Fantasy archetypes do not bind TES necromancers, nor should they. Necromancy in TES is not like the dark side in star wars, it's just another use for magic.

I've come to the conclusion that being a necromancer is perfectly fine. As is being a lich, it's more about your techniques of achieving lichdom. If you say go kill a church full of people and turn them into zombie monsters, then there is of coarse thet in Oblivion you discover that at least one of the ways of making a lich out of yourself is to put your soul into an object for some time. Now I don't know how you achieve putting your soul into said object, maybe you have to kill sombody but it seems unlikely. That method shows no obvious violence, maybe there are other methods that do, but I've not seen them. Liches like Manimarco seems to be a bit crazed but that is possibly due to the fact that they've been alive for thousands of years, your body decays and your brain probably does too.

Plus necromancers who follow the laws and do necromancy the way that the empire sanctioned seem perfectly fine, they use criminal and willing corpses.... So I don't theink they're evil, not all of them at least.

Banning necromancy because of extremist groups vying for power is like banning animal protection activists in real life because of Greenpeace.

Anyone using examples of killing for Necromancy are completely disregarding that someone can, will, and have, killed for any reason under the sun.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, in TES is inherently good or evil. Everything is just a different shade of grey. I'm definitely on Mannimarco's side when it comes to the Oblivion Mages' Guild and Traven's self righteous crusade, which seems to me more like a witch hunt in order to grab more political leverage. Who else but politicians attempting to appear like protectors of the world would support going after what was already an art that most people disliked?

I agree with most of waht you said, but I think Traven truly did believe in what he was doing. If he didn't he never would have offed himself to fill that soul gem that protects the CoC. What's the point in political leverage when you're dead?

So you're going to apply the outside-of-TES stereotype to necromancers within TES (which is like saying you're going to assume that the dwarves in TES match perfectly with all other stereotypical fantasy concepts of dwarves), when there is evidence aplenty that TES does things separate from most other fantasy cliches?
And then you're going to cling to an unsupported belief and not bother to even engage in the courtesy of reading the reasons WHY said unsupported belief is incorrect? And then continue to spout said unsupported belief as truth?
:facepalm:

Oh, not to say that he wasn't a believer in what he did, but there is no doubt in my mind it was also a political move. He knew it would garner support from the ignorant masses.

I did that quest and read the said journal and unless I'm mistaken (It's been some time) I think that putting one's soul into that phylactery is just a part of the ritual. I think that Celdean writes there taht the ritual is complicated beyond his imagination, so I guess that there might be more to it than that.

But I'm on the same ship when it commes to believing taht necromancers are not evil by definition.



No, necromancers are in other games as well. That is true, but I hardly see the validity of this. Necromancers are in real life by the way (sure, they are quite different from the ones in the games, but necromancy is not something the games invented). And what? I think that what most of us like about TES is that they tried to overcome the set clish?s and make things new and interresting.

The fact taht someone uses hsi knowledge and skills to his benefits is not evil by any chance. That what we all do. That is why we gether knowledge in the first place. To use it. And not paying attention to consequences? Well why do you think the necromancers do not pay attention to them? That is your own specualtion, probably true for some other games, but totally unfounded in TES as far as I can tell.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=1051579&view=findpost&p=15280172... at least according to my theory

I just figured Traven for a misguided idealist. He's trying to help the world in the way he thinks is best, but he is doing something horrible wrong by placing the blame for the world's problems on a legitimate practice and murdering its practitioners in cold blood 'for the greater good."

Theres a difference. Dunmeri spirits return to protect their kin, they do not like being in the living realm but they do it out of duty to their family. The non-ancestral worshiping way is to force them back into the living world, pretty much enslaving them and doing your bidding, instead of doing it by free will.

And I do not believe its the same thing. Theres a big difference. Take the comparison between making love/ex and [censored] for example. Making love to/having six with someone you love can be enjoyable, but being forced to do it is horrible. Physically its the same thing, ie having sixual intercourse but the difference is as big as it can get.

Although, using a lifeless rotting corpse without any soul or whatsoever doesnt hurt anyone unless its stolen, but the points about laws has allready been made.

Actually, they do forcefully have dunmeri spirits protect things. And more than likely, it is going to be a member in the family that did nothing with his/her life, got into trouble a lot, and/or were more of a burden or waste of space than anything. And the guardians are definitely not protecting graves and tombs on their freewill, oh heavens no. They are forced to guard tombs, crypts, and vaults, and they have absolutely no say.

Plus, necromancy doesn't really deal with spirits. They're a take a husk of a body and make it do things. Basically, they're puppeteers, and the skeletons and zombies are their puppets. Without someone to pull their strings, bones and cadavers just lie around..rotting.

Taken from "Ancestors and the Dunmer":

Or maybe Ive just got guardian spirits and ghostfences mixed up?


This states what youve said is true, atleast to some extent, that some are forced to guard duty, but the fact that it says "SOME spirits are bound to..." indicates that not all of them are.

Maybe I just got it wrong :shrug: But afaik theres both those who do it by free will and those who are forced to do it. And even if you are forced, I consider it to be more justifiable to be forced to protect your family instead of some complete stranger who needs someone to do his dirty work. But I can agree on the puppeteering though, if the body is dead without any kind of spirit, then theres nothing wrong with it unless its stolen.

I am in agreement with this one. However, I will answer this anyway.

No, they are not all evil. Many necromancers have studied the undead and the arts of necromancy for a variety of reasons. Some of those reasons may be practical, or it could just be for the pursuit of knowledge. Sometimes necromancers even study the arts for the greater good.

One example of this includes Aesliip, the draugr lord from the Bloodmoon expansion pack. He was banished from his home, the Skaal village, in Solstheim for practicing necromancy, and he fled to the caves underneath Lake Fjalding. When he was there, he learned of a conspiracy amongst frost atronachs to capture Solstheim. Learning this, he imprisoned those atronachs underneath the lake in a magical barrier. However, because magical barriers tend to weaken with age, Aesliip transformed himself into a draugr lord so as to preserve the barrier infinetely, so as to prevent the destruction of the Skaal people, his friends and family who banished him. Then that's where the Nerevarine comes in, and the rest is history...

So there is your answer.

Not to mention he actually went back to the village to warm them of the impending invasion, but they ignored him and booted him out again. For a guy who had legitimate reasons to let the Skaal be invaded and destroyed, he took the high road to protect the people who exiled and despised him, even if it meant staying in the state of undeath for eternity.

Of course not, evil is such a vague word. Many of the necromancers in Morrowind are nothing but kind and helpfull. The orc lady from the start of the main quest (that sent you to collect a skull) is a good example.

Well, she was highly paranoid and came off a bit rude. But very rightly so; the temple doesn't screw around.

Mannimarco is just so cool. Yeah he is evil. I mean what other reason besides he himself wanting to end the life of Arkay defines evil?

Thats not evil, he doesn't want to be bound by the rules of life and death.

And who can fault him, really? Death is such an annoying impediment to research.



If Mannimarco is evil because he wanted to shun Arkay's "rules," then all of the Nords are evil for labeling Arkay as Orkey, the Elven Loan God, and appealing to Shor to throw Orkey's curse (limiting them to 6 years of life) onto the nearby Orcs.

Think of it, end the cycle of life and death and no one is born or dies. That way each individual life can continue reachng its full potential after millenia of life. On paper it's not that bad an idea, but in practice it tends not to work. Evil or just trying to help?


Ultimate case of fan hatedom: Nords view all elven gods as bad. Doesn't help that they aren't that far off most of the time, my theory is that Akatosh is the big bad of the series.

Since when can we blow up a castle in TES? Pretty sweet idea and you've got a point, but I wish we could blow stuff up


Hahahaha, if you think of your grandfather times a few more lifetimes, you'll get the drift. At least for me it is. My grandpa is mean as hell


Mannimarco must be a weak god. I wanted to try and fight him all macho on the hardest difficulty (I play it on 75 normally) and I ended up nearly dying except for an accidental jump in which he chased me and fell into the water. He was powerless there xD

oh damn, you know what I just realized?!
Voldemort from the Harry Potter series is technically a lich in a sense. He takes pieces of his soul and stores them in objects to become immortal.
a bit off topic, but it was like an "aha" moment

Ah, but no Lich in TES lore was ever as pathetic as Voldemort.
Expect for Oblivion Mannimarco but then again, he's not Mannimarco.

Both suffered [censored] decay. When Voldemort was almost an abstract idea, an omnicient but not sentient possixr, he was mazing. Mannimarco used to be a machiavellan lich king. Now he's a pansy.

I agree with you there. Vold was an interesting Villan before he got a body. I pray that Beth won't screw up another well-known TES figure in the next game.