Necroethics

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

It's also worth noting that Geb already is the relatively stable, ordered society which accepts regular practice of necromancy and the background context behind the lore factoid that even mindless undead are known to spontaneously attack living things that get too close to them in direct contradiction to their orders. That society already exists and it's where we learned about the inherent danger of being near the undead

--

But a more important point, I think, is that of course it will be trivially easy to come up with any number of arguments why creating and controlling undead is both morally neutral and completely reprehensible. It doesn't exist in the real world where we can study its effects on the trajectory of the soul or negative consequences of its use. Any in-universe argument why it should or should not be considered evil is fundamentally based first on whatever aspects about it we've made up or decided to be true in support of our argument.

The reality is that in this setting, creating undead has traditionally been an inherently evil act (with the unholy tag!) likely because controlling the dead is a classic dark magic trope to have shadowy villains enact to show that they're evil and preying upon innocents. Soon we will have a Necromancer class, which is very likely not to be restricted to unholy. Only time will tell if the lore of the setting is receiving a slight adjustment to fill in a previously unexplored corner, or a major perspective shift on the nature and function of undeath and undeathly magics.

[QuidEst]

Madhippy3 wrote:

QuidEst wrote:

I think the Book of the Dead did a pretty good job of why necromancy doesn't ever really get a good reputation.

It's easy to imagine what sort of things could create normalization of undead: the business incentives could make undead labor commonplace, or charitable necromancers could use undead labor to repair natural disaster damage or protect towns. Book of the Dead covers why that doesn't work: even controlled mindless undead work worse around the living and cause more accidents. Between that and undead slipping free of control and killing or injuring people, enough attempts at using undead in a pro-social way would be marred by deaths and injuries that it would never be able to turn its reputation around. The businesses would always be breaking reasonable safety laws for an advantage over their competition, not just following normal practices. The undead helping do repairs would cause accidents, or a natural undead would come along in the disaster aftermath and nobody would believe it hadn't just gotten loose from the work crew.

Except this isn't true. Kaer Maga has a large mindless undead menial workforce. There are dangers, but aren't there always. Is there a significant difference between a necromancer losing control of a zombie vs a living employee just "going postal"? I don't see evidence that losing control of the dead is any more common than a living person flying into a deadly rage. At least in the former case we know who is responsible and can exact vengeance. Kaer Maga is proof it can work. In a more ordered society than Kaer Maga it might even be safer.

... I think the fact that in "the city where almost anything goes", there's only one district out of twelve where controlled mindless undead are allowed, and it's noted that the people there are ready to drop them at the first sign of any independent action, says that it is a notably higher risk than a living employee going postal.

[Media Rez]

Geb is such a shining example of why Undeath isn't actually bad and that Pharasma is just an evil dictator who hates freedom. Hey what's it like to be a living person over there anyway? They must all live in perfect harmony with all these really cool and morally superior undead beings right?

[Zoken44]

I'm sorry, which nation on Golarion (or earth for that matter) has zero poor or oppressed people? Andoran? Nope, poor people there. Absolom, nope, they got poverty. Hermea, sort of, but you must OBEY the "Benevolent" dragon.

I'm not saying Geb is perfect, I'm saying that they are a nation that doesn't stigmatize necromancy and they make it work, and are becoming slowly more progressive.

[Media Rez]

Zoken44 wrote:

I'm sorry, which nation on Golarion (or earth for that matter) has zero poor or oppressed people? Andoran? Nope, poor people there. Absolom, nope, they got poverty. Hermea, sort of, but you must OBEY the "Benevolent" dragon.

I'm not saying Geb is perfect, I'm saying that they are a nation that doesn't stigmatize necromancy and they make it work, and are becoming slowly more progressive.

Okay real talk what is your opinion of Undeath and Necromancy? Do you hold the opinion it is only bad because authority figures (Gods) say it's bad and that it's actually normal and fine?

[Zoken44]

Given that the same or comparable effects can be achieved with other magics that are not considered "evil" or "Unholy" I question the moral judgement that gets thrown on there. I reject the idea of absolute morality being derived from a divine being, given divinities in this universe are not infallible.

[SOLDIER-1st]

Zoken44 wrote:

I reject the idea of absolute morality being derived from a divine being, given divinities in this universe are not infallible.

Based on my recollection of Chronicles of the Righteous, Pathfinder's absolute morality is derived from the planes, rather than gods. Not sure if that really impacts your opinion here, just pointing out a slight distinction.

[QuidEst]

Zoken44 wrote:

Given that the same or comparable effects can be achieved with other magics that are not considered "evil" or "Unholy" I question the moral judgement that gets thrown on there. I reject the idea of absolute morality being derived from a divine being, given divinities in this universe are not infallible.

I definitely see necromancy as a quick and dirty way to accomplish things other magic can do with less effort but serious drawbacks.

It's by far the easiest path to immortality (just get a ghoul or vampire to agree)... but it's pretty corrupting. Not insurmountably so, but in a way that capstone feats or sun orchid elixir aren't.

It gets you tireless minions capable of versatile labor much more easily than an equivalently versatile construct (level -1 skeleton warrior vs. level 2 animated armor)... but they will cause dangerous accidents around the living, and always try to kill if freed.

I think it's plenty reasonable to play a necromancer who isn't doing anything worse than raising corpses and using them. I do think you need to adjust the setting from its defaults for that to not be worse than animating some objects, though. Greater risk to people, a problem if the undead outlast you or your control, and credible (but not infallible) claims that it causes the equivalent of more pollution. And, like I said early in the thread, it's not so hard to justify using existing undead.

I do also think it's very reasonable to make those adjustments! It's fun to play in a setting where necromancy is less of a boogeyman. Pay for corpse rights before death, or have the body considered a natural part of an inheritance. Definitely something I've thought about for worldbuilding stuff.

And, finally, I certainly encourage enjoying playing a scumbag necromancer. Not every character has to be good, and wanting to use people to further your own ends even after they're dead is an easy start to an enjoyable evil character.

Ethical on Golarian as it's presented now? Ehhh... At the least, I feel like you've got a lot of hurdles to overcome. I'll be very interested to see if there are any changes to the lore with the move away from the OGL and the class's introduction, though.

Ethical in Starfinder? Definitely a lower bar to clear- Eox's corpsefolk seem a lot more chill than most of Pathfinder's undead and synthetic food works well enough for them unlike ghouls. Zo! certainly seems pretty keen on lethal entertainment, but it's on a volunteer basis. Better shipping means it's much easier to have mindless undead doing useful work away from the living, even if animation and control techniques haven't improved, which they might have.

[Perpdepog]

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

It's also worth noting that Geb already is the relatively stable, ordered society which accepts regular practice of necromancy and the background context behind the lore factoid that even mindless undead are known to spontaneously attack living things that get too close to them in direct contradiction to their orders. That society already exists and it's where we learned about the inherent danger of being near the undead

--

But a more important point, I think, is that of course it will be trivially easy to come up with any number of arguments why creating and controlling undead is both morally neutral and completely reprehensible. It doesn't exist in the real world where we can study its effects on the trajectory of the soul or negative consequences of its use. Any in-universe argument why it should or should not be considered evil is fundamentally based first on whatever aspects about it we've made up or decided to be true in support of our argument.

The reality is that in this setting, creating undead has traditionally been an inherently evil act (with the unholy tag!) likely because controlling the dead is a classic dark magic trope to have shadowy villains enact to show that they're evil and preying upon innocents. Soon we will have a Necromancer class, which is very likely not to be restricted to unholy. Only time will tell if the lore of the setting is receiving a slight adjustment to fill in a previously unexplored corner, or a major perspective shift on the nature and function of undeath and undeathly magics.

To build off these points, there are other corners of undeath which we frankly don't know about either. There are a handful--not many, but a handful--of undead that weren't considered evil in the Premaster, for example, and we've got no idea whether they interact with the Cycle of Souls/the degrading issues surrounding souls in the same way. These are generally culturally relevant ttutolary spirits in the fiction, like the iruxi ossature, culturally relevant tutolary spirits of real-world cultures, like the nightmarchers, figures tied to practices of ancestral veneration, such as the iroran mummy, or spirits with a very obvious wrong they need to correct, like the revenant, as well as many ghosts.

Thing is, we don't know if these forms of undeath, some of which have been remastered and lack the Unholy trait, degrade souls in the same way, or if their intent even matters in this regard. I think the Remaster has largely taken the stance of more clearly separating the Spirit and Undead traits to help keep more of a division there, but we've still got these older examples that bring up questions, particularly regarding the connection between the undead and the evil alignment.

Incidentally, another of my examples, the last guard, flip-flopped a little; they were LN in the Premaster, but appear to have gained the Unholy trait in the Remaster. This brings another wrinkl into how we view non-evil undead; it's possible that the stats for the last guard were adjusted because you fight them in the context of Claws of the Tyrant, where I can't imagine they're very nice ghosts.

[The Raven Black]

Zoken44 wrote:

Given that the same or comparable effects can be achieved with other magics that are not considered "evil" or "Unholy" I question the moral judgement that gets thrown on there. I reject the idea of absolute morality being derived from a divine being, given divinities in this universe are not infallible.

Note that Pharasma does not make such a moral judgement. She is True Neutral and does not care about Holy vs Unholy. To the point that her servants cannot choose either.

[The Raven Black]

Out of the 17 deities in AoN with the Undeath domain, 13 are Must choose Unholy, 2 are Can choose Unholy and 2 are No sanctification (both being Outer Gods/ Great Old Ones that said).

So, you cannot venerate one of the deities of Undeath and be Holy.

These numbers point very strongly to a link between Undeath and evil / Unholy.

[Eldritch Yodel]

I also want to note that it's not just some stigmatizing Holy and unsanctified gods claiming anything they don't like is Unholy, it's pretty much consensus. I don't even think Urgathoa would agree than undead are Unholy, she'd just disagree that that matters. After accounting for the fact that no gods in PF1 had the undeath subdomain (Just bringing up PF1 as it's easier to check that one thing than manually checking every single one of the several hundred deities) without also being evil, it does start to shift away from "Some gods are claiming undeath is evil" to "There is a nigh-universal consensus that undeath is evil".

As well as this, there is in fact a notable difference between undead and wild animals, and that's best shown through sapient undead. A sapient person is by default morally neutral. You could have a good one or a bad one, but overall, they're not really inherently anything. A sapient undead *is* by default pretty vile. If someone's turned into a ghoul, they don't just remain the same person except now they need to eat corpses or go crazy. They become an unholy being who views sapient people as naught but prey and revels in suffering (See BotD's example on how a noble into the arts upon becoming a ghoul would likely find themselves indulging in furniture made of human skin). Non-sapient living beings are akin to sapient-living beings minus the access to higher functions, non-sapient undead are akin to sapient-undead minus the access to higher functions.

Undead *are* as a rule innately Unholy in-setting, and Unholy is an objective thing in setting. It's hard to say that it's just a decision made by certain gods what gets classed where when you account for the fact that "certain gods" would inherently have to include everything which is capable of granting holy/unholy abilities/spells (Why would an a cleric of an Eldest - something which specifically operates outside sanctification - casting a spell with the Holy trait follow the rules on holy vs unholy? Why would a PC with the Godling archetype also follow these exact rules and line? Why would some local rock an animist is getting its powers from follow the definition?). You can't really say Holy/Unholy aren't objective, at most you can say is that Holy/Unholy whilst objective don't relate to morality.

[Zoken44]

So without question the last few posts do make it rather clear that in universe, PF2e setting, Undeath is "bad"(Unholy/Evil/etc). (no sarcasm)

I just from a meta perspective remain frustrated by that. If there can be good PC's who are undead, that means logically an undead can be a good person. If any undead can be a good person , that means they cannot be universally evil. Further I find it more narratively interesting if they aren't, and the reality is simply that the most powerful and well known undead ALSO happen to be powerful wizards and rich nobles. They simply use their undeath as an excuse to indulge in their worst impulses, and their empathy for the living is dulled by their wealth and power.

[The Raven Black]

Undead have NEVER been universally Evil in the Golarion setting.

Even some Fiends canonically are or became non-Evil.

Creating undead on the other hand as always been Evil when creating permanent undead capable of attacking IIRC.

Note that there are 2 different moralities here : that of the undead and that of the people willfully creating the undead. Those are not the same thing.

[The Raven Black]

Zoken44 wrote:

So without question the last few posts do make it rather clear that in universe, PF2e setting, Undeath is "bad"(Unholy/Evil/etc). (no sarcasm)

I just from a meta perspective remain frustrated by that. If there can be good PC's who are undead, that means logically an undead can be a good person. If any undead can be a good person , that means they cannot be universally evil. Further I find it more narratively interesting if they aren't, and the reality is simply that the most powerful and well known undead ALSO happen to be powerful wizards and rich nobles. They simply use their undeath as an excuse to indulge in their worst impulses, and their empathy for the living is dulled by their wealth and power.

Not to mention by their immortality, their eternal youth and their instincts as void-animated undead creatures.

All those hardly push towards empathy for the living.

[Zoken44]

From a narrative/meta stand point I find it unfulfilling and cheap to just say "This type of magic automatically corrupts you and is default evil".

Power corrupting makes sense, we see that all the time.

But again, the fact that you can do some of the exact same things and not be considered automatically evil just because you didn't involve the dead/undead seems hypocritical.

But that's a personal perspective, I understand that the game's Lore is different.

[QuidEst]

Zoken44 wrote:

From a narrative/meta stand point I find it unfulfilling and cheap to just say "This type of magic automatically corrupts you and is default evil".

Power corrupting makes sense, we see that all the time.

But again, the fact that you can do some of the exact same things and not be considered automatically evil just because you didn't involve the dead/undead seems hypocritical.

But that's a personal perspective, I understand that the game's Lore is different.

I would normally agree, but I think the explanation we get of why makes sense. Undead can last for as long as they do because their vital essence's connection to vitality is ripped out and replaced by a connection to the opposite, void. Fueling something with death and decay is something of a divide-by-zero error, which is where the longevity comes from. But, it's also replacing the bedrock of the vital essence, so basic instincts get messed up in a way that makes being good both harder and less rewarding.

We got something a little more in-depth that ties the different aspects of undeath together neatly with other setting elements, which solved a lot of my annoyance with PF1's more limited "undead are evil because they hate life, and we will errata non-evil undead".

But since the practical effect is pretty similar, I can definitely understand it not suiting some folks.

It would be nice if we got some similar explanations for how some of the other things work and why they don't have those issues - what exactly does fuel an animated object or construct for so long, now that the lore ditched the early PF1 bound elementals explanation?

[The Raven Black]

AoN post Remaster states:

Construct
Source Player Core pg. 454 2.0
A construct is an artificial creature empowered by a force other than vitality or void.

[The Raven Black]

Zoken44 wrote:

From a narrative/meta stand point I find it unfulfilling and cheap to just say "This type of magic automatically corrupts you and is default evil".

Power corrupting makes sense, we see that all the time.

But again, the fact that you can do some of the exact same things and not be considered automatically evil just because you didn't involve the dead/undead seems hypocritical.

But that's a personal perspective, I understand that the game's Lore is different.

TBH I see nothing that is like undead:

Extremely dangerous
Potentially immortal
Tends to attacks the living

Arsonists have a similar bent to undead crafters but the result fits only the first point. Yet it is enough to have them feared and imprisoned (at least).

[AceofMoxen]

Claxon wrote:

Mad Dog Mike wrote:

I honestly get the impression literally the only reason Pharasma cares at all about good vs. evil is that it gives her a sorting mechanism to get soul energy to the right places and everything else is a very minor consideration to her. Whether undeath is "wrong" morally doesn't mean much to her because she hates them for screwing with the Cycle.

100% this, I'm with you because that's my same view on Pharasma. She isn't making a "moral" judgement on undead in the traditional way other might. Pharasma knows undead are a prevision on the cycle of souls and prevents souls from getting to their final destination, which causes the system to slow and degrade bit by bit, putting the universe a little more at risk of collapse.

If collapsing the universe is "bad," then we're back at Pharasma is better than good. If Pharasma is torturing souls to prolong her life and her families', then we get Pharasma is evil. One of the reasons Im happy alignment is gone is that it allows for both to be true.

Quote:

Quote:

So her opinion on the subject isn't really about moral judgement. I think she isn't quite as worried about life extension stuff per se (though some of her psychopomps may be) simply because those frequently aren't indefinite prolonging of life so the soul energy moves along eventually, and why worry about a few centuries when there are plenty of creatures that live that long anyway? But theoretically infinite lifespans like undeath can provide goes too far, as well as things that can divert souls from their proper place (pretty sure it's canon you can sacrifice good people to Hell and the other lower planes and their souls go there, and Pharasma opposes that too), which undeath might also do given how undead creatures tend to go quite far from their living moralities. Add in undead can often create more undead and you can see the problem it poses to her Cycle. But her ethics only focus on what's good for her work; there might actually be good necromancers out there, but she probably would still want them stopped/killed (though she'd send their soul on to Heaven if that's where it belongs).

Yep, I'm on basically this same page as well.

The problem is that all the good-ish deities I know are against the undead or unconcerned. If there was a good god of undeath, I could accept the perspective that Pharasma has biases. But, the original comment that got me invested in this discussion was that stories in Pathfinder seem to end with Pharasma was right. I think either Pharasma is suppressing the knowledge of good undead or the universe justifies Pharasma's opinions.

This gets us deep into Descartes' Evil Demon Hypothesis.

[Zoken44]

The Raven Black wrote:

Zoken44 wrote:

From a narrative/meta stand point I find it unfulfilling and cheap to just say "This type of magic automatically corrupts you and is default evil".

Power corrupting makes sense, we see that all the time.

But again, the fact that you can do some of the exact same things and not be considered automatically evil just because you didn't involve the dead/undead seems hypocritical.

But that's a personal perspective, I understand that the game's Lore is different.

TBH I see nothing that is like undead:

Extremely dangerous
Potentially immortal
Tends to attacks the living

Arsonists have a similar bent to undead crafters but the result fits only the first point. Yet it is enough to have them feared and imprisoned (at least).

Nothing is like the undead?

Extremely Dangerous: Are you saying that pyromantic magic isn't extremely dangers and liable to get away from someeone who isn't careful?
That there are no other ways of achieving immortality (Nex would beg to differ)
Tends to attack the Living: Carnivores and omnivores, and animal will do that including if it's magically summoned.

let me add some stuff: Binding a soul against their will: summonned fey, Elementals, Fiends, Celestials, etc...

Again, yes, In Golarion as it exists in PF2e, Necromancy is cannonically evil and corrupting and blah, blah, blah. I just don't find that interesting narratively. and at my table, it would be more complicated than that.

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

Minor point of order: the Bind Soul spell is also itself tagged Unholy. 'Summon' spells do not bind souls against their will. Rituals which conjure extraplanar allies narratively require an agreement be made. These are not effective points of comparison to the creation of permanent undead.

[QuidEst]

PF2 dropped most of the binding-against-their-will stuff- the rituals are now asking and paying for help, not trapping someone and forcing them to obey. And at least narratively, I know binding genies has been portrayed as an outlawed evil act since PF1.

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

Returning briefly to the point that there are two different moral issues here, I think it's very likely there will soon be three--or more--if there aren't already.

-- Whether undead are inherently evil (No, but it's difficult to resist the Hunger that drives them to destroy life, and they count as unholy)
-- Whether it's inherently evil to create permanent undead (there's no such thing as alignment magic anymore, but the Create Undead ritual willingly employs unholy energy)
-- Whether it's inherently evil to assemble temporary facsimiles of undead (inconclusive, but Animate Dead - no unholy tag; Necrologist - no unholy tag; future Necromancer thralls - unclear)

The unholy trait doesn't have a direct one-to-one relationship with the evil trait and evil actions in general, but there's clearly some overlap, so we may yet see that there's a fine line to draw between merely puppeting a corpse with void energy and whatever more involved process it takes to permanently bind a soul back to its corpse in a pale imitation of its old life, now tormented by murderous hunger and destructive instincts.

I, for one, don't expect we'll ever have all the details pinned down on the exact boundaries of undead necromancy--even if it weren't just bad business to lock yourself out of exploring future ideas, there's a certain amount of the setting metaphysics that is necessarily left open to interpretation and handwave, not only with the highly contested space for lore in each new book, but because finding a satisfying in-lore explanation that will please everyone for why a thing is the way it is can be an impossible task even with triple the budget, time, and space.

[The Raven Black]

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

Returning briefly to the point that there are two different moral issues here, I think it's very likely there will soon be three--or more--if there aren't already.

-- Whether undead are inherently evil (No, but it's difficult to resist the Hunger that drives them to destroy life, and they count as unholy)
-- Whether it's inherently evil to create permanent undead (there's no such thing as alignment magic anymore, but the Create Undead ritual willingly employs unholy energy)
-- Whether it's inherently evil to assemble temporary facsimiles of undead (inconclusive, but Animate Dead - no unholy tag; Necrologist - no unholy tag; future Necromancer thralls - unclear)

For the last point, even in PF1, if the created undead were temporary or unable to attack, there was no Evil tag.

Whereas creating permanent undead able to attack had the Evil tag.

[The Raven Black]

Zoken44 wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

Zoken44 wrote:

From a narrative/meta stand point I find it unfulfilling and cheap to just say "This type of magic automatically corrupts you and is default evil".

Power corrupting makes sense, we see that all the time.

But again, the fact that you can do some of the exact same things and not be considered automatically evil just because you didn't involve the dead/undead seems hypocritical.

But that's a personal perspective, I understand that the game's Lore is different.

TBH I see nothing that is like undead:

Extremely dangerous
Potentially immortal
Tends to attacks the living

Arsonists have a similar bent to undead crafters but the result fits only the first point. Yet it is enough to have them feared and imprisoned (at least).

Nothing is like the undead?

Extremely Dangerous: Are you saying that pyromantic magic isn't extremely dangers and liable to get away from someeone who isn't careful?
That there are no other ways of achieving immortality (Nex would beg to differ)
Tends to attack the Living: Carnivores and omnivores, and animal will do that including if it's magically summoned.

let me add some stuff: Binding a soul against their will: summonned fey, Elementals, Fiends, Celestials, etc...

Again, yes, In Golarion as it exists in PF2e, Necromancy is cannonically evil and corrupting and blah, blah, blah. I just don't find that interesting narratively. and at my table, it would be more complicated than that.

The examples you give do not fulfill ALL 3 criteria at once. So they do not compare.

[The Raven Black]

Also, if willfully creating permanent undead who can attack the living is not evil, or if mindless undead do not attack the living without provocation, then the implications will make for a very interesting setting, very different from Golarion.

[Set]

Claxon wrote:

If you reject the idea undeath hurts the cycle of souls in some way, then you are unlikely to agree with Pharasma's view. If you agree that undeath damages souls and degrades the cycle, hastening the death of the universe and potentially damaging future births of universes...then it becomes obvious why undeath is inherently a problem, even if its not a problem for any specific (non-deity) to worry about (because you wont exist when it becomes a problem).

I am somewhat intrigued by how this cycle of souls requires a timely process of birth->life->death to function. An animated zombie, who doesn't even have a soul, last a mere decade, before collapsing into rot and ruin, or being 'killed', and yet an elf, who keeps her soul out of the cycle for centuries, or someone who drinks the Sun Orchid Elixir, to do likewise, is not 'gumming up the works' in the same way.

If the cycle of souls being delayed or degraded is 'the answer', it's applied inconsistently, at best. As a non-good, non-lawful entity, it would make sense for Pharasma to be almost as opposed to races that live for centuries (like elves), or individuals (like high level Thassilonian wizards named Sorshen) who just flip her off and refuse to age and die and surrender their soul back to the cycle.

I wonder also what sort of creatures have souls, in game. She clearly isn't a goddess of vegetarians, so killing animals and 'desecrating' their corpses by making leather and meat out of them, seems perfectly fine with much of her church. (Although eating nothing but cold turnip stew sounds appropriately 'ugh' for the 'life must be misery' Pharasmin Penitence...) Are people's culturally inclined to those sorts of behaviors (eating 'people,' making stuff out of bone), like lizardfolk or gnolls, automatically anathema to her church? Are animals that desecrate the dead by their very nature, like worms, vultures, hyenas, etc. seen as part of the natural order, or filthy creatures? (I could see different orders of Pharasmins having wildly different views on this point, and Pharasma herself perhaps not caring in the slightest, if animals don't have souls and are just 'doing their job!')

It does seem she draws a hard line at undead, even if some undead (skeletons and zombies) don't *appear* to have bupkiss to do with the river of souls, while others (liches and mummies) don't do more than an elf or Sun Orchid elixir purchaser in keeping their own soul past their sell-by date. (Shadows, wraiths, spectres, any sort of undead that pretty much *is* a (usually discorporate) soul, and can, with a touch, pull some other living person out of the cycle, I could see being her enemy #1, by this logic.)

Coincidentally, the exact sort of undead that I, when playing a necromancer, loathe as well. :)

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

I happen to have *some* answers, though I make no claim that they'll be satisfying. Unless I've made a mistake, they may not be officially published answers, but most or all of them should be from someone on the creative team (mostly likely James) at one point or another--meaning that its entirely likely some have stopped being true since what isnt published can be even more fluid than what is in terms of continuity.

An animated zombie that doesnt even have a soul
At various times, even mindless undead have been described as requiring a fragment of a soul torn from the original. This seems unlikely to be always true, given spontaneous undead, but ymmv

Long-lived creatures
When a soul incarnates into a creature, it is accounted for based on that creature's life span (whether this accounts for early returns is unclear). The sun orchid elixir is a good example because Pharasma did not like this very much, but worked out an arrangement with its creator. Mythic creatures like Sorshen are a bit more arbitrary, and probably invokes some amount of "Pharasma knows when they will die and they have been accounted for in their destiny"

Rather unlike (most) of these examples, a zombie has a likely lifespan on meeting adventurers, but has a theoretically infinite existence rotting in some tomb somewhere, and while we've seen that a single soul suspended out of the cycle for a few extra centuries isnt that big a deal, undeath on the whole is a plague that promises to grow if left unchecked. It seems that a soul might spend a long time incarnated is less individually important than what happens when undeath spreads and more and more souls each day are kept in theoretically indefinite suspension, like clogged arteries slowly choking out the pulse of creation.

Who all has a soul?
The consensus isnt 100% clear, with the answer ranging from all living (and once-living) creatures to all living things. At the very least, the existence of animal phantoms suggests the existence of animal souls.

The goddess of vegans
There is no developer answer i know of here, but I can only imagine the thrust of it is that what counts as desecrating a body is cultural, not objective. To an iruxi, leaving a body to rot in the ground instead of devouring it could be just a anathema as eating one would be to a Taldan. If animals care about what happens to their body after they expire, they dont seem to count eating as desecration, leastwise, and thus dont readily rise as vengeful ghosts--which i think is the most logical underpinning for the anathema against desecration in the first place.

[Castilliano]

I now desire to make a Tick-like Champion pointing his finger at an undead enemy, "You are the clogged artery slowly choking out the pulse of creation and I'm the exercise of justice!" (or whichever cause they have)

[AceofMoxen]

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

Long-lived creatures
When a soul incarnates into a creature, it is accounted for based on that creature's life span (whether this accounts for early returns is unclear). The sun orchid elixir is a good example because Pharasma did not like this very much, but worked out an arrangement with its creator. Mythic creatures like Sorshen are a bit more arbitrary, and probably invokes some amount of "Pharasma knows when they will die and they have been accounted for in their destiny"

I'd like to know more about the creator of the exixir and his deal with Pharasma. Iirc, the queen in Wrath of the Righteous held the record at three doses of Sun Orchid. It makes sense that Pharasma could forgive 4x on a lifespan. But the creator himself has been taking an elixer himself when needed for thousands of years.

On the topic of descicrating the dead, I again think this is a silly rule for any universe with common undead. Do we really expect the knights of lastwall to return living members of the whispering way to their church intact?

In historical food safety, there's an interesting connection where religious forbidden foods are often ones that were unsafe in that time/region for reasons we now understand. The same thing should apply to undead. On Earth, even ancient rules/honor/codes of warfare say it is best to return bodies to enemies or allow them to collect their dead. In practical terms, this is a way to reduce revenge.

In a Universe with spontaneous undead or common undead, it's simply practical to take steps to prevent such return. All cultures should allow hacking off the head and storing it elsewhere, for example, as long as the process is done respectfully.

[Set]

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

An animated zombie that doesnt even have a soul

At various times, even mindless undead have been described as requiring a fragment of a soul torn from the original. This seems unlikely to be always true, given spontaneous undead, but ymmv

I could see the creation of undead as anathema to *all* gods, from Iomedae to Asmodeus, if animating a corpse as a zombie could tear souls (or fragments of souls) out of Asmodeus's hells or Iomedae's heavens.

Once Pharasma has sent someone's soul on to it's final destination, I'm not sure I love the idea of a spell being able to drag them back, particularly for a process of animation that is, IMO, not particularly advantageous over what transmutation already does through animate objects.

Necromancy, more and more, is kind of junk, and should just be removed from the game, rather than all sorts of arbitrary 'some god says you are destroying the universe by using it!' not-really-rules.

Save the space in the book for stuff we are supposed to use (and not going to be judged for using, or even finding interesting)!

[QuidEst]

Nah, necromancy is a fun fantasy staple. "Pharasma says you shouldn't" is what makes Urgathoa fun. Sure, it's evil, but evil characters are enjoyable for a lot of folks. Sometimes, you want to be carried around on a throne held aloft by skeletons.

(And no, nothing indicates necromancy is clawing petitioners, or chunks of them, back from their post-judgement afterlives.)

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

Oh yes, the other reason I was saying that tearing a soul fragment is unlikely to be always true was in the case of shades already sent to their final rest. However, there are self-evidently many souls at any given time that are between death and judgement. Even if a body with no lingering regrets is laid peacefully to rest, they may still be wandering the Boneyard decades later, awaiting judgement.

But again, digging into this notion, it doesn't seem as though there's anything preventing a thousands-of-years-old skeleton from animating other than physical decay, so the notion of tearing the original soul must not be a hard requirement to raise it (Although if I were to square this circle, I would assume that with an old enough body, any soul fragment would do, not just the long gone original).

All the same, I'm not here to justify or defend this aspect of the pseudo-lore, merely share and explain its quasi-exustence to the best of my knowledge.

[Zoken44]

Set wrote:

Necromancy, more and more, is kind of junk, and should just be removed from the game, rather than all sorts of arbitrary 'some god says you are destroying the universe by using it!' not-really-rules.

Save the space in the book for stuff we are supposed to use (and not going to be judged for using, or even finding interesting)!

If we're wishing for things, I'd like to wish for the introduction of a benevolent god of undeath, governing over those who "naturally" rise, or are turned against their will, or come to reject the callousness of the more "traditional" undead.

Or a diety of undeath presiding over those with unfinished business, or denied lives.

The idea (especially with the introduction of the Necromancer) of an understanding of necromancy that isn't necessarily about binding and using full souls, but using void energy and an animating force, no different than using arcane energies for an animating force (creating constructs)

[Perpdepog]

QuidEst wrote:

Nah, necromancy is a fun fantasy staple. "Pharasma says you shouldn't" is what makes Urgathoa fun. Sure, it's evil, but evil characters are enjoyable for a lot of folks. Sometimes, you want to be carried around on a throne held aloft by skeletons.

(And no, nothing indicates necromancy is clawing petitioners, or chunks of them, back from their post-judgement afterlives.)

Not to mention that removing necromancy, the fantasy staple that it is, cuts off all the character concepts people have been thinking up in this thread about how to reimagine, reconfigure, and recontextualize someone's relationship to necromancy.

This is a thread in the lore forum, so we're naturally talking about how we see necromancy in the context of the Pathfinder games, but so what? John Paizo isn't going to break anybody's doors down if we want to imagine it differently. I know because I did it; made a skeleton gunslinger for a pretty long-running Kingmaker campaign where none of these ethical issues surrounding necromancy ever arose, with my guy even expressly building a place for free-willed undead to gather and just lay around being corpses if they felt like, and it was all great.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

-- Whether it's inherently evil to assemble temporary facsimiles of undead (inconclusive, but Animate Dead - no unholy tag; Necrologist - no unholy tag; future Necromancer thralls - unclear)

Exactly, and that's really why I started this thread in the first place: it feels like we're getting mixed messages on whether necromancers (whether the upcoming new class or various options for current casters) can work in an ostensibly heroic party, as is assumed to be Pathfinder's default, or if you basically have to all agree as a party to play as amoral antiheroes a la Blood Lords for it to be appropriate.

The text relating to undeath and the cycle of souls and Pharasma seem to strongly imply that undeath and necromancy are inherently bad, corrupting body and soul even if temporary, even if alignment is no longer a factor, but the player-facing options that let you be one of those things treat it AS morally neutral. And in The Book of the Dead specifically, we're implicitly meant to read Geb's defenses of necromancy and undeath as sophistry. And that's not even getting into Eox, which Pharasma seems to have written off entirely, even in the Pathfinder days.

It feels like different writers have different opinions on how much undeath/necromancy is morally acceptable. Pharasma is set up as the final, all-knowing arbiter of the universe, and undeath is specifically the thing she hates the most and exhorts her followers to eradicate as much as they can. And she's so powerful and all-knowing that the only gods who DON'T play by her rules are ones actively involved with undeath in some way, shape or form (Urgathoa, Zyphus, the Horsemen, etc.). So it feels like undeath, even in the absence of alignment, is essentially the most morally reprehensible thing a person can do in the Pathfinder universe, worse than even selling your soul to a Devil or whatnot. But in practice, that doesn't feel like the case. It feels inconsistent, even by the fantasy kitchen sink standard of Pathfinder as a whole.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Perpdepog wrote:

This is a thread in the lore forum, so we're naturally talking about how we see necromancy in the context of the Pathfinder games, but so what? John Paizo isn't going to break anybody's doors down if we want to imagine it differently.

Yeah, John Paizo isn't gonna break down my door if I try to roleplay a "hero" necromancer who temporarily summons the spirits of the unjustly killed to take their justice from those who've wronged them, but I'll still feel guilty about my character concept being out of sync with the "vibe" of the canon.

[The Raven Black]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

-- Whether it's inherently evil to assemble temporary facsimiles of undead (inconclusive, but Animate Dead - no unholy tag; Necrologist - no unholy tag; future Necromancer thralls - unclear)

Exactly, and that's really why I started this thread in the first place: it feels like we're getting mixed messages on whether necromancers (whether the upcoming new class or various options for current casters) can work in an ostensibly heroic party, as is assumed to be Pathfinder's default, or if you basically have to all agree as a party to play as amoral antiheroes a la Blood Lords for it to be appropriate.

The text relating to undeath and the cycle of souls and Pharasma seem to strongly imply that undeath and necromancy are inherently bad, corrupting body and soul even if temporary, even if alignment is no longer a factor, but the player-facing options that let you be one of those things treat it AS morally neutral. And in The Book of the Dead specifically, we're implicitly meant to read Geb's defenses of necromancy and undeath as sophistry. And that's not even getting into Eox, which Pharasma seems to have written off entirely, even in the Pathfinder days.

It feels like different writers have different opinions on how much undeath/necromancy is morally acceptable. Pharasma is set up as the final, all-knowing arbiter of the universe, and undeath is specifically the thing she hates the most and exhorts her followers to eradicate as much as they can. And she's so powerful and all-knowing that the only gods who DON'T play by her rules are ones actively involved with undeath in some way, shape or form (Urgathoa, Zyphus, the Horsemen, etc.). So it feels like undeath, even in the absence of alignment, is essentially the most morally reprehensible thing a person can do in the Pathfinder universe, worse than even selling your soul to a Devil or whatnot. But in practice, that doesn't feel like the case. It feels inconsistent, even by the fantasy kitchen sink standard...

Again, Pharasma being 100% opposed to undead is not what makes them, or creating them, evil, or Evil.

They could be the epitome of Good and she would not treat them any differently.

She is the caretaker of the cycle of souls, undeath prevents the soul from flowing, and for Pharasma, the only thing that matters is that the souls must flow.

[The Raven Black]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

This is a thread in the lore forum, so we're naturally talking about how we see necromancy in the context of the Pathfinder games, but so what? John Paizo isn't going to break anybody's doors down if we want to imagine it differently.

Yeah, John Paizo isn't gonna break down my door if I try to roleplay a "hero" necromancer who temporarily summons the spirits of the unjustly killed to take their justice from those who've wronged them, but I'll still feel guilty about my character concept being out of sync with the "vibe" of the canon.

At my table, as long as you make 100% sure to destroy any permanent undead you create so that there is zero risk that they harm an innocent later, you can perfectly be a hero, as in Good.

That is why I had no qualm about my PF1 Cleric of Pharasma taking control of existing undead, have them fight by the PCs' side, and then destroy them to release their souls once evil had been beaten.

[The Raven Black]

Zoken44 wrote:

Set wrote:

Necromancy, more and more, is kind of junk, and should just be removed from the game, rather than all sorts of arbitrary 'some god says you are destroying the universe by using it!' not-really-rules.

Save the space in the book for stuff we are supposed to use (and not going to be judged for using, or even finding interesting)!

If we're wishing for things, I'd like to wish for the introduction of a benevolent god of undeath, governing over those who "naturally" rise, or are turned against their will, or come to reject the callousness of the more "traditional" undead.

Or a diety of undeath presiding over those with unfinished business, or denied lives.

Arazni is 100% the deity for undead turned against their will.

Quote:

The idea (especially with the introduction of the Necromancer) of an understanding of necromancy that isn't necessarily about binding and using full souls, but using void energy and an animating force, no different than using arcane energies for an animating force (creating constructs)

It seems that void energy indeed can only be used to animate undead. Makes for an excellent character concept of a delver in the knowledge about void, vitality, the soul ... trying to push further the limits of what common wisdom sees as possible.

Morality issues should be checked with the GM first though, to avoid misunderstanding.

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

I am definitely intrigued by the mixed messaging, but not quite do concerned. A few years ago I think it would have been uncontroversial to say virtually all celestial were fundamentally good by nature, but last year we found that in Tian Xia, this trend has never been always true, and meanwhile reincarnation and corporeal spirita are the norm there. Some years before that, we learned there were two more elemental planes than we previously knew. The setting is vast, and there is inevitably more than fits in the sourcebooks we've had so far, so it would not surprise me at all if we were to learn that theres a lesser known means of animating the dead which does not rely on unholy powers, which might be the norm elsewhere despite being uncommon in the bits of the setting we are familiar with. The Inner Sea is quite small on the world map after all.

That said, I dont expect we'll find ethical Necromancy very common (if that's what's happenin). It kind of messes with some of the appeal of playing against type with dark powers if theres no "type" to play against--and if you could do all the things with ethical Necromancy as with classic void-soul-slavery, why would people resort to the latter in the first place?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

The Raven Black wrote:

Again, Pharasma being 100% opposed to undead is not what makes them, or creating them, evil, or Evil.

They could be the epitome of Good and she would not treat them any differently.

She is the caretaker of the cycle of souls, undeath prevents the soul from flowing, and for Pharasma, the only thing that matters is that the souls must flow.

But the flowing of souls extends the lifespan of the current Universe. Is that not a good thing?

[QuidEst]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

Again, Pharasma being 100% opposed to undead is not what makes them, or creating them, evil, or Evil.

They could be the epitome of Good and she would not treat them any differently.

She is the caretaker of the cycle of souls, undeath prevents the soul from flowing, and for Pharasma, the only thing that matters is that the souls must flow.

But the flowing of souls extends the lifespan of the current Universe. Is that not a good thing?

Sure, it's a good thing, but it's not the most good thing. It's just what Pharasma considers especially important. Similarly, undeath isn't the most evil thing. It's just what Pharasma is especially against.

Quote:

It feels like different writers have different opinions on how much undeath/necromancy is morally acceptable. Pharasma is set up as the final, all-knowing arbiter of the universe, and undeath is specifically the thing she hates the most and exhorts her followers to eradicate as much as they can. And she's so powerful and all-knowing that the only gods who DON'T play by her rules are ones actively involved with undeath in some way, shape or form (Urgathoa, Zyphus, the Horsemen, etc.). So it feels like undeath, even in the absence of alignment, is essentially the most morally reprehensible thing a person can do in the Pathfinder universe, worse than even selling your soul to a Devil or whatnot. But in practice, that doesn't feel like the case. It feels inconsistent, even by the fantasy kitchen sink standard of Pathfinder as a whole.

Pharasma isn't all-knowing; she's very knowledgeable and a long-time expert in the cycle of souls. The holy deities are agreed on being against undead, but they don't actually all strictly play by her rules. Pharasma is also against things like angels showing up for deathbed conversions, miraculous interventions to give somebody more opportunities for redemption, etc., but it just isn't a big lore focus because it's an unsatisfying thing to fight against. It's true they're not in the same sort of open rebellion that most of the formerly NE category is.

Pharasma cares about undead and daemons because they are both systemic risks. Undeath is appealing (people fear dying), easily spread (ghouls, zombies, vampires, shadows, undead necromancers in general), and persistent (immortality is the default state of undead), so it needs to be offset by opposing forces. One of the ways she does this is tell her church to wipe it out. There's almost certainly some amount of undead that the cycle of souls can tolerate without issue- she isn't throwing divine politics to the wind and smiting Eox, after all. But if she took a more lax stance, undeath would probably spread more and be more of a problem. Daemons don't have the same appeal or quick spread, but they are working intentionally towards the goal of ending the universe, and where undeath just damages souls and delays their circulation, daemons are straight-up destroying souls. They're a huge pain because Abaddon is just as necessary as Hell or Heaven. It's one of the few cases where Pharasma will consistently waive the results of her judgement- souls judged for Abaddon are presented offers by a devil and a demon to go to Hell or the Outer Rifts instead of preceding to the likely annihilation awaiting them in Abaddon. The thing is, there's not much that Pharasma's church can do about daemons, so there's not a lot of point in driving that point home.

All that to say, even by the standards of Pharasma's priorities, becoming a daemon is probably much worse than becoming undead. Undeath as a whole is a serious concern for her, though. In terms of how evil stuff is, fiends almost certainly rank as worse than undead. Pharasma is fine with devils and demons because they operate within her system, whereas the holy deities vehemently oppose them.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Wait, Pharasma's NOT all-knowing?! I thought she was the closest thing the Pathfinder universe had to a Supreme Being, which is why the gods HAVE to respect her judgments (unless you're Urgathoa). And that that's how and why she knows how the Universe will end and (assuming all things go according to plan) is setting up her daughter to be the Survivor to go on and midwife the new one.

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Wait, Pharasma's NOT all-knowing?! I thought she was the closest thing the Pathfinder universe had to a Supreme Being, which is why the gods HAVE to respect her judgments (unless you're Urgathoa). And that that's how and why she knows how the Universe will end and (assuming all things go according to plan) is setting up her daughter to be the Survivor to go on and midwife the new one.

Oh, no I dont think so. She's probably the most powerful deity, and definitely was one of the preeminent deities of fate, but aside from the fact that prophecy stopped working a few years ago, I dont think she was ever truly all-knowing. It may be reasonable to say she is the closest thing to a supreme being, but not to the point of omniscience.

There was a time when she likely seemed almost omniscient, when she could see the future at a whim, but even if prophecy didnt break, this doesnt strike me as quite having all the answers to everything. At the very least, Three Fears of Pharasma paints a picture of her as having gaps i her knowledge that she couldnt trivially answer even before thr loss of prophecy, and now she only has her memories of what bits of the future she already looked for and the assumption that those might still be true (and perhaps she can still see the future sometimes--prophecy is broken, but not I think completely gone). She's preparing for the end of the universe because that's the job given to her when it began, but theres a lot she doesnt know about how thats going to go.

In any case, the gods dont have to respect her judgement because she's all-knowing; they dont have to respect her judgement at all, and many don't. Those that do, probably do because she's the closest thing to a perfectly neutral arbiter who is in charge of a system that they all want to keep going, and there seems to be more gods in accordance with Pharasma's judgement than those who'd see her overthrown.

-

And finally, I agree with the rejection of the idea that Pharasma is necessarily the Most-Good god just because she wants to keep the universe running. In the immortal words of Peter Quill, "[I want to save the galaxy] because I'm one of the idiots living in it." It doesnt take a uniquely good person to want to universe to keep existing. Even if Pharasma doesnt care about the universe for her own sake, it says nothing about her capacity for kindness or compassion to want the machinery shes been assigned to oversee to keep operating well.

In a way, the cosmic aspect of necromancy seems no more evil than burning fossil fuels. Like, yeah it'll choke out the universe eventually, but as a cumulative thing. That aspect is still harming the cosmos for personal gain, but there are many other evil things, including other aspects of necromancy (soul torture, soul slavery)that strike me as far worse, at least in the short run. In theory, anyway, the damage you do to the cosmos can be offset or undone before it harms a single soul... at least as long as that wight you jusy created doesn't go turn a whole town and... oh no there it goes.

[Perpdepog]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Wait, Pharasma's NOT all-knowing?! I thought she was the closest thing the Pathfinder universe had to a Supreme Being, which is why the gods HAVE to respect her judgments (unless you're Urgathoa). And that that's how and why she knows how the Universe will end and (assuming all things go according to plan) is setting up her daughter to be the Survivor to go on and midwife the new one.

She arguably was all-knowing once, given her powers of prophecy, but with prophecies no longer working that's no longer true. She's still likely closest to being all-knowing, deities and their specific domains of knowledge--like Nethys and magic--aside, but my guess is she's now running more on her uncountable eons of experience than anything else.

There are more reasons than just knowledge her opinion would be respected by other gods, too. She is also still, metaphysically speaking, at the center of the cosmos, too. That's a powerful position to be in, particularly with all the souls coming through, and that's not even mentioning her personal power or the legions of entities she has at her command. She might not actually be a supreme deity, I don't think the Pathfinder setting has such a thing, but she is basically uncontested in her sphere of influence, and that sphere of influence happens to be one that all other deities and powerful planar beings care about. That'd demand respect if nothing else.

Edit: Ninjaed.

[AceofMoxen]

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

That said, I dont expect we'll find ethical Necromancy very common (if that's what's happenin). It kind of messes with some of the appeal of playing against type with dark powers if theres no "type" to play against--and if you could do all the things with ethical Necromancy as with classic void-soul-slavery, why would people resort to the latter in the first place?

In the USA, any Chocolate product that does not have some kind of "Slavery-free" or "fair trade" label was made by slave children.

All major chocolate companies missed the June 2005 date of the Harkin–Engel Protocol. The deadline was repeatedly rolled back. In 2021, The Economist reported that child slave labor in chocolate manufacturing had actually increased due to Covid19. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/08/23/the-number-of-child-lab ourers-has-increased-for-the-first-time-in-20-years (I'm a subscriber, I've read the article, and can provide quotes if you wish)

When this issue came to attention around 2001-2005, some comopanies tried to get chocolate labeled "Slavery-free" or "fair trade" into stores. The retail locations (Walmart, gas stations) quickly discovered that putting M&Ms next to "Slavery-Free" chocolate just made most customers skip buying anything.

According to wikipedia (I know), A Chocolate product needs only 11% of the cocoa to qualify as "fair trade" to use that label on packaging. Kit Kat in 2010 switched to fair trade, and at some point before 2020, quietly switched back.

[The Raven Black]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

Again, Pharasma being 100% opposed to undead is not what makes them, or creating them, evil, or Evil.

They could be the epitome of Good and she would not treat them any differently.

She is the caretaker of the cycle of souls, undeath prevents the soul from flowing, and for Pharasma, the only thing that matters is that the souls must flow.

But the flowing of souls extends the lifespan of the current Universe. Is that not a good thing?

If the reality (not only the Universe) mostly tends to Good, then yes. If it mostly tends to Evil, then not at all.

Pharasma does not really care which way it goes. Only that it goes on as long as possible.

[Claxon]

The Raven Black wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

Again, Pharasma being 100% opposed to undead is not what makes them, or creating them, evil, or Evil.

They could be the epitome of Good and she would not treat them any differently.

She is the caretaker of the cycle of souls, undeath prevents the soul from flowing, and for Pharasma, the only thing that matters is that the souls must flow.

But the flowing of souls extends the lifespan of the current Universe. Is that not a good thing?

If the reality (not only the Universe) mostly tends to Good, then yes. If it mostly tends to Evil, then not at all.

Pharasma does not really care which way it goes. Only that it goes on as long as possible.

I would disagree, I think having existence is inherently better than having no existence.

But I think you were taking a nod at it from the perspective of "good within the universe".