Gods of necromancy.

[Duke Malagigi]

"Necro" is ancient Greek for death or corpse while "mantia" is ancient Greek for divination. All together it's called necromantia. The Anglicanized spelling of this word is necromancy. Therefore classical necromancy would have dealt strictly with speaking to dead or mystical attempts at forensic pathology. From that humble origin fictional necromancy could be extended to magical healing, undead creation/destruction, genetic manipulation, biorganic shields and causing harm to the living. My goal is to start a list of core and non-core deities whom, by my difinition serve as suitable patrons of the necromantic arts whether Good, Neutral or Evil. If anyone has any more submissions please post them in this thread.

Good
1. Pelor
2. Mordain
Neutral
1. Wee Jas
Evil
1. Vecna
2. Nerull

[JackMage666]

Your argument has been presented before, and there is a problem - You are trying to connect the real world to D&D. In D&D, necromancy is the art of raising dead, and over dealing with dead bodies. While the textbook definition may be that, it still has the problem of what it has come to mean in modern times.

Also, what does Necromancy mean in Sandskrit? Or Latin? Ect.? I'm sure we can find a language that talks about raising dead corpses back to life.

[Duke Malagigi]

In 1st and 2nd edition AD&D, necromancy covered everything from animating the dead to healing. In short it was the magic of control over organic substances and spiritual matters. Necromancers could be doctors, pathologists, masters of the undead and even speak with the dead. In 3rd edition necromancers are mostly distructive spellcasters with the abilit to animate the dead. This in effect turns necromancy into to an "evil" or "dark" school. Since such a limited school is unacceptable in D&D it would make more sense to split necromancy among the remaining seven schools than to retain it as it is. That said, I perfer to keep necromancy and expand it back its pre-3rd edition glory.

[mostlyharmful]

At the very least all the healing domain spells need to be put back in the Necromancy school. It deals with the soul and the energies of Living and Dying, not Conjuration. It ought to take a bit more refinement then just shoving positive energy into a body to make it knit back together, for calling back a deceased spirit ok but the actual nuts and bolts of the process is about restarting the biology.

[captain_decadence]

Necromancy does not come from the greek words though, or at least not the words you are trying to use. It comes from an old word for black magic that got corrupted, it was originally nigromancy. No, I am not lying.