Not in or of itself. One justification is that the Lich/necromancer believes that his/her necromancy isn't evil at all, and is simply another type of magic that can be used for good, evil, or another purpose at the casters will. In that vein, the necromancer could be there to 'prove' that their magic isn't a curse or a work of evil. Perhaps the necromancer uses their necromancy to give a doctor a second chance to save a patient that might otherwise die do to being at negative HP. Perhaps the necromancer is a necromancer simply to have a chance to defend against other necromancers, rather than to take over the world, and his party members understand this and allow the necromancer to accompany them.
Even a Paladin could travel with a Lick of necromancer without problem, as certain spells that can revive a dead person are part of the necromancy school, which means that a cleric could be considered a necromancer when using certain spell types as well. Only if the necromancer/Lich were doing evil deeds and said paladin did nothing to stop the Lich would there be an alignment shift.
If you aren't beholden to official Paizo setting assumptions, the easiest thing to do would be for necromancy and raising the dead to not be inherently evil. If the DM for the game rules this way, there's no problem.
Juju Oracle is the way to go--their undead match their alignment.
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Juju Oracle is the way to go--their undead match their alignment.
Be careful with this. My DM just showed me some book where they completely removed all undead aspects of the Juju mystery and replaced them with Summon Nature's Ally stuff. I'm not sure if it's forthcoming errata or what.
As for justifying undead, it's up to your DM. If they can let you flavor it by saying your raised undead are purely magical entities and not the raised deceased loved ones of the neighboring village then I don't see why not.
Another possibility is ONLY raising evil-aligned targets as penance for their deeds while they were alive, that may work.
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By raising the dead to act as his minions, the Necromancer desecrates the bodies of the fallen twice over.
First, by inviting unholy powers inside the body to animate it, the 'temple of the body' is violated against the original owner's will. Even worse, some believe you are forcing the soul back INTO the body to cause it to move, a worse kind of enslavement.
Second, you subject the body to further indignities via combat, inviting others to chop, maim, and deface.
Animating the dead is by its nature a dark and unhallowed pact, and thus evil. No legitimate paladin or cleric of a good deity could forgive this, or allow it to continue in their presence.
PS. unless you home game rule it otherwise :P and I haven't read about the Juju Oracle!
If you're not playing strictly RAW, Golarion Setting, your DM might allow that certain types of Undead aren't necessarily evil. I know the FR setting has non-evil Mummies, and things like the Baelnorn.
Table variation, though. No way of knowing that without asking your DM.
In my custom worlds, mindless undead are usually neutral--distasteful, but not actually evil. They are just objects animated by magic, no different than any other animated object.
But officially, in Golarion, Juju Oracle is the only way not to be evil as a Necromancer, and the devs even say that was a mistake.
Maybe the dead are being "punished", by forcing their corporeal remains to make amends for their crimes while alive? In the real world it's not uncommon to desecrate a corpse as some sort of additional punishment, animating such a body could be seen in a similar light.
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I'm going to echo others who have mentioned talking with your DM first and foremost. In D&D Good and Evil are objective forces. The necromancer's belief is meaningless. If raising the dead is evil in your campaign (as it most surely is in any of mine) then it doesn't matter what spin you put on it.
Now that doesn't mean that some Good characters wouldn't travel with you, though. It's not an evil act to consort with necromancers, just...distasteful, so depending on how persuasive you are and what assurances you might give them that they won't wake up one night to find a zombie chewing on their calf, you might be able to pull it off. :)
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How could one justify a necromancer (minionmancy, mostly) in a mostly good party?
Say something like this:
"Any magic can be good or evil. A carelessly cast fireball is far more dangerous to bystanders than any of the undead under my thrall. A charm spell cast upon a living creature is a far greater personal violation than an animation spell cast upon the dead. All wizards tamper with forces that, left unchecked, are quite dangerous. Do not delude yourself into thinking a pyromaniac evoker or a tactless enchanter is somehow on higher moral ground than a necromancer."
The rules on alignment descriptors are vague enough that the GM can rule either way (and I think that's intentional) as to whether it actually is an evil act. Even if your GM rules it doesn't affect your alignment, a Paladin or good-aligned Cleric can certainly still object on the basis of the tenets of their faith. However, by RAW, there is no rule that says good-aligned arcane casters are restricted from casting spells with the [evil] descriptor or are in any way affected by doing so. So clarify your GM's interpretation of how spells with alignment descriptors interact with alignment.
Personally, I have a hard time taking the [evil] descriptor seriously when "Dominate Person" doesn't have it. This spell is basically slavery and psychological torture rolled into one; it's really messed up stuff.
If they can let you flavor it by saying your raised undead are purely magical entities and not the raised deceased loved ones of the neighboring village then I don't see why not.
There's no evidence that animate dead recalls the soul of the departed, so unless you're actually raising free-willed undead (which is very dangerous since loss of control is a distinct possibility) you're not cutting into the afterlife.
Second of all, by the time you're actually high-enough level to cast animate dead, human skeletons/zombies are already too weak to bother with, so you just won't be animating humanoids out of graveyards.
Planescape's Dustmen had a really neat take on this. Basically they had people sign a contract by which they were paid money in life so that the Dustmen could animate their Corpses as mindless undead labourers in death. Nothing inherently evil according to that setting (Dusties were N I believe). The people were fully aware of what they were condensing to and were fairly compensated, and presumably the money improves their lives. Certainly not something objectionable to a lawful character like a paladin.
The necromancer's presence in the party is a "necessary evil":
1. He knows something (character background) that the party needs, like secret words to access a hidden vault, and/or the location of the hidden vault. He knows WHO they need to talk to to get to one of their quest goals.
2. He has a special relationship with one or more NPCs that the party needs later on. His necromantic organization made it clear to capitalize on this relationship as much as possible, so that their organization can reach their goals. The adventurers are a means to an end.
a. A paladin's (party member)organization has sworn to recover a demi-lich's skull for destruction before it can reveal its secrets.
b. The necromancer's organization has been contacted by the church for an alliance (the greater good), they get to recover an ancient book on the site if they send someone (the necromancer party member) to assuage the secret cult members who guard the secrets for entry into the ancient caverns.
3. He's another party member's brother, and it is rumoured he's afflicted with a rare spiritual disease, wherein' he "soul shares" with a long-dead necromancer, giving him particular insight and interest in necromantic magic. i.e., he's not REALLY a necromancer, he just...sleepwalks and casts spells and laughs maniacally, etc. A great wizard prophecied that he'd be a great magician if he could rid himself of the parasite soul. So....little brother goes along with the party to look for a cure.
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I played a minion necro in an all good aligned group before. The thing is when doing it you need to tread carefully. Disguise and bluff are gonna be very important skills to you. Also any spell that masks your/minion's alignment will be most needed along with spells to help disguise the undead to make it appear as not an undead.
I played my necromancer with nothing but zombies since there flesh is still there, fresh corpses is must. To help keep the zombies fresh i embalmed all of them to keep them preserved and used prestidigitation to keep them clean and not smelling. Disguise was used to make them look as they once were using items, like sunglasses and baggy clothing, to hide the parts that obviously looked unnatural, white/no eyes and dangly bits that should not be. With my bluff skill i convinced others that the minions were actually hired hands to carry items and aid in day-to-day activities, along with being personal body guards. The only time i broke this kinda act was when we stumbled upon a dragon that we attacked and killed. While the others went to go grab treasure i stayed back and grabbed my treasure, a new friend, party came back and saw me with the dragon and flipped. I basically told them all a lie that the dragon decided to join us since we were the only ones able to best it in battle and show the compassion to bring it back from the verge of death. They did not argue it since it was already a tough fight and we were down on resources and i was on the side of my new scaly friend.
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I played a minion necro in an all good aligned group before. The thing is when doing it you need to tread carefully. Disguise and bluff are gonna be very important skills to you. Also any spell that masks your/minion's alignment will be most needed along with spells to help disguise the undead to make it appear as not an undead.
I played my necromancer with nothing but zombies since there flesh is still there, fresh corpses is must. To help keep the zombies fresh i embalmed all of them to keep them preserved and used prestidigitation to keep them clean and not smelling. Disguise was used to make them look as they once were using items, like sunglasses and baggy clothing, to hide the parts that obviously looked unnatural, white/no eyes and dangly bits that should not be. With my bluff skill i convinced others that the minions were actually hired hands to carry items and aid in day-to-day activities, along with being personal body guards. The only time i broke this kinda act was when we stumbled upon a dragon that we attacked and killed. While the others went to go grab treasure i stayed back and grabbed my treasure, a new friend, party came back and saw me with the dragon and flipped. I basically told them all a lie that the dragon decided to join us since we were the only ones able to best it in battle and show the compassion to bring it back from the verge of death. They did not argue it since it was already a tough fight and we were down on resources and i was on the side of my new scaly friend.
You must have had a lot of help from the group to keep up that weekend at Bernie's act.
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You must have had a lot of help from the group to keep up that weekend at Bernie's act.I played a minion necro in an all good aligned group before. The thing is when doing it you need to tread carefully. Disguise and bluff are gonna be very important skills to you. Also any spell that masks your/minion's alignment will be most needed along with spells to help disguise the undead to make it appear as not an undead.
I played my necromancer with nothing but zombies since there flesh is still there, fresh corpses is must. To help keep the zombies fresh i embalmed all of them to keep them preserved and used prestidigitation to keep them clean and not smelling. Disguise was used to make them look as they once were using items, like sunglasses and baggy clothing, to hide the parts that obviously looked unnatural, white/no eyes and dangly bits that should not be. With my bluff skill i convinced others that the minions were actually hired hands to carry items and aid in day-to-day activities, along with being personal body guards. The only time i broke this kinda act was when we stumbled upon a dragon that we attacked and killed. While the others went to go grab treasure i stayed back and grabbed my treasure, a new friend, party came back and saw me with the dragon and flipped. I basically told them all a lie that the dragon decided to join us since we were the only ones able to best it in battle and show the compassion to bring it back from the verge of death. They did not argue it since it was already a tough fight and we were down on resources and i was on the side of my new scaly friend.
Lol i enjoyed that movie. No i had no help from the group since they all thought i had the Leadership feat and only the DM new what i was doing. It also helped that every one in the party thought i was a cleric, umd is a great skill. I splashed a level in fighter to get armor and all the spells i was casting was with the Still Spell while holding a fake wand, character was literally carrying a bag of sticks lol. The few real wands i had were of the inflict spells but that was it. Also when preparing my spells i had them set up to look like holy tomes.
The problem with only raising dead that were evil in life (to force them to serve good) is this: how does the necromancer *know* the former alignment of the corpse--especially on an ancient battlefield?
If you truly want undead that are not morally objectionable, perhaps they are magical constructs (not living=undead)that the necromancer makes look horrific for the shock value...
If they just disagree, that's not a big deal. The rest of the party doesn't have to like what you do to work with you, and your actions have no effect on the rest of the party's alignment anyway.
If they just disagree, that's not a big deal. The rest of the party doesn't have to like what you do to work with you, and your actions have no effect on the rest of the party's alignment anyway.
Group cohesion is pretty important really. However if your summoning undead and its not hurting anyone I fail to see the problem, unless someone is in the 'necromancy is strictly evil' camp. If that's the case your not really going to turn them the other way most likely, and its more up to what they will tolerate.
Is journeying with a necromancer an act that could cause someone to shift alignment?
There's nothing inherently evil about the necromancy school of magic, so yeah, I don't see the problem. Whether its inherently evil because arbitrary is really up to whoever is running the show, and you'd have to talk to them. Some people are fine with necromancy so long as your not murdering innocent bystanders to get the corpses, others say from the first drop your evil. Personally I'd prefer it if your actions mattered more than the spells, but really that's up to the GM.
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I think one of the best examples of a necromancer being pulled off was from a video game called Siege of Avalon or something like that. The necromancer was the kingdoms authority on necromancy. They did however think he was creepy as hell and had his lab set up down in the dungeons. Whenever they needed knowledge on how to fight the undead and necromancy they had an expert. The guy didn't really go around raising armies or anything even though he did have a skeleton familiar.
This was the best take for me but I am one of "raise dead is evil and necromancy shouldn't be trifled with lightly" sticks in the mud.
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It's trickier, but it's easier if you're an arcane necromancer than if you're a divine one.
A cleric who Animates Dead has to either be evil himself or serve an evil deity. Either way, he'll detect as evil by level 5 (or earlier) and a good party isn't going to want to trust him, since even if you're not evil you are taking direct orders from a cosmic power that is.
A wizard, on the other hand, can cast [evil] spells even if he's Good. Continued castings of [evil] spells will draw his alignment down, but if he does enough good works (and demonstrates his strength of character to the party) he can stay at least Neutral and still maintain a few undead cohorts, with GM approval of course.
This becomes even easier if you start playing the character at level 1. You won't get Animate Dead for a while, so you've got plenty of time for the party to get to know you, and learn to trust you, before you break out the zombie magic. If you're necromancy-specialized, you can take plenty of non-evil necromancy spells like Chill Touch, then accuse the party of being hypocrites if they object to a zombie when you've been openly using Necromancy this entire time.
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A cleric who Animates Dead has to either be evil himself or serve an evil deity.
Or a neutral deity.
If you aren't beholden to official Paizo setting assumptions, the easiest thing to do would be for necromancy and raising the dead to not be inherently evil. If the DM for the game rules this way, there's no problem.
Easiest and best. The entire concept of 'inherently evil' is silly by itself.
On a side note, what makes the best minionmancers?
According to this 3.5 Handbook its clerics. I have an affinity for clerics myself, because wading into combat as a death knight among your undead army is a glorious feeling to be had.
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Everyone in this thread should read this.
The issues with necromancy are mostly Legacy problems from previous editions. James Jacobs has very strong opinions on the morality of necromancy in Golarion. Unfortunately, he's designing his world around rules that had dozens of designers, all with their own takes on the moral implications of Necromancy, which is why it causes more discussions than any other kind of magic. You'd think it would be Illusions because of their scope, but no school besides necromancy have ethical judgements built into the framework of the effects.
So what we're left with is two diametrically opposed ideas oh how Necromancy is supposed to work.
Neither is wrong, and they can even both exist int he same setting, but they have to be addressed and woven into the very cosmology of any setting. They are causes and effects of fundamental setting choices.
So read the first chapter of the link above and choose the option that best suits your world.
It is possible to play one but you need to know your group first. Last time I played a necro, a base CN Plague patron Witch, my group of CN and LN adventuring buds decided to murder me in cold-blood after I killed a few enemies that had taken me captive. Afterwards, I animated them into Skeletons, the first and last Undead this character ever made, to give me some guys to cover my escape. When they found that out, they greeted me with a sword to the gut.
The subject of necromancy makes some people's trigger fingers very itchy.
Well, it depends how ok they are with you doing evil stuff around them. Keep in mind, in Pathfinder every time you raise the dead you're committing an evil act. You're bringing a little piece of the negative energy plane to the material, to create a mindless killing machine with an instinctive hatred of all living things, and desecrating a body to do it. Essentially, you're making the world a slightly worse place every time you create a new minion. If your party is ok with that, you should be fine.
Alternatively, there are a great many necromancy spells that aren't evil, and don't involve creating undead, and are quite useful to boot.
Well, it depends how ok they are with you doing evil stuff around them. Keep in mind, in Pathfinder every time you raise the dead you're committing an evil act. You're bringing a little piece of the negative energy plane to the material, to create a mindless killing machine with an instinctive hatred of all living things, and desecrating a body to do it. Essentially, you're making the world a slightly worse place every time you create a new minion. If you're party is ok with that, you should be fine.
Alternatively, there are a great many necromancy spells that aren't evil, and don't involve creating undead, and are quite useful to boot.
Would the Summon Skeletons feat circumvent that from happening? After all Summon Monster isn't an evil spell to begin with... And to be honest a necromancer who summons skeletons to do his bidding isn't much different from a Conjuration based Wizard or a Summoner. All summon stuff to fight other stuff but you don't see PETA coming after Wizards or Summoners...
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Back in the day the cure spells were necromancy, and I think it should still be.
Second edition had an ultimate guide to necromancers published by TSR that had a lot of good stuff in it on playing necromancers, the different types of necromancers and philosophy behind necromantic magics. If you can find a copy it's a really nice read.
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^ seconded on both points.
Why the heck healing magic is Conjuration I'll never understand. What the heck is being conjured? New meat?
Necromancy used to have a lot more facets than "make undead" "saveordie" and "scare people"
Why the heck healing magic is Conjuration I'll never understand. What the heck is being conjured? New meat?
Presumably, divine healing energy or positive energy. In that sense, it works enough for me.
Presumably, divine healing energy or positive energy. In that sense, it works enough for me.
Why the heck healing magic is Conjuration I'll never understand. What the heck is being conjured? New meat?
Creating an instantaneous energy effect is evocation, not conjuration.
I've seen one necromancer-cleric PC explain her craft not as enslaving the souls of the dead, but as gifting them with the movement necessary to fight again, and to do so for a good cause. She would insist that the body was no longer a person (the person, once dead, would presumably exist on whichever outer plane suited their alignment), but rather the body had become raw materials which could potentially be used to recreate a person (such as through raise dead), but which could also be used as undead soldiers capable of directing harm away from those allies who were actually still-living.
Normal society probably wouldn't buy it, but the adventure wasn't going to give much access to that anyways. What mattered more was that the other PCs bought it. It helped that the one most-likely to object; the Ranger of Milani, was sleeping with the necrocleric and was thus more willing to consider the concept that the dead weren't being enslaved, while the other two PCs were uninterested in the politics of religion and death.
By raising the dead to act as his minions, the Necromancer desecrates the bodies of the fallen twice over.
First, by inviting unholy powers inside the body to animate it, the 'temple of the body' is violated against the original owner's will. Even worse, some believe you are forcing the soul back INTO the body to cause it to move, a worse kind of enslavement.
Second, you subject the body to further indignities via combat, inviting others to chop, maim, and deface.
Animating the dead is by its nature a dark and unhallowed pact, and thus evil. No legitimate paladin or cleric of a good deity could forgive this, or allow it to continue in their presence.
PS. unless you home game rule it otherwise :P and I haven't read about the Juju Oracle!
Not all cultures / religions hold such views on how the bodies of the dead are to be treated.
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I played through Second Darkness with a White Necromancer/Magus. Was a whole bunch of fun. I would frame it as bringing back bodies to either 'right the wrongs they committed in life' or 'call upon the body to fight one more time'. It depends on how you view your zombies and undead. But I highly recommend a flip through the Kobold Quarterly #19 for a look at the White Necromancer.
It's a very iconic idea, raising the dead and using them for battle. Sure its stereotypicaly an 'evil' thing to do, but what is more fun than subverting expectations like that?
I don't see necromancy has to be evil, they are just rarely good. Look at Johann Faust VIII from Shaman King, I would say he is some sort of necromancer. He was able to animate his beloved Eliza's skeleton, his motivation was to become Shaman King with hopes of fully resurrecting Eliza. If he did anything bad was only because he loves Eliza so much and he was utterly single-minded about achieving his goal. At the end, he learnt to cherish other people's lives and their feelings, that doesn't stop him animating Eliza's skeleton though.
I could see a necromancer who is a very sad man as he isn't good at any spells other than necromancer, he suffered so much from watching people he cares about died in front of him all the time when all he can do is to raise them back as zombies and undead to take revenge upon their enemies. After each spells, he personally dig graves for each one of his fallen friends and spend days crying for them next to their graves. He has been wanted to kill himself for so many times, but he could hear his friends dying wishes, and lot of them was to wish for him to live on. And so, he continue his bitter life and hope to find one spell that can fully resurrect everyone he cares about for good.
In my own campaign world, Healing spells are Necromancy like they were back in 2e.
There was also an ancient human empire that discovered Necromancy, and mastered the arts of creating undead.
When that empire fell, another was born many years later in the same area, but they took their arts in a different path entirely.
After years of research, four main branches of Necromancy developed that are "officially" recognized by most people that know how magic works; spells that create undead (Animate Dead), spells that destroy undead (Undeath to Death), spells that boost life-force (False Life), and spells that weaken life-force (Touch of Fatigue). Some affect the body (Chill Touch) while others go straight for the soul (Speak with Dead), but those are different classifications altogether. For the most part, a spell is only as evil as the one wielding it. Exceptions to this are found mainly among outsiders and deities, who are the main forces behind the creation of spells with alignment descriptors.
Sure its stereotypicaly an 'evil' thing to do, but what is more fun than subverting expectations like that?
Subverting the motives, but not the consequences.
I find it rather bland for folks to insist that creating the undead isn't evil. To me it is merely part and parcel of the 90's desire to be a "lord darkity dark" and play with all the "cool" toys without any consequences.
What would intrigue me would be a character who uses evil means to fight evil, knowing that he's corrupting himself by doing so. Knowing that by making use of this power, even to help others, to save lives, he's damning himself to an eternity of torment.
That would intrigue me. So much roleplaying potential...
Playing a "good lich"? Not so much.
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Not all cultures in the world considered undead beings evil.
Also, that whole "evil spells turn you evil" thing isn't canon in all settings.
If it were, we'd have evil people turning good by spamming some spell with the good descriptor.
You know what is another major taboo in the Golarion setting? Cannibalism (or the consumption of sentient creatures; it gets a bit vague on specifics). You see plenty of always CE creatures based around this: vampires, ghouls, even demon lords who gained their position purely because they were the first to do this while they were mortal.
But you know what isn't an evil act to eat? Animals. No one besides a druid complains when you have a deer-burger.
So why would it be different if you applied the same principle to necromancy? Aim at only turning animals (preferably big, mean ones with a ton of natural attacks) into undead. No PEOPLE are getting hurt. You might not be missing out too much with your choice in... materials. And I've already provided an argument you can use in character ("Hey! You weren't complaining about having it for dinner last night!")
Why is Animate Dead evil while Animate Rope is neutral?
The body is just as much of an inanimate object after the spirit has left it. Even more so in a world where souls have a proven existence and are guided to whatever plane is waiting for them.
What about animating corpses not of your species? Humans don't like to deal with human corpses and animals can often have some special treatment for their own dead but other things?
It's not evil to do a lot of things to a dead deer. We are not evil when we skin and eat it. We can use its body as a disguise and kill others without any judgment. What makes using it as a tool with magic evil? The soul has left and received judgment. The body is like an old pair of discarded pants at this point.
Playing a "good lich"? Not so much.
Depending on your setting, there are actually good liches. There's definitely more than one kind of lich. Faerun had a type of good lich for elves called Baelnorn who were non evil and lived to serve and protect their people after death(like the Dunmer example above). Dry Liches from Sandstorm, a sourcebook, are any non good and absorbed with their own agenda but don't necessarily turn evil. Alhoon are Illithid liches who defied their elder brain, but still are illithid and therefor you know... brain eating squid monsters, but scarier and undead(And oddly enough LE, which is odd for someone who purposefully broke his people's tenants, no?).
Anyways, you can play it in lots of ways. Scaling life and death, duty after death, by whatever means necessary, blahblahblah, lots of ways. However some people play necromancy as always evil, regardless of that. Changing those minds can be difficult. One group I was with kicked you out if you even hinted at being a little evil in their non-evil game.