Necromancy

Necromancy is a rather slow magic, it takes quite some time to learn, and even more to master.

Often, younger/newer students of the dark arts use rituals and other things to increase their power, or to do things that a master would not need a ritual for at all. For example: Someone who only just started learning the arts of conjuring and animation will most likely use rituals for this, even more advanced mages will, but masters often can do this with a simple command, not always needing rituals.

Many people also confuse the art of necromancy with other dark arts, such as demonic magic, although these are indeed often combined by more powerful magi, they are not one and the same type of magic. Although as mentioned earlier, most people will most likely not know that, as almost any peasant will only know of all of those magics as "the dark arts" most often not even knowing there is any difference at all, even many mages don't know this, but for a user of the necromantic arts it should not really matter what peasants/nobles and even magi do or don't know. The less the know about our noble art, possibly the better.

Origin
The origin of Necromancy lies with a group of people that lived during the second era. They got caught up in a civil war that ended up in only them surviving. Together, they carried all the bodies of their loved ones and friends together, and tried to figure out why they were dead and not living, what was missing. With this, they learned the difference between body and soul, life and death.

What exactly happened to this group is unknown, yet their notes were found by others and their work carried on. These notes were the base of the Necromancy as we know it now.

Philosophy
There are a few key ideas to necromancy. One of them being sacrifice. As to unlock power one has to sacrifice of yourself, or others. And sometimes that sacrifice is small, and sometimes large. But for most, it most often starts with their humanity, piece by piece necromancers lower themselves to increase their powers. But you also have to sacrifice other's their life in order to increase your own power. Sacrifice is always present, wished or not, seen or not, it is always there.

The second big idea of necromancy is the denial of a final death, a true end. The idea is not to prevent death, but to prepare for it, and live past it. For necromancy finds true immortality in death. Where demons and gods are created with the aspect of never finding death, necromancy finds it, embraces it, and then goes past it.

As last, the entire idea surrounding Necromancy surrounds Life-Force, the ability to influence and control it at will. With this main idea, the art of Necromancy can be executed.

Learning the art of Necromancy
Most often the learning of Necromancy is a very difficult and slow process. As first of all, most information about necromancy can only be found in it's users, or tomes created by these users, most ancient and well hidden. For Necromancy is almost everywhere highly disliked and hated even. Often to a point that Necromancers keep their arts entirely hidden, or do not show themselves to the normal public at all to avoid any kind of punishment. But once a good source of teaching is found, the student is almost always advised to look for death. To study it, to feel the life force leave a creature upon dying and leave this plane, the process of decay, and most other aspects of death. Once a student has studied this and understands it, they return to the teacher to start the real teaching. For with the knowledge and understanding of death, you can start to gain control over it.

To even learn the basics can take many years, but most often the process can be called completed at an average of 5-15 years. At this point a Necromancer, most often under careful guidance, has unlocked enough power to get out of the apprentice status. Being able to fully start developing further on their own. And most keep studying for many years after that. And it is far from unknown for a user to spend most of their life on research and expanding their powers, using their gained power to extend their lives, or they just continue their research in undead.

Abilities
There are a number of things that a well trained necromancer can usually do.

-The raising of the dead, either animated or by revival. Either way, the victim will become an undead, with all things that come with it.

-Contacting and collecting souls. A necromancer, already from low power, can contact souls. See them, feel them and speak to them. Later, after training, they can even collect these souls and enslave them.

-Pulling the soul out of someone's body. A necromancer can, as a late game power, learn to pull the soul out of someone's body. Even though this method is rather dodgy and useless since you can simple kill the person and then collect it's soul, it's a lot more painful and most Necromancers use it for fun and entertainment.

-Lichdom. A necromancer can, as an endgame Necromancy power, turn itself into a Lich. Read the Lich page for more information.