AAaA Brother Tom 2
The most horrible thing Brother Tom can do to you and me, personally, is to make us realize we might actually agree with him about something. Mission accomplished? Even he has standards, anyway.
You might challenge his comments here because of how berserking seems to work. There’ve been certain occasions where berserkers have kept attacking despite sustaining what seem to be mortal wounds, and they die instantly after their fit is over. “He’s already dead, he just doesn’t know it yet!” But Brother Tom seems to feel that such cases are the last flaring of life’s spark in the service of death, that still breathing means still living, and he may have a point.
Best comment, by biggmac: The neck is sexy, sensitive and makes the owner squeal when kissed or nibbled. What’s wrong with being a neck romancer?
I actually disagree with Brother Tom. It is true, that Undeath can be viewed as a blasphemy against “death”… but it is equally a defilement and corruption of “life.” However… if my years of playing DnD has taught me anything, it is that Necromancy is not limited solely to to creating undead, but of true ressurection… such as Gravedust managed in your comic, and Jesus perfomed on Lazarus, and eventually Himself, and in the long term many others… in the real world.
“Brother Tom” argues that death is sacred… and that I disagree with. Death is a part of life, no doubt, but I for one have no problem with returning something to life… Truly, not “undeath” or “unliving.” But true ressurection (or possibly reincarnation?)… doesn’t seem like a bad thing in and of itself. And given, despite Gravedust’s concerns at the time, what happens in the comic overall, I’d say my view bears out in there too.
I also disagree with Tom, but not quite for the same reasons as you.
Corporeal, sapient undead – liches, vampires, etc – are arguably a perversion of life and death, yes. (Whether the line between life and death is sacred enough to call conscious undeath itself a bad thing is a more nebulous matter, though.)
The typical results of necromancy, though – mindless zombies and skeletons – are no different than wooden machines, IMO. You’ve killed something, or found it dead, and used its body as materials to create something. It’s just a matter of different energies being used.
In the D&D setting I run in, the death gods (Hades, Thanatos, and Hermes) hate the former, but don’t have a problem with the latter. (They’re also not super happy about resurrections that don’t involve directly dealing with one of them, usually Hades, and they’ll rarely agree to a negotiated one, even.)
Tom’s mission statement has never held up for me. Tom is great at acting creepy but the his logic is circular.
Sure, in a way, mindless undead with no will/spirit of their own is using “materials” for a purpose, much like wearing leather clothes or cooking a good meal is using those same “materials” for a purpose… in a way. But then again most cultures disagree with eating humans or wearing human leather (beyond human leather being generally inferior to cow leather). Cannabilism does happen (Donner party, etc.) but usually as a last resort, but for strictly the purposes of the narrow argument, I’d agree with you on this. Which raises an interesting question (for the general audience to consider):
If such animation were doable, would it be more or less agreeable for the Donner party to have resorted to cannabalism, than to have animated the corpses (mindless, no soul capturing) to go out and gather/hunt for food?
Find out Next time, on “Ethics of Necromancy”… (Disclaimer: I am not creating a series on this.)
I should say, I’m focusing on the real world when I refer to cultures and such, clearly, there are more nuances in Guilded Age… I beleive there was a recent discussion on the wearing of Kobold Hides and eating Cracklin’s… and Bragadoccio’s (and the Land Sharks) apparent willingness to eat “enemies” regardless.
Depending on the local metaphysics even mindless undead may be harmful. Those “different energies” may be polluting, making the world a worse place. I’ve also seen variants where they *attack* mindlessly unless commanded otherwise. Throw in a small error or escape rate and suddenly it’s not such a cleancut “I’m just using bones as tools”.
Wouldn’t that be an issue regardless of whether the automation engine is made of bones or metal and stone? Like in World of Warcraft where Arcane energy can pollute areas or create crazed golems. Or in the real world; “Driverless” Cars killing people and concerns about Factories and Batteries and the like being pollutants?
In typical RPGs it’s not just ordinary arcane energy. E.g. in D&D 3.5 Animate Dead is in the necromancy school, using negative energy to create “mindless” undead — which can still perceive the environment and take verbal orders, so not that mindless — at a moderately low level, specifically out of dead people. Trying to make servitors ‘cleanly’ out of enchanted objects would be much harder; I’m pretty sure making golems isn’t 5th level (character), and animating a bunch of sticks via spell would probably be higher level, less effective, or both.
Any particular setting can be tweaked, of course; in Dark Sun casting arcane magic at all damaged the environment, while maybe in some other setting making zombies is harmless. And D&D doesn’t explicitly spell out that creating zombies is wearing away at the substance of creation the way Exalted does (or at least strongly implies.) But given the penumbra — Evil attribute of spells, the fact that other undead actually are inimical to life, the fact that you need dead people — I think it’s a very tiny houserule to declare that making undead is worse than just making simple robots. It’s easier, and that ease comes at a price.
(And on the flip side, ordinary arcane magic in D&D or other RPGs typically doesn’t have side effects like that.)
That goes for any power source, mystical or physical, though.
I read his comments as referring to the creation of zombies and other undead creatures, and I think that is something most people wouldn’t be in favour of.
If it _was_ about “proper” resurrection, then yes, I suspect Tom would be against it (because you’d steal “the gift of death” from someone), but most others wouldn’t be. But then I don’t think what Gravedust did there technically counts as Necromancy, or is seen by anyone in the GA universe as such, so I don’t think that’s what Brother Tom refers to, either.
Horseshoe theory in action. Sometimes two very different groups find common ground by pushing their respective ideologies as far apart as they deem possible. Though I suppose those who venerate life and death both have the common ground of veneration itself while necromancy seems more concerned with utility or perhaps self veneration instead of external veneration.
I just saw the hover text, and I must object!
Death before puns is not a “preference” but the only moral choice.