[Cleft of Dimensions]

Our MUD's Necromancer class has no direct-damage spells.

The skills they do have deal not only with turning dead monsters into mindless minions, but also with RE-KILL ING those minions for an extra affect (such as area-damage or healing the whole group)

Since they can have up to four minions at once, Necromancers are obligated to carry around giant stacks of dead bodies as cannon fodder.

[Newworlds]

Originally Posted by julie_grrl I'd say there has to be a good system of raising dead monsters to be your undead minions. I can never get enough of that kind of stuff in RPGs. =D

There is a class in NWA that does this, but you will have to join the game to find out.

[ruckus]

Thanks to those of you who have contributed to this thread. I have been working on a rewrite of the Necromancer guild for RetroMUD and have tried to incorporate many of the ideas here in hopes of creating the most diverse and appealing necromancer guild to date! Hopefully I've hit that mark

RetroMUD recently announced the return of the Necromancer guild and I'd like to invite any players subscribed to this thread to come check it out. The guild abilties are available on the RetroMUD website but that's just the surface of things. More indepth help files are available in game, some of which are also on the website in the help section.

To highlight some of the main features:

- Build your own pets! You are in complete control over the animation process. By amputating parts from corpses of the slain, assembling them to your liking, and using your magic to animate them - you can command healer, blaster, ranged, and melee creations. By utilizing your collection of Negative Energy you can advance them through 4 tiers of power, each unlocking new skills that can be trained to increase their power. Simple skeletons are a thing of the past as you can combine animal, aquatic, dragon, humanoid, nonhuman, and avian parts to create unique minions!

- Master control over the lifeforces of others. While minions are a great tool to the necromancer, they could not be a complete guild without powers of their own. By collecting the departing lifeforce of victims as they are damaged, and distributing this energy to yourself or your allies, a necromancer is a versatile member of any party. With proper training, the necromancer can augment many areas vital to party-based combat. Feed the healer sps, add hps to a meleer, or help an underpowered mage keep up in the battle. If that doesn't suit your style then simply add all of the lifeforce to your own sps so that you are an unstoppable force!

- More! Shadowgates, phantom shards, phylacteries, brain extraction, minor animation of organs and body parts, harmful magic attacks, deathmasters, puppet masters and more are open to you as a Necromancer at RetroMUD.org!!

Please, come check out our new Necromancer - or some of our hundreds of other guilds - and let us know what you think! Also, continue this thread with concepts that appeal to you or maybe things that are still missing from your ideas of the ultimate necromancer.