The Dark Arts, Necromancy, and You!

As rcs619 suggested, I went ahead and made a thread for discussing all that is questionably moral and relating to that dark voodoo that some do! I personally have gotten all the answers I need from the Q&A (specifically regarding Liches and the possibilities of having one on Felarya), but it's good to talk about these things so as to reach a decent conclusion. Carry on ye intrepid debaters!

Spells that sap strength and the like, do the apply to the same "school" as spells that sap the soul?

I could see an argument made for either. On one hand, you could sap the good ol' fashion way: Magically inducing fatigue and the like upon someone, or adding magical "pressure" onto them to bog them down. Heck, you could even work on illusions to make them think you suddenly aged them to a frail form, or de-aged them to a child-like state. On the other, sapping something like strength or wits could readily be drawn as comparable to sapping the soul, taking some "essence" out of the target until either the effects fade or magical restoration works.

Ehhh. I don't like operating on traditional schools of magic, since most are grouped by connotation and not by practical similarity.

Someone might say "oh, sapping energy sounds dark, so it's necromancy". In reality, the resemblance may only be to the untrained or opinionated eye, not to the mechanics of Felarya or reality. I would assume it's closer to biological magic, since energy is gained in the body by the exact opposite process to photosynthesis. That's basic bio. Then again, fatigue in real life is very rarely due to lack of energy. Usually it's caused by vitamin deficiencies or insufficient oxygen.

Operating under the presumption that a "vital energy" like qi or prana exists, sapping this energy would be no darker than using this energy to heal. Either way, a transition of it takes place. However, I assume that Felarya's soil either radiates vital energy or causes it to be produced much more quickly in living creatures, so such sapping is both unnecessary and possibly ineffective.

For a spell that saps energy, whether or not the caster gains the energy they stole, will probably group the spell within "vampirism" which would include anything to that of health draining, mana draining, soul draining, energy draining, or whatever. The semblance of course being that a vampire drains blood, so the "drain" aspect is similar.

Archmage_Bael wrote:

For a spell that saps energy, whether or not the caster gains the energy they stole, will probably group the spell within "vampirism" which would include anything to that of health draining, mana draining, soul draining, energy draining, or whatever. The semblance of course being that a vampire drains blood, so the "drain" aspect is similar.

But Vampirism is very often associated with Necromancy, indeed it's even caused debates because it's seen as an exception to normal Necromancy liabilities on Felarya.

Felarya's soil just gives immense regeneration properties, and makes it difficult to cast magic that has anything to do with the dead. Vampirism would just be draining some kind of resource from a specific object, which doesn't necessarily mean that it's necromancy.

edit: certain kinds of vampirism would work, and others wouldn't.

But that's just it: It could be argued as Necromancy, depending on how you look at the situation.

Malahite wrote:

But that's just it: It could be argued as Necromancy, depending on how you look at the situation.

I refer back to my post. Such similarities may not be practical. It could just be uneducated people grouping two separate processes together because in they are alike according to their presupposed schemas, not to the impassive eye of science.

Well vampirism would be vampirism, it would just have some sub-categories, like spells grouped into vampirism that would involve necromancy. Like wise I can imagine draining fire from a fire elemental, would be some kind of elemental vampirism spell, but that wouldn't necessarily make it all elemental vampirism would it? This is why magic grouping is so complicated, because of all the sub-categories and family groups the different kinds of spells would have.

Archmage_Bael wrote:

Well vampirism would be vampirism, it would just have some sub-categories, like spells grouped into vampirism that would involve necromancy.

If Vampirism was entirely its own lore, it becomes very odd in the context of this wiki statement:

"One of their main and most dreaded weapons is missing on Felarya though: a person bitten by a vampire will remain absolutely the same, and won't turn into a vampire, unlike what happens on other worlds. Indeed, for some reason, most necromantic magic doesn't seem to work on Felarya. This also explains why they are so few vampires on this world."

To some degree, as such, Vampirism counts as Necromancy. Similarly, to some degree Vampirism and Necromancy are intertwined. However, just how much (and what traits) are up for debate.

Of course, this is also assuming that there's some correlation between Vampirism-Vampirism, and the lore of "Vampirism" (if it's even a Lore, and not for example a classification of spells similar to how "Drain" is a sub-lore of Destruction in Tamriel). It's possible the two could be completely unrelated outside name, possibly one even being named after the other (either the creature named after their lore-like trait of draining people, or the Lore in that you sap the strength of a victim similar to a Vampire sapping blood).

And this pretty much sums up why putting "necromancy" as a catch-all term for any spell that involve raising the dead in one fashion or another wasn't a good idea. The thing about magic is that, at its core, it has limitless power and is only bound by the author's imagination.

There are rules for how magic is cast to prevent it from being the ultimate deus ex machina and keep it interesting, and many terms for groups or categories for a person's convenience. But once again, these are as infinite as the theoretical power of magic since you can stretch the meaning of some type of spell. The best is that you can stretch a fire ball and a glacier spell as the same, since both involve temperature to a degree. What should be avoided are rigid catch-all terms for vague concepts since nobody will agree.

The vampire thing is that, the vampire can technically kill a victim by biting it and drinking its blood until it dies of exsanguination, but it can't turn its victim into one of its servants because, for some reason, Felarya prevent dead creatures from coming back to life. The thing with the golem body is that, at its core, the body isn't alive, and in cases similar to demonic possession, the body is still living. So anything that can grant a new life to a deceased organic body is impossible. How Phantom Elves are able to cheat this is still a mystery.

I think the true reason for the "no necromancy clause" is because Karbo doesn't like undeads and tend to see them as too strong. Also, given that Felarya has a high death rate, it's essentially a necromancer's ultimate wide open sandbox. I also think he added that "holy resurrection spells" wouldn't work because he wants to avoid the "Death is Cheap" trend that anime and comic books love so much, so that vore remains a fate that humans and elves must avoid at all cost.

So in conclusion: my belief is that simply stating "magic or spells that involve bringing a dead person or animal back to life doesn't work for some reason" would have been far more effective than necromancy, which is catch-all term that is vaguer than most people think.

I wouldn't call Felarya a necromancer's ultimate sandbox even if there wasn't a prevention on raising the dead, unless said necromancer wanted a legion of Mr. Hanky.

Yuck.

Being eaten isn't the only way you can die in Felarya. Even if it's the most common, I don't see it as 80% of deaths come from being eaten.

Sean Okotami wrote:

Being eaten isn't the only way you can die in Felarya. Even if it's the most common, I don't see it as 80% of deaths come from being eaten.

Depends on which type of stories you follow.

In some (okay, most), being eaten is probably 80%+ cause of death. These are the ones wherein Negav and Nekomura are drops in the bucket in terms of demi-human populations on Felarya, and most people live in isolated villages and the like (or are only there between their spontaneous portal arrival and spontaneous death). "But people don't only die in cities or being eaten now!" some say. Well, yes, but then age, disease, and the like are all concerns here. Most Felaryan Parasites are keyed toward Giant Predators, and even for others they still tend to meet several of the "eaten" criteria.

Add in that, overall, there's very few major wars on Felarya. Oh yes, there's battles / skirmishes, as well as raiders and the like. However, I'd be surprised if the majority of the bodies from that are buried, and not either:
A) Cremated due to lack of space / desire to risk your own neck to put a long-since dead friend six feet under
B) Left where they drop in the wilderness, after being picked of their valuables, for the Spine Beetles / Kensha Beasts / whatever to feast upon.

One must remember Crisis or Vivian going "Oooh, OM NOM TIEMS!" is the non-standard of consumption on Felarya. "OH GODS! IT'S EATING MY CHEST CAVITY!" is the more common variety, just rarely shown as it's not a series like Hellsing (wherein spontaneous bloodshed is your friend) or a type of thing most people focus on (Being rarely relevant to a story, barring explaining the trauma someone suffered, or a fetish fuel, Guro being entirely different for many Felarya readers than Soft-Vore). Heck, even if "OM NOM" isn't the cause of death, it's likely one of the more frequent results of dead bodies (And I can't see a Kensha Beast being delicate enough to refrain from pulverizing your bones when it picks the meat off).

What does this mean? Well, if you're going to try making undead, you'd have to mix-and-match parts, or work with "big" bodies. Big bodies are hard to keep secret (and thus quickly draw attention to you), and unless magically fortified aren't particularly more advantageous than smaller ones (also, compare it sorta to armour & aircraft v infantry: You can hold objectives much better with the presence of only infantry than with only armour and aircraft). Plus, animating larger bodies is typically more exhaustive, and there's very few cases wherein it's better to have one and a half Giant Naga Skeletons than it is to have a thousand-or-so regular sized skeletons (assuming there is no squaring or multiplication in power use the more bodies you try to raise, example being 1-2-4-8-16-32 times power for six undead as opposed to 1-2-3-4-5-6).



I think the main things trying to be avoided, in general, are two things:

1) Death is cheap. Look at The Elder Scrolls. When someone dies, it's very probable - unless prophecies are involved, or artifacts utilizing the organs of gods - that they're staying dead. Now look at Dragonball (Z and later, in particular), or Marvel / DC Comics. You're lucky if you can keep someone dead for any reason other than old age (or being named "Uncle Ben").

2) Violates the theme of Felarya. No, not "people are idiots" or "people get eaten". "Felarya is not a realm of large-scale battles and heroic warfare". When you have a Necromancer, who is making a city of (tens of) thousands of undead, there's very few options you really have with it. Most of said options involve conquest / battle. Which, while interesting for background material and the like, don't make much in the way of stories that tie into the realm.

While everyone speaks of Necromancers having vast hordes of undead, typically a Necromancer only has a few undead creatures which serve as minions and if need be, token meat-shields. The minions can be used in a variety of ways. Normally seen as sentries and bodyguards for misanthropic Necromancers, they can also be used as a labor force for the more enterprising and ingenuous of casters. These minions are usually the run-of-the-mill skeletons and zombies and what have you. But the Necromancers who want to get the most out of as few creatures as possible normally craft Bone Golems, or Flesh Golems. These are entities that are painstakingly put together and maintained by the caster. As expected, they are also superior in quality to your 'flash-summoned' undead fodder. Necromancy is something that has been woefully diluted by videogames and the stereotyping of 'all Necromancers are evil.' Study of Death and the Dead is something that is admittedly creepy, but time-honored and respected. Not all Necromancers want to take over the world or slaughter the living for their god or some such.

I really don't like any magic that has to do with "souls".

Sometimes people go WAY overboard with what their powers can do, even when someone is dead.

Felarya is supposed to kill you. It's not supposed to throw you into an eternal pit of suffering and watch you writhe in agony for all eternity before being wiped out of existence.

Basically that makes them stronger than a god, which is a HUGE no- no.

Again with that 'souls' thing. A typical undead has no soul. Period. Full stop. They are brainless, soulless automatons. Things like Vampires, Liches, Ghouls, Wights, and so on, do have souls, but they are Greater Undead and the processes involved in making one are vastly more complicated than "mutter incantation, receive minion." Those forms of undead I can totally agree with being unable to proliferate on Felarya for any number of reasons (Big-Guardian-Juju among them). The only ones on hand would be the ones that showed up via portals, temporal/spacial accident, etc.

It annoys me that most everyone assumes basic fodder undead have souls. They don't. They have gone on to the next adventure or what have you. Their bodies are left to rot, decay, be eaten, be buried, be burned, or whatever. Or those same worthless corpses can be reduced to basic mechanical parts for other uses. Some say this means a Necromancer can make an army of Lesser Undead. I say they have been playing too much Diablo 2 and spamming 'Summon Skeleton', as the amount of power needed to summon an 'army' would put them on par with an Archmage, which is an infinitesimally small chance, or implies that you have an artifact of 'Ye Big 'Ole Attention Grabber!' I can't imagine the Guardians would sit idly by and let some loon on a power trip go Night of the Living Dead on Felarya. Especially not when you look at the big honking crater that is modern day Ur-Sagol.

alright, now I have read the wiki and it said that necromancy and raising the dead spells don't work, but I have a few questions, it said that any spell that involves the afterlife and forcing the dead to come back does not work, but with D&D spells, it's a volentary process, the spirit has the choice of coming back or not, and cannot be compelled to come back against it's will. so does that mean that spells that involve volentary raising the dead are blocked as well, or does the fact that it has a choice allow the spell to possibly work, I see nothing in the wiki that says the spell is blocked if the spirit of the dead has a choice in the matter. also, regarding necromancy. I understand that all spells involving making undead don't work, but what about spells involving other effects, such as a finger of death http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fingerOfDeath.htm or wail of the banshee spells? http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wailOfTheBanshee.htm neither of them involve creating undead, or the afterlife, so would they be blocked, even though they simply involve death effects, such as a death spell from final fantasy or a vorpal blade, and I don't see those being blocked, in fact, the only reason they are in the necromancy class is because they are death status effect spells. more on dungeon and dragon necromancy, it says here: Necromancy spells manipulate the power of death, unlife, and the life force. Spells involving undead creatures make up a large part of this school. now, I understand unlife spells and creating undead spells won't work, but life force is overflowing in felarya, so would not those spells involving actual life force, be easier and stronger when used in felarya? just wondering as none of this is talked about in the wiki, so I am unsure.

D&D has a tendency to have sweeping classifications. That is, things that aren't exactly related to each other still get put under the same name. SO you've got necromancy (raising the dead) and dark life draining spells both called necromancy.

Raising the dead and making undead is pretty similar. Just going to say my point and call it quits here: if Necromancy was nothing but "raise the undead", that'd be too shallow and restrictive for me.

Merged in a similar topic, deleted a (now) redundant post.