The Necromancy Thread

[Scorponok]

...as opposed to thread necromancy, which is an entirely different thing. :smallbiggrin:

Anyways, me and a buddy are planning on making a campaign about a necromancer. It'll (as far as I know right now) just be a single player campaign. Most of our regular group plays LG, CG, or NG alignment and don't allow evil characters into our campaigns, and he said he always wanted to try a necromancer character.

In the land we are basing this story in, the powers that be are a typical human kingdom, a dwarf city-state who's religious influence (Moradin) has massive influence, a former city state run by pirates which is now ruled by an ice dragon, and two elven cities (one wood elf and one moon elf) that tend to stick to themselves.

After attempting to develop the campaign and story a little, and after the initial coolness of raising a bunch of skeletons and zombies, I'm wondering what the point of Necromancy would be? It doesn't seem like any of these government factions would care to work with a necromancer, and if not unfriendly, would be downright hostile to such a person. Maybe it's just not the right setting for this?

I'm also wondering, in terms of necromancy, all the coolness about it seems to be just being to either raise more and more undead the higher your level goes, or raise tougher and cooler undead, such as skeleton bugbears and trolls. Is there anything else that a necromancer would want to try to do? I'm having a difficult time coming up with an end game for a necromancer and a motive for doing all they do.

[MisterKaws]

I think Magic Jar'ing the Tarrasque could be quite fun.

[Gildedragon]

Restructure the economy of the pirate city state so as to work off the backs of the undead, making wealth in the city grow, and thus enrich the dragon's hoard?

[Coidzor]

Delving into arcane secrets.

Unraveling the mysteries of life and death.

Becoming something more than mortal(see also: Liches).

Acquiring raw magical power. Acquiring raw temporal power. Acquiring power.

Erecting the biggest, tallest, pointiest, knobbiest-ended Wizard Tower of them all.

Acquiring exotic undead for their collection.

Creating new types of undead.

Creating a "menagerie" of undead made from fossilized and extinct creatures.

[Marlowe]

Raising lots of little Undead, for military purposes anyway, is a pretty poor strategy. Humanoid skeletons and Zombies just get dusted or commanded as soon as a decent level-cleric comes at you.

A smaller number of high-hit-dice Undead works better, but you still have to worry about the likes of the Command Undead spell.

It MIGHT be nice to raise lots of little skeletons to work as menial labourers, thus freeing up the living peasants to develop artisan skills and the like. Kind of like the above suggested.

[DrMotives]

Is the necromancer religious? Even an arcane caster can be devote, although divine casters make nice necromancers too. He could try and raise a temple or necropolis, which may need to be defended from those neighbours hostile to necromancy.

Or maybe he just wants a classic wizard's keep, but mindless dead will be the majority of the workforce. Same as above, really.

I did have a necromancy be a big part of an old, long since retired campaign I ran. A popular god amongst the PCs was a death god who loved making more undead, specifically he was insane and wanted to keep mortal souls out of the afterlife, and undead were a good way to do that. When it started giving me headaches as a DM for this guy to be the main player in the pantheon the PCs were making him, I introduced a rival death god cult that destroyed him. The old primordial god was simply called Burial, and thought undead were a perversion of the natural order of things. Burial's cult came and razed all the temples & holy sites of the PC-loved death god, the one who wanted a huge undead population. They couldn't wipe the popular death god out, but they shrunk his influence from a major player to a reclusive, secretive, fairly impotent church.

[ATHATH]

I have two necromancer builds and a list of long-duration minionmancy spells here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?480523-Build-it-for-me-please&p=20530198#post20530198

Check out the Collection of Necromantic Oddities (a thread), the Rebuking and Necromancer handbooks, and the Curst template (makes something nigh-unkillable and un-rebukable, and is somehow supposed to be a curse).

[LTwerewolf]

Animate Dread Warrior needs to be part of the bread and butter spells, especially if they can get it without the xp cost one way or another.

[Jack_Simth]

and the Curst template (makes something nigh-unkillable and un-rebukable, and is somehow supposed to be a curse).Well, it's described as "constant agony", the template grants the "Madness" quality, and it also applies a penalty to mental ability scores, and only +2 Str. Plus, it saddles the target with +3 LA, and that's not good for most builds.

Note also that it's not very grand for the necromancer doing it - explicitly no control.

[Gildedragon]

Patrolling the boundaries of life and death
Keeping dangerous predatory undead down
defeating some great evil via the power of death
unleash a great undead monster
delve into the mysteries of the arcane, secrets so old only the long long dead know them

[Coidzor]

Oh, and of course, the highest objective of any Arch-Necromancer... End the Abomination known as Life once and forever.

And the end goal of an arch-defiler, devour the life force of the world and all its plants and creatures, leaving nothing more than an empty husk of sand and dust... and then nothing.

[OldTrees1]

I'm also wondering, in terms of necromancy, all the coolness about it seems to be just being to either raise more and more undead the higher your level goes, or raise tougher and cooler undead, such as skeleton bugbears and trolls. Is there anything else that a necromancer would want to try to do? I'm having a difficult time coming up with an end game for a necromancer and a motive for doing all they do.

The undead master is the most common/visible display but let's take a moment to think about necromancy.

Necromancy is the magic that surrounds the transition known as death. Just as Evokers control energy, Necromancers have the privilege and the duty to control the time, place, and direction of that transition.

Different Necromancers disagree about exactly what that duty is and how well they will serve vs fall to temptations. However consider these questions:
1) Should someone die eventually? Yes, No, depends on the person?
2) If someone should die eventually, when is the right time to die?
3) If someone dies before their time or has lived past their death day, when and how should you intervene?
4) What about undeath and its weird cousin deathless? When, if ever, is it right for someone to become undead?
5) Due to the reputation of your fellow experts on this topic, almost nobody is correctly advised on these topics. As one of the few that understands this issue everyone must face, do you have an obligation to teach?

Brother, you are one of the few that sees death with open eyes. Go forth and act upon this wisdom.

5 sample necromancers:
1) The comforter: Go around advising those near death and comfort those dealing with a recent death.
2) The celebrator: Death is merely the finalization of a life lived. Let us celebrate the lives of those that have passed and live our lives so that we die well!
3) The reaper: Today is the right time to die, I will help you with that.
4) The utopia: You get immortality, you get immortality, everyone gets immortality!
5) Post Scarcity: I can create and control an army of necrotic robots. How can I end scarcity with all that free labor?

[BowStreetRunner]

In one campaign we ran into a Lawful city dedicated to Wee Jas complete with Paladins, Ruby Knight Vindicators, and Necromancers. In this city the dead continued to serve the living - particularly at nighttime when the undead street sweepers and work crews came out, aided by magically silenced tools, to clean and maintain the city. There were quite a few Necropolitans living in the city as well as many other kinds of undead too. However, it was a Lawful city so any of the chaotic undead that could not be controlled were generally not tolerated.

Personally, I'd love to run a Necromancer devoted to Wee Jas complete with a RKV cohort.

[Ikitavi]

In my campaign, there are ancestor worshiping religions where the ancestors have willed their bodies to serve the head of the family. They work as grunt labor in the field, or powering pumps or mills. Once a year there is a Day of the Dead celebration where the ancestors can say that their bodies have served enough. Obviously, if a head of family fails to revere and honor his ancestors enough, that could cost the family the labor of their ancestors, so it is kind of a big deal for them.

Also in my campaign, theurgical necromancy tends to be greatly at odds with arcane necromancy. It seems that you get real hard feelings when a wizard necromancer tries to RUSTLE the honored ancestors, just because he wants expendable troops/servants. Arcane necromancers also tend to be creepy experimentalists, who are always trying to find ways of creating and controlling more powerful and nasty undead.

All things being equal, theurgically created undead are more likely to have been embalmed, and to wear clothing that is in good repair. And the undead are more likely to have been repaired over the years, because they are valued and cared for.

This is a bit of a contrast with the ghouls the party encountered. See, the necromancer in question was a cheap bastard who didn't want to wait until level 12 or so to cast Ghoul Gauntlet. No, he created ghouls the old-fashioned way. Starve prisoners until they are so desperate that they knowingly chew on ghoul bone and flesh.

That kind of necromancer no party is going to tolerate, naturally.

[DrMartin]

I think that this short story (http://imgur.com/iUroaPj) deserves a mention :)

[BowStreetRunner]

I think that this short story (http://imgur.com/iUroaPj) deserves a mention :)

This was a new one to me. Wow! Just amazing.

[DrMartin]

Another take on the subject of the pragmatic, "scientific" approach to necromancy: there was a Sword and Sorcery setting in the 3.0 era called the Scarred Lands, that featured a city called Hollowfaust: the city of necromancers. The whole society revolves around the study of necromancy and the uses of undead servants ("a curious culture that embraces both the joy of life and inevitability of death"), who among other things help defend the city against the settings's bad guys, the titanspawn. If you die in the city you need somebody to pay a gratuity to ransom your body, otherwise your remains will rightfully belong to the city's necromancers guild.

[Gruftzwerg]

Take a necromancer with affections to illusions & deceiving people. He will set up a some confusion between two nations and spread lies in disguised form (sevaral layers, from lies for the normal villagers to lies who are more for the higher folks). He will maybe even do some dirty jobs with a smaller undead units, to annihilate smaller military units and leave false evidences, that leads to other nations.
He will wait for a opportunity where he can obtain a large amount of corpses for his evil undead army. Once a big fight is fought between the nations, he will reveal himself at the end of the combat and revive his army.
The players should be at their limit (low HP) at this moment and should be forced to retreat from this unbelievable huge undead army. And while the players retreat and recover, the necromancer will increase his army, attacking everything on its way and increasing in size day by day.

This could be one way to start the plot. Maybe you even let your players assist the necromancer to obtain an powerful artifact that he needs. He could be disguised as a nice wizard who tries to help the country against the "evil" other country, but he needs this artifact be able of help. The players help him to obtain the item not knowing what they are doing.