Typical D&D cosmology is explicitly dualist in that there is a soul/body divide. Bodies exist, and souls also exist. As stated in the Player’s Handbook, “when a living creature dies, its soul departs its body, leaves the Material Plane, travels through the Astral Plane, and goes to abide on the plane where the creature’s deity resides.”9 Equally, by means of spells such as magic jar, the soul can be temporarily removed from the body. In terms of a theory of personal identity, this is nonreductionist – which means that which gives a person their quality of personhood cannot be explained solely in terms of facts about brains and bodies, instead requiring facts about a soul. This contrasts with reductionism, which is the belief that mental phenomena can be reduced to physical phenomena.10
To begin, let us consider the rather morbid example of Tordek the fighter.11 In an epic battle, Tordek was killed and dismembered. If we wanted to give life, or undeath, to Tordek’s abused corpse, the rules of Dungeons & Dragons provide us with a few options. Raise dead requires the body to be whole, or the raised creature will still be missing any parts that were not present upon its return to life. True resurrection, on the other hand, doesn’t require the body at all – it merely requires that the caster can positively identify the creature to be resurrected. This is significant, for it calls to mind contemporary developments in the philosophy of religion and identity.
In one such development, Peter van Inwagen, in “The Possibility of Resurrection,” gave the example of a manuscript originally written by St. Augustine. This manuscript was “burned by Arians in the year 457,” yet God miraculously re-created it in 458.12 Van Inwagen argues that we intuitively reject the idea of the copy being the same manuscript as the original, given that it never knew the impress of St. Augustine’s hand. It is at best an exact copy, akin to a house of blocks that has been knocked over and rebuilt exactly as before. To paraphrase, he gives the following conversation to illustrate his point:
“Is that the house of blocks your daughter built?”
“No, I built this one after I accidentally knocked hers down. I put the blocks in the same place, though. Don’t tell her.”13
The same is true of the bodies of slain D&D characters. If Tordek were utterly obliterated by a wizard and then resurrected, the new body would be a copy of his previous body. However, due to the presence of the inhabiting soul, we would accept that continuity of identity is maintained between the two. This inference is further justified by the druid spell reincarnate. In the second edition Player’s Handbook, reincarnate allows for dead characters to return to life as such things as badgers, wolverines, and owls. Even after this transformation, it is stated that “the person reincarnated recalls the majority of his former life and form.”14 So we can say, “this is Tordek,” even after he has been reincarnated as an owl, but we can’t so easily say, “this is Tordek the fighter,” upon looking at a corpse, even one that has been reanimated.
This has some interesting theoretical implications. Not only does the soul survive the death of the body, but it survives in such a manner that its identity persists. If a character had access to planar magics, they would be able to travel to the plane upon which the soul of the deceased resides and speak with the now disembodied soul. The corpse is akin to a discarded suit of clothes, still retaining the imprinted knowledge that allows the speak with dead spell15 to function, but entirely lacking the soul. This leads to the conclusion that the soul’s quality of experience is not affected by the reanimation of the corpse and, therefore, that no direct harm is done to the deceased. Of course, we could say that harm is being done to the reanimated’s friends and family, as seeing their loved one’s corpse rise from the grave is surely shocking. This, though, would be due to the way in which we, as a culture, perceive death.
An obvious retort to the above points is that gods of death (and especially undeath!) are typically evil. D&D deities such as Vecna, Chemosh, and Velsharoon are quite clearly villains, and undeath is frowned upon by many good gods. However, an action cannot be considered evil merely because good gods disapprove of it. Plato (c.429–c.437 bce) wrote of just such a problem in his dialogue between Socrates (469–399 bce) and Euthyphro. Euthyphro, a high priest, was asked by Socrates to explain what made a pious action pious. He replied that piety reflected what was loved by the gods. However, being loved by the gods of goodness cannot make an action good, for that then makes goodness both arbitrary, when dependent upon a deity’s free will, and potentially inconsistent. In the cases of both Plato and Dungeons and Dragons, different gods have different concepts of how one should behave. What is loved by one god might be detested by another. For objective moral truths to exist, they must exist above and beyond the wills of the gods.
The Monster Manual states that zombies are “corpses reanimated through dark and sinister magic.”16 Again, this may seem like a non-contentious statement, but just what is it that makes the magic “dark and sinister”? The fact that the magic can be used to raise zombies would be an obvious answer, but this statement presupposes that zombies are evil. Likewise, skeletons are described as “mindless automatons that obey the orders of their evil masters.”17 What makes the masters evil? “Because they have skeletons,” appears to be the feeble answer.
Once again, we have reached a logical circle. If the magic is dark because it raises zombies and skeletons, then this in turn has smuggled in its own implicit premise: that zombies and skeletons are evil and anything involving them is by definition also evil. The Player’s Handbook explicitly states that “animals and other creatures incapable of moral action are neutral rather than good or evil.”18 Moral action is something that requires agency, or the capacity to act with intent, which disqualifies mindless creatures from being evil in their own right.
The Philosopher David Hume (1711–76) discussed such a problem in a much-quoted passage of A Treatise on Human Nature, arguing that statements of facts do not logically entail statements of moral properties. One cannot go from the proposition “necromancy involves animating the dead” to the proposition “necromancy is wrong” without implicitly accepting as true the further statement that “animating the dead is wrong.” This then makes the statement “necromancy is wrong” tautologous, or true by definition, while being guilty of a logical error: the statement relies upon itself to demonstrate its own truth. From the descriptions of evil given to us by Dungeons & Dragons and the borrowed ideas of Hume, it becomes apparent that there is no logical justification for the consideration of necromantic acts as evil.
To further explore the notion that necromancy is inherently an [evil] act, let’s consider some examples. Philosophy thrives on trading examples and counter-examples in the attempt to demonstrate the adequacy or inadequacy of particular theories.
In the above four examples, circumstances have been manipulated and the reader granted background and insight into the specific conditions of a moral quandary. What this exercise in necromantic morality has demonstrated is that there are conditions in which it is possible for an “evil” act to be used for good. The larger, recurring, question of this chapter, about the true evil of necromancy, is once again raised.
As has been shown in the last two examples, strict adherence to deontological ethics may result in what Michael Walzer called a “[failure] to do the right thing (in utilitarian terms).”19 To refuse to animate the dead on moral grounds could result in the permanent loss of one of Mialee’s party members or, worse, the destruction of an entire town. War and politics especially are two realms where deontology and utilitarianism will frequently come into conflict. The examples under discussion reflect a situation where both possible outcomes can be considered “wrong” – so it is not easy to simply dismiss the use of necromancy as evil, especially when the alternative outcome is objectively worse. Indeed, the use of the dead could prevent the death of the living, which is hardly an evil aim.
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) was concerned with just this point in The Prince when he discussed Cesare Borgia, an Italian nobleman he states was “considered cruel.”20 Careful use of this cruelty, however, allowed him to “reconcile the Romagna” (a historical region of Italy much divided by political squabbles) and “restore it to peace.”21 Machiavelli contrasts Cesare’s methods with those of the republic of Florence, which was facing a series of riots and revolts between two factions in Pistoia, a town that lay within their sphere of political influence. Rather than take the decisive action he advocated and restore order to the city by force, the Florentine republic elected to “avoid a reputation for cruelty” and continue attempting to broker a deal. This peace process was a dramatic failure, resulting in the collapse of government and the town’s descent into total violent disorder. This example clearly demonstrates that doing the “right thing” in absolutist terms – obeying a deontological code of ethics – can at times lead to a dreadful outcome.22 Hiding behind a strictly deontological code of ethics may allow for one’s conscience to seem clear, but it does so at the cost of denying the true complexity of moral life. When faced with such a dilemma, one may not want the harsh rigidity of a paladin!
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) theorized about “the state of nature,” the condition of humankind outside of civil society or in a time of a complete breakdown in order. His pessimistic assumptions about human nature led him to the conclusion that humanity’s natural condition was “a state of war of all against all”– a state of affairs unpleasant enough that a rational person would want to avoid it at any cost.23 A look at any modern failed state is enough to make this seem a reasonable statement – and it is only strengthened if, instead of merely being populated by humans, we imagine also facing the threat of illithids, dark elves, or evil wizards waiting to either enslave us or do to us a variety of other things too horrible to contemplate.
So far we’ve seen that necromancy can at times be “the lesser evil.” But can necromancy be further redeemed?
The term “possible world” refers to a particular species of metaphysical argument. There are said to be a limitless number of possible worlds, each representing a different way the world could have developed. Specifically, if a proposition is necessarily true, it must hold across all possible worlds, including those in Dungeons & Dragons. This contrasts with other types of truth which can be true across one or more possible worlds but false in others.
For example, it is necessarily true across all possible worlds that the circumference of a circle can be calculated by application of the formula ∏ D. Any world where this is not true would be distinctly Lovecraftian and, thus, not imaginable by the sane or those not initiated into the Cthulhu cult.
It is extremely difficult, though potentially not impossible, to imagine any possible world in which, for example, wanton slaughter or the use of eternity of torture could be considered inherently good actions. Both would explicitly violate the definition of [good] given in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, not to mention many of our most deeply held social convictions.
The animation of mindless undead is disputably evil and does not belong in the same deontic category as the example of eternity of torture. As discussed earlier, no one need be directly harmed by such an action and it need not be done from selfish intentions. It is coherent to imagine a good god who condones the use of animated skeletons and zombies, perhaps one concerned with ancestor worship or one who promotes ideas of service to the community that continues even beyond death. It is even coherent to imagine one who explicitly approves of great leaders becoming intelligent undead and taking such forms as the arch-lich.24
So, our distaste for the undead must be reflective of our social and cultural norms. Sociologists have discussed this in terms of “habitus.” Pierre Bourdieu defined habitus as a set of dispositions, behaviors, and values acquired through a remembered cultural history and experiential knowledge of the social world.25 It is through habitus that we can understand our distaste for the undead as stemming from various cultural beliefs.
At one time, a fear, dislike, or repulsion relating to corpses may have developed through an association of dead bodies with the spread of pests, illness, or some other catastrophe. In contemporary times, an anachronized western European cultural memory of historical events such as the Black Death may somehow translate into a shared association of skeletons and corpses with disease, for example. Although we may share a popular cultural opinion that corpses are creepy, bad, or evil, as evidenced by the popularity of skeleton cut outs at Halloween, the original source for these sentiments has been lost somewhere in the stretch of time.
For an example of a real-world culture with a focus upon death which lacks stigmatization and association with plagues, we can turn to the ancient Egyptians, renowned for the pyramids and mummies. Osiris, a god of agriculture and irrigation, was slain by his brother Set at Abydos, and divided into sixteen parts. After his resurrection, Osiris also took on the role of judge of the dead – and the Egyptians believed that the mummified bodies of the dead would be physically resurrected just as Osiris was, becoming something closer to divine than mortal.26 Explaining this with attention to habitus, we might say that Osiris’ resurrection mirrors Egypt’s own yearly rebirth following the Nile’s bursting of its banks and giving water to crops.
We should note here that the Egyptian focus upon death does not suggest their society was joyless or morbid – perhaps surprisingly, Egyptologists assure us that “the elaborate death-culture of the Egyptians expresses … a love of life.”27 It is possible, therefore, to have a culture with a significant focus on death that does not become either gloomy or sepulchral. It is possible for members of such a society to use necromancy without the necessity of an evil alignment. It is therefore possible to imagine a world in which necromancy is not inherently evil, but instead has associations of respect and reverence.
We are prejudiced against necromancy. This is doubly the case in the West, due in large part to a cultural history which sanctifies the corpse and vilifies those seeking to use it. This cultural legacy comes in part from the Bible. Necromancers are explicitly referred to several times as things that are abominable to God. There are explicit prohibitions in, amongst others, the books of Deuteronomy, Samuel, and Leviticus.28 These prohibitions made the jump from religious text to law. The Code of Hammurabi, one of the oldest surviving codices of law, gives the punishment for “sorcery,” which included magic working with the dead, as an ordeal by water.29
In addition to the cultural normativity taken from the Bible, Dungeons & Dragons also relies on its players’ familiarity with anachronistic imaginings of medieval history. The setting and theme of Dungeons & Dragons reflects an idealized concept of medieval fantasy, with classes such as the paladin explicitly harking back to the notion of the chivalrous and divinely inspired crusading knight. Perhaps the quintessential work of medieval fantasy is Mallory’s 1470 Le Morte d’Arthur, which features two major necromancers: Merlin and Morgan le Fay. Merlin is explicitly identified as being half-demon and is associated throughout the text with several signs of infernal temptation, his knowledge being stated by a knight to come from “the devil’s craft.” Morgan is stated to be “a great clerk of nigromancy [necromancy]”30 and she launches multiple murderous magical attacks upon Arthur throughout the course of the work. This work, amongst others, helped to paint the image of the necromancer as the black-robed, monstrous figure.
The role of contemporary entertainment cannot be overlooked either. Films and TV series depict the walking dead as ravenous, brain-eating monstrosities. Next to such depictions, the relatively harmless nature of Dungeons & Dragons’ mindless undead is easy to overlook. Animated by a morally neutral force rather than a book such as the Necronomicon or a mysterious virus, the skeletons and zombies of Dungeons & Dragons are more akin to constructs or tools than to the creatures of Hollywood and literature. Our brains, therefore, remain quite safe. If we can look beyond the green-tinged skin and the milky eyes of the undead, we can find a worthy and invaluable resource.