How do I make Necro =/= Evil ?

[Whimsical]

There's another aspect of the [evil] of animating dead boides: disrespecting the creation of person's god. Fantasy creation stories tend to have the creator god forge or mold the original human/elf/dwarf/etc. Subsequently, these races owe their existence to their creator, and their bodies are sacred constructs that belong to their god. So, animating bodies created by gods is sacrelage.

This isn't canon, but it can help those DMs or players who want to have a concrete reason why animating the dead is evil.

Of course, you as the DM can just say "No, it isn't" as JimAde says and *poof* animating the dead is not evil. Or it's not evil if you have the permission of the bodies' ex-occupant. This doesn't require a magical contract; a normal will should do. Also, having a challenger cast speak with dead on the corpse can get satisfactory verification.

As a DM, you can go even further than this and have your fantasy society reflect this new status of undead. Where the rich can extend their lives indefinately, the poor can lease or sell the bodies of their deceased kin for grunt work, and the ones in between use them in their own enterprises (having grandpa's body pull a plow through the field instead of a mule). Where it is common for eveyone to keep the heads of their deceased ancestors in a safe place to chat with or ask important questions using speak with dead. Where there are good deities with the undead portfollio. Where an industrial revolution is taking place which uses animated body parts (arms, legs) to power machines and automate assembly lines.

I ran a Lawful Good necromancer in 2nd ed and she never animated dead (which, by the way, did state was an evil act to use at the end of the spell description.) There were a lot of nonevil necromantic spells in the Complete Wizards Handbook and I simply used those along with the regular wizard spells.

 

[clark411]

Create Deathless would do the trick I believe.

 

[Thunderfoot]

I suggest you try to find the 2E book the Complete Necromancer (I think that's the right title.)

A lot of the questions you ask about are already covered. You would only have to tinker with the mechanics a tiny bit as most of the book deals with spell selection and powers based on alignments of necros. The writing is tight and well thought out and there are several VERY GOOD stories to explain why a necromancer chose the path that he/she did (or why it was chosen for them.) Once again GET THIS BOOOK!! Someone else has already done the work for you. Happy Gaming!

 

[Whimsical]

You can get the Complete Book of Necromancers here. This is one of the best 2nd ed. AD&D books that was put out. But check with your gamer friends first. Chances are one of them has it collecting dust in storage.

 

[TonyLB]

Everybody's actually read Frankenstein, right?

I totally agree with the folks who are saying that you can handle this in one of two ways:

1. Declare it not evil: The corpses are neutral tools, or can be persuaded to actually actively do good (as with the "raise your own ancestors" bit, which is creepy and which I love).
2. Justify it with some good reason: Whatever the status of the corpses or the souls, you can make a good justification for the good that can be done on a practical level. Sure, maybe you're tampering in God's domain, but think of the benefits to humanity!

Life gets really easy if you do both: The corpses aren't suffering, good is being done, all is well and good, except for pointlessly superstitious fools.

You get a lot more pathos (as in the original Shelley) when there are questions about one or both items. Is a body made from the reanimated corpses of criminals neutral? Could the Monster have been good, if Frankenstein had been able to give any decent reason for having created it in the first place?

The same thing applies in spades to many of the recommendations here. Part of why I love the "raise my ancestors" bit is that your ancestors are likely to have opinions about being raised. "Galloping Ghosts of Grimmauld! You raised me, the greatest scion your line ever knew, to fight orcs? ORCS? What has my bloodline fallen to?"

And, of course, there's great fun to be had in only giving people one of the moral crutches and not the other. Maybe the risen dead are evil, evil, evil, EVIL... but they're under your control. Surely if your cause is virtuous and your heart is true then even such horrible tools can be used to good purpose. Yeah, because nothing could ever go wrong with that plan.

 

[The Shaman]

Create Deathless would do the trick I believe.

If you don't mind dropping a 12 kilo wheel of Vieux Boulogne on your campaign, that is.

Spoiler

I am not a fan of the Book of Broken Non-Goodness.

 

[Slobber Monster]

The same thing applies in spades to many of the recommendations here. Part of why I love the "raise my ancestors" bit is that your ancestors are likely to have opinions about being raised. "Galloping Ghosts of Grimmauld! You raised me, the greatest scion your line ever knew, to fight orcs? ORCS? What has my bloodline fallen to?"

I've had this idea percolating around for a while, and haven't gotten around to fleshing it out yet, but yeah that's pretty much what I had in mind. My plan was to make the dead ancestors the basic source of all divine magical power - so that's who'd be answering your Augury questions for example. Ancestral ghosts would also make good cohorts in this setting (AKA Obi-Wan Kenobi). There would still be "gods", but they would simply be the oldest and most powerful ancestral spirits.

 

[Shemeska]

Create Deathless would do the trick I believe.

Exactly like undead except they use positive energy to create.

Negative energy = neutral, natural concept
Positive energy = neutral, natural concept

You see where I'm going here?

Any argument that using negative energy to animate undead is evil will equally apply to 'deathless'. Personally I find deathless cheesy to end all cheesyness, and isn't something inbued by positive energy either a 'living' creature or an inanimate object temporarily animated such as 'animate object' ? I don't see a rationale for 'deathless' really. It was a cheesy 'undead, but somehow they're good undead that aren't really undead because they're deathless since all negative energy undead are all evil and icky' from the start in the BoED.

 

[Shemeska]

One way to do it is to envision a culture where the Necromancer calls upon his own family, tribal or clan ancestors for assistance. The culture feels that a person's obligation to defend his allies continues beyond death, so necromancy is not seen as inherently evil. Drop the Evil descriptor from the spells, and place some reasonable roleplaying limits on what can or cannot be raised, and you're ready to go.

I ran a LN necromancer in a similar way, a Scythian (think the Kurgan from Highlander, same culture) who viewed it as a quasi religious 'dealing with and manipulating the spirits of the honored ancestral dead' sort of thing. He didn't raise armies of zombies willy nilly, but did a large amount of necromantic divination and a boatload of death effects later on in that campaign.

 

[Desdichado]

Any argument that using negative energy to animate undead is evil will equally apply to 'deathless'. Personally I find deathless cheesy to end all cheesyness, and isn't something inbued by positive energy either a 'living' creature or an inanimate object temporarily animated such as 'animate object' ? I don't see a rationale for 'deathless' really. It was a cheesy 'undead, but somehow they're good undead that aren't really undead because they're deathless since all negative energy undead are all evil and icky' from the start in the BoED.

I agree--one of the first changes I made to my Eberron (not that it'll make any difference I don't think, but I made it anyway) was that the difference between Vol and the rest of the Undying Court wasn't nearly as much as the Aerenal elves like to pretend. Essentially all those "Undying" councilors and soldiers and whatnot are just liches or lich-like Undead after all.

But I tend to darken things up in all kinds of little ways (I play up the more xenophonic and crusader-like aspect of the Church of the Silver Flame when the CS book specifically says its a small element of the Church, and the relationship between the quori and their kalashtar hosts might not be nearly as benevolent as everyone has been led to believe either) and it sounds like you're looking for the opposite (original poster.) I hadn't actually noticed that necromancy spells had changed in 3.5 to having the Evil descriptor, not having made a Necromancer in 3.5 ever, but I'd just house rule that that's not true. And I still recommend looking at the Hollowfaust if you can get your hands on it as a good example of a neutral or even good necromantic society and culture.