A question about Necromancers...

[Joram]

Sorry to break into the topic again. Just a few closing notes.

What do I need it for?

If only for my personal gains, then neither is morally defensible.

If for the benefit of the people concerned, then I shouldn't have to force or coerce them into fighting, so don't need to assemble a moral justification.

...Yes you do. Even if they are willing to fight for you*, if you can use the undead instead without committing crimes worse than murder, then you have a share of the guilt for causing every single death your side suffers, because you could have fought without risking any lives at all. Even in Wesnoth, once someone's been killed, their immortal soul might be stuck in limbo sleep somewhere, but they will never be alive again.

*Not for me. As I said, if it is for me, then it is all wrong anyway. It is a war where people are rising up to defend themselves and what they believe is right. It kind of defeats the purpose if they decide to use what they believe is wrong.

As for the rest, it seems to me that you are basically saying that letting real people fight and die when you could use undead equates with murder; because you could have avoided those deaths.

I'm saying no, it doesn't. When a person abstains from action because it violates their conscience, and their abstention results in deaths, you cannot say that the person murdered or caused the deaths of those people.

Also, this hypothetical situation is regarding evil as a slider bar. It is all right to do an evil action (using undead) as long as it isn't as evil as murder, because using undead isn't as evil as murder. In essence, the ends justify the means. It is all right to use an evil means, so long as the end result is that a greater evil is avoided.

And I have already expressed my opinion on the subject of the ends justifying the means.

So it seems that this is a foundational moral issue that you and I disagree on. There is therefore nothing further that we can discuss unless you want to debate religion and philosophy in the real world.

If you arn't useing a soul then you arn't creating undead, you are creating a golum or a construct.

Indeed, I touched lightly on this point earlier.

the fact that it is easy to raise things that were living once, and difficult to raise things that weren't is, imo, grounds for suspicion that even in the cases of corpses and skeletons there is a certain amount of tampering with the spirit involved.

And I would like to say that I also don't mind playing a villain from time to time.

[Dragonchampion]

^^Midnight, consider spacing out your sentenced. Whew...^^

It seems that is is an interesitng topic...

Anyways, here is another agruement:

If the person has managed to learn how to communicate with the dead, could he essentially go around battlefields, ask the ghosts of the fallen if they want to be reborn in unlife? I mean, if there are Light Mages who desire wealth and money (One Brotherhood of Light Mage is one.) then couldn't a Necromancer desire to bring back the dead if they want to be brought back?

I know that in a book I have read, a person managed to design a way to make unlife seem like real life, for the dead to come back and be happy helping people with whatever they needed, and the corpse to look like it is living and not rotting. That could, in theory, be done if the Necromancer has experience with Light Magic, right?

[Orcish Shyde]

Sorry to break into the topic again. Just a few closing notes.

...Yes you do. Even if they are willing to fight for you*, if you can use the undead instead without committing crimes worse than murder, then you have a share of the guilt for causing every single death your side suffers, because you could have fought without risking any lives at all. Even in Wesnoth, once someone's been killed, their immortal soul might be stuck in limbo sleep somewhere, but they will never be alive again.

*Not for me. As I said, if it is for me, then it is all wrong anyway. It is a war where people are rising up to defend themselves and what they believe is right. It kind of defeats the purpose if they decide to use what they believe is wrong.

Semantic detail. If you're raising an army to protect what your people hold dear, then while you enjoy a better moral defence for this action, you are just as responsible for their welfare as if you raised them to fight for your own advancement.

As for the rest, it seems to me that you are basically saying that letting real people fight and die when you could use undead equates with murder; because you could have avoided those deaths.

Maybe I was a little strong with my wording. I wouldn't hold the general who sent men instead of constructs as responsible for death as the enemy soldiers who speared them, but he'd certainly be responsible for putting them in danger - and if you ask me, he has no good reason to do so if he can send warriors who are already dead.

I'm saying no, it doesn't. When a person abstains from action because it violates their conscience, and their abstention results in deaths, you cannot say that the person murdered or caused the deaths of those people.

You can most definitely say the person's inaction contributed to the deaths of those people. If I had a sniper rifle, and an opportunity to execute an obvious suicide bomber while he's walking to a school full of innocent children, and I couldn't make myself pull the trigger, I don't think I'd ever forgive myself for allowing those children to die - even though I myself had not killed them.

Also, this hypothetical situation is regarding evil as a slider bar.

For reference, so does the law of every civilised country. Theft is less evil than murder, therefore you are not as badly punished for theft as for murder.

If you arn't useing a soul then you arn't creating undead, you are creating a golum or a construct.

Indeed, I touched lightly on this point earlier.

the fact that it is easy to raise things that were living once, and difficult to raise things that weren't is, imo, grounds for suspicion that even in the cases of corpses and skeletons there is a certain amount of tampering with the spirit involved.

I've been influenced in this matter by Drowtales, where golems are often made from corpses because a golem needs a nervous system to move, and corpses come with a free nervous system while rocks don't. The same could be true of necromancy. There is a reason a L1 WC is called a Soulless, not a Tormented.

@Dragonchampion turin already covered this idea, and I agreed with him that dragging the dead from their graves was at best akin to door-to-door sales, interrupting their eternal sleep to ask if they wish for your service. A Necromancer could and likely would desire to help anyone else who does not want to remain dead, as the ultimate goal of necromancy is not to spread death, but to conquer it. As to your postulate about making a corpse that looks living and not rotting, it depends on how a White Mage's healing actually works - if it depends on having a living target, or simply restores flesh and bone to a less damaged state regardless of whether or not it is dead flesh and bone.

@Midnight_Carnival So you can only summon evil spirits to help you, because good ones will never consider answering your call? This sounds like propaganda from the Christian church - "Although I, who am rich and powerful, can have a great time in this world and still be considered holy enough for Heaven, you, who are poor and weak, shall never have even a smidgen of power without committing acts worthy of eternal damnation". Since in practice the Church has always tried to uphold the old order, regardless of its moral virtue or contradictions with the actual message of the Bible, they would likely not want demonologists thinking they can ever do anything right while still having personal power other than that given by a lawful institution like the Church.

And finally...

It is all right to do an evil action (using undead) as long as it isn't as evil as murder, because using undead isn't as evil as murder. In essence, the ends justify the means. It is all right to use an evil means, so long as the end result is that a greater evil is avoided.

And I have already expressed my opinion on the subject of the ends justifying the means.

So it seems that this is a foundational moral issue that you and I disagree on. There is therefore nothing further that we can discuss unless you want to debate religion and philosophy in the real world.

Since you're offering, I accept. Your position seems to be, in contrast to my own "the ends usually justify the means", that the ends never justify the means. If this is, in fact, the case, then it is never justified to commit an evil act, even if it would prevent a greater evil act from being performed.

Now, nobody can really seriously doubt that the crime of slaying another intelligent, sapient person without their explicit consent is an evil act (regardless of whether or not you think their consent means anything). If a band of raiders come to destroy your home, your natural reaction is to take up arms against them, believing that it is better to slay the enemy than to allow them to slay you.

It takes little thought to realise that this reaction is an extension of "the ends justify the means" - it is OK to commit the crime of murder if by doing so you prevent yourself from being murdered in the immediate term. This is an extreme case, but if you were to follow consistently the position "the ends never justify the means", then you would have to run, hide, surrender, or be killed, because you cannot ever commit the crime of murder even against someone who would murder you.

Is this, in fact, your position, Joram?

[Joram]

@Orcish Shyde:

Since you're offering, I accept. Your position seems to be, in contrast to my own "the ends usually justify the means", that the ends never justify the means. If this is, in fact, the case, then it is never justified to commit an evil act, even if it would prevent a greater evil act from being performed.

Now, nobody can really seriously doubt that the crime of slaying another intelligent, sapient person without their explicit consent is an evil act (regardless of whether or not you think their consent means anything). If a band of raiders come to destroy your home, your natural reaction is to take up arms against them, believing that it is better to slay the enemy than to allow them to slay you.

It takes little thought to realise that this reaction is an extension of "the ends justify the means" - it is OK to commit the crime of murder if by doing so you prevent yourself from being murdered in the immediate term. This is an extreme case, but if you were to follow consistently the position "the ends never justify the means", then you would have to run, hide, surrender, or be killed, because you cannot ever commit the crime of murder even against someone who would murder you.

Is this, in fact, your position, Joram?

Your overall assessment of my position is correct. The ends never justify the means.

However, your example is flawed. You say "nobody can really seriously doubt that the crime of slaying another intelligent, sapient person without their explicit consent is an evil act". Well, this statement is false, because I not only doubt it, I discard this notion altogether. EDIT: I discard it altogether in the sense of it being always evil.

Capital punishment is not an evil act, imo.

Defense of innocents is not an evil act, imo.

In both of these cases, you are unlikely going to get the consent of the target; nevertheless, killing the target is not an evil act. It is not murder. Now, if I believed that killing a person was always murder, then you are correct; if I wanted to follow my beliefs to their logical extension, then I would never be able to defend myself. But I don't, so the point does not arise.

Also, this hypothetical situation is regarding evil as a slider bar.

For reference, so does the law of every civilised country. Theft is less evil than murder, therefore you are not as badly punished for theft as for murder.

We differ on a slight detail here.

I don't regard evil acts as a slider bar. However, I don't think that society has the right to make a judgment on the act; so all society can judge is the effects. Hence the slider bar. Society's punishments are to make retribution to those wronged and to prevent such things from occurring again. The punishments for murder are more severe than for theft because, as murder cannot be reversed, retribution to those wronged cannot be made so everything has to go into preventing such an act from occurring again. Capital punishment or life imprisonment are strong deterrents.

Regardless of whether those were the thoughts of the people making the laws, those are my views on them.

I've been influenced in this matter by Drowtales, where golems are often made from corpses because a golem needs a nervous system to move, and corpses come with a free nervous system while rocks don't. The same could be true of necromancy. There is a reason a L1 WC is called a Soulless, not a Tormented.

Interesting argument. I'm not familiar with a lot of fantasy, so haven't had exposure to ideas like this.

Like I said, I don't know what goes on. I grant that this could be the case; though I would move that someone rewrite the unit descriptions to better reflect this (or to make it more clear that this is a possibility).

[Dragonchampion]

To support Shyde, I have done some research, and have dicovered that there is such thing as a "bone golem" in Dungeons and Dragons. What dies that fall under; Necromancy or Golem creation?

[Skizzaltix]

I believe it is a Golem--somewhere I seem to recall that, in D&D, creating a skeleton does require the spirit to be shackled to the corpse, whereas a Bone Golem is just a bunch of bones made into a Golem.
That said, I don't pay D&D and never have, so I could well be wrong

[Joram]

To support Shyde, I have done some research, and have dicovered that there is such thing as a "bone golem" in Dungeons and Dragons. What dies that fall under; Necromancy or Golem creation?

For one thing, what is true in Dungeons and Dragons is not necessarily true of Wesnoth.

For another, I have already conceded that it is possible to set up a system where animating skeletons is not necessarily evil; so you are citing this as evidence to support something that no one is denying.

For yet a third, I have played a game where both "bone golems" and skeletons existed. In fact, I'm willing to bet that the same is true of Dungeons and Dragons (I haven't ever played myself, but I'm pretty darn sure about this one )

If there is a difference between making a golum made out of bones and animating a skeleton, doesn't that lend credence to the view that Necromancy involves the taking back of the soul?

But as it doesn't affect the way things are in Wesnoth, it doesn't matter too much.

[Orcish Shyde]

Concerning D&D Golems and Skeletons...

Golems are magically created automatons of great power. Constructing one involves the employment of mighty magic and elemental forces.

The animating force for a golem is a spirit from the Elemental Plane of Earth. The process of creating the golem binds the unwilling spirit to the artificial body and subjects it to the will of the golem’s creator.

Ooo, making a D&D golem requires you to trap a spirit against its will! FUN!

From the Animate Dead spell description...

This spell turns the bones or bodies of dead creatures into undead skeletons or zombies that follow your spoken commands.

This spell has the [Evil] tag because to animate the dead it brings negative energy into the world, which standard D&D describes as an evil act... without fully explaining the far-reaching implications of that.

From the sample Epic spell "Soul Dominion", which amounts to possessing someone else's body and all their senses...

A character cannot control undead or incorporeal creatures with soul dominion.

This would indicate to me that D&D undead do not, as a rule, have a soul to dominate. (At least, not the basic zombles and skeletons; Create Undead and Create Greater Undead get the [Evil] tag regardless of the energy used, because the undead they create are actually sentient and evil.)

[Dragonchampion]

I have found something that you all MUST see. This goes along with my "Helpful Necromancer" theory.

EDIT: Oh, snap. Messed up. Read from the top, skip to the bottom, and then the middle. These are from http://www.erfworld.com

[Skizzaltix]

(It helps to know that, a page or two before there, a seer remarked that the fat dude might be able to save the world if he continued to break the rules like he does...)

[Dragonchampion]

Whoops! Sorry! Thanks for adding that!

[Dragonchampion]

I found a new thing to suppot my "good" necromancer idea:

Has anyone ver read the Piers Anthony "Xanth" novels? They feature a man named Jonathan, hwo can turn dead things into zombies, except when he ressurects them, they have their mind and soul, and are almost like normal people, except for the rotting. Also, that can even be overcome with love, as one of his Zombies returned to life when a man fell in love with her...

[Taimat]

Going to use a film example here.

300. Not a terribly good film, but its perfect for this.

They went knowing they'd die, but went anyway to protect their home. If some necromancer guy came up to them and offered to reanimate 'em after they die so they could keep fighting, I imagine they'd accept in a heartbeat.

Its essentially the same as healing, only it only works when the recipient is dead, as opposed to only working while they live.

Also, you could in theory bring back a soul and a body, then give 'em the choice.

[AThousandYoung]

To support Shyde, I have done some research, and have dicovered that there is such thing as a "bone golem" in Dungeons and Dragons. What dies that fall under; Necromancy or Golem creation?

Bone golems are made from a mishmash of bones from different creatures. They don't necessarily look like a normal skeleton...they might have four arms holding weapons, an arm with a pincer, two heads, etc.

A skeleton is made from a single person or animal's skeleton.

[thespaceinvader]

A bone golem is a golem, not a necromantic creation, I believe. It's not undead.

The distinction became important in a recent OotS storyline *nods*