Let's talk about necromancers for a bit.
Most often, they appear in works of fantasy as enemies. Skeleton hordes, liches, creepy stone crypts with limited light. It's easy to do this, because they use something all mortals are, by design, afraid of- death. They hold it, think about it, experience it in more meaningful ways than we ever can- and it's creepy, dude! Corpses are meant to stay dead, not come back up.
At the other end of the spectrum, clerics, and sometimes angels (or archons, or seraphim, or what have you) rule over the light domain. Heal other, turn undead, cure disease... how cool is that? They are represented as being "good," because we like people who keep us alive.
The obvious dichotomy is white and black. Death, darkness, and ichorous sludge are all black. These are deathly, evil things. Sunlight, life, and clouds are all white- it's easier for us to think of them as being "good," and attractive.
I swear I'm not racist. It's just really hard to discuss good and evil without mentioning the color palettes.
Good: White, gold, blue
Evil: Black, red, green
All of these elements, put together, make a very simple map of two domains. "Us" and "Them." To date, every video game I've played follows that same color scheme. Bright lights, gold armor, and occasionally fire means "ally," whereas dark colors, black robes, and skulls means "enemy." The average gamer can make a quick association without even having to read about it.
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My first introduction to necromancy was Guild Wars. Right next to the other classes, the Necromancer specialized in making thralls, casting hexes, and causing long-term poison damage. Obviously, I had to try it out. The gameplay was satisfying, but what I found most interesting was the NPCs and placement for class trainers. They dress like it's Halloween in Hot Topic, makeup consists of bone-white skin with black and red highlights, and the armor looks mildly like fetish-ware with metal plates. Add to this: a constant juxtaposition to churches, graves, crypts, dark trees, etc, and you have a stereotypical "bad guy" schema-
-Except, they're your friends, and a great addition to the human resistance in the land. Isn't that odd? One comment I remember well from a low-level trainer went like this (paraphrased): "People get scared by the skulls, and candles. We're still people, fighting for the lives of our families. We just do it a little differently."
I never played far enough to beat the final boss- a dread lich with crazy-powerful necromantic abilities.
In a cinematic sense, the contrast would have been huge. Two necromancers, raising zombies, casting curses, for entirely different reasons- one for life, one for death. A light soul and a dark soul, fighting a dark war for the fate of the world. Epic.
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Speaking of dead bodies, let's put the clerics on the stand. Anyone who uses a resurrection spell, and says it's okay because it's a positive-energy spell, is such a hypocrite.
A cleric gets a body. They put their hands on it, say a few prayers, and the dude jumps up, ready to go. Yay!
A necromancer gets a body. They prepare an apparatus, wait for some lightning, put a few alchemical ingredients in the corpse, say a few spells, and the dude jumps up, ready to go. Boo!
It's the exact same thing. Well, not exact- the necromancer knows what's happening, enough to perform the entire activity by themselves. A cleric just channels power from beyond, into the corpse. They get to remain blissfully ignorant, not knowing if it's aetherial stardust or ground-up souls of the damned being used to reanimate their comrade. And who gets all the praise? That's right- the cleric. Oh, wait, cleric's don't accept gratitude. They'll redirect you to their god, and say a few prayers.
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On a certain level, I can sympathize with the layman's interpretation. A cleric brings back a whole person, historically. That person has enough free will to go berserk and kill their would-be savior, if they so choose. A necromancer brings back a mindless thrall, historically. A corpse, little more than a robot, destined to process commands and perform mundane/extreme actions on behalf of their manipulator.
It's an easy stigma to carry on. But how about the reverse? Putting myself in the place of the average necromancer, I'd much rather bring people back to life as themselves. Spare no expense, and never sacrifice a living person to bring back a dead one. Rules and standards are important.
I believe in a world where necromancer's aren't necessarily praised, but do garner a certain amount of respect. It's a dark, dirty, bloody art- not dissimilar to modern surgery. Someone who is, or would be dead, goes in. Someone who is alive and well comes out. The ultimate healing spell. The king doesn't have to die of a heart attack. And, it's a god-free solution to something normally in a cleric's realm, vaguely like druids.
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I'm not asking for necromancers to be brought in to the light, and embraced. That just feels wrong, on so many levels- cinematically, historically, culturally, and chromatically. The dark cannot exist in the light. I am, however, asking for a little leeway to look into alternatives, and perhaps dabble in the... less understood parts of life, namely death. Necromancy, in almost any magical setting, has an important place- and I think the players should definitely see its positive sides. Have some good with your bad.
Now, if anyone needs me, I'll be wearing a hoodie, blasting Death Metal, and trying to cure my friend's leprosy in my basement. Paladins, and other light-domain bigots not welcome.
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