You are the GM for a fantasy campaign. During character creation...

What bother me most with the whole "Industrious necromancer" thing (which is old as hell and always comes up in Veeky Forums) is that it assumes necromancy works in a certain way and that way applies to all settings. And then people start discussing if necromancy is evil or not -in general-. Which is futile if you don't know what setting you are talking about.

There's very different things to be taken into account if Necromancy is based on locking souls unwillingly to rotting bodies and enslaving them, or if it's just animating dead matter. But assuming the second, it's also a whole different deal with energy just comes from nowhere or a different plane, or if the existence of undeads en masse kills the land around them in a miasma that drains lifeforce (a common fantasy trope).

As a GM I'd let the player run the concept, but I wouldn't change how necromancy in my world works. He would eventually learn he made assumptions that are not true and he's causing havoc, pain and suffering.

If the setting has any depth then they're valid questions.
People in general do not like the idea of someone using their loved ones bodies for anything.
See: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodily_integrity

Assuming that an undead is a corpse got up and made to dance seems like it would take a lot less work than enslaving someone's dead soul. And yeah, they generally don't.

People also generally are willing to relax principals for coin, the common good, and of course someone can generally find unclaimed bodies of travellers and whathaveyou.

Her end goal is to make things a utopia. That doesn't mean she's necessarily done so, or she will be successful in doing so, or even really imply it.

>>I'm playing a good necromancer.
Cool.

>Intelligent undead can even perform more sophisticated jobs so that the living don't have to.
True, but the actually intelligent ones are essentially ghost or demon possessed corpses. Controlling them long term or on a large scale basis is difficult, dangerous, and hard to justify morally, certainly hard to maintain while trying to model a righteous ideal.

>My character's goal is to put an end to any narrow-minded bias against necromancy and bring about this utopia where no one has to work or fight anymore and her motivation is simple altruism.
So a naive, borderline delusional idealist with an unrealistically ambitious end goal? Great for a long term fantasy campaign.
Let's see what everyone else has...

>just as long as we're clear that while your necromancer may have good intentions, necromancy is inthrinsecally evil and will take a toll on your psyche

>another necromancy apologist thread

Make golems, you dumb shit.
>B-b-b-but they are expensive
Yeah, doing good usually does require more effort.

>narrow-minded bias against necromancy
Forgot to add that there is such a bias, but it's only among the ignorant majority who don't understand that all divine magic is technically "necromancy".

Good necromancers are like good communists or ethical CP: delusional theory and evil practice.

...

>bring about this utopia where no one has to work or fight anymore and her motivation is simple altruism.

Sounds pretty evil to me, Marx.

What is your plan when you run out of fresh bodies? Because they're not that numerous.

Skeletons.

The big questions are:

Does raising undead trap the "soul" (if souls exist in your setting) of the person who died?

Are undead inherently dangerous to people near them, like if they are hard to control or corrupt the area.

aa

What?
No.
Dude?
Divine magic (in my setting) literally functions by communing and communicating with the spirit of your God.
And communicating with spirits would be...?
Anyone?

Ring-a-ding-ding!
We have a winner

Assuming all necromancy works the way you're thinking, yeah.
Cleverly put.

...Are all the gods in your setting dead?

>Ha-ha, I really got you, didn't I?
>The word "necromancy" also means communication with spirits!
>Hence the "mancy" part!
>And since there's nothing wrong with communicating with spirits, necromancy is okay
>So raising ravenous zombies and skeletons is okay by transition
>Words can't evolve and change meanings over time, haha
>I'm so smart

Did you read his original post? Because he's pretty clear about his feelings on the "Necromancer Utopia" bit.

Not to mention nothing implies unintelligent undead are ravenous in his setting.

Not OP, but I apologize for nothing.

If you can gain the support of any of the Imperial City's Archmagus, one of the heads of knighthood or even the Grand Dragon himself, I'm sure you can acquire a contract to perform your experiments legally.
After all we are at war and any advantage may help our boys on the front.

Otherwise you might stir up too much attention, remember you are under contract.

Which part of communism causes it to be bad?

lolishit, is ethical as it doesn't harm anyone.

real CP is normally unethical to produce.
The thing is that it has gray areas.
like when some teenager takes a nude selfie, its absurd to prosecute them for that.
Distribution is another gray area (in terms of ethics). Videos of other crimes being commited are legal to distribute, while cp isnt.
the justification you hear for this doesn't make sense anymore.
it use to make sense as before the internet existed anyone who had CP would have had to pay for it.
But now these people can find it for free, and in that case it doesn't support the person who makes it .

>ravenous zombies and skeletons
>he doesn't hail from a pro Skeleton Imperium
I pity you

So the metaphor has its holes in a way.

>Which part of communism causes it to be bad?
Voluntary communism isn't bad. Involuntary communism is bad. It just so happens that communism is contrary to human nature, so can't work long term without some form of slavery. Even then it's doomed to failure.

I'd let them. Of course I'd signal that the rest of the world disagrees with their views, but they can persevere if they like.

And if they do manage to achieve success it will eventually draw the attention of celestial and demonic forces with the former being like "WTF ARE YOU DOING, THAT SHIT'S INHERENTLY EVIL" and the latter being all "nice job, see you in the Abyss".

>...Are all the gods in your setting dead?
Most of the best ones, yeah.
But also, it turns out that the living have spirits too.

>there's nothing wrong with communicating with spirits, necromancy is okay
There's nothing NECESSARILY wrong with communicating with spirits, so necromancy CAN BE okay

>>So raising ravenous zombies and skeletons is okay by transition
Nope, you just suck at logic

>>Words can't evolve and change meanings over time, haha
Or, I found a way to incorporate that very fact into the setting, as the ignorant majority only knows the modern meaning.
I thought I made that clear earlier.

>>I'm so smart
You really aren't.

>Because he's pretty clear about his feelings on the "Necromancer Utopia" bit.
Thank you.

>Not to mention nothing implies unintelligent undead are ravenous in his setting.
Good point.
There's room for it to exist, but there would have to be a major fuck up somewhere along the way, because you wouldn't craft undead like that on purpose.

Do you have a moment to talk about the good word of the gods, user?

>But also, it turns out that the living have spirits too.
>Necromancy
>Necro
>Greek for death

I mean, whatever works in your setting, but nobody is going to really hear "Necromancy" and think "Communicate with living spirits" because that is pretty outside the pale of the term.

>Do you have a moment to talk about the good word of the gods, user?
How about a pamphlet?

>>Necro
>>Greek for death
What is this "Greek" you speak of?

>nobody is going to really hear "Necromancy" and think "Communicate with living spirits" because that is pretty outside the pale of the term.
But you make a good point.
It is just a God thing, as in their spirits are able to be communed with, but you can't use necromancy to communicate with Bob in accounting.
Well, not unless your undead utopia includes skeleton relay phones, or something.

>How about a pamphlet?
You stop playing coy and tell me about your pantheon right now so I can mine you for ideas.

>setting one
Mass Necromancy really isn't a thing yet. You have a couple of Doctor Frankenstein mofo's already running around but that's it. Mass Necromancy isn't viable, but I could see an enterprising soul making a lightning"""Resurrection""" service.
>setting two
Necromancy flat out isn't a thing
>setting 3
No one really gives a shit assuming you aren't about to try to take something over. Some places already use undead for some of their labor, but being an undead laborer is considered to be a somewhat shameful fate even if it has no bearing on ones metaphysical status.

Depending on the setting making Golems is more unethical than making udnead, since Golems actually involve enslaving sentient organisms/spirits.

Okay there is the basic question every necromancer player/gm has to ask himself.
>Is there a difference between this undead and a construct ?

Greek is a language that many words in English, the language we use to communicate information and concepts like, for example, Necromancy find their roots in.

The meaning of many roots has stayed the same, and through these roots we can quite often find the meaning of the word. Which is a thing that words, like Necromancy, have: Meanings.

We use English to communicate information in concepts, even when discussing fictional worlds, so one does not have to make an entire language from scratch then teach that language to his players in order to run an RPG.

You are the GM for a modern campaign. During character creation, one of your players has this to say about his character:

>I'm playing a good inner-city ethnic drug-dealer. The pace of the industry and the cost of actual medical care are so high that nobody in their right mind can survive and thrive without the sort of drugs society made illegal. My character's goal is to put an end to any narrow-minded bias against inner-city ethnic drug dealers and bring about an utopia everybody can just do drugs to patch that.

There is so much to hate about the concept of dredging up dead bodies to use as cheap labor.

Why must you default to terrible false equivalences?

>Sure you say that now, but we live in fudal times, if you make the pesantry irrelevant they will simply be booted off their farmlands to starve in the wild. Your utopia will be a garden of sin and debauchery, where ludicrously wealthy nobles live in hazy reality's of their own creation and mankind slowly shrivels up into nothingnes. The pesantry will hate you, the powerful use you, and the gods demand your head.
>So?
>So I'm saying you can't be neutral good.
>Awww come on
>People are dieing Gary!

Etymology is often a poor indicator of meaning, though. Usage is what defines meaning.

I could see that working. Especially if you cross over into cyberpunk.

The common usage of Necromancy is magic related to and making use of the dead.

To add to this.
>Why hasn't anybody done this already ?

Actually, one of my kingdoms for my campaign was based around raised labor for people who consented before death, which is the majority because it's seen as noble. The harshest criminals get to serve multiple life sentences, though in death sentences are shortened under most circumstances due to being forced to remain in a decaying body (like a temporary Lich). However, sentient undead are rare due to the perception that true death is the separation of body and soul, where the body returns to the earth to provide for new life and the soul joins their goddess. The goddess will grant exceptions on occasions, such as punishment above or certain individuals who need to fulfill a vow or pact of some kind.

Why does everyone want suddenly be good? Being good is for hipsters. What had happened to the classic evil necromancers and evil warlords?

>Necromancy creates a pre-industrial post-scarcity society that only the nobility profits from
>The nobles hire necromancers to replace their peasants, who are booted off their lands and left to starve, only to be raised again in ever-growing armies of the dead pitted against each other in endless stalemates between petty kings with magically extended lifespans who grow fat off of literally all the food still produced in the land
>Pockets of living resistance are scarce, organising raids on desolate farmlands tended by unthinking zombies and finding creative ways to turn the necromantic horrors against their masters

Are you ready for Necropunk: 1066?

Because then the magic court of "ethical human resources" comes along and wipe the necromancer's mind if that spell because the removal of jobs for such a large population removes their means of earning Money, which removes them as consumers.
Thanks lack of consumers let's the economy crumble and tried the state into chaos and the new undead workforce will be out to blame.
I hope the necromancer has a degree in socioeconomics to fix that.

I sure am, do i get to bring a matchlock along ?

Go wild, we're entering uncharted territory.

>tfw I play a neutral necromancer that mostly want to be left alone, with good tendencies because of the influence of the party knight
>tfw she's a mary sue now

>She
Of course she is.

"Okay. But I think my players will get bored of your character really quick taking into account that is exactly the motivation of the bad guy a few campaigns ago"

Shit this is a great idea for a seting ain't it.

>your pantheon
First, it's not a pantheon in the traditional sense. The gods mostly don't hang out together. Each one tends to think of what they do as THE most important thing and does it, interacting with other gods minimally.

Second, I'm exhausted and on my phone so you get the 10 cent version.

Creator Gods: long dead.
Old gods rise from powerful race: War, Death, Peace, Justice, Wisdom
Death gets unpopular, kills most of the gods, then dies by a lucky crit from a human.
More living gods emerge from various races, gaining power and the secret of divinity then focusing on their bag:
Phoenix: life.
Gorgon: Stonecraft
Serpent: battle
Dryad: nature
Sirens: protection
Then human and elf gods emerged.
Light, guidance, fortune, passion, etc...

Clarify that if they played such a character that there would still be hella pushback, particularly from people who don’t want their loved ones dug up (and the church).

Time to show those bone-boys who the boss is.
My Body is ready.

And now a "Good" necromancer is one who uses his powers against the Man, wresting undead from the control of the nobles, safeguarding corpses from being raised, stuff like that. Because while necromancy created this world, it has also become vital to survival.

>bones standing together to carry heavy things
I'm still waiting for the nerd able to explain how skeletons fit together with muscles.

Prolly magic, but at this point is becomes really questionable if they ren't just constructs and why they can't just use wood instead, it's more plentifull and you can have constructs create the pieces for them.

*without

So we have necromancers who are needed to keep the restless down and fancy fighters with matchlocks fighting the undead?
All while both try to wretle the restless from the grips of the decadent nobles, of course the real villian are the necromanecers who "work for" the nobles who create a stale economy and supress the population indirectly.
Sounds like we got a setting going.

Was just about to say this, what a necromancer does is lock inside a carcass a soul. The idea of "clean necromancy" should not exist as it makes necromancy socially acceptable.

A "good" necromancer would be someone who gains either gains assistance by deceased souls willingly and who helps them move on.

I let a player do this exact thing in a recent campaign - every time we hit a town, city, or any form of civilization he forced the game to a halt pushing his 'good necromancer' thing on NPCs who didn't care while ignoring the other party members who wanted to move on to adventures. The problem isn't the good necromancer, the problem is retarded snowflake players who think their 'original' concept is more important than the other people at the table, and good necromancer players are nearly always snowflakes.

There's nothing wrong with striving for your ideals

So you're basically saying that every magic can empower people?
Like the fire one will profit the hunters, the ice one the food sellers, the magnetic one the smiths?

Nah, i meant, if the skeletons are just single piecec hold together by magic to serve, why can't the wizards just use stuff like rocks and wood to do the same thing ?

Raise kobolds and shackle them to keep them controled like is Shawn of the Dead. Who cares about kobold souls being in agony

>here is shears my dear golem please take care of that plant for me
Well maybe because rocks and roots suck at holding/using human tools?

Is necromancy the medieval equivalent of Fordism?

You take that back

I hope you just pretend being dumb.
How about taking one big branch, you take many small ones to form something that can actually hold thing, like a hand, which is also made out of many small pieces ?

>Have you considered becoming a Dustman? Everybody just loves those guys.

>The necrotic tissue activation technology was a huge success. The research done by Militech resulted in thousands of zombie soldiers and workers produced all over the universe. Having your relatives die became like a pension. You would install a chip and the body of your dead father or mother would start working in a factory for you...
From the Teleglitch video game lore.

>Golems
>Reactivation technology changed the world that we once knew. Suddenly, dead flesh became clay to be played with. It became a resource. Metal could be replaced with augmented meat. It turned out that muscle-tissue is a perfect machine if it is imbued in certain chemicals and supplied with artificial semi-organic neural tissue
From the Teleglitch video game lore.

Beat me to it.

Also note that in some settings, such as Unsounded, zombie workforce is a matter of which ideology you subscribe to. Some may treat them like beasts of burden, some may see them as a grim reminder of the after, and some may be outright scandalized by the idea that goes against their religion.

I think you should allow him to do whatever he wants to do. Give him people that totally agree with him, people that see him as a quack -but may be turned around eventually, and people who cry "HERESY" whenever they hear mention of him.
But please, please give him some sensible people that just don't agree with him. DO NOT play them as bad people, or narrow minded bigots. Remind him that his truth is subjective to him, just like other people's truths is subjective to themselves.
An example would be a Golem/Automaton-crafter who has his same arguments. Golems may be more expensive to produce, but they last longer, aren't gonna be spreading disease anytime soon, could be programmed for complex tasks, and best of all: They don't draw the ire of most religions and people.
If you subscribe to the "fueled by a soul" mechanism in your setting, you simply MUST add an undead revolution

Aha, wow.
Let me guess, you also think faeries and elves aren't subhumans tiers?

Go in the woods user, then look at real branches.
Maybe roots can be souple enough but branches surely won't fit the purpose of human fingers.

They are by definition not human at all.
Here are a few faefolk comprised entirely of plant matter, even.

>I'm playing a good necromancer

No you're not. Try again.

user, you might want to sit down for this but they found a way to turn plants into something you can tie something together with.

I'd let em try it, certainly. Player depending, somewhat. Good players could absolutely do something with this, though. The whole "PC with power which corrupts" thing has been done plenty of times, there's good precedent.

>this one sounds like a mary sue.
I think you grabbed the wrong word. That term implies the character is being created by, and is a favorite of, the GM. You were probably reaching for "Snowflake".

If so, I do agree with you. At least, it has that potential. You definitely have to keep an eye on the character and check it as appropriate.

>Good necromancers: delusional theory and evil practice
And? Sounds like some good story hooks to me, user.

What I've done with these kind of players in the past in some cases is have a private convo, and if they agree, have it look like the character is succeeding in walking that razor edge of good/evil, but then turn them in to an NPC villain in the third act of the campaign (and let the player roll up something new). It can make for some pretty good sessions when the party's former friend turns in to the Big Baddie of the campaign.

Well, we were talking about moving portions of animated matter, not about ways to stock things for poor people.

>How do you react?

I can't work with that. But let's try a compromise over our respective envisioning of "good" necromancers and the undead they can influence.

If necromancy could be performed on such scale both safely, the entire setting would already revolve around it. There must be factors which contribute to why people immediately identify it as a bad idea, and it's up to you as GM to put them into action.

This is why the Planescape Dustmen are the most interesting implementation of necromancers. It's all technically willing; you sign your corpse away for some cash, and if you believe in body integrity you just don't seek them out to sign the contract.

>I'm still waiting for the nerd able to explain how skeletons fit together with muscles.
As this guy says, you're already well in to "it's magic" territory with any sort of decayed zombie or walking skeleton. Another pound or two of disbelief won't strain those suspension cables too much. If you want to get nerdy (and I'm absolutely that user), then you really want to stick to preserved zombies, zombie/golem hybrids, or mechano-zombies if you want to play the "body is just a fancy machine" angle.

>why can't the wizards just use stuff like rocks and wood to do the same thing ?
The usual explanation is some variation of the "lifeforce is magic" concept, extended to say that once-living things take enchantment better. OR, if you want a slightly darker angle, you say the spirit of the dead person is what's providing the power supply for the animation process.

>Maybe roots can be souple enough but branches surely won't fit the purpose of human fingers.
Again, this is a setting/tone thing. You can do "it's magic" and have the branches reshape to the needed purpose. Or you can get technical and make your golem-builders actually create tool attachments (or mechanical claws) for their golems' arms. Very much personal preference.

He's got a Sorcerer's Apprentice subplot coming at him, which will probably end with him being burned at the stake.

The setting already has a political/moral background, you'll be able to change it on a tiny scale, but not on a worldwide scale.
Do you wish to continue, even if you know you'll probably losing time into discussion/arguing while you could be planing things and helping your team with your necromancy powers?

Are you the same user who says that Stalin ended World War 2, and not the millions of soldiers who shared his idea of fighting against Nazis, and workers manufacturing everything?

Same applies here. Has idea to use Necromancy to stop wars etc etc. Nothing says that more Nercomancers will not join the cause by the end off campaign and share the vision?

Because being evil is a "that guy" sign and you deserve getting killed off by the party?

Sound pompous but I'm okay with it.
It could make a nice character arc and provide interesting plothook and roleplaying. I'll just warn him that it won't be easy with instant result, most people won't be okay with seeing the half decayed body of their mother working in the field, even more so if its the type of necromancy that binds souls to the body

Because past a certain age you just gradually see the appeal in trying to build an protect a society you can hopefully respect.