Why would you outlaw necromancy?

I know necromancy is supposed to be evil because it uses evil magic or binds the souls of the dead and these things and this is why you are not allowed to use skellingtons even for mundane everyday work. But aside from that, what are some pragmatic and legal reasons to outlaw the practice of necromancy? Assuming that the former reasons are not commonly held beliefs or not entirely proven.

Would skeletons take away the jobs of the living, leaving only starving masses? Would skeleton armies make endless wars possible that at the end beenefit no one? Would people just not like working with or near undead because of their disturbing sight? Would it even be unpragmatic compared to normal work?

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eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/61/the-empire-of-the-necromancers
eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/22/the-charnel-god
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It torments the dead and makes the living indolent, duh.

eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/61/the-empire-of-the-necromancers

>But aside from that, what are some pragmatic and legal reasons to outlaw the practice of necromancy?
Ever wondered why places full of undead and necromancers always look like complete shitholes? Turns out, when you keep casting spells that are literally antithesis to life, nature starts dying!

3.5 even had rules for this, it was called Taint

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not everyone would outlaw it, nor would everyone hate/love it to the same degree

some cultures might have had to rely on necromancy in ages past, and would see it as mundane and normal, and have a correspondingly blase attitude towards death as a whole, and see a lot more nuance in the various levels of undeath
they would likely see no difference between necromancy and the other schools, seeing it as no more evil than any other

people who only barely survived an attack by skelleymen might have a pathological hatred for all things spooky and pass it on to their descendants until an institutionalized belief in the evilness of all necromancers, and assume the visiting necromancer who is a friend to all animals, living or dead, and gives away free candy is clearly just hiding something

there are only as many reasons to love or hate a certain thing as you can imagine, seeing as how even cannibalism at one point was accepted by many people, you can pretty much go nuts with social mores as they are often a product of long and arbitrary experiences of a culture as a whole, and is a lot of the times something around 50% purely luck as to why it ended up a certain way

Corpses spread disease and stink to high heaven, there is no way to trace an animated corpse to its master, people generally want the dead to rest in peace, make it trivial to cover up a murder (do the guy in, animate his corpse, and have him punch a bear in the woods), and loss of control over an undead could be disastrous. What happens when a necromancer with say 50 skeletons under his belt dies suddenly?

Do they resume function? Then you have a Sorcerer's Apprentice situation.
Do they collapse harmlessly? You need to find 50 replacements.
Do they do whatever they want mindlessly? Grats, skeleton apocalypse.
Do they gain consciousness? Grats, you now have people who are basically slaves until you do something about that.

The last thing you want is to create an economic nieche for people who can "aquire" fresh, healthy corpses in large quantities

The dead (bodies and spirit) are the rightful property of the Death God. Those who interfere with the reincarnation process shall be slain. The remains of the dead shall only be used by the clergy in only the most dire of circumstances. Only the ghosts of the blasphemers may be used in constructs and rituals.

For mindless labor, lesser golems are recommended. They use low intelligence elemental spirits. Easier to control, less likely to spread disease, less likely to attract dirty troll-worshipers

I killed my father to succeed his throne, wanting to put my revolutionary ideas into action for my kingdom.

If necromancy is not outlawed, any faggot mage with a fetish for royal corpses could commune with my dead father's spirit and pin me for regicide and I would be exiled. So I gave my father an "honorary" burial under a crazy amount of stone and lead so no one would dig him up any time soon just to prevent a stray necrofaggot from rez'ing old Papa King and stopping my visionary conquest to make my kingdom the greatest in history. My secret must never come out.

I spread propaganda about the evils of necromancy, not because I am good, but because it is a threat to my rule as it currently stands. But people think it is because of divine inspiration to make the land a purer and better place.

Just a suggestion. But that could be a pretty good basis for a campaign.

>pic not related

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But clerics can do it too. And not just death clerics, any clerics at all.

OP here, pretty good.

For the same reason you would outlaw necrophilia. Its gross and could lead to outbreaks of disease due to idiots messing around with rotting carcasses. Also, did the corpse consent?

The main problem with necromancy is the diseases. In any fantasy setting where germ theory is not jet a thing, there would be a constant historic story told over and over again how a dickass wizard started animating corpses, let them run around, and then whoops, we got a plague that killed half the kingdom suddenly. And that is more and more likely if you want to start using corpses as armies or industrial workforce: The whole place would be such a cauldron of disease that even if you conquered a new city or produced the most shiny of trinkets there, it would be so disease ridden that a fantasy civilization would just take it as sign from god or nature itself not to fuck around with diseased carcasses.


Tho an interesting spin on it would be if there was a renessance in fantasy, with germ theory being discovered and old taboos against necromancy would start to unravel, since man(things) suddenly thought themselves too smart for their own good.

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>Implying clerics are exempt from the "no necromancy" law.

That's why we outlaw the practise of necromancy, not just necromancers.

You don't even have to think about the possible repercussions of this, we already know from history it ended badly, really badly.

For the exact same reasons you outlaw graverobbing.

If it's legal, then they don't need to rob any graves.

The digging part is not why graverobbing is illegal.

I'm aware.

What about balming the corpses?

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Enbalming in the Egyptian style doesn't work so well if the corpse is exposed to the elements, especially if the body is moving and walking and putting wear on the cloth. The process was intended for bodies sealed in (pretty close to) airtight tombs.

Fun fact: "Sarcophagus" means "flesh-eating" and the majority of mummies recovered were not buried in them.

Cheap labor underprices the living.

Because we live in a theocratic city state dominated by the Church of the God of Death, who specifically forbids people from dicking with bodies or souls. Do you really want to get smote, heathen?

The problem with necromancy is tax fraud.
>Start business
>Raise a bunch of skeletons as your staff
>"pay" the skeletons all of your profits and then some to appear to be at a loss
>put down business expenses and get a shitton of money back from the local government
>still get the money from the skeletons because you control them

Just make them "buy" stuff from you

>Because we live in a theocratic city state dominated by the Church of the God of Death

CAS wrote that one too

eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/22/the-charnel-god

For the same reason the lad in your picture did, it's hideous, unnatural, and goes against literally everything one holds dear in life. Also, it fucks over your right to immortality, destroys your rightful kingdom and, the worst of all, enables the biggest asshole of all time to do whatever he damn well pleases.

>unnatural
so's wearing clothes and living in houses.

SETTRA DOES AS SETTRA WILLS. AND SETTRA COMMANDS THAT THERE BE BACON-TITTIED LICH GIRLS, AND LO, MY WILL BE DONE.

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