Words no longer allowed in this thread (alphabetical order).
1. keep
2. the
3. tip
There was a Necromancer I had running around that raised the dead but in doing so took pains to keep an eye on the families of the deceased, wrapped the Skeletons/Zombies in black habits and porcelain face-masks so that not one bit of the creature was visible and used them to build up the defensive structures of several villages.
Nobody but the local Clerics twigged, and after the fortifications were built in roughly two days for each village (the Villagers had to do the finesse work after the moats and earthen ramparts had been dug and the wooden palisades put into place), Necromancer asked the Clerics to come with him and they gave the undead their final rest, thanking them for their efforts, burning their bodies to ash and then sprinkling the remains with holy water.
Said ashes were then carted off and used to help the next generation of Holy Oaks get off to a flying start. According to the DM the only reason I didn't get an immediate slap down to Lawful Neutral was the fact the Necromancer went out of his way to prevent the locals being upset at the desecration of their deceased, swearing a binding contract with the Clerics and letting them put a curse on me to cripple my spellcasting if I tried to attack anyone with the undead and then organising the ritual to release any spirits bound up in the undead.
It would be very interesting to see in a campaign the 'Benevolent Tyrant' Necromancer who dreams of a world where the living work for pleasure and to expand their minds and experiences while the Undead, coming from those who either agreed to such a thing or were criminals of the very worst sort perform the harshest manual labour, such as mining, building roads, quarrying or dredging out rivers and the like. Pharasma's followers are going "AUUUUUUUUUUUGH! No!" while the common folk who have spent generations performing back-breaking labor for a handful of copper coins start to consider their options ... Let the Dead be used respectfully and free themselves up for less-accident-prone jobs that pay better or keep working for some sanctimonious bastard with a whip and some heavy-fisted guards for peanuts.
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If you haven't seen it, there's a movie called "Fido" which this reminds me of and which I highly recommend.hehehe colorful
but I was thinking more of just doing the menial jobs.
working in the mines
cleaning the streets
moving industrial material aroundyou still need the crafters to actually put stuff together as zombies and skeletons aren't exactly a skilled workforce
but you wouldn't need any "labourers" your entire living population would be a skilled workforce, and labour would be handled by the undead.
on the plus side your entire labor force doubles as an instant army in a pinch ;) heh just try to siege our city with undead on every corner ;)
once they been wiped out your real army can lay waste to the poor remnants of your attackers.
then you just makes skeletons and zombies out of the army who attacked you ;) rinse and repeat
btw this is for Kingmaker :)
Great movie! Really wierd too lol. I enjoyed it a lot =)
Holds up sign saying GIVE UNDEATH A CHANCE
.... we need an olympic-sized swimming pool full of olyh aterw right now people, they're starting to protest.
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Holds up sign saying GIVE UNDEATH A CHANCE.... we need an olympic-sized swimming pool full of olyh aterw right now people, they're starting to protest.
Oh sure! Attack us! Next you'll be kicking babies and taking candy away from puppies.
We, the heart beat challenged, just want the same chance as everybody to live our unlives in peace! Stop the violence inherent in the system!
Can't we all just get along?
How about "tip the keep"? Sound like a game drunk titans would play - Keep Tipping.Triple violation! You're OUT!runs around the thread
Nyah, Nyah! Can't catch me! I'm...uh....well crap! I'm not actually made of ginger bread.
You call that running? that good sir is bonefide shambling!
well its true, dead humanoids just lying around are such a waste of perfectly good resources. cemetery take up perfectly good fertile land and for what !
Just a little idea I'm currently working on for playing a necromancer who is a nice guy and just wants to create a better society, one where the living and the dead live in harmony. The anitmated dead will help build the city and the future.
Its like being an organ donor except we don't waste anything !
Just wondering if anyone else has had some fun character ideas for classes/race that are by default considered evil.
Not to take the fun out of the thread, but the Nazis recycled too. Glasses, shoes, human hair, gold teeth. Gives you another view of the "good" inherent in recycling.
The classic issue with necromancy is, in the medieval mindset, disturbing the bodies of the dead interfeared in their getting to heaven and/or their eternal rest. Disturbing the bodies disturbed the soul. This despite the idea that the souls had moved on out of it's mortal shell. The idea of it being "unnatural" / bad came later. The medieval mind found nothing much about the world (nature) good anyway. It was all just a dreary wait until you could go to heaven. That's when the party started :)
In my game I've always assumed the need to bury bodies in consecrated ground has to do with them reaching their eternal rest and that there was some link between the remains and the soul (as in the Raise Dead spell). In short, screw with bodies = disturb souls / spirits = bad stuff. Stuff which people aren't too forgiving over. Messing with their relatives getting to heaven and they'll want to send you to your "just deserts". Not, in their view, likely to be heaven...
It might differ in other campaigns of course. Some settings might look on the circle of life as being right and think of it as just "recycling". Or they might see it as terribly unnatural and burn you're necromancer alive :)
To each, DM, thier own.
BORN TO DIE TO BE REANIMATED AND BOUND TO THE WILL OF SOME MORTAL CHUMP!
I dont think the problem with zombie- and skeleton workers is going to be as big as people describe it. You seem to forget that they are mindless and only capable of really really simple tasks.
Now let us think, mindless and doing simple tasks, that sounds a lot like a machine now, doesn't it? We have a lot of machines doing simple and menial tasks, a lot of them even doing things that zombies and skeletons wouldn't even be capable of. So the decay of society everyone is predicting here is probably not going to be any larger than it has been in reality up to now, probably even less.
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I dont think the problem with zombie- and skeleton workers is going to be as big as people describe it. You seem to forget that they are mindless and only capable of really really simple tasks.
Hey now! We don't need that kind of talk around here! You're just enforcing a negative stereotype against the heartbeat challenged! Don't make me get my legal counsel involved!
marches around with a sign reading STOP THE HATE
I dont think the problem with zombie- and skeleton workers is going to be as big as people describe it. You seem to forget that they are mindless and only capable of really really simple tasks.Hey now! We don't need that kind of talk around here! You're just enforcing a negative stereotype against the heartbeat challenged! Don't make me get my legal counsel involved!
marches around with a sign reading STOP THE HATE
Zombies and Skeletons are just that, now if we talked about vampires, skeletal champions, death knights, liches and the like we'd have a whole different situation at hand, those are sentient and they will demand compensation for the services they do, making them no less a member of society than any living thing.
Boy am I glad goblin society is so much simpler. Just go somewhere else, burn some building and take anything thats edible. Oh yes and cut up any dog or horse you see for good measure.
no job applications for us of a ghostly complection? what cause we can't affect the material world means we're no use?
Actually, Ghosts make great security guards and/or detectives. I fondly recall one campaign in which a surly Captain of the Guard refused to go to his rest after being slain by a traitor within the ranks and became the long-running bane of the local criminal organisations because, hey, he can float through walls, is unkillable and nothing but high-level weapons can touch him.
Problem is they are tied to a specific area, nominally. Banshees ... tend to grate on people over a long period of time, what with the wailing and moaning and kvetching and so forth. Shadows tend to want to drain every man and his dog of their strength and don't even get me started on Vampries with their damn Gaseous Form bulldust!
It would be an interesting campaign in which a small nation of free-willed, Neutral-Aligned Undead rose up and forcibly made the other nations respect the sanctity of their nation via legal avenues rather than "We don't need a standing Army, YOU provide us with the recruits we'll need to defend ourselves with every Hero, Zealot or Soldier you send over the border." route that most scenarios end up as.
I dont think the problem with zombie- and skeleton workers is going to be as big as people describe it. You seem to forget that they are mindless and only capable of really really simple tasks.Hey now! We don't need that kind of talk around here! You're just enforcing a negative stereotype against the heartbeat challenged! Don't make me get my legal counsel involved!
marches around with a sign reading STOP THE HATE
Zombies and Skeletons are just that, now if we talked about vampires, skeletal champions, death knights, liches and the like we'd have a whole different situation at hand, those are sentient and they will demand compensation for the services they do, making them no less a member of society than any living thing.
Boy am I glad goblin society is so much simpler. Just go somewhere else, burn some building and take anything thats edible. Oh yes and cut up any dog or horse you see for good measure.
Now your stepping on MY toes! I'm afraid as representive of the Worg community i must retract our part in the Warg Goblin alliance!
<pulls on Toki the Goblin mask>
Wolves ain't dogs!!!!
And my sorcerer friend says unicorns ain't horses, neither!!!
Whaaaaagggggghhhhhhhh
*Snatches the Goblin Mask off you, wizard-glues a Rabbid Mask on in place and pats you on the back* Go get 'em.
<pulls on Toki the Goblin mask>
Wolves ain't dogs!!!!
And my sorcerer friend says unicorns ain't horses, neither!!!
Whaaaaagggggghhhhhhhh
A unicorn is just a pony with a strap-on!
Until someone develops a "permanent dreamworld" spell. Then you have the undead version of The Matrix. And that's just awesome!
You people are why the terms "good" and "necromancy" evoke laughter in so many :D
You people are why the terms "good" and "necromancy" evoke laughter in so many :D
lol, hey now, I support necromancy-fueled socialist utopias. Sure, some people may say society will decline into debauchery and ennui...I say it'd be a great ride, and who needs progress when everything's getting done by skeletons anyway? ^_-
A common theme is a good aligned city which is positioned uncomfortably close to some great evil.
After generations of waging war with this great evil, the graveyards are full and the living population is shrinking. So, to protect their families, people volunteer to become undead after they die and serve as protectors of the city. In return, the living develop certain rituals and symbols which show honor and respect to these city guardians.
And, so, the city survives.
Now, what can happen is that a good aligned cleric from a foreign land becomes shocked at this practice and teaches people to stop doing it. The cleric returns to his temple in his foreign land and tells his superiors of the great work he's done in his god's name. Shortly after that, the city is overrun and everyone dies horribly.
Or... two wrongs don't make a right (or two evils a good in this case) and they get their just desserts in the end :)
Now your stepping on MY toes! I'm afraid as representive of the Worg community i must retract our part in the Warg Goblin alliance!I dont think the problem with zombie- and skeleton workers is going to be as big as people describe it. You seem to forget that they are mindless and only capable of really really simple tasks.Hey now! We don't need that kind of talk around here! You're just enforcing a negative stereotype against the heartbeat challenged! Don't make me get my legal counsel involved!
marches around with a sign reading STOP THE HATE
Zombies and Skeletons are just that, now if we talked about vampires, skeletal champions, death knights, liches and the like we'd have a whole different situation at hand, those are sentient and they will demand compensation for the services they do, making them no less a member of society than any living thing.
Boy am I glad goblin society is so much simpler. Just go somewhere else, burn some building and take anything thats edible. Oh yes and cut up any dog or horse you see for good measure.
Hey you are the ones who get the lion's share on alliance raids. We just serve you as an additional attack and as ride-check protection otherwise it's more like you guys are the actual riders.
Or... two wrongs don't make a right (or two evils a good in this case) and they get their just desserts in the end :)The game system doesn't have a very mature alignment system. It's pretty much at the level of cowboys vs. Indians.
Given that, it's pretty easy to say that such a city just got it's just desserts.
The thing is, though, that, this thread posits the idea that animating dead isn't necessarily evil. If one allows for such a premise, then the city I presented is quite justifiable and not evil.
It was a joke. As in just kidding. In any event the necromancy = evil bit has come up in this thread.
The level of "maturity" has nothing to do with the alignment system in D&D / PF. It posits a reality in which there are absolutes of good and evil, something modern relativists tend to consider a no-no. Many current religious systems do so as well, which tends to make modern people... nervous. If you accept the system of absolute good and evil as a "fact" in the D&D / PF multiverse, fine. If not Rule 0 rules the day (sorry about the wording). No big deal, it is, afterall, a game and if you're the DM you... rule :)
It posits a reality in which there are absolutes of good and evil,Like I said, not very mature.
The fact that you don't agree with it has nothing to do with "maturity". It is simply a different way of looking at the world. I suppose you could describe the Middle Ages (along with a number of other periods) as "not very mature", but I don't think the usage would be appropriate. I think it says more about the cultural chauvinism inherent in our time. We assume that we are "right" and others were "wrong" even as we criticise them for doing so.
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Just wondering if anyone else has had some fun character ideas for classes/race that are by default considered evil.
I'm playing in a campaign with a battle oracle who gets her 'revelations' from reading the D+D equivalent of tawdry bodice rippers.
For example, the last book she read, according to her was about ' passionate love, eternal truths, and lots and lots of sword fights'.
Therefore she got weapons mastery in rapier.
Some of you might consider that evil, along with the fact that the guy who plays her is really good as sqeeling like a teenage girl.
All the best,
Nani?
Here follows some psycho-metaphysics.
If you are not hot for philosophy, best just to skip it.The Aneristic Principle is that of apparent order; the Eristic Principle is that of apparent disorder. Both order and disorder are man made concepts and are artificial divisions of pure chaos, which is a level deeper than is the level of distinction making.
With our concept-making apparatus called "the brain" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us.
The ideas-about-reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently.
It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ. Real (capital-T) True reality is a level deeper than is the level of concept.
We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids. A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The order is in the grid. That is the Aneristic Principle.
Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the Aneristic Illusion. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.
Disorder is simply unrelated information viewed through some particular grid. But, like "relation", no-relation is a concept. Male, like female, is an idea about sex. To say that male-ness is "absence of female-ness", or vice versa, is a matter of definition and metaphysically arbitrary. The artificial concept of no-relation is the Eristic Principle.
The belief that "order is true" and disorder is false or somehow wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion. To say the same of disorder, is the Eristic Illusion.
The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely. Pick a grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered.
Reality is the original Rorschach. Verily! So much for all that.
Mature philosophies are nuanced, complex. That's the nature of ideological revolutions. Models start simple. Over time they mature, become nuanced, become complex. They end up so complex they become unwieldy. An ideological revolution occurs. The result is that the old, mature code gets replaced by a new, simple, immature code which starts it's course towards becoming complex, nuanced, and mature.
The use of mature / immature to indicate complexity and development, I can understand. Still, I don't believe that age / "maturity" is *always* expressed in complex nuanced philosophies. Some ideas resist complication, others are a natural for it.
Having said that, cultural relativity certainly allows us to pass judgement on other cultures.
Indeed it does.
Boy am I glad goblin society is so much simpler. Just go somewhere else, burn some building and take anything thats edible. Oh yes and cut up any dog or horse you see for good measure.
runs through thread with a burning torch
Some ideas resist complication, others are a natural for it.Certainly. But we've been talking about things like moral codes and philosophies. Such things are to ideas as earthworms are to atoms.
Hm. I think we just may have to disagree on this. A lot of junk may acrete around some philosophies, but the core is often still simple and elegant. And it's the core that is transmitted and survives while the baggage is lost / changes.
Is there anything here I can recycle?