Inspired by this thread but did not want to derail that.
Can someone explain how Light necromancy works?
It’s been ages since Calia and I don’t remember the exact circumstances around her rebirth (if they were shown in the game even?). And even then, wasn’t the nature of her resurrection into undeath a one-off/special circumstance?
I agree with Kagehiro’s take here for the most part:
But I may be more amenable to the idea of Light necromancy if I gain a better understanding of it.
I’ll also take this occasion to ask if anything changes about Sir Zeliek with this new lore? I like he retains a pretty significant aspect of his original personality, resisting undeath and calling upon the light, but it hurts him too doesnt it? How does modern Light necromancy line up versus his condition?
Yes the light still hurts undead, Calia was ressurected in the novel before the storm by anduin and a naaru. We don’t really know how they did it, but what hurts an undead is decided by the magic that raised them, Undead raised by the scourge are still hurt by it even if they use, So zeliek, foal and others who use the light are in immense pain using it.
Nathrezim angered the Light into attacking Revendreth.
Revendreth’s Death Magic now is harmed by Light. As such Demons(mostly born from the Fel originating from the Nathrezim-corrupted Mardum infecting Sargeras and his followers) and Nathrezim-Death Magic-based Undead are harmed by Light.
Revendreth’s Death Magic also feels pain in the presence of Fel which means the Nathrezim may have gained a resistance to Light by ingesting the Fel to become early artificial Demons which is why they can walk inside the Ember Ward disguised as Dredgers despite the Pain.
Pain from Fel is probably not that different from the Pain from the Light so the Nathrezim gain a benefit that Venthyr don’t have.
The Light not only inflicts pain and ravages the Venthyr’s Body but actively tries to possess the Venthyr(as shown by the Setting Sabina Free Quest) with the desire to burn everything in Light.
Maldraxxi Undead, Night Fae and Kyrian can waltz into the Ember Ward just fine without harm due to not being tainted with Revendreth’s Death Magic.
Its using positive energy, the Light to animate a dead corpose instead of what is usually used which can be Shadow, Fel, or even Void. It’s the closest thing to lore-based resurrection that exists.
It’s even been a thing in Dungeons and Dragons, known as postivie -charged undead which come in several variations.
It was the light’s will through 3 powerful holy users (a naaru, anduin, and foal) to fully ressurect calia, notbmake her undead.
It was Calia’s will that somehow overpowered the light’s will that choise and forced the kagic into making her undead, as stated in the novel.
It took extreme amount of holy magic for it to even be possible to perform “holy necromancy”
Full ressurection into life by light magic does happen in lore, an example of this is in Tirion Fordring’s lore though i don’t remember the exact details of it atm.
If I’m understanding this correctly - Necromancy is not a type of magic but merely something that any form of magic can do. The forces that I know we’ve seen reanimate the dead are Death, Shadow, Light, and debatably Order and Disorder.
For Order, I’d argue Aegwynn’s resurrection of Medivh and the stuff Odyn does to the souls of dead warriors in the Halls of Valor.
For Disorder, look to the Mannoroth fight in Hellfire Citadel, where they are literally reanimating his corpse and we fight what is essentially an undead pit lord.
Now as for why the Light doesn’t appear to inherently oppose all forms of Undeath - from what I can tell, the Light is a force of conquest. Anything the Light opposes, it is now super effective against - because Light opposes Death, standard Death-based undead feel immense pain from the Light. Undead raised by the Light, however, are exempt from this pain.
I could be a bit off on some parts, but that’s how I’m understanding it so far.
But far as I understand it Necromancy as a magic is an act, not a power source in itself. So you can do a necromancer with Chaos or Holy magic. And most just do it with Death magic because you know, it’s in the damn name.
I do think they’re maybe trying to rehabilitate the bigdumb notion introduced by Shadowlands with the intersecting force vertices cosmic alignments mumbojumbo. So, Light Zombies might end up being Light + Death instead of nEcRoMaNcY is NeCrOmAnCy!
All of the “-mancy” magics are named for what they do, not for the source of their power.
There was never any indication that a pyromancer is some separate thing that conjures fire from a different source than shamanism, arcane or fel magic.
Dalaran even originally classified necromancy as a branch of arcane magic because that was historically the only way they knew of to perform it.