With the draft manuscript for Abyssals: Sworn to the Grave from Onyx Path Publishing out to backers of the Indiegogo, the Exalted playerbase got our first look at Necromancy in 3rd Edition. In this post we’ll go over the current themes of Necromancy, then discuss some of the spaces that it could explore in future supplements.

What It Is

Blood, Bones & Bits

Necromancy often uses gore to distinguish itself from Sorcery.  Stitched-together monstrosities and corpse-behemoths replace summoning second and third circle demons, while Flesh Sloughing Wave is mechanically very similar to Death of Obsidian Butterflies.  On the shaping ritual side of things, Necromancy’s first two rituals involve a river of blood and a skull collection mini-game.

Consumption

Parasites that eat passion, black holes that swallow cities, inciting the lower soul to instill hunger for a week, Necromancy’s domain includes both literal and metaphorical consumption.  Part of the horror of the Undead is their ability to consume without getting full or, indeed, needing food.  There are more than a few ways of indicating that something’s a monster, and one of the simplest is if it the creature just.  Keeps.  Eating.  Imagine if The Very Hungry Caterpillar didn’t feel better after eating through that nice green leaf?  If he never settled down into that small house called a cocoon, and never turned into a beautiful butterfly.  Imagine, instead, if he simply turned to larger prey.  

Well, I suppose that would make for a very different book.

Deathly Places

In my research I was surprised how many spells and shaping rituals pertain to places touched by death, such as graveyards and shadowlands. (In my games, I call these shadowed places).  The Graveyard Geomancy ritual allows the Necromancer to gain motes when in a shadowed place.  Seat of Deathly Splendor lets you create an aesthetically appropriate throne  to look imposing upon.  There are spells for turning land into spooky land and house into spooky house.  There’s even a spell to make someone so uncomfortable under the sun that they seek out shadowed places.

It’s worth noting that this theme is very compatible with the Lunar theme of laying claim to land. Since Lunars are just as capable at Necromancy as they are Sorcery, this could be a great theme to lean into if you are playing a Lunar Necromancer or a Lunar with an Abyssal mate.

Embracing the Monster

Monstrosity in general is a common theme in Exalted.  Solars are destined to become tyrants while their mates at their worst forgo the promise of balance with nature for protean horror.  Both the Primordial War and the Usurpation are framed as trading one monster for another.  In general though, the monsters in Exalted don’t consider themselves that way.  Even demons view themselves as victims – great makers of everything, twisted and imprisoned by their own creations.

Necromancy turns this on its head.  Abyssals know they are monsters.  They agreed to it as part of their exaltation.  The Deathlords too, for all their worldly ambition, understand that their bargain with the Neverborn forces them to march Creation toward its end.  Deathly magic leans into the Hideous merit, and the most powerful necromancers must accept their role as Creation’s Doom to become the final boss monster that they always were.

Possession & Entrapment

Necromancy is really good at putting spirits where they don’t belong.  Talented Necromancers can possess others, leave their bodies, and trap spirits in objects.

Themes of possession and entrapment are ubiquitous in the underworld.  Beyond Necromancy, there is soulsteel which holds multitudes of souls, Monstrances of Celestial Portion which hold Exaltations, and the Neverborn which are held by the impossibility of their own deaths.  While spiritual possession and disembodiment are well-represented, there is room to explore the sheer variety and power of Necromancy’s ability to cage.

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What It Can Be

The Underworld is more than just Abyssals, and death in Exalted is more than just the Underworld.  Here are some additional themes that might be explored either in future supplements or in your own games.

Remembrance

There are many places in Creation where ancestors are revered, relied upon, and worshiped.  In these cultures, ghosts help their descendants by sharing knowledge, skills, and sometimes spirit arts or other mystical power.  In Stygia we have multiple colleges dedicated to lost arts.  Ghosts from the lowliest haunt to the mighty Deathlords are inextricably linked to their past – but more on that later.

Spells that tap into this theme might include imparting a past life’s consciousness into an object, receiving visions of key events in a region’s history, or forcing someone to relive memories they might prefer to forget..  This theme is especially useful for any Solar Necromancer who wishes to explore or revive the glories of the First Age.

Family Lost and Family Found

As mentioned previously, ancestors feature prominently in the worship of the dead.  Ritual afterlives promise a great reunion to those related by blood, while primeval afterlives offer a community to those related through experience. Stygia welcomes all whose afterlives do not offer comfort.  Even the Abyssals must find new family among each other and the dead as they have sworn away all connection to their living pasts.

As far as I can tell, the theme of family is entirely missing from Necromancy’s spells and initiations, and this is a shame.  Perhaps a reason is that the greatest Necromantic innovators, the Deathlords, generally don’t count family among their themes.  Still, spells that bless bloodlines and sanctify found families are thematically appropriate, and can be great options for the less Skeletor-inspired Necromancer.

The Chains That Bind Us

Ghosts are tied to their fetters just as Liminals have a tie to a living person.  At their simplest, these connections are what allow ancestor worship to flourish.  At their most grand, they can restrain an exaltation.  Many Abyssal charms use chains for restraint, while Albicant Sepulchre of Extinction Style involves manifesting intimacies as chains in order to break them.  The Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears in particular seems to enjoy testing the chains that bind characters to one another, relishing the snap as they fail under the pressure she applies to the weakest link.  Still, even she respects her end of the bargain when these chains hold.

Necromancies that engage with the chains that bind us might allow the caster to see one’s ties, break them, or even create new ones.  A Lover-inspired spell might involve testing one’s intimacies against each other until one breaks.

Bonus Themes

Here are a few other themes that I might explore in future games:

Truth – The certainty of death and reduction of identity to a few fetters lends itself to this theme.

Sacrifice – Necromancers get bonuses from sacrifices and power in the underworld is often contingent on sacrifice – one’s life to become undead, and one’s mind to become a specter.

Permanence – There’s a fair bit of branding in the necromancy descriptions that one could lean into, and the whole “death is permanent” thing is unavoidable.

Darkness – Exalted is a very bright setting.  The Underworld is at least dark, but even the Midnight anima banner is described as “blacker than black,” “visible in total darkness,” and “blue”.

Conclusion

I think our first look at Necromancy is exactly what it should be. The spells are thematic for Abyssal players and Storyteller antagonists alike. The Abyssals: Sworn to the Grave team did a wonderful job establishing the Underworld as a setting. This allows ample opportunity for players and future supplements to expand necromancy even further beyond its traditional domain while keeping it firmly grounded in the themes of Exalted 3rd Edition.

Missed the Indiegogo campaign for Abyssals: Sworn to the Grave? Check out the preorder store on Backerkit at https://abyssals.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders.