Animating skeletons & zombies is Neutral now, how would you adjust religions?

[Coidzor]

In this case specifically Ehlonna, Obad-Hai, Wee Jas, Heironeous, and Pelor from Greyhawk. And Druidism if that's a distinct religion.

I'm also curious what deities/religions you'd see being altered, and how, in other settings, such as Forgotten Realms, Eberron, or Dragonlance.

I can see a potential move towards relaxing some anti-undead sentiment and tempering the reaction of Nature-religions towards Naturally occurring undead. Potentially to the point of viewing creation of some undead, where it doesn't result in the extirpation of a desired creature to make into an undead servitor as more similar to eating an animal and using its inedible body parts for tools and clothing.

Religions of Light I see probably viewing it with suspicion at best, but being less likely to attempt to kill necromancers on sight.

I've already read the Tome of Necromancy by Frank & K, but am due for a reread, and any other similarly illuminating reads would be appreciated.

So, what about you all? Any thoughts or examples of settings where you've handled it already?

[Deophaun]

In this case specifically Ehlonna, Obad-Hai, Wee Jas, Heironeous, and Pelor from Greyhawk.
They don't care if it's neutral. It's still an abomination in their eyes. Of course, the new Good deities that pick up the portfolio of undeath will have differing opinions, and there were be clashes until civilization figures out how to organize a cease-fire.

[ekarney]

Iirc Wee Jas was on the evil spectrum anyway, and her followers were less religion focused and more learning based, I think I read somewhere that her temples are more like academies than places of worship.

My knowledge of Greyhawk is pretty limited seeing as I almost exclusively play/run FR.

So for FR:

I feel like followers of Oghma would have a field day if necromancy was no longer evil.
Lolth worshipers would remain unchanged, since in HoH it's said that the Drow don't like necromancy not because of ethical issues, but rather because they seem to think it requires paying homage to someone other than Lolth.
Mystra followers would probably also have a field day.
Lathander worshipers would probably still be adverse to it, since undead and birth don't exactly share too much common ground.
I can see Gruumsh/Ilneval followers putting a boatload of necromancers in their army. Not that I think they cared in the first place.
I think dedicated Selune followers might pasively encourage it, if commoners and towns had like raising festivals or something similar, due to the cyclical nature of such stuff.

[Mechalich]

With animation of mindless undead no longer evil, animating the dead in this way is functionally equivalent to creating constructs (in fact this is basically an admission that skeletons and zombies are really more like boney-golems than they are undead). Societies may have any number of viewpoints about the creation and deployment of constructs of course, but the real key point is that animating the dead is - under standard D&D rules - much easier and immensely cheaper to do that it is to build a construct.

So you have now turned all dead bodies into a massive labor supply with the potential to remake your society. Which means you are now into Empire of Corpses (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Empire_of_Corpses) territory (except fantasy, not steampunk). As far as religions are concerned the first god to embrace the potential of the dead to essentially eliminate unskilled labor and launch a new age of peace and prosperity is likely to become the most powerful god of all so pick a neutral god of trade/business and watch them unleash the power of necrocapitalism.

[Extra Anchovies]

The core deities are... poorly thought out, to say the least. The first thing that strikes me is that certain cultures may consider various concepts to be masculine or feminine, but the concepts themselves don't have genders outside of specific frameworks; gods of cultural ideals such as valor, justice, or secrets could well be male or female depending on the society they arose from, but gods of primordial things such as magic, death, or fire shouldn't even be humanoid, let alone of specific genders. Of course, if someone else struck down one of the gods and rose to take their place, that person would retain the personality (and thus gender) they had in life, but any original gods of primal concepts should be without species or gender. Their forms would instead be representative of their portfolio, such as a roiling sphere of fire, water, earth, and air for a god of the elements, or a horde of animals all moving as one for a god of beasts.

Nerull as a god of death has no business being evil. Death is true neutral; what would be neutral evil is avoiding or escaping death, which would include those who willingly become intelligent undead or who use soul-transferring effects to hop between bodies instead of dying. Such a Nerull would be a big fan of undead of all sorts.

I don't really get Boccob either. A single deity of arcane magic makes about as much sense as a single deity of divine magic. A god of studious arcane magic (i.e. the type practiced by wizards and wu jen) makes sense, but arcane magic in general is a silly thing to rule over. There are spells dealing with fire and death and chaos and stone and secrets and knowledge and slaughter and farming and every other divine portfolio that exists - why does one god govern a little piece of everyone else's portfolio? Having "knowledge" as a primary portfolio element is the same way; knowledge about farming should be in a farming deity's portfolio, knowledge about swamps in a swamp deity's portfolio, and so on.

Wee Jas is an odd one. Between her, Nerull, and Boccob there's a lot of portfolio redundancy. I think she works best as a human who ascended to divinity without assuming an existing set of domains, akin to what Vecna accomplished. Narrowing her portfolio from magic to studied magic also makes sense given her lawful alignment and the absurdity of "all arcane magic" as a portfolio.

Obad-Hai as a god of nature relies on a vague and inconsistent definition of what nature is - are creatures native to the outer planes (i.e. extraplanar elementals and outsiders) natural? If not, why does Obad-Hai reside on an outer plane? Wood, stone, metal, and sinew are all natural, as are humanoids, so why does Obad-Hai favor wilderness over humanoid civilizations? If Obad-Hai exists as a god of all nature, why does he appear as male, or even humanoid? What Obad-Hai should be is a god of the elements and the seasons, with its realm cycling between the four primary elemental planes as the seasons change (Fire in summer, Earth in autumn, Water in winter, Air in spring). Their portfolio could also include balance between those elements, and thus a balance between wilderness and civilized areas, and the attachment to the inner planes would explain Obad-Hai's apparent disregard for the environments of the outer planes. Creating undead would be altering the balance between positive and negative energy and Obad-Hai would oppose such an upset, but naturally-arising undead like Allips (or whatever) would be considered part of the natural balance of things.

As a deity of forests and woodlands, Ehlonna would disapprove of mindless undead because their biomass can't be used as tree food, but I don't think she'd be violently opposed to them.

Heironeous is the god of valor and courage. As mindless creatures, skeletons and zombies can't have either of those traits, so Heironeous would probably not want his followers to create animated undead but wouldn't mind other being do so.

Pelor would still be opposed - animating the dead uses negative energy, and as a healing/life/light/fire/sun god, Pelor is big on positive energy.