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[Zargen]

Spurred by the topic in another thread turning towards the epic idea of a Necromancer mode. I've decided to just go ahead and make a seperate thread for it!
Here is what I was thinking.
When magic, whenever it happens to be implemented. Comes around. I'm thinking one could feasibly set one of your dwarves up as a Necromancer! Being one of the paths you could take.(Say there is a basic magic skill to start with. And related magical paths cannot be raised passed it. Namely. Say your Proficient at Arcane. Arcane being the most standard groundwork for dwarvenly magic. As such. None of your other magic paths like Necromancy,Elemental, what have you. Cant rise beyond that. Glad we got that out of the way) Anyways. Way I figure it magic would be rediculously costly in terms of point spending. So a hermit would be the best way to go with your dwarf.

With that in mind, lets get to the necromancer! From what I can figure, as a necromancer you could convert a refuse pile/Graveyard into a sort of workshop with the option to 'raise dead' and perhaps a 'construct skeleton' and 'construct zombie' option as well to use corpses and bones respectively to 'prepare' them into useable objects to be raised. Which once completed, are risen up into various stages and forms of undeadery. Kobold Skeleton. Human Swordsman zombie. Etc. Hey even use different bones could end up as a Shambler Skeleton, it is made from the masterfully prepared bones of a goblin, the well-prepared bones of a dwarf, and the prepared bones of a goblin. Get what I'm going for here? Once raised, they would act in the same fashion as your average dwarven unit. Granted they cant do anything they couldn't do when they where alive. Making them mostly useful for grunt work like haulers. And fighting. Though with higher levels of Necromancy. Your more well-fashioned undead can do basic craft work. And maybe, a legendary necromancer can make other magic using undead! 'raise liche' anyone?

*drool* a colossus skeleton. It makes me giggle.

Thoughts? Additions? Stupid remarks?

[nerdpride]

It is a sort of stale idea, but I would be in it for the undead haulers.  It would be better if all undead you could make would be some kind of "shambler" (which sounds more like a fleshy zombie-thing than a skeleton) constructed from multiple corpses, I think, just because having a million different kind of zombies running around would be annoying if not lagging.  It also seems to work with the way fortresses work too.

They would have move slowly like all zombies except the strange fast ones, but they would still make excellent haulers by virtue of never needing to eat or sleep.  They might be a little bit on the strong side too.  

The only downsides I can think of are negative effects from most of the rest of the forces and the cost of upkeep by the necromancer.  This is effectively a walking corpse, it would probably generate miasma even if it were made from only bones.  Well, I don't know, if they clean the bones first then it might be all right.  But it's bound to fall apart eventually, since zombies are clumsy, most zombies in the game now come with a few missing limbs--which wouldn't make a very good hauler.  See why you'd need more than one corpse yet?

But hauling is going to be improved anyways, isn't it?  I don't know, even if it has a skill associated with it and there aren't any economy troubles for it, then I think it would still be neat to train my dwarves in doing more useful things.

[Faces of Mu]

Would probably be the most common form of "Solitary Wizard Tower" players would use.

I really look forward to being able to do something like this. It would be like Dwarf mode in Adventure mode: you WOULD have a unit you play through while other units you control do all the tasks such as building, working, creating, processing and refining. This reminds me of that game....Spell Force? Where you summon the creatures and units that do the work for you, and the further you progress, the higher creature types you can summon and the more buildings you can create and resources you can harvest. It'd be different because the bodies of the creatures you defend yourself from and kill would restock the creatures expended in the killing. Each attack or siege would be like a wave of immigrants. As creatures don't really move around that much and attacks would become rarer as you settled in and prayed on the locals, you would probably need to travel further and further afield until you have zombified all life in a large radius. Your neighbourhood would become like a silent graveyard devoid of all living things and inhabited only by your obedient slaves. As above, undead would probably move and work slower, and I would reckon that their skills would be capped pretty low to account for this. However, the corpse beetle idea would help to make slow zombies into their faster moving skeleton kin.

In such a necromantic possibility, there might need to be a way that your minions could catch living creatures and bring them to you alive for slaughter and raising as undead. Some of your minions may even break free of you and become either neutral to you or as equally hostile to you as they would be to the living.

Later, if you die or decide to start anew somewhere else, the undead would still plague the area and your tower or lodgings would become ruins and the home of some evil force that the locals want killed. Perhaps even your adventurer's own spirit would be the nuisance!

The whole notion of having a solitary wizard's tower makes me want to see novices and apprentices want to come and stay with you and learn from you, too! Certainly a fancier option than the spear catchers we're used to.

I like it. I like it alot.

I would like to see some non-conventional ideas and suggestions peeps would have about this, and also how they would like to be able to play a necro-style adventurer?

AND HOLY CRAP! I just noticed the thread screen below the "Preview Reply|Add Reply" buttons for the first time!!!! Oh man....! So much time wasted cutting'n'copying and Back-ing and Forward-ing this year!    

Edit: Inserted about undead speeds + skill caps, and corpse beetles.

[ October 14, 2007: Message edited by: Faces of Mu ]

[Grek]

The process for raising a dead body should go something like this:

Find body -> raise/animate -> control

Find body: get a dead body or make one from spare parts. Getting the dead body would be a matter of hauling it from where you found it to where you want it or whatever you do to kill it. Making a body from parts/chopping a body into parts/fixing damage to parts would have a skill that decides how good you are. Leather, cloth, metal, ect can be used to replace bones or bits of flesh.

Raise/Animate: Raising a body would bring it back to life. Raised creatures would move with their muscles and organs. If the body is unable to stay alive, it dies again. There would be spells that magicly remove the need for food,  air, water and brains or you can figure out a way to reattach/replace those parts. Body parts with meaty bits would still rot. Embalming, mummifying or protecting them would help prevent that. Animating a body doesn't bring it back to life. Instead it makes it move with magic.

Control: Find a way to make it do what you want. Either you put a spirit in it(the orginal, someone else's, an animal's, a demon's) that is willing to help you for some reason (treats, wanting to live, loyalty) or make it do mindless tasks roboticly via magic.

[ October 14, 2007: Message edited by: Grek ]

[Blargh]

Yes please.

*Chants*

"Necromancy now, Necromancy now, Necromancy now, Necromany now!"

Zombie slaves building a fortress. God, that is brilliant. Also, I can't remember that it's ever been done before. Dwarf necromancer one-man fortress. Adventure. Yey!

[Lightning4]

There's a few minor issues to offset the benifits of having a horde of undead.

First off, they're rotting. In all likelihood a zombie is going to lose one of his arms while hauling a big freaking boulder somewhere. Or, it'll just randomly pop off while shuffling about aimlessly. I'd imagine there'd be some way to stick it back on, but it'd be a problem to deal with. Should occur more often with shoddily-raised zombies. Higher "quality" zombies have this happen less.

Zombies are also incredibly slow and utterly useless for combat. I've had average skill adventurers dispatch even the most mighty zombie weaponmasters with ease because they attack once every decade. No-name zombies are pretty much just rancid target dummies because by the time you see them attack successfully, Duke Nukem Forever comes out.
Skeletons are like the elites though. Swift and brutal, especially if they're armed. Maybe fully-rotted zombies "age" into these, or they're specifically constructed. These would definitely be the military defenders of the tower.

What'd be interesting is if the magic keeping the zombies and skeletons alive is temporary. With better skill it lasts much longer, but your initial zombies are only going to last like a month before they fall apart. Re-raising from the same components damages the components until finally they crumble to dust and can be used no more.

The way I see it in this case, the only one gaining skill is your necromancer. Perhaps he's got some sort of mental link with the undead ala Ner'zhul and can command each one like it's his own body, the body and skill with which the undead was made having effect on his control and how well it performs tasks.

...maybe with effort you can hire acolytes from the nearby towns, and then raise up a whole bunch of undead and attack that human nation, gaining a powerful prince in the process.

[Zargen]

Planescape torment had a very simple solution for your undead to not fall apart. You embalm the corpses and then replace rotted pieces with good ol' screws and leather. Thats how the skeletons where described. Joints where bolted together tight. And leather was bound to the bones as a form of 'muscle'. ingenious!