DnD lore regarding the disposal of bodies and necromancer spells in the law?

[Googley Eye'd Bastard]

Still early in my playthrough and I had something pop up in my head in question to the settings lore about bodies and the Speak to the dead spells in regards to law and general practice.

First Is necromancy generally accepted through most of faerun? Generally most settings make necromancers out as social outcasts at best and monsters that need slaying at worst so how are they treated generally? (I know the world doesn't have an overarching rulership and its mostly based on province but I'm assuming there is a generalized view on necromancers correct me if I'm wrong)

Second is how do the civilizations of faerun deal with sensitive bodies? By this I mean the bodies of people who may have known sensitive information, I just discovered the paladins of tyr being demon cultists and slaughtered them when I revealed it and they attacked me, I learned this all because of their dead companion who snitched on them with me using an amulet that lets me speak to the dead.

I also got the key from talking to the nearby toll collector and got a bunch of goods locked down there, now this isn't exactly the same since nobody who cared or knew him was nearby but logically wouldn't those cultists disguised as paladins have hacked/burned their companions body to make sure no bumbling necromancer would learn their secret? Or is this kind of thing less common that i'm giving it credit for? Then again I did find this amulet randomly from my perspective this can't be that hard of an ability to get access to lorewise.

TLDR Do people accept necromancers in DnD lorewise? And do people dispose of bodies with sensitive knowledge in response to necromancers speak to the dead ability?

[DYSEQTA]

To be clear it's not really about D&D. D&D is a framework of rules and ideas from which to build a setting and game. Your question is really about the Forgotten Realms, which is the setting of this game, and many others.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Necromancy in general is feared and frowned upon, but the average peasant wouldn't necessarily even know a Necromancer from a Conjurer.

If you spoke with the dead in front of someone, it might spook them out, but you could probably convince them the power came from the gods unless they know better (and even then, it might come from the gods).

I don't think wizards are generally as common as they might seem to a player, in the actual population they'd be exceedingly rare.

[The 13th Ghost Bunny]

From what I remember, necromancers and necromancy are viewed as ominous and evil in the Forgotten Realms. It's usually frowned upon to practice necromancy and is even outlawed in various places. Thay is one of the places where it's not outlawed but openly practised, and it's not exactly a place with a good reputation; think it's even ruled by a lich. Necromancy draws upon the negative energy plane (also known as the plane of death), it's this dark realm that animates the dead and why all undead are evil even if they're soulless.

Not 100% sure how society deals with speak with dead. An investigator in the game doesn't really pay it much mind if you use speak with dead to try to get evidence for him to reopen a murder case, but he seemed like a crappy investigator to begin with. lol.

[Sir Seanicus, Esq.]

Most are viewed with suspicion and steered clear of by the regular common folk, because mortals don't exactly like their mortality. Ultimately, it depends on the necromancer and their usage of the school really. You got ♥♥♥♥♥ who become liches and then you got good guys like white necromancers who many are clergy for Kelemvor who use their power for the betterment of society/making sure the dead stay interred and so on.

[talemore]

It depend on whom has claimed the ownership on lore.

D&D had no good alignment and only chaos and law.
There were no outlawed spells since spells are created to be used.
Amongst chaotic creature existed evil cleric which became the framework for evil.

Which is why evil cleric spells are necro spells, create wound,harm is an evil cleric spell.

The way to describe it is that evil cleric were mirror of a cleric and created as a monster to be defeated. Once the evil alignment was created it became part of the cleric class.

since it was a monster it had no need to heal allies and could be thrown in as a challenge of using damage spells. Necro spells are in nature chaotic compared to conjuration being lawful. Conjured animals are considered good divine.

They don't accept necromancy. One of the most well known villain is the Lich who is an undead. The problematic with necromany healing the undead and harming the living.

Lycans considered lawful while vampires are chaotic. Even when lycans can be turning people to monsters we got subspecies like tobaxi out of it and shapechangers, Necro has become part of accaptance since evil has been accepted as an alignment while the conflict between law and chaos is mostly forgotten for being easier to sell the concept of good and evil.

Language barriers should say be the most common thing. The dead speaks their own language and speaking with the undead need to be able to understand their language.
For this reason accepting necromancy would be like asking people who don't understand each other to understand each other or for a human to understand what a cat is saying without having the ability to speak with animals.

[Stiven]

Originally posted by Googley Eye'd Bastard:

i read somewhere that writers of DND is tossed alignment system out the game. So you can do whatever, as long as DM is fine with it. People who says otherwise is ignorant and need read core books. Second, from pure lore perspective necromancy is usually forbidden because soul-leaches (which primitive barbarians calls ""gods"") don't like when some-else dips his fingers in soul juices or dumb mortals. Even lich queen of githyanki, while using necromancy to become god, is strictly forbid existence of ANY necromancer knowledge, because she don't want competition. Basically since 1 edition and to this day, the mortal in this setting have but 2 choices, be a wolf who uses necromancy or be a dumb sheep. Sheep who is kept feed and cozy, so the sheep can breed more sheep, before its time to feast upon it soul. In this regard demons/gods/eldrich horrors is all the same - parasites.

[wagg40k]

It's a convoluted mess since WotC chose to remove alignment from D&D.

Previously, good and evil were literal cosmic elements that made reality, not just philosophical concepts. Necromancy in this system was shunned heavily as being evil magic controlled by evil gods working outside of the natural reality (although necromancy itself is still integral to the great balance). Law and Chaos were planar elements that dictated the relationships between the cosmic alignments. Lawful Good and Chaotic Good weren't just dispositions, but methods of accessing the power of Good. A Lawful Good character performing Chaotic Good acts wasn't just being out of character, they were outright disrespecting their Gods - the arbiters of planar and cosmic reality.

Having removed alignment in 5e completely changes all of these relationships, and as far as I am concerned guts everything that was cool about the Faerun pantheon.

[Googley Eye'd Bastard]

Guys I'm not asking if necromancy IS GOOD OR EVIL i'm asking how accepted it is generally in the forgotten realms, like can one be open and clear with other people and state that they are a necromancer? Or do they usually need to hide that?

Originally posted by talemore:

I am sorry man but I just can't read your stuff the english is too broken.

[Stiven]

Originally posted by wagg40k:

Previously, good and evil were literal cosmic elements that made reality, not just philosophical concepts.

Nah. Necromancy in 1 edition and second(??) was been "natural". All healing spells has been "good" necromancy. And good and evil always relative even in earliest editions. I did not played then, but i read a lot of DMs stories. Alignments always was nothing more that a tool to railroad a party. Just like stats. "No you can't equip gigantic two handed sword, you character too weak because of your low strength" and "No you can use the unholy sword of endless suffering just for its stats, because you are paladin". Problem raised from people who actually begin to assign theirs "philosophical concepts" to the alignments. Like the endless holywar about, can paladin kill a child if child has stole an apple. You can apply your believes and say that he can't, but trust me, a lot of ppl using their understanding of alignment would argue that he can. Good thing WoTc has tossed this dumb system away.

[Stiven]

Originally posted by Googley Eye'd Bastard:

Guys I'm not asking if necromancy IS GOOD OR EVIL i'm asking how accepted it is generally in the forgotten realms, like can one be open and clear with other people and state that they are a necromancer? Or do they usually need to hide that?

Originally posted by talemore:

I am sorry man but I just can't read your stuff the english is too broken.

But i did give you answer - it depend on the people. People who worship a God who openly opposed necromancy will usually be very suspicious of hostile towards necromancy. While more enlightenment nation can be more welcomed towards it, at least in some form. Its like asking "How accepted, generally on planet Earth, eating food with chopsticks?". Different races have different tastes/history. But no, in dnd 5, necromancy is NOT "automatically" cause for immediately execution, if you just talked to dead. But it if you walk the street with pack of horrible deformed monstrosity, what reaction do you expect?