I don't understand how in Morrowind and Oblivion you can just walk out onto the street and hack someone to pieces but you can't practice Necromany. Sure Necromancy is illegal but so is murder and theft. Is there some other reason for this like you have to be born into a Necromantic family or be born with special evil powers, because it seems to me that everyone in Oblivion has the choice to practice or not except your character?

Necromancy was illegal in Morrowind. In Oblivion it is 100% legal.

It's the same reason that you can't throw your weapons at someone - game mechanics. There is no real lore explanation, as it is legal in Cyrodiil and you can do other illegal things in Morrowind. Perhaps it takes a lot of magical skill, but then both the Nerevarine and the Champion of Cyrodiil would have such skill, and they would both be willing to use it.

Does summoning zombies, ghosts and skeletons from the ground not count as necromancy?

When were they summoned from the ground in Oblivion? I haven't finished playing all of it yet?

I think he's just acting on the assumption that that's where summoned zombies come from.


Edit: Yay, 8000 posts!

I think you could buy summon bonewalker and skeleton spells from the Mages Guild in Morrowind.. so I believe thats not necromancy.

There were books about animating the dead and such in the game, so they were "permanent". Maybe thats part of whats necromancy? Of course, talking with the dead to find out about the future is necromancy by definition.

Yes, but that's not how most of fantasy genre actually uses the term.

Necromancy in TES is taking a corpse and dead body parts, and reanimating them with magicka. Souls not required. A really talented necromancer can create create some really wicked undead, with the ability to do some pretty independent tasks, while the desperate and noobs pretty much get get any old corpse to move on its own. And, they seem to be the only group of people who study cadavers.

Necromancy wasn't really illegal in Morrowind, you just had to know the euphemisms.

If you were in the temple, or told the authorities you were from the temple, it was sacred. If you crawled in dark caves and tombs, and forgot to tell everyone you were part of the temple, the Ordinators will want to have a word with you. And by word, I mean chop you up into bits and toss your remains into the water for the mudcrabs and slaughterfish to dine on

Actually, I'm under the impression that the defining feature of Necromancy isn't so much the dead-body servants (any old conjurer can pull that trick), but rather the soul trapping of human beings. The necromancers of Oblivion found a way around Arkay's Blessing (the black soul gems). N'Gasta did this on a mass scale using his soul net. I'm pretty sure a spirit is needed to animate a body (not to mention to constitute a ghost), and this is the crime of Necromancy: using the spirits of the dead without the permission of their "owners". In the Empire, the individual himself is regarded as the "owner". In Morrowind, the body and spirit of the ancestors is property of the family. "Sacred" necromancy is that practiced upon family by family (to protect tombs and to power the old family ghostfences), or by proper religious authorities with the consent of the family (the Temple, for The Ghostfence, mainly). Any other use of the souls of the dead is regarded... quite poorly.

There's also the issue of acquiring corpses. Typically, necromancers do so by grave robbing or by murder, both of which are very serious crimes.

Hrmm...depends. In Cyrodiil corpses are donated somewhat often, because of the bandit problems. In high rock and daggerfall, you can snatch a bunch of bodies after a war or battle, if you are fast enough. Otherwise, many kings and lords also donate (to also serve as a discouragement for criminals). No one really gives a damn in Elswyer. Black Marsh has issues of rapid decay. Skyrim has the problem of bodies being buried in snow. MW and Summerset has issues with outsider necromancers.

Desperate or impatient ones will attempt to grave rob, and the ones that try murder aren't really thinking; there's bandits everywhere outside, why prey on civilians?

Necromancers appear to be very opportunistic, using whatever is available to them. From what I remember, the necromancer in Vilverin was caught stealing from graves, so he relocated to the Ayleid ruin and apparently utilized both the interred corpses and the bandits hiding there.

What one does to bandits is fine. To be honest, I don't take OB's seriousness with necromancers to be represented well at all. Where's the necromancers under the pay roll of the empire? Why is it that every necromancer wants me and the next civilian dead? Bad game mechanics and too much good vs. evil if you ask me.

I can't recall most of the necromancers in Morrowind being much friendlier. But if I had to guess, they probably don't have any scruples with killing and reanimating anyone who enters their hideout.

Also, the Mages Guild's ban on necromancy may have eliminated government-run necromancy.

Same reason why every bandit, wolf, bear, boar, cliff racer, wild guar, baliwog, and riekling wants you dead: because http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main.EverythingTryingToKillYou%5b/url.

Exactly, but that's also the trope Hellmouth is railing against. It's particularly telling that the article starts with "Video games struggling for creativity will invent unlikely obstacles", but it doesn't have to be that way.

Right now the only view of Necromancy presented in Oblivion is that of the Guild of Mages, which is almost pushing Necromancy as if it were the Red Scare. The Necromancers themselves are also conveniently cast this way. What Necromancy actually entails, how the empire views it and why people do it all stays conveniently obscured.

Granted it makes more sense to spend the dialogue budget (disk space!) on the faction you're playing as these side explanations aren't directly important to the story, it does take away from the over all atmosphere. Something that I think is rather important in a sandbox game.

It's possible that most of the necromancers in Cyrodiil have either switched to more legitimate magic, moved to other provinces, or joined the Order of the Worm. After all, the Guild allows Conjuration, but that doesn't stop there from being renegade Conjurers.