This one is referred to quite a bit, especially in relation to Tremere healers. How wide do people take this particular focus to be. Do people tend to limit it to 'the dead'? Just dead bodies, or just bodies... what about spirits of the dead?
If it includes all the healing too it seems to be a bit far reaching, but this certainly within the ArM cannon is presented as within the purview of necromancy.
Unlike otehr foci, this one 'feels' like, if its corpus, its in.
Necromancy - that's ghosts and corpses, and undead as well. Not all spirits, just those the SG will call ghosts, meaning those disembodied spirits haunting and rattling their chains. IMHO.
So you wouldn't include healing then? Even though RAW describes house Tremere necromancers as healers?
I am happy to assume simply that the connection is sympathetc rather than direct. Namely that necromancers tend to specliase in corpus and therefore lend themselves to healing. They may be slightly more attuned to ritual magic too (through virtues)- again making them better healers.
Including healing into necromancy focus would IMHO be too broad. But having said this, I agree that those necromancer would have good Corpus scores, and most likely also Creo, making them efficient healers.
Yep, this is how we read it. We allowed Major Magical Focus: Spirits which let you act upon all immaterial beings, but not corpses. You end up with a more traditional necromancer that way.
Sure, I'd buy that. Disembodied spirits from all realms.
Societies, under Titanoi I think.
Most Demons are incorporeal spirits that use a power (coagulate i think) to create a material form - they would still be spirits though, neh?
Not IMS: They have a body, so they are not disembodied anymore. You can kick them in the head, though, which is always fun for the violently-minded players in your saga. 
Once you disembody them, you can blast them again with your focus.
Cheers,
Xavi
Hi,
I'd only include healing vampires and zombies and ghosts....
Note that RAW, Tremere magi cannot even have a Magical Focus in Necromancy. Their being good healers and necromancers comes of having a good Corpus score.
Healing is not necromancy. (Casting Raise Dead, of course, is. The Player's Handbook says so. 
)
Anyway,
Ken
Hmm I hadn't even thought about that. The minor focus really gimps Tremere options in that way.
I only made the healing reference from the comments in HoH:TL. I already said I am happy with the relation being a sympathetic one - just wanted to see how other people did it in their saga.
My argument, technically, is that by (Essential) Nature, they are spirits. Their bodies are a 'magical' (well, infernal, but still...) construct, much like a set of clothes. You can affect the coagulate with Co-magics just like you would affect a magus' clothes with An or He-magics, but the Essence of the Demon is still a spirit.
Hi,
Yes, except in a saga that features lots of Certamen! I imagine that some Tremere manage to initiate a Major Focus that is a superset of the Minor Focus. (I never wrote up the Tremere I played at the con, but I had envisioned his having a Major Focus in sleep, fatigue and exhaustion, which includes Certamen.)
Anyway,
Ken
That would work I guess, or 'single combat' might be sufficiently wide, and substantially diverse enough to qualify without being too generous in its scope.
... has visions of a magus telling his grogs to. ahem... leave politey.. whil h deals with an enemy.
Hi,
Or he takes on the big bad 1:1 while the mooks fight it out on the side.
Anyway,
Ken
I can go with that. Especially because:
A: you did not take the opportunity to lampoon my shameless typos... so many in such a short post.
B: Because it makes sense.
C: especially C.... because you describe grogs as 'mooks'
I really liked, for example, the addition of trained bands for simplifying mass combat. My only concern was our troupe could never really see our grogs as anything even close to fitting the description of a 'trained band'. Ours are more of the type that have what a politically correct individual might describe as having 'personal effectiveness issues'. Our grogs have never been the hard core of elite dutybound warriors... more like an amusing canvas from which to draw amusement, stories and a sense of superiority. We even had a Valkyrie type once as a turb captain Brunhilde. Musically gifted with the ability and specialism: Singing (badly).
"Necromancy" means different things to different people, and the term has been used in fantasy literature many distinctly different ways. Some talk to ghosts, some curse the bodies of others, some raise zombies - hey, I don't judge, it's good to have a hobby. So, the solution is easy - it must be defined for the mage, and that definition must be in step with the limits of the Virtue.
But what, exactly, it does encompass is flexible within the limits of "smaller than a single Art" or "slightly narrower than a single Tech/Form combo", depending whether it's the Major or Minor focus.
!!BUZZER!! - Oh, sorry, no, but thanks for playing.
At least, if you're getting this from HoH:TL, I think you should reread. If somewhere else, sorry, and then I need to read that.
First, while TL does refer to a necromantic tendency within the House, that book doesn't state that Tremere necromancers are also healers - it says that Tremere physicians tend to also be corporeal necromancers. Big diff. And it doesn't imply the Focus covers both.
It also repeatedly uses the term "corporeal necromancers", which pretty clearly covers Corpus but not Mentem, answering your question.
(If you're getting this from elsewhere, again, lemme know the source.)
I am glad you are back here mate. Have you been on holiday or something o just took a week off when I became active again on account of my saga starting up again. I am always happy to receive comments from grandees with encyclopaedic knowledge of the rules.
I was not trying to suggest that healing should be included, but I did feel there was a link being suggested in HoH:TL. I just wanted to see how other people dealt with that in relation to the focus in particular.
Necromancy is one of the few 'magical practices', as oppposed to 'a colour' or 'birds' etc... given as an example in the RAW which unfortunately leaves it especially vague and possibly open to exploitation.
The Tremere example is a bit grim. It is already pointed out that they cant take a magical focus becaues they already have one. That is a bit if a rules tragedy to my account as they do seem to be the house which actually has a group known as necromancers, and yet they are expressly forbidden from taking the virtue which bears that name.
Thanks! Been a while, and this is my first day back. Yeah, self-imposed - RL distractions, gave me a chance to recharge, but I'm ftm.
Well, don't know about that, and even so it's important to remember that's all it is - no "interpretation" implied, and the editors clearly encourage that for Sagas.
I think it's a case where the interest just overlaps with the House's tendency in that direction, a "focus in necromancy" (small "f") in a general sense, not a "Virtues" sense.
And, yeah, I dislike that Tremere can have no other Focus btr as well - I'd have no problem house-ruling a minor MF if the concept were tight. Like Gentle Gift prohibiting any other Major Hermetic Virtue - crippling to some concepts from earlier editions. Meh.
From AM5 book, describing it as a Major Focus: "Necromancy: Corpus and Mentem as applied to the bodies and spirits of dead people". While i personally also include dead animals, the "dead" part is quite specific isnt it? You cant heal something that is dead.
Also, there´s the fact that healing is considered a separate Minor Focus.
From the start, i´ve always considered that any "bonus" virtue has zero relevance on any restrictions for what virtues can be chosen. Up until we pretty much dropped all those restrictions completely. They are not needed and they are not useful. Anyone who wants to exploit the system can do it with ease anyway. Ie. the restrictions serves no purpose and merely gets in the way.
Hi,
Maybe that's a bit too personal!
Anyway,
Ken