"Creating the undead through the use of necromancy spells such as animate dead is not a good act, and only evil casters use such spells frequently."
EXCUSE YOU?! So you're saying that me useing this USELESS LUMP OF FLESH,this FORMER soul sack,to SLAY THE ONE WHO KILLED IT, is evil!? Are you saying that me, makeing this USELESS SACK OF BONES to go ahead of us in this TRAP FILLED RUIN to PREVENT MY FRIENDS FROM GETTING HURT,is evil!?!!? ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT RAISEING A ARMY OF ZOMBIES AND SENDING THEM AGAINST THE ARMY ATTACKING A CITY IS EVIL!?!? WHATS MORE EVIL? USING THIS THING THAT'S ONLY USE IS MULCH TO GET DESTROYED RATHER THEN THE INNOCENTS OF THIS MIDDLE OF NOWHERE TOWN,OR JUST WATCHING THE MEN,WOMAN AND CHILDREN GET SLAUGHTERED,KNOWING THAT I COULD HAVE PREVENTED THIS BY TURNING THEIR GRAVEYARD INTO A ARMY TO DEFEND THEM.
NECROMANCY ITSELF IS NOT EVIL! IT IS JUST ONE SPECIFIC USE OF MAGIC! DO YOU BLAME THE CROSSBOW FOR SHOOTING YOU!? NO! YOU BLAME THE ONE HOLDING IT! SUCH IS THE SAME FOR THE NECROMANCER! SURE THERE ARE THOSE WHO WOULD SKULK INTO A CRYPT AND USE YOUR GRANMOTHERS BONES TO KILL YOU,BUT THE SPELL IS NOT TO BLAME! THE SCHOOL OF NECROMANCY IS NOT TO BLAME! NO! ITS THE CASTER WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THE WAY THE SPELL US USED!
THE ONLY ONES WHO CALL NECROMANCY EVIL ARE THE IGNORANT! AFTER READING THIS,I HOPE YOU ARE NOT AMONG THEM.
Woo,what was something. To clearafy,l know the quote was only talking about speific spells,not the whole school. thats why my main points were on the reasons why reanimateimg the dead is not evil,not the fact that revivify and reserection are necromancy spells. this rant has been brought to you by a true neutral user of logic and reason.
EDIT:wow this exploded!
l like the points brought up by:
Rob76 about how charm&domanate spells arn't seen as evil even though they mess with the minds of actual liveing people. I also recomend reading their post a primer for those thinking of taking up necromancy
GoodBovine with their point about the familys still thinking you are evil. That is a fair point. My rant was mostly about how it was "cosmically ruled" that necromancy was evil,but l can 100% agree that l would hate someone if they reanimated my dog or aunt to attack some bandits. However l still stand by my point that necromancy (should) not be inherently evil.
EricHVela about the stigma surrounding necromancy and haveing to prove to the nay sayers that you are not evil. (especially the party,who will 100% know)
Mog_Dracov makes a amazing point about the enchantment school.
For those asking about "heroic necromancers" or non evil necromancers,l would like to point you to the saga of Astoshan the grey,a true roll model for necromancers everywhere.
For those who want to know,the quote that starts this rant can be found here. Scroll up for a second and you will reach the school descriptions,. the quote is under necromancy.
All depends on the world you are playing in. Very generally spoken, D&D runs with something of the concept, that you rip the soul of the raised undead from their resting place in the multiverse and bind it to the dead shell in order to animate it. In the case of zombies and skeletons, the soul is not in control and the undead is like a puppet.
This is why most of the neutral and good powers/gods see most undead creatures as unnatural and problematic for the balance of the multiverse.
If your own world has another concept of this, things might be different.
In the end, it is all up to the context and environment we are talking about. Going just with the general consensus of basic D&D worlds, the undead aspect of Necromancy is evil.
There are a few reasons why necromancer is generally frowned upon:
In most settings, animating corpses requires channelling energy from the negative energy plane. This is the plane that's a realm of pure evil, the anathema to all life and existence. It'd be like running your car off dead kittens, tears of sadness and Kids Bop songs all at once.
Again in most settings souls exist. Not only that, they exist after death and can, under the right circumstances, reclaim their bodies at any time. This means that 'useless lump of meat and bone' is actually still someones body, they're just not occupying it right now. You don't really have the right to take it, animate it, and use it as your plaything. It's about consent really.
There are exceptions to the above, for example Eberron has 'good' zombies and necromancers in the form of the Blood of Vol, where people voluntarily become undead for good of their people. But ultimately, you're taking someones body that still belongs to them, and pumping it full of literally the worst, most evil energy in the multiverse, just for your own benefit. It's pretty unpleasant.
In general the "Automatic alignment" parts of D&D are pretty easy to just change if you as DM don't like it, there's no real balance implications to saying that in your world it doesn't work like that.
In the real world, we accept that bodily autonomy is a concept that extends past death. You can't take organs from a cadaver if they did not consent while alive. Tampering with a dead body is illegal and very taboo. Necromancy is clearly evil from this point of view, unless the creature gave you consent while alive. Even then, they can't withdraw their consent ex post, so it's still awful. And again, dignity is lost when some random wizard can parade around your corpse and command it at will.
But your argument up top is especially wrong, because it relies on "ends justifying means" logic. Yeah sure, you're saving a city, but you're also violating the rights of he dead.
There are a few reasons why necromancer is generally frowned upon:
In most settings, animating corpses requires channelling energy from the negative energy plane. This is the plane that's a realm of pure evil, the anathema to all life and existence. It'd be like running your car off dead kittens, tears of sadness and Kids Bop songs all at once.
Again in most settings souls exist. Not only that, they exist after death and can, under the right circumstances, reclaim their bodies at any time. This means that 'useless lump of meat and bone' is actually still someones body, they're just not occupying it right now. You don't really have the right to take it, animate it, and use it as your plaything. It's about consent really.
There are exceptions to the above, for example Eberron has 'good' zombies and necromancers in the form of the Blood of Vol, where people voluntarily become undead for good of their people. But ultimately, you're taking someones body that still belongs to them, and pumping it full of literally the worst, most evil energy in the multiverse, just for your own benefit. It's pretty unpleasant.
what you say about souls is true,but for the most part,the reanimated corpses are just that, flesh puppets. nothing states that the soul is rebound to the flesh. also, l highly doubt farmer #3 in the farm by the lake in the middle of nowhere has the means to gain access to any spell that could bring them back to life,and l doubt anything good could come from letting a bandit or cultist get revivified. And only a idiot would allow a reanimated corpse fall out of their control,so they would either re cast the spell,find a way to make it permanent,or destroy it. Necromancy,like any tool,when in the wrong hands can cause harm. the fact that a really useful side of the school is shunned just cause the un learned masses find it weird or whatever does not mean it itself is evil. its basically recycling. turn the dead solder into a undead solder to keep fighting for his home and family! let grandpa keep tilling those fields for 5 more decades! ect (ps l love the kids bop joke)
It's the principle of the thing; you don't have the right to take a farmers house just because they don't have the power to take it back. You don't take the farmers corpse just because they don't have the means to get resurrected back into it.
Also, souls are explicitly linked to their corpses; almost all resurrection spells require some part of the original corpse and the soul to be free and willing to return.
Necromancy is a tool that implicitly requires you to take that which is not yours and use it for your own gain. It's of questionable ethics at best; maybe if necromancers only used corpses that were willingly donated and didn't fuel their corpse puppets with literal pure evil fuel, they'd have a better rep.
You can't take organs from a cadaver if they did not consent while alive. Tampering with a dead body is illegal and very taboo.
A couple of points for consideration:
(quote taken from organdonation.nhs.uk) The law around organ donation in England has changed. All adults in England are now considered to have agreed to be an organ donor when they die unless they have recorded a decision not to donate or are in one of the excluded groups.
So in the UK you can take the organs from a cadaver unless the person expressly opted not to donate their organs whilst they were alive.
As for tampering with a dead body, isnt that what morticians have done throughout the ages? From the Egyptian folks mummifying their dead and extracting the organs to the modern day with autopsies and crime investigation?
As for removing diginty, you can say a similar thing about charm and dominate spells but those are not viewed as inherently evil.
Well you have a point there, but seeing as in that instance the body would be sent to the morgue for autopsy and investigation to find out a cause of death I believe this would be covered by the point I made afterwards about dead bodies being tampered with.
Also bear in mnd thought out fairly recent history, bodies where passed onto the medical schools for anotmical research and those bodies were not always donated, many would have been dug up or otherwise "procured" in less than consensual ways. So real world methods often use dubious means to get to a goal.
Obviously games wise RAW = undead evil. But personally I go with the body = potential weapon to be animated and used and no more evil than a sword. Zombies/Skeletons themselves are not evil, just the way they are used can be evil.
Of course same cannot be said for all undead, those that exist just to extinguished life are evil.
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* Need a character idea? Search for "Rob76's Unused" in the Story and Lore section.
There are a few reasons why necromancer is generally frowned upon:
In most settings, animating corpses requires channelling energy from the negative energy plane. This is the plane that's a realm of pure evil, the anathema to all life and existence. It'd be like running your car off dead kittens, tears of sadness and Kids Bop songs all at once.
Again in most settings souls exist. Not only that, they exist after death and can, under the right circumstances, reclaim their bodies at any time. This means that 'useless lump of meat and bone' is actually still someones body, they're just not occupying it right now. You don't really have the right to take it, animate it, and use it as your plaything. It's about consent really.
There are exceptions to the above, for example Eberron has 'good' zombies and necromancers in the form of the Blood of Vol, where people voluntarily become undead for good of their people. But ultimately, you're taking someones body that still belongs to them, and pumping it full of literally the worst, most evil energy in the multiverse, just for your own benefit. It's pretty unpleasant.
Or old Spooky Kids songs 😊 (Negative 3 would be perfect for animating a revenant)
Seriously. I totally agree with you that raising the undead is an evil act.
The stigma against raising the dead is widespread and strong. Be ready to face fear and ignorance thanks to those who abuse it.
It's not fair, but you must prove them wrong with action.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
A dead body is still someone's body. The dead person cannot give his or her (or its) consent to have their body used in this way. Thus the necromancer who animates a corpse is violating the dead person's bodily autonomy -- violating their right to consent or not consent to what was done to their body. How many of the dead raised in this way, if asked while still alive if they'd be OK with having their corpse raised and used to make an undead army, would have said yes? I'm betting, absent some strange death-cult culture, almost no one would say yes.
It's hard for me to see how using the body of another sentient being without his/her/its consent (which you literally cannot be given after death) is a good nor even neutral thing to do.
Well you have a point there, but seeing as in that instance the body would be sent to the morgue for autopsy and investigation to find out a cause of death I believe this would be covered by the point I made afterwards about dead bodies being tampered with.
Also bear in mnd thought out fairly recent history, bodies where passed onto the medical schools for anotmical research and those bodies were not always donated, many would have been dug up or otherwise "procured" in less than consensual ways. So real world methods often use dubious means to get to a goal.
Obviously games wise RAW = undead evil. But personally I go with the body = potential weapon to be animated and used and no more evil than a sword. Zombies/Skeletons themselves are not evil, just the way they are used can be evil.
Of course same cannot be said for all undead, those that exist just to extinguished life are evil.
Right, but in a morgue or medical university or hospital, the body is kept stored, sterile, with every effort made to prevent it from being any risk. Digging up corpses for research purposes was always questionable and I am not sure it was ever legal. It most certainly was generally considered evil and is presented as such in virtually all literary examples.
I can’t think of a single example in literature where a heroic character animates zombies to help them.
Out of interest/as an aside, does anyone know where the quote "Creating the undead through the use of necromancy spells such as animate dead is not a good act, and only evil casters use such spells frequently" actually comes from? I've seen it used on a few forums (not just d&db) and always assumed it was a PHB quote but my PHB (pg118) for the necromancy school says:
"The School of Necromancy explores the cosmic forces of life, death, and undeath. As you focus your studies in this tradition, you learn to manipulate the energy that animates allliving things. As you progress, you learn to sap the life force fram a creature as your magic destrays its bady, transforming that vital energy into magical power you can manipulate. Most people see necramancers as menacing, or even villainous, due to the dose association with death. Not all necramancers are evil, but the forces they manipulate are considered taboo by many societies."
The Animate Dead and Create Undead spells also do not mention this quote at all, so just curious where it came from.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
* Need a character idea? Search for "Rob76's Unused" in the Story and Lore section.
"Creating the undead through the use of necromancy spells such as animate dead is not a good act, and only evil casters use such spells frequently."
EXCUSE YOU?! So you're saying that me useing this USELESS LUMP OF FLESH,this FORMER soul sack,to SLAY THE ONE WHO KILLED IT, is evil!? Are you saying that me, makeing this USELESS SACK OF BONES to go ahead of us in this TRAP FILLED RUIN to PREVENT MY FRIENDS FROM GETTING HURT,is evil!?!!? ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT RAISEING A ARMY OF ZOMBIES AND SENDING THEM AGAINST THE ARMY ATTACKING A CITY IS EVIL!?!? WHATS MORE EVIL? USING THIS THING THAT'S ONLY USE IS MULCH TO GET DESTROYED RATHER THEN THE INNOCENTS OF THIS MIDDLE OF NOWHERE TOWN,OR JUST WATCHING THE MEN,WOMAN AND CHILDREN GET SLAUGHTERED,KNOWING THAT I COULD HAVE PREVENTED THIS BY TURNING THEIR GRAVEYARD INTO A ARMY TO DEFEND THEM.
NECROMANCY ITSELF IS NOT EVIL! IT IS JUST ONE SPECIFIC USE OF MAGIC! DO YOU BLAME THE CROSSBOW FOR SHOOTING YOU!? NO! YOU BLAME THE ONE HOLDING IT! SUCH IS THE SAME FOR THE NECROMANCER! SURE THERE ARE THOSE WHO WOULD SKULK INTO A CRYPT AND USE YOUR GRANMOTHERS BONES TO KILL YOU,BUT THE SPELL IS NOT TO BLAME! THE SCHOOL OF NECROMANCY IS NOT TO BLAME! NO! ITS THE CASTER WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THE WAY THE SPELL US USED!
THE ONLY ONES WHO CALL NECROMANCY EVIL ARE THE IGNORANT! AFTER READING THIS,I HOPE YOU ARE NOT AMONG THEM.
Woo,what was something. To clearafy,l know the quote was only talking about speific spells,not the whole school. thats why my main points were on the reasons why reanimateimg the dead is not evil,not the fact that revivify and reserection are necromancy spells. this rant has been brought to you by a true neutral user of logic and reason.
EDIT:wow this exploded!
l like the points brought up by:
Rob76 about how charm&domanate spells arn't seen as evil even though they mess with the minds of actual liveing people. I also recomend reading their post a primer for those thinking of taking up necromancy
GoodBovine with their point about the familys still thinking you are evil. That is a fair point. My rant was mostly about how it was "cosmically ruled" that necromancy was evil,but l can 100% agree that l would hate someone if they reanimated my dog or aunt to attack some bandits. However l still stand by my point that necromancy (should) not be inherently evil.
EricHVela about the stigma surrounding necromancy and haveing to prove to the nay sayers that you are not evil. (especially the party,who will 100% know)
Mog_Dracov makes a amazing point about the enchantment school.
For those asking about "heroic necromancers" or non evil necromancers,l would like to point you to the saga of Astoshan the grey,a true roll model for necromancers everywhere.
For those who want to know,the quote that starts this rant can be found here. Scroll up for a second and you will reach the school descriptions,. the quote is under necromancy.
Zombies and animated skeletons are considered automatically evil in D&D, not neutral like constructs are. That's why Animate Dead is considered evil.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
luckily dms can decide to ignore that (IMO stupid) decision! l hope to one day have a dm who agrees with me (and my TN mage)
All depends on the world you are playing in. Very generally spoken, D&D runs with something of the concept, that you rip the soul of the raised undead from their resting place in the multiverse and bind it to the dead shell in order to animate it. In the case of zombies and skeletons, the soul is not in control and the undead is like a puppet.
This is why most of the neutral and good powers/gods see most undead creatures as unnatural and problematic for the balance of the multiverse.
If your own world has another concept of this, things might be different.
In the end, it is all up to the context and environment we are talking about. Going just with the general consensus of basic D&D worlds, the undead aspect of Necromancy is evil.
There are a few reasons why necromancer is generally frowned upon:
There are exceptions to the above, for example Eberron has 'good' zombies and necromancers in the form of the Blood of Vol, where people voluntarily become undead for good of their people. But ultimately, you're taking someones body that still belongs to them, and pumping it full of literally the worst, most evil energy in the multiverse, just for your own benefit. It's pretty unpleasant.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
In general the "Automatic alignment" parts of D&D are pretty easy to just change if you as DM don't like it, there's no real balance implications to saying that in your world it doesn't work like that.
In the real world, we accept that bodily autonomy is a concept that extends past death. You can't take organs from a cadaver if they did not consent while alive. Tampering with a dead body is illegal and very taboo. Necromancy is clearly evil from this point of view, unless the creature gave you consent while alive. Even then, they can't withdraw their consent ex post, so it's still awful. And again, dignity is lost when some random wizard can parade around your corpse and command it at will.
But your argument up top is especially wrong, because it relies on "ends justifying means" logic. Yeah sure, you're saving a city, but you're also violating the rights of he dead.
what you say about souls is true,but for the most part,the reanimated corpses are just that, flesh puppets. nothing states that the soul is rebound to the flesh. also, l highly doubt farmer #3 in the farm by the lake in the middle of nowhere has the means to gain access to any spell that could bring them back to life,and l doubt anything good could come from letting a bandit or cultist get revivified. And only a idiot would allow a reanimated corpse fall out of their control,so they would either re cast the spell,find a way to make it permanent,or destroy it. Necromancy,like any tool,when in the wrong hands can cause harm. the fact that a really useful side of the school is shunned just cause the un learned masses find it weird or whatever does not mean it itself is evil. its basically recycling. turn the dead solder into a undead solder to keep fighting for his home and family! let grandpa keep tilling those fields for 5 more decades! ect (ps l love the kids bop joke)
Everyone at my table is saying that necromancy is evil. My transmuter gives them a dumb look as he's casting "life transference" to save their lives.
It's the principle of the thing; you don't have the right to take a farmers house just because they don't have the power to take it back. You don't take the farmers corpse just because they don't have the means to get resurrected back into it.
Also, souls are explicitly linked to their corpses; almost all resurrection spells require some part of the original corpse and the soul to be free and willing to return.
Necromancy is a tool that implicitly requires you to take that which is not yours and use it for your own gain. It's of questionable ethics at best; maybe if necromancers only used corpses that were willingly donated and didn't fuel their corpse puppets with literal pure evil fuel, they'd have a better rep.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
A couple of points for consideration:
(quote taken from organdonation.nhs.uk) The law around organ donation in England has changed. All adults in England are now considered to have agreed to be an organ donor when they die unless they have recorded a decision not to donate or are in one of the excluded groups.
So in the UK you can take the organs from a cadaver unless the person expressly opted not to donate their organs whilst they were alive.
As for tampering with a dead body, isnt that what morticians have done throughout the ages? From the Egyptian folks mummifying their dead and extracting the organs to the modern day with autopsies and crime investigation?
As for removing diginty, you can say a similar thing about charm and dominate spells but those are not viewed as inherently evil.
Well you have a point there, but seeing as in that instance the body would be sent to the morgue for autopsy and investigation to find out a cause of death I believe this would be covered by the point I made afterwards about dead bodies being tampered with.
Also bear in mnd thought out fairly recent history, bodies where passed onto the medical schools for anotmical research and those bodies were not always donated, many would have been dug up or otherwise "procured" in less than consensual ways. So real world methods often use dubious means to get to a goal.
Obviously games wise RAW = undead evil. But personally I go with the body = potential weapon to be animated and used and no more evil than a sword. Zombies/Skeletons themselves are not evil, just the way they are used can be evil.
Of course same cannot be said for all undead, those that exist just to extinguished life are evil.
I would say as a DM that you are only evil for raising the dead if you use them for evil purposes.
but come on. " I show up to the village with fifty of their former inhabitants, now rotting bodies under my control."
the villagers will totally see u as evil
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
Or old Spooky Kids songs 😊 (Negative 3 would be perfect for animating a revenant)
Seriously. I totally agree with you that raising the undead is an evil act.
As a PS to my previous post, this topic does come up every few months and I don't think there will every be agrreemeent on it.
For those interested, heres alink to my own lengthy post (sort of incharacter):
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/class-forums/wizard/45953-a-primer-for-those-thinking-of-taking-up
In a roleplay sense:
Stereotypes are wrong. Period. But...
The stigma against raising the dead is widespread and strong. Be ready to face fear and ignorance thanks to those who abuse it.
It's not fair, but you must prove them wrong with action.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
A dead body is still someone's body. The dead person cannot give his or her (or its) consent to have their body used in this way. Thus the necromancer who animates a corpse is violating the dead person's bodily autonomy -- violating their right to consent or not consent to what was done to their body. How many of the dead raised in this way, if asked while still alive if they'd be OK with having their corpse raised and used to make an undead army, would have said yes? I'm betting, absent some strange death-cult culture, almost no one would say yes.
It's hard for me to see how using the body of another sentient being without his/her/its consent (which you literally cannot be given after death) is a good nor even neutral thing to do.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I can’t think of a single example in literature where a heroic character animates zombies to help them.
Out of interest/as an aside, does anyone know where the quote "Creating the undead through the use of necromancy spells such as animate dead is not a good act, and only evil casters use such spells frequently" actually comes from? I've seen it used on a few forums (not just d&db) and always assumed it was a PHB quote but my PHB (pg118) for the necromancy school says:
"The School of Necromancy explores the cosmic forces of life, death, and undeath. As you focus your studies in this tradition, you learn to manipulate the energy that animates allliving things. As you progress, you learn to sap the life force fram a creature as your magic destrays its bady, transforming that vital energy into magical power you can manipulate. Most people see necramancers as menacing, or even villainous, due to the dose association with death. Not all necramancers are evil, but the forces they manipulate are considered taboo by many societies."
The Animate Dead and Create Undead spells also do not mention this quote at all, so just curious where it came from.
@Kotath True. In Tale of Two Cities Jerry Cruncher is a grave robber and he’s kind of heroic. He doesn’t reanimate the dead though.