The Fundamentals of Magic: Part 4, "Necromancy"
one of the most discussed fields inside the whole arcane community, Necromancy studies the theories and aplications of magic in regards to the very sentient soul and its potential implications on the concepts of inmortality and life beyond what the biological cycle dictates.
as it is known, the first person to study these concepts was the one and only Nar'sel Althazad. despite his eventual turning into an evil pressence, the master of the undead was the first to create the fundamental postulations and methods for necromancy. necromancy never was a popular field due to the heavy social and historical background of it. being a practice banned by practically all the nations worldwide, except for one.
after the last crusade, the isle of Helgard was declared a quarintine zone, the final enclosure for the remaining undead population. despite the horrible implications,queen Joan, ruler of Helgard and holy watcher of the non-living, declared necromancy as an open practice in the island. the helgardians needed to keep up with their ever dwindling numbers, and necromancy was the only way to mantain their population "alive".
its is no surprise that, after the declaration, massive illegal fleets of amateur necromancers and other death obsessed scholars came to the island looking for applying their moraly questionable practices in the service of society. Helgard was known in the following centuries for making the first advancements in the studies of medicine, with the practicants being able to actually dissect their patients in order to study the inner workings of the body, their patients were dead already after all. the most potent medicines and poisons were created by the newly founded Helgardian Society of Plague Doctors. a group that, in the past, was the fundamental part in the destruction of the original undead forces.
due to the popularity of the place, the international organisms decided to lift the regulations on the island, as long as the citizens were responsible with their practices. undead were given free pass into the international agenda and received the same treatment as any other living civilian, but they had to keep in check for any kind of potential infection onto the living.
in the modern era, Necromancy has received mixed responses by the global society. in one hand, many enthusiasts dream with the idea of beating death and living as inmortals. while the most religious societies and high moral arcanologists declared it a crime against the normal cycle of the soul. whatever the belief, necromancy is oficialized as a legal aplication, as long as it follows a set of regulations of the local government and the consent of those implicated on it.
the main postulates of necromancy dictate all the functionalities from which necromancy derives and are the following:
postulate A: "each soul is dependant on its original body", Althazad was capable of fooling the authorities after his mortal death because he put a part of itself in a philactery, the philactery acted as vessel to its inmortal soul and was capable of controlling the mind of the people that hosted it. outside from philacteries, no soul can be put on the body of other person or creature, if a soul looses its original body, it will soon fade back into the Onirion, however, a philactery can serve as a control and host of the person's soul, as long as it keeps a part of the original body. athe philactery channels the soul back from the Onirion using a shard of the original and as long as it exist the owner cannot die. having several philacteries ensure your soul is never gone, it merely changes the vessel in which it is contained. but if all philacteries are destroyed, your soul is obligued to return into the Onirion.
postulate B: "bodies are independent of the soul once dead", many of the horrific creations of Althazad's forces were actually empty corpses. as postulate A dictates that each soul cannot be kept on the material plane without its original body, and having a patchwork monster composed of several souls would prove complicated to control (both due to the potential danger of autonomy and magical requirements to keep the channel), the monstrosities used in the third crusade were patchwork bodies reanimated by magic but controled by the mind of the necromancy. in a manner similar to a puppet or mannequinn. at its fundamental, a soul requires a body in order to reanimate a person, and a body can be reanimated completelly empty but it will require "manual" control by the necromancer.
postulate C: "undeath is not forever", the reanimated can live for incredibly long periods of unlife, but the body eventually will crumble due to biological degradation, the rate at which the body decomposes depends heavily in the climatic conditions, most of the oldest citizen in helgard date back to the original infected, but its because the island is located practically on the north pole. due to this, it is recommended for the undead that go to warmer climates to keep enbalming equipment or use magic to keep their bodies at criogenic temperatures in order to mitigate cellular degradation. in the long run however, the body will crumble to its fundamental elements and the soul will be freed. biological degradation isnt the only limitant in this case, each time the undead is killed and reanimated, the soul degradates into the Onirion, up to a point when the soul basically fades into the inmaterial plane returning to the natural cycle, even if its a sentient soul.
postulate D: "souls are not transmutable", souls can be transplanted or summoned from the inmaterial plane, but they cannot be absorbed, or used to create other souls. a fragment of them can be used to be channeled into a vessel later, but they cannot be bissected and joined with another to creater a more powerfull soul. a soul can be summoned for a reduced time but will not stay permanently unless its put into a vessel. ghosts are not technically undead, and are more of an anomaly, a projection of a soul that its still in process of passing to the inmaterial plane.
postulate E: "each undeath is different in its conception", the way the individual died and the hability of the necromancer have a heavy influence on the reanimation's result. someone that died due to age has its body severely crippled due to being already in the process of degradation and will require augmentation but its easy to reanimate, someone that drowned or died to suffocation will require to compensate the damaged lungs or nervious system. beheaded undead are tricky, the head or the body alone arent of much use, it usually requires to join both. people that died by inmolation is practically impossible to reanimate because their bodies are usually reduced to ashes, which cannot be used as vessels.
postulate F: "reanimation is not a perfect art", necromancy is severely dependant in the caster's mental prowess and concentration, one mistake and the result can affect the output of the process, an unstable reanimation can lead from not reviving anything, to only one parte being reanimated. or worse, a mindless berserking zombie which will basically feed on anything that moves, including its creator.
postulate G: "necromancy must never be applied unless the subject is dead", many intents have been made to use necromancy to extend the life of someone that is already alive, the result vary, but all of them end with severe consequences, necromancy manipulates the inner connections of the soul and the body. using necromancy on a living being causes it to suffer either a quick death, or a horrible process of rotting due to the soul overcharging the body. in either cases the subject is dead beyond reanimation, or is recipient of the following situation:
necromancy and the dilemma of vampirism:
vampirism is a side effect and a subdivision of study in necromancy. long ago, during the auge of necromancy in the renaissance, a group of scholars tried to achieve the ordeal of creating a better undead, one that could subvert the issues of the typical reanimated, with bodies that could not degradate and instead were capable of keeping themselves working as if they were still living. the casters involved in the process tried something that wasnt never made before and which was basically what caused the creation of the postulate G in the first place. using a group of selected individuals the scholars tried to extend the life of the individuals using necromancy while they were still living. the channeling process required the power of all the implicated up to the point that the spell started to suck out the life essence of the casters, as the casters saw, the living started to suffer a large array of mutations, however, the spell was being too much for them and the channeling was becoming too unstable. the arcane flux released by the ritual caused a massive explosion in the place, killing not only the responsibles but also the subjects.
when the local authorities went to explore the remains of the ritual, they found the bodies turned into ash. however, someone seemed to have survived. no trace of the survivor were found, until two weeks later, when reports of dead cattle and human attacks were reported in the fields. most reports talked about a human male, aparently on its twenties and of Balkanian origin, more specifically of the northern regions. the autopsies detected markings of bites in the neck, with what seemed to be the total extraction of the blood from the body. it took the autorities at least 3 months to finally catch the responsible. by the time the guy had been interrogated, many people related to the circe of scholars had been infected with the effects of the recluse, vampirism extended all around the old world and soon the cities were sprawlin with blood hungry maniacs. Helgardian autorities had to put foot on the matter, they captured or killed the remaining vampires and tried to find a cure for the disease.
however, many innocents had fallen to the infection, victims of vampirism were sent to Helgard against their will in order to evade a pandemia. the helgardian government had to cope out with the dietary requirements of the newcomers, practically making the base of the modern blood banks.
a cure for vampirism hasnt been found to this day yet. and with the freedom of migration given by the international organism, the number of vampires has sure increased, measures have had to be taken by all the governments in the planet to ensure the disease is kept at bay, usually providing feeding services to the infected and capturing or executing those that actually promote the disease.
at its most basic symptons, vampirism causes the subject to die instantly and reanimate after a time, the necromancer spell extends to its biological functions, allowing the cells to keep working as if alive and in a rapid state of regeneration. the downside is that requires to feed on blood to keep working, the blood of the living contain traces of arcane essence, the same that composes the soul. feeding on blood helps to keep the process working. due to the original spell being done during the night, it causes the subject to suffer heavily to sunlight of any kind, extended exposure to it causes debilitation and if not taken care of, death. not feeding of blood causes the subject to degrade rapidly up to the point of biological death too.
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