Spell recommendations Nethermancer 4th circle

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ragbasti
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Re: Spell recommendations Nethermancer 4th circle

Post by ragbasti » Mon Aug 13, 2018 11:21 am

ChrisDDickey wrote:
Sun Aug 12, 2018 6:58 pm
TheOracle wrote:
Sat Aug 11, 2018 11:40 pm
I don't think Nethermancers are evil. Their attitude is often that the end justifies the means.
Saying that "the end justifies the means", is simply admitting that you are willing to do what you recognize as being evil if you think your goal is good. That does not make your actions not evil.
I hope it's okay for me to post this...

The first two paragraphs where a nethermancer speaks about his discipline in the ED3 companion:
Many speak ill of the path I walk, the path of the Nethermancer. My colleagues and I are regarded with distaste, unease, even violent prejudice. As is the case in any such discrimination, its roots lie in ignorance. Simply because we inquire into the worlds beyond our own, we are suspected of consorting with Horrors and treated as pariahs. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Our explora-tions serve only to protect our fellow Namegivers from the ravages of the Horrors and their constructs, including the undead. Do the spells and talents we wield carry a dark tang to them, a stench of the grave? Perhaps to the clouded mind, to the Namegiver who gives credence only to his untutored feelings and flees from the blandishments of reason. But any who care to think carefully on the matter recognize the Nethermancer as a bulwark, the last line of defense between this fragile world of life and the encroaching worlds of horror and death.

People fear Nethermancers because they fear death, and Nethermancers are symbolically bound to the concept of death. But Nethermancers do not fear death, for we know it intimately. We know that it is not an impassable bar-rier, a wall between something that is good and something that is bad. Death is but a doorway, a threshold into another way of being. Life is not superior to death, nor is death superior to life. Both have their struggles, their pleasures, and their terrors. Only a fool looks upon death as anything more than another phase in the building of one’s legend.
It is about having a different view on life and death altogether. By common standard the spells might look evil but the key lies in the nethermancers' acceptance of death and incorporating it into their overall theme.
They are dedicated to study horrors in order to eradicate them and they are not scared to use what they have learned against those they are fighting.

It is not about the end justifying the means but much more about how death and darkness become normal to those that study it intimately.
Take real life professions as an example, like grave keepers or those who embalm dead bodies and prepare them for funerals. Those are still highly stigmatised even today, and were subject to many horror stories in the past. Nobody is afraid of them anymore but many still find it weird or undesirable to work in those field.
What others are viewing as black and white, the nethermancer maybe just views as different shades of grey.

It is the black, the darkness, which they are fighting against and they are not afraid of using their knowledge to fight it.

So, if despite all this you are seeing them as evil, maybe you are not the right one to interpret their cause :D ;)

Calamrin
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Re: Spell recommendations Nethermancer 4th circle

Post by Calamrin » Mon Aug 13, 2018 2:03 pm

The first two paragraphs where a nethermancer speaks about his discipline in the ED3 companion:
To be fair thats from 3rd edition, and im refering to 4th.

Even reading that:

Death itself is not evil.
Nethermancers use evil powers and spells learnt from the evil horrors they so good at fighting.
The spells are still evil....it actually says in descriptions they summoning evil spirits.
(i mean they have spells that wont attack undead and only living beings including party members!)
They take free spirits and trap and transform them into semi undead monsters.
So, if despite all this you are seeing them as evil, maybe you are not the right one to interpret their cause :D ;)
He didnt say they were evil...he just said the ends justifying the means doesnt mean your actions are not evil.

What u have essentially said overall is Nethermancers themselves dont think they are evil.
But they are, through using evil spells and practices
People tend not to like and be afraid of them.
They are great at fighting horrors and evil in the world using their evil spells.

Edit : all you said about gravediggers is a load of tosh....ohh they were viewed with suspicion and lack of understanding and still considered with a taboo they dont deserve....i think a nethermancer who rips his face off, entraps free spirits and makes them into trapped vicious undead, and evil spirits to take over and manipulate friend and foe warrents more than a just being "misunderstood", with everyone else just not "understanding"!

ragbasti
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Re: Spell recommendations Nethermancer 4th circle

Post by ragbasti » Mon Aug 13, 2018 7:46 pm

Calamrin wrote:
Mon Aug 13, 2018 2:03 pm
i think a nethermancer who rips his face off, entraps free spirits and makes them into trapped vicious undead, and evil spirits to take over and manipulate friend and foe warrents more than a just being "misunderstood", with everyone else just not "understanding"!
Yes, you think. Sorry but this is a difference of opinion and interpretation, we're not speaking facts here. If you refuse to take my viewpoint into consideration then my final comment still applies. Have a good evening.

Calamrin
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Re: Spell recommendations Nethermancer 4th circle

Post by Calamrin » Mon Aug 13, 2018 9:09 pm

lol you do make a good case from a nethermancers point of view...im just making it from a non nethermancers view....well not even a non nethermancers view, just someone reading the class in the book.

Both sides are allowed an opinion.

I can only go with whats written and in the 4th edition book, and they are not nice people....but im not buying the grey thing where its all justified and fine and they just misunderstood!

Anything can be interpreted in anyway, im just going with whats written and explained in black and white not grey....but im sorry you cant just say anything can be explained as grey as you delve into an area where you justify anything anyway you want even though its the opposite of whats written...at some point you have to look at whats written and take it from there.

Edit: if anyone, can within reading the actual descriptions of the bone circle spell and bone spirits, and make it not come across as inherently evil it would change my mind a lot....ive looked several times and i just cant see how it isnt.

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Mataxes
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Re: Spell recommendations Nethermancer 4th circle

Post by Mataxes » Mon Aug 13, 2018 11:40 pm

Virag would be very upset you consider her evil.

She's a (female troll) version of David Attenborough for astral fauna.
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Re: Spell recommendations Nethermancer 4th circle

Post by Bonhumm » Tue Aug 14, 2018 12:48 am

Mataxes wrote:
Mon Aug 13, 2018 11:40 pm
She's a (female troll) version of David Attenborough for astral fauna.
Now all I can see in my mind is Steve Irwin trying to calm down Artificer.

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Mataxes
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Re: Spell recommendations Nethermancer 4th circle

Post by Mataxes » Tue Aug 14, 2018 2:02 am

Bonhumm wrote:
Tue Aug 14, 2018 12:48 am
Now all I can see in my mind is Steve Irwin trying to calm down Artificer.
"Crikey, that's a beaut!"

(I now want to write a whole bit in that voice... but I cannot let myself get dragged down that rabbit hole.)
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Re: Spell recommendations Nethermancer 4th circle

Post by TheOracle » Tue Aug 14, 2018 6:44 am

I just don't see any moral difference. I don't care if someone sets an evil spirit on me, chops me into pieces with an axe, feeds me to his favorite tiger or throws a fireball in my face. I die a horrible death in every case. Well, in the case of the tiger, at least it's a fluffy death. None of it seems inherently less evil. :\

ChrisDDickey
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Re: Spell recommendations Nethermancer 4th circle

Post by ChrisDDickey » Tue Aug 14, 2018 9:49 am

I think that Calamrin's point is that how you are killed might not make any difference to you, but it might make a difference to the spirit or the tiger. Alright, probably not the tiger, but it might make a difference to the spirit to be enslaved and forced to kill you. It might ruin it's entire day!

In any case, I think we can all agree that opinions are divided.
There are those that feel that Nethermancers are evil for enslaving spirits, because spirits have right too. And those that think that Elementalists are evil for enslaving Elementals, because Elementals have rights too. And those that think that Beastmasters and Cavalreyman are evil for dominating beasts, because beasts have rights too. And those that think that a Liberal Arts education turns your brains into tapioca.

I am going to stop being a troll and stirring the pot now.

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Re: Spell recommendations Nethermancer 4th circle

Post by Lursi » Tue Aug 14, 2018 10:59 am

How about a vegan Nethermancer fighting for animal rights?

Enslaving spirit’s is a completely different thing like killing namegivers...

Evil, bad, good, gray, colorful,benevolent... all can only exist in conjunction to their opposite.

A good educational video about rationalizing your own actions can be found here:

https://youtu.be/XBmJay_qdNc

Regarding the complaint of the enslaved spirit that hates killing a namegiver, I’d say that most soliders would also prefer not to sit in a WWI trench.

But is loosing a war an option?
Of all things I lost, sanity I held dearest.

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