Dexter Croft asks — What are the rules/ethical limitations of being a necromancer? I.e. Say your boyfriend dies naturally of something, should/would you bring him back? ….. Are those that are brought back the same emotionally, mentally, etc as they were before they died? (Is there anything left of the old person?) ….. What plane of existence is the reanimated person on? Did you just bring their body to life? What about their mind and soul? Do those come back with the body, or not? If not, where is the “essence” of the person while you are using their body? And what are the ethics of using the body without the permission of the person?
Marcus: If you’re going to bring someone back, you better do so just as they have died while you can capture the soul and hopefully re-attach it back to the body.
Elise: We govern ourselves, so there isn’t exactly an ethical oversight committee. Basically, that’s up to the morals of whoever is currently head of the House. It gets…sticky sometimes.
If you don’t bring someone back right away, as Marcus said, you’re basically reanimating their bodies. You can stick spirits into created flesh, kind of like a golem, but it’s tricky business too.
Their personalities will come back with ghosts, and if you stick the ghost in something, a degree of their personalities will come through, but it’s not the same as having the original living person (unless you catch them before they actually die.)
My boyfriend died of a succubus. We did not bring him back. We couldn’t even contact his ghost to get a testimony, but we wouldn’t have tried to reanimate him. It was too late by the time we found his body.
Using bodies without permission always ends badly. Always.
Carolyn Fritz asks How do you deal with the smell? Or do you just used to eau de rotting corpse?
Tallon: I was a Homicide detective for years and trust me, nothing smells worse than zombies. Only thing close is the corpse of a homeless person that’s been left out in the Dallas summer heat for awhile.
Elise: Ghosts don’t stink. Bodies…I try to leave them to the cops.
Dan Herrick asks Some traditions believe that what are normally considered inanimate objects, such as rocks, contain life or spirit. Given that, can these be raised from the dead? (At what point might they be considered ‘dead’ anyway?)
Hagatha: Okay, I can answer this in part since I’m also a geomancer (actually in better standing with that House than my own). Rocks possess energy which we can magically manipulate to aid us with various magical tasks like healing a wound or restoring energy. I wonder if I should play and see if I could create a person from rocks? What could possibly go wrong?
Marcus: (Expletive deleted)
Writer J. A. Campbell 