when i ran my game, necromancy was considered a dark art, but not necessarily evil. basically the only spells that were highly protected from being copied unless a lot of money was put forth or you were someone important were the spells for creating undead. people just didnt like it when they saw someone using an undead that may be their sister as a meat shield, but i was just wondering how various people view that side of necromancy.
i know the mage school at korvosa (korsova, too lazy to look at the book atm) teaches it, but i imagine theyd prolly teach discretion with the whole raising of undead minions part.
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Look at real world culture and the practice of burying.
You see mostly the same in descriptions of Golarion : people bury their dead neae holy ground, and some if not most believe in the sanctity of these tombs. How would you feel abut someone desecrating the tomb of your grandpa to steal his corpse ? That's a pretty good start.
Further, Necro is aligned with negative energy.
The most likely reaction to Necro is probably going to be "blasphemy".
Now, that supposes that the person witnessing the necromancy can identify it as such. A small necro spell with no visible effects would be unlikely to trigger an hostile response.
Anything obviously undead, now ...
The culture of some countries will vary with this : Nex and Geb for instance.
How Does Golarion View Necromancy?
Golarion is a planet and doesn't really care about mortal magic. The prank the Aboleth pulled some time ago with the starstone made its surface sore for a short while, but that was a mere inconvenience. Everything beyond that doesn't even register. :P
My smart-ass remark actually has a point: What/who do you mean with "Golarion"? The average dirt farmer? The average ruler? Adventurers? Magic schools and the like? And what part of Golarion.
There is no fixed answer.
In game terms, the school itself isn't inherently evil. It's not even all dark. There's necromantic paladin spells. Doesn't get any shinier than that.
Necromancy deals not only with the undead, but also with life and death. That includes protection from all that icky power. That's a good thing.
Other spells deal with life energy in a harmful way, but it's not really any worse than burning someone with evocation magic, calling up an angel with conjuration magic to beat someone up, or using enchantment to enslave someone's mind. It's all in what you do with the magic and how you do it.
Only those spells with an [evil] descriptor are evil. The others might be a bit dark, but then all magic is a bit dark to many.
What Golarion's inhabitants and denizens think of necromancy depends a great deal on whom you ask. Peasants and normal citizens can often have a low opinion of magic in general. They don't understand it. You fear what you don't know or understand, and you hate what you fear. Necromancy, when they know what it is, is then probably automatically considered the darkest form of a dark art that involves raping corpses to make them move around or something like that.
Those who know about magic will generally have a better opinion, and some of them will know that necromancy isn't automatically evil. Others will still have reservations and be prejudiced.
And it depends a lot on where you are while you ask the questions:
People in Geb will tell you it's a great thing - but they'll either be products of that sort of magic, or the slave/cattle of such a person, afraid to speak out against their undying masters.
In Nex, hating necromancy is probably part of national pride.
In the Crusader Nations (Lastwall, Mendev), people will be somewhere between reasonable and overly zealous.
In Ustalav, people will trace a spiral over their heart with their finger, throw insults at you and slam the door in your face.
In Cheliax, you'll earn condescending smiles, since Conjuration is so much better, because devils are far better servants than corpses.
And so on, and so forth.
i know the mage school at korvosa (korsova, too lazy to look at the book atm) teaches it, but i imagine theyd prolly teach discretion with the whole raising of undead minions part.
It's Korvosa, and if you think of the Academae, they are all about devil binding, so it's not like they are bound to lose sleep over things that might not reserve you a front seat for the angelic choirs.
I don't think they teach discretion. Discretion is not magic, and those who will run around the streets killing people and raising them are too stupid to survive. Let them die.
How Does Golarion View Necromancy?
Golarion is a planet and doesn't really care about mortal magic. The prank the Aboleth pulled some time ago with the starstone made its surface sore for a short while, but that was a mere inconvenience. Everything beyond that doesn't even register. :P
My smart-ass remark actually has a point: What/who do you mean with "Golarion"? The average dirt farmer? The average ruler? Adventurers? Magic schools and the like? And what part of Golarion.
There is no fixed answer.
In game terms, the school itself isn't inherently evil. It's not even all dark. There's necromantic paladin spells. Doesn't get any shinier than that.
Necromancy deals not only with the undead, but also with life and death. That includes protection from all that icky power. That's a good thing.
Other spells deal with life energy in a harmful way, but it's not really any worse than burning someone with evocation magic, calling up an angel with conjuration magic to beat someone up, or using enchantment to enslave someone's mind. It's all in what you do with the magic and how you do it.
Only those spells with an [evil] descriptor are evil. The others might be a bit dark, but then all magic is a bit dark to many.
What Golarion's inhabitants and denizens think of necromancy depends a great deal on whom you ask. Peasants and normal citizens can often have a low opinion of magic in general. They don't understand it. You fear what you don't know or understand, and you hate what you fear. Necromancy, when they know what it is, is then probably automatically considered the darkest form of a dark art that involves raping corpses to make them move around or something like that.
Those who know about magic will generally have a better opinion, and some of them will know that necromancy isn't automatically evil. Others will still have reservations and be prejudiced.
And it depends a lot on where you are while you ask the questions:
People in Geb will tell you...
i knew that certain areas will see things differently. when i ran my game (using the 3.5 campaign setting book since this was right before the world guide came out) i had it viewed as a dark (but not evil) magic and you would stir up posses to take you out if you were raising the dead (this was the norm and certain areas would fluctuate around this idea from firmly for it to hell to the f*&% no we aint gonna do that since we dont care).
i am going out of town tomorrow and ill be reading the new world guide cover to cover, but i havent seen anything about this yet so thats why i was asking.
[QOUTE]...those who will run around the streets killing people and raising them are too stupid to survive. Let them die.
thus, discretion. ;)
In Kaer Maga, nobody will mind.
That's true for everything, including someone walking up to some crowded market place and then summoning a rune giant to sodomise him.
Some will cheer you on, some will just watch, but the rest will just go on.
The Tallow Boys might disapprove, but only for professional reasons.
Wanna get into real trouble in Kaer Maga? Then go there and get mad at someone because he went up to some crowded market place and then summoned a rune giant to sodomise him.
this conversation is relevant to my interests...
One of my players in the Kingmaker AP just hit lvl 7 - first spell out of the gate she learned was 'Animate Dead'.
given that the kingdom alignment is currently set to 'chaotic neutral' i'm going to assume that so long as she's not marching undead legions through downtown every midnight, the citizens won't really care much about the fact that someone is using necromancy to defend the kingdom from enemies foreign and domestic. especially since necro-girl has made a point out of animating the corpses of bandits, raiders and monsters who've attacked defenseless citizens.
Yeah, though they should still be scared xxxxless of her.especially since necro-girl has made a point out of animating the corpses of bandits, raiders and monsters who've attacked defenseless citizens.
well she isn't exactly the toast of the town...but they respect/fear her. she's also gone out of her way to make sure the commoners have no reason to hate her.
Better question; first, how do the people in question feel about magic in general, then how do they react to what the magic in question is actually doing?
A wizard of arcane savant may have more nuanced opinions, but to most people (assuming a lack of prejudice against magic in general) without the requisite ranks in Knowledge Arcana to understand what the heck a given mage is actually doing, their opinions will be based on what happens when that caster is done waving their glowing hands around in circles.
To the uneducated, a wizard is a wizard is a wizard. When fireballs start flying, you run. When gold rains from the skies, you cheer. When the dead start dragging their rotting carcasses from the cold earth and the stench and the moans fill the air, most people start running and screaming.
About like they do any other form of magic I would say...however they might take a dim view to raising undead or the darker type of necromancy I would say :P
well she isn't exactly the toast of the town...but they respect/fear her. she's also gone out of her way to make sure the commoners have no reason to hate her.Yeah, though they should still be scared xxxxless of her.especially since necro-girl has made a point out of animating the corpses of bandits, raiders and monsters who've attacked defenseless citizens.
Just one thing... reason to hate... if you think they need a reason you're missing out on the blind hatred thing. And fear, it breeds hatred. Depends on just how ignorant these commoners are too.
Just one thing... reason to hate... if you think they need a reason you're missing out on the blind hatred thing. And fear, it breeds hatred. Depends on just how ignorant these commoners are too.And then you've got a kingdom full of Sith, and that never ends well.
Hey! At least it's not boring :D
If you're looking for inspiration, I suggest scanning through this page and some of its links for how writers usually deal with dark magicks: Black Magic
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As I’m sure it has been mentioned earlier the attitudes of people probably depend on the part of Golarion.
In Kaer Maga, the Ankar Te district is the only district that lets undead go about un monitored.
There also is Geb. I believe the undead are accorded rights similar to living beings. The aristocracy is undead.
I would guess in Katapash, anything goes as long as there is a a permit for it.
As for the rest of Golaron, I think it would vary. I would guess, in areas where Pharasma’s worship is widely practiced, the undead would be an athema. Pharasma I believe is wildely worshiped in Ustalav. I remember reading that Restov worships Abadar, Gorum and Pharasm. It varies from region to region.
I think most of the “common people’ merchants farmers etc would be very hostile towards the undead.
I would guess for Asmodeus something would be codified in law.
I think the clergy of most good and neutrally aligned gods would not like the undead around.
I hope this helps.
The real question is how does Golarion feel about Thread Necromancy!
Every 'school' of magic has differing aspects that can be brought forth. My game has a culture where only the Necromancers are really considered citizens, a land where actual Necromancy (speaking with the dead) is a facet of their 'ancestor worship', and a religious order that goes about putting the restless dead down for the count.
I have at least 5 'groups' of Abjurers, including a martial order of Dwarves. Several Conjurering and Evoking groups exist, with more planned. The Gnomes have a loose association of travelling 'faires' that focus on grand theatrical shows. Diviners, etc. all fragment by hyper-speciality into fields even more specific. I'm slowly building a cult of Sorcerers that specialize in Polymorph and other body altering magics for long term PC foes.
White necromancy is an old concept that was used a lot in the ye old days of dnd when Necromancy spells also healed wounds and protected. For the record, it made a lot more sense than Conjuration[healing].
Nowadays white necromancy is mostly a redundant concept as there are very few necromancy spells that could actually thematically be considered "white".
Pathfinder sort of supports white necromancy ideal but mechanically the system failed to deliver an alternative to classic 'dark' necromancy.
There is a Wizard specialist alternative in APG - Life, but it kinda sucks a lot.
Classic application of necromancy would probably be viewed with scorn, fear and a lot of prejudice. Raising undead, draining life, bestowing curses and spreading all sorts of diseases would be most definitely considered a wicked pastime whether these spells are [evil] or not.
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White necromancy is an old concept that was used a lot in the ye old days of dnd when Necromancy spells also healed wounds and protected. For the record, it made a lot more sense than Conjuration[healing].
Nowadays white necromancy is mostly a redundant concept as there are very few necromancy spells that could actually thematically be considered "white".
Pathfinder sort of supports white necromancy ideal but mechanically the system failed to deliver an alternative to classic 'dark' necromancy.
There is a Wizard specialist alternative in APG - Life, but it kinda sucks a lot.
Classic application of necromancy would probably be viewed with scorn, fear and a lot of prejudice. Raising undead, draining life, bestowing curses and spreading all sorts of diseases would be most definitely considered a wicked pastime whether these spells are [evil] or not.
I think white necromancy absolutely has a place in the Pathfinder game. In fact I recently did a lot of work on this very subject. I probably shouldn't say more ... sufice it to say if all goes well, you might see the fruits of this work in the fall ...
The real question is how does Golarion feel about Thread Necromancy!
The Unthread are universally loathed and pitied.
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I think white necromancy absolutely has a place in the Pathfinder game. In fact I recently did a lot of work on this very subject. I probably shouldn't say more ... sufice it to say if all goes well, you might see the fruits of this work in the fall ...
I look forward to it!
There are a ton of possibilities, from communing with (and being blessed / empowered and / or informed) by the ancestral dead, to sending your own spirit forth to spy on distant areas, or to possess another, or to animate unliving material, to manipulating the energies of life and death to loan your own health to others, in an expensive form of healing, to calling up ancestral spirits to bedevil or plague another. Between using your own life-energy to buff, heal or afflict another, or sending your own spirit to spy on, communicate with or possess others, and calling up ancestral guidance from those who have passed on, or even combat-assistance, in the case of the Dwarves of Golarion spell that calls forth dwarven ancestral spirits (or the Horn of Valhalla), the necromancy school has a vast range of non-icky, non-undead, non-evil options that rarely get much play.
There are a ton of possibilities, from communing with (and being blessed / empowered and / or informed) by the ancestral dead, to sending your own spirit forth to spy on distant areas, or to possess another, or to animate unliving material, to manipulating the energies of life and death to loan your own health to others, in an expensive form of healing, to calling up ancestral spirits to bedevil or plague another. Between using your own life-energy to buff, heal or afflict another, or sending your own spirit to spy on, communicate with or possess others, and calling up ancestral guidance from those who have passed on, or even combat-assistance, in the case of the Dwarves of Golarion spell that calls forth dwarven ancestral spirits (or the Horn of Valhalla), the necromancy school has a vast range of non-icky, non-undead, non-evil options that rarely get much play.
I'd mostly agree except I don't consider that necromancy :) Sounds shamanic (and would be a great basis for a Shaman classes magic / spells -- along with elemental bits). I draw a distinction between the undead and spirits. Ymmv.
White necromancy
Is that anything like white slavery?
Because I know nothing about that... <_<
White necromancyIs that anything like white slavery?
Because I know nothing about that... <_<
Cure Light Wounds
(Necromancy)Range: Touch Components: V, S
Duration: Permanent Casting Time: 5
Area of Effect: Creature touched Saving Throw: None