerInPlayground
2010-07-18, 06:36 PM
I think the means itself is evil, whether or not the ends are good. Maybe it involves dark energies, maybe it binds away someone's soul, who knows. Would be nice if they got deeper into it, but then the gamer makers would get stigma for detailing out the dark arts. So if anything someone should use a "greater good" argument when justifying the use of necromancy, kind of like saying "okay, but is it worth it to kill orphans to accomplish this."
At the risk of repeating myself, this is my (un)favorite trope:

Mind control magic is portrayed as something the villain does. Or it could be mind control rays. Or psionics. Doesn't matter.

The point is that it's evil because the villain has no problem robbing people of free will.

What most people don't bother to point out is that bashing your face in with a heavy object also does the same thing.

Saying that the means is inherently evil is, bluntly, naive. Any distinguishable means is defined by it's consequences. It's inherently tied to them. Killing orphans as a method isn't just a means to end, it's also an end, whether it was intended as such.

You should not allow arbitrary designations of vocabulary to rule your ethical sense.

Ravens_cry
2010-07-18, 06:37 PM
And I stated my opinion.

The thing is that you might as well just write sci-fi or something because it's formulaic. It's just a case of replacing "A" with "B." Nothing terribly novel about it.

I mean, I can write a story about robots!

Robots generally aren't made from the dead. Also, in science fiction, there is other forms of technology, such as motors and engines, that can take their place in many of the applications I imagine. They are also stupider then most science fiction robots.
Quite likely there would be people who are opposed to it in setting. I can see how many druids would be, as the body isn't being returned to the soil, dust to dust and all that.
Science fiction was my first love of speculative fiction, so I guess I am more inclined that way.


It turns out that modern enlightened civilization is okay with slavery too. They just call it different things.
If this is trying to bring an animal rights discussion into this, we already had one of those. It was long, dragged out, went nowhere fast, and no one was really happy how it ended.

Aotrs Commander
2010-07-18, 06:40 PM
On behalf of my solidly True Neutral Necromancer/Pale Master, I object to the statement all necromancers are evil!



In D&D, like all alignment problems, it's a question with an an inconsistant answer, made because the writers at WotC didn't think too deeply about things, or worse, had conflicting ideas among themselves.

On the one hand, Animate Dead and it's ilk create evil-aligned creatures, and are spells with the Evil descriptor. Casting such spells are often interpreted as being an act of evil, even by some later WotC splatbooks; even though that isn't technically true. And raising dead bodies is consdiered generally to be desecration by many cultures. If souls are involved, it is an evil act. Negative energy is often associated with evil.

On the other hand, both Dread Necromancers and Pale Masters can be neutral in alignment, and both class and prestidge class RELY on Animate Dead as one of their primary abilites; which are mindless creatures. The negative connotations to do with desecrating dead bodies come from cultural taboo, not necessarily morality. (Interesingly, a Klingon necromancer would probably have no problems in that regard, as they regard the body as a shell after the soul goes to Sto'Vol'Kor...) It is not clear whether Animate actually binds a soul into the body or merely makes a negative-energy powered construct. The former would be evil, the later merely neutral. Negative energy is most often associated with evil, even though it is not itself, according to the manual of the planes, actually inherently evil.

Another question is why mindless Undead should be evil in alignment in the first place. If a creature is mindless, it cannot have any morals, and therefore cannot be evil. There, again, is no real rules evidence either way that a mindless skeleton or zombie, if, uncontrolled or having no orders, will seek out and attempt to slay the living, as a sort of default berserk state.

The real answer is probably as simple as a pure rules construct that means holy weapons can hurt them. I don't think the designers actually though very hard about alignment at any point in D&D, least of all in a throw-away alignment on a monster. Both the BoED and the BoVD are extremely narrow in view and highly suspect in their own particular morality. Their good-is-pretty, evil-is-icky motief I find particularly offensive.

To grey the waters more, creating a golem is not considered an evil act. Not a bone golem, but ANY golem, Iron, Stone or otherwise. Yet the description in the MM clearly states golems are animated by the UNWILLING spirit of an earth elemental bound into the golem! Yet, with few exceptions, most golems are not evil, and the act of creation is not considered evil either. So, either WotC's writers are displaying an momumental arrogance in saying that non-humanoid souls just arn't as important or it is another oversight, glaringly obvious when you look at it in more detail than the designers apparently did.

So, like everything else about alignment in D&D, it means you have to make your own choice as to which way to go, with neither side being any more valid than the other. It ends up that the individual DM has to decide what they want to be true. It entirely depends on your own interpretation of the rules and from what splatbooks you use.



Personally, my take is that necromancy is not itself inherently evil. The Evil descriptor, like the Fire descriptor or the Good descriptor means nothing morally, and is merely an indicator of how spells interact with each other and some alignment-based feats or abilities.

Animate Dead creates a mindless construct that if not given any orders, will simply do nothing. It is "evil" not because of what it is, which is a negative-energy powered automaton, but because the creators of the spell choose to make the spell [Evil]; and if one could be bothered, one could find a way to bind the negative energy in a way that is not [Evil]. Creating Animated Dead (provided in does not cause harm to the living, via breaking culutral taboos or emotional harm) it not in and of itself and act of evil; that is determined by the use of the animated dead.

Necromancy - and Undead - are strongly correlated to evil; but more because evil can generally find easier use for their generally destructive power in the former case, and in the latter the formation of most "naturally" occuring Undead is from hate, greed and anger; or lust for power or the abuse of souls in the case of sentient created Undead. But that this is a generalism, but not an absolute.

In the end, it is what the DM thinks is most suited to his campaign.

Crafty Cultist
2010-07-18, 06:41 PM
All the good necromancy spells require are the kind of thing only an evil character would use. For example;

*Blackfire: unholy flames that burn the targets soul to nothing
*Ghoul gauntlet: the target's hand becmes that of a ghoul and spreads painfully until they are completly a ghou under your control
*Grim revenge: the targets hand tears of and tries to kill them
*Necrotic Cyst: A lump of under flesh grows inside the target that can be used to control or detonate the target

All in all if a necromancer isn't evil, they miss out on the best stuff

ericgrau
2010-07-18, 06:42 PM
At the risk of repeating myself, this is my (un)favorite trope:

Mind control magic is portrayed as something the villain does. Or it could be mind control rays. Or psionics. Doesn't matter.

The point is that it's evil because the villain has no problem robbing people of free will.

What most people don't bother to point out is that bashing your face in with a heavy object also does the same thing.

Saying that the means is inherently evil is, bluntly, naive. Any distinguishable means is defined by it's consequences. It's inherently tied to them. Killing orphans as a method isn't just a means to end, it's also an end, whether it was intended as such.

You should not allow arbitrary designations of vocabulary to rule your ethical sense.

I meant, and I believe I explained, that the means itself may do some evil thing, perhaps to people's souls. Like, for example, if you had to sacrifice an orphan to accomplish some goal. You cannot say that there is no such thing as accomplishing a good goal without committing some evil along the way. You cannot say this never happens. That would be silly and naive, as someone who must view the whole world as boy scouts and twirly-mustached villains.

LurkerInPlayground
2010-07-18, 06:43 PM
Robots generally aren't made from the dead. Also, in science fiction, there is other forms of technology, such as motors and engines, that can take their place in many of the applications I imagine. They are also stupider then most science fiction robots.
Quite likely there would be people who are opposed to it in setting. I can see how many druids would be, as the body isn't being returned to the soil, dust to dust and all that.
Science fiction was my first love of speculative fiction, so I guess I am more inclined that way.
As far as I'm concerned, yeah, it's science fiction because it's speculative fiction that makes a toy out of what would happen if technology x existed.

So let's say the robots are manufactured by orphans in a sweatshop. Close enough.


If this is trying to bring an animal rights discussion into this, we already had one of those. It was long, dragged out, went nowhere fast, and no one was really happy how it ended.
Oh that's an easy one. Animals have no rights.

Zexion
2010-07-18, 06:43 PM
On behalf of my solidly True Neutral Necromancer/Pale Master, I object to the statement all necromancers are evil!
I do as well, hence the creation of this thread.

Dr.Epic
2010-07-18, 06:45 PM
Using negative energy (creating undead) is an evil act.

Not to mention just about all undead are evil. Also, do you mean all necromancers in fiction or all necromancers you've come across in tabletop games?

Snake-Aes
2010-07-18, 06:48 PM
All the good necromancy spells require are the kind of thing only an evil character would use. For example;

*Blackfire: unholy flames that burn the targets soul to nothing
*Ghoul gauntlet: the target's hand becmes that of a ghoul and spreads painfully until they are completly a ghou under your control
*Grim revenge: the targets hand tears of and tries to kill them
*Necrotic Cyst: A lump of under flesh grows inside the target that can be used to control or detonate the target

All in all if a necromancer isn't evil, they miss out on the best stuff

Alignments linked to spells are tricky. Let's try the conjuration Trap the Soul! Or maybe Dominate Monster! Yeah there goes free will. Or maybe Polymorph Any Object, congratulations on being a plum pudding!


Grim Revenge, for example. Why is it evil? Is it because it's a necromancy? Or maybe because it's really gross? A Summon Monster of the same level would probably have the same effect(you're dead! HAH! And the monster is teabagging you! HAH!).

Yeah, spells that do nasty stuff are evil. The problem is that Alignment and Spells don't get along as well as they are meant to.

Ravens_cry
2010-07-18, 06:49 PM
This is a completely brilliant observation with interesting implications, and can lead to all sorts of great places.

I pretty much use the assumption I mentioned before - that the corpse has a connection to the departed soul - which explains why it's evil desecration to create undead.
Or merely sympathetic magic, like affects like.
Trying to make wood walk like a man is harder then making then making a what once actually walked like a man walk.
This could be said to be supported by the default rules, as animate objects is 3 levels (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateObjects.htm) higher then animate dead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateDead.htm) for a cleric.

Snake-Aes
2010-07-18, 06:52 PM
Or merely sympathetic magic, like affects like.
Trying to make wood walk like a man is harder then making then making a what once actually walked like a man walk.
This could be said to be supported by the default rules, as animate objects is 3 levels (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateObjects.htm) higher then animate dead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateDead.htm) for a cleric.

This is more or less the selling point of industrial necromancy. Skeletons work well for no pay and are cheaper to make.

Aotrs Commander
2010-07-18, 06:54 PM
Or merely sympathetic magic, like affects like.
Trying to make wood walk like a man is harder then making then making a what once actually walked like a man walk.
This could be said to be supported by the default rules, as animate objects is 3 levels (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateObjects.htm) higher then animate dead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateDead.htm) for a cleric.

Or it could be that when a creature dies, it leaves some sort of psychic imprint in the body; which, while not attached to the soul itself, simply forms an easier channel for the negative energy to function on. (Which is what I interpret it as.)

Similarly, Raise Dead might not work on a creature that's been Animated, not becase the soul isn't willing or is bound, but simply the body is not available to put the soul back into, owing to it being used as a negative-energy robot.

CubeB
2010-07-18, 07:00 PM
Negative Energy, Undead, and Necromancers are evil for one reason:

They look evil.

Animating Undead is inherently evil because Necromancers make good villains, and most people find Dead things unpleasant.

I've seen good and neutral necromancers though. I know one Mutants and Masterminds NPC who uses the corpses of dead gang members to perform upkeep on the local apartment complex. He's quite popular, even if his job is distasteful. (The gang members probably don't like it though. Compared to the big bad evil guy though, his necromancy is mild.)

Zexion
2010-07-18, 07:01 PM
Not to mention just about all undead are evil. Also, do you mean all necromancers in fiction or all necromancers you've come across in tabletop games?
Both. And the all undead are evil thing is also interesting, because technically they should be Lawful Neutral or True Neutral.

Ravens_cry
2010-07-18, 07:02 PM
Or it could be that when a creature dies, it leaves some sort of psychic imprint in the body; which, while not attached to the soul itself, simply forms an easier channel for the negative energy to function on. (Which is what I interpret it as.)

Similarly, Raise Dead might not work on a creature that's been Animated, not becase the soul isn't willing or is bound, but simply the body is not available to put the soul back into, owing to it being used as a negative-energy robot.
Maybe these undead do trap the soul for all eternity, unable to take any action but stare and watch as the body moves in the same endless trudgery day after day, year after year.
And. . . maybe the living don't care. You're dead. If you wanted an afterlife, you shouldn't have sold your body.
If lichdom is available for the right price, imagine the bureaucratic stagnation of world where the rich and powerful don't die.

Shademan
2010-07-18, 07:03 PM
why is it called "necromancy" anyways? necromancy is TALKING to the dead. shouldnt he whole corpse-animating be called necrovoking or sumfin'?

awa
2010-07-18, 07:07 PM
how is it cheaper undead cost something like a 100 gp a hit die right?
A mule costs 8. the feed is dirt cheap as well. the mules stronger and smarter and with a horse and a donkey you can make more mules on the cheap. you don't need to pay caster to make them and he doesn't need to waste his day controlling them. you might say but the skeleton doesn't age while that's true it also does not heal and the wear and tear of constant use should probably destroy it before the mule dies.

Necromancy is not just evil it's inefficient

golems are even worse because they cost so much money. sure they work all day but you could just hire an army of commoners to do the same thing for a lot less

Aotrs Commander
2010-07-18, 07:07 PM
Maybe these undead do trap the soul for all eternity, unable to take any action but stare and watch as the body moves in the same endless trudgery day after day, year after year.
And. . . maybe the living don't care. You're dead. If you wanted an afterlife, you shouldn't have sold your body.
If lichdom is available for the right price, imagine the bureaucratic stagnation of world where the rich and powerful don't die.

Like I say, it could be either; or even both! (Something I've looked at on occasion.) Whatever is best for the setting. For the scenario describe, you probably wouldn't want it to be nonevil, as it wouldn't fit with the almost Ravenloft-y sort of flavour you imply.


how is it cheaper undead cost something like a 100 gp a hit die right?
A mule costs 8. the feed is dirt cheap as well. the mules stronger and smarter and with a horse and a donkey you can make more mules on the cheap. you don't need to pay caster to make them and he doesn't need to waste his day controlling them. you might say but the skeleton doesn't age while that's true it also does not heal and the wear and tear of constant use should probably destroy it before the mule dies.

On the other hand, get a Pale Master with a couple of Corpse Crafter feats and you get it for free, and they'll boost the strength as well. (Pale Masters get Animate Dead as a spell-like ability 1/day which means it has no material cost.)

That said, technically, an animated donkey can't be ridden so much as it has to be ordered about. Dear old Invagrion had some experience in "riding" animated skeletons...

"Right! No, left! Left! Mind that tree! No, that tree, the one with overhanging bra-" *smack* *thud* "...Bugger."

Ravens_cry
2010-07-18, 07:23 PM
why is it called "necromancy" anyways? necromancy is TALKING to the dead. shouldnt he whole corpse-animating be called necrovoking or sumfin'?
I had a lawful neutral cleric necromancer I wanted to play who I gave the title of "corpse smith." Friendly guy, though he smelled strongly of wet earth and myrrh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrrh) and had absolutely NO hair, body, head, or facial.. Easier to keep clean that way. Wielded a quarter staff refluffed as along handled shovel.


As far as I'm concerned, yeah, it's science fiction because it's speculative fiction that makes a toy out of what would happen if technology x existed.

I prefer the term 'thought experiment'.
It wouldn't be all this of course, you might have some nations that follow the more traditional patterns of society. That wouldn't mean they are any more Good though, being formed on the backs of serfs.

So let's say the robots are manufactured by orphans in a sweatshop. Close enough.
Let's not. One is an impeding the rights of the living, the other is (the way I see it) is just putting an empty husk to good use.

Skeppio
2010-07-18, 07:36 PM
I always imagined that for the most part, necromancy is simply recycling the remains after the soul has left the body, like recycling an aluminium can after you've finished the cola within. Then mindless undead should be true neutral, since mindless creatures are always classed as such. Unless you awaken them, but would that create a new soul to inhabit the body, call the original soul back, or something else entirely? That wet feeling around your ears is your now-exploded brain leaking out. :smallbiggrin:

Ravens_cry
2010-07-18, 07:52 PM
I always imagined that for the most part, necromancy is simply recycling the remains after the soul has left the body, like recycling an aluminium can after you've finished the cola within. Then mindless undead should be true neutral, since mindless creatures are always classed as such. Unless you awaken them, but would that create a new soul to inhabit the body, call the original soul back, or something else entirely? That wet feeling around your ears is your now-exploded brain leaking out. :smallbiggrin:
Quoted for agreement of opinion. I also wondered what happened when you awaken a mindless undead. Having it be new soul has so many ethical implications, it's just delightful

Aotrs Commander
2010-07-18, 08:02 PM
Quoted for agreement of opinion. I also wondered what happened when you awaken a mindless undead. Having it be new soul has so many ethical implications, it's just delightful

I have always liked the idea of Awaken creating a "new" soul, myself...

(Especially since a reading of both Libris Mortis and the SpC version says that the creature doesn't regain it's old feats and skills, but does get new ones...)

Coidzor
2010-07-18, 08:08 PM
^: Well, I mean, considering the universe constantly churns out new ones, it's not like magic can't do that or simply nab one of the ones meant for the elves, not like anyone would notice.

Anyone linked to that homebrew Tome of Necromancy online yet which is people reacting to the stuff brought up in this thread? (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19527634/Tome_of_Necromancy)

I must admit, I'm a bit of a fan of it, so I might be biased, but, those who have problems with it as presented in core should probably take a look at it.

WarKitty
2010-07-18, 08:19 PM
I always imagined that for the most part, necromancy is simply recycling the remains after the soul has left the body, like recycling an aluminium can after you've finished the cola within. Then mindless undead should be true neutral, since mindless creatures are always classed as such. Unless you awaken them, but would that create a new soul to inhabit the body, call the original soul back, or something else entirely? That wet feeling around your ears is your now-exploded brain leaking out. :smallbiggrin:

If you wanted to keep necromancy evil, you could refluff that undead are created by harvesting some of the life energy of the former soul, not enough to make them intelligent, but enough to hamper and hurt the soul.

Would also explain why the undead-ing process hinders resurrection and reincarnate.

Dr.Epic
2010-07-18, 08:21 PM
Both. And the all undead are evil thing is also interesting, because technically they should be Lawful Neutral or True Neutral.

Well in terms of fiction I think it's one of those unwritten laws that if you have a person specializing in undead magic they have to be evil. As for undead and evil, it kind of makes sense with the whole negative energy reanimating them thing.

Coidzor
2010-07-18, 08:24 PM
Well in terms of fiction I think it's one of those unwritten laws that if you have a person specializing in undead magic they have to be evil. As for undead and evil, it kind of makes sense with the whole negative energy reanimating them thing.

Problems with this as follows: All things with tomb-tainted soul are now also powered by concentrated EVULZ and all things that run on and are healed by positive energy are powered by concentrated GOODNESS, including fiends.

Ravens_cry
2010-07-18, 08:33 PM
Well in terms of fiction I think it's one of those unwritten laws that if you have a person specializing in undead magic they have to be evil.

What you are talking about is a trope. No rule says we can't avert it, subvert it and/or deconstruct it, however.


As for undead and evil, it kind of makes sense with the whole negative energy reanimating them thing.
I have used this example before, and I think it's a good'un, so it bears repeating.
Imagine beings made of antimatter. They may be the nicest people in the universe, but if they tried landing on earth, it would extremely destructive, through no fault of their own or of the moral qualities of antimatter.
The way I see it negative energy is an alternate, alien amoral élan vital, no more evil then antimatter.

Yahzi
2010-07-18, 08:38 PM
what I'm asking is why necromancy is bundled up with murder in people's minds.
Probably because of the way in which necromancers tend to get those corpses...

I mean, really, who waits for a Storm Giant to die of old age to reanimate it? It's stats would be crap by then anyway. Instead, necros find creatures in the prime of life and then kill them to make their servants, which they use to kill even more power creatures to make even more powerful servants...

Dr.Epic
2010-07-18, 08:41 PM
What you are talking about is a trope. No rule says we can't avert it, subvert it and/or deconstruct it, however.

Well unless your last name is Elric, it's hard to write a good character that just let's dead people stay dead.

Ravens_cry
2010-07-18, 08:42 PM
Probably because of the way in which necromancers tend to get those corpses...

I mean, really, who waits for a Storm Giant to die of old age to reanimate it? It's stats would be crap by then anyway. Instead, necros find creatures in the prime of life and then kill them to make their servants, which they use to kill even more power creatures to make even more powerful servants...
State corpse smiths have to make do with those who die of old age or accidents. Eh, nothing a bit of pinning and Albert's Alchemical Greenstuff won't fix

Lord Vukodlak
2010-07-18, 11:15 PM
Lets keep something in mind if you turn someones remains into an undead, that person can no longer be returned to life by any means until the undead is destroyed. Even a true resurrection will fail if the persons original body is pacing back an forth as a zombie in some dungeon. The spell descriptions states it can revive those "turned into an undead creature and then destroyed"

Because of this it can probably be assumed that for even mindless skeletons and zombies you shove the soul back into the corpse of the creature. At the very least your profaning the dead in such a way they can't be brought back until their undead counterpart is eliminated.

On a similar token Lemures the lowest form of devil are mindless but are still evil. Not because of an ethical choice. But because they are made from the essence of evil like all devils.

So if mindless undead are created by the power of evil magic, they are inherently evil just lemures are. They are born of evil and lacking the ability to think for themselves its all they can be.

Now that does not make Necromancy evil, you can be a necromancer and not create undead. Necromancy is the study of the magic of death, thus undead are a natural extension. In 2nd edition cure spells belonged to the necromancy school.

Now arguing its not evil because it can be used for good, well that's a lawful evil argument. "The ends justify the means" is the doctrine of many villains in fiction.

Ravens_cry
2010-07-18, 11:31 PM
Well unless your last name is Elric, it's hard to write a good character that just let's dead people stay dead.
Could you clarify? This seems as odds with your previous statement and with Edward and Alphonse Elric's initial attitude.

Prax4788
2010-07-19, 04:58 AM
Many seem to forget a necromancer dosnt haft to even deal with undead

a necormancer is one who creates or destroys life

nothing more
crating life could be looked at as a lot of ways

Beelzebub1111
2010-07-19, 05:24 AM
a lot of necromancy ISN'T evil.
Disrupt undead, Touch of Fatigue, Cause Fear, Chill Touch, Ray of Enfeeblement, Blindness/Deafness, Command Undead, False Life, Ghoul Touch, Scare, Spectral Hand, Gentile Repose, Halt Undead, Ray of Exhaustion, Vampiric Touch, Bestow Curse, Enervation, Fear, Blight, Magic Jar*, Waves of Fatigue, Circle of Death, Symbol of Fear, Undeath to Death, Control Undead, Finger of Death, Symbol of Weakness, Waves of Exhaustion, Clone, Horrid Wilting*, Symbol of Death, Astral Projection, Energy Drain, Soul Bind*, and Wail of the Banshee are all necromancy spells without the evil descriptor.

Animate dead, and the create undeads are evil because of two reasons, They desecrate corpses (A big no-no in the good handbook) and the latter actually creates evil creatures.

Symbol of Pain is evil because it serves no other purpose than to inflict agony on another living thing. Torture is Evil.

Contagion makes diseases. Should be self explanatory.

Eyebite, by spell description, "Strikes [a single living creature] with waves of evil power" Literally an evil eye.


*I disagree with these.

hewhosaysfish
2010-07-19, 07:55 AM
Symbol of Pain is evil because it serves no other purpose than to inflict agony on another living thing.

[random disagreement]

A while back I was trying to design a wizard's stronghold. Each successive layer of defenses featured increaingly lethal Symbol spells, from Fear on the outer-most layer* to Death on the innermost. Symbols of Pain were on the second layer (just after Fear).

The idea was to function, essentially, as the magical equivalent of an electric fence. Evil?

[/random disagreement]

*The outer-most layer with Symbol Spells on it, that is. The actual outer-most layer was disguised to blend in with the landscape and having passers-by randomly running away screaming would kind of spoil the effect.

Telonius
2010-07-19, 08:48 AM
Why the stereotype exists:

Death is scary. Necromancers have a lot to do with death. Therefore, Necromancers are scary.

You can be the kindest, gentlest undertaker of a Good Necromancer who hates undead and would never even think of hurting a soul, and many people will still think you're a bit creepy.

Peregrine
2010-07-19, 09:21 AM
Well, the core spells for creating undead (in D&D 3.5, at least) all have the [Evil] tag on them.

Why they have the [Evil] tag is not defined in the rules.

However, there are a few things we can extrapolate from... although the rules we're extrapolating from are not perfectly consistent... but when has D&D ever been perfectly consistent anyway?

As for the things we can extrapolate from.... [snip other good stuff]

This post is the nearest thing to my opinion on this matter, and therefore I think it's the best in this thread so far. :smalltongue: Unfortunately it seems to have gone unanswered, so permit me to restate several of the same things in my own words.

Actually, permit me to save time and link to a thread I once started about this subject: Necromancy, Negative Energy, Undead and Evil (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36295).

Basically what I think is that animating the dead is evil. (That's not all there is to necromancy, but that's really what we're talking about here.) But not because negative energy is evil. Saying that it's because negative energy is evil actually weakens the argument, as many people have pointed out. Negative energy is no more evil than the flu; it's just unpleasant and useful for evil purposes.

Animating the dead is only evil, and only morally distinct from golem-crafting, if it actually has some sort of evil effect. And I don't mean an [Evil] effect, I mean something that is actually morally wrong. The ongoing torment of an immortal soul fits the bill and is consistent with the rules for undeadification. Therefore I say that creating undead causes pain to the immortal soul of that being.

The rules don't explicitly say this, though they do have enough points to extrapolate my scenario from, as Jack Simth said. It's not the only way things could work, and you're more than welcome to run things differently in your own campaigns. But it is a way to justify the existing rules, in harmony with the existing rules, and in harmony with players' expectations.

As for most undead themselves being Always Evil, I explain this as because they have an inherent urge to destroy and despoil living things. Unlife hungers for life, and not the way predators, parasites or even viruses do, to sustain their own life, but just to destroy. If you raise a skeleton and don't give it orders, it will stand around ripping up plants and mutilating insects and small mammals. Ghosts are the only core exception, because they are not "pulled" from the afterlife; they refuse to rest for some other reason. And even among ghosts, I would say that more are Evil than Good.

Again, this is an extrapolation from the rules, not the only possible interpretation. But I believe it harmonises the rules, the genre, and the actual real-world feelings about messing with the dead.

Bagelz
2010-07-19, 09:39 AM
I'm just curious how many of the people claiming necromancy is not evil are over the age of 30?

Generally crimes (as defined by western culture) are pegged evil. Theft, assault, murder, vandalism ect.
Exhuming a body without court order is a crime in the US. (vandalizing the grave and theft of personal propery - someone's body)
If someone dug up your dead grandmother and used her corpse for a puppet show would you call that person good? 'Cause that person is just trying to entertain. - Most of us would be seriously offended.

Not to mention most cultures in the world have serious religious repercussions for people who are not buried "properly".

Necromancy is evil because it offensive and distasteful, just like public lewdness, disturbance of the peace, but worse.

LurkerInPlayground
2010-07-19, 09:43 AM
I'm just curious how many of the people claiming necromancy is not evil are over the age of 30?

Generally crimes (as defined by western culture) are pegged evil. Theft, assault, murder, vandalism ect.
Exhuming a body without court order is a crime in the US. (vandalizing the grave and theft of personal propery - someone's body)
If someone dug up your dead grandmother and used her corpse for a puppet show would you call that person good? 'Cause that person is just trying to entertain. - Most of us would be seriously offended.

Not to mention most cultures in the world have serious religious repercussions for people who are not buried "properly".

Necromancy is evil because it offensive and distasteful, just like public lewdness, disturbance of the peace, but worse.
That's an excellent point. Bravo.

But then again, a conscientious necromancer would just raise the bodies of people by obtaining consent first (unlikely) or by doing it with unclaimed corpses (nobody is hurt emotionally). Illegal probably, but more ethical than not.

Or you do it when you absolutely have no other choice. Those corpses are the only ones you have on hand and you need them now and the good consequences outweighs the bad (e.g. an immediate need of defense).

Or if you're in a fantasy setting where all orcs are evil, then you just use the orcs you killed. But you'd be careful to keep them away from populated centers. (Nothing like a witch-burning to ruin your day.)

hamishspence
2010-07-19, 09:46 AM
BoVD and BoED combined, do have an element of this.

BoED does have "violence is not inherently evil"- but places a very high emphasis on it being "justified violence"- typically, in defense of yourself or others, or in the process of apprehending people who have been committed crimes, and cannot be stopped without violence. Or legal executions of those who have committed "serious crimes". Violence without such justification, is strongly implied to be Evil.

FC2 has "causing gratuitous injury" as a Corrupt act- so this might also be a case of "causing unjustified injury is evil".

BoVD has "murder is one of the most evil acts a being can commit" as well as "theft is wrong" but also stresses that not all killings are murder, and that when it comes to "creatures of consummate, irredeemable evil"- even killing them solely for profit, rather than in defense of anybody, is not murder.

One might apply the same justifications to theft, as the BoED justifications for violence- it must have a just cause, and good intentions, and be discriminatory (theft from children, even Evil children, might be deemed Evil)

The same logic might apply to a lot of dubious acts (BoVD does state lying is not automatically evil, but is morally risky)

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-07-19, 09:55 AM
I think the whole "use animated corpses for labor" aspect could work very nicely for a society if only convicted criminals are used for labor (possibly only being animated for a certain amount of time), ensuring that the average individual never has to worry about seeing relatives working on the street or even knowing that they're a random skeleton. (And it would be a reason to give someone multiple consecutive "life" sentences. :smallamused:) That way, anyone who worries about desecrating the body would be appeased since they're sentenced to that and thus "deserve" reanimation; it serves as a good deterrent to major crimes for those who wouldn't want their bodies reanimated, and it lets criminals actually benefit society without spending money on rehabilitation or housing ('cause paying for animate dead is fairly cheap, and longer-lasting and more reliable than dominate person or the like).

Combine that with the trope of benevolent guiding ancestor spirits, and you would never need to worry about what Grandma thinks about being reanimated because the real Grandma is floating incorporeally in your family shrine while her skeleton does work, stays buried, dances the tango with Grandpa's body, etc. and can tell you exactly what she thinks about it.

Telonius
2010-07-19, 10:08 AM
There's necromancy and then there's Necromancy. Several spells in the Necromancy school aren't remotely Evil. The best examples I can think of are Mark of Justice and Death Ward. Both are on the Paladin's spell list. As much as everybody enjoys inventing new ways for Paladins to fall, I really don't think that the Paladin's deity would want to mess with him quite that much. So just knowing that somebody uses spells from the Necromancy school tells nothing about the alignment.

But if you're just talking about your garden-variety zombie-raiser necromancer? The spells to create undead have the Evil descriptor. No Good deity will grant them (at least in Core). That seems to be a pretty clear indication to me that the act of casting it isn't ever going to be Good. (An argument could be there for Neutral).

Talon Sky
2010-07-19, 11:23 AM
Does using undead for labor take jobs from the living? If so, it's probably not going to make you a popular person.

They took ur jerb!

Ravens_cry
2010-07-19, 01:42 PM
I'm just curious how many of the people claiming necromancy is not evil are over the age of 30?

Generally crimes (as defined by western culture) are pegged evil. Theft, assault, murder, vandalism ect.
Exhuming a body without court order is a crime in the US. (vandalizing the grave and theft of personal propery - someone's body)
If someone dug up your dead grandmother and used her corpse for a puppet show would you call that person good? 'Cause that person is just trying to entertain. - Most of us would be seriously offended.

Not to mention most cultures in the world have serious religious repercussions for people who are not buried "properly".

Necromancy is evil because it offensive and distasteful, just like public lewdness, disturbance of the peace, but worse.
Those are cultural considerations. Before it became common, there was a lot of brouhaha about organ donation, the ethical and moral considerations. Some groups to this day find blood donation, to and from, to be repugnant and immoral.
And most of us are not suggesting that digging up grandma for somebodies jollies is good. What we are suggesting is using institutionalized reanimation use as a power and/or labour source.
Is that good? Not really. It will result in job losses, as a skeleton can be ordered to pull a plough and a skeleton can be ordered to harvest the crops and weave a loom. This will lead to people flocking to the cities, leading to urban expansion. It will be a grim time, as the early Industrial Revolution was.
But unless it does result in the torment of the soul, which is fluff, it's not evil either.

SITB
2010-07-19, 02:31 PM
Didn't the Dustmen in Planescape animated zombies and skeletons and used them for manual labor? Mind you, they bought the your body from you before you died if PS:T is any indication.

Ravens_cry
2010-07-19, 02:37 PM
Didn't the Dustmen in Planescape animated zombies and skeletons and used them for manual labor? Mind you, they bought the your body from you before you died if PS:T is any indication.
Well, why waste good money on a speak with the dead spell, which may not have power to make contracts anyway, check your local laws and constitution, when you can ask before hand. It's better for the labourer as they cam use the money.
Win, win, I say. Win, win.

Rasman
2010-07-19, 03:27 PM
A while ago, I noticed a strange stereotype: Necromancers are always evil. This doesn't make sense to me. For example, using an army of dead soldiers to defend a country would seem more Neutral, even Good. Or using skeletons to build houses or bridges or something...

Any thoughts?

not ALL necromancers are "evil"...I have a guy in my group who is playing an "evil" necromancer, he's not outwardly evil, but he's not exactly trusted either, it's typically a view that Necromancy is one of those things that upsets the balance of life and the general hatred of the undead due to the fact that Adventurers OFTEN end up fighting undead more than once in a campaign, not to mention they're often considered evil as well

hamishspence
2010-07-19, 03:32 PM
Even classes like the dread necromancer (which turns into an undead creature at high level) don't have to be Evil- but the class does say "Any non-good"

Zexion
2010-07-19, 03:40 PM
Even classes like the dread necromancer (which turns into an undead creature at high level) don't have to be Evil- but the class does say "Any non-good"
And the reason for this is the stereotype that "all necromancers are evil."

hamishspence
2010-07-19, 03:45 PM
There has been a trend in more recent fiction, to have necromancer heroes (some of which animate dead, others simply talk to spirits). The Chronicles of the Necromancer books, the Anita Blake books (at first) and the Diablo Sin War trilogy, to name just a few.

Avilan the Grey
2010-07-19, 03:46 PM
In the old setting for the Swedish RPG Drakar och Demoner (Dragons and Demons) there was one notable exception:

In a small isolated mountain kingdom people lived really nice lives, ruled by this extremely powerful Necromancer. The reason they did this was because one of the things you had to do to become a citizen was to sign a contract stating you agreed to be raised as a zombie or skeleton for 3 years after your burial (after which you were re-buried and every care need to make you rest in peace) . All manual labor in the king(mage?)dom was performed by these undead. The mage in question was a fair ruler, no harder or more cruel than any of the kings or emperors in the lands around his.

hamishspence
2010-07-19, 03:49 PM
If you chuck away the "iffy" aspect of animating dead, you could have a Necromancer/Paladin, or an Exalted necromancer, or a necromancy-using Celestial- surrounded by his skeletons/zombies, but never committing an evil act.

Would be stepping a bit outside the trope though.

EENick
2010-07-19, 04:10 PM
And the reason for this is the stereotype that "all necromancers are evil."

The same reason "The Dark Side" is always evil. Having something simply be cool and unambigiously evil ads a spicy cliche to the story which most people enjoy. Not everything need to be a morally complicated gray area. Sometimes it is nice to just have a clear cut wrong to right. Plus there are the tacted on over tones of good incapable of comming out of pure evil. Evil will alwayd turn on you. Dark powers only yield dark results. etc. etc.

In the fiction basically it depends on the setting but generally it is because people are basically bags of positive energy and negative energy is basically anti-life. So bringing more negative energy into the world has all sorts of problematic implications. You are not making a drone with each sketelon you raise you are crafting a relentless killing machine that if allowed to act freely would tirelessly seek to wipe out all life everywhere and is only prevented from doing so by your magics which have been known to fail. Plus lots of undeath tends to cause really bad things to happen like plagues or new gods undeath to form whom also are going to work to relentlessly wipe out all life everywhere. So in that context raising uncle burny to build you a shack when you've got tons of other magical options seems stupidly or even insanely reckless at the very least. Raising the dead to be labor is makes about as much sense as opening rifts into hells of fire to keep your house warm. I mean if your neighbor started trying to build a nuclear reactor in their back yard to power their clock radio I think most of us would have issues with that beyond culture taboos.

Now other setting have different rules and can do things differently but that is why it is the way it is in D&D by default but it is hardly a unicersal rule. Planescape has a very different view on the undead and does in fact already include a lot what you are talking about. I highly recomend checking it out. Things like people donating (or selling) their bodies after death to be made into zombies for labor is very common there and makes perfect sense in the setting.

hamishspence
2010-07-19, 04:23 PM
4E tended to drop alignment restrictions- you could be a Warlock who'd made a pact with Hell, or The Stars (Far Realm entities) and still be Lawful Good.

I suspect when Heroes of Shadow comes out (it will have assassins, hexblades, and necromancers) the same will apply- your magical methods may be dubious, but they don't jeopardize your alignment.

Starbuck_II
2010-07-19, 05:07 PM
The same reason "The Dark Side" is always evil. Having something simply be cool and unambigiously evil ads a spicy cliche to the story which most people enjoy. Not everything need to be a morally complicated gray area. Sometimes it is nice to just have a clear cut wrong to right. Plus there are the tacted on over tones of good incapable of comming out of pure evil. Evil will alwayd turn on you. Dark powers only yield dark results. etc. etc.

Neither the Light side nor the Dark side is aligned innately.
The force is neutral (although it started out evil technically if you go by canon since the original users were evil aliens).

The movie tried to trick you into thinking Jedi are the good guys.

I mean love = evil? Seriously?!

Now Sith (not the dark side) are evil because they choose to be (the whole backstabbing method of training deciples on Korrigan you saw in the game Knights of the old Republic game)
But the Dark side isn't dark, just effective. Drawback it draws on emotions which aren't logical, nor reasonable.
That would be logic.

Jedi are like Vulcans: logic/reason/no emotions. Vulcans aren't good. Many do bad because of this.

Jedi seem good because usually people are illogical for the wrong reasons. Kirk was illogical for the right reasons so he did more good than Spock.

Teln
2010-07-19, 05:19 PM
If you chuck away the "iffy" aspect of animating dead, you could have a Necromancer/Paladin, or an Exalted necromancer, or a necromancy-using Celestial- surrounded by his skeletons/zombies, but never committing an evil act.

Would be stepping a bit outside the trope though.

Implying that Exalted has moral absolutism.


@\/ Wait, we were talking about the BoED? I thought we were talking about White Wolf's RPG with the same name.

hamishspence
2010-07-19, 05:23 PM
If you're playing a character using feats from Exalted Deeds, you're required to not ever commit an evil act if you want to keep the benefits of those feats active.

If "Animate Dead" loses the Evil descriptor- you could play an "Exalted Good" (good with exalted feats) Necromancer.

That said, it's more BoVD, that says "casting evil spells" and "creating undead" both count as evil acts.

Starbuck_II
2010-07-19, 05:35 PM
But BoVD also says it is okay to eat people. So take their advice with grains of salt about casting [evil] is evil.

ScionoftheVoid
2010-07-19, 06:25 PM
But BoVD also says it is okay to eat people. So take their advice with grains of salt about casting [evil] is evil.

It says it is okay to eat people who are already dead and you have no other reasonable choice. Though most modern people are squicked out by cannibalism I'm fairly sure they would grudgingly accept someone participating in those circumstances. Taking enjoyment from it or killing someone to eat them, even if you are starving and have no other food, is Evil. IIRC.

Boci
2010-07-19, 06:29 PM
I mean love = evil? Seriously?!

Isn't that because there is not a very good track record of Jedi falling in love?

SilverClawShift
2010-07-19, 07:04 PM
If someone dug up your dead grandmother and used her corpse for a puppet show would you call that person good?

If someone dug up my grandmother's corpse (sorry to drag you into this nana :smallfrown:) and used her for medical experimentations that wound up making people catch colds less often, is it still pure evil? or is it gray area yet?

What about the flu, in a day and age when people might honestly die from having it?

What about cancer?

The line is a lot blurrier than "Carved-up Corpses used in Carnival!". Putting skeletons to work sweeping chimneys instead of using seven year old
orphans, or having zombies running dangerous machinery while living humans suprvise and work in safer areas... that's just pragmatic at worst, even if the bodies are being used without permission. At best you're making the world a better place by any means of comparison.
If you don't have permission to use the bodies, it's about on par with squatting in an unused house or picking through other companies trash for material to use. It's not a great thing, but it doesn't make you Lucifer...

If you DO have permission (people do sign up to be organ donors or give their bodies to medical science ya know...) then there's not even that fuzziness.

As with all things, it's all about the context.

Starbuck_II
2010-07-19, 07:28 PM
Isn't that because there is not a very good track record of Jedi falling in love?

No, it was based a some Jedi who had a nightmare/warning that some Jedi some day in the future will do something bad if he fell in love (yes, it was that vague).

Peregrine
2010-07-19, 08:49 PM
But unless it does result in the torment of the soul, which is fluff, it's not evil either.

Quite right. Which is enough reason to assume that it does result in torment of the soul, given that it has the [Evil] descriptor. :smallsmile:

Really, good and evil are just fluff. Their only mechanical aspects, alignments and descriptors, might as well have been called [Puppy] and [Kitten] if they weren't going to have any links in fluff to what people actually consider to be good and evil. And since the rules strongly imply that animating a corpse is not "making a skeleton robot", is evil and is "messing with the dead", we can reasonably assume it's messing with

Again, not saying the corpse robot idea isn't one worthy of being explored in people's own campaign settings. Just that the rules imply a campaign setting that I think meshes well with people's expectations, and makes sense from an internal consistency perspective.

Ravens_cry
2010-07-19, 09:10 PM
Actually, I should correct that, it's homebrew fluff. All the actual books say is "this is something only naughty people do." by sticking a good ol' fashioned [Evil} descriptor on those spells.
It doesn't say why or wherefore.

Peregrine
2010-07-19, 09:19 PM
Also true. But as I said, if there is an [Evil] descriptor on something, the path of least resistance is not to say "it's because Wizards of the Coast said so, just go with it"; people will call you on it and you end up with, well, this thread. The path of least resistance is to say "well, it must do something evil then, like cause torment to the immortal soul of the creature you just wrenched from the grave".

The Shadowmind
2010-07-19, 09:46 PM
Also true. But as I said, if there is an [Evil] descriptor on something, the path of least resistance is not to say "it's because Wizards of the Coast said so, just go with it"; people will call you on it and you end up with, well, this thread. The path of least resistance is to say "well, it must do something evil then, like cause torment to the immortal soul of the creature you just wrenched from the grave".

How could the spell torment a soul that is in the plane of the whichever god they worshiped? I know of no spell, that could inflict pain on someone already dead, nor raise an unwilling target. Speak with dead doesn't even allow contact with a soul, only the vestige of memory lingering in the corpse.

onthetown
2010-07-19, 09:52 PM
I played with a guy who had a good necromancer. I forget what the story behind the character was, but it was a fun one to be in the same group with.

On the flipside, I've had evil necromancers who act like generally nice and civil people when they're not in battle rather than creep around in cellars with spiders crawling out of their mouths. Something about a cool, laid-back chap with a monocle calmly calling a few skellies out of the ground as he stands by with his pipe (or something) appeals to me.

As for why most necromancers are evil.. apart from the negative energy thing, I would say flavour... Unless you play in a Sabriel-esque world. In a world where necromancy is something that people rely on and respect, it suddenly only becomes evil to the ones on the outside looking in.

hamishspence
2010-07-20, 02:51 AM
Actually, I should correct that, it's homebrew fluff. All the actual books say is "this is something only naughty people do." by sticking a good ol' fashioned [Evil} descriptor on those spells.
It doesn't say why or wherefore.

Libris Mortis does suggest that the mindless undead may be created by calling evil spirits into them.

Though some people say "making those evil spirits actually do good, through putting them in bodies that are put to work for good purposes- should be Ok"

And point out that elemental binding is pretty much the same sort of thing- only with elementals rather than "spirits"

super dark33
2010-07-20, 04:20 AM
i think, that the problem is about the world tabbo from useing/touching a corpse. plus, zomies and selektons are composed with evil {all the zombie movies?!}. also, do you will giye your son a toy that was made by a zombie?

Peregrine
2010-07-20, 04:28 AM
How could the spell torment a soul that is in the plane of the whichever god they worshiped?

You say why, I say why not? The outer planes are all just part of the D&D cosmology.


I know of no spell, that could inflict pain on someone already dead

Except, accepting my hypothesis, create undead et al. Oh and plane shifting to their afterlife and beating them up. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0497.html) :smallwink:


nor raise an unwilling target. Speak with dead doesn't even allow contact with a soul, only the vestige of memory lingering in the corpse.

Two categories that are completely different to animating the dead. Raising the dead is basically saying, "Do you want to come back?" They can say no. Undeadification takes away that choice.

Being undead hints at some sort of binding, limiting, or torment of the soul in the following ways:
If your body is up and about, you can't be resurrected. By any means. Resurrection needs a piece of you, maybe a finger that was severed before you became a zombie -- but it still won't work if your body is a zombie. True resurrection doesn't need any of you -- and it still won't work.
Most of the discussion has been about corporeal undead: using skeletons or zombies like a robot squad. Incorporeal undead suggest a much more direct link with the spirit of the departed, and they can be created by much the same means (by exactly the same means, in the case of create greater undead).
Most undead are "Always evil", and undead-making spells are [Evil]. Therefore we infer they do something that is inherently bad and nasty. Such as stealing the life from a random infant somewhere on the globe, or torturing the immortal soul of the one so raised.

Let me sum up. If you don't like undead being Evil, I won't convince you. It's totally up to you; you just might have to alter a few rules slightly to account for it. But, if you object to it because you don't think it makes sense, then I hope I have convinced you that it can make sense, while leaving all the mechanics just as they are.

Wymmerdann
2010-07-20, 06:14 AM
SilverClawShift. I am replying mainly to you because your argument is intellectually insulting


If someone dug up my grandmother's corpse (sorry to drag you into this nana ) and used her for medical experimentations that wound up making people catch colds less often, is it still pure evil? or is it gray area yet?
What about the flu, in a day and age when people might honestly die from having it?
What about cancer?

Hey that's awesome, in fact, if the reward is big enough, you can use this logic to justify literally anything. What if we aren't talking about exhuming the dead? What if we're talking about raping six year old girls, daily, for years and years. As long as the reward is big enough, the utilitarian is morally required to support this.

The logical flaw in this is that of Hypothesis Contrary to Fact. What situation could realistically arise where the exhumation of a dead grandmother (more specifically your dead grandmother) could cure cancer, beyond any doubt, and without any viable alternative. It can't be genetics, because that still exists elsewhere, perhaps on a comb, or, you know, in her still living relatives.



Putting skeletons to work sweeping chimneys instead of using seven year old orphans, or having zombies running dangerous machinery while living humans suprvise and work in safer areas...
Why is the only alternative the undead? Social reforms, for instance, backed by technological innovation. You could argue that a regime framed on necromancy would cause a stagnation of scientific research, which would offset any increase in the standard of living gained by necromancy.



that's just pragmatic at worst, even if the bodies are being used without permission.

At worst it's a crime against humanity (or, in universe, perhaps the gods). To misrepresent this analysis is an example of the straw man fallacy, as well as presuming to speak for your detractors (perhaps poisoning the well fallacy?)



At best you're making the world a better place by any means of comparison.
Except that of opportunity cost. What is being lost? Technological advances, relational networks etc. Can you disperse the cultural taboo of handling corpses without reducing the sanctity of life and liberty? Probably not. Telling the population that they'd be more useful dead would pretty much ruin their lives.


If you don't have permission to use the bodies, it's about on par with squatting in an unused house or picking through other companies trash for material to use. It's not a great thing, but it doesn't make you Lucifer...

Depending on how you interpret Lucifer, it could make you far, far worse.


If you DO have permission (people do sign up to be organ donors or give their bodies to medical science ya know...) then there's not even that fuzziness.

Interesting assertion, and a flawed analogy. Did you know that the current statistic for unasked euthanasia sits at around 50% in the European countries that have institutionalised it. That means that for every person who says, while coherent and in full possession of their thoughts, that in certain circumstances they'd like to be euthanised, and are then euthanised when those conditions are met, there is another person who is killed through institutionalised euthanasia. What would that abstract to in a Necromancer's society. How can you be absolutely sure that the corpses, while alive, volunteered. The same problem is confronting prosecutors trying to prove that a family pressured a grandparent into euthanasia, or that they forged a signature. It's a thin, thin line to walk, and even in a thought experiment I would never assume a government to be trustworthy of that kind of power.


As with all things, it's all about the context.

A conclusion that really says and means nothing.

Read Cora Diamond's Eating Meat and Eating People, which is a rebuttal of Peter Singer's utilitarian position. She makes a very strong case against the kind of arguments you put forward.

Anne Maclean also provides a potent rebuttal of bioethics in general.

Snake-Aes
2010-07-20, 07:09 AM
Why is the only alternative the undead? Social reforms, for instance, backed by technological innovation. You could argue that a regime framed on necromancy would cause a stagnation of scientific research, which would offset any increase in the standard of living gained by necromancy.

Only alternative? Maybe not the only, but just a viable one? "Technological Innovation" precludes magic? Or is a skeletal majordomo too much "untechy" compared to a golem majordomo? "Technology" is the practical application of science to commerce or industry.

Gravity:
Hey, look, this "falling" phenomenon can be reproduced consistently with predictable results, let's see what we can do with it!
Raise Dead:
Hey, look, this "obedient walking corpse" spell can be reproduced consistently with predictable results, let's see what we can do with it!

Avilan the Grey
2010-07-20, 07:42 AM
SilverClawShift. I am replying mainly to you because your argument is intellectually insulting

No need to be so hostile, I think?


Hey that's awesome, in fact, if the reward is big enough, you can use this logic to justify literally anything. What if we aren't talking about exhuming the dead? What if we're talking about raping six year old girls, daily, for years and years. As long as the reward is big enough, the utilitarian is morally required to support this.

The logical flaw in this is that of Hypothesis Contrary to Fact. What situation could realistically arise where the exhumation of a dead grandmother (more specifically your dead grandmother) could cure cancer, beyond any doubt, and without any viable alternative. It can't be genetics, because that still exists elsewhere, perhaps on a comb, or, you know, in her still living relatives.

Are you seriously comparing grave robbery with repeat-raping and torture of small children?

And I have news for you: In a world powered by magic, such as most fantasy RPGs, doing things like re-animating plague victims etc probably has a better chance at being helpful in making antidotes and vaccines than say microbiology.


Why is the only alternative the undead? Social reforms, for instance, backed by technological innovation. You could argue that a regime framed on necromancy would cause a stagnation of scientific research, which would offset any increase in the standard of living gained by necromancy.

Since 99% of all Fantasy worlds are stagnant anyway, either by the work of gods, or the existence of magic, this should not make it worse.
"Scientific progress" in fantasy worlds tend to be mad wizards coming up with things like iron golems, flying cities powered by demons and Owlbears.
Using skeletons to do dangerous work instead of children is a wonderful idea.


At worst it's a crime against humanity (or, in universe, perhaps the gods). To misrepresent this analysis is an example of the straw man fallacy, as well as presuming to speak for your detractors (perhaps poisoning the well fallacy?)

Grave robbing, as such, is not a crime against humanity, legally speaking. Now I don't know what the gods of this specific setting thinks about the undead, I give you that one.


Except that of opportunity cost. What is being lost? Technological advances, relational networks etc. Can you disperse the cultural taboo of handling corpses without reducing the sanctity of life and liberty? Probably not. Telling the population that they'd be more useful dead would pretty much ruin their lives.

See what I said about scientific progress in a fantasy universe above. And about your second statement: ??? Does not compute.


Interesting assertion, and a flawed analogy. Did you know that the current statistic for unasked euthanasia sits at around 50% in the European countries that have institutionalised it.

??? Source please?

Dragosai
2010-07-20, 08:55 AM
Well I love the path this thread has gone down! Anyway to the OP, see Eberron, it has plenty of people who use necromancy and lichs that are....well I won't say "good", since there motives can be viewed in many different ways, but not all of them (not even most) are "evil". There is a whole country that uses undead for labor and guards, fighting wars etc. Yes some people view this as "evil" but to people raised in that society is it just how things work day to day and no more though goes into it then about the color of grass.

Also about Wymmerdann’s point, I am not trying to defend him/her but might clear up what they are trying to point out, if I understand their point.
I think it boils down to “for the greater good” is not always the right thing, Wymmerdann’s example is a bit extreme though. I would say most people agree with the idea of sacrificing 1 person to save many more is more than likely the right thing to do. Just how many more is very subjective. A good conversation piece is the question; A train full of passengers is speeding down a track that is a dead end, “you” can save them all buy flipping a switch that will reroute the train unto another track, tied down to that track is a person that will be killed by the train. What would you do in this situation? Most people would flip the switch, I am not sure on the numbers but I have never met anyone that I have talked to about this situation that chose to not flip the switch. The interesting thing is this; same scenario but instead of flipping a switch that saves the people on the train, and kills the person on the other track, “you” have to push a person onto the track, killing them, to save everyone on the train. Can you still do it?

The Shadowmind
2010-07-20, 12:25 PM
You say why, I say why not? The outer planes are all just part of the D&D cosmology.

Except, accepting my hypothesis, create undead et al. Oh and plane shifting to their afterlife and beating them up. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0497.html) :smallwink:
Yes you can planeshift to the afterlife plane, which is guarded by a deity, alter reality you're dead for messing with his/her/its followers.




Two categories that are completely different to animating the dead. Raising the dead is basically saying, "Do you want to come back?" They can say no. Undeadification takes away that choice.

Being undead hints at some sort of binding, limiting, or torment of the soul in the following ways:
If your body is up and about, you can't be resurrected. By any means. Resurrection needs a piece of you, maybe a finger that was severed before you became a zombie -- but it still won't work if your body is a zombie. True resurrection doesn't need any of you -- and it still won't work.
Most of the discussion has been about corporeal undead: using skeletons or zombies like a robot squad. Incorporeal undead suggest a much more direct link with the spirit of the departed, and they can be created by much the same means (by exactly the same means, in the case of create greater undead).
Most undead are "Always evil", and undead-making spells are [Evil]. Therefore we infer they do something that is inherently bad and nasty. Such as stealing the life from a random infant somewhere on the globe, or torturing the immortal soul of the one so raised.

Let me sum up. If you don't like undead being Evil, I won't convince you. It's totally up to you; you just might have to alter a few rules slightly to account for it. But, if you object to it because you don't think it makes sense, then I hope I have convinced you that it can make sense, while leaving all the mechanics just as they are.
Reincarnate the person from a thumb, then raise the corpse. Who's soul would be tormented? The person is already alive, and the corpse is undead.

Mindless undead like skeleton have no more reason being evil than a rock. The skeleton doesn't do anything but stand there unless give orders to do so.
I completely agree that creating intelligent undead is [evil].

Peregrine
2010-07-20, 12:37 PM
Yes you can planeshift to the afterlife plane, which is guarded by a deity, alter reality you're dead for messing with his/her/its followers.

You're drawing a conclusion that is logical, but is not stated by the rules. In fact the rules seem to actively work against this conclusion, given that they have rules for going to these other planes and adventuring there, thus assuming that you're not going to immediately get smacked down the moment you get there.


Reincarnate the person from a thumb, then raise the corpse. Who's soul would be tormented? The person is already alive, and the corpse is undead.

That's... permissible by the letter of the rules, but highly dubious. You can't raise a person if they're animated first, but you can animate their previous body if you raise them first? It just seems iffy to me -- a loophole that ought to be closed. I shall call it Commutativity of Reanimation. *maths geek* :smallwink:


Mindless undead like skeleton have no more reason being evil than a rock. The skeleton doesn't do anything but stand there unless give orders to do so.

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. I do hope, however, that I have demonstrated the validity of the view that mindless undead can be justifiably evil. I don't object to people having different interpretations to me; I only object when they say that other interpretations "make no sense" or "cannot happen" or whatever. (I don't know if you meant "no more reason" to be taken that way and will merrily give you the benefit of the doubt.)

Starbuck_II
2010-07-20, 02:43 PM
A good conversation piece is the question; A train full of passengers is speeding down a track that is a dead end, “you” can save them all buy flipping a switch that will reroute the train unto another track, tied down to that track is a person that will be killed by the train.

What would you do in this situation? Most people would flip the switch, I am not sure on the numbers but I have never met anyone that I have talked to about this situation that chose to not flip the switch.

Well, then pleased to meet you.
I would not flip the switch. Why? Because acting makes me liable for guilt. Inaction doesn't because I believe in free will. What I do is my fault, but not what I don't do (legally the same arguement).
By flipping the switch you condemn someone to die. It was your action that caused ity: no buts about it.


The interesting thing is this; same scenario but instead of flipping a switch that saves the people on the train, and kills the person on the other track, “you” have to push a person onto the track, killing them, to save everyone on the train. Can you still do it?
Now same thing you ditectly caused their deaths.

Now if the person killed was a bad guy then I would because they is this feeling he would do more bad if not killed (same reason people cheer deaths of bad guys in movies). Still not an everyday issue.

Zexion
2010-07-20, 02:49 PM
Well, then pleased to meet you.
I would not flip the switch. Why? Because acting makes me liable for guilt. Inaction doesn't because I believe in free will. What I do is my fault, but not what I don't do (legally the same arguement).
By flipping the switch you condemn someone to die. It was your action that caused ity: no buts about it.
Not acting is also a choice, and makes you liable for them. :smallamused:

hamishspence
2010-07-20, 02:53 PM
The "flip the switch" situation seems like a modified version of the crashing plane problem. You are in a plane, it's not working, it's about to crash. It's currently headed for a heavily built-up area, with less-built-up areas around it.

You can do nothing- and lots of people will die- or you can steer the plane in the direction of least people- and you are certain some will die, but less than will do so if you do nothing.

In this case, you can be argued to be responsible for what will happen if you do nothing.

valadil
2010-07-20, 02:58 PM
Someone asked me about this 8 or 9 years ago. Basically their thoughts were that if the body's original owner was willing to let their body be reanimated, there was nothing ethically wrong with it. Why then is it still considered evil? My answer to that is based on real world religious and cultural ideals seeping into game. Such things are not kosher on these forums, so I'm giving this one a wide berth and declining to explain my position any further.

Zexion
2010-07-20, 03:10 PM
The "flip the switch" situation seems like a modified version of the crashing plane problem. You are in a plane, it's not working, it's about to crash. It's currently headed for a heavily built-up area, with less-built-up areas around it.

You can do nothing- and lots of people will die- or you can steer the plane in the direction of least people- and you are certain some will die, but less than will do so if you do nothing.

In this case, you can be argued to be responsible for what will happen if you do nothing.
Exactly. :smalltongue:

Snake-Aes
2010-07-20, 03:27 PM
Well, then pleased to meet you.
I would not flip the switch. Why? Because acting makes me liable for guilt. Inaction doesn't because I believe in free will. What I do is my fault, but not what I don't do (legally the same arguement).
By flipping the switch you condemn someone to die. It was your action that caused ity: no buts about it.

Not that easy. If you have the power of killing 1 or killing 10 by not killing 1, you're still responsible for killing 10 instead of killing 1.
When you have the power to make a choice, doing "nothing" is also your choice. This is called omission.

Darcy
2010-07-20, 03:32 PM
I think you mean abstention, which wasn't an option granted. If you are told you have to pick 1 or 10, 0 isn't necessarily a third option by default.

Snake-Aes
2010-07-20, 03:37 PM
I think you mean abstention, which wasn't an option granted. If you are told you have to pick 1 or 10, 0 isn't necessarily a third option by default.

He said he'd abstain from killing the 1. Being a binary system, he is responsible for killing 10 because he chose not to kill 1.

Darcy
2010-07-20, 03:42 PM
I misread; carry on.

hamishspence
2010-07-20, 03:48 PM
He said he'd abstain from killing the 1. Being a binary system, he is responsible for killing 10 because he chose not to kill 1.

"responsible for killing" may be a bit of an overstatement in some cases.

it's a bit like saying that if a doctor has 10 patients- who can (because of organ shortage) only be saved by murdering one person for their organs, and the doctor chooses to not do this, he is "responsible for killing his patients"

Which is not entirely fair.

Though this is more parallelling "Push the Fat Man in front of the train" than "flip the switch".

getting back to necromancers- a possible "necromancy dilemma" might be when the necromancer has to deliver a big supply of life-saving Cure Disease potions- but has limited cargo capacity available- and the only way to carry them all, is to raise some skeletons to pick up the potion loads.

If the necromancer raises skeletons, with their help carries all the potions to the site of the outbreak, then destroys the skeletons- it might be a little evil (casting several Evil spells) but was it very evil?

Conversely- if the necromancer knew the only way to save people was by creating undead, and chose not to, thus, as a result, allowing many people to die- might this be just a little Evil?

Starbuck_II
2010-07-20, 03:52 PM
He said he'd abstain from killing the 1. Being a binary system, he is responsible for killing 10 because he chose not to kill 1.

But life and games are rarely binary. Law certainty isn't.

Snake-Aes
2010-07-20, 03:58 PM
But life and games are rarely binary. Law certainty isn't.

Yet, if you are aware of both situations, doing "nothing" puts you to blame for whatever happened. Go ahead, search for the brakes. Call the police and scream "help me, dammit!", do something. Inaction that results in harm to others is to blame.

Coidzor
2010-07-20, 04:05 PM
Anne Maclean also provides a potent rebuttal of bioethics in general.

What, like, that we shouldn't have ethics in regards to medicine and what paths technology opens up to us at all?


Yet, if you are aware of both situations, doing "nothing" puts you to blame for whatever happened. Go ahead, search for the brakes. Call the police and scream "help me, dammit!", do something. Inaction that results in harm to others is to blame.

Indeed. The main problem is that such thinking seems to lead to (at least on these boards) scenarios where suddenly the hypothetical "You" is more responsible than the actual murderer for killing people.

hamishspence
2010-07-20, 04:27 PM
Might be interesting to think about "How much responsibility do you bear for the fate of others"?

When a person is being attacked- and you have the power to step in and stop the attack at minimal risk.

When a person is about to have an accident.

When a person is starving and you have the resources to stop it.

When a patient is injured, you're a doctor- but you have too many patients to treat at once and must prioritize.

And so on.

In some situations- you bear more responsibility than others.

Snake-Aes
2010-07-20, 04:30 PM
End result: It's much more complicated than whatever anyone is proposing.

And sort of derailed, isn't it? I don't see how this relates to the previous "is necromancy evil?" other than showing people you just can't make absolutes to decide what is absolute in the game.

hamishspence
2010-07-20, 04:39 PM
And sort of derailed, isn't it? I don't see how this relates to the previous "is necromancy evil?" other than showing people you just can't make absolutes to decide what is absolute in the game.

A bit derailed, yes- I did suggest a necromancy version of the moral dilemma, where failure to do necromancy may lead to people dying:



getting back to necromancers- a possible "necromancy dilemma" might be when the necromancer has to deliver a big supply of life-saving Cure Disease potions- but has limited cargo capacity available- and the only way to carry them all, is to raise some skeletons to pick up the potion loads.

If the necromancer raises skeletons, with their help carries all the potions to the site of the outbreak, then destroys the skeletons- it might be a little evil (casting several Evil spells) but was it very evil?

Conversely- if the necromancer knew the only way to save people was by creating undead, and chose not to, thus, as a result, allowing many people to die- might this be just a little Evil?

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-20, 04:40 PM
At this point, haven't we established that necromancers aren't, in fact, always evil? :smalltongue:

Snake-Aes
2010-07-20, 04:41 PM
I don't think most bother to read the entire thread, so it has some worth in keeping it up for a while :p Plus, sometimes the discussion becomes glorious.

hamishspence
2010-07-20, 04:45 PM
At this point, haven't we established that necromancers aren't, in fact, always evil? :smalltongue:

pretty much- even animators (necromancers who animate dead on occasion) won't always be evil, even in a D&D world- but (going by the rules) animation itself will be-

and the animator will tend to be "a flexible Neutral" rather than Good, which is what Heroes of Horror describes people who use very mildly Evil means but toward Good ends.

Quite a lot of Neutral heroes will be "nice guys who do mildly Evil things toward Good ends".

As written, using an Evil spell is one of the least evil of Corrupt acts- in FC2.

Fenrazer
2010-07-20, 04:50 PM
My thoughts are two:

1) When the only thing you need to match in a profile for an army is a skelly, then you have a LOT of power, that much power is definitely easy to corrupt with. I agree with the OP that a person could use an army of undead to protect a kingdom. Look at Aragorn. Not a Necrom by any means, but same principle.

2) The Pie Maker, Ted, from Pushing Up Daisies is an exception to your rule of Necromancers being Evil. He only raised one thing from the dead at the cost of another, and even in that instance, it took out someone who was relatively evil.

Darcy
2010-07-20, 04:50 PM
Someone asked me about this 8 or 9 years ago. Basically their thoughts were that if the body's original owner was willing to let their body be reanimated, there was nothing ethically wrong with it. Why then is it still considered evil? My answer to that is based on real world religious and cultural ideals seeping into game. Such things are not kosher on these forums, so I'm giving this one a wide berth and declining to explain my position any further.

How many such people will a necromancer find, though? It seems like being undead is not a very pleasant experience. Not only are you physically rotting away, but you are (generally) without a will of your own, and while your living, conscious mind was OK with the idea before death, your immortal soul will fight it regardless afterwards. I'm not sure there will be a lot of people who are OK with this. Dead souls want to rest.

Presumably one must train to become a necromancer, and that means you're going to have to find a lot of ready & willing soon-to-be corpses to work with, or grit your teeth and deal with learning from someone without such moral issues with raising the dead. With this in mind I think it's technically possible to be a "good" necromancer, but so much of what's involved in getting there means doing evil things. So the vast majority of necromancers will end up being the ones who have no qualms with binding a fleeing soul to a dead body without permission from them when they were living. Furthermore, it seems to me that a necromancer who did have such qualms against unwilling minions might have trouble finding someone to teach him.

Ultimately it depends on the society- if somehow necromancy has evolved in a way where it's common and socially acceptable, like organ donation is today, then good necromancers can exist. However, if attitudes towards necromancy are not so progressive, necromancy must be considered evil. Unwilling enslavement is what it is, however unfair it may be to people who have a knack for it.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-20, 04:55 PM
pretty much- even animators (necromancers who animate dead on occasion) won't always be evil, even in a D&D world- but (going by the rules) animation itself will be-

And in non-D&D settings, even animation might not be evil.

Lord Vukodlak
2010-07-20, 04:59 PM
Lets drop the use of necromancy as that isn't the issue its creating undead. Necromancers are seen as evil because creating undead is often their trademark and its the undead that are seen as evil.



So the subject of LoTR
Aragon did not create the undead army he simply used them to help defeat that armies laying siege to the city. In exchange he held their vows fulfilled and they could finally rest in peace. They couldn't pass on until they fulfilled their vow, so what Aragon did was entirely good. They couldn't rest until their oath was fulfilled.

LurkerInPlayground
2010-07-20, 05:04 PM
Neither the Light side nor the Dark side is aligned innately.
The force is neutral (although it started out evil technically if you go by canon since the original users were evil aliens).

The movie tried to trick you into thinking Jedi are the good guys.

I mean love = evil? Seriously?!

Now Sith (not the dark side) are evil because they choose to be (the whole backstabbing method of training deciples on Korrigan you saw in the game Knights of the old Republic game)
But the Dark side isn't dark, just effective. Drawback it draws on emotions which aren't logical, nor reasonable.
That would be logic.

Jedi are like Vulcans: logic/reason/no emotions. Vulcans aren't good. Many do bad because of this.

Jedi seem good because usually people are illogical for the wrong reasons. Kirk was illogical for the right reasons so he did more good than Spock.
KOTOR 2 was basically a deconstruction of all this stuff.

Namely, the common people didn't really understand what made Jedi the good guys. You have one group of superhuman fighters trying murder another group of superhuman fighters. It just all seems like a silly religious squabble on the outside.

And Kreia pretty much says that she's seen both philosophies. She was less-than-impressed by either, because they didn't really prepare Jedi to deal with human emotions while the Sith were little more than goth kids acting out for attention. It's hard to get the former group to admit that they were ever wrong about anything, while it's really hard to get the latter group to act with any modicum of sanity.

CarpeGuitarrem
2010-07-20, 05:10 PM
Lets drop the use of necromancy as that isn't the issue its creating undead. Necromancers are seen as evil because creating undead is often their trademark and its the undead that are seen as evil.
"Necromancy" translates to "Dead-divining", it was a word used to refer to communing with the dead. It later expanded to any sorcery which dealt with death, such as creating undead.

So the subject of LoTR
Aragon did not create the undead army he simply used them to help defeat that armies laying siege to the city. In exchange he held their vows fulfilled and they could finally rest in peace. They couldn't pass on until they fulfilled their vow, so what Aragon did was entirely good. They couldn't rest until their oath was fulfilled.
Quite so. Aragorn was an anti-Necromancer, or rather like Garth Nix's Abhorsen, who put the dead to rest. By leading them in battle, he was allowing them to fulfill their broken oath. It wasn't his power, but rather their oath, which kept them undead.

zalmatra
2010-07-20, 05:22 PM
necromancy tends to draw on dark twisted energies not just the regular pure negative energy. negative energy by itself isn't evil it depends on its porpoise and what you are actully doing with it. animating a undead being is almost in aall cases evil although its a smigen less evil if its a simple servent as its just mostly dark magic anything more complex then that requires binding a soul to it using magic of darkness and evil and foulness.

not all spells from the necromantic school are evil but all undead spells in dnd fall under evil as its something that actually causes the real world to decay in a subtle manner the more undead are present.

resurrection does not cause the real world to decay or even a huge disruption in the flow of souls or force your will onto somebody else you have a choice in the matter.

animating undead in dnd and in most other worlds typically calls upon corrupting magic that affects you although it depends on the setting

as in the diablo world the undead raised there are more positive/negative energy balanced and are typically willing souls of heros aiding you although this depends and can be regarded as a neutral act for the most part

Fenrazer
2010-07-20, 05:25 PM
Lets drop the use of necromancy as that isn't the issue its creating undead. Necromancers are seen as evil because creating undead is often their trademark and its the undead that are seen as evil.



So the subject of LoTR
Aragon did not create the undead army he simply used them to help defeat that armies laying siege to the city. In exchange he held their vows fulfilled and they could finally rest in peace. They couldn't pass on until they fulfilled their vow, so what Aragon did was entirely good. They couldn't rest until their oath was fulfilled.

In a GIR voice, "IIII UNDER-STAAAAND."

The point I was making is that one can use these taboo forces for good as well.

zalmatra
2010-07-20, 05:27 PM
actully you could be a good necromaner animating deathless which are totally willing and always intelligent beings that look similer to undead but are powered by pure positive energy and light and rainbows

heck the necromancers in the good elf nation of eberron are all mostly good entities and all of the deathless are beings of good and light that the elves go to and learn from and ask advice

Zexion
2010-07-20, 05:29 PM
actully you could be a good necromaner animating deathless which are totally willing and always intelligent beings that look similer to undead but are powered by pure positive energy and light and rainbows.
Please explain how that is a necromancer. :smallamused::smallconfused::smallannoyed:

FelixG
2010-07-20, 05:31 PM
I personally have never seen any source that says mechanical that undead decay the material plane, unless you count atropis but thats not even undead decaying things its a dead god...

Personaly making Golems SHOULD be more evil than making undead, you are using magic to mindlessly animate bones, no soul involved. But making a Golem you pull an elemental from their home plain and enslave their soul to power your new toy. Enslaving a sentient being > creating a tool on the evil scale if you ask me.

I have actually played a number of good necromancers (nothing says that a necromancer has to be evil, or good people cant cast animate dead which has an evil descriptor for some reason) and he often makes pacts with people, offer an older person a gold peice to give to their family, so in the event of their death they leave their remains to you, or offer a whole village a gold peice for each body in their graveyard ect.

In classic DnD its all a paladin conspiracy to paint people who wield the necromantic arts as evil so they can maintain control! /joke

Yes that was a joke but really, i remember reading an article which was an interview with one of the creators of 3.x, the reason that Undead suddenly did a alignment flop (from neutral to evil) was so that paladins would have more things to smite as they were common enemies.

zalmatra
2010-07-20, 05:36 PM
all of the deathless spells are from the necromancy school deal with souls and death/life

Fenrazer
2010-07-20, 05:39 PM
IMO a LG could even be a Necro. If they can call up an army of already dead folks to prevent actual human(oid) beings from encountering bloodshed, then I dont see how it's definitely evil. I suppose if it was a contagious form of undead, maybe, but just plain old skellys should do well, no?

Again, "Pushing Up Daisies". Perfect example of a Good Necromancer.

zalmatra
2010-07-20, 05:43 PM
if it has the evil descriptor your using evil magic and evil magic can and will corrupt you if you use it to much. although casting a few evil spells as a wizard/sorcerer shouldn't pose a problem to much although the paladin or cleric might give you the evil eye, but i would ascertain that constantly casting such spells would corrupt your mind slowly.

FelixG
2010-07-20, 05:44 PM
A really good way at looking at skeles and zombies: They are tools, nothing more, nothing less.

If you tell them to act they will, if you dont tell them to act they will stand inert. Telling a skeleton to kill a person is no more evil than swinging a sword at said person. The skeleton has no moral steak in it, it isn't even aware of it (as it has no intelligence)

A skeleton could just as easily plow a field and spread seeds as take up a sword to defend the farm or a torch to burn it down.

Doug Lampert
2010-07-20, 05:45 PM
Fair enough.
But no, what I'm asking is why necromancy is bundled up with murder in people's minds.

And what makes the negative energy evil? It isn't specified as evil in the D&D books. It's just negative energy. You might as well call subtraction evil and addition holy. :smallconfused:

In the 3.0 PHB there was ONE and only one specific act specified to be always evil in the PHB. And it was channeling negative energy. Now that's really odd, given that negative energy isn't evil, the plane of negative energy has no evil alignment association, rebuke undead was one of the best tools for killing undead (typically far better than turn), channeling could be used for other purposes, and negative energy is used in Inflict spells and Harm spells that don't have the Evil subtype.

3.0 mindless undead were N (which is the alignment for any creature incapable of moral choice). 3.5 retained the N for all creatures incapable of moral choice rule, and made the mindless undead NE (while leaving them incapable of moral choice) and thus contradicting their own rules.

All the undead creation spells I'm familiar with have the [Evil] subtype, so casting them too often would imply that a character is evil, but how often is too often? A good cleric or nuetral cleric of a good diety is forbidden to cast [Evil] spells, but there's no similar restriction on any other class.

Command Undead has no [Evil] subtype, and is all your necromancer needs if the undead are pre-existing, so you can control all the undead you want without being evil (Command Undead is the only practical way to build an undead army in D&D 3.x land). Thus using an army of undead to <fill in the blank> isn't evil unless you animate the undead you're using.

Basically, the rules contradict themselves right and left on this. They were written by a committee and that committee never came to a solid group judgment on the alignment implications of undead.

DougL

FelixG
2010-07-20, 05:45 PM
if it has the evil descriptor your using evil magic and evil magic can and will corrupt you if you use it to much. although casting a few evil spells as a wizard/sorcerer shouldn't pose a problem to much although the paladin or cleric might give you the evil eye, but i would ascertain that constantly casting such spells would corrupt your mind slowly.

Point me toward the book/page you found this information?

zalmatra
2010-07-20, 05:49 PM
agreed its simply animated by negative energy
but once you start creating more complex undead things get dicy
forced souls dark evil powers
the negative energy plane is associated with evil but is not evil in itself that being said. there is a lawful neutral god of undeath from the basic 3.5 handbook
but i dont think there has ever been a actual good god of undead ever
(btw im looking for that reference i believe it somewhere in exalted deeds)

zalmatra
2010-07-20, 05:50 PM
book of vile darkness spell section for last reference
and exalted deeds spell section

FelixG
2010-07-20, 05:58 PM
book of vile darkness spell section for last reference
and exalted deeds spell section

I figured the Bo*D books had something to do with it. Those books are fairly horrible all around and contradict themselves left and right, so i generally wont bother with anything in them.

Doug Lampert
2010-07-20, 06:13 PM
Not acting is also a choice, and makes you liable for them. :smallamused:

Not flipping the switch is the correct response if I've missunderstood the situation, which, in the real world is always possible. How is it that I KNOW the train is heading for certain death, AND that someone is tied to the tracks, AND that I'm the one who can flip the switch?

The situation is so BLATANTLY contrived that I'm compelled to believe that someone with a sick sense of humor set it up. And if that's the case then flipping the switch is probably what kills the train. In any case I see no reason to play the sick bastard's game. I'll yell a warning to the conductor, I'll try to pull the tied up person off the tracks. But I won't flip your switch and I'm convinced that anyone who does so is making a serious mistake.


The "flip the switch" situation seems like a modified version of the crashing plane problem. You are in a plane, it's not working, it's about to crash. It's currently headed for a heavily built-up area, with less-built-up areas around it.

You can do nothing- and lots of people will die- or you can steer the plane in the direction of least people- and you are certain some will die, but less than will do so if you do nothing.

In this case, you can be argued to be responsible for what will happen if you do nothing.

But in that case I'm the pilot, I'm the one charged with minimizing the harm. It's my job. If I'm not the pilot then, being ON THE PLAN and IN THE COCKPIT, I presumably know if the pilot is available of my own knowledge, unlike a situation some villian has clearly contrived where I can be reasonably sure my knowledge is incomplete.

The train switch example is like some random passenger trying to grab the controls away from the pilot and make sure the crash does less harm. We call that person a dangerous nutcase.

zalmatra
2010-07-20, 06:14 PM
your using magic with the evil descriptor and you believe no consequences should be had or that its abjectly morally neutral?
also if your minorly casting such spells i would agree to no corruption

casting evil spells is a evil act regardless of what you intend to do with the end result

the fluff surrounding dnd always paints magic as a power that if your not careful as a arcane caster can corrupt you because of the power that you channel affects you.

arcane magic in dnd is not a mechanic that is objective it is a force of power that can corrupt you if your not careful.

Coidzor
2010-07-20, 06:27 PM
the fluff surrounding dnd always paints magic as a power that if your not careful as a arcane caster can corrupt you because of the power that you channel affects you.

arcane magic in dnd is not a mechanic that is objective it is a force of power that can corrupt you if your not careful.

I have seen no indication of that. The only power that corrupts I've seen in the fluff of DND is the LOVE of power, the desire for power. And as the tier system bears witness to, magical power is the quickest route to personal power for power's sake.

Hyooz
2010-07-20, 06:29 PM
IMO a LG could even be a Necro. If they can call up an army of already dead folks to prevent actual human(oid) beings from encountering bloodshed, then I dont see how it's definitely evil. I suppose if it was a contagious form of undead, maybe, but just plain old skellys should do well, no?

Again, "Pushing Up Daisies". Perfect example of a Good Necromancer.

Pushing Up Daisies is more a guy with Speak with Dead as an SLA.

If he walked around bringing people's corpses to 'life' as mindless automatons to do his bidding, necromancer might be a fitting descriptor.

The best answer to give as to why necromancy is evil is the whole desecrating corpses thing. I mean, would you argue that digging up someone's body and taking a knife to it is evil? It's certainly not nice at the very least. But what are you doing when you make a skeleton? You're taking the corpse of a formerly sentient creature, magically flaying off all the muscle and flesh, and binding it to your will. Now, instead of just impaled corpses in front of your castle to ward off invaders a la Vlad the Impaler, you're taking those corpses and desecrating them further, and also turning them against people.

At the same time, no, it's not necessarily evil. In Eberron, necromancers aren't all that evil by necessity. It's a setting by setting thing as much as murder being evil is a setting by setting thing. And yes, there is as much necessarily evil about murder as there is anything necessarily evil with any other act. Most people consider it wrong, but like anything, there's grey areas, as has been presented with necromancy. Where skeletons of dead relatives make excellent slave labor, murdering for survival is possible. Murdering someone really, really mean.

So if necromancy isn't inherently evil in your setting, that's fine, and there's no reason it should be any more than teddy bears should be inherently evil. Unless there's some omnigood presence, then good and evil are purely social constructs and will be different setting to setting or even town to town.

FelixG
2010-07-20, 06:35 PM
your using magic with the evil descriptor and you believe no consequences should be had or that its abjectly morally neutral?


Yes, it is Morally neutral to cast spells with the Evil descriptor. Show me where it says that casting these evil spells will make your alignment shift toward neutral by RAW.

A spells source, in this case arguably evil, has no effect on the character casting it. I could build hordes of undead to work as the low class people in a society, moving heavy lodes, digging wells, shoveling manure, all for the good of the living population, these undead will do it without complaint, without tiring, without injury, without suffering because thats what they were made to do. So because i made all of these, arguably, evil constructs for a benevolent purpose i will suddenly become an evil mastermind bent on world domination? I dont buy it.

The Vorpal Tribble
2010-07-20, 06:37 PM
In my campaigns negative energy is evil because it comes from the Hells. Life comes from the Heavens.

Negative energy is a mockery of all that Creation is.

Thus I have a midway. The Spirit World. This is the in between realm of living and dead. Those who have sworn an oath even after death, or ghosts and the like come from there. As do Spirit Animals and the like.

These souls cannot be healed or harmed by negative or positive if from the Spirit World. Now, if it is a ghost risen from hell or a spirit come from heaven to repossess a body then they can. It's all in the backstory basically.

Starbuck_II
2010-07-20, 06:43 PM
Pushing Up Daisies is more a guy with Speak with Dead as an SLA.

You do realize that his girlfriend was dead, right?
And they still go out on dates because she isn't anymore.

zalmatra
2010-07-20, 06:53 PM
if its morally neutral why does it have the evil descriptor?

FelixG
2010-07-20, 06:56 PM
if its morally neutral why does it have the evil descriptor?

An arbitrarily random decision that WoTC are well known for. Most likely because it summons creatures who are evil, though are only evil to give paladins one more thing they are able to smite, as i pointed out earlier.

The fact that mindless undead are evil to begin with is a contradiction as well.

SilverClawShift
2010-07-20, 07:07 PM
SilverClawShift. I am replying mainly to you because your argument is intellectually insulting

The HELL?


What if we aren't talking about exhuming the dead? What if we're talking about raping six year old girls, daily, for years and years.

But we're NOT. We're talking about exhuming the dead. You know, the ones who aren't alive anymore, and don't feel pain or fear?

And MY argument is intellectually insulting?

FelixG
2010-07-20, 07:20 PM
The HELL?



But we're NOT. We're talking about exhuming the dead. You know, the ones who aren't alive anymore, and don't feel pain or fear?

And MY argument is intellectually insulting?


This. I have to agree. Raping a child and digging up a grave for research are in no way comparable....thats low.

zalmatra
2010-07-20, 07:24 PM
okay then lets have animate dead not having a descriptor
but as you go further down the line of undead would you say that creating those are evil acts and that would throw your alignment into jeopardy

FelixG
2010-07-20, 07:26 PM
okay then lets have animate dead not having a descriptor
but as you go further down the line of undead would you say that creating those are evil acts and that would throw your alignment into jeopardy

Example please? You mean like wraiths and Morogs? (SP)

zalmatra
2010-07-20, 07:30 PM
exactly creating undead with intelligence whose existence is nothing but evil and/or a parasite in the living world.

Ravens_cry
2010-07-20, 07:32 PM
How many such people will a necromancer find, though? It seems like being undead is not a very pleasant experience. Not only are you physically rotting away, but you are (generally) without a will of your own, and while your living, conscious mind was OK with the idea before death, your immortal soul will fight it regardless afterwards. I'm not sure there will be a lot of people who are OK with this. Dead souls want to rest.

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.

Wings of Peace
2010-07-20, 07:38 PM
Someone else might have asked this, but does anyone else find it strange that the most versatile of the energy types is the 'evil' one? Versatile meaning it can serve a number of functions besides dealing of damage or creation of undead. Like healing a Tomb Tainted Soul thus making arcane healing actually decent! A feat that at least fluff wise in most WotC published campaigns, arcanists have struggled with for millenia.

zalmatra
2010-07-20, 07:40 PM
because arcane magic is a bit selfish :P

FelixG
2010-07-20, 07:44 PM
exactly creating undead with intelligence whose existence is nothing but evil and/or a parasite in the living world.

I would say no, as natural parasites are not any more evil than super natural ones.

Though, it does raise to question why are spells like Animate dead which creates mindless tools considered Evil, yet spells like Enervation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/enervation.htm)

not have the Evil descriptor while it drains life and creates undead?

Also, another interesting question, a person is killed via a Wraith, its spawn says it tears the soul out a person and turns it into a wraith, does this mean the person cannot be resurrected by any means until the wraith that their spirit has become is destroyed?

Ravens_cry
2010-07-20, 07:53 PM
I would say no, as natural parasites are not any more evil than super natural ones.

Though, it does raise to question why are spells like Animate dead which creates mindless tools considered Evil, yet spells like Enervation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/enervation.htm)

not have the Evil descriptor while it drains life and creates undead?


Where does Enervation say it creates undead? It buffs undead by giving them temporary hit points, but where does it say it creates them?

FelixG
2010-07-20, 07:56 PM
Where does Enervation say it creates undead? It buffs undead by giving them temporary hit points, but where does it say it creates them?

Enervation bestows negative levels

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#energyDrainAndNegativeLevels

"A character with negative levels at least equal to her current level, or drained below 1st level, is instantly slain. Depending on the creature that killed her, she may rise the next night as a monster of that kind. If not, she rises as a wight."

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/wight.htm

Science Officer
2010-07-20, 08:16 PM
This. I have to agree. Raping a child and digging up a grave for research are in no way comparable....thats low.

To be fair, what he is doing is not comparing the two actions, his argument is based on showing that this justification for necromancy which has been offered, that is, consequentialism, can also justify things which are abhorrent.

Thus it can be seen that an argument that can also justify terrible things may not be the most desirable argument to use to support your point.

Fenrazer
2010-07-20, 08:32 PM
Pushing Up Daisies is more a guy with Speak with Dead as an SLA.

If he walked around bringing people's corpses to 'life' as mindless automatons to do his bidding, necromancer might be a fitting descriptor.

Exactly why I said it is a perfect example of a good Necrom. If he was evil he may do what you described, but I'm pretty sure that the mechanics of any undead creating spell involves specifics that make thee undead being raised mindless automations to do the makers bidding. Surely when being raised they don't just say "well I'm alive, so I guess Ill do as that guy tells me instead of eating him alive." No sir. He has power over the dead which requires somatics. Definitely a Necromancer. A Good Necromancer.

Avilan the Grey
2010-07-20, 10:11 PM
How many such people will a necromancer find, though? It seems like being undead is not a very pleasant experience. Not only are you physically rotting away, but you are (generally) without a will of your own, and while your living, conscious mind was OK with the idea before death, your immortal soul will fight it regardless afterwards. I'm not sure there will be a lot of people who are OK with this. Dead souls want to rest.

Depends more on the type of Undead, I think, and in what system. D&D basic skeletons are apparently closer to automations than to anything else; brainless (immune to Ilithids) for example.

Aquillion
2010-07-20, 10:38 PM
How many such people will a necromancer find, though? It seems like being undead is not a very pleasant experience. Not only are you physically rotting away, but you are (generally) without a will of your own, and while your living, conscious mind was OK with the idea before death, your immortal soul will fight it regardless afterwards. I'm not sure there will be a lot of people who are OK with this. Dead souls want to rest.I'm not sure if it's been mentioned, but Planescape has the Dustmen, who basically offer contracts where they 'buy' your body in advance, getting it when you die, in exchange for money here and now. I think many people would agree to that...

But even aside from those, it's not hard to see it getting used in the military. Look, suppose you're in some big total war -- if you're willing to die to defend your country or whatever, why wouldn't you be willing to have your corpse used to defend it, too? Maybe there would be consent forms and ID badges that people willing to be raised as undead could wear, but it's not so odd.

However. My recollection is that D&D has been inconsistent on the nature of undead and negative energy in general. I vaguely recall reading that an unattended mindless undead animated by negative energy will, if left without specific orders otherwise, go about murdering anything in sight. While this could be averted with careful orders, it still makes undead into a "dangerous technology", sort of.

Positive energy undead (I know there's positive-energy liches, which some elves become) complicate things further... but at that point you're pretty much in the realm of "good and evil are defined by the color of the magical glowing energy you use".

But if it's just a matter of consent, I don't think it would be as hard to get as you think. For instance, if you're a poor laborer with nothing to leave your children when you die, you could sign a contract where you'll be zombified, used as cheap labor, and the pay for that cheap labor will be sent to your kids. I could see a lot of people in desperate situations agreeing to things like that.

zalmatra
2010-07-20, 10:40 PM
No natural parasites are natural, supernatural beings of death destruction and ill intent that were created through a unholy evil spell are evil.

Next were going to talk about how illithids eating brains is a natural part of the world, so are aboleths they only want to make you into a permanent slave is natural and in no way is obstructive.

Making a pact with a archdevil is morally neutral.
Making a pact with demons is morally neutral.
Using a planar binding spell to call a demon or devil to serve is morally neutral.

Im sorry but this falling into deep pit

Creating intelligent undead with a evil alignment to serve you is not morally neutral. You are binding a unwilling or conjuring a evil soul to inhabit a corpse and animate it this falls outside of simple automation.

This is EVIL no matter which way you want to screw around. your creating a monster that has the potential to do more harm to the world and could possibly break free from you.

Zexion
2010-07-20, 10:41 PM
@zalmatra: Grammar, punctuation, and spelling please. Reading your posts gives me a headache. :smallannoyed:

zalmatra
2010-07-20, 10:42 PM
Positive energy comes from the place where your soul was born.
Negative energy comes from a plane that wants nothing more then to devour said soul.
Thankfully most of the time it does not get to, but it really does want your delicious tasty soul.

Aquillion
2010-07-20, 10:45 PM
Depends more on the type of Undead, I think, and in what system. D&D basic skeletons are apparently closer to automations than to anything else; brainless (immune to Ilithids) for example.For what it's worth, the SRD lists skeletons as "always neutral evil". Like I said, my recollection is that they will murder the living instinctively if left unattended. They're not purely neutral automatons.

Obviously this feels like a retroactive tweak that was applied to justify "animating the dead is always evil", but there you have it.

Zexion
2010-07-20, 10:46 PM
positive energy comes from the place where your soul was born
negative energy comes from a plane that wants nothing more then to devour said soul. thankfuly most of the time it dosent get to but it really does want your delicious tasty soul
Grammar. And. Punctuation. :smallannoyed:

NecroRebel
2010-07-20, 11:48 PM
No natural parasites are natural, supernatural beings of death destruction and ill intent that were created through a unholy evil spell are evil.

Actually, all natural parasites are natural. That's why they're "natural parasites." And given that they're supernatural beings of ill intent, those are also evil more-or-less by definition. But I'm not sure how this relates :smallwink:

Alternatively, if you don't want people to willfully misinterpret your statements due to a lack of proper punctuation, use proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar, as Zexion suggests :smallsmile:


Next were going to talk about how illithids eating brains is a natural part of the world, so are aboleths they only want to make you into a permanent slave is natural and in no way is obstructive.

Illithids eating brains is a natural part of the world (or as "natural" as such Far Realm-related abominations can be, at least). It's the fact that they're sadistic f***s about it that makes it Evil. On a related note, I seem to recall reading that Illithids need no more than one brain a month to maintain their psychic abilities and health, but they typically eat one a week. The excess is Evil, the necessary amount is (pseudo)natural predation.

Aboleths' slime slavery is Evil by definition because it involves oppressing others. No one can argue that because it goes directly through the book definition of Evil. The same is not true of creating mindless undead; no hurting, oppressing, or killing of others is implied by that act, as far as the fluff in the books in concerned. If you want to say that it does hurt the spirit who once inhabited the corpse, that's fine, but that's homebrew.


Making a pact with a archdevil is morally neutral.
Making a pact with demons is morally neutral.
Using a planar binding spell to call a demon or devil to serve is morally neutral.

Indeed, these things are morally neutral! I'm glad you pointed these things out to me; they're not things that I would normally consider, but they're very interesting cases.

Of course, the things the devils or demons are likely to make you do in order to fulfill your end of the pact, or to acquire their services, are almost certainly going to be Evil, but the fact that a pact is made is not.


Im sorry but this falling into deep pit

Creating intelligent undead with a evil alignment to serve you is not morally neutral. You are binding a unwilling or conjuring a evil soul to inhabit a corpse and animate it this falls outside of simple automation.

This is EVIL no matter which way you want to screw around. your creating a monster that has the potential to do more harm to the world and could possibly break free from you.

Intelligent undead are a very different case from the one most people in this thread have been discussing. Intelligent undead are almost always Evil, but mindless undead are simple automata. By standard (lack of) fluff, they are not dangerous, they cannot possibly do anything you don't order them to, even if they break free somehow, and don't involve binding an unwilling spirit. It's Evil only because of the arbitrary inclusion of the [Evil] tag on animation spells, no other reason.

Lord Raziere
2010-07-20, 11:50 PM
You know...its discussions like these which point out the flaws of DnD which make me think more and more that the "good" aligned people are knight templarish hypocrites who want to commit genocide on all the "evil" races because of a morality-based version of social darwinism...

my point being, that raising undead is evil while resurrection is morally neutral; we don't see anyone criticizing anyone else for bringing back people from the dead with their consciousness intact, yet only animating their bodies to do work and leaving their souls alone so that they can rest in peace automatically makes you mr. evil sorcerer.....

Zexion
2010-07-20, 11:51 PM
You know...its discussions like these which point out the flaws of DnD which make me think more and more that the "good" aligned people are knight templarish hypocrites who want to commit genocide on all the "evil" races because of a morality-based version of social darwinism...
And that is the sub-premise of my new comic-to-be! :smallbiggrin:

Hague
2010-07-21, 12:05 AM
Negative energy is not necessarily evil. However, since the majority of evil undead use it, it tends to get an evil label. Negative energy steals life, it harms living things, and it is used to bolster undead which most are inherently violent and unpredictable. Inflict spells are not necessarily evil, and so tapping into negative energy isn't necessarily evil. However, most necromancy is considered evil because it creates inherently violent (mindless) undead or wrathful (intelligent) undead. Bringing these creatures into existence is evil because you are creating something (despite it's evil nature) and controlling it. Nevermind the perversion and usurpation of a dead soul (in the case of shadows and other spawning undead) Alternately, creating undead that aren't evil and allowing them to be free isn't evil. It is especially evil to let controlled evil or mindless undead free.

Lord Raziere
2010-07-21, 12:10 AM
And that is the sub-premise of my new comic-to-be! :smallbiggrin:

no, bad Zexion, that is what I plan for my deconstructive DnD comic if Story of a Dragon doesn't work out, don't you go stealing that.

fairy monkey
2010-07-21, 12:23 AM
What if we're talking about raping six year old girls, daily, for years and years.Lunatic fringe (http://www.vandruff.com/art_converse.html).

Zexion
2010-07-21, 12:28 AM
no, bad Zexion, that is what I plan for my deconstructive DnD comic if Story of a Dragon doesn't work out, don't you go stealing that.
I already have 4 strips done, extensive plot & character planning, and some plans for second and third main storylines. :smallmad::smallbiggrin:

Lord Raziere
2010-07-21, 12:43 AM
I already have 4 strips done, extensive plot & character planning, and some plans for second and third main storylines. :smallmad::smallbiggrin:

darn.

well no matter. that concept is only where I begin. I've also come with various deconstructive ways to portray the gods, the elementals, the demons and devils, plus individual races and the entire state of the world, as well as cynically portray the entire concept of an adventurer and what they do. If I ever do my DnD Comic, the ENTIRE thing will be like that, not just a sub-premise :smallamused:

Zexion
2010-07-21, 12:45 AM
darn.

well no matter. that concept is only where I begin. I've also come with various deconstructive ways to portray the gods, the elementals, the demons and devils, plus individual races and the entire state of the world, as well as cynically portray the entire concept of an adventurer and what they do. If I ever do my DnD Comic, the ENTIRE thing will be like that, not just a sub-premise :smallamused:
*cough*telepathic plagiarist*cough*

I kid. Honest. :smalltongue:

Lord Raziere
2010-07-21, 12:50 AM
*cough*telepathic plagiarist*cough*

I kid. Honest. :smalltongue:

wait, you mean you also came up with a DnD deconstruction comic?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOO-

Zexion
2010-07-21, 12:52 AM
wait, you mean you also came up with a DnD deconstruction comic?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOO-
Hey, it's fine. Great minds think alike. Hmm... maybe we can cooperate on it. PM me, but I'm gonna sleep now.

Avilan the Grey
2010-07-21, 01:07 AM
For what it's worth, the SRD lists skeletons as "always neutral evil". Like I said, my recollection is that they will murder the living instinctively if left unattended. They're not purely neutral automatons.

Obviously this feels like a retroactive tweak that was applied to justify "animating the dead is always evil", but there you have it.

True. Although "carefully given orders" probably should be given then. Such as "Do ONLY this: Clean House and Stable after I leave the house. Feed horses 2 loads of hay in the morning and 2 loads of hay in the evening. Move lawn. Then sit down in your corner until I come home."

But yes, undead might be better servants in other game systems, where they don't go on a rampage automatically.

Ravens_cry
2010-07-21, 01:30 AM
True. Although "carefully given orders" probably should be given then. Such as "Do ONLY this: Clean House and Stable after I leave the house. Feed horses 2 loads of hay in the morning and 2 loads of hay in the evening. Move lawn. Then sit down in your corner until I come home."

But yes, undead might be better servants in other game systems, where they don't go on a rampage automatically.



A skeleton does only what it is ordered to do. It can draw no conclusions of its own and takes no initiative. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/skeleton.htm)
I don't see anything about an auto-rampage.
That's golems (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/golem.htm).

When a clay golem enters combat, there is a cumulative 1% chance each round that its elemental spirit breaks free and the golem goes berserk

zalmatra
2010-07-21, 02:23 AM
Yes because exact punctuation and broad willing knowing interpretation of my sarcasm is my purist of intentions. I'll spell as well as i can remember basic punctuation as well as i remember to do so. honestly thats all your getting from me.

Further posts should address everything about the content of my posts. if you feel that basic punctuation and correct spelling is butchering the english language well no dice.

I don't appreciate getting trolled and having valid points I say be taken in the worst out of content, you know what they mean was just a troll or a attempt to get me to post better If you honestly feel that Im doing such a horrible relentless assault(2C2R converted mana cost 4) upon your Grey matter then send me a pm, otherwise I don't feel its worth even mentioning .


not that i haven't gotten real honest criticism of my opinion on here which i have and Love.

(back to fun and interesting discussion)

btw if we are recasting Aberrations as natural predators and creatures druids should be totally okay with that and adventurers shouldn't totally object to the sentient torturing and enslavement they do.

As for Basic animated skeletons/zombies, The basis of the argument holds weight as a possible neutral undead/deathless creature with no real will and other then the fact its available in deathless or undead flavor has minor impact on its moral implications

complex undead such as vampires pose more interesting questions as vampires have more free will. most of the time vampires are evil but not all the time.
This in contrast to say a Mohrg which is the soul of a mass murderer whose intent is fairly obvious.

Most intelligent undead are evil beings of destruction and ruthlessness looking To spread suffering and depravity. However the motivations of liches and darcoliches Are more far reaching and fairly nuanced depending on the lich or dracolich. Not all of them are psychotic creatures rampaging around the countryside.

Other then that waiting for the next wonderful reply.

FelixG
2010-07-21, 02:36 AM
For what it's worth, the SRD lists skeletons as "always neutral evil". Like I said, my recollection is that they will murder the living instinctively if left unattended. They're not purely neutral automatons.

Obviously this feels like a retroactive tweak that was applied to justify "animating the dead is always evil", but there you have it.

I am sorry but you are blatantly wrong. If you release a skele from your control (or any other mindless undead) it wont go on a rampage. It would have to be intelligent to do that.

It will stand there, doing what it was last ordered to do when released. It cant take initiative it cant act on its own, it needs orders. It states that on the very same SRD where you got its alignment.

No offence intended.

Also i would like to point out that negative energy is NOT evil, it is NOT i repeat evil. If it were evil like some people like to claim then every spell involving it from inflict on up would be evil, but they are not.

I will grant that creating undead who are intellegent may be evil while mindless ones could be considered neutral, but one spell (enervation) that creates intelligent uncontrolled undead is not evil, please explain that? that has yet to be addressed why creating a tool is evil but creating a true monster who can reproduce through spawn is not?

Jolly Steve
2010-07-21, 02:45 AM
Because they seek to control that which is the proper domain of the gods.

Avilan the Grey
2010-07-21, 02:52 AM
Because they seek to control that which is the proper domain of the gods.

Actually that is a false statement, at least depending on setting.

In D&D "Dead people" are just like any other portfolio; if your statement was true then the god of war would be offended that mortals wage war. The god(des) of magic would be against mortals using magic etc.

It is worth noting that necromancy, unlike resurrection by a priest, is not "creating life". It is taking something dead, and infusing a spirit in it. Even if you use the soul of the dead, it is not brought back to life, it is still dead(ish).

hamishspence
2010-07-21, 02:52 AM
I figured the Bo*D books had something to do with it. Those books are fairly horrible all around and contradict themselves left and right, so i generally wont bother with anything in them.

It isn't just them "Spells with the evil descriptor" are mentioned in other books.

In Fiendish Codex 2- casting a spell with the Evil descriptor is a 1 point corrupt act.

In Complete Scoundrel- the special ability of the Malconvoker, is described as- not changing alignment for repeatedly casting Summoning spells with the Evil descriptor.

So there is plenty of precedent for "casting [evil] spells is an evil act"

If you play a multiclass paladin-sorcerer, with Animate dead on his spell list, who has started taking levels in paladin- if he casts Animate Dead, he will Fall.

Ravens_cry
2010-07-21, 03:15 AM
Because they seek to control that which is the proper domain of the gods.
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"?

FelixG
2010-07-21, 03:19 AM
It isn't just them "Spells with the evil descriptor" are mentioned in other books.

In Fiendish Codex 2- casting a spell with the Evil descriptor is a 1 point corrupt act.

In Complete Scoundrel- the special ability of the Malconvoker, is described as- not changing alignment for repeatedly casting Summoning spells with the Evil descriptor.

So there is plenty of precedent for "casting [evil] spells is an evil act"

If you play a multiclass paladin-sorcerer, with Animate dead on his spell list, who has started taking levels in paladin- if he casts Animate Dead, he will Fall.

That is an answer i can accept. Thank you. That is one point i will cede.

hamishspence
2010-07-21, 03:31 AM
If we take the approach that it's only the Evil descriptor that matters- then it's not a very evil act- it's less evil than "robbing the needy" or "causing a creature gratuitous injury"

So it probably qualifies as "mild enough that a character can do it regularly and not be evil- if they are heroic in all other ways."

Heroes of Horror's "flexible neutral" in short.

Be both a regular animator and a truly heroic, altruistic person- and you'll be Neutral rather than Evil- and while you won't stay good, you won't slip to Evil either.

Aotrs Commander
2010-07-21, 05:26 AM
As for Basic animated skeletons/zombies, The basis of the argument holds weight as a possible neutral undead/deathless creature with no real will and other then the fact its available in deathless or undead flavor has minor impact on its moral implications

complex undead such as vampires pose more interesting questions as vampires have more free will. most of the time vampires are evil but not all the time.
This in contrast to say a Mohrg which is the soul of a mass murderer whose intent is fairly obvious.

Most intelligent undead are evil beings of destruction and ruthlessness looking To spread suffering and depravity. However the motivations of liches and darcoliches Are more far reaching and fairly nuanced depending on the lich or dracolich. Not all of them are psychotic creatures rampaging around the countryside.

I don't think there is a great deal of arguement that using Create Undead, or intelligent Undead in general is almost always evil. Since most intelligent Undead are generally evil, and creating them via spell is probably a Bad Thing.

Now, you might argue that, with a soul's permission, creating them as Undead is not worse than Resurrection (just a different way of binding the soul into the body and would be no more or less evil than the former); depending on the type of Undead they are transformed into. (I find it hard to believe transforming someone into a predatory Undead, e.g. ghoul, would be a good thing, but maybe a Mummy or something that actually doesn't need to feed off the living). Or that, in rare circumstances, intelligent Undead can be or choose to become non-evil.

The main point of contention in these debates (and I've seen a lot of them) is the Animated dead, skeletons and zombies, in particular of which the rules is erratic throughout various source books and isn't, at the best of times, clearly defined in reasoning.