Necromancy explained, part 3

In part 1 of this series I recapped 3e necromancy. In part 2 I recapped and compared 1e/2e necromancy. 

In this post I will mention an addendum to the past two posts, recap Ian’s surviving notes for canceled US version (brief as they are), then offer my commentary and ideas for adapting Necromancy to the US version with the knowledge of the French 3rd edition.

Gaps in the French

The third edition was a really good revision of Necromancy in my opinion, but I did notice what I believe to be gaps.

The Necromancy Quest: The Gamemaster’s Screen says that every occult science has an associated quest, which is mastered when the Immortal masters the associated occult science. The Necromancer is rumored to get nine lives (like a cat!) by mastering this Quest, but no other details are given since that was being saved for later supplements. Since MultiSim went under before the supplement(s) for occult sciences could be published then we’ll never know what that entailed. No subsequent editions have picked up these threads either.

Resurrection: Where does the Return Rite get the Simulacrum from? That’s never explained. The text doesn’t explain if the rite creates a new Simulacrum or if the Necromancer must provide one.

Other targets: Could Thanatology be cast on humans and Selenim? On animals? On the dead? Would this take the form of new Rites, new Magic Techniques, or gains from the Necromancy Quest?

I'm interested in exploring this myself...

The canceled US version

The US version took liberties with the backstory of the Selenim. Chaosium's writers starting working on the Selenim before their translator had even translated the French Selenim supplement, so right from the start they diverged based on what little the rulebook had teased. Despite having no knowledge of the French, they thought the French writers were copying Vampire: The Masquerade (which had a hugely unsavory reputation among most tabletop communities at the time, and still does today) and so started with a negative impression of the Selenim already.

One key divergence was in the Chaosium backstory. After the fall of Atlantis the KaIm lost the ability to form, dissolve and reform elemental bodies. Meanwhile, the Selenim invented a new form of incarnation: permanent incarnation in one eternal body, feeding on Solar-Ka and retreating to sarcophagi in order to rejuvenate themselves. 

The published books only ever alluded to the Selenim's history, mentioning figures and traditions like the Devouring Messiah (aka Lilith) and the Blood Dynasties of Central America in passing. A couple of Selenim made cameos in Serpent Moon, but the rules for them were brief. The writers seemed to think all Selenim were loony cultists who worshiped the Black Moon, Saurians like Mu, the Devouring Messiah, and underworld deities like Mictlantecuhtli. The Major Arcana book repeatedly states that Nephilim believe Selenim to literally drink blood, when in fact they're succubae and incubi that feed on emotion.

From this limited starting point, and the translated manuscript of the French Selenim supplement, Ian Young started work on the US Selenim supplement. This would explore the Selenim from their own perspective and dispel the stereotypes believed by the Nephilim in the materials written from their perspective. Unfortunately it was canceled in 1998 before any drafts were written, but Ian did share some of his notes on his personal website in 2001 (my archive is here).

I'm just gonna quote his notes on Necromancy here:

The Selenim have only a pallid vestige of their former Ka-vision, but have developed a sort of "Black Moon-Ka hearing" commonly called the Tenebrae, with which they can "hear" the shifting of the Black Moon fields. An unusual side effect of the Tenebrae is that Selenim are able to hear the voices of the dead, and through the use of this ability have developed an occult science different from that of the Nephilim: Necromancy.

And here:

Necromancy involves two different techniques: Communion and Command. Both involve the focusing of the Tenebrae skill to listen to the voices of dead human spirits.

Communion - This is the ability to communicate with the dead. Generally speaking, the dead are eager for a good conversation. Sometimes, they are even privy to information useful to the Selenim. Likewise, often times the survivors of the deceased are eager to speak with their now-dead acquaintances and may be willing to do favors for the Selenim in exchange for establishing contact. Communion may take any of a number of forms, including speaking to skulls, augury of corpses, raising spectral forms, traditional parlor seances, etc. Communion is always a mutually voluntary relationship between the Selenim and the spirit.

Command - This is the far more nefarious application of Necromancy, and the dead aren’t so keen to participate in these activities. Command involves the invocation of the dead spirit and forcing it to the Selenim’s will. The spirit may be tortured into revealing information, or bound to haunt a certain place, forced into menacing spectral forms, or even compelled to animate its corpse. Necromancers who engage in an excess of malignant Command develop a bad reputation among the dead quite quickly, and are asking for a nasty pay-back some day.

Ian renamed Pavane to Tenebrae, and intended to expand its role. In the French it was a useless skill confined to roleplaying (at least until Le Livre Noir gave it spells in the form of songs, a book that Ian lacked access to anyway), so Ian wanted to make it more important. 

As you can see, the plan was going to divide Necromancy into the three skills of Tenebrae, Communion and Command, but these wouldn't be organized into circles as of that draft. In an old message on the mailing list, Ian said he would've kept the rules for Necromancy largely unchanged in terms of adjusting them for subtlety a la Liber Ka and was further trying to work in the symbolism of the Qlippoth. 

Besides, the Major Arcana book specified that Selenim could learn Shemmut (astral projection) and Thes (commanding people). Ian’s notes don’t mention this, for whatever reason.

My ideas...

I would probably adapt the 3e Necromancy rules largely unchanged. Right now I only have a few ideas for changes:

• Maybe condensing the Magic Techniques into one per Circle for all Occult Sciences, rather than 3e's 3-5 Techniques per Circle, but I'm still on the fence about that. It's just easier to explain that you need to master a circle by mastering the associated technique, as opposed to mastering two techniques and a third at companion, but this also throws the experience mechanic out of whack... (not that this stopped the 4th edition from condensing the techniques while retaining the same experience costs... and don't get me started on the complexity in 5th edition...)
• Integrating the Shemmut and Thes Techniques from Major Arcana, as their applications overlap somewhat with Second Circle Necromancy's The Beyond and Possession, respectively. I want to keep redundant Techniques to a minimum.
• Introduce new Thanalogy Rites that affect humans and Selenim, such as contacting and resurrecting completely decayed Solar-Ka or destroyed Selenim. 
• Inspired by the Mesoamerican alchemy from the French supplement Exils (long story short, it allowed Selenim to perform alchemy using the elemental bases in gemstones and other "condensed" manifestations of Ka), I think the powdered Litharge requirement could be substituted by powdered obsidian magically condensed from BMK. This may be created from a live Selenim... or from the ghost of a destroyed Selenim floating through the Tenebrae... The same logic could be applied to other Immortals, or mortals, by condensing motes of their Ka into minerals.
• Introduce more powerful applications of the preceding circles unbound by the usual limitations, such as switching living souls between bodies or reincarnating Selenim into new Simulacra...
• Write the Necromancy Quest. My first idea is that achieving Agartha via this quest requires dying for a ninth and final time, representing the Necromancer finally accepting the inevitability of death and realizing that it isn't an end but a new beginning. "Transient guests are we..."

And those are my musing so far. Maybe more detailed rules will be saved for a later post on a detailed Necromancy system. Hope you enjoyed!