» Wed Apr 28, 2010 3:46 am
Was tinkering with my spell effect list lately, and in particular added a lot to Necromancy and figured I'd post it for opinions. If anyone has any thoughts on additional abilities the skill should be capable of that I can draw inspiration from/steal, feel free to suggest. Note that I try to separate the magic schools based on their fundamental functions and differences, not "that causes damage, stuff it in Destruction" or "that sound evil, put it under Necromancy," so I'd rather it be things that Necromancy would be capable of, when looked at as a discipline that crosses and manipulates the border between life and death. For those who don't know all the skills in my set are split into three subskills, which is why the effects are in three sections.
*Necromancy: Revivification
-Revive: The signature skill of necromancy, pulling a spirit from the outer realms and forcibly placing it into a waiting corpse to act as its body. Though it resembles summoning, the skills involved are completely different, and talent at one does nothing to improve the other. Daedra cannot die, while spirits are the remains of a thing that is dead, and the two are almost polar opposites when it comes to magically manipulating their essence. As many ghosts have only partial consciousness and in general much weaker willpower than daedra, it is not necessary to further complicate the effort with binding Command magics; the caster's will alone is enough. As well, since the caster isn't temporarily forcing openings in powerful borders that separate Oblivion from the Mundus, spirits may be held for much longer periods. The caster's Revivification skill dictates the difficulty level of animating a corpse. Novice necromancers are initially only able to animate fresh, intact bodies. As skill increases, in a method resembling how trapped souls are used to fuel the magic in items, the necromancer is able to manipulate the spirit to simulate missing ligaments and tissues, animating skeletons and incomplete bodies The pinnacle of reviving magic is the ability to animate monstrosities cobbled together from separate species. Servants created through reviving can last indefinitely without becoming "unsummoned," with the failure rate of additional servants climbing the more that the necromancer has, including spirits. The normal method of reviving involves a ritual including the creation and/or preparation of the body. However, in tight situations, the necromancer may directly cast the spell on the bodies of the recently fallen to immediately reinforce their position. Though fast, this method creates a servant that is weaker, short-lived, and applied with a much lower skill level; it takes a more powerful necromancer just to instantly animate even fresh, intact corpses. As well, this damages the body against future use. Almost any previously-living thing that leaves a corpse can be revived or contribute parts to the process.
-Bind Spirit: Pulls a ghost into the world and chains it to the necromancer's will as with Revive, but leaves it in its incorporeal state instead of sealing it within a corpse. Spirits are far less dangerous than daedra, but easier to maintain. Failure rates climb the more spirits that are summoned at once, and revived undead are included in this equation. Spirits can be given commands as through the necromancer's Instruction skill. With targeted spells the caster can attempt to take control over free-roaming ghosts, allowing the same commands as with summoned spirits.
-Outer Inquiry: Sends a portion of the necromancer's consciousness into the outer realms, directly communicating with more intelligent spirits instead of controlling them. Such conversations are more difficult to maintain than normal speech, are further limited by the magical rules of spell failure and magicka drain, and may be confusingly vague or bizarre. However, they can also be a source of rare or unusual information not normally gleaned from the living world. If specific information is needed, the necromancer may select a name to attempt to reach a certain person's spirit. With a soul gem, the necromancer can attempt to trap the called spirit, and use it to revive the individual's preserved and restored body, potentially returning them to true life, one of the most difficult and impressive powers of necromancy. Requires a ritual to be cast.
-Necrotic Virus: Raises a virus, one of the simplest types of life, into an undead form. Being dead, the virus cannot multiply and is no longer contagious. However, the body's natural defenses can no longer destroy it, considerably increasing both its severity and the difficulty of removing it. Rebuke Spirit spells may slow its advancement or remove weaker viruses, but more potent infections may require special treatment, such as medicines containing shavings of enchanted silver. Viruses are maintained within a sample of dead flesh possessed by the necromancer, and the easiest way to spread them is by using the sample as the reagent for a Poison spell.
-Necrotic Organ: The necromancer attempts to raise parts of themselves as undead, allowing them to continue functioning. Though painful, dangerous, and difficult, it allows the caster to openly defy death. The spell has two functions; to negate an injury, and to protect an organ. The former requires that the caster be injured in some way, such as with a broken bone or damaged eye. Upon choosing the target and casting the spell the injury vanishes and that body part is considered undead, and is more difficult to injure a second time. A re-injured organ can be revived again, but this stacks, and is more difficult each time. Protecting the body requires that the spell be cast before combat, and will automatically revive an organ if it is struck. The more times a part is revived, the more it is considered undead. When undead organs are struck the character takes less damage depending on how advanced the state is, to the point that certain locations essentially cause no damage. However, the necromancer must maintain their own life, and the living portions of their body become ever more valuable. Vital areas take more damage the less of them there are, and fatigue/magicka regeneration slowly decrease. Undead organs will not naturally heal, and must be repaired with restoration magic, potions, or other supernatural means to be returned to life. The most powerful and dangerous use of the spell is to protect the heart beforehand; upon death the caster will collapse briefly and enemies will turn away, before the heart is revived and the caster stands with a small amount of health restored. However, this effect is temporary (duration depending on skill level), and if the heart isn't restored to life before then the necromancer will completely die. The Necrotic Organ effect has no use for entirely undead targets (including if the necromancer becomes a lich).
-Cannibalize Dead: Allows the caster to utilize dead flesh to heal wounds. Unlike the Necrotic Organ effect, it does not create undeath or alter living tissue, but instead uses dead tissue to replace destroyed flesh and then uses necromancy to blur the lines between living and dead, letting the replacements heal and become "normal" tissue. The spell must either target a corpse as the source or the caster must have flesh in their inventory. Though it restores health less effectively than restoration spells, and is not instant (the health regenerates more slowly), it allows healing within the necromancer's chosen field. Because it transmits solid matter, higher ranges increase spell difficulty dramatically, working best with On Touch. The spell loses efficiency the further the race of the target corpse is from the caster, with other humanoids being second best, followed by animals, then exotic monsters, and so on. Casts consume flesh according to magnitude, and smaller corpses can be quickly stripped. When health is otherwise full the spell can restore undead organs, but requires large amounts of "meat" as entire parts are being replaced, and healing is another degree slower. With material in inventory the necromancer can cast the spell on target; this is most effective for undead servants, who don't need the tissue to heal, and as such are recovered by it just as effectively as one casting restoration on themselves. Undead servants can be created capable of this effect, and will literally consume the dead to heal themselves.
-Forbidding: Prevents spirits that leave a body from pursuing their normal afterlife, effectively causing ghosts to spawn from the newly dead. Once the duration runs out there is a chance that lingering ghosts will disperse, depending on the skill of the caster (higher skill makes them more likely to remain in the physical world). Can be cast on a target or in an area, effecting any who die within its radius. Spirits created in this way don't have any specific allegiance, and may wander away, attack anything nearby, attempt to resume what they were doing in life, attack the one who killed them, and so on. Very powerful necromancers can combine a Forbidding effect with Bind Spirit, potentially creating a small army.
*Necromancy: Instruction
-Does not have normal spell effects. Rather, this skill governs the complexity of the orders a necromancer may give their servants. Both undead and spirits may be given orders, but only those created by the caster, as even those not hostile to the player are controlled by another necromancer. For the most part, the order system works the same as with leadership skills and the Request dialogue function, but falls under a different skill as it represents direct mental commands and not spoken orders. All servants can be called to defend the caster at any skill level, and when given this order supercedes all other instructions. Sets of orders may be copied if the caster wishes all of their servants to behave the same way, and may also be written into spellbooks as part of a ritual, to create undead with specific behaviors already built in. "Instruction" itself is cast as a low-cost spell, which brings up a command menu and existing servants, and may be used any time.
-Hematic Script: The necromancer is capable of using blood to invoke necromantic power through writing. Essentially, by enscribing runes in blood they can enchant scrolls and books without using the Enchantment skill or a soul gem. Instruction skill determines the magnitude of power that the writing can hold. However, because dead blood is being used to power necromantic magic, only Necromancy skill effects can be written in this way. Hematic Script is a highly personalized type of magic, and anyone other than the writer trying to use such an item has a higher difficulty penalty. As well, using such items at all requires comparable skill in Instruction, with higher rates of disastrous failure for those not meeting the requirements. If someone not a necromancer finds and attempts to use a necromantic spellbook written in Hematic Script, they are likely to kill themselves. More exotic or inherently magical types of blood can boost effects, or be used for highly specialized spells; for example, a scroll to animate someone's corpse written in their blood.
*Necromancy: Design
-This skill mostly governs the necromancer's ability to build and maintain corpses, including stitching, preservation, reinforcing, mummification, and so on. Improved skill increases the stats of servants in many ways, and raises the necromancer's talent at reconnecting parts. Failure to properly maintain or attach pieces of corpses can drastically weaken the servant, prevent the spell from succeeding at all, or damage the corpse. While experienced necromancers favor composite undead to create more powerful servants, when preserving the original form of a corpse higher design skill can allow it to retain some of the skills it had in life. Bound spirits do not benefit from the Design skill.
-Poison: Rapidly speeds up the decomposition process, turning flesh into a toxic, putrefied mess. This can be directed toward enemies in two forms; gas or liquid. The ease of spreading it makes gas the preferred form of magical poison, and though not as instantly dangerous as other forms of poison it can lead to suffocation and disease over time, as well as crippling those caught within the cloud, sometimes simply from sheer revulsion. Liquid poison is much more dangerous, but harder to apply, often requiring that the target already be wounded, so that the substance has an entry point. Magical creation of poison requires an organic reagent, typically flesh of some kind, with its potency varying by skill and choice of reagent. Either form can be placed into a sealed container for later use, but may lose effect over time.
-Bone Shape: Utilizes the necromancer's skill in physical corpse maintenance and combines it with the same magical connections that replace tendons and muscle to create equipment. The spell can only be cast on self, upon which it opens a page listing bones in inventory and items that can be made from them. Quality depends on skill level and bone type (ogre bones are stronger than human, etc). Though items are of lesser quality and variety than normally crafted equipment, they can be made relatively quickly and easily at any time. At higher skill levels undead servants can be made to use the spell; a powerful servant can kill an enemy, eat its flesh to heal itself, then use the bones to improve its equipment.
