Necromancy

[Mythos]

I just finished reading Sabriel by Garth Nix, and I enjoyed it. The three types of magic in it were interesting, but I found the necromancy the most intriguing. This got me thinking about a world I've created full of necromancers. It isn't very developed, so I wanted to see what else had been done with necromancy.

D you guys have any favorite portrayals of necromancy from books you've read, movies you've watched, or video games you've played? Has anyone created their own type of necromancy they want to share?

 

[Codey Amprim]

I won't go into much detail about the means of bringing things back to life, but I will say that nothing irks me quite like having characters resurrected at every turn. It takes away the feeling of loss and the threat of danger; who cares if the MC charges into the Dragon's lair? They'll just bring him back anyway.

Any story where crucial characters come back again and again, especially without much effort, ruins it entirely. I hate it.

As for my uses, I leave the uses of necromancy to either the occupation of a corpse, or host/husk, by a dark entity, or the manipulation of lingering spirits.

In most situations, I've seen necromancy tend to get out of hand with powerful necromancers summoning forth a whole army at no consequence. I can understand the gathering of an undead army by visiting resting sites or conflict areas, and amassing an army a graveyard or battlefield at a time, and very slowly.

It has a lot to do with magic systems, too. Some may have the undead with a will of their own, still obligated to serve their summoner, some may have the undead be extremely hostile and feral like zombies, or even the undead obey like mindless minions.

 

[Steerpike]

I just finished reading Sabriel by Garth Nix, and I enjoyed it. The three types of magic in it were interesting, but I found the necromancy the most intriguing. This got me thinking about a world I've created full of necromancers. It isn't very developed, so I wanted to see what else had been done with necromancy.

Sabriel is a very good book. Glad you liked it. I haven't done anything with necromancy in any of my stories. I'm not opposed to it, and I like the idea of a non-evil association with it, since it is generally portrayed as evil in fantasy.

 

[Queshire]

I'm not currently using necromancy but I've thought about it some, and the greatest ideas I came up with for necromancy were using it to play with your food, like bringing your turkey dinner back to life, or controlling someone's skin or hair. (both of which are technically dead)

Lately I've been thinking of having necromancers be more like mediums or shamans in my setting, as going with the original term that refers to talking to the dead for knowledge of the future.

 

[SeverinR]

Necromancers in my work are not accepted in public(they touch dead people), but the good are expected to protect the dead from evil necromancers. (Prevent them from raising an army of the dead from their loved ones.)

My necromancer has a graveyard of friends, she has at her disposal the emotional energy that is tied to the grave like a battery that is only programed to her. She must do rites to link the power only to her, after each burial.

 

[AFistfulofBalderdash]

Have two best friends.

Have those friends get killed.

Have a Necromancer raise those two friends, since he's an idiot those two friends are now a combined into a gnashing abomination with the memories of both.

????

Profit.


Yea, I use Necromancy a lot in my dark fantasy world. There it's a force that's wielded by the Ordo Fallen a force of good. Head of the Fallen is a lanky bastard named Gideon Loki who is essentially my Darth Vader, if Darth Vader still believed in hope and all that other light-side stuff. Besides that I'm always coming up with new ways to kill people using this happy little sorcery.. A vampire (we know they're undead) pisses off a Necromancer in one of stories who counters this by forcing the vampire's skeleton to rip itself out under his merry control.

Another interesting fact is that the ground curls and dies wherever they travel, such joy!

 

[Caged Maiden]

I use necromancy in my books, and not in an only evil way....

I made spheres (akin to the White Wolf concept, but different and without such variety). I have major spheres of magic which are acknowledged by the Mage Council in my world, and that encompasses all human magic (elf magic is different).
Life magic is used by priests and priestesses to heal, and in very rare occasions, and only in a temple, VERY powerful clerics have been able to perform a resurrection. The thing is, in my world, the gods have dibs on all spirits, and do not easily give them back to humans to toy with. They basically must wrestle a spirit back from a god, which is not likely to happen (because gods want them to recycle them, I guess). Anyways, Necromancy in my world is based on two things..... and generally considered unacceptable practice. The first thing is manipulating spirits. That might be as simple as speaking to a spirit or summoning one from another plane, or binding it to an item. The other thing would be undead. Reanimation is something one does without a soul.... so if I reanimated a dead bird, it might work for a while, but it is still dead, therefore, it is less about bringing something back as it is moving a pile of rubbish around and making it walk. This is accomplished with enchantments, which take powerful people to accomplish, but the spells themselves can be long-lasting.

Hope that helps. I haven't seen many examples of necromancy except in video games, so I made my own. I liked that it wasn't inherently evil, but was banned because it could get evil really quickly.

 

[Leif GS Notae]

Really, Necromancy falls into too many tropes to be anything but a twitchy stigma for most. This is why you have to play it up and be different.

Isn't that what some doctors do? You could always have your necromancers studying medicine or science as well as dark magic. It can be a slippery slope, but it is the "best intentions".

As far as necro books go, the only ones I have are in my game library. We all know there is no fluff when it comes to the undead, only crunch... Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[kadenaz]

Necromancy is death + magic, so its use in novels is fear + magic.
You could make it work like this.
The more scared, the more focused to the moment, the more powerful.
So the fear is used on the mage himself to open wounds in his own soul, to draw power directly from it
(you get old in 10 years, but who cares? You are probably achieving some very importan goal by doing it)

 

[Aidan of the tavern]

Its not necromancy, but I'm currently fascinated by real life voodoo. I have a taste for the macabre and surreal, so I'm really enjoying finding out about it. I just love the idea of sinister rituals and death magic, plus I'm currently listening to the Dr John album Gris Gris.

 

[Saigonnus]

My experiences with Necromancy are mostly from role-playing. I tended to focus more on the "non-ressurection" abilities of the necromancer than the ability to bring people back from the dead. Generally speaking the manifestations are things like speaking with the dead (for information, limited divination). Also if a necromancer couldn't bring anyone back except under certain circumstances and usually only for a limited amount of time (a week or whatever) that could limit how many times the MC can be brought back. Also they could "animate" dead as well, in the form of zombies or skeletons as henchmen or to carry out certain tasks; returning to their grave once that task is done. They also tended to have familiars of things associated with death (crows, rats etc.)

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

My experiences with Necromancy are mostly from role-playing.

I like the implication that you have... other experiences with necromancy.

 

[Saigonnus]

LOL... the OTHER experiences is from reading fantasy books since I was 11 or 12. Often there was hints at the power of necromancers... liches, dracoliches and the like. Many deal with talking to the dead, summoning demons or imps to do the wizard's bidding or even the wizard being possessed by said demons.