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Consider putting the undead to work instead of smiting them

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Consider putting the undead to work instead of smiting them
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>>54136645
No.
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>>54137074
I don't understand that reasoning at all. Sure, golems would be better for most cases but they take a shitload of ressources and time. It would be alot more cost effective to just reanimate a few skeletons to farm some fields, even if it's just temporarely until some enchanters are done making golems or other kind of workforces.

Get your stick out of your ass paladin.
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>>54137226
>just temporary
If it's allowed then it is never temporary, especially if it's "easier" for whatever reason.

But the actual thing produced is not easier. It's dangerous and intentionally, willfully antagonist to the very people you claim to want to help.

It's like on the on hand you have a man arguing for standard nuclear power, and on the other hand you have a man arguing to throw nuclear fuel into a literal furnace because 'it's faster'.
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>>54137074
Where's the curmudgeonly Necromancer screencap?
You know, the weary necromancer who elevated the world only to see it fall.
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>>54137310
No shit, using dangerous magic is dangerous in the wrong hands. Even if necromancy is literarely nuclear power, handled properly it's still a good source of production. Just because people misuse magic doesn't make it a bad kind of magic. Destructive magic like fireballs are widely accepted, yet one idiot or powerhungry mage can misuse it. It's the same for undead.
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>>54137074
>waaaaa
>Some settings have things that I don't like!

Diablo 2, came out almost 20 years ago, and I'm sure there are tons of examples of "good necromancers" before that. It's a fairly old and established trope, why do people react so violently to it still?

Good necromancers have been a thing for longer than most of /tg/ has played rpgs.
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>>54137226
Undead being around can cause other corpses to spontaneously raise and cause the first stages of an Undead Uprising with the unquiet dead. There is no safe way to use undead, even temporarily. It's playing with malevolent malicious fire.
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>>54137226

the problem is that going by fluff the undead Taint the land their in

Nightmares, insanity and all around poor health

read the old dnd book about evil or undead
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>>54137454
>>54137470
Depending on the sitting, it doesn't. If they cause other undead to rise, have clerics on standby, if they taint the land, let them operate in already fucked places, then purify the goods they bring out.

Hell, let necromancers create golems designed for undead killing first, THEN let them work with corpses if you're so concerned about an uprising.
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White Necromancers.
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>>54137470
>crops have returned record lows for the third straight year
>Supreme Necromancer Thadeus Bonapoart rolls forward a new plan to further boost the undead workforce and establish more farmland to ensure the food supply remains steady.

Sounds like a pretty good setting to me. A "utopia" slowly crumbling in Victorian style. After things slowly getting worse after generations, people in the capital just assume that it's normal for the sun to only shine weakly through the dark clouds once a month or so.

Gotta keep spreading the empire to get new resources and spread the good news about cheap undead labor.
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>>54137534
What if, just consider this thought, we don't play with fire instead, and stick to NOT using corpses?
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>>54137074
I tried to run a country with golems but Saladorm the Unliving stole all my trade with his cheap undead workforce! My golems required heavy initial investment and, while of superior quality, the merchants realized greater savings just using zombies and skeletons until they fall apart and replacing them!

I hope the king bail's out my golemmaking business and builds a wall between our kingdom and that fucking necromancer.
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>>54137561
Das racist!
We wuz necromanvers an sheet.
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>living in a land where even in death, you cannot rest in peace
>no rest, no wages, only an eternity of toil trapped in rotting meat enslaved to a single task
>knowing from the day you were born that one day this will be your fate

Necromancy: it's the worst parts of capitalism and communism combined.
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>>54137470
That's a holdover from Tolkien, actually.
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zombies are gross as shit and I refuse to believe anyone would want them involved in farming or food production in any way
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>>54137611
Then you get run over by the less stagnant society that out produces you.


Now I kind of want a setting with some sort of Undead cold war, with each side continually easing up on their control restrictions to try to win an edge. Till the PCs show up and knock over the whole house of cards.
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>>54137611
Then we are literarely wasting ressources and give other nations the edge on us.
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>>54136645
Conman necromancer.
Your undead attack few villagers, you show up on the next day as friendly wizard, take contract on undead hunting, stage something with ghosts and few skillies, collect bounty, reanimate your undead buddies during the night after you leave and move to the next village.
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>>54137654
I always assumed the used skeletons, for hygiene reasons.
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>>54137667
No, we're living sustainably.
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>>54136645
>consider
NO

PALADIN SMITES
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>>54137600
Sounds really nice
And also see:
> The Empire of corpses
it is an anime (and apparently a book) about world where corpse reanimation\programming was one of the great inventions that changed the world... alongside the steam angine
Results, after undead labour and military forces became omnipresent, were predictable
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>>54137689
And what's more sustainable than renewable ressources like corpses? People will always die. Might as well let their skeletons work for a few more years.
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>>54137665
>>54137667
and then those nations crumble from the before listed problems and complications of using huge undead work forces

I mean really, for the cost of "purifying the goods they bring in" and all that other shit, you could have given every peasant enchanted tools of good harvest
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>>54136645
Alright, explain how this dolphin thing can float in Pathfinder then?

If you are so great.
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>>54137667
>>54137665
Psh, yeah, "wasting resources" by stockpiling holy goods instead of wasting them on controlling necromancy and not getting spiralling costs of villagers vanishing off the fucking map every few months when someone let the zombie get too close to the cow and the whole herd turning undead.
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>>54137715
Poisoning the world with pure death energy isn't good for the ecosystem, anon.
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>>54137534

I don't you can't grew anything nonevil in Taint land

unless you like trees that leak blood and seem to grab at you
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>>54137717
Or, hear me out, teach those peasants how to be clerics. You're now one further away from an undead nightmare while also giving your military and civilians work and better healthcare.
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>>54137684
Hooded skeletons or with skulls painted and ornamented are used as domestic servants and other more public positions, whereas zombies are the gristle for dirty jobs and heavy industry because of the quickness they can be deployed postmortem and because the rotting skin and sinew provides more natural cohesion for the body that skeletons need greater magic investment to accomplish for any length of time.
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>>54137753
>teach those peasants how to be clerics
This isn't how it works. This isn't how any of this works.
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>>54137074
>Communist Necromantic Utopia

At least we'll get something out of the purges.
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>>54137712
That's sort of the premise of Twig.
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>>54137717
Assuming they don't conquer you for your resources, before they get around to that crumbling thing.
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>>54137645

yeah but if you bring up Tolkien people just point out that Dnd and Tolkien are different and you can't use one for the other

better to just use old Dnd books

rules change but the fluff mosty strays the same
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>>54136645
>When people don't understand that Undead are "Mostly Evil" because of pic related and because the Plane of Negative energy literally has an active will that seeks the end of all life to drive the undead with as means to this end.

There's a fucking reason why Atropus is a big deal in D&D, and it's because all undead reset to their default settings when it's near, yes, that includes the archliches.

The only one's getting off are those who are deathless and those who are positive energy undead, deathless because they basically are the Gentoo of regular proprietary Negative Energy plane arcane software.
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>>54137758
That's the way I'd do it. Also skeletons for anything agricultural.

I think masks for the dead would be standard. Don't want to accidentally recognize anyone. Zombies probably get cheap burlap sacks instead of masks.

>>54137785
>Rumors of necromancer infiltrators carrying plagues into the country
Brings a new meaning to the Red Scare.
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>>54137783
Then explain how cleric recruitment works.
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>>54137665
>>54137667
We'll just wait for those societies to die out due to undead outbreaks.
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No. Undead are powered by negative energy, which means their very existence is a drain on the energy of the Plane they're in. It's an extremely tiny drain, effectively insignificant... but even the tiniest leak will eventually drain an ocean to nothing over the fullness of eternity.
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>>54137226
>Boohoo it's HARD to be good! It's HARD! Stop making me so HARD things!
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>>54137449
>Diablo 2, came out almost 20 years ago,
And it was a shit game then, and its a shit game now. Just like anything Blizzard ever made.

Kill yourself, americuk
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>>54137879
And, then we still have the literal massive list of things negative energy has attributed to it, including Evil descriptor spells, Taint, Vile Darkness, actually passive corruption which makes subjects undead-like due to overexposure, Mortimers, Pale Masters, regular Wizard specialists practicing from the eastern school of necromancy and deformities mentioned in the complete necromancers handbook, Hauntings, Necromantic intelligences, Necrotic cysts-

It's literally like, Nuclear Radiations over-excessive autistic cousin, there are fucking consequences for using it. Also, again what is undead is any creature with a direct P2P conection between itself and the plane of negative energy, as there are many creatures that can be degenerated by the plane but are strong enough via being empowered by it, and enduring it's draw to their life-force, which interrelates to powers granted by the various corruptions it has on the plate and classes related to actually following this procedure.
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>>54137882
The amount of training required to be a cleric is fucking enormous. Learning how to cast spells and channel energy is a several year process. That's why clerics are in the highest starting age category. A cleric is a huge investment and even then most will become adepts because they're literally not faithful enough to be a cleric.
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>>54136645
>putting the undead to work
Sounds like something a statist would say.
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>>54137880
>I think masks for the dead would be standard. Don't want to accidentally recognize anyone.

Evil always flees from the truth.

Why hide, anon? Look at the pus dripping from the sutured eyelids of that corpse dragging a broom down the street. It used to be someones mother. Now her spirit is denied its rightful rest in Elysium, chained to a rotting corpse for your convenience and petty materialistic greed.
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>>54137981
Then that merely means that the undead production facility needs more time to be set up. Or alternatively, bring priests and other holy man from other countrys to it in exchange for generous donations to their religion of choice.
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>>54137561
*Ahem*
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>>54138076
With this kind of investment in time and effort, why not just make those damn golems!
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>>54138117
You can't bless a golem. It doesn't have positive or negative energy by being a construct.
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>>54138076
The costs just keep mounting. At this point villagers are likely cheaper and less likely to rip holes in reality and let extraplanar super undead through.

No seriously all it takes is enough undead for the barrier between planes to wear thin (which is a thing that happens in at least two published settings) for this whole thing to be fucked. A single Devourer let through because you had too many zombies in one place and a powerful undead managed to cross over and the whole fucking country side is fucked. That one Devourer can probably kill what ever clerics you brought I doubt you have a team of level 9+ clerics around.
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>>54137958
And of course, the cycle of death, which is literally the set of rules that cause Undead to spawn, made worse by- suprise suprise! Necromancers! And in addition, Evil Deities and and Lower Planar creatures, including our fatdaddy himself!

Did I forget to mention that the reason why Atrocity calls to undeath is because the actual Ground 0 for the undead was Orcus back in life, casting a Dweomer that killed everything on his native plane so hard, it broke reality allowing the basic undead as we know them to spawn to begin with, and Gary Gygax is the one who published this? Yeah, want to use that skeleton now?

Infact, let me list a few things-

Basic skeletons, ghosts, ghouls, and zombies? Orcus.
Liches? Alluded to a Tanari'ri in Van Richten's Guide to the Lich, possibly Orcus.
Death Knights? Demogorgon after it violently rapes you to death over 3 days with it's instant rot tentacles, first gouging out your eyes, because Monkey-trouble don't fuck around. Divine Variant featured in Krynn (Lord Soth) made by Deific action.
Vampires? Result of Elves being fucking lazy during the creation period, made the Vampire deity Kanchelsis, but even if this didn't happen Vampires would come to be because multiple human cultures dropped in various settings from our earth in D&D is a thing.

The undead in the earliest timeperiods recorded in all settings are, primarily, the products of evil, with evil itself going to great lengths to secure it's ownership over the rights to these spoils, being the proprietors of Lich rituals dedicated to danm the user and those close to him, corrupt authroity and government, lead people into the kind of top level "behind closed doors" Esoteric evil /pol/ talks about and worse.
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Now I can't decide if I want to do McCarthyism vs Undead Commies, or Natives vs Victorian Undead

>>54137882
Depends on the setting. Sometimes you have to be literally hand picked by a god.

>>54138027
Got any more like this?
Anti-undead rhetoric I mean.
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>>54138174
>No seriously all it takes is enough undead for the barrier between planes to wear thin
Don't listen to this hate monger!
Undead are perfectly safe and have never killed anyone in recorded history.

He wants to take the food from your children's mouths! Trying to undermine the very fabric of out society.
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>>54138174
Not to mention that Devourer is super intelligent, wise, and charismatic and has the ability to raise as many undead as it wants. You can get your clerics back because the Devourer will eat their souls as it goes and get stronger. In its first few minutes around it'll become next to impossible to kill with spells properly and have a fuck ton of extra health from eating the souls of what ever why near by.
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>>54138165
No, as in, why not make golems instead of undead. If both are equaly laborious, why not resort to the method less likely to cause a plague upon the lands.
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>>54137628
This assumes that in the setting, the soul is somehow affected by the body being animated.
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>>54138218
>and have a fuck ton of extra health
The fuck is this, WoW?

Wait, doesn't even WoW have good undead?
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>>54138027

anon while I agree with you

I don't the soul is involved with basic Undead

they just leak negative energry and kill people if your control ever slips which is reason enough to destory them
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>>54138248
It has Forsaken. They are genocidal nazis, who literally have death camps for humans.
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>>54138248
It can pop souls for temp HP and it'll have a bunch of extras by the time anyone shows up.

>Wait, doesn't even WoW have good undead?
Considering undead almost destroyed the world on multiple occasions, have a portion of a continent quarantined because of them, and we're responsible for the Wrathgate Disaster I don't think you should use WoW for 'responsible undead usage'.
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>>54138182
Much obliged anon. I knew my autistic ramblings would fuel at least something salvagable. But I think I'm done here now, since I've argued myself into a corner and can't think of a single reason why one would pursu it further.
At least in a dnd setting.
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>>54138248
Forsaken literally tried to fuck everyone permanently because of their absolutely enormous hate/ambition boner. They almost managed to get the entire world killed and everyone put aside their differences for 10 minutes to put the plot down.
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>>54138178
You literally have to fuck corpses to join Orcus and willingly deform yourself, a good chunk of his shit involves being the nastiest CE fuck ever, it's all part of his subversion of life and such, and even then you're his bitch for doing so, it's mentioned multiple times he gives no fucks about anything but himself, the Liches are just there to wash his fat pig-goat balls. The whole thing is rigged.

I mean, this is the same fat fuck that was the epic-level cleric/wizard multiclass asshole who did something technically worse than Karsus and his folly, got away with it, causing a permanent horror to plague the multiverse, became a Demon, made it to Demon Lord, Slaughtered a deity/upper planar hero and mounted it to make a wand which he over-saturates with so much power it became intelligent enough to warp space around it to guard itself, drive men to CE to become Demon Loeds USING the wand, and kills on touch. Oh, and he became a deity, had his named and history erased getting killed as a deity, then came back as an undead deity and got the deity issued killphrase from a room full of other Cosmic debug codes which he erased for the lulz, and killed one of the two Immortal bros for life guarding it for a test run with the debug code, died again, got resurrected as a Demon Lord again by a half-ogre who killed a few Elves to bring him back, and STILL has the kill phrase, his wand, and fucking Undead-power armour that connects him directly to the Plane of Negative energy and can self-destruct, next to having the canonically confirmed FAST ARMY TO MOBILIZE IN THE ABYSS and yet somehow is NOT public enemy number 1.

He even has a library dedicated to sucking him off with nothing but stuff about his entire success story, and literally has minions plunder the planes for food for him to eat, because he's also a Gourmant.

And he literally sees the undead as tools to power, nothing else, even with all he's made, he literally does not care.
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>>54136645
Yeah, but then some dumb motherfucker actually puts the soul back in along with the useful bits and fuck up a good thing for everyone
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>>54138223
The golems could be used as weapons instead of civilians.
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>Have you ever spoken with the dead? Called to them from this side? Pulled them from their silent rest? Do you know what it is they feel? Pain. Pain, when torn into this wakefulness, this reminder of the chaos from which they had escaped, pain at having to live.
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>>54137954
The first Diablo was good.
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>>54137879
>>54137958
>>54138178
Thats some interesting shit and someone should screencap this because it is on the same level as people not knowing why the wall of the faithless is needed or why there always has to be a Blood War.
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>>54138342
So now we're making both undead and golems, even if it was argued that golems are too hard to make...
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>>54138374
never played desu senpai
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>>54137948
I'm making an assumption here, but I'm pretty sure I'm not mistaken.
Assumption is, you are living in a first world country.
For you, choosing the hard path is having a bit less time to sit on imageboards or using slightly outdated PC hardware which produces low FPS in latest games.
For a medieval peasant, choosing the hard path is a death from hunger.

Necromancy is bad. Using bad things is bad. Using bad things is also sometimes necessary. Because it's not always a matter of willpower or dedication or a personal choice, sometimes it's a matter of having to.
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>>54137954
>brings up an example of necromancers in pop culture
>THAT GAME IS BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD
Dafuq happened to /tg/?

>>54138388
You can make golems with all the resources you freed up using the undead.
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>>54138416
Except in this case, the easy way will lead to a fate worse than death by starvation.
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>>54138416
Good isn't easy. That's why most people are Neutral. But even Neutral people tend to shy away from explicitly Evil actions like creating undead. Neutral people don't murder, rape kids, torture people, or commit Evil necromancy.

Part of being good is sacrificing yourself instead of taking the easier, evil path. Part of being neutral is taking a look at the cost/benefit ratio and realizing that poisoning your fields with ambulatory death energy is not good for making more crops.
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>>54138454
But no resources were freed up if making undead safely requires as much time and resources as making golems in the first place. And golems are still the safer option.
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>>54138416
>Assumption is, you are living in a first world country.
You know, I live in a third world shithole, and for some reason, I think that some things are unacceptable. Also, for some reason I think that it's you who lives in Burgerstan, because living your life in comfort gives you a lot of time to discuss things like "What is evil REALLY?".
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>>54138316
>Orcus

Remember when they wanted to pull a Lady of Pain and make him statless to show how big of a deal in D&D he is and then people bitched about it being mean because waaah waah its not heroic fantasy for me enough if I don't teabag the concept of Undeath itself ?
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>>54137074
Is it okay if the Communist Necromantic Utopia in my setting is Neutral instead of Good?
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>>54138416
And with necromancy instead of death by starvation your soul gets eaten by an extraplanar super undead who begins to raise an undead army. You soul is either tortured permanently or until the thing is killed and you are released.

I'll take death by starvation.
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>>54138559
It's founded on an inherently evil deed, repeated in mass as an essential part of society.

Mass murder would be bad enough but at least killing itself isn't inherently morally biased. Animating the dead, channeling pure death energy to enslave spirits and pervert the cosmic order is capital-E Evil.
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>>54138539
Orcus is beatable though. It's just HORRENDOUSLY DIFFICULT.

1st, Trip to the Abyss, barring all encounters with other Demon Lords, and the FUCK YOU PC'S tier hazards of each fucking layer and how easy it is to alignment shift on the plane, become tainted, or irrevocably insane

2nd Orcus's layer, which I might note is FLOODED WITH ALL THE UNDEAD EVER, SKELEGUNS, LAVA, TRAPS, HIS CULTISTS, AND ARMIES AND ARMIES OF STATIONED UNDEAD

BRAVING HIS RAPE CASTLE 9000

THEN You have to get rid of his wand, and for that, it's a trip to Bahamut and Tiamat and YES, YOU HAVE TO KILL TIAMAT TO DIP HIS WAND IN HER HEART'S BLOOD BEFORE BAHAMUT INIRATES IT, SO IT'S A TRIP TO THE 9 HELLS NOW

OH RIGHT, THE WAND TRIES TO TURN YOU EVIL AND IS A MASSIVE BEACON FOR ENCOUNTERS BECAUSE IT'S AS BAD AS THE BOOK OF VILE DARKNESS IF NOT MORE SO

NOW, WITHOUT THE WAND, YOU ALSO HAVE TO KILL ORCUS'S KIDS, HIS CULT, AND ANY ORCUS BLOODED CREATURES IN THE UNIVERSE (Orcus literally has a dedicated template in a monster manual entry for people infused with his blood)

THEN YOU HAVE TO FIGHT HIM, AND KILL HIM, ON HIS LAYER OF THE ABYSS, AND HOPE HE DOESN'T USE THE LAST WORD TO PERMA KILL YOU

OH RIGHT, BEFORE THIS, YOU'VE ALSO GOT TO GET RID OF HIS TENNEBROUS VESTIGE, WHICH WOULD JUST TURN HIM INTO A DEITY AGAIN IF HE DIED, MEANING HE COULD SPAM THE LAST WORD TPK THE PARTY, AND KILL EVERYTHING EVER.

Then it's a matter of getting Graz'zt on board and hoping this doesn't turn you evil for doing it, and erasing his cults across the planes, and also that drow goddess who killed him first time around.

Did I forget to mention the only reason this fat fuck loses is because he's lazy? if he tried, he's about a CR 37-40 encounter, especially if he's got his wand, Fucking Power armour and is anywhere on his layer, or the plane of negative energy.

OH RIGHT
VISAGES
HOPE YOU LIKE BEING FUCKED WITH THE WORST KIND OF ILLUSIONS KNOWN TO MAN
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>>54137742
It was nothing more than an ordinary whale when whalers attacked. The whale managed to escape, but sustained a grievous wound from a whaler’s harpoon. It died after days of anger and pain, only to arise as an undead monstrosity bent on taking revenge for its demise.

As a bakekujira goes about its new, corrupted existence, it continues to rot until all the flesh is stripped from its bones, leaving behind only an immense skeletal whale. The decomposition process draws all sorts of sea scavengers to the rotting whale, from gulls to fish. However, the flesh of a bakekujira is not only rotten—it is also toxic and deeply infused with negative energy. Any creature that eats of this flesh sickens and dies, only to rise shortly thereafter and continues its existence as an undead thrall inexplicably bound to the bakekujira. Normally these creatures take up residence in and around the putrefied body of the bakekujira, swarming throughout the creature and only emerging to push back any who would seek to do harm to their rotting host.

So, not a dolphin, the magic that sustains its malevolent existence keeps it afloat in the ocean, and for the other fags here an interesting dilemma, its flesh is negative energy tainted and thus toxic.
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iF THE NECROMANCER TAKES OVER A DAIRY farm only to produce milk for is skeleton army, is that a cause for concern?
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>>54138374
Agreed, but it didn't have a necromancer class.
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>>54138800
Not at all. The necromancer only tries to infuse the skeletons with a bit more extra calcium so we don't brittle too fast.
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>>54138463
>>54138579
It is obvious that starving people disagree with you. Otherwise we would not be discussing this.
Besides, that does not happen every time and you know it. You are deliberately taking the worst possible outcome of using necromancy and claim that is a norm. You should be ashamed to use arguments like that.
>>54138480
Sacrificing yourself for the benefit of others may be good.
Sacrificing yourself without helping anyone out of fear is not.
Sacrificing others without helping anyone out of fear is definitely no go.
Necromancer is not the only one who is dying from starvation, his friends and family do, too.
>>54138503
It is commendable that you have standards, anon. You are free to avoid necromancy, no matter what the cost. However, you have no right to make the same decision for other people.
You are also wrong, I am a slav and I live in a slav land. Although you are correct, I never really was in a situation where I had no choice but to resort to unlawful or evil activities to feed myself. We had good neighbors who loaned money to my family when we did not have enough to buy food.
Your attempts at sarcasm are unpleasant. It is a fact that necromancy is evil in DnD terms, and I agreed with it in the same post you are replying to. What I don't agree is the fact that there could be no negative consequences to obsessively avoiding every possibility of evil act.
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>>54138909
You realize there are constructs that cost only like 30% more than undead and have none of the risk of causing an outbreak. Even necromancy is the WORST magic to put to agriculture. A Druid can ensure you have a harvest 26 times a year, no fucking necromancy required.
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>>54138725
And for Pathfinder, to get rid of evil undead is literally impossible, because fighting gods is an impossible task. Urgathoa is a nasty ass goddess of undeath, disease, and gluttony. Shes also the first Undead, a woman who fled the judging of souls because she feared which hell she would go to. Her fleeing her fate also brought disease into the world. All undead stem from her evil ways and nature. She created the lich ritual, vampirism, the various curses and terrible ways in which undead can arise and kill. She basically bugged the universe and created an error in the way the death and life cycle works.
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>>54138909
Making constructs is BARELY more costly than making undead. Your argument is fucking garbage because it assumes more labor is the best way to get more food when the answer is just eliminate the growing season and have all harvest all the time.
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Defiling dead bodies has been considered a bad thing in just about every single culture ever

If you think necromancers are good or want to play as a good/useful necromancer, you're a grade A retard and you need to shut the fuck up real quick. Contrarians are the biggest plague on this board.
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>>54139015
Those don't tempt people into evil tho; so a demon attempting to corrupt an entire society has no need to mention them.
>>
>>54139015
>>54139051
If you have necessary resources, skills, time and knowledge, or a spare non-dickish druid, it would be preferable to avoid necromancy.
I am explicitly talking about the case when you have not.
>>
>>54139132
And to use necromancy in any way that remotely approaches safely you need a good deal of necromancers around (a necromancer can only control so many undead), clerics (to kill random corpses that will start rising from the dead), and willing bodies (people don't want to give you grandma to work for eternity in a mine).

A Druid can do so much more for so much less. You're a retard.
>>
>>54139030
Every time I see this image I get ROCKHARD. Should I join a Cult of Orcus?
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>>54139132
>druids are more likely to be dickish than necromancers
Fucking what?
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>>54136645
Animating dead bodies is bad.

Using them to do menial tasks is dangerous.

All it takes is one disgruntled assassin and you have a horde of ravening, hateful, mindless mudermachines wandering around killing everyone.

The first time it happens, necromancy will be outla3wed and normal magicians and wizards will get burned at the stake right along with them.
>>
>>54139250
If you like the goddess, why would you ally with her enemy?
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>>54139303
Because he wants to fuck her over
>>
The head local necromancer has a heart attack, the 40 zombies he is controlling are now loose and manage to kill two more necromancers who are around assisting him. Now ~80 weak zombies plus their stronger personal body guard undead are around and bent on destroying all life. It's only going to get worse from here.

The unexpected death of a necromancer means an outbreak. Even worse if someone murders him to try and set undead loose.
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>>54139303
Because worshipping any women gets you into her friendzone, not into her skele-vagoo.
>>
>>54139272
>>54139409
>in b4 'mindless undead just stand there'
>>
>>54137226
>>54137449
>waaaaaaa!
>Let me kill everyone and use their corpses for my own means because I'm a edgy loser in real life
Necromancers truly are pathetic
>>
>>54137226
golems also require cramming a sentient, intelligent being into your rock pile to be trapped there as a living battery unto you choose to release it.
>>
I can kind of see an urban fantasy setting with "everyday magic" and necromancers being considered invaluable to CSI work.
>>
>>54137614
Quit complaining, articuck. The invisible hand of Orcus will ensure necroconsumers will revitalize the communities they interact with, and that mortrepeneurs will refrain from working mortals to death and then raising their corpses.
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>>54139494
And that's fine. But using them to mass produce immortal murdermachines is not.
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>>54139476
Animated objects don't though and animated objects are what you would use because they are many times cheaper.
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>>54139476
This a common misconception due to imprecise language. Your animating your golem with elemental spirits, not elementals. Spirits are mindless and generally small things. They come together and meld into each other and over time, which will give rise to an elemental. This will attract more spirits over time, like moths to flame, making the elemental bigger and more intelligent. Elementals are intelligent, only because they have lots of littler spirits which have each contributed a fraction of thinking ability.

Its a bit complicated.
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>>54139515
>all this Orcus shit

You know that's mostly just 1e/early 2e material, right?
>>
>>54139541
So then the spirits powering the golem could attract other spirits, creating a plague of pissed off elementals that want to free their trapped brethren?
>>
>>54139587
No, elementals don't care about elemental spirits or even other elementals, they aren't people or animals and their alignment is Neutral. However, golems are prone to going berserk, which could be explained as elemental spirits attempting to congregate with those trapped within the golem, causing its arcane programming to become corrupt, introducing errors and faulty commands.
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>>54139191
Anon, I am not talking about any grand-scale projects.
If you have a grand vizier in a golden palace who twirls his mustache and says, what a good idea would it be to make out citizens bring prosperity to the khaganate even after their passing, you should throw him out of the window and get a new vizier.
I am not talking about any kind of situation where you have other opportunities to survive. Where you can disregard the risks because you are guaranteed to die if you don't try.
I'm talking about a party lost in the desert, when they don't have enough water for the horses but still need them to carry the equipment.
Or a witch in the winter forest, who fell into the den of a dead bear, broke her leg and is slowly freezing to death.
These stories tend to end bad, but at least these stories exist and contain something more than: "And then they did nothing until they died".
>>54139257
Necromancer won't dick you over if you are the necromancer.
>>
>>54137628
Capitalist Necromantic Society
>Fuck the poor, they'd serve us better as skeletons. We'd probably turn a profit in the long run on spell components vs. wages

Communist Necromantic Society
>We need more undead, let's kill some of our people to convert to undead for the good of the people. We can say they were Bourgeois collaborators to justify it
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can Undead be good cooks?
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>>54139653
But that's totally good because reasons.
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>>54136645
And what will the plebs do if the undead are taking over all the unskilled work? How will they provide for their family or even feed themselves if all the land is taken by nobles who employ mindless zombies?

I told you about the income inequality, frater.
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>>54139753
That's how it starts. Next thing you know the fucking orcs are burning down the capital.
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>>54139720
>THIS CHEF IS FUCKING ROTTEN!
>>
>>54139720
No. Rotting flesh and anti-existence radiation tend to spoil and ruin any food prepared.

>>54139737
No, its neutral. Its neither good nor evil. It's not evil because you aren't taking the profane techniques of evil gods and demon lords to create abominations of unlife whose very existence threatens reality. It's not good because the activity has no good actions to it, only neutral ones.

In addition, the spirits aren't thinking beings, their like a natural force that swims through the world, animating aspects of it and infusing their energies into it. A mountain is very much lots of earth elemental spirits who have fused together into a solid mass that isnt animated. Air spirits create the wind. Water spirits cause the ocean to flow. Golem creation merely harnesses the extra spirits that are flowing through the area to give animation to a hunk of specific material, in imitation of the process that creates elementals.
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>>54138323
Was expecting a plod reference.
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>>54139884
But her wings sold like hotcakes.
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Why not instead allow shamans to bind nature spirits to things like rocks or trees and have them do the work?
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>>54136645
Bolas pls
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>>54139937
Dumb weeb.
>>
>>54139587
>>54139541
No, the spirits might go berserk and make the golem uncontrollable.

People have a nasty habit of forgetting that side effect.
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>>54139720
I doubt it, and they'd have to wear some kind of full body suit instead of just a hair net to prevent contamination.
>>
>>54139683
And you just happen to have onyx gems in the desert but not a cleric (or even an adept) who can cast create water?
>>
>>54139557
It's 3.5 material, dipshit, it even carried on into 4e, with Orcus's Dweomer from Slayer's guide to the undead being aluded to in text, I bet you think the Hordes of the Abyss Orcus is the right one and havn't read Dungeon magazine. The fucking Tennebrous story is even told in 4e by a guy in Sigil, shut the fuck up.

The events of Dead gods, Gary Gygax's mention of Orcus in Slayer's guide to the Undead are canon, and the only things changed are Orcus's Origins for his wand, his patronage to vampires, and his progression as a Demon until Demon Lord.
>>
>/tg/ assuming that every setting is dnd once again
>>
>>54140263
I mentioned that in >>54139653 . Maybe you should read the whole thread instead of just a bit of it. Yes, there is a small but consistent chance of the spirits going berserk and basically going on a rampage till they cool down. They smash and destroy whatever happens to be near, sometimes killing things that are nearby. They are still much safer to use than the undead.

Interestingly enough, in PF, the berserk trait of golems has been removed for most, with only the Clay keeping it.
>>
>>54140351
OP did that right from the start.

In most other games, there isn't any such thing as neutral necromancy, much less good necromancy.
>>
>>54140376
how did he?
by saying "smite"?
dnd isnt the only system involving smiting, and "smiting" doesnt even have to involve divine power
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>>54140408
Nope. He implied that undead can be useful outside of being mudermachines. The only game that applies to is D&D.

you're welcome to try and prove me wrong.
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>>54140426
Nechronica
>>
>>54140426
Literally any game that has necromancer as a playable class
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>>54140426
so youre saying, that in all of fiction, its impossible for undead to do anything other than kill?
thats an incredibly boring point of view
>>
>>54140466
Name a few where necromancy isn't called out as evil/harmful as part of the class's definition.
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>>54138182
Do both.
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>>54140471
>he hasn't read Empire of the Necromancers

Of course they can do other things, anon. They can toil eternally enslaved to their necromancer masters. THEN they can eventually hold council, break loose, and kill the necromancers to return to their rightful rest.

>consider slavery, plus extra demonic magic and nuclear waste
>this thread
>>
>>54140452
And all necromancers are evil in that game.

Try again.

>>54140471
Nope, pretty much specified gaming, anon.
>>
>>54136645
That's actually what the largest major power in my setting did. They got undead to run all their agricultural and menial jobs, which considering they lived in the horrible crossbreed between Sibera and Canada that is their continent, meant that a lot less people were dying of exposure trying to hunt dinner. They got together into a parliamentary monarchy and started a country that won every war it was ever in by the virtue of piling endless zombies onto the problem until it stopped being one Except for the time they had to outsource due to a kaiju that controlled all bones it touched, and was slowly steamrolling across the continent , then went back to their insanely hedonistic lives of internal politicking and team sports.
>>
>>54140373
>there is a small but consistent chance of the spirits going berserk and basically going on a rampage till they cool down. They smash and destroy whatever happens to be near, sometimes killing things that are nearby.

But don't worry, its totally not evil bros.
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>>54140535
tabletop games arent videogames, you dont have to conform to a strict set of guidelines with them
you could have a world where necromancy is just puppeteering skeletons with your mind, or as a way for people who didnt do what they wanted in life to finish it
you dont "have" to make necromancers or necromancy evil, and undead dont have to be murdermachines
>>
>>54140471
there have been good/neutral dead. But their feature is usually being unrested, unwilling, or making a sacrifice by holding off their rightful end.

Mythologically, necromancy is dangerous because the spirits being called up come from the afterlife, and the summoner has a hard time telling dead souls from demons posing as dead souls. This carried over to early RPGs as the source of animated dead's motive intelligence. That's not a mechanical computer or elemental mote teaching a skeleton to hunt babies down, it's fiendish essence. The negative energy plane is just the power source.
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>>54137628
>not even death is guaranteed
>but taxes still continue
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>>54140586
Of course not. They can be meat golems. But at that point, why not just call them meat golems? And at that point, why not just switch over to wooden or metal golems?
>>
>>54140426
D&D = "Mostly Evil" in relation to the use of undead, taint, environmental and universal damage, attraction of choice elder evil and generation of undead, the lesser parts leading to some beneficial spells and establishment of the Deathless Template, to unfuck, requires the death of Orcus, and the replacement of the Negative Energy planes active will that has the Undead kill everything, something Accerak tried to do using a splice of Lich Power Rituals and an Epic Spell, which blew up in his face and sent him to become a vestige
Pathfinder = Classical OD&D AD&D-2e Explicitly evil, classic Lich degradation and all that, slight conversion of ravenloft vampires to boot from gazetter, slight return to form
TES = Evil, literally doing it wrong on a cosmic scale by making dead souls sleepwalkers, but post Skyrim cocked it up by making the dead talk in the present sense a lot of TES lore- (even art assets) were sampled from D&D sessions (Ice Atronach is literally a Psionic golem recolored) so that remains to be seen
Harry Potter = Barely touched upon, only some use, highly evil, social tabboo
Tales of Maj'eyal= Super fucking evil, literally like playing as a mobile version of N'ghasta from Redguard in TES
Dungeon Crawl, Stone Soup = Super fucking evil, requires a deal with !not Orcus to get even better abilities as one
Project: Gorgon = Absolute Evil, undead are brought back with their souls in their bodies in endless pain representing a single negative emotion that fills them up until they go berserk, hunting down all they once loved and cared about without fail if left to roam and wander, many echo to calls of their past lives even, even if many do sound comedic at times
Nasuverse = Literally has vampires ranked in order to 0 of who can erase all life on earth the most effectively, souls are in everlasting decay like Warlock pacts and are replenished by eating other people's that grow back into the state the original put theirs in after repeatxinfinity
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>>54140535
>all nechronica necromancers are evil

But that's wrong. They aren't nice, but not all of them are evil.
>>
>>54140586
>you dont "have" to make necromancers or necromancy evil, and undead dont have to be murdermachines

Won't stop people from being incredibly mistrustful or openly hostile towards your "good" necromancer, or possibly bring attacked on sight by Paladins.
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>>54140637
not every game has to be dnd either anon
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>>54140489
>>54140535
You're shifting the goalposts anon.
You wanted people to post examples of systems other than DnD where undead can "be useful outside of being murdermachines" not whether or not necromancy is harmful.

In any game where a player can control undead as a class feat, they can control the undead to do whatever they wish.
In Nechronica, the characters are all undead and must work together to survive.

Just our of curiosity, what's the difference between necromancy and a cleric's revive?
They both do the same exact thing; bring something dead back to life
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>>54137074

In DnD at least, golems require an elemental to be enslaved as a power source. Undead do not necessarily involve enslaving the dead, as many are simply animate puppets or new creatures - so unless you go with Negative Energy = Evil, then it's much less abhorrent than golemancy.
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>>54140637
If necromancers are really just golemancers, why would paladins care?

You're trying to have the dark-edgy-n-misunderstood plus "oh but we're not really evil" too. Pick one.
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>>54140648
Fine, your snowflake will be attacked on sight by holy warriors that are functionally identical to Paladins, but totally aren't because they trigger you or something.
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>>54140700
Yet animating dead is evil, but making a golem is neutral.
>>
>>54140727
youre getting angry at someone on the internet for having a different opinion than you
why are you even implying that I'm a player and not a game master?
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>>54140700
>mindless spirits that have no free will and are meaningless without an actual purpose given to them
>enslaved
How do you enslave something that has no will?
>>
>>54140623
Uhhhh....they make i8ntelligent undead toys to play games with and torture the poor things in an existence without meaning or purpose for the sole purpose of their own entertainment.

If that's not fucking evil, then I don't know what to tell you but good luck, anon.
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>>54140737
Making an immortal, undying, evil killing machine that only doesn't go around killing people because you have it under control while you are alive and your magic is undisrupted is a pretty evil thing to do, anon.
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This here seems like heresy waiting to happen, better lay down the exterminatus upon this heretics
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>>54136645
This is a pretty good doujin.
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>>54140857
Bruh
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>>54140857
To be fair, the Imperium would not last a second with all the fucking skeletons they decorate their entire everything with, that and servitors and all the other dead people they keep the corspes of laying about,

Drop a Necromancer on any 40k location, and you've a doomsday event waiting to happen, if anything, you'd be doing the same shit like in Return of the living dead with the Trioxin 245, letting the dark magics spread airborne and literally turning the planet into a new kind of "death world".
>>
>But Anon, radioactivity is the enemy of life itself, if somehow you set it free it kills everything!

There's literally no excuse for not using undead as labor tool in a generic setting. If you need to use souls, then retire the older undead as new come by. Once society prosperes and more magic research is done, replace it with a better alternative.
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>>54140350
Literally none of this says that Orcus is the source of all undeath.
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>>54138323
source?
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>>54141075
Fucking read Slayer's guide to the Undead by GG. 4e aluded to it as Orcus ended up the Abyss due to some unforgivable crime- which refers to this passage.
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>>54136645
THAT THING CAN WORK MY COCK
>>
>>54138182
The dead deserve their eternal rest. See that husk shoveling shit over there? That was my friends father. He fought in 2 wars, raised 5 kids, and worked as a carpenter for 30 years. He built half of this town including the tavern we're sitting in.

But he ran up a gambling debt in his old age. He didn't want to leave it to his kids so he sold his corpse to the necromancer outfit downtown. Now look at him, a dried out shell of the man he was. All except for his eyes. The necromancer said it needed those to be able to work.

That lich claimed that his soul had departed but when I look in his eyes all I see is pain. A silent plea for help, release, freedom. For a sweet merciful death that will never come.

My friend is trying to save enough money to buy his father's body back but the lich is demanding 3 times what was originally paid. He is willing to pay it. I can understand why
>>
>>54138237
>>54138268
In some traditions, there are dualistic souls - the hun and po souls in Chinese mythology, for example. You might not be affecting all their souls, but it's possible you're still affecting some of them.
>>
>>54138237
Most of the anons here are assuming that because otherwise it makes no sense not to use undead labour. It can go wild and attack people if you lose control? So what? Everything has a risk, we have to learn how to lower it and benefy the most.
>>
>>54141426
I mean, it also contributes directly to the death of the universe. That's a good reason not to use it.
>>
>>54140830
So what about undead then?
>>
>>54136645
Yup. There's a country with a whole culture and economy based on that. There are very few graveyards. In revering their dead, the people there are very good at separating the physical and the spiritual, so they see nothing wrong with using reanimated corpses for labor and honoring lost loved ones through remembrance and ritual rather than placing importance on their discarded remains.

Having your corpse reanimated to be useful to the community has less stigma than being an organ donor does irl. They're all completely encased in sarcophagus-like shells to keep things nice and sanitary. The dead are basically easier-to-animate golems with varying levels of autonomy. Of course foreigners find the whole deal pretty creepy. The locals have a good sense of humor about it though.
>>
>>54139753
Two words: post scarcity.
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>>54136645
Also, she's cute but I can do better.
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>>54136645
Considered.
No.
>>
>>54140873
It truly is. Just the right amount of cute and lewd.
Feeds both my heart boner and my boner boner.
>>
Has anyone here read Unsounded? There's a country that comic that managed to abolish slavery by having zombies do the work instead. One of the protagonists is an intelligent, deeply religious zombie, so he's understandably displeased about this. (Also, his religiously-motivated hatred for undead extends to himself. And his religion also strongly forbids suicide. Being Duane Adelier is suffering.)
>>
>>54142086
Cute loli, too. Wish she had nipples.
>>
>>54136645
Nah, slavery is wrong.
Let them rest in their eternal paradise.
>>
>>54141703
But having tireless undead wont remove scarcity, it will only make the rich richer. And he didn't bring up the greatest point, what will the plebs do? Not everyone is gonna be a great artist or great thinker.

This is the same problem as robots replacing the workforce, do you really want low quality cunts who flooded the artistic and inteligence market making actual good things be completely droned out. A modern example can be seen on sites like deviantart, theres some legit good art on there, completely drowned out by low effort fetishshit.
>>
>not raising your fallen soldiers as loyal undead to bolster your infantry ranks
>not making this the pride of your military forces, who pledge themselves to serve in both life and death
>not expanding this to autonomous legions led by intelligent undead fiercely loyal to the state to guard your borders while you deploy smarter and more skilled living soldiers elsewhere
>not having your country run by a vampire pretending to be his own grandson while fighting to take his country back from the influence of a cult-leading lich queen
>>
>>54137684
Without their protective flesh, bone is brittle and dries out real quickly.
>>
I have good Necromancers in my settings and none of you DnD fags can stop me!
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>>54136645
Now listen here you droop-eyed black tongue tart, the unquiet dead are an abomination before Ssael, a worse perversion than slavery or even a woman without husband or keeper. The dead should be given unto Ssael so that they may one day join him.

He killed the gods for your sins, show some respect.
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>>54142448
>implying that implementing this wouldn't obliterate morale as soldiers have to fight alongside grim reminders that the state genuinely doesn't care about their lives and that not even death will be able to free them from servitude
>>
>>54136645
Undead rotation in the crops, while allowing a time for cleaning the land is the best alternative. If the paladins protest, kill them and put them into the farms
>>
>>54142976
>Try to kill the men trained to kill our guards and us, when they'll probably just pull the sword out as soon as one body gets out of its grave
What are you, some kind of dumbass? We gotta convince them it isn't evil. Probably though magic.
>>
>>54137074
>golems
20,000 gp and 6 months of work for one
>undead
Dozens in a few weeks
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If any of you "good" Necromancers try to use my family members or friends as work implements, I am going to wear your familiar like a damn boot, then shove my holy artifact-laden magic-animal boot so far up your ass that if someone were to try to raise what's left over they'd get a shambling mound of gore and bad morals.
>>
>>54143118
>Undead: Bone and rotting flesh, easily dispatched trough the use of something good for bashing,fences and higher ground
>Golems: Made from heavy strong materials that can't even be cut by normal weapons, well walk over most fortifications and got ten times the strenght of even the average undead.
You're arguing the horse against the tractor my man.
>>
>>54143177
You don't see soldiers going to battle on a bunch of fucking tractors my man.

Tractors are shite
>horses>tractors
>>
How much would golems cost relative to undead?

How many peasants would ever be able to afford either?
>>
>>54143231
No you saw them going in on modified tractors called APC or driving another called TANKS.
Tractors>horses

>>54143259
It would be for the rich farmers, which, yes did exist. The rich would buy golems, the poor would either get golems or orc slaves what do. In the end the golem would outpace the meattools and the rich farmers would be able to afford more golems. Much like early mechanized farming tools.
>>
>>54142441
>But having tireless undead wont remove scarcity, it will only make the rich richer.
That's a very cynical view
>>
>>54136645
Voodoo zombie plantation!
>>
>>54143293
>It would be for the rich farmers, which, yes did exist.
nope, they didn't
>>
>>54143293
>the poor would either get golems
Whoops, meant undead haha. But yeah, undead might not need feed but they still need costly replacement parts and much more maintenance to not rot away than a golem, but it would be cheaper than a ox and cheaper than a golem.
>>
>>54143337
And on what accounts do you disagree with that then?
>>
>>54143369
I just do
>>
>>54142815
>>54142448
also it would spread dysentery, undead are walking latrines.
Unless you position them so far out of the camp that things get weird.
You'd breed incompetent commanders, when you man power is not a resource and your units don't care if they die it's hard to really gauge the flow of combat
>>
>>54137454
The fuck system you playin that does that shit bruh
>>
>>54143328
And cynicism and optimism together create realism. Theres of course good that comes with it, sure, but you can't remove the idea that people wont abuse it for their own gain.

Its always useful to put every plan on that you or it will be at the worst possible moment and then working for the best possible outcome.
>>
Souls have power of their own that can be used to power magic of any kind. They also have two parts: The conciousness part (what makes you, you) and the energy part (what makes you a non-vegetable and allows you to use magic).
Let's say we have two wizards
A necromancer and a pyromancer
>Necromancers can use part of their own souls to power their flesh contructs (Read skeleton, zombie, etc), they are relatively cost efficient when it comes to energy needed, but the moment their master collapses they do too
>Pyromancers also use their soul to generate the energy needed for fireball-related stuff, and he too can tire himself out and lose conciousness. Any fire that wasn't burning because it found a source of fuel will fade as its master does.

Now, this is what happens when the wizard uses his OWN soul, but if they are willing to use other people's souls:
>A Flesh contruct can become more autonomous if the necromancer traps a willing (or unwilling if he can overpower them) soul into it. It enslaves the conciousness part of the soul to make the construct follow instructions and keep functioning even if the necromancer has passed out or has died. It will eventually die if it can't find a way to replenish the energy part of its soul (like feeding on living stuff)
>Pyromancers can also infuse their magic with the souls of other people, creating stronger fireballs that burn for longer (until the energy part of the soul runs out) and can be commanded by them to some extent. It also adds the, sometimes, unintended side-effect of turning the fireballs into screaming heads resembling the faces of the previous owners of said soul (manifestation of the conciousness part of the soul)

Golems are different from flesh constructs and require a different approach to making them, more akin to engineering and programming magic. Mostly because necromancy just gives motion to something that has lost it, while golemancy requires giving motion to something in ways it never had before.
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>>54143426
This is how i personally deal with this stuff
Not trying to imply this is part of a published canon or anything like that
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>>54143407
He is right, you know. Its only a matter of time before the Undead Messiah rises up.
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>>54143293
And I'm guessing these "rich farmers" are all faithful members of the local paladin order.

This thread is filled with greedy palajews, trying to oppress the working man so that they can keep a stranglehold on the economy!
Don't believe their propaganda!
Buy corpses now!
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>>54143177
Because you can get 6,000 horses for every tractor
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>>54143384
Yeah, with an almost easily recyclable pool of dead soldiers to use in combat, it wouldn't be very tactical anymore.

Fire magic and weaponry would definitely be on the rise. Heavily militarized nations instead investing in pyromancy and things like flamethrowers, explosives, and fire enchantments to make sure nothing can get raised again. Acidic and Electrical weaponry too, perhaps.
The nations who decided to take the harder route would just invest in fire-weapon wielding golems and constructs to fight their wars, probably.
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>>54143454
Well yes, most rich farmers usually were people married into happy merchant families or priests, in the end they also joined the ranks of nobility. Because fuck man, thats how all noble families start.

>>54143458
Yet the tractor outsold the horse. Its simply more cost efficient and useful in the long run. I'm guessing you meant buying those horses as the next one goes, but you have to also account for accidents economic and with the horses. A tractor wont and will last enough for you to buy a new tractor, which due to the fewer numbers bought will mean more sold and more done in good quality.
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>>54136645
Consider giving the undead a hug. It's not their fault (most of the time).
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>>54143630
They can't feel it so whats the point.
Undead are numb, their existence is a buzz of distant visual feed and pretty much nothing.
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>>54136645

am sure having thousands of undead around will have no consequences
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>>54143761
Hey man, atropus moves at its own will. A undead free world would still be affected maaaaan.
Skipping the argument that having undead is still worse seems to be the whole negative energy argument is all about. Should sugar be avoided as much as asbestos because both cause cancer in the long run?
>>
>>54140609
i "could " call them meat golem, but skeleton is more descriptive
although my necromancer sees a true meat golem as the next logical step of his work with skeletons
>>54141694
the city my necromancer comes from is like that, and it has a sister city called "the necropolis", he is honestly clueless as to why people are mistrustful of him and his skellys at best
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>>54143417
Realism is all well and good until we start talking about a massive inexhaustible source of magic labor. Yes, in some settings it could certainly end the way you describe, with Necromantic merchants or grimdark megacorps hogging the abundance of goods and exporting them to make all the cash while the commoners suffer. Sure I could see that.

BUT in certain other settings the situation may be different. There is not only one correct answer when we're dealing with a fantasy world that doesn't necessarily parallel our own in many ways. The working dead could develop into a public resource. If you've got a vast abundance of natural resource at hand and no need to import a bunch of essential goods, the incentive to fuck everybody else over decreases somewhat. There will still be luxuries only the wealthy can afford, but if the basic needs are so easy to meet that the rich have to go out of their way to fuck the poor, they just might not want to fuck them. Crazy, right?

And the dead come from the community, keeping the community taken care of means no need to worry about that gravy train ever stopping. This is especially true if these undead workers need to be regularly replaced.
>>
>>54136645
Honestly the real question is: Why doesn't druids and earth/plant mages just grow all the crops infinity?
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>>54137692
YES

>Casts Charm Person

PALADIN IS SMITTEN

PROBLEM SOLVED
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>>54137879
>>54137958
>>54138178
>>54138316
Well informed, but dumb Greyhawkposter.
>>
>>54143957
Yes, it does indeed depend on the setting.
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>>54143961

who says they don't?

it's just assholes will come along and curse your crops and your family
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>>54143961

Mages I don't know about, but Druids usually want to keep civilization down while mumbling some bullshit about balance with nature.
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>>54144001
And necromancers mumble about personal power and sacrifice babies, yet we give them special leway and make them good? Clearly the same rules for a undead run farm would go the same with a druid run "farm".

Mind you this is cutting out the whole bullshit that is casting create food spell on a self resetting trap with a construct running over it on command, creating literally free food stands.
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>>54143983
Yeah yeah. I didn't want to resort to the cop out answer for once. And I really like my stupid grimbright zombie country so I enjoy discussing it. There are wealthy lich aristocrats with crazy tricked out skeleton bodies it's awesome.
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>>54144066
I'm not saying you can't enjoy what you enjoy, this is all to create discussion and argument. I enjoy the good necromancer arguments because they do indeed create interesting settings and ideas, the same for the anti-good necromancer arguments.
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>>54144059

I never said anything about giving necromancers leeway dude. What I don't like is necromancy/negative energy being singled out. If you're going to use that shit about undead creating more undead or causing the plane of negative energy to leak into the prime then I don't think necromancy should get to be a special snowflake in that regard. Using a bunch of evocation spells should threaten to open elemental rifts, using a bunch of illusion magic should create gates to the fey realms, and so on.
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>>54144236
No, the only bad one is necromancy. It's the law.
>>
serious question, not a meme.

How do you become a necromancer? What are the different types of origins necromancers usually have?
>>
>>54145317

In my setting Necromancy is the art of summoning up mechanical memory hanging onto dead organic matter in the form of resonances. Mindless undead only had what skills whatever the well preserved corpses they're made from had in life, or have only basic motor skills. "Intelligent" undead are basically automatons meant to mimic a specific person and typically aren't worth the investment.

The magic is most common in the frigid north where the dead of the tribe are preserved and used to aid the living in the harsh conditions.
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>>54143463
god just imagine a civil war between the two.
a whole bunch of ancient area battles were claimed to have gone on for days but this one, months.
even then there is a massive amount of rogue soldiers buried with broken limbs
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>>54143328
To elaborate on that guy's robotization comparison, if we want everyone on earth to live on the same standards as the average American or West European, then we'd need 2 to 3 more earths for the resources alone. With this earth alone we at best can have everyone live on the same level as the average Indian (poo-in-loo kind, not dot kind). And whether or not that's sustainable is debatable too, considering how fast the population is growing in especially Africa and India itself. Robots don't change the availability of resources, only how fast resources can be produced. Same with necromancers and slaves in the day of Caesar: this isn't a new problem at all. Also reminds me of how some retarded utopian "muh UBI" video compared it to bread and games, entirely ignoring how that policy was not only unsuccesful but led to the most famous civil war in history and the end of a 500 year old republic.

Universal Basic Income not only presupposes that there's endless resources (or at least enough resources to keep everyone on earth living on a certain minimum standard that's desirable), but also ignores how dangerous it is to make everyone dependent on the state for income. It reeks of communism because of how much faith it places in the state's ability and its unwillingness to abuse its power (because states never abuse their powers right?). De facto it will be the same situation as in Rome: a small group of the wealthy/nobility will claim all the land/the labor market and use robots/slaves/undead, driving the plebs/peasants/middle class worker off the market making him entirely dependent on the state that is controlled by said wealthy/nobility.
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>>54146193
This all hinges on the idea that there simply isn't enough resource to sustain the population, and further that said population must grow exponentially with no checks whatsoever. Once again I fall back on the idea that a hypothetical setting is in no way required to reflect reality in those particular aspects. You can say the basic concept sucks because it's too unrealistic, sure, but using contemporary real world logic to dismiss fantasy is just weird to me.

Although I do wonder, if in the far future we did find ourselves so inundated with resources that even across multiple planets we'd essentially never run out, and had the automated means to produce far more than was necessary, what would people would do with themselves? In a true post scarcity world, would humanity just go crazy and demand that things be shittier The Matrix style? It's a fun thought.
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>>54144066
Where do you even find pictures like this?
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>>54146351
A pirate themed restaurant/park's back room if I had to guess
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>>54139463
>the only way to get corpses is to be an edge lord and kill people.
Nigger you could literally just sit and wait for people to die. They do it literally every second of every day. Assuming you're adverse to robbing fresh graves to avoid getting caught and have the funding to do so, it's not that hard to set up a system in which you set up transactions with the soon to be departed and their families for their corpses and/or in more modern times take the body of an organ donor after everything of use has been removed. Hanging around battlefield like a vulture is also a valid option.
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>>54143557
>Yet the tractor outsold the horse
You analogy fell apart a while ago.
If one thing is more cost effective than the other, it's what gets used.
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>>54143118
Isn't the DND concession killer 100gp pet undead hit die?

Giving about 200 to 1 excluding time investments.
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>>54140899
Maybe that's why they decorate everything with skulls. So the don't have to worry about the bodies coming back, they're already beheaded.
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>>54145317
it starts when a person starts pondering the questions of life and death
its as much philosophy as it is science, as we live in an endless cycle of life and death, with death being just as integral as birth to the preservation of life on the planet

people then read, study, and experiment as much as they can, unraveling these secrets
in time they learn to break down living matter into their base components, the same way rot does, hence "Chill touch" and other necrotic attacks

soon, they learn to control vital forces, giving them ray of enervation

and eventually they learn to create crude simulacrums of life, the ubiquitous skeleton
they have learned the most basic form of life creation, a simple puppet to carry out simple tasks

they dont stop there, their creations become ever more complex, with the eventual creation of mummies

they even learn to separate the corporeal and incorporeal portions of their body through astral projection

this is as high as they go in the base game, but the necromancer is never going to stop until he has such knowledge over life and death, that they can create the spark of life from thin air
>>
>>54136645
I really like the idea myself. Sadly, while a player of mine in a Anima Beyond Fantasy game wanted to build a fully functioning town of Undead, that never panned out since the game fell apart.

Since I don't play DnD or Pathfinder often, I find the idea that Undead = Evil automatically (Negative Energy or whatever) to be overtly restrictive. The one time I ran a Pathfinder game I worked it out so my Undead spamming Cleric player wasn't automatically fucked and labeled as "Evil". He was neutral leaning towards good actually, and his actions displayed that. His own small horde of minions was put to good use against an actually evil necromancer too.
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>>54137561
let their forms rest! it is a sin to desecrate the houses of our Old Lords
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>>54143961
Plant Growth
druid 3 (level 5)
Overgrowth: blahblah blah
Enrichment: This effect targets plants within a range of a half-mile, raising their potential productivity over the course of the next year to one-third above normal.

They do have crop enhancing spells.

>>54145317
Well it's simple, you go to a wizard college. The best arcanophysicians and mage doctors specialize in the necromancy school of wizardry. Whats that, your a poor farmers son? Well too bad, you're just going to have to find a spellbook somewhere and try to decipher it yourself. Who knows, you might get lucky.

Oh you meant how do you learn the art of creating undead? In that case you'll probably have attended a less reputable college, or snuck into the forbidden books section of the more reputable ones. Unfortunately if neither option is available, i'm sure some demon who's been reading your thoughts and prayers will drop a sign or two pointing towards asking the help of the evil deity or demon lord who will give you such vile information.

Then you'll start doing rather unpleasant actions to help fuel your research, and the worship demanded of your evil mentors, into creating the undead. Eventually of course you'll either get caught and be killed, or grow sufficiently powerful to find an evil patron or death cult that would welcome your skills.
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>>54147075
>not having a necromancers college where the bodies of executed criminals are provided for people to learn how to create skeleton puppets
i prefer necromancy in its entirety be available to all students, with a specialty reanimation course for those who want to understand the nature of life and death

and its better to have an outlet for people to learn these things in a safe environment, than to have them fool around in a back alley

one of the professors in my setting was a former hero whose skeleton army daved the world a few times
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>>54147075
>Ivan Farmerson finds book on necromancy
>He's lucky enough to be able to read, but not enough to understand the concepts inside
>One day his pumpkins died because of a sudden cold weather
>They somehow got raised as undead pumpkins
Where can we go from here? Will he become Melon Lord?
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>>54137074
>>54136645
Yes.
Very yes.
So yes.
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>>54145317
The standard is that a wizard starts taking a special interest in necromancy, but there are any number of possible backgrounds.

See>>54147122
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>>54137074
First post best post

We have this stupid fucking thread every day and Op needs to die.
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>>54147122
Bow to the gourmet emperor!
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>>54147221
what if some of us like playing necromancers?
and what if some of us dont want to be evil?
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>>54147120
>>not having a necromancers college where the bodies of executed criminals are provided for people to learn how to create skeleton puppets
Who says there isnt one. Of course it's considered a rather evil place, its criminals being less murderers and rapists, and more political dissidents and random people off the streets. The chapel of course has full altars to the goddess of Undeath, and the various demon lords and archdevils who contribute so much of the knowledge of evil magic.

The dean is a Lich of course, granted amnesty from the few anti undead laws due to being so knowledgeable and being willing to submit to the will of the ruling house of the country. Having the Devil on your side tends to make lesser evil individuals bow down to you.

>and its better to have an outlet for people to learn these things in a safe environment, than to have them fool around in a back alley
No. That particular bit of knowledge isnt a safe thing. There are no safe applications for such knowledge, and there can only be evil done with it. There is a reason its given out by demons and devils and dead things which shouldn't talk. It's in fact one of the few bits of arcane lore massively restricted within any nation that isnt an evil hellhole, and even some of those do too.

>>54147122
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_pumpkins_and_watermelons
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>>54147254
Play it like this
>>54147160
>>
>>54147254
Then you should talk to your GM not shitpost on 4chan
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>>54147282
>No. That particular bit of knowledge isnt a safe thing. There are no safe applications for such knowledge, and there can only be evil done with it
Very limited approach. I'd totally animate ensouled, but controlled dead to work in my vegetable garden on a faraway farm for a pay of me relying a message to their loved ones.
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>>54147283
i like it when my endless skeletons have a bit of personality

my skelleies have managed to go many adventures without dying, and they have gotten matching uniforms, and i find myself actually trying to keep them from re-dying instead of just summoning new ones

my skeletons are just mindless automatons, but maybe i can steal that idea and summon a right-hand skelly who was a former adventurer

>>54147282
i prefer the dean to be like the necromancer from diablo 2, an experienced person who knows how to safely handle undead, and is an accredited institution as a reward for saving the world
i like the idea that former adventurers eventually retire and have normal lives

most people dont get their power from demons, unless you are a warlock, they just learn necromancy like any other spell, study and practice

i imagine after a the fifth time a good wizard used skeletons to save a village, people would get used to them
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>>54147330
Well, the a nation with a lesser reputation but not full on evil tried to have lessons in necromancy, to try to show that it could be used for good. Unfortunately for them, on the 7th time out, the students and instructor in charge were caught in a disaster. A building collapsed on them, killing half the students, and grievously injuring the instructor. The undead under their control were released, and upon doing so began one of the bloodiest massacres in recent memory. It started out with the skeletons all rushing upon a family that was dining nearby, the skeletons ripping the children and wife to bloody shreds, and managing to disembowel the husband, who rushed for aid.

One of the skeleton wandered inside, sensing the life energy of a bunch of trapped individuals. Before long nearly all of the formerly docile skeletons were now free of control, and set about killing to sate their unnatural hunger. It took an entire contingent of the king's men, armed with weapons blessed and fortified by the holy church, to put down the skeletons and the various spontaneous undead that had arisen from the slaughter. The total loss of life was 1,743 people killed and almost an entire town rendered dead.

The teaching of such spells was outlawed immediately, and any books, tomes, grimoires, and other such things holding knowledge of these spells were burned. The college never recovered and was eventually abandoned.

The demon who had been possessing various sculptures around the college, reaped a nice promotion because of its work in spreading the evil of reanimation
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>>54147443
contingent=company (was a group of 200 soldiers of skill in fighting monsters)

damnable brain.
>>
>>54147443
>not practicing proper safety in your school
they should have taken proper skeleton handling 101, as well as advanced undead failsafes 102, or modified their spells so that all effects wear off after death of the caster
they also should have a cleric or paladin on the premises to ensure proper turning

the ne/k/romancers are disappointed with tat school

they can hardly be a respectable institution if they fail to address the skeleton problem

but people will never give up their dream of having necromancy be seen as co-equal with the the other schools, and will strive to have necromancy, all sides of it, be accepted as a mainstream institution
>>
>>54147443
Doesn't seem much different from typical magic academy bullshit. Great Burning of '73? Next time they shouldn't train casting fireballs near wooden village. The Deluge of '81? Fucking water elementals broke the containment, turned pretty good soil into swamp till they drained it in '84.

It's not that necromancy's evil, it's just what happens when people mess up. Folks just like to think necromancy's worse cause there's spooky skeletons is what I am saying. It all can kill horribly, no matter the type of magic if you do it wrong.
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>>54147443
What kind of backwards fucking envirement has no failsaves at all for this kind of situation.
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>>54140617
>TES = Evil, literally doing it wrong on a cosmic scale by making dead souls sleepwalkers
Dunmer venerable ancestors though.
>Dungeon Crawl, Stone Soup = Super fucking evil, requires a deal with !not Orcus to get even better abilities as one
Most wizards eventually become liches simply because those fucking torments and because demons don't leave corpses.
Besides, talking about 'but skeletons is evil!' in a game where you consume raw corpses of your enemies, casually wipe out civilizations, commit deicide and even the good gods consider most of it normal, unless the atrocity you commit directly goes against their domain, is kinda weird.
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>>54143384
>also it would spread dysentery, undead are walking latrines.
They are full of negative energy. Bacteria does not survive that. They do not rot and spread less diseases than your ordinary living soldier. Zombies are walking autoclaves for medical tool sterilization, not walking latrines.
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>>54147737
The kind where a perfect storm is orchestrated by a demon after some souls. Undeath is merely a means to get people doing evil and then get them hooked permanently into the pathway to Hell.
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>>54147998
>Undeath is merely a means to get people doing evil and then get them hooked permanently into the pathway to Hell.
Only if the apprentice's stpid and gullible. Send in a proper wizard with healthy attitude and common sense and he'll do fine, just like Bob.

I'd support some previous posters. Barring meta crap, intentionally morally-bent fluff and forced alignment in the setting, necromancy doesn't seem any more evil or destructive than any other discipline of magic.
>>
A nicecromancer who enslaves the dead, bodies and souls, takes over much of the world, using them as free labour to build a city of riches where nobody breaks the (strange and arbitrary) law for fear of becoming one of them.
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>>54148025
Necromancy, as in the 199 spells PF spell list which have nothing to do with the creation of undead, is a perfectly fine and nonevil school. It's just the 5 or so spells that deal with creating undead that lead one on the path to Hell.

Too many here think of necromancy only in the terms of those few spells instead of the much more vast and varied spells which deal with debuffing and other things dealing with the manipulation of life and death.
>>
>>54148053
so if i save the world 20 times, set up an orphanage, am always nice and pleasant, only kill evil people, only use bandits and brigands for skeletons, and generally shun the notion of skeletons being evil, and always putting the needs of others above my own, but still love reanimation

do i still go to hell?

i never liked inherently evil spells of any kind
>>
>>54147160
>>54148025
These are good stuff. Next time I'll get a chance to play a necromancer, I'll just play regular guy far away from all this brooding, edgy crap. It's just that the regular guy won't be that regular in a way of being able to hurl necromantic spells and managing a few squads of loyal undead (all volunteers or paying off the debts, working in the basement's workshop or tending the sheltered orchard near the home when not needed to kill stuff).
>>
>>54148073
The acts required to gain the knowledge of creating undead, tend to be ones of great evil. You're not going to just stumble across these spells in your travels, but will be tempted by demons and devils and dead things which talk. They will want a price paid, often in blood and innocents. These are spells that if written down will get you sentenced to death in any major city except for a few hellholes ruled by literal evil. To know them is to be shown to be a consort of evil things, a man to be put to the sword or executioners axe as soon as possible.

A skeleton walking into town next to you is a death sentence. A half dozen, that will bring the whole of the guard along with any paladins or battle clerics who will snuff your life right then and there. There is no word by which you could stay that fate.

You'll never get the chance to save the world. For the world has already seen the horrors of what you practice and has said, no, this will not happen on our watch.

And I haven't even gotten into the outsiders which will hunt you down, which will pursue your blasphemies and abominations. The "angels" of the god of death do not take kindly to the undead or especially those who create more of them.
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>>54136645
I did that in one campaign. I made sure undead had a spot in the kingdom as a sort of slave caste. A lot of hard labor was taken by skeletons and zombies and soon you could find them in every city, town and village. But do you know what happened next? I got greedy, I wanted to rule the kingdom myself. I used that already existing slave caste and turned it into my personal army. In doing so I was able to capture key points in the kingdom almost instantly because of the trust the kingdom put in its undead. I managed to plant myself as the new leader of the kingdom in a matter of days. Moral of the story is don't let a kingdom rely on one wizard because everything can change if that wizard no longer wants to take orders.
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>>54148196
so lets say, against all odds, i persisted and managed to do so?

all naysayers were silenced, and he managed to gather up a party who welcomed him as an equal against all evils

clerics tried and failed to kill him, and he managed to stop an ancient evil repeatedly

the world is forced to witness him do great things alongside other greats who accept him

>>54148108
i play my necromancer as a well-meaning, but clueless kind of hero
he loves the finer things in life as well, and travels on a throne carried by skeletons
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>>54148212
Kinda the same with a headquater stronghold of one of the major political factions showing off by employing elementals to tend to the needs of people living there till a group of mages just took those elementals over.

Works not only as a story of player exploits but as a potential quest/plot development should one want to make those mages NPC
>>
>>54137665
Now I kind of want a setting with some sort of >Undead cold war, with each side continually easing up on their control restrictions to try to win an edge. Till the PCs show up and knock over the whole house of cards.
Thanks for the free setting, sucker
>>
>>54148213
>All naysayers silenced
Oh boy, you've been killing and murdering a lot of Good clerics and paladins, along with lots of psychopomps, the ushers of the dead who hate with a terrible vengeance the undead. My how noble and good of you. It's also a wonder and miracle you managed to save the world without setting foot in pretty much any populated areas too.

You're really not understanding just how hard of a task you've got when it comes to undeath. There is a reason the people who create undead are crazed fucks who live out in the wilderness among the ruins of past civilizations. Why they are inevitably worshippers of dark and terrible things which want your soul to munch on or twist into more of their vile servants.

It really seems that everyone who wants to use undead have never really thought about what that would actually look like, what it would actually do to the world, what the emotional and intellectual price paid would be. Most any normal person is going to think you're a madman and a monster. From the smell, yes even skeletons smell of rot, to the horrific uncanny valley sight of a rotting corpse or skeleton walking about, to the unnatural sounds these things make, to the diseases they spread, to everything literally about them.
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>>54148213
>the world is forced to witness him do great things alongside other greats who accept him
You mean, forced to watch as he corrupts the very ground he walks on, and as black clouds cover out the sun?
Your "great empire" will quickly end up a much worse shithole than even Athas. And Athas wasn't even ruled by necromancers!
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>>54137074
/endthread
>>
>>54149035
You should check out more of the thread. It's less simple than you or that anon thinks!
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>>54149121
It's actually pretty simple recognizing that disecrating corpses to raise mindless ghouls who can go berserk isn't a good thing.
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>>54149173
When you assume it's only desecreation of corpses to raise mindless ghouls that's necromancy. Even exactly that assumption straight away suggests you may be interested in checking through the thread.
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>>54149173
I hate the meme that ghouls are raised from the dead, they are necrofags, not undead
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>>54136645
I like to call this

ECONOMIC NECROLIBERALISM.
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>>54149196
I can safely say that in all societies (except those mostly fucked up, of course one can homebrew but then it doesn't matter) that people would prefer to have their bodies and bones go undisturbed.

Which is also funny when you consider that necromancers need to manipulate dead things, when they could seek other arts to manipulate all other sorts of things. There is a reason why bones are easier to manipulate and it isn't pretty.
>>
>>54149242
Well, people would also likely not want their anything disturbed but that doesn't matter when a wizard summons a bunch of animated trees, or elementals pulled from all around. Which again is my point - necromancy isn't more evil than any other tradition, even when it comes to raising undead (and we forget that necromancers in most noncliche settings can and do much more than that, since they in general study forces of life and death).
While I understand social stigma of challenging sanctity of the dead, no one says they have to be disrespected to be used. There are cultures/religions even IRL where it is believed that dead ancestors work for, watch over, advise and help newer generations - in magical setting it could be exactly the same, within the same bounds of social and religious structure... just a bit more physical and direct.

I could easily see raising undead for certain types of labour/functions both as a way of conveying honor (selecting the most revered of heroes/ancestors so they can be "living" testament to the greatness everyone should aspire to as they work even after death) and as a punishment (those who owe debts and answer for crimes but try to seek escape in death are raised and brought back to work for reminder of their sentences).
>>
>>54138416
This is about as disgusting as excusing poor people who steal, when plenty of poor people do not steal.

Being a good person is easy when you don't have to think about it, you see the true character of a man when they're forced to make a decision.
>>
>>54149242
SOMETIMES
DEAD IS BETTER
>>
>>54149402
I get it anon, you are trolling. There is a bit of difference between 'hey you manipulated my apple tree!' and 'hey can you give my grandfather remains back?'

Like how there is a suitable difference between manipulating elements such as fire or water and actually messing with the natural rules of life and death.

Bolas, go back to your schemings in your screwed mummified plane.
>>
>>54149441
>I get it anon, you are trolling. There is a bit of difference between 'hey you manipulated my apple tree!' and 'hey can you give my grandfather remains back?'
Sure there is. Unless it's not stealing grandfather's remains. And even then, they're remains - when someone steals family hairloom to use it for creation of some golem it's about as bad, imho. Possibly worse since the hairloom may heave financial value.

I am not trolling, I simply reject IRL western attitude toward remains, especially since I am not necessarily living in the west.
>>
>>54149441
Also
>>54149827
>Bolas, go back to your schemings in your screwed mummified plane.
But it's boring here, anon. So fresh breath of excitement. You could say that even the night life is lacking. Absolutely dead when it comes to entertainment. But a corpse of potential for tourist attraction.

Get it?
>>
>>54148996
when i say silence, i dont mean kill, i just mean proven beyond a doubt that he and skellies are on the side of good

i imagine that without his skellies he would look no more different than any other person, except maybe looking pale

the sun wouldnt really blot out, no instance of necromancer explicit has that trait,and a daily dose of prestidigitation would keep his skellies nice and clean, no different from washing you car

he would never kill a paladin or a cleric, in fact he would deliberately spare them, since he knows that their aggression comes from a good place, and will simply try to come up with a list of good deeds that will eventually win them over

people will eventually learn to tolerate, or even accept him, as news spreads that a powerful party has taken a kind man with skeletons into their fold, and has dedicated his life to heling the helpless

the skeletons will eventually turn from scary tools into mundane things you see every tuesday

and really, the idea of a person ostracized and hated by society, but manages to meet their hate with kindness, and dedicates his life to saving a society that hates, is really endearing to me
no matter how hard society is on him, he never lets it break him, and meets every injustice with kindness
he fights not for reward, or even recognition, he just wants to save lives
he also has a kind of passion for his craft, he would rather be hated, than be anything other than himself
>>
>>54149961
>anon masturbating himself to his delusions

And yet you haven't explained why doesn't he seek one of the other uncountable forms of arts that doesn't require messing with death.

It wouldn't happen like you say. Like ever. Feel free to put it on your solo GM adventure through.
>>
>>54149441
>I get it anon, you are trolling
3/10 bait.
Would not respond to again.
>>
There was literally just an entire MtG block about this.

Fully Automated Luxury Necromantic Theocracy.
>>
>people still arguing over "it depends on the setting" bullshit

How about taking about potential settings either way?
It sounds like they break down into settings where the undead can be used for good, and settings where people think that the undead can be used for good.

I like the Victorian Decay setting that the one Anon was talking about. Basically the smog and shit filled streets of London are replaced by the sink of undead, and perpetual necromantic gloom.

I'd emphasize the problems of the time period, cranked up to 11. Cheap undead labor limits the populace's already strangled upward mobility. Maybe every person's corpse becomes property of the crown for a number of years on their death, unless they pay a death tax. The tax is easily afforded by the rich, and the poor might take loans against thier body, trading more service in death for money to feed themselves now.

Maybe vamprisim is the take among the aristocracy. In theory they have to pay for the blood they drink, but in practice a commoner (or thier family) have little chance of successful legal recourse if a vampire didn't get consent.


>>54150017
>And yet you haven't explained why doesn't he seek one of the other uncountable forms of arts l

Each magician is arrived to over if the winds of magic. Why should he limit himself to hedge magic, when he can be I've if the greatest wizards of all time?
>>
>>54150276
Exactly.
>All these white zombies

I'm beginning to think the naysayers are trolls
>>
>>54136645
Smiting so hard that you purge all the evil, leaving the body intact. This could be a feat or class archetype...
>>
Huff
Huff

Am I late?

https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Tome_of_Necromancy_(DnD_Other)/Morality
>>
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>>54150443
I like it a lot.

Although it's a bit too high magic for me. Or sounds like a great place to have used to exist. Ruins to run across, where swarms of the undead still linger.

Maybe have it up on the air as to what caused their decline. Ecological disaster, a successful crusade, the great soul gem breaking, internal strife leading to civil way, or a combination of the above. Maybe even allude to survivors on the moon.
>>
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>>54136645
Iv used this character as both my own and as an NPC.

Hes a Rouge with Animate dead. You see its easier to dispose of the body if it up and moves itself to the river. then you just have to kill it again for the magic to wear off and BAM, no problem.
>>
>>54151512
I like that idea. Maybe just have a pack of tame ghouls to eat/destroy the evidence.
>>
>>54136645
Closest I had to this was playing a PG Dirge Bard. Learned a number of Necromancy spells, and his Dance of Dead ability is explicitly not Evil, so he could raise skeletons to his heart's content. He was still Evil, but the dead-raising had nothing to do with it.

Most memorable moment was when we all developed brain damage suddenly and decided to split up in a dungeon none of us were familiar with for no real reason. I got stuck in an invisible maze, where the walls would put you into stasis if you made contact with them. So I had my skellies dance around and throw pieces of each other around to find where the safe passages were.
>>
>>54136645
No because it's free labour, therefore would fuck the system in any semi-realistic setting
Let alone the hygiene issues and the affect on the lands

Plus they aren't even that fast, i'd reather use Golems/Robots instead
>>
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>>54137074
>>
>>54137325
I got you senpai.
>>54151922
>>
>>54137325
>>54151922
There it is, thank you.
>>
>>54140775
There are several types of elemental that have respectable INT scores. Alternatively, how about I nail your dog or cat into a robot body that it can control through electrodes I jammed into it, dope it up, and force it to do labor. Hows that sound?
>>
>>54151922
I've never seen a bigger necrowank in my life.
>>
>>54149423
There is also plenty of poor people who are dead.
They recover a few thousands frozen corpses of homeless people every spring in Moscow alone. That's just the ones who died because of harsh winter, not including the ones dead because of starvation or diseases. Just from not having a shelter. And, memeing aside, current day Moscow is orders of magnitude better than any of your typical fantasy cities in regards to social help for homeless.
These people chose not to steal, or at least did not steal enough. That did not work for them so well.
Please tell me it's their fault for being poor and homeless. Tell me they had weak character and should have known better then not having a place to live. Declare that their lives were worth less than the wealth and comfort of other people, or even a risk of disturbing the lives of other, to not stray to far from the topic. Praise their high morality and say it is better that way. Tell me it is good.
I will call you a whore and a hypocrite, and we will be done with it.
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