Leadership for the Modern Necromancer

Necromancers are depicted as leading vast armies of the undead, or having extensive lairs filled with their minions. But RPGs rarely provide powers that actually grant control over such armies - a handful of competent soldiers, a mob of lackeys, or just one or two powerful undead beasts is the limit. So how does one go about commanding an undead force to be reckoned with?

Fiction from the Warhammer setting to Garth Nix's Old Kingdom series, the Zothique world of Clark Ashton Smith, Army of Darkness, the priests of the Mummy films, etc. etc. loves to depict a Lord of the Undead commanding a legion of tireless undead warriors that sweep over the world of the living. And who doesn't? Frankly, an unstoppable legion of the damned is cool and I am 100% pro. I welcome our new undead overlords. If anything, I expect workers' rights to improve.

From the point of view of a roleplaying universe, though, it's rarely clear how these things would mechanically work. That's partly because RPGs (in my limited experience) tend to be more concerned with the small-scale, and less with having the power to command armies. Moreover, games are often keen to prevent people from amassing a legion of undead minions who sweep all before them. For one thing, it's tedious (especially if you're one of the other players standing on the sidelines while all this goes on); nobody wants to be the BMX Bandit of the dark army. It's also often fiddly and time-consuming to wrangle even a small number of familiars, animal companions, robot bodyguards, summoned monsters, etc.; allowing a PC to drag along hundreds or thousands of mooks would be unbearable.

When the necromancer is an antagonist, this is rarely an issue. This sort of thing is what GMs are for, after all. The army of the undead obeys the dread necromancer because that's their whole deal, like. If they didn't, there wouldn't be an undead army in the first place and it wouldn't have arisen as an issue for the PCs to care about. Providing the setting lore doesn't proclaim that undead armies are impossible, the fact that there's no way to mechanically make it happen is rarely a major concern.

But let's think about some of the ways you could make this work from a narrative perspective, without overriding the game mechanics too rampantly.

Can you actually do it?

Let's be clear at the outset that I'm not saying every single game makes it physically impossible to rule over an army of the restless dead. D&D derivatives tend to have a cap of a few HD of undead, but they're not the only game out there. In GURPS, for about 180 points, you can lead an ever-present army of 100,000 loyal deathless warriors, though they'll be relatively weak individually. There are few situations where you actually need 100,000 soldiers with you, but they'll be there.

...for you,
cos you're there for me tooooooooooo....

In the situations where all those undead are useful, you can use them to the full. Necromancers are often uncreative about these possibilities. 100,000 skeletons are great for envelope-stuffing operations, bucket chains, litter-picking, reforesting, and countless other benevolent activities. No need for moving vans when 100,000 bony mates will help you cart all the furniture across town! They're also superb at bulking up protests, with the added bonus that if some Murdoch-radicalized sociopath tries to plough into them, he will quickly regret it. On the other hand, they are of limited use in a phone bank.

In Champions you can summon however many CP of creatures you've paid for with the Summon power, though it's designed for short-term use - the rolls to maintain control become increasingly difficult over time. Alternatively, you could stat up any number of powers that are flavoured as an undead army - area damage, difficult terrain, fearsome presences, ablative hit points, and so on. This latter option is likely more suitable for many of the ways you'd want to use the ability. After all, an undead army is less likely to be engaged in complex psychological interactions with opposing forces, or trying to build rapport with the local civilians, or negotiating for supplies - they're probably just a big bony stick for you to beat adversaries with.

Pyramids - Not Just For Mummies

If you can't simply command your numberless legion of the grave, what other options are there? Actually, even if you can, it isn't necessarily the optimal choice. Do you really want the thankless work of individually instructing 100,000 revenants? That's not how the modern necromancer gets things done. What you need is delegation.

This is the classic management model. You directly command X powerful undead beings, which each control Y slightly-less-powerful undead, and so on and so forth. Your vampire generals or mummy consorts take command of a legion (or department, or province) wherein they lead a team of ghoul-princesses or wight-ministers, each of whom has their own people. Depending on the means of command, loyalty may be an issue: do you control your generals, or do they worship you? Are they sworn to you in undying loyalty, or just bound hatefully to your commands? Do they yearn for the silence of the unsullied grave / vengeance upon the one who has called them up into serviture / your heart their slavering maws?

Systems and GMs will vary on whether this is possible. In many cases, whether an army is directly bound to your own commands or has an org chart is simply a decision, neither option being more advantageous than the other. If those underlings might turn on you, or at least undermine your intentions, things change.

In GURPS, you'd build this by giving yourself allies who each have their own underlings; there might be many layers to this, depending how loyal each tier of underlings is. For example, Ned the Necromancer has Ally Group (10 Ghoul Generals), who each have Ally Group (10 Ghoul Colonels), who each have Ally Group (10 Ghoul Lieutenants), who lead a horde of 100 undead minions apiece. Prices will vary with exact details, but having each tier on call ~75% of the time can be done for about 90 points - and the Ghoul template (from GURPS Horror) is an expensive one to start with. This gives our necromancer room to purchase the various spells, powers, and other abilities he'll need to survive being a necromancer, which is generally a pretty hazardous profession. It can be done even more cheaply if the undead are Unwilling (a 50% discount), but this is impractical if they're intended for use in hazardous situations, since they're liable to rebel and simply walk off your character sheet taking the points with them. On the other hand, many things are hazardous for the living but not the dead, so you might be able to get away with quite a lot.

In Pathfinder and the like, this is pretty straightforward. You simply command X HD-worth of undead, making sure to select those who can themselves command lesser undead. Providing you do maintain this control - either by making your own undead who are controlled by default, or by renewing your spells regularly - you'll have an army under your sway. GMs will vary in how much they are willing to tolerate here. Balance and action economy is very much an issue, but more importantly, "pet" PCs tend to take up a phenomenal amount of time and the other players will get bored waiting for their turn. Better to leave your legion running the castle and protecting the town while you go off adventuring.

Undying Loyalty

Ironclad rule is one thing, but have you considered simply earning your undead minions' trust? A strategy built on persuasion is more complex and time-consuming than command. On the other hand, if your subjects are truly convinced in their unbeating hearts that they support you, your leadership is far more robust than one reliant on necromancy alone.

The challenge of implementing this in a roleplaying game is that it's entirely reliant on the campaign setting and the GM. True, so is "can I have a legion of the undead", which is less likely in, say, a Star Trek pastiche. However, recruiting undead supporters requires an abundant supply of sentient, reasonably sympathetic undead who are amenable to your ideas and able to work together. This isn't something every setting can supply, and it can be a lot of work for the GM. It may also demand a lot of time and attention that needs to be split with the rest of the group.

For an NPC, of course, the metagame considerations are much reduced. If the necromancer has formed a diplomatic alliance of undead, that's a decision the GM can make offstage and without taking up session time. It can also be a nice shock for the players when they strike down the necromancer, only to find the "minions" don't crumble to dust, were entirely on board with her ideas, and now regard her as a martyr.

Undead often have extremely specific priorities and worldviews, so how viable this is will depend on what the necromancer actually wants and what they're willing to offer. A ghoul will generally want opportunities to consume human corpses, while mummies traditionally just want to rest in peace and avenge themselves on anyone who disturbs them. Persuading these two to work together may be challenging. The campaign philosophy of how undead work and what they want will be important here. Are they trapped in a tiny loop of behaviours and impossible to reason with, or do they retain the same degree of cunning and wisdom as their living counterparts?

In some settings and rulesets, undead are resistant or immune to various forms of manipulation. D&D-derived games often make them immune to mind-affecting magic, and sometimes to social skills. This isn't always a good match for folklore, where tricking carrion-eaters and persuading ghosts to abandon their hauntings crop up fairly often. GURPS requires the Spirit Empathy advantage to have your social skills work against "spirits", whose exact definition varies with the setting - ghosts generally qualify, while skeletons probably don't. The wise necromancer reads up on these rules and takes care to find ways around them if relying on mechanical persuasion.

Aligning Goals: Envisioning a Necromancy of Mutual Benefit

You don't necessarily need to be in charge to work together. Cooperation and alliance is often just as good. If the mummy of Akhothamun seeks revenge on the British expedition who pillaged her tomb, and you want to conquer England, you might agree to secretly ship Akhothamun and her servants to London and launch an attack during the opening of the exhibition.

At a more local level, a necromancer might make arrangements with the neighbourhood vampire. When her planning application for a gothic citadel faces opposition, she can provide names and addresses of the local NIMBYs to her exsanguinating ally (such a shame that Lucinda had to abandon her campaigning on health grounds!).

A goal-alignment necromancy has the advantage that it neither relies on raw magical power, nor on an ironclad authority; comrades cooperate because it is in their interest to do so, and one need not worry that they are simply awaiting a moment of weakness to commit their betrayals. The disadvantage is that it requires diplomatic skills, the ability to understand others' goals, and the critical thinking to reason through the situation before trying to strike a deal. These are not traditionally a major part of the necromantic skillset - many enter the field precisely because they aren't terribly good at talking to other living creatures or lack the common sense to avoid a career traditionally plagued by graverobbing accusations and the risk of torch-wielding mobs.

Moreover, this approach requires a ready pool of undead who are reasonable. Note that their objectives may be wildly unfair, cruel, unjust, insane, or pointless, without causing any particular problem - but they must be able and willing to have a sensible discussion with our necromancer, explain what they want, listen to what she wants, and reach an agreement to cooperate. Alas, many undead are either monomaniacal to the point of being unable to have a conversation, cannibalistically feral and inclined to eat your face at the first encounter, or lack any kind of sentience at all.

Many games offer abilities that allow one to converse more freely with the undead. GURPS has Medium (for speaking with spirits) and Spirit Empathy (for understanding them), as well as the spells of the College of Necromancy. The Omnilingual advantage (perhaps with suitable modifiers) can allow speech with undead of any type, while the Brotherhood perk can prevent spontaneous violence from one type of undead. D&D-derived games generally have a Speak With Dead equivalent, though how usable this is with the undead is another question. Some have an undead-specific language, such as Pathfinder's Necril.

Applied Necroethology

Finally, if the local undead can't be reasoned with, the necromancer can do worse than engage in some field studies. With a sufficient understanding of how a particular undead behaves, she can plan her activities in such a way as to exploit them like a natural phenomenon. Much as a river guards against approaching armies, so does a field where skeletal warriors spontaneously arise to do undying battle. A banshee that shrieks to deadly effect when anyone encroaches upon her domain is a useful alarm against intrusion. A ghost who tolls a great bell ceaselessly between dusk and dawn may not notice if a small mechanism is attached to the bell-rope, allowing his otherwise pointless toil to pump fresh water from a deep well or wind up a clock.

With luck and careful choice of venue, a necromancer can acquire a reputation for commanding a vast retinue of potent undead creatures, while actually living in a small cottage in a haunted wood with a reanimated kitten.

Consider boosting skills that offer insight into the behaviour and motivations of the deceased. These vary widely from game to game, and even between campaigns, depending on the setting assumptions. God-heavy games tend towards religious learning, while others favour folklore, magic, or a unique skill representing knowledge of the undead. Can't really give much advice there.