Ethically Sound Necromancy

The first thing that popped into my head when seeing this thread is the book Mogworld by Yahtzee Croshaw. It's pretty fun as well as intriguing.

I believe bodies are empty shells upon death, so I guess that it could be plausible to be kind, but is it really safe to do? In reviving the flesh do you somehow stop it from decaying or can you repair the damage so it's intact?

The anthology The Walking Dead had a whole lot of really cool short stories that had different forms of zombies from full on end of the world to the voodoo type and the necromacied pets.

I would be concerned about the biohazard potential. Plus depending on their intellegence, can you safely trust them to work properly or even work too well.

I would hate a situation where a zombie picking up trash on the side of the road gets confused and walks in front of my car just as quickly as I would hate a Planet of the Apes kinda zombie uprising.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

I could go either way, just be on the lookout for anyone who uses the term minion.

Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand!

Depends on the way necromancy works, frankly.

This blatant Civilization clone on steam, Warlock: Master of the Arcane, has as an option to play Undead. And it can fight side-by-side with goblins and humans with no problems, and it led me to imagine a whole undead civilization which is practically an utopia. And it's not hell-bent on expanding their ranks, because, hey, everyone dies, they're just there to make it less traumatic.

Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry

I guess it just depends on freedom/choice. Everything else is secondary. The modern depiction of necromancy as evil is probably because it was meant to be a euphemism for something else (I'm guessing communism) and then morphed into a more mindless plain ole evil necromancer with no real subtext to it.

If people grow up in an undead society, their expectation is that upon death they get reanimated into whatever. Perhaps it's all about amassing your fortune and on death, depending on your money, you get reanimated into something more awesome. Or some people get killed in the military and only their dead tissue is used, nothing happens to the souls.

These days you can do whatever you want for your setting.

If necromancy is taken merely to refer to talking with the dead, that's fine.

Anyone who drags the dead back from the Otherworld without consent, on the other hand, needs to be burned.

'All he needs is for somebody to throw handgrenades at him for the rest of his life...'

Even with consent I wouldn't do it even if I had the power. It's not right at all to abuse the deceased by dragging their bodies around for something you desire. The deceased need to rest with souls or not. They're not supposed to substitute machines

What profit is it to a man, when he gains his money, but loses his internet? Anonymous 16:26 I believe...

I'd like more information on what is in the land beyond death before deciding whether it's acceptable to leave people there or to bring them back.

Even with consent I wouldn't do it even if I had the power. It's not right at all to abuse the deceased by dragging their bodies around for something you desire. The deceased need to rest with souls or not. They're not supposed to substitute machines

I don't think you quite get what 'consent' means. If they want to help, why not let them help? 'Sides, why presume you know more about what they need than they do? They're dead. They've sort of got first-hand experience.

What's precedent ever done for us?

I think your biggest obstacle is more about the culture of the world in which necromancy exists. I mean, if it's anything like ours, you'll have tons of people who take Cassie's stance, with respect for the dead and whatnot. A few of us may be fine letting our lifeless shells be put to further use (like the full-body equivalent of being an organ donor), but if I'm not mistaken, the prevailing opinion is that a dead body should be allowed a permanent rest (burial, cremation, whatever), that it is a sacred thing that should be treated with utmost respect.

The only solution I see is if your necromancer were in a setting where the common opinion is that corpses are nothing special, perhaps because the soul separates from the body at death or whatever other reasoning hey might have. Then anybody would be free to use the bodies of the dead as if they were harvesting any other natural resource to put to use. The question of good or evil then depends on what they do with the undead that they create, rather than the nature of the thing itself.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

This'll probably be repeating all the other points, but they're right. Necromancy is generally viewed as a bad thing since it's essentially enslavement. Think of the Akuma from D.Gray-man, who are fully conscious and aware of what they do, but have no choice. If the raised don't have awareness, then it's essentially a rag-doll, and they're desecrating the dead by having them be a rag-doll. It really depends on the world the necromancy is set in. Is it illegal to perform? Is it an accepted, but ill-advised magic? Are there consequences? Are the dead respected, or are corpses just rotting meat and bones? In a world of murders, a necromancer would be the most highly-sought after person due to their abilities. In a utopian world, a necromancer might be hated for disturbing their peace. Also, as mentioned above (somewhere), is bringing your dead grandpa into town safe? Will he randomly attack people, or run into things you shouldn't run into? Is he gonna spread some disease or something? It's a setting thing. I can make a necromancer the most loved or hated thing depending on the setting.

My life/work

A hypothetical culture that has had necromancy for a long time might even view taking someone's body to be used for it to be a mark of respect for the dead.

Be not afraid...

But we know that might not happen in any bits of realism.

Basically my points summed up. Walking corpses aren't just dead and rotting. Without nullification magic, the dead are cocktails of viral spreadings. Worse if they're still decomposing. More pragmatically speaking, upkeep on the corpses by stocking Anti-Rot would be expensive, and depending on the population around the world, we really really don't need privilleged dead based on accomplishments of past life. NO ONE should bypass the natural consequences of 生老病死 (Birth, Aging, Ailment, Death) and essentially let the dead have other 'rights' which the living are entitled to

edited 6th Oct '12 4:37:46 AM by Cassie

What profit is it to a man, when he gains his money, but loses his internet? Anonymous 16:26 I believe...

Even when there's an Eldritch Abomination coming to destroy everything, including the Underworld and the souls of the dead, and the only way to fight them is to use dead zombies because its presence will kill any living creature around it?

Because then good work, you just picked a choice that doomed your world. Now pick up another character sheet and we'll play another setting.

edited 6th Oct '12 4:43:25 AM by IraTheSquire

If we're gonna play fantasy all the way, this thread should be moved to Video Games or what not. Because in there, I can go all the way in and shoot a lot of white stuff.

What profit is it to a man, when he gains his money, but loses his internet? Anonymous 16:26 I believe...

Hey, cultures have considered some rather strange things to be respectful in the past. Isn't there at least one society that used to eat the remains of their dead relatives?

Even today it's relatively normal to keep urns full of ashes. And to donate organs. Considering it respectful to donate your relative's body so that he can go on helping people in death isn't too farfetched, I don't think.

And to be really nitpicky, I think I'd be more worried about bacteria than viruses. Viruses need living cells to reproduce, although I guess you could get a body full of resilient spores or something?

edited 6th Oct '12 4:52:01 AM by LoniJay

Be not afraid...

We're talking about necromancy and you expect us not to fantasy all the way? I never know that you can raise zombies in real life.

Should have known it because that would make today's humans vs zombies a lot easier to run.

edited 6th Oct '12 4:47:55 AM by IraTheSquire

Neither would be a problem with skeletons.

edited 6th Oct '12 4:51:00 AM by KylerThatch

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Skeletons are easy. Sledgehammer, and it's all brittle. But like I said, the problem comes with explaining things to relatives.

What profit is it to a man, when he gains his money, but loses his internet? Anonymous 16:26 I believe...

D&D, which obviously gets Trope Codifier status, declares necromancy essentially to be evil because that's the definition given. (Disclaimer: I don't know if 4e changed this any.) Several books tried to explain it by saying "using negative energy will always warp the world and make it a worse place," or something of that nature. Also, D&D's clerical metaphysics have good clerics turning or destroying undead, and evil clerics rebuking or commanding them (no channeling life-affirming energy from an evil god!).

If you want to ditch D&D's baggage, then consider that creating sentient undead either creates a new entity (not evil unless the entity itself is Always Chaotic Evil), calls the old spirit back to inhabit the body, or binds a new spirit to the body. The latter two, if done without the consent of the inhabitants, is of course slavery, but (for example) raising a willing revenant so they can look after their family's interests even after death would be fine. (Calling up a ghost to chat with them is, by default, an involved form of phone call.)

Raising nonsentient undead is nothing more than tampering with a corpse and possibly grave-robbing. Aside from health concerns (as Cassie pointed out, rotting zombies should be kept outside city limits), and taboos regarding using the dead as tools, there shouldn't be anything wrong with an army of robotic dead.

I highly doubt that the relatives would when the dead themselves gave permission for their bodies to be used, and they would be jerks if they still refuse since that would be going against the wishes of the dead, meaning that they do not give them the respect they deserves.

If I gave permission to a necromancer to use my body as a zombie and a relative said no, I would god damn pull a Fredy Kruger on them and murder them in their sleep. because my body is MY OWN and not even my parents can over-ride my decisions as to what to do with it.

edited 6th Oct '12 5:02:23 AM by IraTheSquire

Anita Blake has the heroine as a necromancer. She uses her ability to raise zombies to do such things as sort out inheritance issues, let families gain closure with their loved ones, and solve legal and historical debates. She doesn't touch the souls and puts the bodies back to rest when things are finished.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

The Old Kingdom series also has necromancers as protagonists (although ones that are generally more interested in putting the dead to rest than in summoning them, so they perhaps are more like specialized exorcists than like traditional necromancers).

I've only read the first book of the series, but the setting was not unconvincing.

edited 6th Oct '12 7:31:25 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

If necromancy would've been around for a while, as in most fantasy settings, everyone not ok with it would cremate their dead.

Laws are made to be broken. You're next, thermodynamics.

That's something that pisses me off about a lot of fantasy settings. "Hm, anyone who finds a particular musty old book can reanimate our dead to fight against us. Let's bury them in unguarded graveyards."

Well, from what I understand of the TES verse, if the bodies aren't cremated they use Arkay's Law in order to prevent bodies from being used for necromancy.

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.