Gideon the Ninth: Towards a Better Necromancer

Gideon the Ninth and the rest of the books in the Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir is a fantasy novel set in space. The action is dominated by necromancers and swordsman.  I’ve really enjoyed all the books so far. I am eagerly awaiting the release of the fourth book.

To me, based both on my impressions of the subclass, and the lack of players I see using it, the necromancer is really underdeveloped in Dungeons and Dragons 5e.  It was part included in the 2014 version of the PHB, but is absent in 2025. 

But back to the Locked Tomb Series for a moment.  As I mentioned above, all the magic users are necromancers.  The whole magic system is based upon channeling the energy of death and using the bodies of the dead. The author really explores the range of abilities that this magic can achieve. 

Gideon the Ninth and a Better Necromancer

So here’s what I think a necromancer needs, based on what seems like it’s missing from the class now, and what I’ve seen necromancers do in fiction

• Overcome the limitation of requiring dead bodies to be present when creating undead.
• Overcome the limitation of only being able to create weaker undead.
• Be able to manipulate dead material in more ways than just creating undead and reviving the fallen.

One of the interesting things that the Locked Tomb series does is not that anywhere there are people, there has been the death of sentient beings. Therefore, in any place a necromancer goes, there is plenty of energy and material for them to draw upon. The challenge for the necromancers comes when they are out in space. They are unable to find energy to draw on there.  I think that this may point us in the right direction for a fix of the necromancer subclass.  At lower levels they are bound up by the restrictions of needing dead bodies, but once they achieve a certain level, they are strong enough to draw on the ambient death energy around them, or even tap into the Negative Plane for power. 

I’ll be back with more on an improved necromancer.  For now you can take a look at my Szass Tam stat block to see how I implemented the ability to tap into the Negative Plane.