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[rico6822]

Or just being widely depicted like that.

[Egan_BW]

They're either folks who became obsessed with immortality and subsequently sook after the secrets of life and death (in worldgen), or some sod who randomly happened to read the secrets which a necromancer wrote down (in fortress mode), or someone who read a slab to gain its power (for player-controlled adventurers). Knowing the secrets of life and death makes them immortal and unaging which will eventually cause other people to chase them away from civilization (maybe suspecting them of being a dangerous vampire or something). Knowing the secrets also of course lets a necromancer reanimate corpses as zombies, which aren't really under their control and are "opposed to life", causing them to attack anything living.

It's up to you if that sounds like an evil being to you, I guess. DF doesn't really have any definitions for good and evil at the moment. More like "Dwarves" and "things trying to kill dwarves".

[PatrikLundell]

Many necros are evil in the sense that they want to gain power and use the power of life and death as tools in that endeavor, while some are "just" mad scientists that have no respect for their neighbors' wishes to leave the bodies of the dead alone (and that part has historic counterparts, with greater demand for corpses for dissection than the legitimate supply). The hapless ones that stumble upon the secret and the ones who just fear death are the ones you don't hear much about, because they eventually are forced to flee to settle in a lonely cottage somewhere out of the way (which doesn't guarantee they won't eventually get bored and become ambitious to combat that boredom).

All necros are a danger for their neighbors, though, given the risk of them unwittingly raising uncontrollable undead, so it's not unreasonable for people to have reason to cause suspected necros to flee.