Necromancy (Hedge Magic)
Some things should stay buried. Chief among them: the dead. But those who follow the Path of Necromancy see things a bit differently. Like Hellfire, Necromancy has a reputation for being foul, practiced only by the worst of the worst. Unlike Hellfire, this reputation is at least somewhat deserved. Even the simplest of Necromancy spells involve forcibly bending the dead to the magician’s will, and the most powerful of them can manipulate the powers of the Shadowlands to affect the living as well.
Though methods vary wildly with practice, Necromancy always requires that the magician’s first instruments include the preserved piece of the corpse of someone they cared for, almost always a family member. This creates the link between the magician and the underworld, allowing them to become a conduit for the energies of death itself. While for mystical magicians, crafting such an instrument often feels natural, technomagicians tend to find themselves with unique, grisly objects, like keyboards with keys made of bone or computer chips with brain neurons embedded in the circuitry.
Using this Path is difficult. Not in the sense of technique — it is no more complex to use than any other Path. Rather, it takes an emotional toll on the magician. The living are not meant to channel the energies of death so directly. They feel the grief of their ancestors, back for centuries, perhaps millennia. This overwhelming despair at the loss of countless generations leads to complications, particularly for magicians who are low on Willpower. Finally, those energies cause harm to the user, and each spell or ritual causes the caster to take one level of bashing damage per level of the power being invoked, unless otherwise mentioned in the description.
