What would a society heavily utilizing necromancy look like?

[Arcane_Snowman]

I've just recently started brainstorming ideas for a campaign setting for Fate Core, wherein one of the nations is heavily entrenched in the use of necromancy, specifically the raising of the dead (intelligent and otherwise). Although I already have a few ideas as to what that would do to a society, more input on the matter doesn't hurt.

Here are my thoughts:
It would like be very focused on family, as you can quite literally talk to several of your ancestors.
The notion of debts reaching far beyond life is easily introduce-able, when you can simply sign over your corpse as eternal slave labor.
The society would likely have to be located somewhere with either abundant space, or something which is naturally culling the populace, as the population faces a much steeper growth to loss ratio. Introducing some kind of stopgap to people remaining past their life could be necessary.
It's military force would be rather impressive, as any given soldier can fight twice, during their lifetime and after.


That's all I have for now, but then again, I'm really tired so I might think of something more later. What do you all think?

[Edge of Dreams]

A lot is going to depend on a few factors:


What kinds of spells are actually possible? What kinds are extremely difficult or impossible?
What happens to minds and souls after death?
What does the populace THINK happens to minds and souls after death?

[Slipperychicken]

It would be heavily tainted from all the darkness, sins against nature, and evil magic running rampant. This is the reason most people don't use undead; it's horrible for the natural order and the cosmos in general.

The society would have a massive increase in labor, but the natural environment would be crippled (black stunted twisted trees, harmful tainted water) from the taint. Fruits grown there might be blackened or even poisonous, and nature spirits would probably die and/or go berserk. You might see a move by druids to reclaim the cities back into nature.

Strange shadow creatures, evil spellcasters, cultists, and assorted monsters would move in to feed on the darkness and use it as a platform to perform their dark rites. Animals might become more ferocious as the taint gets to their minds.

Disease would spread, and the influence of the good gods would weaken. You'd see a massive increase in birth defects, mutations, and infant mortality from parents eating tainted food and living in proximity to the undead abominations. Some might even be driven to insanity by the excessive taint.

Eventually, places where undead roam frequently (streets, buildings) would become unhallowed stains of evil, requiring many good deeds or magic to offset.

[Mastikator]

Does "Zombie apocalypse" count as an answer here, or are you talking about using zombies for labor. Because I think it might start out "ok" but quickly necromancers would start killing people to get more undead slaves. Greed would convert society into a nightmarish zombie apocalypse where only a few liches control everything.

[Arcane_Snowman]

A lot is going to depend on a few factors:


What kinds of spells are actually possible? What kinds are extremely difficult or impossible?
What happens to minds and souls after death?
What does the populace THINK happens to minds and souls after death?

I'm using the Fate Core system, which technically doesn't have a magic system, only the guidelines with which to create one. My current thoughts regarding this particular matter is that it's relatively easy for those who have the talent to reanimate the dead, without sentience. Creating an undead with sentience is a lot harder, and reserved for "important" people.

The two other questions are currently rolled into one: the lore surrounding is that the people were lorded around by a terrible deity or spirit, who would play around with their souls and bodies. They rebelled and slew it, in as much as such a creature can be killed. With it's last dying breath it cursed them all to receive the worst kind of afterlife possible. They've been taking and storing away peoples souls ever since, but seeing as being in a jar is pretty boring, they've resorted to resurrecting people. This is just a very poor and rough description of the idea, as I mentioned, I'm pretty blasted atm. I'll give a better and more detailed answer later.


Does "Zombie apocalypse" count as an answer here, or are you talking about using zombies for labor. Because I think it might start out "ok" but quickly necromancers would start killing people to get more undead slaves. Greed would convert society into a nightmarish zombie apocalypse where only a few liches control everything. I'm going with the base assumption that becoming undead does not immediately turn you into a homicidal monster, and the way in which the society is supposed to do the resurrections is going to make it have a lot more societal importance, as opposed to being ostracized people doing their thing, it's the priests of that region, type deal.


@SlipperyChicken: interesting.

[Tengu_temp]

It would be heavily tainted from all the darkness, sins against nature, and evil magic running rampant. This is the reason most people don't use undead; it's horrible for the natural order and the cosmos in general.

Depends on the setting. Necromancy is inherently evil in DND, but in other games it's just a tool. And since the OP is playing Fate, it could go either way.

[geeky_monkey]

See I’d go utterly the other direction. I’d make it a paradise.

You’d have a much higher standard of living than most medieval societies as you’d have a tireless work force that didn’t need paying or feeding to do all the unskilled labour.

Farming would largely be done by the undead, with a few living supervisors and overseers.

All dangerous work could be dealt with by the undead – I’d imagine the town guards would largely be intelligent undead – you’d be far happier to stop an armed thief or break up a bar fight or riot if being stabbed was a minor inconvenience. You’d also be able to have the start of an industrial revolution – one powered by undead rather than machines, skeletal workers prepared to do the same menial task on a conveyer belt over and over endlessly.

The army would be mainly undead – wave after wave of mindless, untiring, cannon fodder who would not break or flee and would wade into suicidal situations without question or fear. You’d have intelligent undead (liches with centuries of battle strategy under their belts) or human commanders off the front line directing the flow of battle.

There would be a large merchant class, and I’d imagine a lot of state run schools – the cost of running them would be recouped by a “student loan” of your body being signed up to servitude after your death. This would allow the living populace to spend their time improving themselves – you’d get a lot of skilled workers and craftsmen so the city would be rich and powerful, the hub of a constantly expanding empire – population growth wouldn’t be a problem as long as it kept growing.

[Rhynn]

Depends on the setting. Necromancy is inherently evil in DND, but in other games it's just a tool. And since the OP is playing Fate, it could go either way.

This can also work without "magic" - there's several deadworlds (settings) in the Worlds of the Dead supplement for All Flesh Must Be Eaten that are basically "society that can raise the dead for fun & profit."

[BWR]

Necromancy is not inherently evil. It just has a a greater percentage of evil spells than the other schools. Even undead are not necessarily evil, at least not in all D&D settings.

It really depends on some basic assumptions about the game. If undead are intrinsically evil, the entire society will be pretty damn evil if they use undead. If necromancy is restricted to things like Speak With Dead or Blood Bridge (with willing subjects) there is nothing inherently evil about the society. A bit spooky and probably shunned by neighboring civilizations, but not evil.

China Mieville's book "The Scar" has one city where the living and undead live side by side, but the living are lower class citizens until they can become undead.

You might want to check out the old Scarred Lands supplement "Hollowfaust: City of Necromancers". There's a lot of fun stuff there.
If you can find it, the "Complete Book of Necromancers" for 2E is very fun and worth owning. A bit less on societies based on the stuff compared to philosophy and mindset of necromancers, but useful.

If you really want to play the 'two sides of the same coin' card regarding Positive and Negative energy, you can rework the basic assumptions of D&D and have negative life - stuff that isn't dependant on the left-over husks or spirits of positive energy beings. The relationship between the two factions would likely be greater animosity than Good and Evil, because they are both the very antithesis of the other, but both sides could have Good, upstanding citizens. Necromancy would likely be the major focus of neg-en magic, and have a positions similar to healing magic for pos-en life.

[Mastikator]

I'm going with the base assumption that becoming undead does not immediately turn you into a homicidal monster, and the way in which the society is supposed to do the resurrections is going to make it have a lot more societal importance, as opposed to being ostracized people doing their thing, it's the priests of that region, type deal.

Resurrections?
Raising people back from the dead is immensely expensive, this isn't Neptune where it rains diamonds you know.
Necromancers would be using dead corpses to create zombies and skeletons and use them as tireless wageless worker slaves. Greed would eventually lead to them running out of dead corpses and creating new dead corpses. It's not that the zombies are homicidal monsters, it's the necromancers.
Because the society heavily utilizes necromancy for all of its functions it would quickly depend on it and it would be impossible to go back. They would start with the people society marginalizes most, prisoners awaiting execution. Then when that resource taps out they'd make crime more harshly punished to get more zombies. Over time more and more people are being zombified while the necromancers become more powerful, eventually powerful enough to achieve lichdom. People would be ok with it because "it's just THOSE people, they deserve it, the necromancers would never come after me". Eventually the necromancers would out-gun and out-number the rest of society, then it's just a matter of whether a group of tyrant liches wouldn't enslave ALL of society.

[Omegonthesane]

Slippery slope fallacy applied in extremis to the practise of reanimation

Fixed that for you.

Not having enough corpses is a self-solving problem. Even a greedy lich no longer has hunger, sleepiness, or discomfort to measure time by, and could simply entertain themselves with a particularly difficult bit of spell research while the current generation kindly died. Furthermore, liches generally have more intelligence than actually exists in the real world, and high Will saves from universally having their start as a class that has a good Will save; it follows that they can see where their greed would lead them, and resist it, because unlike IRL capitalists they absolutely will be playing the game long enough to pay the piper.


It really depends on some basic assumptions about the game. If undead are intrinsically evil, the entire society will be pretty damn evil if they use undead.
Not necessarily - they could merely have great hubris. Unless the act of creating an undead in and of itself, before any other factors are taken into consideration, before the unholy abomination has had time to do anything, causes suffering, using an inherently evil workforce that you can mind-control into not actually committing evil deeds is merely extremely dangerous should the safety precautions fail. Which is arguably Evil compared to using less risky methods, but not undeniably so.

[Friv]

To be fair, there is a certain amount of evidence that monetizing people in a way that requires them to die leads fairly inevitably to abuses. It's one of the reasons that we don't execute criminals for their organs.

Anyway, the following assumes that you want the nation to be somewhere interesting - that is, neither so evil that the players must do nothing but overthrow, nor so good that they must do nothing but defend it.

I would imagine the following advantages and disadvantages of a necromantic nation:

*) Having a large supply of free labour is going to be either great, or terrible, depending on how it is controlled. The priesthood that animates the zombies basically has the ability to decide who gets free labour and who doesn't, which means that they can easily control rebellious elements in their society without getting heavy-handed. If zombies are considered a reasonable solution for debt problems, you end up with noble dynasties being able to out-labour poor peasants, resulting in more debt, which results in more power concentrated in the nobility, as all of the simple jobs that peasants used to do get replaced by zombie labourers and nothing really replaces them.
*) On the other hand, if every family gets their own zombies, you're going to have a society that is heavily tilted towards leisure and the arts. Most of the heavy lifting, so to speak, gets done by uncomplaining drones, and even most peasants have time to learn to read and to enjoy plays and such. Costs in general are quite low, and food is plentiful.
*) Intelligent undead will lead to major stratification, as death doesn't mean you retire from your position. Nothing, in fact, can get rid of most of the leaders of the society, who are going to be around forever. This means that advancement within organizations is almost impossible, and you're probably going to get some pretty serious technological and societal stagnantation. Depending on how difficult it is to re-animate intelligent folks, this will either be almost exclusively concentrated in centers of power, or apply everywhere. The living will quickly become second-class citizens, not because of any inherent bias, but because the dead were there first.
*) There's probably going to be a lot of suspicion from surrounding nations. You've got a powerful, probably industrialized society doing something that other religions may be much more suspicious of. That breeds both envy and fear, which is a rich mixture for trouble. I would expect periodic, minor wars between this country and its neighbours, unless it goes the empire route, in which case I would expect pretty much the same but only on the borders.

[fishjam]

I am going to break down what i see could be done if necromancy was a strng focus on a kingdom/empire/country. I am going to do this as though it was a neutral country, purely because its less bias then

Basic jobs

The Undead could be used to work farming fields
They could be used for dangerous tasks like mining, where air could be a problem.
Could help build roads, or at least lay them out.


General life

The "trade" of being a necromancer could be licenced, and as such be taxed, much like being a foreman.
Undead could be licenced so that if one is found without a licence it is an offence
Families could be paid for, donating a period of time after death for work, like a pension scheme for the family upon a member dying.


Also remember 1 point, as a country they could use this new "pool" of workers to help allow skilled traders more time to work, having a zombie drag the coal in for a blacksmiths furnace means 1 less task for the blacksmith himself.

Just a little add on

[Taet]

Make reanimation of sentient species require the consent of the reanimated. It doesn't profit a zombie rancher to kill off ten people only to have seven of them say "no", and three laugh at him because their families had pre-arranged the ritual and they're already awake and vengeful.

[Agrippa]

Depends on the setting. Necromancy is inherently evil in DND, but in other games it's just a tool. And since the OP is playing Fate, it could go either way.

Necromancy wasn't inherently evil in D&D prior to 3rd edition. Some of the spells (like animate dead) were especially distrasteful Good aligned folk, but if cast with some respect and dignity toward the dead were acceptable. Even paladins could theoretically animate zombies for the greater good. In fact all healing spells were necromancy pre 3e. By 1st. to 2nd. edtiton standards just about every JRPG party has at least one necromancer in it. They're almost always female and can be identified ny their preference for white or pastel colors.

[hamishspence]

Necromancy wasn't inherently evil in D&D prior to 3rd edition. Some of the spells (like animate dead) were especially distrasteful Good aligned folk, but if cast with some respect and dignity toward the dead were acceptable.

The spell description in 2e did say "not a good act, and only evil casters cast it regularly, it must be said.

[Cerlis]

Well the first thing you have to figure out is if you are taking away stuff like

1)hatred of the Living
2)Lust for human(oid) flesh
3)lust for human(oid) souls
4)Natural feelings of unnatural violence. DnD aside, most media refer to such aspects of an undead as uncontrollable, their primary motivation (Many Wraiths are animated through shear hatred and jealousy of the living. That means their Entire existance! Is based on hatred of the living) being such negative evil things. And One has to remember that is probably a major reason why they are evil.

Thats why its an abomination to make one. Not just because you are using negative energy/dark magic. But because you are literally making a Monster that wants nothing more than to cause pain or suffering (or for a more mindless ghoul, can do nothing more than cause pain and suffering).


In other words, if you remove or alter this aspect (for instance all it takes is strong emotion to raise a ghost, so Good ghosts are just as common as evil ones) then it will be much easier to have a society based on it.


If not then you can still have a society. It will just be darker and probably have more skulls in its motif.
-----------------------------------

for the greater good

There is that Thing, again.

[Teflonknight]

The Ebberon Campaign setting has details of 2 societies with a leaning toward undead.
The Elves- Use positive energy to bring their revered dead back to life. Known as deathless as opposed to undead.
Karnath - More traditional necromancy. Were known for their huge reliance on undead during the great war. Also their King is a vampire.

I don't have my books nearby, so I don't have anything more specific.

[tbok1992]

Well, working with the "Playing with fire" model of reanimation that I prefer rather than the "Unleashing unholy darkness" model, I would say:

-They'd probably use skeletons or skin filled with stuffing (Ala The Scarred Lands' Siege Undead) instead of fleshy undead, as to avoid spreading disease through their society, stripping them of flesh using various carrion beetles.

-Instead of graves for the dead, they'd instead keep the skulls, both as a memento, and as an unliving repository for the deceased's memories as well as an impromptu controller for the undead.

-They would likely use animal bones in combination with human bones, mainly due to their hardiness and so that they can avoid the whole "Slippery slope made of dead citizens" thing.

-Chalk would be far more valuable, as given that it's essentially the bones of millions and millions of plankton it'd probably be incredibly receptive to Necromantic magic, and thus far more useful.

-There would be a large amount of focus on the philosophy of death in said society, given that it's what their society's laborforce centers around and given how different the rules are for how Undeath works in the various settings (Compare, say, Golarion and The Nentir Vale).

And that's all I can think of for now.

[Agrippa]

The spell description in 2e did say "not a good act, and only evil casters cast it regularly, it must be said.

Yes, that's what I was refering to.

[Madcrafter]

I'd second teflonknight's suggestion and say you take a look at the Eberron setting it you can. It has elements of what you wanted to include, such as the undesirable afterlife, reanimation of ancestors, undead armies, etc. Culturally:

The Aerinal elves resort to (positive energy) necromancy to raise their ancestors as deathless beings, most of whom congregate in their own city. This means that their culture is old, with being who can remember the deaths of other civilizations, and whose council and plans are therefore long term (thousands of years). This also gives them complete self-assurance (which can come off as arrogance to others) since they are powerful and know their place in the world. They have a living brother and sister as rulers, and when one dies (joining the ranks of councillors), a new pair is chosen.

The other group that uses extensive undead is Karrnath, who were somewhat forced into it because of war. They used undead soldiers to help their living troops, and now that the war is over, maintain an army of undead, but generally they still aren't entirely comfortable with the matter.

I think you could easily adapt elements of both to get the feel you are after, maybe throwing in some real world bits with ancestor worship and slavery (for the mindless ones).

[Slipperychicken]

@SlipperyChicken: interesting.

There should be relevant practical/ethical concerns to raising the dead. If you want to rape the life cycle for extra labor, that should carry severe penalties in other areas.

Basically, if undead themselves aren't horrible brain-eating monsters, all the craziness surrounding undeath is the reason people are so completely opposed to it. Otherwise, it's boring and you might as well use robots.

[AmberVael]

It would like be very focused on family, as you can quite literally talk to several of your ancestors.
In a setting where immortality through undeath is possible, and a setting in which magic is possible, I get the feeling that Ancestor Worship really would be a major and fascinating thing. Maybe it wouldn't quite be worship, but it could certainly come close.

Picture this- you have an indefinite number of years to improve your talents and knowledge, and access to a system of power that can slowly grant you the capability to all kinds of strange and useful things. Yet, you are still tied to the world, have attachments to specific people, and can very much intercede on their behalf if you so choose.

Over time you'll become more powerful, but also stranger and more detached. You'll grow more used to the oddity of an undead form, and seeing people pass on and die- even if immortality through undeath is possible, not everyone will make it. Those few who began the process will see many people and things fade away. Your decisions will become less understandable to those around you, but your power is even more desirable. If you still possess a position of authority, that just adds to people's want to gain your ear- and they need to make sure that you're considering them, because you're getting less predictable, so there will be more communication.

So, you've got a few ancient, really powerful, probably really influential people floating around, in a society that rejected their previous deity (and thus have been burned by such entities). Who do you think they're going to turn to for intercession, who do you think they'll want the attention and favor of?


The society would likely have to be located somewhere with either abundant space, or something which is naturally culling the populace, as the population faces a much steeper growth to loss ratio. Introducing some kind of stopgap to people remaining past their life could be necessary.
I see a number of different ways to deal with this, a number of which can be combined.

1) The Journey of Rebirth.
This would be a practice that attempts to solve a number of problems in one go. First, going from alive to undead would be a pretty strange experience. It would definitely take you time to get used to it and understand your new condition. Second, a society with immortal citizens does have space issues, and it needs to expand. Third, as Friv pointed out, there's going to be tons of stagnation in a society with immortal citizens.
So, whenever someone becomes undead, they go on a journey. Maybe it's not always done, but its traditional- they venture out into the world and rediscover it and themselves. Some return. Some die in adventures, find place elsewhere, or even found new cities and settlements for the society. That last one is useful in that it opens up more space and more leadership positions for people with new ideas and such.

2) Efficient Design.
Once you're undead, a lot of fleshy needs and problems just vanish. Many varieties of undead don't have physical needs- they don't tire or need sustenance, they don't care about temperature, or poison, or oxygen, or any number of things. You can make a really, really compact and efficient city if you're building it with such citizens in mind. No farms, no bedrooms, no bathrooms... indeed, if you wanted to be really sparse, many undead might not even need a home. Just give them a locker or a small storage area, have some public areas for methods of entertainment and personal pursuit, and they're set.

3) Earn your End
Not everyone has to become an intelligent undead, and non-intelligent undead can just be stacked in boxes. Nice and compact, doesn't have any needs beyond a warehouse and direction. You're probably not going to have major space issues with unintelligent undead.
This works if the morals of the community are a little more questionable, or if the process to become undead is more expensive, risky, or difficult.

So, what you do is only grant sentient unlife to certain special people. People who have proven their worth and usefulness through distinguished service and the like. Cunning generals, accomplished necromancers, brilliant philosophers- anyone with exceptional talent.

There would be stiff competition and desperation among the living with such a system in place, but it would definitely drastically lower expansion rate.

4) The Holy War
The afterlife has been cursed by a great spirit, and what once was paradise is now a pit of misery- so we rescue all that we can, binding their souls to their bodies to live on earth, to escape the torment that awaits us.

But we do not accept this terrible fate. We will not lie down as our rightful rest and most holy of sanctums is defiled! And so from our ranks the brave and noble rise and take up their sacred mission: To reclaim that which was torn from us, to pass across the ancient bridge into the otherworld and fight against the demon that cursed us. These Holy Legions forsake the safety of unlife and dive into our destined land to secure for us our future.

We ask not that all take up this task; For some, it is not their rightful calling. But consider what they sacrifice for you. Consider what we have lost, and what we stand to gain from their actions. And if you are brave, if you are bold- perhaps you will join them.

Couldn't help myself with this idea. :smallredface:




-They would likely use animal bones in combination with human bones, mainly due to their hardiness and so that they can avoid the whole "Slippery slope made of dead citizens" thing.
I like this. Undead animals is a really great way to supply a lot of labor without nearly as many moral problems. In fact, you could have entire farms devoted to slaughterstock- that is, animals intended to just be killed and raised as undead.

To add on to the idea, if you can manipulate the structure of your undead through necromancy or other means as well, you start to open up even more options. Why even bother with human skeletons when you can make workers specialized to your needs and desires by mixing other animals together? You could have an entire industry and a weird, macabre art school dedicated to the design of such things.

[TheCountAlucard]

Necromancy isn't inherently evil. It's inherently necromancy.

So, back on topic. Are you familiar with Exalted? I'd suggest looking at the Skullstone Archipelago.

[Randomguy]

I think a good place for this society/city/country would be in the far-ish North. Not only do northern places tend to be more sparcely populated, so there would be more room to grow but the cold also wouldn't be an issue for the undead soldiers and labourers. I suppose the country would have some resemblances to Russia in terms of size and millitary strength.

There would definitely need to be some measures in place to prevent disease. Not SlipperyChickens concept of raising lots of undead = breaching ancient eldritch gates therefore there's a lot of disease for no reason (That makes me think of the Lion King after Scar took over) but disease in the sense that corpses do tend to attract bacteria.

These countermeasures could be similar to what modern Zoology museums do: After cleaning a skeleton manually they take it and put it in a colony of flesh eating dermestid beetles (they don't eat living flesh) and let the beetle larva strip it clean of all the muscle tissue. The skeletons could also possibly take baths in boiling water to kill germs every once in a while once they've been animated.
This cleaning would probably be done by private companies or the local Necromancers guild.

There would probably need to be some type regulation for necromancers, like a license to raise the dead or something, and a limit to the number of undead each necromancer could have under their control (a legal limit as well as a dnd style game mechanics one). If all the skeletons in the city guard were under the control of one caster who was then killed, that would be very very bad. In fact, it could have been something like this that actually happened that made the country implement these regulations.

[Gavinfoxx]

Could you read the first post of this? With the moral implications bit?

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19527634/Tome_of_Necromancy

You need to answer what negative energy / necromancy actually DOES to the setting, and what that implies. Yes, that is a D&D 3.5e specific thread, but it makes a valid setting point...

[Blightedmarsh]

I built a setting based on the concept. You may want to check out the link in my signature.

[GolemsVoice]

Allowing the soul to go free could be used as one of the most terrible punishments immaginable, because it condems you to eternal punishment. So it could be used as a final punishment reserved for the worst crimes.
This is not exactly related to necromancy, but I thought of it when reading about the "horrible afterlife" that awaits them.

[angry_bear]

I'd have it so that, people aspire to become Undead. Not zombies, or other mindless creatures but, the more they contribute to society, through service, art, etc, the better type of Undead creature they can become when their time is nearing an end. It creates an interesting dynamic in society, and it deters people from just sitting back and letting the stinkers do all the work.

Also remember to do something about the smell in the city. That many walking corpses isn't just going to be unhealthy, it's also going to be fairly ripe smelling....

[Omegonthesane]

Also remember to do something about the smell in the city. That many walking corpses isn't just going to be unhealthy, it's also going to be fairly ripe smelling....

That's why you use boiled skeletons instead, they don't rot nearly as much.

Though I've always assumed that being reanimated arrests decay in some form, as there's rarely if ever the idea that a zombie becomes a skeleton simply by all its flesh sloughing off.

[Slipperychicken]

That's why you use boiled skeletons instead, they don't rot nearly as much.


My brother's necromancer once wanted a skeletal mount, so his plan was to take a dead horse and a huge pot, then boil all the flesh off. It was a funny sidequest to get a cauldron large enough to boil a horse...

[llamamushroom]

If you want to keep the idea of mindless undead being also mindlessly blood-and-brains thirsty, SilverClawShift's DM had a cool idea in their campaign (see the third tale in the archive (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116836?)). Basically, all mindless undead are constantly under control of a necromancer, similar to a work unit leader or something. If such a necromancer is killed, their charges go to town on the nearest living things. This would allow for the occasional civic unrest when, say, the town guard start being the ones that are causing deaths...

[Incanur]

In a campaign I ran, a necromancer PC founded a city based on the labor of mindless undead. In short, make the skeletons do the grunt work. In this case, the community had a totalitarian structure based obedience and conformity. Anyone who resisted would end up sacrificed and their body forced to serve in death. Those capable in the dark arts ruled.

[Gavinfoxx]

No no, you don't boil it.

You need these flesh eating beetles. You want the kind that eat DEAD flesh only, though... (D&D settings have the other kind as well, so you have to differentiate...)

[Slipperychicken]

You need these flesh eating beetles. You want the kind that eat DEAD flesh only, though... (D&D settings have the other kind as well, so you have to differentiate...)

Real world hospitals use fly larvae for burn victims to clean the dead/charred tissue off. You could probably find those in a spell component shop.

[Arcane_Snowman]

Okay, now that I have had some time to think and sleep. Time for a more concise outline of the setting, how the soul and magic fits into it all, and more importantly for now: how I think it'll impacts a society which extensively uses Necromancy:

Magic and the Soul:
First of all, magic is powered by the soul, which is present in anything alive, from the smallest worm, to the greatest king. The various magic users either channel energy through their own souls, or simply use it to directly power their magics to varying effects. The soul houses untold power, but a lot of power is lost due to the ineffective way in which it is draw, the inexperience of the practitioner and a number of other factors.

Necromancers find their power in one of the most powerful parts of the soul, the part that is linked to life. This offers them a great deal of power, but also at a potentially great cost.

I've envisaged four methods through which the practitioner can draw upon the power they need, their working titles are: Breath, Blood, Death and Soul.

Breath and Blood are the only disciplines disseminated amongst the Necromantic nation, as they are the ones with the least potential for harm to the practitioner and any "battery" that they might have. Both Breath and Blood use a catalyst through which to draw upon power, which are the what the titles denote.

For Necromancers, the first sign of drawing too much power is a chilling sensation filling the practitioner or their "battery", commonly referred to as the Soul Shiver, the severity varies one the amount of power taken, and can also lead to death. During the Soulshivers, no amount of heat is capable warming the person, many a person inflicted with the Soulshiver have tried to warm themselves in vain, only to find that they have inflicted horrible burns upon themselves once the Shiver ceases.

I'm not really going to go into much detail with Death and Soul now as they're probably only really known by some of the most ancient of liches, and even then, they're likely not used.

How Necromancy Works:
The act of bringing the dead back to life with their soul still attached is not an easy one, but is doable. There are three different magically manufactured undead:
The first is the creature which is completely and utterly under the control of the caster, though these are the least sustainable creatures, as power that they consume to be active comes directly from the caster, they are nonetheless useful as they responds to the casters thoughts with no hesitation.

The second is when the caster incompletely rebinds the spirit to a body, but neglects to instill the last bit of magic that brings the back full faculties of the raised, while it divorces the maintenance of motion from the caster, as the implanted soul becomes the source, the raised creature is driven by an unnatural and insatiable hunger for the living. When used for any other purpose than warfare, these creatures are extremely difficult to control. These creatures are generally the result of the third method being done erroneously, and therefore the spell drains a lot of excess power, which is simply lost. This results in the undead remaining reanimated for a highly unpredictable amount of time. Presumably, someone has invented a spell to purposefully do this, but if they have, they're not willing to say.

The third and final method is that which is used under 99% of circumstances in the Necromantic society, which binds body and spirit together once again, bringing the person into a facsimile of life. But unlike a living individual whose soul's reservoir of energy can be naturally replenished, the returned must acquire this energy through other means, generally through the consumption of the breath or blood of living things. A returned who does not replenish their energy will experience something similar to the Soulshiver, but because it is the only sensation which they can feel, it is generally much more disturbing.

So why would someone have this to themselves?:
I'm not a big fan of the provable existence of deities, but I like the idea that they believe that somewhere along the line, the people greatly offended or harmed a deity, which cursed them all to have their souls snuffed out upon death, leading to everlasting oblivion, instead of an afterlife.

For those who cannot afford this (as it is a costly procedure, requiring many reagents etc.), there is the option to offer themselves to a lich, as they have the ability to consume a dying person's soul and make it apart of themselves, preserving that persons memory within themselves.

So why not military expansionism or exploitation of the living?
Currently, the society is situated in a very harsh environment (subzero temperatures), meaning that a lot of it's energy has to be directed inwards to maintaining the living standards of it's own people. The society has a very symbiotic relationship, as the undead need the living to provide them with the life they need, and in return serve as "after life" as well as the cultural heritage and leadership.

As many people have pointed out, the flesh would have to come off. Which leads to an interesting society in which full-body clothing and masks are probably rather popular.

[Ravens_cry]

I had thr idea for a state that widely used mindless undead as a cheap source of power and limitles energy to mechanzie society, but, for the most part, banned intelligent undead creation. See, everyone who lived in the city when they died would be pressed into service as a skeleton to power the treadwheels, ploughs, and other needs of the city. Residents would do so many years before being retired, generally decades per year of living in the city, while citizens would do years or months. However, one could only become a citizen by demonstrating you had 'great value to the city'. Perhaps you were a successful merchant, sage, or artist. Maybe you were a successful soldier, or mage or other such career.
Becoming an intelligent undead, or any form of immortality really, was basically tax evasion and possibly treason against the city.
Occasionally, very, very occasionally, if one was particularly valuable, the Eternal Counsel, a group of liches that ruled the city, would induct you into their membership.

[Slipperychicken]

However, one could only become a citizen by demonstrating you had 'great value to the city'. Perhaps you were a successful merchant, sage, or artist. Maybe you were a successful soldier, or mage or other such career.

I see an undead civil rights movement brewing...

Just watch out for charismatic undead clerics :smallbiggrin:

[Ravens_cry]

I see an undead civil rights movement brewing...

Just watch out for charismatic undead clerics :smallbiggrin:
For whom? The unintelligent undead don't give a hoot, and it's not that you are a slave if you are an intelligent undead, you just aren't allowed to be part of the city, unless you are an authorized lich, in which case you are part of the ruling elite.

[tasw]

I'm a little confused about the several times I've seen zombies working on farms and such mentioned in this thread.

Does anyone really think it would be a good idea to have rotting corpses handle all the cities food? I dont think they would be allowed within a country mile of a farm, well or other source of fresh water.

Realistically you would probably have skeletons doing things that a basic first day construction worker does and not much else. They couldnt even work in most delivery or warehouse functions because of the fact that some of the material going through there might be food base, or be something that would come into contact with food down the road.

They certainly couldnt be city watch or soldiers. No brains, terrible observation skills and no ability to make plans or decisions on their own? at best you would have a couple of them that accompanied a squad of regular soldiers and took orders so they could work as cannon fodder or a sacrifice rear guard if neccesary.

I dont really think undead would make that big of an impact on the economics of a city beyond keeping the lowest paying, worst of the worst jobs away from living citizens.

Your society would probably be much more focused on the sorts of intellectual pursuits that are beyond the reach of any sort of mindless undead.

[Omegonthesane]

On the zombie farmer front - if it helps, most portrayals of zombies, esp. in RPGs, don't have them continuing to rot at the same rate as if they hadn't been reanimated. See my earlier comment about how they don't eventually become skeletons. Nonetheless skeletons are indeed more hygienic - or rather easier to make hygienic without impacting on their actual capabilities.

More likely you'd have squads of skeleton patrols directed by a pair or trio of the living, both for eachother's sanity and in case the patrol needs to split up.

Having all unskilled labour done by tireless servants who never need paying sounds like a pretty big impact to me.

It's likely that a massive skeleton-using society would at least take longer than IRL to mechanise - Rome actually had enough technical expertise to begin in that direction, but they also had enough cheap slaves that it just wasn't worthwhile economically, and they had to be constantly conquering to sustain that lifestyle.

[tasw]

who says you wouldnt need to pay the zombies? Necromancers would probably work like employment agencies now. Companies or individuals would come to them and hire out X number of skeletons for whatever job was neccesary at a set price.

The base assumption here seems to be that the necromancers are going to be raising all these things and turning them over to the city as a sort of benevolent, socialist work force.

I dont see necro's doing that at all. So sure you might be making unskilled labor cheaper but not free. And totally unskilled labor is actually a really small part of any economy, even a primitive one.

[Mastikator]

I just did some numbers, the price of blood today is approximately €300 per liter*. If the undead need blood of the living to sustain themselves and they want to be 100% legit and part of society then they either drink only a few drops per day or less than a tiny fraction of the population is able to be undead without the undead eating the living to extinction.

This would probably be a way for extremely rich people to stay after death, and instead of undead farms you may even have living farms, though that's IMO a bit unlikely, since a revolution would drive the undead to extinction.

I'm not sure what "breath" means in this context, if the undead just breath the air from the exhalation of a living, in that case blood is out of the question.
I'm still not sure what the living would be getting for having the undead, certainly not the undead's resources since they'd be inherited anyway, maybe if they were super intelligent super strong workers, but that's a scary scenario for other, more familiar reasons.
To be honest I'm still unsure how necromancy even can benefit society at large. Being people back from the dead simply isn't a cost effective solution.


*In the west world. Though blood is an expensive commodity in all times and I expect that the purchasing power of a less virile economy would only drive UP the price of blood, especially without proper sanitation to protect the living donors from disease.

[Arcane_Snowman]

I'm still not sure what the living would be getting for having the undead, certainly not the undead's resources since they'd be inherited anyway, maybe if they were super intelligent super strong workers, but that's a scary scenario for other, more familiar reasons.
To be honest I'm still unsure how necromancy even can benefit society at large. Being people back from the dead simply isn't a cost effective solution.
Given what I've presented, it's largely a spiritual benefit: the undead provide an after life for the lower class who cannot afford to become undead themselves, they also provide the benefits of generations of knowledge and several lifetimes of experience on many different fields to the table, which likely would have a great deal of many benefits. But there's still a bunch of tangible benefits. Try imagining if we could have all the major geniuses of the past thousand years contributing to our current society.

As to the cost: that's entirely up to the setting, for the moment it as a hazardous, specialized and somewhat costly procedure, perhaps akin to modern day brain surgery where if you do something wrong, you turn the individual into a slavering madman whose going to eat your face off.


This would probably be a way for extremely rich people to stay after death, and instead of undead farms you may even have living farms, though that's IMO a bit unlikely, since a revolution would drive the undead to extinction. At the moment, it is indeed something which is only maintainable by the rich, but given that it is for the rich, there's nothing to stop them from having a rotating "blood harem" of people who get to sit on their asses, enjoy everything that wealth have to offer, and in return they have to spend a day or two every so often feeling very unpleasant.


I'm not sure what "breath" means in this context, if the undead just breath the air from the exhalation of a living, in that case blood is out of the question. It's literally stealing the air from someone's lungs, and the metaphorical link to life (and as an extension thereof, the soul) that it contains. It's a lot less effective than blood, as the link is tenuous a best, whereas blood is a part of the body, and it's function is to maintain life and so it's connection is much stronger, and presumably longer lasting (I'm not 100% sure on all the details yet, but that's why I asked, to get some more eyes on the subject.).

[Gavinfoxx]

Yea, 'breath' means you are stealing their chi / lifefoce / causing them to suffocate or at the very least, be short of breath, right?

[Arcane_Snowman]

Yea, 'breath' means you are stealing their chi / lifefoce / causing them to suffocate or at the very least, be short of breath, right?
That is correct, though it generates vastly less power than the Blood method.

[Heliomance]

There's a nation like this in my d&d setting, though I haven't fleshed it out much (rimshot). It's a highly militarised, very regulated state based loosely off ancient Rome. There is no cultural taboo towards undeath, and when you die your body belongs to the state to use for whatever purpose they deem most useful. Large portions end up going to the military - they have a hostile north border that needs constantly defending. It's a vaguely sentient malevolent Dark Forest filled with weres, and undead troops are very handy seeing as they can't catch lycanthropy.

[Omegonthesane]

who says you wouldnt need to pay the zombies? Necromancers would probably work like employment agencies now. Companies or individuals would come to them and hire out X number of skeletons for whatever job was neccesary at a set price.

The base assumption here seems to be that the necromancers are going to be raising all these things and turning them over to the city as a sort of benevolent, socialist work force.

I dont see necro's doing that at all. So sure you might be making unskilled labor cheaper but not free. And totally unskilled labor is actually a really small part of any economy, even a primitive one.

I think the actual assumption was that necromancers had conquered and/or heavily infiltrated the government and thus were the ruling caste, which is a lot like turning your resources over to the ruling caste to Joe Layman being affected by it.

Also, there's nothing about practising necromancy that would stop you being altruistic or egotistical, either of which would motivate you to direct your minions towards your grand vision rather than towards getting you money.

[MukkTB]

There is real room for evil here. One idea that pops to mind is declaring war on some neighbor Aztec style, sending an undead army out, and having it come home with twice the numbers.

Even if the society is not evil, and the undead are not malevolent, the problems would be very unique. Take a look at the speculation about cheap robot labor. You could theoretically end up with a class of thinkers, spellcasters, engineers, politicians, scientists, CEOs, celebrities, and an underclass on the dole. If undead labor is cheaper you won't have jobs for relatively unskilled humans. On the other hand this is a first world problem. That implies that even people on the dole would have a high standard of living compared to a standard fantasy setting.

If the undead are malevolent, you might consider a lawful society structured to keep their urges under control.

Another way it could go bad quick is if hungry undead are permitted to buy slaves to consume. I could list hundreds of ways it could go bad.

A loved president could be elected from beyond the grave to serve terms not limited by his lifespan. A dictator could go from dictator for life to dictator forever. A businessman could refuse to move on, and just keep managing his empire. With undead elite the society could become very stagnant, even without malevolent intent. Say just in the scientific field, competing with the best and the brightest who have been around hundreds of years would be difficult to say the least. A carreer plan might stretch through someone's lifespan and into their death just to acquire the experience and knowledge to become competitive.