Osirion Culture: Necromancy Question

[Sothmektri]

I've got a couple of notions I'd like to bounce off of the community and see if they hold water:

I envision necromancers in Osirion to have a fair number of legitimate lines of work, acting a bit like occasional priests-for-hire when it comes to preparations and preservation (read: mummification) for the dead and well-to-do, outfitting their tombs with the proper protection once the architect is done, etc.

I can also see them being a resource that might get used at the municipal level, considering that the place is covered in ruins and tombs, and several of the cities there are built over older ones. Add to that the fact that the current occupants worship most of the same gods as the previous tenants, and the current residents won't be too casual about just plowing on thru disprespectfully and building that new ...whatever. Especially if it's 'occupied'.

Some of that last bit is informed by living in Phoenix, where they're constantly halting building projects when they find ruins beneath. The result is some fairly hasty archaeological work, with grave goods and so forth being handed over to the nearest living tribe that makes a claim, and then the building proceeding pretty quickly. I've had close friends that worked in that field there, and the general view is that it would be a much different scenario if the ruins they were finding belonged to an ancient Baptist or Catholic enclave, instead of the remains of a culture with no living practitioners/members, but only distant cousins.

Well, the case in Osirion is clearly different, and so my thinking is that the 'profession' might be quite a bit more respected/accepted were they seen as the profession capable of dealing with a goodly amount of those problems without going about obliterating the ancient and revered dead, regardless of their current temperament, as a priest might.

I guess my question is (A) does that sound alright, and (B) are there any holes in that, gamewise, that I'm not seeing? I've read all the source material I can lay my hands on, but sometimes the brain hiccups.

Thanks!

[Set]

I see the culture being pulled in different directions by different aspects of it's past.

On the one hand, there's the heavy Egyptian motif, which does suggest a reverence for the dead (and adventures in the area reinforce the idea of ancient tombs filled with guardian mummies).

On the the other hand, the current ruler is a Conjuration fan, and seems heavily biased to the Qadiran-associated aspects of elemental and genie-binding, which is also being touted as traditionally Osirioni.

Some older or more 'traditional' (or just bitter about the Qadiran occupation) Osirioni might consider Necromancy a more traditional and 'Osirioni' line of study than trafficking with genies. In Necromancy, one proves oneself the master of life and death. In genie-binding, one summons up a pre-existing entity from another dimension and haggles with it like a fishwife for favors. A Necromancer is seen as a master, in strong dominion over that which he calls up from the sands, while a Conjuror is dismissed by these (very biased) traditionalists as being a supplicant, groveling for the favors of the outsiders he entreats.

Some less set-in-their-ways Osirioni might consider Necromancy distasteful. The genies and elementals already exist. Doesn't it make more sense to barter with those that already exist, rather than create yet more entities to fill the world? Shutting itself off from the rest of the world didn't do Ancient Osirioni any favors, after all, and Necromancy might be seen as something inherently incestuous, as the Necromancer calls up the Osirioni dead for yet another repeat performance, instead of 'moving with the times' and accepting the usefulness of the elemental / genie-binding that they see as being every bit as much a part of their ancient culture as that of Qadira (perhaps even turning things around and suggesting that Qadira stoles it's best genie-binding lore from Osirioni!).

There's also the legacy of Geb to consider. Like some ex-pats living in other countries, some Osirioni might bitterly gripe about how they are doing things so much more effeciently in Geb, un-concerned about squeamishness, while others point to Geb, with it's vampiric and ghoulish aristocracy feeding on the people and it's ghostly ruler, as a built-in warning to what happens when a people mess around too much with Necromancy.

Certain aspects of Necromancy I could see being workmanlike and accepted among the Osirioni, but undead laborers openly shuffling through the streets behind their taskmaster seems a bit out of place for most of the country. Where undead would be created, as guardians or even laborers, I picture them being stationary and out of sight. The tomb guarding Mummy never leaves his tomb, and nobody cares one way or the other. If you have a team of zombies working in your basement, expanding the vaults beneath your home, that's not illegal, just nothing that the man passing on the street really wants to know about. If undead are seen, they must be under the clear control of someone to avoid a panic (as undead horrors are not uncommonly discovered in exploration, even in large cities undergoing renovation, freed from more ancient structures beneath the current city), and authorities may come by to verify that these bodies were all acquired through legitimate means. The professional necromancer might find it useful to retain documentation on the provenance of each 'worker' he has available for engineering / construction use.

That's kind of a funky visual, actually. A dozen robed and linen-shrouded zombie laborers stand around, shoulders slumped and heads lolling, while their taskmaster argues with a couple of guards about whether or not one of their bodies was illegally acquired, because the description on the certification of provenance the Necromancer provided isn't sufficient to recognize the body in it's current state... The guards may or may not actually care, but might be hoping to so inconvenience and annoy the Necromancer that he slips them some gold to 'expedite matters' and 'clear up any confusion,' since a guard's pay never seems to be enough!

[Matthew Pittard]

From what Ive read, Necromancy seems linked to the older religons ie Apep and Wadjet than it does to the new religons. Necromancy does not mean creation of undead, neccesarily. I think in Osirion it is a more ceremonial thing, and the dead are treated with reverance, not the way they are treated at all in Geb.

Its a great honor to be bound to serve your master for eternity.

You also need to look at the Elemental Clans of the Desert of Osirion. They have always been there, so its very apt to note that their culture has influence Osirions for many generations also.