Necromedic - TV Tropes

Banks: I'm not a necromancer.
Jen: You did just raise us both from the dead. That was today.
Banks: Necromancers raise zombies. Do you feel like a zombie?

• All Alone: Taylor offers the mortally wounded Officer Lagos, "I can make it better. I can fix this, sort of. Do you want me to help?" He assumed that she was offering to heal his injuries "like Panacea does," but that's not exactly her power. Instead, she takes his attempt at consent, waits a moment for him to die, and raises him as one of her "Animated". It's not a bad deal for him; he keeps his mind (albeit with muted emotions), he's stronger, she can heal his wounds with a touch, and she doesn't directly control him, it's just that his ongoing un-life depends on her. He's promptly able to get back into the fight and subdue a bunch of gang members.
• Dungeon Keeper Ami: The only reason Ami learned necromancy is to use it to heal her wounds. Later, she learns to target necromantic spells so precisely she can kill an infection and leave the patient unscathed.
• Hinterlands: Necromancy can't be used to heal per se — strictly speaking, it interacts with the soul rather than the body directly. However, Amanita worked out that if you use necromancy to bind the soul to a person's body in the manner normally used to create a zombie, and then layer on regular healing spells or medicine on top of that, you can "force" a person to stay alive long enough for otherwise fatal injuries to be healed, at which point the body's normal processes can start again and the necromantic spell can be allowed to decay.

• The Dresden Files: In Dead Beat, Kumori uses necromancy to hold a dying person's soul in their body for long enough that they can be treated with mortal medicine. Her ultimate goal as a necromancer is to cure death itself.
• Dungeon of Undeath: The element of Undeath can keep someone alive past the point of fatal injury and even repair the worst of the damage. Evelyn the necromancer's first scene has her holding a bleeding man in stasis (albeit only so she can sacrifice him later); Jenny isn't a mage, but her new Undeath affinity sustains and heals her in the climax when she takes a killing blow to the head.
• The Locked Tomb: Necromancy is ubiquitous among the Nine Houses. Necromancers wield both Life Energy ("thalergy") and death energy ("thanergy") and can use it on living bodies to some extent.
  • Mercymorn the First is possibly the best flesh mage in the Nine Houses with ten thousand years of necromantic and medical expertise. As shown in "As Yet Unsent", she can diagnose and repair almost any ailment; she just doesn't usually care to.
  • Downplayed in the case of Palamedes Sextus; he's a doctor by training, but his brand of necromancy involves psychometry. However, it's using this that he's able to diagnose that Nona is dying due to her soul not fitting her body in Nona the Ninth, bypassing the 'block' that Lyctors typically have on people being able to read their thalergy.
  • The Seventh House is implied to be riddled with cancer and use their necromancy to sustain their dying bodies.
  • At the start of the second novel, Ianthe gets her severed arm replaced by a new one by the Emperor himself, but she finds it hard to work with due to it being disproportionate. Harrow cuts it off and uses her own brand of Necromancy to grow a new one from Ianthe's own bones later in the book.
• Old Kingdom: The Abhorsen bloodline are all necromancers by trade, albeit ones that focus more on banishing the unquiet dead as opposed to binding and weaponizing them. In the first book, Sabriel uses her ability to go into The River to pull Touchstone's comatose soul out of it and back into his petrified body, reviving him after over a century.
• Tree of Aeons: Freshly severed limbs can be restored with healing magic, but if they're left for long enough, the limb fades from the person's soul and can't be restored so easily. Aeon has to do extensive (and at times horrifying) experimentation in his soul forge, with many rats dying gruesomely along the way, before he finds a way to write Jura's arm back into his soul.
• The Warden Series: Aelis is a trained necromancer, which means she is trained in anatomy, surgery, and medicine, all before she even gets to the raising the dead bit. Most people still treat it as Black Magic, which she finds extremely annoying because necromancy is actually the closest thing they have to healing magic. At one point, she locks a man's soul to his own body long enough for her to finish his surgery and save his life.
• The Witch of Knightcharm: The necromancer Alejandra Medina demonstrates the ability to kill off parts of her body, use those parts to absorb damage that would otherwise hurt or kill her, and then heal those parts back to life without having taken any of the damage.

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • AD&D 1e and 2e classify the Cure Wounds line of spells as Necromancy effects and also allow them to be cast backward to inflict wounds. However, by default, they're granted to clerics, not necromancer-specialist wizards.
  • The spells Life Transference, Vampiric Touch, and Spare the Dying are all used for healing and fall under the Necromancy school of magic. The first transfers some of your Hit Points to another, the second does the same in reverse, and the third heals immediate injuries and prevents an unconscious character from bleeding out without immediate medical attention. Resurrection magic also falls under necromancy.
• Geist: The Sin-Eaters: As Living Ghosts, all Sin-Eaters can metabolize Ectoplasm to reduce the severity of their own wounds, but those who learn the Ceremony "Mending the Mortal Coil" can use it to heal themselves and others completely. The metaphysical explanation is that their connection to The Underworld can't give life, but it can "take away death".
• Magic: The Gathering: Witherbloom College is the 'College of Essence Studies', being a combination between a medical and zoological school; several spells aligned with it in the Strixhaven set involve gaining life and getting creatures into and out of graveyards. Liliana Vess is currently a professor there, teaching introductory necromancy.
• Starfinder: There is a sub-category of augmentations (body modifications that can replace or enhance body parts) called Necrografts, which surgically implants undead organs to improve an adventurer's ability. Examples include a Black Heart, which allows one to survive in an atmosphere-less environment without a suit, and Undead Adrenal Glands, which can grant you temporary immunity to various negative effects (death effects, energy drain, exhaustion, etc.).
• Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: The Black Magic Lore of Necromancy has a spell to heal the necromancer's wounds by drinking the blood of a fresh corpse.

• Arcanum: The branch of magic that deals with healing and resurrection is referred to as "White Necromancy", in contrast to Black Necromancy which covers spells concerning pain, death, and undeath. The first follower the player can recruit, Virgil, begins the game with White Necromantic spells and learns some Black Necromancy as well if he reaches a high enough level, and the Player Character is free to learn spells from both schools if they wish to become a mage.
• Divinity: Original Sin II gives the Necromancer skill line a few healing options:
  • The skill "Blood Sucker" heals the target by absorbing blood surfaces underfoot.
  • The skill "Mosquito Swarm" drains life from the target to heal the caster.
  • The Necromancer ability grants the passive power to heal the character by a fraction of all Hit Point damage they deal to others.
• Dragon Age: The Veilguard: Emmrich Volkarin is a member of the Mourn Watch, and while he's a Necromancer who specializes in Necrotic damage, he can also heal Rook in combat. He also designates himself as Harding's physician if she is romanced.
• Elden Ring: While the exact purpose of a 'Deathbed Companion' such as Fia is never made explicit, one of the more common theories is that her purpose is to "lay with" someone who's recently deceased, with the act resurrecting them.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • Skyrim: The Dawnguard DLC adds the spell Necromantic Healing, which allows the caster to heal the undead, unlike standard healing spells. This notably includes vampires, which are a major part of the DLC (with the player character able to become one optionally), as well as one of the DLC's major companions.
  • Online: The Necromancer class has the Living Death skill line, dedicated to support and healing. Most of its skills work by siphoning power from the recently deceased and using that power to heal one's allies, as well as one skill that summons a spirit that heals those around it.
• Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark: Yates is both a necromancer and doctor, using his study of the dead to also improve his medical knowledge. In-game his unique Anatomist class can reanimate the dead, cast dark magic, and heal allies.
• Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones: The Summoner and Necromancer classes can summon undead spirits as well as use healing staves.
• Minion Masters: The Book of the Dead of the Necromancer and Lich Queen Morellia has four spells. One of them allows her to steal health from enemy minions to heal herself. As Masters share a health bar in team matches, using her spell results in her healing her teammate in team matches, too.
• Runescape:
  • Prayers are a form of benign necromancy that are used to give buffs, including increasing the player's healing rate with the Rapid Regeneration prayer.
  • The Necromancy skill, exclusive to the Runescape 3 version of the game, has an ability called Blood Siphon which is capable of healing the caster for a percentage of the damage it deals.
• Tactical Breach Wizards: Trope Namer Dessa Banks's primary magical skill is the ability to 'rewind' people's bodies to approximately an hour before in time; however, it's shortening her lifespan (she estimates she has about a decade left to live if she keeps using it) and it only works if the person is dead first, meaning to heal her teammates, she has to shoot them dead first.
• Warframe: Nekros, a frame themed after necromancy and raising the dead, has an ability called Desecrate which destroys the corpses of enemies but gives a chance of dropping a health pickup and an additional chance at loot such as mods and resources.

• The Weekly Roll: Torvald the Necromancer attempts to remedy an amputated arm by reanimating it and then stitching it back on. Unfortunately, it soon tries to strangle the patient, then tears itself free and escapes. The patient, who had been unconscious for the ordeal, decides to look for proper healing magic instead.

• Solar Opposites: A technological variation in "Terry's Big Cleaning Day" After Terry panics over the fact that the backyard caught on fire (due to the shrunken Wall denizens), and with Korvo, Yumyulack, and Jessie about to come home, he decides to use the Make-Alive Ray as a quick fix, something he asides to the audience that they have, but rarely use. While it does resurrect the plant life in the backyard, it also has the unintended side effect of bringing Ringo/The Duke back to life, uninjured, and dealing with amnesia.
• The Venture Bros.: Dr. Byron Orpheus is a self-described necromancer, and while raising the dead is within the realm of his powers, he admits to using the term rather than something like "sorcerer" or "magician" because those have taken on less serious connotations in modern times. He has brought clients Back from the Dead without apparent negative side effects, including Ronald Reagan and Evel Knievel (until the latter "bounced a check"). In "Assisted Suicide", he performs some magical psychology by entering Dr. Venture's mind (who has been incapacitated via the Monarch using a Mind-Control Device attempting to perform a Psychic-Assisted Suicide) and dealing with his Id, Ego, and Superego to bring him back.