Non-Evil Necromancy

[Kyeudo]

As part of a campaign, I have set up a culture where necromancy is not looked at as evil in itself. They consider animating zombies and abusing ghosts to be blasphemous, but other uses are considered acceptable, if not pleasant. There are still few practitioners and most are mortals with an occasional ghost-blood, but they've had since the contagion to work on their technique.


However, looking over my copy of the Black Treatise, most existing necromancy spells fall into one category or the other, so I need a little help to round out their repetoire of spells. Anyone have suggestions for necromancy effects that wouldn't be about desecrating corpses and making life hell for ghosts?


If it helps, this particular culture is a tribal society with a strong tradition of both shamanism and ancestor worship that lives at the very edges of Creation in the far Southeast. They are a race of truebreeding Wyld mutants based loosely around Dominic Deegan's orcs and the Warcraft universe's orcs.

 

[Arrghus]

I'm going to assume Iron Circle only, here.


Brainstorming:


A spell that builds stuff out of ash, stuff can then be repaired and improved through Prayer


A spell that lets you sense the presence of Blood (and possibly Corpus)


A spell that repels/attracts Hungry Ghosts


A spell that draws in the life of a small area, encapsulating it in a ball of shadowy Essence. No idea what ball can be used for (Artifact crafting?)


A spell that turns bones into weapons


A spell that multiplies the blood spilt when you cut yourself (like, you tear up an artery in each arm, dealing 4lhl to yourself, then spend 20 motes, and there's a small pool in front of you)


A spell that lets you keep tags on people that alert you if they die


A spell that uses the stasis of naturally occuring necrotic Essence (say, a Shadowland) to block the effects of the Wyld


A spell that lets someone (not necessarily the caster) transfer ownership of their Grave Goods and Essence tokens to another person

 

[Kyeudo]

A spell that lets you sense the presence of Blood (and possibly Corpus)


A spell that repels/attracts Hungry Ghosts


A spell that uses the stasis of naturally occuring necrotic Essence (say, a Shadowland) to block the effects of the Wyld

These have promise.

A spell that draws in the life of a small area, encapsulating it in a ball of shadowy Essence. No idea what ball can be used for (Artifact crafting?)

I think that effect might be outside the scope of the Iron Circle, but it sounds like a good idea for a Onyx Circle spell.

A spell that turns bones into weapons

How so?

 

[Arrghus]

A spell that turns bones into weapons

How so?

Well, it depends on why exactly there's a reanimation taboo. If it's because it's disturbing the dead, then no turning bones into weapons, but if you just don't like zombies, then bones are a useful resource, filled with potent necrotic Essence to be used as an aid in survival.


Oh, you meant how to do it? No idea, it was just brainstorming about what an Iron spell related to manipulating the Corpse-Element of Bone might do. Maybe a variant of Ritual of Elemental Benediction. Or a spell that reshapes nearby skeletons into spears or something (bypassing crafting time).


EDIT: Had some other ideas for unexplored venues of Necromancy.


1.A spell that strips motes from Raksha, and calcifies them if they run out


2.a spell that lets people survive in Shadowlands (I imagine this is normally slightly difficult) but limits their ability to do the same in a living enviroment

 

[cyl]

Reanimating bodies is not in itself an evil act, and I'm not 100% sure that necro creatures are automatically considered creatures of darkness.


Is your culture near any shadowland ?


Why and how are they using necromancy in their everyday lives ?!


Being another form of essence manipulation, necromancy could virtually have the same or opposite effects that sorcery: Blood Lash and Dragon Claw, destroy crops / animal life, repel / fight ghosts, use fear and body control, provoke mortality and bad health, use shadows and creatures of the night as vectors of disease, minions or spies.

 

[Kyeudo]

The undead automatically qualify as Creatures of Darkness, but even without that, this culture thinks disrespecting the dead to be blasphemous.


They do live near shadowlands, although never in them. They don't use necromancy on a daily basis. It is not immediately seen as blasphemous in itself, only the two most common abilities it presents (their strong tradition of ancestor worship is to blame). However, they are a practical people, so their necromancers are almost certain to have dreamt up a few spells with more utility than ordinary necromancy provides.

 

[MorkaisChosen]

Some ancestor-worship-focused spells might work- stuff like a spell that kindly asks a ghost if it wants to turn up or lets you talk to it, rather than the Glorious Solar [Crane] of Summon Ghost.

 

[cyl]

The undead automatically qualify as Creatures of Darkness, but even without that, this culture thinks disrespecting the dead to be blasphemous.

The walking dead are listed among those, because most of the times they want to eat your brains out of necromantic urges... but... necro creatures built out of non human parts may not be recognized as CoD... unless you consider that reanimating things through necromancy is evil, which defeats the whole "necromancy is not evil" theme you want to use.
I don't see any problem in using dead birds as spies...


Okay so... what would be the necromantic needs of a shaman ?!

 

[Kyeudo]

Some ancestor-worship-focused spells might work- stuff like a spell that kindly asks a ghost if it wants to turn up or lets you talk to it, rather than the Glorious Solar [Crane] of Summon Ghost.

Ooh, nice idea. The spell should probably offer some incentive to show up, though. Free motes of Essence or is that not motivating enough mechanically?

The walking dead are listed among those, because most of the times they want to eat your brains out of necromantic urges... but... necro creatures built out of non human parts may not be recognized as CoD... unless you consider that reanimating things through necromancy is evil, which defeats the whole "necromancy is not evil" theme you want to use.

I think it has more to do with the Unconquered Sun saying "I don't like zombies" than what they are made out of that makes them Creatures of Darkness.

I don't see any problem in using dead birds as spies...


Okay so... what would be the necromantic needs of a shaman ?!

Well, I've always been fuzzy on what a shaman does all day. I mean, other than being the main priest for the tribe's gods/spirits/ancestors, what does a tribe expect from a shaman?


Idea: perhaps a necromantic spell that heals one person by taking life energy from another person.

 

[cyl]

Well aside from being the spiritual leader / lore keeper of the tribe, the shaman usually is a good thaumaturge... he prepares potions & stuff for the tribe and holds many techniques and savoir faire.


Now if you want to power him up a bit with necromancy, the only useful existing spells I see of use are the ones inflicting pain / fear / suffering, summoning the ancestors and ensuring that a soul be turned into a ghost (could be considered a high honor to join the ancestors in the afterlife and to recieve the offerings of the tribe and serving the tribe for eternity)... as well as fighting ghosts and the undead off.


Now what could be useful for a shaman is anything preserving the tribe (which doesn't fit well with Necromancy), or threatening rival tribes (which is obviously more like this)... use curses, shadow / lifeforce / soul stealing.


Could also generate some temporal dead spirits (like elementals of bone ash etc etc) which could lend their arcanoi powers for a limited duration.

 

[Dezeroth]

a good book to read for insperation on stuff like this would be the Necromancer Chronicles: the summoner


sure you can create zombies and such, by why not make spells that help ghosts cross over to lithe and things like that, excorsists and such as necromancers could be incredible.

 

[Moonstone Spider]

Well, thinking in terms of utility, ghosts can offer humans the benefit of a lifetime of experience and knowledge, and in defending the village a ghost will probably be a decently powerful weapon. Ghosts live very drab, dreary lives and humans can offer the living experience to brighten things up a bit.


So I would expect necromancy in this village to include some variant of bless the rapine soul to make posession easier, so that the best blacksmith in the village can take over a callow youth's hands and guide him in creating quality work, possibly granting a training effect as a bonus. I'd expect spells that make things like music more meaningful to the ghosts, as well as spells to allow ghosts to consume mortal food and drink and enjoy it as if alive. Being Exalted there's undoubtedly some carnal stuff barely covered up in the same vein.


There's already a range of necromantic spells to kill your enemies but those are the nasty kind, perhaps a less horrible way to slay enemies in battle and spells that bolster the ghostly defenders (volunteer, of course) of the village.