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Treatise on Necromancy

Mein Herren,

Necromancy and, by association, its practitioner the necromancer, is the pure embodiment of undeath. Undeath, unlike you might imagine it, is not the same as life, rather, it is an extension of death. It is the reverence associated with a danse macabre; it seems counter intuitive to most that on the axis of death that animation and the imitation of life would be at all possible. It is through this philosophy however which makes our apprehension to the manipulation of death all that more engrained within each of us. This feeling is the manifestation of fright we experience when encountering the eldritch whispers on the edge of consciousness when faced with the still of a foggy night on the moors under the nefarious light of Morrsleib. Or Sigmar forbid even more morbid, if one is faced with the eerie sounds emanating from the town’s necropolis on all hallows eve. The hellishness of death is only superseded by the aberrant nature of the reanimated undead. Lest we witness this truly dark, terrible sorcery.

Now I profess no aptitude in necromancy myself, nor direct association with its practitioners, but merely a concordance with its knowledge. For I am a Philomath of the Empire, and it is through this guise to which I discovered the horrors and depths of imbuing the dead with unlife. The dark majesty of this godless occupation needs understanding if it is to be combated by those brave enough to enter its intellectual and physical crypts. Tradition dictates that reverence should be shown of the dead, and accordingly, it is the appalling nature of a necromancer’s treatment of wights that offends us so. We expect a man’s trip to the gallows to result in his final sojourn, nothing else, nevermore.

These dealers in death will often be found in secluded woods or mountain ranges, as secrecy is key amongst their misbegotten kind. Their charnel activities as soul merchants is chiefly furthered through experiments on the deceased. Woe be to those once dead who rise again, empty husks puppeted by those among us most cruel and insidious. Beware too the vampires who are said to roam east in Sylvania, for they too are a maleficent grave disturbing breed. I should not seek to taint your mind further than this, but remember that you, the faithful, will need to steel yourself at all times, for nothing can be as despicable as having to cut down your now murderous, once living kin; and it is of that message of which I wish to impart on you here.

Yours Faithfully,

Herr Albrecht Von Harmm