ok, so I've played Oblivion for about a year now, and have dabbled in morrowind slightly, and am about to start daggerfall, and well, I don't understand something.
in Oblivion, Arch-Mage Traven was said to have banned necromancy from the guild when he became the Arch-Mage.

so that had me wondering, was it legal in Cyrodiil before this banning? also, would there have been a hall for it in Cyrodiil like the towns specialize in?
I can't possibly fathom the mages guild being ok with liches and their ilk, so I'm under the impression that most extreme forms of necromancy were already forbidden, and the worm king particularly disliked.

Thanks for the answers.

It was never really encouraged, but it was mostly tolerated.

1. Yes Necromancy was and still is legal. Traven can only set the policy for the Guild of Mages, not the Empire.

In Cyrodiil, a few Necromancers who have served the Empire are given the corpses of criminals and traitors to use legally. This provides those who have acquired such a post with a fresh supply of corpses, most of them young, strong, and intact. - http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/corpse_preparation.shtml.

2. The halls strike me as a completely artificial separation. One might expect the university to be divided into faculties, that way like minded people are close together but not too far away from others for interdisciplinary stuff.

By the time someone has reached lichdon, they usually have distanced themselves with civilization in general. The process is not generally that great, and the only reason one would want to be a lich would be fore more power (Mannimarco), protection from an immortal threat (the two liches in MW), or continued research (because death is such an annoying obstacle). Plus, civilization won't tolerate liches. The reason Mannimarco was "tolerated" was because he was immensely powerful, VERY influential, and lived in a cave.

And the Mannimarco I am referring to is the one in DF. The weak pathetic elf you saw in Oblivion was absolute crud.

so is it just an oblivion thing that I can kill necromancers out in the woods like bandits? Or is the cult of the worm king like liches?
also, if I were to put a necromancy shop in the market district of the imperial city, lore-wise it wouldn't be illegal?




hohohoho. even with mods he's pretty pitiful.


thanks for all the help, this is interesting and I greatly appreciate all of the information.

It's a shallow oblivion thing to give the MG a shiny face of goodness, while necromancy is black, evil, and nothing but a bunch of puppy kickers. Usually, necromancers study their art as a form of magic and anatomical research. The anatomical portion is how a dead body works, performs, and how well it can be preserved. It's very much like studying dead bodies today. The magic part comes with reanimation of a dead body and the control, nothing more really. And no, things like disease, poison or any of that rubbish doesn't fall into any category of necromancy, that's destruction magic right there. Read On the Preparation of the Corpse, that's what necromancy is really all about. Also, the dead can make good servants and guards, depending on how well you prepared the body, and how intelligent the person was in life. Animals are, at best, guards. At worse, they attack the reanimator.


You couldn't sell bodies, unless you had people willingly sold their corpse for cash should they die. I doubt if someone was tugging a corpse behind him, without any official papers, it'd probably be illegal to buy it, since for all you know that could have been a murder victim you just bought or a grave robbed body. Also, there is the chance that the body you just bought from Mr. Shady could have been a dug up a body that had the blessing of Arkay, which would prevent reanimation. It would also have to be in an area where superstition won't be the determining factor if you should be hanged or not; the peasantry will fear you. Also, such a shop would include leather straps, metal spikes, preservatives, linen bandages, salts, needles, stitching, and any other materials used to strengthen, repair, and anything that would be associated with preparing a corpse.

Now I just got a crazy conspiracy theory. Maybe the reason Traven banned necromancy, was because he was actually a notorious serial killer, but he couldn't have been caught by guards, since he was too good. However, since necromancers study dead people a lot, someone would have traced the person's death back to Traven, and gone all CSI on his butt. So, in order to keep his sick and twisted murders continue, he banned necromancy in the guild, which would have forced all necromancers to stop their craft in the guild, or be subjected to the ignorance and hatred of the peasants in the land.

that's great.

maybe a peaceful necromancy society mod is just what oblivion needs.

or a population of commoners who fear everything.

Heh, peaceful necros maybe, but they would have to be kinda eccentric at least. And pretty much those who are not middle to nobles (~90% of the civilization) would pretty much fear any sort of practitioner of magic, except for a healer of sorts.

That Mannimarco was likely some sort of dopplegainer, used to lull the Mages Guild into a false-sense of security.

Technically, no. It wouldn't be illegal. However, a good equivalent would be trying to operate an alcohol smuggling business in Chicago during Prohibition without trying to get involved with the mafia. It's gonna be difficult. Not impossible, mind you, but difficult.

The Mage's Guild operates a monopoly on Cyrodilic magic. Freelance magicians (and to a lesser extent, scholars) can peddle stuff without their sanction, but to create a shop in the IC market district that operates without their sanction would be quite difficult, seeing as how most of their market, the aspiring magician wishing to understand a little more about Necromancy, would be forbidden from buying from the store as they'd have connections with the guild and the guild would likely in some way black list the store. So unless its aimed at mostly peddling towards common folk and carrying special interest items for the occasional *ahem* traveler and experienced field researcher, I don't see how the store could keep doing business under the Guild's ban.

I thought that instead of creating new thread i'd just post in this one as it is related, is necromancy dead (no pun intended) i mean Mannimarco is sort of dead, but then again he's a necromancer...

Also since there is a new arch-mage, what could this mean for necromancy especially after all the events that they witnessed (the hatred that happened because of the ban, the evil that spread in the mages guild, and what of the necromatic artifacts, bloodworm helm and necromancer's amulet?)

Though Mannimarco pioneered the art, the art itself can certainly survive past his supposed death. After all, the magic itself would have existed before Mannimarco. He just discovered how to utilize it. I'd assume the same would be true for the other schools. Each one had a pioneer, but their existence isn't tied to the school's existence. Then again, what you may be asking is whether necromancy as an institution will survive, not as an art. Though Mannimarco's cult might dissipate, necromancers aren't necessarily followers of the Worm God, so they'll certainly continue.

As for the new Arch-mage, it's been my assumption that, as far as canon is concerned, the only quest that the player actually completes is the Main quest (and the expansions' main quests). After all, it would be kind of absurd and unheard of for a single person to lead the thieves', mages', and fighters' guilds, while also heading up the Dark Brotherhood. Thus, Traven is likely still Arch-mage and Mannimarco may still be alive, though I wouldn't be certain (if the events still do occur in canon, I suspect they wouldn't be at the hand of the CoC. Otherwise, he'd have to be quite the multi-tasker. Though I suppose the CoC is kind of a god now, so...).

I'd disagree. Since OB's guild were painfully linear, there's no ambiguity of what went on, like DF's and MW's guilds and factions. As such, the events that transpired happened, though the person who caused all this may or may not be omitted. Most certainly that MQ, SI, and KotN will be canonized, but I have a feeling the events of what happened in the guilds too. However, the events in the guilds, by in large, seemed very contained in that specific guild, and didn't affect the general populous, so they could also have been ignored.

By the next game, some of the events that happened will probably be mentioned, and that'll likely canonize what happened to what.