*edit* Sorry. Double post. had some problem just deleting it.
Avoiding semantics, ethics and the Diablo Necromancer for now, lets look at it RAW.
Actually if anyone is interested in examining the specifics of the descriptor (Evil) in Necromancy spells only 6 of 41 Necromancy spells in the SRD are Necromancy(Evil). The rest have either no descriptor or one that doesn't involve alignment.
The thing that must be considered is that while all undead are necromantic, not all necromancy is undead. Most of necromancy is just negative energy. Some not even that.
While any setting may have dealing with the undead be neutral, the vast majority of published settings and also, I believe, home-brew settings regard undead as evil. Your mileage may vary.
Now a caster that specializes in negative energy is not necessarily evil, it would depend on his uses of negative energy, but a culture that tolerated the use of their family and friends' bodies for necromantic purposes is highly improbable. But if this is the case in your setting, the issue is moot and no form of necromancy is specifically evil..
The OP's original questions are easy to answer.
Why must being evil be associated with negative energy?
It isn't. Undead is associated with evil, not negative energy. They are different things, though related.
Should necromancy be evil?
In and of itself (barring the specific spells Animate Dead, Contagion, Create Undead, Create Greater Undead, Eyebite and Symbol of Pain) necromancy is not evil. A good divine caster cannot use the above spells, but could use any other necromancy spell; and an arcane caster that avoided the above spells and used the other necromancy spells only for good would still be good aligned.
If said caster is digging up bodies in the wee hours and making them into undead creatures, the issue isn't his alignment, its his sanity.
Remember, Dr. Frankenstein up until the very last had been sure that he was sane. It turned out otherwise.
-Jack
In D&D a good cleric can dig up a corpse and turn it into the foulest undead they can manage,
No, they can't. A Good Cleric (or a Neutral Cleric of a Good God) can't cast Evil spells at all.
Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells
A cleric can’t cast spells of an alignment opposed to his own or his deity’s (if he has one). Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated by the chaos, evil, good, and law descriptors in their spell descriptions.
A Good Cleric/Wizard or a Cleric/Sorcerer could perhaps do what you describe, by casting Create Greater Undead as a Wizard. The text is not clear on if this restriction applies to only Cleric spells or spells period. It also doesn't specify if the Cleric could prepare the spell or not (my intuition says 'no', same as I assume the rule does only apply to Cleric spells.
The Cleric/Wizard might not even lose their Cleric powers as a result(a Paladin/Wizard would lose their Paladin powers, though), but it certainly represents a moral quandry.
[...]Science and progress... makes the assumption that a fantasy world has a "scientific base". Maybe it doesn't. And if your really into science and progress, there are SFRPGs. Still, if you want to base your fantasy on science, that's your privilege.See? That's why alignment descriptors should be campaign specific instead of becoming part of the core rules. Thank you for agreeing with me.
No. It just means an RPG based on western fanatasy motiffs core rules should support those things fundamental to it's sources.
And here is where I feel justified in using an acronym: O M G!
Islamic elements appear only within the first of 4 links.
Islamic influences during middle ages are hard to qualify as exceptions. You are talking about heirs of Ottoman Empire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire).Dude, you're discriminating, ignoring arguments and arguing with historical facts.
You're cherrypicking your information. At best. A elementary school site. A 1911 article highlighting an arguement among professional rivals. The last citation on Vesalius is 16th century, not exactly the Middle Ages. Things did start to change with the Rennaisance. Hence the name. A good site for an overview of medieval medicine (with citations and sources);
<<http://www.maggietron.com/med/index.php>>
It's nicely done, concise, with good references. It talks about the progress made during the Middle Ages and the limitations of that progress. Surgery took off during the Renaissance, but still, in the popular mind, remained a dubious endeavor.
Importing Victorian Era and Mary Shelley into equation deserved mild rebuke. Please stay in the right times. See my point below...*snip*
Again, kindly refrain from making trips to other ages of history. Unless, of...
Do you have a clue where those attitudes originated? How long they lasted? Despite the enlightened influence of the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution? And you wonder why surviving Western social prejuidices are relavent to a discussion of medieval attitudes and how deeply ingrained they were? Come on.
One of the very links quoted above dealt with papal stance on science. Moreover, despite opposition, discoveries which overthrew old beliefs were still taking place. Finally, crusades, building of Notre Dame cathedral (architecture!) and development of culture seem to indicate, that contrary to popular beliefs, Middle Ages were not only about single minded individuals struggling with day to day life.And, to paraphrase certain Roman statesman:
Moreover, I advise that alignment descriptors must be destroyed.regards,
Ruemere
There is better information out there. Discoveries overthrowing old beliefs is what the Renaissance was about. And given the survival of numerous medieval prejudices for centuries after it shows the limits of education and knowledge in this period. And one last time... you don't have to use the "evil" descriptor if you don't want too. It's the standard bit, and should, for that reason, remain in the generic rules IMO. I'm not writing the rules, so that will be as it will be. Paraphrasing Cato does get you points, but I doubt they'll sow the page with salt... anyway, have fun with your game.
The OP's original questions are easy to answer.Why must being evil be associated with negative energy?
It isn't. Undead is associated with evil, not negative energy. They are different things, though related.
The problem is though, that both D&D and Pathfinder do associate negative energy with being evil. According to the rules, a good cleric channels positive energy and an evil cleric channels negative energy.
My intent behind the post was to solicit feedback from others as to whether Pathfinder should revisit this concept.
Thanks to the overwhelming amount of posts in this thread that support and offer many reasons why there should be no connection to planar energy and alignment, I'm hoping that the Pathfinder designers revisit this concept.
There was some eye glazing while reading this thread so if I bring up something others have already touched on my apologies.
I once had a player who objected to the notion of positive and negative energy. Rather than squabble with him I rebranded them as "Spring" and "Autumn". Spring had vitality, renewal and hope. Autumn had decay, lethargy and despair. Neither was explicity good or evil, just parts of the cosmic ebb and flow.
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Read the malazan book of the fallen series. An entire species became undead so that they could destroy a race that sometimes produced mind controling god like tyrants. Ever since they have battled anything that threatens the world. And they are POWERFUL undead, when asked by Deaths herald wether they would challenge the god, the reply was 'challenge him? Of course, ask him if he would challenge us' the answer was no.
And high mages create undead and constructs with souls as needed. it's hard but they do it. Quick Ben, one of the main heroic characters, has a construct with the trapped soul of an ancient shaman in it, so that between them they can battle a great evil.
Does this make the heroic characters evil ? Or pragmatic, and this is a setting in which Evil absolutly excists.
Using a captured soul to animate a mechanical slave sounds evil to me. The caster is using something, from a metaphysical standpoint, that should be sacred based upon western philosophy. The fact that in that particular world, souls can be enslaved for "good purposes" should not imply that all "generic western worlds" (e.g. the PFRPG world of Golarion) should treat souls in such a cavalier fashion. Read this as: if you want to make raising dead or trapping souls non evil in your world, great, but the generic world should be based upon a common philosophical footing where undead are morally disgusting.
And calling the high mage pragmatic is disingenuous. A person that routinely captures people and locks them in his basement to be used as his slaves but is also a great philanthropist is not a pragmatist, he is a sociopath. Likewise, saving a child from drowning in a neighbor's pool does not give you the moral right to kill a child crossing the street, resulting in a net morality of "neutral".
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Most necromancer-created undead have little or nothing to do with souls anyway, so much of this argument is pretty theoretical anyway. Other than not being able to be ressurected into a body that's already in use by a necromancer, the spirit of the deceased would never have any reason to even be aware of what his mortal corpse is up to, being in another plane.
But say that, in some D&D variant, a necromancer did call up a mortal's soul from the great beyond to animate zombies, and, in this variant setting, the gods were powerless to stop him from stealing their petitioners from their 'just rewards.' Would a necromancer who pulled souls of the damned out of the Nine Hells, Abyss, Gehenna, Hades or Acheron be committing an 'evil' act because he's interrupting the eternal torments of the damned that they are supposed to be suffering, to put them to work doing some boring repetitive drudgework?
Technically, he's 'cheating' Hell. Some sort of Ghost Rider figure might be showing up to take back the souls that he has stolen...
Alternately, if, for some equally insane reason, the necromancer was stealing souls from the Seven Heavens, Arcadia, Elysium, Ysgard, etc. he'd have Valkryies or Solars or Ghaele Eladrin showing up to take back the souls he's ripped out of Odin's hall or Pelor's solar temple or Corellon's endless wood.
Since Necromancers in D&D *don't* steal souls out of the hands of the gods to animate the dead, this isn't really a problem, but if they did, they'd have to deal with devil, angels, etc. coming to reclaim those who have passed on. In other words, Animate Dead wouldn't ever be cast, save by some idiot Necromancer who thinks he can throw down with Wee Jas or Grazz't, and will, very soon, be yet another lost soul.
It's a self-correcting problem. Play D&D as written, where Animate Dead has nothing to do with souls, or make it involve pulling souls out of the Planes and nobody will ever cast it, which is the same thing as saying, 'This spell doesn't exist in my game.'
'Cause casting a soul-stealing version of Animate Dead would be about as sensible as casting a spell called 'Create Sphere of Annhilation in Casters Pants.' It's just a bad idea.
Positive energy "charges" living things, negative energy "charges" undead things. Their function in the game is more like radiation than anything alignment-based. The reasons for good and evil clerics specializing in pos and neg energy is fluff-based. It's storyline stuff, think of GI Joe: the good guys all had blue lasers and the bad guys all had red lasers. If a good guy picks up a bad guy's gun, it fires (you guessed it) blue lasers. Lol.
Oh and cancer has NOTHING to do with positive energy, and it would likely be healed with a Restoration, or Remove Disease spell - both positive-energy based.
Regarding calling up souls, the gods apparently don't have a problem with you casting Raise Dead or True Resurrection, because that isn't noted in the spell description.
It's a relevant point, however, since the raising of the lawful evil dead, for example, WOULD snatch a soul out of the Abyss if they were damned. This would result in angering whatever devil was planning on the ownership of that soul. Recently deceased souls apparently become "petitioners" and could concievably be summoned with any outsider-summoning spell, and if you knew the "true name" of a person before they died, you could summon their soul in this fashion regardless of other factors (petitioners are outsiders, right?).
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The Necromancer isn't stealing souls from Hell. The lower planes deliberately release evil spirits / petitioners to animate Undead, in order to expand their influence. That's how it worked in early editions of AD&D.
Where is this from? I don't remember skeletons or zombies *ever* having souls or spirits, or being subject to spells like Magic Jar, which would work on them, if they had spirits within them.
Where is this from? I don't remember skeletons or zombies *ever* having souls or spirits, or being subject to spells like Magic Jar, which would work on them, if they had spirits within them.
I've never seen that anywhere in print either. Might have been some house rule, but it hasn't ever been described that way so far as I'm aware (unless it was some wierd bit from basic D&D, but that's somewhat of an entirely different game from mainline (A)D&D).
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The OP’s question: “Why must being evil be associated with negative energy? Should necromancy be evil?
This is a question which deserves some examination. I can see from the 169 posts thus far, lots of people have waded in with their two coppers, well their sack of copper pieces. Well here is my sack of coppers for what is worth.
Lets start with the question “ why must evil be associated with negative energy? “ So is the Negative Energy plane evil?
While reading the description of the Negative energy plane on P80 of the Manuel of the Planes, I did not find anything in the description of the plane to hint that it was aligned towards evil unlike the seven mounting heavens of Celestia which is mildly goodly aligned and the Nine hells of Baator which are mildly evilly aligned. On page 12 the text talks about how “the materiel planes are made up of fundamental elements and energies… The elements are earth air fire and water, and the energies are positive and negative energy.” So there is nothing in the description of the negantive energy plane to hint that it is “evilly aligned” However the descriptive text of the Negative Energy plane on page 80 of the Manuel of the planes reads as follows “ It is the blackest night. It is the heart of darkness. It is the hunger that devours souls.” This might lead people to associate such a place with evil. I do.
As for weather Necromancy should be evil? That is a another question worth examining. Repariman Jack mentioned that out of all the Necromancy spells in the players handbook, only Animate Dead, Contagion, Create Undead, Create Greater Undead, Eyebite and Symbol of Pain have the evil descriptor. To me this is a surprise. I would have expected soul bind, energy drain, and wail of the banchee among others to be on that list.
So then what is Necromancy and what is Evil? I am sure we can go round and round the bush about these two questions. According to P 104 of the PHB “ Evil implies hurting oppressing and killing others”
On page 57 of the Players handbook, under the specialists wizards section, Necromancy is described as “ spells that manipulate create or destroy life or life force”
So is necromancy evil? Well In my opinion there are quite a few spells necromancy spells which involve the hurting and killing of others. I suppose one could argue that evocation spells can hurt and kill others as well. This reminds me of the “tool” isn’t evil, argument ts just in how it is used that makes it good or evil. People have often equated spells to tools. So what would be the differnce between squashing and incenerating someone with a meteor swarm spell, as opposed to killing them with a wail of the banshee spell or using a Trap the soul spell afterwards, to trap an opponent’s spell in a gem?
On page 46 of the Complete necromancer’s handbook Criminal necromancy is described.
“Criminal Necromancy includes all spells which are cast for the sole purpose of inflicting permanent physical harm on individuals or (worse yet) draining their immortal life force”
Perhaps we can use this bit of text to help us decide if a spell is “evil” or not. A spell which messes with someon’s life force might be in a different category as a spell which simply incenerates their corporiel form. If somone’s immortal life force is trapped or destroyed, the death is permanent. No raise dead for you. Next!
Well this brings us to the animate dead spell.
I have a question about the animate dead spell. I know that the spell animates skeletons and zombies. How does it do this? Negative Energy? Does it bind the spirit of the deceased to its rotting body to animate it? I understand that the spell is Evil. Why?
I have tried to dig through my D&D books, and this is what I have found.
Animate dead has been with us for a while. I have a 1st edition player’s handbook- (6th printing 1980)
1st editon players handbook
The text there reads as follows:
3rd level cleric spell (I was directed here from the 5th level wizard spell description P. 47
“ Explanation/ Description: This spell creates the lowest of the undead monsters, skeletons or zombies, from the bones or bodies of dead humans. The effect is to cause these remains to become animated and obey the commands of the Cleric casting the spell. The skeletons or zombies will follow, remain in an area and attack and attack any creature (or just a specific type of creature), entering the place, etc. The spell will animate the monsters until they are destroyed or until the magic is dispelled. (See dispel magic spell). The cleric is able to animate 1 skeleton or 1 zombie for each level of experience he or she has attained. Thus a 2nd level cleric can animate 2 of these monsters, a 3rd level 3 etc. The act of animating dead is not basically a good one, and it must be used with careful consideration and good reason by clerics of good alignment. It requires a drop of blood, a piece of human flesh, and a pinch of bone powder or a bone shard to complete this spell. “
Ah the days of brief spell descriptions.
The 2nd edition description is a little longer
I have the 11 printing 1994.
“This spell creates the lowest of the undead monsters- skeletons or zombies- usually from the bones or bodies of dead humans, demihumans, or humanoids. The spell causes existing remains to become animated and obey the simple verbal commands of the caster. The skeletons or zombies can follow the caster, remain in an area and attack any creature (or just a specific type of creature) entering the place, etc. the undead remain animated until they are destroyed in combat or are turned; the magic cannot be dispelled. The following types of dead creatures can be animated: A) Humans, Demihumand, and Humanoids with 1 hit die. The wizard can animate one skeleton for each experience level he has attained, or one zombie for every tow levels. The experience levels, if any of the slain are ignored; the body of a newly dead 9 level fighter is animated as a zombie with 2 hit dice, without special class or racial abilities.
B) Creatures with more than 1 hit die. The number of undead animated is determined by the monster hit dice (the total hit dice cannot exceed the wizard’s level). Skeletal forms have the hit dice of the original creature, while zombie forms have one more hit die. Thus a 12 level wizard could animate four zombie gnolls (4x[2+1 hit dice]=12), or s single fire giant skeleton. Such undead have none of the special abilities they had in life.
C) Creatures with less than 1 hit die. The caster can animate two skeletons per level or one zombie per level. The creatures have their normal hit dice as skeletons and an additional hit die as zombies. Clerics receive a +1 bonus when trying to turn these. This spell assumes that the bodies or bones are available and are reasonably intact (those of skeletons and zombies destroyed in combat wont be)
It requires a drop of blood and a pinch of bone powder or a bone shard to complete the spell. The casting of this spell is not a good act and only evil wizards use it frequently.”
I decided to turn to the Complete Necromancer’s handbook for further clarification about the Animate Dead spell. I understand what it does, I am curious to find out how. I am also looking for text which backs up the notioan that when you are casting an animate dead spell, You are binding their souls to their decaying corpses, delaying their journey to the afterlife. And that a creature that has been animated (even as a skeleton or zombie) can't be raised or resurrected. So far I have found nothing.
In the Complete Necromancer’s handbook on page 46 and 47 the text refers to criminal or black necromancy, Grey or Neutral Necromancy, and Benign white Necromancy.
Interestingly Animate dead is placed in Grey necromancy.
“ Take Animate dead for instance, raising up a zombie to carry one’s luggage is not an evil act but animating the dead for the purpose of attacking a merchant caravan is another matter entirely”
Personally I happen to disagree with this text. If you want someone to carry your luggage, use the Unseen servant spell. That is what it is there for.
And now lets take a look at the text of the 3.5 spell.
(I know there is a 3.0 version, but I am too lazy to type it out)
“Necromancy [evil]
This spell turns the bones or bodes of dead creatures into undead skeletons or zombies that follow your spoken commands. The undead can follow you, or they can remain in an area and attack any creature (or just a specific kind of creature) entering the place. They remain animated until they are destroyed. (A destroyed skeleton or zombie can’t be animated again).
Regardless of the kind of undead you create with this spell, you can’t create more HD of undead than twice your caster level with a single casting of animate dead. (The desecrate spell doubles this limit. See page 128)
The undead you create remain under your control indefinitely. No matter how many times you use this spell, however you can control only 4 HD worth of undead creatures per caster level. If you exceed this number, all the newly created creatures fall under your control, and any excess undead from previous castings become uncontrolled. (You choose which creatures are released). If you are a cleric, any undead you command by virtue of your power to command or rebuke undead do not count toward the limit.
Skeletons: a skeleton can be created only from a mostly intact corpse or skeleton. The corpse must have bones, co creating a skeleton from a purple worm, for example, is not possible. If a skeleton is made from a corps its flesh falls off the bones.
Zombies: a zombie can be created only from a mostly intact corpse. The corpse must be that of a creature with a true anatomy, so a dead gelatinous cube, for example cannot be animated as a zombie.
Materiel components: you must place a black onyx gem worth at least 25 gp per hit die of the undead into the mouth or eye socket of each corpse you intend to animate. The magic of the spell turns these gems into worthless burned out shells. “
P198 player’s handbook
I have not found any information pertaining to the how and with what the skeletons are animated with. Just that the spell is “evil”
Page 174 of the player’s handbook
“ Necromancy- Necromancy spells manipulate the power of death, unlife and the life force. Spells involving undead creatures make up a large part of this school. Representative spells include, cause fear, and animate dead and finger of death. “
Page 317 of the monster manual states that “ the undead type: undead are once living creatures animated by spiritual and supernatural forces”.
This begins to hint at what animated the undead, the how.
On page 7 of Liber Mortis it states, “ where does the energy for animation come from? Negative Energy”
Well that is all I have found. I am sure there is more stuff under my nose, and I have failed to see it.
The only evidence I have found that Animate dead is evil is the spell description- it states that the spell is evil. I like the idea of souls being bound to their corpses after death, however I have found no text coo berating this. Is animate dead evil? Well the Text says so. Why is animate dead evil? I guess that is left to the DM. Is Necrimancy evil? Only a handful of spells are listed as being evil. Does that make the rest of the magic school evil? Well my gut says the majority of Necromancy spells are what I would personally consider evil. There isn’t the text to back this up, Ie Wail fo the banshee being listed as a death spell, but I would consider many more necromancy spells evil. I would not consider all of the necromancy spells evil.
Well that is all I can think of now
What are your thoughts? Do you have any suggestions or answers?
I realized that I have included allot of text that I probably should not have. I apologize. I was just typing the text in as a means of my facilitating my own understanding, as well as providing a basis for discussion.
Well there we are. My sack full of coppers.
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I'm jumping on the bandwagon here. I love this topic. I've been a fan of neutral necromancy ever since laying my hands on the Hollowfaust book. Since then, I've had some merry debates with a friend, who is decidedly on the "necromancy is evil, 'nuff said" side of the fence.
It's already been stated that negative energy is not evil. The plane is not, therefore the act of channeling negative energy should not be. (What you do with it, is another thing, but again, the same goes for any other spell in the PHB.)
I've never been of the mind that animating undead "enslaves" the soul of the deceased within the rotting/skeletal corpse. It says nothing of the sort in the spell description. I think that it is the negative energy itself which animates the undead, binding it to your will and commands. No, you couldn't raise dead or resurrect anyone, because their body is in use.
Create undead, is another matter. To have intelligence, I think a body must also have a soul or spirit of some kind. So, in most cases, creating undead is an evil act, and usually leads to evil undead. (There is an exception in Hollowfaust, where we have a Lawful Good lich, who was used in an experiment against his will.)
I love that healing spells were usually necromancy in 2E. But I don't think it's really appropriate anymore. They should be balanced against each other, but not in an alignment-related way.
(BTW, we never play anything that has no moral relativism. We use alignment only as a guideline for character action, and for certain game mechanics.)
There's a small press product called "Trees of Fantasy." In it, you have a tree called the Bone Spruce. This tree only grows in and around graveyards, and it's heartwood is bone white. When used by someone with the appropriate skills, one can craft a skeleton from the wood. This wooden skeleton can then be animated, as if a corpse.
Now, granted, this is a small press product. But if such a thing is possible (and in D&D, anything is), it provide an interesting point and method for someone to be a "white" or "grey" necromancer. (It does say in the text that when animate dead is cast on a skeleton made of bone spruce, the spell does not apply the [evil] descriptor.)
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There's a small press product called "Trees of Fantasy." In it, you have a tree called the Bone Spruce. This tree only grows in and around graveyards, and it's heartwood is bone white. When used by someone with the appropriate skills, one can craft a skeleton from the wood. This wooden skeleton can then be animated, as if a corpse.
That's a fairly specific example, and one that can be replicated in other ways. There's nothing preventing a necromancer from animating a dead bull to use as a pack mule / charging menace. Killing a bull and eating it's meat doesn't 'desecrate it' (and there aren't a whole lot of faiths that would consider a cows body 'sacred' anyway, barring Hindu). Using it's horns on a viking helmet, or it's bones to fashion weapons or jewelry is also on the 'not-evil' list. Most religions wouldn't even posit that a cow has a soul, not that Animate Dead has anything to do with souls anyway, so there's no worry about messing with it's journey to cow heaven.
Using Create Undead, a necromancer could use cattle bones to make a humanoid skeleton (which would likely be easily mistaken for a minotaur skeleton!), which, again, would be a cow. One with access to jungle critters could use Apes, and even have them using weapons.
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Using Create Undead, a necromancer could use cattle bones to make a humanoid skeleton (which would likely be easily mistaken for a minotaur skeleton!), which, again, would be a cow. One with access to jungle critters could use Apes, and even have them using weapons.
Heh...that sounds like a lot of fun...*files that idea away for later use*
In my campaign setting (go F!TSoW!), Necromancy on the whole is not evil. It deals with both positive and negative energy being considered the "fifth element" of life itself(where as other schools deal with air, water, earth and fire- and yes, I consider healing spells to be of necromantic origin. Sorry conjurers). It is poorly understood, and only the most dedicated or disturbed minds plumb its depths. Creating undead by itself isn't any more evil than casting fireball, although killing someone with the express purpose of raising them as an undead creature is. Using necromantic magic for the purposes of cursing someone: turning someone into a lycanthrope, or free-willed undead(such as a vampire) is likewise only evil if someone is being changed against their will, or the caster does not make a relatively high Spellcraft check to allow the person to retain their mind (read: alignment)- doing it the easy way(turning the unfortunate evil or chaotic evil) is an evil act.