[3.5e] Evil character concept - Necromancer with 'good' intentions

[Baxter Konrad]

Okay, so the 'official' backstory of this character (ie: the one he tells people) is as follows:

The character is a 'Mystic Theurge' (3 Cleric / 3 Wizard specialising in Necromancy). Several years ago, he was captured by a Nerull Cult who planned to sacrifice him in a grisly ritual. They got part of the way through, resulting in some fairly bizarre damage to his body, mind and soul. Since then, he has sought to dedicate his life to the pursuit of peace, and in particular he pursues those with knowledge of how to raise and command the dead. As a result of his trauma, and perhaps the occupation he's undertaken, he has certain... unpalatable traits. First and foremost being that he is sort of Undead [he has a feat that means Positive Energy hurts him, while Negative heals]. He is also fascinated by death, approaching even the most grisly of scenes with acute interest and intellectual curiosity.

In secret, he is actually a member of the Nerull Cult. His long-term goals are, indeed, to bring peace to the world - the peace of death. He believes that death is the answer to all conflicts; zombies can work tirelessly in mines or fields; more sophisticated undead make fine police, guards or soldiers; and an undying aristocracy ensures government unphased by petty fears or trivial flights of fancy. Ultimately, if his power and ambition allowed it, he would kill every living thing and resurrect them all in an Undead society.

However, this character is not intended to be some deranged, driveling lunatic - the character is articulate, educated, intelligent and, more importantly, utterly convinced that his ambition is 'good'. He is aware that it is not popular, but he is also aware that what people want and what they need can be mutually exclusive. He seeks to ascend into Undeath (likely as a Lich), and use his power to reshape the world into a more 'perfect' society. For him, the ends justify the means, and he is willing to sacrifice anything to achieve his vision.

So, my main questioning points are:

1) The overarching concept - does it make sense? This is ideally an Evil character that can be inserted into most parties (not all, obviously), and hence the need to keep his true motives hidden.
1b) How much do you think a potential party needs to have disclosed about this concept? Would it be a game breaker for you to find out your dark-and-edgy anti-Twilight caster was actually animating corpses on the side?
2) Alignment. I was thinking Lawful Evil, since he is motivated not just by personal power, but using that power to achieve greater things.
3) Progression wise, this class is ready to dive headlong into True Necromancer, and the feats he has already support that. Any tips on how to manage that side of the character?

Oh yeah, in terms of Skills he has a lot of stuff to help keep up appearances - Diplomacy, Bluff, Disguise and Heal all help him to pass himself off as a more 'normal' Cleric / Wizard.

[OldTrees1]

1) It looks mostly good. One thing strike me as off. Why would he consider zombiedom to be a valid form of resurrection?

3) Friends don't let friends take True Necromancer

[Coidzor]

The key question here is, why would anyone adventure with him when he appears to be deluded to the point of being a danger to himself and others?

Or is the brain damage just backstory explanation for his POV rather than something evident from his behavior?

[Karl Aegis]

If you really wanted to become a lich you would be taking Dread Necromancer levels instead of sacrificing your ability to create and control more powerful undead by taking Mystic Theurge.

[RedMage125]

I concur Dread Necromancer is a better class for this. It works well as a standalone class, has some abilities that are normally cleric-only (rebuke undead, some spells), but is an arcane caster. He can wear light armor and has some decent necromancy-themed powers that work well in combat (Charnel Touch and the rider that eventually accompany it).

At early levels, the DN is more of a lightly-armored combatant than a primary spellcaster, but at higher levels, is a superb minionmancer.

[Baxter Konrad]

1) It looks mostly good. One thing strike me as off. Why would he consider zombiedom to be a valid form of resurrection?

I'm not sure what this refers to exactly. Can you clarify?



The key question here is, why would anyone adventure with him when he appears to be deluded to the point of being a danger to himself and others?

Or is the brain damage just backstory explanation for his POV rather than something evident from his behavior?
He's not deluded; a lot of what he thinks is rational, from a certain point of view. He wants to make the world a better place, in the sense that the dead cannot starve, or feel pain, or die (again). His world view and goals are abhorrent, yes, but based on logical deductions. He's certainly not a danger to himself, in the sense that he doesn't have any self-destructive tendencies and knows to keep his true motives concealed.

As to why people would adventure with him; because, as I said, he is genuinely trying to make the world a better place. He isn't going to stand by and allow Gnoll Slavers to drag off whole villages at night, or leave a Dragon to maraud around the kingdom. His reasons for stopping this behaviour are likely very different, that's all.

The general gist is this: heroes save the kingdom because it's right. He saves the kingdom because he's going to take it over someday (likely via dark magic), and there's no point running a kingdom if all your people produce is dysentery.


If you really wanted to become a lich you would be taking Dread Necromancer levels instead of sacrificing your ability to create and control more powerful undead by taking Mystic Theurge.
I don't have a source book with Dread Necromancer in. Also, I want to a Mystic Theurge style class - a Cleric / Wizard hybrid. True Necromancer allows that.

I'm not actually taking any ranks in Mystic Theurge.

[OldTrees1]

I'm not sure what this refers to exactly. Can you clarify?

I don't have a source book with Dread Necromancer in. Also, I want to a Mystic Theurge style class - a Cleric / Wizard hybrid. True Necromancer allows that.

I'm not actually taking any ranks in Mystic Theurge.

What I meant:
He wants to raise people as undead as a means of resurrecting them into eternal life. Yet he want to become a Lich instead of a Zombie. Therefore he makes a distinction between Liches and Zombies. This distinction should carry through to raising people as intelligent undead rather than mindless undead.


Mystic Theruge is much better than True Necromancer.

[Baxter Konrad]

What I meant:
He wants to raise people as undead as a means of resurrecting them into eternal life. Yet he want to become a Lich instead of a Zombie. Therefore he makes a distinction between Liches and Zombies. This distinction should carry through to raising people as intelligent undead rather than mindless undead.


Mystic Theruge is much better than True Necromancer.
Oh, that? That's just down to simple classism. Commoners aren't important in the grand scheme of things, not as individuals at any rate. There have to be commoners, because someone has to tend the fields, cook the food, scrub the latrines and hopefully wash their hands occasionally in between, but they aren't "people". The difference between a commoner and a zombie is a zombie requires less maintenance and obeys orders more efficiently.

It's not that he's actively cruel to poor people or anything, he just treats them as being beneath him.

[OldTrees1]

Oh, that? That's just down to simple classism. Commoners aren't important in the grand scheme of things, not as individuals at any rate. There have to be commoners, because someone has to tend the fields, cook the food, scrub the latrines and hopefully wash their hands occasionally in between, but they aren't "people". The difference between a commoner and a zombie is a zombie requires less maintenance and obeys orders more efficiently.

It's not that he's actively cruel to poor people or anything, he just treats them as being beneath him.

Yeah ...
That does not qualify as " 'good' intentions" in my book. The intentions towards the "not people" are too transparently not in the interests of the "not people" for me to label them as " 'good' intentions". It would not take much Wisdom at all for the Necromancer to realize that his intentions towards the "not people" were not good intentions.

[Baxter Konrad]

Yeah ...
That does not qualify as " 'good' intentions" in my book. The intentions towards the "not people" are too transparently not in the interests of the "not people" for me to label them as " 'good' intentions". It would not take much Wisdom at all for the Necromancer to realize that his intentions towards the "not people" were not good intentions.

My Necromancer is not meant to have modern ideals about rights and such. Plus, he's Evil for a reason.

Think about how we treat animals. Various animals are declawed or neutered or otherwise modified in ways that the animal, if it could express such an opinion, would probably not want to happen. But we don't consider that behaviour wrong. It's not cruel to neuter your pets - it's actually considered proper behaviour for a responsible pet owner.

In the character's world view, the role of poor people is to work. Anything that interferes with their ability to work is bad and should be removed; anything that improves their ability to work is good and should be promoted.

Turn the commoners into mindless undead, and consider the benefits: they feel no pain (good thing), they don't need to be fed and watered (good thing - makes them more productive), they don't sleep (also good), they can't get sick (good thing), and so on. Yes, the individual commoners probably don't want to be living dead, but a farmer doesn't ask a cow's permission before slicing its throat and turning it into beef - commoners are property of their betters, and he is their better. Plus, even if they don't want to be undead, the act of killing and raising them will remove all those fears, doubts and anxieties from them - they'll be "happy" as mindless servants.

[OldTrees1]

My Necromancer is not meant to have modern ideals about rights and such. Plus, he's Evil for a reason.

I understand that (hence my use of " 'good' intentions" rather than "good intentions").

However I am seeing no benefits for the cattle(peasants) to be turned into skeletons(more hygenic and productive than zombies) rather than necropolitians(intelligent undead). The only benefit is that skeletons are easier to control vs necropolitians are intelligent(and thus more efficient).

In my opinion it would be harder for the evil necromancer to be deluded into thinking they were good if they are raising commoners as skeletons rather than intelligent undead. Either way it would make a reasonable and rational character, but I only see the delusion of "I am good" in one of the cases.

However you do not need to convince me. It is your opinion that matters for this character concept.

[Baxter Konrad]

My thoughts there are as follows. First off, he's a Lawful Evil character seeking to conquer a kingdom, if not the entire world, by either killing them all and raising them from the dead, or by amassing an army of the dead powerful enough to conquer the living. Clearly, there's a streak of power lust there, and as history shows us the first thing anyone who attains power does is make it damn hard for anyone else to copy him. The last thing the Necromancer wants after bringing 'peace' to the land is for a bunch of lunatic Liches springing up and spoiling his perfect world.

Second, linked to that, sentience is kind of dangerous. Necropolitans have free will, and creatures with free will tend to do stupid, random things like not obeying their obvious superiors, running off to find ways to destroy Phylacteries and other disruptive things. The last thing a farmer wants is for the cows to start forming a milk producer's union; it's better for everyone if power is concentrated in the hands of a few, proven individuals who can be trusted not to do anything stupid, and everyone else should just go along with that. Since most undead have to go along with whatever their masters say, this is a convenient upside.

I imagine Necropolitan would be an option for a few promising individuals, or for those whose role in society cannot be taken over by mindless automatons, but for others it would at best be a waste of effort; at worse, a potential source of disruption and disorder within the nation.

Edit: Actually, as I recall Necropolitan's volunteer for the ritual, right? If so, then it seems strange to try and force that on people - it suggests it would backfire. I'd guess, if it got that far, anyone who wanted to become a Necropolitan could willingly undergo the transformation; the rest would wind up as zombies and skeletons sooner or later.