ashes to anvils

In my current setting necromancy involves either communing with spirits which is a rare ritual practice but seen as acceptable and non-evil and raising the dead.

Raising the dead can only be done on corpses that haven't had proper funerary rites and for mindless undead the soul is stuck in a form of purgatory. For intelligent undead the soul is trapped inside the body and gradually becomes corrupted by the undead's actions. One accepted priesthood raises the bodies of debtors as mindless undead to work in agriculture, mining, and occasionally military service until their debt is paid off and then the body is given a proper funeral which is seen as harsh but otherwise accepted. The creation of undead for other purposes, especially intelligent undead is seen as a very evil act.

>>54916789

The most commonly practiced form of necromancy is just using magic to bind dead bodies back together and puppet them around. The effect isn't technically limited to human corpses, but since human sorcerers tend to have an intuitive grasp on how a human body should move, its the tool they most often end up choosing. Animating the body requires the sorcerer to draw upon some source of magical power, the most common choice being the low-level natural background magic of the universe, but usually the only 'cost' is that it makes t harder to use magic around large numbers of undead. More esoteric forms of necromancy exist, usually involving some modification of the bodies or the residual echoes of the soul the body once held, but these are much more likely to involve complications (which range from 'unsettling' to 'horrifically murderous') and much harder to justify on an expense report, generally only being the domain of state necromancers who went rogue or the rare talent who managed to piece the art together from basic magical principles.

This basic form of necromancy is relatively common; the Empire makes use of skeletons (less unsightly and easier to maintain than zombies) to perform simple, menial tasks like building and maintaining infrastructure, fortifications, draining low-lying areas, etc. Some are used to deliver messages or packages for post; Although not as fast as a man on horseback, they don't have to stop at night, and will get where they are told to go with pretty good reliability as long as there's a clear road they know how to follow. Necromancers and their creations are generally associated with the state, the founder of the art being an adviser of the first Emperor, and necromancy is the only traditionally masculine school of magic; All other schools have traditionally been overwhelmingly female, and magic in general is seen as a woman's art in the places it is tolerated.

>>54916789
>What does necromancy involve in your setting?
standard stuff, raising skellies, shooting death beams, and studying human anatomy, medicinr, and philosophy
>What is its cost?
a lot of time and patience to learn all the book stuff, typical wizard stuff
>How "evil" is it?
depends on the individual in question, but its not inherently evil
>How is it viewed by general populace?
depends on where they come from, if they dont have a lot of contact, then they would only have rumors to base it on, so they would be suspicious
if they had contact with evil necros, then they might be outright hostile
most of the time, they are just seen as the edgy emo teens of the wizarding world, and in cosmopolitan places are treated rather well, since they provide excellent service in recycling unused bones, people are a lot more blase about death in my setting, and they make great teachers of medicine, since they know all about anatomy, physiology, and forensics
they also make great philosophers, since they usually study about the spiritual and existential sides of the never ending cycle of life and death, you cant have one without the other and by learning to raise skeletons with a simulacrum of life, they can better understand the nature of life itself

i tried to base necromancy as a whole off of diablo 2, golgari and abzan from MTG to make it look more like simply another aspect of nature

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Since all souls are relocated almost as soon as the body dies, any raise dead based spell is actually a soul simulacrum inserted on a dead body. It's ok if the body is that of a monster or something similar, but a civilized humanoid corpse might be against the law to be raised because muh morals. Also, it's possible to trap the soul of a dying creature like it's done in elder scrolls to actually insert a real soul in a corpse, witch is unlawful regardless of the race.

>>54916789
>What does necromancy involve in your setting?
"True" Necromancy, as a form of Divination: Placing a lure of spiritual energy into the unknown well of the beyond, and attempting to locate, draw out and contain a spirit who comes looking for a nibble.
Energy Manipulation: Similar to the lure above, except that it acts as a siphon through which the necromancer can channel their own will in a manner similar to an evoker or conjuror fueled by the spiritual chaos of an unknowable beyond.
Corpse Animation: Fragmenting the animal spirit of the caster and infusing a corpse with such a fragment, bound to the will of the caster's conscious spirit.
Undead Summoning/Control: Using the same lure technique paired with the fragmentation of the animal spirit; drawing out the undead and binding it to your will should it lack an awakened spirit of its own, or forcibly dominating that spirit if powerful enough.
>What is its cost?
All necromancy is fueled through unstable, unknowable energies from the realm where dead spirits go. No man, no sorcerer and no priest can speak in full truth of this realm, as even the mad ghosts who crawled back from it cannot comprehend their experience well enough for words. All that is known is that it can bring terror, joy, sorrow and anger beyond any emotion a living man can feel, and no sane mind survives contact with it. Extensive necromancy can destabilize the borders between the worlds, bringing about wandering spirits and people who are unwittingly trapped in nether dimensions made not entirely of the land of the living or the land of the dead. Uncontrolled, unwilled undead are common signs of a thinning barrier, as things that die might not stay dead in a realm where death loses meaning. Oftentimes, even with only a little bit of repeated use in one place over time, you can see faint signs that most people refer to as a haunting: shadowy figures, weird hallucinations, people finding themselves having trouble sleeping there, et cetera.

>>54919157
>How "evil" is it? How is it viewed by general populace?
In itself it isn't evil, but many of the things irresponsible use can cause are very, very much so. It is dangerous, toxic, and unstable, and few have the means to control it. Among those who are, it is similarly rare to find one who hasn't themselves gone mad from repeated exposure.

Most people would try to attack or avoid a necromancer the moment they knew. This is perhaps not always the morally right choice, but often a sensible one.

>>54919157
fragmentation of spirit sounds just right for this

Undead are often times a naturally occurring phenomenon. Most people don't like the undead because they're spooky but very few actually want to go out of their way to hurt them because they do have free will. For this reason necromancers are seen as slave lords who override the will of undead and make them serve.

>>54916789
A pyramid scheme. Costs your soul but you are fed back some energy which acts more like an infection rather than a usable power. It is very evil in the sense that it's used for greedy, self-serving purposes. The general populace is usually disgusted... but there are plenty of outcasts who feel there is an opportunity to remake themselves

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>>54916789
>What does necromancy involve in your setting?
It involves the manipulation of magically infused particles that make up all living things, as well as their remains. A mage can use this to improve their own body or for various other less sinister effects. They can even control people, though such control is largely temporary and difficult as a living body can resist easily. A corpse retains the memories of when it was alive, and when buried can influence the world in small ways. A sort of afterlife where they can give advice to their decedents with small signs.

A Necromancer ruins that by scrubbing a corpse of its previous life and making it a simple automaton bound by their will.

>What is its cost?
It doesn't have any direct ones, though maintaining long term control can be very taxing, and often requires rare reagents or magical wands made or rare materials to build up a true army.

>How "evil" is it? How is it viewed by general populace?
It's seen as quite evil, and wizards as a whole are viewed with some disdain for that reason. While those who focus only on self-improvement or only use their talents on lesser forms of life like animals are given more of a pass, someone ruining the afterlife of a friend or loved one just for free labor is met with much derision.

>>54921347
Tell more?

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>>54916789
I'm running Amonkhet, so the undead have a much different role in the world than usual. Necromancy is a bit redundant since everything rises as a zombie once it dies anyway. I was looking through cards for ideas and I noticed that there's almost no depiction of people summoning zombies or doing other traditional necromancy spells (Liliana cards are an exception). The closest it really gets is the embalming process, which is patently white mana and performed almost entirely by anointed undead.

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>>54916789
>What does necromancy involve in your setting?
Suffusing and animating dead bodies with Mana WITHOUT healing or reviving them.

>What is its cost?
The problem with Necromancy is that it produces "Miasma"; Mana can't be naturally placed inside dead bodies: it will always attempt to either break down the corpse or revive it- depending on which is easier and if the previous owners soul still wants it. Mana that isn't allowed to go back into the system becomes stagnant, rotten, and condenses into Miasma, which you could think of as 'evil mana': Miasma is a scentless, gaseous, cold, poisonous byproduct that will pollute any environment it's in by killing off organisms, lowering the temperature, and in turn create more Miasma- high concentrations of Miasma can then cause more undead to rise.
Usually this is very rare in nature and the only natural example of miasma would be during algae blooms- millions of small organisms die off at once and create Miasma that spawns Will-O-Wisps.
Miasma isn't uncontrollable though, Fungi and certain plants such as Pumpkins absorb, 'scrub', and clean the mana produced by Miasma.

>How "evil" is it? How is it viewed by general populace?
Necromancy is almost exclusively practiced by Humans and a few Orcs. Humans had an almost disturbing, natural, proficiency for Necromancy which eventually culminated in the majority of their species destruction: which is why most undead are human, despite the rarity of humans.
Necromancy today is largely treated as a heinous, diseased, and self-destructive act that is largely ILLEGAL outside of Human lands... Ironically, though, it is still practiced in Human lands, as they NEED to practice it in order to deal with the undead.