N is for Necrofacture

Even though magic-users whose specialty is dealing with the dead are called "necromancers," their primary focus is not on divination through or communication with departed souls but rather the creation of undead beings. Because the undead are creatures of Chaos and widely believed to have been brought into being by demons, necromancers are not well regarded, even when their intentions serve Lawful ends. Outside of the city-state of Yethlyreom, the willful creation of undead, called "necrofacture" by sages, is a generally a capital offense, with execution carried out in a number of unpleasant ways. The priesthood of Typhon in particular views necrofacture with distaste, seeing as aiding Chaos in its eternal war against Law.

It's worth noting that necrofacture is possible because, tall tales to the contrary, there are no incorporeal undead. All undead beings are corpses infused with Chaotic energy so as to animate them and, in some cases, give them an evil intelligence. Without a body, there can be no undead. Stories of ghosts, wraiths, spectres, and similar beings are just that -- stories; they do not exist so far as anyone knows and, even if they did, necrofacture has no power to create them. Most stories of incorporeal undead are based on the misapprehension that beings of living Chaos known as shadows are in fact the spirits of the evil dead.

The principles of necrofacture were first widely developed by the Eld but it was the Thulian Empire under the rule of the cult of Turms Termax that perfected this demonic art. Using corpses, magic, and alchemy, Thulian necromancers learned to create not just skeletons and zombies but also more powerful beings such as wights, mummies, and even vampires. And of course the Termaxians pioneered the processes by which liches and similar undead come into being. Thanks to the strong censures against it, necromancy has not advanced much since the fall of Thule, but, with the recent opening of Dwimmermount, there's no telling what sort of knowledge might be found within, ushering in a new age of experimentation into this dark art ...