Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Mel_Vixen]

I dont think that necromancers have to go mad. Some might call it unmoralic to resurect the dead i think it has many benefits.

The undead Body is the poor dwarfs Robot. Its just dead matter animated with an Programm and like Robots they dont mind working 24 hours 7 days a week. It is an big advantage if you have an workforce of Zombies or skeletons that do stuff for you except fighting like mining, building, Smelting etc. So i can see cultures bound to Undead like todays humanity is bound to robots.

I even can see benefits in Worldgen. If you got zerged by elves you just can unbury theyr dead bodys to reinforce your workforce and have an viable Milityra as defence.

Sure it should have sideeffects but more like loosing control over some undeads or losing entire armys at once cause your necromancer got shot. not to mention zombies roting away over time and needing repair.
Political consequences are there too. If you are an necromencer country surrounded by the 3 Civs of treehugers you will get serious problems with them cause i dont believe that they have an exception for necromancy in theyr ethical code.

Oh and i see an difference in how you resurect an undead body. Its an differences if you made the body only to follow an programm like Code or if you had an contract with the still lifing being (works as punishment for crimes too) or if you just enslave the an free spirit/soul/demon to animate the body.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I'm trying to look at things from the viewpoint of the dwarf, Heph. I know undead are robots, and you know undead are robots, but to the dwarf who's older brother got turned into that robot, there's all this complication. And dwarfs in a state of conflicted emotion add all these fascinating layers to the game.

It's like turning grape juice into wine. It can suddenly taste of so many things...and it can make you drunk.

[Mel_Vixen]

Nah we dont look at the dwarf we look basicly at an modern western men who got friegthned by the Zombieflics since the 60s. The entire death theme here is pretty much the stuff we learn from our parents, the media and in "Church" (or what kind of temple you may prefer).

In another culture, and dwarfen cultures are different enought, it could even be an honor to have an family member raised for further service.

The ancient germans and Kelts nailed dead cats and other animals in theyr roofs supports against lightning and walled cocks in for against damages by earthquakes. This was clearly an form of "necromancy" if you want to call it this.
Other cultures get the mummys of theyr ancenstors for mayor hollydays clothed and set up for an family dinner.

The Cultus all over the planet was never an unified idea of "get them fast under 6 feet earth". Heck even the katholic church once unburyed an pope for some kind of Trial.

What i say is that we should not overload the ability to necromancy with western moralics cause dwarfs arent modern western men.

[SirHoneyBadger]

You're right about that...I'll think about it, and get back to you later.

[Flaede]

A program! yes. I'm just keying off something someone else just said here, but perhaps when a poor dorf is ripped from his everafter, he has to be brought back for a specific PURPOSE.

something like :
REACTION 1 -> entity corpse + x + x + x -> AXEDWARF
REACTION 2 -> entity corpse + x + x -> COOK (ew)
REACTION 3 -> entity corpse + totem + craft-tool -> CRAFTSDWARF (of type as of tool)
REACTION 3 -> entity corpse + cheap totem -> HAULER

everyone's assuming all stats will be based on the dwarf's previous life, and maybe so, but either way, their goal should be decided upon RAISING, and not be able to be changed. that way if you want a militia, you can't change 'em to be craftsdwarves so you'd better keep supplying them with enemies, and if they're craftsdwarvs, you'd better keep supplying them with raw materials.

Also, is this whole thing dependant on the idea of corpses already retaining much of what they had in life, so that then still have clothes and armor and weapons and stuff as corpses, so that the created being might have them? Or would we have to designate clothing/armor be given to the corpse in a "corpse corps" screen like the military one?

[Pilsu]

What i say is that we should not overload the ability to necromancy with western moralics cause dwarfs arent modern western men.

Dwarves were invented by modern western men. Well, the ones we use now anyway. I don't think them wanting to bury their dead is unreasonable. Many cultures did that, they didn't just carve them open to make more arrowheads out of the bones and feed the meat to their pets. Raising their bodies as rotting abominations probably wouldn't have flown in many cultures. Unless of course the body retained the spirit and it was still your friend, immortality probably would have been lucrative for a short lived species

I like to treat is as a balance issue really. Whereas dwarves could have traps, the finest goods in the game and the only ones with access to legendaries and artifacts, humans would make up for that with poison and necromancer nobles. Preferably ones that possess peasants to live forever. As is humans are blander than in Warcraft

[Granite26]

It goes back to absolute vs relative morality.  Are there some things that are just wrong, regardless of circumstance or culture?  Do accepting these things make your culture as a whole innately wrong?

[Mel_Vixen]

What i say is that we should not overload the ability to necromancy with western moralics cause dwarfs arent modern western men.

Dwarves were invented by modern western men. [...]
 

Well the thats not true. The first describtion of dwarfs comes from the 11th century and origins in the Northern Mythologie (in the Kenningar). An nice describtion of theyr creation you can find in the translated versions of the Völuspá. Today they are almost the same as back then thought they have lost some of theyr bad habits and are parted pretty much from the Black-Albs (Elves) to which they were counted originally.
 
They created the artefacts Draupnir an Goldring, Gleipnir to chain Fenrir, Gram the sword, resmithed the weapon of Siegfried and many other artefacts.
 
For me our DF dwarfs sound almost exactly like the old Keltic/Germanic Dwarfs.

By the way the elves have more changed over time then the dwarves.

But i dont want to hold history lessons.

Maybe for dwarfs its rerally a bit much but for other races like humans it would be an nice to have and we dont know how Magic gets handled anyway.

I think this theme is not only race based its depends also on culture and religion. For example many Yoruba religion practice activly nekromancy and Scyomancy (invocation of the dead person as "Ghost") but are still embeded in modern western Culture.

Oh and dont forget that dwarfs are Polyreligious that could lead to fights between life and Death cultists or even to fights between two death cults.

[MercDraco]

This thread reminds me of a joke of Why you DON'T bring mages onto the battlefield:
Mage A casts a spell, Mage B Counterspells, Mage C assists Mage A, Mage D helps Mage B, so on and so forth and the armies march right over the mages and hack em to bits.
BUT back to the Death Magic Topic

People easily remember how Necromancy (Death Magics) raise dead thing A into Undead Bad Boy B.  However Whats the Best Method of Killing Undead when your out of clerics?  A different Necromancer to Undo the Magics of Said First Necromancer (when he's not standing anywhere nearby)

So Lets Say hostile Cannible Elven tree hippies Invade your fortress and they Bring a Necromancer (or four) and start raising the Dead from your (Graveyard/Crypt/Refuse Pile) [Sorry just had a picture of a Dry Bones pop into my head] and your Clerics (assuming healing/holy magics are added) are too busy keeping the boys at the front door in one piece to deal with them.  Send in your own Necromancer corp to undo their necromancer's work while at the same time you send other necros to go raise the dead stuff around them (bonus point if you raise dead rabbits and order them to gnaw the jugular's out of the elves)

[Mel_Vixen]

Example: "DSA" Herogroup against necromancer. One elve, one Mage one Warrior.

Necro: Now you get crushed by my undeads.
Warrior: Shit we are screwed we dont have an Sun or death priest.
Mage: Just stay here.
Warrior: What are you nuts?
Mage: Stay and observe.

*Magic handwave Mage* undeads stop. *Magic handwave Necro* undeads move again. *Magic handwave Mage* undeads stop. *Magic handwave Necro* undeads move again. This goes on 10 minutes with bad rolls from the necro and the mage.
 
Warrior: hey where is the elv?
 *Zing*
Elv: Yum Yum cultists


This was just for illustration. An enemys necro could be more dangerous then an Priestr or cleric just y countercontrolling the undeads. With an good control throw he can just turn your nearly unstopable army or parts of it against you. 

[bjlong]

When I glanced at the wikipedia article of dwarves, they said that the original dwarves were likened to corpses more than men, and had to spend most of their life immobile, and that sunlight would kill them. I think that we can safely say that anything we say about dwarven burial practices will be different from the original dwarves.

I thought of Necromancers as being very eccentric to almost mad sorcerers, who are barely tolerated because they provide some valuable things. That is, they violate some petty cultural taboos, perhaps with such things as unnaturally preserving a corpse or insisting that every visitor bleed a few drops on a sheet of cloth before requesting services. But, in return, they are invaluable in times of war, and dealing with undead or possessions, and have several other features that make it good to keep them around.

I don't like this idea of mage battles being simple spell/counterspell affairs. I'd prefer if instead of just undoing things, the mages had a mechanic or several that could turn situation right around, like the old wizard shape-shifting battles. You turn into a horse to trample, they turn into a cobra, you turn into a ferret, they turn into a tiger, you turn into a fire... In short, something to make the battles less of a tug-of-war.

[Pilsu]

Well the thats not true. The first describtion of dwarfs comes from the 11th century and origins in the Northern Mythologie

I put that disclaimer there for a reason. Norse dwarves can go caress their plump helmets, Tolkien's influence over modern fiction destroyed the influence of the myths of old

(assuming healing/holy magics are added)

I don't think Toady has any intention of trivializing wounds after putting so much effort into them


Looking at the thoughts list, being attacked by the dead is considerably more traumatizing than say, by bears. Doesn't seem dwarves like the undead much

[madrain]

the old wizard shape-shifting battles. You turn into a horse to trample, they turn into a cobra, you turn into a ferret, they turn into a tiger, you turn into a fire...

Hey I remember that old disney Sword in the Stone movie, too!  Er, I think it was that movie?  :p

[bjlong]

It was kind of a staple of wizard battles around the King's Quest era. I really only remember it from king's quest.

[madrain]

Ahh, before my time.  Which is to say I was alive when KQ was around and popular, but didn't have a computer until the last one was old.  :p

Seems like that sort of 'battle' would be hard to do, except in certain circumstances.  Like, one wizard creates a fire, the other makes it rain, easy stuff like that.

Necromancy should probably be a fairly long process, so that when the army is decimated, the attacking necromancer isn't constantly reviving allies to fight for him.. maybe the fewer skeletons/zombies revived, the less time it takes, so a whole army can't be revived before a squad of hammerdwarves reached the offending necromancer, but perhaps 10 could, and maybe 4 more while those 10 were being destroyed, and those 4 keep the dwarves at bay long enough for the necro to make it off the map.

Also necromancers should probably be restrained so you never have them showing up at your first siege, unless maybe you embark right outside his tower.  :p