#she's technically not a necromancer she only does necromancy the one time

[miserywizard]

naming the hot necromancer scientist lesbian in this new book Persinna so her nickname can be Percy

[writingwithcolor]

[Running Commentary] Zombies are Zombies: Cultural Relativism, Folklore, and Foreign Perspectives

She obviously started getting into media in Japan, and (from my research into Japanese media and culture), Japan’s movies about zombies are mostly comedic, since due to traditional funerary practices the idea of zombies bringing down society is ridiculous to a lot of Japanese people. 

Rina: OP, this you? https://www.tofugu.com/japan/japanese-zombies/

Marika: Counterpoint: Parasite Eve. Resident Evil. The Evil Within. 

Rina: Literally all the grody horror game franchises that people forget were developed and written by Japanese people because the characters have names like “Leon Kennedy” and “Sebastian Castellanos” 

~ ~ ~

Based on the reception we received the last time we did one of these, the Japanese moderator team returns with another running commentary. (They’re easier to answer this way) (Several of Marika’s answers may be troll answers)

Our question today pertains to foreign perspectives on folklore—that is, how people view folklore and stories that aren’t a part of their culture. CW: for anything you’d associate with zombies and a zombie apocalypse, really.

Keep reading for necromancy, horror games, debunking the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, Hong Kong jiangshi films, Japanese disaster prep videos, and Vietnamese idol pop...

Essentially, in my story there’s an organization who wants to end the world. They think this one woman in particular, a woman of mixed Vietnamese (irreligious, Kinh) and Japanese descent who spent her formative years in Japan, is the person to do it because she’s (for lack of a better term) a necromancer; powers are semi-normal in this world. She prefers not to use her powers overall, but when she does she mostly talks to ghosts and spirits that are giving people issues. She could technically reanimate a corpse but she wouldn’t because she feels that would be morally wrong, not to mention she couldn’t start a zombie apocalypse in the traditional sense (plague, virus, etc.) in the first place. 

(Marika (M): Your local public health officials would like to assure necromancers that reviving the dead will not provoke a zombie apocalypse. This is because necromancy is a reanimation technique, and not a pathogenic vector. Assuming that the technique does not release spores, airborne viruses, gasses, or other related physical matter that can affect neighboring corpses in a similar way, there should be no issue. However, necromancers should comply with local regulations w/r to permitting and only raise the dead with the approval of the local municipality and surviving family.)

M: I think it makes sense for most people of E. Asian descent, including Japanese and Vietnamese people, to find it culturally reprehensible to reanimate the dead. I imagine the religious background of your character matters as well. What religion(s) are her family members from? How do they each regard death and the treatment of human remains? Depending on where she grew up, I’m curious on how she got opportunities to practice outside specialized settings like morgues.

M: It’s true, space in Japan is at a premium, even for the dead. You note that most of Japan cremates, but, surely, it must have occurred to you that if there aren’t that many bodies in Japan to raise…she doesn’t exactly have much opportunity to practice with her powers, does she? I yield to our Vietnamese followers on funerary customs in Vietnam, but you may want to better flesh out your world-building logic on how necromancy operates in your story (And maybe distinguish between necromancy v. channeling v. summoning v. exorcisms). 

She obviously started getting into media in Japan, and (from my research into Japanese media and culture), Japan’s movies about zombies are mostly comedic, since due to traditional funerary practices the idea of zombies bringing down society is ridiculous to a lot of Japanese people. 

Rina (R): OP, this you? https://www.tofugu.com/japan/japanese-zombies/

M: Counterpoint: Parasite Eve. Resident Evil. The Evil Within. 

R: Literally all the grody horror game franchises that people forget were developed and written by Japanese people because the characters have names like “Leon Kennedy” and “Sebastian Castellanos” 

R: And yes, the Tofugu article uses Resident Evil and those games to support its theory, with the reason that they are set in the West. But that only suggests that Japanese people consider zombies a Western thing, not that Japanese people consider zombies nonthreatening if they were to exist. 

M: Same with vampires - series like Castlevania also use Western/ European settings and not “Vampires in Japan '' because vampires just aren't part of our folklore.

(M: Also, realistically, these series deal with individuals who quickly perish after their bodies are used as hosts for the pathogen in question, rather than the pathogen reanimating a corpse. Although the victims are initially alive, they soon succumb to the pathogen/ parasite and their organic matter then becomes an infectious vector for the disease. It should be noted, infecting ordinary, living humans with viruses to grant them elevated powers, is not only a major violation of consent and defies all recommendations made by the Belmont Report (in addition to a number of articles in the Hague Convention w/r to the use of WMDs) and is unlikely to be approved by any reputable university’s IRB committee. This is why the Umbrella Corporation are naughty, naughty little children, and honestly, someone should have assassinated Wesker for the grant money.)

R: wwww

From what I know Vietnam didn’t have a zombie movie until 2022. 

R: Do you mean a domestically produced zombie movie? Because Vietnamese people have most certainly had access to zombie movies for a long time. The Hong Kong film Mr. Vampire (1985) was a gigantic hit in Southeast Asia; you can find a gazillion copies of this movie online with Viet subs, with people commenting on how nostalgic this movie is or how they loved it as a kid. 

M: “Didn’t have a [domestic] zombie movie” is not necessarily the same thing as “Would not have made one if the opportunity had arisen.” None of us here are personifications of the Vietnamese film industry, I think it’s safe to say we couldn’t know. Correlation is not causation. It’s important to do your research thoroughly, and not use minor facts to craft a narrative based on your own assumptions.

(R: …Also, I did find a 2017 music video for “Game Over” by the Vietnamese idol Thanh Duy which features… a zombie apocalypse.)

(R: The MV has a very campy horror aesthetic and zombie backup dancers (which I love, everyone please watch this lol). But the scenes at the beginning and end where people are biting their fingers watching a threatening news report clearly establish that the zombies are considered a threat.)

So at one point, she laughs about the idea and remarks how ridiculous it is to think zombies could end the world. What I’m struggling with are other ways to show her attitude on the issue because I’d assume most non-Japanese readers wouldn’t get why she thinks like that. Are there any other ways to show why she thinks this way, especially ones that might resonate more with a Japanese reader?

R: The problem is this does not resonate in the first place. Your line of thinking is too Sapir-Whorf-adjacent. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, otherwise known as linguistic relativity theory, claims that language shapes cognition—that you can’t conceive of something if you can’t express it in your language. This is a very weak theory that you can easily bring evidence against: think of the last time you felt an emotion you had a hard time putting into words; just because you didn’t have the language for it doesn’t mean that you didn’t feel it, nor does it mean that you won’t be able to understand or recognize it if you feel it again. Similarly, it’s not a sound assumption to say that if some kind of subject matter does not exist in a culture, then people of that culture couldn't possibly conceive of it. This excerpt from linguist Laura Bailey sums it up quite well. 

M: Just because ghosts may be more culturally relevant doesn’t mean that zombies (or vampires, or whatever) are nonexistent in a Japanese or Vietnamese person’s imagination when it comes to horror and disaster.

R: Really,  if anything, Japanese people are much more attuned to how easily a society’s infrastructure can be destroyed by a disruptive force without adequate preparation. Japan is natural disaster central. A Japanese person would know better than anyone that if you aren’t prepared for a zombie epidemic—yeah it’s gonna be bad. 

M: Earthquakes, tsunami, typhoon, floods: Japan has robust disaster infrastructure out of necessity. 防災 or bousai, meaning disaster preparedness is a common part of daily life, including drills at workplaces, schools, and community organizations. Local government and community agencies are always looking for ways to make disaster and pandemic preparedness relevant to the public.

M: Might “zombie apocalypse prep as a proxy for disaster prep” be humorous in an ironic, self-deprecating way? Sure, but it’s not like Japanese people are innately different from non-Japanese people. Rather, by being a relatively well-off country practiced at disaster preparation with more experience than most parts of the world with many different types of disasters (and the accompanying infrastructure), it likely would seem more odd to most Japanese people within Japan to not handle a zombie apocalypse rather like might one handle a combination of a WMD/ chemical disaster+pandemic+civil unrest (all of which at least some part of Japan has experienced). Enjoy this very long, slightly dry video on COVID-19 safety procedures and preparedness using the framing device of surviving a zombie apocalypse.

M: Living in Los Angeles, I’ve often experienced similar tactics. We do a fair amount of advance and rehearsed disaster prep here as well. In elementary school, the first and last days of class were always for packing and unpacking home-made disaster packs, and “zombie apocalypse” simulations have been around since I was in middle school for all kinds of drills, including active shooter drills, like the one shown in this LAT article. The line between “prepper” and “well prepared” really comes down to degree of anxiety and zeal. So, it wouldn’t be just Japanese people who might not be able to resonate with your scene. The same could be said for anyone who lives somewhere with a robust disaster prevention culture.

M: A zombie apocalypse is not “real” in the sense of being a tangible threat that the majority of the world lives in fear of waking up to (At least, for the mental health of most people, I hope so). Rather, zombie apocalypse narratives are compelling to people because of the feelings of vague, existential dread they provoke: of isolation, paranoia, dwindling resources, and a definite end to everything familiar. I encourage you to stop thinking of the way Japanese people and non-Japanese people think about vague, existential dread as incomprehensible to each other. What would you think about zombies if they actually had a chance of existing in your world? That’s probably how most Japanese people would feel about them, too.

[prismbearer]

Finally got around to doing this for Fe even though I got lazy. This was a really fun PSD! Additional musings under the cut for my own good.

[ Template ] @arcandoria (Thank you!)

This was actually a little difficult for me. I decided not to include her item bonuses on stats, but otherwise her LVL12 set up. I am not a min-max sort of player, the higher WIS was intended to potentially multi-class her into druid maybe, but I ended up just committing full warlock and embracing the necromancer/charm thing since it felt very Autumn/Fey Necromancy vibes.

Technically speaking, she was born to a sun elven house in Evermeet just after the Spellplague when it slipped in the Feywilds where she was born, however she has spent the majority of this life within or about her Archfey Patron's demiplane. Her experience time-wise is a little warped from the perception of the PMP for years since the Spellplague so I went roughly 200 for now. Despite that time she is essentially laughably sheltered in certain concepts and is very much faking it til she makes it in Faerun.

This translates more to her being more quasi eladrin and locked in an autumnal phase, which is intentional due to the patron being the Lord of Leaves, who is an archfey with a locked demiplane that is ensnared in similar magics as Mithrendain, through frankly it is their version/an imitation of that magic that is imperfect and requires care. (I refer to the demiplane as the Lair of Leaves or Lar'Doris.) The whole aspect of harvest/decay, the transition between seasons of life and death... Bread and butter of the character concept and the demiplane is technically imbalanced for lore/history reasons and requires "feeding". So lifedrinker and collecting life essence... very in theme. Fiadh being on the template is kinda lore-spoilers.

IDK how she got the Tharchiate Vigour tbh because Astarion has the associated summon -- I think I initially had my character read the Codex because I was running around in the vault for it alone on accident, and then passed reading the actual book later as Astarion? Anyway, that only solidified the embracing necromancy tidbits for her character, and it fits with the lore i have built for the Archfey Demiplane/Autumnal Heart.

Fe in EA originally just had the all dark sclera with none of the eye white heterochromia, but that is meant to reflect that the grasp of the autumnal heart is tenuous to non-existent due to the distance from the demiplane as well as the whole tadpole thing. The dormant infernal curse is also... leaking due to her lack of connection to the heart. Original concept it was suppose to be more of a shadow effect in duress, but that tattoo was close enough in full release and I just committed. (I do plan to maybe mod it. Maybe.)

One of my favorite little tidbits is Fe presents as diplomatic lead/persuasion but she is in-fact, technically more at home in performance and deception. Her background is chaotic neutral, but potentially leaning evil depending on your perspective, especially in the later part of the lore pre-abduction.

"Noble" background is technically the origin point of her current life but tbh Charlatan is probably more accurate for her internal life -- there is a good amount of overlap I feel however for the two backgrounds in terms of what you get inspiration for. Still got the roleplayer achievement IG so it must be close enough to accurate in her motivations. She would like to be perceived that way mostly I suppose regardless.

Corellon is a place-holder technically. There is aspects of his influence in their lore, but that history predates the creation of the demiplane. Fe does not actively worship any entities, throughout this life she has if anything almost worshiped the Autumnal Heart (a magical construct that powers the demiplane that is technically a soul cage that once required two souls but no only technically has one so it needs additional feeding to be sustained) SO.bg

[criffyzou]

More random D&D transposition because overthinking things is my favorite hobby. All 3 of my Thedas girls conveniently fit into my fav d&d class, ranger.

Tini Brosca (legionnaire scout/assassin): Hill dwarf Monster Slayer Ranger I love tanky, warrior-like rogues; legionnaire scout is my fav for that reason. Monster slayer does not exactly scream tanky rogue, but it has the magic defense and wardenish vibes.

Emmanuelle Hawke (shadow/assassin): Human Fey Wanderer Ranger Hawke has the shadow spec because Isabela already had duelist. My fav aspect of it was the misdirection and confounding; fey wanderer has that plus purple Hawke energy.

Sheana Lavellan (assassin): Wood elf Horizon Walker Ranger Sharing a specialization with companions was my least favorite part of DA:I, but assassin was alright. Horizon Walker has good Inquisitor vibes, with portals instead of rifts.

And now all companions with no explanation whatsoever:

Leliana (bard/shadow): Human College of Whispers Bard

Alistair (templar/guardian): Human Oath of the Watchers Paladin

Morrigan (shapeshifter/blood mage): Human Circle of the Spores Druid

Zevran (assassin/duelist): Wood elf Assassin Rogue

Sten (reaver): Goliath Path of the Zealot Barbarian

Wynne (spirit healer/battlemage): Human Divine Soul Sorcerer

Shale (no spec): Warforged Rune Knight Fighter

Oghren (berserker/champion): Hill dwarf Way of the Drunken Master Monk

Velanna (keeper/arcane warrior): Wood elf Circle of the Land Druid

Sigrun (legionnaire scout/shadow): Hill dwarf Phantom Rogue

Nathaniel (assassin/ranger): Human Hunter Ranger

Justice (spirit warrior/guardian): Scourge aasimar Oath of Vengeance Paladin

Anders (spirit healer): Human Celestial Warlock

Fenris (spirit warrior): Drow Psi Warrior Fighter

Isabela (duelist): Human Swashbuckler Rogue

Aveline (guardian): Human Oath of the Crown Paladin

Merrill (blood mage/keeper): Wood elf Archfey Warlock

Bethany (force mage): Human Graviturgy School Wizard

Sebastian (shadow?): Human War Domain Cleric

Varric (artificer): Hill dwarf Artillerist Artificer

Dorian (necromancer): Human Necromancy School Wizard

Sera (tempest): Wood elf Swarmkeeper Ranger

Solas (force rift mage): High elf Aberrant Mind Sorcerer

Iron Bull (reaver): Goliath Path of the Berserker Barbarian

Vivienne (knight enchanter): Human Bladesinger Wizard

Cassandra (templar): Human Order Domain Cleric

Blackwall (champion): Human Banneret Fighter

Cole (assassin): Changeling Way of the Shadow Monk

Bonus round !

Ariane (champion): Wood elf College of Valor Bard

Finn (spirit healer): Human Knowledge Domain Cleric

Jerrik (duelist/ranger): Hill dwarf Beast Master Ranger

Brogan (reaver/berserker): Hill dwarf Path of the Battlerager Barbarian

Tallis (assassin): Woof elf ??

Rules were: max 3 characters of the same class (not counting my 3 ranger gals), every class has to be there at least once, and it has to be thematically coherent with my own lore builds. I didn't do multiclass as it is more fun to me to integrate the different themes of a build into one (1) subclass but, mechanically, some should put levels elsewhere. I will not be taking criticism at this time for my decision to make the reavers barbarians instead of the berserkers. I know I am right.

Now I know I said no explanation but I can't resist rambling about characters sharing a main spec in Dragon Age but not a D&D class:

Force mage: Bethany & Solas Rift mage is just reflavored force mage, but in Solas' case I wanted to imply that something sinister was afoot, even if some force mage essence was lost in the process. It does tie back to force mages using their mind as a weapon though.

Assassin rogue: Zevran, Nathaniel & Cole This one is very straightforward in the ways they differ: Zevran is the only trained assassin, Cole hides in the shadows, and Nathaniel is a darkspawn killer.

Spirit Healer mage: Wynne, Finn & Anders Despite Wynne technically being possessed, her spirit is not a presence she feels, more like an abstract protection; Finn is a book nerd; Anders is in a committed relationship.

[lassieposting]

I hope you put in a really interesting and detailed background dump about how cyberkinesis interacted with growing mortal technology (especially electronics and computers...) over the last few centuries. Did you decide how disciplines are devised? Like how a sorcerer rocks up and straight invents a new discipline

I have, and the answer is usually neotericism!

Sorcerers don't sit down one day and decide to make a whole new discipline. This kind of evolution usually happens in one of two ways:

1. A sorcerer with an established discipline learns a new ability. Let's take Billy-Ray Sanguine as our example. However many centuries ago, an Elemental sorcerer discovered that he could walk through walls. At the time, this would've been considered an Elemental ability, not a discipline in it's own right. But it's a difficult ability to learn, so young Elementals who really wanted to be able to do that started focusing on it more and more, neglecting the other aspects of Elemental magic. Centuries go by, and over time, the Surge starts locking those young mages into only this ability. BRS can't access any of the other Elemental powers, because all he ever learned, cultivated and developed was his mole magic. So eventually, while mole magic is still technically an Elemental ability - remember Skug learns to do it - it's also become a discipline in its own right, and the only people who really care about the distinction are like. Magic taxonomists and magohistorians.

2. Neoterics. A child is born who has magic, but doesn't know the magical world exists and never receives any formal training. If that child is sufficiently powerful, their magic will start to present at a young age and will develop, to some degree, on its own - Skug, for example, was a perfectly competent if highly unsafe little necromancer as a child, despite never having any actual tuition. And because the child doesn't know about the rules of magic, the Sanctuary-approved health-and-safety-focused teaching methods used on young sorcerers, or what their magic even is, it's got completely free rein to develop however it likes. Usually, it will adapt itself to twine in and around the child's talents, needs and instincts, and sometimes, this just happens to produce a completely new discipline.

Take my OC, because she's the only example I can think of with a really modern discipline. She's good with computers. She's grown up scavenging tech and repurposing it in a world where that's been essential to her survival. She spends a lot of time tinkering with electronics. So as her magic began to assert itself, it also spent a lot of time with electronics, and that affected how it learned to behave. Hacking into a computer? No, now you are the computer. It's helping!

Another, older example is Handbook!Larrikin. He grew up in a travelling show. A huge part of his childhood was spent perfecting his sleight of hand, his patter, and his ability to make his audience feel how he wants them to feel/convince the audience that they saw what he wants them to see. He's mortal-born, so nobody is teaching his magic how to behave - it's learning from watching him. What does he grow up to be? A Sensitive - specifically, an illusionist with a compelling voice. He's far from the first Sensitive, but his "method" wouldn't be the same as a Sensitive who was formally trained - it's looser, more free-thinking, more open to new ideas or new ways of doing things. Neoterics are more likely to think "But can I use my ability to do X?"

One final example: Vile.

Val is taught by Wreath - who's not, generally speaking, a rule-follower - that Necromancy needs a channelling object. That is so fundamental to the rules of Necromancy as a discipline that even Wreath sticks to it rigidly.

But Vile/Skug doesn't. We see him use Necromancy without the armour in TDOTL. He doesn't need his channelling object.

Now, I have a lot of thoughts about Vile VS The Necromancer Order 1852-1854, but the main relevant hc is this: the armour is a full body disguise in a pre-facade era, and it's one he'd honestly rather go without.

Channelling objects take a highly unstable magic and lock it down, dampen it, and make it safe to use for the weak and the stupid and the unremarkable. The temples teach that to master the discipline, you have to control death, because they're all bloody terrified of it, right down to the high priests.

But Vile is a neoteric. He grew up using raw Necromancy with no channelling object, so that's his baseline normal for what using his magic should feel like. He's not afraid of death. He's? Used to letting the current carry him, and these idiots are all pussyfooting around refusing to even get in the water. With the armour, it feels dulled and clunky and graceless. Vile in the armour is toned down hard, and he doesn't like it at all.

So he's? Regularly doing something that not only doesn't follow the traditional teaching methods for Necromancy, but actively flouts them. Raw Necromancy is so unstable that it's illegal in most first world countries, but because he grew up without that limitation being drilled into him from the word go, he's developed Necromancy in ways no one else ever has, and pushed it further than most have ever thought to go. He's pushed it so far that he's broken down barriers between Necromancy and other disciplines - in Lardo's canon, he's some kind of fuckin dimensional shunter for dead universes, and in mine, he's figured out how to accurately recreate his dead body to funnel off excess magic (which is a form of vitakinesis - life and death are two sides of the same coin). He hasn't personally created a new discipline, but future generations pushing the limits of the new abilities he's discovered might gradually separate from mainstream Necromancy until they're a branch, and then a closely related subdiscipline, and then a totally different discipline in their own right.

So yeah it's. Mostly down to baby neoterics' magic being really interested in that thing they're always doing because it's understimulated and wants to help them.

[professormembranexreader]

Dead! Membrane x Necromancer! NB! Reader (Fluff)

(Y/N)'s POV

God, this class was a chore. Well, all of them were. But the journalism class at the college I went to, specifically. I was only taking this class because a friend wanted me to.

We had to interview someone we looked up to. And write a report based on the information we learned. It was supposed to be a way to show what we already know.

I asked if we could do someone who was dead, and she allowed it. On the condition we show proof we were with them. How funny. If it weren't a challenge.

That's right. I was determined to do my report on someone dead. Who? Why, the most influential man of all time—Professor Membrane.

But there was an obvious problem. How do you actually interview a dead person and get proof you were with them?

To me the answer was obvious. Necromancy.

I went to the local occult store. I'd never believed in this shit, but it was my best bet. Plus, if all else fails: photoshop.

The girl at the counter was hella cute. Who knew all the cuties worked at the occult stores? The girl and I talked, and I found out her name was Penelope. We then flirted for a bit, and I somehow secured a date.

But first I needed to raise the dead. Priorities, people.

I got a dagger, candles, and a book.

I looked in the book for the right ritual, and found out I needed the fresh blood of an animal on the knife. I'm an animal, right? Technically I am. While I didn't like the idea of cutting myself, it was going to be worth it.

Soon, I went over to the burial site. It was the only one on the hill. The trek up left me tired. But it was time to do this.

I was prepared. But not ready.

I slit the back of my arm with the ritual knife and pressed it to the raised ground. Once a good amount of blood was soaked into the dirt, I tried to bandage the cut up. I didn't do a good job, but it was enough to stop the bleeding.

Funny enough, if you just say what you want to happen in Latin, hold any occult book and a bloody dagger, and get some gold colored candles, it will happen.

Because sure enough when I began chanting, it began to storm. And that was NOT in today's forecast. I continued with my unholy chant.

"Unum, quod fuerit abiit

resurget post longa

quod tempus habet, diminutae

revertetur, et morari"

The rain one by one put out the candles. Spooky. But expected.

The ground shifted. Almost like it was being disturbed from underneath. Bingo. I peered over the candles and looked closer at the burial site.

Suddenly a laser shot up from the ground. I stumbled backwards. A gloved hand rose from the earth. My eyes widened and I smiled.

I did it. I raised the dead. I'm. Amazing.

As I cheered and hollered, the hand clawed at the ground, trying to pull the body up. Another hand sprouted from the opening in the dirt. It pushed apart the ground until there was a wide hole.

The sound of an engine sputtering to life was heard, and as I looked up, I saw him. He was floating above the grave. I forgot he was buried with his rocket shoes.

"Dónde soy?" He was talking. Oh my god. He was actually talking. "¿Quien es usted?"

"Holy shit, you're actually conscious," I blurted out.

"¡Ey! ¡Lenguaje! ¿Y por qué no estaría?"

I stared at him. "Do you not...speak English?" I put my hand on my chin. "Coulda sworn you did..."

"Oh, inglés." He cleared his throat. "Is this better?"

"Much. Thank you, Professor." I took out my notepad. "Can I interview you?"

He raised an eyebrow and put a gloved hand to his chin. "I don't see why not... what do you want to know, amigx?"

"Well, let's start with some standard stuff," I said, pulling out the tripod and video camera. "You don't mind if I record this, right?"

"By all means, go ahead."

I hit the record button and introduced myself and my interviewee.

I pulled out the notepad that I filled with questions and a pencil to write down his answers.

"First thing's first, do remember how you died?"

"Well..." he said, putting a gloved hand on his chin, "the last thing I remember was trying to give a speech when I felt this TERRIBLE pain in my jaw! I don't know what happened to me, but it's... more difficult to talk now..."

I scribbled down shorthand of his words until my eyes widened—he didn't know. "Do you...wish to know, sir?"

"No, thank you. If I knew I'd be thinking about it for much longer than I'd be comfortable with."

"Understandable, now onto the actual interview." We talked for a while, going back and forth. I flipped through the pages until my questions came to an end.

I put away the interview materials and went to turn off the camera. Once I did, I turned to speak to him. "Look. I, uh... need some advice."

"Is this for the interview?"

"Nonononono—the camera is off, the pencil is down, notepad in my pocket—it's not for the interview."

"Pues, ¿qué quieres?" Membrane asked.

"Dude, I don't speak Spanish."

"Ah, my apologies. I wasn't thinking. I asked what you wanted."

Oh.

"Well, uh, I need advice." He looked to me expectantly. He made circles with his hand indicating to continue. "I'm uh... god, this is kinda awkward. I just raised you from the dead and I'm about to ask you this."

"What is it, amigx?"

"How do you go on a date with a pretty girl?" I blurted out.

"¿Qué?"

"Okay, I know enough Spanish to know what that means. So, I was getting the stuff to, you know, bring you back from the dead. And I may have been flirting with the cashier and I got a date with her that I am terrified of because I've never been on a-"

"Cálmate. It's just a date."

"BUT SHE'S REALLY PRETTY!" I exclaimed.

"I don't doubt that, but you need to calm down. Panicking will solve nothing, amigx." He placed his hands on my shoulders. "Breathe."

I followed his advice and did the best I could to steady my breathing. Once it was more level, he let go of me.

"Now, while I don't have any personal experience with this-"

"You what?" I said. Did I hear him right?

"I said that I didn't have any firsthand experience, now if I may-"

"Waitwaitwaitwait, you mean to tell me...that you've never been on a date before?"

"Well, it wasn't necessarily a priority for me..." Membrane said quietly, "but I think I know how to help."

I cocked my head. "What did you have in mind?"

———————————————————

An hour later, I showed up in tux. Because who doesn't look good in a tux? Was I overdressed? Yes. Did I care? No.

We were having a picnic in a mausoleum nearby Membrane's grave. Close enough so the doohickey that he gave me—whatever it was—was within range of him so it could work.

He'd asked me to bring him a necklace, a cheap mic, and two Bluetooth headsets. What he did, I have no clue, but he gave me a necklace with a mic "charm" and a earpiece that wrapped around my ear.

It allowed me to transmit audio to him from my location to him, and, in addition, it allowed him to relay audio to me.

"So Penelope-"

"Please, call me Pen." She smiled. Cute.

"So, uh, Pen...I may have been using the items I bought," I stammered.

Pen laughed. "What'd you do? Raise the dead? Hahahaha..." She kept laughing until she realized my red face. "Wait..." she paused, "Did you really do that?"

"M-maybe?" I said, voice getting higher.

"YO. THAT IS SO COOL!" She was beaming. Membrane was not happy with me confessing this.

But I didn't care.

I smiled. "Would you...want to see him?" I asked Pen. I could hear his panicked voice in my ear, but I ignored him.

"oh my god, really? You'd let me do that?"

"Well... if he's okay with it..." I got up off of the ground. "Let me go ask."

I started sprinting over to his grave. By the time I got there I was completely out of breath.

He pulled down his collar. "What are you thinking?!" he hissed.

"I'M SORRY! But it just popped out and I kinda have to show her you now." I scratched the back of my head, "Can I?"

He let out a long sigh before nodding and pulling his collar back up. "Fine. But you better at least stay friends, or else..."

I bounced up and down, clapping my hands. "Thank you so much, Membrane!"

I ran back down the hill and went to Pen and bent down to catch my breath.

"He...hah... said you—god damn, I'm out of breath—could see him."

"You...okay?" Pen asked me.

I looked up and smiled. "NOPE!" I jumped back onto my feet. "Let's do this!"

I took her hand and practically dragged her towards his grave. We got closer to the hill, when she paused. I stumbled, but caught myself.

"Why'd you stop, Pen?"

"Did you...?" she trailed off.

"Did I what?" I cocked my head to the side.

She shook me by my shoulders. "DID YOU RAISE PROFESSOR MEMBRANE FROM THE DEAD?!"

"Well, I had to interview SOMEONE-" She bust out laughing and started jogging forward again. I followed after her with a smile.

When we got to the top of the hill, he was "calmly" waiting for us. But I could just barely make out the sweat rolling down his face.

He extended a gloved hand to Pen who just stared at him in awe. "Oh my god. You're asking me to shake your hand—(Y/N), he's asking me to shake his hand."

"Shake his hand, Pen. He doesn't bite," I paused, "as far as I know." He blushed and started sputtering while Pen just laughed.

She shook his hand and he seemed to recompose himself. "Hello there, Pen! My name is Professor Membrane. It is a pleasure to meet you."

Pen smiled. "It's been a dream of mine to meet you in person. When I learned you had died, I never thought I'd get the chance to."

"Well today's your lucky day." He was smiling. "(Y/N)?" he asked me.

"Yes, sir?"

"How long does this ritual allow me to be conscious? I have theories I need to pass on."

"Only a few more hours... at dawn you'll go back to...you know... being dead."

A lightbulb went off in my head. If I was going to be a scientist, I could elaborate on his theories and test them. I could be revolutionary. But I needed his permission.

"Sir, if I may, would you allow me to test your theories? And if so, I don't know if I'd be able to properly credit you, so in the case I can't, would you mind?"

He thought for a minute, before shrugging his shoulders. "If it's in the name of science, I don't see why not. But are you up for the challenge, amigx?"

I nod my head, and Pen smiles at me.

"What are we waiting for? Let's get going!"

And for the next hour and forty-five minutes, I copied his words down by hand while Pen got the information out of him.

It was then that the sky started to turn orange.

"Quick! Back into the ground! We can't push you in." I said.

Pen chuckled at the last part. "Yeah! Your arms are too heavy!"

"¡Oye! Yo sé, yo sé. Soy yendo." He hopped into the hole in the earth. "It was a pleasure meeting you two kids. I believe you'll both go on to do great things."

He crossed his arms over his chest and fell backwards into the ground. "See you on the other side, amigx."

"See you on the other side, Professor." I gave him a small "see ya" hand motion. Pen and I spent the rest of the day chatting and getting to know each other while I worked on my project.

I turned in my report and got a 100. Hell yeah.

I got another date with Pen. Hell fucking yeah.

I've started to compile his works and research. Slowly, it started to make more and more sense. I completed the class and went on to pursue my career in science.

Maybe I'll go on to do great things after all.

[rwby-necro-au-archive]

So, I'm not really clear on what Ozma's abilities are? Could somebody explain it? I know they get revived automatically, but is there anything else? If so, is it just Ozpin, or all of the incarnates, including the revived Mandy, that have the other stuff? How does it work? Is it a curse from the gods in this au, and is there still a Salem? If so, is she evil? I'm so confused!!!

It’s ok! I’ll explain here

First of all, I have explained this before, but it’s ok.

Salem is still a thing but she’s not a villain in the current time of the au, she was really the one who started the whole suspicion towards necromancers. She was killed by Ozias a very VERY long time ago.

Ozma had died by Salem, reasoned similarly in canon as Ozma Didn’t want to have power over people and control them. Before he died he ended up doing a trick with his necromancy that was basically unheard of and still is. Essentially right as he died, he used his necromancy on himself. Which had the unintended consequence of his magic basically duplicating. One part needing a living host while the other stayed with Ozma.

Ozias, Ozma and Salem’s grandson, inherited his grandfathers abilities and used such to kill Salem. But that didn’t undo what Ozma had done, once Ozias died, Ozora was the next host for Ozma’s abilities.

So it’s not necessarily known what Ozma’s powers do or why his powers separated in such a way. But it seems to be different for each inheritor. It’s characterized as being incredibly powerful even by powerful Necromancer standards.

For Mandias this meant the ability to steal a mass amount of life at once

For Ozpin this means being able to use his magic in different ways such as powerful blasts and projectiles. This also means that he can mass revive people, from 20 to 30 people at once (regular powerful necromancers can only do 5-10 people at once.)

There’s such mystery surrounding the ordeal that not even Ozma himself understands what exactly happened. But because of the trick he did where he revived himself just as he died, every single inheritor of his abilities does the same without any control over it.

And Ozma’s abilities evolve so much in the inheritors to the point where he can’t tell what’s his abilities and what’s their training and knowledge.

Lastly, the brothers technically exist but they aren’t physical beings. They are a religion. So nobody knows if they exist or not.

[crtalley]

do u have any necromancers or necromancer-adjacent characters? if yes, pls tell me abt them. if no, who r your top three himbos / jocks

DO I EVER HAVE NECROMANCERS I

→ UNCHOSEN: venathe is technically necromancer-adjacent. one of her main bonds to her second-in-command is via the fact that she literally killed him + raised him from the dead to make him effectively immortal (short of total obliteration, he can only be killed by her hand)

→ i think in BEARSKIN the prince would also count as necromancer-adjacent because while he doesn’t raise the dead he does spend a lot of time around ghosts and the like (even if he spends more time with the ghost birds than with ghost people which i think is valid); all of his magic is based around spirits + using them as energy which basically means that... any magic he gives someone is necromancy-adjacent too

→ in a SECRET PROJECT i have thorn who is magically undead + creates more magical undead by ~shenanigans~ (she’s fucking cursed)

→ in THE LILY PRINCE you have athan who is the actual son of actual death verself and honestly he just fucks everything up with death + undeath powers

→ in LOYAL you have theophon drake’s “grandfather” who has been keeping himself alive via necromancy for a very, very long time

→ there’s honestly probably more but these are my current (and long-time) necromancers and necromancer-adjacent characters i love them all (except mr. drake who can jump in the bay tbh)

[thedinanshiral]

Magic, mages and more

If you’ve played the Dragon Age series you’ve probably noticed some differences here and there. Origins was heavy on tactics, something Inquisition lacks considerably, and Dragon Age 2 allowed for blood magic, which Origins had little of and Inquisition barely mentions. All lore aside, we can experience magic in Thedas more closely through our mage companions in each game ( or your character if you chose the mage class).

First, i’ll discuss briefly how magic spells have changed throughout the games, then i’ll analyse a mage pattern and how it broke. And finally i’ll entertain some future over the top possibilities.  

Origins and DA2 were designed primarily to be played on PC, and we see this more clearly on Origins through its tactics-heavy gameplay. Spells in Origins are more suitable to a carefully planned combat strategy, with passive and status-inducing spells presented in a variety that didn’t survive into the following games. DA2 also allows for tactics but the combat system is more dynamic, it’s not necessary to pause/unpause 5 times per second, one can do battles in real time and as a result spells were considerably reduced, prioritizing active/offensive spells, and almost entirely eliminating status-inducing and supportive spells.

Unlike its predecessors, Inquisition was way more console-friendly and all but eliminated the tactics system from Origins; now combat was fast, direct, with a tactical screen capable of basic commands and overall limited, and spell trees were reduced to the bare minimum, with elemental attacks, and very few defensive spells, having completely eliminated healing.

So, in short, summonings disappeared after Origins, as did most of the Creation, Spirit and Entropy trees. By Inquisition, none of the glyphs or hexes survived. Some spells icons from DA2 reappear in Inquisition, but most from Origins never made it past it, and some spells changed name or spell tree between games. There’s a gradual simplification of spell trees from one game to the next, adjusting combat to a more straightforward style, with less support or status-inducing spells and an increasing concentration of active spells with enhancing passive ones. On the other hand, Healing all but disappeared from Inquisition spells, “spirit healer” not even surviving as a specialization, with the only healing spell available being Revival which as the name implies you can only use on an already fallen party member. Surprisingly, Dispel made it through all three games staying in the same spell tree, Spirit, and elemental spells remained the same across all games, with minor changes.

Now let’s take a look at all our main mage companions.

In Origins we have Morrigan (apostate, shapeshifter), and Wynne (circle mage, spirit healer, vessel for spirit of Faith). In DA2 we have Merrill (dalish, blood mage), and Anders (former circle mage turned apostate, healer, vessel for spirit of Justice/Vengeance). In inquisition however we get three mages: Dorian (Tevinter pariah, pyromancer, necromancer), Vivienne (circle loyalist, icemancer, knight-enchanter) and Solas (apostate, electromancer,rift mage).

Just in case the pattern isn’t clear enough..In both games we get an apostate and formally educated and trained mage, a mage who lived in the wild and a mage who lived in cities, a mage who dwells in obscure or forbidden magic used for offense and a mage dedicated primarily to healing and support, a mage who deals in dangerous magic but remains their own and a mage who despite dealing in safer magic harbours a spirit within (by Chantry dogma, an abomination).

This pattern is broken in Inquisition; while we still get an apostate and a circle mage, we also get a mage that while not from the circle still isn’s technically an apostate (Dorian), we also get no healer but we do get a mage that specializes in obscure magic (necromancy), and we don’t really get a mage that has lived in the wild but one who’s lived outside of Thedosian society (Solas, being who he is and having recently woken up from the longest nap ever). And instead of getting a mage sharing their body with a spirit of the Fade, we get an ancient elf who secretely is an elvhen god and the creator of the Veil. Solas breaks the pattern (as well as everything else, apparently).  

I’ll focus on Inquisition from now on and leave Solas for last. 

Auto-level evidences the default element of choice of each mage. Solas is an electromancer, Dorian is a pyromancer, and Vivienne is an icemancer. Dorian preferring fire makes sense as a Tevinter who constantly complains the South is cold, implying his homeland has a warmer weather he sorely misses. Vivienne choosing cold spells goes perfectly with her personality, presenting herself as an ice queen.

Here is where it begins to get a bit tricky: Specializations.

Dorian’s is Necromancy, which would make a lot of sense...if he was Nevarran. Being a Tevinter it’d make more sense for him to be a Blood Mage. But Origins and particularly DA2 already exposed blood magic, painted it in all its evil colours, made it pretty clear it’s the wrong kind of magic to use for all the dangers it entails. By the time we get Inquisition, we face an actual Magister Siderial and Tevinter is painted as this degenerate empire full of evil blood mages, so getting a blood mage specialization was out of the table. Therefore our Tevinter ally got the next most questionable line of magic, necromancy. Because nothing says “almost evil” as raising up the death to fight for you and draining lifeforce from your enemies.

Next we have Vivienne who specialises as a Knight-Enchanter (KE). She’s a Circle mage, a Loyalist at that, and KE is a path reserved for Circle mages allowed to engage in combat when requested. But we learn from Solas that the powers used by Knight-Enchanters have their origin in the Arcane Warriors of the ancient elves. Vivienne has no known connection to anything elven, so her being able to become a KE is just another example of the cultural appropriation of elven elements and knowledge done by humans and the Chantry. 

None of the specializations are entirely new, as already stated KE takes from Arcane Warriors, much of the Necromancer tree comes from the previous games’ Entropy trees, and the Primal and Force trees lend some spells to the supposedly brand new Rift tree. 

Then there’s Solas, who is the default Rift Mage once specializations become available. The Rift spell tree is a post-Breach occurrence, as it was developed by mages studying the Breach and resulting rifts that appeared all over Thedas. It should have unique spells yet it recycles old ones: Stonefist no longer deals physical damage as it did in Origins and DA2 when it was in the Primal tree and meant hurling rocks at the enemy, but spirit damage as it now involves summoning a boulder directly from the Fade. Similarly, DA2’s Force spell Fist of the Maker and subsequent upgrades, Maker’s Hammer and Maker’s Fury, described as “slamming enemies into the ground” with some invisible force became Veilstrike in the Rift tree of Inquisition, there described as “smashing nearby foes to the ground” by “recreating your own fist from from the essence of the Fade”.

Knowing what we know about Solas, his specialization makes sense, he’s responsible for the Veil’s existence so of course he’d know how to manipulate its properties. He’s Fen’Harel, after all. 

Still with me? Good, because this ride is about to get bumpy.

As the default Rift mage he can use Veilstrike, recreating his “own fist from the essence of the Fade”,  but Veilstrike is actually a rename of Fist of the Maker…So what Solas is really doing whenever he casts Veilstrike is casting the Fist of the Maker. By recreating his own fist..It’s all in the name. Fist of the Maker pre-dates Rift magic, but its rebranding as Veilstrike is post-Breach and named after the Veil and not the Maker, possibly because the one who introduces us to this particular spell now is not Andrastian but the ancient elvhen god and creator of the Veil.  Technically speaking  we could say Solas, having created the Veil ages ago and therefore being the one responsible for the present reality of Thedas, is then, in a way, its maker. It’s a wild idea, I know, and there are some bits of lore scattered around that could support it, but i’m not jumping into that abyss yet-

In addition, let’s go back to his auto-leveled spells. At first sight there’s no basis for Solas being an electromancer. But like his Rift specialization, his magic preferences are lore/plot oriented. To consider:

Solas prefers the Storm tree. Skyhold is, by its very name, the place from where the Veil was installed. Some codices found at Skyhold mention electricity being used in unknown rituals at Skyhold’s location. Solas was responsible for creating the Veil.

With this in mind it can be concluded that Solas has always been an electromancer, and even used his electric powers in some way to help put up the Veil in the past.

tl;dr Solas was originally an electromancer and is a Rift Mage because he created the Veil and knows it better than anyone else. Also, he may be the Maker. (loljk or am i)

Now what would you say if I told you Solas possibly also does blood magic? Too much of a stretch? Maaaybe..Except maybe not. He’s not against it, thinks of it as simply a means to an end, and doesn’t disapprove of it unless it’s done in excess for all the wrong reasons (as they do in Tevinter) or is used to limit freedom like when used to bind unwilling spirits or control people’s minds. It’s just an idea, but there must be an explanation why blood magic and lyrium (titan blood, so, still blood magic) can be used to tear the Veil open. The Magisters did it before, and a second time when Corypheus sacrificed Divine Justinia in a ritual that also involved...Solas’ Foci. That is, Fen’ Harel’s Foci.

From Tevinter Nights we learn Solas is after the red lyrium idol (again, titan blood) which he claims belongs to him and is a necessary element for the ritual he must perform to take down the Veil. A ritual for which he’s willing to destroy Thedas as we know it, regrettably causing the dead of thousands. For all we know, those deaths are a necessary sacrifice because they are part of a massive blood magic ritual, Solas’ own death may also be part of it. If the blood of a Divine could be used to open the Breach, what could the blood of Fen’Harel be used for?? Solas’ new powers as Fen’Harel are, frankly, terrifying*, and he’s decided to do whatever it takes to see his mission through, sadly.

And all this leads me to future possibilities..we can imagine with Solas actively trying to take down the Veil there will be places where the Veil gets super thin or begins to disappear. Pockets of space where reality no longer respects natural laws of physics or logic. The Fade is fluid, ever changing, with the right power it can be reshaped at will and i imagine some of that may begin to leak into the physical world, so we may get mage (or spirit! )companions with skills capable of taking advantage of that. 

Lastly, i may add, right now and as far as we can see, Solas is OP as fuck*. He can kill you in your sleep from within your dreams. He can turn you into stone with just thinking of it, which means in a way he can bend the laws of nature of the physical world like he can do in the Fade, If in the future we get close to him,if we get our hands on artifacts or intel.. it won’t because we gathered the right people and resources, it won’t be because of clever tactics and espionage, it won’t be at all because we did anything right. It’ll be because he allows it, because he let us get that far. 

If we stop him at all it’ll be because he wants to be stopped.   

(Apologies in advance if some of this is poorly written, i revised it so many times words no longer look like words. Also half of this is just wild speculation on my part and nobody has to agree with me, after 5 years i may be connecting imaginary dots but hey, it’s fun! If you read this far...i am so sorry, thanks)

[pi-cat000]

MSA: A (sort of) Necromancy AU

Summary: Arthur remembers the cave. He wants Lewis back and is desperate enough to try anything. 

NOTE: Started this serval months ago and its been in ‘planning’ for a while. Probably won’t continue until after either ‘time travel idea’  or ‘winged-Arthur’ is complete. But was in an editing mode today so here it is. 

.

The mental case clicks open. The red light flickers to green, and Arthur carefully replaces the plastic panel he’d removed to access the lock’s inner-workings. Around him, the room remains mostly dark, dimly lit by a glowing red exit sign. Far off, if he strains and holds his breath, he can hear the sounds of people moving up and down the hospital’s hallways. This section of the hospital may be closed for the night, but the wards and emergency room operate 24/7.

Quickly, not wanting to try his luck, Arthur snatches the plastic bags of donated blood, shoving them into his backpack. The process is made hard by his single, solitary arm. In his hast, he accidentally bumps his bandaged shoulder against the cabinet. Pain shoots across his chest, forcing him to pause and wait for it to settle to a more manageable dull ache. This is the third time he’s knocked the still-healing injury and it’s been equally, if not more, painful each time.  Probably shouldn’t be moving around this much after his surgery. There are a lot of things he probably shouldn't be doing. Like stealing blood, driving long distances, transversing creepy cave systems, and attempting to resurrect his dead best friend.

Backpack is appropriately stuffed with blood packets, Arthur heads out the way he came, closing doors behind him, trying to leave as little evidence as possible. No one stops him. It’s not too surprising, he can’t imagine that many people want to seal blood in a small town like this one. He makes it back to the van emptying his backpack into a cooler box which is set to the correct temperature. Next, he’s manoeuvring through empty streets, ignoring the steady throb of his shoulder, speeding towards The Cave - Location of all his recent nightmares and scene of Lewis’s death. Arthur tightens his grip on the steering wheel.  

It is almost three in the morning when he pulls up to the gapping stone entrance. So far, everything is running according to his well-planned timeline. If this doesn’t work, he wants to be home before Vivi wakes up to find him missing. He hopes it doesn't come to that, but a small part of him acknowledges that this whole expedition is a long shot. In the still night air, the slamming of van doors and his occasional pained grunts echo unnaturally in the surrounding trees.

Arthur ignores the prickling unease running down his back while he struggles to carry the cooler of blood, his bag of resurrection supplies, and the hefty necromancy book down the stone tunnels. He ends up having to hold a flashlight between his teeth to properly light his way. The trip is slow and laborious, requiring several stops to catch his breath. He pushes on. Occasionally, the silence is broken by the wail of wind whistling through stone crevasses and slow dip of unseen water. By the time he makes it to the site of Lewis’s murder, he is shivering with both cold and unease.  Arthur drops his load, freeing up his hand so he can use the flashlight to scan the space. Tall pointed stone barbs tower over him and throw long shadows, which crisscross the ground in uneven patterns. Nervously, he inches forward, feeling awfully exposed in the open space.

“This is such a bad idea,” He mutters, glancing up at the high stone ledge and trying to calculate Lewis’s fall trajectory. His voice bounces around. A suspicious organic lump catches his eye. Arthur takes a sharp breath, freezing, riding out the sudden wave of nausea.

Lewis…

The necromancy book states that the closer the necromancer is to the body, the higher the chance of success. Arthur swallows, pointing his flashlight away from the darkened misshapen mound at the foot of one particularly sharp spike. There is no way he can approach Lewis’s body, let alone draw the sigils needed for the ritual around it.

Arthur picks a spot on the further side of the cave. Technically, the book only specified that the ritual needed to be ‘at the location of the target's demise’. As long as it was the most recent death then everything should work out fine.

“This is fine…Everything is fine. A-okay. Nothing to worry about.” He glances into the darkness. Everything not lit up by the flashlight is completely obscured.

“Just a normal guy, doing a completely normal necromancy ritual that will totally work. This will be fine and is not in any way a bad idea.”

Wind moans somewhere overhead as if in response, and he points his torch upwards. Nothing is there but more pointed rock formations. It would suck it one fell on him…Arthur shivers. The ritual he’s planning to follow is convoluted, the instructions poorly translated by Vivi, with potential consequences ranging from deadly to horrifying. A relic from Vivi’s macabre phase, he has no idea where the necromancy manual came from originally only that it's the only option available. Of course, he has had to substitute almost all of the ‘ingredients.’ For example, there was no way he’d be doing any ‘human sacrificing.’ Hopefully, the donated blood would be an adequate replacement for the rituals ‘liquid life’ requirement.

“Okay…ah," He hesitates, "…Wards. I need to set up a protective ward.”  A ward is, according to Vivi's necromancy book,  needed to protect his soul from some loosely defined 'darkness. Unfortunately, the book fails to describe how to set up a protective ward. As a substitute, he’s stolen a stack of paper talismans from Vivi and the giant scroll from the shrine in Vivi’s backyard. Vivi had once said the scroll was for protection and, with his lack of options, he hopes it’ll work for him. Trying not to feel too guilty about the theft, he shuffles around slapping paper rectangles on every surface he can reach and slinging the scroll haphazardly over a nearby rock formation so it can sit unfurled. The moment the scroll roles open, its fancy Japanese characters start to glow a faint gold.

Arthur stares. Okay…He has no idea what that means. Why had he never looked into any of this supernatural stuff before now? He should have been investigating this stuff years ago!  A bit late now. Hopefully, it means it is doing its ‘protective’ thing.

Arthur continues his preparations, which is made slightly easier in the light of the scroll. His hand is shaking so much that the sigils for the ritual are almost impossible to draw, never mind that the rough stone doesn’t take chalk very well. The whole process is slow and painful, but he pushes on and manages to sketch out a large circle, decorated with intricate symbology. All the practice he’d snuck in during the week seemed to be paying off.

Now for the hard part. Arthur takes the first packet of blood and ends up having to stab it open with his pocket knife. The blood spurts all over the place and his clothes and he almost throws up right then and there.  He tries not to think or look as he empties out the rest of packets into the centre of the circle. When he finally finishes, his good arm is tired, his shoulder is throbbing, and he is panting with exhaustion. 

Arthur pulls out a locket containing a picture of both Lewis and Vivi. He had had to steal it off Vivi’s nightstand because, despite not recognising the man in the picture, she was very attached to it. Hopefully, it would work as an ‘emotional anchor.’ He drops the locket and some of Lewis’s hair, collected from an old hairbrush, into the circle. All that is left is a long and overly complex Latin chant.

Sitting at the edge of the circle, laying the book down flat, Arthur traces the words with a finger.  

This is it…If this doesn’t work…He doesn’t know what he’d do. Probably cry. He takes a deep breath and begins to read. When Arthur finishes reciting, he waits for several long, agonising seconds.

At first, nothing happens. The cave remains cold and silent.  Then, a loud wind moans overhead, tearing down through the tunnels, twisting in a circle around him and pulling at his hair. The flashlight flickers off, but it doesn't matter because the stolen scroll is growing brighter and brighter. It continues to increase in brilliance, lighting the entire cave floor, reflecting off the stone spikes. Arthur’s eyes sting and he sees spots.

Then the scroll bursts into purple flame.  Simultaneously, all the paper talismans explode, burning and flaking away. The area begins to grow steadily hotter until Arthur is sweating and breathless. It is so hot that the blood in the circle starts to boil also catching on fire, evaporating in long wisps of smoke which twist in the wind overhead. Arthur feels a sharp pain in his chest, tugging him forward. He grips his shirt, having trouble thinking, and edges of his vision dim.

‘Bad idea confirmed.’ Is his last coherent thought. .

.

.

Lewis breathes in like he’s returned from some deep-sea dive. His chest expands as he inhales in one desperate action. The next thing he does is groan loudly. Everything hurts. There is a constant throbbing pain in his left shoulder and his whole body aches with exhaustion. Cold air makes him shiver uncontrollably. Lewis blinks up from where he is lying on hard stone ground. He can’t see anything despite knowing his eyes are open. When he moans it is all wrong, too high pitched.

“Lewis?” Arthur’s voice, faint and whispy, drifts through the dark towards him. Lewis tries to pull himself into a seated position to get a better sense of his location. Only, he overbalances and smacks into a nearby rock, sending spikes of more intense white-hot pain through his shoulder. He grits his teeth.

“Lewis!” Arthur's voice is way too enthusiastic, piercing through the haze of pain.

Where is he? The last he remembers is walking with Arthur, navigating down a stone tunnel. They’d come to a stone platform overlooking a larger cavern, then…everything gets blurry. He’d fallen…He vaguely remembers falling.

“Arthur. Where are you?” Lewis, using his good hand, grips the rock to hold himself up in a seated position. He is not imagining it. His voice is definitely different.

“I don’t know…but I can see you,” Arthur answers and Lewis glances about, confused,  peering into the dark.

“How? It’s pitch-back in here.”

Something is wrong with his left arm. It is completely unresponsive. He can’t move it at all.

“I’m not sure,” Arthur also sounds confused now. Lewis presses his back against the stone, using it for support, feeling for his shoulder, trying to find the source of the pain.

"Whoa hey. Ah...I wouldn’t....” Arthur responds to his movement, “You may notice some body parts missing, but don’t panic."

“Don't panic?! Was I injured in the fall? Oh god,” He discovers why his arm is unresponsive, “My arm’s gone!”

“I said don't panic!"

Lewis gasps, heart beating way to fast. "I'm dying."

"No. You’re fine. I swear you're fine. Just try and calm down. You need to breathe.”'

“I am breathing,” He snaps, taking several hash breaths. He’s feeling lightheaded and woozy now. It doesn’t help that he still can’t see anything. That, plus the pain, saps the rest of his strength right out of him. Lewis hears is Arthur's panicked. "Lewis!" And then hears no more. . . . Of course, Lewis doesn't die. He wakes back up and is met with the same throbbing pain and cold stone. However, unlike last time, it is no longer pitch-black. A ball of floating fire, burning a mix of purple and yellow, is hovering over his chest. It lights the immediate area in a dim haze. He freezes, alarmed, staring in the soft light. 

"Lewis? You're awake." Arthur's relived voice is coming from the ball of fire, which wavers and fluctuates when he speaks. What the...?

“Arthur?”  He asks, hesitant, scanning the surrounding space. It is still too dark to see beyond a few meters, but he can make out taller stone structures.

“Yeah? You can see me now?”

His attention returns to the slowly bobbing fireball. Yes, Arthur’s voice is coming from the fire. Maybe he is dead after all. 

"What happened?" Lewis whispers, swallowing and glancing down at where his hand should be. In the low light cast by the floating Arthur-fire, he can see there is no blood or any other sign of recent trauma. It just hurts a lot. He lifts up his remaining hand to examine that as well. It is pale. Far too pale to be his own hand. How?

[charmandhex]

Inspired by @herbgerblin ‘s wonderful Taakitz art

For those that live perpetually on call in Faerun, contacting them can go a couple different ways. If you’ve got their frequency, some are easily reachable by Stone of Farspeech. If you’re offering some sort of brief, stunt-filled adventure to three less-than-retired saviors of the multiverse, a letter will suffice. And, of course, all else failing, anything from a posting for a serving job at the local tavern to one preceding a multiverse-saving adventure may be posted to Craig’s List.

But for the agents of her Majesty the Raven Queen, goddess of the natural order of life and death, ruler of the Astral Plane, it’s more a feeling: a chill gracefully sweeping up the bones, feathers subtly rising in anticipation, and the certainty that something so much larger than you is watching, that if you were to look over your shoulder, a pair of deep brown eyes would meet yours.

It’s to such a feeling that Kravitz wakes up this morning. And that’s morning only in the technical sense of the term, as the softly ticking clock on the wall indicates that it is 3:16. Again, in the morning.

Kravitz immediately closes his eyes again, pushing down the brush of frustration. First, despite Kravitz’s semi-return to the land of the living, he is still very much dead and in the Raven Queen’s employ. Though She certainly respects Kravitz’s newfound work-life balance, necromancy never sleeps. At least not at reasonable hours.

Second, there’s Taako. Kravitz opens his eyes again and tilts his head to look at his sleeping boyfriend, somehow sprawled across half of the bed and most of Kravitz, tangled up in blankets, hair spread across the pillow. Beautiful, ethereal, gorgeous. Also drooling slightly.

A smile crosses Kravitz’s face before he looks to the clock again. The feeling heightens, a sense of urgency tracing through Kravitz’s recently back in use veins. It has to be something serious then.

Kravitz slowly extricates himself from Taako’s hold, trying not to wake him. Faint moonlight peeking through the curtains paints Kravitz’s shadow across the wall as he rises, a cat hopping off the bed and trotting noiselessly across the room as he does.

Kravitz follows just as noiselessly, and his hand is on the doorknob when he hears a sleepy, “Babe?” Kravitz looks over his shoulder. Taako slowly pushes himself up to sitting, still under enough blankets to be more fabric than elf. Taako peers at him for a moment, blinking sleep out of his eyes, then says, “Shit. Call from bird mom?”

“Yes,” Kravitz answers, turning around fully. “I can’t believe those two got you to call her that.”

“Shit.” Taako mumbles again, or half mumbles as the word turns into a yawn. “S’like... fuck o’clock.”

“You can go back to sleep. I’ll be-“ Kravitz stops. “It won’t take long.”

“Nuh-uh.” Taako wiggles off the bed, taking the blankets with him and sending two more cats running. A far lumpier shadow crosses the wall as Taako crosses the room. “Ugh. Fuck o’clock. Coffee first?”

Kravitz considers, reaching out to ask, and the watched feeling softens, the hairs on the back of his neck settle. Urgent, important, but not Magnus Burnsides level of needing to rush. Coffee first then.

Neither bothers with the lights as they head downstairs, because neither needs them. Taako bats Kravitz’s hands away from the coffee maker in the kitchen and sets to work himself. Kravitz, for his part, concludes he’d be better suited, both figuratively and literally, if he were wearing work attire instead of pajama bottoms, and materializes his suit and cloak. There’s a soft, almost squeaking meow near his feet before Cat Angus starts determinedly climbing his pant leg.

“Why not send Lup?” Taako whines as he works.

“Your sister is probably going too.” Kravitz answers.

“So send Barold with her.”

“Your brother is probably going with both of us. This one... feels like a big one.” Taako’s ear twitches, and his shoulders tense. “It’ll be fine. We’ll be safe, and I’ll be back by dinner.” Kravitz rushes to say, reaching out to put a hand on Taako’s shoulder. Or what he is 90% sure is Taako’s shoulder. It’s hard to tell with all the blankets. There’s another meow from somewhere near his hipbone and a swift tug of his cape as Cat Angus jumps.

“Mmmrmph.” Taako lets out a truly dissatisfied noise before turning around, two mugs in hand. Kravitz he gives the official Raven and Ram racing mug, while Taako himself keeps a mug emblazoned with the word, “beanjuice.”

“You don’t have to stay up,” Kravitz says, gesturing to Taako’s mug even as he takes a sip from his own. The bitter taste of the coffee is tempered by just the right amount of cream and sugar. As always, Taako is an expert in the kitchen, and Kravitz is especially grateful for that (and caffeine) right now. “You could go back to bed, get some more sleep. It is-“ Kravitz breaks into a yawn. “-Very early.” He finishes.

Taako shakes his head and takes a sip of his own coffee. “Nope. Gonna hold you to that one, rabbit. You, Lulu, and Barold all back safe and sound by dinner.”

“Taako-“

“Nope!” Taako shakes his head. “You gotta be a good Grim Reaper, I’m gonna be a supportive boyfriend. So, family dinner, tonight. No negotiations here, babe.”

“Taako, I-“ It’d be nice to have something to look forward to at work today. And a reason to push off paperwork until tomorrow. “Okay. Family dinner, tonight.” Kravitz nods.

“Cool. Gonna have you ‘n Lup ‘n Barry ‘n Maggie ‘n Ango ‘n Merle ‘n Ren and-“ Taako breaks into another yawn. “And everyone.” He says decidedly. “Family dinner means everyone. So you three-“ He gently pokes a finger into Kravitz’s chest. “Have gotta show up.” The hand raises to hold Kravitz’s cheek.

“Promise. Cross my heart and hope to revivify.” Kravitz winks, work accent popping in.

Taako snorts. “Fuckin’ necromancers.” He leans in to kiss Kravitz. Only to pause when there is a thoroughly indignant squeak, as Kravitz’s own movement jostles a certain kitten that has reached Kravitz’s shoulders. “You little shit.” Taako directs to the kitten, pulling back.

“He wants attention.” Kravitz says. Cat Angus gently bats at one of Kravitz’s braids.

“Yeah, and he coulda had it now, but he picked you as his favorite.” A purple Mage Hand carefully picks the kitten up off Kravitz’s shoulder and deposits him on the floor. Cat Angus, for his part, meows his displeasure before stalking off, tail pointing straight upward.

“I think Angus is his actual favorite.”

“Lucky Agnes.” Taako huffs.

“You’re my favorite.”

“Damn right.” And Taako leans in to kiss Kravitz. They aren’t interrupted by the kitten this time. “Love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Oh, and can you pick up fabric softener while you’re out?”

“Of course. Fabric softener, family dinner tonight.” Kravitz smiles.

Being summoned at 3:16 might be harder now, but what he’s going back to? It’s worth it.

[necromagicae]

very, very messy necromancy rambles under the cut from a discord convo haha...

tldr;  necromancy is wild bro

Stefano [FEMALE SYMBOL] Today at 1:48 PM ...this said. How strong are Clara's construct? Is it a fixed thing, or can she pump up a specific one to give it more strength/agility/so on?

Red Mage Irma. ♢Today at 2:18 PM she is capable of pumping up a construct to give it more strength/agility/so on yes, though this takes more time/energy from her specifically because she is trying to find a way to do it which doesn't involve dipping into shoving souls into things. this is actually her main field of research in necromancy.

i still need to work out the details and i'd appreciate any feedback/input, but the basics i have so far is soul-powered vs mana-powered as a general rule of thumb any construct directly powered by a soul is capable of taking more complex actions, (some super advanced ones even being able to be self-sufficient/even relatively self-aware), being able to be more easily augmented, require way less mana usage from the mage (as they typically only really need to worry about keeping the bonded soul under their control, not actively animating the entire structure to move per say) and are overall way more of a threat the Huge Downside being there is WAY more room for error, and if you lose control for even a second that is how you end up with Rouge Zombie out to Eat You and Anything Else Near It. Messing with souls is tricky and stuff gets messy fast.

mana-powered constructs, by comparison, are basically more like a computer with a simple code/command put into it. They typically can only do basic commands for the most part ('sit here attack thing that comes by'), take way more mana from the mage on the initial 'boot-up' and if being actively influenced will also drain more from them compared to the soul-powered ones, and while they can be augmented, this requires even more mana than the animating itself does. the upside is they require waaayy less active maintenance. they basically are laptops with a mana-powered battery that the mage needs to recharge every now and then, but the battery are long lasting and only drain when the thing is actively in use. soul-powered, by comparison, drain way faster, only that unlike these guys a soul-powered losing battery results in Rouge Construct, where in this case, it just causes the magic to stop animating it and it just returns to a normal pile of bones/flesh. The huge upside being ya know, they wont try to eat your face, and their is way less room for error. they are also more 'set aside and forget' friendly.

Stefano [FEMALE SYMBOL]Today at 2:22 PM Mmmmmh. How does a rogue zombie devolve into "Eating You and Anything Else Near It"? Is it because any living being with an actual soul has "find food > eat food" as an existential imperative?

Red Mage Irma. ♢Today at 2:22 PM Yeah basically They get reduced to their base survival drives with 0 filter. The most overpowering one being 'eat food' Only they never get full So they just.. Keep going Well, survival if you cut out the part of your brain that yells at you for doing things which are dangerous to you own well being, I should say

Stefano [FEMALE SYMBOL]Today at 2:26 PM Would it be wrong, to say that mana-powered constructs are more golems than undeads?

Red Mage Irma. ♢Today at 2:27 PM Not really, because technically they are Clara is capable of doing both, she just prefers one because its less of a hassle

sats (birb)👻Today at 2:29 PM i would say the difference between an undead versus a normal construct is the material it's made out of. an undead can be a construct, and a construct can be undead, but it's a venn diagram more-so than the same or separate categories.

Stefano [FEMALE SYMBOL]Today at 2:29 PM Tiny, absolutely inconsequential question. Is it possible, with a finite amount of energy, to perform what amounts to a perfect reincarnation? As in, taking an untarnished soul and attach it perfectly unto a host body?

sats (birb)👻Today at 2:30 PM would you count Az's floette's resurrection a perfect reincarnation from finite energy, or no?

Red Mage Irma. ♢Today at 2:30 PM I actually have a whole separate ramble about that specifically!

sats (birb)👻Today at 2:30 PM oh boy

Stefano [FEMALE SYMBOL]Today at 2:44 PM [Irma, taking out the Exposition Truck] "actually"

Red Mage Irma. ♢Today at 2:45 PM the tldr being 'yes... kinda... but...'

basically if its just the necromancer doing it, off their own power and nothing else. stuff gets messy fast. Soul splitting being the Biggest Issue. In order to call back the soul of the dead they need to give it something to latch onto in this world, that being half of ones own soul. So the person will come back! ...as a glued together soul, with some memories missing, and having memories which aren't quite theirs, and possibly even being bound to the mage in a way which lets them feel the pain the other is feeling, and a whole other number of unforeseen consequences to both the person who was resurrection and the mage themselves. (such as 'what happens if the glues together souls try to complete themselves?' 'who knows! but do you reeealllly wanna be the first to find out?')

not soul-glued resurrection basically requires drawing energy from some manner of godlike being capable of reaching across the other side and dragging back the soul wholesale, and wouldn't have any of the messy fallbacks. possibly because the god just takes care of all that stuff itself, or because it doesn't need to worry about that at all.

basically what separates a proper cleric from a necromancer. all clerics are necromancers, not all necromancers are clerics.

I'd say Az's floette is a bit of an edge case tho, it was brought back from a machine which certainly had godlike energy and was powered by like a a lot of pokemon souls. so its possible it skipped over any of these steps entirely, and that perfect resurrection which doesnt need/result in the above is possible but needs A Lot of sacrifice in order to make the soul stick. certainly much more than a normal mage would be capable of doing alone. so its possible cases like Az's floette just arent taken into account simply because they arent the 'standard' way a resurrection would happen

Stefano [FEMALE SYMBOL]Today at 2:47 PM Yeah, that was "finite" energy, but on a scale that would usually be way beyond feasible limits. A solid answer!

[vampire-kaelthas]

OC Master List

Updated OC Lists (current as of 5/18/20)

Celean- ESO

He's my necromancer vestige! He's about 24 when his story starts, and he got into necromancy when he was 16! He's very much a disaster gay, so much so he becomes a stuttering mess around Jakarn and any man that compliments him. Very sweet but has anxiety.

Ravis- Skyrim

He's a Ohmes-Raht Khajiit! So hes the Dragonborn and Harbinger for the Companions, along with being a veteran for the Civil war. He came to Skyrim as a secret agent of the Empire, being hidden in the ranks of the Thalmor to spy on them. He gets discovered and spends some time in one of the Thalmor prisons which was... less than kind to him. He ends up escaping with Kaidan and goes on to join the Companions and save the world and all that Jazz. He married Kaidan about a year and a half later, with their home being a cottage in the Rift.

Lyandra- Skyrim

She's a snow elf, who lived in with the group of Snow Elves that hid with Gelabor (ok for this I use my headcanon of time traveling elder scrolls just go with it). When the Falmer attacked the Chantry, (around 4e198 for reference) she runs through the tunnels and ends up literally stumbling into a group of Thalmor. After that, for 3 years she was trained by the Thalmor to be an asset. Elenwen saw Lyandra as a daughter, and even throughout her story still saw her as one. Lyandra joins the Dawnguard and is the Dragonborn, and also dabbles with some stuff at the College of Winterhold. She tries to look for more Snow elves for a few years, but gives up when she finds none left in Skyrim. She doesn't end up with anyone, but she has a huge group of friends that basically live at her giant house in the Pale.

Astreae- Skyrim

Astreae is a Breton, and a demi prince of Light and Stars! She gets fought over by both Azura and Meridia (turns out she has one of them further back in her family tree so it's just in her blood). She lived in High Rock before she came to Skyrim to join the Bards College in Solitude. She ends up with Marcurio. She helps rebuild Windhelm, since she loves the old city (hates the racism). She really brings back the life into the city, while keeping the old rustic stone feel.

Athena- Skyrim

Athena is a wood elf who came to Skyrim with their friends and fiancee. They were ambushed by both the Stormcloaks and Imperials, and Athena watched them all fall around them. Their story is long and difficult, with betrayal at every corner. They end up nearly broken, being nursed back to sanity by Serana.

Raven- Skyrim

She was raised by ex-assassins, trained to join the Dark Brotherhood from a young age. She doesn’t know until the events of Skyrim that she’s actually a demi-prince, related to Mephala (who is confused about why their child would look more like a bosmer than a dunmer). She is in the same world as Keian, and ends up being close friends with her. She ends up as Listener, and both her and Keian are Dragonborns

Keian- Skyrim

Keian is a vampire, born at the beginning of the 4th Era. She was raised Markarth, and lived as an Alchemist in the hills. She was turned when she was out hunting for ingredients. After that, she fled Skyrim and stayed with a small clan in High Rock until 4e201, when she left to explore the world. She is obsessed with history and, along with funds donated by Raven, rebuilds most of the Chantry of Auri-El to give snow elves a home once again when they are found. 

Seline- Skyrim

One of my Half Dragon dragonborns. She was born in the Imperial City, to 2 normal Imperials. She’s dragonborn and ends up as Arch Mage. She does go through the dawnguard questline, but only because she was looking for rare books and finds Serana instead. She ends up living with Serana in Winterhold, where they rebuild the city and make it a haven for wizards and nonviolent vampires. 

Nikoli- Skyrim

Another one of my half dragon ocs, but he was born with the features instead of them coming in later in life. His mother is a Nord and his father is a high elf. He grew up with his mother, far from society until he was 12. From then on he lived at the Rorikstead Inn. When Erik turns 19, he and Nikoli leave to become mercenaries.

Kiliana Ebon-Talon -Skyrim 

She’s a pure Nord, born and raised in Falkreath. She lived with her parents her entire life. When she was 20, she came home from a weekend of hunting to find her parents murdered. She left town after that, drinking her grief away and avoiding any of her friends who would try to find her. She got her dragon looks (horns, scales, and tail) after the battle with the dragon at the West Tower! She goes on to be Dragonborn and Guild Master of the Thieves Guild.

Ran’ik Tzan -Skyrim

Very chaotic, very impulsive fire mage! She accidently ended up in Skyrim due to messing up a portal spell very badly and arrived at the College of Winterhold! She ends up as Archmage and ends up with Ancano

Eats Much Bread -Skyrim

They’re an argonian! Their actual name is a little hard to pronounce, and instead of listening to racist nords purposely mispronounce it, they just went with this instead! They join the Dawnguard

Xianna Septim -Skyrim

A lost descendant of Martin Septim, her family line has been waiting for the Empire to be weak to reclaim it. She was trained as a child at High Hrothgar to be Dragonborn. She ends up reclaiming the throne and marrying Brynjolf. 

Rowan -Oblivion

He’s a demi-prince of Meridia! He doesn’t do much with that knowledge except saying “cool.” He’s a healer, and hes an ancestor to Astreae

Citrane- Oblivion

She ends up joining the DB and falling pretty hard for Lucien, but realizes it too late. I think I’ll have her mantle Sheo, but I haven’t made my mind up yet.

Yakar- Skyrim

Yakar is one of the last Dwemer, hidden away deep in the mountains with the rest of his clan for generations. He leaves to travel Tameriel after no one doing that for generations, and uses the fact that dwemer Animunculi don't attack him to his advantage. He also ends up being wrapped up into the DB. May or may not technically share a soul with Emnoral

Emnoral- Skyrim

Hes the Son of Hircine, literally. He's a demiprince, and half Altmer. He's a very sassy, very charming asshole who only meets Yakar due to being too flirty with the citizens of Tameriel. May or may not technically share a soul with Yakar.

Quinlin- Skyrim

The child between Hermaeus Mora and Uriel VIII (the man had an interesting life), they're the demiprince of Fate. Growing up in apocrypha, the only access to Tameriel they had was through books, so they read all they could. They escape Apocrypha with Miraak and help with the take down of Alduin.

Talnori- Skyrim

She's my daughter of Vivec! She's been around since before the time of the nerevarine, and after Vivecs disappearance, she slowly traveled Morrowind and then all of Tameriel, making a name for herself as a treasure hunter. She makes her way to Skyrim after being hired to help with getting some artifacts (LOTD) when she finds out she's Dragonborn as well.

Celrin- Morrowind & Skyrim

He's a Maomer, one of the last that traveled the seas when he was arrested and sent to Morrowind. He's the Nerevarine, and does his "job" to the letter, and as soon as he's done, he leaves, going back to the seas. He reappears in Skyrim and travels with Talnori. He remembers her, but she doesn't remember him.

[ebficnotes]

Lorebook Notes for The Legend of Vastarie

Some notes on necromancy (and a certain two idiots of course) by way of the only “good” necromancer in the game (that I’m aware of).

Keywords:

oblivion black gems, manni’s motives, artaeum, early guild, psijics, vanus’s issues, vastarie

=

 Necromancy's known to many as a binding of souls to a form prepared—or in some cases, manufactured—by the conjurer.

While technically accurate, the implication is that souls bound in this manner are imprisoned against their will with no hope of release.

Further implied is the idea that souls occupying the construct are always sentient—the souls of men or mer—a fallacy perpetuated by the practice of animating corpses for martial or manual labors.

It is this misunderstanding and a potential for abuse that led to the vilification of necromancy and the expulsion of Mannimarco and his peers from the Isle of Artaeum.

Enter Vastarie, a student of the Psijic Order and contemporary of such notables as Vanus Galerion and Mannimarco.

This sounds weird as hell. Why would the Psijics of all people not understand this? They are supposed to be some of the most learned mages in the world. I’ve been interpreting the claims of Psijic hate from Hannibal Traven as his own propaganda because it makes more sense, but here it confirms the Order really does hate it AND for the wrong reasons too? Wtf. To me, the only good reason the Psijics would have to hate necromancy would be for the same reasons that the dunmer hate it, and anyone with any sense knows that what the dunmer do is religious necromancy. I like to think that the Psijics would be impartial enough to call it what it is, but maybe not? Maybe that's the hypocrisy that Manni refers to in his [worm saga].

So Mannimarco did have friends and peers on the isle - besides Vanus. It would be weird if he was the only one, considering how full of enemies that delve of theirs is. And the fact that he's a politician and those guys are not loners by definition. And his peers got expelled along with him? Until now it was only him who got expelled. Vanny don’t mention that in his [artaeum lost].

Practice of animating corpses for manual labor? Necro-Agri-business? That is such a fun idea! The Psijics have a storm atronach sprinkler system, why not zombie farmers (bone-farmers? worm-farmers? lol) Okay the smell would be murderous, but whatever. Heck, maybe they did before it was banned.

While Mannimarco sought power through the direct application of necromantic energies, Vastarie's purposes were far more esoteric. She sought a way to delay the release of a sentient soul upon death that it might be consulted, its knowledge recorded for the ages.

It is to this end that she worked with Mannimarco after leaving Artaeum, searching for a way to trap souls as one might capture lesser Daedra.

Delay release of a soul upon death? Some other note talks about how souls often stick around on their own for a bit, which is given as a reason for using bones instead. Guess she wants something more reliable?

  Soul trap is described in [Mysticism: Unfathomable Voyage] as making a container for a soul with your own power, which I presume you could release any time you wanted.  I guess the spirit talking aspect is hard on your internal battery so she wants to automate it somehow.

She wants to trap a newly dead guy and chat him up? Ooh, for like last words and stuff! Or maybe crime scenes? Forensic pathology necromancy!. But only if you get to the scene before the victim floats away...

Believing the secret lay with Molag Bal, the two conspired to enter Coldharbour and wrest it from the father of vampires himself. Together, they hatched a plan.

With a brash courage known only to the young, Mannimarco and his followers held open a portal to the Prince's realm. Ever thirsting for adventure, Vastarie entered its depths and returned with a cache of black crystals the likes of which they had never seen.

So black gems as we know them came from Molag Bal. I am imagining that all the soul-interested daedra have their own branded gems, since it cleans up a lot with that soul cairn business in Skyrim. Sheo in the eso mage guild quest appears to have some, and (i think) Hermaeus Mora does too. And of course Azura, even though she only lets animals into hers.

  Mannimarco and his followers open a portal. Portal hacking to oblivion is really iffy, as told in [The doors of oblivion]. Unless the daedra in question voluntarily opens the other side for you, you either need to find a natural opening somewhere in nirn like the dreaming cave - which are very rare, or exploit some empties that some other mage left behind like the guys in that book did. Our "Prophet" could come and go as he pleased, but it seems like that was Akatosh's doing, seeing as he's functionally the god of the liminal barrier itself. And we all know what happened when Vanus tried to brute-force one. Could this be Manni’s original motivation for getting in with Bal?

You know, we never really hear what Manni was doing in the Dreaming Cave that "brisk Frostfall evening". Everyone just assumes it was something bad. Okay, attempting to steal high-end soul capture devices from the most fucked up prince in oblivion isn't the greatest idea, but is it evil? Guess Vanus thought so.

To Mannimarco, they were perfect. Small, capable of containing even the most willful of souls, and apparently indestructible. To Vastarie, they were deeply flawed, for enchantment was the only safe way to free a soul from their depths.

  Small, tough as nails, and capable of securely holding the most willful souls. Black colored gems are the solid-state drives to everyone else’s shitty HDDs All other "white" gems or green ones or whatever are either super delicate, have a high failure rate for the more powerful souls, or are enormous and difficult to carry around. And naturally the best, most compact and stable ones are impossibly expensive and/or super rare (actual solid-state drives when they first came out). That won’t do for Mannimarco's goal of popularizing soul magic (as said by Vanus himself), will it?

This makes Obliviion and Skyrim’s black/white dichotomy make a tiny bit of sense now: Manni-moon’s soul gem altars are a universal upgrade. some kind of necro-magical industrial process for creating high-quality capture devices. It isn’t at all obvious though, because regular soul gems don’t randomly break or fail to work correctly in gameplay. But those poor npcs notice, whether they choose to trap human souls or not, since black gems CAN in fact trap ANY soul, human or animal, powerful daedra, etc.  Bring your crappy flawed gems to your local Necro-guild and they’ll compress those suckers and make them usable. And unlike the Masters, or Bal, or whoever else you might get those high-end gems from who constantly try to fuck you over, his are no BS.

All that black and white stuff is pure mage guild propaganda, and may even be financially motivated? I could def see a greedy Oblivion-era guild trying to corner the market on usable soul gems, kinda like how computer processor companies intentionally gimp high clockspeed processors in order to create artificial price points. Maybe they own the mines?

the only safe way to free a soul. Given how ethical she seems to be here, i highly doubt that her idea of ‘safe release’ includes the Soul Cairn. Could be in favor of my idea that any gem that’s not keyed to some extra-planar entity,  like the ideal masters, doesn’t send the residue anywhere. just lets it into the air where it floats out to wherever it would have gone before being trapped.

Even so, she set about the task of reproducing the stones, breaking them down, testing them with a variety of substances until, by happy accident, she created something new: the first Sigil Geode.

Clear as crystal, this new device was capable of holding sentient souls within its depths, but unlike the gems wrested from the Lord of Domination, it was exceptionally fragile and would only hold its charge for a matter of days.

Once imprisoned, souls could be transferred between geodes, but applying them as one would a soul gem effected a soul's release, instead.

Vastarie had found what she was looking for, but Mannimarco was furious. What use was a soul gem that could not be used to fuel an enchantment? He demanded Vastarie find a way to modify her creation to his purposes.

Realizing her friend would never stop searching, and that further discoveries made with him would only advance his goals, she gathered up her research and left with Telacar, her husband and a powerful necromancer in his own right.

His purposes. That sounds so nefarious given the shit he pulls later, but if my reading above holds, then "his purposes" here aren't completely evil. Whatever his other sins, Mannimarco is clearly trying to engineer a more reliable and convienent soul gem. The fact that they can trap a human just as well as a skeever is irrelevant. All souls are the same. Btw, since the player gems in ESO are all the same size now, does that mean he succeeded? (if so, then good on him goddammit. In Skyrim, i always end up consoling myself a bunch of black/grand gems because its such a bitch to remember what animal/enemy fits into what gem. Screw that, make them one size fits all!)

Hers is made of glass and only holds charge for a few days. You can move souls between them but it’s physically impossible to enchant with them. Those seem both like solid anti-abuse measures and a giant pita. She made a DRM soul gem. I...don’t know how to feel about that.

  It really sucks that Manni is so up his own ass over this. This is a sweet use case and is actually in line with his overall goals of promoting necromancy in general. She might have stuck around and did his bidding if he hadn't scared her off. Guess he has tunnel vision.

So she doesn’t want to further his goals. Why not? Is she against using souls in enchanting similar to Vanus? Or maybe the god thing? Which may or may not be a pure evil thing either, depending on what he wants to do as a god. Despite how most players think of them, NONE of the gods in TES are "good". At best, they are compatible with popular sentiments like love or mercy, etc.

 Together, they fled Mannimarco's grasp, eventually hiding in an Ayleid ruin deep within Valenwood. There, they lived for many years, as quietly as they could while perfecting their art. For decades, they had each other and seemed happy—until the day Vastarie left.

In the years that followed, she wandered the surface of Nirn, exploring places of power. She visited Wayrest, Alik'r, the Crystal Tower, and the libraries of Dune, searching for some answer to a question that gnawed at her very soul.

 In time, she found what she was looking for and returned to Valenwood. There, she built a tower and took on apprentices, teaching them her particular brand of necromancy and furthering her research.

 Using her Sigil Geodes, we bound the souls of lesser Daedra, postponing their return to Oblivion as one might with a soul gem. We then worked on a way to manifest the trapped spirit into the world.

Early attempts had unexpected, even dangerous results. Geodes shattered, sending shards of broken crystal into the flesh of our fellow students—misapplied energies bound the souls of the living into the tiny stones—but as we studied we corrected our mistakes and refined the process.

Eventually, Vastarie had it down to a science. By applying a Sigil Geode at the moment of death, a soul could be suspended within its depths. Through applied conjuration, it could be drawn into an ectoplasmic shell where it could be consulted at leisure.

She wrote the foundling Mages Guild of her discovery. Vanus Galerion himself came to witness her demonstration, which involved consulting an old groundskeeper who had volunteered to demonstrate the process.

He was horrified when she bound the soul into her apparatus, and when the process was completed, with the old groundskeeper was released and allowed to return to Aetherius, he was white as a sheet.

  Reminds me of the controversies around animal experimentation. That shit is nasty and much of it is unnecessary, but when it is necessary, it’s necessary. Unless you have a way to convince a significant number of test-humans to put their lives on the line so some monkeys or bunnies don’t have to.

  Foundling mages guild? The guild was officially founded sometime in 2E 230 when Kinlord Rills charted it in firsthold. This note talks like decades have passed between their foray into Coldharbour after being ousted from Artaeum, and her calling up Vanus to chat. Guess "soon" is relative here. Do we have any leads on when Vanus actually walked off Artaeum for good?

  Volunteered. The dude killed himself to demo the thing? Wow, that’s dedication.

  So she invites Vanny over, he witnesses this guy get soul trapped into a crystal ball, which she then pulls into a ghost-body so it can chat. He shoots the shit for a few, then she breaks the glass, and he goes home to heaven. Sounds ok?

  He was horrified and white as a sheet. Why is he scared? We don’t see him scared AT ALL while confronting Manni and his puppets, or even while he's being strangled. He's just pissed as hell.

  Maybe this note is biased and the process wasn’t as painless as the old dude was lead to believe? Except she has to know how Vanus feels about this stuff. You'd think she'd be extra careful to make sure her demo was as non-threatening as possible.

So why else then? The suicide maybe. I have a pet headcanon that has zero evidence but is wholly plausible: from certain scenes in the mage guild quest, I infer that Vanus's mother killed herself before he ran away from his hold. If so, seeing some guy die in front of him would be a nasty trigger. Hell, for most people it would be damn uncomfortable, even if it were freely chosen. And from Galerion the Mystic, we know that his old Kinlord was a real piece of work, which would explain his extreme distaste for anything that could remotely be seen as disrespect for the dead. So those two together? Yeah.

 Slowly, he stood to address the assembled students. He spoke with vindictiveness and an anger none would expect from his unassuming mien. When he was finished, he turned and left.

Some followed him. None could blame them, he wasn't wrong—the Sigil Geode was a dangerous creation. Misused, it could spark wars and bring about destruction unheard of in our history.

Vastarie was undeterred, convinced that Galerion's willful ignorance would lead to his undoing, but something else would gain her attention in the years to come. A vast ruin was discovered beneath her tower's foundation, concealed from sight and scrying by the power of a Daedric Prince.

In time, she walked into those ruins and never came out. Some of us still await her return.

Vindictiveness and anger fits with what I say above. Vastarie's demo accidently triggered the fuck outta him, but instead instead of bursting into tears, he spews fire and brimstone then books it to the nearest people-free place he can find and bawls his eyes out, probably without even knowing why. And whatever he said must have been pretty good, because a few people walk out with him. A shy little sweetie with a hidden oratory superpower. Maybe that’s what Manni saw in him.

None would expect from his unassuming mien. I get the impression that Vanus was and is constantly underestimated by his contemporaries, even for all his actual success. This seems insane with how mythic a figure he becomes in history. Though, outside of lore nerds, the thing he is most known for besides founding the guild is his presumed death by Mannimarco. Now there's some psychology for you.

Call me dumb, but given how limited that crystal ball of hers is, I can’t see how this thing is so dangerous. Unless they mean dangerous in the sense of some scam artist or usurper not being able to bullshit their way into power because you can always call up that dead ruler himself and ask him if it was really ok for "Mr. Smith" here to write himself into his will or not. Or one of his asshole heirs. Yeah real dangerous. Truth be like that./s.

  <https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:The_Legend_of_Vastarie>

[lassieposting]

if Valkyrie died, would it be possible for Lord Vile to resurrect her?

I mean? I think so, personally?

So. Necromancers in general seem very big on the "life and death are two sides of the same coin", "life flows into death flows back into life", "death is just a doorway" sort of rhetoric. Val gets a lot of it from Solomon.

But. They're also very close-minded. The temple has a certain way of doing things, and that's how they've done things for hundreds of years, and they raise all their students from a young age inside the temple so that it will never occur to them to stray from that path and their only loyalty will be to the temple and the cause.

A prime example of the rules they give their students that aren't necessarily true: You Have To Have A Channelling Object.

And then we have Lord Vile. He is, essentially, a neoteric. Yes, he did two years in the temple as an adult, but he says he rediscovered necromancy, meaning he already knew he was able to do it. He had no childhood training, and yet his raw, untapped necromancy was strong enough to duke it out with his elemental magic - which he'd been diligently working on for years - and have him come out of his surge magically ambidextrous instead of locked into one or the other. He is a natural born necromancer. And, just like Kitana and her group, because he's had no training, his magic has woven in with his instincts and emotions. Necromancy isn't a discipline to Vile, it's more innate than breathing. He doesn't need a channelling object. When he changes from Skug to Vile for a fight, most of the time he doesn't physically put on the armor: the shadows come from inside him and form the armor around him. We never see any other necromancer do that. Wreath doesn't materialise his cane when he needs it - he has to carry it around. Val doesn't materialise her ring - she has to physically wear it, and when it's taken from her she loses her power. Vile only ever physically puts on the armor in Abyssinia's flashback. The rest of the time it's armor made from shadows that came from inside him.

And. Vile is also, ultimately, Skulduggery. He's still got Skug's brain. And if someone says to him, "death is just a doorway," he's going to be the one who just. Instinctively realises you can walk through a door in both directions; if death is simply the other face of the coin to life, then death magic is just the other face of life magic. He hasn't been indoctrinated to the temple way of doing things, he thinks for himself. He's not going to listen to anyone telling him he can't do something just because the temple says so.

(This is why I give Vile a body. It's a handy way to burn off excess magic so he doesn't implode or go insane. His body is technically dead. He controls dead things. All he has to do, really, is reverse the state change and make himself look alive again. Just another thing he gives up when he goes back to being Skug.)

Now, I don't think Vile would know how to bring Val back if she was killed, like if he stopped to think about it. He doesn't know how he does most of what he can do, he never learned the theory really, he just does it. It would be an emotional reaction. The part of him that's Skulduggery, the part of him that's lost everyone he ever cared about and he can't lose anyone else, he can't, it'll kill him, he can't lose the only person who ever understood, who ever knew what he was and liked him anyway, just going NO and brute-forcing the stream of life to give her back.

Could he, physically, do it? Yes. He's hands down the strongest necromancer in known history. There's probably very little he couldn't do, and bringing someone back from the dead is canonically possible.

Would it be worth it? Now that's the real question. What kind of life would she have? Would she be, essentially, a zombie? Would she be like the white cleaver? Would she come back whole and healthy or would dragging someone back over the threshold of death have side effects, like amnesia or going insane? Would she still be Val Cain, or would she really be more of an imitation Val Cain created by Vile's magic and Skulduggery's memories?

Would she thank him? Would she be able to forgive him? These are the questions he should probably be asking.

(But he wouldn't. He'd go ahead and do it anyway because he wouldn't want to be without her. Better to ask forgiveness than permission. He's always been selfish like that.)

[ladyimaginarium]

Several things to note about the canon divergency of assorted muses that literally nobody asked for:

Pocahontas’ name is NOT Pocahontas, it’s Matoaka ; Pocahontas is merely an alias - although she retains her shamanic powers from the film, it’s a lot more subtle and they cannot manifest if she is not in her native homeland, and my portrayal of her is a mixture of both the film with historical elements, ie she DOES NOT fall in love with John Smith or Rolfe, in fact, she gets forcefully married to Rolfe after being converted to Christianity and in her time in England, she’s constantly subjected to racism and exoticism and being treated like a circus act. She later has a son with Rolfe and he, surprisingly enough, was a light in Matoaka’s life, if not the only one, while she was in England, away from her people and her tribe.

Tiana lived under the time when Jim Crow’s laws of segregation were still in place in America, and racism was still HUGE, even if slavery was now illlegal. Let me repeat that: Tiana was raised in a time when segregation was still in place. Her father, poorly trained and equipped and being put on the frontlines, was killed on a suicide mission during World War I, the time The Princess and The Frog took place was in the Roaring 20′s or the Jazz Age, and she would later live to see World War II and beyond. Growing up, she could not go to the same schools as a white person could, could not go to the same hotels, bars, hospitals, toilets, parks, or even damn telephone booths, as a white person. There were separate sections in libraries, cinemas and restaurants, and the latter with separate ticket windows and counters, she or her parents couldn’t vote, 

Arendelle is a Scandinavian kingdom that’s secluded from the rest of the world, except for the allies that they shared, and because of their shared cultural heritage with Norway, Sweden and Finland, they also have ties to the ancient Viking culture, although unlike Norway, Sweden and Finland, they’ve never forgotten their old gods due to their seclusion. Elsa is a firm believer in the Old Norse gods and Norse mythology but never imposed this religion on her people. Both Arendelle and the kingdom of Corona in Germany have close ties, as both Iduna and Arianna are actually sisters, thus making Elsa, Anna and Rapunzel cousins.

Ariel’s technically a demigod, as her father, Triton, is Poseidon’s son, and her mother was Athena. So ... yeah, she’s literally the daughter of a god and the granddaughter of one of The Twelve Olympians.

Jasmine is mixed race. Her father is Arabic and her mother was Persian. Jasmine was very close to her mother and takes after her more than her father, and unlike her father, she practices Zoroastrianism, an ancient Persian religion that’s older than Buddhism and Judaism and far older than Christianity and Islam, and not Islam, Agrabah’s main religion.

Jack Skellington is, in essence, an experiment created by a necromancer in the 1800′s. He lived as a man’s life before the necromancy though he has long forgotten his human life before as the centuries went on. Jack sees fear as a way of living and feeds off of it, and so he wants to spread fear to the rest of the world. He once lived as The Headless Horseman, scourging the countryside every Halloween night, after struggling as a mercenary, soldier and Hessian trooper that fought during the American Revolutionary War, torn from his home in Germany to fight and die in a war that he had no stakes in. He was killed by a cannonball to the face, thus decapitating his head during the Battle of White Plains in 1776. So, in essence, post-mortem, after being created to make money for a living man, he murdered his creator and later left, creating Halloween Town after learning magic and sorcery from the necromancer, and as a result, he made a new world and a new name for himself: The Pumpkin King.

The rebirth of dragons, although Daenerys Targaryen may not realize it, was birthed by an ancient Valyrian ritual of blood magic and fire magic, and Daenerys was unknowingly repeating said ritual after seeing it in a vision in her fever dreams after giving birth to Rhaego.

Merida is a proud woman of the Celtic tribes, and firmly believes in the Celtic gods ... and certainly doesn’t like it when the Romans come knocking to Britannia.

Loretta Christiano Amodio is part of a master plan known as The Christiano Conspiracy, a heavily deliberate and detailed plan handed down to her by her father, Luca Christiano, that has one ambition in mind: to have the Monroe and Corsica Families ovethrown and leaving the Christiano Family the sole rulers of Ergastulum.

Kurama and the other eight bijuu, before the time when jinchuriki in the modern day were created, were fierce monsters attracted to intense bloodshed, but they had made a sacred vow to the Otsutsuki Empire before the Era of Warring States that they would not get involved between the wars of the descendants. They had nigh infinite power and could shapeshift to human forms, and Kurama was the fiercest and most fearsome of them all.

Haruno Sakura does not marry Uchiha Sasuke nor have Sarada in her main verse. Instead, she is one of Naruto’s advisers and proudest supporters while becoming Konohagakure’s Head Medic and part of the Village Council.

Yamanaka Ino is in charge of the I&T and is the Matriarch of the Yamanaka Clan.

Hyuga Hinata becomes Matriarch of the Hyuga Clan after the events of the Fourth Shinobi World War and after challenging Hanabi, becomes the next in line, and as she ascends to become Matriarch, she makes her first law: the Branch Family of the Hyuga Clan are no more and the Seal is banned from being used, honoring her beloved cousin Neji’s wishes.

Akasuna no Sasori’s teammates were Baki and Pakura ; their sensei was Fusa Joruri, the Sandaime Kazekage.

Terumi Mei’s teammates were Hozuki Mangetsu and Ringo Ameyuri ( their sensei was Yagura, the Yondaime Mizukage ) and had a brief love affair with Hoshigaki Kisame before he left Kirigakure.

Uzumaki Mito was just as much of a founder as Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara, and together, they were the original three man team that would later be emphasized in many Konoha teams as a sign of respect towards the three original founders. Mito wrote books on the nine bijuu and on being a jinchuriki and was the guardian of many of the sacred fuinjutsu relics and the High Priestess of the Shinigami Shrine in Konohagakure. She would hand down her Slug Summoning Contract of Shikkotsu Forest to her granddaughter, Tsunade, which would later be passed down to Haruno Sakura.

Newt Scamander converted to Judaism after marrying Porpentina Goldstein.

Inuzuka Kiba is the head of the Inuzuka Clan and is a part of the Village Council.

Otsutsuki Kaguya is very much like an eldritch, Lovecraftianesque god, and even before eating the fruit of the God Tree, she had immense power. After devouring the fruit, she later ended the wars all by herself and created her own empire, and under her rule, the world was safe and protected, relatively speaking, until she became drunk off her own power. We all know what happened after, but the Otsutsuki Empire lasted for millennia and much of it is unfortunately thought of to be nothing more than myth and legend due to how many records were lost. However, despite this, there is a secret cult that worships Kaguya as a mother goddess and the mother of all chakra originating in Hi no Kuni to this day.