A city where necromancy is legal and actually a part of every day society. So long as you follow a specific set of laws to make it seem a bit more ethical, you’re allowed to use it to do anything from helping you in a fight, to helping you run your business. In fact, there are entire shops or restaurants where the staff are undead. Laws to handle the undead could be things like:
• The corpses used cannot have flesh on them for sanitary reasons, especially in the case of businesses. Those who raise undead who are more than just bone will face a fine dependent on their situation.
• Similar to how people can donate their bodies to science, or donate their organs to those in need, people can choose to donate their bodies to necromancers before their death.
• If it is unknown if a person wished for their body to be donated after death, and they have been dead for 150+ years, you’re allowed to raise them. If next of kin is still alive, you must get permission from them first.
• You must take care of the undead in your charge. Keep them clean and unbroken. If one of them starts to get too much wear and tear, you are required by law to respectfully lay them back down to rest. Failure to do this will get you a hefty fine.
I’m making a town like this and the tavern will be called the Skelet-Inn
Fucking brilliant
I mean, take it a step further, if you aren’t sure if someone would want their body used after their death, call them up and ask them. It’s less taxing to cast a Commune with Dead spell than to raise an active skeleton, and this way you know for sure whether they mind, so there’s no ethical ambiguity.
Most local dead consider the idea of skeletal labor completely normal, so they tell the necromancer that they waive all rights to the corpse for public work purposes as a formality and then go back to their afterlife.
For private employ however it’s customary to pay a small stipend to either a living relative or a charity of the ghost’s choice in exchange for their corpse’s labor.
Due to the prevalence of public works done by skeletons, Necromancers are seen in much the same light as government functionaries. They’re stereotyped as mild mannered people who do an important service but are also really boring at parties.
