Necromancers and Cavaliers - The Nine Houses of the Locked Tomb

[Gnome Alone]

Two is for discipline, heedless of trial;
Three for the gleam of a jewel or a smile;
Four for fidelity, facing ahead;
Five for tradition and debts to the dead;
Six for the truth over solace in lies;
Seven for beauty that blossoms and dies;
Eight for salvation no matter the cost;
Nine for the Tomb, and for all that was lost.


I had a fun idea - how would you build the typical cavalier/necromancer pairs from The Locked Tomb series, by Tamsyn Muir? More famously known as the one that begins with Gideon the Ninth?

(If this has been done recently, feel free to murder me and reanimate my skeleton to do your dark recycled bidding.)

Note I said typical - I don't mean necessarily the pairs we see in action (e.g. Palamedes Sextus and Camilla Hect, to give a totally random example that isn't far and away the coolest such pair or anything, cough) I mean the stereotypical, generic necros and cavs of each House. I mean, if it gets your endorphins flowing through your skeleton-encircled flesh prison to do a specific pair we see in the series, by all means feel free, but I'm wondering if one could make versatile enough characters that they'd last a fair few rounds fighting on the battlefields to serve the King Undying.

It's the efficacy that I wonder about, because it seems like versimilitude in this case is essentially achieved off the bat with any kind of fighter, rogue, or combo thereof for the cavaliers, and a wizard with the appropriate spells (and maybe a custom and/or at-will spell for their House's particular speciality - the Second's Vampiric Touch, the Fifth's Speak With Dead, the I literally cannot think of any other spells for the others guess they'll have to be customized.)

Or, maybe clerics? Or again, the either/or/and routine this time with the wizard +/ cleric deli combo. So like, warriors + mages = done. Maybe?

There is no way this appeals to anyone who hasn't read these sweet, sweet, sweet books, but for those who both lurv, lurv, lurv some lesvian necromancers in space but have forgotten the necromantic specialities of each House, check out these descriptions I didst moste swiftly gank from yon Tor article (https://www.tor.com/2019/09/20/find-your-necromancy-family-among-the-houses-of-gideon-the-ninth/), night bosses:

Second House - Absorption of life energy from the living. A Second necromancer can drain thalergy from any living source, then use it to bolster the strength of their soldiers.

Third House - Cannibalization of thanergy from corpses, no matter how old. They surpass other houses’ limits for drawing power from dead bodies.

Fourth House - Exciting thanergy into a state of fission, thereby turning corpses into bombs.

Fifth House - Fifth necromancers are the foremost spirit magicians, unparalleled when it comes to speaking to the dead.

Sixth House - Psychometry, by which they can read the history that echoes of life and death leave on objects.

Seventh House - The preservation of the corpse and the stasis of soul, prolonging the space between life and death and between death and decay.

Eight House - Soul siphoning. An Eighth necromancer can wedge a soul into the breach between life and the afterlife, and use it as a conduit for spirit magic.

Ninth House - The raising and crafting of skeletons. Though a staple of all necromancy, none master the art of looking a Ninth necromancer.

Last bit of commentary... isn't it funny how wholesome the Ninth House ends up seeming by the end of this litany?

[Nidgit]

The short answer is, it doesn't translate particularly well. There's way more necromancy specialization in The Locked Tomb than 5e allows for and certain things, like the Third's or Fourth's specialties, basically don't exist in 5e at all.

The longer addendum is that there are certain houses where we've barely seen their necromancy in action. The Fourth stands out here again, as does the Seventh.

But here goes:

Second House: Necromancy Wizard. Grim Harvest is their life draining to a T, and Inured to Death make sense too. You could probably argue that they're actually an Oathbreaker or other Paladin subclass with a Necromancy dip instead.

Third House: No parallel. There's no time limit to stuff like Speak with Dead and no class who really makes sense for it. If pushed, I might pick something like Whispers Bard just based on Ianthe's whole vibe.

Fourth House: Evocation Wizard. Once again there's no great parallel, but the Fourth House is basically defined by being a bunch of glass cannons. That sounds like Overchannel to me.

Fifth House: Spirits Bard. Charming, powerful, and excellent at speaking with the dead. The first obvious fit.

Sixth House: Knowledge Cleric. The Sixth House is largely scholars and doctors and Knowledge Cleric sits happily at the intersection of those.

Seventh House: Grave Cleric. They're supposedly good a preserving bodies.

Eighth House: Death Cleric. Soul Siphon seems like Necromancy Wizard again, but my impression is that they're more about amplifying their necromantic power rather than healing themselves.

Ninth House: Surely Necromancy Wizard, right? Nope! Harrowhark's displays of necromancy lean more towards lots of crazy bonewards, which leads me to call her an Abjuration Wizard with necromantic flavoring. She obviously still prepared lots of undead spells though. Undead Warlock would be another possible option too.

[Gnome Alone]

I suppose it doesn't fit too well, no...I gotta stop defaulting to D&D for everything. It's the one I know best. Actually now that I think about it, I know 3.5 better than 5e anyway, even if I play 5e with my group now. Shoulda posted this there, 3.5 is all about having the most Lego blocks to build with.. Or maybe in General, like, "what system would you use?" I'm pretty limited in what I'm familiar with, but I've had some success adapting things with Savage Worlds.

Thanks for humoring me, though; it's about what I thought, especially with the Fifth and Sixth being the only ones that would fit really well, and I like the cleverness of the dear Reverend Daughter being an abjurer. (Oh, that reminds me, that might work for Fourth House too; Isaac says that since the Fourth House is so aggressive on the battlefield, wards were the first thing he learned, in the interest of staying alive.)

[DracoKnight]

I basically agree with Nidgit's breakdown!

That said, I have maybe some other thoughts to offer, that I'll spoiler below because they're relevant to the latter half of GtN and the rest of the series.

So in a campaign that ran from 2020 to earlier this year, I played a build that I have dubbed the Lycter, and I'm gonna play it again at some point with the actual backstory of a Lycter (thank Jod none of my DMs read TLT. The build breaks down to Fighter 5/Wizard 15, with Eldritch Knight and Necromancer being my subclasses respectively. The campaign started at 4th level, and ran all the way to 20, so my commentary on higher levels is informed by actual experience in play.

In the campaign I started out going 5 levels of Fighter, and then went Wizard from levels 6-20.

If I were to do it over? I would start Fighter for armor, CON saves, and HP, and Second Wind; then multiclass into Wizard right away. Best if the game starts off at 2nd level so that you can just have both levels at the same time. Being both Fighter and Wizard represents the Necromancer already having "eaten" their Cavalier to become a Lycter. For Fighting Style, I took Duelist the first time around, but with the changes to Two-Weapon Fighting coming down the pipeline in 1D&D, I'd give a hard look at TWF now. Especially because it's gonna be a minute until this build gets Extra Attack. Also, bonus points for reflavoring Second Wind as drawing on the Necromantic battery granted by your Cavalier.

I'd then continue to Wizard 5, picking up various necromancy spells along the way like Ray of Sickness, Ray of Enfeeblement, Summon Undead, and Spirit Shroud. Spirit Shroud is kinda key to the Lycter build and it was my go-to combat concentration. The two Ray spells are far from the most powerful spells in the game, but they're hella on theme, and RoE is basically free damage resistance to everyone in the party as long as the attacker uses STR. Spirit Shroud is unique for the Necromancy list because there's not a whole lot of damaging spells that are also Necromancy. So this pairs incredibly well with Grim Harvest.

Character level 7 I'd take Fighter 2 and continue with Fighter all the way to Extra Attack. Pick up Eldritch Knight as your Subclass for extra spells, Weapon Bond (maybe flavor the inability to be disarmed as your bones ripping through your skin and forming a shell around the hilt of the weapon). Grab whatever useful Abjurations you didn't already have through your Wizard levels. Now the build has Extra Attack to pair with Spirit Shroud and should be proccing Grim Harvest a LOT more often. Heck, it even has 4th level spell slots for when you wanna upcast Summon Undead (I used Ghost a lot, but in the future, I'd also use the Skeletal Undead option a decent amount). A note about Summon Undead! Don't forget that it benefits from the Undead Thralls feature! This spell goes from all right to pretty good in the hands of a Necromancer. Shame that this build doesn't have Undead Thralls yet.

At Character Level 11, I'd take Wizard 6, and look at that! It has Undead Thralls now. I'd grab Counterspell (mostly bc it's universally good) or Dispel Magic, and Life Transference. Life Transference saved the party's bacon so many times over the course of our campaign, I love this spell. It was always good for getting a party member back up, and up with enough hit points that they could take a hit or two before it became a problem again. And with Action Surge, this doesn't even have to be the build's whole turn.

And from this point, up until the end, the Lycter stays a Wizard. I took a couple more of Tasha's Summon spells, specifically I took Summon Aberration, Fey, Fiend, and Draconic Spirit. I also took Create Magen, enjoying the fact that because this build is a necromancer, the HP max reduction from the spell got ignored. And I put my Magen in my Demiplane to guard my Clone.

One last spell I took, that I got a helluva lot of uses out of was Steel Wind Strike. Towards the end of the campaign, we fought a lot of hoards, and one thing I got to do pretty often was:

Turn 1: Cast Spirit Shroud at 7th level (+3d8 damage, healing for 21 on a kill with Grim Harvest) and attack twice.

Turn 2: Cast Steel Wind Strike, nail a bunch of targets for 6d10 + 3d8 damage. If any of them died, heal. Action Surge to cast Steel Wind Strike again.

The build doesn't get Wish, but it will end up basically Immortal through the use of Clone. It was a helluva fun time, and of all the character builds I've played, I think this might be the only one I'd play again in a heartbeat, instead of trying out a new build ro combo. It was a fun puzzle to put together and ended up being an incredibly effective damage dealer and still had most of the Wizard's utility toolkit. It had the versatility to be up on the front lines with the Battle Smith, or on the backlines while concentrating on a Summon and standing next to our Draconic Sorcerer. I'll link to the sheet (https://ddb.ac/characters/18537678/9VpXXN) that I used in play.

[Gnome Alone]

Dang, nice. That's exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to see that made me post this in the first place. That build looks hella fun. And the Lyctors are definitely one of the most interesting aspects of those novels.

[DracoKnight]

Dang, nice. That's exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to see that made me post this in the first place. That build looks hella fun. And the Lyctors are definitely one of the most interesting aspects of those novels.

I’m glad I could provide! It was a lot of fun!

Also yes, hard agreed on the lycters. I’m neurodivergent and for the last couple months those books have been my hyperfixation, lol (I actually hadn’t read them before building my EK/Necromancer).

Oh! One thing I forgot to mention! The next time I play the Lycter, I’m going to use the Reborn lineage from Van Richten’s! Because a lot of its abilities slot well into that whole fantasy. The Memories from a Past Life or whatever the feature is called is just the Cavalier bubbling up and assisting with a particular check.