>It's "doing necromancy" in the sense that you are casting a spell that is defined as necromancy. (What Necromancers see as arcane mana isn't really a distinct type of mana. It's a perceptual distortion that results from their flawed method of attuning to three frequencies of mana at once.)

Right, it's 'doing necromancy' insofar as it's casting a spell that is associated with Arcane patterns. But we all know, irrespective of our cosmic leanings, that any sort of mana can maybe kind of mostly be used to power spell patterns. Thus, a Warmie casting Obfuscation isn't any more 'doing necromancy' than a Cleric casting Vigor is 'doing Empathy', or to use a better example because Empathy is a specific skill as well as a guild, or a Cleric casting Instinct is 'doing Ranger-y'.

My point is that mechanically we the players understand that people who PERC with Obfuscation up are probably Necromancers because they cast a spell that Necromancers cast, but (IIRC) aside from Clerics, and maybe Paladins/Empaths, casting Arcane spells that aren't signature doesn't have any negative consequences, because it's not an example of 'doing necromancy'.

I suppose the distinctions are somewhat fine here, or maybe I'm misunderstanding something.

I was replying to the '1/3 of people got deaded' thing, for clarification.

>>Jhaliascleric: Right, it's 'doing necromancy' insofar as it's casting a spell that is associated with Arcane patterns. But we all know, irrespective of our cosmic leanings, that any sort of mana can maybe kind of mostly be used to power spell patterns. Thus, a Warmie casting Obfuscation isn't any more 'doing necromancy' than a Cleric casting Vigor is 'doing Empathy', or to use a better example because Empathy is a specific skill as well as a guild, or a Cleric casting Instinct is 'doing Ranger-y'.

All Necromancer spells are defined as necromancy, regardless of whether they are signature. Therefore, when you are casting those spells, it makes sense to say that you are using necromancy (in the little-n sense), even though you do not belong to the Necromancers' Guild and are not doing stereotypical necromantic things like creating undead beings.

Casting Necromancer spells isn't a simple case of sorcerous casting, such as when an Warrior Mage casts Vigor (a life spell). Necromancy is actual sorcery (what we used to call capital-S Sorcery), designed to be powered by a mixture of two or more types of mana. When you, as a Warrior Mage, cast Obfuscation, you are not simply using your native elemental mana in an "arcane pattern." You are working with that unstable mixture of life mana + something else that we call necromancy.

Granted, there have been inconsistences in the lore of sorcerous casting. When a Warrior Mage casts Vigor, is he blindly manipulating life mana, or is he simply forcing his native elemental mana to power a spell that was not designed for it? (I am reasonably sure that it's the former, but there have been conflicting posts.)

---

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall rank!

Vote for DragonRealms on Top MUD Sites: http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

<<"The danger of this is that even when not attempting to do so, any attempt by a magic user to manipulate mana will either wholly or partially include their native mana as an unavoidable reflexive action. Without even intending to, the Cleric would end up funneling at least a small amount of holy mana into the Clear Vision spell, which it is not designed to handle, and occasionally result in catastrophic results."

That is the current design, yes.

---

Elanthipedia - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page
Epedia Admins - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Elanthipedia:Administrators

>>Necromancy, also known as "High Necromancy" or, by some scholars, as "Ontologic Sorcery", is the corruption of life itself. It often involves the creation of false life or pervasion of living things into unnatural forms. It is based on the mixture of Life Mana with either Elemenal or Lunar mana. This sorcery requires knowledge of the blasphemy known as Thanatology and is not a single spell book but instead contains the entire spectrum of spells used by the Necromancer guild. Unlike all other types of Sorcery, this magic does not contest the Sorcery Skill as long as it is used by a necromancer.

>>[[Lay Necromancy]] lacks the philosophical and theoretical complexity of the High Sorceries and can, therefore, be cast by anyone who has attunement
Lay Necromancy is the combination of Life magic with Lunar or Elemental Magic.

Those are the definitions on the wiki which were taken from an Armifer post on the types of sorcery. I.e. all Necromancer spells are by definition necromancy but are divided along signature/non-signature lines into High Necromancy and Lay Necromancy.

---

Elanthipedia - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page
Epedia Admins - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Elanthipedia:Administrators

Ah, ok, my understanding of the distinctions of necromancy for spellcasting was wrong. Thanks for the clarification!