Magical Ways to Emulate Modern Techonology

[Seerow]

I considered using Dresden Files as an example, but it's a weird case and probably helps no one.

I agree it probably doesn't help either side of this argument at all, but it is still an interesting case to look at.

The ectomancy vs. necromancy mostly just sounds like ectomancy is necromancy that the Wardens (probably) won't kill you for. Just like the raising of non-human zombies. Ectomancy is respectful necromancy, getting the effectively same results as necromancy but good and wholesome. Because.

That's possible, but I never got the impression that Mortimer was even capable of raising a zombie, despite his alleged Ectomancy prowess (which got emphasized quite a bit in the book that should never have happened).

It isn't just that necromancy does bad things to casters, plenty of magic is reputed to do bad things to casters. A fair bit of magic when used on people causes soul corruption... because reasons. Except when it doesn't.

Yeah this is the really frustrating thing, as far as I am aware those lines of what will and won't cause corruption/insanity is kind of blurry. We know any sort of mind manipulation magic at all will do it, even with good intentions. But then again will mindraping an Elephant into performing party tricks for the circus cause the same problems? Or does the corruption only occur when you do something to humans?

fuck if I know

Wizards don't have rules against using magic to manipulate muggle world and becoming super wealthy. They just have rules (guidelines?) against getting outed, which aren't as serious as the laws of magic. They give a nod to that many wizards wind up being quite well off due to their magical aptitude in fact and the White Council has no problem with this.

Honestly, they don't even really care about being outed. Dresden advertises himself in the fucking phone book for crying out loud. And he's not exactly shy about explaining his spells or what he does to anybody who asks that isn't treating him like a party trick.

The whole thing in the Dresden Files is that the Magical World is there for anyone who wants to see it to see, but most people if they touch it look the other way and purposefully ignore it. I can't think of any instance where anyone got into serious trouble for revealing magic to people. That's Harry Potter where that's a big no-no and wizards go around mind wiping people to make sure magic stays secret.

[Grek]

@erik: No, I'm serious. It's a plot point in Turn Coat. Dresden asks the Head Warden why there aren't laws against extortion, fraud, theft and property destruction in the Laws of Magic. Luccio replies that "The Laws are not about justice, the White Council is not about justice, they are about restraining power." and that the entire point of the Laws of Magic is to keep wizards from using their power to intervene in muggle affairs on a massive scale, because that would mean involvement in muggle wars, which would mean the White Council splintering along national lines. And then the vampires or the faeries or some other supernatural faction would take over and use humanity as food or slaves or worse.

That's their explicit reasoning for writing the laws they did. They don't care about secrecy, or about fairness, or even all that much about avoiding the corruption of individual mages. It's about whether or not allowing a given use of magic is going to lead to the White Council splintering over its use.

Now, as a separate part of how Dresden Files magic works, using magic to do something once makes it you more inclined to use magic to do it again. If you use magic to heal people, your magic becomes attuned toward healing and your brain immediately supplies "How about I heal them?" as an answer to seeing someone in pain. If you use magic to move earth around, your magic becomes attuned toward earth and your first response to some magical problem is "I'll use earth magic to do it". And if you use your magic to murder people, your magic becomes attuned toward death and your go to answer for every difficulty is "I know! I'll just kill him!". That's why there's a zero tolerance execution on the first offense policy in place for the Laws of Magic instead of declaring it illegal and having sane punishments - there's magically enforced recidivism baked into every violation of one of the Laws.

[Username17]

So why didn't they call them Elves? Why did they chose an old word for Elves that probably only 1/100 gaming enthusiasts would recognize instead of using the word that 100/100 would recognize? Why didn't they chose a race name that was already in their extended universe?

Dude. It was made by Tolkienian fantasy fans in England in the eighties. Literally every single person involved in that project knew that Eldar meant Elves, and there is no reason at all to blieve they even considered the possibility that any of their fans might not know the word. It's like getting a bug up your ass about a Scandinavian game company calling their Elves "Alfar" or something. You're just wrong. And more importantly, you're obviously wrong. Every single sentence and post you dedicate to attempting to convince people that it's symbolically important that Eldar aren't Elves is just you burning your credibility in the rest of the discussion. Eldar are Elves. Everyone knows it. And more importantly, everyone who wrote the damn thing knew that "Eldar" is an Elfier word for Elves than "Elf" is!

This is not the hill you want to die on. You have no chance of convincing anyone of anything by pursuing this line of argument save that there are other issues you are probably also wrong about. Just eat your damn crow and move on.

To put this argument back on track, undead are supposed to be somehow less good than being alive. I know that people who played Vampire: the Masquerade are used to the undead being sexy superheroes who dress like Eastern European club promoters, but fantasy as a genre is pretty firm on the idea that playing with or being unrefrigerated corpses, talking or not, is bad.

This is why it seems to fit flavorwise that the lair of the undead has dead trees and vegetation. It's easier to make people feel the idea of "death" when dead things live in dead places, and the flipside is that people are not going to feel like the name "undead" means anything if the undead live in a lush and growing forest or are walking through a crowded metropolis. This is why movies like Underworld put the blue filters on the cameras and the cities are always raining, namely that the undead look less silly if the city looks depressing and gloomy.

This is a better argument, and one which I would be willing to have at length rather than simply openly mocking you. Here I would argue that you're just being overly restrictive rather than actually wrong. There are indeed lots of Undead who live in lush forests or dense cities. A thematic undead location doesn't have to be both uninhabited and barren. If voodoo zombies want to live in a lush and untamed jungle, who are you to tell them to stop? If the vampires from Blade want to live in a city that has lush yellows, oranges, and greens during the day scenes, who are you to tell them they can't?

Being Undead is supposed to be in some important way shitty, but that can be in all kinds of different ways. Maybe everything tastes like ashes. Maybe you constantly feel the desire to eat your friends. Maybe you're cold and uncomfortable all the time. Maybe you disappear whenever the sun rises. Maybe a lot of things. But kitchen sink fantasy necessarily has to include a lot of different options, because there are a lot of different stories with the Undead in it. And heroic ghosts and vampires and risen champions and shit is an important set of those stories. And so are metropolitan hauntings, and zombies in overgrown jungles and many other things that don't fit into the box you've described.

Undead need to have some flavor or another of "torment" to really feel like Undead. But there are lots of different kinds of torment that could be.



It could even be the purely emotional torment of "everyone I cared about is dead and I linger here without attachment" or something.

-Username17

[Omegonthesane]

The fact is, Baelnorns and Archliches were not lame because they flouted your petty demand that Necromancy secretly be replaced with Evilmancy - they were lame because they ACQUIESCED to that demand. Because faced with a design brief of "liches who choose other than to be total dickwads" the design team were too cowardly to follow through and admit that since these things look like liches and quack like liches they should be called fucking liches. ...

First, I've never demanded that Necromancy be all evil. I've just demanded that anything that calls itself Necromancy actually fit somewhat into what RPG players expect when they hear that word. For example, if there is undead-raising in your game, I'd expect it to be Necromancy and not Aeromancy.

By the same token, I expect a spellcaster with death powers to not be sitting in the middle of vibrant gardens and bustling cities in the same way that I'd expect an ice-mage to not live in a volcano.

You're actually right on one count, you never came out and said you wanted Necromancy to be Evilmancy. That was someone else extrapolating from how extreme the things you did say were.

Let me dig up the post where you objected:

Now I'm imagining a lich who uses their magic to maintain vast fields of whatever rapidly-growing crop contains the most life essence and sleeping in a different place each night in a weird form of reverse crop rotation. Or who lives alone in a secluded area but teleports into various cities to take a stroll through the streets before heading home again (making sure to avoid hospitals or other places where people-of-little-life would be).

Hell, if it's not contagious, be a butcher. Oh, no, this cow is dead from lack of life. Probably the healthiest meat around.

That's the video-game answer.

The story answer is that things killed by life-drain would be rotted and unhealthy, living things subjected to life drain over and over would never recover and just get sicker and sicker, and any attempt to game the system by moving around a lot would touch off plagues.

BTW, the video game answer has already been used. Sorcerer Kings in Dark Sun had groves of magic life trees to offset their life-draining magic, and it was dumb.

The example was of a Lich who drains the life of everything around him because it makes it feel more undead-y - the exact sort of thing you were on about. Specifically, it was of such a Lich taking steps to mitigate the effects of their existence on the surrounding "whatever". Your reaction to this was to demand that the properties of this already sufficiently death-lookin' magic spot-change themselves to prevent anyone from ever creating a system with a net benefit to life that involved death magic.

In order:

You demanded that life-draining doesn't actually mean life-draining and instead means "converting into good eating for bacteria while not hurting those bacteria at all even though they are life forms" - and I'm trying not to strawman you, but that and nothing less is the logical conclusion of "things killed by life-drain would be rotted and unhealthy". (This wouldn't even kill the suggestion of a lich who farms the most life-efficient plant - he's the end user, not a mortal. If his presence magically taints the seeds so that he cannot have a sustainable crop, then he buys seeds from more normal farmers.)

You demanded that life-draining somehow be impossible to ever recover from at any rate ("living things subjected to life drain over and over would never recover and just get sicker and sicker"). If there is any recovery from life drain, at all, then the Lich just needs to increase how many people he circuit tours to steal life from so that each one only gets a manageable nibble every <however long it takes them to recover from that>, even if by "recover from that" we mean "an archivist on the Lich's payroll casts Restoration".

You demanded that life-draining in fact create new life ("any attempt to game the system by moving around a lot would touch off plagues."). If you meant to say that it should look a lot like touching off plagues due to the effects of lots of people being drained, you could have said that, but instead you specified that it WAS setting off plagues.

You demanded all this in the name of death magic feeling like death magic, even though two out of three achieve the exact opposite. Rot and disease aren't death - they're life. Thus they do not obviously even have a place in a set of spells concerning death as actual spells, never mind as unstoppable side effects.

Second, when did Archliches not have the word "lich" right in the name? Compound words, anyone?

Third, Baelnorn and archliches have different names not because of issues with undead and alignment, but because in DnD every monster with different powers gets a new name. This is why there are 100+ entries for true dragons with only slightly different advancement charts and ability sets and colors.

If the writers had had the will to actually do what their fucking design brief was, Baelnorn and Archliches would not have different powers, because they would be fucking Liches with none of this "different name, different power source" bullshit, differentiated by their choices alone.

And compound words are not "the same fucking word to denote the same fucking thing". Which all of the "not-evil Liches" should have been.

[K]

I'd probably argue that "ice mage in a random place for no reason" is actually the bog standard fantasy.

Then youre defeating your own argument because you apparently have different expectations from me for where a stereotypical ice mage should live.
It's as if symbols do NOT have universal meanings an author must adhere to for quality writing.

Oh, I don't expect the bog standard fantasy to have quality writing. Most don't because they do things like put an ice mage in random place for no reason.

Good fantasies use symbolism that makes sense to the audience. If someone is called an ice mage then they use ice magic all the time because that makes sense to the audience, and if they just use ice magic some of the time they are called something else because that makes sense to the audience.

[K]

You demanded all this in the name of death magic feeling like death magic, even though two out of three achieve the exact opposite. Rot and disease aren't death - they're life. Thus they do not obviously even have a place in a set of spells concerning death as actual spells, never mind as unstoppable side effects.

Did you know that plagues kill people? Eating bad meat kills people too.

Therefore, plague and rot = death. It's not a complex set of symbols.

If you want a kind of magic that kills bacteria and doesn't kill people, I suggest soap-o-mancy. Maybe Antibiotic Sorcery.

[Shady314]

Oh, I don't expect the bog standard fantasy to have quality writing. Most don't because they do things like put an ice mage in random place for no reason.

So according to you bog standard fantasy has no stereotypes or expectations then. If "ice mages" are routinely put in entirely random places for no reason by most authors. Yet the audience has expectations and demands authors must adhere to based on their gluttonous consumption of all this media that produces characters in random places for no reasons because their shitty writers aren't adhering to these symbolic constructs everyone, including they themselves, share.

Good fantasies use symbolism that makes sense to the audience. If someone is called an ice mage then they use ice magic all the time because that makes sense to the audience, and if they just use ice magic some of the time they are called something else because that makes sense to the audience.

What you have been saying for pages now is that good stories use symbolism and words in a way that makes sense to you. I'm going to have to continue to disagree because that is obviously wrong. Even if you're name is Robert Langdon you would still be wrong.

Now I have to wonder what's the acceptable ratio of ice magic usage to non ice magic usage before the character automatically sucks because their name is wrong? If the ice mage casts one spell that isn't clearly ice themed are they fucked? Is it two? Three? What if they wear something not blue or white? Im just curious since you're apparently the arbiter of all words, names and concepts.

[deaddmwalking]

You demanded all this in the name of death magic feeling like death magic, even though two out of three achieve the exact opposite. Rot and disease aren't death - they're life. Thus they do not obviously even have a place in a set of spells concerning death as actual spells, never mind as unstoppable side effects.

In the modern world, we understand that 'rot' is giving rise to a whole host of microscopic creatures (life), but our experience of death has been far longer than the germ theory of disease. As symbolism, we would expect Necromancy to involve itself with rot and decay (not with Druidic spells).

It's not that necromancy has to be bad, but for those arguing that it doesn't have to be morally ambiguous, I think that's a hard position to hold. Even if you hold that it matters only how you use it, it's clearly a tool that can be used in lots of bad ways. If you were part of the open carry movement, I'd consider you showing up to a McDonald's with an AR-15 morally suspect. Maybe you're just planning on playing hero if a 'bad guy' with a gun shows up, but it's hard not to suspect you're either that bad guy yourself or are trying to show off your tool for the purpose of intimidation.

Under 3.x, creating undead is clearly evil - just by the rules. An argument that says it shouldn't be evil is arguing for a 'homebrew exception' to the standard rules. For lots of gamers, that exception doesn't feel right - even if the reasons that 3.x gives for the creation of undead being evil are stupid, there are lots of other possible reasons within the given context for still treating it that way. When the man rolls into town wearing bone armor and travelling with a cadre of corpses, you expect him to be up to trouble. At best, even if he is a good guy, he doesn't care at all for the opinions of his fellow man. That's worrisome.

[violence in the media]

Oh, I don't expect the bog standard fantasy to have quality writing. Most don't because they do things like put an ice mage in random place for no reason.

So according to you bog standard fantasy has no stereotypes or expectations then. If "ice mages" are routinely put in entirely random places for no reason by most authors. Yet the audience has expectations and demands authors must adhere to based on their gluttonous consumption of all this media that produces characters in random places for no reasons because their shitty writers aren't adhering to these symbolic constructs everyone, including they themselves, share.

I think K is trying to express that "flipping the trope" has become the trope itself. People putting Ice Mages in random locations are their "clever" attempts to subvert the Ice Mage in Ice Landia trope; because they know the audience expects the scenes from Frozen when Elsa finally lets her powers rip.

People can totally accept Ice Mages and Fire Mages and Death Mages travelling around to different places and doing their business without those locations becoming frozen or on fire or dead immediately. However, when one of them settles down somewhere, it becomes a little odd if the location doesn't take on some aspect of their presence. Sort of like how you don't expect to find a whole lot of trees randomly dispersed in a wheat field. Or how woodcarvers tend to have a lot of wood-carved stuff all over the place.

[OgreBattle]

The example of necromancy laying waste to the environment... is it really any worse than how modern day humans live with fossil fuels and rare earth batteries? "needing to consume other living things to continue their existence" is what the living already do.

Will the air quality of the skeleton king's necropolis be much worse than Beijing's today?

[RadiantPhoenix]

Dealing with corpses is often taboo. Dealing with spirits is often a good guy thing though.

Aragorn has his ghost army.
Conan is saved by a valkyrie.
Luke communes with the dead for advice all the time.

I figure where Necromancy is seen as evil is 'consent'. Forcibly raising the dead, defiling tombs and all that while Luke, Conan, and Aragorn are aided by the willing dead. [...]

You could say it's an issue of 'consent', and going down that route spells like 'charm person' are pretty morally reprehensible.

Aragorn's army of the dead is around because his ancestor cursed them to linger until they had rendered service.

I'm not sure that counts as "consent"

[JigokuBosatsu]

It's just a hardcore application of contract law.

[Grek]

It's not that necromancy has to be bad, but for those arguing that it doesn't have to be morally ambiguous, I think that's a hard position to hold. Even if you hold that it matters only how you use it, it's clearly a tool that can be used in lots of bad ways. If you were part of the open carry movement, I'd consider you showing up to a McDonald's with an AR-15 morally suspect. Maybe you're just planning on playing hero if a 'bad guy' with a gun shows up, but it's hard not to suspect you're either that bad guy yourself or are trying to show off your tool for the purpose of intimidation.

You know what necromancy* spell is a clear moral good? Raise Dead. It offers dead people a second chance at life, but does not force them to take it. That's a moral good. Want another? Death Ward. That prevents a bunch of nasty bad stuff from hurting people. Obviously good. Want some more that aren't evil? False Life. Gentle Repose. Speak With Dead. Spectral Hand. Clone. Mark of Justice.

The obvious applications for these are morally and ethically sound. You either have to twist their use (I'm going to clone someone so that I can torture them! Muhahahaha!) or insert bad side effects that don't exist in the rules (The alcohol used to cast False Life? Actually, you have to drown babies in it first, or it doesn't work.) to make it evil.

*Technically conjuration under the rules, but that's because the rules are stupid in that regard. It's a spell that makes souls return to their bodies and start moving around again. That's obviously necromancy.

[Username17]

The claim that necromancy is necessarily evil is simply logically inconsistent. Even if you held that the Undead were always bad, magic that disrupts the Undead (like say "disrupt undead") is also Necromantic.

You're not doing your fantasy tropes right if necromancy isn't in some way dangerous, but attempts to make it "always bad" are not just usually bad storytelling they are logically incapable of being coherent.

-Username17

[RadiantPhoenix]

[name_here]

I think K is trying to express that "flipping the trope" has become the trope itself. People putting Ice Mages in random locations are their "clever" attempts to subvert the Ice Mage in Ice Landia trope; because they know the audience expects the scenes from Frozen when Elsa finally lets her powers rip.

People can totally accept Ice Mages and Fire Mages and Death Mages travelling around to different places and doing their business without those locations becoming frozen or on fire or dead immediately. However, when one of them settles down somewhere, it becomes a little odd if the location doesn't take on some aspect of their presence. Sort of like how you don't expect to find a whole lot of trees randomly dispersed in a wheat field. Or how woodcarvers tend to have a lot of wood-carved stuff all over the place.

No, people expect Ice Mages who are doing the Fisher King thing to have ice show up. If they just conjure ice to obliterate their opponents and/or save on air conditioning bills, it is in no way strange if their environment does not become ice-themed. Even if they can conjure a palace of ice and wrap the land in eternal winter, it is entirely possible that they don't do that because they don't feel like doing it.

[Prak]

At least in a setting like Core D&D, where undead literally are powered by "the elemental energy of death" (negative energy) you could actually conceivably have undead which make life around them better as they absorb that pesky death energy that makes people sick and old.

Sort of like a mild hormone imbalance? Except the hormones are Lifeterone and Deathstrogen. Undead are pure Deathstrogen, living things are primarily Lifeterone, but produce Deathstrogen as they live, which causes them to be sick, to age, to die, etc. Undead absorb ambient Deathstrogen, so it's actually super awesome to live near a lich because you stay young and pretty because as soon as your body produces Deathstrogen, the lich drains it away.

tl;dr- what if things powered be death energy actually drained the thing that powered them, not it's antithesis?

[K]

It's not that necromancy has to be bad, but for those arguing that it doesn't have to be morally ambiguous, I think that's a hard position to hold. Even if you hold that it matters only how you use it, it's clearly a tool that can be used in lots of bad ways. If you were part of the open carry movement, I'd consider you showing up to a McDonald's with an AR-15 morally suspect. Maybe you're just planning on playing hero if a 'bad guy' with a gun shows up, but it's hard not to suspect you're either that bad guy yourself or are trying to show off your tool for the purpose of intimidation.

You know what necromancy* spell is a clear moral good? Raise Dead. It offers dead people a second chance at life, but does not force them to take it. That's a moral good. Want another? Death Ward. That prevents a bunch of nasty bad stuff from hurting people. Obviously good. Want some more that aren't evil? False Life. Gentle Repose. Speak With Dead. Spectral Hand. Clone. Mark of Justice.

The obvious applications for these are morally and ethically sound.

True, but 5/7 of those spells don't feel like Necromancy at all. Gentle Repose could easily be Transmutation, Spectral Hand could be Conjuration, Mark of Justice could be Enchantment, False Life could be Transmutation, Clone could be Conjuration with the rest of the healing magic, and Death Ward could be Abjuration (even Speak with the Dead could be Divination if it wasn't the literal definition of Necromancy). As far as I can tell, they were tossed into the Necromancy list because there were too few spells that wouldn't scare the muggles.

Sterile necromancy doesn't feel like necromancy.

That's kind of the point. For example, Diablo II has a clear Necromancer hero and he causes corpses to explode and summons spirits of the dead to wear as his armor and is wearing sentient people's skulls as his codpieces. His power set is not making any compromises for people who want all the glamor of necromancy without any of the squick, and that's the price you pay for using dark-themed powers.

[Prak]

Diablo II has a clear Necromancer hero and he causes corpses to explode and summons spirits of the dead to wear as his armor and is wearing sentient people's skulls as his codpieces.

This is far and away altogether different from "Necromancy must be actually detrimental to everything around it."

Wearing your enemy's skull as a cup- distasteful, and a bit dickish (no pun intended), but not actually problematic or detrimental to anyone other than the guy you're skull-fucking.
Draining the life of all things around you because your magic comes in tones of black and purple and animates biomachinery people aren't using-unplayable, for no good reason.

[K]

Diablo II has a clear Necromancer hero and he causes corpses to explode and summons spirits of the dead to wear as his armor and is wearing sentient people's skulls as his codpieces.

This is far and away altogether different from "Necromancy must be actually detrimental to everything around it."

Wearing your enemy's skull as a cup- distasteful, and a bit dickish (no pun intended), but not actually problematic or detrimental to anyone other than the guy you're skull-fucking.
Draining the life of all things around you because your magic comes in tones of black and purple and animates biomachinery people aren't using-unplayable, for no good reason.

If you start from a position of "my magic is dark and edgy because it drains life from the surroundings", then you don't get to offset your weakness by sitting in a beautiful forest or taking a stroll through a crowded city. Creating a weakness that is immediately and completely offset is just like not having a weakness at all.

It's like playing a superhero game where you get a bunch of free points for being a parapalegic, but you then spend 99% of your time in a walking power suit. It's RPG player logic and not DM or storyteller or designer logic.

You will actually offend less people if you just start from a position that your magic doesn't do anything to the environment. It will mean that you magic will be a lot less interesting, but at least your audience won't be mocking you for being a munchkin when you try to play it both ways.

[Omegonthesane]

Diablo II has a clear Necromancer hero and he causes corpses to explode and summons spirits of the dead to wear as his armor and is wearing sentient people's skulls as his codpieces.

This is far and away altogether different from "Necromancy must be actually detrimental to everything around it."

Wearing your enemy's skull as a cup- distasteful, and a bit dickish (no pun intended), but not actually problematic or detrimental to anyone other than the guy you're skull-fucking.
Draining the life of all things around you because your magic comes in tones of black and purple and animates biomachinery people aren't using-unplayable, for no good reason.

If you start from a position of "my magic is dark and edgy because it drains life from the surroundings", then you don't get to offset your weakness by sitting in a beautiful forest or taking a stroll through a crowded city. Creating a weakness that is immediately and completely offset is just like not having a weakness at all.

It's like playing a superhero game where you get a bunch of free points for being a parapalegic, but you then spend 99% of your time in a walking power suit. It's RPG player logic and not DM or storyteller or designer logic.

You will actually offend less people if you just start from a position that your magic doesn't do anything to the environment. It will mean that you magic will be a lot less interesting, but at least your audience won't be mocking you for being a munchkin when you try to play it both ways.

The analogy doesn't quite hold. Spending all your time in a power suit isn't really a life defining action when you're a superhero in the sense that having to move constantly and never settle down because everything that remains near you will eventually sicken and die is. It'd be like saying you aren't allowed to tell the story of the guy who has AIDS and has to eat the relevant enormous pile of drugs to be a fully functional player character - even if the mechanical effect is some number of offscreen rituals per day (or some arbitrary amount of travel per month in the case of Mr Drainsalot) it's interesting and life defining in a way that "paraplegic outside my Iron Man suit instead of merely a squishy human outside my Iron Man suit" isn't.

[RadiantPhoenix]

It's not that necromancy has to be bad, but for those arguing that it doesn't have to be morally ambiguous, I think that's a hard position to hold. Even if you hold that it matters only how you use it, it's clearly a tool that can be used in lots of bad ways. If you were part of the open carry movement, I'd consider you showing up to a McDonald's with an AR-15 morally suspect. Maybe you're just planning on playing hero if a 'bad guy' with a gun shows up, but it's hard not to suspect you're either that bad guy yourself or are trying to show off your tool for the purpose of intimidation.

You know what necromancy* spell is a clear moral good? Raise Dead. It offers dead people a second chance at life, but does not force them to take it. That's a moral good. Want another? Death Ward. That prevents a bunch of nasty bad stuff from hurting people. Obviously good. Want some more that aren't evil? False Life. Gentle Repose. Speak With Dead. Spectral Hand. Clone. Mark of Justice.

The obvious applications for these are morally and ethically sound.

True, but 5/7 of those spells don't feel like Necromancy at all. Gentle Repose could easily be Transmutation, Spectral Hand could be Conjuration, Mark of Justice could be Enchantment, False Life could be Transmutation, Clone could be Conjuration with the rest of the healing magic, and Death Ward could be Abjuration (even Speak with the Dead could be Divination if it wasn't the literal definition of Necromancy). As far as I can tell, they were tossed into the Necromancy list because there were too few spells that wouldn't scare the muggles.

Sterile necromancy doesn't feel like necromancy.

That's kind of the point. For example, Diablo II has a clear Necromancer hero and he causes corpses to explode and summons spirits of the dead to wear as his armor and is wearing sentient people's skulls as his codpieces. His power set is not making any compromises for people who want all the glamor of necromancy without any of the squick, and that's the price you pay for using dark-themed powers.

Using Raise Dead on a dead party member and then talking with them is literally and unambiguously necromancy, no matter what school of magic a Wizard claims it is in.

[Pixels]

Clone could be Conjuration with the rest of the healing magic

The 3e designers had enormous hard-ons for Conjuration and put all sorts of inappropriate things in there. Don't go compounding their mistakes, please.

[Prak]

Diablo II has a clear Necromancer hero and he causes corpses to explode and summons spirits of the dead to wear as his armor and is wearing sentient people's skulls as his codpieces.

This is far and away altogether different from "Necromancy must be actually detrimental to everything around it."

Wearing your enemy's skull as a cup- distasteful, and a bit dickish (no pun intended), but not actually problematic or detrimental to anyone other than the guy you're skull-fucking.
Draining the life of all things around you because your magic comes in tones of black and purple and animates biomachinery people aren't using-unplayable, for no good reason.

If you start from a position of "my magic is dark and edgy because it drains life from the surroundings", then you don't get to offset your weakness by sitting in a beautiful forest or taking a stroll through a crowded city. Creating a weakness that is immediately and completely offset is just like not having a weakness at all.

It's like playing a superhero game where you get a bunch of free points for being a parapalegic, but you then spend 99% of your time in a walking power suit. It's RPG player logic and not DM or storyteller or designer logic.

You will actually offend less people if you just start from a position that your magic doesn't do anything to the environment. It will mean that you magic will be a lot less interesting, but at least your audience won't be mocking you for being a munchkin when you try to play it both ways.

I see the issue. You're still on Occluded Sun's life draining undead and (it sounds like you're saying how) that's the way it should be.

I personally find "Undead constantly drain life, so the intelligent ones surround themselves with a ton of plants and stuff because they drain life force from the simplest forms first, and they just employ a bunch of gardeners to keep things pretty" far more interesting than "undead constantly drain life, so everything around them looks like Halloween Town all the time and nothing can change that." But then I also find "raising the dead as a valid profession and lichdom as a justifiable lifestyle choice" far more interesting than "Oh gods! A Necromancer/Lich! KILL IT! KILL IT BEFORE IT KILLS US!!!!!"

(Note to self- draw cartoon of a lich minding it's own business in it's garden as scared adventurers try to kill it)

[hyzmarca]

It's like playing a superhero game where you get a bunch of free points for being a parapalegic, but you then spend 99% of your time in a walking power suit. It's RPG player logic and not DM or storyteller or designer logic.

Um....




Also, for an entire story arc,



"My disability drove me to become a super-scientist and invent a suit of power armor/cybernetic implants/a flying chair/a cure for baldness is the origin story of many super-scientist heroes.


Heck, there's this guy:



Who deals with his disfiguring facial scars by wearing a mask 24/7.

And this Guy

Who has no legs, one arm, and lung that are so severely scarred that he needs a constant supply of pressurized oxygen.

That said, Dresden Files has a distinct category of "Black Magic" which corrupts the soul of anyone who uses it. Despite this, Necromancy doesn't actually seem to fall under that, since creating Zombies is totally legal as long as they are not human zombies. I am not sure if this is because Necromancy isn't actually black magic, or if because using it on humans causes soul corruption, or just because Plot demanded we have our Hero ride into battle on a zombie T-Rex against a bunch of necromancers in climax of the book.

The actual metaphysics of the Dresden files aren't specifically known yet. What we do know comes from Harry, and Harry is explicitly ignorant about a lot of stuff, just like almost everyone else. That's a major plot point.

But all evidence suggests that the line between corrupting and not corrupting is free will. If you violate someone's free will, then you're corrupted by it. If you don't, then that's a good question. It is, however, a matter of degrees rather than an all or nothing proposition.

It also seems to be very much external to the wizard, as the Blackstaff is able to filter it out before the magician is corrupted, which is why McCoy is able to commit mass-murder without turning into Darth Vader.

Ectomancy gets a pass because ghosts aren't people. They're bad photocopies of people created by the trauma of death. They're the psychic equivalent of a low-quality Xerox. We know this because in Grave Peril Dresden induced a near-death experience by stopping his own heart and having himself resuscitated so that he could team up with his own ghost to defeat the badguy.

But ghosts don't have free will the way humans do.

It's also worth noting that there's less corruption from killing humans with compromised free will. Renfields, whose minds were hollowed up by Blampires, Whampires, who are humans with souls but are driven by a supernatural hunger demon, and similar, can be killed with much less danger of corruption.