Clone Clinic Necromancer

Resurrection of the dead is an important question in a typical Pathfinder-World. Commonly, most people look first towards the world's clerics in this regard. However, if you take a closer look to the requirements of the usual clerical resurrection spells, like raise dead, resurrection and true resurrection, you'll find that the required material components are more than just expensive - they are almost unobtainable! Well, at least in this world with a thousand names, gems in the required price class are extremely rare finds, jewels fit for a noble's crown treasure (and if to be found there, well guarded for the case of that noble's demise). Just having enough money to pay the material component simply is of no use if the material component is not there.
Luckily, there's a feasible and even relatively cheap alternative: The high-level necromancy spell clone. The focus and material components are fairly easy to come by, provided one has enough money, and do not depend on a lucky find of a gem of sufficient quality. So, foresighted necromancers found that they had a lucrative service to offer, and soon in most of the larger cities, service stations for necromantic resurrection were founded, which got commonly called 'clone clinics'. Usually, these 'clone clinics' are affiliated with a wizards' academy and led by the academy's faculty leader of necromancy, or the city's most experienced necromancer.
The clinics offer clone tanks for rent and often accept various payment models, including payment in instalments, for the materials required while a clone is growing. Since this can take several months, most customers order a clone in advance, for the case of their demise. The payment models made cloning affordable for many citizens and demand is accordingly high, even if it is only of interest for those who expect an untimely demise, as in battle, on an adventure or by assasination. So the providers of cloning services can easily justify a big extra margin of profit for themselves.
Thus, working for a clone clinic, maybe eventually leading one, is the most worthwhile career path for a studied necromancer. Not only does he earn extremely well; rescuing and restoring the life of many people, a lot of influential, famous and important among them, also grants him a whole lot of respect. For comparison, a leading clone clinic necromancer in this world is about as respected as a top level surgeon in our world would be.

Clone Clinics and the View on Necromancers

At least in urban areas, due to the existence of clone clinics, necromantic wizards are regarded with respect, the ridiculous cliché of the undead-raising world-conquering madman driven back to remote rural areas.
Of course, why should a studied necromancer dig in ancient catacombs and become a despised villain, if with time he can become a wealthy and revered pillar of community?
However, those feared 'masters of the undead' are still in existence, but they are rarely studied wizards, and if so, rather failed ones. The cliché of the 'evil necromancer' is more likely to be fulfilled by less patient, planful and visionary individuals, like wrathful sorcerers, or servants of evil deities, which see the conquest and destruction of civilization by undead as fulfilling the wills of their gods.

Career

Qualifications

A leading clone clinic necromancer must be able to cast 8th-level arcane necromancy spells, so most are high level academy-trained wizards with a specialization in necromancy. Other classes may qualify, but with an education other than one in academic necromancy the chances to advance into the high ranks of a clone clinic are slim.

Career Progression

Usually, aspiring necromancers start their careers in the lower ranks of a clone clinic, even if they can't cast the clone spell yet. But capable necromancers can still be of other use for the clinic, for example in caretaking of growing clones, preservation of finished clones that are not yet needed, customer consulting, security, disposal of clones which aren't paid for or needed any more and so on. In the line of this work, they can continue their studies and gather experience to someday gain the capabilty of casting the clone spell themselves. Other necromancers, however, decide for a quicker route and try to improve their abilities with practical measures, for example by taking on an adventurers life for a while or joining the military.

Payment & Reimbursement

Leading or staffing a clone clinic is an actual occupation, and a well paid one, too. A clone clinic sees to make up for their costs - not only for lab equipment and material components, but also work time, building maintenance, consulting, security and other positions, including a solid compensation for the top-level staff, the actual clone casters. This is usually achieved through interest rates in the various payment plans. A customer might, for example, pay only small easily affordable instalments per month, but has to pay them over such a long time that he easily pays five-fold the clone spell's cost or more. This interest pays the clone clinics additional expenses and their necromancers' salaries. In a way, this can be seen as this world's equivalent of a life insurance.

Other Benefits

A top-level clone clinic necromancer is at home in the highest circles by his wealth alone. Additionally, many people 'owe' him or trust him with their lives, among them wealthy merchants, influential nobles and even some high-ranked clerics. One might even have contact to a few capable and grateful adventurers in times of trouble... That said, a clone clinic necromancers wields quite a bit of influence and respect among the populace, and usually an amount of trust from the nation's leaders which possibly have clones of their own slumbering in his vaults.

Perception

Purpose

Resurrection of untimely departed

Social Status

Academic; usually open for anyone with sufficient intelligence, patience and willingness to learn, citizen or noble alike. Still, academic study is usually costly, so the career is often limited to descendants of nobles or wealthy merchants. However, some clone clinics and academies offer scholarship programs.

Operations

Workplace

A typical clone clinic generally consists of three sections: The consulting section is where customers can contact the clone doctors, can figure out their payment plans, get the required tissue samples extracted, can check their clones status and so on. It also contains the administrative part of the clinic. The low-security section is one of the clone vaults. Here are the clone tanks installed for customers which want to secure themselves from death in accidents, battle, by random violence, or on adventures. The high-security section is usually a hidden vault with well guarded secret entrances and exits, heavily secured by magical alarms, wards and traps. It is meant for high-risk customers, which have to expect death by planned murder or assassination. These customers usually come from the ranks of nobility, politics, world wide trade, and even organized crime. The high-security section often even provides luxury suites for especially endangered customers to await the completion of a clone.

Dangers & Hazards

Clone clinic necromancers can become targets of assassins. Not for a killing contract, though, but to extract informations about a customer, exact wherabouts of a clone and ways to bypass security measurements.

Alternative Names

Cloners, Clone Doctor

Type

Healthcare

Demand

High-demand luxury service; expensive, but available for a broader populace by payment plans. Useless, however, by death from old age.

Legality

Clone clinic necromancers usually commit themselves to absolute discretion toward their customers, usually bound into a standard service contract. Such a contract may also contain clauses for a customer to deny all contacts to a certain clone clinic. The commitment to discretion is not always respected by the government, but many clone clinics enter agreements with the governing ruler to fully acknowledge their signed contracts by law.