The Lore of the Disquieted Dead.

Necromancy is seen as the most abhorrent of sorcery,
and those who practise it are hated and feared in equal
measure.

In all civilised places, its use is outlawed. Those caught
studying these black arts are likely to find themselves
dragged in ensorcelled iron to a painful execution, but
established Necromancers are never short of acolytes.

Necromancy offers immortality to those who master it,
never mind that few actually do, and that the price of
failure is to be condemned for eternity to the endless
cold and night of the Utterdark.

For that handful that escape detection and that succeed
in their quest, such devotion does have its rewards - the
most powerful Necromancers are all but immortal. In
violation of natural law, Necromancers are able to use
their power to defy death itself, extending their own
lives virtually indefinitely. Furthermore, they are able
to create armies to do their bidding and seize power
of a more mundane sort. Invoking powers learnt from
ancient tomes, they are able to make corpses clamber
back to their feet, and skeletons claw their way up from
ancient battlefields. The greatest Necromancers are able
to raise armies numbering the tens of thousands, armies
that never tire, never need feeding, and never disobey.

Necromancy is a hateful art. The souls of those risen by
its black magics are dragged screaming from whatever
afterlife they might inhabit and forced back into their
decayed mortal frames. Trapped in prisons of decayed
fl esh, they can only watch as their new master uses their
very essence as a fuel to drive their old body on as a
magical automaton, hacking down the innocent. Worse
by far is the fate of those imprisoned – if the vessel is
destroyed, there is a good chance that the summoned
soul will not be able to find its way back to its rest.

Such benighted spirits wander Mantica in agony until
laid to rest by priest or paladin, or are cast out into the
Utterdark for all time. It is for this reason that its practice
causes such revulsion in right-thinking folk.

Of course, there are those wicked creatures, tormented
in infernal planes of existence, who welcome a return to
the land of the living, even if it is as an unfeeling corpse.
These spirits are the most dangerous of a Necromancer’s
servants, for they obey him willingly and are thus allowed
some measure of self-determination.

Ophidia is a hotbed of necromancy. In this ancient
kingdom all manner of vile magical practises are
condoned and encouraged. In Ophidia necromancy,
demonology and other unnatural arts are studied like
any other school of magic, and there necromancers are
given high status. Far from being reviled, the people
of that strange land worship the Necromancer-priests
of the great temples. They can call back the dead, and
so the common man sees for himself some measure of
immortality. Ophidia is unusual in that its armies consist
of undead and live warriors marching side by side, and
its monumental buildings are raised by the labours of
the dead. The Ophidians are bemused by the reactions
of others to their dead magic, pointing out with some
justifi cation that necromancy helps to keep their
kingdom mighty.

The work of Ophidia’s scholars has unleashed
many unclean things, close to the realm of death yet
not truly dead, to prowl the dark. Both vampires and
Ghouls are reckoned to be the products of the sorcerers
of Ophidia, who, in searching for elixirs to grant
immortality, have instead made monsters. Ghouls are
little more than mindless beasts, but Vampires are truly
dangerous. In their creation, the sorcerers of the desert
were partially successful. Vampires are indeed immortal,
barring the destruction of their body they cannot die,
and even something as final-seeming as burning or
dismemberment is no bar to continued life for the
strongest of their number.

Time and again some vampire lords have been slain
and their ashes dispersed, only for their corrupt souls to
grow a new body in some forgotten crypt. This longevity
is bought at great price. Although preternaturally swift
and strong, their bodies are prone to bizarre afflictions.
Some can not cross running water, or burst into fire
at the touch of the sun. Many of them carry the stink
of the charnel house around with them wherever they
go, some are made bestial, some cannot speak. They
hunger eternally for blood, and are inclined to terrible
cruelty as they search for it. Many of them possess at
least a grain of conscience, and are tormented by every
life they take. Others immerse themselves in savagery,
only to come to horrified realisation as to what they
are every so often where they are tormented fi rst by
shame and guilt, and then by horror as their red thirst
reasserts itself. Because of this many vampires are mad,
and all suffer torments of the soul. Vampirism is a
curse, bestowed as a gift.

Despite its many and hideous drawbacks, vampirism
exerts a lure equal to that of necromancy. Vampires can
be beautiful, terrible and glorious, above the concerns
of humanity, and powerful magicians in their own right.
For this reason they are actively courted as often as they
are hunted.

Ultimately, no good can come of Necromancy. It is the
burden of all thinking, living things to come to terms
with their mortality, and the existence of necromancy
is yet another sign of Mantica’s lack of balance. Like
all dark magic Necromancy can be traced to the Abyss.
There, at the bottom of the fiery pit, Durunjak, dark god
of death, laughs every time an unwilling spirit is forced
from heaven to suffer in a necrotic shell.