Guild Wars 2

I do realize that this question was probably already discussed at some point in time; I’m sorry if I’m asking something extremely obvious or simply well-known. Yesterday, however, I bought and played GW1 for the first time and was immediately intrigued by necromancers’ appearance. Some of them don’t really look human (the ones that have slit pupils, for example), and many of them, especially the Nightfall ones, seem to be quite noticeably dead. Or, rather, undead. On the other hand, the necromancers in GW2 look perfectly alive and healthy.
My question is, are they actually alive or undead? Or are they simply two different entities/professions, the first ones being undead followers of Grenth and the second ones being living people using death magic?

Necromancers are the same, except in GW2 ArenaNet decided to give them the ability to summon corpses out of nothing, only wear elementalist armor, and give up the self-administered bloodletting.

There’s no official explanation, if that’s what you’re looking for. Maybe they were undead, maybe the dark magic makes you look creepy trope is in play, maybe they used to deliberately alter their appearance to project a certain image of the profession. Personally, I’d lean towards the last, because it accounts for why both GW2 necromancers and most non-human necromancers in the first game looked normal.

no, pretty sure you have to be alive, otherwise you’re a lich.

Not necessarily. We don’t know what all differentiates a lich from other undead, but we do know of the existence of both free-willed undead and spellcasting undead who are not liches.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Not necessarily. We don’t know what all differentiates a lich from other undead, but we do know of the existence of both free-willed undead and spellcasting undead who are not liches.

i mean just in terms of terminology, a lich is a powerful undead necromancer. the fact there’s a separate term should say that no, you don’t have to be dead to be a necromancer.

Thank you all for your answers! I was hoping that there might be an explanation in the game’s lore, I guess now I will simply believe what I would like to believe.

Maybe they looked like that because of the sacrifice spells, and now we dont have sacrifice spells anymore so they look normal. We have corruption spells though…

Shiren.9532:

BrunoBRS.5178:

no, pretty sure you have to be alive, otherwise you’re a lich.

Is Livia a lich?

is livia dead? no? not a lich.

narwhalsbend.7059:

Necromancers are the same, except in GW2 ArenaNet decided to give them the ability to summon corpses out of nothing, only wear elementalist armor, and give up the self-administered bloodletting.

Blood is power says hello.

At OP.

I think that necromancers can “transcend” death in the times of GW2. They have the ability to “wear death” (death shroud) and to call upon the undead to serve them (minons). I would think that they are alive, but serve death. In the times of GW1 with the sacrifices and curses (which took a toll upon the user) I would think that they would still be alive, rather than undead, but because of the nature of their magic would appear to be undead, or extreamly frail at the very least.

As far as a lich is concerned. Yeah not so much. Lichs generally are: “Often such a creature is the result of a transformation, as a powerful magician or king striving for eternal life uses spells or rituals to bind his intellect to his phylactery and thereby achieve a form of immortality.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lich)
Its more than just being an undead spell caster.

Shiren.9532:

Livia might be dead. She lived longer than a normal human, perhaps she used the Scepter of Orr to grant her life after death and that’s why she was able to appear in Sea of Sorrows, aesthetically the same as she was in Eye of the North.

Livia is special. A possible explanation for her special status is that she became a lich like the last wielder of the Scetper of Orr.

last we heard of her she was alive though. nothing indicated “died and resurrected”. we have no idea what became of her, or how she was alive for so long, all we know is that she managed to survive like a hundred years without aging a day.

but until there’s evidence to the contrary, she’s no lich, she just figured out a way to remain alive.

Shiren.9532:

Livia might be dead. She lived longer than a normal human, perhaps she used the Scepter of Orr to grant her life after death and that’s why she was able to appear in Sea of Sorrows, aesthetically the same as she was in Eye of the North.

Livia is special. A possible explanation for her special status is that she became a lich like the last wielder of the Scetper of Orr.

The last wielder of the Scepter was already a Lich when he came into possession of the iem.

pdavis.8031:

Blood is power says hello.

Okay you win, but it’s still not the same.

The Vizier looked like a normal person for about 75% of the time we knew him. I guess it wouldn’t be so odd to think that someone with enough power to overcome death can easily maintain his/her appearance from before they turned rotted and gross. Even if it is just a facade. Alternatively, the Vizier was the only known lich to be able to look “normal” Or at the very least the only one who bothered to try. He was also the only known lich to wield the Scepter of Orr at some point. Livia is also alive WAY beyond her normal lifespan, and also is known to have at least held the scepter. Maybe the scepter has the unique ability to allow a wielder to alter their appearance, or even maintain a normally functioning living body over the barely functioning rotting corpse.
As for the point that the Vizier was already a lich before wielding the scepter, that might not be the case.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Scepter_of_Orr
According to that link, the scepter was held in Orr and went missing just before the cataclysm, only to show up in Kryta during the events in GW1. Seeing as how the Vizier was basing pretty much all of his activity on that scepter, I think it’s likely that he used it long before his country exploded.

Necromancers are very much alive. They have that appearance in GW1 because Anet was more profession thematic in appearance options in GW1 than in GW2.

Which would explain why mesmers often look like strippers in GW2, as opposed to the classy elegant stage-performers in GW1 >:o Back in my day, only elementalists dressed half naked! (Just my complaint about non class-specific armors)

Konig Des Todes.2086:

They have that appearance in GW1 because Anet was more profession thematic in appearance options in GW1 than in GW2.

Of course, but is this appearance purely aesthetical, or does it actually represent something about the PC’s physiology? Other professions are also unique in their style, but never to the point of not looking human.
Also, if necromancers were corrupted by their magic against their own will, wouldn’t all of them have the same issue regardless of their race and age?
I’m not saying that all of them are undead, but is it possible that some of them are (not counting liches and mummies)?

I guess whether or not they are undead is really up to the player. This is probably one of those times where if the game doesn’t specifically mention it, you can probably RP, or whatever, your own explanation. Anet doesn’t give you a back story? Make one up! Did they not mention the specifics of your pulse? I guess it’s whatever you want it to be.

Hashar.6082:

Of course, but is this appearance purely aesthetical, or does it actually represent something about the PC’s physiology? Other professions are also unique in their style, but never to the point of not looking human.
Also, if necromancers were corrupted by their magic against their own will, wouldn’t all of them have the same issue regardless of their race and age?
I’m not saying that all of them are undead, but is it possible that some of them are (not counting liches and mummies)?

Necromancy doesn’t corrupt. It isn’t evil or some dark force. Necromancers aren’t people wielding dark forces in hopes of doing good with it.

There isn’t a single NPC necromancer that is stated to be undead that isn’t very, VERY obviously undead (in their actual form, in the case of Khilbron). Undead necromancers exist, but so do living necromancers. GW1 mechanics should be a good enough answer: most undead didn’t bleed or get diseased, as they were considered “non-fleshy”, but necromancers do.

Obviously you could roleplay that you were undead, but mechanically you were still treated just like a monk, mesmer, assassin, etc.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Necromancy doesn’t corrupt. It isn’t evil or some dark force. Necromancers aren’t people wielding dark forces in hopes of doing good with it.

I wouldn’t jump to an evil nature to the magic, but it is not inconceivable that the only* form of magic we know that supernaturally alters the body, be it in the form of blood and health sacrifice to power spells or introducing diseases and all other manner of conditions, could change one’s appearance. If nothing else, running around with slit pupils before the invention of contact lenses would require magic of some sort. Maybe it’s something deliberately done to unnerve others, or maybe it was a long-term side effect of the way necromancy was used in GW1 times, or yes, maybe we’re reading too much into it, but I wouldn’t say it’s a possibility that we can write off altogether.

*Healing magic, obviously, has physical effects, but I discount it here because it only seems to restore a being to proper health. It’s a return to the status quo, not an upset of it.

They cut themselves to fuel magic and invite disease/poison as a means of damaging others. I figured that the corrupted looking options for Necros in GW1 were a reflection of the fact that Necros embrace death rather than manipulating it at a safe distance.

Kinda appreciate that more, really, than sanitized “Oh, death magic is just another kind of magic like elemental or illusion magic”.

The way I see it, in GW1, necromancy was sort of an evil, frowned upon practice foir how dark it was. As 250 years pass on the practice evolves into sommuning minions from nowhere so you dont have to sacrifice people to get minions. It evolves into a common magical practice instead of an evil one.

It was never really accounted evil in GW1, simply dark. Most found it unsettling, and necromancers did seem more likely than most to go power-mad, but it wasn’t frowned upon or really discriminated against- less like sociopathic murders and more like the grunge-punk culture.

Necromancy was never evil.

There were evil necromancers, sure, but at the same time there were evil monks, mesmers, elementalists, warriors, rangers, ritualists, assassins, paragons, and dervishes.

It’s frowned upon only in the sense of people find necromancers weird and scary, due to how they deal with death so much and manipulate corpses.

It was even stated that in modern times, especially amongst humans, necromancers are met with disdain due to the undead of Orr (for humans, both from Khilbron and then from Zhaitan). Only exception to that would be sylvari.

A while back I was playing Guild Wars, and one of my necromancer/whatever’s heroes said something about not liking necromancers because of them either being dead or having been dead — or something! I forgot about it until I saw this thread, and then of course I couldn’t remember exactly what was said or who said it. Until today! After a little digging, I found it on the Guild Wars wiki.

It was Hayda, a paragon hero from Eye of the North. She said, “I don’t like Necromancers, people who come back from the dead don’t have the same value system.”

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Hayda

So there’s that. Whether she knows what she’s talking about is another matter.

She may be talking about the target of necromantic magic, not the wielder of necromantic magic. So, she distrusts necromancers because they bring back people who may “not have the same value system”, not because the necromancers themselves came back from the dead.

I don’t think Hayda knows what she’s talking about given that paragons have resurrection spells… and monks and ritualists. Heck, she even comes with a resurrection skill in her default bar.

And if you follow her quests and quotes, you can tell she’s not exactly what you’d call “smart”.

Necromancers do seem to smell a bit.

Here is Sebedoh, a Mesmer from Guild Wars 1 commenting on Verata’s smell, if the player character was a necromancer.

“Oh look, a Necromancer. ‘Tis one thing to exploit the dead, and entirely another to dominate the living. I don’t expect you to understand. Talk to Verata. You’ll know him by the smell.”

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Sebedoh_the_Mesmer

(I wonder if some Mesmers thought of their magic as superior to necromancy due to the fact that Mesmers dominate the living compared to the dead.)

You could also say the same about a fish vendor. Hang ‘round smelly things, such as reanimated corpses, you’re bound to catch the smell yourself.

Rhaegar.1203:

You could also say the same about a fish vendor. Hang ‘round smelly things, such as reanimated corpses, you’re bound to catch the smell yourself.

Disgusting.