Since elves are nature based people, I assume their necromancy would involve rot and almost decaying beings instead of corpses. As far as I know, elves do die of old age, but they live a lot longer than humans. Just like humans, and all sentinent beings, some elves would be willing to sacrifice their Humanity (elfmanity, whatever) in order to experience the benfits of necromancy. But the skill needed to becoming a lich would require a more sophisticated understanding of magic and necromancy, and orcs and saurians are just a bit too simple for that.ĮDIT: With orcs I mostly only meant the shamans. I'd also say that they aren't intelligent (as in formally educated in theory of magic etc) enough to actually become liches, but can raise corpses and scry into "lands of the dead" and similar stuff. My initial feeling about them would be that they can practise necromancy in a different way than humans and elves would - not by studying magic "formally", but through shamanistic means. Orcs and saurians I can see being able to do necromancy. They're somewhat magical creatures, but I don't see them as creatures that can use or control magic. I have difficulty imagining drake necromancers, perhaps because I don't see drakes as potential magic users in the first place. So yeah, I'd say that some elf might certainly be interested, but it's probably a more rare tendency in elves than in humans. Sure, lots of elves die in fighting and such, but death is not necessarily a natural thing for them, meaning that some of them might see necromancy, which allows one to control death, all the more interesting exactly because of that. Even if elves were immortal - meaning that they do not die of old age - that might make death an even more curious thing for them.
So I wouldn't say that immortality is the only driving force involved in becoming a necromancer and wanting to become a lich. But anyway, a lich for example probably has quite a lot more to play with than just the immortality - he can likely get his hands on all kinds of nifty little secrets about life, death, other planes of existence (a "realm of the dead", for example) and such to make it very possible for a member of any race intelligent enough to be intrigued and allured by the "undead immortality", undeath, or whatever we're supposed to call that. Well, first of all I didn't know that elves were supposed to be immortal. What are people's opinions on this? Am I wrong in saying that elves would not be interested in necromancy? If so, why? And if I'm right - then what, exactly, happens to elvish sorcerers when they turn evil? Anyone else like my suicide cult idea? Any does anyone want to stretch this further - discuss whether dwarves, orcs, etc, would also be interested in necromancy, or whether it is strictly a human phenomenon?
A truly perverse elf, then, would have as his ultimate goal the destruction of all life, ending with himself. So it seems that this theoretical elvish suicide cult might be a murder-suicide cult - a cult of elves who turn berserk, charging into battle and fighting to the death using dark magic. but in that case, it doesn't seem that dangerous necromancy is dangerous because it not only makes the user undead and immortal, it also gives him the power to force this upon others. In that case, what is the form of corrupted magic among the elves (it is necromancy among men)? Perhaps they, being immortal, wish to be mortal (a la Tolkien), and so have some sort of suicide cult. So from what I can tell Elves have nothing to gain from necromancy.
Necromancy's intent is to give the necromancer eternal life - Lichs are at least limitedly immortal, right? But what use do elves have with that? They're already limitedly immortal - elves don't die of old age. my question is, is necromancy in Wesnoth strictly a human phenomenon? Or do elves, orcs, dwarves, drakes, etc (elves in particular), practice it as well? I don't think there's anything about the magic of necromancy that would make it strictly human, but look at the psychology of it. I'll preface this by saying that this topic ha a decent chance of, as some of you would put it, "degenerating" into a discussion on fantasy in general.
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