Halfling Necromancer [Archive] - Wizards Community

Halfling Necromancer [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Jastra of the clawed hand
03-04-06, 07:35 AM My next character is probably going to be a necromancer (Dread Necro from Heroes of Horror). While I like necromancy, I decided to take on a different approach...by creating a halfling necromancer. Basically, he is evil (probably NE), but with a good side to him ( an antihero, so to speak, ending up doing the right thing even though he does not care about others ( or pretends not to). An while I want to create a potent necromancer, I also want him to be tied closely to the typical halfling archetype. What I still need is a valid background ( FR) and some tips regarding his behavious, his manners, fitting quotes etc. Maybe some of you can help me out by giving me some hints etc. about what would be appropriate.
Thindelock
03-04-06, 11:36 AM First of all, I don't know FR well at all, so setting-specific ideas are beyond me.

As I understand it, typical Halfling behavior usually involves gypsy-esque nomadic wagon caravans. Families/larger groups stick close. Finally, it seems to me that the reason they get the "pickpocket/thief" archetype affixed to them is that they're willing to do ethically (and sometimes morally) questionable things for the health, wealth, and well-being of their Halfling community. If stealing from a dwarf paladin while he's shopping means your extended family will be better off, the archetypical Halfling steals from the paladin.

So, extend these concepts. Options include:

1) Your caravan made the mistake of conning the wrong man one day when you were a kid. The human looked like a regular traveller, and your people had no way of knowing he was a necromancer. Your mom manages to lift a beltpouch off of him while he's preoccupied talking to the elder/leader of the caravan, and it's not until after he leaves that your group realized it wasn't a coinpurse per se. A simple mistake since there were coins in there... lead coins... but this was a material component bag. And there's a ring in it. About a day later, good sir necromancer comes back and proceeds to wreck your caravan, torturing and murdering your family and friends, turning them into zombies before your eyes and demanding the return of his ring. In the early moments of the scuffle, your parents shove you under one of the wagons and tell you to stay quiet. Eventually, the necromancer finds his ring and departs with a platoon of fresh halfling zombie-soldiers. You crawl out, and eke out a living with the last few survivors of your caravan. You swore to avenge this act... and to carry out revenge, one needs power... and, well, you just saw a pretty obvious display of power... thus do you persue necromantic training and dedicate yourself to doing right by halflings. Your main goal, however, is revenge.

2) You never realized your caravan was strange. Avoiding elven communities never seemed odd to you, because they were evil. Mommy said so, and the elder said Yondalla agreed. Trading with drow was scary, but that's just one of the risks... you learned to like the caves. And all those other halflings not part of your caravan wouldn't like the way you had zombies rather than horses pull your wagons... they were too closed-minded, that's what your daddy said. This sort of warped, fairly isolated upbringing could lead to an equally warped sense of morality, which could accomodate necromantic training and an odd sense of right-and-wrong that may suit your antihero leanings... you're not out to do evil, you just don't know there's anything wrong with what you do and you've been instilled with an elitist attitude against anyone who judges your necromantic profession harshly.

3) You don't remember your mom, dad, or the rest of your family very clearly. Life as a slave to kobolds does that to you. You never really grew up as a halfling... kobold society is all you know very well. You mined, living in fear of the kobold masters, who in turn feared their necromancer leader (probably really a Sorcerer, but using a lot of necromancy). Finally, some adventurers help you and the other slaves escape. All you know is rule by fear, and that you'd rather rule than be ruled, and the ruler used necromancy. Now, you're adventuring to master necromancy yourself and to try to reclaim your lost ties to your halfling heritage. (of course, any other savage slaving race would work, kobold's just what I thought of first).

I hope this helps at least a little. Let me know how you decide to go, I'm always curious about unique necromancer concepts.
Jastra of the clawed hand
03-06-06, 03:23 AM Nice ideas, thanks a lot...anyone else got some tips?
Setherial
03-06-06, 09:25 AM I don't get the power hungry part, I was under the impression necromancers didn't care much for power. They are loners, they live away from society because they are not accepted, their quest is one to find eternal life and to get there they study old books and forbidden lore and dabble in arts most find distastefull at best.
Haflings are easy going, cheerfull folk often chaotic tricksters as well. Thieves, acrobats, conartists...

I'd say our fella is somewhat of an outcast, maybe a traumathic event caused him to fear death more then most. He turns to books and forbidden works that contain knowledge about how to cheat death but as his fascination grows so does his seclusion and alienation. He is forced to keep to himself, to work in secret + his studies take up most of his time so his social skills dissipate.
Now the reason why he adventures, that is somewhat harder to explain as it takes a lot of time away from his studies and forces him back into society making it harder to practise his forbidden art. Try to work this out with your DM but the easiest way to justify adventuring is to quest for more books, hidden knowledge, dark artifacts and relics of forbidden gods. Joining a few companions will gain you protection but you have to be carefull, they might not appreciate your nature, share your vision. Roleplay this excentric social outcast, think of some quircks, keep to yourself a lot and try to hide stuff from the others. Deny at all cost that you are a necromancer, tell them you are a scolar, a healer, even a fighter (that would be hilarious)...

already sounds fun to me :)
Jastra of the clawed hand
03-06-06, 09:46 AM Thanks for your input...he currently poses as a wandering healer and cleric of Mystra (Goddess of Magic)...btw, the job of a healer seems to be quite fitting for a necromancer...you already know a lot about death, illness etc., you can manipulate negative and positive energy (for me, healing is still necromancy just as it should be!)...and you can scout out the next potential "material"....
Setherial
03-07-06, 02:13 AM Thanks for your input...he currently poses as a wandering healer and cleric of Mystra (Goddess of Magic)...btw, the job of a healer seems to be quite fitting for a necromancer...you already know a lot about death, illness etc., you can manipulate negative and positive energy (for me, healing is still necromancy just as it should be!)...and you can scout out the next potential "material"....

Ofcourse Necromancers make good healers, a necromancer is not necessariliy someone who raises corpses (actually it is quite cool in roleplaying terms to play a necromancer who is utterly against the raising of corpses), he is a student of life and death. If you look at some great d20 products like Secret college of Necromancy by Green Ronin Publishing or Enceclopaedia Arcana: Necromancy by Mongoose Publishing you'll find both great spells and fluff about organisations of healers that study necromancy because they believe they should learn about death in order to understand about death, decay and disease so they can treat it.
Jastra of the clawed hand
03-07-06, 03:14 AM I have checked these out already and indeed, both works are great. My necromancer is a fusion of the dread necromancer (Heroes of Horror) and the necromancer base class from Secret College....;)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Jastra of the clawed hand 03-04-06, 07:35 AM	My next character is probably going to be a necromancer (Dread Necro from Heroes of Horror). While I like necromancy, I decided to take on a different approach...by creating a halfling necromancer. Basically, he is evil (probably NE), but with a good side to him ( an antihero, so to speak, ending up doing the right thing even though he does not care about others ( or pretends not to). An while I want to create a potent necromancer, I also want him to be tied closely to the typical halfling archetype. What I still need is a valid background ( FR) and some tips regarding his behavious, his manners, fitting quotes etc. Maybe some of you can help me out by giving me some hints etc. about what would be appropriate.
Thindelock 03-04-06, 11:36 AM	First of all, I don't know FR well at all, so setting-specific ideas are beyond me. As I understand it, typical Halfling behavior usually involves gypsy-esque nomadic wagon caravans. Families/larger groups stick close. Finally, it seems to me that the reason they get the "pickpocket/thief" archetype affixed to them is that they're willing to do ethically (and sometimes morally) questionable things for the health, wealth, and well-being of their Halfling community. If stealing from a dwarf paladin while he's shopping means your extended family will be better off, the archetypical Halfling steals from the paladin. So, extend these concepts. Options include: 1) Your caravan made the mistake of conning the wrong man one day when you were a kid. The human looked like a regular traveller, and your people had no way of knowing he was a necromancer. Your mom manages to lift a beltpouch off of him while he's preoccupied talking to the elder/leader of the caravan, and it's not until after he leaves that your group realized it wasn't a coinpurse per se. A simple mistake since there were coins in there... lead coins... but this was a material component bag. And there's a ring in it. About a day later, good sir necromancer comes back and proceeds to wreck your caravan, torturing and murdering your family and friends, turning them into zombies before your eyes and demanding the return of his ring. In the early moments of the scuffle, your parents shove you under one of the wagons and tell you to stay quiet. Eventually, the necromancer finds his ring and departs with a platoon of fresh halfling zombie-soldiers. You crawl out, and eke out a living with the last few survivors of your caravan. You swore to avenge this act... and to carry out revenge, one needs power... and, well, you just saw a pretty obvious display of power... thus do you persue necromantic training and dedicate yourself to doing right by halflings. Your main goal, however, is revenge. 2) You never realized your caravan was strange. Avoiding elven communities never seemed odd to you, because they were evil. Mommy said so, and the elder said Yondalla agreed. Trading with drow was scary, but that's just one of the risks... you learned to like the caves. And all those other halflings not part of your caravan wouldn't like the way you had zombies rather than horses pull your wagons... they were too closed-minded, that's what your daddy said. This sort of warped, fairly isolated upbringing could lead to an equally warped sense of morality, which could accomodate necromantic training and an odd sense of right-and-wrong that may suit your antihero leanings... you're not out to do evil, you just don't know there's anything wrong with what you do and you've been instilled with an elitist attitude against anyone who judges your necromantic profession harshly. 3) You don't remember your mom, dad, or the rest of your family very clearly. Life as a slave to kobolds does that to you. You never really grew up as a halfling... kobold society is all you know very well. You mined, living in fear of the kobold masters, who in turn feared their necromancer leader (probably really a Sorcerer, but using a lot of necromancy). Finally, some adventurers help you and the other slaves escape. All you know is rule by fear, and that you'd rather rule than be ruled, and the ruler used necromancy. Now, you're adventuring to master necromancy yourself and to try to reclaim your lost ties to your halfling heritage. (of course, any other savage slaving race would work, kobold's just what I thought of first). I hope this helps at least a little. Let me know how you decide to go, I'm always curious about unique necromancer concepts.
Jastra of the clawed hand 03-06-06, 03:23 AM	Nice ideas, thanks a lot...anyone else got some tips?
Setherial 03-06-06, 09:25 AM	I don't get the power hungry part, I was under the impression necromancers didn't care much for power. They are loners, they live away from society because they are not accepted, their quest is one to find eternal life and to get there they study old books and forbidden lore and dabble in arts most find distastefull at best. Haflings are easy going, cheerfull folk often chaotic tricksters as well. Thieves, acrobats, conartists... I'd say our fella is somewhat of an outcast, maybe a traumathic event caused him to fear death more then most. He turns to books and forbidden works that contain knowledge about how to cheat death but as his fascination grows so does his seclusion and alienation. He is forced to keep to himself, to work in secret + his studies take up most of his time so his social skills dissipate. Now the reason why he adventures, that is somewhat harder to explain as it takes a lot of time away from his studies and forces him back into society making it harder to practise his forbidden art. Try to work this out with your DM but the easiest way to justify adventuring is to quest for more books, hidden knowledge, dark artifacts and relics of forbidden gods. Joining a few companions will gain you protection but you have to be carefull, they might not appreciate your nature, share your vision. Roleplay this excentric social outcast, think of some quircks, keep to yourself a lot and try to hide stuff from the others. Deny at all cost that you are a necromancer, tell them you are a scolar, a healer, even a fighter (that would be hilarious)... already sounds fun to me :)
Jastra of the clawed hand 03-06-06, 09:46 AM	Thanks for your input...he currently poses as a wandering healer and cleric of Mystra (Goddess of Magic)...btw, the job of a healer seems to be quite fitting for a necromancer...you already know a lot about death, illness etc., you can manipulate negative and positive energy (for me, healing is still necromancy just as it should be!)...and you can scout out the next potential "material"....
Setherial 03-07-06, 02:13 AM	Thanks for your input...he currently poses as a wandering healer and cleric of Mystra (Goddess of Magic)...btw, the job of a healer seems to be quite fitting for a necromancer...you already know a lot about death, illness etc., you can manipulate negative and positive energy (for me, healing is still necromancy just as it should be!)...and you can scout out the next potential "material".... Ofcourse Necromancers make good healers, a necromancer is not necessariliy someone who raises corpses (actually it is quite cool in roleplaying terms to play a necromancer who is utterly against the raising of corpses), he is a student of life and death. If you look at some great d20 products like Secret college of Necromancy by Green Ronin Publishing or Enceclopaedia Arcana: Necromancy by Mongoose Publishing you'll find both great spells and fluff about organisations of healers that study necromancy because they believe they should learn about death in order to understand about death, decay and disease so they can treat it.
Jastra of the clawed hand 03-07-06, 03:14 AM	I have checked these out already and indeed, both works are great. My necromancer is a fusion of the dread necromancer (Heroes of Horror) and the necromancer base class from Secret College....;)