So here's my question, guys. Someone somewhere once mentioned the idea of a good necromancer to me, aka a necromancer who would use their powers for good instead of evil. For example, they would raise the dead, but leave them their free will, thereby allowing families a final goodbye with their loved one who were taken from them before their time. This could also help police and military by allowing them to gather information from murder vctims or informants that were killed for having found out some useful information. Or maybe they would use the zombies they create as free labor to help cities grow or have them work where it would be to dangerous for mortals to work. Or.... You see, there's the problem. apart from those two examples i just used, i'm not really sure how necromancy could be used in a positive way.
Anyone of you has an idea how necromany could benefit society instead of harm it? Thanks for your time.
Necromancy spells which deal damage (Blight, Enervation, or Vampiric Touch) or apply debuffs (Blindness/Deafness) are likely neither good nor evil any more than a spells like Fireball or Hold Person are. And these spells could certainly be used for good without being rejected by society.
If you're asking whether someone who animates the dead could be good. You can certainly do good with animated undead, but society will still likely reject the means, and by extension the action. If you're okay with being an outcast or sort of "dark hero", then that is probably fine as well. I would talk with your party about it early as well.
RP-wise you could make it so your Wizard researches human longevity. With a touch of necromancy you may be able to make people immune to disease, live longer, regrow lost limbs, make people stronger and smarter. The undead don't need food or water. Imagine if live people were that self-sustainable!
Raising the dead to beat people to death isn't any less humane that melting them with acid or burning them with fire.
Dustmen from Planescape. They are a religious organization in Planescape. They pay mortals in life for the future use of their bodies once they die, then use the bodies for manual labor and menial tasks. This is how the streets stay clean and basic things get done by the undead.
Karrnath from Eberron. They are a state where every citizen joins the military upon their death. Officers are mostly Wizards and Clerics that control the undead as well as fights and other professional soldiers.
I like the idea of a Spectral Investigator... who uses Speak with Dead for the constables or families.
My necromancer has found his justification in his ultra-analytical, neutral approach. He believes undead are the answer to labor problems in his kingdom which has been wracked with a plague. If 50% of the population is dead, that is 50% more hands to help rebuild. He doesn't let morality interrupt his view that 50% more bodies is mathematically better than none, and those bodies were just rotting anyways. Most good aligned people think he's a terrible person, but it essentially goes over his head because he cannot reconcile how morality is more important than analytical facts.
It'd be really hard for me to sell him as a good necromancer, but in the end his necromancy will probably end up having a positive impact on those people around him.
I once made a gnome necromancer. His tribe burned the flesh from the bones of the recently dead and buried the ashes with full honours. They inscribed the bones with runes and treated them to toughen them. Then they bound them in rope and carried them around while travelling, raising them as bodyguards/sentries when needed, or keeping piles of bones in designated defensive spots e.g. watch towers around the town.
It was seen as a dignified way to go on serving the community after death.
My gnome was a traveller, and carried the bones of his dad and bigger brother.
I could see a Necromancer that guarantees his minions don't eventually become wandering undead to at least be not entirely evil, or at least not dumb. I've had an idea in my head of a librarian or guild clerk Necromancer who uses spells like Danse Mackabre to entertain guests in a puppet show or to help file paperwork. It's all about how you use your craft to perform tasks. Most Necromancers could stay low key by casting only 3 or 4 school spells, besides cantrips.
I view a necromancer as a student of life and lifeforce magic, not just a zombie puppetmaster. I would say that any necromancer disturbing the rest of the undead, is probably evil. But what would you call a mage who can heal? Resurrect? A mage that attacks the very lifeforce of a creature? I've rolled up a few divine soul sorcerers who specialize in necromantic magic. The only thing that's stopped me from playing one is that other concepts have caught my eye first.
I would never play a character that was a zombie puppetmaster. I /would/ play a character that uses necromantic school magic for good purposes.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
I think it's funny how people often look to the undead as some kind of surplus labor and think that's a "good thing". *this post is in "jest" but accurate*
Here's some real world examples:
Slavery. Imperialism. Mercantilism. Colonialism.
They all have ONE common theme, devalue labor, empower the capitalist.
Now suddenly the Necromancer is the capitalist, the undead are the slaves, and everyone else is reduced to poor trash.
Oh you thought that term in the 1800s came from a slander to whites? No, it was used by White Southerners to explain their predicament of living in a society where the only way to earn a living was to compete with slaves who earned NOTHING. Poor white trash went around starving, without political power, without wages worth even a 10th what they were in the "free North", and the only ability to overturn it was revolution, which was largely why the Confederacy seceded when it did, afraid the Republicans would stir up poor-white rebellion in their states then use the Federal Government to tell the Southern states they had to allow the poor whites to vote. Which would mean the death of slavery.
K...sorry for the long history lesson BUT! Enjoy some Unintended Consequences with your "good necromancy" hehe.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
I think it's funny how people often look to the undead as some kind of surplus labor and think that's a "good thing". *this post is in "jest" but accurate*
Here's some real world examples:
Slavery. Imperialism. Mercantilism. Colonialism.
They all have ONE common theme, devalue labor, empower the capitalist.
Now suddenly the Necromancer is the capitalist, the undead are the slaves, and everyone else is reduced to poor trash.
Oh you thought that term in the 1800s came from a slander to whites? No, it was used by White Southerners to explain their predicament of living in a society where the only way to earn a living was to compete with slaves who earned NOTHING. Poor white trash went around starving, without political power, without wages worth even a 10th what they were in the "free North", and the only ability to overturn it was revolution, which was largely why the Confederacy seceded when it did, afraid the Republicans would stir up poor-white rebellion in their states then use the Federal Government to tell the Southern states they had to allow the poor whites to vote. Which would mean the death of slavery.
K...sorry for the long history lesson BUT! Enjoy some Unintended Consequences with your "good necromancy" hehe.
I'm sorry, but this comment is beyond stupid. Your argument may seem smart on a very superficial level, but if you think for it longer than five seconds it doesn't really hold any water at all.
The main issue is that you aren't thinking hard enough about the whole setup. The whole "they terk er jerbs" thing only becomes a problem if there aren't any other job for the commoners to take, but with a whole new zombie economy springing up, they would loose out on jobs for manual labor, true, but there would also be a lot of new jobs created they can fill instead. For example, zombies aren't very smart, so there would be an entire new jobmarket for orginazing and supervising all those zombie projects a lot of people could take instead. And before you're trying to tell me they wouldn't be educated enough to handle it, having a entire force of untiring workers that can be deployed in even the most hostile and hazardous places where humans wouldn't even be able to work in the first place, since you don't have to worry about their health (rendering the whole point mute, since they wouldn't take away any existing jobs, but only create new ones this way), means the kigdom can tap into entirely new and previous unexplored areas, earning them a monopol there, which in turn would increase their countires wealth, meaning they could more easily provide free education, which again in turn would raise the overall education level in the country, which also would mean people wouldn't be as reliant on physical labor jobs to survive.
Sure, it would largely rely on how exactly the country would use the free labour provided by the zombies, but sorry, your "argument" is really just short sighted and poorly thought through.
If your looking for inspiration for "good" Necromancers I would look into the Lore of Diablo universe Necromancers.
They are all about maintaining the balance, that death is a completely natural part of the normal cycle of the mortal realm and they use controlled undead to fight greater unnatural evils.
They view undead much like a Wizard would view fire. Powerful when controlled but dangerous if left to run wild.
The fast way to make a necro social acceptable to a community is to make them the keeper of a graveyard or mausoleum. Yes, they get to study their art but are also tasked with protecting the bodies there in and also the reputations of the families involved. Mostly contending with undead (naturally) raising, other necros looking for bodies, and grave robbers after valuables.
The fast way to make a necro social acceptable to a community is to make them the keeper of a graveyard or mausoleum. Yes, they get to study their art but are also tasked with protecting the bodies there in and also the reputations of the families involved. Mostly contending with undead (naturally) raising, other necros looking for bodies, and grave robbers after valuables.
In other words, a "druid" of the dead and the graveyard/mausoleum is their forest/grove. Interesting take.
Yes, having a workforce that does not feel pain and does not tire can be beneficial to society. Certainly, after a plague, having some extra hands to do the work of, at the very least, burying the dead, would much better than leaving bodies around to fester and spread more disease.
However...if you have a large enough zombie/skeleton workforce, that also increases the power of the necromancer. This in turn makes society more reliant on one person or a group of people to maintain control over all of those undead. What happens if the necromancer becomes too sick to maintain control over all of those zombies? What happens if a few necromancers get drunk? Or start to disagree with each other or the townsfolk about something important. They could cause a miniature civil war. The saying that "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" exists for a reason. Without other people to hold them accountable, necromancers could easily become a force for self-serving corruption, not because they are trying to kill people with their undead servants, but because that society has become too dependent on their labor.
However...if you have a large enough zombie/skeleton workforce, that also increases the power of the necromancer. This in turn makes society more reliant on one person or a group of people to maintain control over all of those undead. What happens if the necromancer becomes too sick to maintain control over all of those zombies? What happens if a few necromancers get drunk? Or start to disagree with each other or the townsfolk about something important. They could cause a miniature civil war. The saying that "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" exists for a reason. Without other people to hold them accountable, necromancers could easily become a force for self-serving corruption, not because they are trying to kill people with their undead servants, but because that society has become too dependent on their labor.
Good point. When I came up with the concept, i really more thought about a proper necromancer society, where pretty much everyone is a necromancer with control of a handful (2-3) of servants for manual labor at best, a dozen tops for the really strenuous kinds of work. But yeah, the them having too much power angle can be dangerous, but then again, the same can be said for all kinds of mages (or really anyone with a lot of power). A necromancer starting an uproar with a handful of servants isn't that much worse than another wizard starting to throw exploding fireballs around everywhere, so like pretty much always it would come down to trusting those you choose to do the job and making sure that those in power are treating their job as serious and professional as possible.
Yeah, I think capping the # of undead minions to a dozen in a large town or small city would be fine as long as the animating the dead is recognized as legit by the populace.
I do think that certain spellcasters are kind of a special case. Necromancers and enchanters in particular because of undead army potential or Great Old One Warlock Bard multi-classes. Evocation and Illusion spells can be powerful, but they don't have as much long term potential to disrupt entire economies and established political systems by themselves. Imagine if necromancers existed in the real world. With the proper coordination and intel, they could change the course of elections without shedding blood. If you have a caster who can read minds and control them, you can pull a Grima Wormtongue. The people won't rebel so long as they think the monarch is legit.
I just came up with a background for a character who kinda fits the trope - which led me to this thread.
So there is some relatively well-organized and centralized state with established beaurocracy and regular army. Think Eastern Roman Empire/Tang China as contrasted to decentralized feudal domains of Medieval Europe. Within the medical corps of their military there is Human Assets Reaquistion Department staffed with wizards trained in necromancy and their assistants who return fallen soldiers so that they can augment living forces. Mage-officers there are generally around 5th-6th level so that they can use Animate Dead but if need arises they also work in conjunction with healers or intelligence. Importantly, necromancy is seen as a reliable (barring enemy's dispelling warfare) technique since, unlike clerics, necromancers are arcane casters whose academically tought magic has relatively well-understood laws which are impartial, unlike the whims of a divine will.
While civillians are not particularly content with having zombies shuffling around, soldiers grew to accept this practice in the often dare conditions of a military campaign. After all, if it wasnt this animated cadever risking its operational condition it would be their actual breathing lives on the line. Souls of their fallen comrades would not have much use of their bodies anymore anyway. In their eyes it is somewhat similar to how we treat organ transplants. Sure, it might have come from a dead person but it helps to save life. Historically, organ transplantation was actually seen as something sinful and blasphemous in some more conservative societies (at least in the case of blood donations, when it still was a bleeding edge of medical science, in the early XXth century). Still, zombies are depersonalized with special blank masks and their uniform is replaced with simple standardized attire with markings like "Warning! This semi-autonomous fighting asset is armed and might be under combat orders! Only to be operated by authorized personnel! This side up. Inv.No. XXXXXX"
I have a character concept for this. It's a warforged that views, moving under it's own power as "alive". So in it's mind zombies are just hungry stupid people, they can talk and walk and eat. All functions of an alive person. A warforged is alive and it is normal and accepted to use a fallen warforged parts then it makes sense that using fallen people is the same thing.
Interesting take on the theme. I wonder what this Warforged thinks of golems. From this PC or NPC's perspective, is there really any difference between a golem and a ghoul outside of power levels?
So here's my question, guys. Someone somewhere once mentioned the idea of a good necromancer to me, aka a necromancer who would use their powers for good instead of evil. For example, they would raise the dead, but leave them their free will, thereby allowing families a final goodbye with their loved one who were taken from them before their time. This could also help police and military by allowing them to gather information from murder vctims or informants that were killed for having found out some useful information. Or maybe they would use the zombies they create as free labor to help cities grow or have them work where it would be to dangerous for mortals to work. Or....
You see, there's the problem. apart from those two examples i just used, i'm not really sure how necromancy could be used in a positive way.
Anyone of you has an idea how necromany could benefit society instead of harm it? Thanks for your time.
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ModeratorGentle Repose, Life Transference, Raise Dead, Resurrection, Revivify, Speak With Dead, Spare the Dying, and True Resurrection are all necromancy spells that can be used for good. However most of these are not wizard spells. They are all cleric spells, though.
Necromancy spells which deal damage (Blight, Enervation, or Vampiric Touch) or apply debuffs (Blindness/Deafness) are likely neither good nor evil any more than a spells like Fireball or Hold Person are. And these spells could certainly be used for good without being rejected by society.
If you're asking whether someone who animates the dead could be good. You can certainly do good with animated undead, but society will still likely reject the means, and by extension the action. If you're okay with being an outcast or sort of "dark hero", then that is probably fine as well. I would talk with your party about it early as well.
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RP-wise you could make it so your Wizard researches human longevity. With a touch of necromancy you may be able to make people immune to disease, live longer, regrow lost limbs, make people stronger and smarter. The undead don't need food or water. Imagine if live people were that self-sustainable!
Raising the dead to beat people to death isn't any less humane that melting them with acid or burning them with fire.
I recommend searching to bits of D&D lore.
Dustmen from Planescape. They are a religious organization in Planescape. They pay mortals in life for the future use of their bodies once they die, then use the bodies for manual labor and menial tasks. This is how the streets stay clean and basic things get done by the undead.
Karrnath from Eberron. They are a state where every citizen joins the military upon their death. Officers are mostly Wizards and Clerics that control the undead as well as fights and other professional soldiers.
I like the idea of a Spectral Investigator... who uses Speak with Dead for the constables or families.
My necromancer has found his justification in his ultra-analytical, neutral approach. He believes undead are the answer to labor problems in his kingdom which has been wracked with a plague. If 50% of the population is dead, that is 50% more hands to help rebuild. He doesn't let morality interrupt his view that 50% more bodies is mathematically better than none, and those bodies were just rotting anyways. Most good aligned people think he's a terrible person, but it essentially goes over his head because he cannot reconcile how morality is more important than analytical facts.
It'd be really hard for me to sell him as a good necromancer, but in the end his necromancy will probably end up having a positive impact on those people around him.
I once made a gnome necromancer. His tribe burned the flesh from the bones of the recently dead and buried the ashes with full honours. They inscribed the bones with runes and treated them to toughen them. Then they bound them in rope and carried them around while travelling, raising them as bodyguards/sentries when needed, or keeping piles of bones in designated defensive spots e.g. watch towers around the town.
It was seen as a dignified way to go on serving the community after death.
My gnome was a traveller, and carried the bones of his dad and bigger brother.
I could see a Necromancer that guarantees his minions don't eventually become wandering undead to at least be not entirely evil, or at least not dumb. I've had an idea in my head of a librarian or guild clerk Necromancer who uses spells like Danse Mackabre to entertain guests in a puppet show or to help file paperwork. It's all about how you use your craft to perform tasks. Most Necromancers could stay low key by casting only 3 or 4 school spells, besides cantrips.
I view a necromancer as a student of life and lifeforce magic, not just a zombie puppetmaster. I would say that any necromancer disturbing the rest of the undead, is probably evil. But what would you call a mage who can heal? Resurrect? A mage that attacks the very lifeforce of a creature? I've rolled up a few divine soul sorcerers who specialize in necromantic magic. The only thing that's stopped me from playing one is that other concepts have caught my eye first.
I would never play a character that was a zombie puppetmaster. I /would/ play a character that uses necromantic school magic for good purposes.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I think it's funny how people often look to the undead as some kind of surplus labor and think that's a "good thing". *this post is in "jest" but accurate*
Here's some real world examples:
Slavery.
Imperialism.
Mercantilism.
Colonialism.
They all have ONE common theme, devalue labor, empower the capitalist.
Now suddenly the Necromancer is the capitalist, the undead are the slaves, and everyone else is reduced to poor trash.
Oh you thought that term in the 1800s came from a slander to whites? No, it was used by White Southerners to explain their predicament of living in a society where the only way to earn a living was to compete with slaves who earned NOTHING. Poor white trash went around starving, without political power, without wages worth even a 10th what they were in the "free North", and the only ability to overturn it was revolution, which was largely why the Confederacy seceded when it did, afraid the Republicans would stir up poor-white rebellion in their states then use the Federal Government to tell the Southern states they had to allow the poor whites to vote. Which would mean the death of slavery.
K...sorry for the long history lesson BUT! Enjoy some Unintended Consequences with your "good necromancy" hehe.
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
I'm sorry, but this comment is beyond stupid. Your argument may seem smart on a very superficial level, but if you think for it longer than five seconds it doesn't really hold any water at all.
The main issue is that you aren't thinking hard enough about the whole setup. The whole "they terk er jerbs" thing only becomes a problem if there aren't any other job for the commoners to take, but with a whole new zombie economy springing up, they would loose out on jobs for manual labor, true, but there would also be a lot of new jobs created they can fill instead. For example, zombies aren't very smart, so there would be an entire new jobmarket for orginazing and supervising all those zombie projects a lot of people could take instead. And before you're trying to tell me they wouldn't be educated enough to handle it, having a entire force of untiring workers that can be deployed in even the most hostile and hazardous places where humans wouldn't even be able to work in the first place, since you don't have to worry about their health (rendering the whole point mute, since they wouldn't take away any existing jobs, but only create new ones this way), means the kigdom can tap into entirely new and previous unexplored areas, earning them a monopol there, which in turn would increase their countires wealth, meaning they could more easily provide free education, which again in turn would raise the overall education level in the country, which also would mean people wouldn't be as reliant on physical labor jobs to survive.
Sure, it would largely rely on how exactly the country would use the free labour provided by the zombies, but sorry, your "argument" is really just short sighted and poorly thought through.
If your looking for inspiration for "good" Necromancers I would look into the Lore of Diablo universe Necromancers.
They are all about maintaining the balance, that death is a completely natural part of the normal cycle of the mortal realm and they use controlled undead to fight greater unnatural evils.
They view undead much like a Wizard would view fire. Powerful when controlled but dangerous if left to run wild.
The fast way to make a necro social acceptable to a community is to make them the keeper of a graveyard or mausoleum. Yes, they get to study their art but are also tasked with protecting the bodies there in and also the reputations of the families involved. Mostly contending with undead (naturally) raising, other necros looking for bodies, and grave robbers after valuables.
In other words, a "druid" of the dead and the graveyard/mausoleum is their forest/grove. Interesting take.
Both FrostFoxFive and IDNeon357 have a point.
Yes, having a workforce that does not feel pain and does not tire can be beneficial to society. Certainly, after a plague, having some extra hands to do the work of, at the very least, burying the dead, would much better than leaving bodies around to fester and spread more disease.
However...if you have a large enough zombie/skeleton workforce, that also increases the power of the necromancer. This in turn makes society more reliant on one person or a group of people to maintain control over all of those undead. What happens if the necromancer becomes too sick to maintain control over all of those zombies? What happens if a few necromancers get drunk? Or start to disagree with each other or the townsfolk about something important. They could cause a miniature civil war. The saying that "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" exists for a reason. Without other people to hold them accountable, necromancers could easily become a force for self-serving corruption, not because they are trying to kill people with their undead servants, but because that society has become too dependent on their labor.
Good point. When I came up with the concept, i really more thought about a proper necromancer society, where pretty much everyone is a necromancer with control of a handful (2-3) of servants for manual labor at best, a dozen tops for the really strenuous kinds of work.
But yeah, the them having too much power angle can be dangerous, but then again, the same can be said for all kinds of mages (or really anyone with a lot of power). A necromancer starting an uproar with a handful of servants isn't that much worse than another wizard starting to throw exploding fireballs around everywhere, so like pretty much always it would come down to trusting those you choose to do the job and making sure that those in power are treating their job as serious and professional as possible.
Yeah, I think capping the # of undead minions to a dozen in a large town or small city would be fine as long as the animating the dead is recognized as legit by the populace.
I do think that certain spellcasters are kind of a special case. Necromancers and enchanters in particular because of undead army potential or Great Old One Warlock Bard multi-classes. Evocation and Illusion spells can be powerful, but they don't have as much long term potential to disrupt entire economies and established political systems by themselves. Imagine if necromancers existed in the real world. With the proper coordination and intel, they could change the course of elections without shedding blood. If you have a caster who can read minds and control them, you can pull a Grima Wormtongue. The people won't rebel so long as they think the monarch is legit.
I just came up with a background for a character who kinda fits the trope - which led me to this thread.
So there is some relatively well-organized and centralized state with established beaurocracy and regular army. Think Eastern Roman Empire/Tang China as contrasted to decentralized feudal domains of Medieval Europe. Within the medical corps of their military there is Human Assets Reaquistion Department staffed with wizards trained in necromancy and their assistants who return fallen soldiers so that they can augment living forces. Mage-officers there are generally around 5th-6th level so that they can use Animate Dead but if need arises they also work in conjunction with healers or intelligence. Importantly, necromancy is seen as a reliable (barring enemy's dispelling warfare) technique since, unlike clerics, necromancers are arcane casters whose academically tought magic has relatively well-understood laws which are impartial, unlike the whims of a divine will.
While civillians are not particularly content with having zombies shuffling around, soldiers grew to accept this practice in the often dare conditions of a military campaign. After all, if it wasnt this animated cadever risking its operational condition it would be their actual breathing lives on the line. Souls of their fallen comrades would not have much use of their bodies anymore anyway. In their eyes it is somewhat similar to how we treat organ transplants. Sure, it might have come from a dead person but it helps to save life. Historically, organ transplantation was actually seen as something sinful and blasphemous in some more conservative societies (at least in the case of blood donations, when it still was a bleeding edge of medical science, in the early XXth century). Still, zombies are depersonalized with special blank masks and their uniform is replaced with simple standardized attire with markings like "Warning! This semi-autonomous fighting asset is armed and might be under combat orders! Only to be operated by authorized personnel! This side up. Inv.No. XXXXXX"
I have a character concept for this. It's a warforged that views, moving under it's own power as "alive". So in it's mind zombies are just hungry stupid people, they can talk and walk and eat. All functions of an alive person. A warforged is alive and it is normal and accepted to use a fallen warforged parts then it makes sense that using fallen people is the same thing.
Interesting take on the theme. I wonder what this Warforged thinks of golems. From this PC or NPC's perspective, is there really any difference between a golem and a ghoul outside of power levels?
I can see this being the backdrop for an excellent story. Just remember the Dance Macabre for those in the moment counter attacks.