Is Necromancy inherently evil?

What if the setting has no spirits or souls and necromancers just make use of the convenient body that's ready to accept their magic, a lot more easily than, say, a body made from rock or metal.

I fucking loved those books growing up. Just looked it up, and I guess he's made two more in-universe since I last looked. Maybe I'll pick them up.

Isn't there an rpg for this setting? It was a great setting, tbqh. Like mtg's Innistrad, but more old-European and just better.

It's possible to create a specific setting where Necromancy is not considered diabolical, but in most established official settings it's considered an abhorrent Evil.

Man am I glad that I don't play settings where Evil is an actual, measurable, thing.

the 5E PHB does state that good necromancers exist, so this shouldnt be a problem for most people

Nah man, you just need to make sure they sign their consent form leaving their body to wizardry. This is incredibly easy in rural areas where nobody can read and write. Just make their X on the appropriate line next to the doodle of what appears to be a stick figure wizard doing something sexual to a skull.

Man, even if you raise all the dead in the country side and sell them as cheap labor to villagers they still get up when they find out its their great grand parents Eternally caring for their shit land.

Yes. No exceptions.

>In most settings, systems, and fictions?
Yes.
>Would the act of raising the dead be evil?
Depends on how it is done, and what your definition of evil is, I.E. Resurrecting a recently dead father for a few minutes so he can say goodbye to his son V.S. Trapping a man's soul to his long dead husk and forcing him to be your eternal slave, as he suffers permanent agony, loss of free will, and the horror of what ever you force him to do.
And: Resurrecting a dead body, as just an empty husk V.S. forcing the soul back into it and making it your slave as well.
>Is Necromancy itself evil though?
Probably not, and if anything, it might just be that evil people pursue it more than good, not to mention the cultural ties that make it so good people avoid it, and evil people desire it.
In a more open minded culture and setting, necromancy could easily be a force for good.

people fear what they dont understand

just dont trap souls in bodies to make slaves
just raise mindless skeletons like most people

Just tell the villagers the corpses are from adventurers, at which point they'll be in favor of those uppity bastards getting what they deserve not realizing that a. you are lying and b. even if you weren't either way the undead are stealing their jobs.

Other than narrative aesthetics I never understood why necromancy is so associated with evil in the first place. I mean, yes it is fun because death is spooky but... the dead don't feel pain.

At worst merely playing the the dead is likely to be disrespectful and gross. But you're not really hurting anyone when you do necromancy.

In contrast bog standard elemental magic seems much more naturally evil. What good is a fireball except to kill? 99.9% of the things you're going to lob that fireball at really don't want to die. And death by fire, what a horrible way to go. And yet this murder magic is for the good guys.

My brother of African descent.

IRL, necromancy is actually one of the most primordial magics (not literal magic, but one of the ones people though was), and was mostly used for divination, although occasionally still living people would be used, it was considered sad but necessary, only being condemned at a fundamental level by future generations

Well, there may be benefits to it, depending on the setting.
Maybe it adds processing power to the zombie's intelligence, for lack of a better term, since a soul can think.
Maybe it's an extra source of magical power, making maintaining spells and casting bigger ones easier.
Hell, maybe the soul would prefer it be present when you use it's body for whatever the fuck, and maybe it wants to be brought back.

I could see good necromancers existing. Necromancy is the power to control LIFE and death. They could just as easily use their powers for good. And as far as controlling the undead, what makes them any worse than people who specialize in mind control/altering magic? Just because they are still alive after getting brain fucked? A necromancer could just as easily vow to maybe only raise the dead when necessary and give them a proper reburial after they have served their purpose.

Posted this over on the 5e thread.

Don't forget the afterlife implications.
Nearly every religion on earth has rules regarding the proper care of a corpse. From the ancient Egyptians "Take it with you when you go, lose it if it's stolen" to the nearly modern Catholic ban on cremation because it sends the person to purgatory, doing the wrong thing to a corpse is seen as actually fucking with their afterlife, and possibly even damaging their eternal soul.
Digging up corpses for any reason is usually enough to count as desecration, nevermind actually making them animate.

It's because of the connotations that come with messing with the dead.
And you've got to keep in mind, the average individual is just some Podunk peasant farmer who's only understanding of the world is in black and white morality, and the unnatural I.E. defying death falls under evil, only because it's defying a major force in the world.
Necromancy isn't about allying WITH death, it's about defying it.

You could really easily come up with a religion that justifies necromancy, for example, through ancestor worship (grandpa died, but he's still helping us through tough times). There are plenty of religions even in this world where necromancy doesn't exist that do weird shit with corpses, like keeping the corpse of your ancestor in the house, or keeping it on poles in the village, or bringing it out for special celebrations, or sky burials.

In the end, TTRPGs reflect our own morality, so Necromancy is usually evil to us because messing with corpses is taboo. If you came from one of those other cultures, it's entirely possible that your villains would be those weird guys that like trapping the dead in the earthy by burying them.

I once played in a game where we came across an orc village. One of the traditions of the Village was to raise to dead of their greatest warriors and hunters so that they may protect their kin until the final days. When the gods had their wars over mortal lands and so their army of the undead could carry them into the palace of the gods where their souls can chill in peace instead of going to generic hell.

>necromancy is evil by definition
>raise dead is used frequently to great effect and nobody bats an eye

This always bugged the hell out of me. Plus, all healing spells are necromancy sphere anyway.

DEPENDS ON FUCKING SETTING/SYSTEM
But since the whole "inherently evil" shtick is in the shadow of D&D, then in the context of D&D, the answer is no. "Necromancy" is not inherently evil. The act of raising the undead is inherently evil, but Necromancy is a school of magic that has far more applications than just that.
Raising undead for good purposes is Neutral. People seem to forget Neutral exists as an alignment when the good and evil cancel out.

were

these days healing is evo for some dumb reason

Evocation is magic that has a sudden revolutionary effect on its target zone, why shouldn't sealing of wounds qualify?

Any setting worth its salt has strong laws and taboos against mind control/altering magic. Any that don't just tell me that the author just didn't give a shit.

>setting has no spirits or souls
>has necromancers

I guess it would come down to how it worked in setting. Are you asking the departed to come back or are you forcing them to come back? Or are you just stuffing a corpse with "I can't believe it's not a soul" negative energy?

Pope actually released a thing this year saying that Catholics should not scatter ashes; the practice is at best nihilist (denying the doctrine of final resurrection) and at worst pantheist (tacitly saying that you become part of the universe)

kek as if anyone cares about the pope

Mama always said, "Necromancy is as Necromancy does."

Many people get riled up when you mess around with the remains of their loved ones. This should be news to no one who is aware of the world outside their basement. Dealing with consent, both from the departed(if applicable) and their loved ones is critical if you want to have necromancy be seen as good or at least neutral. Finding a way to have the living stomach the idea of the dead shuffling around and seeing it as something normal/sacred is another important step. Making it a cultural/religious thing like another user said is a pretty good idea.

hEY BUDDY, HERE'S A THOUGHT:

tHAT RESPONSE WORKS FOR LIKE 80% OF THE THREAD ON Veeky Forums
but! wE STILL HAVE INTERESTING DISCUSSIONS
THE GOAl here isn't to say "here's how it is", it's to say "here's how I think it should be" or "here's an interesting way to do it".
Anfd then we branch off from there. Mostly with nitpicking, but we've gotten somewhere by the end of it.

Is demonology and warlock magic inherently evil?

I like to think they along with clerical magic are the same thing. Politics(if the gods are distant) decides what gets classified as divine magic and what gets the inquisition called on you.

Cant be , they do it in the bibel to defeat the philistians once.

This image just changed my life

no but evil people gravitate to them more due to the power they promise. I'm playing in a game where I would describe my character as neutral good hobbit who raises the dead as servants and companions, His only motivations are to make fancy hats to sell for his expeditions to collect tomes of lost history and power, and to protect undead from themselves and the world from them. There is also a minor project where he is trying to animate an amalgam of skeletons in the semblance of armor.

I can imagine a holy necromancer, who animates the bodies of the devout as a consensual way for the noble and holy to continue serving after death. Imagine such a necromancer caring deeply for his charges, cleaning and nurturing and repairing and healing them, arming and armoring them as powerful guards, a la the return of the Mountain in GoT

No, but it's inherently disgusting and offensive.

because people here automatically equate necromancy with evil

it doesnt matter what the players want, only that unbreakable rule

People here automatically equate necromancy with "why can't there be good necromancers Veeky Forums" threads which are inherently stupid.

I can't speak for Goldenhand but Clariel was pretty meh/10

so we cant have necromancers at all, without having buttmad people?

Yes and I'll tell you why

I'm the GM and I'm already keeping track of a million monsters, I don't need to keep track of your fucking skeletons on top of that

Also inherently evil: leadership feats, summoning spells, animal companions, familiars, pack animals

are sorcerer/warlocks evil?

Pretty much.

Or people saying "subverting trope, muh good necromancy, skeletons aren't bad, its okay to have zombies as labor saving devices!"

its a shame, because i usually decide the character i want to play separately from his mechanical character, so i end up with "good necromancers" and other related concepts often

Necromancy is like sex. If someone gives you consent then it's fine, if they don't, it's bad.

The vast majority of necromancers don't have the consent of the people whose corpses they're using, so they're evil.

In fact, can anyone give an example of willing participants in necromancy? The only one i can think of are the guardians of the ancestral tombs in Morrowind, which I think are either old members of the family that were either notable warriors/mages in life, or were miscreants and criminals who are punished by being forced to guard their family's tomb. I might be misremembering and none of this is true.

just use mindless, non-sapient, skellymans

sure its not quite the same, and people cringe if they see them in public, but its legal in most countries

The game I'm in has necromancy as a valid school of magical study, and even has a department at most magical institutes. However there is a strong negative stigma to the profession within the non magic population.

So we could have a necromancer in the party, it's just that he would have to leave his undead outside most towns and cities.

Sure.

Voodoo.

Holy shit.

Welcome to the life, my friend. Where everything and everybody is assblasted by anything they dislike, such as necromancers or Slavs.

Necromancy is generally seen as evil.

As you enslave souls to fuel corpses animation, you snap them from whatever paradise (or hell i guess) they are in, stop it from resting.

It also generally is done by perverting healing magic, if you think about it healing/good magic generally can resurrect as well but it returns the dead into a healed body, with a sane mind and free will.

Necromancy doesn't do that.

People will go "depends on the setting". no. it doesn't. The setting might excuse it or have a society/culture that considers it neutral, but is always evil.

Cultural relativism is intellectual cancer of modern times by people too spineless to objectively call something for what it is, afraid to commit to a stance and always in ego-defense.
Its easier to justify something you did as "maybe not evil, im a good person! that to face it.

Take rape, and torture, those are evil, regardless of setting.

Yeah, you can justify it "we did it to get intel to stop more killings", but it doesn't stop being evil, to violate someones body and mind, causing untold pain, regardless of how "deserving" that person is.

The thing is, maturity is not in trying to call something evil as "maybe its not at times you know", but to recognize it as fucked up, and understand that sometimes good people need to do fucked up shit. And some evil actions does not make you an evil bastard, simply human with the depths of complexity of human life.

Necromancy however, takes time to learn, you could have learned something else, but no, chose to learn something that gives you dominion over the dead, who stops them from resting, who uses them as tools and to torment others, thus inherently evil.

"but how do you define good and evil", well its simple, you don't need a religious morality type of thing, you can use rationality. For example hedonistic utilitarianism being one such systems. I think its flawed, but going there.

But can one use evil things for good ends? Ofc, as Machievalli said, the end justifies the means (does it? another discussion).

Doesn't make the evil tools/practices any less evil.

Not inherently, but frustration from handling disease ridden corpses and having to lobotomize them to near uselessness to have them obey/not feel constant pain from being dead but alive. Cults you learn from are led by evil gods or backstabbing by the few inherently evil necromancers and the inquisitors hunting those assholes along with the diminished resources from being an underground science community either weed out the good ones or corrupts them.

Being a necromancet is not fun, its not efficient and its in no way rewarding outside the corpse disesses you catch.

Putting this shit to rest.

Ask yourself, wouldn't having your remains brought back as a bitchin' reanimated skeleton be just about the coolest, most metal thing ever, short of being an actually conscious skeleman? And what would you do with those bones anyway, have them linger in the dirt? (which, I'll remind you, is a DIRTY place).

Shit Necromancers could CHARGE to bring your brittle ass bones to life for one last adventure.

But they don't. 100% Top Guy material.

So what if he might use you for some more dubious murder hobo activities, or raiding a village or two. You're dead! 100% guilt and blame proof. 9 out of 10 Gods agree.

Depends on the setting and specific details.

>Dat pic
Wasn't there a second one, with the adventurers and lich fighting and the little drow showing up with a crayon picture?

If the Souls do not suffer when used in necromancy it can be neutral.

>I'm lazy, so whatever requires extra effort is evil
Fuck off

Well, would you let a necromancer watch your kids? Would you be prejudiced for saying no?

Sorry no Id like to have the ability to feel ANYTHING.

Being a skeleton is shit. Full body numbness.

The original test was asking if would you accept them as a guest in your home and how would you react if they would like to marry your child.

Go away NIDF.

Eternal suffering bound within an animated corpse, watching your body do horrible things to people you love/care for.

Totally a chargeable service

>Is communing with the dead evil?

Not at all.

Its still denial of self-determination and natural cycles.

A bound soul cannot rest in w/e afterlife there is, nor can it be reincarnated. You are forcing it away.

Take resurrection spells, in many cases they require consent from the dead person's soul/anima, or they will fizzle.

Necromancy is about being forceful to get what you want regardless of the cost to the fuel you use. Dominion over others.

Take mind control, sure you could do a lot of good with such a power, but its inherently evil, as you deny people choice and impose your will unto them.

But isnt that the job of the priests?

>but its inherently evil, as you deny people choice and impose your will unto them.
I guess grappling is evil then.

this but to be less of a shitposting asshole here're 3 ways to do it (roughly sorted by alignment)
Evil Necromancy:
There's some kind of high up god that sees life as some kind of holy thing, thus undeath is unnatural and thus an evil perversion on their creation.

Neutral Necromancy:
God doesn't exist or doesn't have views on necromancy, perhaps exists as simply that settings rules and thus necromancy is just a means to an end, and it is down to whether or not the ends is good.
Good:
Chief god is a god of life, and instead of being a perversion it's seen as a good thing to renew life to those whose lives were ended unjustly.

Depends on the religion.

Oh, yes. Sure, you are right on that. That is, if we go by your postulations. Then I am quite sure that Necromancy is evil and villainous.

I see it as a cultural thing on our parts that we usually turn the cosmology into one, where necromancy ends up being evil. Making it a perversion of healing magic or having it be a form of enslavement does the job quite well, I might add.

However, Necromancy could also be a new chance at (un-)life or a way to connect with your ancestors. The quality of one or the other once again depends on the fucking setting. I don't care for your calls of "muh cultural relativism" and objectively given the arbitrary rules you've made, then sure, it is evil. But then again, it is only evil if the arbitrary rules and/or the context makes it so.

Moral absolutism that disregards the context of a case is IMO a dangerous thing, just as a complete disconnect from an overarching moral code is.

Would you trust the greedy and foolish priests with the words of your forefathers?

We all know that only blood-kin can hear the words as long as they remember the face of their fathers.

If necromancy uses the magic of the user or a magical energy source to raise and move the dead, it's okay.

If necromancy uses souls of the dead as a magical source to raise and move the dead, it's bad.

That's how simple it is.

This way you can have good necromancers, and bad necromancers. It also puts a clear limit on the power of good necromancers (how are you going to get the energy needed to raise an entire army? you'll die by the time you've risen two squads), and it makes clear what a danger soul-necromancy is - as in you can just make as many undead as you want, because you're only expelling energy on putting souls in corpses.

Then there's of course putting demons into corpses, which is even easier, since you don't even have to pull souls from the afterlife, you just prick a hole between this world and hell and the demons will happily fly right in the corpses. That's the WORST. As least soul-necromancy might be used by the forces of good as a last resort following hours and hours of the Pope begging the Gods for permission or something.

No but creating undead is.

>However, Necromancy could also be a new chance at (un-)life or a way to connect with your ancestors.

Now I'm imagining a kingdom that whenever some horrible threat happens has necromancers enter the tomb of their national demigod hero, and they raise their hero from the grave, like some kind of necromantic Space Marine Dreadnought.

>I LIVE AGAIN
>POINT ME TO MY FOES I SHALL CRUSH THEM

And when he has slain the giant or dragon, he returns to the tomb and yells

>IT IS DONE

and a chariot of angels carries his soul back to heaven.

badass

Corpses spread diseases. Having a corpse anywhere near you is a bad idea, one handling your food is even worse.

just use a sterilized skeleton

This happened in the Riddlemaster of Hed series.

It was hilarious.

I mean I'd rather trust GOD than some hobo in a black robe who fetishizes skulls. He probably got leprosy and pink eye from his corpses.

I'm pretty sure all skeletons are sterile, on account of not having gonads.

But that takes time and money, meanwhile farmer joe is getting millions from his golem investments.

...

Still have marrow and tiny spots for all the nasty crawleys get into.

Can't you just make "golems" out of skeletons? Use the skeleton as the engine for the golem exoskeleton?

Depends if necromancy of the setting bounds the souls of the dead like slaves, is aided by out of the spirits free will, or simply uses corpses as a catalyst for animation basically creating corpse golems.

I remember in one campaign we had a Druid/Necromancer who called on the aid of nature spirits then bound them to corpses animating them. He was Lawful Neutral but never did anything i'd consider potentially "evil".

Seems kinda like an extra unecessary step to make one while risking integrety.

No what you should ask is: But cant we make the golem shaped like a skeleton and slap zombie flesh exosuit on it?