Some Stuff On Necromancy
So I figured people would enjoy an exploration of various "schools" of magic. I'm kind of in the mood for discussing Necromancy and I figured people would get a kick out of hearing about how some magic generally works/is classified. It's an interesting subject and I'll almost certainly do another one on a different "school" of magic. Also keep in mind that while I am using broad sweeping terms that there is a good amount of variance in individual practitioners throughout history and there are no concrete rules within each group.
Defining terms
So what is necromancy? The actual term is fairly simple but a lot more restricted in its use than you might think. Necromancy is simply put any magic that interacts with already dead entities. As such things like vampiric conversion, zombie conversion through a bite and a spell designed to render someone dead are not necromancy as they are magic meant to interact with a living being, either to render them dead or undead. Necromancy actually has more in common with divination and communing with spirits than it does with black magic, diabolism or animation. There are admittedly a few well known applications of necromantic magic that involve some degree of animation but those tend to be more of an offshoot of the main study of the discipline.
In other words if the magic in any way brings back or communes with something that is considered dead than it is necromancy and everything beyond that is an application of another type of magic in conjunction with necromancy.
Some History
At the same time necromancy has a bad rap because of its own historical uses. Whilst pure necromancy is in no way shape or form inherently bad or malicious, historically it's tied to a lot of nasty things. Necromancy is one of the oldest forms of magic in existence, having its roots in the shamanistic magic users of hunter-gatherer societies calling upon their ancestors for guidance. With the development of more complex societies, necromancy quickly evolved into a few different paths. The ancient Babylonians often merged necromancy with with diabolism. This particular blend often turned disastrous as the necromancer in question often attempted to call or bind something incredibly powerful that was better off dead and would wreak havoc if not tightly controlled. The blending of the two disciplines based on calling inhuman things quickly earned necromancy a reputation for resulting in death and monsters which in turn started to lead to its darker reputation and necromancy as a whole being looked upon as a vile horrible thing for only the most ambitious and amoral to attempt.
Ancient Egyptian necromancy often delved more into interactions with the soul. Due to their own attempts to both categorize and figure out the components of the soul, Ancient Egyptian necromancy had a lot more applications beyond calling things and reanimating them. By using magic to separate pieces of the soul and then use them to accomplish certain tasks. Of particular note the use of the components of the soul known as Shut and/or Sekhem were often used to create reanimated guardians driven by dead spirits. However even in ancient Egyptian magical tradition necromancy eventually grew a dangerous connotation. The wizard who would go on to be known as Felix Faust figured out how to shatter his soul into infinitesimally small pieces and how the soul could then slowly grow new areas to make up what was lost given enough time. Felix Faust then used the pieces of his soul to effectively cheat dozens of magical entities, gods and more. However the shattering of the soul as Felix did it has side-effects and he quickly grew to become more amoral and destructive than he was before and eventually served as a lesson to Ancient Egyptian magic users not to mess with the purity of the soul and its components.
The Ancient Greeks went with a more ritual focused push towards necromancy and focused on summoning specific ghosts in order to answer questions they would know based off of what had happened to them in life. The ritual focused necromancy did work and it was often safer than Babylonian necromancy which haphazardly attempted to contract and bind the dead but it did often anger Hades and overtime necromancy gained a bit of a disturbing reputation as some necromancers would go as far as to ritualistically consume corpses in order to better commune with the spirit of the deceased.
The Romans slowly melded all three of the traditions but initially had a primarily Greek leaning on necromancy with slight touches of the Egyptian and Babylonian practices melded in as well. As time went on however necromancy once more blended together with diabolism and resulted in an admittedly less destructive mess but it was oftentimes just as ugly and distrusted.
With the rise of Christianity necromancy became a lot more despised and looked down on as disturbing and wrong as the Judeo-Christian religions often considered it immoral and punishable by death, the advent of it rising in Rome where necromancy had been increasingly mixed with diabolism only lead to even more hatred, fear and suspicion towards the practice. As Christianity spread so too spread the implication that necromancy was evil.
By the advent of the middle ages necromancy had become almost indistinguishable from diabolism in most of the world and the advent of the summoning circle, to contain the dead, had been incorporated into the magic. On top of that Arabic magic users began to make necromancy a lot more formulaic and took into account the position of celestial objects. In addition during the middle ages necromancy helped spur on investigation and development into possession and exorcism both of which are independent disciplines who have some overlap with necromancy. The middle ages so the most evolution in making use of necromancy to create various kinds of undead.
Necromancy eventually began to separate from diabolism in the renaissance and similarly began to transition more to spells than rituals as practitioners often found that safer and more deniable. As such a lot of manuals on necromancy began to float around but there was a lot of misinformation and so it was often looked down on with derision. Notably Leonardo Da Vinci, the ancestor of the Zatara line of magic users, famously disdained necromancy and called it the most foolish of all human ideals.
Necromancy began to spread and diversify. Tying into things like Voodoo, Celtic Druidism, attempts to unify Germanic magical tradition, Spanish recreations of old Arabic rituals and much, much more. Generally Europe returned to older roots and mixed in and evolved necromancy based off of other magic as opposed to anything unique to the discipline in and of itself, whilst in the America's necromancy was often developed in wildly new, unconnected ways.
Other types of Necromancy
Whilst the western tradition of necromancy is the most easily tracked and the most spread out across the world, there are other traditions out there. Most Eastern types of necromancy are centered around the Buddhist conception of the afterlife and as such are a fair bit more strict and specialized than the Western counterpart. That being said there are differences amongst various countries as each one worked with necromancy slightly differently.
Aliens have developed their own forms of necromancy fully independent of earth and as such have their own traditions and history.
Necromancy in the Modern day
Necromancy in the modern day remains somewhat contentious and its traditions like almost all magic are heavily, heavily fragmented. It does not have all that great of a reputation but it isn't something people get killed on sight for anymore.
Papa Midnite is the most powerful Voodoo based necromancer living on earth and he currently resides in New York City. Circe is well aware of Ancient Greek necromancy and her being able to teach it to others is catalogued in the Odyssey. Eldon Peck is a powerful necromancer on the west coast and allows necromancers safe harbor in his territories though he isn't really known for his use of necromancy. Felix Faust is arguably the greatest Ancient Egyptian magic user in living memory but he's also considered the most dangerous and untrustworthy of them all as well. John Constantine is the most well known necromancer with an expertise in British and Spanish techniques as well as a few ancient Babylonian ones and he is despised amongst the greater magical community.
All in all most necromancers are not considered to be good news. This is through no fault of necromancy itself but because a lot of necromancy was forbidden knowledge and got tied up with diabolism fairly regularly, most people who invested the time into learning necromancy tend to be those willing to disregard boundaries and limits for knowledge and power and thus tend to not be the best of people.
General functions of Necromancy
Necromancy is generally used in a few different ways. Below are some of the uses and some of the connections to other branches of magic they might have.
- Divination via the summoning of a spirit for answers
- Contracting with a spirit of the dead for more power and skill
- Having the spirits of the dead act as the arbiters of a binding deal (crosses over with enchantment)
- Creation of undead minions (crosses over with animation and sometimes with enchantment)
- Creation of minions animated by the undead (crosses over with animation and with enchantment)
- Allowing the spirit of the dead to possess an individual
- Creating ghosts that will not leave and can interact with anyone as they please
- Exorcism of dead spirits (crosses over with exorcism)
- Soul splitting
- Soul regeneration
- Use of dead spirits to see far away (crosses over with divination)
