Has it been long enough that I can make a "thread necromancy" joke yet?
If not, I don't care. The next leatherette book in the series is
DMGR7 The Complete Book of Necromancers, and this book is too good for me not to talk about any longer. Exceeded only by my love for
DMGR4 Monster Mythology, and equaled by my zeal for
PHBR5 The Complete Psionics Handbook,
The Complete Book of Necromancers is, to my mind, one of the best supplements to come out of this particular line. It's so good, I wonder if author Steve Kurtz had this guy for his "ghost" writer:
Now if only I could add the Cryptkeeper's laugh into that GIF.
Terrible puns aside, there's a fun little story with me and this book. Back in the days after it came out, I quickly found out about its existence, but couldn't find it anywhere. I mean not
anywhere. I can't recall if it had a small print run, but I distinctly recall that special ordering copies from my local hobby shop was a complete non-starter, leaving me with no way to get my hands on a copy. Except, then I did. Sort of. Bear with me for a moment while I explain.
These days, when people think of AD&D CD-ROMs, they think of the Dragon magazine archive that got WotC into trouble with Kenzer Co. Not many people remember that there was also an
AD&D 2E Core Rules CD-ROM which bundled the PHB, DMG, MM, and
DMGR3 Arms and Equipment Guide along with several digital tools for character-building, treasure-generating, and other features. Of those who do, even fewer remember that there was a 2.0 release of that CD-ROM which added in the
Player's Option series. And of those who remember that, even
fewer remember that there was an
expansion CD-ROM that added in a whole bunch of the PHBR series. And among
those people, even
fewer remember that there was a downloadable expansion for the expansion that added
The Complete Book of Necromancers.
I know because that's how I first got to read this book.
A lot of the times, when you hear stories like that, they end with some sort of anticlimax about how the hard-won prize wasn't really worth the effort. But that's not the case here; unlike with the previous book in this series, DMGR7 was everything I'd hoped it would be. It served a heaping helping of new mechanics with a side of lore, and I couldn't have been happier, with my appreciation for what's here having yet to wear off. To put it another way:
I think what impressed me most about this book was just how cognizant it was of making sure the game rules mapped to the thematic archetype of necromancy in AD&D. You know how arch-wizards (of any sort, not just necromancers) are often described as being centuries old? This book tells you how to do that; sure,
potions of longevity and
elixirs of youth are in the 2E DMG, but this book actually overviews their use and risks, along with things like using a
wish spell to slow aging and new spells to move your soul into another body, along with opting into undeath when you can't delay the inevitable anymore. While there'd been articles in
Dragon about becoming a lich, this was by far a more comprehensive take on the overarching subject.
And that's just the start. For one thing, the book is (surprisingly) aware of other takes on necromancy under the game rules, and makes no bones (heh) about cribbing from other sources or simply referencing them directly. For instance, the idea of accruing corruption - gaining new abilities, but also various penalties, as a result of making deals with vile powers - is lifted right out of Ravenloft. The presumption that vampires and liches will likewise gain strange new powers is not only taken as a given, but you're referred to
RR3 Van Richten's Guide to Vampires and
RS1 Van Richten's Guide to the Lich for more details. Under other circumstances that might have bugged me, but I owned both of those, so I was instead rather impressed that it wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel (even if I was a bit confused, since I thought those expanded powers were only for vampires and liches in Ravenloft itself).
The book was also no slouch when it came to clerical necromancy either. Not only do "death priests" have a chapter all to themselves, but the book also overviews several evil deities to boot! Admittedly, it tries to frame them in the archetypal presentation of
PHBR3 The Complete Priest's Handbook. Fun fact: "The Lord of Undead" is also called Thasmudyan here, and the book drops hints that he's actually a baatezu who reached divinity. That makes Thasmudyan one of the extremely few devil gods in AD&D 2E, along with Asmodeus in the
Guide to Hell and Gargauth in
Powers & Pantheons.
Oh, and did I mention that this is also an off-brand Al-Qadim supplement? It's true! The sample adventure location and NPCs - who are repeatedly mentioned in each chapter's framing fiction - are presented as being part of Zakhara, which technically makes this entire thing canon to the Forgotten Realms. Given that Steve Kurtz also wrote Al-Qadim products such as
Ruined Kingdoms and
Cities of Bone prior to this, I can't help but wonder if he had material left over which he turned into this book, if he just really loved Zakhara, or both. Either way, it's a surprising bit of campaign-grounding that's not found in most of these books...at least until we get to the CGR leatherettes.
Having said all of that, there's still so much good stuff here that I've barely covered. A discussion of necromantic specialization among various monsters? It's here. An overview of what psionic powers work best for a necromantic character? Be still my heart! Guidelines of advanced familiars for your necromancer? Yes, now you can have a succubus for a familiar, which is more than just a case of having a drop-dead sexy companion: fiendish familiars grant you all of their special resistances and immunities
and you can prepare and cast spells at +1 level higher!
I should note that this book is stated to be for NPCs only, a topic I'll speak about more when we come to the next supplement in the series, but other than most of the options here being dark enough to mandate an alignment change if you're not already evil, there's little reason why that needs to be so. In fact, I suspect that a great deal of this material could be used for most any wizard, since necromancers are - strictly speaking - just a specialization of magic-user. While some of the kits are necromancer only, the new magic items and spells don't seem to have any restrictions against non-specialists using them (and you have to wonder if some goody-goody would want an aasimon, i.e. an angel, as a familiar).
Or, you know, I suppose you could always try to play some sort of good-aligned necromancer, or even a benevolent undead creature. But really, who ever heard of a character like that?
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