D&D 5E Animate Dead and Alignment Restrictions

[Falling Icicle]

Except we're not talking about the spells within the school of necromancy... we're talking about the specific spell Animate Dead (with its 'non-good' descriptor). I don't think anyone here is advocating putting that tag on every spell within that school.

Umbran was, unless I misunderstood him.

Now as D&D 'Adventurers', have we traditionally laughed in the face of those social mores? Absolutely. As has been pointed out... looting the body of the creature we just killed, or invading the tomb to steal its riches. But quite honestly, that's more a fault of us as players and DMs over the last 40 years allowing those actions to become so commonplace that they now appear to be "neutral"... when in truth, they probably could/should/would be looked upon with the same horror that we attribute to people who raise the walking dead.

From what I have heard, killing things and taking their stuff has been a major part of D&D since the very beginning.

But I also think it does add to the game to have a spell of this sort maintain a genre consistency to pretty much all stories within this genre that says animating the dead just is socially reprehensible. Yes... I know and agree that the Dominate spells can be just as evil depending on how they are used, and that Fireballs can cause just as much (if not more) outward destruction... but the fantasy genre has never made hay on their uses for evil purposes. There's no entire strains of the genre within fiction wherein the stories are all about fireballing people or dominating people.

I can think of plenty of stories involving evil people using mind control. Sarumon in the Lord of the Rings controlling the king of Rohan is one example.

And let's not kid ourselves... why do so many players want to play the "Good Necromancers" in the first place? It's exactly because Necromancers have always been evil, and thus players want to be unique by being the one character in the story doing the opposite. "The One Good Necromancer in the land." Well, in order for that to have any meaning... you need necromancers to be evil, otherwise, being a Good Necromancer ain't no big deal. They'll become as overwrought and overdone as vampires currently are in popular genre culture. And do any of us really want that?

Yes. Being popular isn't a good reason to deny something. I could say that typical DnD fighters and wizards are overwrought and overdone, but I wouldn't ever try to deny the ability to play one for that reason. If popular culture will help bring more new players to the hobby, I say more power to it.

 

[jrowland]

In a world where Animate Dead and Necromancers exist...why do people bury the dead? Wouldn't cremation be the norm?

 

[Ti-bob]

In a world where Animate Dead and Necromancers exist...why do people bury the dead? Wouldn't cremation be the norm?

I really agree with that!
Or else, there is an almost infaible protection against Animate Dead.
Or else, there is a major cosmic reason not to burn the dead. So an equally good (Evil?) reason not to Animate them.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

In a world where Animate Dead and Necromancers exist...why do people bury the dead? Wouldn't cremation be the norm?

Not necessarily. The problem is thinking about how common magic is. In other threads this same thing has been discussed in terms of nearly every spell in existence. In a world with Teleport wouldn't every castle be warded against it? In a world with Invisibility wouldn't every guard have a magic item to see through it?

The default D&D assumption appears to be that magic is between fairly rare to extremely rare. When only one person in a 100,000 is a necromancer and the vast majority of people have only heard about raising the dead in terms of rumors and stories told to scare children then using countermeasures to prevent the dead from being raised seems silly and superstitious.

Plus, there can be any number of religious reasons why they bury the corpse intact that wouldn't easily be countered even with a legitimate threat of a necromancer.

 

[Sadras]

I can think of plenty of stories involving evil people using mind control. Sarumon in the Lord of the Rings controlling the king of Rohan is one example.

Slavery in whatever manner is more accepted within Medieval Culture than the playing around with the dead in whatever manner.

 

[jrowland]

Not necessarily.

I suppose I should have added : *Tongue-In-Cheek* somewhere.

 

[Rabulias]

The idea of putting healing magic under necromancy was introduced in 2E and kept in 3E. The switch to conjuration happened in 3.5.

Just to be clear, healing magic moved from Necromancy to Conjuration (Healing) with 3.0e, and was carried forward into 3.5e. 3.0e also introduced the idea of undead being harmed by cure spells and healed by inflict spells. This reinforced the 3.0e idea of undead being powered by negative energy.

In 3.0e, skeletons and zombies were of neutral alignment, yet were still vulnerable to cure spells, which conflicted with the negative energy idea. Also, animate dead had an [Evil] descriptor, but could create neutral skeletons and zombies.

So, in 3.5e, skeletons and zombies were made neutral evil in alignment, and animating the dead was clearly made an evil act.

 

[Dausuul]

Just to be clear, healing magic moved from Necromancy to Conjuration (Healing) with 3.0e, and was carried forward into 3.5e.

Huh. My mistake. I could have sworn that was part of the 3E to 3.5 change. Thanks for the correction.

 

[Celebrim]

In a world where Animate Dead and Necromancers exist...why do people bury the dead? Wouldn't cremation be the norm?

It depends on the incidence of undead associated with cremated ash or disembodied souls separated from burnt up bodies. There are things much worse than zombies. A society might be willing to tolerate a 1000 potential zombies if it avoided one wraith or worse. Or it might not, depending on its relative ability to deal with spirits as opposed to wizards.

You can be sure that in a world with undead, every precaution the society can afford will be provided for to ensure the dead comfortably and reliably journey from this world to the next.

But how can we know what those precautions are? Are we learned sages within that world, that can say what steps are most reliable? And perhaps the learned men of the postulated world themselves argue over the trade offs?

For my part, I imagine the following are guidelines:

1) The soul of the newly dead must be comforted and consoled in preparation for departing this world. Exactly how that is done depends on the society and its traditions.
2) Benevolent spirits from the beyond should be summoned and placated so that they'll act as guides for the dead.
3) The spirit is likely to retain some attachment to the body for some time. The body must be respectfully and securely interred so as to not disturb the spirit by its mistreatment. Whether this is by burial or cremation or other means probably depends on the societies traditions and the resources it can muster.
4) Care must be taken to contain evil spirits, curses, and taints lest they spread. The bodies of the foul hearted cannot be buried amongst the good, but must be placed in a special higher security zones isolated from the rest of the world and fenced in by additional protections. In effect, the bodies of the cruel, the vicious, the murderous, and the like are like toxic pollutants. You must put them where they won't contaminate everything else. If you can't force the soul to depart or prevent the body from rising as undead, at least you can force it to happen where it can't threaten anyone.

The ideal situation is good people die peaceful deaths, are given funerals lamenting their passing but inspiring them to begin their journey to the lands of the after life, their bodies are respectfully laid to rest and spells are placed upon them to render them less useful as necromantic resources.

Of course, that is the ideal situation in places who think 'good' is in the right. In some cultures the ideal situation is believed to be all those bodies and sometimes the souls, and all that taint and curse and the dark energies that seep from them are harvested to power engines for the good of the living.

 

[Arduin's]

In every single edition of D&D, with the sole exception of 3.5, skeletons and zombies have been neutral, not evil. The only reason they made them "evil" in 3.5 was so that Paladins could smite them. Casting animate dead should not be considered an "evil" act.

You need to reread your AD&D 1st Ed PHB. A good Cleric couldn't just Animate Undead on a whim. It wasn't considered just a neutral act. Sorry to rain on your parade sunshine.