Messing with the dead is a common and pervasive cultural taboo, so it's little wonder that necromancers get such a bad rap in fantasy fiction. Honestly, though, I've always felt that defining necromancy as Evil Magic and declaring its practitioners Evil by association is a little unsatisfying.
So here is an alternative take on why necromancy has such a rough reputation, one which I hope presents some interesting questions and story opportunities, and is a little friendlier to player character necromancers to boot.
"Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia", art by Yongjae Choi
The Viewpoint
Most people, and especially wizards of other disciplines, look down on necromancy not because it's evil, but because it's considered low-status. There are four main reasons for this.
1) It's gross. Even a fresh, intact corpse is not a pleasant thing to work with - it's uncanny-valley fuel, full of smells and fluids to which the living have justifiably negative responses - and it only gets worse from there. Preservative fluids and incense help, but the end result is still far from pleasant. Necromancers also tend to look a bit weird, thanks to a combination of dirty, lightless work environments and exposure to the same chemicals that make their creations palatable.
2) It's perceived as low-skilled. This is a misconception, fuelled by the fact that necromancy is a relatively safe school. Getting good at it takes years of training and practice, but it's not prone to dramatic mishaps - botching a reanimation generally just leads to some light thaumic blowback, which is easily managed with protective trinkets, rather than an explosion or rift in reality. If your life's not at stake, thinks the non-mage, then what's the big deal?
3) Its uses are prosaic. Undead workers have a number of practical applications, especially in fields deemed too tedious or unpleasant for humans - they've seen use in logistics, sanitation, and warfare, and there have even been experiments in using groups of programmed undead as primitive calculators. But the image a necromancer leading a squad of zombies through a blocked sewer isn't exactly romantic or inspiring.
4) Memento mori. The average resident of $fantasy_setting is likely more familiar with death than, say, me, but her awareness of mortality does little to dispel the anxieties surrounding it. Necromancers, by their very existence, remind her that one day she will die, and what she is in death will be largely unaffected by what she was in life. Her corpse will be worth no more than the dirt-caked zombie cleaning out that flooded storm drain across the street.
The Consequences
So what does this all, like, mean?
Well, necromancers under this paradigm have a better time than their counterparts in other settings, but they are very much second-class citizens among mages. You still go to college to learn necromancy, but it's more like a trade school than a research university, keeping costs to a minimum and kept afloat by guild dues and reluctantly-granted government subsidies. Actual tuition fees are low; novice necromancers pay for their education partly through aiding more experienced necros as apprentices, and partly by signing away their reanimation rights to the guild, ensuring one more body for the stockpile when the time comes.
About those subsidies - necros have compensated for not being popular or glamorous by making themselves necessary. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were the first profession to pull together something resembling a modern trade union, complete with internal elections, collective bargaining, and a demand for recognition by managers and the government. In a world where undead labour is a relatively known quantity, few would object to sewer cleaning or rubbish collection being made "dead work", only to be performed by a sanctioned guild necromancer.
Corpses are a vital currency. The community probably produces more than the guild needs, but ensuring a steady flow is a priority. More egalitarian regimes might institute a "corpse lottery", where every fresh cadaver has a random chance to be selected for transfer to the guild stockpile. Elsewhere, it could be class-based - handing over a newly-dead loved one to the necros might not be an appealing prospect, but it's cheaper than a burial.
Socially, it's not easy being a necromancer. They're not quite pariahs - most people recognise the good they do for society - but those same "most people" would hesitate to strike up a conversation with a necro, let alone sit down for a drink with one. It doesn't help that their desaturated, sickly complexions make them obvious even in plain clothes. This distance from the general public does inspire a strong sense of solidarity among necromancers.
Obviously, in smaller settlements, things are different. If your village has a necromancer, he's probably self-taught, or maybe he's doing it as a mandatory placement to pay for his training (think Joel in Northern Exposure, for the two people reading this who've also seen Northern Exposure). He'll have a much harder time getting on with the locals, who might view him the same way they view the village wise woman, someone to be ostracised and distrusted except when his skills become necessary. In the absence of a peer group or guild regulations to follow, these "wild" necros are prone to eccentricities and odd personal endeavours. If your world still needs a source of more conventionally villainous necromancers, a makeshift workshop at the edge of a tiny, suspicious hamlet is a pretty good place to lose the plot and get high on your own power.
1d6 Reasons the Necromancers are On Strike
1) We do vital work to keep society running that nobody else is willing or able to do, and it's about time our pay reflected that.
2) The Conjurers' Guild may claim that their summoned servitors are more effective than undead, but we believe they're dangerously unreliable, and they present a clear threat to jobs we've performed tirelessly for generations.
3) Despite our fervent objections, management seems intent on mandating the use of the new corpse preservative dianimide. "Improved odour" or otherwise, we are deeply concerned by reports of dianimide-induced sickness from overseas; if we cannot work safely, we will not work at all.
4) The Broken Backbone may not be your idea of a good night out, but it's the only tavern in the city where necromancers aren't turned away at the door. We want a guarantee from the mayor that it won't be demolished in his efforts to "redevelop" the district.
5) The local priesthood continues to condemn us as "unclean" and "heretical", in violation of the compromise we agreed upon last year. Let's see who's unclean when refuse piles up in the streets and the sewers stop flowing...
6) Wealthy families are using a legal loophole to buy their way out of the corpse lottery. All are equal in death, and these selfish acts show disrespect both for us and for the wider community.
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