A group of neutral necromancers enters the battlefield

> A group of neutral necromancers enters the battlefield

Necromancers can't be neutral because necromancy itself is an evil act

They could negotiate a deal after the battle to claim the corpses of the losing side for their own purposes, but that would further infuriate the losing side and probably not sit well with the victors. They could also be mercs who offer their services in exchange for using the dead of both sides to fight for whoever pays them. Or maybe they're just there to clean up after the battle.

Sure they can. They can be neutral to the conflict between whoever is fighting; a neutral third party to the engagement. There's more than one definition of neutral within context you nitwit.

In neutral i mean that they're unaligned with any of the sides on the battlefield

Only in shitty settings by shitty people, which obviously goes against the spirit of the thread you fucking autist

D-D-D-D-D-DEPENDS ON THE SETTTTTIIINNNNGGG!!!!

this always triggers people

So every published fantasy setting out there is shitty, the only exception being "subversive" what-ifs posted by autists on Veeky Forums. Gotcha.

>every
You really are an autist
Or a sith, both only deal in absolutes

>Every time you raise an undead, they have to sign a contract that both parties mutually agree to this semi-resurrection
>In exchange for the undead's service, the organization of Necromancers guarantees safety of the undead's still living loved ones, and a steady income.
>The amount of people under protection and the amount of income depends on how long they agree to the service, and how useful of an undead soldier that particular person will be.

I like this idea.

What's the name of the book yahtzee put out?
Mogworld or some shit, it's pretty good, I have it back home
Oh and the necromancers there are cool dudes and published

Also, lots,of necromantic good guys in warcraft
And I'd be willing to bet that Terry pratchett fucked around with that at least once
Anything else, retard?

Both sides freak the fuck out, and the battle either becomes a chaotic mess, or stops alltogether, as the soldiers of both sides are now staring at a force composed of dead relatives now charging at them.

in 5e necromancers get true ressurection, how the fuck is that an evil act? it's not even like it's a prolonged life, when you die of old age you die for good.

Hello Dustmen with a way better contract deal.

_The necromancers of Diablo would like the a word and with you.

If they're there for SCIENCE, then they probably have some horrible weaponized corpse-beast they're using and both sides are going to take some serious losses.
If they're there for materials, nothing much changes.
If they're there as some weird post-mortem version of the Red Cross, then things get interesting as both sides lose men a lot slower.
Actually, come to think of it, this is a pretty solid way to subtly get an undead army. Just find a battle in progress, raise the current corpses and then just keep raising any dead until everyone's a zombie. Then leave with your army in tow. You even get TWO armies.

Hello, I'm a contrarian and necromancy is good, if you disagree with me you don't have an imagination

>necromancy involves magical energies that are objectively evil on a metaphysical level
>and/or the undead raised by necromancy are irredeemably evil, possessing a lust for flesh and hatred for all life
>the gods consider necromancy as an attack on the cycle of life and condemn it as an evil and blasphemous act
This isn't true in MUH SETTING, which doesn't deal in absolutes! Fuck moral objectivism! I'm going to play an epic and lol as hell necromancer grandpa

>necromancy is evil because it raises people from the dead as mockery of life against their will, enslaved to the whims of the magician. As metaphysical rape and slavery of the highest order, it is an evil act
In MUH SETTING, the undead are brainless and retain no memories, they're mindless husks bound together by magic and little else

>most societies treat the dead with immense respect, and acts such as grave robbery/defilement or necrophilia are considered to be grave moral crimes almost universally. Do I even have to say anything about raising a corpse to a mockery of life? So even with all the above being untrue, it is more than likely that only an Evil person would dare to flagrantly break social and moral norms by using necromancy to gain power
Well, in MUH SETTING, there is no objective morality, the necromancers sign contracts with dead people proving their consent to be ressurected, and everyone is fine with defiling corpses and fucks dead people on the reg!

>necromancers not being predominantly evil comes down to poorly thought-out writing (failing to consider the moral implications of necromancy beyond "hurr it's not DnD so morality doesn't exist") or settings convoluted specifically to justify necromancy as a good act, and you could do that with everything ("slavery is good in muh setting cuz there is a race that enjoys being slaves :^)")

The Knights of la regina Luminosa charge them down with the force of meteors raining down with fiery vengeance.

hai

Its a shame necromancers are shit in 5e. They get the fewest spells and and mediocre effects. Animate dead is broken as is (cast every day/undead creature under your control using spell slots to do so)

Probably something like this.

>They have no strong feelings one way or the other about the current conflict and move along.

Order of Death's Vigil is welcome here
what a fitting captcha

>The war against necromancy unites both nations in a centuries-long peace

"Hey... whoever wins, can we like, have some of the other guy's corpses? Yes? No? ... Oh fine, alright. No need to be so rude. Wait, what about horses? Can we have the horse corpses?"

>letting a corpse rot in the ground and go to waste instead of using it to protect the innocent and make people's lives easier

Waste not want not, user

>Forcible reanimating someone against their will to do things they might not want to do

Cmon man, the dead were people once. Even if you try to give them a choice you would have to contact them in some way, ending the eternal peace(or suffering) those who die should receive.

Why? is it against the bible?

>Neutral
>On the battlefield
Someone evac the corpse clearing and resource reclamation team out of the combat zone. We aren't finished with the violence here.

Depends on what comes back. Is the corpse reanimated as a soulless puppet, or do they bring back soul and memory and personality?

Are you bringing back a person or just animating a corpse? Does the soul sit in their eternal peace or are they ripped back to mortality?

Hey now, rot is good for the soil.

The person is gone. They aren't using that body anymore. The body is but a vessel for the soul, and subject to the soul's tyranny. In absence of an inhabiting soul, it's just protein, calcium and enzymes.

Dragging spirits back from the afterlife on the other hand...
Is only okay if they were wicked, as you are saving them from their torment and perhaps giving them a shot at redemption.

>Forcible reanimating someone against their will
In plenty of settings (such as any designed for D&D, unless they say otherwise) the actual animus moving around undead aren't peoples' souls.

Granted, the D&D default also has the 'negative energy' occupying the bodies as actively malevolent and violent towards the living if they should be left to their own devices.

But this wouldn't make it evil--just reckless, especially given that they would have heard about how out of control undead are an inevitability.
It's the fantasy equivalent of a scientist inventing robots that later go rogue. It's not like the scientist is certain to be evil, but hubris gets people killed all the same.

Neutral necromancers, you say?

...and then runs off with a bunch of corpses when nobody is looking?

...and is promptly either captured and jailed or cut down by wary scouts, you mean.

(You)

No, but the bible is against the bible

Actually, christianity clearly forbids necromancy on several occasions. It's never downright called "necromancy" but things like "divination" or "spiritism", which is what "necromancy" was originally a blanket term for - communing with the dead