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I'm making a mod with a necromancer-themed home, and I'd like to include a book that teaches the player to revive corpses. I did the fun part of texturing the book's cover all pretty, but now I need a good title and text for the book!

Don't make me release the mod with the following...

Title: Necromancy and You
Written by: Deandra
Text: You can revive the dead by casting a revive spell at them. The end.

So, to those of you with actual writing skills, would anyone be willing to help me come up with an actual text that sounds like it belongs in the world of Oblivion? Maybe the diary of some long-dead ancient necromancer describing the trials and glories of tomb desecration. Creativity is good! I'm looking for maybe 300-500 words, and if several people respond, I might try to blend the writing together.

What does Necromancy has to do with Oblivion? Or do you mean the game Oblivon and not the hot-lava-with-some-nice-dremora Oblivion?

Title About flesh and blood... and beyond

Chapter 1
I was born in Cheydinhal, city of the Dark Elves. My father was killed by a bandit when I was five years old. My mother was... different. I knew that from the moment I could remember things and think about everything in the world.
I only saw here in the morning, when she gave me some food for the rest of the day, a piece of bread and some fruit, and then left.
When I was 12 years old, we suddenly moved to the Imperial City, where we rend a room in the Merchant's Inn at the Imperial City Market District.
I was allowed to move freely around the Imperial City, so I had a chat with some people around there, such as Urjabhi, Ulen Athram and Thoronir.
On a day, I went to the First Edition bookstore in the Market District and bought some books. At that point, I got interested in Necromancy.
I read "The Path of Transcendence", written by Celedaen, and some other books that included tips and tricks for reviving the dead.
In the years that followed, I learned much more about Necromancer's, and when I was 17 years old, I made a visit to Nenyond Twyll.

Chapter 2
I sneaked inside and it costed me two hours to reach the innermost room. I was never good at sneaking, so I had to be patiently. However, I only faced three Necromancer's and four zombies on my way down, and it was not very difficult to get past them.
While proceeding further, I began to think about being a Necromancer. It does has some good points. First of all: You don't need to fear death. You're the master of it, you can revive people who have died, and others can do the same with you.
But let's get back to the subject: I was sneaking around a corner and then I saw... my mother. She was standing with four other Necromancer's in a circle around the body of a human. They were casting spells and discussing things I could not understand, and after a few minutes, the body revived and turned into a zombie. But something had gone wrong. He suddenly attacked my mother, who was standing close to him, and she felt on the ground, dead. The other Necromancer's panicked, and they summoned other zombies. However, for some reason, they did not try to kill the zombie that had killed my mum. They succeeded in locking him away in a small room, but at the cost of another Necromancer. I was still standing on the same spot, but when they ran back to tell the others what had happened, I couldn't get away. I got caught.

Chapter 3
I think it was the fact that they were panicked that they didn't killed me in the first place. Instead, they just took me away with them and locked me up in a small cell. A few hours later, two of them came to me and they wanted to kill me. There was just nothing I could do.
They took me to a large room, with about 10 Necromancer's starring at me, and they were planning on cutting my head off my chest with a silver dagger. But I simply said: "I want to be a Necromancer".
But it wasn't a trick to survive. It was true. I wanted to follow the path my mother had followed before me, and reach the end.
I had to do a test. They kidnapped a Bandit and told me to kill him and then turn him into a zombie.
It was a piece of cake. I hated bandits, because they once killed my father, and I had 5 years book-reading experience. So I killed the bandit, he was not even asleep, he was actually looking at me with wet eyes and screaming for his life, and I turned him into a zombie and let him walk around the room. It was rather funny.

Chapter 4
My new life started. I learned more things about Necromancy and I moved spot to Fort Variela. Here are some of the things I learned, maybe you can put a use for it:
Let the undead do the dirty work for you - When there's an intruder, simply call the help of a zombie or skeleton, and when your enemy tries to get close to you, simply run away. Just let your summoned creature do the hard work while you're casting Destruction spells and healing yourself.
Your bad points are Turn Undead or Silence spells and sneak attacks. Make sure you always know where you enemies are, by using detect life spells from the school of Mysticism, and always got some scrolls and spells that cannot be silenced with you to get out of nasty situations.
The final tip: although Necromancer's are not as strong as fighters, you can use the school of Alteration to cast powerful armor spells. Make use of this often.

Chapter 5
But how to revive the dead? It's rather simple, well, only if you're a Necromancer. You just need a Revive Spell, which can be obtained by joining the Necromancer's, a decent amount of Magicka and the Intelligence and Willpower the summon the spell.
When you're using a revive spell on a human, he or she will automatically turn into a zombie. Depending on his or her level, this will be a Zombie, Headless Zombie or (my favorite ones!) a Dread Zombie. All zombies also have four varieties, for example: they can miss an arm, so you never know what kind of Zombie you've created and that's one of the fun parts of it!
I'm now more then 50 years old, and I'm feeling that my time has come. Soon I will join the people I have revived and loved all those years. I've learned the greatest and darkest magic a Necromancer can possess, so by reading this book, everyone can obtain the Revive spell. Hopefully this will mean that there are going to be more Necromancer's, and maybe they'll take over the world some day.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note: I'm Dutch, so maybe there's one or two grammar mistakes. I've added some tips about Necromancy in the last two chapters, because I thought that would fit (you're learning a spell right?).
Oh and nice mod idea by the way!

I found this to be a very interesting idea, and it prompted me to do some research. Though I am no writer, I did come up with some interesting things in my research. http://forums.uesp.net/viewtopic.php?t=1841&highlight=necromancy Here is a little something someone put together that I remembered was here. I don't know if it will help any but it can't hurt. I may have something more to add just don't have much time right now.

More of a history lesson than any real help; I found it interesting that necromancy is actually attributed to N'gasta first. I found the Sload race to be just like the similar race(can't remember the name) from "Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy". They like to study something to the full extent before taking any action. Mannimarco came later and studied at the Aertium(sp)(similar to the Arcane University) with the Psijics along with Galerion the mystic. Galerion who was a bit younger or not as skilled, was Mannimarco's rival. Eventually it worked up to a big battle between 2 factions in which Galerion seemed to be victorious. Mannimarco is a lich, but it is possible that there have been many Mannimarco's.

Sorry, if everyone already knows this but I found it intrigueing.

I find the sload to look abit like Jabba the Hut

Thanks for the responses so far!

The Living Flesh

by Mannimarco

The practice of Necromancy, has been frowned upon since it's birth. This is due to religious superstition, fear of death and general prejudice. The truth is, that necromancy itself is a magickal college, with similarities to Restoration, Conjuration and Mysticism. This however, has never been approved by the mages guild. The core element of Necromancy, is the manipulation of death. It is common knowledge to anyone adept in the arts of Mysticism, that the Soul is the bodys engine. The Soul is everlasting, while to body is not. If one were to take the soul, and infuse it into another body, one could overcome the physical limitations of the body, and thereby have a prolonged life. This process is quite dangerous, and should only be advised to adepts of Necromancy. However, inexperienced Necromancers may use the method for another thing; to produce Minions. It is much less dangerous to manipulate with souls of other subjects. By infusing the soul of another person into a body, one may control the subject. To do this, one must have a fresh corpse. Then the Necromancer must summon a soul, using the college of Conjuration. After summoning the Soul, the Necromancer must infuse the soul into the body, while he is still keeping mind contact to the Soul. If all goes well, the corpse should rise and as long as the Necromancer has mind contact with the Soul, it should be possible to control the subject using the principals of Conjuration.

Please bear in mind that english isn't my first language and it's 2 in the morning in my time zone

Im not totally sure that this is completely lore-friendly, but i don't really see anywhere that this violates Elder Scrolls lore. If anyone does please tell me.

Well i hope you'll find it usefull

I think you should call it Necromancy And You!

You have to at least give the mod that name. It's brilliant.

Hehe, maybe I should

I'm already including a book called "Black's Anatomy" with some engravings from the 17th century, and I don't want to cause too much suspension of disbelief by making that the name of the book, but as the name for the mod, I like it It's certainly better than what I've been calling it so far (Linchal Necromancer Home).

Thats brilliant How's the overall progress then?

I still need to:
finish the text of the reanimation book
fix the normal map of the spellmaking/enchanting altars (I replaced the mages guild symbol in the base with a necromancer symbol, but messed up the normal map)
landscape the outside of the home
add the key to the house to a vendor (I'm thinking Shady Sam)
improve the skin of the anatomy book and give it a better thumbnail
add a scroll that adds the player to the necromancer faction
write the readme
test the installation

I'm hoping to release it this weekend!

I can offer some help with the landscape if you need it. It's kinda what i'm good at

Do you know how to merge a mod? Because I'm not sure how we can both work on it at a time, unless I send you what I have so far and don't work on it (but that would kind of defeat the point of you trying to help )

If i rename the file you send me, cant you just load both of them in the CS, and dont set any as active. Then you save them both as a whole new esp?

That didn't work for me

I know a program that merges esp's, but it wont overwrite equal files...

Ok, I found it-- tes4 gecko. If you send me a PM with your email address, I'll send you a copy of the mod as it is so far so you can mess with the outside, if you want to

If you dont have the text I know i saw a book talking about how you use leather straps to strap the skeletons bones together and then revive it so it holds together I can't seem to find it though.

Actually, right now my problem is a lot more basic--I don't know how to make a book readable if it has a script attached to it!

That is so very definitely not my area of specialty.

Well, I figured that out thanks to a tip from weka And codex's landscaping looks great so far, so hopefully this will get released soon!

I'm still open to writing submissions, though. I think I'll try to blend together some of the ideas from different people, so the more the merrier

Gots Some names *Hic* For you..

They are...:

1.Rebirth of the Unholy
2.Renewal of the Tainted
3.Chains of Life (Maybe add a heal spell (It would be kinda cooler))
4.Deaths Door
5.Reapers Renewal
6.Shackels of the Unholy
7.Binding Touch
8.Hand of the Reaper
9.Hand of Christ (Maybe a little too religous?)
10.Paw of Sithis

(Maybe more in and hour or so, like you siad, you only have tonight...)

I like Binding Touch.

Instead of Christ how about Akatosh? And why Paw of Sithis? Sithis is a person.

If anyone wants to test the mod before it gets released (release date is late Friday/early Saturday), you can find it here:

www.kayleighcoll.com/LinchalNecromancerHome.zip

If you find any bugs, please let me know!

I'll be disabling that link as soon as it's up on TESNexus, since I don't exactly have enough bandwidth to keep it hosted myself...