Trials of Necromancy

Here are the 5 Trials of Necromancy

• Trial of Melancholy: In many ways, the Underworld is the nadir of all existence. No natural inhabitant of the place has true life - a ghost’s experiences are dulled immeasurably from what he knew in Creation, and even his tools and pets are no more than shadows of what was buried with him. Likewise, ghosts aren’t truly dead as long as they resist the call of reincarnation or Oblivion. Inhabitants of the Underworld are truly the most unnatural and unwanted of all things. In a study of melancholy, the necromancer must experience true rock bottom. To have nothing left but to continue to live, living almost without purpose, shows the necromancer how little really separates the living dead from those living without cause.
• Trial of Memory: To learn the arts of the dead, the necromancer must learn as the people of the Underworld do. Just as the sunless realms change only slowly, shaping themselves to the memories of those who dwell there, the necromancer must engage in self-instruction. He must learn something by exploring his own memories of experiences past, discovering new meaning in old knowledge. When a necromancer has a guide through his initiation, he sometimes passes this trial by mystically exploring another’s mind and memories rather than his own.
• Trial of Stasis: The Underworld resists change. For most places in the Underworld, one can return year after year after year and see no difference in the landscape or inhabitants. A necromancer must understand this intimately. Those consciously trying to pass the trial often choose a featureless plain in the Underworld, where they sit and remain until enlightenment comes. Others draw this experience from memory of living in the same unchanging village for years in childhood, or the stasis of marching for months on end through a land that never appears to change.
• Trial of Infliction: Death comes to all things in time, as the Primordial War proved. And with the Underworld’s inception, death became something more frightening than guaranteed reincarnation and continuance. Now, one may languish as a ghost for centuries or even fall into the forever depths of Oblivion. People fear death, now. In some manner, the necromancer must inflict total and complete, gibbering, turn-guts-to-water fear of death upon someone else. A student might slowly kill a beloved pet before the eyes of its young master, while another could murder an entire village and leave only one alive with a promise to return for her. Less hideously, an eloquent or passionate speech can leave listeners as mind-bendingly fearful as such awful demonstrations.
• Trial of Decay: It shares a great deal with the fifth sorcerous ordeal, of sacrifice, but the necromancer must sacrifice through degradation. This loss sharpens the necromancer’s mind, opening it finally to the black wonders of necromancy. Sacrifice can be of anything, but the manner must be appropriate. Rather than cutting off a finger, the necromancer ties it off and lets it blacken and die from lack of blood. Instead of severing ties with a lover, the necromancer slowly poisons his relationship with lies or neglect, and its death is all the more painful for it. One might decimate his excellent reputation through repeated demonstrations of fallibility or vice. Regardless, the sacrifice must be done through deterioration for the necromancer to truly understand the slow rot that eats away all Creation.