Necromancers
Humanity is just another resource. Like all resources, we must not waste what we are given. The weak shall fuel the strong.
The Necromancers see themselves as pragmatic above all else, uncowed by the simple fact that death is part of the cycle of life. They believe the idea of life and death as opposing forces to be nothing more than naive sentimentality. They know everything crumbles and rots in the end, and then new life springs from that rot. Time inevitably passes, bringing both destruction and new creation to all things.
The Necromancers celebrate the growth and vibrancy of the natural world, but gives equal attention to nature’s facets of destruction, decay, and death. It finds allies and agents in the form of fungi, oozes, insects, diseases, and other unsavory aspects of nature, and it uses the power of nature actively toward the goal of advancing its own place in the world. But the Necromancers have also learned patience from nature; they are content to work from the shadows, harnessing the energy that comes from decay.
The Necromancers believe it is their time to shine. They have dwelled under the streets and under the cover of darkness for too long. Civilization has fallen. With the Fall a new freedom to celebrate the Dark was born. The Necromancers are neither surprised nor panicked by the lack of infrastructure, for they believe that all things eventually rot and die, and from this decay, new life blooms. Society is not exempt from the laws of nature.
They have sealed many of the passages leading into the undercity beneath Necropolis Proper, making their territory seem like an impregnable subterranean fortress. Within it, the Necropolis domain retains its grandeur, a mysterious and wondrous kingdom. The rare visitors who stumble into it are awed by its beauty and its aura of ancient power. Palatial architecture fills cavernous sewer chambers, and luminescent spores float through the air to shed an otherworldly light on the moss-covered masonry. Entering the Necromantic Caverns feels like stepping into a secret world of dangerous beauty.
Diplomacy
Necromancer Characters
- Alignment: Usually neutral, often evil
- Suggested Races: Tuner, Human
- Suggested Classes: Magus, Gunslinger, Infiltrator
- Suggested Archtypes: Darkslinger, Magician, Technomancer, Pathfinder
- Suggested Ladders: Survivor, Runner
Being a Necromancer might suit your character if one or more of the following statements are true:
- You’re drawn to the darker side of nature or the greener side of necromancy.
- You are drawn to sinister, creepy, or grim characters.
- You like the idea of playing a morally ambigious character.
Background: Necromancer
If your character was born and raised in Necropolis, you can choose this background instead of those listed in the Ultra Modern Redux rule book.
You are a member of a teeming horde — one small part of a sprawling organism. Just as you are part of the swarm, the swarm is part of a larger ecosystem, a never-ending cycle of life, death, rot, and rebirth. You have spent your life in the slow churn of that ecosystem, in the dark places of the world where the messy parts of existence are on display. There is little squeamishness among the Necromancers, no fear of death or taboo about the dead, just a fierce affirmation of the cycle.
- Skill Proficiencies: Nature, Survival
- Languages: Choose one
- Equipment: A Necromancer insignia, Posioner;s kit, a Fire Beetle or Spider , a set of common clothes, and 10 credits.
- Tool Proficiency: Posioner's Kit
Feature: Undercity Paths
You know hidden, underground pathways that you can use to bypass crowds, obstacles, and observation as you move through the Necropolis. When you aren’t in combat, you and companions you lead can travel between any two locations in the settlement twice as fast as your speed would normally allow. The paths of the undercity are haunted by dangers that rarely brave the light of the surface world, so your journey isn’t guaranteed to be safe.
Suggested Characteristics
Members of the Necromancers are unmistakably products of the undercity, ill at ease amid the comforts of civilization. They bring about the same discomfort in others by reminding them of death’s inevitable approach.
Contacts
To the extent that the Necromancers acts like a single organism, you are connected to every other member in some way or another. Convinced that the rest of the world is out to get you, you find it easy to form close bonds with your fellow Necromancers, and harder to make meaningful connections with others.
Roll twice on the Necromancer Contacts table (for an ally and a rival) and once on the Non-Necromancer Contacts table.
How Do I Fit In?
As part of the Necromantic Swarm, you are a specialized instrument of the greater body. Your orders, when you have such, come from the Litch Lord by way of the Death Knights, who carry their messages throughout the faction. The swarm relies on you to advance the greater good by protecting some part, however small, of its teeming existence. That responsibility doesn’t mean you’re indispensable; your eventual death is part of your purpose and function, too, and you’ll be replaced even as your body provides nutrients to further the swarm’s growth.
A classic adventuring role for a member of the Necromancers involves crawling through dungeon-like environments — the sewers and ancient vaults of the undercity — in search of treasures left behind by the dead. Sometimes you might be sent to find a specific item believed lost in a dangerous part of the undercity. At other times, you could be asked to collect samples of a specific fungus, retrieve a body floating in the muck of the sewers, or bring back whatever booty you can to help fill the swarm’s coffers.
History
Toutatis Su'en Allaway's interest in necromancy, and his eventual transformation into a lich, shaped the course of the factions activities and gave birth to its philosophy of embracing death as part of nature’s cycle.
The weak shall fuel the strong.
Public Agenda
To raise humanity from the ashes of the Fall.
General Biases
These are the biases that members of this faction typical hold.
Positive Biases
They favor those who are magically inclined. This bias triggers for any character that has a Vigor score of 8 or more.
Negative Biases
They dislike those who are not magically inclined. This bias trigger for any character that has a Vigor score of 7 or less.
When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.
Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.
Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn’t possess,
acts but doesn’t expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.
The Tao is called the Great Mother:
empty yet inexhaustible,
it gives birth to infinite worlds.
It is always present within you.
You can use it any way you want.
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