A world of normalised cultural necromancy.

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Necromancy is usually portrayed as a taboo or black art. But Garth Nix's Abhorsen trilogy imagined a world where the undead are a constant hazard due to a thin boundary between our world and the afterlife, and thus necromancy became a common, and even culturally important cultural magic in order to keep them in check.

If you were writing a story that subverted the norm of "necromancy as a taboo", what would you do? Would you make the world itself function so that necromancy became a naturalised part of it, as with the Abhorsen series? Or would you change the way necromancy functions, so that there is less cultural taboo about descration of the dead? Maybe something else?

Prompt: write a day in the life of a necromancer who is a normal part of their world.
 

AdLeto

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A necromantic utopia where everyone is undead and cannot die
There would be no murderers, no famine neither disease
 

Nahrenne

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Necromancy is usually portrayed as a taboo or black art. But Garth Nix's Abhorsen trilogy imagined a world where the undead are a constant hazard due to a thin boundary between our world and the afterlife, and thus necromancy became a common, and even culturally important cultural magic in order to keep them in check.

If you were writing a story that subverted the norm of "necromancy as a taboo", what would you do? Would you make the world itself function so that necromancy became a naturalised part of it, as with the Abhorsen series? Or would you change the way necromancy functions, so that there is less cultural taboo about descration of the dead? Maybe something else?

Prompt: write a day in the life of a necromancer who is a normal part of their world.
I loved the Abhorsen trilogy!
:blob_aww: :blob_aww: :blob_aww: :blob_aww: :blob_aww: :blob_aww:

There is a series that also somewhat normalises necromancy, though the quality of the plot isn't as good and ends up becoming soft porn about a third of the way through the 20+ book series.
I digress.
Anita Blake series.
The MC is a person with natural necromantic powers, where she takes on a job of raising the dead to deal with legal disputes, etc...
There are also vampires and werewolves, as well as other supernatural creatures in this world that everyone knows about and has known about for a few decades now.
Back to necromancy, Anita Blake actually has the job because if she doesn't regularly use her power then random dead things will come back to life whether she wants it to happen, or not.
'-'

There was another story, a CN BL, that had a form of necromancy in it - though it wasn't completely normalised...
Banished to Another World.
In that, there are bone devices that can do things when injected with magic power by the wielder. In some cases, the more advanced devices bring to life entire skeletons of dead creatures that can then be used and ordered around. One such example was a ginormous bird that was crafted into a kind of aircraft with weapons, defences, sleeping chambers and even a toilet feature put in place inside it. Of course, the device had to be bound with the wielder's soul to ensure the soul of the device didn't go haywire.
Other forms of bone devices were things that could predict the weather, weapons, armour, vehicles, etc...



As for your prompt...I'll have to think about it for a while...sorry.
>w<
I do like the concept, though.
(^-^)
I might end up writing a story idea list in @minacia's random story ideas thread.
>w<

X
 
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Anita Blake series.
I've read... some of the Anita Blake series. Also the Lestat series. Both of which I... dropped and refused to ever go back to because they were the favourite series of my aforementioned crazy stalker ex a former acquaintance I parted with on bad terms. From the sounds of it though... at least for Anita Blake, I am not missing much!! x)

A necromantic utopia where everyone is undead and cannot die
There would be no murderers, no famine neither disease
How would necromancy function as a benign form of magic in this world though? I can't think. If nobody gets sick or injured, necromancy cannot be a replacement for medical treatment. If necromancy follows the traditional route of controlling the undead, then using it would be like brainwashing/forceful charm magic, which has cultural taboos since it denies agency to the victim. And if everyone is already undead, using necromancy doesn't raise the dead as they're already raised.

You have raised* more questions that answers... intradesting....








*pun intended
 

Leti

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Necromancy is usually portrayed as a taboo or black art. But Garth Nix's Abhorsen trilogy imagined a world where the undead are a constant hazard due to a thin boundary between our world and the afterlife, and thus necromancy became a common, and even culturally important cultural magic in order to keep them in check.

If you were writing a story that subverted the norm of "necromancy as a taboo", what would you do? Would you make the world itself function so that necromancy became a naturalised part of it, as with the Abhorsen series? Or would you change the way necromancy functions, so that there is less cultural taboo about descration of the dead? Maybe something else?

Prompt: write a day in the life of a necromancer who is a normal part of their world.
Have you been watching Shisha no Teitoku lately? If you haven't, you should watch it. The answer is there.
 

Nahrenne

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I've read... some of the Anita Blake series. Also the Lestat series. Both of which I... dropped and refused to ever go back to because they were the favourite series of my aforementioned crazy stalker ex a former acquaintance I parted with on bad terms. From the sounds of it though... at least for Anita Blake, I am not missing much!! x)
Yeah...I kind of dropped it sometime after the tenth book since the plot was getting repetitive:
Client comes in at beginning of story with big job.
Anita gets called in to help the police deal with a murder.
Vampire boyfriend has enemies/allies in the territory that he needs her to help him with.
Werewolf boyfriend/ex-boyfriend/enemy/lover/friend/ex-friend <-(yes, all the same person...) has an argument or makeup sex.
Anita has lust feeding sessions with her reverse harem that seems to grow in number every book.
@w@
Big baddie of plot ends up being the client from the beginning.
Rinse and repeat, etc...



Ah, another use of the bone devices was to store the souls of previous people who could then answer questions about things they had knowledge about.

X
 

Leti

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In my story, necromancy is similar to its real-life counterpart. It's the art of communicating with the dead. Not raising the dead. Reanimating corpses are different kind of magic. But it's not banned. The raised dead has no soul. They can be used for labour. Only mages do that, though.
 

Alienix

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Nix and necromancy. So, u summoned me. I am a nix and wrote necromancy story too.

I plan to make similar world like that because the essence of the magic in that world is derived from a Primordial Death Beast. So, necromancy, warlockism, shamanism, and magic that's related with spirits will become the basic magic
 

NotaNuffian

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Hmm, the moment I finished your sentence, all I can think of are basic bitches who have nothing to do in their lives plus their simp ensemble start having riots for "undead rights"

Jokes aside, in the chinese taoism culture, I thought they have a bunch of necromancers to raise the dead and ferry them home by ringing bells and have the corpses with a talisman on its forehead to jump like bunnies? How about that kind of service in the world, for those who wanted to bury in their homelands. Then necromancing becomes something like a logistic division and competitions are high. Not to mention bad deliverymen who would damage the "parcel" along the way.
 

Frostbird

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I already am writing a story where necromancy is the norm. But story is set in a land of monsters, so while some people are afraid of the undead and what it may entail, it's been normalized within the land.
 

Schwab

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I loved the Abhorsen trilogy!
:blob_aww: :blob_aww: :blob_aww: :blob_aww: :blob_aww: :blob_aww:

There is a series that also somewhat normalises necromancy, though the quality of the plot isn't as good and ends up becoming soft porn about a third of the way through the 20+ book series.
I digress.
Anita Blake series.
The MC is a person with natural necromantic powers, where she takes on a job of raising the dead to deal with legal disputes, etc...
There are also vampires and werewolves, as well as other supernatural creatures in this world that everyone knows about and has known about for a few decades now.
Back to necromancy, Anita Blake actually has the job because if she doesn't regularly use her power then random dead things will come back to life whether she wants it to happen, or not.
'-'

There was another story, a CN BL, that had a form of necromancy in it - though it wasn't completely normalised...
Banished to Another World.
In that, there are bone devices that can do things when injected with magic power by the wielder. In some cases, the more advanced devices bring to life entire skeletons of dead creatures that can then be used and ordered around. One such example was a ginormous bird that was crafted into a kind of aircraft with weapons, defences, sleeping chambers and even a toilet feature put in place inside it. Of course, the device had to be bound with the wielder's soul to ensure the soul of the device didn't go haywire.
Other forms of bone devices were things that could predict the weather, weapons, armour, vehicles, etc...



As for your prompt...I'll have to think about it for a while...sorry.
>w<
I do like the concept, though.
(^-^)
I might end up writing a story idea list in @minacia's random story ideas thread.
>w<

X
Where can one find the Anita Blake series?
 

Nahrenne

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Where can one find the Anita Blake series?
I think you can buy it on Amazon kindle.
You don't need a kindle to read it, even the kindle app for laptop/phone works, too.
(^-^)

X
 

Yorda

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I loved the Abhorsen trilogy!
:blob_aww: :blob_aww: :blob_aww: :blob_aww: :blob_aww: :blob_aww:
Agreed. It was one of the book series I found at my local library and it was fantastic. It had a special charm to it with the dichotomy between the two worlds physically separated by The Wall. Just walking over the border to the kingdom is basically isekai genre before its time, from the familiar world to unfamiliar. I can still remember many parts of the story like charter magic and sending those undead back into the cold waters of death with bells.
 

Nahrenne

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Agreed. It was one of the book series I found at my local library and it was fantastic. It had a special charm to it with the dichotomy between the two worlds physically separated by The Wall. Just walking over the border to the kingdom is basically isekai genre before its time, from the familiar world to unfamiliar. I can still remember many parts of the story like charter magic and sending those undead back into the cold waters of death with bells.
The opening of the first book is so good for hooking you into that world.
It gives you a morbid sense of how dangerous the world of the story can be while also giving the feeling of hope for those who don't give in.
(^-^)

X
 
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