Install Steam
login
|
language
简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)
繁體中文 (Traditional Chinese)
日本語 (Japanese)
한국어 (Korean)
ไทย (Thai)
Български (Bulgarian)
Čeština (Czech)
Dansk (Danish)
Deutsch (German)
Español - España (Spanish - Spain)
Español - Latinoamérica (Spanish - Latin America)
Ελληνικά (Greek)
Français (French)
Italiano (Italian)
Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
Magyar (Hungarian)
Nederlands (Dutch)
Norsk (Norwegian)
Polski (Polish)
Português (Portuguese - Portugal)
Português - Brasil (Portuguese - Brazil)
Română (Romanian)
Русский (Russian)
Suomi (Finnish)
Svenska (Swedish)
Türkçe (Turkish)
Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
Українська (Ukrainian)
Report a translation problem
Discussions Rules and Guidelines
1 
Report this post
I have my own vision of necromancy that I find personally fascinating, but I'll let you judge it for yourself once it's available. And, of course, we always have modding to tweak things to suit anyone's personal preferences.
I get that, as a novice modder myself I will probably delve into that to tailor things to my own taste as I typically do in games that allow for it.
Like a lot of people, I will probably grab the game once the Necromancy update releases like a fair few others I have read say the same thing in the comments and reviews. So I have the game on my wishlist.
Would also like to see angelic abominations, but that is my taste, a darker good. The ones that brand themselves as the good guys tend to just have the power to influence wider perception.
As it has been said, "Power does not corrupt, it reveals" as at the end of the day what kind of person might you become if you felt like no one could stop you? Which Necromancy falls into very easily due to the nature of being able to amass great power due to such magic.
While I do also appropriate the horror element of the undead, I agree that going for a more uniquely gothic interpretation of undeath is also interesting. At the very least breaking the mold of the overused disgust based themes.
Personally I find D&D to be a bad example to reference. In the setting Necromancy for the most part, aside from speak with dead, is inherently cruel to the soul of the fallen or infuses the corpse with the essence of the Shadowfell that inherently is evil to bring it back to life. At least form a lore standpoint, which causes uncontrolled undead to want to kill the living.
Which is to be expected since in early D&D Good and Evil were basically inherent elements of nature.
I will have to check it out, as a writer myself I enjoy exploring other peoples ideas and worlds.
Tbh it depends on the setting. Most often medieval fantasy setting like this incorporate religion as a main component of any human society usually an off shoot of Christianity.
So why would necromancy be good when it defies the will of god(in the game sense)?
Are humans not given life by their deity with a plan to enact?
We live, we sin or follow god's teachings and attempt to get into our desired afterlife. As such wouldn't necromancy breaking that cycle be considered evil by a god?
That being said why wouldn't the necromancer be considered a god by himself given he's bring those from the afterlife back to the mortal realm?
Sure, though this is more so to say it does not have to be this way. The idea can be explored in more ways than the traditional tropes.
In my experience most medieval fantasy settings that incorporate races beyond humans tend to delve more into polytheism of the Ancient Greek, Celtic, or Egyptian variety rather than Christianity. Though usually dress up the major religious faction as some flavor of Catholicism.
It is less about it being a good thing, and more so it not being inherently good or evil. Like a hammer, it could build a house or be used for murder. The wielder, not the tool determines if its use is good or evil.
That said, if you read the full thing, I touched on the fact that there is nothing wrong with it being a stigma. Though when subverting tropes, you have to redress things to not make them seem evil.
Depends on how it is used. If in a setting, the mage / necromancer is only able to create an imitation of life, but not actually bring the person back from the dead. That is more akin to a discussion of fantasy A.I. rather than taking upon the powers of a god.
In most fantasy settings this is the case, as giving people an easy way to just bring someone back to life without cost, consequence, or unfathomable effort diminishes to value of defeating heroes, villains, and other legendary creatures. Thus it is importation to stick to the limitations of traditional fantasy necromancy where the mage is puppeting the corpses or spirits rather than bringing people back to life.
Furthermore, if people in the setting know that a god or gods exists due to their very real and active presence in a worlds rather than just having an established faith based religions like we do in the modern day. Then necromancers might be seen as playing god, and might even create their own cults of personality, but be mistaken by the wider world as a god.
While on the other hand, in a faith based religious world where the god or gods in the setting are not active in the mortal world beyond when it is absolute needed to prevent the end of everything. Then you certainly could have a necromancer playing at being a false prophet or god, which is a perfectly fine story-line for a fantasy setting.
--------------------------------
In summary, this is merely a discussion about allowing the door to not inherently making the magic force the player to be considered evil. Rather the magic itself being neutral, but it's perfectly fine for civilizations and various religions in the setting to see it as unholy.
Necromancy as a tool, rather than like D&D and other settings where necromancy is the product of tortured souls or life eating gods.
I’ve long been fascinated by the idea of human empires utilizing necromancy - often labeled as evil. Making widespread use of necromancy not just for warfare, but for civil infrastructure and administration. I even began writing a book set in such a world once, though I never finished it.
But why call it evil?
Simply because that’s how most outsiders would perceive it.
Cultural Perception of the Dead
In our real world, many regions and religions have taboos around corpses. These often have a practical basis: in warmer climates, decomposing bodies can pose a serious health risk, leading to traditions that classify corpses as unclean or spiritually dangerous. This, in turn, creates societal roles or even castes assigned to deal with the dead, who are often treated as pariahs.
So, even in a fantasy world where necromancy is real, unless the magic halts decomposition entirely, corpses would remain hazardous unless stripped to the bone. Disease, rot, and the stench of death would be ever-present concerns.
The Necromantic Empire
Fields of skeletal laborers overseen by necromancers - not as robed cultists, but as bureaucrats, foremen, and civil engineers. These necromancers aren’t powerful lich-lords and each can manage an only dozen skeletons at a time. Their job? Building roads, harvesting crops, and digging canals.
In this empire, necromancy is demystified. It’s not dark sorcery - it’s just state-sanctioned labor optimization.
The goal? A prosperous, well-fed citizenry. The living benefit directly from the toil of the dead, creating a strange yet stable symbiosis.
Perhaps they would be threated as pariahs at first, a nessesary evil to maintain the free labour that undead provides? They would however be paid generiously, and over time they would become a wealthly middle class - and the perception of them should change.
Perhaps they would be seen as nessesary to run the empire, and they would make their own guilds and organisations within the empire?
Having a necromancer as a marriage partner would be considered a 'good catch' - the job would be stable, the family would be wealthy, and the risk would be minimal. And as such these 'necromantic familias' would establish themselves along with the mercantile and martial ones as one of the pillars of the empire.
Undead in Warfare – Limitations and Logistics
Can the dead still be used in battle? Absolutely - but with major caveats:
- Rotting corpses are essentially walking biohazards. Unless the goal is total war or scorched earth tactics, these are as dangerous to allies as they are to enemies.
- Skeletons, while easier to maintain and not disease-ridden, are light and fragile. A human soldier could likely overpower one without too much trouble. So they aren't really fit for a martial close combat, unless they severly outnumber their adversaries.
That said, undead could still play support roles, like:
- Skeleton archers defending city walls
- Undead sappers or engineers digging trenches and erecting siege works
- Logistics units hauling supplies
So, while living troops would still form the core of any fighting force, necromantic support could be critical in a long campaign. The biggest boon here is that they do not tire, so as long as they would be controlled, they could fulfil their task almost to the point of wearing down from it. Basically cost-free, simple automata.
Social Norms and Ethical Dilemmas
In this empire, using the dead becomes normalized - but not necessarily embraced. I doubt most people would volunteer their loved ones bodies to be raised as undead, especially not without serious cultural or religious incentives. Would you like the remnants of your spouse or grandfather to become a tool that builds roads or harvest wheat if you could prevent it?
More likely, the system would rely on:
- War casualties (especially enemy soldiers)
- Executed criminals sentenced to eternal service
- Possibly a "corpse tax" - a fee paid to ensure your body or that of a loved one remains at rest rather than conscripted into posthumous labor
So, one reason why this empire would be considered 'evil' would be the need for corpses - and this would foster war. Just as in our history, Roman Empire went to wars to gather slaves to fuel its economy, our necromantic empire would go with the aim of collecting dead.
And possibly while we are at it, also slaves - because after their dead they could just be converted to standard undead labor. I would presume the slave laws would be much more harsh to be both espace and rebellion deterrent, and to 'justify' converting unruly slaves directly into fully controlled undead labourers.
I do not think they would however make outright genocides of entire nations, because that would be a great deterrent for surrender - if you know someone is out there to kill you, you will fight to the last man. And a number of potential weaker enemies would be even more rallied against you if you did it.
And during peacetime, this might lead to all sorts of moral and bureaucratic debates. But in war or crisis? The line between the living and the dead would blur in the name of survival.
Religious Implications
Religion in such a society would likely evolve to support the state’s necromantic practices or at least provide theological justification. Perhaps:
- The soul is believed to depart fully at death, leaving the body as an "empty shell" for the empire to reclaim.
- A state cult venerates Death as a civil force, a divine bureaucrat who reassigns souls and bodies like a cosmic administrator.
Alternatively, the religion could embrace a cyclical view - service in undeath is the final duty a citizen performs before true peace.
Dissenting sects might still exist, pushing back against this ideology and calling it soul slavery - but they’d be minority voices, perhaps persecuted or simply ignored.
---
So yeah, the topic is extremely interesting from the worldbuilding point of view.
I planned my book to be a trilogy, matching roughly the forming the empire, early empire and fall of empire - showing the growing decadence, and slow de-humanization of empire elite over the span of few hundred years.
Throw in a few of taboos like: You will not create a sentient undead and you will not gather anima (the life-force used to animate the dead) to extend your life.
And I though it would be a good read.
Yeah, maybe I'll go back to it some day.
Glad to hear it. If it is something your passionate about, keep writing. Even if its not to publish, just writing it down will help you further explore and flesh out your ideas.
Which is an important point of divergence in any fantasy setting, determining the extent that magic influences the world, its prevalence, and how much power is in the hands of said mages.
Personally, my solution to this for the TTRPG I am working on is to make magic akin to LotR where magic bends reality and how it works is left up to mystery. Thus the rules of reality need not apply to magic since its never fully revealed how it works, and it is rare enough that anyone who does wield magic is inherently a figure of myth and legend by nature of being able to use magic.
Though this choice partly had to do with balance in the game system, because the only way to excuse something being incredibly powerful in a game system is to make it equally rare. Unlike D&D which over saturates the world with magic, and thus what you can do with magic in the game is very mundane until the very end game which most players do not reach,
A great way to look at this from a more modern or Sci-Fi perspective is to equate the use of Undead the same way we look at Robotics and AI today. Will it change society? In what ways? How will this impact the wider world? What fears or groups might be against it due to the amount of influence those in control of these machines (undead) have on the rest of society.
While it is just my own perspective, I enjoy exploring the parallels between necromancy and modern views on AI. I see it as a unique way to explore such thoughts and ideas in a less obvious way than magical constructs given the undead's more human origins.
In essence, from a military perspective (retired vet myself) a military lives and dies on its logistics. Thus if you could have a work force that never tires to handle the heavy lifting for your troops, that frees up a lot of manpower to actually fight with. Which in essence could triple the size of your fighting force. Not to mention the benefits of having to supply less support personnel which notably lowers the financial burden of war.
Which would not include other types of undead as well, such as vampires. Which depending on how they exist in the setting would be another significant change. A vampire (if going with Stokers Dracula) are nocturnal creatures which dislike, but are not harmed by the sun and thus would make for the best soldiers on a battlefield since they have the strength of ten men, the speed of the best athlete, and power over creatures of the night like wolves that could be used to aid in battle.
Spirits being another example of undead that would make for the ideal scouts and spies that would entirely change the way wars are fought.
Crisis certainly justifies many things people would have never considered otherwise. Which does not even have to be war, it could simply be a terrible natural disaster that devastates the land or a years harvest.
More or less, that would be the natural response. Just like the divine right of kings in the past, societies will justify its social practices and social hierarchy with divine approval, which wars will be fought over or crusades will be waged on behalf of.
In my experience writing, people enjoy mystery as much as they do exploring ideas in a way they might never have had to before. So I would just suggest not to explain things that do no need to be yet when you get back to writing.
A lot of writers in my experience feel compelled to justify or explain how the world works, when the average reader does not need everything explained to them. Doing so would leave the readers nothing to think about or ponder if the writer does.