As many of you will already know, I love Necromancy. I even wrote a whole book about the subject! As such, whenever a fantasy game rolls around pretty much the first thing I research is can I summon undead minions to do my bidding. Sadly, a lot of the time this answer is no and I’m stuck with a foolish example of a ‘Spooky Mage’ instead.
However, one of the genres I find myself looking at Necromancy too is in Sci-Fi settings, which doesn’t really make much sense. The biggest difference between fantast and sci-fi is (usually) the lack of magic in the setting, meaning Necromancy shouldn’t be possible. However, there’s been clever ways it’s been done in the past such as Halo’s Flood, a parasitic race that uses dead bodies as footsoldiers. In fact, a lot of sci-fi settings will go for some form of viral or parasitic race as a way of introducing Necromancy-like themes into a setting. Warhammer 40K is perhaps one of the biggest exceptions as their ‘Necromancy’ race are The Necrons, a group of robot skeletons that following the biddings of their masters. Indeed, many setting like to use robots and mechanical augmentation as substitutes for necromancy, and it makes a lot of sense. Using swathes of mindless automatons in an endless horde to tackle any threat you face, sounds very Necromantic to me. It’s an interesting thought experiment anyway, and I adore any ways to buck usual sci-fi conventions and introduce such wild concepts into these settings.
What are your thoughts though? Do you like Necromancy as a concept being introduced into sci-fi settings, and do you have any favourite examples? Let us know in the comments! That’s all for now, and as always. It’s not just a game, It’s a Life.