B.A.N.E membership

[abri]

It started as a joke long agoo, but I see that it is indeed needed:
Bothered Against Necromancer always being Evil...
So if any of you have idea on how to have Pc or Npc necromancer that are neutral or good, just post some ideas.
We all know the speaker of the dead and the undead hunter concept from 2E necromancer handbook, so let's see other concepts...
So for everyone that think that manipulating life and death is not really more evil than chain casting fireballs: post, we need more ideas.

 

[Blood Jester]

Physician heal thyself...

Why wouldn't a good character study Necromancy? The Art/Science of the manipulation of life-force/energy.

Doctoring...
Understanding these forces could allow one to develop great healing magics not dependant on being in the good graces of the local godling.

Fight fire with fire...
If I can learn how that <super-powerful undead of your choosing> drains life energy, I will be able to develop a counter, or even learn how to restore those who have been affected, such as the towns heroes.

Kinder, gentler law enforcement...
Hmmm. I could burn them to death to stop them, slice them to pieces, or drain their energy until they are to weak to resist, and then take them to jail.


How's that for a start?

 

[Zappo]

I had a similar problem posed to me some weeks ago, by a friend who had a player who absolutley wanted to make a Necromancer in a Good campaign. I told him this:

This Necromancer is a hardcore atheist. There are no Gods. There is no soul. There is no afterlife. Noone created the universe. There is nothing beyond death. Conscience is just the result of brain activity. There is no ultimate end to existance. The powers worshipped by the clerics are certainly the most powerful beings in existance, but they aren't different from powerful demon lords or other such creatures - they may have incredible power, but they aren't Gods. When they say that there is an afterlife, a prize for Good people, a punishment for Evil people, they are just lying.

The character is very afraid of death. He is not a coward or something like that, but unlike most people he can't resign to the idea of eventually having to die. Immortality is his ultimate goal. He feels that the easiest way to this end is lichdom. To this end, he studies necromancy.

The character can be neutral or even good. Since he doesn't believe in an afterlife, or in the existance of the soul, he finds nothing wrong in raising the dead from the grave: in the case of mindless undead, he sees them as golems and nothing more; in the case of intelligent undead, he thinks he's making them a favor, returning them to existance after oblivion.

It will be interesting to see what happens when/if the character finds out that he is wrong (and in most campaigns, he is wrong).

 

[Tsyr]

I don't see how a necromancer could be an atheist in a DnD world... he for all intends and purposes has proof of the gods, about as much as you can ever have without actualy being a cleric. So he has found a way around needing their direct assistance, that doesn't mean he doesn't realise they are there.

I also hate the idea of always evil necromancers. I think there are possibly things good necromancers would not do, or at least be hesitant to do (animate dead for example... unless he had the permision of whomever used to be the body he is using, or something, would probably be "un-good"... unless you come from a culture that has no real tabboo's about using dead bodies, in which case even that isn't a sure thing.

 

[Vaxalon]

If any player came to me with a "good necromancer" concept I'd say "Uh, no."

 

[Moe Ronalds]

How do we join? Just respond? If so, then a while back I made a lawful neutral gnome necromancer, sometimes leaning towards good, sometimes towards evil. He believed life and death were things that one should not be oblivious towards, so he dedicated much of his time to studying his art. I never got to actually play him, because the campaign I made him for flopped... Which I suppose is really my fault, though it had nothing to do with my necromancer. Another good example of someone who uses death and magic and isn't evil, would be Wee Jas(spelling? I leant my PHB to a friend).

 

[UniversalMonster]

Something.

This is a major force in my campaign: The Church of N'Kruell

The god is technically Lawful Evil, however, this has more to do with his strictness . The followers are likely to be Lawful Neutral (and as is mentioned in the article - there is at least one known Lawful Good Paladin dedicated to N'Kruell).


"...N'Kruell guards against the blasphemy of undeath, administers to the souls of the dead, and brings merciful death to the sick and elderly. The followers of N'Kruell are often hardened, stubborn and cold pragmatists, and nearly all are experts at dealing with the undead. "

There are also several specialized groups that are dedicated to this god in my campaign- an order of knights called Reapers, an order of priestesses called Mourners, and a specialized order of undead-fighting monks called "The Shroud".

They are not technically Necromancers, but they are specialists in the subject of necromancy. N'kruell's religion has an allied 'sister' religion that it shares holidays with:

The Church of Ceta .

This is more of an overtly good (actually Neutral Good) religion. Ceta and Nekruell represent the pantheon of Balance. In my campaign, at one point the elderly priest of Ceta died of old age, and when a new priest couldn't be located, the neighboring church of N'Kruell in Sharn sent as an interim replacement.

 

[Tsyr]

You realize, Vaxalon, that a good necromancer could be devoted to slowing aging, reversing death, healing, guiding souls after they have passed on, or destroying "enslaved" undead, right? Or several other concepts. Because one specalizes in the forces of life and death as a necromancer does does not mean that person wants to create an army of the undead in a blood ritual to a god of ultimate evil and enslave the souls of a thousand virgins to power his artifact of ultimate evil on his way to lich-hood. In fact, if you use real-world-ish terms (as opposed to game terms), a cleric who focuses on healing, resurecting, and turning/destroying undead is a form of a necromancer.

Now, granted... the PHB-default spells do tend to lend themselves to the "dark" necromancer image, but I (and most DMs I know) allow my players to create their own spells, or modify existing ones, provided they aren't unbalanced.

 

[Deadguy]

...Because one specalizes in the forces of life and death as a necromancer does does not mean that person wants to create an army of the undead in a blood ritual to a god of ultimate evil and enslave the souls of a thousand virgins to power his artifact of ultimate evil on his way to lich-hood. In fact, if you use real-world-ish terms (as opposed to game terms), a cleric who focuses on healing, resurecting, and turning/destroying undead is a form of a necromancer.

Now, granted... the PHB-default spells do tend to lend themselves to the "dark" necromancer image, ...

I happen to agree with your sentiments, Tsyr, and I wish that there were more Good and Neutral role-models for Necromancers. But I have to say that in 3e the designers has basically stopped at least the Wizards and Sorcerers from doing that. Look at the definition of the Necromancy school of magic, and you will see that it relates entirely to Death magic. Now this really really p****s me off! The have shunted all healing magic, basiclly all the positive connotations of Necromancy and called it the Healing sub-school of Conjuration magic.

I mean what were they smoking when they did this?! This is one aspect of D&D3e magic that really REALLY REALLY annoys me!!!!! (You might have noticed ) What was the need? I would dearly love to here from the games designers why they made this moronic decision to split apart what was a natural alliance of the magic of Life and Death (and thus naturally spanning Undeath).

Of course, this was one of the very first things that I Rule-Zeroed for my Shattered World campaign setting. And I do have Good necromancers (as well as some very, very Evil necromancers, following in the footsteps of the most Evil character in the World's history!). In a sense, Vaxalon is right, Tsyr, there doesn't seem to be a role for a Good necormacer in a canonical 3e game, as all his tools relate to causing brutal death. My mileage varies...

 

[UniversalMonster]

Well, there is the Sabriel novel.. this book has a sort of 'good necromancer' tradition described in it. She uses bells to bind the dead and send them back from whence they came.

And Necromancy in 3e doesnt really default to evil. Astral Projection, Clone, Speak with Dead.. are all fairly non-evil necromancy spells. I would say 'resurrection' and 'raise dead' are both conjuration, but *should* be necro spells. I thnk I may house rule them into being those ( I don't usually even allow resurrection or raise dead, but I may start).

Earthdawn did an interesting thing with this- they had a class called 'Nethermancers' who were specialists in dealing with dimensional energies. This is basically what necromancy in D&D is- it's the channeling of positive and (especially) negative energy from the inner planes. I may hack out a new class for D&D3 based on this idea. It would be a cross between a cleric and a magic user- uses arcane spells (so no armor without a penalty) but they would have access to things like turning and healing in the most basic 'energy channeling' forms.

In a way though, I totally understand how Vaxalon feels. I don't like evil PCs myself, I dont think they are played very well usually. I like playing villians as a DM, but thats just me. My idea of an entertaining villian is somewhere between Jadis, the White Witch of Narnia and Captain Hook. Not everyone has my subtle nuances, though.