Night's Pawns: Mechanics -- Necromancer Character Creation

Night's Pawns: Necromancy For Shadowrun

The Birth Of Death

[Making Necromancer Characters]

UNlike Blood Magics, Necromancy IS open to PC's as well as NPCs, BUT with some heavy restrictions and the caveat that while it may be ALLOWED, it is NOT recommended. The Dead aren't QUITE so destructive as Insect or Toxic Totems, but interacting with them does carry enough drawbacks to balance their added power that Players should think long and hard before deciding to play one. It should be noted that those drawbacks are an ESSENTIAL part of a Necromancers nature, not merely means of grubbing points: if you aren't accurately reflecting the WHOLE nature of the Character, you AREN'T playing the character properly; and you shouldn't PLAY a character type if you aren't willing to REALLY play it. End of sermon.

The first restriction is, perhaps, the largest -- it's a HEAVY point hit. Starting Characters MUST use the Shadowrun Companion's point system (or take 15 pts worth of Flaws, or 15 Skill points worth of allergies, which you can't do unless the GM bends the rules a bit) and spend a total of 35 Build Points (this amount includes either full mage or adepthood of some sort... Necromancers MUST be FULLY Awakened to BECOME Necromancers... thus PhysAd's cannot be Necromancers. Physical Mage's CAN, but MUST purchase Astral Sight as an Adept Power before gaining ANY Necromantic skills or spell-casting ability). Another option might be for the GM to allow a human character to begin play with BOTH A AND C picks going toward Magic. NOTE PLEASE: This portion of the system is as-yet un-play-tested, so take care, and take notes to send along to me, so I can fine tune this. :-) Characters who wish to learn Necromantic magics after creation must spend a full 45 karma JUST for the ability to develop ANY Necromantic Skills.

All spell casting, research, and conjuring are conducted by any necromancer exactly as normal for their non-necromantic tradition, with the exception that ONLY Equivalent-Tradition NECROMANCERS count as being of the "same" tradition for any situation where being of the same/different Traditions is relevant. This means that Hermetic Necromancers use Hermetic Circles, and mega-nuyen and casting time for summoning spirits of the Dead, while Shamans can generally manage with a loud call backed by ectoplasm and the necromantic spell requirements. Such is life...

The Shadowed Paths

[Tradition-Specific Necromancy Restrictions]

The second balancing factor is that while any TRADITION can develop Necromantic Magics, there are, indeed, some restrictions and game-effects that vary by Tradition --

Shamanic Necromancers: MUST follow a Scavenger or Death Portent Totem. Examples would include Jackal, Hyena, Rat, Owl, Vulture, Wolverine, Wendigo (NOT a PC totem), etc. Plant Totems (cf) able to accept necromantic followers would include Cyprus, Thorn, Willow, Peyote, Elder, and of course the Fungal Totems.
Voudoun Necromancers: MUST have Ghede/Samedi as their Maite Tete. The other Loa do NOT accept followers who owe the fealty required by necromancers to the Lord of Graves. A necromantic Voudois CAN have PACTS with the other Loa (though at +2 Tgt#'s), but only the Children of Samedi truly have the Gift to deal with the Dead. Optionally, the GM can allow Voudois whose Mait Tete is Maitre Carrefour and whose First Pact is with Samedi to become necromancers as well, but it should be noted that such Necromancers can have NO other contacts among the Loa, being universally distrusted.
Druidic Necromancers: It is VERY rare to find skilled masters of the Dead among these priests of the cycles of the Earth's life. Such wizards are generally outcasts among their own kind (unless they maintain their Druidic Magical skills and Initiation Grade at DOUBLE the level of Necrosis Rating, thus demonstrating a proper balance). This means NO access to Initiatory groups, Circles, etc. And in fact, most "normal" Shamanic Druids (and even some Hermetic Druids) consider Necromancers of any stripe to be an abomination best removed from the living lands into the lands of death they're tainted with. That being the case, it must be noted that Druidic Necromancers must follow Sea, Moon, or (hm... help me here... if someone could get me the list of Druidic Totems, I'd appreciate it. Totemic details on the Wild-Hunt-as-Totem/Idol could be handy too, as the Hunter is CERTAINLY Death-oriented enough not to reject a Necromantic follower).
Hermetic Necromancers: In some ways, Hermetics seem to be better off than their Shamanic counterparts, as they don't have a Totem "tsk, tsking" in disapproval over their shoulders as they walk the Paths Of The Dead. And they gain the ability to conjure Spirits no other Hermetic has any hope of accessing, including oracular and divinatory spirits of great power... On the downside, Necromantic mastery seriously limits the ability of a Hermetic Mage to keep Elemental Spirits on call, as his affinity with entropy and chaos drastically shortens the duration of normal Elementals services. Also, due to a Hermetic Mages lack of strong Connections to the Paths Of Life, they add a +2 to the effect of their Necrosis Rating for all purposes.

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