Long before magicians learned how to practice the Art, priests were worshipping Death in its varied forms. In Eastern societies death was personified as an active agent in the world, symbolized by the rise and fall of a river, in the fury of a raging tempest, or in the jaws of the crocodile. In Hindu, death was revered as Kali, the Black Mother, goddess of Murder and Destruction. In Nordic society death and pestilence were personified by Hel, another feminine deity. In other cultures death was merely an impersonal event, not an active force, and the important necromantic gods were those that presided over the spirits of the dead in the Afterlife. Nergal (from Mesopotamia), Yeh-Wang-Yeh (from China), Arawn (from Celtic Europe), Mictlantecuhtli (from Mesoamerica), Osiris and Anubis (from Egypt), Hades (from Greece), and Pluto (from Rome) were all gods of the Dead, charged with ruling the netherworld. In particular, the Egyptians whose society was fairly obsessed with death had an entire pantheon of deities who were associated with the dead. Masters of the Dark Art must possess utmost self control and mental stability in order to successfully control the powerful energies at their disposal. Frequent trafficking with the spirits of the dead and more powerful creatures from the Lower Planes can exact a terrible price on the sanity of these mages. Weak willed individuals have little chance of emerging from such encounters with their mental faculties unimpaired...

Necromancers embrace the knowledge that involves tapping the powers of life as well as those of death and unlife. These enlightened few study the mysterious connection between life and death. They do not walk the same evil path as Liches, instead they honour the dead and seek to aid the living. They have a deep and profound understanding of life’s eternal cycle—the necromantic triad—which makes them potent healers as well as powerful spellcasters. Modern day Necromancers use their abilities to ruthlessly crush them.

Modern Classes