It may be Disney but I like "Aladdin's" prohibitions: 1. No Killing 2. No Bringing People Back from the Dead 3. No Making People Fall in Love The first two prohibitions on the genie are simple, but it's the third one that throws a real curveball. It basically acknowledges that love is an extremely powerful force and can be extremely destructive if directed in unnatural ways.
It depends entirely on the culture at hand. In my setting, for example, there is a nation in which necromancy is at the heart of industry and makes the lives of everyone better. Sterile skeleton workers (none of those disgusting zombies) plow the fields, work the mines, and haul in the nets on fishing barges, so that all the most gruelling and dangerous jobs are filled by those already dead. This cheap labor force is government sponsored and ultra productive since they never have to rest or eat. Rather than putting people out of work, this frees the average citizen to get an education and learn a more skilled trade or an art, and everyone generally gets on better as a result. It took a while, but people generally got over the idea. The greatest scholars also never have to fade away and die because they have the option of becoming liches. By contrast, necromancy in the rest of the world is viewed as icky and gross and inherently evil. War inevitably comes about because of this disagreement. There is also a form of weather magic that is highly prized by industrialized nations with shipping concerns, but is reviled and shunned by a certain more naturistic society because it upsets the balance of nature. However that same culture places such a high value on natural order that most medicines are outlawed, and so the life expectancy is very low.
Or, you know, magic that instantly crystallizes human blood, leaving the victim's body filled to the brim with tiny glass daggers. That would be pretty taboo.
There's this utterly awful source book for Dungeons and Dragons called the Book of Vile Darkness. It's pretty much garbage. They don't bother exploring the nature of evil and the relativity of the subject matter and instead just list a bunch of abilities that are like "you get a stat bonus from screwing corpses." There is however one neat section where they list a bunch of corrupted wizard spells, and some of those are utterly horrifying. Death by thorns, the rapture of rupture, swirling tornado of teeth, apocalypse from the sky, that's all I can remember right now. Haven't played that game in years but I still think about some of the source books I read now and then. There were so many really cool monsters and spells and other things in some of those books. Every now and then you found a real gem.
Necromancy is the obvious one that a society might not like. Although, incidentally, IIRC the actual definition of "Necromancy" is "communicating with the dead to divine the future", which isn't what people normally mean by it. Generally though, any type of blood magic is probably not likely to be popular in most societies.
I agree with GuardianWynn and Wilfiry. You should choose taboos according to the people you're creating, according to whatever reasoning they personally follow. For example, in Brent Weeks' Night Angel Trillogy, there's the Lae'Knaught people - whose leader is a lepper - who are decidedly against all magic - and the leader doesn't for one minute consider being healed. There's the Chantry, a place full of female mages who consider any battle magic to be taboo. There's the Vürdmeisters who consider any kind of magic to be great, including raising Krul (essentially dead bodies) - mostly because they're harmfully greedy. Magic taboos are actually something you could have some fun playing around with. But I too am of the opinion that it should happen from the perspective of the characters, according to their culture, and not from your own.
Really great ideas here! It's definitely helped with defining the different types of magic out there, but I do want to clarify there is a difference between magic and psychic abilities. If you do a simple Google search on psychic versus magic you'll see what I mean. Telepathy falls under psychic abilities not magic. That also goes for astral projection, divination, dowsing, telekinesis, precognition and the list goes on, so you really should look it up. Psychic abilities are not exactly magic, they're more of a special gifted ability of the individual be through birth or some other circumstantial situation. With magic there's usually a system, pattern or procedure that's worked to gain a desired outcome whereas psychic abilities are typically gifts. Albeit they may have their own rules or limitations but it is usually by the will of the person not the will of a rite performed. There are many people in the world that claim to have psychic abilities but have absolutely no connection to magic whatsoever. Knowing the difference is important because if anybody who knows their their stuff is reading it and sees that mix up they'll automatically discredit you as an author and quit reading; especially if your audience is male. So my advice is do your research thoroughly!
This thread is five years old, but given that neither actually exists, they can be whatever you want them to be.
The magic of time. Chronomagic. Otherwise, people from the past and the future will not give rest to everyone. They will cease to everyone with their advice to correct the future. The magic of transformation. Transformation. Imagine you are walking through the city ... Then bam. And you are a bear. Frightened residents drive you out of the city with their dirty trousers. Creation of gold. Alchemy. This will devalue the royal coin and treasury.
I think a flaw that a lot of people have is that they take taboos within contemporary/historical societies, and make magic that involves them taboo, instead of examining the material reasons why things were taboo, and what benefit magic could bring. Sure, playing around with corpses is a way to spread disease and can be somewhat unsettling, but the ability to generate a labour force or army is extremely useful. Remove all the soft tissue, reanimate a skeleton, and you now have a non-disease causing farmhand, or goods hauler, or soldier. Any state that allows necromancy will have a massive labour advantage over those that don't.
In my world? Any magic that is unnatural. That is to say, natural magic uses nature around the person to, say, send messages through water, or feel water currents. Unnatural magic outright breaks laws of reality, and is usually not very positive either. But overall, anything that intrudes on sanctity of life and free will would be seen in a rather negative light. Some examples: 1) Necromancy (what is dead shall... stay dead) 2) Blood magic (that is basically magic running on person's life) 3) Curses 4) Anything mind-related Maybe also golems and similar, depending on how they are created. Talking to souls of the deceased may also be frowned upon, if it is seen as disturbing their rest (and also depending on what is necessary for it). And probably lot more I am not considering right now...
That's kind of what I was going to say. Divination should be forbidden because it tampers with the will of the gods. It would make an interesting setting where the palm reader is the evil magician, while the necromancer is simply being practical. Thrifty, if you will.
That latter part simply wouldn't work in any culture which respects sanctity of life. Burial rites developed for a reason, and if you have those, then it means that necronany will be seen as a sacrilege.
charms and necromancy are always good taboos, unlawfully killing is a good one but killing outright would make action sequences harder especially vs villains or npcs vs minor villains. summoning can be a good one especially with stuff relating to demons, fay, celestials most the other magics would depend on your cultures society, does your culture believe magis is okay to use in a fight; yes, then go ham and no taboo. no, then taboo in honor duels or fights.
Depends what you call necromancy. In a culture that venerates the dead as gods, summoning the spirits of your ancestors might not be a bad thing.
Agreed. Though, to clarify for the purpose of the thread, it is lot more complex than that. If summoning spirits is seen as a conversation, sure; but if it is seen as an unwanted imposition onto their well-deserved rest, then even relatively benign forms of necromancy would be disapproved of - and in fact veneration towards the dead would make it even more of a crime than in a culture with same attitude that does not venerate the dead. A lot would also depend on how, exactly, the entire necromancy thing happens - what is involved in the process and what are implications of it? It is not the same if you have to cook a pot of tea or if you have to sacrifice a baby in order to speak to the dead. So basically, in order to figure out whether - and what forms of - necromancy will be a taboo, one should figure out "culture of death" in society in question as well as the nature of the magic itself. @TheApprentice I hope this helps.
The whole question can only be answered by the values and mores of the societies in which a story is set, which can be pretty much anything. The variety of viewpoints and practices humans have created and adopted through time and space is breathtaking and inspiring. This is one reason why writers really need to delve deeply into comparative anthropology, religion, philosophy, and myth if they're going to try creating fantasy worlds. Those who can't be bothered to do this are just wasting everyone's time. If by "blood magic" one means rituals involving blood sacrifice, I daresay the practice has been popular across the board pretty much everywhere, in one form or other.
What magic should be taboo should be driven by the needs of the story. If your story needs wind magic to be taboo (which mine does), then it is.
I would say necromancy purely based on ethical reasons. Necromancy is the art of summoning spirits or raising the dead and then controlling them, giving them commands or using their powers. Its unethical to control someone especially after they have died and now they're in a better place.
Agree with @Naomasa298 here. Anything can be taboo, it depends on the culture and story. You can have a society of necromancers, living on the dark side of a planet, with bodies that light harms. Then light magic will be taboo.
