Necromancy, or Death Magic, is the colloquial term used for one of the eight spheres of magic made available to some users of a Silvergate.
It uses a specific vital stat, Death Residue, labeled as just “Death” on the Interface. As with all magic, the stat is not visible until you obtain a Skill that uses it.
The classical view of a Necromancer is someone who needs lots of death to perform adequately due to their regeneration mechanics. Necromancers are typically relatively stingy in their Skill use, particularly on long and protracted engagements or dungeon dives.
Necromantic Skills are typically associated with Strength, Resilience, Fortitude, and Presence; few Skills are found outside those stats. It is heavily oriented toward debuffs, debilitating effects, and draining vitals into their own pool. Contrary to popular cultural expectations from Earth, necromancers typically do not summon the dead or otherwise. The only Skill known to do that is rare despite a low tier, strictly temporary, and particularly unwieldy.
The specific “flavor” of Necromancy comes from its regeneration mechanics. Like its common counterpart, Druidic or “life” magic, which shares the same stats, it has a very low regeneration rate.
Its Vital cap is relatively high and front-loaded:
Vital cap = 500 + Level×5 + Presence×3 + Resilience×3 + Strength×3 + Fortitude
However, the recovery rate of expended Death Residue is low:
Rate = (Intuition / 2000) per second
Whenever a Gater obtains a Skill that uses Death Residue, the next Skill in the lottery is invariable:
Consume Dead
Tier 2 Presence
Action
The Dead feed the Living. In multiple ways.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Draw Death Residue from defeated enemies.
Death Residue: enemy rank+(skill)
The use of this Skill instantly recovers an amount of vital equal to the sum of the rank of the dead Northworld creature and the current skill level of the Necromancer. It is never obtained first in the lottery, nor during Setup, and has never been found on a Skill Stone, so it is unknown if it does, in fact, unlock the vital.
The Skill cannot affect a Silvergater and, obviously, has never been used on an earth animal. It strictly applies to entities that have ranks, not levels. Entities that do not leave a corpse, like most Umbra, cannot be drained.
Any Skill or piece of gear that affects Intuition will increase the regeneration rate, but to not much effect. There is a specific Meditation skill that can be used to improve that significantly:
Meditation on Death
Tier 4 Fortitude
Action
Death is everywhere, including in yourself. Know it, and live by it.
Death energy recharges at an accelerated rate while you are meditating. You gain a bonus to your Death skills for a short time. Meditation is interrupted if you move or take an action.
Maximum meditation period: (skill) sec
Cooldown: (600×0.99skill) sec
Death recovery: (level/100) per second
Bonus skill: +1.01skill to all Death skills for (10×1.01skill) sec
Other, more generic Meditations also greatly increase your regeneration rates for Power, but all Meditation skills are incredibly rare (see “Fanduk”).
Typical Necromancer skills:
Desecrate (tier 5 Presence): temporarily raises a dead enemy.
Decay Strength (tier 4 Strength): Strength debuff.
Drain Life (tier 3 Presence): health drain.
Sense Life and Death (tier 2 Perception - rare): accurately detects rank, level information, and death status.
Foretold Demise (tier 1 Intuition - rare): access full vitals and stats of any enemy, living or dead.
----------------------------------------
Special section on Locational Interference – Project Cartographers Eyes-Only
This section contains only highly speculative information and is not considered accurate. It is intended to serve as a discussion board for Cartographers involved in the Build Map project, not as a reference.
One current hypothesis for Necromantic locational interference is that such interference is highly temporary and not tied to any specific location.
Based on common superstitions among the Necromancer community that “it’s always better to run the lottery after winning,” that interference mechanic being suggested is:
Interference happens by proximity to an enemy corpse that has not yet been drained of its Death Residue and had a Necromantic skill that the Gater does not have yet.
Source: Discussion on Azrael Abode, an Earth website dedicated to necromantic magic
Satsuriku: Anyone got robbed on Death Residue? I’m sure I was the only Necro on our guild raid, and we’d just finished clearing this large room. I had invested my points first thing into the lottery (got shit, Desecrate, yay me), and two of the corpses of the Lesser Elite guards gave me nothing when I got to them.
Psychosuck: Decay happens. Be faster. At least you have a new necro skill. I never get good skills from battles.
Malakul: You’re sure no one else is a Necromancer? You may have a secret one in your Guild.
YamaOne: Maybe you had a boss with drains. Were you fighting Pumilus? Pumilus Umbra Elites often have necro, and they will not hesitate to drain their fallen comrades.