In my next campaign, the PCs are going to come across a peaceful primitive village or few who worship their ancestors. And one way that they do this is via necromancy. The bodies of Worthy/chosen tribe members, when slain, are reanimated. The tribesmen believe that it's the ancestors filling the body, etc. The zombies are purely a defensive measure - protecting the village (and particularly the temple). The point being it's an honor to have your corpse used to defend your tribe.
Is necromancy evil or only as harmless as talking to your dead grandmother?
fanboy2000
Adventurer
When I answered the poll, the results were 30/30. Then I read the thread, and when I got to the third page, the results were 31/31. I feel this is significant in some way, but I don' t know why.
Anyways, in my homebrew campaigns, necromancy is evil. None of this modern "well, it depends on how you use it." I'm not running a modern campaign based on real life. Necromancy is evil because I like running a fantasy campaign with moral absolutes. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Note: moral absolutism in my fantasy game doesn't mean I believe in moral absolutism in real life.
Anyways, in my homebrew campaigns, necromancy is evil. None of this modern "well, it depends on how you use it." I'm not running a modern campaign based on real life. Necromancy is evil because I like running a fantasy campaign with moral absolutes. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Note: moral absolutism in my fantasy game doesn't mean I believe in moral absolutism in real life.
Just to toss this out there. But at least for me, it's not so much just the modern notion of moral relativism and such like.
I've never been a fan of alignments, and for me, moral ambiguity and lack of moral absolutism makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. To me, the only sources of true blue capital E evil absolutism are extra-planar entities who represent that source; Devils and Demons pretty much.
And I suspect that a big reason for folks voting "yes" or "no" is how they interperate alignment and the type of game they want.
Silverblade The Ench
First Post
if we assume in the setting evil is "Evil", a real, horrible force, something that perverts men's minds, poisons souls and damns you to Hell and all kinds of twisted horrors worse than merely fleshy dismemberment and death....
...and that necromancy as used by the classic "evil necromancer" is actually of such stuff, or even worse, a force of nihilsm, of UN-making souls etc, well heck yes, it's evil of the blackest pitch!
violence can only kill you, but necromancy and dread evil can do a hell of a lot worse than that, that is something that many rationalist 21st century folk don't get.
it's like oh, explaining colour to a blind person. if you haven't had experience of or considered absolute reeking evil...you don't "get it"
most folk in RL who cause serious trouble are screwed up, "bad", scared or a combination of all three. a very VERY small minority of folk are pure bloody evil, and they will scare you deep down, and unlike the loony with a knife does.
now, in some settings sure necromancy could be neutral, but in most settings, or most uses of it, it rots the soul of the one who uses it, neve rmind the victim.
consider the use of it to be akin to a dirty nuclear weapon: even the user by contact is irrevocably poisoned by it's radiation. there's a price to be paid for such.
Fire burns flesh and kills, but it's a natural force of the living world, necromancy is completely unnatural.
her's another troublesome thought:
what if the inquisitors are right? what if, likr a plague, once it gets out of you hand, the only way of dealing with it is to burn it out, innocent and guilty alike!
"horrible, wrong, would'nt allow it!" many would say
but...
what if in RL, a horrendous bioweapon is released in your city, no cure, no impossible-Hollywood-quick-made antitdote. No, this is choking horrible death, few if any folk will survive it. It iwll spread through the air and wipe out your nation, maybe the world!
there is only one option: complete thermonuclear eradication of the city.
A simple tac nuke won't do, it would only spread the contagion in the wind.
it has to be complete extermination, turning the city into a bunch of glass craters, killing a million or more...
or billions would perish, Mankind itself might perish...
Would you consider forcible innoculation, mass internment, martial law, and even nuclear fire, justified, then, or not?
THAT is what we are talking about with necromancy, in some games.
...and that necromancy as used by the classic "evil necromancer" is actually of such stuff, or even worse, a force of nihilsm, of UN-making souls etc, well heck yes, it's evil of the blackest pitch!
violence can only kill you, but necromancy and dread evil can do a hell of a lot worse than that, that is something that many rationalist 21st century folk don't get.
it's like oh, explaining colour to a blind person. if you haven't had experience of or considered absolute reeking evil...you don't "get it"
most folk in RL who cause serious trouble are screwed up, "bad", scared or a combination of all three. a very VERY small minority of folk are pure bloody evil, and they will scare you deep down, and unlike the loony with a knife does.
now, in some settings sure necromancy could be neutral, but in most settings, or most uses of it, it rots the soul of the one who uses it, neve rmind the victim.
consider the use of it to be akin to a dirty nuclear weapon: even the user by contact is irrevocably poisoned by it's radiation. there's a price to be paid for such.
Fire burns flesh and kills, but it's a natural force of the living world, necromancy is completely unnatural.
her's another troublesome thought:
what if the inquisitors are right? what if, likr a plague, once it gets out of you hand, the only way of dealing with it is to burn it out, innocent and guilty alike!
"horrible, wrong, would'nt allow it!" many would say
but...
what if in RL, a horrendous bioweapon is released in your city, no cure, no impossible-Hollywood-quick-made antitdote. No, this is choking horrible death, few if any folk will survive it. It iwll spread through the air and wipe out your nation, maybe the world!
there is only one option: complete thermonuclear eradication of the city.
A simple tac nuke won't do, it would only spread the contagion in the wind.
it has to be complete extermination, turning the city into a bunch of glass craters, killing a million or more...
or billions would perish, Mankind itself might perish...
Would you consider forcible innoculation, mass internment, martial law, and even nuclear fire, justified, then, or not?
THAT is what we are talking about with necromancy, in some games.
I'm going to go with "as harmless as talking to your dead grandmother".
By which, of course, I mean ripping your grandmother's soul from its place of eternal comfort and rest, violently thrusting it back into the harsh pain of the mortal realms, commanding it do your bidding, and then abandoning it to once more walk the long, torturous paths of purgatory in order to return to its heavenly abode.
By which, of course, I mean ripping your grandmother's soul from its place of eternal comfort and rest, violently thrusting it back into the harsh pain of the mortal realms, commanding it do your bidding, and then abandoning it to once more walk the long, torturous paths of purgatory in order to return to its heavenly abode.
TarionzCousin
Second Most Angelic Devil Ever
Herobizkit
Adventurer
Talking to the dead: Not Evil.
Creating undead: Evil.
Choosing to become willed undead: ... I'd say that's a grey area.
Creating undead: Evil.
Choosing to become willed undead: ... I'd say that's a grey area.
Kaodi
Hero
Is that what they call, " tough love " ?
Anyway... If she really is in a place of eternal comfort, in the long run a little pain is probably not going to be so bad, especially if it provides meaningful help to the living. I mean, not everything that is not right is wrong.
On the other hand, if your grandmother was Evelyn McEvilstone, tearing her from eternal damnation may be a pleasant but brief respite!
I think you should only really be worried if she was neutral, like most people, because then she is not basking in the holy sunshine, nor burning in hellfire, so the discomfort caused by sudden soul, relocation, will be rather memorable and less forgiveable.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Poll needs a third option, something like:
"Yes it's evil but who cares, the (good) ends justify the (evil) means."
Most of what so-called good PCs do is pretty nasty when held up to the light...Necromancers and Assassins are just a bit more forthcoming about it.
Lan-"Necromancer-Assassin: put 'em down and get 'em up"-efan
"Yes it's evil but who cares, the (good) ends justify the (evil) means."
Most of what so-called good PCs do is pretty nasty when held up to the light...Necromancers and Assassins are just a bit more forthcoming about it.
Lan-"Necromancer-Assassin: put 'em down and get 'em up"-efan
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