If you do necromancers as anything other than autistic betas who learned necromancy so they could live their revenge fantasies, you're not doing them right.
Prove me wrong.
>>48099575
Ran a necromancer once who was just a creepy fucker. Not creepy like horror; creepy like the mouth-breather who wants to show you his Pokeymans. The entire party assumed he was evil, bur he was just neutral with low CHA.
Autistic? Maybe. Beta? Definitely. But he learned necromancybecause his little sister fell to her death while climbing a tree on a dare, and the town cleric couldn't raise her.So that's why he was followed around be a Small skeleton familiar.
>>48099575
Factually incorrect. The best necromancers fancy themselves artists, sculpting horrors of the flesh in strange new ways and declaring them beautiful masterpieces. If they happen to be the vain sort of artist that can't take critique and then sics their "art" on anyone that disagrees, well, that makes for a nice bonus.
>>48099789
This is the worst, edgiest fucking thing you can possibly do with a necromancer.
>>48099842
I'll give you edgy, that latter part does nothing to counter that at all. But why worst? What's preferable? Yet another horde of skeletons and zombies?
>>48099575
Just run him like Dr. Orpheus from Venture Bros. He's a good template for any Wizard but as a necromancer you can role play a slightly flamboyant but insane with your corpse tendencies.
>>48099842
Edgy? It just sounds demented, or like the mindset of a mad scientist.
Other potential "this would actually happen with real people if necromancy was a thing" ideas include
>Fuck I'm terrified of death, I need to figure out how to dodge it
>My family is dead and I'm upset about it, I'm going to fix it.
>I want to accumulate power because of some goal
>My religion centers around death and I am the clergy
>>48099789
Holy fuck this is real real bad
>>48099789
That'd be a fleshcrafter, not a necromancer.
>>48099891
>>48099938
"I'M INSANE WOOO" is terminally uninteresting character motivation.
>>48099967
That's only a subjective opinion though.
>>48099967
Well I think a necromancer without some good ol' body horror in their work is terminally uninteresting. No real soul there.
>>48099575
I played a necromancer and eventual Lich who planted a tree when he was young, and wanted to see how high it could grow.
>>48099891
Someone who communes with, binds, summons, generally deals with the dead and undead. What you're describing is just a crazed flesh sculptor. Imagine the wealth of knowledge about the world and afterlife you could accumulate, secrets of long dead families used to blackmail descendants, find lost hoards of treasure, stuff like that. Using ghosts to spy on people, possess people, animate bodies. And knowledge about the afterlife, there's stuff there, too.
Necromancers aren't just wizards animating the undead, a necromancer communes with the dead. You can tack hordes of zombies on there if you want, but I'd imagine a necromancer being someone who isn't an insane tyrant, but a creepy fucker who hoards forgotten knowledge known only to the dead and uses that for power. I think resurrection and reanimation should be a big deal for necromancers, not something done on a whim.
>>48100022
He did whatever insanely evil thing the ritual to become a lich requires just for that?
>>48099967
Just because he creates art from the dead doesn't mean he can't hold a decent conversation, anon. It sounds to me like your being awfully prejudice against flesh sculptors.
>>48100045
Old school necromancer. Someone who talks to the dead, instead of enslaving them. Good man.
>>48100000
Literally everything is subjective but objectively "having a motivation other than mental illness" is going to be more interesting on average to people capable of thought.
>>48100015
The motivation to get there has nothing to do with that.
My necromancer is a merchant who just happens to come from a country where skeletons do the bulk of the manual labor. The country is a desert and is run by Ratfolk, so it just kinda made sense to them to use the dead as a source of labor, no real evil or malice, just a bunch of caravans who need to sell their wears, which just happen to be carried by tireless skeletal camels.
>>48099575
Necromancers are not real and have no factual basis in reality, and therefore as elements of pure fiction with no factual basis in reality all portrayals of them are equally valid and accurate except to the saddest and most autistic sort of person.
I've proved you wrong.
>>48100045
Joseph Curwen from HP Lovecraft's "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" comes to mind.
>>48100205
Congrats, have a skeleton for your troubles
>>48099575
I once had necromancers that were part of a monastic order. They were quite close to the people so when invaders ravage their lands and start killing the people they loved they resort to dust the old forbidden books they had in their care and raised the dead to save the living.
They still felt like shit though, they saw it as little better than conscripting child.
I also had them make some sort good black knights, soldiers that volunteers to defend their lands even in death, basically fantasy dreadnoughts or dragon age golems.
All in all they weren't necessarily wrong, but they felt really bad.
THIS IS A BONES THREAD NOW
POST SKELINGTONS
>>48099575
Meh, best necromancers are played like textbook "dark mages"
Power.
Anything for more.
Eventually ambition surpasses the mortal form, needs to be born anew.
Do the clerics not speak of the power of reincarnation?
>>48100022
Yes.
He also built a fortress and maze around the three.
A handfull of murderhobos have come and gone looking for a macguffin that just isn't there.
The tree hasn't risen any suspicion because at 700 years old it's not astonishingly tall yet.
>>48100541
Meh, meant for >>48100046
Petite morbid egyptian wrench wenches?
>>48100206
Basically that, yeah. He's a pretty god necromancer, that's good shit.
We bring life to lifeless bone
But do they smile? Do they condone?
They sit upon their golden thrones
They shun us, spurn us, make unknown
Fools! Sit high in golden tower
From your lofty perch you glower
Time will come when you will cower
We rule death, we wield the power.
I like to see necromancy as simply a greatly powerful magic. Wielding death and undeath, necromancer is a very potent mage, and this power corrupts. Not because angry ghosts take his kindness and steal his smile, but because of general rule "power corrupts". The more spooky and powerful necro gets, the more temptation there is to become Caligula
>>48105266
Saved from coffin, casket, urn
Darkness falls, but life returns!
Flesh may fall and bone may burn
But soul remains, for which we yearn
Those we return to life's esteem
We see their hearts, their eyes do gleam
They rave! They kill! They gnash! They scream!
So full of joy! Their greatest dream!
Returning those that we amend
They hurry home, a distant friend
But do they cheer? Do they commend?
They yell! Does rotting flesh offend?
>>48099575
You're an idiot. The most compelling necromancers are the ones with motives more noble than our own.
>[random assertion]
>prove me wrong
Is this "how to spot a lazy troll 101" or something?
>>48100572
She's not petite, that's dwarfism.
