Necromancy is Not Necessarily Death Magic.

[Shadowferal]

Sounds like a narrative someone wants badly.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

I wonder what Arcane magic necromancy would look like...


EDIT: Just thought of something... perhaps Arcane magic does not need to use necromancy to reanimate living flesh. Instead, just turn back time before the individual's death.

[Torvald]

The retcon wasn't that other magic types can do necromancy (though the necromancy practiced by the Scourge previously associated with with shadow magic). The retcon was the Margrave telling Calia that she was not different from the Forsaken just because she was reanimated by the Light. The prior lore was that the Forsaken were burned and felt pain (but also flashes of positive emotion) if put in contact with the Light. That, on a day-to-day basis, they were basically cut off from the Light in a way the living weren't, and that this made "positive' emotions rarer or absent for them (which implied serious personality warping effects other than some very exceptional Forsaken).

Under the lore as it was, you could stretch to have the Light involved in a reanimation under an exceptional circumstance, but the being produced would be expected to have an utterly different experience of "undeath." Now... it's all just the same somehow? I think a more interesting route would have been to not retcon it, and instead explore what effects each magic type had on undeath, and whether a person raised by one magic could change the nature of their reanimation and embrace another type of magic. Not often you see a retcon done for the purpose of removing interesting differences that could have been played on by writers.

With a tiny bit of dialogue, they just threw away a lot of their original undeath lore, and rendered these different magic types into nothing more than cosmetic options.

[Aucald]

Nah, not even close. Sylvanas and the Forsaken share the same disassociative effects of undeath and, for the first generation, the same enslavement by the Scourge. This has been the case for ages, but even the most recent lore gets it across with Sylvanas's identity loss and having to piece together who she is and what she's about being identical to what she helps Nathanos, a completely basic Forsaken, through later on. They not only aren't in the same wheelhouse, not even Faol or Bartholomew are as far apart from Joe Average the Forsaken, historically or physically, from Calia. The preservation of the body of the DRs is what they have in common with Calia, but Calia also doesn't have the physical disassociation. Her soul and body aren't apart, her positive emotions aren't suppressed, her negative ones aren't amplified. The Light doesn't burn her, it works for her, etc. etc. To disregard this would devalue both the Light and them. I wouldn't put it past Blizzard by any stretch, given they wrote themselves into this spot in the first place, but these are still canonical elements as of the absolute most recent lore and they're pointed out in the very same quest chain. Being able to utilize the Light while it burns you because you feel that you're rotting and there are maggots eating at your decaying body isn't the same as being able to use it consequence-free.

Blizzard, and in general modern fantasy writing, are deathly scared of the ontological. In the process they handicap themselves. Addressing that Calia is materially different from all other undead and emphasizing she's a porcelain doll with all the benefits and none of the weaknesses gives you more room to tell stories now that you've introduced it rather than less. It's a gap she can never cross culturally, she'll always stand apart from those she's close to and at the same it gives you room for a core part of the Forsaken, which is leader worship. She's a miracle of the Light and people who aren't blessed like she is imitating her feeds into classic Forsaken tropes of the subordinates being more fanatical than the leader and fills the void that is left when the DRs became their current neutered selves.

The later generations of the Forsaken (those raised from the dead by the Val'kyr in Cata and onward) were also never part of the Scourge, and yet face no issues being part of the Forsaken. Sylvanas also never "loses her identity" beyond having to accept her own undeath - she knows exactly who she was in life and loses none of her memories. But to make her more distinct from the rank and file Forsaken she was directly raised by Arthas, she's an Elf, has a more or less intact physical form as opposed to being a decayed wretch, and won a distinct power-lottery few of the Forsaken can hope to match (even prior to her empowerment by the Jailer). We also have no real idea what Calia's mental state is like in her specific case of undeath. She does have the same separation of body and spirit that outright causes undeath in that she wasn't resurrected by the Light, but beyond that, we don't know what other effects the Light may have on her particular plight as an undead being. I also don't think the Forsaken's relationship with the Light is by any means the cornerstone of their society.

Calia basically shares Sylvanas' role as the Forsaken's "porcelain doll" to use your turn of phrase - uniquely intact, keeping the majority of physical appearance in life, and uniquely powerful and/or empowered. As for crossing the gap, well, that's more or less up to the Forsaken as a whole. People, and societies, can change with time - and given that Sylvanas' influence on the Forsaken is likely to fade during her durance in the Maw, and given the revelations of her true goals and actions up to this point, it's very likely the Forsaken are in a key place to reassess themselves and their society, and Calia will be a part of that. That's not "bad writing," that just the advancement of their story, perhaps not in a direction you prefer, but that's more of a subjective argument that's neither here nor there.

[Gaidax]

The retcon wasn't that other magic types can do necromancy (though the necromancy practiced by the Scourge previously associated with with shadow magic). The retcon was the Margrave telling Calia that she was not different from the Forsaken just because she was reanimated by the Light.

This is the text:



No point nitpicking.

Of course there may difference in details, but in the end it's potato, potato and necromancy is necromancy.

As you see from text the question was on a whole of "These guys were raised this way and I was the other way", a question of origin, not details of side effects.

There is no retcon here.

[Ielenia]

This all stems from the chronicles and the six primal powers.

Power	School	Damage	Heal	Res
Order	Arcane	Arcane Blast	n/a	n/a
Life	Nature	Wrath	Regrowth	Rebirth
Light	Holy	Smite	Flash Heal	Resurrection
Disorder	Elements	Fireball	n/a	n/a
Death	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
Shadow	Shadow	Death Coil	Death Coil	Raise Ally

Those aren't "schools". "Schools" would be abjuration, conjuration, illusion, enchanting, etc. And that is where 'necromancy' fits.

[Magical Mudcrab]

Demons like mannoroth brought back from the dead as a giant walking skeleton, and then abomination with fel magic.

Felmyst is probably a better example of Fel magic being used for necromancy in WoW. Mannoroth, being a demon, wasn't actually "dead" when the corpse was reassembled and his soul was put in it. In fact, even now he and Archimonde's status is still MIA since they never died in the Nether. Frankly, I don't know if the idea of necromancy applies very well to "outsiders" (i.e.: anything external to the material plane), especially given that demons being bound to some vessel, such as in the case of demonic possession or binding a demon to a weapon, would not be considered necromancy but would likely be similar in principle. Even looking outside of WoW to more contemporary or more widespread fantasy settings, like D&D and Pathfinder, clear distinctions are drawn between manipulating the soul of a mortal (such as the spell Magic Jar, which is classified as necromancy) and manipulating the a demon (such as the spell Planar Binding, and these spells typically fall under conjuration or abjuration). One exception might be what we see in Maldraxxus, but the concept of reanimating beings who have suffered a true death comes with a whole other load of baggage which I don't think has ever been addressed.

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Those aren't "schools". "Schools" would be abjuration, conjuration, illusion, enchanting, etc. And that is where 'necromancy' fits.

I'm wondering if their plan is to have types of magic like Arcane, Holy, Death, Fel, etc., each able to be decomposed into a set of magical subschools. Like what was outlined in The Schools of Arcane Magic book, making all overarching sources of magic able to be broken into the traditional Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Illusion, Transmutation, and Necromancy schools. Although, in this case, we're heavily retconning Chronicle, and it makes you wonder why the book was ever made if nothing in it is actually canon.

[Torvald]

This is the text:



No point nitpicking.

Of course there may difference in details, but in the end it's potato, potato and necromancy is necromancy.

As you see from text the question was on a whole of "These guys were raised this way and I was the other way", a question of origin, not details of side effects.

There is no retcon here.

Obviously that's a retcon. It wouldn't be a retcon if Blizzard's original stance had been that the Light had no effect on the mental state of the undead. That's the implicit context of the what Calia is asking about - does being raised by the Light make her undeath different in nature, creating a divide between her and the rest of the Forsaken. The answer in the past would have been, "yes, obviously." The answer now is, "no, it's just cosmetic."

[Gaidax]

Obviously that's a retcon. It wouldn't be a retcon if Blizzard's original stance had been that the Light had no effect on the mental state of the undead. That's what Calia was asking about - does being raised by the Light make her undeath different in nature. The answer in the past would have been, "yes, obviously." The answer now is, "no, it's just cosmetic."

I think you're being intentionally obtuse here.

Sindane's answer is simple - Undeath is Undeath and Necromancy is Necromancy, no matter how it happened or what is the patron power.

The byproducts of the way it happened do not matter in the grand scale of things. The bottom line the person died and was reanimated. This is the key common ground here, not that in one case you have itchy nose and in other case leaky orifices.

[A Chozo]

Obviously that's a retcon.

It's not a retcon, it's an elaboration of a subject - something that is tremendously needed in this game and that blizzard is finally, for once, doing: explaining shit.

Just because you don't understand a development doesn't mean it's a retcon.

[Biomega]

Obviously that's a retcon. It wouldn't be a retcon if Blizzard's original stance had been that the Light had no effect on the mental state of the undead. That's the implicit context of the what Calia is asking about - does being raised by the Light make her undeath different in nature, creating a divide between her and the rest of the Forsaken. The answer in the past would have been, "yes, obviously." The answer now is, "no, it's just cosmetic."

Nonsense.

There's plenty of difference in mental state even in non-Light resurrections, always has been. It ranges from mindless zombie/ghoul to basically the same as when alive. And it's pretty much always been that way from the start.

You know what WOULD have been a retcon? Blizzard saying somewhere, explicitly, "the only way to ever bring back someone from the dead is through death magic, period" and then now going "yeah actually no you can do it in so many ways". But that's not what happened.

What happened was "oh huh I guess I kinda thought death magic is the only way to bring back the dead?" "nah fam, can do it in all sorts of ways - necromancy is the name for the result, not a description of the process" "ok neat, the more you know I guess" - which is an entirely normal process in world building, not a retcon.

[shadowmatrix]

Drust represent the bottom feeders in nature. The Detritivores. Because there was a drought in Ardenwald they too experienced a shortage at the bottom of the chain and they began to work their way upwards (I feel I'm explaining this better than Blizzard did at this point).

The Drust were in Ardenweald because they wanted to be reborn, it had nothing to do with anima. It seems back when they were fighting the Kul Tirans they ended up fucking themselves over and got stuck in Thros, they need others to pull them out hence why Gorak Tul needed the witches.

[bmjclark]

I like it tbh. Adds a bit of a different spin on necromancy that we don't see in other games

[Magical Mudcrab]

It's not a retcon, it's an elaboration of a subject - something that is tremendously needed in this game and that blizzard is finally, for once, doing: explaining shit.

Just because you don't understand a development doesn't mean it's a retcon.

I hate to be like some of the posters in the Lore section, but posts like these make it very clear that many people are not familiar with Chronicle. Let's take a quote:

Life and Death
The forces of Lifer and Death hold sway over every living thing in the physical universe. The energies of Life, commonly known as nature magic, promote growth and renewal in all things. Death, in the form of necromantic magic, acts as a counterbalance to Life. It is an unavoidable force that breeds despair in mortal hearts and pushes everything towards a state of entropic decay and eventual oblivion.

As per Chronicle, Nature magic was an expression of Life and Necromancy was an expression of Death. The subsequent change of Necromancy from it's explicit relation to Death magic to now being more related to the application of some forms of magic is a retcon. Prior to this, instances of corpses being raised into a form of undeath were exceptions, not rules. Even things like the Infested created by the Botani, which have wrongly been used as an example of necromancy, are not undead, as the bodies were described as being host to flora instead of being raised into undeath (i.e.: the corpses are host to plants which use them to move, the corpses themselves aren't reanimated).

[Ielenia]

I'm wondering if their plan is to have types of magic like Arcane, Holy, Death, Fel, etc., each able to be decomposed into a set of magical subschools. Like what was outlined in The Schools of Arcane Magic book, making all overarching sources of magic able to be broken into the traditional Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Illusion, Transmutation, and Necromancy schools.

It's not about "decomposing" or "breaking down". The schools of magic is what you can do with the different magic sources. They're separate.

[Hugnomo]

While I think the main aspect of it is to bring Calia and the Forsaken together, it just occurred to me that maybe this could factor in to one of the forsaken's decades old predicaments - their inability to reproduce. Maybe our understanding of necromancy will be expanded upon, and in this sense, a more ethical/moral application of it can be discovered to allow the Forsaken to exist as a race.

[A Chozo]

As per Chronicle, Nature magic was an expression of Life and Necromancy was an expression of Death.

According to the Titans. When they retconned Chronicles as something from their viewpoint it was a death sentence to that specific lore - it meant that it's bound by an unreliable narrator.

We now have the highest authority in the subject (according to herself, which is.... ehhh) giving a definition to the word "Necromancy". The lore expanded, got elaborated on. We previously thought that Death was only about... Scourge, undeads and what else, but now we understand it as something more.

Be angry at actual retcons. Lore may be dumb a shit but we can't tag all bad lore as retcons just because. Makes our complaints lose credibility, leading to people like Danuser thinking they write good.

[Magical Mudcrab]

It's not about "decomposing" or "breaking down". The schools of magic is what you can do with the different magic sources. They're separate.

So, to clarify a bit, I don't mean that there would no longer be a Life magic and instead it would be replaced by Conjuration and Transmutation magics, instead I mean that you could take a given source of magic, like Death magic, and then decompose that magic (i.e.: break it down) into several subdomains. This is why I linked The Schools of Arcane Magic as an example. So you could have Death magic that could be classified as Divination, or Life magic that could be classified as Necromancy, or Light magic that could be classified as Enchantment, etc. Essentially taking the idea of "magic schools" present in The Schools of Arcane Magic and applying it to each type of type of magic.

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According to the Titans. When they retconned Chronicles as something from their viewpoint it was a death sentence to that specific lore - it meant that it's bound by an unreliable narrator.

Sure, but let's take someone like Norgannon, the Titan who I think we could rightly say is the single most powerful and knowledgeable Arcane spellcaster in the Warcraft franchise, full stop. Why would Norgannon not know that Arcane magic could be used to perform Necromancy? We're talking about someone whose knowledge of the Arcane dwarfs Azerothian beings like Malygos or Mimiron, and whose breadth and depth knowledge would be incomprehensible to prolific Arcane users like Archimonde (both prior to and after his apotheosis). Unless the Titans classified Necromancy differently than someone like Margrave Sin'dane, I don't see how they would make this oversight. Perhaps the concept of creating undead, or undeath itself, was so beneath their notice that they didn't even consider fully classifying it, but that would be strange given the minutia they log within Chronicle.

[Linkedblade]

Those aren't "schools". "Schools" would be abjuration, conjuration, illusion, enchanting, etc. And that is where 'necromancy' fits.

Like I said most of this is from either chronicle or in game sources. So, the schools as I listed are a classification that the game client uses. Not necessarily the classical rpg sense.

Addendum: I figured I'd elaborate. This school classification is how the game knows what "kind" of spell you're using and which spells to lock if you are silenced via something like Silence
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Felmyst is probably a better example of Fel magic being used for necromancy in WoW. Mannoroth, being a demon, wasn't actually "dead" when the corpse was reassembled and his soul was put in it. In fact, even now he and Archimonde's status is still MIA since they never died in the Nether. Frankly, I don't know if the idea of necromancy applies very well to "outsiders" (i.e.: anything external to the material plane), especially given that demons being bound to some vessel, such as in the case of demonic possession or binding a demon to a weapon, would not be considered necromancy but would likely be similar in principle. Even looking outside of WoW to more contemporary or more widespread fantasy settings, like D&D and Pathfinder, clear distinctions are drawn between manipulating the soul of a mortal (such as the spell Magic Jar, which is classified as necromancy) and manipulating the a demon (such as the spell Planar Binding, and these spells typically fall under conjuration or abjuration). One exception might be what we see in Maldraxxus, but the concept of reanimating beings who have suffered a true death comes with a whole other load of baggage which I don't think has ever been addressed.

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I'm wondering if their plan is to have types of magic like Arcane, Holy, Death, Fel, etc., each able to be decomposed into a set of magical subschools. Like what was outlined in The Schools of Arcane Magic book, making all overarching sources of magic able to be broken into the traditional Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Illusion, Transmutation, and Necromancy schools. Although, in this case, we're heavily retconning Chronicle, and it makes you wonder why the book was ever made if nothing in it is actually canon.

The wondrous gift of magic can be bent to many purposes. We the learned have found that it is easiest to divide the eldritch arts into eight different categories in order to further understand the fundamentals of magic itself. Each of these categories is known as a school of magic, for they are often learned separately and mages frequently choose to specialize in one type or another. Other mages attempt to master all forms of magic, but few have achieved this lofty goal. Within this tome we will discuss each individual school of magic and some of their notable practitioners.


All schools of magic can be combined to create formidable spells that utilize multiple sources of power. Some of these potent spells are discussed later in this series of books, but beware, combining multiple types of magic can be extremely dangerous - especially for beginners.

Here you will learn the basics of all schools of magic. Please remember that magic is not to be abused. Do not practice magic without the appropriate supervision.

So this system of schools is about the utility of the spells, not necessarily the primal power behind them.

[A Chozo]

Sure, but let's take someone like Norgannon, the Titan who I think we could rightly say is the single most powerful and knowledgeable Arcane spellcaster in the Warcraft franchise, full stop. Why would Norgannon not know that Arcane magic could be used to perform Necromancy?

We can get annoyingly specific here to explain this:

1 - Saying that Death is "equal" to Necromantic Magic doesn't mean that Necromancy can't be done with Arcane;
2 - We can't rightly say that Norgannon is the most powerful and knowledgeable Arcane spellcaster in the Warcraft franchise. Aluneth thinks that the ancient Kaldorei had magic that had the potential to rival the Titans.

Sin'dane simply defined a word. We can samba around the meanings at any moments in this discussion, going into an endless back and forth where some think that lore developments are retcons and others think that they are just dumb developments.