Isn't it retarded to bury your dead in a world where necromancy exists?

The only real way to prevent necromancers from stealing your loved ones bodies is to animate them first
You can't raise a zombie that's already been raised

You could have a quarantine zone, maybe a theme park or they could help out with easy jobs.

There are a couple of settings where they practice cremation for this specific reason

Making necromancy automatically EEEEEEEEEVIL in a setting is dumb.

It being considered distasteful or outlawed due to people not liking it in a cultural sense are more than sufficient.

Though technically a necromancer is simply someone that uses magic to communicate with the dead?

I don't understand it either. The person's soul has ostensibly already departed for one of the outer planes or whatever by then, why does it care what happens to its body? At that point it's just a decaying machine that's going unused

I certainly wouldn't expect an autistic person to understand why turning someone's deceased loved ones into manual labor.

Where the religion takes a particular stance against their dead raising again some make considerable profit from nobility who invest quit a bit in special cemetaries that offer wards and protection against graver robbers, carrion feeders, and other sorts.

The most opulent cemetaries have sanctified golems on hand, often disguised as ornate statues who attack unless someone performs a task/action or password otherwise they will be attacked without exception. Grave watchers routinely patrol the area often made up of families who have given themselves entirely to the task as well as acting as caretakers as well for less martially inclined members.

In some places it is customary to cremate the body such is the cultural connection that spirits may be restless unless their remains are burned.

>just because necromancers exist, doesnt mean you have to conform your entire life around them

OP really enjoys making this thread.

Well yeah, you bury them so that any undead can't get out.

And you give them offerings, read prayers, and let their living relatives visit every so often so they feel good and don't become vengeful.

And you put them next to churches so the priest is right there to deal with them if they get uppity.

Maybe giving the dead proper rites prevent necromantic shenanigans?

But it's not really their loved one, it's just their body
Most roleplaying cosmologies that have clerics and undead also involve souls of some kind, so unless the process of creating undead also traps the person's soul in the body, it's not really "them" anymore. They've already fucked off and turned into fairies or angels or whatever.

Well yeah, you bury them in boxes so that they decompose fully long before they can get out.

And you give them offerings, read prayers, and let their living relatives visit every so often so they feel good and don't become vengeful.

And you put them next to churches so the priest is right there to deal with them if they get uppity. Also the priest can help deal with any overzealous necromancers or grave-robbers.

Nah, but it's stupid burying them without removing a few bones from their spine first.

>But it's not really their loved one, it's just their body

Did you know that one of the largest obstacles to donating your body to medical research is having the process blocked by concerned and loving family members who don't want your now-dead body used for any purpose other than being stuck in the ground?

I'm pretty sure that you're just trying your hardest to come up with a decent line of argument, but there's a small chance you're just an autist. Either way, I'm sure someone else will be happy to feed you a couple more (yuz).

Isn't it retarded to rely solely on necromancy when a Cleric can just waltz into your lair and turn every undead like it just aint no thang?

That's because people still associate your dead body with you when you were alive or because of religious beliefs. If you're a materialist, this makes sense because that body, although dead, is the person. Others believe you'll be reanimated after death so the body had to be preserved.

I don't see how it's the necromancer's fault that people can't accept that their loved ones are dead and that preserving their bodies will not preserve their identities, which are gone forever.

Doesn't 'turning undead' depend on the strength of the undead and the cleric?

A fanfic I read stated that, in a world where zombies existed, most races threw the dead out to be eaten by animals.

This resulted in the animals getting a taste for human flesh, and through a process of necromancy they ended up having to deal with werewolves.

Graves atleast make it a pain to dig the dead up.

Consider blessed steel mortsafe with silver coating. Buy one today and you will covered for the rest of your days.

It's funny because in Legend of the Five Rings, as dumb as the setting is, they took this to its logical conclusion. After the second time an evil necromancer tried to kill everyone with the remains of dead heroes, the Emperor said "fuck this, no more tombs, everyone gets cremated" and it's been traditional and by law since.

Well if the beast on the world consist of gargantuan hulk of tooth riddled maws, sentient carnivorous plants and whatever horrid nightmares that spawned from the crotch of creation. They might just get the idea that it is also okay to eat the living at no repercussions. More so than they already do.

It could also be that the spirit of the person still wants to be around and give's permission to the necromancer to bring him back.

If I were doing it, I think I'd make the necromantic raising of the dead a lot like a hack-job unethical resurrection. To animate the dead, you yank the appropriate soil back from the afterlife and stuff it back into what remains of its former body, a process that necessarily involves a certain degree of soul mutilation. This explains both the evil nature of necromancy and the unpleasant disposition of the undead.

Read that as
>kill everyone with the remains of dead horses

Zombies and skeletons are the better option.
Reanimated Ash Clouds are fucking terrifying.

People buried their dead when they thought necromancy DID exist. There aren't 10 necromancers in every village.

Necromancy in real life was basically summoning spirits to talk to them, not creating armies of undeads.

>>Hurr durr you must be autistic if you disagree with me

...Says the guy arguing that every human ever has always considered corpses sacrosanct, and always will, no matter what culture they grow up in or cosmology they believe in.

Vampires and ghouls are explicitly the dead rising to kill people, and the ways it could happen were so myriad and random that it could be done at any time.

More like 'hurr durr you must be autistic if you don't understand human emotions'. Which you clearly don't. At all.

vampire counts and necromancers from warhammer just raised their armies from battle fields that had thousands upon thousands of corpses. the really powerful ones could raise dead from battles that happened ages ago. It's not like they were going around to fancy graveyards and bringing a few hundred at a time back to life.

The belief in vampires wasn't really widespread and ghouls as undead is a fantasy thing, they were demons that eat the dead, not raised from the dead.

English and American communities (the ones we mostly are paying attention to in this scenario) absolutely believed in vampires, although you're right about ghouls not actually being raised from the dead.

>materialist
>souls

pick 1

I do understand human emotions.

I also understand that there a lot of people out there in the world, right now, who don't give a shit what happens to their body after their deaths. Perfectly reasonable, rational, balanced people, who have no emotional attachment to their physical body, and loved ones who share their beliefs and will honour their wishes.

But apparently in your absurd, black-and-white world, those loved ones will always, always refuse at the last minute, and insist that the corpse be buried whole and undamaged. Therefore recycling corpses in any way will always be considered Evil, and I'm the autist for suggesting that maybe, just maybe, human beings are not a monolithic hive-mind, and differences of opinion exist.

Right.

Necromancy is specifically putting souls that do not belong in a body in a body. You're breaking taboos against the gods by creating true life, and in most editions the undead that you create are themselves automatically evil (and almost always brainless outside of that evil) so you're giving agency to very bad evil forces. And then the only way to stop those things from doing what they do best (attacking and killing people) is constant control through magical domination where you're inflicting both hubris and a whole lot of danger on everybody else through a magic you don't entirely understand.

You seem to be arguing against an opposition you made up in your own mind. No one is arguing what you're arguing against. I'm not even the guy you were talking to earlier. Just consider the amount of graveyards in the world, the myriad burial traditions that extend to BEFORE WRITTEN HISTORY and tell me that most (most. Not all, but very, very close. No one ever said all. Stop inventing an absurd extreme opposition so you can play semantic games) humans don't want to place their loved ones in a place of burial.
And stop being so autistic.

There are plenty of reasons why people would bury their dead that can exist in a world with necromancy. Preserving the body in a specific way might be considered important for the safe passage of the soul to the afterlife. Cremation might culturally be considered disrespectful. I know "it depends on the setting" is a meme, but come on, there are plenty of theoretical justifications that would make perfect sense.

There could also be ritual wards/protections to keep on a tomb. Usually only forgotten and deteriorating tombs are the ones that get spooky anyways, and there's plenty of things a traditional necromancer could be reasonably expected to be able to do with ashes or bodies at the bottom of the sea. Besides, most worlds with necromancy have it and its users as the stuff of legend, not something common enough that people structure their way of life around it to a significant degree.

In my setting, all magical bodies must be cremated and given proper rites, not only to protect the spirit on its way through the afterlife, but also to prevent malevolent forces using the body for experiments/necromancy.

>No one is arguing what you're arguing against.

Yes they fucking are. This whole chain started because posited a world where fucking gods and angels proveably exist. A world where afterlives are demonstrably real. In such a world, one's body would have no more worth than a set of clothes. Why then, is it wrong to recycle those "clothes"?

Then argued people would still hold the same taboos about handling corpses as they do in our world. This, despite the fact that any random peasant can just walk up to their local Cleric, and get them to ask God how John McBaker has been doing since he passed on. Where it's objectively clear that John has vacated his corpse entirely, and that it's now worthless to him.

Learn to read.

People genuinely believed in necromancers back in ye old days, and still buried their dead, unless somebody plagues are common place it wouldn't.

D&d 2e has high level clerics capable of basically auto-destroying large groups of standard Undeads per turn.

People also buried their dead in specific ways if they thought they would return as monsters.

>brick in the mouth prevents vampires
>face-down prevents zombies
>religious rituals prevents ghouls
>buried with possessions prevents ghosts

Yeah that too decided not to mention it because of 'lol religion' posters.

...You're still making stawmen in your mind that are the exact opposite of your viewpoint to create a nonexistant boogeyman. No one is arguing this absolute you insist was said. Go on, quote a sentence instead of projecting intent on someone else.
Read the entire chain again, better yet ask whoever is in charge of your care today.
To your entire point: So what? People are people, not that that would be much of a clarifier for you.
>Implying people are reasonable, rational and logical autistic robots (like yourself)
>Implying millions of people wouldn't just say 'fuck that', doubt, retain a vestigial superstition, rebel or simply deny/ignore provable facts (like many do IN REAL LIFE, CONSTANTLY).

>Then argued people would still hold the same taboos about handling corpses as they do in our world.
HAHAHAHAHA. That's not at all what he said. Consider it from the framework of this fantasy world. Replace 'medical' with 'necromantic'. People *know* it's for the betterment of medicine. People *know* it's not their loved one (so to speak) any more yet they still prevent them being used like that.

People deny and ignore provable facts IRL because there are wealthy people who have a vested interest in making sure the plebians vote against their own interests. So these wealthy pour money into causes and platforms that promote such self-destructive ideas.

In a world where a necromancer can easily produce an army of totally obedient murder-drones, it is in every king and emperors' interest to get a necromancer on their side, and use their sizable wealth, power and influence to convince their subjects that giving up their corpses to the army is their moral duty. Because if they don't, every other warlord around will beat them to it.

And they can absolutely convince their subjects, because as lord of their realm, they have total control over the flow of culture. Anyone speaks out against the zombie army? Execute them, add them to the army. Anyone spreads seditious rumours? Execute them, add them to the army. Conquer a nation that despises necromancy? Kill all the nobles who speak out, reward those who submit.

Keep it up for a few generations, and you'll have a whole nation of people who have never known any different. A nation where donating one's body to the army is not only one's moral duty, but also a necessity to keep up the ceaseless zombie wars at the borders with other necromancy-wielding nations. And there will be other necro-nations, because like guns, planes and nuclear weapons, as soon as someone proves the power of undead warriors, everyone is going to want them.

Or you could keep insisting that everyone is a sentimental dipshit and never do anything creative or interesting with your worldbuilding. That's fine too, I guess.

>Or you could keep insisting that everyone is a sentimental dipshit
No one ever said that. What is wrong with your brain. In fact, you're pressing the exact opposite viewpoint so what does your own reasoning say about your own statement?
You're creating a very specific world for your argument and insisting it's black-and-white 100% truefacts with an inability to think outside this rigid box you've put yourself in. You are the very definition of autism.

>And they can absolutely convince their subjects, because as lord of their realm, they have total control over the flow of culture. Anyone speaks out against the zombie army? Execute them, add them to the army. Anyone spreads seditious rumours? Execute them, add them to the army. Conquer a nation that despises necromancy? Kill all the nobles who speak out, reward those who submit.
Clearly. That's why communism worked out so well.

Real life isn't as Manichean as your political theory; neither are my games.

No, it just means that necromancy is viewed as the worst perversion of human remains. Imagine the public response to pedophilia, necrophilia, elder abuse and bestiality, all rolled into one.

If you perform necromantic magics, you are viewed as beyond the pale, beyond redemption. Nobody will shelter you. Nobody will support you, every able-bodied citizen will try to kill you. Alchemists and herbalists (which you need to collect ingredients from) will quickly realize what you are attempting when you buy ingredients, and will refuse to sell.

Because so many people are aware of the very real abilities of necromancers, it is very difficult to perform any sort of experiments unnoticed. This is not a "FUCK WIZARDS" approach, this is a "don't sell 300 lbs of ammonium nitrate fuel oil with blasting caps to the dude with a rental truck."
This makes for a very steep learning curve which stops many necromancers before they get anywhere past their first few experiments.

B-but muh necromancy.

>Don't teach the commoners how to bury the dead.
>Teach the mages not to use necromancy!

No. It is forbidden magic.

That's it. No "Controlled Necromancy" because that perpetuates the folly that any aspect of necromantic magic can be controlled. Just like artificial sapience, true alchemy, and daemonmancy, necromancy is a forbidden magic that can only lead to disaster and death.

So, no. No necromancy. Full stop. If you try it, all wizards and alchemists are honor-bound to stop or kill you if they become aware of it.

What's the difference between True Alchemy and what the apparently sanctioned alchemists you mention are doing?

If it's diffuse, it needs corpses and you can use wood to burn bodies, yes, it is.

Yes.

>Isn't it retarded to bury your dead in a world where necromancy exists?
if they arent afraid of zombies its not

Until your neighboring nation starts Necromancing it up. Turns out they don't believe in any of your bullshit.

The Pope thought he could get rid of crossbows. We were gassing each other just three hundred years later.

True Alchemy is the conversion of matter to energy, then back again in a modified form, and in-game defined by three dimensions. It must be a tremendous feat (transfiguring a 10,000 strong Orc army to chickens), it must be spontaneous (caster later has no idea how they did it), and it must be contained by the caster (no point in transfiguring that 10,000 strong Orc army if you just blew up yourself, the army, and half the county).

It takes tremendous skill and energy to perform correctly (as in there are less than ten recorded instances of successful True Alchemy throughout the world's history) and un-supervised attempts result in entire counties being obliterated.

Another hallmark of True Alchemy is it's spontaneity; Historically, the caster of the magic has known the destructive potential beforehand, but still goes ahead, and many of the casters later have no recollection as to how exactly they performed it (however, all of the casters had signs of memory tampering, but no orders of wizards have emerged to claim credit).

Finally, the caster must control the magic. They must be able to, with great force of will, bend the magic into form useful to the caster, unleash it, and then "cap" the flow of magic. This the hard part, and the reason why there are Death Plains where there used to be Dwarven mountain fastnesses.

True Alchemy is extremely hazardous in-game, as the conversion of matter to energy works a lot like it does in our world (uncontrolled fission reactions). The biggest feat behind True Alchemy isn't getting the reaction started, it's keeping it contained. Thus, many aspiring wizards have tried to learn alchemical spells thinking they could control the reaction, and then they blow up their village.

Sanctioned alchemists are classically trained and state-appointed, who basically serve as licensed vendors for magical items (staves, robes, tomes, etc.). They can also use specially-designed containment vessels to perform minor feats of alchemy (lead to gold), though there are heavy regulations to ensure this is not abused to crash any economies with infinite gold/gems/steel. There is actually a specific order of wizards who exist solely to ensure licensed alchemists are staying legit, and to enforce magical laws (this is actually what our group RP's as).

Well, due to the constant threat of Orc and Ratling invasions, the Human, Elven, and Dwarven governments have held a long-term ceasefire (three centuries) to try and shore up our collective borders. The humans breed fastest and make the best shock-troops to mobilize and neutralize Orcish ground invasions, the dwarves handle border fortifications and the Ratling threat (Ratlings mine thousands of tunnels through mountains around the border), while the Elves patrol the Death Plains and their forests, while organizing wizarding societies in both Human and Dwarven lands to pad their dwindling number of battle-mages.

Almost everything the Humans and Dwarves know about magic was taught to them by the Elves, who maintain strict control on detection of untrained wizards (i.e. before they summon daemons) and magical instruction. It is highly suspected that the few things we learned on our own the Elves already figured out, but didn't bother to tell us for some reason.

There's a little bit of a Cold-War vibe going on between the three nations, but everyone understands the others are vital to their continued survival.

That also happened, but it was the Shadowlands instead of Iuchuban the Necromancer. Turned out the not!Mongols actually could not conquer Hell and got their shit kicked in

Some religions may state that without a proper burial the spirit continues to wander through the world, unable to find peace. It also actually works with those that follow cremation often are ancestor worshiping that wish the dead to still watch over the living.

There are all sorts of religious reasons to bury, and some my have an effect on metaphysical effects surrounding a body.

Things like:
Resurrectionists: Believe that the dead eventually return to life. It can no happen if there is no body.

Mirror-State: Believe that the spirit has the same state of the body during death. Therefore burning the corpse causes the soul to dissipate or become mindless.

Panapoly mirror: Believe you go into the after-life with he materials that you are buried with. No burial, and you are a pauper in the next life. Enjoy eternity.

And I'm sure you can find many more in various religious cults throughout time.

It didn't affect USSR that much after the first years. Ruling class is replaceable like any other.

it's for the some reason people mind necrophilia, you baiting mongrel

Rate my justification for dungeons
>The dead rise up after a while
>They are murderously hostile and suffer from overwhelming worldly desires such as hunger and greed
>Burning corpses just creates ash wraiths
>The undead blight, corrode, and decay anything they touch so burying the dead leads to an eventual lifeless wasteland
>The undead are somewhat intelligent, so you can't just stick them in a room and lock the door as they will eventually just decide to break out
>So elaborate tombs with traps are built to house the dead and prevent them from escaping
>These tombs are filled with treasure and food offerings to distract the undead from thinking of ways to escape

>The belief in vampires wasn't really widespread and ghouls as undead is a fantasy thing, they were demons that eat the dead, not raised from the dead.

What's everyone's hangup with demons anyway? Why are they automatically evil? They just destroy stuff and eat people and corrupt souls. So does fire. So does a storm. So do wolves. So does necromancy. And they're not evil.

I just don't get it. We'd all be better off if we instituted demonology for the benefit of all.

this should become a saying

>People deny and ignore provable facts IRL because there are wealthy people who have a vested interest in making sure the plebians vote against their own interests. So these wealthy pour money into causes and platforms that promote such self-destructive ideas.

Wealthy people don't MAKE otherwise perfectly rational/intelligent people think stupid things.

They just exploit the stupid stuff lots of people already believe or are prone to believing because people are not perfectly rational/all knowing logic engines.

Probably. In Sylvania, they bury the bodies face down, so they can't claw their way back up.

Are you insane? It's necessary to bury your dead in a world where necromancy exists. The last rites a safety measure to ensure that the corpse won't get up and walk away or be forcedly raised by a necromancer.

Demons are supposed to partake in malicious acts because they enjoy it. That's what makes them evil.

This scenario is retarded.

How are so many people aware of the "very real abilities" of necromancers, if necromancers are so rare in the first place? How can alchemists and herbalists know which ingredients are necessary for necromancy, when necromantic knowledge is supposedly so hard to come by in the first place?

>If you try it, all wizards and alchemists are honor-bound to stop or kill you if they become aware of it.

Because every wizard and alchemist holds the exact same views on a type of magic that most of them have never encounted in person (if necromancers are as rare as you say), and every wizard and alchemist shares the exact same moral compass.

Right.

But if the wealthy didn't support these stupid beliefs, they would remain on the fringe of society, as they rightfully should.

>teach necromancers not to necromance

Culture can change.
Morals can change.
Values can change.

Humans will adapt, psychologically and culturally, to any situation which doesn't immediately kill them. People used to think obeying their king without question was their moral duty, because all the people who thought otherwise got executed. Now there's no longer the threat of death hanging over them, people think they have the right to criticize their leaders as much and as often as they please. The humans involved didn't change - their circumstances did.

The idea that humans cannot change their views on how to handle corpses is equally laughable. You don't even have to invent a fantasy setting to justify it - just look at how many different burial traditions there are all across the world. Some cultures bury corpses. Some burn them. Some leave them to be eaten by animals. Some bury them in very specific ways, like facing Mecca, for example. All of these practises stem from very different circumstances, and very different worldviews, just on our own Earth.

But no, no culture could ever view re-animating corpses as okay, even in a fantasy world, because... uh... emotions, or something.

Then every society in your world would have to be built around those dungeons, because if anyone who died would inevitably return as an immortal monster, then those who were still alive couldn't afford to let anyone go without burial in a dungeon. They would have to make sure that no-one ever died too far from home, in case they couldn't be interred before they rose again.

It would also mean their entire economy and culture would have to revolve around building more dungeons, as there would always be more undead that needed trapping. And if the ones in the dungeons lasted forever, then the dungeons would quickly become full, leaving nowhere to store future bodies.

There would also be no reason to raid a dungeon, since removing the treasure would just anger the dead, and cause chaos among the living. The only reasons dungeon-diving makes sense in traditional D&D, or IRL, is that the dead aren't literally going to rise up and start killing people if you steal their burial goods.

The discrepancy I see with that is they're all fairly respectful things to do. Not really comparable with donating them to manual labour and seeing them walk around.

>But if the wealthy didn't support these stupid beliefs, they would remain on the fringe of society, as they rightfully should.

Not necessarily. They'd just go unexploited.

It's like how water just naturally follows the path of least resistance, Just because you don't choose to take advantage of that fact to turn it into a mill, build an aqueduct, or divert it doesn't mean it stops happening.

It's not like the intervention of wealthier people are the only thing keeping the rest of humanity from fulfilling its fate of becoming brilliant morally upright masters of logic. They just exploit the systems. It's how they get rich to begin with.

Recruiting them into an army to engage in glorious eternal combat in service to king and country seems like it could conceivably be seen as respectful.

I can imagine parents being pretty broken up about sending their dead child off to war. I'm sure some people would be fine with it but not everyone.

I mean, sending baby skeletons off to war seems like a bad idea on a couple other levels, anyway. I was assuming it would be many or most adults, not literally everyone.

>The Necroplians are developing weapons of mass destruction and we have to stop them

Isn't retarded to live in a world where you can die exists?

No, but you can always burn them to ashes and lit bonfires.
Station guard to protect the grave or even job that specialize in the related field. You would think that people should at least have that in a world that necromancy exist.

>what is nuclear power
hey everything can be dangerous

In real life, hermeticism held the belief that humanity had the right to summon and control demons for knowledge and magic because God gave us dominion over them just as he gave us dominion over the natural world.

Related, it was believed Solomon received a ring that gave him dominion over demons when he asked God for wisdom, and this was the source of the information in the Goetia, also known as the Key of Solomon.

So I mean. Institutional demonology isn't that far-fetched. Even (or especially) in anti-demon "holy" cultures.

> Isn't it retarded to bury your dead in a world where necromancy exists?
Who will do all the dirty work then, though? The living?

I wish Dragon Age was treated better, it had some great shit going for it in it's setting regarding Necromancy

The Chantry does most burials as pyres, to honor Andraste, so Ferelden and Orlais don't have much in the way of Necromancy (Which are Fade spirits possessing corpses). So most of the Undead you fight are either from places where people were brutally murdered with no burial (That castle in Origins) or with places where there were cultures who bury their dead (elf ruins)

But even then, you can get Ash Wraiths, which are spirits possessing ashes of burned corpses, which was used to protect Andrastes ashes' resting place

And then you got the Mortalitasi in Nevarra who believe that when someone dies, their spirit will displace a native Fade spirit, and who practice necromancy by mummifying bodies and pulling wisps to animate the dead to help guard old tombs.

So it's less summoning dead people, and more just summoning the spirits of metaphorical concepts into physical form by providing a body.

I sincerely hate that Bioware went down the shitter, and that Dragon Age had to suffer for it

Don't forget Mass Effect getting shat on as well.

>Necrofags would just make Ashe elementals.
>bury your dead with respect and a shit ton of treasure and loot
>if a necrofag does decide to defile your ancestors grave and make undead (which will happen) you can at least smile knowing the stupid shit is going to die because of murderhobos.