How are necromancer's not broken in fantasy lore and why aren't there more of them? You'd think the ability for one guy with the ability to raise armies that challenge those of entire empires would be pretty enticing. Why doesn't every Joe-schmoe go out trying to be a necromancer?
It's hard to become one. Farming turnips is easier
>>46419530
Usually, plot reasons. Necromancy drives one mad, necromancy is powered by pure evil, necromancy has been outlawed by the powers that be for so long that you need to find hermits in buttfuck nowhere forests to even learn where to find the other hermits who will teach you where to find the actual necromancers. Shit like that.
It also takes effort to get that many dead bodies to practice on.
Even in the real world, the world would be a much better place if everyone donated their body either to science or organ donation, and yet there are STILL loads of idiots who refuse.
>>46419530
Pick and choose as you like for your fantasy setting:
>1) Necromancy isn't as easy as most BBEGs make it out to be
Sure, Lord Darkspawn of the Eternal Void can raise legions of slavering undead to serve him, but he's the most powerful necromancer within the last millennium, or perhaps even ever. Your average necromancer may only be able to create and maintain 1-2 dozen minions at a time, maybe even less if they have many different types of undead or particularly strong-willed minions like sentient vampires, ghosts, et cetera. John Q. Public can't just take a correspondence course in Necromancy and reanimate a graveyard.
>2) Necromancy is rare
Actually undoing the cycle of life requires very powerful magics. It takes time, resources, and special events to reainmate the dead. Creating a standard zombie, for instance, requires pouring a potion down their dessicated throat, said potion derived of grave moss, powdered agate, and the bile of a black steer that's brewed under a new moon in a copper cauldron. And that's just one minion. And the knowledge of how to brew said potion is a carefully-guarded secret, safekept by archmagi and not taught to hedge-mages in training.
>>46420072
>3) Many strong forces oppose necromancy
Sure, Baron Mordred Von Evilstein has been raising legions of undead for years, but that scale of necromantic action draws the attention of powerful forces. Gods of Light and Good oppose such evil actions. Non-evil Death gods who are more concerned with ferrying the dead where they're supposed to go hate necromancers for making their jobs harder. Then you have your nature cults that see necromancy as a perversion of the natural cycle. And that's before you draw the ire of mortal powers like governments and churches that definitely don't like it when you go exhuming people.
>4) Undead aren't very strong
Sure, undead minions have some advantages over mortals - oftentimes, they don't need to eat or breathe, don't feel pain, and don't refuse orders. But they're as smart as a sack of hammers, can't adapt new strategies, and are very fragile. Rotten flesh is nowhere as strong as actual living tissue, and the forces that animate skeletons are much weaker than even untrained peasants. They're best suited as shock troops, overwhelming enemies in waves, but that simply isn't enough to make an actual military force. There are no advance scouts, no generals, no guards, no cavalry, no medics. And for those would-be industrialists that want to run factories and farms with reanimated skeletons, your workers last a few months at best before they break down due to wear and / or decay.
>>46419530
if a necromancer is controlling entire armies, they probably have an ancient artifact of plot power.
the average necromancer makes a living speaking to granny on behalf of local farmers and raising pets from the dead.
>>46419530
Morality. Most people don't exactly like looking at dead bodies, especially when decay has already started. Moreso when it's grandma who is walking around with half of her ribs exposed and smelling like a troll's outhouse.
You need to practice magic in order to reliably use it and that requires the correct materials to be on hand whenever you want to practice. It's much easier to practice on a regular basis when you don't have to hide it from everyone 24/7. As for materials you're either picking up dead animals (without the intent of eating them) or digging up graves, neither of which people usually approve of. That's not even getting into how hard it is to find any kind of reliable necromantic notes or guidebooks and keep those hidden as well.
Additionally as a necromancer, because your work is at best morally grey, people are very reliably going to blame a lot of stuff on you regardless of your involvement or not. When that happens enough adventurers, paladins, and/or some kind of clergy will hear about it and try to "snuff out the growing threat".
>>46420068
>letting your loved one's bodies get cut open and ravaged by irreverent students, most of whom will dishonour and laugh at your family member
I hope a dudebro med wizard student puts his magic wand in your loved one's mouth friend
>>46419530
1) Burying people properly and doing the last rites prevents them from rising again.
2) Many undead favor democracy. Sure, it's nice and all to raise them and have heated arguments all night long, but it's nigh impossible to make them attack your neighbors just because "you said so".
3) Most necromancers fall into terrible depression when they find out that the ability to animate and command armies of spooky skeletons does not impress the ladies at all.
>>46419573 gets it.
>>46420345
yes, its so much better that your loved one become worm chow and you leave flowers on their graves
>>46420459
Yes it is.
>>46420345
If it's a dead body, it's not my loved one any more. They're dead. All that's left is meat.
>>46419530
The Stereotypical 'dark lord' type army commanding necromancers tend to be extremely few and far in between, because of many reasons:
1) It's actually difficult to amass that many walking corpses before you get crusading paladins down your spine unless you're careful, which precludes shambling armies most of the time.
2) Necromantic rituals might be expensive in various material and non-material reagents.
3) Seasoned do-gooders will realize how the true driving force behind your army.. is you. This further underlines that the truly dangerous army-raising necromancers tend to be extremely powerful and not overly plentiful.
>>46419530
Contrary to popular belief, being around zombies is not a comfortable experience. It's not slightly scary, it's fucking traumatizing.
That fact alone cuts down on the number of possible necromancers massively.
Then there's also people with empathy, who had loved ones die and wouldn't want anyone else have their lived ones rise as zombies under some chucklefuck's control.
Basically, to become a necromancer, you either need to be an edgy teen/psychopath with access to magical tomes (which would be rare) or have some rather extreme circumstances to not have you vomit just at the mere idea of doing any necromancing.
As everyone has mentioned, same reason they don't become a great general, renowned alchemist, merchant lord, legendary thief, or all those other awesome things that sound really easy to do if they don't require actual effort, opportunity, or talent.
>>46421041
How's it feel to have sociopathic tendencies anon?
Tell me, have you recycled your pet's body into some form of lunch yet?
>>46420373
I remember quite clearly the dead body of my older brother, and it was just dead, cold and surprisingly rigid; it was not my older brother anymore.
>>46421551
No, it was just the dead body of your older brother.
>>46421468
Never been a farmer, eh?
>>46421616
I'm mountain folk.
I always worked part-time as a gravekeeper.
Man, graveyards are hard to keep tidy when they are on the side of a fucking mountain.
>>46421551
was meant to >>46420345 sorry.
>>46421551
exactly. Just a dead body.
>>46421637
also*
Man, I need sleep.
>>46419530
Most wizards are already powerful and influential. If you become a necromancer, you throw away a lot of the possible comfort and prestige for pure power and ostracism.
Meanwhile, your friend the transmuter is rolling in cash, has hookers and coke in abundance, has most of the time telling him how awesome he is and has a much lower risk of assassinations. If he bothers to be apply himself, he can become crazy influential too. Sure, you may have an edge, but is it worth it until then?
>>46421719
>your friend the transmuter is rolling in cash,
Until he fights another wizard, at which point he's going splat because he's missing some vital spells.
Who the fuck would practice to become a Transmuter?
>>46421750
Like to do magic because magic, and going by fluff a specialist in magic items. Conjurer works equally well, I guess, or an abjurer if you want to be boring.
Still, transmuters have a ton of tricks.
>>46421719 >>46421750 >>46421824 Historically, conjuring rain has always been the most profitable form of magic.
Abjuring plagues is a distant second, but the beats out pretty much everything else by a wide margin.
Not that "rain-maker" wizards really did anything, mind you.
The invention of irrigation or magic actually working would probably radically effect how profitable rain-making was,
but I doubt a Transmuter would do much in the long run besides tank the economy.
Maybe necromancy inherently corrupts you.
Maybe every time you raise the dead, you sacrifice an amount of your own soul. That's why the most powerful necromancers are also the most thoroughly evil; they are corrupted beyond repair and nearly soulless.
This is also why you never hear of any good necromancers.
>>46419530
First, you need a world where a necromancer can actually raise that many dead.
Then you need a not-Joe, because Joe is too worried about getting a good harvest and caring for his grandma to learn how to read.
His grandma taught him what is PROPER, and necrofancy meddlings with the unntural aren't. Your necromancy can't fight an old woman which knows how to slap silly ideas out of silly people and carves up chickens with a toothless smile.
You also need a society where corpses aren't properly taken care of. If necromancy was that much of a thing, everyone has ways to prevent it. Who hasn't is gone by now, drowned in liver fluid. A certain lich of mine did introduce the Black Plague so that no one could take care of all the corpses. 500 years later, he still has a surplus
>>46419530
I don't see how predicting the future by talking to the dead is so OP.
>>46419530
Necromancy isn't the sexist school of magic. It doesn't look as cool as throwing Fireballs around. Nor does it get the praise that High Magic gets.
You have to start kind of broken in the head or soul to say "Hey, I want to jump into a pool of Death and begin sculpting!"
It's like super hardcore Goth for the fantasy world.That being said, it is my favorite school of Magic.
>>46424875
>Necromancy isn't the sexist school of magic.
You're right. It would be stupid after all to only reanimate the corpses of one gender. Necromancy doesn't discriminate.
So you've raised your first dozen corpses to do your bidding. Now what? Well, you want to keep doing it and building your army, right? That's all well and good, but unless you're really good at keeping anyone from finding out what you're doing, you're going to have the local law up your ass pretty quickly because it turns out they don't take kindly to someone raising an army of the damned in their back yard.
>>>46424809 muh static language
Please go.
>>>46425032 you're going to have the local law up your ass pretty quickly because it turns out they don't take kindly to someone raising an army in their back yard.
Fixed.
>>46421377 >>46424875
I like the idea of a necromancer being unnerved by undeath.
>>46425469
>I like the idea of a necromancer being unnerved by undeath.
How would they practice? Not sure you can be unnerved by Undeath and be a Necromancer. just like you can't be a surgeon and faint at the sight of blood.
>>46421041
Oh shit. Watch that edge bro.
>>46425522
That's not a fair comparison.
>Not sure you can be unnerved by Undeath and be a Necromancer.
This certainly isn't a mild reaction,
>just like you can't be a surgeon and faint at the sight of blood.
... but this is far more extreme.
>>46425674
Fair point.
But still, if you are unnerved by what you create you'd quickly stop creating wouldn't you? Or would the Necromancer in question passively animate death and the like?
>>46425771
I was thinking more of a "when all you have is a hammer" situation,
but that works too.
>>46421468
>lacking empathy towards a corpse
My god how horrifying anon, obviously they must have some form of mental dysfunction.
>>46425522
Disconnect themselves from the morbid parts as best they can. Never use zombies, hire a lackey to get the corpses and strip the bone clean, put on something like metal plates or wood with clothes over them to make them look less like actually skeletons, and if possible use animals instead of people.
>This focus on zombies
Man it's almost like you can't raise skeletons, on wait you can.
>>46420345
when I am dead if my corpse can be used to save someone's life or find some new medication, or help a student learn how to save lives, then I am content with being an organ donor etc.
>>46425522
They might tough it out to save a loved one, and then become a necromancer through and through because of the allure of power and the ability to say fuck you to natural law.
>>46419573
Not with what im selling them for, it'd be easier to wake the dead, have them draw my plough.
>>46425771
A passive necromancer who raises all dead things around him against his own will. He doesn't want it but it happens anyway. He is the most powerful necromancer of all time and hates the fuck out of it. Legions of undead monstrosities at his beck and call, created by just his presence and all he wants is a normal life.
Do "good" necromancers exist?
>>46428924
Nope, mostly in only the most convoluted homebrews are they ever loved like any other class.
>>46428924
Depends on the setting. There's nothing inherently evil about Necromantic magic in DnD.
>>46425522
could be the sort that work primarily with either incorporeal undead(ghosts, wraiths, shades) or with the more "alive" sorts of undead like Ghouls
>>46428924
most good necromancers either primarily work with spirits, or only use animal undead
>>46420345
As somebody who works with med students and who has heard what goes on in the initial human dissection classes for anatomy, I would hesitate to donate my body. Its just creepy.
The preservation fluid used for those classes also provokes a hunger response, so while the the new students are joking around your dead body to assuage their general unease of working around a dead body, they are also unusually hungry while cutting your corpse in half.
Just weird.
>>46428924
The idea is pretty interesting, like a necromancer that can only raise paladins and priests from the dead. It's a little oddball in settings where necromantic and holy forces are polar opposites, but there's potential to write some fluff.
Maybe you could treat it likeBeric Dondarrion in asoiaf
>>46428924
A necromancer might mean well and try to save a loved one or something see
>>46427922
>>46429292
> like a necromancer that can only raise paladins and priests from the dead
I like this
Using it in my next campaign
>>46419530
Necromancy is usually a fundamentally evil behavior. Believe it or not, but doing something dramatically, horrifically evil to get ahead is pretty unappealing to most people. Sure, people do bad things all the time... but they tend to be small, clean and distant. To be a Necromancer, you gotta roll up your sleeves and get grave robbing to get anywhere, and that's before we get into the possibility of human sacrifice/experimentation, talking to demons and ghouls and shit, necroticization of your own body etc. etc.
Now, Necromancers as a controversial military asset is a fun idea. If equally powerful "Good" magic is rare or difficult to access, then I could see Necromancers as the sort of "Nuclear option" for pseudo-feudal states. Every empire of great stature maintains a small cadre of Necromancers. The idea is that any sort of military conflict will not escalate to the point where Necromancers begin summoning the dead to fight because it will exponentially increase the length and destructiveness of the war, but at the same time it ensures that major shifts in power are unlikely because any sort of big invasion that threatens the capital will be met with a M.A.D. scenario of endless zombie armies attacking each other. The necromancers themselves are not a well-liked group, but they are kept in a comfortable if humble state of living, all of them usually extremely grateful to have the regent's protection from the mobs of witch hunters that would surely hunt them down if they were practicing independently.
>>46428924
Yes.
The most famous necromancer was the Greek god of medicine.
>>46428884
>necromancer
>wearing plate armor
>>46419530
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>>46428924
I'm actually playing a Necromancer in my game who almost completely eschews the use of corporeal undead, and focuses his magic around spirits. He learns from spirits, uses them to glimpse into the future, and uses his magic to functionally be a wandering exorcist, helping lost souls pass on and banishing malevolent undead and the like. My DM's been surprisingly cool about integrating my backstory into the larger world, I'm really impressed.
