An excerpt from "The History of the Chainbreaker Clan and the Deathstalkers," as written by Tor M'Naar:
Necromancy. The word evokes images of death, despair, and madness. Of undead monsters stumbling out of the mist to devour farmers huddled in their homes and powerless to defend themselves. Of mages driven mad by the rot that accompanies the power with which they work. Necromancy, they say, is evil. It destroys whatever it touches, or does worse than destroy, and thus we must outlaw it.
As a necromancer myself, I cannot blame the people and the lords of Middlehaven for how they feel. After all, I have spent most of my life striving to protect the world from the worst that necromancy has to offer, and I am under no illusions as to the damage that it can do when it runs amok. But necromancy is not inherently evil; on the contrary, it is merely another incarnation of that which so many seek: power. Power can build, and it can destroy. It can bring about golden ages, or plunge the world into despair. But as with all forms of power, it is of the utmost importance to understand how it works.
Many believe that necromancy is simply the raw power of death. But how can this be? Death cannot exist in a vacuum. Without life, there is no death, and therefore to work with necromancy is to discard the disguises worn by the other schools of magic. All magic of this world is born of life and the energies that accompany it, and whether one is a mentalist, a transmutationist, or a sorcerer, they work with the power of life, shrouded in various guises. These guises, however, serve an important purpose. To work with raw necromantic power risks warping the aura of the practitioner, as both are composed of the same basic form of energy. Other schools of magic provide degrees of separation that protect the mage's aura, and thus their mind and soul. The necromancer's salvation is the art of meditation, which involves intense thought and introspection at regular intervals to prevent the accumulation of damage to one's aura.
I apologize if I have digressed into technicalities, but I do so hoping to underline my earlier point that there is no inherent evil in the art of necromancy. That does not change the fact that too many necromancers have perpetrated acts of unspeakable evil with their power, and so the question becomes: from whence does this evil come? To answer this, one must understand that the natural flow of things is from life to death, and from death to rebirth and life again.
Mortals are incapable of controlling the process of rebirth, but with necromancy one can work within the flow of life to death, or even against it. To go against the natural direction of this flow is where the greatest evils arise from necromancy, but one can be a necromancer and still work purely within the flow of life to death or maintain a balance between the two. Necromantic healing, for instance, works on the principle of encouraging the life force of others to facilitate rapid healing, in the case of the Mend the Flesh and Deathnap spells, at the cost of great pain or a dead sleep, respectively. Or it demands that a necromancer sacrifice their own life force and channel it into another, paying the cost of healing from their own store of life.
Undeath is a product of attempting to go against the natural flow of things, and there is a good reason that undeath is not the same as life. Forcing the soul of a dead individual into an unliving form is not true rebirth, but merely a forceful denial of death, even if the necromancer creates a Blackbound, an undead with true sentience. To deny the way of things in such a way is torture on the bound soul, not to mention that it is an insult to the Lord of the Greylands.
Thus, the true evil of necromancy is found not in the art itself, but in those who use it to rage against the natural order. Some merely seek power, some are desperate to escape death for themselves, and some merely begin as poor, lonely souls wishing to see a deceased loved one last time. But mortalkind was not meant to decide who should live and who should die in such a way, and any who would try to take that decision upon themselves have already started down a path of pride from which their return is greatly in doubt, but from which they nevertheless deserve the chance to turn away. I have killed many who refused to do so and I have helped many who didn't. Some of these latter are numbered now among the Deathstalkers.
Should you discover a knack for our art, ponder my words here. Do not be afraid to seek out the Deathstalkers for aid or instruction, which shall be given freely. But know that if innocents suffer because you do not heed my warnings and choose to misuse our art, our response will be swift. Go forth, then, and temper your power with equal wisdom.
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