What are people looking for in a white necromancer?Cleric and Arcane builds, preferablly more Cleric (and Oracle?). Arcane already have some decent options in the core material, while divine are extremely limited to a goddess of death and fate that actually doesn't allow this sort of thing after all.
Something along the lines of a priest that raises fallen allies to continue the fight on (if temporarily) rather than cause more death. Someone who might channel darker energies for good, or invest the dead with elemental or even angelic spirits, or rather than tie a corpse to the Negative Energy Plane, perhaps prevent it's spirit from reaching an afterlife for a time.
Perhaps an alternate version of Raise Dead rather than Animate/Create Undead.
Strange, I thought arcane necromancy was playing catch up, undead creation and controlling wise.
Thanks all.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
What are people looking for in a white necromancer?
I thought I answered that pretty well already: David Bowie!
(Sorry, I find that hilarious for some reason. And yeah, there's a lot of good answers here, though some I'm not so sure of.)I'm OK with not working with undead; I'm fine with defining them (or their creation) as all evil. But necromancy isn't just about undead. It's not really about healing, either (though I would be happy if healing spells moved back to the necromancy category rather than making conjuration even more of a grab-bag!), and arcane necromancy isn't about being a refluffed cleric; it's not about healing except perhaps incidentally. (I put healing in the "too complex for arcane magic, it's a gift of divinity" sort of thing -- but, say, a spell that boosted someone's natural healing rate would be a good arcane necromancy spell.)
I'm not so okay with all undead and all their creation being evil (at least not all the time - for some campaigns that's fine*!), and apparently Paizo's okay with limited healing for necromancers (although, yes, that's kind of incidental healing)! That said, I think you're concept is quite fascinating: that it's just too complicated for the gross manipulation that is arcane power. I think polymorphing might disagree, but I can certainly see the benefit of that concept (especially if healing was actually necromancy instead of conjuration) and I like it.
* In fact, I have a really neat (read: terrible) idea now, arising from how the creation is always evil due to (as someone suggested earlier) either something like a "defect" in the spell, or a perversion of natural laws, or something; but the undead themselves are not inherently evil. That would be truly terrible - an non-evil creature subject to the whims of its obviously evil new master/creator. Hm...
A necromancer is someone who works with blood, and bone, and the magic of blood, and the life force and soul directly. It's a deeper level than enchantment, which is just a brief brushing of the mind; it works with the body, without being transmutation; it exists at the core of the self at the point where soul and body intersect, below the level of conscious thought.
I really like how you describe this whole thing. Also worth noting: bones and blood are intimately connected (as is the respiratory system... oooooohhhhhh incoming new-but-vague ideas for necromancy-based breath spells, now...). That would be a fascinating line of inquiry to explore. I would suggest, however, that enchantment is more than just brushing the mind - enchantment also works on a deep level of mental elements, too. The difference is necromancy involves raw physicality in its spiritual side, whereas enchantment does not. Effectively, (Enchantment = mind/spirit, but devoid of life-force); (Necromancy = spirit/body, but devoid of mind). Although, as it currently stands, I still don't like that fear effects are relegated to necromancy. Boo.
There should be a whole slew of blood-related and life-related magics that are part of necromancy. (Half of them would belong in the Book of Erotic Fantasy, though...) Creating arcane connections via body and blood, curses and the lifting of curses (which are breaks between soul and body), etc., etc.
I really like this concept. I've never been fully sold on necromancy=curses, but given the idea of a break between soul and body, that's pretty neat. Effectively like inflicting wounds on that space - that thing that joins them. Veeeeeeeeeery neat!
Thinking about that Eternal Charge of the First Mendevian Crusade idea a bit more. Wonder just how long a small unit of undead soldiers with white necromancer "medics" could realistically last in the Worldwound.
Imagining them as these weary old soldiers that have been patched together time and time again, but they keep pushing onward, taking back what holdings they can(not many) for a time(not long), and rescuing what innocents remain in the area(fewer and fewer as the years go by). If the white necros aren't undead themselves, they could very well be held up by their children or grandchildren, who may very well be tieflings after being born on tainted lands. These children likely would have been raised as much by these undead soldiers and paladins as their actual parents. Could make for some interesting NPC allies or even PC concepts. Soldiers of the Charge may not be welcome back in Mendev*, but that doesn't stop them from escorting refugees to safe(r) lands before turning right back around and marching back into the land that's killed them once already.
Could make for a good bail-out moment for PCs adventuring in the Worldwound. These guys charge in and rescue them, but they can't hold up against whatever was after the PCs forever. They'll willingly lay down their "lives" to protect the PCs and allow them to escape, but they may just charge them with a task they must complete so that they can finally rest easy, knowing their mission was done.
*Which could be a great irony. The guys from the First Crusade are much more likely to be true idealists, particularly compared to the dirtier lot you get coming into Mendev these days, what with their Burners and persecution of the native populace.
Actually, that's a pretty interesting concept. They might even have some of these guys, which might allow them to pass "unmolested" sometimes ("Hey, I'm a mage with a bunch undead, 'course I'm not one o' them Mendevians!") and thus conserve resources. Also, sigh to the burners.
<snipped stuff 'bout clerics>Strange, I thought arcane necromancy was playing catch up, undead creation and controlling wise.
Thanks all.
They are. Clerics, by pure virtue of desecration along, rule the undead creation business. Much less, when you consider the Undead Lord archetype!
What Beckett's referring to, I think, is the lack of non-evil divinities and non-evil divine methods for doing so. In some ways, clerics lack the range of non-evil options that arcanists do, as so much of their necromancy power (at least to my memory, which could be wrong) is puuuuuuuuuuuuuure eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeviiiiiiiiiiiiil. Also, because healing and raise dead-type-spells are conjuration now, which is ridiculous (I change them all in my home games).
()
That's really, I think, what Beckett is talking about. But, Beckett, you should check this out! It's basically what you were talking about (temporary resurrection thing).
That said, I do think arcanists also kind of sort of get the short end of the stick, as one of the major concepts for necromancers is the ability to animate undead. And you can't do that without being evil. And clerics are better at it anyway. Though (as I linked earlier) necromancers have gotten a little love, too, just not enough, to me. And the other subschool's main power is still entirely subject to the whim of the divine caster.
|
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
Thinking about that Eternal Charge of the First Mendevian Crusade idea a bit more. Wonder just how long a small unit of undead soldiers with white necromancer "medics" could realistically last in the Worldwound.
Imagining them as these weary old soldiers that have been patched together time and time again, but they keep pushing onward, taking back what holdings they can(not many) for a time(not long), and rescuing what innocents remain in the area(fewer and fewer as the years go by).
The benevolent / non-evil uses of the dead in myth and lore tend to go that route, of loyalty beyond death or duty (or love) causing someone to linger and attempt to fulfill obligations / protect stuff that they did not accomplish in life.
Everything from the child-bearing gaki of Japan to the mummified warriors protecting a ruler's tomb can fit under this umbrella. Osirion would seem a natural fit for this sort of thing, although the land has, in recent years, seen a preference for conjuration and genies and elementals, as a result of the incursion of a more Qadiran magical style, which could be a plot element (some more traditionalist Osirioni regarding the current Ruby Prince as being too bound up in the magical traditions of the foreign conquerors, and not respectful enough of the necromantic magical traditions that were developed in Osirion itself).
Indeed, if the Qadirans, in the process of taking over Osirion and bringing in the faith of the Dawnflower (who's not the biggest fan of undead or necromancy), pushed back the necromantic traditions of the pre-conquest Osirioni, perhaps they fled to the south (to Geb) and to the west (to Thuvia and Rahadoum).
Thuvia, the 'land of eternal life,' is deadly dull, with nine out of ten sentences about it (including this one) bringing up that damn flower elixir thing, as if there's nothing at all in the entire country other than that worth talking about. Having pockets of formerly-Osirioni necromancer-priests in the country, practicing their arts (which, for a time, were persecuted in Qadira-ruled Osirion), could add a different flavor to that nation.
Having the white necromancers having gone a step further in their exodus from their conquered homeland, and settled in Rahadoum, could also change the tenor of another one-note country that's defined entirely by their rabid dislike of god worship (or divine magic instead, depending on who you ask).
Finally, some may have found Rahadoum unfriendly or whatever, and taken ships to settle the Shackles, which might make for some Pirates of the Caribbean-esque 'ships crewed by undead' scenarios, and lead to discovering islands tucked away in the Shackles where the descendents of the original Osirioni necromancers have set up plantations where undead servants tend to the still-living descendents, their own undead banana republics. Given the ethically loose nature of the locals, more than a few such descendents may have lost some of the 'white' from their necromancy, and taken to binding spirits, instead of negotiating with them, or animating corpses of natives, rather than only using the bodies of those who have willingly and proudly sworn to serve beyond death, making them more the garden-variety sort of evil necromancer.
Best of all, some groups might have stopped in Thuvia, others in Rahadoum, and still others moved into the Shackles, with some embracing the undead pirate lifestyle, and others remaining ethically pure, and regarding the others with contempt for having fallen into degeneracy and 'common' behaviors, so that you can have small pockets of good / neutral necromancers in all of these lands, as well as some more 'traditional' cackling bad-guys (which were invented in the last fifty years or so, but are now considered the only valid interpretation...).
In Osirion (and Thuvia, and Rahadoum) mummification would be an option, and even mindless undead used as laborers by good-ish necromancers would likely be preserved and clothed and treated with some respect (since the previous owners of those bodies agreed to allow such use, and it would be violating one's agreement with their previous owners to mistreat their remains). The whole thing would be gussied up in tradition and law and honor and duty and whatnot, and those who don't at least pay lip-service to those notions would be regarded askance. If one white necromancer visits another and notices that his minions appear to be falling apart, and no care has been taken to maintain them, and that the necromancer doesn't even seem to remember their names, he could see that as a sign that the other is succumbing to the sort of thoughtless disrespect and wicked short-sightedness that plagues the study of necromancy, and attempt to correct his companion, or just sever all ties with him and warn others of his slide towards degeneracy. This wouldn't *only* be about respecting traditions for tradition's sake. In the fantasy world, disrespect of the dead can lead to the formation of haunts and ghosts, spectres, etc. all of whom can be very dangerous to the living, and a white necromancer would be very careful *for reasons practical, as well as ethical* to not accidentally create vengeful angry spirits that want to kill him for abusing the remains of the dead.
Something common to fantasy stories are the forces of evil turning on them, because they lost control or overreached or something, such as the devil-bargainer getting 'played' or the demon-summoner accidentally smudging his pentagram, and it would be completely on-theme for evil necromancers to be at constant risk of having a vengeful spirit show up to express their displeasure at the treatment of their remains (or those of their loved ones). Peasants with pitchforks and torches are a mild inconvenience. The angry spirits of the parents of some nameless punk you're using as a zombie pack mule manifesting as wraiths and draining the life out of you is a far greater concern...
The white necromancers would be able to avoid that, by only 'taking' the willing, and by treating both spirits and corpses with a level of respect.
If carried over into the Shackles, the much wetter climate makes mummification unfeasible. Skeletons stripped of flesh would be the more likely corporeal undead of choice, although skeletons might be 'decorated' by wrapping layers of cloth and leather straps around bones to give them the distorted representation of muscles and flesh, or, as with some mummification procedures, the flesh cleaned away might be replaced with dried mud or something, allowing the white necromancer to create a version of 'zombie' that has some other substance replacing the 'meat' of the zombie. (Kind of a lot of work, 'though, and polished bones seem more likely.)
To someone unaccustomed to anything other than cackling mindlessly evil necromancers, with no greater reasoning beyond;
1. dig up grandmothers to animate,
2. ???,
3. Profit!
the sight of a white necromancer on his Island of Doctor Moreau-esque island paradise, sipping wine in his Osirioni-styled hilltop villa overlooking the plantation worked by clothed and decorated skeletons, might seem off. When a skeleton shows up to refill their drinks, and the 'evil necromancer' thanks it and calls it 'Dennis,' and says, 'there's a good lad,' he might come across as completely mental. But that's how he rolls. By treating the mortal remains of 'Dennis' with respect (and getting his permission before animating his remains in the first place!), he helps to assure that 'Dennis' doesn't manifest as a haunt, or, worse, a shadow, wraith or spectre, and show up and energy drain the hell out of him.
And why is crazy white necromancer guy still on this island? Because he feels unwelcome in the 'new' Osirion, where conjuration is all the rage (just like in Cheliax, he'll mutter darkly, another nation surrendering to outsider interference and losing all respect for those who have come before, abandoning the guidance of their honored ancestors!). He chose this island because a volcano blew up here, and killed thousands in a port town the pirates used to use. He sensed the 'great disturbance in the force,' and settled here. His apprentices travel to the ruins regularly and dismantle haunts and send ghosts to their rest, by helping them find the fates of their lost families, or recovering treasures they craved, or whatever. In so doing, the 'haunted straits' between the coast and this island have become markedly safer, as his efforts, and those of his apprentices, have reduced the number of angry dead haunting this area. He's got a bit of a reputation among the pirates as the 'crazy evil necromancer-guy,' and he's okay with that, because he's not terribly impressed with the pirates, either...
His poor relations with the local pirates have led to them not having been clued into the fact that it's now safe to travel the haunted straits (well, mostly, during the day, anyway...), and so he's got access to a faster shipping route than going all the way around the island, which might be useful for those seeking to avoid the pirates (as most pirate crews won't follow them into the 'haunted' straight) or even those just wishing to shave a day off of a ship journey in that area (and / or avoid getting as close to the Eye of Abendago as the local pirate captains are accustomed to).
And now, he's gone from thought experiment to plot point. Dress him up like Marlon Brando, from that otherwise execrable Island of Doctor Moreau remake awhile back, and have him act more like Sallah, from the Raiders of the Lost Ark movies, and he's good to go.
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Thuvia, the 'land of eternal life,' is deadly dull, with nine out of ten sentences about it (including this one) bringing up that damn flower elixir thing, as if there's nothing at all in the entire country other than that worth talking about. Having pockets of formerly-Osirioni necromancer-priests in the country, practicing their arts...
Hey, it's not just Thuvia!
Alkenstar, the 'land of emerging technology,' is deadly dull, with nine out of ten sentences about it (including this one) bringing up those damn gun things, as if there's nothing at all in the entire country other than that worth talking about. Having pockets of technology-obsessed Human and Dwarven engineers in the country, practicing their arts (which, for a time, were persecuted in technology-resistant cities), could add a different flavor to that nation.
|
Also, because healing and raise dead-type-spells are conjuration now, which is ridiculous (I change them all in my home games).
One other thing that can be said for the White Necromancer class is that it took that back a bit, thematically. It's pretty heavy on the idea of manipulating life energies, both positive and negative, for healing purposes. The really nice thing is that they can be even more heroic as healers since some of that ability involves them giving their own vitality to others, which just feels right for necromantic healing.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Everything from the child-bearing gaki of Japan to the mummified warriors protecting a ruler's tomb can fit under this umbrella. Osirion would seem a natural fit for this sort of thing, although the land has, in recent years, seen a preference for conjuration and genies and elementals, as a result of the incursion of a more Qadiran magical style, which could be a plot element (some more traditionalist Osirioni regarding the current Ruby Prince as being too bound up in the magical traditions of the foreign conquerors, and not respectful enough of the necromantic magical traditions that were developed in Osirion itself).
Wow. A lot to say to this, if I wasn't juggling work on the side. :D
The notion that white necromancer traditions in the Inner Sea Region can all be traced back to Ancient Osirion? Love.
And good idea on evocation-heavy Qadiran culture pushilng out the necromancy-rooted old ways of Osirion...wonder if that's a possible plot point for the Ruby Prince: him calling upon adventurers to discover some of these lost old traditions tied into Osirion's former glory.
Huh, maybe ISR white necromancy traditions start in Osirion, while WN traditions in the Dragon Kingdoms are rooted in Samsaran culture and the death and rebirth of Tsukiyo?
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hey, it's not just Thuvia!Alkenstar, the 'land of emerging technology,' is deadly dull, with nine out of ten sentences about it (including this one) bringing up those damn gun things, as if there's nothing at all in the entire country other than that worth talking about. Having pockets of technology-obsessed Human and Dwarven engineers in the country, practicing their arts (which, for a time, were persecuted in technology-resistant cities), could add a different flavor to that nation.
Irrigation technology and engineering breakthroughs need some mention at the very least.
I found the description of Thuvia fascinating because of its single minded focus. It even says at some point that the only thing they have worth anything is the flower.
You could do a really nice Beau Geste style desert campaign in Thuvia. Tribes of desert-dwellers, divs, various sand-dwelling monsters. The sun orchird elixir can just be a background element (and an excuse to bring a lot of out-of-area monsters or natives into the area.)
They have a coast. LOTS of options there (pirate castles by the sea, battles between two local potentates, harem intrigue, look at the history of the Barbary States for plenty of examples). Raiders from Cheliax or Taldor or Andor or Absalom, or other areas. All the undersea monsters. Gillmen (it is the Inner Sea, after all.)
Battles over water holes and trade routes, for instance. Or wizards living there in isolated towers (a perfect place for them.) I think I could do something exciting with Thuvia without too much sun orchid.
Rahadoum, now that's the one that makes no sense to me.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So how about them non-evil undead, eh?
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So how about them non-evil undead, eh?
Yase...
They are full of great story potential. All you need is a White Necromancer :)
They certainly enable a lot, just weaving them into the history of hte setting and leaving subtle footprints behind. :)
Thuvia, the 'land of eternal life,' is deadly dull, with nine out of ten sentences about it (including this one) bringing up that damn flower elixir thing, as if there's nothing at all in the entire country other than that worth talking about. Having pockets of formerly-Osirioni necromancer-priests in the country, practicing their arts...
I've always wanted to kind of Dark Sun that place up a bit, just to ramp up the harshness of the climate and make the cultures there a bit more fantastic and alien. One(or more0 of those city-states might actually be dependant on undead labor to keep going, but how to do that without bringing down a whole lot of corruptive influence that wears on the soul? Them White Necromancers/Juju Oracles(easily importable in vanilla form from the neighboring Mwangi Expanse)! When you have the survival of one's home and family dependant on a very delicate ecosystem and political arrangement, people who would in other lands be taking their rest would be more willing to put off their retirement and get back to work. Guess Thuvia might actually make for a decent location for a Jakandor analogue actually...
Kind of want to roll with that for Thuvia now. Make each city-state distinct and as fantasically exotic as possible, with the same basic morality as most of the Inner Sea but with crazy different values born out of a desperate, disparate, and mystical society that managed to discover Eternal* Youth. Maybe go full-blown Courtship Rite mode and make them extremely alien, sometimes frightening societies, but still fundamentally human.
*As long as you keep the money comin'...
The angry spirits of the parents of some nameless punk you're using as a zombie pack mule manifesting as wraiths and draining the life out of you is a far greater concern...
That reminds me again why I dislike Revenant-types always being evil. You can't really have The Crow with that setup. (more potential undead allies for WN/JO's though. There's something to keep in mind for some of the other variant undead for them.)
Finally, some may have found Rahadoum unfriendly or whatever, and taken ships to settle the Shackles,
Best of all, some groups might have stopped in Thuvia, others in Rahadoum, and still others moved into the Shackles, with some embracing the undead pirate lifestyle, and others remaining ethically pure, and regarding the others with contempt for having fallen into degeneracy and 'common' behaviors, so that you can have small pockets of good / neutral necromancers in all of these lands, as well as some more 'traditional' cackling bad-guys (which were invented in the last fifty years or so, but are now considered the only valid interpretation...).
I think the tropical climate adaptaations could also fly in the Sodden Lands, where an undead workforce could actually be critically valuable in any sort of recovery project to retake those lost nations from the elements and whatever aberrations have moved in. (could be descendants of those lands coming back from the Mwangi, Mwangi shamans themselves wishing to restore that land to some sort of balance, or even Rahadoum which could really use some moist land...) The harsh weather, miserabe conditions, high potential for disease, and high "river of madness" potential goes away for those guys, except for the person responsible for keeping them up. Goes back to the "fall into degeneracy" you touched on.
That's a big source of potential fun and drama these guys bring to the table: White necros that stay true to their traditions and those who forget the old ways. Maybe a bit of Jedi vs. Sith in the philosophies, where pragmatism and power clash with mutual respect and empathy.
Dress him up like Marlon Brando, from that otherwise execrable Island of Doctor Moreau remake awhile back, and have him act more like Sallah, from the Raiders of the Lost Ark movies, and he's good to go.
Hot damn I am using this NPC somewhere now.
That establishes some really solid ideas on how WN traditions could spread throughout North Garund. Avistan though? Varisian caravans might be a pretty fitting candidate to pick up those traditions, adapt them and adopt the parts they liked that fit into their own reverence for their spirits and ancestors, and suddenly having a place in Avistan for your WN to have learned his art becomes as easy as finding where the caravans have been: Everywhere!
I'm liking the idea of tracing possible routes for the White Necromancer art to travel and spread throughout history, but for some reason I don't see the need as much for cutural equivalents of the Juju Oracle. That one just seems as easy as "find the cultures that most revere their dead and ancestors and are in great need" and just having those divine traditions develop naturally.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
My own notions;
I don't see Varisians having anything to do with corporeal undead. Spirit-talkers, mediums, ghost whisperers, hell yes, and to the nth degree. Varisians have 'Gypsy medium' so hard-coded into their thematic DNA as to make that a gimme. The bit in the Faction Guide about 'tatcheys' or whatever, also fits this.
Shoanti are already spirit-animist-types *and* have a hard ruthless practicality to them. The soft squeamish mewlings of the civilized folk about the 'sanctity of meat' or whatever could seem mock-worthy to them. A white necromancy tradition among the Shoanti would primarily focus around ancestral respect and veneration, contacting and communing with the spirits to seek approval, interpret omens, ask forgiveness, determine guilt/innocence/worthiness, etc. Animation of fellow Shoanti would be right out, but animating the bodies of slain enemies or animals or monsters and using them for very specific projects (such as sending back into their lair / encampment and attacking others of their kind, just ahead of a Shoanti raid to wipe the last of them out) would be fine, as well as just animating them so that younger Shoanti ranger types can get some experience at fighting those sorts of critters. (yes, fine, they're actually fighting zombie ogres, but at least they are getting some experience at fighting Large humanoids with Reach, before they end up facing *real* Ogres!).
Numeria sounds like it was already a bunch of fractured Conan-esque city-states pre-Black Sovereign, so it might have had a 'warlord' who used necromancy, but, IMO, that wouldn't have been a 'white' necromancer so much as the garden-variety evil kind.
The Ulfen are another tough-as-nails people with little sentimentality to them. They use slaves, already, and it would be an interesting tweak to have the Ulfen consider slavery some sort of dishonor too great to bear for *any* living person, and to think it *more proper* to kill a captive and animate their bones to serve as a 'thrall' (while allowing their spirit to go on to meet their gods) than to put a collar on a living prisoner. A prisoner might beg to be a slave instead, but Ulfen might consider such wretches so pathetic that they end up selling them to others, since no Ulfen can bear the sight of a fellow human in chains. They'd rather see a soulless corpse shuffling along pulling a wagon, than look into the eyes of a living person and see a dead soul.
I don't see even white necromancy getting much love in Andoran or Taldor.
Cheliax might or might not have already had a little bit more tolerance for it thanks to the churches of Abadar and Aroden (both neutral gods, who have nothing against undead, and Abadar, in particular, even uses some animated dead as vault guardians), even before Asmodeus (who favors the less 'white' sort of necromancers, likely) rose to influence. Still, I'm not sure that it would have been an institution in pre-devil-Cheliax, even if it wasn't shunned.
Qadira is all 'conjuration YAY!' and strongly contemptuous of necromancer-friendly-Osirion, so I could see white necromancy as held in contempt, as a primitive and unclean sort of magic practice only espoused by the filthy uncultured savages of the north and west.
At least in RW India, consorting with Vetalas and corpses is a part of Left-handed Tantric practices; undead or vampires are said to be in the train of Shiva; in Esoteric Buddhism, human bones are used in rituals, and undead or quasi-undead beings are among the Ugra (terrible) forms of some deities.
These are obviously antinomian practices, and sometimes are metaphorical or enacted in a meditative mind-space alone, but they aren't meant to be evil - more beyond norms of good and evil.
These practices are vilified as evil or primitive or witchcraft by conventional religions in the area.
It remains to be seen how such things might be mirrored in Golarion, but White Necromancy and Juju-like practices are a way to represent it.
|
|
I don't see Varisians having anything to do with corporeal undead. Spirit-talkers, mediums, ghost whisperers, hell yes, and to the nth degree. Varisians have 'Gypsy medium' so hard-coded into their thematic DNA as to make that a gimme. The bit in the Faction Guide about 'tatcheys' or whatever, also fits this.
Actually agreed on the idea of traditional Varisians not going the corporeal route. It just doesn't jibe with their flavor. Still, the elements they do take to other lands could serve as valuable starting points for those that do. Really like the idea of practical applications by the Shoanti.
On the idea of the Ulfen's preference for seeing a dead shell moving that a living person dead on the inside, wonderful source of values dissonance between cultures to mine there. I'm not sure I see Ulfen as being unified on that outlook, but there are some cultures there where this could fit in pretty well. (really need to sit down with Land of the Linnorm Kings tonight)
I don't see white necromancy really taking off in Andoran, but I can sort of see it getting by, though generally keeping its head down. The philosophical difference between white necromancers and standard Skeletor-MYAH-HA-hA!-necromancers do have some parallels between Andoran and a lot of their neighbors on the matter of freedom, plus they're handy in breaking bonds that tie the dead to the world and keep them from moving on. Then again, there's not really much that calls out for a need for white necromancers in Andoran. At least not within Andoran itself.
Molthrune on the other hand... Well, they're pretty open minded about who can serve in their armies as long as they serve loyally... Standard necromancers? Probably not so good for morale. White necromancers? Depending on the cultural outlook of the army, they could be one hell of a boost. And Molthrune has some pretty peculiar and varied armies...
At least in RW India, consorting with Vetalas and corpses is a part of Left-handed Tantric practices; undead or vampires are said to be in the train of Shiva; in Esoteric Buddhism, human bones are used in rituals, and undead or quasi-undead beings are among the Ugra (terrible) forms of some deities.
These are obviously antinomian practices, and sometimes are metaphorical or enacted in a meditative mind-space alone, but they aren't meant to be evil - more beyond norms of good and evil.
These practices are vilified as evil or primitive or witchcraft by conventional religions in the area.
It remains to be seen how such things might be mirrored in Golarion, but White Necromancy and Juju-like practices are a way to represent it.
I've heard of these guys in their modern incarnation, though I can't remember the name. Reminded me a bit of the Yezidi* and how they're often viewed with alarm by their neighbors.
*Possibly Golarion relevant as well, considering Melek Taus and Peacock Angel and/or Spirit mentions.
Yeah tricky and sticky element of real world religion to port over to a setting with alignment. Either way, that gives some neat angles to play with for necromancy of both varieties in Vudra!
|
|
First of all, there is necromancy playing around with zombies, etc and there is ectomancy (playing around with spirits/ghosts). The real objectionable stuff comes in when you interfere with the will of a sentient being.
Zombie T-rex "Sue" and Morty the ectomancer are both awesome things that come out of how undead/ghosts are handled in that series and it seems to me a real shame that you couldn't have similar characters/creations in the Pathfinder system without it being EVIL.
White Necromancers pass that litmus test right out of the box. :)
You just raised an interesting point though:
The WN uses Diplomacy to ask the dead for aid. But what about animals? What about plants? Do Handle Animal and other relevant communication aids work as the WN was originally intended?
|
|
The WN uses Diplomacy to ask the dead for aid. But what about animals? What about plants? Do Handle Animal and other relevant communication aids work as the WN was originally intended?
Pathfinder seems to assume that Handle Animal is the skill to use to get a celestial dolphin or fiendish wolf to do anything other than generically attack your foes, so I'd guess that Handle Animal is also the skill for the spiritual remains of a material planes animal.
I'd discount plant spirits even existing, but this is a setting where one can cast a spell and communicate with plants, *or even stones,* so it's entirely feasible, and very, very appropriate for animist / totemist / place-spirit / spirits-of-nature centric cultures, like the Shoanti or the Mwangi, to believe that rivers, trees, etc. have spirits that can be contacted.
A spell like commune with nature might explicitly work that way, in the hands of a druid who thinks of himself as more of a shaman or speaker-to-nature-spirits, than a dog-whisperer. He could see the spell as contacting the spirits of the animals, plants, stones, wind, rivers, etc. in an area to learn information, and not necessarily the spirits of currently living animals, plants, etc. but the spirits of a river that once ran hear, or a storm that has passed, or a forest that burned down, or the bear that used to dwell in this cave who has left only bones, but whose memory or anima or echo still lingers.
|
|
Pathfinder seems to assume that Handle Animal is the skill to use to get a celestial dolphin or fiendish wolf to do anything other than generically attack your foes, so I'd guess that Handle Animal is also the skill for the spiritual remains of a material planes animal.
I'd discount plant spirits even existing, but this is a setting where one can cast a spell and communicate with plants, *or even stones,* so it's entirely feasible, and very, very appropriate for animist / totemist / place-spirit / spirits-of-nature centric cultures, like the Shoanti or the Mwangi, to believe that rivers, trees, etc. have spirits that can be contacted.
A spell like commune with nature might explicitly work that way, in the hands of a druid who thinks of himself as more of a shaman or speaker-to-nature-spirits, than a dog-whisperer. He could see the spell as contacting the spirits of the animals, plants, stones, wind, rivers, etc. in an area to learn information, and not necessarily the spirits of currently living animals, plants, etc. but the spirits of a river that once ran hear, or a storm that has passed, or a forest that burned down, or the bear that used to dwell in this cave who has left only bones, but whose memory or anima or echo still lingers.
I think plant souls(and souls for just about every creature except most constructs and some undead having souls of some sort was the general assumption. It's what I've always rolled with, but I have to admit I probably take it quite a bit further than the actual standard assumption(rocks, songs, nations, laws of physics, etc. all have souls of some kind).
Have to say, the super-animist ghost-speakin' druid is something I really want to explore now, Shoanti or Mwangi.
Need to recheck the WN spell-list to see if this can be pulled off...
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Have to say, the super-animist ghost-speakin' druid is something I really want to explore now, Shoanti or Mwangi.
If the souls of material creatures go on to the outer planes to become outsiders / petitioners (or linger about and become undead), it would make sense that this all would be part of the 'natural order of things' in this sort of fantasy setting, and the druid would 'naturally' be as invested in it as he is in puppies and rainbows.
Indeed, it's a whole niche of existence left untapped. Clerics focus a lot on what happens to the souls of people (heaven, hell, loiter about and become wraiths, etc.), but who keeps track of what happens to the angered and confused spirits of a bunch of animals that die suddenly, or of a forest that burns because of a man's foolishness, or of a storm that is torn apart by a wizard's spell?
Such violations should be as likely to generate haunts (or other unquiet spirits) as the murder or betrayal of a man.
|
|
Indeed, it's a whole niche of existence left untapped. Clerics focus a lot on what happens to the souls of people (heaven, hell, loiter about and become wraiths, etc.), but who keeps track of what happens to the angered and confused spirits of a bunch of animals that die suddenly, or of a forest that burns because of a man's foolishness, or of a storm that is torn apart by a wizard's spell?
Such violations should be as likely to generate haunts (or other unquiet spirits) as the murder or betrayal of a man.
I can't say for absolute certain, but I think some haunts like that may have actually shown up in the past.
The Mana Wastes have got to be crawling with them. You could probably get quite a spooky scenario going in Falcon's Hollow with those ideas as well, though half of it may just be the local fey.(or fey-bourne haunts)
First of all, there is necromancy playing around with zombies, etc and there is ectomancy (playing around with spirits/ghosts). The real objectionable stuff comes in when you interfere with the will of a sentient being.
Zombie T-rex "Sue" and Morty the ectomancer are both awesome things that come out of how undead/ghosts are handled in that series and it seems to me a real shame that you couldn't have similar characters/creations in the Pathfinder system without it being EVIL.
White Necromancers pass that litmus test right out of the box. :)
You just raised an interesting point though:
The WN uses Diplomacy to ask the dead for aid. But what about animals? What about plants? Do Handle Animal and other relevant communication aids work as the WN was originally intended?
In what sense are you asking this question? The WN has presented in KQ isn't a way of behaving like a Dark Necromancer without the evil tag. A White Necromancer should not be animating the dead for casual amusement or labor. As primary he should be working to undo the work of the more usual kind of Necromancer and raising undead should be 1) done only when other means fail and 2) Said undead should be released to their rest as soon as the task is done.
If you're talking about asking LIVING plants and animals for aid, that's more the realm of an appropriate cleric or druid. Undead Plants.... well just no. Undead Animals... by definition you really can't ask their permission unless you're a shaman type. You might however get the local druids' panties in a bunch though.
Otherwise you might as well play a standard Necromancer.
A lot of it depends on setting. In Arcanis for example you can only raise someone as undead if you do it before the next sunrise when their soul passes on to Beltine's Cauldron. Of course doing that means that not only have you denied them any chance of resurrection, but of the afterlife as well, as missing the deadline strands...
....no one is talking about playing WNs as bwa-ha-ha necromancers. You're reading things into this thread that aren't there. No one is suggesting the WN be casual about their dealings with the dead. It's been stressed repeatedly that it has to be a respectful, well considered affair.
The context of the question is to see all the thematic angles that can be covered with the WN. If restless animal/plant/whatever souls are around, a WN is going to want to be able to communicate with them as well.
Some things are setting dependant, but this thread is specifically about Golarion and finding ways to weave the WN/JO into it.
And yep, there have been undead plants in the game.
Firstly, I just wanted to say that all my bases are belong to Set for ever and ever.
In what sense are you asking this question? The WN has presented in KQ isn't a way of behaving like a Dark Necromancer without the evil tag. A White Necromancer should not be animating the dead for casual amusement or labor. As primary he should be working to undo the work of the more usual kind of Necromancer and raising undead should be 1) done only when other means fail and 2) Said undead should be released to their rest as soon as the task is done.
I have a bone to pick with this. First off, mindless undead exist entirely for labor. If you are not using mindless undead to preform some sort of labor, what are you using them for?
Secondly, since you quite literally do nothing to the soul of the guy who once owned this chunk of calcium that you have sweeping your floor, there is no "returning to rest" anymore than a druid needs to "return to rest" her leather armor. You have a creature that has no soul, no mind, no thought, animated and controlled purely by charging up the batteries with negative energy and exerting your will over it.
It's the rationality here that I take offense to. Otherwise, <3 to ya.
EDIT: Unless you meant sentient undead, in which case I highly imagine they are aiding you because they want to, unless you are actively dominating them via command spells or similar, which is kind of a douche move to pull on a sentient creature.
If they're just sentient undead that are helping you, then I guess they can use their free will as sentient beings to decide if they want to lay down and rest or not. I mean, the majority of good undead would probably jump at the chance to go to whatever Heaven their gods have for them, but you might get the odd one that puts the needs of the world, or perhaps the needs of someone else, before his own eternal splendor.
But at that point, it's no longer in the realm of the White Necromancer.
Hoping to kick up discussion on how best to fit these two classes and what they bring to the table into the Golarion setting(or in the case of the Juju Oracle, to expand their reach). Hopefully some of this'll be useful to folks that want these elements in their Golarion.
Basics
First, a quick rundown for those unfamiliar with the Juju Oracle or the White Necromancer, both Charisma-based full casters capable of bringing non-evil undead into being, which makes them special in the current PF paradigm as far as RAW goes.
The Juju mystery for oracles was introduced in Pathfinder #39 : The City of Seven Spears. These divine oracles work with (somewhat loosely defined IIRC) wendo spirits tied with Mwangi traditions for all manner of reasons, some good, some not so much. Their relationship with the wendo allows them to call these spirits into vessels to animate them, drawing upon a different animating force than most undead. Juju oracles can be of any alignment.
The white necromancer was introduced in Kobold Quarterly #19. These arcane casters are masters of manipulating both positive and negative energy, and many of their healing and protective abilities hinge on putting their own lives on the line. Necromancers also work with the spirits of the dead rather than enslaving them. Where evil necromancers force the state of undeath upon others, white necromancers actually have to use diplomacy to request the aid of the dead, and often this is a two-way bargain that must be respected. White necromancers can be any non-evil alignment.
The big thing about both of these classes is that due to the way they both create undead(specifically through means that remove the [Evil] descriptor from the relevant spells), their mindless undead are always neutral while their intelligent undead always share the alignment of...
Have you checked out Hollowfaust supplement for S&S's 3rd edition campaign setting Scarred Lands? There is some pretty cool stuff there for non-evil necromancers.
You won't be able to make it "memorable" like you want to because so many others have already gone and beaten you to the punch. In fact, your holding so tightly to the idea of undead = evil is probably going to go down about as well as the attempt to "reset" the drow into an all-evil race. The popular culture of gaming accepts non-evil drow and non-evil undead and trying to wall off those options in your setting only so *you* can later reverse them when you feel it's going to be most "memorable" isn't what I'd consider good storytelling; it's just arrogance.
God forbid anyone make a ruleset based on logic and reason and then let people modify it to suit their campaigns, rather than making them have to change rules just to get the ruleset to be setting-Neutral.
There's also the inherent dishonesty with making rules so you can break them later...
Firstly, I just wanted to say that all my bases are belong to Set for ever and ever.
In what sense are you asking this question? The WN has presented in KQ isn't a way of behaving like a Dark Necromancer without the evil tag. A White Necromancer should not be animating the dead for casual amusement or labor. As primary he should be working to undo the work of the more usual kind of Necromancer and raising undead should be 1) done only when other means fail and 2) Said undead should be released to their rest as soon as the task is done.I have a bone to pick with this. First off, mindless undead exist entirely for labor. If you are not using mindless undead to preform some sort of labor, what are you using them for?
Secondly, since you quite literally do nothing to the soul of the guy who once owned this chunk of calcium that you have sweeping your floor, there is no "returning to rest" anymore than a druid needs to "return to rest" her leather armor. You have a creature that has no soul, no mind, no thought, animated and controlled purely by charging up the batteries with negative energy and exerting your will over it.
It's the rationality here that I take offense to. Otherwise, <3 to ya.
EDIT: Unless you meant sentient undead, in which case I highly imagine they are aiding you because they want to, unless you are actively dominating them via command spells or similar, which is kind of a douche move to pull on a sentient creature.
If they're just sentient undead that are helping you, then I guess they can use their free will as sentient beings to decide if they want to lay down and rest or not. I mean, the majority of good undead would probably jump at the chance to go to whatever Heaven their gods have for them, but you might get the odd one that puts the needs of the world, or perhaps the needs of someone else, before his own eternal splendor.
But at that point, it's no longer in the realm of the White Necromancer.
Well it can be argued that you messing with the chunk of calcium that someone left behind is messing with someone else's property, and unless you're a hermit crab who's evolved to need somebody else's empty shell, the golden rule certainly applies. At least if we're talking "white necromancer."
Even if we talking about situation where you buy the use of someone's body after they're dead, it can easily fall out of the realm of "white necromancer" depending on their reasons for selling and the use you put the body to.
Short of cloning yourself in the lab and using the clones of yourself to make zombies, you're going to run into trouble. And even that can have arguments made against it.
Contributor
|
All of this presumes a western oriented concept of the body. I have been reading up on the Aghoris, a sect of antinomian, but not evil (they actually take care of the sick) ascetics in India. Aghoris practice ritual cannibalism, and carry skulls they retrieve from the cremation grounds as a sort of familiar. They also smear their naked bodies with the ash from the ghats.
They take to an extreme the idea in Hinduism that one's body is a shell that after death is pretty much food for animals and dirt for the Ganges. The same notion pervades sky-burial in Tibet and the ancient cannibalistic rites there.
Tantric magicians, for that matter, are said to consort with Vetalas, spirits who possess corpses, as part of their search for wisdom, and the enlightened Dakinis and Kali drink blood and consume human corpses.
So the notion that one owns one's own corpse, after one has left it behind, is not a universal one.
Then again, the bodies of saints certainly belonged in Western history to the whole community, to be dispersed and divided up. As do the bodies of those who will their remains to science.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Firstly, I just wanted to say that all my bases are belong to Set for ever and ever.
In what sense are you asking this question? The WN has presented in KQ isn't a way of behaving like a Dark Necromancer without the evil tag. A White Necromancer should not be animating the dead for casual amusement or labor. As primary he should be working to undo the work of the more usual kind of Necromancer and raising undead should be 1) done only when other means fail and 2) Said undead should be released to their rest as soon as the task is done.I have a bone to pick with this. First off, mindless undead exist entirely for labor. If you are not using mindless undead to preform some sort of labor, what are you using them for?
Secondly, since you quite literally do nothing to the soul of the guy who once owned this chunk of calcium that you have sweeping your floor, there is no "returning to rest" anymore than a druid needs to "return to rest" her leather armor. You have a creature that has no soul, no mind, no thought, animated and controlled purely by charging up the batteries with negative energy and exerting your will over it.
It's the rationality here that I take offense to. Otherwise, <3 to ya.
EDIT: Unless you meant sentient undead, in which case I highly imagine they are aiding you because they want to, unless you are actively dominating them via command spells or similar, which is kind of a douche move to pull on a sentient creature.
If they're just sentient undead that are helping you, then I guess they can use their free will as sentient beings to decide if they want to lay down and rest or not. I mean, the majority of good undead would probably jump at the chance to go to whatever Heaven their gods have for them, but you might get the odd one that puts the needs of the world, or perhaps the needs of someone else, before his own eternal splendor.
Well it can be argued that you messing with the chunk of calcium that someone left behind is messing with someone else's property, and unless you're a hermit crab who's evolved to need somebody else's empty shell, the golden rule certainly applies. At least if we're talking "white necromancer."
Even if we talking about situation where you buy the use of someone's body after they're dead, it can easily fall out of the realm of "white necromancer" depending on their reasons for selling and the use you put the body to.
Short of cloning yourself in the lab and using the clones of yourself to make zombies, you're going to run into trouble. And even that can have arguments made against it.
Agreed. Which is actually why I think characters like Archliches and Baelnorn are exceptionally good. While evil casters are off avoiding their eternal reward, good casters are putting it off to do more good. "No, I cannot allow myself to rest in paradise, because Xorlil, my arch nemesis schemes even now to turn this world in to an outpost of the nine hells. How could I sit by in splendor and pleasure, knowing that I could have done something about it..."
Incidentally, the whole calcium thing falls apart pretty fast. What you do with the remains of previously sentient beings is pretty solidly based on religious tradition and isn't innately good or evil. For example, I understand that in Norway it was customary to bury your dead in a boat, or burn them on the water. Elsewhere, in the world, cultures ate their dead in a ritual funeral of love and respect; while elsewhere still people buried their dead and viewed touching bodies to be unclean. Personally, I do not want an RPG to try and tell me what is right and wrong to do with a corpse that is no longer used as a vessel.
Likewise, the argument against defiling the bodies of sentient creatures falls apart faster than you can say "Dragonskin Armor". Oh yeah. I went there. We don't just kill sentient creatures, but we wear their skin. It'd be like making a gnoll-skin coat!
And there's always the question about animals. Undead animals are actually easy to come by, and are often more useful for major labor like carrying and dragging stuff, and are better in combat. An ox is 15 gp and uses the stats for Aurochs. You can feed someone ox meat (like donating meat to an orphanage), turn the ox into a skeleton, and have the ox plow your fields, pull your carts, fight your battles, and so forth. Not even druids can whine about it, since they use the dead remains of animals for stuff too (padded, leather and hide armors being the only ones they are allowed to use in the core rulebook).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's for this reason that it confuses me as to why James Jacobs, who has posted in this thread and others lately, who has noted that he believes the rules exist to tell a story, would then turn and support rules that actually hinder good stories. I had actually hoped that since Paizo wasn't gobbled up by Hasbro (when I noticed the changes to the logic involving the D&D game) that they wouldn't be afraid to make things in the game that were scary, creepy, or ugly, that weren't innately evil and shallower than a spoon of water.
I don't support alignment and always-evil undead because of the rules. As a matter of fact... I think that always-evil undead make for BETTTER stories.
Note that my maintaining that undead (with the exception of some ghosts) are always evil does NOT preclude us doing an adventure or story about a non-evil undead. In fact, I maintain my stance that undead are evil precisely BECAUSE we might want to do a story like that some day... and a story like that is much more impactful and interesting if the fact that undead are always evil is already established and well-documented.
Look at Driz'zt. Before "The Crystal Shard," the concept of a good-aligned drow was pretty alien, and even though some DID exist here and there, they were very obscure. The drow in print up until that time were demon worshiping sadists, through and through.
But then, Salvatore came along with Driz'zt and that character was INSANELY popular. Partially because of the fact that it was a new way to look at drow. And since then... look at how drow are regarded today. There's even good-aligned drow deities. And know what? I actually LIKE that—Eilistraee (the good drow deity in question) is my favorite Forgotten Realms deity, in fact. But at the same time... I also really like drow as bad guys. Which is partially why we tried "Second Darkness," as an attempt to "reset" the drow as bad guys. Turns out, that AP was one of our least popular ones, for several reasons... but one of those is...
I have no idea if you're still paying any attention to this thread, James, but for what it's worth, Second Darkness had plenty of issues far larger than whether drow are well regarded as villains. But to the extent that I objected to your attempt to 'reset the drow as bad guys', it was precisely because, for me, the drow never stopped being bad guys. I've never understood the mindset that the popularity of good drow somehow voids the evilness of mainstream drow society. So when the Second Darkness article about the drow all but outright stated that ALL drow were irredeemably evil with a capital EVIL, no exceptions, it didn't make them more menacing, or redeem them from being cheapened by an overglut of good drow or such. It just made them more cartoonish.
I've never understood the mindset that the popularity of good drow somehow voids the evilness of mainstream drow society.Honestly, it's really not so much the popularity aspect as that the sheer overwhelming number of ways to support a "good" Drow (particularly in FR) started making it hard to take the notion that there was a 'mainstream drow society' very seriously. Especially on the surface, it started getting to the point where it would seem almost everyone had met one of these 'rebels' and if there are so many, just how seriously would people in the world take the 'real' drow?
Probably as seriously as the people of Golarion take the Chelaxian government despite the fact that there are literally countless Chelaxians who are thoroughly decent people with no interest in selling their souls for power. Like, say ethnically Chelaxian Andorani, or the average citizen of Magnimar.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I had less problem with 'good drow' than with how fanatically uber-lawful the Drow of the Realms seemed to become, with their 'Way of Lolth' and 'any deviation is instant death' business.
For a nominally chaotic race, serving a supposedly chaotic goddess, they were on such a tight leash, and so limited in behaviors and personality types that they might as well have been robots.
Violent, angry, hypersexualized S&M robots, but robots nonetheless.
As with so many things, making all of race X act Y just makes Y kind of meaningless. If everyone is evil, then evil, in context, means *nothing,* particularly when evil is supposed to be a *choice.* It's impossible for evil to be morally wrong, if everyone is evil, nobody has a choice in the matter, nobody has to actually be malicious to be 'default evil' and there's no good to provide context anyway.
It kinda cheapens the whole idea of evil being wrong, if nobody had a choice in the first place. Same thing with good, really. It's hardly commendable to be 'good' because you were born that way and never had to make a choice or sacrifice or informed decision to be good.
It's just 'Whoopy, you're good, just like everybody else. You want a medal for that, being the lowest common denominator of good-by-default, because you didn't even know there was another option?'
This thread is very long and I didn't read it all, because I'm not following the class discussion, but I am interested in non-evil undead.
I just saw the Burning Cavalier listed in one of the books, Classic Horrors Revisited, I think. He's a paladin that was killed by a fiery blast of the Whispering Tyrant's magic during the Shining Crusade and he spontaneously rose as a burning skeletal champion. He continued fighting against the Whispering Tyrant until the tyrant's imprisonment and then vanished into the wildlands of Ustalav, and occasional stories tell of a burning skeletal champion that fights bandits, undead, and other monsters in the hinterlands of Ustalav. It doesn't say his alignment specifically, but I like to imagine he's an LG Burning Skeletal Champion Paladin.
Obviously I wouldn't want a bunch of those, but one is OK.
I prefer most of my undead to be evil, but for ones that don't feed on the living directly, it's easier for them to be non-evil. In my own campaign, I avoid using zombies that aren't "brain-eating" zombies (usually Apocalypse zombies), because I like for most of the undead to feed on the living somehow. (When all your controlled zombies are apocalypse zombies, it's very bad to exceed your HD of controlled undead.) Exceptions to human-feeding include ghosts and some other ghost-like entities, and skeletons, including skeletal champions.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
In my own campaign, I avoid using zombies that aren't "brain-eating" zombies (usually Apocalypse zombies), because I like for most of the undead to feed on the living somehow. (When all your controlled zombies are apocalypse zombies, it's very bad to exceed your HD of controlled undead.) Exceptions to human-feeding include ghosts and some other ghost-like entities, and skeletons, including skeletal champions.
*If* negative energy is not just 'black-colored positive energy' and instead represents a void of energy, an absence of energy, then it would be logical for all undead to need some sort of power source other than negative energy. Even positive-energy-empowered peeps gotta eat, after all, and negative energy, if envisioned as an absence of energy, would be even 'hungrier.'
Making all undead require constant feeding (whether on flesh, like ghouls, blood, like vampires, or stolen life-energy, like most incorporeal undead) to maintain their existence, due to the limitations of negative energy, would go a long way towards at least remotely justifying an 'undead are evil' trope, since, as the rules currently stand, only *positive energy* creatures have to run around eating other living creatures to survive, which is arse-backwards.
Liches and mummies get around their requirements through sustaining themselves with great quantities of arcane or divine magic, stored within the permanant magic items they use as phylacteries or canopic jars or whatever. Skeletons and zombies are similarly 'charged' with arcane or divine power from their creators, and, when that begins to falter, run around killing stuff (or hang around in unhallowed or desecrated areas, which have a 'charge' of negative energy already), trying to maintain the charge that keeps them running (whether or not this works, or is a desperation move that does nothing to stave off their inevitable decay, is up to the GM, and might vary situationally, if the GM wishes).
It's very much non-canonical, since, in the rules, negative energy does function as an infinite source of free mechanical energy, and is nothing more than a superior (but black-colored) form of positive energy that doesn't require killing to maintain, but I very much prefer that negative energy is a swirling sucking ever-hungering drain at the bottom of the sink of creation, not just a different-colored spigot dispensing a different flavor of candy at the top.
|
I am glad to see this thread keep alive!
Set -could it be argued then that negative energy is not so much superior to positive energy but that it is entropy and decay made manifest? I like the idea that the fact of using negative energy to raise undead makes them want to consume the living to fill the void and keep them selves from decaying to quickly.
Now that i think of it negative energy seems to be an imperfect source to draw from to raise a corpse to undeadom. Positive energy as well would cause the corpse to destroy its self just as quickly and may be even more cruel as especially with intelligent undead it would be like drowning them in a ocean of life and telling them that they can never drink from it. However i maintain my previous statement from earlier in the thread that undead raised through positive energy would have to bleed it off some how. This works remarkably well with the view of negative energy you are advocating.
So, hey, mentioning Western views of left-over body parts (especially bones). I mean, there's also the whole Saints' relics thing, but you know, I'm just talkin' 'bout average Joes here.
RE positive/negative energy being good and evil: negative energy is basically as Set calls it out now - an alternate (to all appearances "superior", if "grim") energy source to use however you want, though it happens to often (but inconsistently) have the [evil] tag added for no apparent reason.
Undeath itself really seems to have no noticeable "downsides" aside from "you look ugly and for an unknown reason have an [evil] alignment by default".
Part of the problem - in both cases - is that there appears to be no reason for the [evil]. "It's just evil." is the way things look, and that's not really any sort of good justification.
Hey, Kevin, could you tell me the arguments against using your own clones? 'Cause I gotta be honest: I'm not coming up with many, and the few I do come up with are really weak.
Oh hey, and I may (once again) be back. Here's hoping!
|
|
Set -could it be argued then that negative energy is not so much superior to positive energy but that it is entropy and decay made manifest?
I would like for negative energy to be void or a vacuum of power. Anything constructed or empowered by negative energy would be an ever-hungering void, needing a constant stream of energy from some other source to remain functional, whether it be the blood, flesh or life-energy of the living, or the arcane / divine energies a lich or mummy uses.
Mechanically, it doesn't work that way, since undead such as skeletons and zombies seem to be able to live on forever without needing any sort of sustenance, which is a trick that most positive energy empowered living creatures haven't figured out...
I like the idea that the fact of using negative energy to raise undead makes them want to consume the living to fill the void and keep them selves from decaying to quickly.
Yeah, and making a few exceptions for liches and mummies (who use magical sources of power, instead of life-energy, to keep on trucking) allows for the various sorts of undead already existence in the game to keep on functioning more or less the way they already do.
Skeletons and zombies become the point where you have to make a decision. Are they empowered solely by whatever arcane or divine energies were used to create them? Do they *also* require external energy inputs from eating brains or whatever? Does a skeleton benefit in some way from killing living things, or would some sort of mechanical change be necessary to the animate dead spell, so that skeletons and zombies have to be 're-empowered' by the spell, or the energies of a desecrated area, or a naturally occuring area of death-energies, or something every 30 days or so.
Now that i think of it negative energy seems to be an imperfect source to draw from to raise a corpse to undeadom. Positive energy as well would cause the corpse to destroy its self just as quickly and may be even more cruel as especially with intelligent undead it would be like drowning them in a ocean of life and telling them that they can never drink from it. However i maintain my previous statement from earlier in the thread that undead raised through positive energy would have to bleed it off some how. This works remarkably well with the view of negative energy you are advocating.
The point where all the speculation falls down, is that D&D/PF assumes that positive energy and negative energy are antithetical and yet, most undead feed on life, which is positive energy!
Most undead feed off of life-energy, and, paradoxically, are blasted out of existence by the very stuff they need to survive, making the channel energy rules about as intuitive as attempting to kill a pack of hungry dogs by throwing scraps of meat at them.
If the game were internally consistent in it's presentation of positive and negative energy, the channeling of positive energy would *heal* undead, as they would regard the flood of life-energies as an all-you-can-eat buffet of yummy, yummy life-force.
The channeling of negative energy would be an act of theft, stealing life-energy away not just from the living, but also the hoarded scraps of life-energy stolen away from the living by an undead creature, so that a ghoul or vampire or wraith blasted with negative energy would be wracked with hunger and harmed by the hungry negative energy, draining away whatever life-force it had stolen through consuming flesh or blood or energy drain.
As much as I like the idea of negative energy being a void of hungry oblivion, and not 'black-colored positive energy,' the rules pretty much only support 'black-colored positive energy.'
|
Contributor
|
Re undead feeding off positive energy - well... we need oxygen to survive, but large quantities are quite poisonous. The same is true of some minerals and even water (water poisoning is very rare, admittedly). But a large dose might be too much to handle, but a small dose might not only be tasty, but maybe habit-forming - to use another analogy - like pepper, which triggers an allergic reaction which actually feels good. As a multiple food allergy sufferer, when I discovered my allergies I was surprised, because I really liked some of the food on the list. But in fact, I was getting a little high off the allergic reaction and thus had a stronger craving for the food, but it wasn't good for me.
Funny thing - one of the foods was garlic.
Iiiiiiiiiiinteresting, Jeff!
The problem with making undead basically need to eat is the fact that it kind of kills the whole undead thing. Hollywood brain eating zombies are supposedly "virus based". They're technically still alive, but apparently have an infinite tolerance to pain and spread their disease like some sort of STD. They're actually closer to D&D ghouls in terms of how they are themed and propagate (they eat people and bite to spread a disease that may turn you into a zombie).
If we make undead need to consume stuff for their undead state, we effectively kill the #1 tradition for undead being ideal for things like guarding tombs, or sitting inside or atop towers for countless years. Stuff like the undead guardian positioned atop the tower with Tashron's Bow in the Baldur's Gate II lore would basically cease (the short version is a mage stuck a mindless but powerful skeletal archer on top of his tower, armed with a force bow, which requires no ammo, and the archer kept almost everything from his tower).
What good are skeletons, zombies, and mummies if leaving them inside your dungeon as guards means they need a steady supply of fresh meat to continue to function. I suppose you could hook the undead up with create food & water traps, but that kind of doesn't work for most of their concepts. :P
A void or lack of energy entirely would be suitable for that, but at the moment it is quite clearly energy. It's just energy that is opposed to positive. Then we come to the problem of how something is powered by lack of energy. "My car is powered by dead batteries. The less energy the better. In fact, my completely removing my car's battery, and filled it with the void of space, it runs like a dream" is weirder to me than "I modified this car to use these other batteries, which normally would break my car due to the differences between them and normal batteries, but after custom modifications it can accept this new type of energy, but is now incompatible with the old type".
So, hey, mentioning Western views of left-over body parts (especially bones). I mean, there's also the whole Saints' relics thing, but you know, I'm just talkin' 'bout average Joes here.
RE positive/negative energy being good and evil: negative energy is basically as Set calls it out now - an alternate (to all appearances "superior", if "grim") energy source to use however you want, though it happens to often (but inconsistently) have the [evil] tag added for no apparent reason.
Undeath itself really seems to have no noticeable "downsides" aside from "you look ugly and for an unknown reason have an [evil] alignment by default".
Part of the problem - in both cases - is that there appears to be no reason for the [evil]. "It's just evil." is the way things look, and that's not really any sort of good justification.
Hey, Kevin, could you tell me the arguments against using your own clones? 'Cause I gotta be honest: I'm not coming up with many, and the few I do come up with are really weak.
Oh hey, and I may (once again) be back. Here's hoping!
+1 to this. Every argument made for [Evil] spells is quickly crushed.
A1) Negative energy is evil and stuff.
R) Except is shown to be neutral.
A2) Defiling the body is obviously evil.
R) Explanation of cultural and practical proves to this being untrue.
A3) Channeling negative energy is evil.
R) Demonstrably false, as virtually 100% of the necromancy school uses negative energy, but only animate dead, desecrate, create undead, and create greater undead.
A4) Animating undead trap souls and such.
R) Demonstrably false, as we have D&D lore that shows what happens to souls, and there is no evidence to back this up, other than being unable to use the now undead body for resurrecting. Meanwhile, wizards trap and enslave a living soul as a fuel source every time they use Craft Construct to make a golem; and yet not even that is [Evil].
A4a) I'll cite the undead type which says undead creatures are not affected by spells such as raise dead and the sort as evidence that they affect souls.
R) Undead creatures are often entirely different creatures. If a skeleton or zombie is created via animate dead, it is not "Bob the skeleton", it just just skeleton. Bob is off on another plane lacking a body. In fact, if you have a piece of Bob to use resurrection, you can resurrect Bob next to the undead created from his remains.
The problem comes with sentient undead who actually IS Bob. If Bob is a vampire, his soul is not elsewhere. He cannot be resurrected with his lock of hair because Bob is still here, in an undead body. If you destroy Bob again, you can suddenly re-form bob with resurrection and true resurrection because Bob is now dead again. Of course, these spells bring Bob back to life, not unlife, because they make a new living body for him.
Does that pretty much sum up everything?
Hey, Kevin, could you tell me the arguments against using your own clones? 'Cause I gotta be honest: I'm not coming up with many, and the few I do come up with are really weak.
Oh, sure.
The easiest argument is the whole "the body is a temple" line of theology where the body is considered to be made in the image of the god. Ergo taboos against tattooing and any sort of body modification or mutilation.
Making clones of yourself and having them shamble around as rotting corpses? You've not only desecrated your own form, but you've multiplied the problem.
Another bit of theology is that a portion of the soul inheres in the body. To cast the Clone spell, you're fragmenting a portion of your soul and then corrupting it by turning it into an undead creature.
So basically the arguments boil down to sacrilege and damage to one's soul. The only theological way around the first is to deny the moral authority of the gods--which is what Urgathoa did with Pharasma--and the only way around the second is for it to be metaphysically incorrect, which is a GM call. If the GM says it's metaphysically correct, and a portion of the soul does inhere in a cloned body, as evidenced by "Speak with Dead" working on a lifeless clone (which is another GM call, obviously)? Well then, yes, it does damage the soul.
As for whether you have the right to damage your own soul, that again gets back to the "sacrilege" argument.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hey, Kevin, could you tell me the arguments against using your own clones? 'Cause I gotta be honest: I'm not coming up with many, and the few I do come up with are really weak.Oh, sure.
The easiest argument is the whole "the body is a temple" line of theology where the body is considered to be made in the image of the god. Ergo taboos against tattooing and any sort of body modification or mutilation.
Making clones of yourself and having them shamble around as rotting corpses? You've not only desecrated your own form, but you've multiplied the problem.
That's great and all. Really. I'm a Christian, so I get that. However, last I checked, there was no similar restriction for having your characters wear earrings, get tattoos, change your body into something entirely different (you would transform your human godly image into an animal? Druids = evil. Period, right?). Of course, I don't imagine that my Christians are wandering around most D&D campaign settings, what with them lacking the Jewish god or Jesus Christ in their Pantheons.
Likewise, even as a Christian, I'd stop playing D&D if a ruleset that was supposed to be Neutral was so unashamingly biased as to literally condemn such things while also having the nerve to be so hypocritical as to not only allow you to wear sentient creature hides, but encourages you to do so and allows druids the concession to do so as an alternate means to wearing refined rocks.
Which holy days in D&D should we also kill our party members on. I mean, I need to know that sort of thing if we're going to be basing D&D morality strictly on Judeo-Christian taboos. I mean, if the goddess of Night has her holy night on the second day of the month, the god of the Sun has his every wensday, and the god of war considers every day a holy war day that you should be working on, except the first day of the week where you're allowed to rest and feast on meat and mead; well then we need to know these things, because we need to start stoning our intercultural/intereligious party members to death until they accept that their false elven gods are obviously evil because they don't embody the holy spirit and the teachings of Jesus Christ. AMEN, ELVEN BIATCHES. STONE THE DWARVES (pun intended)! CONVERT THE GNOMES! CAST OFF YOUR NON-JUDEOCHRISTIAN FANTASY CONCEPTS! REPENT, REPENT!
/sarcasm
Another bit of theology is that a portion of the soul inheres in the body. To cast the Clone spell, you're fragmenting a portion of your soul and then corrupting it by turning it into an undead creature.
An entirely fluff concept, which is not supported by the rules at all. A coprse can be turned into mindless skeleton and/or zombie, but RAW you can still return the dead guy back to life with spells like Resurrection and True Resurrection that do not require a body. See, animate dead specifically does not turn an existing creature into an undead creature, it turns the creature's remains into one. It's not like with vampires, ghouls, ghosts, and most other intelligent undead who have their minds/souls intact or turn you into their spawn directly; for example. Incidentally, their souls are still accounted for which is why you have to destroy their physical undead body before you can start calling their souls back with spells like resurrection.
So basically the arguments boil down to sacrilege and damage to one's soul. The only theological way around the first is to deny the moral authority of the gods--which is what Urgathoa did with Pharasma--and the only way around the second is for it to be metaphysically incorrect, which is a GM call. If the GM says it's metaphysically correct, and a portion of the soul does inhere in a cloned body, as evidenced by "Speak with Dead" working on a lifeless clone (which is another GM call, obviously)? Well then, yes, it does damage the soul.
Gods have basically no moral authority in D&D. They are judged by their actions like everyone else. For every god with an ideal way of life, there is another god that spits in the face of that way of life. Literally, in a pantheon, there is no "one true way to heaven". The only thing gods got in D&D is "if found to be naughty in my sight, snuff it". That's the extent of their authority. Pharasma is a whiny, plain goddess who tries to be interesting by trying to claim to know your entire life before it happens in a world where free will exists, and whines about undead because they don't visit her enough. Meanwhile, one of the other major gods basically got wasted drunk an woke up a god. Yeah, there's a role model god right there. Where's that "body is a temple" thing now? We got a god who leads by example to alcoholism, which is insanely destructive on the body.
I'm a Christian myself, and yet I'm shocked. Literally shocked that people can't step back and look at stuff with a scientific reasoning, the evidence, or have the inability to look at something with their imaginations rather than trying to argue logic with religious belief that is neither universal nor expected in a campaign setting.