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A proper Golarion variant of the White Necromancer simply would not raise undead at all. The class does not suffer if the ability to raise undead is removed, it takes it's proper place as a counter to all those Black Necromancers who DO.Actually I love the idea of White Necromancers in Golarion. I could see them as arbiters of justice for the deceased who lack the means to see their own justice fulfilled, as well as performing rites to lay the evil undead back to rest and purge their souls of the evil that spawned them. That being said does a white necromancer summon casper the friendly ghost?
1. This is a misinterpretation of what the White Necromancer does. It's distinction from stereotypically evil necromancers is wired right into the class.
2. Once more, the explicitly stated purpose of this thread is to provide support for gamers that do want non-evil undead in their Golarion and to help them fit into the setting as they run it. Repeatedly popping in here and poopooing about it essentially boils down to posting "Stop having fun I don't like." There are countless threads on these forums where "can we have non-evil undead" is there to be debated and argued over. Threadcrapping the one thread that says "for those of you that want non-evil undead and work off that assumption..." is incredibly bad form.
If you want to complain about people wanting non-evil undead there are plenty of appropriate venues for it. Doing that in one of the few threads about giving them a nice thing is simply rude. You get to have multiple settings and books and canon on the side of "undead are always evil". Surely you can resist begrudging other gamers with other preferences a single thread.
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Back on topic: White Necromancers got one hell of a boost with Magnimar: City of Monuments. The Empyreal Lord Ashava's approach to ghosts and lost spirits absolutely screams the flavor behind the header art in the White Necromancer article.
One particular point of interest is that the description of how she gathers these spirits to her seems like it may actually bypass Pharasma's judgment. There's a lot there to mine if that's true.
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-Ghouls/Ghasts hunger for the flesh of sentient mortal corpses, and spread disease with their natural attacks. I tend to think being infused with positive energy would change much of that, but maybe not?Infused with positive energy, a ghoul/ghast analogue might be as teeming with life as the ghoul would be teeming with disease organisms, but, in this case, it's plant life. Flowering vines crawl all across the body, taking sustenance in the dying/undying always-healing flesh of the positive energy-imbued humanoid (or whatever). The plants themselves might have some special effects (a pollen cloud that fascinates or dazes, to replace stench, or poison thorns that replace disease / paralysis). It wouldn't necessarily be a 100% spot on conversion (unless you deliberately designed it that way, which you could, if the 'pollen' sickened people and the plant growth worked like a disease affliction, taking root in and spreading over the bodies of those wounded by the creatures bite attack, finally killing them and 'animating' them just like ghoul fever as one of these positive energy ghouls).
While negative energy infused undead are sometimes seen as blighting the land while they travel, curdling milk and withering grass and causing crops to wilt, etc., the positive-energy-infused plant-bedecked ghoul might have the opposite effect, and occasionally be visited by bees or colorful hummingbirds, and leave small flowers springing up in it's wake.
Idle thought, but perhaps the typical ghoulish hunger for flesh could be translated into this concept as fasttracking the circle of life. That is, "Delicious biomass! Must convert!" Targetted flesh might be rapidly consumed/decayed to fuel the new growth/life springing up around these guys.
Huh, this whole time you were literally talking about the White Necromancer class.
Weird.
hhhmm...read this thread a while ago when I was more a lurker, but now that it is active again I might as well reply
I am cool with the idea of white necromancers and good and neutral undead, but would rather have the undead that work with those individuals (or at least those that are sentient) be not only flavored differently, but be completely distinct. Not cool with the idea of "Hey, it's a devourer, only it's nice!"
As an example, if you really want something analogous to a Devourer, what about go with their origins? Have the the good analogue be the result of plane travelers who lost their lives fighting great evil on other planes. These beings, (lets call them Radiant Defenders) take the form of glowing spirits wreathed in the armor of a knight. They have the ability to smite evil like a paladin, and they can ensnare the souls of the evil and drag them to the afterlife.
Also, "good undead" probably shouldn't make more of their kind, at least without another's permission. That kind of removing of free will certainly doesn't fit a good undead.
A few other ideas:
a neutral defender of nature that is the spirit of a druid or similar individual, who upon death binds with the soil and plants of his environment, literally becoming one with nature
and undead who was a mother/similar protective figure before death, now bound to the material plane to protect children and other innocents. May have La Llorna like powers of drowning threats to children with tears
When I jump into threads that have been going on for a while, they somewhat rarely have to do with the original post anymore, I've found. So I didn't even read over the Original Post.
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Zombie Sky Press will have some white necromancy options coming out soon too...I tried asking what people wanted in them upthread, but it got off track fast :)
Definitely types of undead specific to the White Necromancer, as well as rituals both for summoning the willing dead and to put them to rest. White Necros shouldn't just be able to forcefully send restless spirits on to their proper afterlife, but to take them by the hand and to lead them where they need to go, free of fear.
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hhhmm...read this thread a while ago when I was more a lurker, but now that it is active again I might as well reply
I am cool with the idea of white necromancers and good and neutral undead, but would rather have the undead that work with those individuals (or at least those that are sentient) be not only flavored differently, but be completely distinct. Not cool with the idea of "Hey, it's a devourer, only it's nice!"
As an example, if you really want something analogous to a Devourer, what about go with their origins? Have the the good analogue be the result of plane travelers who lost their lives fighting great evil on other planes. These beings, (lets call them Radiant Defenders) take the form of glowing spirits wreathed in the armor of a knight. They have the ability to smite evil like a paladin, and they can ensnare the souls of the evil and drag them to the afterlife.
Also, "good undead" probably shouldn't make more of their kind, at least without another's permission. That kind of removing of free will certainly doesn't fit a good undead.
A few other ideas:
a neutral defender of nature that is the spirit of a druid or similar individual, who upon death binds with the soil and plants of his environment, literally becoming one with natureand undead who was a mother/similar protective figure before death, now bound to the material plane to protect children and other innocents. May have La Llorna like powers of drowning threats to children with tears
One reason for the focus on reskinning is that those are a bit more likely to be accepted by GMs than those made from scratch found on the forums. That and its quicker. ;)
That said, it would be cool to have undead options specific to the white necromancer, that reflected what the class does and what it's about. (also agree on the distinction of what a good devourer variant should absolutely not be doing to souls and the issue of spawning for specifically good undead, as touched on in the OP :) )
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I'm not in love with the idea of 'good versions' of ghouls, morhgs, devourers, etc. myself, having just noodled around with the idea of a 'positive energy ghoul' as a thought experiment.
For the most part, I see good undead more as spirit guides and ancestral mentors and oathsworn defenders, using either incorporeal undead stats or skeleton/zombie/mummy/lich type stats. The various eatin' people and spawn-pocalypse sorts of undead don't seem like they'd be terribly useful as starting points for fashioning kindly spirits or righteous revenants from.
Somewhere on the fuzzy line between petitioner spirit and Bob's soul and a ghost/wraith/spectre/shadow, there should be some less malignant sorts of spiritual entities that are still technically undead (since they ain't got no positive energy turning their crank no more, and their body is all dead and stuff), but not all 'uuuuhhh, brains...'
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1. This is a misinterpretation of what the White Necromancer does. It's distinction from stereotypically evil necromancers is wired right into the class.A proper Golarion variant of the White Necromancer simply would not raise undead at all. The class does not suffer if the ability to raise undead is removed, it takes it's proper place as a counter to all those Black Necromancers who DO.Actually I love the idea of White Necromancers in Golarion. I could see them as arbiters of justice for the deceased who lack the means to see their own justice fulfilled, as well as performing rites to lay the evil undead back to rest and purge their souls of the evil that spawned them. That being said does a white necromancer summon casper the friendly ghost?
Speaking of the White Necromancer from Kobold Quarterly ... I am in the early stages of working on an expanded version of the class, similar to the Expanded Spell-less Ranger and the Expanded Shaman. There will be new spells, feats, archetypes etc.
If anyone has any specific things they'd like to see in this expanded version of the class, I'd love to hear 'em :)
from a thematic sense, it makes sense though that White Necromancers should have relatively less "toys" to play with than Black Necromancers, since:
They shouldn't be working with evil undead, at least in a collaborative sense. Those are going to be for the most part a lot more proactive in seeking out and destroying others, because they need to or they simply hate the living. Also a Black Necromancer should have no problem forcing undead to do what he wants, even if it is against their will. Compulsion really shouldn't be something a White Necromancer is about, unless it's compulsion tied to laying an evil spirit to rest
Most Neutral/Good undead exist (or should exist anyway) because their souls are trapped due to unfinished business, or afraid of moving on into the afterlife. Others souls are here for a very specific purpose (guarding an artifact/tomb, engaging in a crusade against a very specific threat, etc).
In the former case, a white necromancer should be helping them move on, not siccing them on goblins, unless there are very very specific reasons to do. In the latter case, unless the campaign is very narrowly tailored for a certain purpose, most of those undead have better things to do than tag along and serve as cannon fodder, especially if their destruction hinders their original mission
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I have absolutely no problem with people playing their games the way they see fit.
Apparently you actually do. Why else would you keep trying to derail the thread?
It's you seem to have the problem that Paizo has made their specific interpretation of undead the official one.
Wat. No, this is what's happening: I am well aware of the official interpretation. I explicitly note it and move on in the first post, intending this thread to be helpful for those who want to go outside the official interpretation.
Do you remember one of the original taglines of the campaign setting? "It's your world now?" Every group is supposed to make it there own. You are insisting on running interference on that.
When you have a thread that explicitly states "By strict canon we can't have this, but for those that do want it in their games, what can we come up with?", injecting "You can't have that." repeatedly is not only rude, it's missing the point.
Y'know, if someone made a thread that was exclusively about genociding orcs or goblins and trying to come up with ideas for players that wanted that, I simply wouldn't post in it.
If you're looking to make undead into pets in PFS, you have my sympathy that you're denied a choice. If it's a home game issue, than your beef should be with your GM, not Mr. Jacobs.
1. Not looking to reduce undead to mere pets. One of the huge draws of the white necromancer class is that it works with the dead rather than enslaves them, and that undead are treated with as characters rather than pawns.
2. This is in no way intended for PFS. THat's quite the leap. This has been intended from the start for home games.
3. And this is the big one. I don't have a problem with James Jacobs. What I do have a problem with is when people try to come up with solutions and material for their games that aren't officially backed and they get their efforts sabotaged by people who insist they're having badwrongfun. Some of us would like to be able to be productive and positive with regards to the games we want. Apparently some like to tear those efforts down even when their preference is already catered to officially and nearly exclusively.
Again, you seem to be purposefully missing the point just to drag the thread off course.
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Speaking of the White Necromancer from Kobold Quarterly ... I am in the early stages of working on an expanded version of the class, similar to the Expanded Spell-less Ranger and the Expanded Shaman. There will be new spells, feats, archetypes etc.
If anyone has any specific things they'd like to see in this expanded version of the class, I'd love to hear 'em :)
:D
Mainly things mentioned by various folks already:
Kinds of undead specific to the white necromancer.
Something discussing the moral issues of spawning abilities(are they simply not there for WN-risen undead? Does something entirely different happen in its place?).
Rituals for calling upon the aid of the dead(be they corporeal or spirit guides) and for laying the dead properly to rest.
Maybe a bit of exploration of the unusual mindset of a white necromancer, not just in how they view and relate to the dead, but how they do so with the living as well?
For specific spells, perhaps something like "Awaken Soul" or something that can re-ignite the will and conscience of your typical undead, thus breaking it free from the control of whatever undead that spawned it? (possible targets being controlled shadows and vampire spawn) Gives them back their freedom and the capability to "die as themselves" depending on the circumstances.
Dialing off of Set's last post, some form of spiritual ally that lies somewhere between petitioner and outright ghost. Beneficial ancestral spirits, stuff like that.
Though it seems plenty obvious to most, maybe some reinforcement of the idea that white necromancers work with the dead(or even for the dead) rather than enslaving them could help curb some of the misinterpretation.
Along those lines, maybe a sort of code of conduct or principles about dealing with the dead? Not something paladin-restrictive considering the range the WN has, but something that details how the WN treat with the dead and their ethical and moral concerns.
Although I'm probably in the minority, I'm not really seeing the whole "control over undead = evil" thing (though I do understand that one of the primary draws of the White Necromancer class is that they work with them - I'm not talking about that).
For one, if a mage has the power to animate and corrupt a goddess like Arazni from lawful neutral, proud, proponent of order to a monstrous, murdering sycophant who seeks to pleasure his every whim, I'm not entirely sure that the reverse is inappropriate.
Taking a monster like Geb (or the Whispering Tyrant for that matter), and slowly breaking them of the evil that they've embraced. Yes, I get the Sanctity-of-Sentience as a concept: I really do. The problem is that when you have non-evil spells like Charm Monster, Suggestion, Dominate Monster, and Hypnotism, the very clear message is that, morally, such things aren't corrupt, if you use them for the proper purpose. And what better purpose could there be than taking an evil creature and turning them to good?
On that note: it's been made clear several times that when undead create spawn, they don't entirely destroy the person, in many cases (I know, I know: canon v. home stuff, I'm getting to the good part). What this means is that a person slain by a Shadow can be resurrected: that has no effect on either the shadow or the person resurrected. Someone turned into a zombie? So long as you got a portion of their corpse (like, say, a finger), coated it with gentle repose, and then reincarnate them, then turn their corpse into a zombie: nothing really happens to the reincarnated person.
With that in mind, creating spawn... isn't really all that bad. What happens when you create a spawn? Likely you take a small fragment of the soul in question, or perhaps only use the act of the separation of the spirit from the body (thus killing the "soul", as normal) to ignite the creative process. Like those creatures that need certain conditions before they can procreate, the spawn-creation needs that moment of severance to occur. This would explain why many undead spawn don't resemble their "donor" or only do so in a vague way: they're not their "donor": they donor was merely a means to an end.
The inability of a person to be raised or reincarnated after their body has been turned into an undead (and spawn created from them) could easily be simply the suffusion of negative energy from the spawning process means that the given receptacle (the body) is no longer viable for supporting normal life: like a radioactive core, once it's used up, it's worthless except for dumping. Only those spells with enough power to completely recreate the body (resurrection and beyond) have the power to scour the physical form clean ("resetting" it to a state in which it can receive the soul).
Reincarnate is under the same restrictions as Raise Dead because, even though it recreates the body, it recreates it from a piece that was present at the time of death. If that piece is "tainted" by negative energy, the reincarnate spell is simply unable to cope: it's powerful, but not that powerful. (As a hypothetical example.)
All this to say: making spawn isn't really all that bad a thing, for non-evil undead. The idea of making inherently subservient sentient creatures can be kind of creepy, but then again, many (if not most) things from PF, if translated from to Real World, would be, but that doesn't make them immoral or wrong there. Especially if they use those means to a good end. This isn't "The ends justify the means.", though I can see it looking that way: this is, "The means, though kind of creepy, aren't inherently evil, and are really just taking advantage of useful waste material that would otherwise be purposeless and could cause problems later, if just left there and turning them for a good and convenient end."
Heck, that's the entire premise of my evil-good Moonsea Master super-genius: by creating his Moonsea-wide evil-death-trap, he's causing mass destruction on a tremendous scale targeting those who've succumbed to the lure of evil. He's punishing sins by making them have a very high cost. That much death would cause tremendous collateral damage, especially if left to rot there. By animating those dead bodies as good undead (deathless) instead, he's a) instantly reversing the alignment of the region b) making sure rot, decay, and disease don't cause more undo suffering, c) turning what was once over-all negative, destructive, and corrupting forces in society into over-all positive, constructive, and cleansing forces in society (at large). There'd still be some problems as a result, but mostly he's instantly eliminated the cancerous cells and made sure none of the non-cancerous ones suffer gangrene because of it.
Spawn-making good (or even non-evil) undead should be rare, in my opinion (though, of course, that's up to the individual GM and players), but I can see them exist and clearly have a use. Creepy? Oh, man, yeah. Evil? No more than recycling your used cans or planting seeds from an eaten fruit to grow a new one.
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A 'good guy' unleashing a 'rapture' where radiant singing figures of positive energy swoop across the world and 'bless' mortals by transforming them into similar figures of light and song, trancending their mortal existence entirely and becoming eternal harbingers of unswerving faith and implacable unstoppable goodness, freeing the world from hunger, disease, pain, war, wickedness, doubt, fear, greed, etc. could be every bit as existentially terrifying as a 'wight-o-calypse.'
For this reason, and many others, positive energy 'shadows' would be horrible things.
"I will purge the world of evil."
"Once all of mankind has been purified and transformed to pure positive energy, with all the sins and temptations and failings of the flesh sloughed away, and every wicked thought and impulse and desire erased from their new personality as surely as every pure thought and hope and kindness is shorn away from a man turned into a vampire, the world will be at peace. Every living thing will be incorruptibly good, now and forever."
"Sure, nobody will have a *choice* but to be Lawful Good, and everybody will have 3 Hit Dice and have an Int score of 6 and an incorporeal body that has but a single desire, to touch untransformed mortal life, burn away their wickedness and corrupt worldly flesh, and spawn them into yet more eternal good light beings, but they'll be happy."
"What did free will and higher intelligence ever get us anyway? Too-clever conjurers making pacts with devils. Mutant freaks from Alkenstar and their 'guns.' Weapons. Wars. Crafted toxins and alchemical acids and fire to scar and torment and wrack the living. Horrific evocations to burn and freeze and blast each other to bits, and conjurations to call every sort of foul and unnatural creature to pollute our world with their presence. Wicked spells of transmutation to corrupt the flesh, of enchantment to pervert the mind, illusion to betray the senses, and necromancy to defile the soul itself. Like a petitioner in the Heavens, the Children of Light will have no memories of such past atrocities, and be remade, pure and innocent."
I... really don't know if you're arguing for or against good spawn-making undead. Neat post, though.
Now this I will debate: as I mentioned before (somewhere) having an inherent alignment is not the same as having a personal alignment nor does it equate to lacking free will. That's a fallacy: being inherently lawful good doesn't mean having a dearth of options, but rather choosing from a set of options as one sees it.
1) Considering any intelligence and wisdom scores (and charisma, but that's less important) are necessarily limited, one cannot automatically know "the right thing" to do relative to the whole world. That's the nature of being finite, and any spawn would, in fact, be finite (as your example with 6 INT mentions). This means, inevitably, people, beings, and creatures will make mistakes. Celestials do. Fiends do. There's no reason this should be suspended with undead.
2) Further, having an inherent alignment, doesn't prevent you from choosing beyond or outside of that alignment. To whit: every fallen celestial ever.
3) Given the nature of my take on spawn, said "Children of heaven" wouldn't actually be the souls of the people killed. For which purpose (being lawful good) they'd probably restrain themselves to evil people, to the best of their understanding (as "lawful" generally means "following the code", whatever that "code" is, and "good" usually means respecting the sanctity of life).
All that said, yeah: it's creepy. That's kind of one of undead's whole things: they're creepy.
I might not personally mind that kind of rapture so much, though, so long as enough Solars get together later to remove disease on all the corpses (or to otherwise cleanse the now-dead planet).
Also: being sentient, Shadows could gain class levels (and thus increase their INT score). Given the entire population-value of Golarion to sift through, it's likely that at least some of them will.
That would make interesting concepts.
Also, now I'd kind of like to create that world for a campaign idea...
Tacticlion:
If you have some sort of spawning "good undead" which just went and "raptured" up everyone of evil alignment, I think you have the potential for things to go south very quick. How long before new "evil" people arise? enough cycles of this, and suddenly neutrals will be seen as a threat, since they are more likely to go bad. or chaotics maybe, because they obviously mar the perfection that the "good shadows" or what have you are creating. Eventually I think you would get some sort of situation where either free will was eradicated, preventing the spread of "evil", or all life was "raptured up" to keep everything perfect.
Not to mention, in game terms, not every one who pings evil is going to be a baby-eating cultist. A lot of those evil individuals, if only inadvertently, are probably contributing in some way to society. Start pulling out random cogs, even if they are rusty and filthy, and the whole machine might fall apart. And make things worse
Oh, sure. I'm actually not saying it wouldn't be awful (and in fact, the evil genius -> good in particular knows that; he's got back-up plans ;D). And there'd obviously be fallout.
Here's the thing, though: why haven't shadows already taken over the world? They can be virtually invisible, are incorporeal but can still drain strength, and the more people they eat, the more powerful they become. In theory, this sounds like there should really be nothing stopping them (or wraiths, or other undead) from taking over the world instantly.
And yet, they don't. They lack the numbers and strength, and there are a great number of powerful things out there that can (and do) stop them. So instead they skulk about slowly gaining power and experience until they are inevitably stopped.
Mohrgs, Wraiths, Wights, Vampires: all these create spawn and are terribly powerful, yet haven't taken over the world (yet).
There really isn't any need to presume that just because something's alignment changes suddenly everything about the scenario changes. If shadows have it rough, and these hypothetical good "light" shadows are exactly that (shadows-but-good-and-light... so they don't even get the nice stealth thing) they have all the disadvantages of shadows, and more. Plus they'd have worshipers of a neutral goddess after them (Pharasma doesn't care what the alignment is, if it's undead it needs to go down).
What I'm saying is: evil spawn-making things exist and they haven't devoured everything. Good spawn-making things, by their very nature, will be more choosy, and are thus more limited.
... first, it's kind of off-topic, but yes, there are people who ping "evil" that aren't "baby-eating cultists". The problem is, they're still evil. What restrains them isn't their moral code: it's other things. Thus, when they get the opportunity, they will indulge in their own preferred style of evil. It might be minor, it might be great, but they will indulge: that's the nature of evil - it doesn't care about anything other than itself.
... second, while they might be contributors to society, it could also be argued that they are also, by nature, that which corrupts society. So is the contribution worth that?
... third, the argument, "obviously if evil people are taken out, it would lead to neutral people being taken out, 'just in case'" is fallacy. It could lead to that, but then again, it might not.
... fourth, it doesn't matter if everything in the entire world is good by alignment: azatas, archons, and agathion don't agree with each other in what "good" is best. There is most definitively free will, even amongst the good. And, presupposing that everything is innately lawful good, free will still exists, because there are archons, who are innately lawful good, that have fallen and become non-good. Additionally, even without the idea of "falling", there's still room for disagreement. Torag, Iomedae, and Erastil are all lawful good, but strangely none of them are terribly close with each other (though Torag gets along well enough with Iomedae and Iomedae considers Erastil "the equivalent of an ally"), and all have very different views on things. I mean, take a look at the list of lawful good deities. All of them are tremendously different from one another, allied or not.
The long and short of it is: everyone being the same alignment does not equate to a lack of free will. It never has.
Reference society falling apart: it's a distinct possibility. But again, that's presuming the advent apocalypse occurs as written in Set's post (which is a really interesting idea, actually), which, given shadows and how they've functioned so far, even with an alignment flip, doesn't seem terribly likely. (And if you're talking about the evil guy, well, yeah. But his Mythal that he created was not only and evil-trap. It was also a good-provision/protection ward. It provides juuuuuuust enough basics for any given non-evil sentient to get by, plus a few other benefits.)
EDIT: just to clarify, there's a difference between respecting someone's right to make choices and allowing those choices to go without consequences. While the idea of an "undead" that destroys people who don't "ping" correctly is an extreme, it's also not forcing anything on anyone, presuming (as I outlined above) that the spawn in question aren't actually the souls, but rather the result of the target's death via a specific method. That's the thing.
Again, I'm not saying that such a situation would be the best thing, but ultimately, it might not be the worst, either.
Also, added some more links and one more example.
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If you have some sort of spawning "good undead" which just went and "raptured" up everyone of evil alignment, I think you have the potential for things to go south very quick.
Just to be clear, the positive energy 'shadows' wouldn't be transforming just evil people into light. It's 'the rapture,' they'd turn *everyone* into LG positive-energy-beings. Why deny the already good folk the chance to become pure light and goodness, and spend forever carrying out their mission (taking flight into the stars to spread the light of goodness across the universe, converting world after world into always-LG Int 6 positive energy beings that never hunger, suffer or die) after all? It wouldn't be seen as a punishment, it would be seen as transitioning to a blessed state, just like abandoning the flesh to become a petitioner, only without having to go live in another plane (and leaving behind all your friends and loved ones to suffer in this 'vale of tears').
To the utterly bonkers zealot who comes up with this idea, it would be the ultimate triumph of good, making *everyone* on the planet good, lawful, immortal, etc.
And the 'good shadows' wouldn't be any more able to detect evil than a negative energy shadow can detect good, so that point is moot anyway.
How do you see the dirge bard's ability to create temporary undead with bardic music in this non-evil undead context?
Sould those undead be evil even if the ability has no evil descriptor?
Should they be true undead at all? Normal undead remain after creation, the bard's only remain as long as the bardic performance lasts. Or is it just like using magical puppet strings to have the bodies move and act as f they were undead?
Just being an animated corpse wouldn't necessarily make it evil. One of the books I think the osirion one mentions bodies being animated by elementals.
I realize the post above me was a bit of thread necromancy but I came looking figuring someone was diScussing the new juju oracle.
Incidently one of the recent modules had a LN irorian mummy. But mummied were never as bound by the whole evil thing as the other undead.
What are people looking for in a white necromancer?
The ability to begin construction of a post scarcity society without needing to buy a helm of opposite alignment.
What are people looking for in a white necromancer?The ability to begin construction of a post scarcity society without needing to buy a helm of opposite alignment.
Like Set's idea of LG Shadows above, or more like free endless labor?
Like Set's idea of LG Shadows above, or more like free endless labor?What are people looking for in a white necromancer?The ability to begin construction of a post scarcity society without needing to buy a helm of opposite alignment.
The labor. A positive energy shadow would be used as an ambulance.
The labor. A positive energy shadow would be used as an ambulance.Like Set's idea of LG Shadows above, or more like free endless labor?What are people looking for in a white necromancer?The ability to begin construction of a post scarcity society without needing to buy a helm of opposite alignment.
The labor I get. How would the shadows be an ambulance?
Just being an animated corpse wouldn't necessarily make it evil. One of the books I think the osirion one mentions bodies being animated by elementals.
I realize the post above me was a bit of thread necromancy but I came looking figuring someone was diScussing the new juju oracle.
Incidently one of the recent modules had a LN irorian mummy. But mummied were never as bound by the whole evil thing as the other undead.
Elemental zombies, I like it.
You hit the zombie, it feels unusually solid. It is filled with packed earth and stone.
Coughing fire zombie.
Bloated water corpse.
Flying suicide bomber corpse.
The labor I get. How would the shadows be an ambulance?The labor. A positive energy shadow would be used as an ambulance.Like Set's idea of LG Shadows above, or more like free endless labor?What are people looking for in a white necromancer?The ability to begin construction of a post scarcity society without needing to buy a helm of opposite alignment.
From my understanding, positive energy heals hp on contact, as the cleric channel ability.
The labor I get. How would the shadows be an ambulance?From my understanding, positive energy heals hp on contact, as the cleric channel ability.
Ah, gotcha. The ideas as clarified above were considered to have the exact same traits as all Shadows, except be fluffed as Lawful Good and made of Positive Energy instead of Negative Energy. That means that they still have the STR drain, in theory, and would create spawn upon killing a creature that way. Strength drain has no equivalence in positive/negative energy interactions.
(The opposite idea, that they enhance the strength until the creature dies from "too much", is very interesting, and I hadn't really thought of it before.)
It could be interesting to have a creature that could enhance or heal with a touch. Do you have any other ideas?
EDIT: By which I mean, do you have ideas for an undead that heals damage instead of deals it?
It's not "cannon" but I got the idea from the positive energy elemental: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/elemental/eleme ntal-positive-energy-tohc
Also some dimly recalled memory of going to the positive plane gave you hp, to full, then temporary hp, then you explode.
It's not "cannon" but I got the idea from the positive energy elemental.
Also some dimly recalled memory of going to the positive plane gave you hp, to full, then temporary hp, then you explode.
Linked to make it easier for everyone.
That's a really neat idea. None of this is really canon, so it's fine. I might recommend, in that case, you might want to look strictly at the positive energy elementals and non-evil undead for your post-scarcity.
Especially with the undead, you're likely going to have to have a very focused team of task masters controlling them at all times. That's a lot of work! But it could still lead to a pretty decent approximation of post-scarcity.
Your memory is correct on the positive energy plane. In certain regions of the plane (the strongly positive dominant ones). You heal rapidly until you hit your maximum, then you gain temporary hit points. After you hit the "double your hp" mark, you start making increasingly difficult fortitude saves. If you fail any of them, you explode into "pure positive energy".
One of the character types I had looked at in the past was a spiritualist. But I found the game really doesn't support it well.
A lot of the lower end incorprial undead really fall into the evil end and the game doesn't really support summoning ghosts.
Though I think from a cosmological point of view celestials are the souls of the dead. But thematically it is not the same.
Almost want a summon spell that duplicates the horn of valhalla.
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Almost want a summon spell that duplicates the horn of valhalla.
Dwarves of Golarion has a weaker version, summon ancestral guardian. Also a pair of other ancestral spirit-themed spells, ancestral communion and ancestral gift.
Apparently the spirits and souls of dead dwarves don't turn evil automagically when they are called back to help their living kin. Yay for dwarves!
Still, a version that summoned a gang of einherjar-type spirit barbarians would be totally awesome! Thematically, it could even call up the spirits of those who died to disease or in a flood or whatever, and didn't get a 'glorious death in battle' (through no fault of their own) to give them one more chance at glory, to earn a better place / higher status in their afterlife. A Gorumite, or an Ulfen, might find such a spell to be a worthwhile thing to cast, to give those unfairly robbed of a 'good death' in this world another chance to prove themselves.
Other variations on the same theme could be that a warrior culture considers someone you have slain in battle to owe you a debt of service before it can pass on, so that you can call a spirit warrior up with stats similar to someone you've slain (losing most class abilities, to prevent abuse, with spellcasting in particular being lost). After a short period, perhaps even a single use, that spirit is freed to move on, when this rite is used as intended. This sort of 'getting one service from the dudes you killed' theme would evoke the feel of Moorcock's Corum Chronicles, possibly the inspiration for the Hand and Eye of Vecna. (With his magic monster eye, he could see the spirits of those he had most recently slain, with his magic monster hand, he could beckon them to step into the material world and fight his current foes.)
There's a ton of neat options for spirit magic, some of which could be twisted to evil intent, but plenty of which could be non-evil. Summoning up spirits to scout an area, sending your own spirit out to find someone or pass on a message, tapping into the spiritual energies of a place to learn stuff about the past of the area, even calling up spirits of people (or animals!) to temporarily possess or 'ride' you (or an ally) to grant them some measure of their knowledge, wisdom, skills or strength, or summoning up a spirit to harass an enemy, not entirely possessing him, but causing him distraction. An assortment of spells could be re-flavored as 'spirit' spells as well, such as various enhancement buffs (bull's strength, bear's endurance, etc.) or debuffs (bestow curse, ray of enfeeblement, contagion, etc.) so that the benefits (or drawbacks) can only be removed by driving out the spirit providing the buff or imposing the baneful condition, instead of conventional means of dispelling / curing.
Yeah, wouldn't they turn or stay lawful instead of evil?
Wow I never thought of using those sorts of spells to simulate the idea. I'm going to talk to my my dm about reflavouring them. My dirge bard in carrion crown can work those in.
Yeah, wouldn't they turn or stay lawful instead of evil?
Why would they be lawful? My apologies: I'm trying to understand the reason for the implication.
shouldn't a positive energy "shadow" be a being made of light? It seems like if they are bursting with positive energy, than they would look illuminated in some way.
shouldn't a positive energy "shadow" be a being made of light? It seems like if they are bursting with positive energy, than they would look illuminated in some way.
While often conflated, darkness and negative energy isn't the same thing, and neither is light and positive energy.
Certainly it could be re-fluffed that way, though. And I know people tend to like that sort of thing.
One possibility with that is that they're more difficult to spot in bright light - like the reverse of a shadow. It could be interesting, too.
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Thematically, negative energy *sounds* like it should correlate to darkness and cold, as it sometimes *sounds* like it would be a hungering void of energy, desperately consuming everything like an empty place longing to be filled, but incapable of being sated.
But negative energy and necromancy have nothing to do with darkness spells (which are evocation) or cold spells (which are also abjuration) or spells that negate or consume energy (such as dispel magic or antimagic field, which are abjuration). The theme is there, but the mechanics don't back it up.
In the game, negative energy is just 'positive energy by another name,' and the negative energy plane, instead of a hungry void at the 'bottom of creation,' is just another spigot dispensing vast amounts of energy into the 'multiverse,' just like the positive energy plane on the other side of the planar cosmology. (And, assuming a person enters either plane at full health, they'll die at the exact same time, either from not enough life, or too much life, making neither of them fun tourist vacations.)
In theory, there's nothing to mechanically prevent a light or heat source from being powered by negative energy, for instance, and the existence of burning skeletons stands as indirect proof of that theory. Negative energy doesn't seem all that 'hungry' for other types of energy, as it rarely, if ever, has anything to do with effects that reduce energy in the environment.
Indeed, positive and negative energy aren't even consistently associated with healing or harm. With the right feat, a cleric can alignment channel or elemental channel to *heal living creatures with negative energy* or *harm living creatures with positive energy.* (In a Worldwound campaign, where one can reasonably expect to face demons regularly, Alignment Channel (Evil) could be pretty handy, allowing a cleric to channel positive energy to blast demons.)
As for positive energy 'shadows' (which, aesthetically, I would make silvery pools that reflect those around them, and momentarily resemble those they are attacking), more or less unnatural creatures that burn away your humanity to create more light-beings, just as negative energy shadows burn away your humanity to create more shadow-beings, was my thought. They'd be as horrifying and apocalyptic, no matter whether they create LG undying incorporeal energy beings or CE ones.
Any sensible LG living person would be cheering on a CE cleric negative energy blasting these LG 'shadows' out of existence before they can finish their muddle-headed 'holy mission' to turn all living creatures on Golarion into incorruptible LG 'spirits of light.'
While I don't agree with James Jacobs on every little detail, where I do agree with him is that not everything that exists on 'one side' needs an opposite and equal parallel on 'the other side.'
Im not sure, why but I had this wierd idea when reading your description of positive 'shadows' that they would give a temporary bonus to str by 1d6, and if the bonus reached your current strength you would die from too much energy.
Though that in hindsight sounds like the sort of monster Pc would figure out a way to abuse :P
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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.
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.
Hey everyone - quick heads up that the aforementioned White Necromancer is soon to be released as New Paths 7: The Expanded White Necromancer, complete with new spells, new feats and two White Necromancer archetypes, the Grave-Bound and the Necrotic Healer :)
You can read a design blog here ....
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Hey everyone - quick heads up that the aforementioned White Necromancer is soon to be released as New Paths 7: The Expanded White Necromancer, complete with new spells, new feats and two White Necromancer archetypes, the Grave-Bound and the Necrotic Healer :)
You can read a design blog here ....
Oh Good God YES.
Looking at the bolg, I gotta say some old character concepts are getting defibrillated by that Grave-Bound archetype. :D
A man haunted by the ghost of one whose death he failed to prevent. Haunted until he's slaked that spirit's need for justice.
The scion of a cursed family line and the restless patriarch who ruined his descendants. She's trying to break the vicious cycle that has been destroying her family, and through that he's finding his last chance to make amends.
WANT
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Not really much of a reason for a thread beyond... you change the standard material to make what you want to fit, fit. As it stands, the only place where undead aren't treated as monsters is the undead nation Geb, which treats the living as slaves and fodder. If you want to put in elements that the designers did not intend, you'll have to choose where you want them to fit in and change the nation(s) to suit.
M: Hey guys, how about some ideas on how to make non-evil undead work in Golarion!
L: This thread is pointless because you can just add ideas to make non-evil undead work in Golarion.
wat
Dude, seriously with the threadcrapping. You're better than this.
It's LazarX. Around 50% of all his posts are like that.
Also, there are living people in Geb who aren't slaves or fodder.
So not only is he pointlessly trying to be negative, but he is also wrong :D