Stepping aside from the ES universe for a while let me explain to you, my understanding of the word: "necromancy". Well, to my understanding necromancy is a form of witchcraft, where rituals (and sorcery) are used to animate those recently deceased. It can also mean to summon something (a spirit, a deadity, a ghost or whatever) from beyond this life. It is important to remember that necromancy is in practise, mostly preparation of the corpse you’re about to control with your magic. Namely, strengthening bones and possibly tissue (for those with a little more experience) and adding elements to your soon-to-be minion, such as armour, weapons and possibly curses and blessings. The purpose of necromancy can vary, but the main reason is to become immortal yourself (in Oblivion: a lich), and acquire power similar proportioned with the deities. Also, you get to tamper with the dead, which can be exciting for some. Anyway, necromancy is an act of evil and is seen upon as the most vile act a mage/witch being can do, and is intolerable to nearly everyone - meaning, they will take offence and hate you and probably also kill you! I'll get back to why they'll take offence, hate and kill you a little bit later, though you can probably imagine the reason why. Or can't you?

Firstly, though. Let's talk about Necromancy in Oblivion. Ah, so close, but at the same time so, so far away. You could kill necromancers and have your own personal opinion about their cult, but you could never join them or perform the same, sick, twisted and demented rituals that they performed (in the vanilla version, at least) - which kind of svcked, to be utterly and completely honest and sincere. Because, the fact is, necromancy looked to intriguing and so mind-blowingly thrilling that I can't find the words (or did I just find the words?)…The dark atmosphere, the shady characters, the unspoken rituals and so on and so on. I (we) just wanted to be a part of it all! But darn, we couldn't and fundamentally shouldn't. :hubbahubba:

The closest thing we came to necromancy in Oblivion were conjuring skeletons, zombies and ghosts - which was and still is kind of lame, to be utterly and completely honest and sinciere. But conjuring in Oblivion wasn't' and still isn't the least as exciting as actually performing the blood-wretched and evil necromantic rituals…Acquiring the necessary ingredients (corpses, decapitated limbs, blood, bones etc), clearing up the unholy altar, preaching from the biblical and necromantic lettering and indeed animating your own minion. Just saying... NECROMANCY IN SKYRIM? YES, PLEASE!

Having the undead on your side can be beneficial for you - as a necromancer. Your dead and deadly followers may prove to be quite the protection and can suit well as being, shall I say friends? to your sick, twisted and demented personality. BUT to others (random people, foes, allies, friends, family, etc) it's just horrid and gruesomely grotesque. Just imagine you're strolling the woods with your friend by your side, but then you're suddenly ambushed by a necromancer whom with good conscience kills your friend and revives him, turning him against you. You are then forced to kill your recently deceased comrade to save your own skin. How traumatized would you be after such an event? This is the main reason necromancy is appalled by so many. In shorter words: Thou shall respect the dead and thou shall never manipulate those beyond this life. That's the majority of the population's perception though.

If true necromancy should ever make an entrance into the beautiful land of Skyrim I would like the following:

• Rituals: Very deep and disturbing rituals, varying in length periods, anywhere from small to epic. And those rituals need to be easily distinguishable and unique, not just repetitive and same ol' same ol'. Also, I want the rituals not just to be human-specific, but other creatures needs involvement, such as the -mers, the beast races and other animals and creatures. Diversity always prevails, y'know. Also, fo these rituals you have to prepare and gather the necessary ingredients to complete the initiate rituals. Lastly, the rituals shouldn't just always revolve around one, but what about two, or three, or what about five?
  
• Shady and rich characters: I want there to be rich and unique characters dominating the Necromancer cult. I want there to be immersion in the dialogue, as well as picking side within the cult. Dividing groups and creating feuds against those groups. I know I am asking for a lot, but this really interests me and I could come up with a better excuse!
  
• Permanent summons: The minions you are able to summon should last for ever, until their killed of course. This way we can truly experience how powerful necromancy really can be. The minions shouldn't be too powerful, though. Also, multiple minions should be a possibility for those extremely experienced necromancers.
  
• Become a lich: According to the lore, each necromancer should be able to become a lich with enough preparation and skill. The lich is also (almost) every necromancer goal to become. A lich is, in fact, immortal and has extreme magical capabilities. The player should be able to become a lich, but that should be hard. A, lets call it, "litchifying"-ritual should take tremendous amount of time and should only be possible for the highest of rank and wizardry to become. Just like being a vampire, the lich-state should be almost irreversible, with only one cure. That cure, though, is not up to me to discover. Leave it to Dovakiin (or someone else).
  
• Not just summoning the dead: After reading a couple of comments, I noticed that necromancy isn't just about summoning the dead (I already kind of knew that, but it was a nice reminder). It's so much more! I don't know if this is true to the ES lore, but I'll mention it anyway. Necromancy was a sort of divination involving corpses or summoning the spirits of the dead in order to seek guidance. Meaning that you could extract information from the underworld, which can translate to seeing in the future, seeing someone elses past, etc? And from this underworld information, spells can be created. For instance: making people mad, manipulate people into do your sayings, identifying criminals, etc. (Thanks to BootySweat)
  
• Unlike Oblivion: I want Skyrim's necromancy to be approachable, not just distant and thinkable. I want necromancy to be a joinable cult or should I say guild? Not just for the NPCs, but for the player also. And please - make conjuring of undead creatures (zombies, skeletons etc) impossible in Skyrim. Make it so that summoning a undead creature will require preparation, skill and ingridients. Unlike Oblivion, where you just summoned a dead follower out from Oblivion!

So to summarize the distinction between Necromancy and Conjuration imagine a zombie being made through necromancy. The body holds the soul of the previous owner and the soul is trapped inside the body and obedient yo your bidding. It's permanent, and will only stop when the spell is released or the body damaged to an extent it can no longer house the soul.

The zombie made through conjuration is a Daedra, bound to this realm. If it dies or the spell is released, it flees back to the plane of Oblivion it came from to "respawn", if you will. The Daedra are immortal. When the spell is broken, the Daedra again flees back to Oblivion. (Thanks to Padomay for a more accurate explanation)

So, what do you think? Should necromancy be in Skyrim and do you to some extent agree with what I'm implying here? Is necromancy really evil and will you practise it in the distant future (in Skyrim, of course - if it is in). And should practising necromancy make your body and face deteriorate or the least change (paler complexion, red eyes etc)?

Read more about necromancy, other than just my understanding.
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necromancy-
-http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Necromancy-

Aside from the sick and twisted you keep tossing in I agree.

The sick and twisted part depends on who and where.

Edit: To clarify I am agreeing with wanting necromancy in game.

YES TO NECRO!
This is something I really wanted, we twisted beings look at necromancy as taboo...so we crave it! My first mage in oblivion was a conjuring wannabe necromancer. When I found there were necromancers wondering about I got all giddy and was quick to try and find a way into those ranks but was sadly rejected. Mods did of course fix this but I would enjoy seeing what Bethesda could do with this path. I want my chance to join the ranks in the order of the black worm. Once I climb the ranks to King of Worms I will fulfill the destruction of the mages guild! MUHAHAH

Personally, I'd love to see a huge variety of necromancy-related spells in the game, as well as an option to join a necromancer faction in Skyrim. If not in the main game then I really think it would have amazing potential to be DLC, perhaps released the Halloween after release or something, along with perhaps (additional, if they're already in the main game) vampire clans and questlines as well as werewolves being added, perhaps also some daedric quests added too.


But back on the subject of necromancy: yes, I'd definitely love to see it have higher prominence in Skyrim and more spells regarding the undead, as well as a few necromancer jobs you could perform, like maybe whatever they do with those corpses on the tables.

Great OP :goodjob:

I feel exactly the same way. The Necromancer faction and associated quests were a huge disappointment and missed opportunity in Oblivion.

I will wait to see how Necromancy is treated in Skyrim, but I plan to make a Necromancy magic mod, involving not only some elaborate rituals and quests to obtain ingredients, etc. for animating a corpse, but new NPCs, new spells, new spell animations and possibly adding a "necromancy" skill with its own perk tree.

And who's to say that there aren't other interesting spells from this school (i.e., something besides creating an undead servant) that we simply haven't heard about yet.

For example, if you look at the history of necromancy IRL, a spell like Clairvoyance fits with a lot of descriptions of medieval necromancy, it would just require something like the remains of a person related to the quest as a material component in order to cast the spell. In fact, that could be a really cool way to balance the power of the Clairvoyance spell. There could be other interesting takes on this, as the concept of necromancy need not be limited to the descriptions in passages from previous TES lore books.

This was a huge missed opportunity in Oblivion because all the Necromancer NPCs we encountered had basically the same arsenal of spells as most of the other spellcasting NPCs. IMO there could have been a deeper, much more interesting culture for this faction.

Historically, in ancient times, Necromancy was a sort of divination involving corpses or summoning the spirits of the dead in order to seek guidance. Later, in medieval times, necromancy was considered a form of sorcery involving summoning demons or spirits (which in Skyrim could translate to Daedric beings) for purposes of:

• reanimation of the dead
  
• food and entertainment,
  
• to drive people mad
  
• to inflame people to love or hatred, to gain their favor, or to constrain them to do or not do some deed"
  
• conjuring a mode of transportation
  
• identifying criminals,
  
• finding items
  
• revealing future events.

some additional TES lore about Necromancers

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-preparation-corpse
http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-arkay-enemy
http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-legions-dead
http://www.imperial-library.info/content/oblivion-black-arts-trial

To note, On the Preparation of the Corpse is, pretty much, the only in-depth look at necromancy in its art, not a bunch of people screaming propaganda.

The least they could do is make tour undead minions crawl out of the ground this time. And I agree about the other necromancy stuff mentioned in the OP.

Except Necromancers don't really just cast a spell in a ground and out comes out zombies and skellies. In reality, necromancers build their servants, then reanimate them using magic. In fact, necromancy seems to be 90% preparation, 10% execution.

As you read "On the Preparation of the Corpse," you should take note that not much is said about the process of reanimating the undead, but rather, its preparation, like strengthening skeletal joints with leather or spikes, mummifying corpses, and the difference between animal and humanoid reanimation.

In Skyrim, I'd say many of the perks that lead down a more necromancer path should follow this philosophy from Preparation of the Corpse. Also, necromancers should be able to summon more undead than a master summoner of daedroth. Reason being, it's not that hard to control a mindless being with magic, one just needs to know how to work with the magic (think almost like a puppeteer).

Lastly, no liches. They're supposed to be highly powerful mages to begin with. Making them trash mobs and summons really cheapens them, not to mention they're still sentient.

i dislike you for your constant insert of sick and twisted. Necromancy is looked down upon by many of Tameral, but many in the mages guild consider it a legitimate school of magic to learn. Traven was the one who had the most hatred for necromancy and that made him unpopular.

I completely agree.

I'm not as familiar with the lore regarding the other schools of magic, but it seems that in general, TES games tend to forego the intricacies of arcane research and rituals in order to pull off a magic system that allows the PC to instantly shoot fireballs from his/her fingertips without any preparation, for example. The lack of this sense of the mystery of the arcane is what prompted me to start working on this mod.

Very interesting, I hope to download this Necromancer mod! Problem is, though, I usually play on my Xbox, but I'll see what I can do.

I would love to have necromancy guild or w.e in the game and im against that kind of magic (evil). I feel like it would add more to being a mage or w.e whether you hate necromancy or want to join it( in game). if this is added they should change up conjuration because last time i checked skeletons are undead <_<

On a semi-related note, does anyone know what the fine for Necrophilia is in Skyrim?

I hope necromancy is in Skyrim. I still don't understand the difference between conjuring a zombie and making one through necromancy.

In the way they are represented in the game Oblivion (which may be different from Skyrim's magic system), one involves animating a pre-existing corpse, through elaborate ritual, while the other involves summoning a zombie out of thin air who disappears after X seconds (presumably returning to some other plane, or wherever you conjured him up from).

Basically - a zombie made through necromancy is the soul of the previous owner trapped inside the rotting body, trapped forever to do your bidding. It's permanent, and will only stop when the spell is released, or the body damaged to an extent it can no longer house the soul.

The zombie made through conjuration is a Daedra, bound to this realm. If it dies, it flees back to the plane of Oblivion it came from to "respawn", if you will. The Daedra are immortal. When the spell is broken, the Daedra again flees back to Oblivion.

I suspect the lore reason to remove mysticism may have been because of the links between Mysticism and Necromancy. Obviously, it was removed for a gameplay reason, but lore and gameplay are two very different things. Damn Traven... I want my undead minions!

That is an excellent explanation - thanks for clarifying this.

But either way, you're still summoning an undead corpse. Why should it matter how you accomplish that task? Hell, at least the Necromancers put time and effort into their work, the Mages just cast a little spell and *poof* there's their zombie. It's kind of hypocritical. It would be like shunning someone for building their own house and praising the person who just goes out and buys one.

I agree with you in the sense that it felt pretty odd to hear the Mage's Guild NPCs badmouth Necromancy and then turn around and sell me a spell of Summon Zombie, regardless of any distinction in the lore.

The zombie 'revived' by necromancers could be, until recently, alive, talking, laughing, just gotten married with his childhood sweet heart, just named his soon to come first born.

The zombie conjured is just magicka brought to flesh that happens to look like a moving rottening corpse, no history, no face, no name.

That's the difference.

"Others summon undead servants such as skeletons or wraiths." No, I believe you are still summoning someone's undead corpse. Necromancers just use...fresher subjects, shall we say?

Umm... you can summon zombies, a.k.a, dead people...

I would expect that in real life, necromancy was closely linked to superstitious nonsense surrounding dissection. As everyone knows that in the real world, magic doesn't exist.


I would think that you are actually just summoning a daedra from Oblivion, which assumes the shape of an undead corpse. I would think that, because otherwise it means that there is another dimension somewhere in TES where Necromancers are creating zombies, and then you steal their servants from them.

Apparently necromancers can rise a dead body, even the PC's and make it dance until it falls apart. (Oblivion - Noveni Othran)

Conjurers on the other hand, have been shown to only teleport an existing zombie from somewhere. This infers that they do not actually increase the number of zombies in the world and many a dummer lady were robbed of their partners in the heat of passion.

If lower than Oblivion, I am sure a certain Hlalauu alchemist, if still living, might make an appearance.


Necromancy to me means preparing a corpse, and reanimating only a body, and controlling it via magical incantations.
The bosmer gift of turning the undead therefore goes against the teachings of Arkay. Then again, they consume their enimies. Does that excuse necromancy?
Conjuration is the summoning of whatever magical essence of being: spirit or monster, to do your bidding. Whether or not that being decides to take a corporeal form is up to them.