Necromancer: Difference between revisions

A practitioner of a kind of [[Whatevermancy]], Necromancers are the masters of the art of death. Necromancy, the magic of interrogating the dead, has been practiced since at least Ancient Greece, where it was known as ''Necyomantia'', and probably earlier.

 

 

However, necromancy didn't always have the evil connotations that it has in media today. The word 'necromancy' comes from the words 'nekros' (dead) and 'manteia' (prophecy), meaning that necromancers are more likely to summon spirits for divination than armies of rotting zombies. It was widely practiced across the world until the Renaissance, when it was equated with demonology and got its bad reputation.

 

== Anime & Manga ==

* Meiou (Dark/Underworld King) Ixpellia from the ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' franchise. The [[Warrior Prince|Ancient Belka king]] who ruled over the Garea empire and had the ability to raise an army of [[Night of the Living Mooks|Mariage]] out of a battlefield of corpses. [[Anti-Anti-Christ|She's actually a nice little girl being forced to do things she doesn't want]], but having an army of cyborg zombies that invades and burns down neighboring countries [[Shrouded in Myth|gave her a rather bad reputation]].

* Charles zi Britannia in [[Code Geass]] [[Nightmare of Nunnally]]'s Geass, "The Dead Rise," allows him to raise the dead to fight for him, creating soldiers that are virtually unkillable {{spoiler|unless he dies, at which point, they die too}}. He raised some of the best soldiers from the dead in order to claim the throne, including the current Knights of the Round.

* There are three in ''[[Naruto]]'' - {{spoiler|Orochimaru, the Second Hokage, and as of chapter 489, Kabuto.}} All use the Impure World Resurrection technique.

* [[Living Shadow|Gecko Moria]] from ''[[One Piece]]'' is one, to a degree.

* Doll from ''[[Half Prince]]'' is a spell caster class called necromancer; she doesn't really summon zombies, she summons flaming spell monsters which generally act as meat shields for her team. However, if she's really motivated, she can summon a freaking undead dragon; however, since it generally scares her, she's only done this twice so far.

* The protagonist of ''[[Ghost Talkers Daydream]]'' works part-time as a necromancer. It mostly involves fighting ghosts, so there is no "evil sorcerer" part there. Yet for some reason, she considers her main job as a dominatrix way more respectable.

* One of Kenshiro's creepier one-shot foes from ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'' was an evil priest-looking guy by the name of Zaria who could hypnotize people into "zombies" via ''Nanto Ansho Ken'' and ultimately revives a group of his mooks that Kenshiro had just given the [[Your Head Asplode]] treatment to. Naturally, Kenshiro considers this level of disrespect for the dead [[This Is Unforgivable!|unforgivable]].

* The most powerful [[Telepathic Spacemen|Newtypes]] of [[Gundam]]'s Universal Century can perform a limited and relatively benign form of necromancy, communicating with and (in extreme circumstances) drawing power from the spirits of the dead. In fact, since it requires a great deal of human empathy, [[Dark Is Not Evil|it's pretty much exclusively limited to heroic Newtypes]].

* Emperor Muge Zorbados, [[Big Bad]] of the [[Super Robot]] series, ''[[Dancougar]]''

 

 

 

== Film ==

* {{spoiler|William Dobb}} from [[Dead and Buried]] is a nexcellent example of this, what with {{spoiler|him making a town entirely populated by zombies of his own creation, who he views as his children and his works of art, as well as a very unhealthy interest in the dead.}}

 

* Malory mentions that Morgan learnt "nigromancy"... in a nunnery...

** While most of her magic doesn't seem that related to the dead, she is the one who ends up taking Arthur to Avalon... which has interesting implications.

* Necromancers in [[A Madness of Angels]] tend to try their hand at immortality by swallowing papers with the traits they wish they had in a [[Golem]]-esque way. They die for real as soon as the paper is taken out, but it in the meantime, they live [[Exact Words|exactly]] to the constraints of the paper (meaning if you forget to, say, write down that you still want to see colors or [[Heart Is an Awesome Power|actually feel things]], you're life undead won't be [[Nightmare Fuel|very pleasant]]).

** Sauron appears to have more control over the corpses of the dead than their spirits, if the Barrow-Wights are anything to go by; according to the supplementary materials they are evil spirits (not the souls of the original deceased) sent by the Witch-King of Angmar, Sauron's [[The Dragon|Dragon]] to possess the bodies of dead kings to torment their former subjects.

** Note that they use the classical definition of contacting spirits to ask about the future, which is apparently evil. Contacting them to ask about the present or past, on the other hand, is okay.

* [[Garth Nix]]'s [[Old Kingdom]] trilogy features several necromancers as villains--and the Abhorsen, who has similar powers but uses them to fight necromancers and other undead threats.

* In [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]'s ''[[John Carter of Mars|The Chessman of Mars]]'', Tara is accused of being "one of those horrid Corphals that by commanding the spirits of the wicked dead gains evil mastery over the living" -- which could only be killed by [[Royal Blood]].

** Given that wizards seem to have more success enchanting inanimate objects with certain amounts of animation and intelligence if they want assistants, this is about the first setting I've seen where necromancy is [[Awesome but Impractical]].

* Necromancy is an aspect of [[Witch Species|Sartan]] magic in [[The Death Gate Cycle]], but is forbidden because for every person brought back to life, another somewhere dies untimely. The Sartan of [[Mordor|Abarrach]], however, were desperate enough to disregard this, and became a whole culture of necromancers.

* Brian Lumley's ''[[Necroscope]]'' series gives us both sides of this. Those that talk to the willing dead are called Necroscopes, the evil bastards who torture the dead are Necromancers. [[Black and White Morality|There are no crossovers between the two]].

** In a world with sorcerers, witches, werewolves, half-demons, vampires, and all other sorts of supernatural creatures running around, necromancers really got the short end of the stick: They can talk to ghosts (who usually harass them), which makes them look schizophrenic since a necromancer can't tell a ghost from a living person; and they can raise the dead (but only one at a time, involving a complicated ritual, as well as practice and skill, and a willingness to shove [[And I Must Scream|a soul back into its rotting corpse]]). [[Sarcasm Mode|Fun times]]!

** Chloe's problem with zombies is actually reversed because of her [[Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke|insane amounts of power]]. Rather than needing a ritual and other things, [[Power Incontinence|she accidentally raises the dead in her sleep]]. Seeing as how she's a genuinely good person (and the protagonist, to boot), she was horrified to find out that she could do something like that, and sleeping anywhere where there might be corpses of ''any'' species is a big no-no for her.

* The writings of [[Clark Ashton Smith]] featured a number of necromancers. Notable examples being ''The Empire of the Necromancers'', ''The Charnel God'', and ''The Last Incantation''. The reasons run the gamut from [[Necromantic]] to [[Night of the Living Mooks]].

{{quote| ''But folk who have tasted of death are only partly alive. In the dark corners of their souls and minds, death still lurks unconquered. By night the people of Dagon moved and loved, hated and feasted, and remembered the fall of Dagon and their own slaughter only as a dim dream; they moved in an enchanted mist of illusion, feeling the strangeness of their existence but not inquiring the reasons therefor. With the coming of day, they sank into deep sleep, to be roused again only by the coming of night, which is akin to death.''}}

* In [[Amanda Downum]]'s ''[[The Drowning City]]'' and ''[[The Bone Palace]]'', the protagonist, Isyllt Iskaldur, is a necromancer. She is not portrayed as evil, although she is sometimes treated as such by others. Her abilities do not appear to include summoning zombie armies, but do include dealing with ghosts, whether communicating, capturing or banishing, as well as raising the dead temporarily, experiencing the final memories of the dead, aging and corroding non-living things rapidly, invoking cold, and related things.

* Towards the end of [[The Belgariad|The Malloreon]] by [[David Eddings]], we learn that among the many forms of magic practiced by the Dals was necromancy. Much like the older meaning of the word, the necromancer we see summons back the spirit of the recently dead to answer questions.

* "[[Percy Jackson and The Olympians]]" {{spoiler|Nico di Angelo }} , Hades, and Persephone are all necromancers. They are also all good guys.

 

 

* Ned, the main character of [[Pushing Daisies]]. The soul gets revived along with the person in his instance, so no zombies. In fact, one of the first things he says in the series is an objection to those he revives being called undead, when they're merely "alive again".

** There are, however, plenty of gruesome cases where it's probably a blessing that he sticks to his guideline of keeping them alive for only one minute (otherwise something else dies); at any rate, even the better cases aren't quite normal afterward, as while they ''can'' be killed again (and thus permanently), they nonetheless stop aging.

 

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' has Necromancy as one of its schools of magic. Its practitioners were called necromancers.

** Interestingly enough, earlier D&D editions had healing spells in the necromancy school. But since necromancy was categorized as magic over life forces, it made perfect sense.

*** However, in Pathfinder, the oft-called 3.75:th edition, Necromancy Specialists gain the Command/Turn Undead ability as well.

*** As do the Dread Necromancer (see above)

** The Gurps [[Fantasy World]] of Yrth has the Kingdom of Abydos, where the art of Necromancy is considered holy. Everyone who is anyone of any importance is either a necromancer or undead. And labor, being zombie-based, is cheap but smelly.

** The setting makes a difference between those that use the lore of death (more classical necromancy, communicating with the dead and one of the eight winds of magic) and those that use necromancy (animating the dead, a form of dark magic).

 

* A core profession in the MMO ''[[Guild Wars]]'', which can animate fleshy minions from corpses, vampirize heath, and fling curses (and [[Combat Sadomasochist|they often have to sacrifice a percentage of their health bar to do so]]). There's also the Ritualist class introduced in Factions, which are Necromancers of a sort dealing in binding the spirits of the dead rather than animating corpses. The game is heavily geared to dual-class, and unsurprisingly, these two work ''great'' in combination, whichever is primary.

** Also worth noting is that neither are evil. They're both ''dark'', certainly, but both PC and NPC Ritualists and Necromancers are most often unambiguously on the side of good. They serve Grenth, the god of death and cold, but Grenth isn't an evil god (though he can be a bit cruel when [[You Mean "Xmas"|Wintersday]] comes around). In fact, he basically punched out the ''old'' god of death, who ''was'' evil, and took over.

** And while the game has yet to bring in an actual Necromancer class, it does have the Death Knight, who gets death-themed powers and a ghoul pet.

** In the game's expanded universe, necromancy is usually potrayed as a naturally evil, corrupt, and tainted form of magic that withers the user and the land itself. The Lich King and the undead scourge practice a form of necromancy that is akin to [[Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil|rape]], while the Forsaken, the playable undead race, practice necromancy with much more respect to the undead they raise.

*** It is noted in the game's manual that the Necromancer's appearance comes from spending all his time studying magic in old crypts and libraries.

** It's somewhat implied that Necromancy is the only type of true magic (rather than divine miracles, such as those used by the Paladin) in the game's world that ''doesn't'' have the potential to corrupt its user into a servant of the demons.

** Which is in turn taken from the Necromancer enemy in that game. ''[[Circle of the Moon]]'' also has a Necromancer boss who sometimes summons skeletons. Shaft takes this to bizarre levels in ''[[Rondo of Blood]]'' - he summons previous Castlevania bosses in the main fight against him (not necessarily dead ones though), but in the next level you fight ''his ghost'', who summons ''the skeleton of the first boss and an enemy in the second stage''.

* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' has a sect of necromancers called the Order of the Black Worm who use evil Black Soul Gems to capture the soul of sapient beings. Good necromancers do exist, but their presence is overshadowed by the evil ones since the Cyrodiil Mage's Guild banned necromancy out of fear of the Order.

* {{spoiler|Dynos}} in [[Arc Rise Fantasia]], although before his name is revealed he's called the "Deathchanter".

* Roswell of [[Yggdra Union]], although he's not evil. {{spoiler|Nessiah}} is one of these as well.

* Orin of ''[[Touhou]]'' isn't actually a [[Catgirl|neko-romancer]], but she does have a lot of trappings of one, ordering spirits around and fighting with a troupe of "zombie" fairies (Touhou fairies are immortal, and these ones are just dressing up). The series' real necromancer is Seiga, who raised a [[Jiangshi]] subordinate, though Seiga doesn't do much with the dead otherwise.

* The MMO ''[[Rift]]'' also has Necromancers as one of the mage souls (classes). The backstory is that the soul comes from a heroic necromancer named Corthana. She had been kidnapped by the evil cult necromancers. She learned the magic of necromancy from them but was clever and took out all the parts that [[Big Bad|Regulos]] had snuck in to brainwash them into being his evil minions. When her paladin brother busts in to save her, she turns on the cultists, slaughters them with their own magic, and even tore out her own blood to heal her brother when he was injured. But as they fled, [[The Dragon|Regulos' high priest]] caught up with them and slew her brother, and in her rage she became an avatar of a lich and avenged him right then and there. By the time the game takes place in, her heroic deeds have redeemed the art of necromancy and the necromancer players are even praised for continuing her legacy (especially as Ascended necromancers seem to actually possess her [[Ghost Memory|knowledge and memories]].)

** Necromancers, if not evil, are unfortunately easily corrupted and quick to succumb to megalomanium, this is why the art is still frowned upon, even though it's not an outright horrible thing for someone to do.

* [[Big Bad Wannabe]] and [[Hot Witch]] Daria from [[Warriors of Might and Magic]].

** Specific necromancers include Zorbak, Kabroz, Vayle, Noxus and Obsidia.

* The February 2012 update of ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'' features them. It's actually the first type of magic put in the game, and being Dwarf Fortress, the players themselves are able to use it. Keep in mind, so are migrants to your fortress, and even random merchants or whoever else reads one of the "secrets of the life and death" written on slabs by the gods, which inconveniently results in body parts in the refuse pile coming to life and attacking you.

** As It happens, quite a few mainstream [[Roguelikes]] feature Necromancer as a class, notable among those being [[Slash EM]] and [[Dungeon Crawl]].

** ''Dark Dawn'' doesn't have class-enabling artifacts like the Tomegathericon, and by extension no Dark Mage classes... but Himi's exclusive Curse Mage class series does much of the same, which is pretty weird since she's normally a cute little [[Shrine Maiden]].

*** Also, Sveta's Spirit Sense Psynergy can be used to read the minds of the dead, for the more benign "speak with dead" version. The results can be [[Apocalyptic Log|horrified recollections of the moments leading up to their deaths]], or [[Black Comedy|amusing snark]] and [[Narm Charm|comments on how cool being a ghost is]].

** As a town, necromancers were introduced by Heroes II. They were aligned with Archibald, the... not so good... candidate for the throne of Enroth.

 

* Xykon from [[Order of the Stick]].

** And also his newest major minion, [[Nightmare Fetishist|Tsukiko]], who not only creates the undead but... likes them too.

* The lead villain of [[Harry Potter Comics]]''.

* [[Aloof Big Brother|Jacob]], [[The Dragon|Helixa]], and [[Dark Is Not Evil|Rilian]] from ''[[Dominic Deegan]]''.

** On his airship trip Dominic meets a "good" necromancer {{spoiler|actually Rilian in disguise}} who claims that his job is more traditional speaking with the dead than animating corpses.

* [[True Villains]]: [http://www.truevillains.com/comic-2011-12-02-Necromancy%20at%20its%20Finest-jpg.htm It is not going to be easy. It is not going to be painless. It is not going to be legal. It is, however, going to be] '''fun'''.

 

 

 

== Western Animation ==

** Although he does trap the souls of two "foul mouthed rednecks" in some dolls after they wouldn't stop calling him gay. One would think that he'd be used to it, judging by the way he looks and dresses.

** Said rednecks were hassling him in the hopes of starting a fight. And he did try to warn them.

* [[Big Bad|Megatron]] from ''[[Transformers Prime]]'' does this ''with robots''.

* I don't recall him ever being referred to as one directly, but [[Mighty Max|Skullmaster]] fits the bill rather well, his main power source being a legion of souls in his gem (souls given willingly) and at he has a zombie army made of the bodies of those who gave up their souls.