You know I had a feeling you were a necromancer. Is that what you role play as in game? oh btw i agree with everything you said. True some of them are bad but not all.

Actually no, I don't play necromancers. Khorne has no use for magical wimps. My Nurgler in MW comes close but..not really.

Maan, I forgot that nothing is definetly true,(some(most) fantasy worlds have word of god statements that say how things are) I will make my own fictional religion then
That one guy defeated my idea I think, but both have nothing real to stand on.
No, necromancers are not evil, and not good, nothing is and even by my morality, what's wrong with putting dead bodies to use?

Simple answer: while the profession is certainly... unpleasant, there is nothing intrinsically evil about researching the magic of death and dying in order to improve and prolong human life, such as pre-Traven guild necromancers and Imperial-sanctioned necromancers, over which there were limits and regulations to ensure that no one was killed to use their bodies and that all corpses were aquired through legal, non-violent processes. Killing people in order to use the corpses for personal gain, not so much. There is no blanket morality in TES much like in reality, so like all other organizations and professions in both the fictional and real world there are some people who do it and are quite good, and some who do it and are quite not.

Most powerful: Mannimarco, Lore/Dagerfall version.

I am a strong believer in necromancers are just as noble as any other wizard or as crooked as any House Telvanni mage. Mannimarco in my opinion was true neutral.

Is any profession or area of study inherantly evil? No. Necromancy, by nature, is certainly a practice that some could find disagreeable. And since it deals in matters that would disturb most, it is very easy for there to be misunderstandings about it. But like any school of magic, necromancy is simply a tool, there is nothing inherently good or evil about tools. They're just things you use to get things done. Whether they are used for good or for ill depends on what purpose the person using them aims to achieve.

Those who the world remembers as evil are evil because they did horrible things that any person you don't want to stay far away from will agree are not acceptable, they are not evil simply because the tools they use to achieve their goals.



While that technically isn't impossible, people aren't likely to assume a generally accepted idea is incorrect without any basis. This is even more true in fiction than in real life, As in real life, the truth is not always apparent. Because this information may not be known to anyone, or is known only to a select few who keep it to themselves, in fiction, things don't work like that. Whatever the narrative says is true is true, so if something we are told is not true or we are meant to question the truth of it, we will be told this, or we will be given hints that it might not be entirely accurate, or things we'll be kept ambiguous. Considering this, it's only natural to assume that the lore we are given is accurate if no information to the contrary exists. These assumptions can, of course, be proven wrong later on, but for now, tthey seem to hold true enough.

Well, I read here a lot that playing and dealing with dead bodies is wrong, but think about what people in our culture do to dead bodies. They cut them into pieces, they even remove some pieces and (brace yourselves) put thsoe pieces into other living people! Yes, that is more or les how transplantations work. Morticians are not as scary as they only cut the dead bodies into pieces and subject those pieces to measurement and other procedures, but they play with them a lot. And I really cannot say that morticians or transpalnt surgeons are inherently eveil, that what they do slowly corrupts them or even taht they have to be grim, weird or anything else.

Unfortunately, necromancy has gained a bad name. Partially because the real-life necromancy got it, partially because it is easy to make necromancers into the "bad guys". Unfortunately easy solutions tend to spread even if they are wrong.

On the whole "respect the dead" thing, how about other death/burrial rites like Canibalism.
The native Bosmer are canibalist for example, to THEM simply burrying their dead in the dirt to rot, not letting them live on within their relatives, would certainly be a horrible thought.

Daniel, we don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, but this is one thing I agree with you 100% on (I am a full on necromancer supporter, and a huge fan of Mannimarco, Zurin Arcturus, and other liches. Travern can burn in the deadlands!)

Zurin Arctus wasn't made undead by choice. The whole Numidium and Mantella Crux thing kinda...force him like that. All he wants is his soul back.

o dont see how anyone could do inside one of those caves in oblivion and say that these guys arnt evil.

i mean they kill people so they can reanimate there bodies to do there bidding. and that lady in SI that recreates the giant flesh atronach. shes a necromancer and she has people in cages that she tortures.

i mean ill agree that being a necromancer dosnt automatically make them evil but the majority of them are obviously evil people.

Oblivion's necromancers werent evil. The champion hunted them down with the mages' guild, its called self defense!

They were evil, because the game made them the evil enemy of the mages guild.

Mages' Guild banned it, it was 100% legal. Mages' Guild Arch Mage Travern should be behind bars.

They banned it becuase the necromancers were defiling corpses and kidnapped and killed people in order to extend the own life and power. Not evil in your eyes?

First of all, the goverment gave them corpses. Yes, the emperor giving them corpses to study is so defiling, kidnapping, and killing people. The corpses were of bandits. So no not evil, they did it for study, not for power. Even if they did do it for power, they did it with empire-sanctioned corpses.

By the same logic, conjurers are evil as well, and thus conjuration as a school of magic should be banned as well. Imagine that one day you go to work only to find out that it was proclaimed illegal over night and that your former collegues are about to kill you. I do not know about you, but that would make me pretty paranoid. Imagine taht you go into hiding in some damp cave and all of a sudden a guy appears who is connected to those who want to kill you. I donot know how about you, but I would try to save my life.

The necromancers in Oblivion are not eveil, they are just very badly done.



They banned it because Traven said so. The "defilement" was SANCTIONED by the Empire, so I do not think that this was a problem. Grave robbing, kidnapping and killing innocents were crimes already, so no need to outlaw necromancy jsut to punish these offences.

Necromancy is NOT the only way to do killing and kidnapping and for example a healty diet is a way to prolong ones life as well. People want to extend their lives all the time. If you can do that without doing harm others (and we do NOT know what is involved in the ritual of lichification), why you should not be allowed to do it?

Lichdom... If you did the dark brotherhood questline and read Celdean's journal.

You have to put your soul in an object and keep it with you for a certain period of time. After that you've ascended. So no harming of mortals. Wow, that is so evil [/sarcasm]

Sadly Oblivion DID display them as not just evil but CLICHE evil, giving them no other reason for what they do than BEING EVIL.

And sadly Oblivion is the game most people played so they got exactly that image of them now. And since Oblivin was sliding more towards chliche fantasy as well which too says "necromancy is EVIL" they happily jump into that as well.

Come on Beth, Daggerfall and Morrowind where great steps away from cliche fantasy and now?

Wasn't Daggerfall pure cliche fantasy? It felt so for me al least.

Not really. Mannimarco, a necromancer and a lich, helped you throughout the main quest. Hell, the main quest was about a giant golem being used as a power weapon to control the empire.

Giant mythical time-breaking stompyrobots are never cliche.


Incorrect. The "defiling of corpses" is not a sufficient enough reason to label them "evil." Modern day morticians or coroners "defile corpses" too. The "defiling of the corpse" is not illegal. Using a corpse without permission is, but there are plenty of ways to attain bodies legally. Either through volunteers (think of donating your body to science) or through the corpses of criminals, bodies are attained, and it is perfectly legal to study them and use them. After all, a body is just that: a body. The soul is long gone from it and is chilling in the dreamsleeve long before the body ever gets used by a necromancer.

Further, the activity did not result in the banning. The banning resulted in the activity. In Oblivion, the Mages Guild overstepped their bounds in banning necromancy, and they took the first hostile swipe. Imagine if you're studying something that's completely legal, something that you're not using to cause mass havoc and despair on the world, and all of a sudden, some guy on a moral high-horse tells you your studies are inherently evil and therefore you must be removed forcibly from the guild. Read http://www.imperial-library.info/obbooks/black_arts_on_trial.shtml. Note that, at the end, Uliceta was discovered to be a practicing necromancer, and Traven makes the decision to send the Mages Guild's own private troops after her to arrest her. First, they have no right under Imperial law to arrest her. But second and most important, remembering that necromancy is not inherently evil, this is just as bad as someone sending out the secret police on someone because of their views. There is no evidence to suggest that Uliceta was using necromancy to damage lives or property, yet Traven automatically entwines "necromancer" with "evil" and acts accordingly, against the laws he's bound to. Which is the moral side, here? Finally, the book notes that she "makes good her escape," as though that's some sort of affirmation of the wrongdoing. Why shouldn't she have fled? She was about to get arrested by those who didn't have the authority, and potentially subjected to who-knows-what kind of punishment for simply practicing an art. Is it really not understandable, then, why all these necromancers leave and are pretty irritated and scared that their guild is dong some majorly judgmental and rash things? So when the KoW and his band come along and offer them a resistance flag, a lot of them probably jump on the bandwagon. Not to say that all of them do; that's just oblivion's failure to display it. Saying that all necromancers are evil because they're all hostile on sight is like saying that all wildlife is rabid and evil because all wildlife is hostile on sight.

And finally, the suggestion that the kidnapping and killing is being done to extend internal power and life. That's also incorrect. While practitioners of necromancy are more likely than most to find ways around Arkay's laws, it does not require them to kill to attain it. And as for the power assessment, while they might be killing to assert power for their group, they aren't killing in the fantasy sense of boosting their own individual power levels. Or if they are, it's not like they're any different from the player in that regard. The player kills a whole swath of things to boost their own power level. Pot calling kettle black?

I think that their only after power and njothing more, in what way the get that power they dont care(which is preaty cool )

Some of them are evil some aren't as I said the goal is to reach power, no mather the cost.
I love them myself I think,their awsome. Always on the move in secreat places and stuff very sneaky and [censored].

FTW

have you read anything we wrote here, or are you making stuff up from OB?

Necromancers are not in TES games only. I have red a lot of pocket books about necromancers and stuff like that.
Oh and no I havent red 4 pages about something that wont change my mind. Necromancers use magic for their own benefits without paying atanchion to the conciquestions.

Oh and their everywere, someone makes them this someone makes them that but the overall is the same.