Necromancy in fiction and in popular culture

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This article is about necromancy in fiction, and references to it in popular culture.

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[edit] Definition

In fantasy and horror fiction, necromancers are often considered evil wizards and are sometimes said to have sold their soul to a demon or the Devil himself – to worship demons and evil gods (or Deitys) – or to have been otherwise tainted by their evil practices. However, in some stories, necromancy is not inherently evil but instead simply another branch of magic.

In fiction, Necromancy is often not a form of divination but a discipline of "dark" or "black" magic used to raise the dead as "undead," typically as zombies under the necromancer's control, though the binding of ghosts and spirits is also common. Necromancers often become powerful undead creatures themselves; in modern fantasy fiction, the Dungeons & Dragons-derived term "lich" (originally a word meaning 'corpse') is often applied to such beings. Necromancers are, in rare cases, capable of raising the dead or restoring vitality to the living, though in some cases the life energy involved must be transferred from another living creature.

Moreover, in some mythologies a "necromancer" is a type of demon that lingers between the stages of life and death. Hence its ability to control and raise the dead. It is also said that since this demon lingers between life and death it can not be stopped in the normal sense of the word. In addition to this, the necromancer demon steals life in order to live for moments before becoming or returning to its demonic self again.

[edit] Literature

  • Victor Frankenstein could be considered a necromancer, although he uses "scientific" rather than magical means.
  • An example of a non-evil reference to necromancy is in Part III of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Here Gulliver gives the account of his time spent with the governor of the island of Glubbdubdrib who is skilled in Necromancy. This Governor gives Gulliver the opportunity to question persons from antiquity, each of whom must answer him truthfully.
  • In Gordon R. Dickson's magnum opus The Childe Cycle the first book chronologically and the third book written was titled Necromancer. The title is somewhat of a misnomer because it has nothing to do with traditional thoughts on necromancy. The lead character Paul Formain is a dead man reanimated by a person from the future for purposes of changing past events. The methods used owe more to the traditions of science, whereas necromancy is usually associated with magic.
  • In David Eddings' The Malloreon, one group of the Seers of Kell are the Necromancers. The aid of one necromancer is used later in The Seeress of Kell, when the group require to persuade a king that his late adviser was actually a Grolim in disguise, having gained the friendship of the king in order to postpone the group in their quest.
  • In the Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix, necromancers use seven bells to raise and control dead spirits. Most of the necromancers are seen as evil because they use Free Magic (an unacceptable, destructive branch of magic) to raise the dead. The exception to this is the Abhorsen, who uses the bells and "good" magic, Charter Magic, to send back the dead that are raised by others into the river of Death.
  • In Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels, the title character, Anita, is a powerful necromancer. She raises zombies for a living and can also use her control over the dead to aid her in the slaying of vampires.
  • In the "Women of the Otherworld" series by Kelley Amrstrong, Necromancers are a race of supernaturals who fit more comfortably into the stereotype of mediums or psychics. While they can raise the dead, they do not usually do so and certainly not to read the fututre. Jaime Vegas is the most popular example, a celebrity psychic who inherited the powers of a necromancer from her Grandmother. She will be the narrator of Kelley's next book.

[edit] Film

  • In the movie Excalibur, Morgana, Arthur's sister, was alleged to have practiced Necromancy.

[edit] Video Games

  • The card game Magic: The Gathering has multiple cards using necromancy or necromancer in their name. These cards allow their casters to bring creatures back from the graveyard.
  • In the game Adventure Quest, Necromancer is a class available to players. It involves powerful skeleton and zombie manipulating skills, as well as summoning an undead wolf. Level 10 players can become Liches when defeated in combat.
  • In the game Everquest, a Necromancer is a playable class of character that has abilities to raise skeletons and spectres as servants and to control undead creatures.
  • In the Heroes of Might and Magic series, a Necromancer is a playable hero in the castle Necropolis.
  • In the Legacy of Kain series, the Guardian of Death is Mortanius the Necromancer.
  • In the Nightmare on Elm Street game for the NES, Necromancer is a Dream Warrior Option. A player gains the power by collecting an icon festooned with a wizard's hat while awake; once "asleep," the player manually assumes the role of the character, which can shoot devastating magical projectiles and can hover temporarily.
  • In Warcraft III, the Necromancer is a spellcasting unit on the Undead race who was once a human mage, but tempted into the service of the Lich King. It has the ability to raise "Skeleton Warriors" and "Skeleton Mages" (one of both from one corpse). Other characters that exhibit the ability to raise defeated units or create new units from the death/corpses of other units include the "Paladin" (Resurrection), "Death Knight" (Animate Dead), "Spirit Walker" (Ancestral Spirit), "Dark Ranger" (Black Arrows), "Naga Siren" (Parasite), and "Pit Lord" (Doom).
  • In World of Warcraft, the enemy Scourge faction employs necromancy. The closest to a necromancer that is playable would be the Warlock class, which is commonly confused with Necromancy due to their themes of spells: destruction, afflictions and curses, and demonology.
  • In Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, a Necromancer is the main villain but uses the same black magic as the Druid, Shaman, and summoner classes but they also manipulate the dead. The Summoner class also allows the player to summon dead soldiers to aid the player.
  • Many of the villains from the Drakan series of games had the power of necromancy, including the main antagonist in the first game, Drakan: Order of the Flame, Navaros.
  • In Spartan: Total Warrior one of the villans, Sejanus is a sorcerer with the ability to summon and control the dead, and after he is killed is brought back from the dead by his dark priestesses who are also necromancers.

[edit] Role-playing games

The necromancer is a common character class in role-playing games. In such games, a necromancer is not necessarily a force of evil. It simply represents a collection of skills relating to raising the dead, and/or death-related magic spells, and is sometimes a subclass of the general class "Mage".

  • In Dungeons & Dragons, necromancy is one of the eight magical schools, representing a collection of spells which fall within a common theme. The Necromancer in second and third edition rules is a subclass of the Wizard class that is most proficient in Necromancy spells. However, in Dungeons & Dragons, Necromancy deals not only with death-related magic but also life-related magic, making Necromancy more of a discipline that can both create and destroy. As of Editions 3.0 and 3.5 of this game, though, that is no longer true - the rules now make Necromancy into nothing but a destructive tool.
  • In the Warhammer Fantasy world, Necromancy is not one of the eight Winds of Magic, the primary sources of magic; rather, it is a corrupted variant of the Wind of Death. Nagash, the Great Necromancer, invented Necromancy by conversing with Dark Elves and learning the secrets of their "Dark Magic" (which is also a corruption of the Wind of Death); after Nagash's fall, the people who would later become the Vampire Counts inherited his work. Necromancy in Warhammer focuses on creating and enhancing undead creatures, and other powers relating to death. It is now practiced exclusively by the Vampire Counts, although the Khemrian Tomb Kings wield a very similar form of ritual magic.
  • In Diablo II, the Necromancer is one of the five original classes. He is always represented as white male, with white or very light grey hair, good-natured but fascinated by death, and aligned neither to the light nor to the darkness but fighting to maintain the balance of all things and keep extraplanar influence out of the mortal plane, both angel and demon. His skill set in the game includes Summoning Spells (which aid him in the creation of Golems, and raising the dead), Poison & Bone Spells, and Curses. He worships "Rathma" and believes in a dragon "Trang-Oul" (which is manifested in the item set "Trang-Oul's Avatar") on whose back the world lies, even though neither appears anywhere else in the game's storyline. When a necromancer wears the full Trang-Oul's Avatar Set, he is transformed into a Ghoul and is able to cast three fire spells.
  • In the Elder Scrolls universe, Necromancy is a legally acceptable but widely frowned upon magical discipline in all provinces save Morrowind and Tamriel, where it is outlawed. Necromancers are required to obtain legal rights to any remains they use for their activities, usually through prehumous agreement with the deceased or a posthumous agreement with their family or similar. Necromancers may apply to be integrated into the Imperial penal system as a posthumous part of the execution process. However, many necromancers disregard these rules and may be outlaws because of it. Some of the most notable necromancers are N'Gasta and the King of Worms. Remains buried with the proper rites of Arkay are incapable of being used in necromancy. In addition to being used for divination and to create servants for various purposes, necromancy is also popularly used to extend one's own lifespan by utilising modified corpse-treatment techniques on a still living body to artificially bind the soul and preserve life functions, albeit at a diminished capacity. This may, but need not always, result in the practitioner becoming a lich.
  • In Guild Wars, one of the ten possible player professions is the Necromancer. They are not necessarily bad, but they are definitely not a saint-like class. Their god is the god of the underworld, Grenth. Guild Wars Necromancers control Blood Magic, Death Magic, Soul Reaping and Curses. They use their skills to raise fallen enemies from the dead to fight with on their side, and gain energy for any deaths that occur near them.
  • In the online RPG game AdventureQuest, there are two moglins (Zorbak and Kabroz), which try to take over their world by raising undead dragons. There is also a Necromancer class, with skills such as Undead Giant, Fear, and Become a Lich (unlocked after reaching level 10).
  • In Ultima VIII: Pagan, Necromancy is one of the four main magic disciplines, which is focussed around the element of Earth, and is less to do with death itself. However, it does relate to death, raising and communicating with the dead, and also the creation of Golems. Necromancy is governed by Lithos, the Titan of Earth. In the game, The Avatar trains as a Necromancer after finding them in the graveyard.
  • In EverQuest the online roleplaying game and its sequel game EverQuest II, the Necromancer is portrayed as always evil. The original game set this by automatically setting their religious alignment to one of the dark gods of the game (Innoruuk, Cazic Thule, etc.), while EverQuest II requires mage players pursuing the path of the Necromancer to be a citizen of the evil city of Freeport. Shadow Knights, unholy knights serving the dark gods, were also able to raise the dead in the original EverQuest.
  • In Shadowbane, the Necromancer is one of the 8 "mage" based classes. Necromancers, utilizing the powers of the Void, have the unique ability to summon multiple undead pets, command the loyalty of pre-existing undead creatures, wield unholy magic, strip a character of their buff spells, and become invisible.
  • In Final Fantasy V, Necromancer is one of the newly added character job classes of the Game Boy Advance port that a character can become once they successfully complete a side quest in the new bonus dungeon. As a Necromancer, the character can use new dark magic spells that typically cause damage to large groups of enemies and also may cause various status effects. They are also undead, making it impossible to heal them using potions, cure, or other forms of healing items and spells, however they also become resistant to many physical attacks.

[edit] Music

  • "The Necromancer", based in part on J.R.R. Tolkien's character of the same name, is a song from the 1975 album Caress of Steel, by the Canadian progressive rock band Rush. It consists of three parts, entitled, respectively, "Into Darkness", "Under The Shadow", and "Return Of The Prince".
  • Aqua Necromancer is an album by Merzbow.

[edit] Television

  • In an episode of Angel, Angel and Spike encounter a necromancer, whose ability to control the dead allows him to control the two of them (As a vampire and a ghost respectively at that time in the series, they are both dead).
  • In the X-Files television series 7, the episode Millennium deals extensively with the subject of necromancy.

[edit] Anime and Manga

  • There is a character named Faust VIII in the anime/manga Shaman King.He is supposedly a descendant of the original Dr. Faustus. He starts off as a traditional necromancer, (raising armies of skeletons) but eventually uses only his "Beloved Eliza" as a spirit partner to attack with.
  • Kagura of the anime and manga series Inuyasha can revive dead bodies.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh!, the protagonist, Yami Yugi, has a card called "Necromancy." It shows several corpses in a cemetery, and revives random monsters that have already been dispatched to the opponent's field. As well, the characters Bakura and Bonz both uses decks comprised of Zombie-class monsters and other cards dealing with spiritiualism and the undead. Bakura in particular once summoned various skeletal minions to attack the protagonists.

[edit] See also

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