Greetings Skeletons, Zombies, and Litches! Good evening, my name is Claudius Clavius Cruor. You may have guessed from my pallid skin, and toothy grin, that I am a vampire. No. Ha ha ha. No. I did not eat the proprietor of this fine establishment. In fact, it was Balbo who called in one of his famous markers to get me to come here tonight to host the glorious gathering of ghouls.   

Yes, my children, the undead are welcome here at The Dragon’s Beard tonight. Not sure if you are living or dead? Oh? Well, do parts of you randomly fall off? Do people say, “what stinks” when you enter a room? Do you crave the taste of human flesh? Do you have the word “dread” before your title? Yes? Me too! Ha ha ha. My friend, you may be the walking dead, a reanimated corpse, or something far more sinister. Regardless, enjoy your time in this world. It can be short…for some.

If you answered no, but find yourself surrounded by the dead, well then, ha ha ha, you, my friend might be a necromancer yourself.

Necromancers practice necromancy obviously. Necromancy is the act of (magical or not) conjuring, raising, and/or controlling the dead. During this superior celebration of callousness, we will be specifically celebrating magic users who communicate with the deceased.

So, take a seat, allow one of our spectral barmaids to bring you something sanguine to drink, and let our formerly deceased bards sing you a song about times long-long past, when their hearts still beat. Their fables can make a banshee wail.

Weapons and Armor

Give a necromancer a pair of prickly daggers and they will be happy. They like simple weapons, like many other magic using classes. A mace, quarterstaff, club; any of these will be fine. They do the job, right, my monstrous mates?

As far as armor, you may have guessed it, light armor like leather, studded, and padded armors are the restriction. A step up from some of the cloth armor wearing spellcasters, which is nice. You know the more wicked necromancers must love to flaunt their armor to the armorless wizard class. It stinks to be so squishy. It stinks for them. Ha ha ha.

What kind of jokes do you think a necromancer would tell about wizards at a party? Something like this perhaps?

What did one necromancer say to the other necromancer? How many cloth-wearing wizards did you raise this week?

Ha! No? How about this?

Why did the wizard break up with the necromancer? Because every time they tried to have a conversation, the necromancer kept ghosting them!

Ha ha ha!

Magic

While your cleric is focused on curing diseases, removing poisons, and healing the injuries of others, your necromancer is the powerfully polar opposite. Necromancers will cast spells that cause diseases, poison their enemies, and drain the life force from others. Devious, right? Spells that create fear and pain are at the top of their spell lists, but what most people roll a necromancer for is raising, animating, creating, and controlling the dead.

Necromancy spells allow their casters to chill out in the back, behind a legion of dead/undead soldiers. Don’t have a squad? Don’t need one. You can create your own! Had a squad, but they died. Don’t stress, you can reanimate their corpses and have them fight for you. Hey, there is something to that ancient necromancer saying, if you want something done right, raise the dead and command them to do it right.

Seriously, necromancers have spells that can allow them to be quite confident solo questers. They can control and disperse crowds, use the undead to tank for them, reanimate a rogue to do some DPS, and then sit back and life tap to keep themselves healthy.

Races

Classically, Humans, Half-Orcs and Elves make good necromancers. In the more recent rulesets, consider races like Tieflings, Yuan-ti, Aasmir, even Hobgoblins.

Humans always make good magic users, and have clear and balanced stats to start, so we suggest them for your first necromancer build. That said, Tiefling is a good choice too for bonuses to charisma, which is very important for your necromancer. Try and deny it, but a Tiefling necromancer will just look badass and make other gamers jealous!

Backgrounds

Among tabletop gamers, a lot of discussion forms around which background is best for a successful necromancer build. Charlatan, Cloistered Scholar, Noble, and Hermit get thrown around a lot. The hermit background gets lots of love because you can create a really fun backstory for your necromancer with it. But the others work well too. Charlatan leans into your dark side and gives you some added deceptive skills. Noble adds persuasion skills that fit with your heavy charm. Hermit adds support skill to your team and Cloistered Scholar gives you a choice of helpful proficiencies in Arcana, Nature, or Religion. Sage is another excellent choice for obvious reasons: access to more magic! Mo’ magic. Mo’ undead followers, this necromancer likes to say.

Who should play a Necromancer?

Not every necromancer is an evil necromancer. And becoming “The” evil necromancer, takes years of study and toil. That said, of course most gamers will pick “evil necromancer” over “goodie-little two-shoes necromancer.” So, we ask you to answer these simple questions. One: are some of your best friends dead? Two: does casting magic that interrupts the actions, and basically ruins the plans (and lives) of your opponent’s appeal to you? Do you wanna be part of that wicked shit?

Again, if you answer yes to more than one of these questions then you clearly want to rock with the dead. Go for it, be that necromancer! Have fun gamer!

Tabletop Beard will Help you Raise that Living Dead Beard to New Levels!

Let the necromancers at Tabletop Beard cast their spells to raise your facial hair from the dead and bring your beard back to life! Tabletop Beard has been studying the art of beard-romancy for years and has just the magical potions (beard oil, beard butter, bard balm, and beard wash) you need to keep your beard healthy, tamed, and under control.

Gains…. Gains…

Yes! You will see gains with the right beard care products from Tabletop Beard. The necromancer’s scent of Graveside lavender never smelled so good.