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You're right.
Coming back later with a new CN undead ASAP based on some weird dreams from a while back. Might as well post it here, because it wouldn't be right to make it the first post of an "Everyday Life in the Diaspora" thread. ;)
Also, has everyone read Dragon's Demand yet?
Also also, has everyone read Chronicle of the Righteous?
CG azata Empyreal Lord
Worshippers: GHOSTS! :D
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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
** spoiler omitted **
WANT
All of those ideas would work perfectly with a Grave-Bound White Necromancer. A few very similar suggestions are even given in the archetype's text!
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I love white necromancers too. And still I adhere to Golarion's take of Undead = Evil (always for the unintelligent and almost always for the intelligent one).
I find that it makes things far more interesting and angsty (and thus more in line with the mood of the setting which is pretty grim, dark and desperate IMO).
Trying to do (and be) Good when the forces you manipulate gravitate toward Evil is far more interesting IMO.
I just want to open by admitting I haven't read this entire thread. Only discovered it today, so 7 pages with some post that are almost essays in length...yeah, sorry, can't do it.
That said, I noticed a lot of it seems to be re-skinning the current un-dead monsters into good versions, but considering that some are re-animated murders and the like, is that really possible?
Why not just make whole new undead creatures that unique, good, and not options for evil necromancers? [EDIT: This sounds like a great idea for a 3rd party product, actually...]
Maybe this point has been covered and if so, I'm sorry. Just felt the need to get that off my chest. For what it's worth, I support Mikaze in this endevour. (And most of his other ones. Go good orcs!)
I just want to open by admitting I haven't read this entire thread. Only discovered it today, so 7 pages with some post that are almost essays in length...yeah, sorry, can't do it.
That said, I noticed a lot of it seems to be re-skinning the current un-dead monsters into good versions, but considering that some are re-animated murders and the like, is that really possible?
Why not just make whole new undead creatures that unique, good, and not options for evil necromancers? [EDIT: This sounds like a great idea for a 3rd party product, actually...]
Maybe this point has been covered and if so, I'm sorry. Just felt the need to get that off my chest. For what it's worth, I support Mikaze in this endevour. (And most of his other ones. Go good orcs!)
Agree with this post. I am not inherently against non-evil undead, but a good chunk of undead have their basis in evil. I would rather see completely novel good/neutral undead than reskinning Morhgs or shadows. There have already been some good idea in the thread for this (undead knights tasked with holy guardian duties, ancestral spirits tied to protecting their lineage, Death Omens devoted to warn people of tragic fate, etc).
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How many stories have the protagonist attempting to put right some wrong, that is preventing a friend or relative from finding rest?
How can those stories be told, if the setting can never include non-evil restless dead?
How would 'Hamlet' have gone down?
"Well, I hear what you're saying, Dad. And it does seem a bit soon for Mom to be jumping in the sack with your brother. It's squicked me out a bit. And I'd like to help you put things straight, I really would."
"But, you're a ghost, therefore inherently evil. Therefore, helping you would tarnish my alignment. So, f*** you."
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Countless horror stories end with the protagonists rescued from the moustasche-twirling villain, by the hordes of restless dead, who have decided 'enough is enough', and rise to carry out righteous punishment.
It must have happened at least a dozen times, in 'Swamp Thing' alone, unsurprisingly, since the series began in the Louisiana bayou.
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Countless horror stories end with the protagonists rescued from the moustasche-twirling villain, by the hordes of restless dead, who have decided 'enough is enough', and rise to carry out righteous punishment.
Pretty much every culture, ever, has had the ghosts of your ancestors as beings (sometimes helpful, sometimes judgmental, sometimes angry) to be placated, appeased or propitiated, not somehow corrupted or inherently malicious by their state of being dead. (Those that were, often had darn good reasons, or were already bad people in life.)
Africa, China, Greece, Rome, the Celts, Japan, Catholics, etc. all had respect for the spirits of the departed, not fear or loathing.
Pretty much, if you want to go with 'the spirits of your grandparents turned evil the second they left their bodies, and their corpses *also* became evil' you are stuck with some pretty recent (as in, after 2000) ideas brought about in 3.5, whose 'historical precedent' was, in the words of the developer, 'so that paladins could smite them.'
Pretty much, if you want to go with 'the spirits of your grandparents turned evil the second they left their bodies, and their corpses *also* became evil' you are stuck with some pretty recent (as in, after 2000) ideas brought about in 3.5, whose 'historical precedent' was, in the words of the developer, 'so that paladins could smite them.'
I would disagree with "after 2,000". I D&D, certainly, mechanically it's only after 2,000. However the Western culture (specifically the American, but inheriting and augmenting from European culture) has long had... let's call them "issues"... with corpses.
Partially it comes from a corruption and rejection of local folklore into presumed demonology, because, "religious reasons" combined with the ideas of "enlightenment"* that eschewed and rejected any sort of supernatural effects as nonsense (and thus corrupt pagan superstition).
However since the "civilized" Americas had no local foundation for "the dead spirits around here are actually pretty cool dudes", we're mostly just left with the "Well dead folk are creepy, disgusting, and disquieting. Anything talking about spirits is of the Devil. Any talking about Dead spirits is those fool, clearly Satanic heathen unenlightened cults of savages." thought processes. (Additional Bonus Points for hatred: we were effectively at war - though often due entirely to our side - with the "filthy stinking savages" who actually believed in benevolent dead spirits.)
Allow to stew for about 150-some-odd years, and then Night of the Living Dead comes out.
Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, you also have things like Bram Stoker's Dracula and other monster books and movies featuring dead creatures (Mummies, Dr. Frankenstein's 'Monster', and Ghosts, just to name a few) all of which depict the dead as nothing but malevolent: at best they're misunderstood as in the book version of Frankenstein (from what I recall), or in parodies of the "serious" lore. But always they would "break down" to their base natures and go on a rampage of some sort or another. These all predate Night rather heavily.
So what I'm saying is, while I generally agree with you that it's a shame for game purposes, I don't lay "blame" squarely at the feet of a game developer. I'd say, rather, that he probably took inspiration (likely subconscious) from pop-culture and the way most people he knew played their games anyway.
* Some of which was genuinely great! Some of which... isn't.
At some point, the word necromancy had a stint as 'nigromancy' (or roughly that), which was alluding to 'niger', which was latin for 'black' (at the time, that is). So some event made what was originally a tie into divination by way of speaking to the dead made the word take on the connotations of the 'black arts'. Which are evil, don'tcha know?
It was later changed back to necromancy, but the connotation has stuck. So it's not like the association between evil and the undead is anything new.
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The affection I had for the original White Necromancer was that you could build a solid necromantic character whose theme wasn't leading hordes of undead or traveling down a path of corruption. Hopefully your latest product remains true to that.
Was that directed to me? If so, then I am confident that you will be very pleased with the Expanded White Necromancer when it comes out! ;)
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Countless horror stories end with the protagonists rescued from the moustasche-twirling villain, by the hordes of restless dead, who have decided 'enough is enough', and rise to carry out righteous punishment.Pretty much every culture, ever, has had the ghosts of your ancestors as beings (sometimes helpful, sometimes judgmental, sometimes angry) to be placated, appeased or propitiated, not somehow corrupted or inherently malicious by their state of being dead. (Those that were, often had darn good reasons, or were already bad people in life.)
Africa, China, Greece, Rome, the Celts, Japan, Catholics, etc. all had respect for the spirits of the departed, not fear or loathing.
Pretty much, if you want to go with 'the spirits of your grandparents turned evil the second they left their bodies, and their corpses *also* became evil' you are stuck with some pretty recent (as in, after 2000) ideas brought about in 3.5, whose 'historical precedent' was, in the words of the developer, 'so that paladins could smite them.'
There is a lot of differences between the observing or visiting spirits of the dead and the undead chained to the material plane. And that is not even considering corporeal undead.
In most cultures I know of, desecrating the remains of someone was a good way to ensure that their spirit could not rest peacefully. IIRC, these restless spirits were not usually considered beneficent.
Note also that some undead can be non-evil by RAW (like the Ghost). But AFAIK, no necromancy spell can create a Ghost and those undead that CAN be created with necromancy spells are all Evil by RAW.
I'm curious if there is an ideological reason why all the summon my ancestor spells seem to be conjuration force effects. Although necromancy seems to have lost a lot of the positive life aspects to conjuraration in general.
I'm curious if there is an ideological reason why all the summon my ancestor spells seem to be conjuration force effects. Although necromancy seems to have lost a lot of the positive life aspects to conjuraration in general.
Mostly because, "Eeeeeewwwwwwwww, Necromancy."
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I'm curious if there is an ideological reason why all the summon my ancestor spells seem to be conjuration force effects. Although necromancy seems to have lost a lot of the positive life aspects to conjuraration in general.
For the same reasons Conjuration stole so many direct damaging effects from Evocation.
For the same reason Conjuration stole so many healing spells from Necromancy.
Necromancy is a neutral school of magic, relating to the transfer and manipulation of life energy. Life energy is a neutral term, covering unaligned energies from the Inner planes, that are both positively and negatively charged.
Curing hit point damage (cure light wounds, et al) is Necromancy.
Preventing a soul leaving their body at the point the owner would otherwise die (breath of life) is Necromancy.
Unless and until spells are allowed to belong to multiple schools, there should be one and only one school picked, and that school should be the one that best fits the description of the effects.
Necromancy is a far more focused school than conjuration, therefore should get first refusal on any effects that fall under its portfolio.
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Unless and until spells are allowed to belong to multiple schools, there should be one and only one school picked, and that school should be the one that best fits the description of the effects.
Necromancy is a far more focused school than conjuration, therefore should get first refusal on any effects that fall under its portfolio.
On the one hand, I agree.
On the other hand, both necromancy and illusion (and perhaps one or two others) have no business being Schools at all.
Necromancy is chopped into curses (which often have effects which have *nothing* to do with manipulating forces of life or death, or negative or positive energy, and probably belong in either transmutation or enchantment, depending on their effects), fear spells (which definitely belong in enchantment), conjuring negative energy (conjuration), etc.
If I conjure positive energy, it's conjuration. If I conjure shadow energy, it's illusion. If I conjure negative energy, it's necromancy. That right there is indication that illusion and necromancy are messed up as schools, being less about the type of magic being used, and more a 'theme park' of random effects shoved together haphazardly. Anything 'icky' goes in necromancy, even if it's *obviously* a transmutation effect that happens to be transmuting blood or flesh or bone. Creating *disease* even got tossed into necromancy, which, for a design team dead set on yanking cure spells out of necromancy, because 'dead stuff,' totally muddles the theme, since they've worked so hard at cutting necromancy in half (and making it more and more one-sided and unusable by non-evil PCs) and then accidentally left a spell in there that is *creating life!* (Similarly, remove disease, a spell that *kills stuff,* should be necromancy, by any logic. It doesn't matter at all if the stuff being killed is harmful to the organism being affected by the spell and the end result is beneficial, because negative energy isn't evil, and positive energy isn't good. Positive energy creates and strengthens life. Negative energy weakens and kills life. 'Life' includes demons, bacteria, green slime, vermin and tumors, so, yes, negative energy is occasionally going to kill life that you don't like...)
Same with illusion. I create darkness, it's evocation. I create light, it's also evocation. But if the light has colors, it's suddenly illusion? If I charm or enrage or even make someone crazy, it's enchantment, but if it fascinates them or makes them hallucinate, it's illusion, because 'illusion' includes both physical transmutations of light and sound *and* magically-induced hallucinations *and* the conjuration of energy from the plane of shadow...
The schools were always a bit kludge-y, which was probably why so many spells ended up in two or more schools, back in the old days. Fire shield, for instance, is pretty much an evocation spell, as is fire trap, but abjuration needs the love more, so off they go.
*If* necromancy was indeed all about negative energy and draining life and heat and energy and sucking it away into the void, then darkness spells and cold spells and dispel magic type spells (including antimagic field and disjunction) would probably be *perfect* 'necromancy' spells, drawing energy away, leaving behind cold and darkness. Even acid spells might fit that theme, from a science-y standpoint, as they drain away interatomic energies and cause items to disintegrate into dust, their atomic bonds eaten away by a wash of pure corruptive energy that appears fluid (but is really nasty green ectoplasm or 'waters of the river Styx or Duat' or whatever).
Similarly, a conjurer has access to entire infinite dimensions full of fire and air and earth and water, and yet their conjured 'matter' of choice appears to be acid. Who knows why? Wouldn't conjuring something that actually exists out there in infinite amounts, like fire, be more 'on-theme?' Is there a 'plane of acid' that *should* be way more prominent in the cosmology, since portals to it are being opened all the time? And yet, mythologically speaking, there's not much call for a 'plane of acid.' There's no City of Brass, or genies made from 'fumeless acid.' It might backfit into the current mechanics for a 'plane of acid' to exist and be super important, but it doesn't really tap into mythic themes the way that Hell, Heaven, etc. do.
Indeed, the game might feel more 'magical' and less anachronistic with less acid (and sonic) spells and effects.
Anywho, acid digression aside, Schools are backwards-compatibility things, IMO, and, the more you look at them, either *tons* of spells should be in two or three different schools, or there should be some sort of 'Schools of Philosophy' and 'Schools of Effect' split (to separate out thematic schools like Necromancy from mechanical schools like Evocation), or the whole idea should be dumped in some hypothetical new edition of the game as it introduces more weirdness than not.