The Chromatic Chord

Necromancy

The compound school of Umbra with Memoria and Aion, from the claim that death changes a being but does not erase all its structure at once. See The Schools of Magic.

Philosophy

Necromancy begins from a simple claim: death changes a being, but it does not erase all structure at once. Bodies remain. Habits remain. Traces remain. Debts, grudges, and unfinished errands remain. Necromancers study what persists and what can still be guided, preserved, questioned, or put to use after life has ended.

In some lands necromancy is a sacred funerary art. In others it is a way to work the dead, a last resort on the battlefield, or a hanging crime. The school itself is morally unstable rather than inherently profane. The difference usually lies in consent, treatment of remains, and whether a working preserves dignity or strips it away.

Example Places of Study

  • The Sepulchral Colleges: Formal city academies where funerary custom, corpse preservation, and memorial labour are taught together.
  • The Ash Monasteries: Monastic houses devoted to proper death rites, grave warding, and controlled remnant speech.
  • The Black Tally Halls: Town halls of the dead that train corpse-namers, battlefield dead-counters, and the necromancers a lord sends after a murderer.
  • The Quiet Harbours: River-temples where drowned bodies are recovered, named, and questioned before burial.
  • The Bonewright Guilds: Practical schools that teach corpse labour done with a lord's or temple's leave, ossuary building, and the keeping of graveyards against thieves and the restless dead.

Common Spells

Grave Quiet · Corpse Stitch · Mourner's Lamp · Last Motion · Bone Listener · Pall of Stillness · Ancestor Seat · Wakeful Bier · Funeral Path · Ash Messenger · Marrow Sentinel · Sepulchre Lock · Borrowed Hand · Grave Choir · Remnant Interrogation · Last March · House of Still Servants · Carrion Warning · Life Drain · Bone Spear · Bone Armour · Corpse Burst · Grave Rot

Grave Quiet

Purpose/How It Works
Grave Quiet calms disturbed remains, weak trace-echoes, and postmortem agitation in a burial space so the dead settle into stillness again.
Notable Exceptions
It works poorly where corpses are actively being desecrated or where a stronger necromantic command is still in force.
Example Use
A temple necromancer stills a panicked crypt after the hasty burials of a raid begin to twitch and scrape at their slabs.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by ambient trace-residue, funerary symbols, grave-soil, and the caster's reserves; violent or recently animated dead require more direct expenditure.
Casting Methods
Spoken funerary injunction, a few heartbeats. Incense-and-bell rite, a minute's chant.
Range/Duration
One chamber or grave plot. A short while to several days.

Corpse Stitch

Purpose/How It Works
Corpse Stitch binds torn tissue, loose bone, and a body that is falling apart so it can be moved, examined, or ritually prepared.
Notable Exceptions
It restores wholeness, not life. Severe burning or complete fragmentation limits the result.
Example Use
When the warband comes home, a field mortician stitches the raid-captain whole so his kin can see him before the pyre.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by preserved tissue, embalming media, thread, bone, and the caster's reserves; fresher bodies are easier to work than ruined ones.
Casting Methods
Hand-and-thread cast, a short chant over the body. Mortuary table rite, a slow working at the slab.
Range/Duration
Touch. From a day's hold to a form stitched for good.

Mourner's Lamp

Purpose/How It Works
Mourner's Lamp gathers faint remnant-emotion from the recently dead into a visible funerary flame that helps identify unrest, fear, or peace.
Notable Exceptions
It gives mood and unrest, not a full conversation. Sudden violent deaths often produce noisy, misleading results.
Example Use
A hedge-priest lights the lamp over a drover murdered on the road; the flame gutters red, and the grave gets iron and ash as well as a prayer.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by candle flame, memorial objects, fresh trace-residue, and the caster's reserves.
Casting Methods
Lamp-lighting prayer, a few breaths. Vigil circle, a long sitting beside the bier.
Range/Duration
One body or bier. A short while to most of a night.

Last Motion

Purpose/How It Works
Last Motion replays the last movements held in a corpse or body part, showing how it turned, struck, or fell.
Notable Exceptions
It reveals motion better than motive. Heavy postmortem damage can corrupt the sequence.
Example Use
The dead gate-guard's arm comes up in a shield-block before the blow, and his lord knows the gate was forced, not opened by a traitor.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by the memory of movement left in muscle and bone, plus the caster's focus.
Casting Methods
Body-touch reading, a few breaths. Forensic slab rite, a minute's chant.
Range/Duration
Touch. One brief replay.

Bone Listener

Purpose/How It Works
Bone Listener reads preserved stress, illness, and trauma from skeletons to reconstruct broad history of injury and labour.
Notable Exceptions
It reads long strain well but struggles with soft-tissue-only causes of death.
Example Use
Ruin-delvers learn from the spines and hands in a barrow pit that it held the slaves of an old mine, not the warband the songs promised, and no grave-goods worth the digging.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by bone integrity, chalk marks, and the caster's reserves.
Casting Methods
Tactile read, a few breaths. Ossuary examination rite, a slow working.
Range/Duration
Touch. Brief diagnostic read.

Pall of Stillness

Purpose/How It Works
Pall of Stillness slows rot, insect activity, and environmental disturbance around a corpse by imposing a temporary funerary hush.
Notable Exceptions
It delays decay; it does not reverse it. Hot, wet climates burn through the spell quickly.
Example Use
A caravan carries its dead through three days of bandit country until it can reach consecrated burial ground.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by cloth, ash, cold media, preserved form, and the caster's reserves.
Casting Methods
Shroud cast, a few breaths. Burial tent rite, a minute's chant.
Range/Duration
One body or a short row of biers. A night to several days.

Ancestor Seat

Purpose/How It Works
Ancestor Seat invites a controlled familial remnant to settle briefly into a prepared chair, mask, or relic so descendants can ask limited questions.
Notable Exceptions
It works best where the family has kept the dead remembered. It cannot recover what the dead never knew, and repeated use erodes the remnant.
Example Use
Two feuding clans call up the ancestor who set the old boundary stone, and the losing side draws steel before the seat is cold.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by kinship links, heirlooms, names, and trace-residue carried by the family line.
Casting Methods
Named invitation, a minute's chant. Shrine session, a long sitting.
Range/Duration
One prepared seat or vessel. A short while.

Wakeful Bier

Purpose/How It Works
Wakeful Bier gives a corpse enough temporary structure and directional command to walk under simple orders without simulating true life.
Notable Exceptions
Fine manipulation, speech, and initiative remain poor. Recently dead bodies are easier to direct than old skeletons.
Example Use
Plague workers use a bier-servant to carry contaminated bodies into the trench without exposing the living.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by preserved muscle, ligatures, command phrases, and the caster's reserves; continuous direction raises the cost sharply.
Casting Methods
Touch-and-command cast, a short chant. Mortuary circle rite, a lengthy rite.
Range/Duration
One corpse. A short while to a day's labour.

Funeral Path

Purpose/How It Works
Funeral Path reveals the safest route to carry the dead without attracting scavengers, trace-disturbance, or hostile remnant activity.
Notable Exceptions
It offers the cleanest path available, not an impossible guarantee of safety.
Example Use
A burial party crosses a battlefield at dusk without waking the wrong dead.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by burial tokens, local trace-residue, and the caster's reserves.
Casting Methods
Processional cast, a few breaths. Roadside omen rite, a minute's chant.
Range/Duration
One journey or stretch of road. Through a day's travel.

Ash Messenger

Purpose/How It Works
Ash Messenger carries a short spoken message by binding it into cremation ash that drifts towards a named tomb, urn, or mourning altar.
Notable Exceptions
Wind, warded cemeteries, and name confusion can misdirect it.
Example Use
A border fort sends word to the family shrine that the raiders took a son, long before the body can be carried home.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by ash, a true name, and the caster's breath.
Casting Methods
Handful release, a few heartbeats. Shrine dispatch rite, a minute's chant.
Range/Duration
District to regional range. One delivery.

Marrow Sentinel

Purpose/How It Works
Marrow Sentinel anchors a skeleton or ossuary construct into a fixed watch round around a tomb, wall, or chamber.
Notable Exceptions
It is ideal for repetitive guard circuits, not adaptive combat. Strong impact or sanctified disruption can break the binding.
Example Use
Bone guards still walk the outer halls of a catacomb whose keepers fled the plague last spring, and delvers time their steps before they slip past to the treasure niches.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by bone, inscribed command-structure, ward markers, and the caster's reserves.
Casting Methods
Bone-circle cast, a short chant. Full sentinel installation, a lengthy rite.
Range/Duration
One skeleton or bone construct. A night to many months.

Sepulchre Lock

Purpose/How It Works
Sepulchre Lock seals a tomb, crypt, or coffin by tying its stillness to the dead within it, making forced opening energetically noisy and difficult.
Notable Exceptions
It protects better against intrusion than demolition. Cooperative reopening still requires the proper key phrase or rite.
Example Use
A noble family seals its inner crypt after grave-thieves strip the vault next door of rings, swords, and bodies.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by funerary inscriptions, coffin hardware, trace-residue, and the caster's reserves.
Casting Methods
Seal-and-speak cast, a short chant. Full burial closure, a long rite.
Range/Duration
One coffin, chamber, or crypt door. Weeks to generations.

Borrowed Hand

Purpose/How It Works
Borrowed Hand animates one severed or skeletal limb for delicate postmortem tasks such as page turning, key use, or forensic demonstration.
Notable Exceptions
The limb remains clumsy if its own memory of motion is weak. Sanctified anti-necromantic spaces often suppress it immediately.
Example Use
A thief-taker has a dead fence's hand show which loose hearthstone it reached for most often, and the stolen silver is under it.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by residual motor-memory, small trace reserves, and the caster's focus.
Casting Methods
Limb touch, a few heartbeats. Worktable focus rite, a minute's chant.
Range/Duration
Within a room. A short while.

Grave Choir

Purpose/How It Works
Grave Choir binds many faint remnant-whispers into a coherent wall of warning, lament, or spoken names.
Notable Exceptions
It magnifies collective memory, not individual nuance. Battlefields often produce too much noise to use safely.
Example Use
A barrow sings the names of its dead when robbers enter with drawn steel, and the whole valley hears it.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by many small trace-echoes, names, chimes, and the caster's reserves.
Casting Methods
Choral invocation, a minute's chant. Memorial rite, a long service.
Range/Duration
One hall, tomb, or grave-field section. A short while to several days.

Remnant Interrogation

Purpose/How It Works
Remnant Interrogation presses a fresh postmortem trace for direct answers before it fades past answering.
Notable Exceptions
The answers are limited by what the dead perceived, understood, and emotionally survived. Brutal use can shred the remnant permanently.
Example Use
A lord's necromancer questions a courier killed on the road within the hour, to learn which brigands took the dispatch case and which way they rode.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by very fresh trace-residue, naming structure, and heavy caster focus.
Casting Methods
Immediate deathbed examination, a few breaths. Interrogation circle, a slow working.
Range/Duration
Touch or beside the corpse. A few questions before the trace fades.

Last March

Purpose/How It Works
Last March organizes a group of corpses into one final act of transport, labour, or battlefield withdrawal under simple collective direction.
Notable Exceptions
This is exhausting, socially controversial, and prone to collapse if the bodies are too damaged or emotionally charged.
Example Use
Defenders use their own fallen to haul the wounded behind the gate before dawn.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by many bodies, command rhythm, drums or bells, and substantial caster reserves or prepared reservoirs.
Casting Methods
Command cadence, a short chant. Burial-field rite, a lengthy rite.
Range/Duration
A handful of bodies up to a column of dozens. A short while, never long.

House of Still Servants

Purpose/How It Works
House of Still Servants binds a fixed set of domestic dead to repetitive labour such as carrying water, tending lamps, or cleaning crypt halls.
Notable Exceptions
The spell is stable only where commands remain narrow. Widening the tasks lets the servants drift into an uncanny imitation of life.
Example Use
An ossuary monastery maintains its lower levels with hereditary corpse-servants consented to by the order's own dead.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by well-preserved bodies, command tablets, and maintenance rites rather than constant active casting.
Casting Methods
Installation rite, an hour's ritual. Daily reattunement, a short rite each day.
Range/Duration
One household or crypt complex. Days to years with upkeep.

Carrion Warning

Purpose/How It Works
Carrion Warning uses nearby death-scent, insects, and scavenger behaviour as a necromantic early-warning web against fresh corpses or impending slaughter.
Notable Exceptions
It reads death-rich environments best. Sterile or heavily warded spaces yield less.
Example Use
A battlefield camp knows an ambush has already struck the western pickets because the crows turn all at once.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by carrion ecology, trace-pressure, and the caster's reserves.
Casting Methods
Soil-and-feather cast, a few breaths. Watch-post rite, a minute's chant.
Range/Duration
Surrounding field or district. A short while to a full watch.

Life Drain

Purpose/How It Works
Life Drain tears vitality from a living target and redirects it into the caster, an ally, or a waiting reservoir.
Notable Exceptions
Species mismatch reduces efficiency and overdraw can kill unpredictably.
Example Use
A grave-thief stands from the duel stronger than he began while his opponent collapses grey and shaking.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by stolen lifeforce, trace-pressure, and the caster's reserves to shape the transfer.
Casting Methods
Touch siphon, a few heartbeats. Grave-thread cast across a short gap, a few breaths.
Range/Duration
Touch, or a few strides off by grave-thread. An instant's drain with lingering weakness.

Bone Spear

Purpose/How It Works
Bone Spear launches sharpened skeletal material or marrow-hardened remnants in a piercing burst.
Notable Exceptions
It requires bone nearby or prepared ossuary stock and is weaker against solid stone cover.
Example Use
A crypt defender answers intrusion with three screaming white spears from the wall niches.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by bone, remnant residue, and the caster's reserves.
Casting Methods
Bone-cast, a heartbeat or two. Ossuary release, a breath.
Range/Duration
A stone's throw. An instant strike.

Bone Armour

Purpose/How It Works
Bone Armour plates the caster or target in articulated skeletal reinforcement drawn from carried remains or nearby ossuary material.
Notable Exceptions
It is noisy, unnerving, and often socially unacceptable outside war or grave labour.
Example Use
A battlefield necromancer advances beneath a shell of snapping rib and plate.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by bone, remnant residue, and the caster's reserves.
Casting Methods
Self-wrap cast, a few heartbeats. Ossuary harness activation, a breath.
Range/Duration
Self or touched target. A short while.

Corpse Burst

Purpose/How It Works
Corpse Burst detonates a dead body or prepared cadaver into shrapnel, pestilential fluid, and remnant shock.
Notable Exceptions
It is gruesome, widely forbidden, and highly dangerous in close quarters.
Example Use
A pursued necromancer leaves a fallen soldier behind and the alley becomes a storm of bone and rot.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by corpse mass, remnant force, and the caster's reserves.
Casting Methods
Trigger cast, a few heartbeats. Delayed grave-sigil, instant once armed.
Range/Duration
One corpse within sight. Instant explosion.

Grave Rot

Purpose/How It Works
Grave Rot brings the failure of death early into living tissue, causing withering, necrotic weakness, and collapse of healthy repair.
Notable Exceptions
Strong healing support and early cleansing can still interrupt it.
Example Use
A champion's sword arm blackens and goes numb before the next swing can land.
Typical Cost/Power Source
Usually fed by decay-pattern, trace-pressure, and the caster's reserves.
Casting Methods
Touch blight, a few heartbeats. Curse-mark rite, a short chant.
Range/Duration
Touch or marked target. A short while to several days, depending on treatment.

In the Writers’ Guide

See Also