Necromancer Migrant

[Thisisaname]

Just got my first necromancer and was wondering what are the pros and cons of having them in your fortress? Is it an instant banishment?

[The Grand Mugwump]

Honestly, the pros and cons depends on how much you want to micromanage them, whether you like having FUN time bombs sitting around your fort and where you want your fort to go. All necromancers will raise all dead bodies they can see if they feel threatened or are in danger. If the corpse used to belong to an intelligent being, there's a 50/50 chance it will either be a dumb undead which hates all living things and will immediately attack your dwarfs or spawn an intelligent undead who will gain access to supernatural abilities in addition to necromancy while retaining its loyalties from life. This means intelligent undead dwarfs from your fort will go back to what they were doing while invaders will try to kill you again with their newfound powers.

[Valstra]

Necromansers in your fort are always a good source of FUN. Especialy, if they are hunters. They would kill a pray, and then ressurect it as a zombie, that would attack anything alive.

They can be quite usefull though, zombies they create a great source of training for your military. You can even cage them if you'd like.

I also hear that a necromancer can write a book containing secrets of live and death, but i never had it to happen in my fort.

[Basterbane]

There is a series or two on youtube about necromancers. While one just loves to dye, the other went the deep end with his experiments.

[Thisisaname]

thanks guys!

[DEM1L1CH]

Jesus christ is it still doing this? I cut my teeth on Dwarf Fortress before 44.12 and I never encountered a necromancer outside of an undead siege. The "tavern visiting necromancer" or the "undead ghoul cheesemaker" in your migrant wave is STILL HAPPENING? This breaks immersion and is a horrendous bug, and it's been labelled a bug like 2 years ago so wtf? How could they do a steam release without this trash fixed? Oh yeah I have a proud fort here we have our dwarves who dig and drink alcohol and are very industrious, oh and yeah one of them is immortal and raises any dwarves who die in battle as zombies under their control, but all the dwarves are happy with that and they all get along even though the zombies then attack them on sight. ITS A BUG

[Valstra]

Originally posted by DEM1L1CH:

Jesus christ is it still doing this? I cut my teeth on Dwarf Fortress before 44.12 and I never encountered a necromancer outside of an undead siege. The "tavern visiting necromancer" or the "undead ghoul cheesemaker" in your migrant wave is STILL HAPPENING? This breaks immersion and is a horrendous bug, and it's been labelled a bug like 2 years ago so wtf? How could they do a steam release without this trash fixed? Oh yeah I have a proud fort here we have our dwarves who dig and drink alcohol and are very industrious, oh and yeah one of them is immortal and raises any dwarves who die in battle as zombies under their control, but all the dwarves are happy with that and they all get along even though the zombies then attack them on sight. ITS A BUG

To be honest, i always thought necromancers, undead and such, migrants was janky, but immersive, as it made it feel like migrants are real dwarfs with real dwarven history. But yeah, i can see why other people would see it the other way.

[JigglyRitz]

My necromancer resurrected a dead langur which proceeded to tear off my military captain's nose, killing him. If that gives you any idea lol.

[Avloren]

Originally posted by DEM1L1CH:

Jesus christ is it still doing this? I cut my teeth on Dwarf Fortress before 44.12 and I never encountered a necromancer outside of an undead siege. The "tavern visiting necromancer" or the "undead ghoul cheesemaker" in your migrant wave is STILL HAPPENING? This breaks immersion and is a horrendous bug, and it's been labelled a bug like 2 years ago so wtf? How could they do a steam release without this trash fixed? Oh yeah I have a proud fort here we have our dwarves who dig and drink alcohol and are very industrious, oh and yeah one of them is immortal and raises any dwarves who die in battle as zombies under their control, but all the dwarves are happy with that and they all get along even though the zombies then attack them on sight. ITS A BUG

What makes you think it's a bug? The wiki says:[dwarffortresswiki.org]

In world generation, necromancers may raise suspicions from their fellow citizens due to not aging, which can lead them to be expelled. This does not apply to necromancers living in goblin and elven civilizations since both goblins and elves are already immortal. Upon being expelled, the necromancer may form a grudge against the civilization and turn to villainy, and they will generally take refuge in a site of their own.

Key word: may. May be expelled. May form a grudge against their former civilization. Necromancers are not guaranteed to become enemies to all living. They start out as normal people with family and friends and such, and when they gain immortality they continue living in peace with those people. They can be expelled and turn into villains, but it doesn't automatically happen. It's totally normal and intended for a not (yet) villainous Necromancer to still be part of your civ and be a possible immigrant.

And it's actually perfectly thematic that they have.. problematic abilities that can bring them into conflict with the fort, leading to you wanting to expel them. You get to live out exactly how a necro might turn into an enemy of his former family and friends.

[DEM1L1CH]

Originally posted by Avloren:

Originally posted by DEM1L1CH:

Jesus christ is it still doing this? I cut my teeth on Dwarf Fortress before 44.12 and I never encountered a necromancer outside of an undead siege. The "tavern visiting necromancer" or the "undead ghoul cheesemaker" in your migrant wave is STILL HAPPENING? This breaks immersion and is a horrendous bug, and it's been labelled a bug like 2 years ago so wtf? How could they do a steam release without this trash fixed? Oh yeah I have a proud fort here we have our dwarves who dig and drink alcohol and are very industrious, oh and yeah one of them is immortal and raises any dwarves who die in battle as zombies under their control, but all the dwarves are happy with that and they all get along even though the zombies then attack them on sight. ITS A BUG

What makes you think it's a bug? The wiki says:[dwarffortresswiki.org]

In world generation, necromancers may raise suspicions from their fellow citizens due to not aging, which can lead them to be expelled. This does not apply to necromancers living in goblin and elven civilizations since both goblins and elves are already immortal. Upon being expelled, the necromancer may form a grudge against the civilization and turn to villainy, and they will generally take refuge in a site of their own.

Key word: may. May be expelled. May form a grudge against their former civilization. Necromancers are not guaranteed to become enemies to all living. They start out as normal people with family and friends and such, and when they gain immortality they continue living in peace with those people. They can be expelled and turn into villains, but it doesn't automatically happen. It's totally normal and intended for a not (yet) villainous Necromancer to still be part of your civ and be a possible immigrant.

So you feel immersed when a necromancer shows up with their "death corpse ghoul" friends and joins your fort? When you have a Cyclops attack and one of your dwarves dies, and the necromancer resurrects him as a zombie and he starts attacking your other dwarves? or do you just wall off the Necromancer in a workshop and lock the door because they have no need for food, water or sleep? Is that fun? It sounds to me like it's a bug, because the version of DF i started with years ago never had that, and when this problem showed up , it was never listed a feature, and now it seems like they'd rather just say "oh look it's cool" than try to fix it, or they CANT fix it, which is typical for Bay12

[love]

Undead make for great book keepers as they don't require food and you can lock them in a tiny burrow.

[sajmon]

my necro hunter never made a zombie out of his pray.
one of my marksmen though made zombies out of a mutilated corpse and parts of my enemy

other than that for now not much else has happened, i have all kinds of visitors too, elves, goblins, troglodytes, some lizard guys, zombie guys, necromancers. so far nobody is even fighting, not much fun ;)

oh and my mayor is a necromancer too

[DEM1L1CH]

Originally posted by sajmon:

my necro hunter never made a zombie out of his pray.
one of my marksmen though made zombies out of a mutilated corpse and parts of my enemy

other than that for now not much else has happened, i have all kinds of visitors too, elves, goblins, troglodytes, some lizard guys, zombie guys, necromancers. so far nobody is even fighting, not much fun ;)

oh and my mayor is a necromancer too

Maybe it's because I started with a version of DF that worked correctly and didn't have this bug, maybe it's because I like Tolkienesque Dwarves who drink alcohol, hate elves, and distrust magic, maybe it's because it's so blatantly obvious to me, but this is not working as it should and I can almost guarantee you that if this crap stays in the game for the long term, it's because Tarn doesn't want to spend the time to fix it, or roll it back, because he's afraid it will break everything he's put in since. If that's the case, i will happily play 44.12 for the rest of my time with Dwarf Fortress, because "Necromancer" shouldn't be a friend. "Necromancer" shouldn't have a wife and children. "Necromancer" shouldn't be vising your tavern. "Necromancer" should be in a dark place doing dark things, it should be a creature you send out a party of steel clad dwarves to kill. Does any of this make sense?

[Thisisaname]

I will say the view of Immersion can be very subjective to each individual. Especially because every world is differently generated with different religions and beliefs who is to say a particular world or even a particular civilization sees necromancers as evil? Theres plenty of fantasy novels, games, and tabletop games where necromancers arent inherently evil.

[BadgerMilk]

Idk it seems like the best idea is to just expel them for now

[Pogey-Bait]

Originally posted by DEM1L1CH:

Jesus christ is it still doing this? I cut my teeth on Dwarf Fortress before 44.12 and I never encountered a necromancer outside of an undead siege. The "tavern visiting necromancer" or the "undead ghoul cheesemaker" in your migrant wave is STILL HAPPENING? This breaks immersion and is a horrendous bug, and it's been labelled a bug like 2 years ago so wtf? How could they do a steam release without this trash fixed? Oh yeah I have a proud fort here we have our dwarves who dig and drink alcohol and are very industrious, oh and yeah one of them is immortal and raises any dwarves who die in battle as zombies under their control, but all the dwarves are happy with that and they all get along even though the zombies then attack them on sight. ITS A BUG

How cruel. Necromancers are people too.