Dragaera

Sethra's House, the Necromancer (sans spoilers)

David Silberstein davids at kithrup.com
Sat Nov 8 17:57:27 PST 2003

On Sat, 8 Nov 2003, Caliann the Elf wrote:

>yaga at berkano.pair.com wrote:
>
>>I don't know if this has been mentioned, (I wouldn't be surprised if
>>it had and I've merely forgotten...) but I'm wondering; if someone
>>is unrevivifiable, they still get the Deathgate Special, descend to
>>the Paths, and are eligible for re-incarnation, yes?
>
>>So...couldn't _any_ necromancer contact ye olde dead while still
>>among the Paths and asked who killed them?
>
>
>*******  No.  Morganti weapons "eat" or "destroy" the soul.  The
>essense of that being it then lost.  Now whether there is some way
>to get them out of the weapon after that....

I believe you misunderstood the term "unrevivifiable", which, while it
*can* mean "killed with a Morganti weapon", more typically means
"killed in such a way that the brain is damaged or the spinal cord is
severed" or, alternatively, "killed, and the corpse inflicted with a 
sorcerous spell to prevent revivification".  Such persons are indeed
permanently dead, but their souls presumably go to whereever it is the
souls of dead people go.


That being said, I think it highly unlikely that said souls can be
subpoened into murder investigations, since then assassins would
*only* be able to either "work" once or only "work" Morganti.

[Spoilers for /Lord of Castle Black/]














I note that in LoCB, what the Necromancer does is to re-animate all of
the enemy corpses on the battlefield, rather than re-insert their
souls (which would be true revivification as we see in the Vlad
novels).  I would guess that what she is doing is manipulating the
life-states of the bodies, raising them to the level of brute animal
life, and then directing their actions. 

But then, we may not have seen the limit of what the Necromancer can
do.  Perhaps she, of all necromancers, *could* contact souls who have 
Moved On.