A Personal Living Corpse

A necromancer who wants to become a living corpse has two options. The easiest is to ask a trusted associate to perform the living corpse operation after the necromancer's death. The necromancer constructs the required enchanted items, instilling as much Penetration as possible. Once complete, he entrusts the enchanted items to a second magus, who promises to summon the necromancer's ghost after death. The magus needs to provide a fresh corpse for the ghost, and affix the enchanted items to it. If the necromancer is particularly fond of his own body, he could insist that his compatriot use it, instead of another. The necromancer might wear the enchanted items in anticipation of becoming a living corpse. Needless to say, the necromancer must trust this assistant implicitly, literally placing his un-life in the second magus' hands. If the magus refuses to summon the necromancer's ghost, then all is for naught.

Not every necromancer has such a trusted friend. Because summoning a ghost is a ritual spell, and ritual spells cannot be put into enchanted devices, it would seem that an assistant is mandatory. There is a way around this, however, for the few daring enough to undertake it: ritual suicide. The idea is simple. When a person dies, his soul and spirit depart his body, rushing off to whatever destination awaits them. While manipulations of the soul are beyond Hermetic magic, containing the spirit is not. The plan is for the necromancer to kill himself and trap his departing spirit so that it cannot escape. The ghost's presence triggers a cascade of spell-like effects emanating from a previously prepared enchanted device, whose effects bind the ghost, animate the corpse, and pass control of the corpse to the ghost.

Once decided, the necromancer casts as powerful a Ring of Warding Against Spirits as he can, keeping in mind that the spell must Penetrate the Magic Might of the forthcoming spirit. Primarily designed to keep spirits out, the ward can also keep spirits in, barring a spirit's passing from one side to the other. The necromancer places the various enchanted devices about himself, on the floor, on his body, depending on how he has designed them. Without further, ado he kills himself. Drinking hemlock has a certain philosophical flair, and cutting one's throat is dramatic, but any method that culminates in death works. When his heart beats its last, the spirit departs, to be barred by the Ward Against Spirits. The necromancer's enchanted devices activate, grabbing the spirit and forcing it into a container, animating the necromancer's corpse, and binding the two together.

Becoming a living corpse unassisted is not a guaranteed process, and there are many complications. Most importantly, it is probable that a magus' spirit will become a ghost, but not automatic. Hermetic magic can affect ghosts in many ways, but it cannot create a ghost, and no existing Hermetic process gives even the slightest chance of doing so. If a ghost does result, it could be aligned to any of the four supernatural realms, depending on the nature and prior experiences of the magus. Because Hermetic magic must be realm-specific, the ward and devices will have to target the realm that the ghost is actually aligned with. An overly cautious magus could cast four Wards Against Spirits, to anticipate all four possibilities, and create four binding devices. If a ghost results from the suicide, and if the necromancer has correctly anticipated to which realm the ghost is aligned, he should become a living corpse.

If any of these falls short — the ghost flees, the spell-like effect is targeting a ghost from a different realm that it was designed for, or the effect fails to Penetrate — the process fails. Timing can be important. If the process works, the ghost is still stopped by the Ward Against Spirits. The necromancer must calculate how long he wants the ward to last, compared with when his device to bind the ghost will trigger. Using the Orb for the Spectral Sovereign example (see earlier), the