D&D 5E Necromancer Archetypes For PCs

[Minsc]

I fancy an idea of a good necromancer defending a castle from a siege. As archers from the castle slay a number of attackers, the good necromancer animates the dead. The attackers are now forced to slay their former comrades.

 

[PnPgamer]

One thing that could be that necromancers that want to help the city guards, could have inquired who are willing to be animated. This could be indicated by a certain tattoo in an obvious place on the willful guards body.

 

[MasterTrancer]

One thing that could be that necromancers that want to help the city guards, could have inquired who are willing to be animated. This could be indicated by a certain tattoo in an obvious place on the willful guards body.

I like this idea.

Regulated reanimation might become a reality in some settings; otherwise we would have lots of skeletons and zombies doing the most menial jobs (talk about underemployement then! ).

 

[Ahrimon]

That's the basis for the dwarven kingdom in the homebrew I'm working on. They use arcane rituals to animate the skeletons of their fallen rather than necromancy so it's not evil and the skeletons won't go rogue. The dwarven kingdom was loosing ground fast and in their desperation they came up with this plan. Now the kingdom is returning to it's former glory. Dwarves are all about clan and kingdom, so donating their bodies to be used as soldiers for the kingdom wasn't a hard sell.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I'm not really going to argue the moral nature of raising undead bodies on these boards, as it goes a little deep for a D&D game. In my games it's an evil act, and that's pretty much how it stands.

However, I will say that as I was reading the contrary responses I immediately started thinking the episodes of Constantine that I've seen recently (plus his backstory). John seemed to think what he did in summoning demons occasionally was necessary, but neither him nor any of his associates had any delusions that it was anything other than an evil act.

 

[Kinneus]

They use arcane rituals to animate the skeletons of their fallen rather than necromancy so it's not evil and the skeletons won't go rogue.

I like this idea, but the cognitive dissonance in this sentence makes my head hurt. I wish we could just give up the idea that "necromancy = evil." Creating a skeleton to drive a sword through somebody's gut is badwrongevil, but summoning an elemental (which, explicitly in the rules, can also go rogue and start hacking up commoners) is perfectly neutral? Making some zombies out of soldiers that died on the battlefield is evil, but permanently crippling the enemy ranks with a fireball is a-OK?

One of my favorite (recurring) PCs is a Lawful Good necromancer, who does a lot of the things people have already mentioned... only raising people who have legally given him the right to raise their remains, only using his creations to combat greater evils, and taking personal responsible to put down any undead that elude his control. Some GMs might not be comfortable with such a character, which I understand. In those cases I'll just opt to play something in else in his campaign. But if people can let go of the fact that necromancy means autoevil then there's lots of space for Good or Neutral necromancers.

 

[Kobold Stew]

As for necromancy being evil, the main reason is that it is the antithesis of life, an unnatural force in the world which is naturally going to be seen as evil by the average person in many campaign worlds.

This is simply not true for the materials in the PHB: necromancy concerns "life, death, and undeath...you learn to manipulate the energy that animate all living things" (p. 118).

Necromancy spells include astral projection, clone, gentle repose, raise dead, and resurrection.

The books are inconsistent about necromancy, seemingly wanting the position you describe but unwilling to commit to it.

 

[Kobold Stew]

I wasn't talking about setting materials for just that reason (unless the definition of necromancy counts as setting materials...).

My point was to list five spells of the necromancy school that seem to me to have no necessary or even implied taint of evil.

Arguably, we should consider *all* healing spells, but they are instead lumped into evocation with dancing lights and fireball (like that makes sense). But just sticking to those five: if necromancy is evil (or necessarily makes for "darker" characters), why is casting Gentle Repose not an evil or at least morally questionable act?

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I think we've had enough on the subject of morality about summoning undead.

What I was originally concerned with is what sort of character concepts, backstories and other roleplaying material would some PC Necromancers have? I don't care about if it's bad or anything objectively in your campaign either, many characters can be delusional too about any objective campaign truths, so it wouldn't matter.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Same background as any other wizard, with a little bit of creepy autism thrown in for good measure. Necromancers are wizards first and foremost, and wizards of death and undeath only secondarily.