Necromancy
Necromancy, or Black Magic, Vulgur Magic, or Practical Magic, is the study of things that are very physical, but often unseeable. Bacteria, plagues, fungi, molds, spores, slimes and the undead are all under the purview of the Necromancer.
While practitioners have a well earned reputation for evil, it is also responsible for more practical and medicinal uses of Herbalism and even the production of alcohol and bread.
Utility
At its most mundane, necromancy is used to cultivate the yeast used in alcohol and breadmaking. The next most normal thing would be medicines, poultices, and cures. After that is curses and plagues, poisons for assassinations, and finally 'true necromancy.' True Necromancy are considered the highest mysteries of the art, and involve pulling information out of corpses and reanimating them as slaves.
Manufacturing
Curses and spells are cultivated in a workshop from base cultures, often using the Ash Salts of Kur.
Social Impact
Necromancers are distrusted at best, persecuted at worst. Very few are comfortable keeping close company with a practitioner, as they have been known to exude Corruption.
Access & Availability
Individual Necromancers trade their secrets with each other in a sort of macabre barter system. They are loathe to share with outsiders unless taking on an apprentice, but their profession is dangerous enough that their grimoires are scattered about in hidden caches abandoned by time and circumstance. Enterprising or lucky (or perhaps unlucky) men and women sometimes stumble upon this hidden knowledge and begin dabbling.
Complexity
Necromancy involves long hours toiling in the dark and unhealthy damp. It can be finicky, as some of the more delicate cultivations can be killed off in the wrong environment, but the most common mishap is a particularly large dose of Vulgar Corruption.
Discovery
Allatu developed necromancy as part of her work in terraforming Ersetu. She developed an interest beyond the utilitarian, and eventually this evolved into an obsession which she shared with interested or particularly skilled mortals.
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