Necromancy in this game?

[Firedestroc]

Is there or is it going to have some necromancy in this game? If I have the hability to raise some undead and curse people with visions beyond their worst dreams im buying this rpg instantly!

[OwNathan]

Not right now, but we may implement something in the future!

[Bubble]

Would love it! Being able to play with undead servants would be a great addition.

[OwNathan]

In terms of lore, raising skeletons or zombies like in other fantasy settings would be out of place, so we're thinking necromancers could mess with ghosts and souls, raising ghosts in battle as summons.

[Drakken]

Too bad, i like skeletons :D
And i see the necromancers raising the dead to fight their war as the nicest and kindest souls in the world. They are not the ones sending the youngsters to their death.
"Don't worry kids, stay home, live your lives, have your fun, i will go to war with all your dead father, uncle, aunt, grandpa and grandma. " wish me luck! say the supposed evil necro. :D

[Firedestroc]

Yeah, in my opinion, necromancers have a way too bad reputation even tho they can do a lot of good around them. Thats why I always play a friendly necromancer here to help people with my army of the fallens. I just love the idea of a Lich King making himself immortal just to be able to gather or raise all the undeads he can in order to do good for as long as possible.

[Drakken]

The necromancer of a village in my ADD campaign is a 22 yo girl who maintains a force of skeletons to protect the village. The children are completely unfazed and are even painting the skeletons.

[OwNathan]

Guys, I think you are somewhat downplaying the reaction of the average farmer when seeing a GIGA CHAD EXTRA EDGY necromancer blitzing into town with an army of stinky skeletons.

Jokes aside, our long term plans include the possibility, for a faction, to do something with the undead skeletons you can find in some ruins. Maybe that will satisfy your dark desires!

[Kyoko]

Skeletons are best.

[Drakken]

Originally posted by OwNathan:

Guys, I think you are somewhat downplaying the reaction of the average farmer when seeing a GIGA CHAD EXTRA EDGY necromancer blitzing into town with an army of stinky skeletons.

Jokes aside, our long term plans include the possibility, for a faction, to do something with the undead skeletons you can find in some ruins. Maybe that will satisfy your dark desires!

Not if you let the kids paint the skeletons first and even more less if the Necromancer is a good looking cute girl.

[Firedestroc]

Originally posted by Drakken:

The necromancer of a village in my ADD campaign is a 22 yo girl who maintains a force of skeletons to protect the village. The children are completely unfazed and are even painting the skeletons.

Great minds think alike. My main go to necromancer in rpg is a cute draconid girl that calls herself the Necrotic Queen. Her goal goal is to unite all undead into their own peaceful kingdom.

I think it would be great to be able to recruit skeletons and whatnot into your own faction. Especially if they have different gears/abilites. People underestimate the fun of having your best friend be an undying skeleton named G R E G.

[Drakken]

Still in my ADD campaign, a tribe of people (Finland-like) are using a cool necro spell; this is a sacred ritual. When you lose someone dear to you, the closest person will make a braid after a long magical ritual. The braid will capture the soul of the dead one wherever he/she is in the world, and the dead will more or less live; he/she will feel everything, see, hear, etc., but he/she can't communicate. When the one with the braid(s) finally dies, the braid(s) will release the sou(s)l, and the dead may finally rest in peace.
Some older people may have a lot of braids in their hair. They are named by their name and their number of braids, like Maka with 3 braids, etc.

Necro spells can be cool. ;)

Nathan will see the light and he will change his mind, a necro can be nice too. ;p

[Firedestroc]

Originally posted by Drakken:

Still in my ADD campaign, a tribe of people (Finland-like) are using a cool necro spell; this is a sacred ritual. When you lose someone dear to you, the closest person will make a braid after a long magical ritual. The braid will capture the soul of the dead one wherever he/she is in the world, and the dead will more or less live; he/she will feel everything, see, hear, etc., but he/she can't communicate. When the one with the braid(s) finally dies, the braid(s) will release the sou(s)l, and the dead may finally rest in peace.
Some older people may have a lot of braids in their hair. They are named by their name and their number of braids, like Maka with 3 braids, etc.

Necro spells can be cool. ;)

Nathan will see the light and he will change his mind, a necro can be nice too. ;p

Thats such a creative way to perform necromancy! I personnaly mix necromancy with medical science. My Necrotic Queen isn't just a mage, but also a skilled surgeon that uses her knowledge of anatomy and flesh to create greater undeads or to extend one's life.
I feel like it's easy to underestimate just how deep and complexe the occult art can be. After all, it is the magic of death, not the magic of funny zombies.

I still yearn for an awsome rpg that explore perfectly all facets of necromancy from animated deads, talking to spirits, healing/hurting and blessings/curses.

[Drakken]

To talk about the game, you have undeads in the game, but they are not painted not even friendly, they just want to kill you. ^^

Now it's giving me a lore friendly idea,
Let's try to sell it to Nathan. :D

if you raise dead from a faction this faction would be mad at you but their enemies could be pleased, fighting their enemies with their own fallen soldiers could be a nice and respected solution.

Nathan are you buying? ;p

[Firedestroc]

Originally posted by Drakken:

To talk about the game, you have undeads in the game, but they are not painted not even friendly, they just want to kill you. ^^

Now it's giving me a lore friendly idea,
Let's try to sell it to Nathan. :D

if you raise dead from a faction this faction would be mad at you but their enemies could be pleased, fighting their enemies with their own fallen soldiers could be a nice and respected solution.

Nathan are you buying? ;p

Yes! Maybe tweak it a little tho. Because necromancy as such a generalised bad conotation, I think, in general, factions should be opposed to you raising the dead. Some specific factions could be ok with it or be convinced to like it maybe? I'm thinking about buying and playing the game... like right now just to see how the necromancy could be implemented within it.

Also... painted friendly skeletons... pretty please Nathan?

[OwNathan]

"Yeah officer, this is the discussion. Yeah, those guys, occult lovers..."

"Officer?"

"What do you mean I am under arrest for disrespecting the honorable practice of necromancy? WHAT?"


Now that I tried to be funny, here's some spoiler free details about occult in Dustgrave's world. Now, as you probably saw, the game is not lore-heavy now, but we intend to write more dialogues and quests to explore what's happening in the world, and what happened a thousand years before that destroyed the ancient Yarsite Empire. The Dahlans are nomads who moved into a collapsing empire, with most of its original population being dead or having migrated south.

Dustgrave's world and lore has been built with intentions that are different that the usual D&D setting. Not to imply that there's anything wrong with any D&D setting, it's just a different take and we'd like to keep it consistent. My goal was to take as many fantasy games tropes and rework them to make them playable, but with a twist that could make them consistent with a lore I tried to build using real-world historical examples.

The Republic of Venice inspired the Panavians, the Ming and Han dynasties inspired the Celestial Empire, the Dahlans are a mix of Mongol and Cuman features, a future faction is based on a mix of ancient Rome republican politics and Ethiopian culture. The Astralite cult and the Cathars are mostly based on Zoroastrism (with like ten times more fanatism), the Academy is an attempt of putting scientists in a magic-infused world, and the Onorati are some sort of medieval mafia.

As you probably saw, zombies are not magical undead but parasite-infested corpses. And the skeletons you find in ruins, well, those used to be Yarsites. More than a thousand years ago.

Some tropes are there, like clerics being theurgs and having a single deity, with saints instead of an entire polytheistic pantheon, or sorcerers being a mix of D&D sorcerers and warlocks.

Others, will soon be available, we have really good ideas on how to implements things like bards, druids, and necromancers.

Up until now, we never thought about giving skeletons to necromancers. They were supposed to harvest souls from dead enemies, and use those to summon ghosts. Possibly even craft/customize summons using different souls.

But this isn't only an Early Access game, meaning you early players have the right of at least suggesting stuff, it's also a fun challenge for me to bring tropes and and archetypes to Dustgrave's lore, making them consistent with the world but also fun and fresh for players to explore.

So, on one side, we already had a good idea for evil-skeleton-army-summoning necromancers. That will be one day in the game. When it comes to non-evil-skeleton-raising-necromancy, I will now start thinking about it.

There are cultures in our world where dead bodies still play a role in society, they are dressed and adorned, and people believe the deceased is not entirely dead. With that in mind, painting skeletons for spiritual reasons is anything but wild. And I promise I'll buy some books and see how those cultures deal with the dead from an anthropological point of view.

The only thing I'd like to avoid is slapping stuff in the world without a meaning. We all know Dragon Age Veilguard came out, many people had many things to say, but one thing that I only saw marginally discussed is the role of necromancy in the lore, considering there is a necromancer companion. On one side, they tried to give necromancy a non-evil place in the world, creating a cult of dead and a spiritual meaning for it. On the other side, they downplayed all possible cultural friction and prejudice, pretty much making everyone just say one line of two expressing mild unease about being around skeletons. And that's all. Next scene the main character makes jokes about a skeleton pet just like it's the most normal thing to see in the world.
Which could be, for a society in which the dead are routinely raised and part of everyone's daily life! But that's not the case.

Your suggestions about working to let factions and cultures said practices goes in a better direction. Maybe some cultures will be more open to it, maybe some single individuals will. But it has to impact the world and make you feel like you are not just raising a couple skeletons and triggering a dialogue or two, but doing something meaningful with an impact on the world!

(sorry for the long rant!)