Necromancy (AOS)

Necromancy is a magical art that relies on the power of death and Oblivion.

Overview
Necromancy is the art by which powerful individuals can enforce their will on the Underworld wholesale. It is the Void’s counterpart to sorcery. While sorcery draws on and shifts the potentially infinite Essence available in Creation, necromancy uses the quintessential decay of Oblivion to alter like quantities of Essence. Like sorcery, necromancy has three circles: Shadowlands, Labyrinth and Void, also called Iron, Onyx and Obsidian, respectively. Each is roughly equal in might to the equivalent circle of sorcery—but not equal in flexibility. Necromancy is generally better than equivalent-circle sorcery at the things it can do, such as binding a ghost, but a sorcerer can do many, many things a necromancer cannot.

Necromancy was invented, allegedly, by the Black Nadir Concordat, a circle of Solar and Lunar Exalted who penetrated the crypts of the Neverborn to ferret out the secrets of death. Its primary users have been the Deathlords, and more recently, the Abyssal Exalted. Nephwracks may also become necromancers, as can many types of living Essence-users (though not all can study beyond the Shadowlands Circle, and Terrestrial Exalts cannot learn necromancy at all unless they possess a rare recessive trait).

The Raiton Academy is the largest school of necromancy in Creation, due to the large number of ghosts and Ghost-Blooded in Nightfall.