Necromancy is Not Necessarily Death Magic.

[Iain]

Sad thing about that, they will not explain anything now, they just let it go, forget. They not build this whole world just open and open new chapters with a little connections between them.

Which would've been perfect if Blizzard didn't then also try to have their cake and eat it by having NPC's commit drive-by exposition dumps.

"Necromantic" is the adjective form of the noun "Necromancy", with "necromantic magic" just meaning "magic that is Necromancy".

Yes, the magic, itself, is necromantic. And Maldraxxus is its birth place of this necromantic magic. Necromantic magic comes from Maldraxxus. That is the canon.

And this works. It explains why the Scourge had such a distinct architecture and even 'culture' to it in Warcraft 3. It explains why whenever they show up, people with distinct robes and floating necropolis show up. It's rift through which Maldraxxus steeps. Without this, the scourge design doesn't make sense. So it's great that Blizzard resolved this, just like the resolved the distinct Icecrown architecture.

What does not make sense is saying 'necromancy is necromancy regardless of what magic powers it.' It's semantically correct but it doesn't hold up within this universe where there's such a thing as a realm from which necromantic magic flows.

[Ielenia]

If you're thinking of Galakrond, we still don't know what magic he was associated with.

It doesn't matter what magic he was associated with. If he was performing necromancy, he was performing necromancy. What kind of magic used is irrelevant.

[Iain]

It doesn't matter what magic he was associated with. If he was performing necromancy, he was performing necromancy. What kind of magic used is irrelevant.

If we're going to invalidate the chart, is there even such a thing as 'kind of magic', or is it just all the same magic and we're merely naming it by the outcome of the spells? If all magic that reanimates the death is 'necromantic' and the magic itself is superfluous then why not the same for fire, frost, fel and light? Just generic vanilla magic that can do anything depending on how you wield it.

[FelPlague]

Holy fuck people 13 pages cause people refuse to fucking understand that you can and always have been able to resurrect bodies with magic OTHER THEN DEATH like holy fuck we have countless lore examples of undead being raised with magic other then death, and druids, paladins, priest, shaman, all resurrecting people as well WITHOUT DEATH MAGIC.
you are not going to "win" at this argument, because you are objectively wrong, this is not "a major retcon" this is not "an asspull" this is something that has been in the game for decades, and it is finally them just actually talking about it and confirming "yeah it is true"


we have seen the light raise people from the dead
we have seen nature raise people from the dead, and even zombies
we have seen arcane raise people from the dead, and even zombies
we have seen the void raise people from the dead, and even zombies
we have seen shadow raise people from the dead
we have seen death raise people from the dead, and even zombies
we have seen fel raise people from the dead, and even zombies
we have seen spirit and water raise people from the dead
we have seen even fucking fire raise people from the dead
the only ones we haven't really are water, earth, and air.

[Gaidax]

I told you we don't know what Galakrond's corruption was from. It is hinted that he was experimented upon by titanic watchers, like the creatures in Uldir.

It would have been the first case of necromancy on Azeroth if the Dreadlors haven't delved in it within the Shadowlands for billions of years prior.

What does it matter? Undead are undead - raising undead is Necromancy plain and simple. It does not matter what, how or even if this was a conscious effort - it is what it is.

Not even sure why you fight the established fact tooth and nail.

[username993720]

It doesn't matter what magic he was associated with. If he was performing necromancy, he was performing necromancy. What kind of magic used is irrelevant.

Still. Dreadlords had access to it before he even walked the earth.

What does it matter? Undead are undead - raising undead is Necromancy plain and simple. It does not matter what, how or even if this was a conscious effort - it is what it is.

Not even sure why you fight the established fact tooth and nail.

As i said to lelenia, as denizens of the Shadowlands, Dreadlords had access to Necromancy way before Galakrond.

[Gaidax]

As i said to lelenia, as denizens of the Shadowlands, Dreadlords had access to Necromancy way before Galakrond.

That's moving the goalposts there, buddy.

The original statement was that Dreadlords brought Necromancy to Azeroth, which is untrue.

[fatgunn]

Shamans, warlocks, and mages all have spells which amount to "Throw Fire at Target". But these are accomplished in different ways. Why would raising the dead be any different?

Think of it like a cannonball. You can launch it from a cannon, a trebuchet, a catapult, a really big slingshot, or you could even just have a big guy throw it. Same final outcome, just different methods.

[FelPlague]

I told you we don't know what Galakrond's corruption was from. It is hinted that he was experimented upon by titanic watchers, like the creatures in Uldir.

It would have been the first case of necromancy on Azeroth if the Dreadlors haven't delved in it within the Shadowlands for billions of years prior.

boi idk if you know....
but the shadowlands is not on azeroth...

Galakrond is as we know of right now, the first necromancer on azeroth.
the dreadlords did not arrive on azeroth till MANY years later.

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Still. Dreadlords had access to it before he even walked the earth.



As i said to lelenia, as denizens of the Shadowlands, Dreadlords had access to Necromancy way before Galakrond.

You said "The first necromancers on azeroth"
you are trying to move the goalposts, but we can literally see your prior posts my dude.

necromancy happened on azeroth LONG before the dreadlords showed up.

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I also considered technology because there are ways to use technology to bring back the dead as well (in fiction) so what would that even be considered? It's still technically Necromancy but it uses all kinds of all kinds of different methods and technologiea.

usually in wow and stuff its using nature, but using technology to do so, as the electricity is what is bringing back the body.

[Iain]

Holy fuck people 13 pages cause people refuse to fucking understand that you can and always have been able to resurrect bodies with magic OTHER THEN DEATH like holy fuck we have countless lore examples of undead being raised with magic other then death, and druids, paladins, priest, shaman, all resurrecting people as well WITHOUT DEATH MAGIC.
you are not going to "win" at this argument, because you are objectively wrong, this is not "a major retcon" this is not "an asspull" this is something that has been in the game for decades, and it is finally them just actually talking about it and confirming "yeah it is true"

Nobody is arguing against the claim that other schools of magic can revive people back from the death. Not a single post in this entire thread has done that. What's more, there's not even anyone here who argues against the idea that reanimating corpses by any means is semantically considered necromancy.

What the debate is focused on, is what 'necromancy' and 'necromantic energy' entails. Some people say that the outcome is what defines the magic and that there's no such thing as a necromantic magic, just other forms being used for it. And some people (yours truly is on this side of the debate) is arguing that necromancy is a magic onto itself. I would even go as far and assert that necromantic magic can be used for other means than reanimating corpses. Like, plagues, or spreading blight across a place, or augmenting the living, or imbuing it into potions and items.

[username993720]

That's moving the goalposts there, buddy.

The original statement was that Dreadlords brought Necromancy to Azeroth, which is untrue.

*Brought it to the different cosmic forces

boi idk if you know....
but the shadowlands is not on azeroth...

Galakrond is as we know of right now, the first necromancer on azeroth.
the dreadlords did not arrive on azeroth till MANY years later.

I know it's not on Azeroth. It existed way before it.

You said "The first necromancers on azeroth"
you are trying to move the goalposts, but we can literally see your prior posts my dude.

necromancy happened on azeroth LONG before the dreadlords showed up.

Well yeah, with Galakrond. But, it doesn't matter if necromancy was spread to the other cosmic forces prior to it.

[Ielenia]

If we're going to invalidate the chart, is there even such a thing as 'kind of magic', or is it just all the same magic and we're merely naming it by the outcome of the spells? If all magic that reanimates the death is 'necromantic' and the magic itself is superfluous then why not the same for fire, frost, fel and light? Just generic vanilla magic that can do anything depending on how you wield it.

You're getting it wrong, here.

"Necromancy" is not a magic type, like elemental, nature, void, light, etc.

"Necromancy" is a spell school type, like abjuration, conjuration, illusion, enchanting, etc.

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Still. Dreadlords had access to it before he even walked the earth.

And? Unless you can show us how the dreadlords taught necromancy to Galakrond, that's ultimately irrelevant.

[username993720]

And? Unless you can show us how the dreadlords taught necromancy to Galakrond, that's ultimately irrelevant.

Taught necromancy to Galakrond?

No. The magic he was infused with would give us the hint.
It's not about individuals. It's about the cosmic forces being used.

[Iain]

Y"Necromancy" is a spell school type, like abjuration, conjuration, illusion, enchanting, etc.

In the semantic sense you're entirely correct. Fully granted. Any time someone reanimates a corpse, it's 'necromancy'.

But Blizzard also says that 'necromantic magic' is something that's born in Maldraxxus



And 'necromantic' firmly sits in the Death part of the compass.



And let's not forget that there's an 'Extract of Necromantic Power':

https://www.wowhead.com/item=40373/e...romantic-power

And also 'Necromantic Oil'

https://www.wowhead.com/item=174076/necromantic-oil


There's no such thing as a conjuratic magic, or a illusionitic magic, or an abjuratic magic. Instead magic is used for conjurations, illusions, and abjurations. But there is such a thing as necromantic magic. And this, with the evidence as above and also the way Blizzard has always depicted Necromancy surrounded by glowy oozy ectoplasmic stuff gives the idea that there's such a thing as necromantic energy, a necromantic essence that's the fuel for which most (but, by no means all) forms of necromancy are driven.

This does not invalidate that you can perform necromancy by other means. There's no way around that. But it's not the way Blizzard has been treating necromancy up to now.

[Krawu]

Except she isn't. Raising the dead is raising the dead, doesn't matter what the magic used to do it.

When you look at it it's clearly different though. Performing a "true" resurrection is clearly different than raising a mindless or mind controlled undead shell so it can do your bidding.
While I still think this is the Margrave cynically badmouthing the Light (which would totally be in-character), you could argue that the BRez the Death Night uses is a "true" resurrection. It seems that there's a point where we need to separate gameplay and balance design decisions from official lore.
Lore-wise, there seems to be a trend from very few intelligent creatures controlling vast numbers of mindless undead in WC3 to undead in general becoming more and more intelligent over the course of WoW.

Not everything can always be consistent 100% of the time with this many people involved in writing the story. Even less so if they shoehorn in an ability they want a particular class to have for balance reasons and damn the lore.

I think at this point it's impossible to really follow WoW Lore without at least some degree of head canon and lots of leeway.

[Iain]

I think at this point it's impossible to really follow WoW Lore without at least some degree of head canon and lots of leeway.

Which is why they should be careful with narrowing things down without a very good reason. Flippant NPC remarks are unlikely to be a good reason.

[cocomen2]

I like the concept of the Warhammer Fantasy necromancers: Necromancers are among the most cursed of all those who practice the magical arts, for they have damned their souls and exchanged their Humanity for the ability to raise the dead and command them to wage war upon the living as the Undead.

Necromancer, damned not just themselves, but the raised person to. Thats why they are evil. Break down the natural order of things.

WoW is PEG+12, so...it's can't be brutal as warhammer, audience is different, pink hair bla bla, "We telling child fairytale, happy end" just count amount Prince+Princesses being used to tell story about demons and dragons. And in wow average joe ruins natural order on daily basis, 24/7 world ending threats all over a place, while in warhammer ......"Chaos god invasion? only one of them? whatever....call for me if some Rats and Ogres gonna come" no one bats a eye at evil shit since whole their universe reeks of evil.

Damn,Love is common trope for necromancy , to bring back someone who no longer in this world, yet another king/prince/lover wants to rise to life that sexy woman he loved 20y ago -> Classic. Ye Anduin, i have big hopes for that boy, he failed as priest...and wants to bring DADDY home. /s

Necromancer of Light, The Boy

[Magical Mudcrab]

Holy fuck people 13 pages cause people refuse to fucking understand that you can and always have been able to resurrect bodies with magic OTHER THEN DEATH like holy fuck we have countless lore examples of undead being raised with magic other then death, and druids, paladins, priest, shaman, all resurrecting people as well WITHOUT DEATH MAGIC.

You don't get to me mad at people when you took the same 13 pages to (hopefully) understand the relationship between the adjective "necromantic" and the noun "necromancy".

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You're getting it wrong, here.

"Necromancy" is not a magic type, like elemental, nature, void, light, etc.

"Necromancy" is a spell school type, like abjuration, conjuration, illusion, enchanting, etc.

The confusion comes in with the original cosmological chart in Chronicle, which puts Necromancy as having a similar relationship to Death that magics like Fel and Nature magic have to Discord and Life. This is reinforced by the description of the cosmic forces in volume 1. Now, we know that this description is no longer canonical, but it is what is introducing all the confusion into the discussion when people seem to not get it. Multiple contradicting sources of "truth" will always introduce confusion, even if we know that new lore takes precedence.

Original lore: Necromancy is a school of magic related to the Arcane (Kel'thuzad's experiments) and possibly achievable through other kinds of magic (OG Death Knights, Felmyst as examples).
Chronicle lore: Necromancy is the magic of Death and all undead are the result of magics related to Death (Kel'thuzad, Cult of the Damned, Scourge).
Current lore: Necromancy is now 100% confirmed to be doable by other cosmic forces, with Sin'dane specifying that the process of reanimation being all that it requires to classify a spell as necromantic or not.

Chronicle is the inconsistency, and the messaging around it going from "infallible source of truth" to "Titan PoV" has not helped this problem.

[Loreth88]

WoW is PEG+12, so...it's can't be brutal as warhammer, audience is different, pink hair bla bla, "We telling child fairytale, happy end" just count amount Prince+Princesses being used to tell story about demons and dragons. And in wow average joe ruins natural order on daily basis, 24/7 world ending threats all over a place, while in warhammer ......"Chaos god invasion? only one of them? whatever....call for me if some Rats and Ogres gonna come" no one bats a eye at evil shit since whole their universe reeks of evil.

Damn,Love is common trope for necromancy , to bring back someone who no longer in this world, yet another king/prince/lover wants to rise to life that sexy woman he loved 20y ago -> Classic. Ye Anduin, i have big hopes for that boy, he failed as priest...and wants to bring DADDY home. /s

Necromancer of Light, The Boy

I think blizz pay a lot of a money to stay at PEG12, burning thousands alive? Drink demon blood and start genocide a whole race, after that drink it again and start on another race. In LK we dight undead armies who not just raise the fallen but build with necromancy whole new creature using body parts. And no in warhammer have universal enemies like chaos gods. But many conflict between nations and in a nation, political etc. we can have more in wow, but we will not get it. Why should they. Star explain the whole warcarft world like magic so we stay in the topic, like in warhammer army books etc. but for what the next exp will be bring a retcon wave.

[cocomen2]

Drink demon blood and start genocide a whole race, after that drink it again and start on another race. In LK we dight undead armies who not just raise the fallen but build with necromancy whole new creature using body parts.

See there a catch, leave way for that story "But Dreanor was not free, we were manipulated to drink demon blood, we not at fault!"; and as long kids look and read story about undeads that look like fluffy plushies, it all looks like cartoon with ketchup.

Very strange terms "Genocide" and "War crimes" for medieval world with magic where cannibals and rapists are part of your faction, only to try teach these kids some modern problems while they play our peg+12 game. And then Blood Elfs ... left Alliance since some old grandpa went crazy racist on them -> what they do? join faction that full of racists, perfectio; and as if it was not enough later Nightborne race representative says they gonna remain neutral -> later they join Horde and join in into massacre versus their linage, why not kill some of their own with nice orcs that doing it for "honor", Sadfang crying 24/7 how honorable warrior he is, only to throw axe at behind of someone else enemy. comedygold.