The necromancer's untapped potential
I just had a random thought and wanted to write it down somewhere- I think necromancers are very boring in how they're presented, but have a lot of slept on potential. When I think of a necromancer, I think of some big evil guy sitting in a castle with an army of ambiguously-sentient skeletons guarding it. Boring stuff.
But... think about how much stuff we use that's dead. Here is a short list of things I've compiled that we either have or use that are dead:
Wood (such as what your house is made of)
Oil
Plastic (made from oil)
Coal
Food
Dinosaur bones
Dust (skin cells)
Hair (also dead cells)
Many dyes (cochineal dye comes to mind)
I don't wanna see any more stereotypical necromancers. I wanna see a necromancer that's started the industrial revolution 700 years early because of their control over coal and oil.
A necromancer that guards their castle with ambiguously-sentient skeleton dinosaurs that spit flaming oil.
A necromancer that possesses the very clothing our heroes are wearing because they're died with crushed beetles.
A necromancer that suffocates you by summoning the thousands of dead skin cells in your house, filling them with rage for being shed from you, and then send them all down into your lungs until you suffocate.
Imagine a world where necromancy is by far the most powerful form of magic because of how many dead things we interact with in modern society, and as such how versatile it is.
Imagine a world where a skilled necromancer can also become a pyromancer with very little extra work (coal and oil)
Imagine a world where necromancers become skilled cooks because they can control oil, wood, and coal, and then literally necromance whatever they're cooking so it just cooks itself.
Imagine a world where necromancers either created or are the ultimate power against a zombie invasion- perhaps both.
Necromancers have so much untapped potential and we're all out here bringing them down to just "big scary man with skeleton army". Everything dies eventually; and if you're a necromancer, everything that's dead... is yours. As a bonus, using my earlier list as a reference, here's a list of jobs I think necromancy might qualify you for
Chef
Anything that deals with plastic (toymaker?)
Curator of a Natural History Museum
Cleaner (just tells the dust to leave)
Hairstylist
Gas pump operator (you literally could just have a tub of gas and tell it to jump in a car)
Oil/coal miner (just summon it out of the ground)
