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So, I heard about a necromancer from Kobold quarterly that lets you cast necromancy spells as good spells, not evil. It's a neat concept, but I'm trying to wrap my head around the fluff...you're still unearthing graves and using corpses/upsetting the balance of life. Can someone help me?
Actually, White Necromancers(and evil necromancers) don't need to go digging up graves to do what they do. That and understanding the balance of life and death are a big part of what they are. After all, potions of immortality and the like upset the balance of life too, and those aren't evil. They just honk off certain inevitables.
The easiest way to look at it is this:
Typically evil necromancy is evil because it's about enslaving, defiling, or otherwise harming the soul.
Necromancy that does nothing to the soul is, in a vacuum, neutral.
White necromancers are about working with the dead. You help the dead, they help you, sometimes it's one-way and both ways, but it's always with willing souls. White necromancers are unique in that their necromancy hinges upon Diplomacy. They don't enslave the dead. They actually have to show them proper respect to get their aid.
And considering the number of restless spirits and souls with so much unfinished work left behind in a typical fantasy world, that's a lot of folks that need a white necromancer's help.
As mentioned by Beckett, Juju Oracles operate with similar mechanics, though the spirits that inhabit their undead are actually (loosely defined) wendo spirits. Like the White Necromancer though, their mindless undead are neutral and their intelligent undead match their alignment.
White Necromancers and Juju Oracles both operate with mechanics that strip the [evil] descriptor from their undead creating spells. What this means is that the creation of undead, in and of itself, doesn't have to be evil. There's just something about those spells in their current vanilla form that is evil. That's left in the flavor of those spells for groups to explore on their own. Whether it's profane rituals or if it brands the targetted soul with evil, something makes those spells and often the resulting undead evil.
Whatever the White Necromancers and Juju Oracles do, they cast those spells differently. Their rituals are different, and thus the resulting undead are different. No damage to the soul is done.
It's all evil. They're just trying to make it sound all nice.
PR campaign for the ghoulish bastards.
White necromancers are about working with the dead.
One of my current favorite character ideas -- if I ever get a chance to play, that is -- is a good necromancer who hates undead. I would argue that necromancy is more about manipulating souls and life-force rather than death. Most uses are negative towards life, but some (like astral projection) are neutral, and a few (like false life) are positive.
I like that the default necromancy wizard abilities don't require a necromancer to use undead.
In one of the diablo books, at least I think that was where it was, one of the main characters comes from a sect of necromancers that are more or less goodly aligned. They used their power with the dead and undead to help fix what happened to to the dead, or to help in the greater good. they seemed more like a druidic order in that they wanted to restore balance that was taken away from the world by evil people and demons.
I got over the idea of necromancy being evil awhile ago, because I dont see the world in black and white, and I see no reason a necromancer would.
Haven't read the article, but while I have non-evil necromancers in my game, they never create undead. I've read a lot of crosstalk about this "White Necromancer" class on the boards, and while it sounds like an interesting take on the concept, it doesn't seem to fit into my campaign, and I wouldn't allow its use.
In my game, all undead are soulless and inherently evil creatures, powered by negative energy, yet still needing to feed on the life-force of the living. Intelligent undead may retain some or all of their memories of life (depending on the creature), but an undead creature is not the same person that he or she was in life. The creature's true soul proceeds to the Great Beyond even if its body is still walking around via dark magic.
So, in my game, the mere existence of an undead creature is an affront to nature and to life itself. Creating such a creature is always an evil act.
That said, there are necromancers in my world that hate the undead and study them carefully in order to better fight them. Many necromancy spells are effective anti-undead weapons, such as undeath to death. Controlling undead that others have created is a tactic that nonevil necromancers would sometimes use, but only with the goal of their eventual destruction. Nonevil necromancers never create undead servants or use captured ones for long.
Just my opinion: your miles may vary.
I once started to play a necromancer who took a more scientific approach to the mystery of death. He was in fact obsessed with life and the "absence of life" as he thought of it. The campaign fell apart pretty quick so I never got past first level with him, but I had intended to keep his spell list away from the animate and create type spells and focus more on his using the powers of "Not living" to aid the living.
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It's not what a lot of people think it is. The White Necromancer instead of being a "good" version of the Wizard specialist is actually more of an off branch of sorcerer. It's more of a character who works with other aspects of necromancy such as healing and abjuration against undead.
A White Necromancer may create or raise undead, but he'll do so for vastly different reasons other than to have zombie servants to order around. He'll do so only when he must, and in most cases will put them back to rest when they're not needed.
A White Necromancer who robs graves to make servants is betraying the essential theme of his class.
The other thing that posters seem to forget about this class from KQ, is that raising undead is NOT the main feature of this class.
Read the class article instead of relying on third hand info from posters.... including me. That should straighten things out considerably.
Very well said! I'd say you pretty accurately point out many of the White Necromancer's distinctions.
To take LazarX up on his advice and check out the class article for yourself, you can get the issue HERE :)
Flagged to be moved to...uh...Compatible Products or General Discussion, I guess.