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It Belongs to a Museum

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BurnNote said:
That is why it was mostly not done, for exactly that reason, which the clerical underground, being clerics, would have known and broadly agreed. Though mainstream theology obviously rejected magic as a whole, it was the clerical underground.

There's some magic that fucks around with the dead, but it's rather rare. But the witch of endor (yes) straight up summons the dead to answer some questions (making it both necromancy and necromancy), so you can't really argue against the theoretical possibility, cause it's right there in the bible.

Demon summoning was one of the three typical approaches, besides summoning or beckoning angels, and astral/astrology magic (though technically the planets were either demons or angels, so this is arguably a subtype).

I think if you wanted proper people magic, the jewish tradition is your best bet, though even that is "willing possession by the pious dead" rather than a magician doing stuff.
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Ironically the theology position was a reversal of Near East beliefs include the Israelites and Judahites which held the dead as a type of deity. In that specific scene, the Witch of Endor says "I see deities ['ĕlōhîm] rising up from the underworld." the terminology for the dead is the same for the divine. It's only later that we see a belief rises that the dead are not a power unto themselves.

See: YWVH's Divine Images by Dan McClellan

A Covenant with Death: Death in the Iron Age II and Its Rhetorical Uses in Proto-Isaiah by Christopher Hays.

"Feasts for the Dead and Ancestor Veneration in Levantine Traditions." by Theodore J. Lewis
 
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Oh shit two of my three choices are in the top two. Time to win now it down I guess.

[X] The Lamprey
[X] The Tide of Skjold

I still want God poking, but will narrow it down to undead God pokers. Seriously we're vampire coast baby let's get some undead crews.
 
Boney said:
But if we get really technical, it's not even an actual Greek word at all! The original word is credited to the Greeks, but they had two methods of 'necromancy' with their own, actual Greek names - the 'classical' form in nekyia where you call up a spirit and question it, and the chadly variant of katabasis where you visit the dead in the Underworld to ask them questions. 'Necromancy' and all the other mancies came about in the 17th century as one of those catnip for word nerd things where you just take a suffix and append random words in a dead language and pretend they're actual words and go gosh, what a wide technical vocabulary these people had for this specific thing, instead of it just being how words work in some languages. Hey, did you know that submechanocoulrophobia is the fear of underwater robot clowns?
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It's not like nekromanteía was made up whole-cloth, it's simply a later Greek term (presumably derived from its root words for obvious reasons - Herodotus is talking about Periander and the nekyomantíion at Acheron so it's hardly a stretch for some early Christian Koine-speaker to generalize to all dead-divinations).

Now, the whole -mancy thing in general is a fucking travesty. Manteía is divination! That's what it means! Pyromancy is fire-divination, not throwing fireballs!
 
[X] The Tide of Skjold
[X] The Careener
[X] The Salt Lord

Supplying the undead with employment, making deals with the perfidious ratmen or raising a dread legion of Bats, these all appeal to me
 
CornyBones said:
Remind me, what do people dig about Tide of Skjold?
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Their story is cool and interesting, Norscans are interesting and a major part of our clientele, Undead are interesting and a major part of our clientele, I'm super excited for the possibilities of exploring the ocean floor for relics, opportunities for poking at the gods, the aesthetic...

Elves are cool and I voted for an elfquest at chargen, but I'd rather focus on the spooky pirates now that we're here. Especially considering we already have a major Elven supplier.
 
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[X] The Tide of Skjold

We already have access to Elf Stuff via Aelsabrim - I'd rather diversify.
 
CornyBones said:
Remind me, what do people dig about Tide of Skjold?
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The archetype of warriors who Chaos refused to claim after death is neat. Their specific rare skill combination means they should have good access to many more locations they can scour for future exhibits than might be expected for a pirate/coastal raider crew, while also not being highly specialized into just the Lizardmen like the Stolen Fang. The point of the Tide's flag being one of the ones less feared among the Armada might mean that non-violent acquisitions are not even entirely off the table for them too.
 
[X] The Tide of Skjold

I stand by my earlier opinion: it's hilariously badass that, having had their souls rejected/ignored by all four Chaos gods and Stromfels, they came back from the dead super salty and itching to fight about it.

There's some kind of weird inverted turbo-heresy in that backstory. Probably enough to make a Sigmarite's head explode.
 
CornyBones said:
Remind me, what do people dig about Tide of Skjold?
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I'll be comparing them to The Bitter Crucible since that's the main competition.
Although Bitter Crucible is no doubt able to trade more broadly, given that they can do it just about anywhere and won't be despised just for being undead, it is explicitly stated that The Tide of Skjold is also capable of trading, and in fact they seem to do this plenty, with their business model revolving around the sale of beast components to towns and villages and their flag being 'one that gives less reason to fear'. I doubt they're able to dock in Marienburg, but I imagine they can trade with most 'evil' factions and any more flexible 'good' guys. Since they can travel down rivers and have Portaging, their trading options may actually include some that not even The Bitter Crucible has.

Furthermore, I believe they do still engage in some reaving, which makes them more flexible than The Bitter Crucible, which I believe will only hunt and trade unless we spend Goodwill to Develop it.

I'm most interested in their ability to hunt beasts, because it's cool and these beasts fit with both Trophy (for Awakening) and Sea Beasts (for Sea Elves). They're better for this than The Bitter Crucible because they have Beasts (Oceanic, River) rather than merely (Oceanic). The idea of draugr upgrading themselves with beast bits is also very cool to me.

Their Swimming ability, I imagine, makes them more suitable for exploring underwater relics, since as skilled undead swimmers who are also great at killing sea monsters I don't think there are many people more suitable for underwater exploration.

Their specialty of Theological (Chaotic, Oceanic) and their weird religious beliefs are more interesting to me than the Theological (Nature, Oceanic) of The Bitter Crucible, and I imagine that Chaotic could be popular among Norscans, who we do not yet have as a potential Audience but who have been mentioned as a possibility. Having Chaos relics in our museum sounds great for a laugh. Hopefully we can get some books that whisper maddening secrets and some blades that thirst for blood. And it would be pretty cool if we could get Chaos Warriors showing up here to do something other than attack, though I'm not sure how likely that is.

Their specialty of Norsca again seems relevant to a potential Norscan Audience, while we don't currently have an obvious candidate for appreciating Ulthuan, though of course this can be fixed with Cultivation, and I imagine that we can find an appropriate Audience; maybe Marienburgers?
 
One way to cut the knot of the Necromancy misunderstanding is to simply have Paht pick up the skill as an action. There are likely few who are as well-prepared for learning it as him and Awakening is the best possible spot to find tutors since Necromancy for fun and profit is their main aesthetic.
 
Broccoliccoli said:
One way to cut the knot of the Necromancy misunderstanding is to simply have Paht pick up the skill as an action. There are likely few who are as well-prepared for learning it as him and Awakening is the best possible spot to find tutors since Necromancy for fun and profit is their main aesthetic.
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We don't learn skills in this quest, only knowledges—and there's no guarantee that learning Necromancy (Surface) will actually let us cast necromantic spells—it could just be a more prosaic understanding of the discipline from an academic viewpoint. Knowledge does not correlate to magical ability.

Personally, I don't think we should go chasing necromancy. If we really need it, we can hire a necromancer. I'd rather add a new character who specialises in necromancy than learn it ourselves—the Barrow King from the staff vote seems like a fun character.
 
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